April 9
Central St

Stu looked surprised, shocked really, when he finally saw that Dave too had gone in on a guts hand, with a pot of almost twenty-four bucks. He thought it was all his, then it slowly dawned that his courageous (some might say idiotic, but remember that Mark used to make a living with similar hands) 76 was not going to stand up to whatever Dave had. Believe me, when Dave stays in, especially in a high stakes guts hand, it's time to ask for the blindfold. As Rob is fond of saying, "If Dave's in, I'm dead." And Stu was. But he smiled even when he couldn't find the money to match the pot and had to borrow. I mean, most of us would have had that, who shot my dog look, but not Stu. This means to me that the new guy (defined by less than twenty years of Holy Roller-like attendance)is a. rich b. grateful to be in our presence, or c. hasn't yet realized that at the end of the night we don't give everyone their money back.

Points of note:

1. Bryan is back, and with a new job selling cars. Right now he hates it.
2. Andrew joined another buddy or two and created a landscaping company called Lawn Angels.
3. Stu has a new job, working for the Mass Audubon Society
4. Dwight is more than half way done with his kitchen. Cabinets are installed, granite countertops on order.
5. Mark went O for the night. We may never see him again.
6. The war has begun
7. Rob won two guts hands in a row, both with a 31.

May 7
Blanchard Rd.

I'm working on an addition in Sudbury and for the first time in almost forever, I missed pizza. Why? I opted for a nap over food.
Let's see, a little less than nothing happened. It looked like Rob was going to win everyone's money again but after a sizzling start he backed off a bit and returned some to me and I don't know who else. We played with five, Brian and Dave were among the missing. Oh, I know, the best part of the night was my winning two games head to head with Rob. The first, 99, and I came back from a two to one pile deficit to pull endless good cards until Rob, beaten down by my withering assault, folded like a cheap suit. Then the last game, 'Roids, where again, I came back from a deficit to keep Rob from using our money to upgrade his finally arrived cable service to light speed. No pics this time, but if I had for seen it, I would have filmed both of those games.

9PM arrived and Bryan fell asleep at the table. He's selling cars, making money, so he no longer hates his job but the hours, including some weekend work, are relentless. Dwight's kitchen is essentially done, and happy with the result he spent some time complimenting his contractor. How often does that happen? How about when the owner and the contractor are one and the same?