by I spoke to my cousin in Wellington this morning. They’d been down in the South Island and dropped in on my parents. I had a total brain fart when I asked them if they’d been skiing. In January. In New Zealand. Normally that’s why they’d be passing through Geraldine. Their eldest boy is about to fly the nest – next month he’ll be off to Canterbury to study engineering. My parents remarked that he’d developed a distinctly non-Kiwi – almost British – accent, and yes, he picked that up within weeks of starting his expensive school. It was amazing, and a little unsettling, to hear such a sudden change just because he’d started a new school.
Maybe I asked about skiing because I had snow on the brain. We got chunky flakes of the stuff most days last week, only for it to melt away. Now we’ve got a blanket. Walking through fresh snow – crrrunch – is one of life’s pleasures, and one I missed out on in all those years in Auckland and Wellington.
I made $57 in a badugi tournament yesterday, finishing third. It’s the seventh time I’ve cashed in eleven attempts, including three appearances in the top five. (I doubt that sort of strike rate is sustainable.) There were one or two things I might have done differently in hindsight, but I thought I had a pretty good tournament overall. I’m making a lot more player notes than I used to – the same players show up time after time, so knowing what you’re up against is so valuable. After my wander into the endlessly fascinating Iosefin area of Timișoara this afternoon, I gave back a few dollars at the cash tables (a very profitable game on average, but I couldn’t hit a damn thing). My bankroll is currently $214.
Two days left of Trump, we hope.
Here are a few pictures from Iosefin, pre- and mid-snow:
