I am an Uncle......again

Announcing the arrival of Joel Bradford Payton, IV!!!!! He is going to be called "Bauer". Bauer arrived at 10:59 AM, Friday, July 27, 2007. He weighed 7lbs 12 ozs (3 lbs more than Zimmer!) and was 20 and 3/4 inches long. Mom had a tough delivery, but all are doing well. They came home Sunday.

Brad has held up better than we predicted! He has actually spent the night both nights with Mom releaving first thing in the morning. Bauer is a GREAT baby. He seems to be very contented almost all of the time. He actually came out screaming, and screamed for about the first 5 minutes, but he's been doing great since then. He's really alert and already picked his head up off of my shoulder.

Not a good night of poker.....I blame it on the rain.

I lost $20 bucks last night at my weekly game. It was a frustrating nights of bad beats and just not catching any cards. I hate poker stories so I will spare you mine but lets just say it was a rough evening but I still have some fun and lots of homemade queso that was delicious. So all was right in the world.

I have been throwing around the idea of completely changing up my room. I want to put up a ten in my room. Is that a bad idea? It seems like it might be hot and the one thing I love about my room is that it is cold at all times. If only I lived where it was always cold I would just always wear one of the sweet sleeping bag suits. If only...

Calling all drunks...free poker.

There is a free poker league in Austin when they play at a different restaurant every night.The poker is free the the food is not. There are two games. One at 7pm and one at 9pm. If you win the second one you get 50 bucks. Its usually a fun atmosphere.

Free poker is a lot different than playing in a money game. All kinds of jokers come out. Last night I had a guy on my team who pretty much made it impossible for me to have fun while he was at the table. I felt bad for him because he was trying so hard to be cool but he was wasted and looked like and idiot. I knew the night was going to be bad when he sat down and complained that he was the only one drinking. Then proceeded to spill his beer not once but on two different occasions and then look at everyone like it was the tables fault. He didn't even try and help clean it up. He just sat there. I mean he couldn't have helped even if he had wanted to because he was so wasted at this point that he could bet he chips without knocking over his drink, so getting up and getting towels to soak up his mess was out of the question.

The worst part about the whole thing is that he kept getting cards. It always happens that way. If you have no clue what you are doing (he didnt know how to play, we had to constantly help him understand) then you WILL catch cards. There will be nothing anyone can do to beat you. Which is normally fine because those people just collect alot of chips and then go in a huge pot against someone later down the road and lose it all in a few hands once their luck runs out. I didnt want to wait around. Its free poker and if its not fun I just lose and go home. So thats what I did. I gave my money to the guy next to me and me and kevin went and got some star bucks.

The very cool thing about the night is that Kevin won the first game at 7pm. He didnt win any money but he is automatically in the running for the final game. If you win that you get a trip to Vegas. The second cool thing happened is that Andy won the second game. That was the first time Andy had ever played in this tourney.

Harry Potter

I didn't plan on waiting in line all night Friday night but I did. We went to see Live Free or Die Hard at 10:00 and didn't get out until about 12:30. It was only then that I even remembered that the book release was going on. As I was driving home I just started to get exited and had to head by B&N to see if they had anymore copies.

I was amazed when I pulled into the Parking lot. I had never seen the place so full. It filled up the entire parking lot. The B&N that is closest to me is in a major shopping center and there is normally plenty of parking for everyone but tonight I parked a good football field away. It didn't matter though I was going to get a book, even if I had to take a kid out as he was walking back to his car with one. I probably wouldn't do that but I wanted to as I walked in and saw just how many people were there.

Nick, B and I all walked around the store and found various books to talk about. It was alot of fun. Neither Nick or B even read HP but they just happened to be unlucky enough to drive to the movies with me so they were stuck. I only waited about 45 mins before the place emptied out and I was one of the last people to get a book. I ordered a Venti Chai and headed home to start reading. I read a good 200 pages in when I saw the sun coming up so I figured I better get to sleep so my schedule wasn't all out of whack. That didn't work very well.

I woke up around 2pm and just rolled over in bed and started reading again. I had an indoor game later that night so I stopped reading for a bit and went and played. I finished the book at 9am on Sunday morning. I guess you could say I am a slow reader. It took me quite a while to finish the book but I am not a big fan a rereading a book right after I finish a book so I took my time and really enjoyed it.














SPOILERS HERE!!! DON'T READ BELOW!!

I really didnt like from pages 100-300. I found the whole Harry, Ron, and Harm running around with no idea of what to do very boring. It was very slow reading and I just didnt see why you needed so many pages of them yelling at each other. They go through a stage like that in every book I was really hoping they would grow out of it for this book but nope. It was even longer.

The more I think about the book and reflect on what I thought of the book I would say it was enjoyable but not my favorite. I really liked the story of Harry and I love the world that she created. I just keep thinking that she could have done more. It was to short. When Harry lived in the end and there were no suprises in the last book I was a little let down.

I hope she feels that she has another story to tell in this world she created because it would be sad for it to end. I would enjoy reading another tale about his son or maybe something happends 1000 years later. Future harry potter! It would be fun to see how magic would match up against technology of the future. That would be cool!