Atlantic City, Part II

Played poker on the first day of the trip until about 3 am as had to get up for the beach the next morning as that was the major reason for the trip. Fooled the hell out of my brother as he figured I was going to beg off and play poker all day as we decided to spend a second night there. We drove down to Ocean City and went to the beach at 12th Ave as there is a Mac and Manco’s right there on the boardwalk. Silly us, forgot it was Mon and that the location was only open on weekends. Had to walk down a block or so to get near the open branch. Weather was beautiful, warmer than predicted, up in the 90s but there was a nice breeze coming in off the ocean so it was comfortable. Bad leg made the walk a bit tough but I survived. Bad arm was a different story. I have a collapsible camp chair with footrest I use on the beach. Normally not a problem even though the sand isn’t exactly stable for getting in and out. With my bad arm and not being able to lever myself up and out getting out of it was a real circus. Somehow I managed with a little aid from my nephew. The bigger problem was applying sunscreen. Between the breeze and the bad arm getting sunscreen on my right side was a bitch and it showed later on. I got roasted and had a nice burn for a couple of days, not to mention the itch that accompanied the peeling skin. Scratching with a gimp arm wasn’t exactly satisfying. Overall though the enjoyment of 5-6 hours on the beach in the sun, chomping on some Mac & Manco’s, outweighed the annoyances especially since I found out we won’t be able to get the house we usually rent in Ocean City for vacation this year. Might be my only beach trip this year.

Headed back to AC for some rest and some more poker. Got back to the room and took a nap. The beach is relaxing but the sun is tiring. As a kid I never understood why my parents needed a nap when we got back from the beach when all they did was lie there the whole time. Finally caught on a couple of years ago after I started taking my own daughter there. The sun is a killer for us old farts. Got to the poker room about 6 hoping that the action was a bit more regular than the previous night. If nothing else the table was a bit more chatty and a bit more fun. Play was a bit more like I was used to but the cards sucked early on and I found myself in a hole again. Again I tried pot building when I had potential big draws but again they wouldn’t come. Did hit quads 3 more times, once during the promo time that was supposed to get me the $20 comp, but couldn’t get paid off more than minimum on them. Was down about $150 before the cards started to turn. Wound up getting most of it back eventually by the time the tables were breaking down to one at about 2:30. The final table of the night was the kind of table money could be made. You had a couple of guys playing like it was NL, trying to push people off their hands. You also had 2 idiots going to war with one another, building up the pots with nothing when both were in the same hand. Actually it wasn’t your typical $2-4 table as most of the people there knew what they were doing and with all the raising play was tighter than usual. Unfortunately my cards went further south than Tierra del Fuego. As it was I spent a few hours folding, hit a couple of medium pots and looked like I had hit a few humongous ones only to have one of the idiots catch up on the river to chop. Wound up winning a few bucks on the night and reducing my two day losses to about $40-50. Should have been better. Finally hit the sack around 5:30. Plans were to head back to Ocean City for a few hours and lunch and then head home from there.

Got up the next morning and decided I wasn’t hitting the beach. What felt like n annoying sunburn the previous night was on fire in the morning. My brother said something about leaving then but I said no, they could hit the beach; I would find something to occupy my time so we checked out and headed out to Ocean City. Somehow I got caught for a couple of room service meals that I had no part in. So much for being along for the ride. We got to Ocean City and the beach was put aside. Too much wind even though the sun was bright and the temps were high. Actually the temps went over the 80s that were predicted, up in to the 90s on both days but Tues the wind was really heavy unlike Mon when it was comfortable. So since the beach was out we decided on more pizza for lunch and picking up a few goodies on the boardwalk before we headed home. I behaved myself and refrained from loading up on taffy but was seriously jonesing for some fresh roasted peanuts. My nephew wanted some fried Oreos and caramel corn so while he headed to the junk food stand for the Oreos my brother and I headed down the boardwalk a block or two, him headed for the caramel corn place, me for what I thought was a Planter’s store. Bad move. For some reason the peanut store was no longer there and the caramel corn place, unlike the pizza place, had their year round branch open at the other end of the boardwalk. We headed back to the car. Lots of exercise for my bad leg. When we met up with my nephew he said he saw a nut store a block in the other direction so I told my brother to take the car and meet us there as we decided to walk up there. I really needed more exercise but I wanted peanuts. and my nephew said he wanted some other nuts. Well the peanut shop was right off the corner but that wasn’t were my nephew wanted to go, he wanted cashews or something and said that place was up in the next block so headed up there. I got the large economy size bag of peanuts and went to meet my brother at the car figuring my nephew would meet us there. Got there and brother asked where his son was and I explained. We waited 25 minutes for him wondering what the hell happened. When he finally shows he’s carrying a bucket of caramel corn. Peckerwood decided to walk 8 blocks up the boardwalk to the caramel corn shop without letting anyone know. What the hell did he waste $300 on an I-phone for? Would have been a lot faster if we drove up there plus I wanted to get some myself. Sometimes you just want to strangle them. Well, didn’t want to bother with the drive up the boardwalk so we hit the nearest Wawa, grabbed some beverages and headed for home so that we could beat the rush hour traffic on the Sure-Kill.

Heading home we stopped at the rest area on the AC expressway to pay the toll we missed on the way down. This is where I fucked up. Never send a boy, or a brother to do a man’s job. When we got there my brother and nephew headed off to the admin building to pay the toll while I stayed in the car. All the walking had taken its toll on my legs. They came back saying the woman there had no idea what they were talking about and that we had to call the NJ EZPass violation center and gave them a number. I had an uneasy feeling but we headed off and I dialed the number. Well, the feeling turned out to be right. After playing voicemail run around I finally got warm body and she tells me that they don’t do anything unless we have already gotten a violation notice. And that I should call PA EZPass as they issued our transponders. So I called them. They didn’t have a freaking clue as to what I was talking about and told me I should call South Jersey Transportation Authority which gets me right back to the woman they dealt with at the rest area but by this time we are almost to the bridges into Philly. I explain the whole situation, including the message you get when calling the number on billboard, etc and she’s telling me that the message, and the woman at NJ EZPass, are wrong and she’ll see what she can do about it. In the meantime this farce has taken up almost the entire 90 min trip home and nothing ever got done. Got the violation notice last week. Not only that it screwed up a relaxing couple of days just because someone has no frikkin idea about how to run their agency. All in all I will have to say that the good outweighed the bad and it was needed time away from the BS.

Enough for now. More boredom later. Thanks for the attention.