A timely injection

With the economy in the toilet and the general feeling that things are going south around me, I did manage to finish up the side work for Pokercrack.com. Roy and I both seem happy about the results and I am hopeful that this is just the beginning of things to generate a little cash here and there. I figured I'll contact Pete and see what he says about getting into this kind of thing more often.

Regardless, I also got paid for said work - but it is in my poker account. Up until last week I was planning on withdrawing the bulk of it and using it for bills and maybe a personal splurge on Foxwoods - but a couple of things have changed my mind on that front.

First off, my wife made indications that she wanted to use it for Christmas presents. While a good idea - it made me take a look at our checking account and the transactions therein. This was very enlightening and I'm concerned that if I made a withdrawal today to my checking account, I'm concerned the money would not be there next week - let alone in time for Christmas.

Second off, I worked hard for this money and would like the opportunity to use it for myself. Selfish? Certainly. In this light, I'm inclined to leave it in my poker account to try to grow it some more (since it gives me enough of a bankroll to play $2/$4 easily, $3/6 and $5/10 with a little more caution and bigger buyin tournaments). My plan since returning to poker has been to grow my bankroll and let it thrive - and I think this injection to it would help me along quite nicely - might even make a difference this year or the next in terms of getting caught up with things.

Anyway - there's other little things that I won't go into here - but I think that keeping it in my poker account for now is a solid idea. If I do decide to use it for Christmas, I can make a withdrawal closer to black friday and not have to worry about it getting used up previous to that.

Mark and I had a decent discussion about the current arrangement and I felt we accomplished alot by just talking. He plans at the worst to be out by Christmas - which I think is a solid goal at this point. He has a backup plan to stay at my mother's if things don't end up working out well enough to pick up an apartment. Lindsay doesn't think she can survive another 2 months with him - but I don't think there's much option here. He needs a place to stay, he just started another new job. We need some extra cash while Lindsay is unable to work due to her wrist. This all means him sticking around for a little longer.

Mark put together my mailbox yesterday which strikes another to-do off of my list. I need to get to the point where the laundry is caught up, dishes are caught up, etc. Once those are caught up, I really want to get to the point that I can finish up the "bill box" (where I throw all manner of bills, papers, etc) and start working on the closet. I'm still not sure what to do with all of the papers, as I don't have access to a shredder (and it would be a huge amount to shred in the first place) - and there's a lot of random crap in there that could be compromised if someone was intent on doing harm. I've contemplated dumping some dye or even water to just ruin the papers - but that has other issues (namely increasing the weight of the bags by quite a bit).

Writing of course has still not picked up. I can blame no one but myself on this front, but it is at least still in my mind.

For role-playing - I actually got in my 3rd session of my "monthly" game. We're coming up on a year since the first session - so I'm working closer to half-yearly than monthly - but what can I say? Life is busy! Online - I've got myself in an PbP game (3.5e) that moves along slowly and in a mini quest for the CoCo (4e). I also entered my first Expert DM Competition (XDMC) - 4e - which is the new MDMC's that I mentioned before. I have high hopes of doing well - but we'll see how things go.