Poker Blogger Ennui

Ahh ... the popular topic of the time seems to be a sort of blogger boredom, or ennui, as referenced by fellow bloggers OhCaptain, Kajagugu, and jjok. I had been feeling it, and I am not surprised others had been also.

Being a member of the blogger community is quite interesting. Not since my college days have I run into a group of people dedicated to writing for writing's sake. As for me ... well, I started a poker blog in order to qualify for a series of blogger tournaments that had a seat to the main Event of the WSOP as the big prize. I was never too interested in making my blog the most popular, most exciting, most informational, or most anything. A former English instructor of mine, Dr. Mary Ann Klein, in dealing with me and my writing during my undergrad years, once said, "John, I wish you would get serious about your writing." At the time I was a member of the literary magazine staff, so believe me, any personal aberrations I had were nothing compared to this group of English geeks. But ... they were much more serious about writing than I ever was. I guess I wasn't serious about my writing then, and surely am not as serious as some of my fellow poker bloggers are now. So ... I continue on, taking this whole writing/blogging gig in my usual way ... just having fun with it.

Additionally, I have not felt the urge to write on a regular basis as the lazy days of summer have taken over the midwest. I had several weeks of vacation time and used them to relax -- at least as much as I could, having several things hanging over my head:

1) My old house -- It has now been on the market for a year. We recently changed realtors (a wonderful story for another time), had the house staged, and dropped the price once again. We are hoping that these changes will finally get the house sold in this tight market.

2) The roof of my old house -- There is a leak in the roof, and it is almost impossible to get roofers or recommended handymen to actually return calls or show up as promised. Gee -- I wish I worked in a profession where you can treat people like shit and have it be the industry standard.

3) Money issues (see numbers one and two above) -- My wife and I both have professional jobs that pay well, but we also have three kids, two mortgages, two sets of utility bills, two real estate tax bills ... It will be nice when the day will finally come when the old house is sold and I can settle up with my local bank.

4) Health issues -- My mother recently had her second knee replacement surgery. She is 82 and has actually recovered quite well. There have been some minor health issues within my family, but the biggest one is probably yours truly, a heart attack or stroke waiting to happen. I promised my wife that I would get checked out this summer, but I didn't want to deal with doctors and the house situation at the same time.

Poker, fortunately, has been a place of refuge for me. I have been playing more and more Omaha Hi and Omaha 8 and have been doing well, aside from losing a few huge pots (still learning!).

I think that I, like other bloggers, probably got a little burned out by the marathon we called Battle of the Blogger Tournaments 3, which coincided with the Bodonkey Blogger Series, and followed too soon after BBT2. I realize that we had to jump on good offers when they came, but the tournaments were still a grind. Hopefully a little time away from the intense competition this summer will bring forth a sense of renewal by the fall.

Oh yeah -- I didn't even mention blogger drama. Although sometimes disconcerting, it doesn't hurt to have some type of cat fight going or to find out that one of your fellow bloggers is running some sort of a scam, right? This world is almost never boring.