Farewell George and Oh yea **edit**

I just wanted to give thanks to George W. Bush for the following:

1. Dividing our country after being as United as possible after 9/11.

2. Single handedly ruined the economy.

3. Beginning an endless war.

4. Getting the UIGEA approved before your exit. (Cause legalizing and regulating online poker would only bring in 40 billion in tax dollars in a 10 year span. Well played you monkey).

5. Making me question what exactly is a Democracy?

For all you Bush eaters, I understand he was not exactly given a good situation, but wtf, he choked under pressure when dealing with the problems. I don't think anyone can argue that. With all that being said, I have faith that Obama won't crack when faced with difficult decisions and that he will not make a tee time with the very same people that want to kill us. I also hope that Obama will not use his religious background to sway in his decision making on topics that involve all of the American people. Finally, Please Mr. Obama take a good look at the Poker situation and that it is a game of skill and what it could do to help bring the economy back. Yeah I am selfish in that manner.

I had to edit the DIAGF comment in the title cause some people take everything in life too serious.

It has been 1 month since...

....the last time I wrote. Yeesh time flies. I'm gonna write something meaningful in the next few days. Here is some pics of Rylee and the Holidays...
My FamilyFriends and KidsLeandra and Mrs. ZocThis is why Im Hot
Family
"Great" GrandpaAunt CaraCousinly LoveGrandpa Boke
Ehh those are only photos uploaded so far.

Random Ramblings

So I picked up T.I.'s new album the other day and I must say it is pretty damn good. I gotta believe it will be up for album of the year. There is obviously a handful of hit songs that get played out on the radio, but the entire album is worth a purchase if you dig rap. "Swagga like us" is on the album and I believe is gonna also be on Jay's new one titled 'The Blueprint III', which will be out in early 09'. Looking forward to that one bigtime.

I geuss today was a big day for PS3 owners as well. I'm not totally into gaming, but from what I hear Sony has been working on this project since 05'. It is called Playstation Home. I have googled it and read about it, but I don't seem to grasp exactly what it is. I know each individual will be able to make their own avatar for the Playstation 3 console and than use this avatar to recieve different items on the console. Again, I am not really sure on what this is, I do however know that it is a huge deal for gamers. For more info, try google.

The yankees just spent a quarter of a billion dollars on 2 free agent pitchers in the past 2 days. It is just insane. I can only laugh about it. The Buckeyes hoop team is off to a surprisingly good start. They knocked off #21 Miami and #8 ND (haha stink!), both on the road to get themselves a top 25 ranking. They are very well coached and have a great young team. The Buckeyes football team gets to play a very very angry and pissed off Texas team on January 5th in the Fiesta Bowl. I'd like to say we have a chance, but I wouldn't be surprised to witness another blowout. After all, Texas has reason to blow them out for style points in hopes of a split national title. Grrrrrr college football post season is the worst in all sports.

Arriva Derci (sp?)

I have to FESS up...plus other news.

I quit the diet after 4 days. The diet definitely got the best of me and I realized how important food is in my life. Eating eggs everyday just is not for me. Leandra made it the furthest out of the 4 of us (Mark and Ashlea quit after like 1-2 days), she went a solid 6 days. I looked at it like this, I've been eating much healthier for the past month and since I have lost 10 lbs. Went from 178 to my current weight of 168. Im cool with that. Im gonna still try and eat healthy and practice portion control much better than I have in the past. If anyone out there wants to trim some fat, try that diet. I guarantee you lose a minimum of 5 lbs the first week. It is pretty hardcore and gets the job done in a hurry.

In other news, poker has gotten the best of me the past month. The ups and downs of the game can really torture one's emotional state. It almost puts me in a state of depression, it sucks! Leandra says this happens every 2-4 months and than everything gets back on track. However, with the new little one and playing much less poker it could take 3-6 months or maybe even longer. SIGH FU VARIANCE! All I can do is concentrate and make the best decisions in every spot of each tournament I play.

On a brighter note, the Yankees are really close to signing fatboy CC Sabathia to a 7 year 160 million dollar contract. HAHA, so sickening the kind of money these ball players make. It's so absurd. If you got it, spend it. The Yankees do whatever they can to WIN. That is why I have love for them. I don't think CC is gonna be enough for the Yankees to get over the hump and get back into the post season. They definitely need at least one more top notch starter to go along with CC, Wang, and Chamberlain. I'm hoping they scoop Derek Lowe, if not Burnett will do. I am looking forward to seeing this fat guy take the mound in the new stadium to start the season.

BOKE'S THOUGHTS

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

BOKE'S THOUGHTS

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

New Diet

Today is day 2 of 14 days that Leandra and I are doing. Its not fun. Here is the goodies that I get to eat in the next 2 weeks.

5 days a week (T, W, F, Sat, Sun)

Meal #1

-4 oz lean beef/ground turkey

-4 egg whites

-1/2 grapefruit

Meal #2

-Protein Shake (not bad)

Meal #3

- 1 can tuna

-1/2 cup fiber oats cereal (Absolutely disgusting and I gag with every bite. Def the worst part)

Meal #4

-Protein Shake

Meal #5

-6 egg whites + 1 yolk

-1.5 cups green veggie

M, Thurs --2 days

Meal #1

-4 oz lean beef

-3 egg whites

Meal #2

-Protein Shake

-1/2 grape fruit

Meal #3

-1 can tuna

-1.5 cup veggies

Meal #4

-Protein Shake or handful of almonds

Meal #5

-Carb up Meal! Choose any of the starchy carbs you would like , with any lean protein and any side. The carb up meal will only work if we deplete our self of carbs the rest of the week besides Mond. and Thurs.

-----------So there you have it. Good Luck to me in the next 2 weeks. Eggs FTW!

F@CK I'm now 32 years young today

32 is a good number......

The only famous person I could find born on the same day as myself (Katherine Heigl-Grey's Anatomy)
Famous people born in 1976...

Reese Witherspoon

Fitty in da Club

RIP...A true American hero Pat Tillman
Hi Rachel Mcadams
Ahhhh.....The Wonder Years

For more pics of the great number....32 click here...
http://www.pocketfives.com/poker-forums/13/In-honor-of-my-32nd-birthday_2E002E002E00_post-a-pic-that-has-32-in-it_2E00_-3598552

The Biggest Loser - Boke's House

Week 3 of our (Myself, Leandra, Samantha) diet is starting today. So far I have went from 178lbs to 171.5. I think the challenge at this point is gonna be getting under 170 for me. I have tried my hardest to cut out snacks, but some nights its impossible. Basically the diet is composed of:
1. Cut back on Fast Food. We allow ourselves Friday night and Saturday to eat a few meals that are not the best for you. Some times fast food, sometimes pasta, etc etc.

2. Hit the gym or workout 4-7 times a week. This has been the easiest part of the diet. Working out before I play poker seems to help mentally. Plus I get a lot of self confidence when I work out and I feel great about myself. (Catch the gut before u get dickydo!)

3. Portion control. This is also pretty easy when you eat healthy, because healthy foods just are not satisfying for me.

4. Less Pop and snacking. Man I miss drinking 3 cans of pop (soda) a day.

Thats it. Boke and Leandra's diet. We should write a book. Oh yeah and Leandra is like 5 lbs away from where she was before pregnancy. She looks good. I think she hits a wall at this point, because there just isnt much baby fat of any left.

Enough of the boring diet. Michigan rolls in this week to get their annual spanking. Can't wait obv! T'Tech also plays Oklahoma, and we need Mich State to beat Penn State for obv reasons.

Apparently Mark Cuban took advice from Martha....oopsy. Like 750k to him is like .60 cents to the avg American. Why cheat Mark?

PO
Boke

How About this News....

Michigan football practice was delayed nearly two hours this morning after a player reported finding an unknown white powdery substance on the practice field. Head coach Rich Rodriguez immediately suspended practice while police and federal agents were called to investigate. After a complete analysis, FBI forensic experts determined that the white substance, unknown to the players, was the goal line. Practice was resumed this afternoon after special agents decided the team was unlikely to encounter the substance again.

Supposedly this is an "Oldie", definitely a "goodie".

Historical Day

Halloween /Rylee / Election Day etc etc etc etc

I can't express how fast time goes after you have a baby. It has been nearly 3 weeks since I blogged and it seems like 3 days. Anyhow, Rylee is getting big, real big. She is almost 3 months young and is nearly rolling over. She dressed as a pumpkin for Halloween, Ziggy was a bat and Junior was a chicken. Quite entertaining at the time. Our neighborhood is the one that if you are a young kid you definitely want to live in. They have hay rides goin for 3 hours, hotdogs and hamburgers grilling for everyone, and also a projector showing a movie on the side of a house with seating for the kids. It's pretty cool if you like Halloween.

Election Day:

Less than 12 hours away and in some ways I am totally unsure about the way I feel. I am without a doubt voting Obama, but thats simply voting using the process of elimination. With that being said, the 2 hour wait to vote in this election is hilarious being that neither candidate brings me much confidence in running our country for the next 4. Ahh well, gotta vote or you can't argue.

Buckeyes:

Sigh.....We still can't win a big game, but Im hoping we play in one more this year after Michigan. Buckeyes get Northwestern this week after having a bye last week. I feel good about a roll job, but playing Tressel ball always leaves a question mark. Tressel is the man, don't take that comment the wrong way. By the way....I live with the 2 biggest Bucks fans in Columbus...

Poker: I been playing much much less since Rylee was born. Standard. Im also in the process of remodeling my office/loft area which is also having a small effect on my poker time. So basically I am making excuses why I have not had a big score lately :) The past 2 Sundays I lost key races with 4-5 tables left in 2 different Sunday Major tournaments that were very costly. I like to think if I had won those 2 races I could be about 100k richer. Thats poker and thats how it be.

P-O

Boke

The Godfather

Mike came into town last Wednsday night for Rylee's Baptism on Sunday in Youngstown. We hung out in Columbus till Firday and than made the weekend trip to Youngstown. It was fun to see the family and friends for a few days. Met some friends at BW3's for the Buckeyes game on Saturday, had some drinks etc. Bucks beat Purdue.

Rylee's baptism went great. She was a perfect baby throughout the ceremony and I couldn't ask for a better day. We met the family at my parents house after for some cake and drinks on Sunday afternoon before we came back to Columbus.

It has been somewhat of a circus at our house lately. We just got a invisible fence put in for the dogs, so training is a must 2 times a day :( and a trainer comes 2 times a week for more training. EHhhh it'll be well worth it in the end!

Fun Saturday:

Buckeyes vs Michigan State

Pavlik vs Hopkins .....I predict a 9th round KO by Kelly.

Here are some pics of the Godfather himself....

Team 47

I started my own small Poker league, which I call Team 47. I basically am giving some friends an opportunity to play some bigger online tourneys and win some money on my dime. Unfortunately for them in week 1 nobody could beat the great one. I will be posting our standings every Thursday night / Friday morning on here to keep my guys updated.

After week 1:
ziggy47 (Boke) = 10pts
Cat22cat (johnny) = 7pts
bigstakn08 (Miller) = 5pts
kingohammer (Hanysh) = 3pts
Mr.Kane22 (Josh) = 1pt
mjmc377 (stink) = 0pts DNP

Staying in Shape (Or at least maintaining)

Where has the time gone since my last post. Sheesh. I try and keep up at least once a week, but damn time is just cruising by.
Anyhow, last week I started back at the gym for the first time since Rylee was born (approx. 5 weeks). I went Monday-Thursday and did both weights and cardio through out the 4 days. My sister-in-law came into town on Thursday and I didn't make it to the gym Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. So the easiest way out is to blame her. I also ate like a complete pig over the weekend and it showed this morning when I weighed myself at the gym. I usually tip the scale at any where between 170-172....this morning 178! Fack! Here is the thing about staying in shape. Once you let yourself go, it is that much harder to get back to where things were. Kind of like not cutting your grass for a month, or letting your puppy pee and poo in the house for a month, not keeping up makes it that much harder. Very similar to staying in shape. With that being said, I am really gonna try and shed off these 8 unwanted lbs in the next few weeks. Eating healthy and consistency at the gym is key. I'll keep ya posted on that issue.

Pokah:

Ehhhhhhhhhhh.

Leandra turned 30 today to. BAHAHHAAH. Bye bye 20's! Be sure to send her a text about getting old! I told her the important thing is to act like you are still 18, it works for me!

Ciao

Its been a while

I didn't realize how long it has been since my last piece. Time really does fly after you have a baby. Rylee is now 5 weeks young! Everything has been going great with her and I couldn't be more happy. Fatherhood is a good time.

So this past Sunday hurricane Ike decided to venture north to Columbus and brought some serious wind. This wind caused our electricity to be out from Sunday night till Monday evening. Probably a total of 20+ hours without electricity. Though it doesn't seem that long, it felt like forever and also put the end to all our food in our refrigerator and freezer. Also, as most know Sunday is the single most BEST day of the week for poker. This became interesting last Sunday as I was playing about 5 tournaments when the electricity went poof. The good thing is that I was on my laptop and I still had the battery life of 2 hours left. This gave me time to explore whatever options I had after my 2 hours were up. After thinking about my options, there was really only one option and that was to use the power from the Cadillac (brag about having a Cadi) and sit in my garage and play there. So thats what I did. Unfortunately the outcomes of those tournaments basically sucked and may have been caused by frustration and the fact that it was about 110 degrees in my garage. For what its worth I also ate my dinner in my car while playing in the scorching hot garage. It was also pretty funny that we had booked a hotel Monday morning in Columbus after we found out that it could be up to 5 days with no power. Obviously Monday afternoon we packed everything up for us and the baby (which was like going on vacation for 2 weeks) and as we were loading the car the power came back on. Normally I would be like "WTF", but under these circumstances Leandra and I just chuckled and were happy as can be that we didn't have to go any where. Such adventurisms <--new word. Don't ever ever underestimate the importance of LIGHT!

As far as the pokah goes...well I recently finished up a interview with Cardplayer magazine. I did a 2 page interview with them that will be in the upcoming issue in October. They basically had me find 3-4 important hands from the Stars Million that I won and breakdown those hands in a q/a type format. It should be pretty cool to read when it comes out. Ill be sure to let everyone know the exact issue it'll be in. I feel pretty "Hollywoodlike" now. HAHA. I also did an interview for pocketfives.com podcast which will probably be out later this week or next week. That was fun as always. The last time I did a podcast with them was 2006. Man how time flys. I basically had no idea what questions they were going to ask, so I basically had to wing it off the top of my head. They asked questions about the Sunday Million win along with questions about the contraversial issue of multiaccounting in online poker (which is cheating). Id love to go more in depth about that issue, but I don't feel like writing 3 pages of rant. Anyhow I will post a link once that podcast comes out.

The Buckeyes........sigh......lets get back on track this week gentlemen. Tressel says Prior will be getting more snaps. THANKS JT...How about ALLL of the snaps. Whoop them boys from Troy!

P O

Queen Rylee's 1st Photo Shoot

Priceless.......


Courtesy of: http://studionphotography.com/

1-0, September 13th is that much closer.

So I attended the home opener on Saturday for the Buckeyes against my alum (Youngstown State). Greg and Lori came down Friday night with their two kids which led to a full house for the weekend. Greg and I got up around 7a.m. Saturday morning and I had a few other friends coming down from Youngstown to meet up with us at my house and we all followed each other down to the tailgate for the game. The traffic was not at all bad and we got there and were all setup cooking and drinking by 9 a.m. The entire process seemed to go way to good. Anyhow one of my good friends (Fornia) is always well prepared for a good time. He brought everything. Brats, dogs, grill, beer, liquor, table, chairs, I mean EVERYTHING. He is that guy you want there if you are looking for a good time. He does it up the right way every single time. Anyhow there was a total of 6 of us who enjoyed our selves at the tailgate before the game. (Myself, Fornia, Mcnally, Topper, Mike and his wife Leslie-god bless her for dealing with our guy shit)

We made our way to the game and Greg and I decided to upgrade our tickets with a scalper. We paid an extra 40 bucks each, but it was well worth it. Our upgrade put us in the lower deck, 8 rows up on around the 10-15 yardline. The atmosphere in the stadium is one of the best in the nation. If you are a football fan and you don't get the chills when you get in there, than well, you are not a football fan. The crowd was hype as usual and the Bucks somewhat blew out the Guins 43-0.

The game was pretty much one sided and we got our first taste of the freshman phenom Terrel Pryor (Sp). He looks so good in the #2 jersey that he coulda played bad and still looked good. I think he looks and plays like a fresh Vince Young. It's almost scarey to imagine the big plays that he will be making in the future for the Buckeyes. All in all it was 1 of 2 tune up games for the Bucks before that MONSTEROUS game on September 13th. I'll leave you with a couple poor photos I took with my phone.

Rylee - Poker

So we are one week deep with Rylee's life as I am writing this. Everything has been going great. She has about 1-2 hours of rage and crying spurts per day, which seems fine with me. She is worth every minute of our time regardless of how much she cries. Aunt Cara came to Columbus for the day on Tuesday and hung out with Rylee. Rylee loves her Aunt obviously. They bonded during a few feeding sessions and chillin with my sister is always a good time. This morning Rylee had her first photo shoot. Natalie, a friend from Youngstown who resides in Cincinnatti now, came to our house and took like 200 photos of Rylee. Natalie has her own professional photography business and she did a great job with Rylee. We can't wait to see some of the photos. Everything went great and I just wanted to say thank Natalie for everything.

As far as the pokah, I been playing a much lighter volume of tournaments. Usually I been starting around 7-8pm and playing around 4-6 tournaments a night. I been strictly playing on the laptop for the convenience purposes with Rylee, so my usual schedule is obviously reduced dramatically. I'm totally ok with that.

Pocketfives just releases the article and interview with yours truely about the victory in the Sunday Million. I did the interview last week over the phone while I was at the hospital with Leandra and Rylee. The interview went very well and resulted in a good article.....here is the link - http://www.pocketfives.com/online-poker-scene/dan-b-o-k-e-bokesch-wins-sunday-million-3186954 I also broke into the "world" rankings of online tournament players that pocketfives lists. I'm currently ranked 82nd in the world and 4th in the state of Ohio. It's always a nice accomplishment to be ranked, but I wouldn't think too much into it. I mean the rankings have a very unique structure of combining different data to come up with the top players. The system is unique, but not as subjective as they used to be. That ends up leaving out many many great players who just don't put in as much time in tournaments or only concentrate on cash games.

In closing I will leave everyone with a few more pics of Rylee. As you can see Rylee is all ready dabbling in the poker world. Hopefully the poker world won't get too upset with 2 of us playing one account :)

Home Sweet Home

So after a long 3.5 days, we finally got to bring Rylee home. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about our stay at the hospital. Every nurse was so helpful and kind that it made the stay very enjoyable for the 3 of us. Last night we had 2 of our closest friends (Mark and Ashlea) from here in Columbus come visit us for about 4 hours. Mark and I went and picked up some Italian food and the 4 of us ate like pigs and enjoyed Rylee's company to the fullest. We also watched Mr. Phelps win another gold medal in dramatic fashion. That guy has to be part tuna imo. The last night in the Hospital went very fast and was also a lot of fun. Thank you Mark and Ashlea for your company, we enjoyed it.
Here are some more pictures of Rylee during her first day at the home.