Happy Halloween!

Halloween is finally past. I know to 99% of the adult population, this is a "holiday" for the kids, but my wife falls in the 1% that loves to make a big deal out of the day. And since I have to live with her, I fall into that 1% as well. Rather than just dressing up the kids and sending them off for a few hours, we spent the entire week dressing up the house and getting things ready for just one night. It seems like a lot of work... no, it WAS a lot of work, but dammit, it was fun and turned out to be well worth it in the end!

We had our usual outdoor decorations out a few days early: ghosts strung up between the roof and the trees, flapping in the wind - Frankenstein peeking out from behind a tree - Marcus the Carcass coming out of the ground - and a little graveyard right in the middle of the lawn. Someone(s) swiped our high quality (aka expensive) foam tombstones the night before Halloween, so that was a real bummer. We went and got cheapy ones to fill in the graveyard, and have learned our lesson about putting out the good stuff too early.

That was the one dark spot of the weekend. Other than that, our coup de grace, the Haunted Garage, was a total success! I'll post pics after I find my uplink cables!

We had one garage door open and hung black plastic sheeting for walls, which was unexpectedly great because they billowed hauntingly in the wind. It began with an unlit narrow hallway, which U-turned into another hallway with dangly strips (akin to those in a meat locker) and blinking lights on the walls. Then it opened into a ghastly room with dangling ghosts and vampires and my Bowflex-converted-torture-machine which had dismembered heads and body parts hanging from it. Black gloved hands (belonging to my daughter's friend) protruded from a wall, waving themselves over a lit-up crystal ball.

The hands pointed people into the next room, where a glowing-eyed Vampire hung from above and a 6-foot-tall Grim Reaper hid in a little alcove. My garage shelving now had heads and skulls and jars of nastiness (one with a beating heart), and if you were too busy looking up at that stuff, you'd miss my daughter's other friend hiding in a dog cage on the floor. She got plenty of good screams when she snarled and rattled the cage as people walked by.

The next room had my 6 year old daughter under a black-light with white make-up on, wearing a white dress and sitting on a white bed. And she was playing with a doll whose eyes we popped out, and whose head glowed from the glow-sticks that were stuffed in there. A toy rocking horse rocked by itself while my daughter giggled and asked, "You want to play with my dolly?" Very disturbing!

As people walked into the next room, my 14 year old was bloodied up and tied to a chair. She cried for help, but before anyone could answer her pleas, I came running out from the previous room, equipped with a scary white mask and a buzzing chainsaw. This got many screams and made some people run straight through the last room and out the exit. Those people missed getting their treat from the candy bowl that was being offered up by a fancily dressed skeleton.

We had at least 100 people go through it in less than 2 hours. We even took a 30 minute break to allow my girls to go trick-or-treating; and when we got back there was already a line formed! One group of folks said they drove 10 miles up from Tacoma because their friend called them and told them about it. Unfortunately, their friend also told them what to expect already so we couldn't get too good of a scare out of them.

My voice is shot, my arms are still blood stained, and my garage needs a lot of clean up, but man, it was one helluva night!

Anyways, back to Poker! Tried to squeeze in some online play when I could. Made it to the final table at a PokerChamps freeroll ($5 first prize!), but Survivor was going to start soon so I just busted myself out. My wife and I were joking about why we even bothered playing for money we couldn't even use... then the following day we get the email saying that PokerChamps has gone live. Dammit, I should have stuck in so I would have $5 to take to the 1/2 cent tables!!!

Played in an Ultimate Bet freeroll. Dealt JJ on the very first hand. Min-raised it in early position, then got someone who raised another T600. We only start with 1000, so I re-raised him all-in. He shows AK. Flop comes AAx, then just for kicks, a K on the Turn. So much for that idea!

There was no time for any live casino action; but I'm still up about $5000 for the weekend. Huh? Explanation to follow shortly. :) Until then, don't OD on your Halloween candy, and hope you have a happy Election Day tomorrow!