Christmas at Vipassana

One of my prime reasons for choosing to serve at Vipassana over Christmas was to escape the external worlds obsession with gathering together at Christmas and the commercial imperative to purchase gifts.

Joan, the Vipassana Kitchen co-ordinator, wisely chose to swap the day 10 Lasagne recipe for the scheduled Christmas day menu of Cottage pie.  Lasagne being a great choice. Plus, with one of the old students sitting the course having offered to fund some extras for Christmas day, the menu was a little different to the standard no-frills but (usually) appealing vegetarian menu. With mangos, strawberries, cherries, whipped cream and chocolate being added to the menu.

Even better for me was the phone call I had with my brother on Christmas day evening and the email I received from son #1.

The Vipassana Experience

Day 11 has come. And with it another service period has come to an end.  Overall an enjoyable experience. Driven largely by the kitchen team being led by an experienced kitchen co-ordinator with the name of Joan who has a calm demeanor, a great set of organizational skills and a ready laugh and smile. A great combination which encourages the team to be relaxed and at ease in their work.

And as it is with many teams in the Vipassana kitchen, a multi-cultural affair with people from a variety of locations and cultures

• Joan. Kitchen co-ordinator mentioned above. From Singapore.  ?late 20's/early 30's.
• Song. Dr Song. Professor in hospitality from Thailand. In Australia for a few years pursuing further education in his chosen area of specialty.  Hard working and self-effacing. Mid 30's.
• Ken. Farmer from South Korea escaping the northern winter with his wife (who spent most of the course visiting friends in Canberra / Sydney).  Early 40's
• C-Y (?sp). From Malaysia. Recent grad in computer science from Wollongong Uni. Early 20's. Some time in the kitchen but quite a bit in the gardens
• Marissa. In transit from Northern Territory to somewhere near Dural. Planning on working in Steiner school for young fold with special needs
• Anna. From Cairns. Serving while her mother is sitting.
• Annalie. From Sydney via a number of stops. Had lived in Nelson for a couple of years and threw in a kiora or two as a curve ball
• Tajma. Had been mainly a maths and science teacher in Sydney. And now is mainly relief teaching anything from PE / Drama through to her specialty subjects. Originally from Sri Lanka (?)
• Renuka. Indian lady who served as Hindi translator for the teachers. Mainly worked in the gardens but also some time in the kitchen
• Ethan. 19 year old who has served 4 courses and sat 4 courses. And arrived mid-course with the intent of completing a 3 month probation period for long service. Muscles on his muscles with Maori heritage and some Maori inspired tattoos. Has had to leave some of his friends behind as he is heading down a spiritual path and they are keen on partying and drinking. Carried around a journal / diary and saw him making an entry in his journal in the male servers cottage. Mainly worked in the gardens, but some time in the kitchen

And of course, there was Andrew.  (aka Disco  from the long course I served in August). Disco Drew was appointed assistant Male Manager. First time I've seen an assistant male manager. But it was a big course. With a full complement of students - both male and female. The teacher made a comment towards the end of the course that there seemed to be a heavy weighting of Indian students. Renuka speculated that at this time of year it may be that the Vipassana course may be popular with employees of some of the Indian based software companies that shut down over the Christmas / New Year period for approximately two weeks.

In general I enjoyed my meditation hours and feel as though I made progress. Some pressure from Disco to sit a 10 day course.  We discussed the trajectory of my life with some focus on the visitations of the black dog post break up with the ex and his belief that a 10 day course will assist in the healing. Maybe so. But with my experience in 2012 and 2013 10 days sits being fairly dark experiences, and with the subsequent serving experiences being more beneficial, I'm a little gun shy on the 10 day courses. The 8 day Sati course in July wasn't too bad, but the 2015 10 day course was a little dark. So sometime in 2017 there will be a 10 day course but at this time I'll be preferring the serving experience as my first choice of Vipassana experience

Under promising, Over Delivering and under communicating

Stepped off the plane in Sydney, topped up my Opal card for the trip to Blackheath, took the train to Central and found the train destined for Blackheath and settled into my seat. Checked my email. Found one from the transportation company that I had engaged to ship my van from Queensland to Melbourne. Dated today at 10:39am.

Just confirming delivery of Toyota Hiace is scheduled for this afternoon...We will contact you approx. an hour prior to arrival, Thanks

WTF?

I had spent some time yesterday checking out mechanics and places where I could have a roadworthy check performed.  And it seemed as though the mechanics with the better reviews on google were going to be shut down from about now through to mid-late Jan.  So I was very comfortable with the indicated delivery date of the week of Jan 16th.....

Now I was in Sydney, the van was in Melbourne and I certainly didn't want it languishing at the side of the road in an unregistered state until I could return to Melbourne and sort it out.

After a couple of phone calls I'll be paying $200 for storage at one of the AirBnB's that I have stayed at. The van will be delivered there and I'll have to deal with it when I return to Melbourne on 31st or December or 1st Jan.

Phew!.  Almost turned around at Central and headed back to Melbourne to see if I could get it registered. In which case I would have then driven it back up to Blackheath.

So I have had a Christmas present delivered unexpectedly today. Yet I am not there to see exactly what it is like.

At least a plan B came together fairly quickly.  My recommendation to the transportation company is that if they are going to under promise and over deliver in that fashion they should communicate a bit more....  At least we could laugh about it once I had a place to keep it for the next 10 or so days.

December 19th

Last evening in Box Hill before the trek north to Vipassana. Have been trying to move the last files from the old laptop across to the new laptop without success.  Plan B is in place. Which is to leave the laptop with Konrad and  retrieve it after I return.  There are only two items left to retrieve and I would rather have them than not. Need a more stable network if I am to get those files back.

Have played my last poker for the year. And will be glad to have a break. While I end the year as an improved player from the one that started the year, I still have a long way to go.  And the most important piece of the puzzle is actually putting in regular work away from the tables. I've enjoyed my last two AirBnB's with a longer stay than normal in both places. And with the return to Box Hill being to a place I felt very comfortable with.

This afternoon was dedicated to understanding what steps are ahead of me administrivia wise in order to have the van registered in the first place, then updating the details of registration after the van fitout. Google has helped me sift through plenty of information and the Vicroads web site is actually pretty clear with respect to the steps that have to be taken. A pretty straight forward process which I will be glad to see the end of.

When I do have the van kitted out I intend to spend some time along the Great Ocean road and into the Ayre peninsula.  Plus I'll be looking at whether I can land any house sits in rural Victoria and South Australia. 

Hoping that the Blackheath Vipassana experience will be a fun one.  I'm ready for some more intense meditation again. It will be interesting to see how many other people are using Vipassana to avoid the insanity that is Christmas.  For me, this time of year is associated with the memory of my marriage implosion. And while I have some great memories of the Christmases we had while the kids were younger, the memories are tinged with the bitter bite of the marriage bust up.  Though this year I seem to be more at peace with it all than any of the last 5 years.

 

The Callaway Cap

I've been listening to Alexander Fitzgerald over the course of the past year. And one of his pieces of advice is to wear clothing at the poker tables that hopefully gives an impression that you are a recreational player. He frequently mentions wearing a Titleist cap is one way to throw people off the scent. Well, off into a golf shop I eventually wandered and, while there was a Titleist cap, I didn't like it much and decided to go for a Callaway cap.  When the sales assistant at the golf shop was querying why I wanted that particular brand, I stated that I didn't play golf. I just wanted a cap that would make me look like a goober at the poker tables.  He laughed and gave me a discount.

Being of an age where I don't care what anybody thinks about what I wear, I chose to wear it at the cash tables today. And almost instant success. In a hand where I held QcQs, the flop came Qh7d5d. I bet the flop and was called by two players. The turn saw the Qd. Giving me quads, the small blind the nut flush and the UTG player the second nut flush.  They both thought they had the nuts and bet into me. I knew I had the stone cold nuts when the river showed me the Ac. (The pretty small chance one of them had a straight flush draw that might get there died on the river).   Nice triple up within 20 minutes of my first session with the Callaway cap on.  Might have to wear it again.

My poker for the year is drawing to a close. And I have started playing live cash again over the past week. The tournament schedule at Crown has consisted entirely of satellites for the Aussie Millions tournament series that kicks off mid Jan 2017.  After running poorly in satellites for the first two weeks of December it was time to give the satellites a rest and try cash again. The Live Poker 101 webinar series from Alexander Fitzgerald seems to have improved my cash game a little. However it is early days.

On Tuesday 20th December I fly north to serve on a Vipassana course at Blackheath. Part of my cunning plan to avoid Christmas.  Looking forward to getting three hours of meditation in each day. And think I need to look at sitting a course sometime in the first quarter of 2017.  A convenient time would be after the van fitout in mid-Feb. So may look into courses for around that time.

The Van project proceeds

Jims Transport have picked the van up for its over Christmas pit stop in Sydney.  Have plenty of time to work out the next steps.

Which are

• finding somewhere to do the roadworthy test required prior to registering the van in Victoria
• Working out the logistics of getting the van to that place. Possibly without Insurance in place. RACV would not insure the van unless it was registerable. Without roadworthy it is not registerable. Catch-22. May see about getting the van delivered to where ever it is I am going to get the roadworthy inspection completed
• converting the 12 seater Hiace commuter bus to a 2 or 3 seater by ripping all the seats in the rear out
• Driving the van up to the Newcastle locale for its mid-Feb appointment with drifta for a fitout with the base for a bed, slide out kitchen, some drawers, and electrical
• Determine whether my car licence is good enough for driving this vehicle around

Pretty happy with the decision to pull the trigger and acquire the van. Although the total cost of the van plus fit out will be higher than I had hoped for, I'm pretty comfortable that should I choose to on sell it at any stage I will either get most or all of my money back.  I haven't seen that many vans for sale that have already been converted into a scenario where you can sleep comfortably in the back. 

Hiding from Christmas at Blackheath Vipassana Center

On 20th December I'll head north to serve a course at Blackheath Vipassana Center.  This year has seen a deepening in my meditation practice and ending the year with 10 days of more intense Vipassana meditation will do me nicely.

Plus I get the benefit of avoiding being seen as someone to take pity on and get invited to some good samaritans place when all I really want to do on Christmas day is to eat and play internet poker.

I have become comfortable in being alone and in my own skin on Christmas day. However, with the AirBnB lark meaning I would be sharing digs with someone, should I be able to book a place, I have chosen to avoid that dilemma by taking myself off to serve on a Vipassana course.

The Van should be in transit some time this week. Hopefully tomorrow, or, at the latest Wednesday. Unfortunately, due to the time of year, and the size of the company engaged, I will only get to see the van for the first time in the week beginning December 16th.  Then it will be full speed ahead to get the beast through the required roadworthy test, registered and then off on a road trip to Newcastle to get the folks at drifta.com.au to do a conversion on the van.   Looking forward to that. Then I'll be able to start shaving some costs off my spending on AirBnB.

Five years post split

In December 2011 my ex and I split as a couple. A tough time. With one of the hardest aspects being when we informed the kiddies we were splitting. I can still see the uplifted eyebrows on #2 sons face and the slumped body language of #1 son.

The black dog came to keep me company for a large chunk of the next 4 or so years. With 2012 being the bleakest period of my life. I was in Sydney away from the family, Vodafone laid off hundreds of people and I was amongst them. Three months unemployment with money being very tight. Then, luckily, a job at AMP that was the best job I've had in my life. But even that couldn't help me to avoid having the black dog as a near constant companion.

During 2012, a couple we knew that lived in Kurrajong were going a bleak period as Kristian had her life stolen by Motor Neuron Disease.  One of my regrets over 2012 was that I never went out there. The major reason was that I was so down I didn't want to bring them down as well. In 2011 the ex and I had spent a fair bit of time at Kurrajong helping support Stephen and Kristian. With the ex coming over from New Zealand for 5 to 7 days at a time.  So while I had a crap year, it wasn't the same year that Stephen and Kristian had.

When my dad died in 2013 and left me a modest inheritance I chose to stop working. My motivation to work in a corporate environment died with the death of my relationship, and with the inheritance from my father providing a financial cushion, I chose to try to learn poker. And not very well to this point.

Moving to Melbourne has been the best thing for my mental health. Maybe not for my financial health. But definitely for my mental health.  And co-incident with the move to Melbourne I started listening to Alexander Fitzgerald's one outer podcast.  Inspiration and motivation flow into my headphones on a weekly basis by way of a 27-28 year olds rants about the need to work hard to get better at poker.  And I've learned quite a bit from his webinars and podcasts.

At this stage I don't see myself ever living in New Zealand again. I'm enjoying Australia too much. And being back in Auckland might allow the black dog to sniff out my trail again.

Interview with Roland Griffiths

Found a link in my twitter feed to an article featuring an interview with Roland Griffiths discussing two recently published studies into Psilocybin treatment of anxiety and depression in cancer patients.

At https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psilocybin-a-journey-beyond-the-fear-of-death/

An aspirational homeless person moves up in life

After trawling through Auction sites online, trudging out to Manheim and Pickles auctions, and seeing several opportunities get way too expensive, I pulled the trigger last night and won an auction for a 1999 Hiace commuter bus. A 12 seater. Soon to be a 3 seater. With 142,000 (or thereabouts) km on the clock, I am punting this will be the sort of vehicle that wealthy homeless people would be proud to sleep in.

Although I may not have to start sleeping in it until well into 2017. A friend has mentioned my name with respect to a possible house sit starting Dec 17 for four weeks. Looking after a cat.  Cats being easier to look after than dogs that is ok with me.  Major pluses being a) no barking b) don't go nuts if they don't get their daily walk

My contact details have been forwarded on and hopefully I'll have a place to stay in Ballarat for the next little while.

Box Hill it is for a while

Moved back to Box Hill South last Friday with a booking that ended on Dec 11th. And in conversation this morning it came out that the next booking had fallen through.

I like this place.  And it is cheap. The only drawback is how far out it is from the CBD. But I like Konrad, the price is cheap, the room is private, quiet and comfortable, and I feel like having a rest from bouncing around every 7 to 10 days.

Today was a day when I practiced short stack poker in some Aussie Millions feeder satellites. And was generally happy with my play.  Shove-fold ranges are important to know in these satellites as the structure means you get short fast. And I'm getting happier with my shoving ranges. People who have an image of me as a tight aggressive player are getting surprised with the hands I'm turning up with at times. But such is the nature of these tournaments. And they are good practice for Final Tables where you are short stacked and need to have a good understanding of Shove/Fold/Call ranges with different stack sizes.  While I have been able to get away with using SnapShove on my Ipad from time to time, there may come a time when that is outlawed. And I need to be ready for that time. Until then, more study time is required to better hone my feel for the Shoving/Calling ranges when short stacked.

Up at 4:30 am

A side effect of fasting for two days is that, while my intention was to go as long into day 3 as possible before breaking my fast, there was difficulty with sleeping due to the gnawing hunger pangs experienced over night.  At 4:30 am I chose to end my fast and have chowed down on one of the yummier breakfasts in a while.  Just the same content as a bunch of other breakfasts, but psychologically very yummy.

Still, I consider it a success to go for a tad over 50 hours without food. Other than a couple of cups of coffee per day, with a teaspoon or two of coconut oil, water was my main sustenance.

There were times during the past two days when my cognitive function was more affected than others. And yesterday midday was one of them. However I managed to be able to keep bringing myself back to an even keel whilst in a Telstra shop and ended up purchasing a cheap smartphone. For $79 this is a cheap and cheerful smart phone. But still, given that my old phone was a Galaxy Y inherited from my son, with a likely age of around 5 years, this is a major upgrade.  The major reason for purchase is to use Evernote at the poker tables. I've been using an ipad to write notes over the past month or so. And an ipad is not a discreet writing appliance.  Hopefully, switching to a smartphone for my notes will allow me to look like a disinterested old fogy who is consumed with texting on his smartphone rather than an old fogy who is a bit too full of himself and taking notes on people.


The major drawback to this two day fast has been difficulty in concentrating for large chunks of the day. Which means difficulty in studying. Hopefully, with some food on board I'll be able to better able to attend to my studies today.  Although I have been really enjoying Jonathan Little's podcast weekly poker hand podcast series and did manage to get something out of his podcasts over the past couple of days. Particularly the math around whether to call when facing a bet on a 4 flush board and being given the right pot odds.  For example, Little points out that the chances of your opponent, in a heads up pot, having one of the flush cards is around 60% (Your opponent holds two cards. The odds of each individual card being a flush card is approximately 1 in four. Reduced slightly because there are four cards of the flush suit on the board.). Which means, if they bet in such a way that you only need to win the pot 20 - 25% of the time, then often you have the right odds to call. Especially if your opponent is good enough to recognize the situation as a good bluffing scenario, in which case, the times where your opponent does not have a flush card (say 40%), will be enough to justify the call. Which, for many players who are good enough to recognize the scenario as a good bluffing scenario, it is.   And many recreational players will fold every time to a bet in the situation where they are out of position, the board shows four cards of the same suit, and their in position opponent bets.  The constant refrain is "you can't call with out a flush card".  Which, against some opponents, is simply not true.

Fasting and thinking

I've been on a binge with respect to fasting over the past 3 weeks or so. The article  I read last month discussing fasting gave me inspiration to throw some fasting into the mix and I've been doing a mix of alternate day fasting, combined with an attempt to throw in some two day (aka periodic fasts (PE)).  And today, Sunday evening, I'm late into the first day of what I hope will be a two day fast, with no food making its way down my gullet until the morning of Tuesday December 6th.

And while I can pat myself on the back for withstanding the urge to eat, I am finding it hard to concentrate enough to be able to focus on my poker study.  And poker study I must if I am to improve.  Luckily I have found Jonathan Little's podcast series and am finding those podcast episodes to be both educational, and, while I am in this hunger impaired state, at a level that I can listen to and get something out of.

Weight wise I started 2016 at around 95Kg. And heading into December my weight was around 88Kg. Which is good, but not great. Great would be if I'd hit 82Kg. Which was about where I was when I was 22 years old. And was a weight I managed to hover around for most of my twenties.

Though if you look at BMI values, to be what BMI considers to be normal weight, I would have to drop to around 78 Kg. And that is just not going to happen I think.  So a comfortable, maintainable target weight for me would be around 82 Kg.

Diet wise, in between the alternate day fasting and PE fasting, I'm aiming to stay as much as possible on a ketogenic / Modified Atkins Diet. Which means I'm avoiding rice (Carbs), Bread (Carbs), Pasta, and, as much as possible, treats from the supermarket.

Interestingly the patches of psoriasis I've had for quite some time appear to becoming much less angry. With most patches having lost their redness and raised, angry look. Of course I'm wondering whether this could be related to the effects of the fasting. Certainly there are effects on the likes of IGF-1 (Insulin like Growth Factor 1) levels which may lead to a physiological environment which is less suited to the rapid growth and turnover of skin cells. At this stage it is a case of fingers crossed that the effect will be maintained once I end this fasting binge.

Loving the new laptop

Just a loving the new laptop. Every so often I check in to task manager to see what the performance information looks like. And memory wise I'm currently running with 9.5GB memory used out of 16GB.  And it is just a dream.   On the old laptop, which had 4GB memory, the performance would have been abysmal.

While the cost was a little high, I'm thinking, given how much I use the internet for one thing and another, I'll get the value back from the improved performance.

Impressed with the keyboard as well, which seems to be much friendlier for typing.  All in all a good decision,

Some new Psilocybin research lands

My Twitter feed notified me today that some new Psilocybin research has landed. The tweet pointed off to the Journal of Psychopharmacology. With an editorial and a couple of papers covering research into Psilocybin. One of the papers being "Psilocybin produces substantial andsustained decreases in depression andanxiety in patients with life-threateningcancer: A randomized double-blind trial" and the other "Rapid and sustained symptom reductionfollowing psilocybin treatment for anxiety anddepression in patients with life-threateningcancer: a randomized controlled trial" .  

Pretty interesting articles. With the Guardian website covering the research in a format more digestible by lay people.

A single dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient of magic mushrooms, can lift the anxiety and depression experienced by people with advanced cancer for six months or even longer, two new studies show.
Researchers involved in the two trials in the United States say the results are remarkable. The volunteers had “profoundly meaningful and spiritual experiences” which made most of them rethink life and death, ended their despair and brought about lasting improvement in the quality of their lives.
The results of the research are published in the Journal of sychopharmacology together with no less than ten commentaries from leading scientists in the fields of psychiatry and palliative care, who all back further research. While the effects of magic mushrooms have been of interest to psychiatry since the 1950s, the classification of all psychedelics in the US as schedule 1 drugs in the 1970s, in the wake of the Vietnam war and the rise of recreational drug use in the hippy counter-culture, has erected daunting legal and financial obstacles to running trials.

In addition, I wandered into one of the research papers quoted in one of the above papers. "Johnson M, Richards W, Griffiths R (2008) Human hallucinogen research: guidelines for safety. J Psychopharmacology 22: 603-620 (PDF)"

Which is a useful article for anyone who is wondering how to encourage a harm reduction approach to anyone who may be considering taking a Magic Mushroom trip, 

Openssh to the rescue

With a brand spanking new laptop, and an old laptop full of files that I wanted to move across to the new laptop, I was hoping I wouldn't have to move them via external hard drive from one machine to the other.

In the depths of my mind I recalled using cygwin/openssh in the past to move data from one windows system to another in a similar scenario in the past. But to my surprise I found that microsoft have been working to make openssh work on windows. As evidenced by a post I found at https://winscp.net/eng/docs/guide_windows_openssh_server  - so any thought of using cygwin/ssh went straight out the window and have now installed the microsoft supported port of openssh to windows

The hardest part was working out how to configure Norton Smart Firewall to allow SSH connections to my new laptop and files are now happily being transferred between machines. Being slightly paranoid I've left the sshd service as one that has to be manually started so it doesn't run all the time. And the firewall rules only allow connections from machines on the local subnet.

With the need to move a load of data from one system to another and setting up the laptop in a way that I'm happy with being top of mind, the process, so far seems to be relatively painless.  Mitigated in some respects by the very snappy response from the new laptop. To say that I'm in love with an inanimate object is taking it a little far. But I am enamoured with the change in response times.  The keyboard is a delight to work with.  I just have to work out how to deal with the track pad and things will be sweet.

An early Christmas present to myself

As 2017 approaches, so does the 6th anniversary of the purchase date of my ancient, in technology terms, Lenovo laptop. While I have extracted maximum value from that purchase, the time has come to end my relationship with its constant poor performance, locking and inability to resurrect itself from sleep mode.

After my optometrists appointment in the middle of yesterday afternoon, I took myself off to a computer shop that willingly sold me a MSI laptop. Specifically, a MSI GP62 6QF Leopard Pro 15.6 inch Core i7, GTX960 4GB Gaming Notebook with 16GB system memory, 128GB SSD disk + 1 TB HDD.   Well, at least my invoice says that is what they sold me.

My requirements were that, after experiencing the system lock hell that 4GB memory gave me, I wanted more, and was prepared to pay for more than 8GB. With 16GB being the next increment that was was what I went for.   Add in the wasted minutes and hours waiting for my laptop to boot from a non-SSD hard drive, versus the almost instant on that you get when resurrecting the laptop from a sleep state when you are resurrecting it from an SSD drive, and that was a requirement as well.

A bit expensive. But, as I use the laptop so much, one that will improve the quality of my lived experience immensely.

Why choose an MSI laptop. Simply that I had asked a skype poker group that I've joined if anyone had any recommendations and one of the guys had a fairly grunty MSI laptop and was well pleased with it. Given that recommendation allowed me to restrict my choices to one manufacturer this removed a lot of pain from my decision making process. Then it was simply a matter of doing a bit of research via google and the purchase is now history.

Vic Roads presents another hoop for me to jump through

And so, Vic Roads corresponded with me to inform me that I could keep my licence. But that, (as my GP had entered the results of my vision test on the line which indicates he had tested me with aided vision), I needed to have my licence updated to have a condition imposed. Namely, that I needed to wear spectacles while driving.

As I had undergone Lasik surgery in 2009 so that I wouldn't have to use glasses for  long vision and driving, I was, at first a bit bemused. Then I dug out the photocopy of the form my GP had filled in and saw that, instead of filling out the line which indicated he had tested my vision without any vision enhancing device, he had chosen to fill out the line that he had tested my vision while I was using a vision aiding device.

Sigh.

Decided that instead of filling his pockets for the third time in this mini-drama I seem to be with respect to gaining my full Vic Roads licence, I decided that, as I hadn't had my vision tested by an optometrist for some time, I'd fill an optometrists pockets.  Thus yesterday afternoon I found myself being examined by an optometrist with a fairly bland personality who kept me in suspense until the end with respect to whether I had glaucoma or whether I was good for my driving licence without spectacles. And both were good.   I will be receiving a pair of reading glasses sometime in the next week or so. But I now have to wander back into Vic Roads and see about getting the restriction with respect to spectacles being lifted from my licence.

This episode just goes to show me that if I had reviewed the form that my GP had filled in with some care I may have avoided the requirement to get my vision tested. On the bright side, I've been aware that I really should have my vision tested as there have been times when a set of reading glasses would have been advantageous.  The benefit of technology is that I don't need to use glasses when using my ipad or laptop as I can set the font to an acceptable size. But for some of the smaller text that is out there I am lost without a magnifying glass or a younger set of eyes to assist me. The reading glasses are well overdue but on their way

Great email from #1 son.

#1 son recently turned 21. And I was stoked to get a great update email from him today.  Travelling well in his University studies with two A's and an A- out of the three results he has had back so far for his second semester.

Plus he has managed to score a summer vacation job that will give him 12 weeks work experience and give him some of the work experience hours he needs for his engineering degree

Have to give him an a+ in his communication skills when he does actually write an email to me. 

Sitting next to a morbidly obese woman

Today the seat on my left was occupied by a morbidly obese woman. Her belly extended to her knees when she was sitting down. After a break she returned with a large  serving of a rice dish plus a medium sized bottle of Fanta. And it wasn't the diet version. Polished that off and immediately ordered a large glass of coke to finish it off.

I felt like I was watching someone committing slow motion suicide. Never going to say anything to her in that scenario though as it would likely upset her at the table and that would be uncool poker etiquette.

Peter Fitzsimmons has recently released a book documenting how he lost around 40kg by eliminating sugar and alcohol from his diet. I was thinking of that book as I watched the carbohydrate intensive rice dish and the sugar laden fizzy drinks enter the gullet of this unfortunate lady. I hope she some how latches on to some good dietary advice in the near future. Or she gets a stomach band. Because I don't see her weight heading anywhere but up from the short time I spent sitting next to her.

Pokerstars exiting Australia

Quite a bit of chatter about the recent government amendment to gambling legislation, that, if it is passed in the Senate, will see the exit of multiple online poker companies from the Australian market.

One of the guys I played a satellite with today even indicated he would look at moving to New Zealand to play. While retaining his Melbourne residence, he would hop over to New Zealand and establish himself there so he could continue to keep playing online. He plays at much higher buy-in levels than me and claims to have won a WCOOP event last year. While I couldn't find that (I may have misremembered his online id or he gave me a bogus one), I have found evidence in his Hendon Mob stats that he has cashed way more than me. So there is a pretty strong likelihood that he is a pretty good online reg.

If I want to play online it will likely only be possible when I head over to New Zealand. And I'll have to go through the rigmarole of changing the information I set the accounts up with. Boring!.

Focussing on SnapShove Calling ranges

One of the major weaknesses in my game has been a reluctance to widen my ranges when I become short stacked. With the end result being that I often blind away too much of my stack waiting for a better spot and end up being called by multiple players when I shove and being taken out by a weaker starting hand that flops well.

About a month ago I purchased the SnapShove app and have been using the app in training mode when ever I commute in to the Casino. And while I seem to have the shoving ranges in better shape than I previously had, the calling ranges continue to be where I am weak. Thus, for the next couple of weeks, I will focus my SnapShove training completely on calling ranges. At least until I am scoring above 85% regularly in my training sessions. After I achieve that level in calling ranges, I'll switch back to mixed mode training. That is, a mix of training in Shoves / Calls.

It has been years since I've used a comb...

My hair has been receiving regular short cuts for years now. #2 on top, #1 on the sides. Easy Peasy and no need for a comb.

And I haven't changed my hair cut schedule, so why would I use a comb for the first time in years yesterday?  Well, in July I started to grow a beard which has morphed into a goatee. And yesterday I was looking at the bedraggled mess that my beard had become and noticed my comb in my toilet bag. What an experience. Unfortunately, while the comb makes he bedraggled mess post shower look much more of a controlled mess, there is still a requirement for some maintenance. Sometime in the next day I'll discover if I can manage to trim my beard with a pair of scissors and a mirror.

Breaking an old habit

And so it has come to pass that I have moved away from Firefox as my browser.  Microsoft Edge and Chrome are both getting a workout on Windows 10 to see if they are more reliable and less likely to consume all the resources on my 6 year old laptop.

Maybe I should just get a new laptop. And that is definitely a possibility sometime post Christmas. But in the meantime I have my fingers crossed that the regular performance issues I have had on this old clunky laptop may be mitigated by trying different browsers

A two day fast and some links I found interesting

After reading an article I found via a google search of pubmed on the subject of "fasting inflammation pubmed", I decided that having a two day fast every so often might be a good idea. Firstly as a preventative measure with respect to any cancer cells that might be starting to get a food hold. And secondly, in the hope that by fasting I will be able to reduce some of the inflammatory chemicals in my system  that may be keeping my patches of psoriasis kicking over.

Ended up not being too hard. After trying out intermittent fasting last year with the 2:5 diet, the two days fasting was familiar ground in terms of the sensations I had to deal with.

Tim Ferris has started to rework some of the material from his podcast back catalogue into new material. For example, episode 201 of his podcast is "The Tim Ferriss Radio Hour: Meditation, Mindset, and Mastery", and episode 202 is "Derek Sivers distilled"

Both of which I would be keen on my sons listening to. Maybe one day they may stumble over this page and be intrigued enough to check those podcasts out. With respect to meditation, while I have pushed meditation as a tool that can be used to enhance your mental fitness and mental performance, I'm getting the sense that the kiddies have tuned any information from me with respect to meditation (and a bunch of other topics) out.  Thus, I believe it is now the case that for them to experiment with a meditation practice they will have to get inspiration from other sources. The sense that familiarity has bred contempt is strong with this topic and my kiddies

Then on my twitter feed I found an article regarding "Why Power Women Are Micro-Dosing LSD at Work". The article mentions both LSD and Magic Mushrooms. My preference if my boys ever try micro-dosing is to go with dried Magic Mushrooms. And they can find plenty of information at places like shroomery.org regarding dosage. Plus if they read "The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide" they can get a bunch of information on micro-dosing. If they ever choose to have a psychedelic trip I hope they read both the Psychedelic Explorer's Guide and Sacred Knowledge to give themselves the best chance possible of having a safe trip.

I'm conscious of Nick Cave's teenage son dying while on a LSD trip. So having a safe environment and  a sober guide is important.

Playing better but still no cigar

Played in the Sunday Arvo $250 at Crown and came in 12th out of 94. With 10 being paid this was tantalizingly close to the money. However, with being card dead for the latter part of the tourney did not help.

However. I came away, in general , pleased with my play. On reflection there were a couple of hands I would have played differently. With one being a major leak and another being a minor leak.

The major leak hand was an AJo hand I should have shoved from middle position 6 handed when I was starting to get short. The Snapshove app has this as a shove and I knew it in my gut before I folded. And as the latter part of the tournament is where you have to take these opportunities or risk being blinded to death. Which is essentially what happened to me.

The minor leak hand was a hand where my river bet could have been all-in. Instead I bet a size where he would have risked half his stack to call and still been alive in the tournament. After reviewing the hand, I know with that particular player / player type, as he had called a check-raise on the turn, he was likely to call an all-in on the river.

Sunday morning saw the 8th episode of Alexander Fitzgerald's Live Poker 101 webinar series. One of the other students suggested setting up a skype group. Hopefully I will be able to use that group to study hands with after the Live Poker 101 series ends.

Hunger Tilt....

Having decided to re-visit the intermittent fasting diet I blundered on Friday night. Having fasted on Thursday, I delayed eating on Friday until 13:00 . Then had some chicken around 17:00 ish.  However, that wasn't enough after the fast from Wednesday evening through to Friday 13:00. And relatively early in the Friday night tournament I found my body was crying out for more food. And unfortunately I hadn't packed any nuts that night. Major mistake. Brain did not work well and out of the tournament very quickly with some very poor play.

Contrast to today when I went in and played in an Aussie Millions feeder satellite and managed to bink a ticket to the next phase of satellites.  Much better play. Much less feeling of being on tilt at any stage of the tournament.

Lesson being to eat more and to pack snacks if I am playing in a live tournament the day after I fast.

And in a pleasant realization, today I realized that my meditation practice has, over the course of this year, improved out of sight. Feels like a step change in the benefits I am receiving from my practice.    Life seems to have improved in some aspects.

The Reservoir Rut - a pretty good one

Jumped into the Reservoir rut on Tuesday, having waved goodbye to Box Hill South with some regret. Box Hill had an intelligent Alsation and a couple of cats that were ok to be around.

This place is a two bedroom unit that has a very pleasant feel to it. Meditating in my bedroom feels very pleasant. Quiet street, quiet room, comfortable bed, pleasant ambient temperature.

One mildly unpleasant discovery was that I've gone back up to 90 Kg.  Started this year at 95Kg and had been down to 87Kg about 3 weeks ago, so displeased to see my weight heading in the wrong direction.

Decided to google around. And for some reason entered a google search "pubmed fasting inflammation". Partly due to my understanding that my psoriasis is an auto-immune disease which may be related to an inflammatory issue. And during my meandering around the internet I've stumbled across a paper in pubmed that describes hormonal changes associated with increased visceral fat. And that some of those changes are on an inflammatory nature. So I guess some of that information was floating around in my head when I googled "pubmed fasting inflammation". And lo, found an article titled  "Fasting: Molecular Mechanism and Clinical Applications".  Interesting stuff.

So now I have some extra motivation to fast a couple of days a week - at least until the end of the year.

Public Housing in Box Hill

Today I found out that the AirBnB I'm staying in at Box Hill is a Public Housing property that the host has been living in with his family since Jan 2016. Nice guy. I was thinking he owned the property as he looks after it like an owner would. With the lawns being well maintained and quite a bit of garden maintenance under taken during the course of my stay. Plus he has a lovely alsation dog and a couple of cats. So just assumed he must own it.

We had a bit of a chat about politics, with the recent election of  Donald Trump being a starting point for quite a rambling conversation.

Then off into Melbourne to look for some birthday presents for sons #1 and #2. Came to the conclusion that probably better to just give them some money. Memories of my mother buying clothes for me when I was an adult came back to me. And the memories were generally of the poor choices she made. And how much money she wasted in continuing to buy me clothes that were never worn and generally just chucked away.

Walter "Andrew" Mitty at the table

For  a while last night the entertainment at the table was the banter between Mel, sitting in seat 2, and Andrew, sitting in seat 6.  I was in seat 1, and the only way to have escaped the banter would have been to put on my noise cancelling headphones and cranked some music up.

Early hand. I was on the button with pocket 5s. Andrew open raised, I flatted on the button, and Mel was in the hand. Flop 5Kc5c. We all checked. I have the stone cold nuts and didn't want to bet and have everyone fold. Turn Qc. Andrew throws out a bet. I "think" for a bit and call. River 4d.  Andrew checks. After I've been thinking for about 5 or so seconds and my hand is just about to start reaching for chips Andrew says. "Oh get on with it.." and throws his hand in the muck.  He then says "I had the 5 of diamonds, but he obviously had the flush".

Later he folds another hand and says "I had the K of clubs" and his opponent shows the King of clubs....  He also claimed to be 49 and have a birth year of 1965 - which would make his age somewhere, at a minimum, be 50 if he was born sometime between Nov 12th 1965 and Dec 31, 1965, and an age of 51, should he have been born  before Nov 11 1965.  He looked, at a maximum, to be in his mid 30's. He also claimed to work for the federal police and centre link.  Claimed to the father of six, and had just had a grandchild born that morning.

Rarely have I heard so much BS uttered in such a short period of time.   He said everything with a bit of a grin on his face, as though he knew no one was really believing anything he said.

Mel was the most vocal of his nay sayers. Frequently calling out his claims as being full of it.  I was sort of sad to see Andrew get knocked out. Though with his aggro loose style, once he was short stacked he was going to be on borrowed time.

Having my ticket clipped again by the medical fraternity for the privilege of driving

Back to the GP today to get the letter from my cardiologist. Pain in the backside as that is another $70 to pay and all because the cardiologist hadn't turned the letter around fast enough the first time.  Then off to Vic Roads with the letter that had informed me my license was being suspended today and I had to send it back to Vic Roads.  Luckily the Vic Roads person I was served by at the Carlton office was lovely and went the extra distance for me by ringing up the medical review section in Vic Roads and passing the information on. End result being that my license is still live and I'll receive a confirmation letter from the medical review section within the next couple of weeks.

While I had planned for today to be a full fast day, I found that I'd managed to eat skimpily yesterday with no food after midday. So decided to go as late into the day before eating as possible. Ended up having a 28 hour gap between meals and have only had the one meal today so pleased with that outcome.  The goal is to have 6 or 7 weeks with two days of fasting each week then re-evaluate with respect to how my weight is going and how my psoriasis is looking. Have been ferreting around in pubmed and found some interesting articles discussing how fat, in and of itself, is inflammatory. And psoriasis is an auto-immune inflammatory disease. And while there has been no definitive paper in pubmed that suggests that losing more weight will help my psoriasis, I'm keen to see if there is a relationship (whether it is to intermittent fasting for 8 weeks or so or to any weight loss I sustain I won't really know, but will be interested to see).

Poker wise I've been re-watching some Alexander Fitzgerald videos. And slowly, slowly, some of his thinking and tips have been sinking in. Even to the point of opening up Flopzilla after a satellite on the weekend and running several hands through to see whether I had the right mathematical percentages required to play the hands differently. And for one hand it turns out I should have. The benefit being, that having done that analysis away from the table, I'll be able to use that information the next time I'm in a similar situation.

Snapshove is an app by Matt Silver that has been getting a workout for 5 to 20 minutes per day.  Ideally I would like to beaver away at this app until I'm getting more than 95% of the SnapCall / SnapShove scenarios right. My short stacked play is a bit too wimpy and I end up being blinded away when I'm less than 10 Big Blinds. And using the SnapShove app in training mode will, hopefully, allow me to open my ranges up when shoving and calling with a shorter stack

Box Hill - not so dodgy an AirBnB. And a new podcast to sample

And so it came to pass that the AirBnB that I thought might be dodgy turns out to be anything but. My prejudice partly due to a previous lack luster experience at Box Hill back in May/June.  Very pleasantly surprised.

And, to my pleasure, I've found another podcast that has a few gems in the episodes it offers.  Listening to Ramit Sethi on this podcast is an absolute pleasure. And, even better, I find through a google search that he has been a regular guest on this podcast with at least 3 other episodes I can listen to at my leisure.

This morning I've been listening to Ramit Sethi on episode 399 of the Art Of Charm podcast - titled "Cold Truths About Networking and Success". And have queued up episode 172 discussing "I will teach you to be rich" (discussing some dream job tactics to help you),  and episodes 90 & 91, discussing "Automate your life" (discussing how to get off your ass and get rich, finally! In this interview, learn to automate your bill payments, improve your credit score, and get out of debt.)

Lots and lots of episodes of this podcast series to be sifted through to see which episodes might be of interest.  Some mildly irritating advertising during the podcast, but to listen to someone like Ramit Sethi I'll tolerate that minor issue.

Dud Pokerstars client update.... Pft

The latest pokerstars client update has not been a pleasant experience.

All my settings were lost.

Which is bad.

• No hand history folder. So no hand histories for pokertracker to use. Confusing for a while as to why Pokertracker was not updating the HUD stats
• Time Zone lost.  Default to ET instead of AEST.  And worse, I would set it to AEST, shut down the client, and the next time I started the client, back to ET
• Bet slider options lost
• Back to two color deck instead of 4 color deck. Lost one hand because I was subconsciously thinking I had a 4 color deck and that I had a flush.... Not quite. Boo! Hiss!
• Probably one or two other configuration options have been lost as well.  

Not happy.  Despite the pain of not having a HUD working, I managed to get to about 43rd out of about 2800 in a $11 bounty builder last night.

Today is my last day at this AirBnB. Moving to a dodgy sounding AirBnB tomorrow and going to have a rare day in and playing internet poker. 

AirBnB hassles

For some reason my strike rate for making bookings with AirBnB over the past few weeks has been poor. Making my next booking took over 4 requests before I landed one. People declining because their current guests wanted to stay on, long lost friends from overseas turning up and staying for a month and so on.

Plus with my aging laptop seeming to take forever to load up AirBnB, the application process was proving to be excruciating dull. Hence my decision to book for 3 weeks. I have a dodgy sort of AirBnB lined up for the next week. Then two weeks in an extremely well reviewed AirBnB in Reservoir.

Hope it all works out.

On the plus side Alex Fitzgerald put out his latest lesson on Live Poker 101. Once again I am grateful that he sent it out in advance of the scheduled 05:00am Sunday start time. So I could pre-watch it then join in for the Q&A post the pre-recorded webinar.

One of the leaks in my tournament game is Push-Fold play when short stacked.  I have invested some $s in Max Silver's SnapShove app and hope that spending some time training with that each day will prove to be worthwhile.  All I have to do is somehow work out what cue works best for me with respect to spending some time training. 

Went shopping for son #1 and son #2 birthday presents yesterday.  Walked into Dangerfield shop in Brunswick with intent of perhaps purchasing some shirts or t-shirts. Being old and daggy, which is outside the target demographic, I was ignored by the sales staff. Some nice stuff in the shop.  Will probably return on a weekday in the hope that there will be different sales staff on.

Why was my bag in the kitchen?

This morning I toodled off to the bathroom, and when returning through the kitchen saw my back pack leaning against the wall next to the rubbish bin. This initiated a bout of confusion. I recalled returning back to the AirBnB late last night and unpacking my back pack in my bedroom. Plugging the iPad in to charge, using the laptop for a while, and plugging the mobile internet device in to charge.

Exited the room to get myself a drink from the kitchen then back into  my room to bunk down for the night. Soooo.... I know I'm getting old.  I haven't had a drink in a very long time... Yet here I had evidence that my bag had moved overnight yet I had not been the mover of the bag. So had I sleep walked or had someone moved it?

The other point of interest was that the back door was open. No sign of the hosts. Wondering whether they were keen on airing the house and maybe one of them had gone out for a bike ride or run I returned to my bedroom and meditated for an hour.  When next venturing into the living areas, Hong asked me whether I had opened the back door. And, as we talked it came out that her credit card provider had called her to let her know that her card had been used about 6 times for some low value transactions at the likes of Coles etc.

Hong had noted a sound at about 06:30 this morning which is the most likely time that the intruder was in the house. Nicholas had fallen asleep in the lounge, stay there until around 05:30 before taking himself off to their bedroom...

Thus it appears that my bag was taken from my bedroom. And luckily for me the intruders probably got spooked and took off without my bag. For which I am most grateful as both my passport was inside the bag and the bag has given me stirling service over the past year and is one of the best back packs I've had.

Apparently this is the second time that the hosts have experienced a break in at this place.... I suspect a change of locks might be in order.

Melbourne Cup day blundering

First Tuesday in November is Melbourne Cup day. And this vital piece of information had somehow escaped my brain last night as I made plans to toodle off to the weekly Tuesday Auction at Pickles in Altona... Well D'oh... Lurking around the train station were all these people in their Melbourne Cup race day finery. Very obviously race day bound.

Which was a pity as I had slept in and, with the intention of being on time at the Auction, had chosen to miss my morning meditation.  However, not all was lost as I managed to squeeze in an hour when I returned home in the late afternoon.

And today saw the lodgement of my 2015-2016 Australian Tax return.  Twigged to the fact that the deadline for lodgement was October 31st at about 10:30 pm on October 31st. And spent a couple of hours trying to make the web interface work for me. I suspect that the tax site was under pretty heavy pressure and that it wasn't manage to handle the load. Eventually gave up and lodged my return tonight.  Not that it would bother the tax department much. Especially as I am essentially living off capital and there is almost zero income.

Melbourne on cup day is a great place to be, especially if you are traveling by Public transport at the times when most of the masses are on their way to or from the race track.  Lots of couples all dressed up, with the ladies tending to sport those fascinating fascinators, and the men wearing suits or jackets. Great feel to the place.

Catching up with a Vipassana meditator

Today I caught up with Disco Drew, a guy who served with me at Blackheath Vipassana meditation centre in August. We spent most of the afternoon having a chat, then toodled off for a walk in the general direction of Northcote until Disco decided to board a tram and we went our separate ways. Disco was smitten with an infatuation for one of the female servers during our stint together in August, and I received an update on how his infatuation had played out. Unfortunately for Disco, the object of his desire did not return his feelings. The lady in question and Disco both ended up at Pomona meditation centre where they both sat a Satti Pattana course. Fate conspired to have them both seated as close as they could possibly be given the segregated nature of the seating in the meditation hall. They were both in the same row and both seated as close to the middle of their row as they could be, with only the aisle down the centre of the hall separating them.

I let Disco bend my ear while he gave me his view of the anguish he had been through as he came to the realization that his feelings were not being returned. He has intellectually accepted that the chance of the two of them being romantically entwined is close to zero, but emotionally he has a ways to go before the flame of desire flickers and dies.

While we were chatting, we were approached by a beggar looking for a few coins. Disco gave him the change from his coffee purchase. The beggar looked like he had been dealt a hard hand with respect to physical disability and we noted that there was always someone else who was in a worse state or worse off than we were in. Internally I noted that I felt gratitude that I was not in the state of anguish that Disco was in, and that he was probably going to be in for another 3 to 12 months. Hopefully he will get over his grief for his doomed infatuation sooner rather than later. But having been in a fairly bleak state for several years after splitting with my ex, I certainly hope that Disco moves on sooner rather than later.

Having met the lady in question I understand how Disco could have fallen for her. Some of her personality attributes reminded me of my ex at her best.  And if she was a few years younger and my eldest son was a few years older I would be tempted to consider match making.

Habit review

The major improvements for my life this year have been the improvement in some habits and the establishment of new habits

• Meditation. At the start of 2016 I was meditating most days for around 30 minutes. With the aid of several stints at the Blackheat Vipassana meditation centre, most days I'm meditating for one hour first thing in the morning.  While I am happy that I have managed to increase the amount of time I mediate each day, I am even happier that the quality of the meditation has improved.
• Weight. Starting the year at 95Kg, my BMI was 31. Officially obese. Now down to 88Kg. With the change in lifestyle bought about by constantly changing residence, I am no longer able to raid a fridge or pantry. This new feature of my lifestyle, in and of itself, has led to a lower food consumption pattern. Add in the walking about the place, with a change to a ketogenic / modified atkins diet, driven by several episodes on the Tim Ferriss podcast where Dom D'Agostino banged on about the benefits of a ketogenic diet, and the odds begin tipping towards some weight loss. For a period in the middle of the year I was vegetarian. But the vegetarian period ended when I chose to pursue the MAD (Modified Atkins Diet).
• Flexibility. Inspired by the information regarding Tiny Habits, and several episodes of the Tim Ferriss podcast devoted to Gynmastic bodies, I've added some stretching to my morning routine. The cue to do my daily stretching is tied to the end of my morning meditation session. After which I'm giving my hamstrings a stretch, with the aim of being able, eventually, to be able to get my head down to my knee when stretching my hamstrings and my glutes. Having started and stopped many times previously, I'm hopeful I will continue this endeavour for at least 9 months. The information from the Tim Ferriss podcast was that somewhere around 220 days is the time I need to persist at this to get some sustainable change. If I am able to be persistent in this endeavour, then sometime mid 2017 I will hopefully be getting my head to my knee.
• Poker study. Could do better.  I'm currently attending a 10 week course run by Alexander Fitzgerald. Five weeks in, with five weeks to go. A two hour webinar every Sunday morning kicking off at 05:00 am local time.  Not the most convenient of times, but luckily, most weeks Alex will send out the pre-recorded webinar in advance. And I get to sleep for an extra couple of hours, then join the webinar for question time. The major change to my game has been that I now take notes at the table on my ipad. On as many hands as possible. And especially if there is a showdown.  This will, eventually, become easier with practice. But initially there is much mental energy to be spent in keeping up with the game and taking notes. The major benefit is that I'm picking up much more information about the betting patterns and lines taken by various players. And in poker, information is power.

Off to Coburg

Time to decamp from this Tottenham/Footscray abode and head off to Coburg.  A decent amount of poker study  over the past week.

Back to see my sleep doctor as my GP wasn't prepared to sign off on my fitness to drive until I had seen him. He was ok with my driving. And has now turned me into one of his flock. He will get to shear some funds from my bank account each year to re-confirm that I am ok to drive.

Today is Friday. And tonight there is a $175 freezeout at Crown. I'll give that a crack to see if any of the theory that Alexander Fitzgerald has been dispensing has stuck.

A study day and a disappointing GP visit

Part of the process for converting my NSW drivers license to a Victorian drivers license is that, as I had ticked the box informing Vic Roads that I was on a medication for a heart condition, I needed to get a medical certificate.  And that I had four weeks to obtain said certificate otherwise the license may be suspended or cancelled.

I was aware the GP I have been seeing was ultra cautious and risk adverse and knew he wouldn't sign off on my being fit for driving unless I had seen a cardiologist. Early last week I checked in with a cardiologist and asked him for his opinion on whether I was fit to drive. And he said words to the effect of "No Problemo".  Unfortunately the correspondence from his office had yet to hit the GP's office so was unable to get my Vic Roads certificate today. The 28 day grace period expires tomorrow so I'll be off to Vic Roads to have a chat about getting a possible extension.

Other than that have been watching some Poker videos from Alexander Fitzgerald.  Seem to be learning a fair bit. With the biggest change to my play live being a lot more observant. And when in a tournament jotting down notes on most hands has helped me stay observant and nutting the different betting patterns of some of the players.  Early days though and there is a lot more work to be done to improve my observational ability. And the ability to nut out what different bets from different players mean.

The morning meditation habit seems to be well embedded now. And I'm finding it relatively easy to sit for 45 minutes without fidgeting. Still making myself sit most days for a full hour.  This is a good thing.

AirBnB host warning signs

And so it came to pass that the AirBnB I insta-booked for last Thursday threw up some warning signs that I will take heed of next time

a) No reviews
b) No response to my AirBnB message requesting information regarding a convenient time to arrive
c) No response to my txt message requesting the same information

In future, should this happen, I will abort the day before and book somewhere else. Ended up having to store my luggage at Southern Cross station, spend all night at Crown Casino, and try booking three more places before landing a spot.

Just to add some icing to the cake, the host arranged to put my key in a plain envelope in the letterbox as they would be out until about 9:00 pm.... And when I got there the envelope contained his business card but no key. The key had somehow slipped out of the envelope and was under the table in the living room.....  Having been rained on while trudging towards his place from the train station, spending a couple of hours languishing on the porch swatting away mosquitoes wasn't my favorite use of time on that particular Friday evening.

On the bright side, I've stayed at this AirBnB before and the host is a pleasant chap. And though it isn't my favorite AirBnB, it is much better than being with out a bed for the night.

Finally, Four hours of Poker study in the one day

Many, many podcasts and other sources have hammered home that, to improve, a decent chunk of each week must be spent studying. And that if the Study:Playing ratio is tilted too far towards the Playing side, then the odds are favouring no or little improvement. Alex Fitzgerald advocates at least an hour a day of deliberate study followed by deliberate practice. It's sort of funny for me, a 57 year old, late to Poker player, being inspired and studying what a passionate 27 year old Poker professional has to say. But it makes sense.

Like many habits, I suspect that the study habit will take quite some time to bed down. I have been gradually working towards more study each day. And have been managing at least an hour a day on four to five days per week. But if I want to get better, I believe that I need to up the amount of time I spend studying and reviewing my play. If I can achieve two hours per day on five days of the week, for ten hours study per week, I will accept that as a short term goal. Ultimately, I would like to study an average of at least 15 hours per week. Which will be a difficult goal for me to achieve. However, should that goal be achieved, then I believe the payoff will be well worth it.

Booked my next AirBnB and it will be back to Northcote on Thursday for 12 days. Hopefully that will be a good place to land in.

Sunday was a much better day

So after my rare crap day on Saturday, Sunday turned out to be a much more pleasant day. Off to an old AirBnB to pick up my Vic Roads driver's license. Or so I thought. Turned out to be a letter asking me to have a medical certificate provided by a doctor stating whether I am fit to drive or not. Seems the box I ticked stating I was on regular medication for a heart condition triggered that clause.

Luckily I have somehow finally managed to have arranged a visit to a cardiologist tomorrow. And once that is done it will be back to my GP to get the certificate filled in. Confident that I'll get a pass mark as it is more or less a visit to establish a relationship with someone who can monitor my medication for suspected Atrial Fibrillation etc.

Plus my bro sent me a touching base email. And in the to and fro of the exchange of emails we had yesterday he revealed that his birth mother had left him her house, car and contents. Te Bro had re-established contact some time ago now and had helped his birth mother through the aftermath of the suicide of his half sister. Which left Te Bro as her only surviving descendant. She had a brother apparently, and Te Bro felt a bit guilty about receiving the inheritance, but when he was at her house dealing with the aftermath, the next door neighbours let him know that his birth mother had stated many times to them that she intended to look after Te Bro in her will. I am pleased for him. From being a naughty boy in his teens and 20's, Te Bro morphed into a rough diamond with, compared to me, quite a few saintly qualities. I often offer his example up as an example that people can, and do, change their shonky behaviour patterns if they pass through the right circumstances.  He deserves some good karma.

Body clock wise I am all over the place. Into bed at around 01:00 am. Awake at 7 ish. Meditated for about an hour. Then back to sleep for another 3 hours.  And while writing this the clock is a few minutes off 1:00pm, but I am feeling great inside.

And if it is Monday, it is time to book my next AirBnB....

A rare crap day

Today was a rare crap day where I just felt vaguely unwell most of the day and came back to the AirBnB for a nap. Made me realize how precarious my existence is. With out a permanent base of residence and jumping from AirBnB to AirBnB I'd be in trouble if I had a serious dose of the flu or worse.

However, after a nap from 6pm to 7pm, I woke feeling much better physically. Although for some reason I thought I had made a mistake with setting the alarm and had slept through to 7:00 am Sunday am... A total of 13 hours.  Took me several groggy headed minutes to work out it was still Saturday. Which was nice. As today is a diet cheat day and I'd purchased some food I wanted to consume today rather than tomorrow.

The Modified Atkins diet is the diet I'm giving a crack, with a cheat day thrown in once a week. After listening to the Tim Ferriss episodes on a ketogenic diet, and some of the comments that a Modified Atkins Diet seems to give many of the same benefits, but is much easier to adhere to, I've decided to give the MAD a crack.

So no bread, rice, chips (aka fries), tomato sauce or other foods that I know have carbs in them. I'm starting to get used to eating an avocado with LSA sprinkled over it most mornings. And have found that coffee with coconut oil is a beverage that I'm quite partial to. And that I now need to consider acquiring a spoon to add to my luggage. Although there is a possibility that just pouring the hot coffee into the coconut oil jar so as to dissolve some of the coconut, then tipping it back into the cup, may prove to be an acceptable work around. But next time I'm passing an op-shop, such as a Vinnies, I'll pop in to see whether they have cutlery.

I chose not to play the Main Event of the APPT event in Melbourne. I gave the satellites a fair crack and didn't make it. In most of the satellites I felt I played alright. And in two of them, I had a very decent chance of getting a ticket and got two outered on the river when I would have otherwise been in a very good spot.

Such is poker. As the pokerstars environment is reminding me tonight. 

Have been working my way through an Alex Fitzgerald webinar on live poker. And will continue working into the wee hours until I have got through it. While the length of the Webinar is 2 hours 15 minutes, I take considerable longer to get through it as I'm creating a mind map as I go. To try to give myself the best opportunity to absorb the material. And to have a "cheat sheet" that I can whizz through at a later stage

Lovely Day in Melbourne

Just a beautiful day in Melbourne. Pity my poker results haven't done well over the past couple of days. I managed to come 7th out of 175 on Mondays $400 tournament. But have busted out of the satellites I've been playing for the Main Event.  Twice with Aces being busted. Once by AQs and once by J9o.  All in Preflop with the AQ Vs AA hand. And he rivered a full house with a Q on the flop and a Q on the River.  The J9 hand called me from the BB. With a J high board and no draw he called after I jammed the flop with a low SPR.  And on the River he made trips.

Sigh.  In both cases I would have had a reasonable stack if I'd won those hands, with an excellent chance of getting a ticket.

In two minds whether to enter the Main tomorrow.  Will ponder on this over night. And see how I go.  Running a little bad online just now as well. Got it in with AsQs Vs Ah7c. Flopped 8h4s5s - I have nut flush draw and he needs to hit any non-spade 7 or 6 (5 outs times four means on that flop I have around 80% equity).  He naturally hits 7d on the turn.

Part of my job is to just take these beats in my stride and work to get a stack where those types of beats don't matter so much. Have yet to work that out.

Met the house cat at the new place I'm in. And this cat is not nearly as neurotic as some of the cats I've met on my AirBnB journey. A bit of a fattie. but a nice enough cat.

The toilet has an interesting trap for new people to the house. You have to lift the lid and pull the mechanism up to get it to flush. Pushing the button does not work.

Out of North Coburg to Brighton

Returned to Melbourne from my Sydney house sit a week ago and landed in an AirBnB in North Coburg. Great atmosphere to the place. Hosted by  a classic Anglo Australian who is training as a builder and has a penchant for littering his yard with cars - most 30 years or more older. With his prize possession being a Ford (?) from the 1950s. He has a 1970s campervan parked in his drive that he is working on and uses that as his bedroom. Apparently he was running the front bedroom as a dorm but had that shut down after a visit by the council. He didn't put up a fight as he didn't want them to look too closely at the alterations he had made to the house. Which pretty much were all in the dodgy realm with respect to council consent. The place had a feel like a student flat from my university days in terms of housing standard, but it had a really nice feel to the place which was in large part due to the hosts zen like personality.

And now I've dropped my luggage into my new AirBnB in Brighton.  And where as the North Coburg residence was about 1km from the train station, this new residence is about 40m from a tram stop... So much less likely to lose weight in my new AirBnB.

The Melbourne APPT tournament series has been in play from last Thursday - Oct 6. The main event starts tomorrow with Flight 1 of Day 1.  There are two flights on day 1 with Day 2 being on Sunday.  I've tried to satellite in a couple of time at low value satellites with a combination of no luck in a turbo environment.  I'll give it one more crack today and if I miss out will sit out the main.

Have played in three tournaments and have cashed in one - placing 7th out of 175 runners.  Feel pretty good about that. Was surviving as a short stack from the point where there were about 30+ runners left. With 18 players being paid, getting through to 7th was a result I ended up being pretty happy about. I could easily have been out without cashing.

On the kiddie front I have had an excellent update email from #1 son.  He seems to be in a good place in his life and balancing his University work with social activities and exercise in a nice blend.  And with respect to #2 son I"ve stumbled across some information that may help him with his chronic headaches. He has been having regular headaches since his mid-teens and has been on long term medication to try to ameliorate the symptoms.  I've sent off the information to #2 son and the ex.  The ex replied but no reply from #2 son.  I often send off emails to #2 son with links that I think he might find interesting or useful. But almost never get an acknowledgement that the email has been received. And once again I'm reminded of the saying that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.   I'm hopeful that there is something in the information I sent that will be of use to him.

Every time I move AirBnB's I check to see if the black dog is accompanying me out the door. And it seems that I might have shaken the black dog's trail, at least, for a bit. An unusual feeling after such a bleak period post bust up with the ex.  But happy.

A brief jump to Sydney

Exited the Brunswick AirBnB and jumped up to Sydney to house-sit for a bit over a week while G & J and their kiddies have a vacation in Fiji to celebrate J's 50th. Their lovely labradoodle Fernie is going to be getting me out of the house each morning for a wander around the local park.

My intent over this next week or so is to put in as much study time as possible. Having a place to myself for a week is a luxury I want to take advantage of.  The ideal outcome would be to work my way through Alexander Fitzgerald's new book "The Myth of Poker Talent". With some AirBnB's I tend to want to spend time outside the AirBnB accommodation. For example, with the latest AirBnB, the Hostess worked from home as a Freelance copy writer. My feeling was that I didn't want to intrude on her work space so took off each day and would head into a public library should I wish to perform any poker study that day.  Having an empty house to myself is a luxury that will be truly enjoyed.

Planning to Quit and sticking to it.

About a week ago I donked off a buy-in through staying too long, playing while tired, and not having a plan to quit. A pattern of behaviour that has cost me money in the past. And a pattern that I've written about previously with the intent of making myself plan my sessions and quit when I intend to.

Since that session last week I've been diligent with putting alarms into my phone to give myself a cue to either have a break or to leave the Casino. And I'm pleased to report that I've stuck with that pattern of behaviour for the past week. And I'm more conscious of monitoring my inner feeling of alertness / tiredness and have been able to up and quit when I realize I'm no longer able to properly monitor the action that is happening at my table. 

My daily meditation practice is going well. I've now established a habit pattern of meditating for one hour each morning. This new level of meditation has been in place for a bit over two months now and I'm sure it is giving me the ability to focus and concentrate for longer on the action and betting patterns taking place at the tables. I can recall the early days of my meditation practice when I would struggle to sit for 15 minutes. And now I'm sitting for 60 minutes with what feels like much less effort, frustration and bodily discomfort.  At the start of 2016 my daily practice was 30 minutes per day, and to now hit 60 minutes per day is a new habit that I am well pleased to have established.

I've acquired Alexander Fitzgerald's "The Myth of Poker Talent" and have started working my way through that book. Alex's weekly podcast at oneouter.com is a great motivational tool for me. I'm a little bemused that my major poker mentor is a 27 year old hyper active American. But he is such an advocate of improvement through hard work, discipline and thoughtful effort that, while I don' quite get through as much study each week as Alex advocates, I certainly do far more study than if I didn't listen to him. By the end of 2016 I would like to have better work habits established. I'm conscious of the tedx talk on Tiny Habits and will be looking to build in cues to my day to give myself a better chance of getting in between one and two hours study per day.

Everyone loves a chopped pot.....Not!!!

On Saturday I sat at a table where I happened to observe a Heads Up hand between two female poker players. Given that the vast majority of players are males and it is pretty rare to have have two or more female players at the same table, watching a Heads Up hand between two female players is rare enough. The Out Of Position (OOP) in this hand was a tight aggressive player.

The In Position (IP) player had been considerably looser. And was showing signs of tilt. Possibly entitlement tilt.  She had been folding a lot of hands on the flop or turn, often exasperatedly showing the player to her left the hand that she was ditching.  The body language and language she was using gave me the feeling that she was feeling frustrated.

For the hand in question, on the turn, the OOP player check-raised on a board 6c7s8d10h.  The IP player then shoved all-in. At which point the OOP player snap-called. The river was a blank. The IP player tabled a pair of 9s.   The OOP player then smiled and laughingly tabled a pair of 9s for a chopped pot.   The OOP then made a remark in a playful, friendly manner and leaned over the table to offer her opponent a high five.  The IP player had face palmed while sighing loudly, and when aware of the offered high five, flipped her middle finger towards the OOP player....

I felt sad for the IP player who was having a great deal of trouble handling her tilt.....

Jumping to Brunswick

The Newport rut was a short, but enjoyable rut. Very good host. And one of the best places I've stayed at for the money paid. My daily meditations were very easy to do. In part due to the environment - the bedroom I was staying in was a very pleasant place to stay in, and in part to the atmosphere. Myra, the Scottish, 50+ish hostess, is a practicing Tibetan Bhuddist and there were many examples of Bhuddist symbology around the house.

After five days in Newport it was off to Brunswick, where I'll be staying until Tuesday Sep 27th. The night before I moved to Brunswick I received a text from one of my previous AirBnB hosts alerting me to a function happening in Hope Street, Brunswick. This just happened to be about 150m from my new AirBnB so was an easy event to agree to go along to. The event was put on as a fund raiser for Entheogenesis Australis's 2017 outdoor event scheduled for December 2017. Some interesting speakers. With one speaker from a group he claimed to be psychonauts nonymous tweaking my interest in his group. Sadly I didn't get any details and my google searches today have failed to unearth any contact details.  Oh well.  Maybe another time.

Tonight I intend to play in a tournament at Crown. But before I do I need to do at least two hours study. So here I am in the State Library typing up a blog post, aka procrasti-tasking, and sort of avoiding doing my required poker study.

The information that nudged me to try Spotify

I have been aware of Spotify for quite a while. But just couldn't be bothered for some reason.

Well I found a reason.

My bucket list is quite short. One of the items on the list is to have a psychedelic experience with either LSD or Psilocybin. After reading about the research undertaken by Roland Griffiths and others into Psilocybin my preference is to take a series of Psilocybin experiences.

My interest in taking Psilocybin has been building this year, especially after reading research papers from pubmed and an article from the New Yorker, so every so often I mooch around the internet looking for more information about Psilocybin. And last night I was reading an article which discussed some information from Bill Richards book "Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences".    Specifically the post was dealing with the topic of how important the right music playlist could be in enhancing the psychedelic experience:

Psychedelics and music have long been linked, but at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where William A. Richards conducts research, music plays an important part in ensuring the stability off entheogen study participants. In this excerpt from Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences, Richards explains the role of music in his work. The excerpt is followed by the playlist Richards compiled.

 And towards the bottom of the blog post, after the playlist, some kind person has provided a link to a spotify playlist that mirrors the playlist Richards compiled.

This post has been put together while listening to the Spotify playlist noted in the blog post above.

Time for a day off from poker

With unlimited internet data downloads on offer I've decided to go on a Tim Ferriss podcast binge. And have re-downloaded a bunch of his interviews to re-listen to.

Time for a day of no poker and some walking with the sound of Tim Ferriss and his guests filling my new Bose noise-cancelling headphones.  It seems I'm one step behind Apple. Bought the headphones in August. And in September Apple announce their new iPhone doesn't have a wireless jack input anymore. Well, lucky for me I'm using it on an Ipad and am *very* happy with the results.  My apple earbuds stopped working optimally and it was a choice of new earbuds or upgrade. I chose the upgrade. And while the head phones are way more expensive than earbuds the amount of utility I have received since the purchase makes them one of my better buys this decade. Very happy with the purchase.

Time to explore Newport and Williamstown a little

Friday at the Casino. My fish tendencies return

Had a day at the Casino. Mainly with the intent of playing in a couple of Aussie Millions feeder satellites. Played ok in the satellites without luck in the flips. Shallow structure meant that flips were required reasonably early and unfortunately AQo did not serve me well against JJ.

Then I played a cash session where I played like a bit of a fish again. There were several hands where I was beaten on the river, one hand where I was bluffed of a set with four cards to a straight on the table and every time I raised with AK I had four callers and whiffed the flop out of position...

Hand of interest:
I'm on the button with As10s. Guy in his late 20's / early 30's who looks semi-competent opens for 15 from early position (this is a 1/3 table). Loose guy to my left calls. I call.

Flop comes 10c8c6s.

Early position leads out for 30 into pot of 49.

Loose guy calls. I call

Turn is 6h

Early Position guy leads again for 60.
Loose guy tanks.
 Eventually calls
I ponder and decide that likely one of these guys has me beaten. Either early position guy with an overpair. Or loose guy has a 6 for trips. Or he is on a flush draw or has a ten or perhaps a flush draw and a straigth draw.

I fold

River is 2c. Flush draw has now come in.  Early position guy checks
Loose guy ponders and, with a look of mild concern pushes the rest of his chips in
Early position guy calls.
Loose guy shows Jc6c for trips on turn and flush on river
Early position guy says that he had a 6 with a better kicker so my best guess is A6 suited.

Looking back at the hand, while I'm not absolutely sure,  I'm pretty sure that loose guy would likely have called a shove on the flop. And early position guy's range had too many overpairs on the the flop for me to feel great about shoving the flop.

Out of Port Melbourne into Newport

My two week visit to Port Melbourne ended today, which meant my luggage was re-acquainted with the Southern Cross Railway Station luggage lockers during that period of time between checking out of the Port Melbourne residence and being able to check into the Newport residence.. It seems that my suitcase is just a little too fat to get into the chosen locker so had to empty it a little to squeeze it in. Then off to the Casino to see if I could satellite into an Aussie Millions mega satellite. No luck but only $40 invested in that venture so no major concern. The cash tables were a little more kind to me and I had a small profit for the day.

Toodled off to Newport to my new AirBnB, arriving around 06:30pm to one of the nicer AirBnBs I've been in. With a shy 9 year old cat called Pogo. And a very gregarious small dog called Yoshi. The hostess for this place is a lady who appears to be in her fifties and retains a broad Scottish accent despite having left Scotland when she was 13.

Now settled comfortably onto a couch in my new room. Quiet location. Five days in this place as that is the maximum time that can be booked for this place. First time I've come across that particular restriction but no matter as the location is convenient for my van buying project.  Though I may well end up buying online. Both of the major car auction places I've been to allow online bidders. And there  are auctions being held all over Australia. I'm not going to be too concerned at having to travel somewhere to pick up a van that seems to be a good buy. Hmmm.  Sounds like a gamble buying online and not seeing the van in person... But it may be a risk worth taking. And if it doesn't work out does it really matter? Seeing that no-one reads this blog I'm allowed to pose questions to myself and answer them..

Binging on financial newsletters

I have a subscription to Intelligent investor, and, for the past 3 months, have been neglecting to read the weekly articles.  Not reading the articles for three months is a lengthy period to take my eye off that ball. So it is time to dig in and have a binge on those newsletters. I'll try to get through the three months worth of news letters over the next day or so.... It would be a waste to have subscribed and then not read any of the articles.

Getting back into the grind

Since returning from Vipassana land most of my poker has been online tournaments on pokerstars. With only two visits to Crown. Last night for a couple of hours which showed a $15 loss, and cash session on Friday for a small win and then a loss in the Friday night $175 freezeout  tournament.  I felt good in the tournament but was pretty card dead for much of my time. Seemed to be able to be present in the moment for large chunks of time and to be able to replay the action from most hands in my head. If I continue to be able to do that in live tournaments that will represent a major step forward for my mental game. There has been too much information available that I have failed to pick up on. I bailed from last nights cash session due to tiredness.  When I realized I'd gone for an orbit without taking note of the action I cashed out immediately. Too many losing sessions when tired so I'm glad I managed to avoid staying too long last night.

That was then followed by an all  night session playing poker through to around 8:00 am this morning. During that time I had a Netflix binge on Narcos. Watching all of season 1.  This AirBnB has allowed me to watch the last two seasons of House of Cards, the new series "Stranger Things", and now the first season of Narcos. After a month of zero TV in Vipassana land, having a binge feels good.  Although I'm still trying to put in at least one hour of poker study per day.  Listening to poker podcasts fills some of that time. I've given myself a gift of some noise cancelling headphones. And, after having had to deal with Apple ear buds for the past 6 months, having these headphones on is so much more pleasurable.

Body clock wise it seems I have  turned into a night owl. Which is not what I want to have happen. There is a fall out when I wish to be somewhere in the morning or midday time frame. Feel far too woolly headed and tired at those times. And as buying a van at auction is an activity I've been spending some time on over the past week or so, having to be up and away early is going to be something I have to do at least a few more times.

Since returning from Vipassana land I've managed to meditate for at least 1 session of at least 1 hour on a daily basis. Which I'm finding is a good thing.

Weight wise, I weighed myself a couple of days ago and found myself to be right on 85Kg. Given that when I arrived in Melbourne on Jan 23 this year I was 95Kg, that is another good thing.

And I've decided to set myself a new goal. To increase my flexibility by regularly stretching my hamstrings and by doing some shoulder stretches. After listening to Tim Ferriss's podcast interview regarding the secrets of gymnastic strength training, I've taken a kernel of information from that podcast regarding how long it takes to stretch out connective tissue and decided to marry it with some information from the tiny habits ted talk. My intention is to spend some time stretching at the completion of my morning meditation session. Say around 5 minutes or so. And to throw in some stretches during the day when I've worked out a cue that works for me.  It seems that, according to the gymnastics coach Tim Ferriss interviewed,  around 220 days or so of effort is required to make the progress I desire. So I'll be interested to see whether I'm able to introduce the habit and keep it going.

Ten years of Vipassana

In November 2006 I sat my first Vipassana course. And here I am almost ten years later still involved in Vipassana.

In November 2006 I was 47 years old, had been working in an office job at a desk for most of my adult life, and had spent very little time in a cross-legged sitting position since primary school. At that time the folks running Vipassana were likely a little more hard-line than they are now in trying to get people to sit cross-legged. I suffered a lot of pain during that course. And, in many respects, was the hardest ten days of my life.

Probably would not have returned except for the feedback from my ex that there seemed to be an impact that lasted around three months. And that was despite my doing pretty much zero meditation in the months after my first course. It seems her perception was that I was much stiller when asleep. To the point that every so often she would prod me to see if I was still alive / breathing. From a distance of ten years later I attribute my lack of meditation after that first course being due to the message given in one of the later discourses in the ten day course. That is,  that we should commit to two 1 hour meditation sessions per day. And given that I could not easily sit cross legged that was a sure recipe for failure with respect to being able to sit for two 1 hour sessions per day.  These days I would advocate that any time spent is better than no time spent. And if I had started off at an achievable level I may well be more advanced in my practice than I currently find myself. Even ten minutes once a day would have been a good place to start. The Ted talk on Tiny Habits advocates starting small and banking achievable wins when starting out on the path of trying to imbed a new habit into life. I would also point out that the Vipassana desire to get its students sitting cross legged is based off some words attributed to Bhudda with respect to how one should sit when meditating. Personally I believe sitting in a chair is fine. And that cross legged sitting can be optional. But that sitting without back support is a good goal to work towards as it allows you to stay more awake.

Fast forward through my next two courses - November 2007 and Feb 2009 and there was still much pain associated with sitting. A few days into my third course I was starting to wonder where the subtle vibrations were that were mentioned so frequently during the course. So I asked the teacher. Who sort of looked at me a little sadly and advised me to keep working.  It wasn't until sometime on day 9 of my third course that I started to experience the subtle vibrations on a 2 to 3 cm wide area on my face....  And on each course since then the areas I experience subtle "vibrations" has expanded to cover most areas of my body.

The dogma put forward is that the subtle "vibrations" is the mind's perception of the dissolution of the body and that the mind is perceiving the vibrations of  kalapas. I reject that part of the theory as it just doesn't seem credible to me. I can see where Goenka may have developed his belief that the perception of subtle vibrations is the minds perception of kalapas. However, my view is that the brain is being rewired to be more sensitive to the background noise of the sensory neurons.

Each sensory neuron automatically fires after a set amount of time. Say every 70 milli-seconds. Sort of like an "I'm alive" signal being sent to the sensory cortex. And when the rate changes - say to a less frequent rate or a higher rate, these changes in firing frequency can mean something to the sensory cortex. My own belief is that the "subtle vibrations" that Goenka talks about are, in fact, the background "I'm Alive" signals that are being sent in by millions of sensory cortex neurons.

Thus, for me, when I perceive subtle vibrations on a new part of my body where I have never detected subtle vibrations previously, the conclusion I reach is that I have rewired yet another part of my sensory cortex.

Each time I sit a ten day course I essentially commit to listening to the same set of discourses again. The ten day discourses were taped many years ago and are replayed at each ten day course at every Vipassana center around the world. Each time I seem to find a new part of the discourse I disagree with. Having said that, there are some useful parts for new meditators who may be struggling with practical issues related to their meditation. Goenka discusses problems with meditation that may arise and the mind set you can use to get around those problems. But all the talk of Bhudda,  past lives and kalapas is pretty much ignored by me these days as being faith based dogma with no evidence to support the dogma. Thus the price of admission, listening to the discourses, is something I have to deal with during each course.  Essentially I believe that a ten day retreat to meditate is good for me. And that I will put up with the discourse as a rather small price to pay for attending an affordable meditation retreat. Goenka states in one discourse that it is not important to believe the information in the discourse. And when the time is ripe you will start believing the discourse. Well, not in this life time. And as I believe that one life time is all you get I'm a thinking that I'll never be believing his discourses.

After sitting six ten day courses I started serving. And I've found that I enjoy serving a course more than sitting. When serving you have to sit three 1 hour meditation sessions per day. I find that, when serving, as the time available for meditation is concentrated into those 1 hour sessions I focus more in the sessions and take the sessions seriously. When I'm sitting a course with up to 10 or 12 hours of meditation looming in front of me for the day I seem to spend more time being unfocused and re-living moments from the past. And that is not an activity that I particularly enjoy. Especially following my break-up with my ex as that could lead me towards regretful thoughts and some pretty dark places.  Therefore I'm serving more than sitting these past few years and enjoying the experience.

One of the benefits of serving up until this 30 day course is that the discourses have been optional on the ten day courses. And I was expecting that to be the case on the 30 day course I served this last August. Alas, this was not to be the case. There was a mandatory evening discourse scheduled every night for the servers. We could not listen to the discourse that the 30 day students were getting as you had to have sat the 30 day course before getting that set of discourses.  But if the discourses were anything like the ten day discourses, or the discourses from the 8 day Satipatthna Sutta, then no great loss. Probably more exhortation of how great the Bhudda's words were. What a great scientist he was etc. And very little new in terms of meditation technique.  Unfortunately the discourse is scheduled for late in the day, in this 30 day course, just before evening metta. So I was pretty tired going into most of the discourses and slipped off to sleep several times.  When I was more awake I tried to ignore the discourse and meditate. Sometimes successfully.

I keep my views on the discourses pretty close to my chest when serving as many servers seem to have bought into the explanation by Goenka for why the technique works, and I see no point in trying to convince them otherwise. It isn't too hard to find some critical posts on the internet regarding the Goenka courses. For example, at one website there is a long thread discussing whether the people who drink the kool-aid, (as in believe the discourses), have been caught in a cult. It seems that to become a teacher at a Goenka center that you have to have bought into the dogma. And, as the organisation promotes unquestioning obedience to authority, it is unlikely, in my view, that there will be any change to the discourses in the near to medium future. However, it is my believe that, at some point, the evidence from research into how meditation works will end up discrediting large chunks of Goenka's discourses. Belief in past lives is a belief I put into the same bucket as belief in Santa being real of the Easter Bunny being real.  A faith based belief.

These days I can sit in, what is, in yoga terms, easy cross legs, for an hour at a time with little discomfort. And that is a nice place to be when meditating. The people that have bought into the Goenka discourses would attribute the pain when sitting during my early courses down to my having Sankaras being present and I needed to work my way through my load of Sankaras. Which I think is a load of bollocks. The pain was due to me stretching connective tissue. And the connective tissue was complaining at being made to stretch for the first time in about 40 years. Subsequently, now that I've sat for long enough, the tissue has been stretched and is much better at coping with lengthy periods of sitting in a cross-legged posture.

Another trick I've found useful is to acquire a meditation stool and alternate between sitting cross-legged and kneeling on the meditation stool. Alternating sitting positions seems to allow me to better cope with prolonged sitting.

So I keep returning to Vipassana centers to sit or serve in the knowledge that to get the benefits of being supported through a ten day meditation course at a cost I can afford, I have to sit and listen each day to a discourse that, with each passing year, shows more and more signs of being sadly out of date.