Whoops, it's been a while

Been playing short sessions somewhat often, but really not much time for teh pokerz in terms of sheer number of hours.  At work, we're wrapping up a 3-year product release, and while there's no longer any coding and testing to be done, there's a crapload of little details I need to attend to for packaging and documenting everything.  It's very busy, but actually very boring.  Times like this that I think how cool it would be to be doing something else.  Thankfully, we're talking about a few weeks for, like I said, a 3-year development cycle, where it's really bad. 

This is coinciding with annual review time, which I really don't look forward to.  One of the things I really like about my job is coaching the people who want to be coached on my team.  There are several of them, and I think that by and large, I do pretty well by them.  I've also learned how to not give unwanted advice to the people who are happy with the way things are and are doing a good job.  I used to assume that everyone was looking for bigger challenges and to get better at everything, but that just isn't true.  Leaving the people alone who want to be left alone, and can handle being left alone, is a surprisingly hard and valuable thing to do as a manager, in my opinion anyway.

Anyway, as much as I enjoy the whole feedback process for those who look forward to it, I hate the formality of the annual reviews.  I feel too conscientious to just blow it off with a shoddy written review, though, so I agonize over just the perfect way to communicate for the people who really take it seriously.  It's worth it for their benefit and their reaction/appreciation, but it's a pain.  I much prefer more informal conversations.  Even though I never cover new ground in the annual review any longer -- my folks know I've got an open door throughout the year, plus if something's on my mind for them, I'm not exactly shy about bringing it up -- there's something a lot different about writing things down in an official form.

So, all that activity has been keeping me busy during and after working hours, unless I steal 45 minutes here and there for cards.  Add to that my dad was in town the last couple weekends, from Maine.  We don't see him much, so when we could, we spent time with him.

For the cards that I have played, overall I've been pleased, in a qualified way.  I'm not really in a good groove, so I'm making a fair number of mistakes.  But my hand analysis seems to be quite a bit easier (assuming it is correct).  I've spot checked a few things with Jared, confirming my analysis. 

Given I'm a really low-volume player, plus not relying on poker for living expenses, I'd rather play below potential but understand the game well, compared to playing closer to potential, but having that potential be lower.  In other words, on some imaginary proficiency scale, I'd rather play at 70 with a potential to play at 100 than play at 80 with a potential to play at 85.  Or something like that.