Friday was...interesting. A very good day at work. A nice lunch out. Left early.

Poker started about an hour later than I expected, and as I was a few hours into the 30 Hour Famine at that point, I had to suffer through watching Ko and Joel pound down some mini-man-burgers. Played smart for the most part, as usual. Made a few dumb moves that ended up killing me, as usual.

Here's my problem: I play all the real poker games (Texas H-E, anything stud or straight draw) to the T. Fold when I've got nothing, reel em in when I have a big one. Its the less-pokery, more fun (for lack of a better term) games that I lose all my money on - the ones where there's no way to play smart because of the cards you can't see. Follow the queen; Baseball; The good, the bad, and the ugly; and worst of all - Guts. I can't win these games.

I left with more money than I came with. Ko dropped big, for a change. The new kid Paul picked up big-time. I'll get it back from him soon enough.

About 1am I started noticing that my sinuses were getting pressured and the throat was a little scratchy. By the walk home, I knew I was in trouble. Horrible night's sleep - what little there was of it, followed by a day of hydration and relaxation. I should have kept a good thing going, but come 5pm I decided to meet up with the youth group kids/leaders who were headed to the Steven Curtis Chapman / Casting Crowns / Chris Tomlin concert.

The median age in the arena was probably about 16 years old. I haven't been to a big concert in a while - I'm thinking maybe Autumn Blaze from 2 years back was the last one - but I'm pretty sure it was the first time I saw the band encourage the audience to shine their cell-phones (as opposed to lighters). It was cool, but weird - in 10 years, will kids even know that we once used lighters, with (gasp) real fire? Did these kids even know?

The bands were ok. The sound was about on par with a facility set up for the acoustics of hockey.

Back to the church offices to wrap up the 30HF with worship, a lesson, and a pizza party. Played the guitar for the first time since maybe October. Bloodied the fingers a bit, but they'll get better (see my bit on the skin problem with my hands, if you're confused).

I realized how much I love spending time with these kids and leaders when I couldn't resist going out to a concert/late evening even when I knew I should stay home and rest. Realized it again when I played guitar when I shouldn't have. I know I'm not the perfect guy, but I'm glad they seem to want me around. From our collective read, Max Q:

The Christian life is a lifelong journey of walking in a certain direction, falling down, getting up, dusting ourselves off, and walking on, mile after mile after mile. It is a life of direction aimed at perfection--not the converse. The major factor in accountability is not that any of us is perfect; it's that the course of our lives is set in the right direction.

I've polished off a 6 oz. bottle of Nyquil in the past 45 minutes and I'm not even within range of mildly tired. I'm debating setting the alarm because I don't want to miss breakfast with the group back at the offices, and church together, but I have to be realistic. Gotta get some rest sometime.