mikewelch.com’s Blog

Well, I downloaded the new Word Press APP for the iPhone. With this APP, I’m able to post to my blog from anywhere in the world. So here it is, my first remote post.

I’m a member of the Cincinnati Poker Club, which is kind of like a ‘poker league’. We play tournaments once a month for 10 months. At the end of our ’season’, our league champion earns the $10,000 buy-in for the Main Event at the World Series of Poker. If you are not familiar with tournament poker, it is every poker players dream to play in the Main Event. This is the big one, kind of like the Super Bowl of poker. Legends are made at the tournament. The club bylaws state that the club representative must share his winnings the club. He keeps 61% and the rest of the 39 members each receive 1%.

This year at the 2008 Main Event, Joe Bishop represented our club. He was decked our in our ‘Cincinnati Poker Club’ shirts, in hopes of seeing him on ESPN. Well, Joe did a fantastic job of representing our club in the tournament. We found out on Friday (7/11) that he had survived 3 days at the Main Event. For the next four days all the members of the club followed his progress in the Main Event. Since ESPN won’t air the Main Event until September, we followed his progress via the Web. Each night I was up refreshing Pokernews.com’s blog of the event, until 3 AM ET. Each day, Joe kept improving his standing in the tournament. Each day he survived, the prize money improved. On day seven Joe was actually the chip leader! It’s hard to explain how exciting those 4 days were to me and the other members. I was more excited that I knew someone who was leading the WSOP Main Event than the fact I would win some money.

Finally, Joe was busted from the tournament in 11th place. He won $591,000. Yes, he won over 1/2 million dollars! The local media picked up the story. Yours truly was actually quoted in the local paper, the Cincinnati Enquirer.

You can watch an interview of Joe on Poker News.com

I upgraded my Iphone to the 2.0 firmware. The first application I purchased on Texas Hold’em. Why did I buy this application first? I am a poker fan. Well, with over 500 application available, the choice was not easy. But when I read the user reviews, I just couldn’t help myself. The graphics and animation are unbelievable for a phone. But remember, this is not a phone. It is a hand-held computer. I honestly believe that Apple has changed the computer world forever. The Iphone will be the next leading computer platform.

We have returned from our vacation to Clearwater Florida. We had a nice relaxing time. Now that the kids are teenagers, our trips to the beach are quite different. They would rather sleep until noon, drive past the beach, avoiding the sand and then eat at a beach restaurant. I had to drag them to the beach. I did get them to visit the beach during a beautiful sunset. On the right is one of my favorite photos.

We spent 3 days in Chicago at the ASICS JR National Volleyball tournament. Ryan played with his freshman team from Elder. This was my first experience at a large scale volleyball tournament. 44 courts under one roof. We played 10 games over 3 days. The highlight of the weekend was beating a very talented team from Puerto Rico in one game. Here are some pictures from the event:
http://www.mikewelch.com/photogallery/2008/06/vb_ryan_chicago_day1_080613/
http://www.mikewelch.com/photogallery/2008/06/vb_ryan_chicago_day2_080614/

Following the trip to Chicago, we stopped in Cincinnati for a few hours and then headed straight to Clearwater Florida.

To the right is my favorite photo from the Boy’s Volleyball Ohio State Championships, when Elder High School completed their undefeated, 28-0 season. I took over 1800 photos that day. This one captures the pure level of excitement when they won the match. Click the photo to see a larger image.

Well, I finally started a blog. I’m using Wordpress to create my very own blog.

Please don’t expect daily posts from me. I’m no Doogie Houwser, but I will on occasion make a post when I find something interesting.