The CBS drama "Cold Case" always gets to me, I cry like a baby. They use great songs during the closing moments. The Dean Martin Roast of Joe Garagiola is quite good. Have so many great baseball legends ever been on the same stage at the same time: Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, Yogi Berra, Maury Wills, Orson Welles. Quite entertaining. Red Buttons never got a dinner. Secretariat, who when they retired him, said they're going to give me six million dollars and all I have to do is THAT! Never got a dinner.

Dean felt an impending sense of gloom as he drove over to the pot limit poker game. Since laying off poker 5 months ago, he was up almost eight grand in less than a month. He was on the best roll of his life. Couldn’t lose. Played tough and luck was with him. When you don’t get into the game more than a thousand, you can beat the game. But getting in the game a thousand can also lead to two thousand and more. He had done that a couple times before he quit five months ago. Thus, the impending sense of gloom that always hung over him on the way to the game.

Being up eight grand meant that he was even from the first six months of the year. But it felt better than being just even. Losing a thousand or two week after week fades with memory so the eight grand feels somehow like found money. Dean was considering quitting at this point. His friend Tom was encouraging him take a break and enjoy the fruits of gambling. However, had Dean taken that advice before last weekend he would not have won another seventeen hundred. So six goes to nearly eight. However, six could have also gone to four or less.
It’s very hard for a gambler to quit while he is ahead because the point is the action. You stay in the action until you lose it all and are out of the game. Dean had seen guys who were supposed to be good players get stuck in the pot limit game four or five thousand. When you’re stuck that much it’s almost impossible to win. But the last month seemed to be about actually winning. Or was he kidding himself?

Anonymousbuyer has left the building after twenty years. One score years in purchasing and a few odd months lounging about the City Jail. Twenty is the magic number. Attended school for twenty years--12 in DPS and 8 at Boulder--that's 20, pallie. Followed by twenty years in the same municipal purchasing department. Well, not really the same. Constantly evolving and changing like the waters of a Hericlitean river. Maybe it was anonymousbuyer who stayed the same and, ultimately, was unwilling or unable to adapt. Nice theory. "Candide" was recommended at the beginning as shedding light how things worked in the City in general and purchasing in particular. The Myth of Sisyphus was added to mix as years went by. Twenty years....

July 18, 2000, 3:55 pm----a Tuesday
I am finishing the second day in a row of full concentration at work. A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.
Two days in a row. Just day by day, dwelling on neither the past nor the future. Just stay in the Moment.
I met a man at Better Bodies this past Saturday who recognized me.
He remembered attending Place with Jerome. I never thought of Jerome going to Place. This fellow also remembered me Kicking for GW. I may be coming out of the grief and malaise of the last five years. Finally. I feel as though I could start working the whole day like everyone around here. Day by day. One day at a time.

Ah, one of my favorite passages......Can one have lived long enough?

Act V, scene 3

MACBETH Seyton!--I am sick at heart,
When I behold--Seyton, I say!--This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have lived long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. Seyton!

*
*
*

MACBETH
Cure her of that.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

Doctor:
Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.

MACBETH
Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.
Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff.
Seyton, send out. Doctor, the thanes fly from me.
Come, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.--Pull't off, I say.--
What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug,

Anoymousbuyer. A blog that no one will read. Prevailing wages. Illegal immigration certification. Just a part of the public sector purchasing experience. I don't know how I've handled it for these past twenty years. Easy gig for the most part--sometimes too easy.