Dr. Chako Birthday Bash

6 Apr 08

My birthday was a rousing success and a helluva good time. We had a small gathering at Chez Chako with a mix of other docs, accountants and degenerate poker bloggers. The food from Fred Meyer was good as usual, but The Wife’s homemade guacamole once again stole the show. Seriously, there is no better guac on the planet.

I always get nice but usually impractical gifts for my birthday. This year was something special. Dave, one of the Army docs and my sole employee, brought me 18 year old Macallan scotch. Off the charts! He doesn’t drink scotch, but he knows I like it so he went into his local liquor store and said, “Just gimme your best.” Awesome.

The scotch was perfectly timed too, because I was on the dregs of my last bottle of Macallan. I got to polish it off thanks to a well-timed dial-a-shot from none other than Bam Bam! The Wife hands me the phone as says, “This is the most important phone call you will get tonight.” What, is it the President? Even better – it was the contingent from Bedrock and I was blown away. A hoist of the glass toward the Great White North and there were two scotch drinkers who were very happy.

My kids got together with my Au Pair and bought me Planet Earth. I’m very psyched for this show. I saw some of it in Iraq, but I’m really stoked to see it in High Def. Of course, my best birthday present comes next week from The Wife as I board a plane for Adult Disneyworld.

The three blogger degenerates (other than myself and The Wife) were Cayne, Joshua and Zeem. It’s so nice to see an outed couple like Cayne and Joshua. It must have been tough living their lives in the closet for so long.

I have a limited memory of the tournament. I know I didn’t win, but neither did The Wife (neener, neener). She was actually second in chips towards the end, but no one could figure out how. She spent most of the time playing with a baby and socializing. We had to call her back to the table multiple times. It was some sort of cagy accountant strategy, but it worked! At one point, Cayne and I looked at her monster chip stack and neither of us could figure out how it got there.

A monster three-way all-in between me, The Wife and Andrew (another doc) brought it to heads-up. It was 8-8 (Andrew) vs. A-K (The Wife) vs. 3-4 (me), and the eights held up. I think the final battle lasted one or two hands. Congrats to Andrew for taking it down and to Cayne for a solid second (who would never have been there if not for a well-timed fold on that 3-way all-in).

I can’t wait for the next gathering. Hopefully we’ll do it soon, but if not, I’m pretty sure we are all going to Vegas for the June gathering.