lucky bastard is me

i guess i'm just about as prone to bouts of dumb luck as the next guy:

- i have a beautiful fiancee', Grace, who tolerates my dual obsessions of hockey and videogames with reasonable understanding

(here's a picture of her, shown holding a small Caucasian boy for ransom circa Christmas 2005)



- i occasionally make exceptional saves in the course of a hockey game that leave teammates (or sometimes opponents) politely applauding efforts not expected of a lowly beer-league netminder

- and just last Friday I held a seat at a Texas Hold Em game hosted by one of Grace's coworkers (she and her counterparts have been held under the whip by their corporate overlords for several months now on a grueling assignment, so a little organized R&R is appropriate) where I won a substantial pot by coming up with a ROYAL FLUSH, helped out by a timely Ace of Spades on the river.

I checked the stats on this one (thank you Interweb!) and the odds of this happening in Texas Hold Em are 1 in 649,740....so yes, i can be a lucky bastard at times.

for the road, here's a pic of some of grace's crew (give credit to Travis AKA T-Unit AKA T-dizzle, second from the left, for dealing me the RF):