We had this work thing today at Louisville's Fourth Street Live. Specifically at the Lucky Strike bowling lanes and the poolhall Felt.

I suppose that, as these offsite meetings go, this one was okay. I can always think of about a zillion real things I could be working on instead of attending these day-long meetings.

During the lunch break several people grabbed a pool table and started playing 8-ball amongst themselves. I got my own table and started banking balls in. Even with the crappy house cue, the dismal lighting, the large stains on the cloth consisting of I don't want to know what, and the fact that the entire table leaned heavily to one side, I found that it's surprisingly difficult to miss a bank shot on an eight foot table.

Most of the people that know me at work know that I'm a pool player, and that I'm a pretty good one. I'm not sure that they grasp just how good compared to them, or that if there was any money in it at all for a player at my level I'd hang up my keyboard and make my living doing something I love instead of something I merely enjoy.

I heard some people talking today, making little comments about how I was playing by myself and wondering if everyone was just too scared to play me. These comments were all made jokingly and everybody got a good laugh out of it, including me. But nobody came over to my table.

If all they're wanting is a chance to win, then they did well to stay away. If winning is what's most important to them, they shouldn't get within ten feet of me and a pool table.

I understand the desire to win. I've seen it often enough, felt it often enough. I just never let it take away from the simple enjoyment of playing. Those times when I found myself outmatched and I lost, I still enjoyed every minute of it. Those times when I knew going in that I wasn't likely to win - I still played. To avoid the competition because of a fear of losing - what's the fun in that?

Maybe part of the reason for my ability to enjoy myself is that I've generally been pretty good at whatever I do. Better than average I guess you could say.

Darts. Horseshoes. Shooting baskets. Bowling.

Bowling was the team-building portion of the offsite meeting. We split up into teams and bowled all these crazy frames; opposite handed, granny style, backwards granny style, blindfolded, etc.

Those were the odd-numbered frames. The even-numbered frames were real bowling.

Back when I was in the Air Force, we'd take a Friday off each month and just go bowl together. We always had a lot of fun, even without all of the goofy-assed odd-numbered frame restrictions. I wish we'd done that today. Just bowled.

So I scored a 91. My even-numbered frames probably made up 75 of those points. My odd-numbered frames were fairly useless. If I'm figuring things correctly I'd have bowled a 165 or so if the whole game had been normal bowling. I used to average about 185 in my Air Force days, but I'd certainly take a 165 considering how I've bowled about 10 games in the last 13 years.

I mentioned a while back that this Lucky Strike place has Smithwick's on tap. I had two, and they were delicious. Everybody else was using their drink tickets to get drinks made with our company's products, but I paid for my own beer. People told me that I should use my drink tickets - nobody would care - but I would care so I bought my own beers.

Just wanted to write something today. This is a pretty boring entry I guess.

Oh yeah I stopped at Rich O's on the way home and had a Spezial Rauchbier. Tried to text-message RealTrainGirl to see if she was stopping by but got no answer.