Senioritis

I had my thesis defense last Tuesday. In keeping with my whole approach to the affair, I waited until the last moment to prepare, and put the finishing touches on my praesis (sp?) only minutes before the actual defense. I'm a true intellectual procrastinator. While I may not have been as ready as I could have been, I felt very relaxed. This was pretty much necessary, as I was about to spend the next hour doing something I had spent the last four years trying not to do; talk in a classroom. It went well for the most part, though I found Dr. McArthur to be non-sensical at best. He kept bringing up what I thought were objections or problems with what I was saying, but after he verbally fumbled around for several minutes and I tried asking him to clarify his question, he'd start all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat for the next half-hour, and you have the bulk of my defense. It was wholly unsatisfying. It's clear that most of the tutors barely glance over the theses they are attacking. Instead, they try and get a grasp of your position, and rely on their previous knowledge of the subject matter to try and test you. McArthur had a different understanding of the operation of the practical intellect in moral matters, and since I was under the assumption that he had read and uderstood my position, I think my failure to realize this led to most of the problems we had.

McArthur was holding that in moral matters, since our intellect judges about universal propositions, and can only act upon one judgment at a time in the practical syllogism formed in moral action, it must through a fault made in grasping the particular in some action that the incontinent man acts. Otherwise, he held, the incontinent man would not differ from the intemperate man, for he would not be acting against some judgment from reason, but from some other universal proposition. This is the problem we struggled with for the majority of the time he talked. When I finally realized what he was saying, I was shocked, because this is such a basic misunderstanding of Aristotle's position. Aristotle holds that the practical intellect judges concerning universal propositions relating to moral action, and presents these propositions in the formulation of the practical syllogism. When the continent man acts, he has two universal propositions in his intellect. One proposition comes from judgment in accord with right reason, the other is a proposition presented by the desiring part of the soul. It's clear that this proposition is taken from what St. Thomas refers to as the Formes of Sin, or the law of the members. It is not a proposition formed by the reason, but the appetitive part of the soul does present the intellect with this desire in the form of a proposition. The continent man rejects the influence of his passions and holds to the judgment of his reason, and acts through a practical syllogism in which this universal judgment of reason forms the major premise. In the incontinent man, the will allows desire to win out over reason, and such a man acts through the universal proposition from desire. In either case, though moral actions are concerned with particulars, the particular to be acted upon remains the same. So the intoncintent man does NOT differ as McArthur wanted to say by mistaking the universal in the particular. He seemed shocked when I made the distinction between the two universal propositions involved in the moral operation of the incontinent man. Weird. Like I said, the whole affair was unsatisfying, when the majority of the discussion was spent trying to resolve such a basic misunderstanding.

Pat C., Gabe, Claire and I hit the Hill Top afterwards. We've been there more or less everynight for the last few weeks celebrating our "circumcisions" - Big Al's coinage - and this night was a capper. After my second or third pitcher, and who knows how many free double shots of Crowne (with a dash of coke, you rock Big Al), I found myself staring at one of the barflies across from me.

Setting: lots of loud background chatter, swimming lights and a rosy glow surrounding a group of college kids smoking and drinking inside the Hill Top. Camera pans, focusing in on a young man perched atop a bar stool with elbows resting on the counter, a cigarette hanging from lips parted in laughter, engaging in conversation with someone off the screen. Over time the crowd slowly lessens, the laughter begins to fade, and the hero slowly starts aging as the cigarette cherry burns lower. His hairline starts receeding, his waistline expands and he becomes less animated and aware of his surroundings, which are slowly changing as time progresses into the future - but really, how much do bars change? The rosy glow and laughter of the opening scene eventually fade into a dull background murmor arising out of the shadows, and the camera focuses in on our now wrinkled and balding hero sullenly staring into the bottom of a whiskey glass, the last few puffs of his cigarette wreathing his gnarled features in obscurity. If you want to be whole circle about the thing, at the end we have a new hero plop down on the bar, laughing with his friends as he lights up a cigarette and accidentally elbows the old hero in the ribs, causing him to drop the now spent butt. Fin. Cue new age hippie music!

Bob is really the inspiration for this little idea. Bob is a fifty-something cowboy from up north, and he remembers. Or so he kept assuring us. For several hours good old Bob felt moved to share his years of wisdom with Gabe and I. The best place to find loose women in these parts of California: "Up ways near Bakersfield... Crystal Palace. You come through those swinging doors, tip the hat, and 'yes ma'am'." He gave us some tips on good hikes around the area, ideas on investment (always silver) and property managment, and even a place to stay if we ever come up north. When Gabe finally let him know we were Catholic, his frequent comments on laying the loose women stopped coming. He later mentioned he had a rosary in his truck. The discussion never really turned religious, but it did seem like something resembling a conscience was awakened in him for a time. This coming from a man currently supporting three lady interests and a wife he no longer lives with. It's amazing how responsive all of these old barflies are to Catholicism and us TAC students in particular. I've got a lot of stories and memories now from talking with guys like Bob, and while these characters are really interesting, they're also incredibly depressing. Hence the hero in my little story. You pray for these people and hope something good comes to them in the end, but you don't expect it.

Late Night Boredom

People keep asking me what I plan on doing after I graduate. I ask the same thing of my friends. It's natural. People we care for and have spent the better part of four years in close contact with will soon cease to be a part of our daily lives, and we want to know the why where and how.

I've never actually sat down and said to myself, "This would be a feasible and rational way to spend the rest of my life, I think I'll figure out how to go about it." I have interests and hobbies which could conceivably turn into professional sources of income, but I don't bank on any of them. In the short term, I know I have the knowledge and talent to make money playing poker. I know people who do it, and it doesn't seem to be an enviable way to live in the long run. I would like to play professional golf, and before I came to this place, I was sporting a scratch handicap or better, so that might be promising. I'm in love with the classical guitar, and can definately see myself living my life as a teacher/performer. Both of these options would require a large amount of efffort and determination, both are virtues I currently lack. And poker is geared for the unambitious and lazy, so you can see my natural inclination. Anyone who is intelligent enough to spend the time learing poker theory and gaining enough experience to understand and beat the game would be able and much better off in pursuing a more lucrative and rewarding profession. So let's pray it's only short-term if I get involved with this at all.

It's interesting how a good poker player must disconect himself from the value of his money. Short term results are truly meaningless, and even the best poker players can lose terrifying amounts of money in a single night. I had been lucky in my previous visits to Commerce Casino in L.A., but on Friday managed to drop about a third of the money I've made there recently back to the fishies. But it doesn't really bother me. I have all of my poker money set aside, and I don't really think of it as spending money. It is money though, and you have to respect it while you're playing at a table, or you won't hold on to it for long. This disconnect therefore bridges a fine line between being too careful and anxious with your poker chips, and not caring enough so that you start gambling instead of playing.

An example, and this is really a common one. I had busted out of the $9/$18 limit game I started in after four or five hours of subpar play and bad cards, and sat down in the $100 min/max No-Limit game. There were two or three fairly new inexperienced players, several solid and aggressive players, and the rest were your typical low limit poker player (i.e., they know the rules and have a decent familiarity with the game, but are generally far too loose and passive). I was up several buy-ins when I found pocket eights in early position. I called the $3 blind, and five other players called for a flop of 3 8 Q rainbow suited. Hot damn! I checked, knowing several aggressive players in the hand were likely to bet, giving me a good opportunity to build a nice pot before going all-in and shutting out all of the absurd draws that people chase. Sure enough, solid aggressive asian #1 raises it to $40, a loose and aggressive player reraises it $80, and it comes back to me. I'm only behind to pocket queens, and really, that's a 1000:1 chance that two pocket pairs would trip up on the flop. So I reraise all-in, making any overpairs or gutshot straight/flush draws call improperly. Aggressive asian reraises all-in over my all-in, and the other guy calls. It's now something like an $800 pot with my share being around $700. The turn comes a 10, and with all our cards now exposed AggAsian is sporting a disgusting queen-high straight with J 9, and the other player two pair with Q 9. I now have three threes, three tens, and one eight to help me improve. That's 7 out of 46 cards to help me, a little better than 6:1 against happening. And of course it doesn't happen and I'm now out of two games.

I grab Nick K. and we go smoke, and it's somewhere around 3 A.M. He's barely keeping his head above the water in the $1/$2 game, having most of his many high pocket pairs cracked by the crazies. The smoking crowd outside the entrance to Commerce Casino at three in the morning only heightens the bizarre nature of how we've chosen to spend our Friday night. I listen to Nick describe his bad beats and think, "If you only knew." He heads back to his table, and I decided to play some low limit seven-card stud. Whoo! I managed to gamble away $50 over the next several hours to a few old asian ladies and an elderly man who looked like the late George Burns dressed to pimp. An interesting situation occured when the two forty-somethings at the table who had been flirting for the last hour or so decided to head to the ladies car for some wink-wink nudge-nudge after Mr. lost his last few chips. Ms. (or [not his] Mrs.?) left her stack of chips and they giggled their way from the table. Mr. returned a good hour later with a big fat grin spread across his sweaty red face, and somehow managed to claim Ms. stack of chips. Of course Ms. shows up five minutes later, and where the fuck is my money you fucks and fuck this and that and fuck. The floor man escorted her away and I assume this to be the first time in history that a sweaty balding forty-something man got some and walked away with more more than he started.

At 5 A.M. carts of food began wheeling to different players and I found out that Commerce offers a $2 "Full House" breakfast during this hour. A plate of greasy grade D eggs and bacon after a long night of bad beats and Red Bull is not something I'd care to try again. And after all this we only have a three hour drive to look forward to!

Not surprisingly, I had one of the more random experiences of my life around midnight. A small, middle-aged asian guy sitting to my right was watching CNN's coverage of the Pope's decline. I asked him if he was Catholic. Whoops. Yes, he is a "catholic" and how dare the Vatican make the Pope serve for life. Our presidents only serve for four years, but these Popes and their life long terms! Outrageous. He said alot more, but I could really only understand that much. I made a vague defence of the Pope inbetween throwing money to the other players, but I don't think he was buying it :(

On another note, my three year and six-figure project is coming to a close (hopefully) tomorrow, as Darren and I put some final fixes on the Mustang. It has given me so many headaches and problems that I wrote the damn thing off for several months and have only recently found the desire to fix it. I got it up and running after fiddling with some wiring and replacing several parts. It now runs, but the beast will not idle. It takes after its owner: too lazy to even do the minimal. We think we've narrowed it down to a timing problem, and if this isn't it, I'm driving it into the creek.

And it's now five in the morning again, but I have no "Full House" breakfast. I fold(?)