Matt Holthe's Fleeting Thoughts

I just read about a new, up and coming, casino game called 7-14-21. More information can be found on the Wizard Of Odds web site. There is also a online game if you have Adobe Shockwave Flash installed. The idea of the game is you get 6 cards and you have to build 3 hands of 2 cards each. There are no rules in how you build your hand. What you ideally end up with is a hand that totals 21, a hand that totals 14, and a hand that totals 7. Aces count 1 or 11 in any hand. If your hands don't bust (each one individually) they play against the dealer's hands - your 7 hand against the dealer's 7 hand, your 14 against their 14, and your 21 against their 21. It looks like there is no way to write down a strategy. But here's what I figured out: If you can make all three hands total 7, 14, and 21, then obviously do that. If you can make two of the three hands match the values (a 7 and a 21, for example), then do that, no matter what the third hand ends up with. If you ...

One of the things I enjoy doing at the end of every year is to look back at some stats. Today I decided to count up how many different airports I've been to since starting my current job in early 2007. That covers nearly 5 years worth of travel. It turns out that I've been to 56 different airports: ABE (Allentown, PA); ABQ (Albuquerque, NM); ATL (Atlanta, GA); BMI (Bloomington, IL); BNA (Nashville, TN); BOS (Boston, MA); BUF (Buffalo, NY); BWI (Baltimore, MD); CID (Cedar Rapids, IA); CLE (Cleveland, OH); CLT (Charlotte, NC); CMH (Columbus, OH); CSG (Columbus, GA); CUN (Cancun, Mexico); DCA (Washington, DC - Reagan); DEN (Denver, CO); DFW (Dallas, TX); DTW (Detroit, MI); EVV (Evansville, IN); EWR (Newark, NJ); GRR (Grand Rapids, MI); HPN (White Plains, NY); IAD (Washington, DC - Dulles); IND (Indianapolis, IN); LAS (Las Vegas, NV); LAX (Los Angeles, CA); LGA (New York, NY - LaGuardia); MCI (Kansas City, MO); MDW (Chicago, IL - Midway); MEX (Mexico City, Mexico); MGM (Montgomery...

I normally don't stock-pile miles -- I use them for free flights for vacation and stuff. For example, I used 50,000 miles to send my wife and her friend Jenny out to Washington, DC, earlier this year. Since I tend to use miles, I don't think I've ever reached the 100K mile level in my account until today: I could be wrong - I might have gotten there on other airlines in previous years, but I don't think so. I looked back at my records going back to 2008 and I don't see a time when I had 100,000 miles in the bank on any airline. The most I saw was nearly 70,000 miles on United before we moved to Bloomington (and I stopped flying United because they don't fly into BMI).

Following up on my previous travel updates , I officially got both my AA Platinum status and Hilton Diamond status for 2012. I'm in the middle of my last trip of the year right now. This is my 29th Hilton stay for the year (I needed 28), and after my trip out here I now have 60 American segments (I needed 60) and will end up with 62 segments after the return trip. That was cutting it WAY too close for the year - hopefully next year I can do it with a little more room to spare.

My wife bought me a Kindle Fire for my birthday. I have been busy loading it up with books, magazine subscriptions, and apps. I haven't bought any movies yet or put any songs on it yet. But I thought I'd write down what app my apps were, just in case I need this list sometime in the future. Here are the apps I've installed so far: All Recipes Dinner Spinner American Airlines Andoku Sudoku 2 Free Angry Birds Free Audible Calculator Ultimate Lite CalenGoo Craps ESPN ScoreCenter Fandango Movies Golf Digest Magazine Jewels MapQuest Notepad Read It Later Pro Real Blackjack SI Magazine Solitaire The Weather Channel TIME Magazine TripIt Urbanspoon

The 2011 ACC/Big Ten Challenge is now over. The Big Ten won for the 3rd year in a row (after losing the first 10 years straight). The thing that was amazing (to me at least) was how well Vegas did at predicting the winners. On the first day, you could have bet all the favorites and won 5 out of 6. Even the one that you would have lost (Georgia Tech -3 vs Northwestern) would have been a winner with the opening line (Northwestern -1 initially). Here are all the results: Virginia (-3) vs Michigan - Virginia 70, Michigan 58 Georgia Tech (-3) vs Northwestern - Northwestern 76, Georgia Tech 60 Illinois (-4) at Maryland - Illinois 71, Maryland 62 Purdue (-9.5) vs Miami (Florida) - Purdue 76, Miami (Florida) 65 Clemson (-1) at Iowa - Clemson 71, Iowa 55 Ohio State (-7.5) vs Duke - Ohio State 85, Duke 63 Penn State (-5) at Boston College - Penn State 62, Boston College 54 Indiana (-1.5) at North Carolina State - Indiana 86, North Carolina State 75 Michigan State (-7.5) vs Florida Sta...

After a 2-8 horrible week picking college football games, I now stand in 151st place. Ouch. There's only 2 more weeks left in the season, so not much time to make up the ground from such a bad week. I guess the dream is dead...

Ugh. Travel has been pretty heavy the last several weeks. I just finished my 6th week in a row of going somewhere. (One of those was vacation, which helped). Now I'm at home for Thanksgiving week next week, and then back out on the road for three straight weeks (almost full weeks, too) before shutting it down the last couple weeks of the year. I'll make my AA Platinum status easily (I need 60 segments and will end up with anywhere from 62 to 66, depending on what I decide for a couple trips). And I'll easily make my Hilton Diamond status (I need 28 stays and will end up with 30). I just wish that the travel was a bit more spread out. Next year I have to remember to not be so agreeable when someone asks for my availability the last 3 months of the year.

Last week I dropped a bit from 21st place to 28th place. I was only 6-4 that week, and lost by 5, 6, and 7 (out of 10) confidence point games. So that wasn't a very good week. The following week I had a decent week, but dropped to 55th place. I went 7-3, but lost my 9 point game, which really hurt. I'm 10 points out of 2nd place. The person leading has 517 points, with second place at 508 points. I need to pick up my game the final three weeks of the season.

A couple weeks ago I posted that I was in third place in the ESPN college football pool. Then I had a terrible week and dropped to 30th place. (Still on the first page of the leader board, though). Last week I did a little better and moved up to 21st place. Although I'm still mad at Wisconsin. They took the lead over Ohio St with just over a minute remaining and then let them get a long kickoff return and allowed the Buckeyes to march down the field and get a touchdown with 20 seconds to go. Cost me 9 points. If I had one that game, I would have moved up quite a bit. (I don't know exactly what place I would have been in - a lot of other people had Wisconsin, too).

The vacation year for me ends December 31. So I have to finish taking all my vacation for the year. Between that and the holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas), I just figured out that I'll be working 14 out of 30 days in November and 15 out of 31 days in December. Less than half of each month. And I have a lot of stuff to do. I have a feeling there will be a difference between official work days and actual work days.

Three weeks worth of a lot of segments and hotels. I'm now down to needing 10 segments on American to get my Platinum status for 2012 (which I should be able to do in the last 2 months) and needing 5 different Hilton hotels to maintain my Hilton Diamond status for 2012 (which will be more difficult, but I think I can do it). Don't like being this close to the limits at the end of the year - I would rather make it by a little bit than end up right on the number.

I have periodically gave updates on my travel. As of the end of the second quarter of the year, I was well on pace to maintain my AA Platinum and Hilton Diamond statuses ( 2011 Second Quarter Travel Update ). But then travel came to an abrupt halt and I had no Airplane Trips For Two Months . Things are picking up a bit, but I'm still going to need to work the system in order to maintain my status. But it looks like I'll make it, just barely, though. If all goes as planned over the next 10 weeks, I'll end up with exactly 60 AA segments (just enough for Platinum for 2012) and exactly 28 Hilton stays (just enough for Diamond for 2012). Hopefully none of my trips get canceled - I don't have any leeway with my scheduling right now.

Last week I talked about the ESPN College Pick 'Em game and mentioned that my goal was to get on the first page of the leader board. I think I need to update my goals... Right now I'm tied for third place: I am the "Eat My Dust" entry in the image above. I'm one of 6 people tied for third, two points behind the overall leader. Nice!

I heard on the radio yesterday... If you had bet the favorites so far this year in games involving at least one top 10 team in college football, you would have won 77% of your bets. Wow.

I have been playing the ESPN College Pick 'em. You pick 10 games each week and assign confidence points (1 through 10) to each game. There are 55 potential points each week. Week 1 I got 53 points (9-1). Week 2 I got 48 points (8-2). Week 3 I got 50 points (8-2). Week 4 I got 52 points (9-1). Week 5 was a bad week - 32 points (6-4, losing my 10 point game). Last week was week 6 - a perfect 55 points. After 6 weeks I have 290 points, which ranks me 53rd in the nation. I don't know how many people are playing in nationwide, but it's probably several hundred thousand. There's a leader board that shows (right now), everyone through 291 points (the top 52 people). My goal is to see my name on that leader board - I just need to move up slightly next week to be on there.

What an end to the 2011 baseball regular season. Boston had a 9 game lead over Tampa this month, and Atlanta had an 8½ game lead over St Louis, and they both blew the leads. Boston went 7-20 in the month of September to blow it. All they had to do was have a .333 winning percentage for the month (9-18) and they would have been in. On the last day (last night), they blew a 3-2 lead with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th to lose 4-3, while Tampa was down 7-0 and came back to win 8-7 in extra innings. The finish of the Boston game (because of a rain delay) was literally 3 minutes before the finish of the Tampa game. Fortunately, I saw both finishes late last night. Atlanta was up 3-1 in their game, gave up a run in the top of the 9th which tied the game at 3, and then lost in 13 innings while St Louis was beating Houston 8-0. Atlanta lost the last 5 games of the season, and went 9-18 for the month of September to miss out on the playoffs. The playoffs begin tomorrow with Tampa pla...

For those people that bet on college football, last Saturday's Utah/USC game was the ultimate in bad beats. USC was favored by 8 for most of the week leading up to the game. The lines I saw were 8, 8½, and 9. Late in the game, the score was 17-14 USC. Utah was lining up for a game-tying field goal. If Utah makes it, the games goes into overtime and Utah is going to beat the spread (even if they lost in OT, they would most likely lose by less than 8 - I guess it would be technically possible for them to lose by 8, but then it's a push). If Utah misses the field goal, they lose by 3 and beat the spread. It was blocked, and USC ran the block back for a touchdown as the clock ran out. That makes the score 23-14, and USC covers. Except all the USC players run onto the field and get an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and the ref says the touchdown doesn't count. So the game ends 17-14 with Utah beating the spread. But that's not the end of the story. A couple hours after ...

Now that it's September, I can officially say that I spent every single night in August in my own bed. That is the first time that has happened for an entire calendar month since May of 2009 - the month before my daughter was born. June of 2009 was spent all "at home", but I stayed overnight in the hospital with my wife a couple nights while she was recovering form the C-Section. And normally there's some kind of a trip (personal or business) each month that puts me in a different bed for a night or more.

It has now been over 2 months since my last airplane trip. And 2 months since I've stayed in a hotel. (Technically, I had a vacation in early July, but we drove and stayed in a condo). So where I was ahead of the game in my 2011 Second Quarter Travel Update , I am now back behind schedule. I'll need to pick things up the last few months of the year to maintain my hotel and airline status. Hopefully things WILL pick up - I can only do so much on my own to get these trips planned.