In what has become somewhat of a tradition, I am concluding my annual trip to Georgia. The trip usually consists of some combination of Athens and Atlanta but this year it was just an Atlanta version. In 2006 and 2007 (the year we filmed thepokerfilm) I lived in Atlanta in the fall. In 2008 I came back from Costa Rica for the UFC. Here are some posts from that trip. Then in 2009 I came back from Cayman for Auburn at Georgia. In 2010 I flew in from Las Vegas for Vanderbilt at UGA (lol).

And that brings us to this year in which I flew in for Thanksgiving at the yellowsub86 Family Estate & Residences (trademark pending) and the Georgia Tech/UGA festivities. Thanksgiving was a big success if you’re measuring it on the “what you’re suppposed to do on TG” measuring stick. In other words, I ate an absurd amount, hung out with some fun people and then felt sick for a few hours while slumped on the couch watching NFL football. Mission accomplished. I hadn’t been that full in years. I think the multiple servings of everything probably contributed to that.

On the other hand, going to Tech/UGA was not much of a success. It was a tough ticket and even bad seats were hitting $200. Not really worth it. Instead we spent all of Saturday watching college football from the couch. Even though I’m really not that big of a college football fan these days, I still enjoy watching the games during rivalry week. Especially the games with major implications for BCS bowls. On the other hand, I get bored in about 45 seconds whenever watching random “No 21 v some unranked team on a ESPNU broadcast” games in September or whatever. We wrapped up Saturday with a visit to the area known as East Andrews in Buckhead. I didn’t really drink too much though so it wasn’t a ton of fun — for me at least. Ever since attending the Bodog WSOP Main Event party this past summer in Vegas, I haven’t had any appetite for alcohol whatsoever. I got absurdly drunk at the Bodog party and the resulting hangover was so terrible that I actually feel sick at the thought of being drunk. So my night on Saturday consisted of a few sipped beers. Which is more than enough for me these days.

Since we missed the college game on Saturday, we decided to pick up some tickets on Stubhub for the Minnesota Vikings at Atlanta Falcons game on Sunday. It was not what I would call a “premier matchup” game. Overall the game was extremely blah. A couple touchdowns, Vikings being terrible, Atlanta letting the Vikings back in the game, etc. Actually, at some point in the 3rd quarter sub and I were discussing how nondescript the game was. It eventually picked up at the end, especially if you bet on the game (the line was 9.5 or 10, depending). And we did see Percy Harvin run a kickoff back to the three yard line for the longest non-scoring play in NFL history. When he was tackled at the three with a few minutes left, it was 24-14 Atlanta so it wasn’t exactly like they were under huge threat of losing the game. The Vikings needed to punch it in and then get the ball back and score again. But, if you bet on the game, it was obviously a huge set of four downs. Somehow, the Atlanta defense managed to hold and the game ended at 24-14. This made sub quite happy as it represented a rather large swing for him to have Atlanta cover in most of his bets.

Here’s a short video of the super electrifying performance (I might be kidding) put on by Sean Kingston at halftime:

To wrap up the trip, last night (Sunday evening) we went to Restaurant Eugene which is apparently supposed to be one of the best restaurants in Atlanta. It’s a local foods sort of restaurant with a mix of veggie, meat and seafood dishes. It was a really good meal but, somehow, I managed to get stuck with the bill despite having one credit card against sub’s four credit cards (they had wine). And, speaking of CCR, after years of absolutely destroying sub in flips, I actually ran bad this trip. I paid for pretty much everything. Although, admittedly, I am still up so much on sub lifetime that it’s pretty hard to complain about losing ~$600 or whatever it was for all of the flips this weekend.

Now it’s time to find my way to the gate for my flight on wonderful US Airways. I have a short week at home before heading to Dallas for two weeks (for work) on Saturday. I’m not particularly exciting about spending most of December away from home but hopefully in January I’ll be able to get back to the mostly non-travely lifestyle that I lived for August to November (when I went to Paris).