I was feeling a little guilty for planning to leave D with grandma for 5 days while the rest of the family party it up in Orlando.  But I realized that he really monopolizes my time while when I'm with the boys.  When he was in the "blob" stage (where he kept himself entertained), G and I could engage in a whole bunch of activities.  Now that D can walk around and is developing a bossy personality, he basically stalks us.  I was telling Mrs. Fly that I wanted to have a "G and Daddy Day" at least a few times a month so G doesn't feel jealous or neglected.  Anyway, I convinced myself this is just a week-long G & Daddy Day.  But I'm going to sleep on it to make sure it feels right in the morning.  As Mrs. Fly and I always say, D's a pain in the ass but we love that little guy!

POKER

Recently, the topic of online bankroll (how much money you keep online) came up in the poker forums. Personally, I don't feel comfortable having more than 40-50 buy-ins ("BIs") online. If you're a pretty good cash game player, you will almost never need more than 50 BIs (10-16 to multitable, 25-30 for downswing, 5-10 for inventory).  I guess if you're super paranoid, you can keep 60-75.  There are tons of people who keep HUNDREDS of BIs online, and I thought I heard this high stakes SnG (single table tournament) player keeps over $1million online. That's just crazy.  You never want to have all of your financial eggs in one basket.  Just ask the lifers at Enron and Lehman who lost everything.

For one thing, money on the poker site earns no interest, dividends or income. Strike one. The account is not insured - you get "free" insurance with most bank and brokerage deposits. Strike two. There is a nonzero chance that you will not be able to get your money out (any adverse legislation, the site going under, etc). Strike three.  Oh, and people's accounts get hacked from time to time, and the poker sites seem fairly unresponsive.  I'm not sure what game we're playing any more.  Cricket?

It's really like keeping tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars at your local Dunkin Donuts. Yeah, they're a reasonably solid company, but is that really where you want to keep a chunk of your net worth?  Funny how I keep coming back to donuts.

What ever happened to "making your money work for you"? I think the only arguments for keeping a lot of money online is if you plan on making a move up in stakes, or if it helps you psychologically. But it's not like you can't redeposit if you hit a really bad stretch (although it can be a pain).  If it takes a week or two to reload your account because you went into a massive downswing, that time off may not be the worst thing in the world.