The Vig

The title of this blog comes from a conversation I had with a co-worker last summer. He was showing off pictures of his vacation at the Atlantis resort in The Bahamas. One of the pictures he showed was of a fleet of yachts and sailboats anchored at the marina. He asked how those guys made their money.

“On the vig,” I answered.

“Ah…the vig” replied the guys surrounding the display.

“The vig” is short for “vigorish”, a gambling term. Put simply, when you bet $100 on a team, you have to actually lay down $110. If you win, you get $100 plus your original $110 bet. When you lose, the agent/bookmaker takes your $110, pays $100 to a winner and keeps the $10 as a commission. The $10 is the vig.

To me it symbolizes living off the grid. An ability to make a life free of others expectations, and chasing my own dream. It’s quite a leap, I know, but it makes sense to me and that’s all that matters.

I originally wrote about the vig back in September when I left my last employer.

It’s been my dream for a while to untether myself from the cubicle and go chase a dream. The problem was, I didn’t have one. Oh sure, I’ve dreamed of love and a house in the suburbs. But they were all so abstract. And so was a dream career. I thought for a while I wanted to teach, but that never worked out. Like any other shiftless kid of my generation with no drive and no compass, I fell into the cubicle life until I found that which I was meant to do. I’ve bounced across four states trying to find that thing. I’ve tried to appease family. I’ve tried to run away from them. I’ve lost relationships because I lacked that spark. Ultimately I figured out how to find the answer within myself. And here I am today. It’s taken me a decade, but I’ve finally found my dream.

I spent the next three months fanning that spark with moderate success. I called it “mental backpacking” and it was fabulous. Except for the $2500 rebuilt transmission. That really sucked. Other than that, all I had to do was drive around town nine-hours a day and think about nothing. I highly recommend it.

Ultimately a friend talked me into coming to work for his company. Yeah, it’s another desk job, but this one has killer views of Mt St Helens, Mt Adams, and Mt Hood instead of an office corner. And it’s doing something I enjoy. The gig isn’t for everyone, but if there were such a thing, we’d all have the same career, no?

The Vig?  It’s still there.  It’s the whole package.  Rod Tidwell’s got his “kwan” in Jerry Maguire.  I have my Vig in real life.

Oregon City’s Black Point Inn finally closed it’s doors this week.  I’ve only been there once, with my parents about 15-months ago.  We had Sunday brunch.  The place was nice enough.  We had Sunday brunch.  But the location at 7th and Washington seemed awkward.  That’s an intersection everyone drives through but never stops at.  Does that make sense?

There are a handful of “nice” places springing up around Oregon City.  There’s one in the space where my uncle used to operate a bookstore back in the 70s and early-80s at the corner of 7th and John Adams.  There’s another down at 15th and Washington.  But they all seem to be destinations, dependent on customers seeking them out, rather than neighborhood hang-outs.  But then using that logic, how do we explain the success of Carver’s Stone Cliff Inn?

It’s been close to 40 years since the Abernethy Bridge opened, clearing tons of traffic off the old Oregon City Bridge, and 25 years since the Highway 213 bypass opened, further draining traffic from downtown Oregon City.  In that time, the city fathers have had some success attracting business into the downtown and midtown areas, but its always been their desire to make the OC into a boutique regional tourist destination what with the wagons and the train station and the hey hey.  I just don’t see it ever happening.

I wonder how long it took them to come up with the following verbiage to describe the result of Florida’s Democratic primary.

Clinton will finish with the most votes.

How interesting.  Will she be able to overcome both the media and her own party and get some momentum out of her victory in the Florida straw poll?  And how hard will she push this spin knowing she has to gird herself for next Tuesday?

Or at least that’s the word on the street. I thought it was weird that he wasn’t on PTI yesterday, now we know why.

Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser are the only two newspaper columnists currently employed by ESPN who still have their dignity in tact, although an argument could be made as well for Peter Gammons. But beyond that, they’re all caricatures.

Here’s wishing Wilbon a speedy recovery.

I’m exicted to announce that as of this morning, The Vig is hosted by the Portland Tribune. You can see the “new” site here. You shouldn’t notice a whole lot of difference. Well, the RSS feed has changed, so you’ll want to get that updated. But other than that, it’s the same me and the same site.

I promise I’ll get a more formal introduction out this week, but we wanted to get the new site up and running quickly. If you’re new to The Vig, you can click here to learn a little more about me. If you’ve been around for a while, I look forward to seeing you at the new site.

They’re replaying yesterday’s Sheffield United-Man City match on Fox Soccer Channel right now. On paper it should have been a fairly easy match for the Blues. Sheffield was relegated out of the Premiership last season and are mid-table in The Championship this season. Wheras Man City are fighting for a spot in both the Champions League and UEFA Cup. It should have been the New Orleans Hornets taking on Gonzaga. Should have been.

I caught the first replay last night starting about five minutes in. Man City fans, in their zeal, let loose dozens of balloons inside the stadium. They drifted into City’s box for the first ten minutes or so, creating quite a distraction. A ball came in during the ninth minute that goaltender Joe Hart just got to among all the blue and white orbs. In the 12th minute, Hart wasn’t so lucky.

That’s Michael Ball there on the left trying to clear something. He completely missed the ball though. That ended up on Luton Shelton’s foot and was quickly in the back of the net. Bada bing, bada boom.

There’s controversy this week over whether the referee should have stopped the match to clear the debris. He says Hart had plenty of opportunity to stomp out balloons while the ball was at the other end of the pitch. I can’t say I disagree. That said, once it became clear they were a hazard, play should have been blown dead. The ball, afterall, is declared dead once it touches anything other than a player, official, corner flag, or goal post. It had clearly touched the balloons.

But whatever. Hopefully City can shake this off quickly. They have a match with bottom dwelling Derby County tomorrow, then play Arsenal and Man U. in the first two weeks of February, and Everton on the 25^th. All three teams are in the top-four of the table. Yikes.

Give it about a minute. No fair fast-forwarding.

Uhhhhh….. Wow.

It’s been a rough weekend for me.  What I thought was a temporary bug kicked into overdrive Saturday.  While I felt much better today, I’ve apparently lot my voice.  Or at least it was gone when I talked to my dad today.  Bad times.

I’m all about the OJ and Nyquil right now.  The blogging’s gonna be light for a day or two while I work to get this thing licked.

Milwaukee has it.