Juicy Stakes Poker is in the midst of a long poker math tutorial. Not only are our readers asking for a break so their brains can stop pounding, our fearless writing staff is looking for a few moments of respite from the rigors of learning and teaching poker math!
What Can I Do Outside of Poker?
The obvious answer is anything that suits your fancy. The opportunities are endless as long as that nasty corona virus doesn’t come back and bite us in the gluteus maximus again!
Here Juicy Stakes will talk about three areas out of the thousands that many people find interesting, relaxing, and exciting.
Fall Colors are Magnificent
The fall colors come from leaves changing color. Why do leaves change color? There is a long scientific explanation for why leaves change color. The fact is taht hiking in the fall in North America is a stunning experience. we found a few areas taht most people ay are the best places to see fall colors.
Is New England on the List?
Indeed it is!
The mountainous areas of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine have so many great places to see fall colors we can’t list the all. Even the coastal regions get cold enough to turn green leaves to brown, red, orange, yellow, and combinations of the above! The excellent website NewEngland. com has a map of where the best colors will be so you can plan a weekend or mid-week excursion accordingly.
A few years ago September was unusually warm in New England. That set the color changes back about two weeks making for some vacationers’ plans a bit disappointing but opening up the region to late comers who benefited by low reservations at hotels and fewer people on the roads and the trails.
Although you will certainly go ooh and aah if you are driving, it is best to see the colors from a forest or mountain trail. New England is replete with state parks and hiking trails for the easy crowd to the mountain climbing aficionados. An easy hike will have as much color as a difficult one! And the colors will take your mind off of poker math at least for a time!
Further south are the Great Smoky Mountains. The colors change there a little later than in New England. If you choose to go to “The Smokeys” for fall color gazing, you might also come across a local whittler who may also run a seminar or workshop on whittlin’ as they say.
What is Whittlin’?
Whittling is an art form developed in Europe eons ago and perfected by the Appalachian Mountain folk in the 18th century and beyond. Most whittling is done on wood although any malleable material can be whittled.
Whittling is a great hobby for someone who is “good with her hands” but doesn’t have the space for carpentry or the money for the expensive equipment carpentry requires. Whittling requires only malleable wood, a good knife, and a lot of patience.
After you develop the kind of patience you need for whittling, you might have enough patience to tackle those esoteric poker math concepts again!
What Kind of Wood Should I Use?
Wood can be divided into soft wood and hard wood categories. Everyone who has whittled says that beginners should always start out with soft woods. Soft wood cuts much easier.
- Basswood is a common wood that many hobby shops or crafts stores carry. It is soft and has a very easy to carve grain. In fact, European sculptors have used basswood for many centuries to produce many elaborate statues and other artifacts that were displayed primarily in churches.
- Balsa is a very soft wood that is in such plentiful supply that most hobby shops carry it. Balsa is popular in Hollywood as it makes realistic backgrounds that stuntmen and women can fall through without hurting themselves.
- Pine is a soft wood but it is more frustrating to use for whittling because it has a very annoying sap that is both sticky and ever-present.
Can I Whittle with a Simple Pocket Knife?
Yes, you can but after you get some experience and you like this new hobby, you will want to get a specialty whittling knife. These knives are sharper than pocket knives and you can keep them sharper as well. They are curved so they sit in your hand more comfortably.
Of course, you should keep knives out of the reach of children and this goes triple for true whittling knives since they don’ t fold.
Bird Watching
Now that you have ventured out into the New England or Smoky Mountain autumns you might have encountered a flock or two of birds. In the fall they are heading south. In the spring they come back north. With a pair of good field glasses, you will be able to see many different types of birds as they fly north or south.
The airborne flocks of birds are majestic enough to the naked eye but the view from good binoculars is simply indescribable.
In many parts of North America, Europe, and other regions, millions of birds fly in their annual migrations. They land in wetlands which in many countries are preserved as bird and animal sanctuaries. Bird watching combines hiking and generally being in the great outdoors for wonderful getaways and the chance to re-energize our minds and bodies for the challenges ahead.
Poker is One of Those Challenges
Now, as poker players, we never completely get away from our game of choice. For some poker is not just an avocation, it is a vocation. Professional poker players study the game relentlessly. This is not unusual as pros in many fields study all the time.
Professional pianists and singers practice scales every day because the scales are the basis of all the excellence that comes alter. Similarly, poker players go over the basics every day so they can be ready to take in any new information that they come upon in their professional lives.
Poker math is so important that you will need it to advance in skill. Still, it is just one aspect of poker! The game will require you to study a lot and the three activities we spoke about here are just three of many activities you can take on when you really need some time away from poker.
Juicy Stakes Offers a Great Poker Experience
We offer online poker in many variations and stakes levels. You can play in all kinds of tournaments. We make online poker easy to play and easy to get acquainted with!
Join Juicy Stakes Poker NOW to get going. We are looking forward to welcoming you to our corner of the poker world!
