Thinking about it, the ability to get to my home machine from anywhere could be a lifesaver. It also would make carrying a flash drive useless. Although I've used a jump drive for a number of years, Murphy's Law always takes over. It never fails that the file I need is always on my home machine. Plus, I lost a drive once with a good amount of data on it and it forced me to make major security changes.

The Academy utilizes the fast-and-easy GoToMyPC.com. This tool performs wonderfully and is simple to set up. The only drawback is the price to use it. For personal use, it's $19.95/month. I thought this was pretty steep, so I set out to find a more economical way.

After a short amount of hunting, here's what I came up with.

RealVNC and DynDNS
RealVNC.com is a UK-based company spealizing in remote access software. As a test, I downloaded and installed their free Personal Edition. If things worked out, I planning on purchasing their $50 'enterprise edition'. Their package loads a 'VNC Server' and a 'VNC Viewer' application. The server and viewer is a whopping 800KB.

To set up the server, I following their online setup guide. It was pretty easy. What's nice about the package is the Java viewer. That means there's no download; any Java-enabled browser will work.

Configuring Firewall and Router
After the software install, I had to configure my Firewall and Wireless Router to accept connections from the Internet. This has been the toughest part. As I tinkered, I had the idea of accessing my computer via my company's domain name (Grabers.com) instead of just some IP addess. But because I use a cable mdoem for my connection and my IP address changes every so-often, I needed a solution to map my changing IP to my domain and have things refresh as they changed. This is where dyndns.org comes in: dynamic dns services.

Setting up DynDns.org
This part was tricky. You must purchase 'Custom DNS' services from them at $24.95 a year. If you want to forgo this, they also offer a free version, but the domain names you can pick from a limited. I thought it would be 'more enterprise' if I used my own domain.

After purchasing, you must then setup up host-services. This is where it got tricky. I had to setup (or re-create) all of A, MX, and CNAME entries in my Zone File at my hosting provider. This info as easily obtained.

Adjusting Nameservers
The final step in getting this all to work is adjusting your domain name server pairs are your registrar. You enter the DNS entries given by DynDNS.org. The only tedious part is waiting for everything to propogate.

What appears to happen is that requests are directed at DYNDNS. From their, the Hosts file takes over. In my case, all web servering and email is directed back to my hosting provider. But my remote-control services are directed to my personal machine.

By the time everything settled, it was 6:00ish. I had to get me router back working and continue to make adjustments. These will probably be ongoing over the next few days.

Final tweaks have included making things convenient when logging-in. Accomplished via a simple 301 redirect.

The most ironic part was testing. The first time I succesfully logged-in, I used my Gotomypc connection to access my office computer. Weird.

Cross Platform Access
A very cool thing about this method is the ease in which you have a 'virtual cross-platform' machine. When I'm traveling, I bring my Powerbook. But since a majority of my day-to-day stuff is PC related, I now have a way to work on that platform without relying on VirtualPC. I simply open up Safari and I'm golden.

Another thing I may now be able to live without is a jump drive. If I have an internet connection, I can access all of my files. So what's the use?

Responsiveness / Speed
The solution is a little bit sluggish, but acceptable. To help it out, I optimized my 'local' machine to run as streamlined as possible. A lot of this had to do with the UI. The machine looks a bit retro, buts its tremendously more responsive locally. This should help out.

Windows-to-Windows seems to render fine. On the Mac, you get some dithering: seems to be running at only 256 colors. I'll continue to play with this.

In any case, you can definately get work done. It's not bad.

Currently in the pool and billiard world, a new tournament promotion company and tour created last year has been all the rage. Big prize money, slick televsion and advertising, all of the best players either 'chosen' or accepted by winning a tournament. The tour's pitchman and founder is world famous master con-man Kevin Trudeau.

The International Pool Tour (IPT) is what everybody's talking about, even my favorite pool site, AZBillards.com, is lit up with it, even publishing a mini user forum made exclusively for its promotion. The tour offers the one thing that has been missing in pool for forever - reasonable prize money for winners. Because of this, people are just going nuts. In a sense, interest has been renewed I guess.

I've come to my own conclusion. I feel its a well-organized hustle. The tour is built on the premise of everyday pool players chasing big purses. To qualify for entrance, a player who doesn't already have an IPT 'card' must win or come runner-up in a qualifying tournament. Entry into these tournaments is either $750 or $1,500. The player chooses which fee he/she pays. One point: if they pay the lower fee, they are only entitled to half of the prize payouts during the 'championship'. While this is a steep entry fee for sure, it's easy to see how the IPT Qualification Tournament Entry System could atleast help offset some of IPTs large purse tournaments.

The way the tournaments are set up masks the fact that the qualifiers are simply a long shot for even an advanced player. But they also appear to be seeding the larger payouts as well. While many of their tournament qualifiers are attracting only 15-20 players, some of their bigger 'tour-card' qualifiers have attracted 75. For example, with 2006's 150 qualifying tournaments averaging 12 players @ $750, that's $1.35M. Still not a huge pot, but good seed money.

The point is that even with the seed money, the Tour is unsustainable long-term. In reading the IPT website, Trudeau does certainly make a great case for the tour, claiming that anyone who hasn't built a multi-billion dollar enterprise themselves shouldn't be critical. I especially liked his Q & A page

A Google Search on Trudeau
The most clear and convincing look at Trudeau (and possibly the IPT) came from a simple Google search, and of course the July 05 Salon article, titled What Kevin Trudeau doesn't want you to know . There's countless others in the mainstream media about this swindler, including ones in the New York Times. All give a straight-talk, no nonsense look at one of the best modern day hucksters.

All-in-all, the people Trudeau's hustling have never seen the money that he say's he committed to providing the tour. I'm certain they could care less; they just want to get paid. But it's a hustle in its grandest sense.

The Hustle
The billiard industry has struggled for decades to free itself from the image of dirty tricks and scoundrels. With a niche audience that the game attracts, I don't see this changing anytime soon. While Trudeau claims his tour will help free the sport from this very perception, I think his involvement may just reinforce it. Anybody even half literate would come to the same conclusion. That's where the hustle lies - atleast for now.

What will be interesting to see is how the IPT will shake out. There's already rumors of him 'selling' the tour. As of today, I don't recognize a lot of corporate sponsorship. I still can't see the model...

I'm sure he'll figure out how to scam or hustle somebody with the tour. I see it culminating in the same way as many of Trudeau's past scams: someone's going to foot the bill. And it won't be Kevin.

Friday
The flight out was pretty basic. It was nice getting into Buffalo so early...it was the first time I had done so. I wish Erin could have come.

After I arrived, Chris picked me up at the airport. We went to Nig's shop to pick up his dune buggy - at least that's what I call it. It's a Suzuki Sidekick. I love the way it drives.

We got to Lynn's house about 11:45. I called Judy and Lynn at their work and we decided to meet up for lunch. I met them at the credit union and we ate some lunch in their 'conference room'. It was cool. Great Nino's pizza...

Because I needed a haircut, I went over to Burn's in the plaza. I hadn't seen Mike in awhile . It was perfect timing. I waited only a bit to get in the chair.

After the buzz, I headed off to Tom Feeley's for a birthday party for his daughter Devon. I got there around 3:15. It was great to seem everybody. Mr & Mrs Feeley we're there, so was Ann Marie. I hadn't got to see most of them in awhile - probably 5-6 years. Mr. Feeley is still a riot. They both looked great.

There were a lot of kids and stuff at Tom's. Tom's neighbor's, child friends and family. Tony Finaldi and his wife stopped by as well, with their two kids. Hadn't seen Tony in five-or-six years. It was great to catch up. I ended up leaving about quarter past six. I had planned on meeting up with John Dray and Hummel to go out.

I called Hummel and picked him up about 7:30. Dray had to go to a wake, but we met at Checker's on Hertel about 8:15 pm. It was good to see him. He looked great. Mineo showed up about 8:45. The kid is still a concept! Hadn't seen Tommy probably since before I moved to Raleigh. He lives on Grand Island now and still drives a kick'en older car. Mineo always had a penchant to such things; some stuff never changes...

We hung out until about midnight. It was the first time I had ever been to the place. Everybody at the Bridge had always talked about Checker's. I think Tommy Downing used to go there a lot. What's messed-up though, is that you can't smoke in the bar. It's whacked. This will probably be happening in Raleigh not to far in the future...

After we left, I wanted to stop by the Hippodrome to shot some. They had moved from downtown a couple of years prior and I wanted to check it out. I ended up getting to talk to Dick Vallone a bit. Even got to see Jeff Van Buren of all people. Jeff is the one who bought Shooter from me way back in ’94. He was re-starting Shooter and I brought a couple of copies home. It was great to make contact with him and I hope he emails me or something.

We jetted about 12:15 am and on our way home, Mark talked me into stopping for some take out. Slime dogs basically. Buffalo has great food; something I miss. Anyways, I got back to Lynn's around 1:00 am. Lynn and I watched a movie and I crashed about 2:30 am.

Saturday
Mark's wedding ceremony was scheduled for 11:30 am at St. John Vianney. I got to the church about 11:15 am. I hadn't seem some of Mark's family is about 25 years. I took a bunch of photos and since I had never shot a wedding before, I thought I'd make the best use of the opportunity for practice. I got back from the ceremony about 1:00 pm; I had stayed a little bit later to help take some of the group shots for Mark's family.

When I got home, I showed Lynn all the photos I took. Since they're were some people there that Lynn or I hadn't seen in years. It was good to catch up. I got to see the Biemlers for the first time. Mrs. Bacher. Even Mrs. Kelleher. After we went through them, I called Hummell and hung out with him for a bit. Came back home and burned a CD of the images, Also, because it took Erin and I so long to get ours back, I know they'll both appreciate looking at them on their honeymoon. That was the only thing that sort of sucked with our wedding: waiting for the photos.

The reception started at 3:00 and I got there around 3:45. It took place at The Knox Farm in East Aurora. Never had been there either. Mark and Amy had about 60 people. I got to catch up with Peter Canney and his wife, as well as Tom Dougherty and his wife. The food was great. After hanging out for a bit, I left around 6:00. I got back to Lynn's and chatted with her a bit. Called Erin.

With the night essentially free, I thought that I would play in Skulski's tournament they used to have on Saturday nights. Well, I went down there. Turn's out they closed back in November. Going back up Clinton, I decided to stop in Pocketeer. I went in and asked them if there were any tournaments they know of. Turned out that Diane Skulski was now working at the Metropolitan next door. I went over to say hello. They had their tables set up. After playing a couple of games and shooting the shit, Diane convinced me to try to go and find Norm again. I went back down Clinton and rapped on the door a few times. He wasn't there , so I finally gave up.

Now it was about 8:00 and I had nothing to do. I thought about going to Classic, but decided it was too far. I ended up calling John Dray and went to his house on Manchester. We hung out for awhilea and watched the race, went to go see his new house and then came back. I waited for a call.

Earlier, before I had left for the night, Lynn told me to give Tiffany a call later. She'd told me all about her new apartment and was dying to have me see it. I called Tiffany and we decided to meet up after she got out of work.

Her place is on West Utica, right near Elmwood. It's a great apartment. Her roommate's mother is an interior decorator and the place looked wonderful. I shot a bunch of photos of it. I even got to meet her roommate Michael. After seeing the place, we decided to go around the block to Faherty's. I used to go there on the weekends in the day. I ended up knocking them around for awhile. We left about 1:00 am, got a couple of slices on the way back. Even bumped into Todd Sedeegan, this dude I went to college with. Still the same; story-after-story.

I got home to Lynn's about ten mintues of 2:00 am. I was beat. I read the copy of the new Shooter I had and crashed.

Thinking about the weekend, it was great that I ended up having so much time. I got to see a lot of people. Do a lot of shit and wasn't rushed. The only bad thing was not having Erin there...she would have had a great time.

It was great to see Jeff for the first time in about a decade. After purchasing my original publication, he focused on building the Shooter's Tour into a multi-state production with over 1,000 players. I guess he took a sabatical from publishing, opened a pool room in Perry and is now refocusing. I'll definately be trying to follow how he's making out up there in the coming months.

What was interesting is that he told me Carl Galante has a bunch of old copies of the original Shooter. Since I don't have anywhere near the complete set myself, the next time I'm in Buffalo, I'm going to try to get with Carl for copies.

Closure of The Pump Inn
On a more disappointing note, I found out that The Pump Inn closed back in November, 2005. For anybody into bar box pool knows, the Pump was synonmous with pool players, Saturday night action and charity tournaments run by Norm and Diane Skulski. I got to speak with Diane about the closing; she's now working at the old Metropolitan right next door to Pocketeer. I think that space has a fantastic amount of potential as the next mecca for Buffalo bar-box.

Looking back, I think I probably was hanging out at The Pump during its heyday. Every weekend brought a lot of players. KC Cogan, Mario, Jerry Howard, ReyRey, Phil Segio, the Kid, Fast Eddie, Billy Soles, Uncle Mark, Mark Hatch, Paul McKeal, Dennis Hatch, Joe Coia, Santo Merlo and the late Joe Mueller all would be there on Saturday nights for the eight ball tournament. You never know who would stop in. I saw a few touring pros and road players stop by. Everybody would match up. Of course who could forget AFT, Diane, Larrry the Magician and some of the other characters.

It went on for awhile - about a good year and a half I would say. Every weekend. Then things gradually petered off. Everybody just sort of moved on. It was great while it lasted. I got to see it first hand.