Despite many of my good friends being longtime hardcore poker players, I have avoided getting into the game primarily for one reason: the unappealing prospect of playing a hand correctly (statistically speaking) and yet still losing — a semi-regular occurrence known as a bad beat.
But I wasn't thinking about poker as I walked barefoot along the shore of Oahu's breathtaking Kailua beach at six in the morning. I was mostly thinking about the Portuguese man o' war, because dozens of them littered the shoreline like translucent blue landmines, their long, thin tentacles still capable of injecting painful venom even after the man o' war dies. In the dim light just before dawn, I vigilantly scanned for and weaved around landmines large and small while staking out a spot for my amateur photo shoot.
