Making $50 the hard way

Sometimes grinding these SNGs feels like hitting a boulder with a sledgehammer. You pound away repeatedly with little sign of progress, then suddenly you break through.
Take tonight's late session, where I played four SNGs in a block: single-table $20 and $30, and three-table $10 and $20.
The first three, I came away with zero cents. I basically blew up in the first level of the $20 single-table - the small blind min-reraised my KQ, and the flop was king-high. Knew he had aces, but I proceeded to get all my money in on the turn. Gonzo. Played awful.
I got a little unfortunate in the next two. In the $10 multi-table, I got down to the final eight (five spots pay) with a medium-sized stack. QQ in cutoff, big stack reraises me on the button, I ship, he has AA. Cold deck.
The $30 single-table, I could have played more aggressively. This was one of those where the short stacks double up every time. With 1600 in chips, blinds 100-200 and six players left, I shipped it from the cutoff with AK, and was called by AA on the button. Buh-bye.
Finally, I grinded my way to a second-place finish in the 27-player $20, good for a $144 payout. The deck smoked me in the face early - I raised in early position with QQ, reraise from the cutoff, flat called (four of us to the flop), and the board comes AQQ. Checked flop and turn, made the absolute maximum, knocked out one opponent, and had 4200 in the FIRST FREAKING LEVEL.
Didn't run so lucky after that, lost a few chips in the middle levels, but grinded my way to the final table and picked my spots well to get to three-handed. Blinds got massive, had a monster suckout to get heads-up, and that's as close as I got. Ran pretty good, played real solid, salvaged a profit. Happy.
Bankroll = $4,000. Can't wait to see where LeBron lands tomorrow.