Mr Brightside

[PHIL_TC]

So a quick update on this weekends APAT.

Firstly the poker.. had lots of deep runs for the princely sum of feck all  

Finished 9th in the Stud (4 from cashing)
Finished 22nd in the 6 max (6 from cashing)
Finished 13th in the PLO (4 from cashing)

The main not so great.. mid tablish I think. Running the best well timed semi bluff on the flop of all time. To find out I was drawing as dead as they come haha. Needed runner runner quads to stay alive. Its all in the timing

However.. the brightside approach is that I had lots of pokerz for my buck. Had some of the best tables along the way for banter. And when I did get knocked out, as always the rail / bar / karaoke etc was epic. Havent laughed as hard for a long time.

So many people that are just absolutely top class, too many to mention. But honestly is there a crowd of people anywhere in the world like the APAT crowd? I hope not  

Loved every minute.

AND managed to raise over £150 along the way for charity.

AND I"m still alive.

So pleased for all the cashers.. but especially Suz and Carl.. European champions.

When the good people win it makes it all extra special, but Suz and Carl winning just topped off pretty much one of my all time favorite APATs weekends.

Happy days.

[PHIL_TC]

Blind dates... people in relationships.. when they hear you"re single suddenly have this urge to fix you up with a friend.. or a friend of a friend.. or smelly alan.. the guy in the pub who dribbles and talks to himself.. yeah he"s lonely go and sit with him etc.

Got asked today by a well meaning friend if I fancied going on a blind date with some distant friend who"s obviously desperate for somekind of relationship. Firstly, I said. I"m happy. I don"t need a relationship to make me any happy thanks. Secondly.. been there before.. twice and it all ended.. suprisingly.. in tears.

Blind date #1 - Im late teens (yes a loooong time ago) and working on an IT support desk. Part of the job involved reporting software problems to the software developers. Now on the end of the telephone is Heather. I get to talk to Heather a lot.. day in day out (the software was cack). She"s from London and has a soft tone to her voice. She "sounds" amazing. We flirt a little and then one day she says shes coming "Up North" to see some relations. They"re somewhere near Hull.. which to be honest might as well be London but hey I agree to meet up in the most romantic of settings. The A1 / M62 service station.

I drive down all excited. Meet Heather. Turns out that Heather had competed on the "Gladiators" TV show. Something she hadnt told me on the phone. This soft toned beauty in my head turned out to be 5ft 6 of packed muscle with a hand shake I can still feel in my knuckles to this day. Lesson learned. Mental images of people will always set you up for a fall. Attractive stunners in your head. Anabolic meat heads in real life.

Blind date #2 - Friend of a friend. I"m freshish out a divorce agree to meet a local girl and a friend of a friend for a meal. Now this turns out to be a good one. She"s pretty, funny, intelligent and we get on. We arrange another date and that goes well as well. At the end of this date though I realise the reason why she was single. We kiss. The most horrific breath I"ve ever experienced. Now I"m a gent and decided that maybe she was having an off day.. might of been that kebab that she"d had for breakfast or something. We see each other again. This time she comes round to my flat. Oh dear god. Had she been eating dog food from 1920 or something? Need to invoke emergency procedures. I say that I have a very important early meeting the next day and really she needs to go home. Offer to make a cuppa before she goes and on returning she"s done the whole "ohhhh but I"m so tired and pretending to fall asleep on the sofa" routine. Sigh.

So what then occurs is me setting my alarm for 4am for no reason. Getting showered, shaved, suit on, waving her good bye at 4.30am for no reason. Peek out of the window. Shes sat in her car outside for ages. FFS. Go outside getting into my car driving off waving. Doing a lap of the local highstreet. Back home and back to bed. Sigh. Never again.

Mr brightside view. I learnt alot about halitosis on the internet. And learnt that China will not allow you to become an Astronaut if you have bad breath. That nugget of information I am sure one day will come up in a pub quiz.

Blind dates. Not for the win.

[PHIL_TC]

Having a great week this week. Have done a deal with Gina (starshine) for a UK hobnob export to Germany in exchange for some of Gina"s homemade traditional cookies at Christmas. I hope she doesn"t mind me posting a photo (Gina let me know if you do!) but heres some of her work :



How good does that look?!

Wow x

[Chipaccrual]

APAT are pleased to announce the ECOAB, which will take place early in 2013.

Teams from across Europe will compete in heads up, doubles and multi team events across a two day event structure.

Venue to be confirmed, but it will take place in a unique marquee style location, somewhere in a field in Hampshire.


APAT Managing Director, Des Duffy, said that he hoped the inaugural European Championship of Amateur Baking would be a huge success and only strengthen the offerings that APAT has for it"s members.

[PHIL_TC]

APAT Managing Director, Des Duffy, said that he hoped the inaugural European Championship of Amateur Baking would be a huge success and only strengthen the offerings that APAT has for it"s members.

lol  

Fingers crossed Stu doesn"t enter his homemade spotted dick  

[Chipaccrual]

APAT Managing Director, Des Duffy, said that he hoped the inaugural European Championship of Amateur Baking would be a huge success and only strengthen the offerings that APAT has for it"s members.

lol  

Fingers crossed Stu doesn"t enter his homemade spotted dick  

I believe the biggest concern is soggy bottoms in respect of tarts.  So I"m told  

[PHIL_TC]

So I"ve been a little hyper this past week. More hyper than normal really.

As some of you know I recently went over to India for a little while to do an implementation of my companies software, which went really well, following that trip we"ve been negotiating with the group company to do the same across all the rest of their sites around the world.

Last Wednesday brought a trip upto Glasgow to meet up with their top bods. 

[ x ] went well is understatement.

Have a deal in place now which basically means my little company is pretty much set for life. I"m thinking of retirement.. Vegas.. funds in place for mini TC and the sun is well and truly shining on this little part of Stockton on Tees. Its been 12 years of hard graft and ups and downs.. but Im over the moon.

Plus instead of travelling round the world we"ve come up with a central installation approach which means less travel but means I"ll have to get my thinking hat on.. thats after 2 more installations like India.

First installation will be the exotic Halifax area. Second installation... California. I run well.

The California implementation isn"t on the coast.. but checking the map IS drivable(ish) around 5 hours.... to Vegas I run very well.

My only worry is that they"re looking to do both of these pretty sharpish. We have Chezger, Stockton Massive game, Glasgow, Portugal all coming up soooooon.. Just hope that none of them will clash.

Couldn"t be happier at the moment. Mr Brightside for the win.

[technolog]

Last Wednesday brought a trip upto Glasgow to meet up with their top bods. 

[ x ] went well is understatement.

Have a deal in place now which basically means my little company is pretty much set for life. I"m thinking of retirement.. Vegas.. funds in place for mini TC and the sun is well and truly shining on this little part of Stockton on Tees. Its been 12 years of hard graft and ups and downs.. but Im over the moon.

Fantastic! Couldn"t happen to a nicer bloke x

[pokerpops]

[Chipaccrual]

I love it when a plan comes together.

[Erimus]

Massive congratulations Phil couldn"t have happened to nicer bloke, chuffed for you, need a driver in America?.

[PHIL_TC]

Cheers everyone!

Just double checked the drive.. actually a bit further than originally planned.. due to the minor issue of death valley being stuck in the middle.



So thoughts are..

1. Long drive round death valley.
2. Longer walk through death valley. Picnics for the win.
3. Internal flight.. around £170 return.. doable.
4. Someone learns how to fly a helicoptor.

Options 1 & 2 may result in... (love this by the way)..

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzae_SqbmDE[/youtube]

Brian.. I"m putting you forward for option 4.. . remembering your bladder of steel  

x

[Paulie_D]

Here"s the thing.

There is no reason (other than time pressure) to rush that drive.

Do it in lumps. Why not drive to LA and visit the Bike or the Commerce?

Yes it"s out of your way but if you"re there and have the time.

Otherwise, do the flight...you won"t miss much.*

*OK you will but only if that sort of thing appeals...I blogged it way back in the day.

[hi_am_chris]

assume you mean Halifax , West Yorks?? When is that happening?

Chris

[duke3016]

Sometimes things happen to people and all the success is richly deserved. This is one of those times.