The Perils of Paulie - An Irregular Blog

[Paulie_D]

[Paulie_D]

[Paulie_D]

Four of us pile into a cab

^^ I have slightly different memories to this bit though hahaha

Indeed...I normally grab the front seat but Ger had already nabbed it. Unfortunately, that meant that getting my right leg in was...erm....problematical.

[duke3016]

One of the finest nights spent, it seems that all "abroad" APAT's are epic, Austria was, Estonia was, Ireland was and I am damn sure Spain will be.

me: "If I do buy you a bottle of champagne, what do I get"
her: "I stay and talk to you"  

me: "So bottle of champagne equals 100 Euro" (they had a menu FFS)
her: "Um yes"
me: "and its 30 Euros for 10 mins in the back"
her: "Um yes"
me: "Ok love 30 minutes in the back, bargain"  

Great times, great people, priceless (oh and yes we needed a bigger taxi, but how good was the driver)

[Paulie_D]

A "zero-poker content" post.

Having had to bestir myself at omigod o"clock this morning to take the car to the Audi main dealer to get a headlight bulb changed (and don"t get me started on that), I decided to run a few errands since I was already up.

But first, a quick cup of tea and a bacon roll or to to set me up in the local cafe. Whilst I was enjoying the best that Tetley has to offer, a small group of carol singers wandered up outside the cafe and began their wailing musical repertoire.

What surprised me was the fact that they were escorted by not one, but TWO, Police Officers...presumably for their own protection but possibly in the government"s fight against domestic terrorism.

"Season of Cheer / Goodwill to all / Peace on Earth"....FAIL

[Paulie_D]

Yet another "zero-poker content" post.

Chrismas Eve -1 and the car decided to make a right turn on the way home and unexpectedly stopped in the pub car park.

Faced with such unruly behaviour from my principal means of transport I was left with no option other than to give in to the gods of fate and enter my local hostelry.

Emerging more than a few hours later t"motor had learned it"s lesson and behaved itself long enough to get me home....which was just as well since I was most certainly not compos mentis enough to pilot it.

But that"s not the reason for this post...On, no...it"s something much more serious.

I turned on the TV, as you do, more as moving wallpaper, as opposed to anything else, but it was still tuned into the Comedy Channel.

Late night...and they have the late, great Bill Hicks.

Now for all you young whippersnappers out there who have never heard of him...you have so missed out. In 1994, Bill died at the inconceivably young age of 32 but has remained (AFAIK) ranked as the 4th greatest comedian of all time.

Denis Leary basically stole Bills act wholesale...and admitted as much.

Take it from me..search his stuff out, online, youtube, torrent...whatever you have to do.

Definitely NSFW though.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv2qLOiioPc[/youtube]

[Paulie_D]

APAT Spain: 13th January 2011

"The Apocalypse Beckons"

A New Year and my resolution is....to repeat 2010 only more so.

What do I mean by that...simples..hit every APAT live event. OK November might be an issue given that I don"t know the S5 schedule yet and I"m committed to 2 weeks in Vegas including Live Update of Ger Jr"s initiation into the ways of Lost Wages.

Oh...and Dawn"s coming!  

Whatever...that"s the plan...I haven"t completely worked out how I"m going to finance it but needs must when the devil"s in the driving seat.

But enough of that baloney (swear filter"s on, you know)...this is about APAT Spain.

Thursday was somewhat fraught at work...major client changing their entire game plan at the last minute..oh, and can we deliver by 4pm today please? Not normally my area...I"m an admin bod...a backroom boy if you will...(I think I may regret that comment) but I can make myself useful at a pinch for MS Office stuff.

As it was I didn"t get away until bang on clocking off time for the trip to my overnight hotel at Heathrow. I don"t fancy driving round the M25 on Friday morning to catch a flight. It"s a frakkin" early start for one and if there are going to be delays..and there are, I can handle them on the night before rather than pushing myself to the inevitable coronary on the actual day.

Journey round the M25 was average, only held up a little, mostly by the rain causing huge amounts of spray and rocked up at the hotel about 7.30 due to a minor niggle with the satnav.

Since I"m actively engaged in racking up some Holiday Inn points I plumped (Yes, I get it) for the new Holiday Inn Express T5. Oddly it"s nowhere near T5 but rather is the old Quality Inn Heathrow refurbished.

I stayed at the QI-H a few years back and was fine with it but for some reason it had a bad rep.

But that"s all over now...right? Well. sort of. Very nice room with flatscreen. Decent bathroom with an interesting blue LED light that"s always on. Handy in the middle of the night so it doesn"t burn out your retinas.

Organised as always, I dropped the bag in the room and headed to the bar. Now I know it"s a captive market and al that...I expect to get ripped off at the bar but the food was at a whole other level.

£16.50 for steak, mushrooms, chips etc. Expecting a decent feed, I was sadly disappointed by the effort that materialised. If they"d served it to me at my local (where I could have got 100% more for 50% less, I"d have sent it back.

Unfortunately for me, I"d already had a couple by the time it arrived and was too flaming hungry to turn it away. Lesson learned. HI-E T5...you are off my list.

Just remains to look forward to the next few days...something I only do with some trepidation. Barcelona arrival is set for prime drinking hours with a semi-organised (by which I mean half-arzed) meal and pub crawl set for Friday night.

It"s probably just as well the comp kick-off isn"t until Saturday evening, I sense an epic hangover coming followed by a full English I will instantly regret, more beer and then 10 -12 hours of Red Bull fueled poker.

Then there"s Sunday....OH, FECK!

[Paulie_D]

Ok.so I've been meaning to write this up since I got back but I've been swamped at work for the past couple of days and hustling for APAT ringers for my forum team.

Now that I have finally got a few minutes of calm at work when the boss wasn't looking to put down a few thoughts I can get down to it.. You have to bear in mind that I wasn't around for everything that went down in Spain and only got some of this information 3rd hand but here goes.

APAT Spain: 14th January 2011. - Part I

"Getting There Is Half The Fun"

Dawn at the delightful Holiday Inn Express.never a good thing...but I'm generally an early waker (if not riser) so it wasn't a major hassle.

I'd been in contact with Leigh and Rich Baker (Curlage) regarding meeting up as we were on the same flight. No specific plans were in place other than Leigh had said he'd be aiming for a 7am arrival in order to miss the traffic.

Seemed OK to me and I aimed for 7.30 in the bar at Heathrow T3 for a breakfast. The Hoppa shuttle only comes every 30 minutes and the journey to the terminal and getting through security took a little longer than I thought but I rocked up about 7.45.

I spotted Richard and ordered myself the biggest breakfast I could find on the menu and a cup of coffee. No sign of Leigh who'd obviously had a major traffic malfunction or had gotten lost in the duty-free shops, I suspected the former and Richard confirmed as much once I'd stopped perusing the menu.

The food turned up and was surprisingly decent and priced better than many I've had just as Leigh arrived with his tale of motoring woe. 

We put the world to rights for a while and chatted up a storm before heading off to the gate for our flight. Heathrow is one of my least favourite airports.you end up walking half-way to your destination just to get to the gate. We arrived at our gate only to find we had to take a bus to our plane. Seriously?

Arguably the busiest airport in the world and yet you still have people walking up off the runways? I give up.

Anyway, once on board, things were much better. I'd picked what had appeared to be an 2-seater row when checking in but actually turned out to be a 3-seater row but it just meant that there was no-one in the middle seat. Seat seemed to be wider and comfier than I was expecting and being on 4 rows from the front I wasn't going to argue.

The three musketeers weren't seated together so I just leaned up against the window and dozed. Not the easiest of tasks when there are screaming kids on board but I managed a decent amount of shut-eye before we arrived. Just a couple of hours...pretty good really.

Off the plane and we're through customs and passport control with no hassles. Security didn't seem to be a factor.once they saw the EU/UK passport...they just weren't bothered.

Into the arrivals hall and Leigh corrects me that we're at T1 and not T2.that explained why there was no statue of a black horse at which to meet our shuttle contact. As it was, there was a fellow standing right out in front with our names on a clipboard sign and we followed him to the shuttle.

Much as expected, it was a 12-seater transit van but with just us three on board we had plenty of room. The lady driver and her companion jabbered away to each other on Spanish for the whole trip.

The trip to Lloret De Mar (LDM) took about 90 minutes, perhaps less, but with good company and decent conversation the time flies.

Arriving in Lloret I was more than a little annoyed at not being dropped off outside the hotel. In fact it was a good 5 minute walk. OK, I hate to walk but when you are expecting door-to-door service, it'll get your back up.especially when you are the Travel Guru and have recommended it to others.

Leigh and Richard were up at the Guitart Moneterey (5* TYVM) so I was on me tod.

Fortunately, with only a small suitcase and the laptop bag the walk wasn't a major issue. I'd imagine that it would come as something of a shock to a family of four with a couple of small kids though.

As I wandered up to the front door of the hotel, I'm greeted by the cheers jeers of Craig MacInnes (Blizzard) and a few APATers who had arrived before me and were enjoying the January sunshine on the terrace bar.

Ignoring the rabble I checked in with no problems and headed up to the room. It was decent enough for the price with a couple of beds (one large, one small), desk and a small TV on the wall. The bathroom was pretty compact with a no bath (shower only) and being the size I am, if I dropped the soap, I'd have to get out to pick it up.

My only other task was to get out the IT kit and head down to the terrace to start catching up.

And that's what I did.

Pt II to follow.

[Paulie_D]

[technolog]

Great write-up Paulie. It wasn"t me that had a meal with you on the first night though. I went for a salty curry. Although, if my memory is failing me again and I went for a second meal with you, it would explain the half a stone I put on in the last 7 days!

[AAroddersAA]

Great write up Mr. Tour Leader.

I am sure you will do another excellent job in Bolton.

[Paulie_D]

Great write up Mr. Tour Leader.

I am sure you will do another excellent job in Bolton.

TYVM...I"ve been rammed at work so I haven"t had an opportunity to write the rest...but it"s coming.

[technolog]

Oh good. I"m hoping you can fill me in on how Sunday ended as I have a feeling I was on the verge of making a bit of a tit of myself.

[Paulie_D]

Oh good. I"m hoping you can fill me in on how Sunday ended as I have a feeling I was on the verge of making a bit of a tit of myself.

My lips are sealed..until I find time to write it up.

[Paulie_D]