Being in the US for Halloween helped me understand much better  trick or treating......stilll an American festivity and too close to bonfire night in this country with all the religious baggage that entails

Thursday dawned grey and a little cold in comparison to the previous day. Started to get ready for my meeting. It was at this point I realised that I didn’t have any cufflinks for my shirt. You know the internet is just soooo useful. I find out that there is a Men’s Warehouse on the way to my meeting.

What can I tell you about Men’s Warehouse. If you lifted the men’s department out of Grace Brothers and plonked it in America with American staff you would have Men’s Warehouse. I switch into immediate Stephen Fry camp English mode to have maximum fun and wish I had longer to banter with the staff.

Two minute stop and $30 later one new pair of cufflinks on freshly pressed shirt. Looking and feeling the business. After my meeting I head to another airport for another US airways flight, or rather two flights. One from Columbus to Wahington and then Washington to Boston. The downside of taking incredibly cheap flights in the states is having to take some pretty tortuous routes.

I am quite the curiosity to anybody sitting next to me on a flight and everybody I meet wants to talk about England. This friendliness is not, as I once believed, false. It is a genuine love of people. All around me on the flight people are just striking up conversations looking for common ground. So much more than Brits do. Being a fairly gregarious chap I do love this aspect of America, particularly as I am travelling alone which can be a bit of a chore.

Flying into Washington the view of the White House in the distance is quite spectacular. A quick change of plane and I am heading to Boston. Now everybody has told me how beautiful Boston is, but unfortunately I am heading straight to a suburb of Boston called Framingham. Because it is 30 miles away and I am here for two nights I have booked a hire car. My first ever driving in America. One of the US’s top 20 cities and I am arriving after 10pm. I know with absolutely certainty this part of the trip fills me with trepidation.

Funny how I have become more cautious with age!!

What is it tonight, I have a spot in my diary!

£50 f/out tonight, 40-50 runners, they have knocked the daft 75/150 level on the head.

If you want daft levels. Last night I played in a comp that went 25 - 50, 50 - 75, 50 - 100, 100 - 200, 200 - 400, 300 - 600, 500 - 1000, 1000 -2000 etc.

Needless to say it suited my game such as it is perfectly!

Tonight I shall be  5hplaying mostly at the Garden City Casino, San Jose.....nothing to do with the G

What a crazy town Luton is!
Turned up at Circus Circus for Day 1B but decided I didn't fancy it was destroyed by the Sicilian by level 2, so wandered over to the G instead for their hastily rearranged to play a level much more suited to my skill set and played the £30+£10+£10er versus loads of pub leaguers.
Good move as it turned out, as I outplayed random and Ram Vaswani all-in pre on a flushing board to set myself up with a healthy chip lead to take to the final table. Had approx 83% of the chips in play when we did a deal four ways.
So there you have it, TID with the MOF to set up a potentially thrilling finale to the monthly table. One day left and myself, Xpressman and Sunday specialist G-Rodge all have a shout.
15pts here, 6pts to Rockstar. Also, Trevor Payne (fantasy league) finished fourth on Friday for 7pts.

FYP

Its a skill to navigate through the piss heads

only if you are sober

The Columbus Ohio posse say J,10 Vinnster....Ace 3 to old dude

Hope you have a BRILLIANT day!!!  xx

 

THIS

Overpriced.....like all apple products. The problem with Apple is that the second you want to do something with one of their devices that they do not want you to, then you are in for a frustrating time.

They are just pretty products. functionality wise you always hear Apple fans trying to justify why they have the product. surely there is no need. Also if you are asking the question then surely there is doubt in your mind already
Still you pays your money and takes your choice.

I wish you well with your new toy

Beautifully written

RIP Laz

Boldie you are so biased. Bless you.

I was awake frighteningly early. So frighteningly early that I decided not to take a cab from the hotel to La Guardia but took the no money transfer back to Newark and then took a bus transfer from Newark to La Guardia. Aside from saving me $60 it meant driving into New York and changing buses in Times Square.

This was so the right call. It was a grey morning as we left Newark and through the New Jersey docks the outline of Manhattan could be seen in the distance like a modern day Stonehenge. A place of worship for all things capitalist. New York with money is the greatest. Your heart rate just increases as you approach the city. The route the bus takes is a great one, coming onto the Island via the Lincoln tunnel which is very quick if you are on a bus but a nightmare if you are in a car. We get to Times Square and I just can’t help smiling like a kid in the sweetshop.  I catch the connecting bus to LaGuardia and head to the US Airways desk.  Now if you ask any American they would rather fly anything but US Scareways. They obviously haven’t flown Ryanair.

The lady on check in was just so bloody friendly. She goes to London regularly to visit her son so I recommended a trip to the Burberry factory shop and she gave me a tip for buying in A&F.......no I am not going to share it with you. She changes my seat for one with better legroom.

The flight was cheap and cheerful except for the miserable New York lady sitting next to me. I tried to strike up conversation twice and then gave it up as a bad job. She was a native New Yorker and was going to Columbus for a business meeting. I lose myself in a book but notice that she is  reading her presentation. It is all about conflict resolution. Fuck me the poor lady can’t even hold a conversation.

The rest of the flight is uneventful except for me waving like a lunatic at random points just in case I am passing Laxie’s Mum and we come into land in Columbus. What struck me straight away is that it is flat. Not totally flat but you can see a long way in all directions. Also the feeling of space and cleanliness. The initial feeling was positive, I felt like I had arrived at a place that was happy with what it is and didn’t have to try too hard.

I got in a taxi and did a grand tour of a couple of places I wanted to research before my meetings on Thursday and Friday. The quality of what I saw and the people I met was high even in the dry cleaners who are sorting my suit out!!!!

I wish I was here for longer but I am not.......maybe I will return for a longer stint next visit. Anyway time to do some work before heading out for some dinner.

Ffs. The rules say g casino only. Circus. doesn't count.

i can read this comment but all I can see is.................blah,blah,blah

Apologies that it has been a while since I have written anything. Just busy with life and planning this my latest foray to America. Travelling on my own which can be lonely or as usually happens can be a world of opportunity to experience new pleasures.

Flew over with Virgin and found myself seated next to a lovely lady who was in the process of moving from New York to London. She works in the insurance industry and I made her laugh when I suggested it could be worse she could be a banker. It made her laugh because that is her husbands job. Well we chatted whilst the plane loaded and I found out that she had passed her citizens exam! Citizens exam when did that happen? So all sorts of questions had to be asked.

Did she have to give fifteen different words for rain?
Did she have to describe the difference between the googly and the chinaman?
Most importantly had she managed to perfect an expression of looking miserable when totally happy?

Unfortunately all of these came with a no. What a waste of a test IMHO. Anyway the doors shut and there is acres of space so I move so that she has more room, cos as we all know nobody wants to be next to the big bloke.

I look round my fellow passengers and there is one bloke who is so in love with himself it is making me and the bloke sitting to my left positively cry with laughter. I know just the thing to get him going. I start to flirt with the air hostess just because this bloke is such an alpha male I know he will not be able to resist trying to outdo me.

So when she comes along with the hot towels, I ask if she would just laugh out loud as I am studying human reaction to situations where beautiful women laugh out loud whilst in the company of fat bald blokes who wear glasses.  So she does, as does the bloke to my left because he heard what I was saying. Alpha male seated to my front and right cranes his head to try and find out what is going on. From that moment on he tries desperately to pull the stewardess. I am crying with laughter. My work here is done.

 So I settle down and start watching movies, Invictus, nice enough but the rugby scenes are truly crap, Karate Kid, I preferred the original overall but this one for the fight scenes, and started to watch Hot Tub, Time Machine, which was supposed to be comedy but was just awful. If you paid money to go and see this film, and didn’t walk out, might I suggest you get the Road to Wellville on DVD as you will obviously sit through anything!

So we land at 7pm local time and I book into my hotel. It is okay. Cleanish and cheap. Only here for one night and what a bad night it was. There is just something about not having my own pillow that nearly always makes me restless. Maybe I should vacuum pack it next time and bring it with me.
Today has dawned and I am getting ready to fly to Columbus, a city I have never been to before. It promises to be a quick visit but hopefully something of note will happen during the day!

one for me thank you.............and maybe a visit to some gambling joint in the San Francisco Bay area

out of retirement for one night only.....my one visit this month

What happened to Alan Gray?