So, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I recently went to Monte Carlo for 10 days.  The main reason for the trip was to watch my brother play in the EPT Grand Final, but also just to get a little bit of a break and clear my head.  Ever since quitting my job I have felt a little overwhelmed and hard to focus, but I think I am finally getting over that.  On the plane I listened to a great audiobook called Getting Things Done, and I think that over the next few months I will try and implement a lot of the things it teaches to get myself more organized.

Back to the vacation…. We landed in Nice for a few days before heading to Monaco.  The weather was pretty shitty, but hey, I was in Europe (I love it over there).  We hit a few pubs there and pretty much just did the tourist thing (walked all around the city).  Here are a couple pics from Nice:

After a few days there, we were on our way to Monte Carlo AKA Ballerville.  This place was insane!  Every other car was practically a Bentley or a Ferrari.  I have never seen so many of them in one week in my life!   Here are some pics of the constant car show:

But really, the cars above were nothing.  The one that really caught my attention was this one, the Bugatti Veyron:

At over 1.12 Million Euros, in the words of Jeremy Enke, that is “Certified Baller“.

Monte Carlo is a beautiful city, but really expensive so if you go, bring lots of cash.  With some restaurants charging as much as $8 for a can of coke, you can go broke pretty quick.  Here are some pics of the ports:

The big boat dead center is insane!  17th largest yacht in the world.

As you can probably guess… I love yachts and nice cars.  I did a ton of walking in Monte Carlo, and even took one day to go to Italy (small town called Ventimiglia) to eat some pasta and pizza.  The pasta I had in Italy was awful, but the pizza was pretty decent.  The best part was the Cappucino’s…soo good.

So as I mentioned before the reason I was there partially was to watch my brother play in the EPT.  Unfortunately he went busto at the end of day 1.  He got crippled with KK twice, once into AA and another time with 4 callers.  He managed to make a huge laydown against the AA, but it left him pretty short.

It was cool to meet many of the players that I write about all the time face-to-face.  I had many elevator rides with people like Daniel Negreanu, Freddy Deeb, and Barry Greenstein.  I also got to play Gavin Griffin heads-up in the Pokerstars Lounge for charity, which was lots of fun.

While there, I also went to try and find one of the members of one of my forums, Glen Chorny.  If you followed the event, you’d know that Glen went on to win the whole tournament, which was awsome because I had been cheering for him for several days.  His parents took us all out after to the club at the hotel where we polished off a magnum of Cristal, magnum of Dom, along with 2 regular size bottles of Cristal.  Here is the group of us after the tourney:

I ended up getting back to the room around 6am, and almost slept through my flight back.  Fortunately I had set my alarm two days prior and I heard it in time to get up.  All in all, it was a fun trip, now back to work so I can get my own Bugatti!

Sorry for the delay in my Monte Carlo trip report… I am planning to write it in the next few days.  For now, I thought that I would share this with the readers of this blog.

Every time I go to get my haircut I see this poster hanging above my head when I am getting my hair washed.  I think this is a great poster and something everyone can take something from.

21 Suggestions for SUCCESS - By H Jackson Brown Jr.

1. Marry the right person. This one decision will determine 90% of your happiness or misery.

2. Work at something you enjoy and that’s worthy of your time and talent.

3. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

4. Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.

5. Be forgiving of yourself and others.

6. Be generous.

7. Have a grateful heart.

8. Persistence, persistence, persistence.

9. Discipline yourself to save money on even the most modest salary.

10. Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated.

11. Commit yourself to constant improvement.

12. Commit yourself to quality.

13. Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power or prestige, but on relationships with people you love and respect.

14. Be loyal.

15. Be honest.

16. Be a self-starter.

17. Be decisive even if it means you’ll sometimes be wrong.

18. Stop blaming others. Take responsibility for every area of your life.

19. Be bold and courageous. When you look back on your life, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the ones you did.

20. Take good care of those you love.

21. Don’t do anything that wouldn’t make your Mom proud.

Source:  http://www.21suggestions.com

Also, shout out to my homie John Goldie… he started a great new blog about business, check it out!

Ever heard of Plentyoffish.com? Its a free dating site. It’s ugly as hell, but would you believe how much the guy that owns it makes? Check out this video of Plenty of Fish founder Markus Frind:

Tomorrow I will be heading to Monte Carlo for 10 days to watch my brother play in the EPT Grand Final and I can’t wait!  I have always wanted to go to Monte Carlo and this is the perfect opportunity to do so.  We will be staying in Nice for 2 days then heading onward to Monte Carlo on Friday.

I think this vacation is what I need right now, as I feel my head is very cluttered since leaving my job and I just need some time to relax and start thinking creatively again.

I find that I come up with the best ideas when I am on vacation and I am sure that seeing all the ballers of Monte Carlo will help provide some good motivation.

I’ll try and take lots of pics and post them when I get back.  So if you are looking for me online over the next week or so… that is where I will be

Its been a long time since I updated this thing, as I have been going a little stir crazy trying to get all the things done that I have been putting off both prior to quitting my job and things that have come up since doing it. But I figure the time has come and this site needs an update bad.

So, as I mentioned I left IBM roughly 2 weeks ago and have been doing the full time thing ever since. The biggest pain since doing this has been trying to organize all my stuff for taxes. I have spent so many days thinking about taxes, organizing paperwork, etc. that my head is starting to spin. Fortunately, I met with an accountant and he is gonna get me more organized so hopefully this won’t be an issue next year.

Beyond that, I also bought a fairly large poker forum a few months back which I have been busting my ass to try and build it back up. It was almost at the point where it was starting to die off, but I think it has come back to life a little and it is starting to get very busy again. I have been wasting far too much time with this site though, and it is really cutting into my productivity. I’ve basically had to teach myself all sorts of stuff with vBulletin (such as how to upgrade it, install plugins and much more). It has been an interesting experience, but very -ev dollar wise so far. Thankfully most of the crap is now out of the way so I can start focussing on other things once again.

Ok… enough of the boring stuff… since I have been doing the affiliate stuff full-time I have been doing a lot of my work out Starbucks, so let me end this on a positive note with…..

Top 5 Reasons I Love Doing Work at Starbucks

5) Relatively cheap internet. At $35 for a whole month, I can’t really complain.
4) It gets me out of the house so I don’t become a hermit.
3) After a few of their coffees you feel like you are on crack as you get super-wired. Their coffee is really good too.
2) I get to watch everyone else who is working real jobs run in for a minute and run back out, while I chill there in the nice comfy chairs.
1) The scenery. There are so many pretty girls / yummy mummies that come in there all the time that it sure beats staring at my wall.

So far the full-time thing is going pretty good, but I am finding it hard to keep myself motivated all the time. Anyone got any tips?