Tonight me and my roommates decided to go BBQ on our newly furnished balcony!

We only had some old instant BBQ's so here is one of my roommates tending to the fire


That instant BBQ got sick hot and left a burn-mark on the table BELOW the rock...
fwiw the rock was untouchable for along time... and when I dropped it (later at night) on the grass it started melting to the grass... I'm unsure of the damage to the grass but I guess we'll find out tomorrow!

Good thing the table was old and is not that important

Earlier Matt asked to see the view from my appartment, so here is the (not so awesome) view:



We live above two supermarkets, which is really nice, since I turn out to be lazy from time to time!

I've been playing squash alot, trying to burn some calories and also get my condition back!
Hopefully I'll have a video of me playing up pretty soon.

Robin out.

Since poker continues to suck balls I've been playing more and more board games.
Played Agricola for the first time yesterday:


Took us a while to get the hang of it because it has so many options/rules but general thought was that we liked it so now we'll probably choose between Agricola, El Grande, Caylus and Puerto Rico.

For those that like board games definately get those type of games instead of the standard monopoly,risk etc.. because they are so so so much better!


In other news, as we already knew we would probably have to pay for some stuff in our vegas house that we used and didn't pay for yet (for example heat the pool and stuff). It was $425 in total which is about what was expected.

In other news, I've lost about 2 pounds since I started working on losing weight since the beginning of this week. Only 28 more to go!

For those that have missed this awesome thread , you're welcome!

Robin out.

well... not really...
Bought some 'grass' for my balcony!

Anyway, it's awesome now, also bought new chairs!


That's basically what I did today... O I also do what I do every day. Dig a huge hole with poker and end the day either even or down, today I ended even

Robin out.

I've noticed that by now I've hit over 10K views!
I want to thank everyone who has been reading my blog and who left comments.

I'll take this blogpost to share my goals I have atm:

Life goals:
- Lose 25 pounds. (I have sort of a sideproject with my new camera with this... hopefully after a couple of months it will be fun to watch) (might need to bet on this to motivate again)
- Squash 5 times per week
- Enroll again for the University this year and actually do something
- Get my driverslicence
- Get lenses
- Think about possible locations to go to and how to finance them with poker.

Poker Goals:
- Focus on the future not the past
- Try to play 5 days a week
- Play 2 sessions on the days I play
- Don't play more then 6 tables.
- Win moneys
- Enjoy playing
- Don't whine about being below Ev, running bad to much...



I feel like goals like: play x hands or win x money don't really work for me so I'll just try to focus on putting in hands and enjoying the game.

Robin out.

While I was on vacation (see TR) at the evenings I took the time to read some books and will make some short reviews of what I've read so that other people might want to also read it (or not)

First book was:


Basically it's about the life of a boy who lives in barcelona and visits a secret book library and his life changes from that moment on.
Found it to be a pretty decent read, hard to stop when going and kept the excitement going the entire book long.
Definately recommended if you like light reading material with a good story.

Next I read


Which is actually quite a funny book and has some pretty good insights and is still very true today even when the book was writtin in 1969. It shows why whenever you want to get something done from an organisation they suck balls at delivering it.
Only downside is that it drags on a little bit and could've been said in about half the pages imo.


Then I read some in


Didn't really do it for me, first quit about 20 pages in, then later tried it again and quit about halfway in, never got exciting for me and didn't like the way it was written.

I also read some in:


This book consists out of philosophy and jokes, and the philosophy is not that good, but some of the jokes are pretty decent and made me laugh... I'll find a couple good ones:

And basically there are jokes on every pages, some better then others and I ended up reading most of the jokes and very little of the philosophy.


In my next blog post I might finally discuss some pokerstuff again
Robin out.

ps: if you have any book recommendations let me know because for some reason after 24 years I figured that reading is not as bad as I always considered it to be

After arriving in Gran Paradiso we basically enjoyed the nice weather and hiked every day. And every day we went to the camping restaurant which had a very extensive menu and the amount of food you would get was insane.

In this retaurant you would order 5 courses (which is normal in Italy), start with Antipasta (an appetiser), then get on with the Primi (usually some sort of Pasta), then Secundi (main course), then Insalatas (salads, which you can usually also get before the Primi but is suppose to be after the Secundi) and then end with Dolce (deserts).

However in this restaurant each course could've been an entire meal and it was dirty cheap. So I ate so so much here. For example:
For my Secundi I would take deer meat and where you in a normal restaurant would get one or two piecies here you got 5 (which were all very good).

So if you ever go to Italy be prepared for big portions, but the Pasta's are the best you'll ever eat!
Then you can go to one of the typical italian (and french) toilets they have, which I definately did not like using very much:


Ok back to Hiking, we came across this sign:


It's a good thing they are so clear on that...
And here would be the houses you would stay in:


Here a pic of me wearing euro-shorts (sorry Matt, I was back in Europe again)


We saw someone pee down the mountain, although it might've just been the mountain...


And more WaterFalls:


One last view of the glaciers before we left for Milano



So on my second to last day we went to Milan, because there was where I flew from and we decided it was a good opportunity to visit Milan's Cathedral, The Dome.
We got a nice 4star hotel and started walking downtown.
We came across all these ripped off Comunist posters, I guess they're still trying to get that going


The city of Milan is so full of traffic it's insane, everywhere you look are parked cars and they have streets long of parking for motors:


So we finally arrive at the Dome




Some people find it very ugly, others don't.
Also inside the dome there are about 50 huge windows which tell stories in pictureform:


Another thing about Milan is that they have a 'white bike plan'. Which means that there are bikes scattered through the city where you can just pick one up and leave it at another place so you don't really 'own' your own bike but everyone uses the same bikes.



Another thing I came across and all I can say is WTF...


Weird bike we came across:


And that was Milano,
Back in the hotel I had a really weird toilet... a square one... it did not sit comfortable, luckily there was an asswasher next to it



And that concludes this short TR for a 9 day trip
Had lots of fun, ate to much food, hiked in beautifull mountains and am very tanned.

Now I'll have to get back to playing poker although I'll make a book type review in my next blog post on the books I've read while being on vacation.

Robin out.

Let me warn you up front that there is absolutely no poker content whatsover in this post and it's only about my vacation. Song (Mark Knopfler, what it is)

When I was in Vegas I got an invitation from my father to fly out to Geneva and go to the Mont Blanc in France and then to Gran Paradiso in Italy. So after getting back on the 16th from Vegas I left on the 19th again! Plans were to go hiking in the mountains and just go camping.

10 days away from computers/poker was something I was definately ready for since poker has not been going great the last few months and sometimes you just need some time away to reflect on your game. So I was happy to be away for a little over a week. (ok I guess you can call this sort of poker-related)

So to the trip. The flight was delayed by about an hour but wasn't a big deal. What was funny was that one of my two roommates was actually returning from Geneva with the plane we were leaving with, so it was funny seeing him get off the plane I was about to board.

The first night we stayed at the house of a friend of my fathers near Lausanna where the weather was really good:


Tired from the flight and whatever we just went to bed early after finishing off a bag of pistachio's.


The next day we drove to France to the Mont Blanc and set up camp

That tent would be my home for the next 9 days.
We also visited some friends who were staying in the same area and enjoyed the view under the pleasure of some beers.



So we were off to our first hike, meeting scary people along the way


View from halfway there



Fell half asleep and woke up when horses where licking my feet... must say that I was kindof shocked 'waking up' with a huge animal over your head.


So after hiking for a couple of hours we reached the 'lake' at the end of the trail... was kindof dissapointed at the size of the lake...



We had some crepes after getting back and I helped to feed some of nature's creatures:



Basically we did another somewhat similar hike the next day so I won't post more 'pictures of the same scenery'. Because we've been to this area (well not this exact area, but the mont blanc area) before we decided to head over to Gran Paradiso in Italy.

We used the Mont Blanc Tunnel:


Which is one of the longest tunnels in the world. Was nothing special though. Just a really really long tunnel. We found a very nice camping near Aosta where it seems like a lot of locals were spending there vacation.

So we set up camp, here are my companions for this trip, my father and his gf.


In the first day in Italy we had to get some pasta's. So we lunched with pasta's and salads.
One annoying thing about Italy is that (well first off that they speak italian and I don't know Italian, anyway) all the restaurants close between 3 and 7 pm. So if you want to eat between that time you can't get a decent meal. Then at night we also had pizza. Ah there are also some good things about being in Italy!

Here is the first trip in Italy, me trying to promote leggo obviously:


On the way up we came across a fox, which was really not shy of people I guess since he just walked right by us. And my mind was still on poker I guess because I figured it was a good avatar for bfox...


Another great view from being in the mountains:



We also watched two ants try to kill a caterpillar, some pics of the battle:





These ants where monsters, attacking any animal they found, I've also seen them destroy a spider, bee, other ants and just random insects. While at the tent there were two beetles making love and one of these ants being about 1/5th of their size starts attacking them and actually killing one. You do NOT want to mess with these ants if you're as big as them. Luckily I am godlike in comparison to those tiny creatures so I took some revenge for the other animals.

Because this is becoming such a long post with so many pics I'll make the second part of the TR later.


Cliffs:
Went to france and italy and did some hiking, took lots of pics.

Just got back today after my plane got delayed in Milano.
Will write an extensive TR later, however it will be free of pokercontent and just a TR of my short vacation of France and Italy.

It will, include alot of (interesting) pictures!


Here is me supporting leggo up in the mountains of the Mont Blanc!


For now, going to bed.
Robin out.

I'll be flying to Geneva tomorrow evening and then first go to France for a couple of days and then drive (well I won't be driving probably ) to North Italy!

Plans are to basically go walking in the mountains and just relax and camp.


It will give me some time to think about what I want to do the upcoming months, It looks like I'll be spending one or two months in Malta instead of 6. But I might also go back to the states(vegas) and/or Mexico!

In other news, I bought a camera today:


So with all of that I'm ready to go camping/mountain climbing!
I won't have any internet so will not be blogging.

When I get back I intend to start with losing 20-30 pounds and will probably be looking to make some sort of sidebet on this (possibly the same type I had before where both parties have to lose weight and have to pay up if they didn't lose it!)

Robin out.

Got back home yesterday morning, two friends picked us up at the airport which was nice! Got some breakfast and played a game of Puerto Rico:


After that I had to unpack everything and wash everything because I'm leaving this sunday evening for Geneva. Plans are to go to France to visit some friends and then go to Italy. Should be good, however I won't have any access to internet for that time so no blogging then....
When I get back I'll get back to poker again and will try to keep this blog updated

Even though I slept a couple hours on the plane I was still really tired so basically went to bed around 5 pm and woke up around 7 am this morning (woke up a couple times in between). And had the most bizarre dreams ever.

I'll start with the first dream (which I don't really remember that much from) but I was still on vacation somewhere and met a really cute girl that worked as a stripper but didn't really like it. We really hit it off and then she had to go to work and me and my roommates went to a waterpark. We started texting and she sent me an color animated text (doesn't even exist but whatev) while me and my roommates went to a waterpark with slides but didn't get in because we drove in through the back entrence and got arrested for sneaking in. However I escaped and then I met up with this girl later. There was a bunch more stuff that I forgot about that dream though, but let's move on to the second dream.

I was chasing this goldfish (above water) in a field of corn with a gun and he and his goldfish friends where shooting at me so I had to run away.

I got to a train that went underground but the one goldfish was still chasing me (and kept shooting at me) but then we got into a fight and I got the upperhand and got him finally underwater where I tried to drown him. I was trying to kill the goldfish and tried putting a chair on his head (while I was still drowning him underwater).
After an hour long struggle of this he finally died and I completely exhausted from this hour long battle but I was so proud that I wanted to call the girl from the first dream... (wtf, mixing dreams? don't remember that ever happening before.)
Then we (me and the girl from the first dream) celibrated that the fish was finally dead and I felt really bad for killing...

Anyone who wants to analyse those dreams, let me know what it means but I'm guessing a month in vegas was the max for now
So after that I decided I had to get some breakfast and got some normal breakfast again instead of pancakes or burgers.


It was good! Going to see what the damage of vegas is.

Robin out.