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staying in the marriott, ashbourne tomorrow..

Tomorrow, i’ll be staying in the Marriott Hotel, Ashbourne.

It’s a fairly new hotel and has great feedback so i decided to just book it in a spur of the moment type thing. €99 including breakfast for the two of us.

I plan on heading up to Dublin Airport also. I thought about going to Newgrange, as believe it or not, i’ve never been, but i think i might leave that ’til the summer when i know i’ll get a dry day!

The reason i’m so unproductive this week is because my girlfriend is off on a weeks holidays. It’s bitter-sweet, mostly bitter

Having said that, i’ve managed to further talks on BeerChief (we’ve now agreed a final price and are beginning work) and and come up with a few site designs for one of my new sites, plus come up with a few new ideas for more sites.

Anyway, for my non-Irish readers, here’s a map of where my home is, where my college is, where Dublin is and where the hotel i’ll be staying in is For my Irish readers, sorry for insulting your intelligence

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glossy black is cool

I’m just back from Dundalk today, not in college, but ’shopping’ with the other half.

Shopping for me now involves going around the tech shops for about 20 minutes, getting a drink and paper in a newsagents and sitting in the car for an hour reading the newspaper

Anyway, i seen the 19″ and 22″ samsung pebble LCD’s - the monitors i want for my new office. I’d only seen the TV’s up until now, but based on solid feedback and my history with samsung TV’s i decided i’d get 2 x 20″ samsung monitors for my new office.

But the monitors look sexier in real life than they do below. That glossy black finish just oozes class. Chuck in an XPS powerhouse and i’ll have some seductive equipment on show

Grand Slam Sunday

Good day to you all. Today is like ‘thanks giving’ to us footy folk.

Man Utd -v- Liverpool

Chelsea -v- Arsenal

What i’m hoping for is a Man Utd win and a draw in the other match… that would leave Man Utd 5 points clear at the top and with one hand on the title they already own

Forget about making money and blogging and all that crap today… the fingers get a day off, the PC get’s a little snooze and it’s pure entertainment.

By the way ‘Grand Slam Sunday’ doesn’t actually mean anything, it’s not a competition in itself, it’s just Sky Sports hyping 2 league matches up like they’re two boxing matches

They normally end up in boring 1-0 wins or draws

Just to add more spice to it all, i have €8 on the United match.

€4 on Rooney @ 6-1 to score first.

€4 on Utd to win 3-1 after 90 minutes (14-1).

Total of €88 in winnings should it all go to plan

Dammit, i lost my wallet!

About 10 minutes ago, i said to myself - “oh shit, where’s my wallet?”.

Searched the room, searched the car, all my bags no luck..

I then tried to retrace my steps - where was the last place i had it - it was probably in Dundalk Town (last time i used it), so that can be good i told myself.. normally i don’t venture outside the college, but i ended up walking in to town for some reason

I was just about to ring the college, or just drive back up (as the office is probably closed) to see if i’d left it there (i remember being in a rush out and grabbing the coat off the back of my chair to beat the rush hour traffic)… my coat has button pockets, and i probably didn’t have them buttoned, so it must have fallen out under a table or something…

Anyway, just as i was grabbing my keys and preparing to go off, i got an email from the college saying it was found Success! Some good samaritan handed it in.. probably cleaners or something…

So that saves me cancelling my credit cards and losing a few quid in cash However, it now means i have to go up to college and back just to collect my wallet… a 2 hour round trip

Complete waste of petrol and energy, but the thing is i’m off college for the next 2 weeks, so i have to collect it. I blame the coat manufacturer for not having zip pockets. Zip pockets FTW.

I hate those hoodies with shallow pockets - they’re a disaster as everything falls out of them if you sit down. Shirt Pockets are just as bad, and coats with buttons suck too as they’re not completely sealed up.

So a mixture of good and bad news. I’ll get my wallet back - hopefully with everything in it but i also have to burn a few quid in petrol driving up and back, plus i’ll lose two hours of time i could be putting towards working.

UPDATE: as always you know me, i have to turn situations like these in to websites So i did a bit of browsing and came across a cool experiment. Some guys deliberately plants 100 wallets around a town to see how many people are honest and return them or just take them.

74 returned, 26 stolen, which is actually pretty good imo. I thought it would be 50-50.

Sealing the deal on BeerChief

We’re hopefully just a few days away now until work begins on BeerChief for real.

For the past week or so we’ve been receiving bids and offers to build the project from many companies, all over the world. The offers ranged from $2k up to $8k. Our budget was set at $3k but we’ve actually smashed that all together having decided to go all out.

I won’t reveal who we have lined up or exactly how much we’re paying, but put it this way - once BeerChief launches, our spending will have approached 5 figures in US dollars

So this is serious money, this is serious work and it could have detrimental consequences for us if it fails as we’ll both have a lot riding on it. We can just about afford it, but it’s stretching us and really forcing us to become risk takers above all else. We know we have a good idea and solid plans, which when combined with members & a top notch design and site, will leave us sitting on a mini goldmine, but there’s always that niggling feeling of doubt and i think you need that just to keep you motivated.

With this amount of cash going in to BeerChief, you instantly expect it to be something sensational as an outsider listening to this. You won’t be wrong, and i’ve said that from day one - we either do it right or we don’t do it at all

BeerChief is already taking over my online life and i’m now starting to see it effecting my offline life. That’s cool. It’s part and parcel of being an entrepreneur. But it forces me in to working hard and really giving it my all. At 20 (21 next month), i have energy & creativity to burn, and i realise that - i’ll try to channel it all in to BeerChief now.

I’m a firm believer that the most productive time in anyone’s life is when they are young and at school/in college, primarily because they have nothing to lose and can have a stab at early success in life. Most people squander that opportunity or simply don’t realise how lucky they are, and i don’t want to look back in 10 years time and put myself in to that bracket.

Now ok, in order to come up with ideas, you need experience, and experience comes with age, but i believe i’m mature enough at this age to spot a niche, think about how to exploit it and chase it down until it becomes a reality. I’ve completed 2 of 3 of those steps with BeerChief and i’m now beginning work on the hardest part - making it a reality. Of course cash is a problem for young people, but with BeerChief, i’m confident enough in it to risk everything.