Things have been BUSY

I am finally getting around to updating this thing. I have been stupid Busy with both work and making sure the upcoming League is gonna be set up since we are moving locations. Also I have been working with a good friend of mine Mike Silvas and we have been creating a website for Acadiana Poker Players. We just put the site live to try and get some input from our poker friends to see if we can improve the site in anyway and fix some bugs that may currently exist. To go along with the website and APP League (Season 3 already. Unbelievable) I have created a new Card Protector that will sell for $6 a piece. I think it is a great price since most Card protectors run for about $10-20 bucks that are custom made. This card protector is made of Ceramic and is between 43-45mm in Diameter so it is bigger than a standard poker chip and smaller than a dealer button. I chose the Octagon shape to specifically differ and avoid any chance of Dumb Dealers or Poker Players from getting it confused with one of the two.

How do you like the design?

The company that is making it for me is a great poker chip company based out of Georgia I believe. He has mostly been doing this by word of mouth but hopefully he will agree to advertise on our website www.acadianapokerplayers.com be cause he always does a great job from my experience so far. I bought some ceramic poker chips from him as well as I always wanted a nice set of my own and he sure did not disappoint me. Thank you Steve Petusky as I hope to do future business with you as well as bring you much more future business!

The T-shirt situation has been a bit of a pain in the butt because I am still searching for a company that will provide good pricing and Design for when I create them. The previous company I was going to was charging me different prices almost every time I went there and I had to continue to bring my original receipt to prove the price that I paid before. They also messed up on printing my last batch of shirts, took their time to respond to my emails and phone calls, and always were very disorganized when I went to their business to pick up the shirts. I was tired of the headache so I decided to look for another company/person to do this and still have not found any luck. If you have someone in mind that can help me out please let them or me know so I can get this stuff done!

I Want to thank the following guys for helping in preparation for the website, league, etc. and also want to help bring attention to some of my friends who are looking for players in games they want to have as well. Thanks Linden and Barbara Comeaux, Jimmy "Luckbox Leprechaun" Rogers, and Tommy Hebert for helping in preparing the upcoming year for season 3 of APP League! Can't wait to win the trophy this year as I blew it the two previous years haha. Thanks alot for Mike Silvas in putting up with my continuous questions about the website and patiently putting up with me. I am looking forward to doing business with you and hopefully it goes great (He wants this blog to go to the website btw so if we ever get to that point I hope you continue to follow!) I am currently looking for players that would be interested in blogging on the website as well, so If you would like to give me a shout here or on my Facebook and let me know what you would want to blog about!  And even though I hate to admit it. Thanks Mike Fontenot for sharing thoughts on things others are afraid to input on. You have helped make multiple adjustments that I have overlooked in the league. now we can just work on communication hahaha.

I didn't have much of a New Years Celebration as work wore me out. I went back and forth from Lafayette, LA to Port Fourchon, LA working on a big project for work about 5 times over the past 2 weeks and was on call for the Christmas Holidays. So when it came time for the New Year's "Celebration" I was just exhausted and went to sleep at 10pm haha. I went have supper with the wife at Chili's and also watched a movie on bluray before hitting the bed so it was a little something. New Years Day I hit up New Orleans with my buddy Tommy who suprised me with Last Minute Saints Tickets and even though the wife and mom was pretty pissed at me for not spending the holiday with them (I'm such a horrible guy) I think it was still worth it and fun as it was the first Saints game I have been to since 2008 and watched them destroy Carolina 45-17! My favorite part was when the whole crowd simultaneous chanted WHO DAT WHO DAT WHO DAT SAY THEY GON' BEAT DEM SAINTS" three times before the kickoff to start the game! I wish I would have been prepared cause I would have been yelling my lungs out with them. The amount of charactors that go to Saints games are hilarious from a Saints cow, to a Saints Halo character (Video game), to the Saints boxer and Saints' wise men, to the personalities of the long time season ticket holders that surround you in the 600 levels. I love every minute of it and would eat their $9 Jambalaya til there is no tomorrow but only buying the $8.50 beer if I'm dying of thirst haha.

After getting home and getting chewed out a bit more from the wife, The next day I wanted to treat her to a date. Well that turned into her wanting to go get some new shoes she needed. Then THAT turned into me getting the last minute urge to go bring her car shopping since hers was going to crap and we still owed a good amount on the vehicle. She intentionally wanted the Kia Soul....yes the hamster car (See commercial below) and I did my research and was prepared to go to war with the Salesmen but I knew that Tommy (My best man and long time friend) brought his mom to the dealership across the street of her house and she got them an awesome Brand New Nissan Rogue top notch for a stupid Deal....Like unbelievable. So I called her and asked her if she can help "work her magic" for us and told her the details of what we were looking for etc. Well that completely U-Turned and they brought us two options which were both Brand New that fit our Price Range.

We could choose between a Nissan Altima (which my wife owned a previous older model before) or the new Nissan Versa SL with all kinds of cool additions so we test drove it, liked the size, the specs (Bluetooth, Ipod hookup, 30-38 mpg city/hwy, etc) and Decided on this one. So Tommy's mom who the dealers and her know each other on first name basis with all the deals they have worked with each other whether it be with friends, family, or personally have started their wages. First it was the trade in Value for the junky 2005 Ford Taurus. I was expecting between 1200-1500....nope 2000 and that was on the first offer haha my jaw dropped. Next they showed us that they dropped the sticker price of the car from 18750ish to 16995. I was trying to get this lower but all they could offer was a $150 credit which we put towards a window tint we are going get done at the end of the week. The deal was almost done. I was getting second thoughts and Tommy's Mom smacked me back in reality and told me to relax, I'm getting a really great deal and its better than what we had, just enjoy it! I am so glad she was there to help us and we owe her big now cause we couldn't have got it by ourselves. I have a talent of getting screwed by car dealers but Mr. Skyler Vaughn and Mgr Greg Leblanc at JP Thibodaux were top class and very helpful and friendly throughout the process!!

Proud New owner of the 2012 Nissan Versa SL

I will wrap this up with some New Years Resolutions. Since I have finally come to understanding with bankroll management I believe I can try to work on obtaining a profit this year instead of either breaking even or being slightly in the negatives. Here are a few Life and Poker related Resolutions I have in mind.

1. Find a church and start to Attend Regularly. (God is Important in my life)
2. Continue to stick to what I learned from many great players around the Gulf Coast and extremely grateful they shared their advice with me!
3. Obtain a profit of $5,000 or more for the year!

I think number three is extremely doable and I hope to make it more but I want to start small and work my way up! Going to start that off with the $200k GTD at the Beau Rivage this weekend so hopefully I will bring good news!

-Matt Stroud