Another Year Comes to an End

So the end of another year is approaching fast and of course most importantly Hogmanay ( For the Non Brits - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogmanay ) and do you know, I think I am going to make the most of this one.

Why?

Well I will not be on Scotland for the next New Year and really who knows when the next one will be in Scotland....

But I think the most astonishing one is that, contrary to my young and dashing looks, this will be my last one in my "real" twenties as I will be turning 29 and 12 months in March of 2009.. So the downhill slide begins!

For those of you who I won't see before then, Have a Very Happy New Year

And for those of you who I will, Sorry :)

Back on the Road Again!

So this week the travelling started again after a couple of weeks of being at home.... I suppose I can't really complain though as I got to go to 2 cities that I have never been to and 2 pretty cool ones at that!

First on the road trip was San Diego in California. Now I thought Dallas was outrageously warm for November sitting around 20deg C but I arrived in San Diego and it was a bloody roasting 30deg C. This is now on my top ten list of places I want to move to for this reason only :) Cost of living is way to high but the weather almost makes it worth it!!

Oh and we have a website in the US called Priceline. This is where you can go online, choose the city where you want a hotel, choose the area you want to stay in and then name your price. I ended up getting a room in the Hilton, Downtown San Diego for $100instead of $200, sweet deal!

Anyway, Saturday was planned as a personal day with no work so a mate of mine who lives in LA came down for the night so we could party. We ended up out for dinner and having a few beers....then a few more and, well you know how it ends!!

On Sunday I headed out to my meeting, on the way there I stopped of at Del Mar. As I had packed a case for both the warm of SD and the cold of Boston I didn't have any shorts so I was the weird guy on the beach with jeans on!! The beach there was superb and the views were amazing. Not really as much fun as it could have been if I was not on my own.....

The meeting was held at the La Costa Resort in Carlsbad which is a Spa and Golf resort on the coast. It was nice but I if it was my own money I would have rather stayed somewhere else!!

After the final meeting on Tuesday I headed to the Airport for the journey from hell. I had to get from San Diego (south west US) to Boston (north east US)It took me 8 hours from when I got on the plane in SD to when I got off in Boston!! I can get to London from Dallas in 9!! At least I managed to get first class all the way but that in itself has it's down falls...Bloody Mary's!!!! :)




Boston was really cool but a change in climate from Dallas and SD, it was -6deg C there compared to the 30deg C I had just left in SD.

Most of my time was spent at the trade show but on Wednesday night we did go out and ended up having dinner at the Union Oyster House which turned out to be the oldest restaurant in the USA. The fresh Main lobster was the best I have tasted!!

It has an interesting history which you can read a the link below!
http://www.unionoysterhouse.com/Pages/history.html

It came to the end of the show on Thursday night and I was so wiped that I got a last minute flight to Dallas and arrived back there at 23:30...So I eventually got home on Thursday night and boy was I ready...


Next trip?? Well As it stands now the next trip will be back London for my visa then back to Glasgow for Christmas and New Year which hopefully will include a trip to Ibrox to watch the good triumph over the evil :)


talk to all y'all soon :)

I made the front page!

So I return from Sawgrass to this in my email inbox. Some people in my office just have too much time on their hands! And it's a bad day when it's the V.P forwarding this around the office :)

Sales Meeting Florida

I know from the title you are think why would I be interested in reading about Bellshaw at a sales meeting but read on!

The reason this meeting is worth writing about is probably down to the location (Sawgrass PGA Tour Golf Course), the nights we partied and the people that were there

During the day on Sunday we received our motivational speak from Hank Haney who is Tigers coach. I will never forget who he is or who he coaches a he mentioned it as that's all he talked about. Some interesting stories but come on, I like to talk about myself because of how good I am but he took the biscuit! If he was chocolate he would have ate himself! More like Hank Hiney now.... And he had a story about Scottish Caddies rolling out of the bar at St Andrews straight onto the course, I mean is that really wrong :)

When it came round to Sunday night we went with some of our choice customers to the Champions Lounge which is located in the Sawgrass Club House. This was a very cool room as they dedicate it to the current champion and decorated with memorabilia of that individual. The current champion is Sergio Garcia.

The room has an outdoor area which looks onto the 18th hole, very cool!!

The highlight of the night had to be getting the tour of the club house. We started of in the players lounge where the relax before their round, then moved onto the locker room. I was like a kid at Christmas getting my picture taken in front of all the legends lockers. Evidence below but more to come! Oh and I got to pee where the legends pee...what an honer :)



On Monday night we had our hospitality event. As we were at such a great golfing location I'll let you guess the theme. So a few of us got dressed up in out "crazy golf outfits", of course with Scotland being the home of the game I had to do something to represent!!

Oh and of course there was the presenting to about 600 over the 2 days which was the most fun I have had with public speaking yet. And to think I was like Gareth Gates presenting to anyone when I moved over here, funny how things work out!

More pictures to follow!

Looking back on the visit...

I have just left my Mum and Brothers back at my flat in Dallas and I am off to Saw Grass Florida to work (yes the famous PGA tour venue!!) They do not fly back to Scotland until Sunday evening.. Yes I know, I am a bad son but it could have been worse, most colleagues headed out on Thursday....

So now that I have left them and and been on a 3 hour flight I have had some time on my own to think back on how the 8 days went. Actually not that much time as I met some of my reps in first class and proceeded to drink too many Bloody Mary's. They are free so it would be rude not to right??Anyway, do you know, overall I think it went really well.

They had time to meet some of the people who are special to me in Dallas which is always good but nerve racking when you are part of the Scottish Adams Family :) We spent some good quality alone time together and had a lot of fun.

Would I have changed anything about it, apart from making it shorter! (only joking mother!) I would have changed the living arrangements and by saying this it is not a meant in a bad way.

Let me set the scene.. I have a small flat with a bedroom and box room, I have lived away from home for almost 10 years, 3 of them being 4000 miles away plus the biggest thing of all, I am hard to live with :) There were 4 of us squashed into it for 8 days!! If we had a wee bit more private space it would have made a amazing holiday almost perfect.

So lesson learned, next time I have visitors over for an extended period of time and I do not have the space, I am afraid it will have to be a nearby hotel

Thanks Mum, Shaun and David for taking the time to come over and visit, I love all yall! Don't call me, I'll call you for the next visit (jk) See you at Christmas :)

Oh just so my sister Elissa doesn't feel left out as she likes to play the marter, I kind of like you too sis :)

Family in Dallas continued

Tuesday

Today we went to the Dallas Aquarium ( http://www.dwazoo.com/aquarium.html ). This is the second time I have been, the last was with the sis when she was over in October 2007 but it was still pretty cool. They have it set out so that top floor is like the rain forest with monkeys, bird etc allowed a free run of the place and them works it way down the floor to the bottom of the sea. As you can see from the picture Shaun has a taste for the exotic and wanted his picture taken not with the snakes or alligators but with a man eating...... Duck! :)





I tried hard, but no amount of persuasion would make the brothers swim with the sharks... next time I'm going to try the kissing the rattle snake line :)

Thursday

The adventure continued with a trip to the zoo. Again I have been there before but for me animals can be funny, especially the Zebra. (fyi my American friends, this is pronounced with a zed not a zee.... :) ) OK, so a Zebra might not be any ones first choice when asked what is the funniest animal... but then you were not raised with a Papa like mine who had a, well, his own style of humor! As I was growing up he told me that a Zebra is only a Horse with it's Pajamas on... you believe every thing your wise old grandfather tells you as your growing up right? I've told enough, admitting the age I found out the truth would just be to much! :) RIP Papa you old s*it :)

I have a favor to ask, If anyone has the ability to Photo shop extra chins out of pictures please let me know, I will pay handsomely :)

Family visit to Dallas!

Well my mother and 2 brothers, Shaun and David, arrived in town on Friday afternoon. It was great to see them as it had been almost 10 months since we last met.

So what have we been doing so far? Well apart from getting on each others nerves :) the week has looked like this....


Saturday

A friend invited us round for a grill (BBQ to us Scots) by the pool! We arrived and were greeted with a mountain of food, burgers, dogs, home made queso, fresh brownies, BBQ beans etc etc Oh and not to forget some cold beer!

We sat by the pool and chilled while David (aka Damien for his wee devil like persona :)) and Shaun (aka professor plum for his know it all attitude, wonder where he gets that from!) played in the pool, taking it in turns to jump in the cold and hot parts of the pool! David has the voice of an old man so the whole complex heard him shouting "it's HOT in here" :)

After this we went to a local park which has bronze statues of cowboys and cattle to mark where the cattle runs passed through Dallas years ago. (yes gran this is the place where you were hanging on the cowboy with dreamy eyes!) (oh and yes Stu you this is where you found pleasure in sticking you head between the cows legs, classic picture!)

The boys seemed to have fun climbing where they shouldn't have been climbing but I did have a worrying moment. David seemed to have a fixation with kissing on the cattle "underparts" I was slightly relieved to find out he thought they were lady cows and that he wanted to see their udders :)

Sunday

We got up on Sunday and toddled along to the Texas State Fair( http://www.bigtex.com/ ). Now this is something to behold for the non American, even the non Texans actually! It's like Bishy day on steroids( http://www.bishoptonday.com/index.php ), you have to check it out. We went on the rides, ate some weird southern food, if you get the chance you have to try corn dogs they are brilliant!!( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_dog ) and all in all had good old family fun. Not to forget spending a fortune.....

Well more to come on the rest of the week!

What am I doing here?

Well I have decided to join the world of blogging, why you may ask? Basically because I am crap at responding to emails and find myself writing the same thing over again when talking to different people. Oh, and another reason is that as I get older the old memory bank is getting a wee bit smaller, to much napper abuse from days of old! I find if I write things down then all I need to do is read to remember, that actually has a quite a ring to it....

So with all being said this will be a snapshot of what I am doing and things that I have done, just so I remember them, since leaping across the pond.