brandonberndt.com

There is a great thread running at PAL with the same title. I started writing a response, then thought it would be better to move my rant over here.

Jeremy and I have had this conversation many times before. We differ slightly in opinion, but I do agree with his points. Here are my thoughts.

I got a degree in Business Management and am extremely happy and proud of it. I would not change it at all. I was an entrepreneur all throughout college, so I guess I differ as I had a great experience doing both at the same time.

I grew up a lot in college in terms of my overall understanding of business and what it takes. I learned many things that I use daily. I learned a bunch of useless shit as well though.

I differ a bit being on the operations side, but in my mind, affiliating is one of the few sectors under the entrepreneurial umbrella that a college degree is basically useless. But going with a more 10,000 view of what it is to be an entrepreneur, I think that my degree is extremely helpful.

The goal is to create your own business right? Well having the right ideas for a new product for example, does not mean success. There is a lot more that you have to know behind the scenes in order to run or even create a successful business.

I think if done right, a college education replaces the void of experience. If you give your daughter $100,000 to start a business, the odds of her pissing a way the money on a failed venture is just as high as her pissing it away on a useless college education, probably even higher. There are so many useless Majors, that it is far to easy to do this now a days.

There is a lot of money in what we do, but what worries me is the uncertainty of the future of affiliating. It has only been around for 10 years, so who can predict what it will be like in another 10. IMO the key is to keep this in mind and have an exit strategy. If you found out tomorrow that everything came crashing down in our industry, or even if there is a major shakeup in affiliating in general, what would you do? How would you manage?

My goal is to always know what the next step could be if shit truly hit the fan.

Ill try to dig deeper into this another time. There are a lot of points in here that I feel stronhly about that I would be happy to discuss further.

I am a diehard baseball fan. Always have been, always will. So I figured it would be fun to make my 2009 Major League Baseball Predictions. These predictions have the standings with records for every division. Pennant winners, and World Series Champion. They also have MVP’s, CY Youngs, Batting Average and Homerun leaders, for each division. Well, with no further ado, my 2009 MLB Predictions. (more…)

I will be attending CAC Amsterdam 2009 later on this week and am pretty damn excited about it. Its been awhile since I have been to one of the conferences, and am looking forward to seeing everyone again! I leave on Friday the 26th and arrive the 27th in the morning.

I will be there until the 1st of April, just in time to get back for my birthday.

I will be staying in an apartment with Jeremy Enke, Kyle Healey, John Holloway, and Steve Cook. It should be a pretty crazy week!

Anyone that is attending and wants to meet up or grab a beer, drop me an email or leave a comment on this post.

Will be giving live updates on http://twitter.com/acedcom and http://twitter.com/brandonberndt if you are interested.

One of my close friends who I owe a lot to, has recently launched a new company that I am very excited about it. It is called Foundit and it is a revolutionary Lost and Found company.

Basically, the premise behind Foundit is that you create an account, and order Foundit stickers that you place on your phones, laptops, MP3 players, etc so that when any of them get lost, who ever Foundit (see, its clever) can go to Foundit and get a reward for turning it in. (more…)

Everyone you know has already created their 2009 goals, just like they have year after year. Everyone is optimistic, and everyone wants to make this year to be THEIR year. Well I have done the same, and I will share with you my 2009 goals, and how I plan to achieve them.

Now before I list my goals, I will explain my strategy with my goals system. Its not as complicated as the BCS, so it should be easy to follow.
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As many of you know, Jeremy Enke and I have been close friends since I entered into this industry, and have worked on countless projects together. Well I am excited to announce one that tops them all IMO. We will be co-hosting a new radio show called Affiliate Life Radio. This show will be based partially on whats going on in our industry, but mostly based on the lives of Affiliates off the computer. (more…)

I am leaving in a couple hours to go on a 7 day cruise to the Western Caribbean. I will not be back in the office until Monday August 18th.

I will be porting in Belize, Honduras, Cozumel, and Grand Cayman. It’s my first real vacation since my honeymoon exactly a year ago so I am really excited.

Will post pictures and trip recap when I get back.

Today is the one year anniversary of my marriage to my beautiful wife. It’s really cool to think that 365 days ago at this exact moment my fiance was walking down the isle to become my wife (its 11:00am as I am typing). If she only knew what she was getting herself into

This first year has been truly amazing. We have had a lot of big things happen to both of us, and if this year is any indication of what is to come, then I am one lucky man. (more…)

Testing the new iPhone wordpress app. Seems pretty good.

Here is the course I am playing right now.

Alright so its almost been a year since I set out to have this blog created. Its time to get it going. As many of you know, my name is Brandon Berndt and I am the Poker Room Manager and Affiliate Program Director for ChanPoker.com. I love playing poker, and have a bit of a gambling problem.

Speaking of gambling, I often deposit $100 on Bodog just to kill some time at my game of choice Let it Ride. I do this as many times a week as I can before the wife catches on. Well lately I have killed their casino. Here are some screenshots.

For the first one, I only had $35 left so I was betting $5 (like I said its to kill time). Next hand I bet $10 and hit a flush, it was a good start. I ended up taking it to Blackjack and won another $200 beating $15-$75 a hand.

The second four of a kind was something special. I was down to my last $45 and was slightly tilted after losing 15 consecutive hands. Playing my self proclaimed can’t lose Berndt Let it Ride strategy, I knew the odds were on my side for a winning hand. So I bet $15 and was dealt 2 2 2. Jackpot.

I ended up taking the $2400 to blackjack, roulette, a bit of poker, and some $5 slots. I promptly cashed out $4900.

Now yes I have a couple stories like this, but most of them go; deposit $100, hit big hand, lose $1000 betting $100 a hand while on tilt. I am sure I will share these with you soon.

Anyways, hope you enjoy the upcoming blog. Sorry Bodog.