I am what I imagine myself to be.
Did I read that right?
On my current SAG dues bill I noticed the * beneath the numbers:
*If your 2006 earnings are $1,000,000 or more; please pay the MAXIMUM dues for 05/2007 0f $3,283.00
Earnings of one MILLION dollars or more? A $3k+ bill just to belong to a union? Guess that only applies to people like Tom Cruise, Halle Berry, and other A-List stars. Definitely not me. Luckily, I only owe $58. But I can’t wait for the day I can complain about my $3,283.00 SAG dues.
0 CommentsThis morning it became evident that I really need to brush up on my spanish. The reality is Latinos are the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the country. In Los Angeles almost everything is printed in both Spanish and English. And there are plenty of people who speak very little English. When you deal with people in construction or hospitality it’s almost imperative that you know enough Spanish in order to communicate with people. This morning I had to rely on the 3 years of Castilian Spanish I took in High School along with that school trip to Spain in order to communicate with a contractor. I didn’t do too bad. I think I’ve retained a good amount of Spanish from high school because at that time pop music was incorporating Spanish into lyrics - such as the song “I Adore, Mi Amore” by Color Me Bad, or “Mentirosa” by Mellow Man Ace and artists such as Gloria Estefan and Jon Secada were popular.
One of my goals for this year was to finally become fluent in Spanish. I think I might start working on that now. So do you think I can become fluent in Spanish in 30 days? I would say a definite “yes” if I moved to Spain for a month and was forced to think and speak in Spanish everyday. But I guess it’s easy enough to immerse yourself in Spanish living in LA. I will also pickup a copy of Rosetta Stone - Spanish since I’ve heard good things about it.
0 CommentsI’ve barely begun my next challenge to become stronger in 30-days and I’m injured. My workout started with several sets of ab crunches on the nautilus machine, then 3 sets of slow straight-leg leg-lifts. After that I decided to warm up my chest and shoulders with a couple yoga moves which included down-dog to pushup to one-arm side plank pose. After that I moved to the weight room and started with 3 sets of decline bench presses at various grip widths using moderate weight (135lbs) to warm up. Then I moved to the bench press hammer machine and did 3 sets of 175lbs. The weight felt pretty light so I hopped over to the incline hammer machine which already had 225lbs on it and tried to press it up. I got the weight halfway up and couldn’t go any further. This frustrated me since I’ve pressed 275lbs on this machine before. So I tried again. No luck. It wasn’t going to happen. So I dropped the weight to 135lbs and performed 3 sets of 10 reps. At this point I decided to go back to the “ab room” and do a couple more sets of the yoga moves I started out with. After I finished I felt pretty good, but I know I didn’t push myself hard enough since I didn’t even really break a sweat.
Later in the evening I noticed that my front-right deltoid was a little sore. Then when I tried to pickup my dog I felt pain in my shoulder. Not unbearable pain, but I definitely strained a muscle in my shoulder.
So at this point I’m going to need to rest my shoulder and let it heal before I can try lifting (or even doing yoga) again. Since my shoulder is injured I decided to jog up and down 12 flights of stairs in my building just so I can get some exercise in and get my heart rate going. It feels good when your heart is pumping and you can feel the blood rushing through your veins. It reminds you that you are alive and should be moving through life instead of sitting at some desk all day half comatose pumping yourself full of sugar and caffeine - only to go home exhausted and then wake up and do the same thing all over again. But I digress…
0 CommentsThe XFlowsion DVD series is now available at xflowsion.com! What is XFlowsion? XFlowsion is an awesome mix of yoga, martial arts and dance taught by Eric Paskel. It’s perfect for people who have never done yoga before (like me). I personally lost 11lbs in 30 days by participating in a XFlowsion boot camp 4 times a week taught by Mr. XFlowsion himself - Eric Paskel. I’m now a yoga convert and have continued to take yoga classes (because there are no official XFlowsion classes in LA) and have lost an additional 10lbs. What’s unique about XFlowsion is the combination of isometric and plyometric moves along with the yoga stretching and aerobic moves which create an awesome way to stretch and strengthen core muscles while you get lean. Eric is also a great motivator and teacher with a straight-up no bullshit approach. I just hope that comes through in the DVD series. Much respect due.
0 CommentsI’ve spent the last 16 years working and playing with PCs. I have so much time and knowledge invested in PC’s that I thought I’d never switch to a Mac. But 3 months ago I decided to buy a MacBook Pro and now I’m never going back.
Why? Because it just works.
When I bought my MacBook Pro I also bought Parallels Desktop and Windows Vista Ultimate. Vista was my safety net (don’t laugh). I knew that if I got frustrated with OS/X I could dual-boot into Vista or run Vista in Parallels as a virtual machine (which works awesome, other than the fact that Vista sucks). But the first thing I noticed was just how well everything was designed. Even the packaging for the MacBook Pro is well designed and thought out. Everything is well designed. Even the power adapter converts from a long or short code, has little pullouts to wrap the cord, has a magnetic coupling to the MacBook, and has a charge indicator light on the adapter that plugs into the laptop. The MacBook itself is slim and sleek and has added features such as a back lit keyboard that adjusts to outside light, and a built-in webcam at the top of the screen. OS/X is beautiful and works really well. I thought I’d have trouble adjusting, but I didn’t at all. Vista on the other hand is ugly and a huge pain in the ass to use.
Don’t you hate it when you watch a movie and realize that the only good things about the movie was the trailer you saw for it on tv? Well, that’s Vista. That fancy 3-D window animation they’re always showing - if your computer is powerful enough to show it - that’s the only “good” thing about Vista. Believe me, I know. I use Vista daily and hate every second of it. The Mac - just works. I don’t need to download a bunch of programs and tweak the hell out of it to get it to run the way I want it to. Vista is just an OS/X wannabe anyways.
So like I said. I drank the kool-aid and it tastes good. Hell, I’m even thinking of ditching my Windows Mobile cellphone/device and getting an iPhone.
0 CommentsI’ve been in a shoe buying phase lately and one of my latest purchases are these red dragon Ed Hardy tattoo shoes with no laces. They are made of light canvas, are ultra comfortable and look great with a pair of distressed jeans and a vintage t-shirt. Originally $100, I bought my pair for $45 from Nordstroms and are no longer available, but check out more 0 Comments
Is it possible to gain 10lbs of muscle in 30 days and go from 14% bodyfat down to 10%? I’m about to find out.
A couple of years ago I trained with a 6 foot tall half Korean, half African-American trainer who had the physique of a bodybuilder. Over two months I gained 10lbs of muscle and went from benching 185lbs to 225lbs. That was a couple of years ago and since then I’ve lost a lot of that strength especially after dropping 20lbs. I really enjoyed my training sessions with him even though it was hard to understand him half the time through his thick Korean accent. I’d love to train with him again but unfortunately his location is inconvenient for me. So now I’m on the hunt for a new trainer.
A few days ago I met with a few people at Velocity Fitness which happens to be a small gym located in the office building where I work. The focus of Velocity Fitness is functional training/sports performance. Every trainer that works there comes from either a coaching background or competitive sports background. Supposedly this small gym trains pro-athletes and celebrities as well as the common folk. The gym is small, but very nice - and expensive. $600 for 4 training sessions plus $50/mo membership fee. These are the kind of trainers that could definitely help me reach my goals, but I’m not quite ready to invest pro-athlete kind of money.
A few days later while I was working out at 24-Hour Fitness I noticed the “Shape Up for $99” promo flyers around the gym. The promo is for 4/20min training sessions which is a decent deal. The only negative is that most trainers at 24-Hour Fitness don’t seem to have the experience or knowledge I’m looking for. Plus, it seems kinda hypocritical for some young guy/girl who is only in mediocre shape to try to tell me how to get in shape . I want to be trained by someone who has been successful in transforming their own physique. That being said, I think I might still sign-up for the $99 deal as long as I can find a trainer who knows what they’re doing and is not going to try to sell me crappy Apex supplements or treat me like a fitness newbie.
0 CommentsI started writing this poem about two years ago as part of my Smooth Butter Love project. Recently a friend of mine wanted to play around with some new recording gear he had so we threw down this track during lunch one day. It’s still rough, but I wanted to give people a little taste of the Smooth Butter Love…
Since today was Easter, we decided to have our once-a-month cheat meal(s) today. It started with a box of Sprinkles cupcakes - our new favorite indulgence. Heather couldn’t help but to do a little cupcake tasting with milk, cutting tiny slices out of each cupcake to determine which one she liked the most. This irritated me so I grabbed an unharmed Red Velvet and chowed down. The cream cheese topping mixed with the moist red cake was absolutely delicious. After finishing the Red Velvet I then grabbed the Easter themed Carrot cupcake with a cute little bunny on top and devoured it in 4 bites. By this time I could feel the refined sugar rushing through my veins and I knew it was time to stop. Around 1pm we went out to lunch to Locando Del Lago. We were a little hesitant about the quality of food since we had a mediocre experience a couple years back, but our other restaurant choices were all booked full. We both decided to order the Easter 3-course meal with wine pairings. It started off with smoked ham and candied fruit, then continued to a delicious veal tortellini in creme sauce. For the third course I chose the lamb and Heather chose the pike, both which were really good. For dessert we shared a flourless chocolate cake with hazlenut gelato. Overall a pretty good Italian Easter meal. A few hours later we decided to go to Wendy’s for our last cheat meal of the day.
Overall, a very good Easter celebration in food.
Tomorrow it’s back to strict eating. I’ll probably start with a bowl of oatmeal and an apple for breakfast then stay low carb for the rest of the day. I’m hoping to shred 6 more lbs of bodyfat. Then I’ll be at 10% bodyfat which is my goal. I’m just worried that I’m getting too skinny (which I never thought could even be a possibility). Soon I’ll start my next challenge of getting stronger and adding 10lbs of muscle while keeping my bodyfat around 10%.
0 CommentsI had a Wells Fargo commercial print casting today. This morning I was seriously debating of not going to the casting because:
#1 It was in Studio City which is a pain in the ass to get to from the west side, having to battle traffic both ways on the 405 and 101 freeways.
#2 It’s a $1250 buyout which means that once they take your picture, they own the rights to use it as long as they want and for whatever purpose they want - in perpetuity.
But my wife reminded me that one little job could lead to bigger and better things. So I went. This is actually the first casting I’ve had since dropping 20lbs. When I arrived at The Sportsman Lodge and found the room they were using for casting, I discovered I was the only one there (besides the casting people). First they took a couple of photos, then they wanted to see a couple reactions based on getting rejected, then getting accepted for a loan. This next section they videotaped. I felt I did really well at the casting. I guess we’ll see what happens next.
This experience did remind me of the fact that I no longer have a commercial agent, nor current headshots. I will have to start looking for headshot photographers again.
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