Objects In The Mirror

Giving Before You Get

2007-02-06T15:12:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the slow updates - I've been busting my butt trying to make some things happen. Remember, this site is about a guy making the move from employee to self-employed, not about a guy who already did. There are tons of things I want to cover, but something that was a sticking point for me to understand (and something I'm still understanding,) is the concept of giving before you get. In theory it sounds great. In practice, it can be a little more difficult to begin.

We often taught by the world to "get yours" and that you can only count on yourself. Trusting other people, or being generous in a forthright manner are very strange concepts to many people. Maybe that's why so much of the world is screwed up! How can people come together to accomplish anything when the subset thought process is, "well regardless of what happens here, I'm going to get mine." I'm sorry, but I'm not finding success happening in any way where I try and get mine before giving, or more correctly put, serving someone else.

Attempting to get without giving is like saying, "as soon as this fireplace provides me with heat, I'll throw some logs in." Or, "As soon as this business venture starts producing, I'll really invest in it. " The concept of making sure you're taken care of sounds almost right when you think it to yourself, but put into that context, it all of a sudden doesn't make sense. Considering that innate laws tend to be true in all things, I'm working harder to give first in every area of my life.

I used to be somewhat of a menacing driver. I grew up driving in the big city and could ride a closing lane to the very last moment, cut you off, flip the bird while still singing to whatever useless song was playing in my car, and then not let anyone else in. Since trying to give first, I've definitely been more relenting in letting people get in front of me, but you know what? My ingress into merging traffic seems to be a lot less stressful and a lot simpler as well.

You can call it sowing and reaping; you can call it positive energy flow; you can call it creating good karma - it's all the same thing. It's attempting to serve or give first, not with the selfish thought that you will then be owed a favor, but with the selfless belief that maybe someone will be eager to serve you. I have worked on being willing to give time I don't think I have to help out new guys I'm working with. I have worked on continuing to invest in my business, even when the return wasn't quite there, as well as investing in the people I'm trying to help, even though many of them have disappeared.

Whether it's tithing at your church or just being willing to hold the door open for people, giving before you get is a sure-fire way to get the prosperity you seek.

The Heart Of A Champion

2007-01-25T08:21:00.000-06:00

I know, I know, I had a post here recently about putting sports to the side to create a clearer focus. However, the city of Chicago was essentially at a standstill this past Sunday from about 2pm on as the Bears defeated the Saints to go to their first Super Bowl in over 20 years. Even some of my mentors decided to reward their normal action habit with watching their hometown team punch their ticket to Miami. In my business, we tend to wall ourselves off a little from the thinking of the world, but sports tends to transcend, especially in areas dealing with leadership, overcoming, and victory.

All year long in Chicago, and actually, across the Country, the starting quarterback for the Bears has been maligned for somewhat inconsistent play. It is statistically true that Rex Grossman had a couple of games that were well below par. I mean, some terrible performances. However, his solid performances outnumberd his bad ones 3-1 and most importantly, he was sound in a first round playoff win and got the job done in the win that put them in the Super Bowl.

So many people will say, "but look at this game, and look at that game," and I agree - I prefer consistency over inconsistency. But, I'll take winning over losing regardless of how you get there. I don't care how good your defense is, if you quarterback is going to lose the game for you, it's going to happen. The Bears are 15-3 right now and although the defense has played a major part, they haven't been all of it. They've won by 26 in a shutout, as well as putting up 40 three times, and between 30-39 points four times. Only one of those eight games was closer than a touchdown. They've also got two other 10 point victories when they didn't light up the scoreboard. That's not all defense and running.

Here's my point: so many of us have been raised on the concept that you have to avoid failure. Most of us are in positions where if we make a mistake it can cost us our job. That we shouldn't even start something until we know where we might stumble. Now if you're a doctor trying to save a life, or a lawyer trying to keep an innocent person from jail, not making a mistake could be critical. But, what do you think that doctor was doing in medical school? You know there had to be some errors in the classroom or in the learning process. Same with law.

If you failed every homework assignment along your way to the final exam, but learned all of your mistakes along the way so that you passed the final exam, you'd probably still get an "F" in the class. Even though you now know what you didn't know when doing the original homework. We leave very little room for failing forward in this Country. Congratulations to you Rex Grossman, for failing forward into your first Super Bowl.

You Are Worthy (The Core Of Success)

2007-01-18T09:15:00.000-06:00

One of the main things I tend to be facing with the new guys I work with, and more importantly, with the guys who've been around a bit, is self-worth. It seems that somewhere in the core of every person, is a level of deserving. It's not the same for every person and what is amazing is that for many people, it's not very high. Knowing that you are worthy of not only the success that happens to come your way, and the success you decide to chase, is to me, the core component of success. If you believe that you deserve whatever successes you have, the odds of you becoming successful grow.

I had heard once that everything has a 'natural' state. Take H20 for example. You can freeze it and turn it into ice, or you can heat it and turn into steam or vapor. The mind also has a natural state and for the majority of the population, it's negative. Left to our own devices, our thoughts often turn negative. Have you ever had a parent or a loved one that was supposed to come to your home only to have them not only, not show, but you can't reach them for an extended period of time? What was your first thought? Concern? Fear? It happens to all of us.

So why is all this important? Success can only occur in a positive state of mind. Anyone who has ever succeeded at a high level in any endeavor had to positively believe they would do so. That is why any book on success worth it's salt usually has at least a chapter on having a positive mental attitude. What's more vital than having a positive mental attitude in what you say to others and how you act outwardly is having one in your internal thoughts and how you feel on the inside. At the core of this is your self-image. Your self-worth.

We have been trained, be it by the limitations our parents put on us ("we're just not the entrepreneurial type - we're blue collar") or by our teachers ("your scores show you should be a janitor.") Over time, we build up what we determine our self-worth is through our associations, our gender, our race, and what we do for a living. Let me tell you right now, if you think your creator has it in for whatever supposed limiting factor you believe you have, you have another thing coming. A higher power is not what determined that you should make $30K/year as a gopher in an office.

Here's what I believe: you're meant for more. There is no way that such complex individuals such as human beings would develop to the level that we've developed to, to simply waste away manning cubicle 74 on the 8th floor of a non-descript downtown hi-rise. Me believing only does part of the trick because you have to believe also. I heard once that the "you" of today is simply a reflection of the "you" of yesterday, and at any time you can make changes to improve the "you" of tomorrow. We so often get caught up in our past failures that we let them control our potential to make a difference in our future successes. We hang on to old desires, old habits, and old thought processes that are at best comforting and at worst destructive.

You have value. You can draw a line in the sand and change the path of your world now. It's a common anecdote, but before Roger Bannister ran the four minute mile, it was considered "impossible." How many people did it take to prove it could be done? One, and now over 1500 people have accomplished the feat. How many people does it take to raise themselves up from nothing to prove to you that you can do it to? Take your reason for previous failure and make it the reason why you succeed now. Let that thing that you hate to remember that you did, be what drives you to become more. I believe in you. You are worthy.

Site News

2007-01-15T12:54:00.000-06:00

Sorry all - I've had a computer crash twice on me as I've tried to add new posts, wiping out large portions of them. I should have new stuff up later today. Thanks for being patient.

Goals, Not Resolutions

2007-01-07T12:50:00.000-06:00

Welcome to 2007! I've personally entitled 2007 as "The Year Of Abundance," but you're welcome to give it whatever title you like. When I played football in highschool, we often liked to give our season a title or mission statement. Whether it was "Finish Strong" or "Commitment," it was something simple we could put on a t-shirt and wear under our game gear. There is something about being in a locker room putting your pads on and seeing every other guy in there with a t-shirt on that says "No Quit!" I get fired up just thinking back on it and it played a major part in me deciding to give a mission statement/title to my year. I know my fellow blogger, Steve Pavlina has written some wonderful things about goal setting, as have others, so I thought I should at least chime in.

Why do most people fail to maintain their resolutions? There are a number of reasons, but the most prominent is that the resolutions people make are generally too drastic or absolute. "I'm quitting smoking on January 1st" or "I'm going to never eat sweets again as of New Years 2007." I'm not saying these resolutions can't be achieved or maintained, but to make a surface decision without attempting to change the underlying programming causes most people to miss the boat. If you've eaten cupcakes on a weekly basis for the last 10 years, but "in 2007 it's gonna be different!" you might be fooling yourself. The problem isn't necessarily the cupcake eating, but what incites you to want to eat the cupcakes in the first place. If it's your stress or comfort food, you need to set goals to lessen the things that cause you stress, or to find positive alternatives to dealing with your stress. Shad Helmstetter covers this tremendously in his book, "What To Say When You Talk To Yourself." He says to imagine all the furniture in your house being your previous negative thoughts. You move it all out, but the only way to keep from having to go get that comfortable sofa, is to replace it with healthier programming.

The way I've broken my goals down may be a little different than others, but it's a way that I see as being effective for me, which is definitely important if I expect to actually feel like I can accomplish them. When I was heavy into bodybuilding (and that time will come again, once free from a day job,) I routinely built my workout around four major muscle movements: squats, bench press, deadlifts, and military press. Those heavy, multijoint movements had a greater effect on multiple areas of my body than any other exercise and so I used those as the baseline and everything else fit in appropriately around them. My goal setting for 2007 is the same way. My four areas for 2007 include: spiritual, family/relationships, health, and financial. These are four pillars that when I strengthen, will help everything else fall into place. Overtraining one over the others will likely cause atrophy in the neglected area.

Understand, the goal is not necessarily to live my life in balance when it comes to my time. I believe that to become successful, you have to live an unbalanced life to an extent in terms of where you spend your time. My goal is to use the time I spend in each area more efficiently and in ways that create a greater result. I'll give you a couple general examples in a moment, but to kick things off, I even wrote a basic mission statement:

"To maintain a pure and single focus on putting into practice methods and ideologies that will improve not only my spiritual, family, health and financial life, but also the lives around me. "

Here are a couple basic examples of the goals that I set:

Spiritual: Develop education in the word as a backdrop of teaching opportunities.

Family: Create more consistency in staying in contact with my parents.

Finance: Look for better and simpler ways to track finances.

Health: Keep a better record of your daily food intake.

Now, I understand that these can be misconstrued as general goals. They were simply an outline of areas that I wanted to become more detailed with. However, just writing that I wanted to be more consistent in staying in touch with my parents has upped the number of times we've spoken since the New Year. I often times get so caught up with helping people that are part of my business, that I can look past maintaining that basic contact just to say hello.

When it comes to health. I do get more specific with weight goals and how I plan to achieve them. I've dropped 7lb. in the first week of January and I couldn't be more excited about being in better shape. For the most part, my weight has a tendency to yo-yo when I don't focus on what and when I'm eating. We always think slipping a sweet in here and there doesn't hurt. But if "here" is Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and "there" is Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, we're not really "slipping" anything. It's part of our diet.

For finances, I happen to be a person that dreads using tools like Quicken. I'm the first guy to extoll the virtues of it. I just hate to take the time to do it. The thing is, when I use it, I'm so much more on top of our finances. The issue isn't using the tool. The issue is setting aside the time. The greater detail of my financial goals covers setting aside time (where, when and how much) to analyze and plan our finances.

As far as my spirituality is concerned, I've become more and more a student of the teachings of the Bible and before the secularists go running away, here me out. The goal is to learn more on how to treat the book as a success manual. John Maxwell has a book called the Leadership Bible. I've heard two of my mentors talk about it and I'm reading it this year. Regardless of your faith (or lack of faith,) there are pliable, time-tested teachings on success in the Bible. I just want to learn how to use them better.

So there you have it. An inside look at some of my goals, not resolutions for 2007. What have you decided to turn around or improve on this year?

Trying To Get Focused

2006-12-29T12:05:00.000-06:00

From time to time, my mentors remind me of something that I try and keep at the forefront of my thought process: Good is the opposite of great. From my own personal experience, this seems to be the greatest deterrent from higher levels of success. We often get excited about getting to a certain point and it can blind us from really stretching ourselves to a more enjoyable level of satisfaction. Many times, we put a couple minor things on hold and reach that "good" point, and then let a couple of the minor things back in to the forefront. Then, not only do we sabotage our efforts of getting to great, but we also endanger our comfort-filled "good" position.

What am I talking about? Well, I'll use personal anecdote to explain. I love sports. Going to sporting events, watching sporting events, reading about and talking about sports. I played just about any sport I could growing up and multiple sports in high school. As a kid, the most consistent conversation I had with my Dad was talking sports and sports statistics. That hasn't changed a lot, actually. Regardless, sports was an enormous part of my life.

The business that I'm involved in, however, takes a great deal of focus when it comes to where and how I'm spending my time. There is often a direct correlation between personal development, action and end result. The only issue is that often times what determined the end result and it's time frame can only be quantified when the end result is met. I know, I know, you want it in English. My business involves dealing with many different personalities if one plans to succeed at high levels and very few people are naturals in this arena. Even those who are benefit from continued development, so commiting time to developing in this area is pretty vital to succeeding. The thing is, you don't usually know if you've worked on yourself enough until you're either attracting people with your behavior or repelling them until after it's happened. It's not like you read a chapter of a book like Bringing Out The Best In People and at that moment everything clicks into place.

What do these different ramblings have to do with how I started this post? When I'm at home at night, choices abound. I can do anything from trying to combine a little ESPN with reading just before bed, to falling asleep with the TV on before I even get to the reading part. When I leave my day job, I have the opportunity to either go out and shake some hands, make some new friends and delve into the personal networking part of my business, or I can stop at the house and spend an hour or so with my little girl before heading back out. Now, most people will say, "why can't you just do a little of both?," and to be honest, that's what I fight all the time.

Here is why I can't do both: watching some sports and reading a little or spending a little of my prime networking time at home with my daughter before heading back out will most likely result in me being good at what I'm trying to accomplish, but not great. The fear is looking back in two years, not having the results I could have had, and still be working in the active-income arena with a daughter that is two years older. To be more to the point, this is what I look back on now and get angry at myself about. I've tried to do both and so far I've become pretty good at knowing my business, my personal development and the growing my business. What stinks is that I look back and see that if I would have just focused solely on the business, I could be in position right now to be living in the strictly passive income world.

The solution seems obvious, right? Just keep the dumb TV off and give up a little time with the kid to spend all kinds of time with her in the near future. So why is it still so hard to do? For one, I believe that putting watching sports (or more honestly - Sportscenter) on the back-burner is essentially breaking a habit spanning multiple decades. I'm only 30, but sports has been a mainstay as long as I can remember. Don't get me wrong, I don't sit at home watching games during prime time. I've overcome that. The issue is postponing even the 45 minutes of Sportscenter that I can oftentimes fall asleep watching, thus eliminating my attempts to read. Honestly, in total, outside of watching a movie rental on a Saturday night with Mrs. Objects In The Mirror, I may watch a little less than 10 hours of television a week. For most, this is pretty good. For me, it's not great.

When it comes to the stop at home, it was a mini-habit that started from me stopping at home to change cars with Mrs. Objects. I couldn't just switch cars and be back on the road. I had to at least go inside and see the little one. Well, once I was in the house, Mrs. Objects had a touch of relief and tried to knock out a couple of quick things while I played with the little one. Before you know it, it's an hour later and I've lost vital time.

So here's what we're going to do: despite the fact that my Bears are odds on favorites to go to the Super Bowl this year and the Bulls are actually better than their record (I shouldn't even know their record if I want to be great,) I am putting myself on a timeout. How? I'm going into the old bag of tricks to get the job done. I can't get rid of the TV because the little one loves Baby Einstein, but I can leave notes for myself to not watch it. Notes that say things like: "Sportscenter doesn't get you out of your job." I'm also putting myself back on a book per week habit. The last time I set a focus like this I was very good at maintaining it.

Can I turn it around that easily? I think I can. My freedom is that important to me. I'm planning on 2007 being the last year I work for someone else, and if I'm serious, I have to be serious. Here we go ...

Staying Steady Through The Holidays

2006-12-25T11:20:00.000-06:00

Ahh, the holidays. For many it's the perfect time to take that much needed break, and wind down with egg nog, Christmas cookies, and way too much food. Well, not so much if you want to keep some momentum going in your business. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't necessarily out conducting business on Christams Eve nor will I today, but in a business built on relationships, this is the time when maintaining and furthering those relationships can really come into play.

Everyone is with their family at Christmas time. It's a "spend time with the family" day. People expect to hear from those that are either family, or very much like it today. That's why spending an hour or two to jump on the phone with each of the people I'm working with is so vital. When I start working with people, I can't guarantee that they will be with me forever, but I expect people to want to take what we do the full way. As such, I expect to have long term relationships with them. I expect my kid(s) to play with their kids (when most of them have kids someday.) So as much as I am not always enamored with making phone calls, I get excited about today. Some of these guys, I've just started helping and working with. Some, I've been around for months.

It's also a great time to call people that we worked with at one point who may have decided to choose a different path for their future. I've always been taught to be an ambassador when it comes to my business. You always want to leave the door open for anyone whose dream may have been derailed for whatever reason. You can't make winners win and you can't make quitters quit, but you can welcome back a former quitter that wants to win now.

All in all, I am going to be out and about today. I was for a short while yesterday also. It's never a bad time to bring up a worthwhile business. I mean, at the end of the day, why would I want to shut the doors on my store?

Merry Christmas everyone!

Intention Manifestation/Power Of Spoken Word

2006-12-20T15:08:00.000-06:00

Every day I learn something new about life or business, I'm amazed at how little is taught in schools. Schools aren't bad places and I have nothing against them, but why was Chaucer force fed to me when I could have really used a book on positive mental attitude or the power of getting what you speak? I know that right off the bat there are people that immediately are tuning out, thinking to themselves, "That stuff doesn't work. That's just hocus pocus, foo-foo stuff." These are the first people to respond "not much" when you ask them "what's up?" or "what's going on?" and then complain about not being challenged enough and how their days sometimes drag. Your words are the architect of your future. If anything, there is proof of this in the negative sense. How many times do you hear someone say, "Forgive me, I'm horrible with names," and then have to ask you three more times what your name is? Do you really think superstar athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods got to where they are by telling themselves they can't make it and that it would be extremely tough to even try? Of course not.

In this vein, I have read a few books on this concept. Hung By The Tongue is brilliant in it's basic breakdown of how powerful your words are. It's a short, easy read and is pretty inexpensive. What You Say Is What You Get is a little thicker, still inexpensive, but even more detailed in how to control your speech. What To Say When You Talk To Yourself is even more vital if you ask me, as it gets into concepts such as positive confession cards and really delves into what spurns your actions and results in life. I find it hard to believe that someone who doesn't believe in speech controlling life reading that book and not seeing truth. Just get it, read it, and you'll understand (btw, I make nothing if you buy any of those books as this blog is not officially affiliated with Amazon, nor the authors in any way.)

I've been working on putting this concept into effect in everything I do. Whether it's how I greet people in the morning - "not much" has become "everything is going on!" My response to "how are you doing" has become, "Great!" or "Top of the world!" I have to tell you that just doing that makes me feel better about my day. When bad stuff happens (being positive doesn't mean that problems disappear,) I've been working on not overreacting and measuring my response before I just blurt out in anger. It's so easy to have something stupid happen and to stand there saying, "this sucks!" I've been using these methods to write positive confession cards and a personal mission statement. I went out and actually bought some 3X5 cards and a black Sharpie and started putting positive phrases on the cards. Things like, "Smile, it's free!" or "I can relate to anyone." I can pull these cards out at any time while I'm driving and remind myself that "Everything is going to be great" and that I can "Win Today" (two other cards I have.) My personal mission statement/full positive confession talks about where I'm going, what I'm accomplishing, and who I'm becoming. It speaks the type of people that will come into my life, the type of family I will have and the type of impact that I plan on having.

Over at one of my favorite personal development sites, I recently came across something that seemed very much like positive confession. In none of my limited travels had I read much about intention-manifestation, but after reading a little about it, it seems to simply be the secular way of saying the power of the spoken word. I even joined the $1M experiment. Why not? What's the worst that happens? I know, you thought I'd say the worst, but we're talking about speaking positive right? So I'll put it this way - it doesn't cost me anything to participate and has a tremendous upside.

Are you speaking positive in everything you do? Not to get to "astral-plane-hippiefied" for you, but we are creatures of energy and we do produce both positive and negative. What makes you words exempt from being a viable participant? Why would we think we can say negative things and somehow have it not affect us? I use to be very self-efacing. It's easy to make fun of yourself because you don't offend anyone, right? Wrong. You offend you, subconsciously. It's not geeky to tell yourself you're a good person. In fact, it's necessary. 70% of the words you hear come from your own mouth. Why not program it with positive?

It's Not Just The Money

2006-12-19T09:08:00.000-06:00

"Yeah right! Sure it's not." That's the reaction I have sometimes gotten from friends and other people that don't understand why I'm so dedicated and bold when it comes to making my business work. What's funny is that I spend probably 20-25 hours a week trying to build a business that will allow me to retire in my early 30's (by 32 is the goal - I'm 30 now,) and yes, if you add that to the 40 hours I put in at my day job, it's about 60-65 hours per week. However, when I reach my goal, the 40 hours will disappear and I'll probably spend 15-20 hours in my business for a few more years until I can whittle that down to about 10. At that same time, the people making the "just doing it for the money" claim will still be chasing a dollar bill working 40, 50, or even 60+ hours a week. Who is doing what for the money? My income will be completely passive in my early 30's. It doesn't make them bad people, or dumb, or losers. It just makes them misinformed or unwilling, and that is okay.

Don't get me wrong, I like toys. I like nice houses with gadgets. Theater rooms are sweet. The sound of a Lamborghini engine is nice and I plan to enjoy all of that stuff. But gadgets can only get so gimmicky. The cars can only get so fast (without me putting them into a wall.) Steaks can only get so good (which I may be open for debate on.) Jewelry can only get so shiny and big (before it looks gaudy.) All the stuff is nice but I know people that have "stuff" whose lives are empty. I've driven past houses in affluent suburbs at night and seen that no one is home. You can keep all that stuff if I can just have the rest of my life with my wife and daughter (and future kids,) spending as much time as I choose with them without having to think about money.

I remember hearing a CD where the speaker was talking about the fact that his mentor hasn't balanced his checkbook in 10 years. What a thought! I'm not a big fan of money in and of itself. But to me, money can be like a scalpel. It can do good and it can do evil depending on whose hands you put it in. It's just a tool. I'm eager to just get to the point where it doesn't dictate every facet of my life.

I'm much more excited to see the positive changes that have come into my life due to the business I'm involved in. I'm more excited about my wife changing as well as the people I'm helping. It's fulfillment with a financial reward as the kicker, not a financial reward hoping that it brings fulfillment.

Travelling For Education

2006-12-18T10:28:00.000-06:00

This past Saturday I had an exciting opportunity: one of the leaders on our business team from the East Coast was travelling to the Midwest to speak. One of the things I love about my business is that there is a mentorship system in place that is very well put together. There is no guesswork, there is no "maybe, possibly." It's a very assured and successful system. I've been taught since day one to chase thought process over chasing money and it seemed like an obvious idea. I felt that one thing I understood very well from the beginning is that if you get around successful people, you'll learn how to have their success. I also understand that the little keys that move you forward are not always obvious. It's very possible that in a two hour teaching session, there may be one piece of information that moves you forward, but it moves you light years forward. The same thing sometimes happens in a 5 minute conversation with a hot shot, or a big dog on your way to the car also. That's why the concept of attending everything I can for my business just made sense. Even when it isn't comfortable. Of course, getting a bunch of new guys to understand that doesn't always play well, but that's part of the growth process.

So we were looking at a 10 hour round trip for probably 3 hours and change worth of information. However, if you understand my previous statments in regard to the time not equaling the value as much as the content, you'll understand that this was no big deal. It's another feather in my cap, another badge of honor. And the people we were going to speak are always entertaining, engaging and motivational, so the value is there. The road trip alone gave me an opportunity to further bond with some of my guys; to find out a little more about who they are and to let them know who I am and who they're in business with. Relationships are the most important part to any business, but especially one built on individual networking. I love seeing "rough around the edges" guys open up a little bit and really say what's on their heart, because they feel it's okay to share. I was a guy like that at one point.

Back to the seminar. The place we were in sat over 2500 people and nearly ever seat was full. Later I would hear that just five years ago they couldn't have filled that room with 25 people. I think that's good business growth, I don't care what kind of business it is. The current local success stories got to speak, and one of my mentors was one of them. The recurring theme, not from their lips, but from their persona, is that they are just regular people that were willing to do a little extra. It feels good, because I'm doing the extra right now and things are happening.

My wife and my sister arrived shortly after the event started. They rode in with a couple of ladies who had some circumstances slowing their start time. I'm so excited about working with more couples because my wife is such a willing servant. She could have jumped in the car with me, as could my sister, but they had an opportunity to hang back and travel with some newer people on the team.

I think the biggest point of the night was just learning to overcome. Overcoming mediocrity. Learning to deal with things like, your friends, that don't have anything you want, trying to talk you out of doing what you feel is best in your life. Learning who to listen to. Having faith in your own talents and abilities and then maximizing your potential. There was a guy there who was a police officer. He's been in business for a little while but he hasn't succeeded to the highest statuses in the business, but he still had a $92,000 bonus last month. If that guy can do it, why can't anyone.

How Did We Get Here?

2006-12-15T10:23:00.000-06:00

I needed a change. I started this blog originally for reasons I still can't thumb down. I liked the potential for an online journal, and while I've had plenty of experiences to tell stories on here for the next number of years, my first array of blog entries were quite varied and while entertaining to me and my "close-personals," somewhat meaningless in basic value. I don't mean monetarily, but it felt slightly unfulfilling to me to seek the subject matter I was covering. While flopping around the bevy of blogs out there, I found just what I was looking for, in more ways than one.

It's very easy to spend countless hours online, either during work or after, plodding through the various number of blogs out there. As long as a blog is being updated regularly and it's interesting to you, the blogs actual popularity doesn't matter at all. So what did I want to scribe about? A sports related blog? Something politically motivated? Two subjects I love, but two that I don't get to pay the attention I'd like to them. Why not? A-ha! It hit me as I stumbled on Steve Pavlina's blog on personal development (definitely must-bookmark material) : with all the blogs written by successful people telling you how they got there, why not a running commentary from a guy working towards getting there? The trials and tribulations. The obstacles and opportunities. All of it.

For those of you reading that don't know me personally (which will outnumber the ones reading that do,) I started with a network marketing/private franchise business about two years ago. I'll save telling you which one for, probably ever, just because I don't want to debate my particular marketing corporation nor do I want this to be a "recruiting" blog. If you happen to be looking for an opportunity in network marketing you're welcome to get in contact with me to find out what I'm doing, but that isn't the focus of this blog. Anyway, I started the business for a number of reasons, namely my distaste for being under someone elses thumb. Also being married (and now having a kid,) I really prefer to spend my time with my wife than at work. Some of the best fun I've had in my life was when I was working for myself in my early 20's. My wife and I were together all the time and I wanted to get back to that. Also, I understand that just working a job in this Country's economic system just won't cut it. Not for me and not for my family. No one else in my family was financially well off so I was glad to chase it. Lastly, I like toys that cost more than working most jobs can afford. I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

So far, we've had some success. Not as much as we wanted at this point, and not as much as we will have. Our business is growing and most importantly, we're growing. I believe that involving yourself in personal development is vital in becoming successful in any arena. I read constantly, as well as listening to instructional/motivational CD's and I'm always looking for information that will help me grow. Here is where you will see that process. I'll revisit some old me too, just to give you an idea about who I was, but you'll also see some thought processes . There are basic tenets to success and if you've read success books, then you are familiar with them. Now you will have something you can benchmark and hopefully it's beneficial to you. I may say some things you haven't heard before. I may reference some authors you haven't read before. Hopefully you'll get it all. So what are we waiting for? Let's get it on!

Da Vinci Code, Christians, Conspiracies, And You

2006-05-19T12:29:00.000-06:00

For what it's worth, I haven't read The Da Vinci Code book. Let's get that out of the way first and foremost. I have been known to read my fair share of conspiracy theory works, as you've probably seen from a few of my other blogs, but I in no way would consider myself an expert or theologian or anything like that. Let's get this out of the way also: believeing in one conspiracy theory doesn't mean you believe in all of them. You can believe the JFK conspiracy without necessarily having to believe that the government is behind 9/11. You can believe in UFO's without having to believe that Dick Cheney is a Reptilian.

Although I do enjoy reading the opinions and theories on cause and effect of Nation and Policy, and even would say I might agree with a certain amount of what I've read and seen, I always walk into every new article, book, or video clip with trepidation and skepticism. I won't take the time to go into what I think is real and what is flat-out absurd, but I will tell you that there is a healthy amount that falls on both sides. I would say that overall, I'm far from being a kook, but far from taking everything at face-value also. I am a firm believer that there are forces at work that are interested in the general public thinking a certain way, when the truth is not necessarily what they think or have been told to think. I also think that those same forces put a good amount of effort into doing what is necessary to make those that seek out the truth or discover it, look foolish or crazy.

So, why all this when the title of this blog refers to The Da Vinci Code? Well, there is a lot of heat right now, especially in the Catholic and Christian communities about this movie. The book it is based off of supposedly takes shots at the Catholic Church, Opus Dei, and the traditional faith and belief-systems of Christianity. The book itself is based on the book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail which assumes that Jesus had a child. This concept would shake the bedrock of Christianity and would likely turn a lot of Christians faith on its ear if it were true.

Because of all of this, many Christian groups are encouraging people to boycott the movie and are denouncing the concepts involved, which include the aforementioned "Jesus is a 'baby-Daddy,'" that the Mother was Mary Magdalene, that the same Mary is in Da Vinci's Last Supper painting and that Da Vinci knew this because he was a member of a secret order called the Priory of Scion (know that is not a fan club for the Toyota spin-off brand,) a protective order that is supposedly very knowledgable of all things dealing with the Merovingian blood-line, which is the bloodline of Jesus, according to the work.

Many critics are also panning the movie, but since Christianity is the predominant religion in this Country, it would seem safe to say that many critics are Christians. In as such, I'm guessing some of these critics know they have to go into Church and face their peers in religious fellowship on Sunday and my thinking is that many of them aren't strong enough to just give an honest review.

Here's my take on it: It's a movie. It's just a movie that is based on a book. A movie that is based on a book that is based on another book. A movie, based on a book, based on a book, based on theory and conjecture. Look, I saw Spider-Man in the theaters THREE times. That does not mean that I somehow believe that being bitten by a radioactive spider will allow you to don red and blue tights and fight goblins. It also doesn't mean that I think Kirsten Dunst is hot just because she plays a model (there's no chance of me ever thinking Kirsten Dunst is hot.)

While I understand and believe that your associations, and what you read/watch/listen to can shape your thoughts, I also believe that if you are sound in mind, you can separate entertainment from reality. If you can't walk into a movie understanding that it was made to be entertaining and even if it was made to make you try and think a certain way, you can watch it for it's entertainment value, then you definitely should not watch movies.

I know you may be tempted to believe in the realism of The Da Vinci Code because Tom Hanks is in it. I mean, the guy played Forest Gump and met JFK, as well as sparking the phrase "Have A Nice Day," and all of those Bubba Gump restaurants, so we know that if Tom is playing the character, there's fact to it. (*wink-wink*) So I do understand how you may be tempted to believe that this movie is based on real fact. Of course, if you believe that and live in San Francisco, you may want to leave because I'm pretty sure the Golden Gate bridge gets blown up in the new X-Men movie opening next weekend.

Strong Medicine

2006-05-09T10:14:00.000-06:00

Came across a page with some great quotes from some people that you'll probably recognize. I found the JFK quote I'm leading off with to be quite interesting considering it's timing. Kennedy was not of the same make-up as most of the other Presidents and definitely came from a different line. Anyway, here you go:

-"The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American's freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizen of his plight." - John F. Kennedy at Columbia University, 10 days before his assassination

-"We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks...They are, not government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers..." - Senator Louis T. McFadden (for 22 years Chairman of the U.S. Banking & Currency Commission)

-"Think what you do when you run into debt; you give to another power over your liberty." - Benjamin Franklin

-"This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men, who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them, cannot be enslaved." - Benjamin Franklin

-"A government that is large enough to supply everything you need is large enough to take everything you have." - Thomas Jefferson

-"The government turns every contingency into an excuse for enhancing power in itself." - John Adams

-"If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of god, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave." - Samuel Adams was the Father of the American Revolution

-"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the Peoples' Liberty's Teeth." - George Washington

-"I have now disposed of all my property to my family; there is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion. If they have that, and I had not given them one shilling, they would be rich; and if they have not this, and I had given them all this world, they would be poor." - Patrick Henry in his will

-"Still one thing more, fellow citizens, a wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." - Thomas Jefferson, 1st Inaugural Address

-"One of the main purposes for the control and power of the Establishment media is to keep the masses deceived and ignorant about their rights and oppressions of their rights." - Charles Weisman

-"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.... The issuing powers should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson

-"All socialism involves slavery." - Herbert Spencer

-"Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos." - Chief Justice John Marshall

-"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid." - Benjamin Franklin

-"The highest level of prosperity occurs when there is a free-market economy and a minimum of government regulations." - Adam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations"

-"Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

-"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us in peace. We seek not your council, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our country men." - Samuel Adams

-"The price of liberty is, always has been, and always will be blood: The person who is not willing to die for his liberty has already lost it to the first scoundrel who is willing to risk dying to violate that person's liberty! Are you free?" - Andrew Ford

-"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in their struggle for independence." - C. A. Beard

-"Fear can only prevail when victims are ignorant of the facts ". - Thomas Jefferson

-"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

This Is Your LIfe

2006-04-24T09:52:00.000-06:00

What are you doing today? What impact are you having? Is it just another day in cubicle city? Is it another afternoon staring out of a window at sunshine and warmth? Do you have an option? What are you doing about it?

How many examples of progress, of rags-to-riches do you need to see to finally decide to do something different? We all get caught in these comfortable routines. They're called ruts and the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth of the whole you've dug. Do. Something. Productive. Don't look back on yesterday and say, "Wow, if I would have chosen to do a little more, I could have been there." Why can't you be the success story? Why can't you be the great overcomer? They don't erect statues to critics and they don't erect them to cheerleaders either.

This Is Your Life ~ Switchfoot
Yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
Yesterday is a promise that youve broken
Dont close your eyes, dont close your eyes
This is your life and today is all youve got now
Yeah, and today is all youll ever have
Dont close your eyes
Dont close your eyes

This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose

Yesterday is a kid in the corner
Yesterday is dead and over

This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose

Dont close your eyes
Dont close your eyes
Dont close your eyes
Dont close your eyes

This is your life are you who you want to be
This is your life are you who you want to be

This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose

And you had everything to lose

Whose Space? Certainly Not "My" Space

2006-03-21T09:57:00.000-06:00

I like to keep the blogging original but occassionally a cut and paste opportunity comes that I just can't miss. I would classify myself as somewhat of a conspiracy theorist so take this for what you will, but here is an reposted article from Alex Jones and Paul Watson on MySpace:

MySpace Is The Trojan Horse Of Internet Censorship

MySpace isn't cool, it isn't hip and it isn't trendy. It represents a cyber trojan horse and the media elite's last gasp effort to reclaim control of the Internet and sink it with a stranglehold of regulation, control and censorship.

Since Rupert Murdoch's $580 Million acquisition of MySpace in July 2005, it has come from total obscurity to now being the 8th most visited website in the world, receiving half as many page hits as Google, despite the fact that on first appearance it looks like a 5-year-old's picture scrap and scribble book.

MySpace is the new mobile phone. If you don't have a MySpace account then you belong to some kind of culturally shunned underclass.

What most of the trendy wendy's remain blissfully unaware of is the fact that MySpace is Rupert Murdoch's battle axe for shaping a future Internet environment whereby electronic dissent, whether it be against corporations or government, will not tolerated and freedom of e-speech will cease to exist.

MySpace has been caught shutting down blogs critical of itself and other Murdoch owned companies. They even had the audacity to censor links to completely different websites when clicking through for MySpace. When 600 MySpace users complained, MySpace deleted the blog forum that the complaints were posted on. Taking their inspiration from Communist China, MySpace regularly uses blanket censorship to block out words like 'God'.

Earlier this week Rupert Murdoch sounded the death knell for conventional forms of media in stating that the media elite were losing their monopoly to the rapid and free spread of new communication technologies. Murdoch stressed the need to regain control of these outlets in order to prevent the establishment media empire from crumbling.

MySpace is Rupert Murdoch's trojan horse for destroying free speech on the Internet. It is a foundational keystone of the first wave of the state's backlash to the damage that a free and open Internet has done to their organs of propaganda. By firstly making it cool, trendy and culturally elite for millions to flock to establishment controlled Internet backbones like MySpace, Murdoch is preparing the groundwork for the day when it will stop being voluntary and become mandatory to use government and corporate monopoly controlled Internet hubs.

The end game is a system similar to or worse than China, whereby no websites even mildly critical of the government will be authorized.

The Pentagon admitted that they would engage in psychological warfare and cyber attacks on 'enemy' Internet websites in an attempt to shut them down. The fact that the NSA surveillance program spied on 5,000 Americans tells us that the enemy is the alternative media and that it will be targeted for elimination. Google has been ordered to turn over information about its users by a judge to the US government.

The second wave of destroying freedom of speech online will simply attempt to price people out of using the conventional Internet and force people over to Internet 2, a state regulated hub where permission will need to be obtained directly from an FCC or government bureau to set up a website.

The original Internet will then be turned into a mass surveillance database and marketing tool. The Nation magazine reported, "Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out."

The original Internet will deliberately be subject to crash upon crash until it becomes a useless carcass of overpriced trash and its reputation will be defiled by the TV and media barons cashing in on the perfectly streamlined Internet 2, the free for all network that just requires you to thumbscan in order to log on! Those with a security grading below yellow on their national ID card will unfortunately be refused access. Websites that carry hate speech (ones that talk about government corruption) will be censored for the betterment of society.

For the aspiring dictator, the Internet is a dangerous tool that has been seized by the enemy. We have come a long way since 1969, when the ARPANET was created solely for US government use. The Internet is freedom's best friend and the bane of control freaks. Its eradication is one of the short term goals of those that seek to centralize power and subjugate the world under a global surveillance panopticon prison.

Rupert Murdoch's MySpace and its ceaseless promotion by the establishment media as the best thing since sliced bread is part of this movement. In saying all this we do encourage everyone to set up a MySpace account, but only if you're going to use it to bash MySpace, Rupert Murdoch and copy and paste this article right at the top of the page! See how long it is before your account is terminated.

Not a typical NCAA Tournament blog

2006-03-20T09:39:00.000-06:00

Okay, here is my NCAA tournament blog. I decided to skip posting picks or doing a pre-tournament rundown frankly because that's what every other schmo with a blog has done. Instead, I figured I'd just touch on it between weekend rounds. This is not a sports blog, but there is no way on the planet that you can be a sports fan but somehow not be a fan of the NCAA tournament. The upsets, the neutral sites, the "One Shining Moment" song, the idiotic forking over of innumerable sums to enter pools you have no shot of winning, and of course, failing to do anything significant for two sets of Thursdays and Fridays in March.

So here we are after the first weekend of action and already we have been sliced from 65 to 16. I've paid less attention to college basketball than I ever have in my entire life this year but I'm pretty sure I'm part of the majority that would have chosen a different 13 than Bradley and a different 11 than George Mason to wind up in the Sour Sixteen. At the other end of the spectrum, I'm surprised that all four #1's are still around. Usually at least one gets sent packing in the second round, but Villanova held off a late charge by Arizona and Memphis actually looks like the second best #1 right now.

Honestly, I came into this tournament kind of miffed at the TV guys who you would think get paid more to do power conference games than mid-conference games based on their reaction to teams that go in. Hey Billy Packer, despite your whining about it, did you realize that only 8 of the 34 at-large bids actually went to mid-con teams? Now look at your sweet 16. Memphis, Gonzaga, Bradley, and George Mason are all mid-conners. So 1/4 of the at-large teams were from the mid-con schools and 1/4 of the Sweet 16 are from mid-cons. Hmm, go figure ... Makes you wonder what would have happened if Missouri St. would have made it in over a Seton Hall.

Moment of the tourney so far for me? It actually happened the day before the tourney started. I was on a conference call at the j.o.b. with 2 other guys in my office, 4 in Vancouver and 1 or 2 marketing guys elsewhere, one of which was trying to train us on a product with a power point I was supposed to be paying attention to (and I was - intermittently.) You know how these things go, occassionally the guy talking asks if everybody understands and you take your phone off of mute long enough to mutter a grunt and go back to what you were doing. Well, your genious writer forgets to put his phone back on mute and moments later utters to his equally bored colleague, "I wonder if I can fill out my tourney brackets while I listen to this guy?" There are not many feelings akin to your co-worker leaning back in his chair and saying "You're not on mute ..." From what I was told, the whole call went silent for a moment before returning to plan. Fortunately there were enough people on the call that no one could really finger where it came from, but we all had a pretty good laugh (at my expense) later. March. It is truly a month of madness.

Operation Bobby Slim Down

2006-03-03T13:12:00.000-06:00

So over the last year plus I have been really involved in some business ventures that have been stretching me beyond the normal 40 hour work week. In addition, the extracurricular business activity has put me on the road quite a bit (let's just say Wendy, Ronald, The King and The Bell have been making some dough off of me.) Throw in the fact that my wife just went through the whole 9 month pregnancy deal featuring me as the sympathy eater, and you've got a guy who went from trying to train to participate in bodybuilding competitively to a guy who is weighing almost 270lb., but not the way I originally intended. Approaching 270 has always been my limit when it comes to me being out of shape. I don't know why, but I start to wig out when I get to 260+. Last time it happened, I dumped over 55 pounds in 6 months. Usually I get sucked out of the gym from injury or some other short term issue, but the business venture I'm involved in is long term, and this time I have freaked out to the point of fearing that I wouldn't have the time or discipline to lean out again.

Well, I got on a scale last weekend after playing basketball (amazingly, I still get up and down the court better than some guys who appear to be in better shape,) and the digital doesn't lie: 268.8lb. "Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson!!! *Cue the flashing red sirens and annoying horns*

The choices I had were simple. I could somehow, between a 40 hour job, baby to entertain, wife to love, and business to run try and squeeze out another 2 hours that it would take to get to, change, workout, shower and return from the gym; or I could drop the carbohydrates right out of my diet like I have done in the past, go with a simple exercise plan that I can do at home and load up on the fat-burners. I'll take option 2 please.

So, Operation: Bobby Slim Down has begun. Thank goodness for the development of will power and goal setting because other than a colleague at my j.o.b., no one I know is on a diet similar to mine. That means rolling through the Starbucks drive-thru to get my wife a Cinnamon Dolce Frappucino while I get nothing and eschewing the copious amounts of pasta that my mother-in-law likes to cook. In addition, I don't mind taking pills, so the CLA and ephedra (it's no longer banned, save the e-mails) will hopefully aid in the process.

Being on a low-carb diet is always fun when out ordering food. I was at a McDonald's between Chicago and Champaign this past Saturday and ordered a couple of double cheeseburgers with no buns. Kid you not, the girl at the counter looks at me straight-faced and says, "So, no buns whatsoever?" I just looked at her and said, "I don't even know how to answer you so that you'll understand what I want." I mean, how else can someone mean "no buns?" Luckily we solved the issue without the issue escalating to her assistant manager.

As with my auto show updates, look for me to lackadaisically keep you posted with no rhyme or reason as to when the next update will come.

Oh, was that the Olympics?

2006-02-27T14:19:00.000-06:00

(Disclaimer: I normally add picture links, but I'm so far behind, I need to just get some stinking blogs out, you know? On that note...)

From what I understand, ratings for the Winter Olympics were down again in the U.S. and no one seems to know why. Really? You don't know why people aren't watching the Winter Olympics? Hmm, on your way to work, how many parks do you pass where people are just luging away? Are there many ski jump hills near your house? I'm going to take a wild stab and say that no, no there are not. To me, more than anything else, the winter Games are an observation of sports of priveledge. Honestly, I didn't even know four Americans could tell me how to score in curling, better yet compete for a medal. Really though, look at the difference between the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics. Track & field, basketball, baseball, swimming, diving - you can do all this without having to have a dollar. They're basic sports anyone can participate in, and become a fan of. Bobsled, luge, and ice dancing are not. People actually watch the track & field and swimming trials to even get to the Olympics in this Country. I only see curling during the two week span of the winter Games. I don't even know how you get involved with a bobsled team.

Well, at least the U.S. managed to bag a big medal total. However, all I heard about was how disappointing an Olympics this was because we didn't do as well as was expected. Okay, we got what, the second biggest medal total in the winter Games ever? Who cares if Sasha Cohen didn't get a gold medal? He's funny enough doing the "Borat" gimmick. Besides, I didn't even know he could skate. Oh, not that Sasha Cohen? My bad.

Regardless, we had some classic U.S. moments - the skiboarding chick that hot-dogged it and lost because of it, Bode Miller (whose name is nowhere near as cool as Picabo Street, btw) fulfilling his "all talk and no action" requirement by not medaling at all, Shanni Davis failing to grasp the value of his accomplishment because being a jerk was more his style, and Apollo Anton Anti Aircraft Abracadabra Alcatraz Alabastar Ohno coming off as the "American Sweetheart" hero. Wow, can't wait till Vancouver in 2010. I'll see you on the curling lanes ...

More from the Auto Show (part II of a series)

2006-02-23T10:15:00.000-06:00

If you can read the words in that picture, congratulations - you have proven yourself infinitely smarter than about 3/4 of the Auto Show crowd. I have to honestly say that I believe that when we wring our hands over diminishing resources and cry foul over the 'peak oil' situation (sham) we are really missing the most vital diminishing resource in our cries - the overwhelming lack of common sense of human beings.

Let me expound: If you're at an Auto Show in the midst of, literally hundreds of thousands of people, and nobody is currently in the front seat, the back seat or wildly blaring the radio of the $135K Hummer H1, chances are the doors are locked.

If you just watched two other people try to open the doors to the $75K BMW M5 to no avail, (big hint coming up) there's an tremendous shot that you do not have the magic touch.

If you walk up to any of the number of vehicles and they have the red sticker posted above plastered on the DRIVER SIDE WINDOW of the door you are about to tug on - count on the sticker information to be spot on.

Honestly, it was like watching a multitude of Forrest Gumps. Someone walks up to a gorgeous vehicle that is miraculously empty, tugs the door handle once, twice, and usually a third time before realizing that it won't open. And right behind them comes another Gump-ite running up to do the exact same thing.

Some other pieces of information for Auto Show goers past/present/and future:

-If the sign for the car you're looking at has the word "concept" in it all, you are a moron if you ask how much it's going to cost. The potential price tag is about as conceptual as the car itself. If the vehicle you're looking at has funky shaped seats, a shifter that could feasibly take the car to warp speed, video cameras for side mirrors, a gun turret, an interior comprised of mostly wood, and/or a full chrome paint job, chances are that it is a concept vehicle.

-The lady on the turntable telling you about the Chrysler Imperial is not going to go home from the show with you. Now if your name is Brian Urlacher, that might be a different story, but if your name is Lee Hotti, you can forget about it. While it's true that the giant rocks many of them sport on their ring finger is there to ward off unwanted suitors, you have an easier time getting a stripper to come home with you without the promise of coke. The ladies who work these events that are single are interested in the guy that has access to the Ferrari/Maserati stand, not the guy in the oversized velour jumpsuit piling into the Kia Rio with all his boys, readjusting the seats and mirrors so he can feel like a "baller."

-Last but not least - either get a babysitter or bring extra adults. Some of us actually look at the cars because we have the ability to buy one in the next 10 years. Hey, when I was 5 I thought the Auto Show was cool too, but I went with both parents and no other kids. When I'm 29 and have to wait for you and each of your midget army to get in the front seat and play grown-up, it gets a little old.

More pictures and in-depth vehicle info coming soon.

The Auto Show is Here!!! (Part one of a multi-part series)

2006-02-16T10:32:00.000-06:00

Anyone that knows me (and frankly, if you're reading this and you don't know me - what are you doing here? How did you find me?) knows that I am a car fanatic. I couldn't fix one to save my life, but I know the difference between horsepower and torque, why RWD is better than FWD, who makes the Vectra (Opel,) how many current rebadges of the Trailblazer exist and why GM's corporate strategy stinks. In other words, everything but how to fix them. Anyway, last weekend the Chicago Auto Show returned to town and yours truly became a giddy school boy again.

The Auto Show to me, is a "hope-springs-eternal" event. Yes, transportation to some people can be very basic - they generally drive Impala's and Ford Five-Hundred's, but to others, the vehicle they travel in is an extension of themselves; a statement or identity if you will. I see the Auto Show as the continued quest for the perfect car. What's great is that, because there are new technical innovations year in and year out, and new cars are brought to market at different times, their are endless possibilities to see the perfect car brought to market. The thing is, I don't know if the perfect car is possible. A car's look is either to plain or too avant garde. The ride is either too soft or too bumpy. The ergonomics are either too inviting or too space age. Pick up MotorTrend Magazine- they seem to find 3 "highs" and 3 "lows" for every car they review. Still, there are always cars that come close. The Chrysler 300 was one a couple of years ago. The 6 series BMW was polarizing but another candidate. The G35 Coupe still gets stares.

Realizing I have few different topics I'd like to discuss about the Auto Show, I think I'll multi-part this out, and maybe add some key pics throughout the week. So you understand the depths of my depravity, I was at show on Saturday (the first day open to the public of course) and spent 6 hours just covering the lower end models. Stay tuned.

Holy Crap I've Got A Kid!!!

2006-02-15T01:48:00.000-06:00

So, I haven't updated this blog in quite a bit. People get busy, ya' know? Anyway, with a readership of like, 4 I don't think I'm disappointing anyone too much. Regardless, the main reason I haven't updated in a while is because I HAD A KID! Yep, the guy who can't grow hair on his own head has had a child. Well, I didn't birth the little bundle of joy myself, that credit goes to the wife, but I helped in the production department, so I get to call her mine. Angela Elizabeth (Ella for short) was born on January 25th at 1:16 am. She weighed 7.5lb and was 19.5 inches long, fully healthy and home with Mom right now. Being a new Dad is pretty humbling as now all of my decisions take that premise into consideration. I know everyone says it, but everything to my driving style to how often I call home has changed. Of course my sleep cycle has changed a bit also, but if you know me, I'm not a big sleeper so I'm not really losing any sleep. I do sleep a lot lighter than I did in the past.

Leading up to the due date, people kept asking me if I was nervous. Honestly, I was more nervous in that 5 minute span waiting to see if the wand would have a negative line or positive lines about 7 months ago. I was extremely calm ... that is, until they told my wife she could start pushing. It was kind of like that feeling you get when you're going into the boss' office for a performance review and you really don't know whether you're going to get a raise or get fired. Because honestly, until the kid comes out, they can't tell you if all the fingers are there, they can't tell you if she's going to grow teeth out of her nose, they can't tell you whether she'll keep breathing once she's out, they can't even tell you that they're 100% sure it's a she. So, I got a little touch of nervousness there, but I prayed with my wife and we found strength.

The Mrs. was amazing during delivery. I forewarned her that I fully expected to be cursed out in the delivery room. I mean, that's the story you always hear, right? Guys always talk about their wives punching them or degrading them or telling them they hate them or something like that. Well, my wife told me she wouldn't because she would be focused, and you know what? She was right. Maybe the epidural helped with that but she didn't curse or tell me she hated me so I really don't care what the reason was. She just stared straight forward and got the job done. Total delivery time (from when she started pushing to birth) was less than an hour. I will say this, I will take my wife in a fight over any woman who has not had kids because if you can handle that, taking a shot or two to the jaw is a cinch.

So I'm a Dad now. The kid only seems to cry when she's hungry and occassionally when she's getting her diaper changed. Other than that, she just wants to check out the scenery and relax. Fun times ahead boys and girls, fun times ahead.

Kicked in the "flin-flarn" head

2006-01-09T13:53:00.000-06:00

So, as my readership knows, my wife is in her 38th week of pregancy out of an expected 40 - in other words, any day now. One of the things brought on by pregnancy is an increase in charley horses. Well, this became an issue in the middle of a deep sleep the other night. Understand, we've had the humidifier on in the bedroom so we've been closing the door. We sleep on the lower level in our house so if it's dark and the lights are off, you can't see your hand in front of your face.

I awaken to my wife yelping and crying at Oh-dark-thirty in the morning, cuz' you know, I think it's time (normally I'm a much sounder sleeper.) I ask her what's going on and she alerts me to the charley horse she's experiencing in her left leg. Calmer now, realizing that I don't have to actually get out of bed, the half-sleep takes control as I tell her I'll rub her calf like a good hubby. Hmm. It was obvious that my wife wasn't fully awake either because it didn't cross her mind that I had no shot of seeing or knowing that she was going to go ahead and swing her leg up to my "supposedly" waiting arms. While she's scissor kicking up, I'm reaching over and WHAM! I get kicked right in the mouth.

So I fall back howling grabbing my face and her crying goes off the charts. "Iiiiii'mmm ssssooorr-orrr-eee, YEOW, MY LEG!!!!" Luckily the stun of the moment was only temporary. I had her put her leg down and I went ahead and took care of massaging out the cramp. I also informed her that the next time she got a leg cramp in the middle of the night, to keep her legs on the bed where I could find them. All in all, I got out of it with a slightly split lip and a great story.

Happy New Year - I'm Back

2006-01-04T13:23:00.000-06:00

What's going on, everybody (all two of you?!?!) No time to play around with pictures right now, but let's just say that New Years was awesome. I spent it at a suburban park district with some business partners and our families. There were about 100 people in all and we played basketball till about 11 or so. We also had a tremendous spread of food. Just an awesome thing to get family around. On the home front, baby Ella will be here any day now. I may post again with some sonogram pictures but I needed a detective kit to figure out what was what in the pics, so maybe not.

Anyway, expect 2006 to be an amazing year. There is so much that can happen this year and I am ready for it.

Know How I Know You're Gay? You Spent Money on Brokeback Mountain

2005-12-29T10:19:00.000-06:00

Not sure if I can deliver an actual post that can expound on that title (thanks to "40 Year Old Virgin" for a wonderful new game, btw.) Honestly, if you're a real-life heterosexual male, I would be confounded as to how you would willingly put $6-$10 on a counter and let the words "one for Brokeback Mountain, please," fall out of your mouth. If you're a woman or homosexual male, I can understand and even expect you to lead the charge in attempting to make this movie successful. Why homosexual men want this movie to succeed is evident. It's two top level male actors playing gay in a serious box office effort with Oscar implications. But I can only believe this has Oscar implications because it's two top level male actors playing gay in a serious box office effort. Hollywood loves crap like that. So naturally, the hope that Heath and Jake will further the efforts to make homosexuality an accepted norm are big.

Women I can understand, but to a lesser extent. Obviously Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are attractive to women. But ladies, they're into each other in this movie. They aren't being suave, manly men. They're fulfilling the "cowboy" quotient of the Village People. What's worse is, from at least what I've seen in previews and synopsis, their affair carries on while they are married to women. So ladies, not only are they into each other, but they are screwing over women in the flick as well.

This movie will definitely receive a lot of Oscar push and honestly, I think it will deserve it. Why? Because I think I would be Oscar-worthy if I could get through a whole filming schedule playing a homosexual without either punching my co-star so hard that I got fired or looking so gaunt from throwing up daily that two weeks in, they would have to replace me. Don't get confused, that's not a bash on homosexuality. I'm sure some gay men think the same way about playing straight men roles in movies. Right Tom?

Happy Merry Joyous Chrismannukwanza!

2005-12-25T14:32:00.000-06:00

For My Democratic Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher."

For My Republican Friends:

Here's wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Tibetan Market aka The Mall at Christmas Time

2005-12-22T13:46:00.000-06:00

So considering my business, I spend a lot of time at the malls in my area. I hadn't been out to Woodfield for a bit and ventured there last night. Can someone tell me when the center kiosks turned into some Indo-Chinese marketplace? I'm not talking about the people, I'm talking about their tactics for acquiring customers. I don't know if any business schools teach it, but I think tackling a passerby to show them your hands-free cell phone attachment is not the best way to obtain sales.

I can understand the cell phone guys - competition is heavy. I mean, the T-Mobile booth is literally 20 feet from the Cingular booth in some places - you've got to stop people before they get to Cingular or else you won't see them for 2 years or the $175 escape clause, whichever comes first. But, if you've seen my picture on the blog, you understand that I don't need some lady diving in front of me to show me the "almost real" ponytail extension she thinks I need. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not the Missing Link (though many people think I have many links missing.) I also will not be needing any pictures where I can see the water actually "move." I know you don't have any hanging in your house, so I can say this: what double-wide owner actually thinks these pee-inducing pictures add class to their trailer?

Well, last night I'm trying to escape Woodfield (still crowded at 11 pm - you think people would've figured out how to shop online already,) and a guy who looked more like the short version of Jim Ignatowski than Doc Brown leapt in front of me asking if he could show me his "invention." Before the mentorship I have now, I probably would've knocked him into H&M for saying something like that, but last night "people skills" me took over and said, "sure." He proceded to go through this whole demonstration of what, in essence, was a sound amplifier that attached to your cell phone and cut out your radio so that you could speak and hear through the sound-system in your car. Everything seemed cool until he wanted to demonstrate the product. First, he didn't have second cell phone with a charged battery, so I let him call my phone from his. Second, when he called the phone and the speaker system thing took over, I only understood every other word. "Thanks, but no thanks," I told him, "and please, don't call me now that you have my cell phone number." After a hesitation, I leaned back and said, "Oh, who cares, I probably wouldn't understand you anyway." Lessons learned, all the way around.

Just stick to the recipe ...

2005-12-19T12:51:00.000-06:00

I know that it's Christmas Time, and with Christmas Time (someone out of my readership of four will complain that it's "Holiday Time" - good luck) a lot of people start to get pretty bold with their belief that they are pastry chefs. I have nothing against people that have never tried to feed me before, blessing me with cookies and chocolate's and brownies and cupcakes. It's the Christmas Season and if giving involves delivering me a plate of homemade concoctions that have sugar and chocolate in the recipe, I won't stop you. What I would suggest, however, is that you don't delineate from the recipe as it was written.

I use my boss as an example, not because I'm interested in losing my job, but because I could joke with her about this without losing my job. Understand, it was very generous and gracious that she supplied my colleague and I with rice krispy treats, but a warning that they were made with multi-colored candy cane shards would have helped a touch. There's nothing like expecting sweet and getting fruity sour by surprise.

This is not the only way this happens. I know you may like chocolate. You may even like nuts. Maybe you like peanut butter and sugar also. But how about a separate batch, instead of sugar-peanut-butter-nut-chocolate-chip cookies? Sure, it sounds adventurous but your taste buds, and in some cases, your teeth are riding the third rail on every bite.

This isn't just limited to cookies, snacks and deserts. I know that pizza is the all-inclusive pie, but do we really need lettuce on a pizza? If you're cooking dough and sauce and all other types of crap, is lettuce going to help anything? I don't mind a little adventure, and even I like to put Ranch dressing on my slice every now and again but give it a rest already.

"Cash for nothin' and Kong for free"

2005-12-15T13:24:00.000-06:00

Nothing like titling a post with a Dire Straits reference, huh? At least it's somewhat relevant. I know I mentioned that I've seen some movies for free lately and the story would be forthcoming. I hate waiting in suspense and since I know that my enormous readership currently is - it's time to share.

So the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the Mrs. and I decided to go see the Goblet of Fire playing at the local theater which, according to the movie section in the paper, was at 10:15pm. Now, I usually check online as opposed to the newspaper or I call Moviefone (I actually have the number in my 'contacts' - yep, I'm still that nerd,) but for some reason I was content with the paper info. Thank goodness, because if I had checked another source, the events to follow woudn't have happened. Moral of the story? Turn off your computer. Not yet though - finish this first.

My wife is bringing Angela Elizabeth into the world in January, so at about 10:05 I drop her off at the front door to limit her walking time in the cold (and so she could get the tickets.) I get inside, buy her a kids pack and me a large cola and proceed to theater 9 where we find out that the movie started at 9:15 and not 10:15. Check the tickets; they say 9:15. We go to the ticket counter and they tell us that there isn't a 10:15 show on Sunday. Now, my first response is to find the person that sold my wife tickets for a show that started 45 minutes earlier without even mentioning that fact to her, but I've been working on my people skills so my question for the manager was simply, "What are you going to do to take care of us?" She offered to stamp our stubs with a "complimentary readmission" stamp, to which we agreed, ableit $10 worth of 2 drinks and a thimble of popcorn later.

Thanksgiving night comes around and we have a tradition in my family of going to see a movie on holidays, so she and I again make the trek out to try Potter again (I checked online first.) When we got to the ticket taker, she merely looked at the stamp on the stub, and said, "no problem, go on in." What she didn't do was take the stubs with the "complimentary readmission" stamp from us. While in line for another $10 2-colas-and-a-kernel special I told Donna to hold onto her stub. When she realized why I said so, a big grin came across her face.

Understand, we have not seen a lot of movies in the theater lately and I am obviously a movie geek. I have been so tied up with working on my business and delayed gratification that movies have been on the back burner. However, when Friday night rolled around with heavy snow and my business was pretty much done for the day, a call was placed home: "Hon, wanna go see 'Walk The Line' tonight?" So back out we went to the theater where, you guessed it, they failed to take our stubs again!

At this point, we are fired up! "How long is this going to go on?" "How many big movies are we going to see?" You see, we didn't have to worry if a movie was sold out - our stub says "one complimentary readmission" and although the stub is for Harry Potter, we are not required to use it for that movie. It's just a theater readmit. This past Sunday, late night, we went and saw Chronicles of Narnia and once again, the stubs were not taken!!! If you don't like movies and don't care - just go away. Otherwise you will appreciate how awesome this is. When the time comes that this doesn't work, we won't even care - we've gotten more than our money's worth already. For the record though, King Kong opened yesterday and I know a late Sunday is coming!

The Dead Finger

2005-12-14T11:05:00.000-06:00

Okay, so most if not all of my friends and acquaintences have seen my "dead finger." If you are a visiting reader, in short, my left ring finger kind of dangles ... okay, not "kind of" - it just dangles. I can make a fist, but when I straighten my hand it doesn't come with. Also, when I shake my hand with any vigorousness, it wiggles independently of the others. Try it - shake your hand like you're waving "goodbye" very fast. Any fingers shake independently of the others or do they move in unison? Ri-i-i-ght. It came as the result of an altercation last year at a baseball game, but I often haven't explained much beyond that. I'll explain why today the finger is dead at the end of the story, but the short version is because I was stupid.

Back in July of '04 I was excited about going to Milwaukee for a Cubs-Brewers game. Not because I love Milwaukee (how anyone can is beyond me,) but because I'd not been to Miller Park yet (yes, a stadium named after a beer - how "Simpsons.") I have a thing about wanting to visit every professional sports venue before I kick so I was fired up. This was also a period when I was at a workout peak and probably came in at a very lean 250+lb. (I'm 6'1"/6'2")

So, I went to the game with my Mom, my little sister and one of my best friends (who just happened to be dating my sister at the time - somehow I was cool with it.) Well, we're in the left field bleachers and the Cubs are getting it handed to them, as usual, but there is a group of two guys and a girl behind us and one of them felt the need to rest their dirty shoes on the top of my sister's seat, while she was in it. Understand, my sister can get attitude, and being an athlete and 5'10" she can back it as well. So it starts with some under-the-breath comments and more shoes on the back of seats. Then stares all-the-way-around as people get up to get food and go to the bathroom.

The Cubs finish receiving their shellacing from the Brew-crew and we're ready to go when the girl in the threesome behind us asks my sister what her problem is, in a less than polite way. My sister told her that she would never let her friends make some of the comments she overheard the two guys make and if they had something to say, they should say it to her face, "because that's how we do it in Chicago." She made sure to compensate for the possibility that this girl was deaf by speaking loudly and by getting about 2 inches from her face. At this point, the heavier of the two guys says, "Why don't you go back to Chicago, ya dirty South Side whore?!" First off, I'll assume that what kept my buddy from reacting was the confusion caused by the fact that although the Cubs are on the North Side, my sister actually lives on the South Side. How does this guy know that?

Short story long, that was all I needed. I saw my sister start to lean back so I assumed she was going to swing. Well, before she could move, I leapt over our row of bleachers directly at the geographical Kreskin and began to choke the life out of him with my right hand. As he sat back in his chair and tried to duck his head so "the choke" didn't become "the punch," the other guy figured I was too occupied to see him coming. Hmm, what are left hands for? That's right - punching late-comers in the head. The only problem is that I punched they guy in the head so rapidly and often that as soon as I stopped, my whole hand felt numb. Still, when he fell down, the other guy looked up. For some reason I asked him how long he thought it'd be before security came, and began pummeling his nose with my right hand.

By the time I got to the top of the bleachers I told my Mom, "That was fun and all, but I broke my hand." My Mother loathes fighting of any kind, but even she said she'd give me a pass on that one. I don't know why my buddy didn't react considering I've seen him get after it and he's pretty quick to swing, but he said it was over too quick. That's not a pat on the back for me. I still ended up with the broken hand. Lacking insurance, I spent 18 hours at Cook County waiting to be told what I already knew and another hour waiting for a hack job of a cast. Cook County Hospital is not the County Hospital they show on "E.R." Same city, same location, totally different hospital.

Considering I was in the midst of some serious weight training, taking four weeks to only do cardio was murder. So at about three I ripped the cast off. This is probably why my finger dangles. The knuckle at the base of the finger is just non-existent. Oh well, I've never had hand surgery before, but I'm sure it'll be fun.

Now that I've done a little research ...

2005-12-13T14:41:00.000-06:00

Being new to this whole blogging thing, I figured I should try and study up on what makes a good blog, or "what draws readers to your blog." I even checked out some of the "top 100" blogs. Here's the conclusion I've come to: I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. No offense "top 100," but a lot of the ones that make the list are generally political, and while you may get some political rantings on here - I think people need some variety, right? So I'm sticking with the format! What's the format you ask? Well, the format is to not necessarily have a format. What would inspire people to show up more than for the sheer wonderment of what the heck is going to be here when they do? Can I get a "woot?" Anyway, stay tuned as I continue to keep this as the same, first-personish (my blog, my made up words,) multi-subjected, shoe-sole-soup fest it's two days in existence has produced.

(insert random picture to create confused readership here - ha!)

Invasion of the body snatchers

2005-12-13T10:35:00.000-06:00

Because of actually having my priorities in the right place for once in my life, I haven't really seen too much of the Chicago Bears this season. However, even I can check out statistics on a website. What alien currently inhabits the body of Kyle Orton? I know, the Bears are 9-4 and probably 2 wins away from clinching a first round bye with Orton under center. They're also still 2 losses away from finishing second in the NFC North and watching the playoffs at Halas Hall. If there was ever a time the Bears would be making a return to the Super Bowl, it should be when the Super Bowl is being held in the slum village that is Detroit. What a reward for long suffering fans!

Anyway, where is the guy who threw 31 TD's against 5 picks at Purdue? I know the NFL is all pro's and Orton is a rookie but 'gaw-lee!" 13 games in you are not a rookie anymore. The only QB I know of that can consistently win games averaging 137 yards/game in the air is Michael Vick and he usually runs for another 70. You can time Kyle's speed with a sun-dial. On the upside, not counting his 4 int. performance vs. Cincy, he's only thrown 7 interceptions. Cincy intercepts everyone 4 times. It's like the penance they pay for not being able to find a way to make orange and black tiger stripes look cooler. Of course, Orton has also only thrown 9 TD's in 13 games - not jaw dropping unless you're dropping your jaw to barf on your keyboard.

So, am I proposing the Bears go with Grossman? Look, even if they went with Grossman, he'd probably rupture his spleen or incur some other ungodly injury and be out just long enough to miss anything important yet again, so Orton would just be back out there. Keep Grossman in bubble wrap. What I am proposing is some x-rays and CT scans or whatever they do to see people's innards. I'm telling you, this Kyle Orton may be some Reptilian Annunaki or something. The real Kyle is very possibly locked in a holding tank somewhere with Tyson Chandler and Kerry Wood.

Bye bye, Richie P.

2005-12-12T14:54:00.000-06:00

The only thing that stinks about someone being awesome is that unless a lazarus pit or fountain of youth is found before it happens, at some point they're going to die. I remember when I was considering going into comedy at one point and buying a Richard Pryor CD ("That Nigger's Crazy") that I would listen to over and over again on the Metra (Chicago's city-to-suburbs train.) Pryor was so incredible on that CD - every line was funny. His setup was funny because it was so relatable and honest - and this was a recording from 1974 I was listening to in the 90's!

It goes without saying that Pryor is the doorway that nearly all blue comics walk through, regardless of race. It's a no-brainer that Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle have elements of Pryor but you can include Dennis Leary, Robert Schimmel and Sara Silverman as being heavily influenced by Pryor as well. Many people would say that he wasn't in a lot of successful movies, but I would say he was in a lot of good ones. From 'Car Wash,' 'Silver Streak,' 'The Wiz,' and 'Stir Crazy,' to 'Bustin Loose,' 'The Toy,' 'Brewster's Millions,' and 'See No Evil, Hear No Evil' Pryor has a pretty solid filmography. Regardless, he always made me laugh.

Pryor went through a lot of rough patches, from marital issues, to setting himself on fire to his battle with multiple sclerosis. Hopefully his sometimes tormented soul now has peace.

Please don't suck (part 2)

2005-12-12T14:37:00.000-06:00

Okay fanboys, if it's okay for a new comic series of your favorite team-up to change origins, stories and costumes, cut the studio some flak. So the X-Men don't wear their Euro-trash nightclub getups like in the comics. So Juggernaut isn't 12 ft tall and the girth of a small villa. My only concern revolves around the rumor that the antagonist situation involves a de-mutant-izing serum. If that is done even partially off, this will be lame. But I hear Colossus serves up a "fastball special" so I'd go anyway. I am a nerd.

Elsewhere on the comic book front, DC drops Superman Returns about a month later. Has this happened before? Two major super-hero franchises in the theater at the same time? Although the new Supes looks like a 'mo in the "sleeker" costume, Kevin Spacey is Lex Luthor and Usual Suspects convinced me that skipping any Spacey flick other than that Bobby Darin 'mo flick is unwise. I have no clue who this Routh dude is that's playing Kal-el, but I hope he's got good insurance, considering the history of previous Supermen.

I guess instead of letting Nic Cage ruin the Superman franchise, they are going to let him ruin the exponentially less popular Ghost Rider franchise. Ghost Rider, the story of a spirit with a flaming skull on a body that rides a "hellcycle." I have heard that to play the part, Nic is simply going to take off the makeup he usually wears 24/7. I'd say I was only kidding to avoid getting hate mail, but considering my readership is only one or two strong, the odds of you being a Nic Cage "fan" are minute. I'll see this flick because I'll still be in the comic book ether after X-Men3 and Supes, and I'll dummy myself into thinking this will actually work. Marvel has less confidence, opening GR less than 2 months after XM3. Good luck Nicky.

Despite the fact that Colin Farrell is about as "himbo" as they come, pairing with Jamie Foxx for Miami Vice is a winner. For anyone too young to remember, just imagine Bad Boys with two Mike Lowreys - one White and one Cuban (even though Foxx probably can't spell "Cuban.") Add in a fiesty, yelling Captain, a chick to rescue, a modern-day suave criminal with a goon squad, a car chase through recognizable landmarks, a lot of guns, and I'm $9.50 poorer.

Point of order: Tom Cruise runs in every movie he stars in. I haven't seen every TC movie. Endless Love, Losin' It and Legend will never grace my TV, but I would bet he runs in them. Mission Impossible3 is an action movie and I've already seen screenshots of him in mid-stride. I have yet to find out what the reasoning is behind this phenomenon, but out of the 30 movies he's credited in, I would only claim the three I mentioned as being less than good. Even as wacky as Eyes Wide Shut was, it was classic Kubrick. That means no bad movies in 20 years. That means I'm at MI3.

If you didn't like first Sin City you need to see a lobotomist. Yes the dialogue was a little choppy but if you went to the bookstore and found the graphic novel on the shelf you would see how true to form that movie is. Mickey Rourke should keep playing versions of that character in every movie until he's dead. Jessica Alba is ... well, Jessica Alba. Well, the gang is back next year in Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For. Sorry, but no movie with that title can suck. It would defy logic. Im.poss.ible.

There are other movies I could have named but you probably dislike me now or stopped reading 2 paragraphs ago, so why go on? Either way, I don't remember a time that I could so easily plot out the next $100 I was prepared to throw away on movies in the next year.

Please don't suck - movies galore (part 1)

2005-12-12T14:35:00.000-06:00

Has there ever been a time in recent history, where we have been slated for such an impact of awesome movies? Over the year we are expecting to be bombarded with everything that should ever be made into a movie, and some things that may have been movies in the past, but are now better.

First off, I've never read Chronicles of Narnia. I don't know how this escaped my childhood, but considering my fantasy was more based on stretching present and future reality with comic books and Star Wars, I didn't spend much time in midevil/past reality incantations or books longer than 17 pages. Thus, I've never read any Narnia books, nor have I read the LotR (is that how it's shortened?) books, though I must say the "Rings" movies rocked. That is why I will be at Narnia on opening night, albeit the late late show (explanation of why I'm going for free is pending.) Minotaurs, centaurs, talking lions and other crazy human/animal combo's gets my butt in a theater every time. Every...time.

Speaking of LotR, Peter Jackson is directing King Kong, right? So I hope this means we don't get the lunchbox of crap that was Godzilla. Matthew Broderick is a lot of things, but an action hero is not one of them (not even for kids - see: Inspector Gadget. Actually don't see it.) We'll find out how Adrien Brody fares. Btw, is it just me, or is he a shoe in for the Scarecrow if they ever remake The Wizard of Oz? Anyway, I'll probably see King Kong at least twice simply because I've been told there is a trailer for another eagerly awaited flick before it starts. Yep, I'm that geek.

Staying with the primate theme, Curious George comes out early next year. Although it's not live action, I will be there anyway. CG is like, the official book of pediatrician offices everywhere. I think I owned one CG book and read all the rest while waiting to get allergy shots in various doctor's offices. CG > Garfield, and he doesn't bog you down with lame dialogue. 'Nuff said.

Three words: Vampires; werewolves; guns. Underworld: Evolution has them all so count me in. Kate Beckingsale doesn't hurt, either, but I'm a good, married Christian, so I'll leave it at that.

I haven't read the DaVinci Code. I don't care. I will go see it on the strength of Ron Howard plus Tom Hanks. I don't need to read the book. Ron Howard plus Tom Hanks = the book probably owned. It's a simple equation, really.

And I'm here too!

2005-12-12T12:29:00.000-06:00

Hey there! For the record - this is a mirror of what I've started on myspace (http://www.myspace.com/youngandretired) already so the first couple posts here will probably be a couple of reposts from there. As mentioned there, I've read them before and commented on others, but these are my first. Okay, here's the deal: I'm going to have fun with this and I hope you do also. I debated long and hard about doing one of these (really, like 37 seconds) but when I saw that it was part of my myspace account, I figured - why not. Then I figured I might as well have an actual blog local outside of myspace also. Expect sarcasm, some sports, current life stories, and some flashbacks that will be just nuts. Have a good time.