Change of pace

Hey,

I plan on redesigning this blog and giving it a more updated look and it's own proper domain.  I will also be changing the focus.  I want to focus on the things I am doing now that keep my sanity rather than focus on when I am on the brink of losing my sanity.   I feel that venting no longer helps me and that I should instead be focusing on what I enjoy and makes me happy.  

Thank you for your time and hopefully you will continue reading in the near future.

Below are topics I plan on covering in future posts:

• Tech products and the whole tech industry
• Travel and leisure activities
• Maybe some finance stuff.
• Movies and books
• Food, I mean who doesn't love food?
• Maybe a few health and fitness stuff
• Self Improvement. 

Once again, thanks for occasionally reading my blog and hopefully you will stay tuned.

My Desert Rose

Shortly after 9/11 I was sent to Egypt for a military training exercise but at that point anything was possible, Egypt is definitely a lot closer to the hot spot of the world than Camp Pendleton. While there I would spend majority of my 12 hour guard shift by myself thinking about everything and everyone. I would imagine scenarios of me back home shooting the shit on the block, rocking out on stage with a guitar, anything to keep me from sleeping since I was on the graveyard shift (I preferred it, it wasn't as hot).  

Towards the end of my shift I would have the pleasure of seeing the sunrise in Egypt, and I have to tell you I have yet to see a sunrise that matches theirs!   The land of Moses, the Nile and countless years of ancient history. Every morning I would hear the call to prayer (Fajr) and then shortly thereafter the most exquisite sunrise I had ever seen.  It was a moment where I would not know whether the sun was going up or going down, sort of like purgatory.  I am not a religious person, but those were the moments I felt most at peace with myself and the world.  Odd how I was in a place a hopscotch away from one of the most conflict ridden areas in the world and yet I felt peace like I have never felt or felt since.   (pic below, not mine although I wish I had taken one)

After getting to my hootch, thats what Marines call sleeping quarters, I would pop in my Enya disc and would play the song below, since I was in Africa why not continually hear "Storms of Africa'.


One song I wish I had during my trip to Egypt was Desert Rose by Sting, I think it would have been perfect, since I do consider Egypt my Desert Rose.

The home I've only visited....

How do you visit a place and all of a sudden feel like the puzzle has been put together and is now complete?    Leaving home knowing it wasn't really your home only to find it later on in life on a whim holiday trip?     Can anyone answer me?  After X amount of years living in suburbia Orange County, I can definitely say, this is NOT the place.

During one of my walks around the Upper West Side, I was listening to Talking Heads song This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)  and it all connected and made sense and my gut for once in my life spoke to me and repeated the words, "This Must Be The Place"

I think Frank Sinatra said it best, "I want to be a part of it New York, New York"

I don't wear flip flops, I don't go to the beach.  I enjoy museums, opera, food, and most importantly diversity!!   I enjoy hearing Russian on my left, Spanish on my right, Mandarin in front of me and some language I have no clue where it's from behind me.  
I like the fact that reading isn't some weird thing, it's a thing that New Yorkers do, Whether its on the subway or on a sunny day in Central Park.

I know to some people Orange County is paradise, good for them!!!  I am glad they found their piece of paradise. Me on the other hand know it's in the concrete jungle.  It's just going to take a lil while to get there.
Finish school, move, and enjoy life.    Till then, I'll just watch as many New York movies as possible.

No new years resolution

Well 2013 ended not like as I would have liked, but it ended on a decent note now on to 2014.   I am pretty excited for what the new year will bring.  New adventures, self improvement, and perhaps some insight into life and what it's all about.

I ended the year in New York City to get away from the sun and laid-back casual California attitude.  Maybe it's my military background or perhaps I'm just a traditional/conservative (not politically) type person.  I prefer being well dressed versus cargo shorts, flip flops and a tank top.  ANYWAYS,  NYC was an eye opening experience.  The people, the culture, the food, and the energy within the city is just plain amazing and I can't wait to get back.

While I was there gearing up for New Years Eve I began pondering the prior year and what I had accomplished. There's no point in looking at the things i didn't accomplish so I didn't bother spending any time on it.  Goal wise 2014 is a year I am not too sure about. I have one main goal, Do awesome at school.  I have other small goals that I would like to accomplish but that's my main number #1 goal that i am putting all my attention on.  I have also begun to look at myself and how I can improve the things I dislike about myself, well more like the areas that I am not good at.  Things like public speaking, improving my social skills, and working on improving my overall attitude towards life.   I am always comparing myself to others and I know it is wrong.  There is no "life" yardstick that all of us are measured on.  We each have a yardstick made for each of us.  So my yardstick isn't the same as yours.  I want to improve the way I manage my time. Too many times I find myself spending hours watching Netflix or just watching movie trailers of upcoming theater releases, that's all time I could be spending doing something to improve myself.  So I want to set up time blocks with the goal of improving my time management and to use my time more efficiently.

I am not too worried about the people I am surrounded with, most of the negativity is gone,  the important ones are around and support me in my endeavors.  Of course I would like more friends that are into the same things as I am.  Things like Tech, Finance, films, and travel are things I enjoy and am looking for more people who enjoy those topics.  But I'm not actively searching for them, I am just going to do my thing and hopefully I'll meet people along the way.  

Coming down the line

This is going to be a very short post.  I haven't forgotten about you.  I am going to be busy this week with Finals but after that I am going to post some stuff up.  Here's a lil video from one of my favorite movies, The Paper Chase.  

New Beginnings.

Well it's about that time that a do a new blog entry, seems like i do one every couple of months. I should consider collecting all my tweets that I do in a week and just make one big blog entry, weekly entry is a little bit better than an "every few months" entry right?

Started a new school this Sept. which is going well.  I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel aside from the fact that i have two years left, I'm sure it'll go by quickly.  I have already laid out my road map on what classes to take and what not. No fun classes for me, all Finance and Accounting courses, not that i don't find Finance fun, I just wish I could squeeze in a class that catered to the left side of the brain.  I have begun doing more creative things in my free time to balance my brain. Occasional trips to places to practice my limited photography skills. I also have begun writing an outline for a story, not sure if it is a short story, novel or what, but it's coming out of me so thats good.

I think aside from my usual emotional rants and raves I do on this blog I am going to begin posting more stuff of my every day life, photos, and what not.  One more thing, I am going to occasional post photos from previous trips to showcase what i have been doing with myself.

Thanks for your time!! 

self f*ckin help

It's funny how I come on here and say I am going to start writing and posting more often and then I fall off the face of the earth.   Here is a smal recap since I last posted.

• Finishing up my A.A degree in Business Admin.
• Transferring to a four year school in Sept.
• Attempting to open up my horizons
• Increasing positivity and regulating my negativity
• Still working on losing weight
• Occasional drink here and there but so far so good, little to no interest in boozing.
• Traveling to China as a graduation present to myself

Ok, so it looks like I am doing fairly well right? Wrong!  As much as I try to look at the positive side of things and all the good things going in my life, I always resort to having negative thoughts about myself, my current life situation and what bad thing is going to happen to me, since whenever a good thing happens to me bad things happen along with it.    I remind myself that things are going well, and that I am moving forward but my mind instinctively telling me that I am wrong and that shit is about to hit the fan, which is my constant every day battle.

Sleep is still lackluster, I use benadryll and melatonin to get myslf to sleep, I am lucky if I get 4-6 hours of asleep, which makes it hard to wake up in the morning and the dreaded "I can't get out of bed" feeling has me chained to the bed and every morning it is a battle that I have to overcome.

The main thing I am working on is happiness.  I need to begin feeling comfortable and happy with myself.  I am never happy, atleast that is what my mind says. I can be Donald Trump rich, cruising the French Riviera in my badass yacht with a bottle of Champagne and you know what, I'll still be unhappy. So one of the things I want to work on this summer is letting myself be happy and content with myself.

As far as booze goes, there are times when I want to drown myself in whiskey, but you know what I have recognized that I can't do that anymore and I look at the good things in my life and let the "self destruction" feeling drift away, especially since I know that the booze will not give me the knowledge and progress I have achieved since stopping the booze. 

So what now?  Well I am going to work on decreasing the negativity, increasing my positivity but still keep my cynicism and sarcasm intact since that is who I am anyways.  So guess f*ckin what, "Here's Ralph"