Archive for the ‘A More Personal Note’ Category

My Life is a Movie.

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

My life should be a movie, because really, sometimes I have a hard time believing it’s not a well-timed, perfectly constructed Romantic Dramedy.

Opening scene: Las Vegas, Nevada where 6 lb 4 oz Mia is born.
Fade out to Mia’s mom packing for California shortly thereafter, realizing Las Vegas is not the ideal place to raise her daughter– or even BE for that matter.
Cut To: Dad peaces out, leaving Mia and Mom for his 3rd, then 4th, 5th, later- 6th and eventually 7 wives-turned-divorcees. (Not all at the same time, obviously.)

In any case, the following scenes pave the way for an interesting childhood. Including scenes where my I am 5-years-old and flying alone to Vegas every other weekend to visit my father, where mom and I hop on a Harley Roadster and ride with 200k other Harley Davidson bikers to South Dakota, where I board a ship to set sail for three months and travel the world, and where my mom and I come back from a movie to realize our house has suffered from a devastating house-fire.

Like I said, Romantic Dramedy.

Where’d the romantic part play in, you ask? Good question.

Cut to: May 2010, Beverly Hills and Brentwood, California. Split screen-Guy and Girl meet on a dating site , and chat with each other each day during work. After a couple weeks, she finally decides to ask him if he wants to meet up after work for a drink- since they’re going in the same direction.

Fades to: 6PM, Girl ends up being early for this mysterious rendez-vous and gets in some shopping; scores 2 heels and an Apple product in under 30 minutes. She’s a pro.

Pan and Zoom to: Girl’s iPhone text message alert- “New text message from Jordan.”  The moment of truth…oddly enough, she wasn’t nervous. She picks up the phone and calls him, “it’s quicker than texting,” she rationalized. In actuality, she wanted to hear what he sounded like before meeting him. Is that so wrong?

Cut to: He’s standing on one side of the crosswalk, she’s on the other, they’re on the phone. “Walk” reads on the sign and before long she’s running to get him and turns them in the other direction- wait, why was she running? Excited? Already? He was cute and it was clear there was a connection from their earlier conversations.

Fade to: Guy and girl strolling the Santa Monica promenade after a few drinks (they forgot to eat dinner, as they were too involved in conversation), headed to watch the sunset when all of the sudden, they happen upon a 13,000-person audience gathered on the beach for a free Jack Johnson concert.

Before long, they’re laughing and running through crowds of people to find an ideal spot. She

First Date: Jack Johnson Concert

pulls out her phone to capture this moment- the best date she’s ever had. They kiss- it was bound to happen. It was perfect.

Fade to: 12AM… they’re finally parting ways for the evening. After all, she ended up falling asleep in his arms while listening to music- it was about that time.

It was the beginning of something very special <3

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I’ve been a busi-bee.

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

Yeah, OK, so that was kind of corny.

In any case, I decided that I had to take a quick break from the madness that has been my life to post an entry. Things have been really great lately, business is keeping me busy (hence the title) and the close of the semester has been harvesting quite a bit of stress. Regardless, my spirits are high and while my energy is low, I’m managing to stay sane!

I’m in the process now of changing career lanes. I’m still on the same road, with more or less the same emphasis, but I’m leaning more in the direction of Social Media representation as the means by which I pay the bills.

I’ve been reading a lot of white papers and case studies lately by companies like Burson-Marsteller, Cohn and Wolfe and InkFoundry. I’ve also been looking in to internships at the aforementioned as well.

So, such has been my life. Late nights researching social media, putting off laundry day until it can wait no longer, and balancing financial independence with my last year at Pepperdine. Life is great.

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Letting Go of Possessions

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

I have found that there are few things in life that can have a very profound affect on one’s life and values. For me, one of those

things happen to have been a house fire in which everything my family owned was destroyed. It’s been just a few days over 3 years since I learned some very valuable lessons about material possessions and appreciating the things I have.

My mother and I left for a movie, only to receive raving phone calls before the movie had time to even begin. There were sirens, people yelling and a rush of energy penetrating my ear as I slouched down in my seat to pick up the call.

While rushing through red lights and speeding around corners, my life was to be drastically altered. Everything I had known was up in flames. We pulled up at 8:11, the fire roaring ten feet above the roof and three fire department trucks surrounding the perimeter of our home.

They had brought my cat back to life and handed her to me. My mother told me to find an emergency vet that was open and I sped off in her car, too stunned to shed tears, too shocked to function properly. After $3k and 3 nights in an oxygen tank, the cat lived, and we were all safe. That was the most important part, but 90% of our belongings were either charred or too badly smoke-damaged to warrant saving- and at first, that was hard to get over.

For the next two weeks I lived out of a hotel, refusing to unpack my bag until I found a new apartment. Everything I owned could fit in my suitcase.

The weeks proceeding were…well, horrid. Filling out paperwork, dealing with insurance, claiming and labeling items by value, brushing the ashes from old pictures in an album and letting go of memoribilia I had brought back with me from my round-the-world travels just a few months prior.

It was quickly that I learned to appreciate the things I did have and stopped dwelling on the things I was missing. I began to let go of the physical things and hold tight to those that really mattered. My goals, memories, friends, family and passions.

Sometimes I find myself staring at a flame. I catch myself in a trance, thinking about how something so small can affect us so greatly.

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Time to Travel.

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

Time to travelIt’s getting to be that time of year again, the time I usually start setting things into motion- a habit learned from the flawlessly consistent university academic calendar- and a time I usually wish I was somewhere exciting and new.

My ultimate goal is to incorporate my writing into a career that will allow me to travel, explore cultures unlike my own, visit historic landmarks and meet those who also value the excitement that ensues in the midst of a journey.

My feet are definitely itching to get back on the open road, vast skies and tumultuous waters.

“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” ~Seneca

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Auto-Locking Shopping Carts- Whole Foods Venice

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

On a recent grocery trip to Whole Foods for all the new apartment necessities I caught myself stopping short before making it to my car. Why you ask? Well, good question… I was dumbfounded as well. As I walked out of the store, strolling with the cart, I passed by a few policemen handling an angry couple’s outbursts and all of the sudden- WHAM. I ran into the cart as it screeched to a halt.

The cop looked at me, as I knelt down to inspect the faulty wheel, and said, “It’s locked.” He could tell I was confused and explained from afar- “There’s a wire around the perimeter that auto-locks the carts.”

Wheel locking mechanism

Wheel locking mechanism

What? Seriously? And apparently it’s been around for a few years- at least. How did I not know of this previously?

Just as I was about to discount the cop’s outlandish comment, sure enough a Whole Foods employee walked over with a remote that gave my cart the ability to become mobile again.

Being that theft and homelessness is an overwhelming issue in the Venice and Santa Monica area, it’s smart for Whole Foods to invest in this kind of deterrent. I can’t help but wonder what the ROI is on an investment like this.

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