My Favorites of 2007

Nearly a week into 2008, and I am long overdue for a post. What better way than to recap my favorites of 2007:

Favorite blog on my blogroll: 800lb Gorilla

Favorite color: Powder blue from the San Diego Charger jerseys

Favorite day: Day before my birthday (My brother and I ran the LA Triathlon Sprint)

Favorite city: Many to choose from, but gotta love Chicago (even during February)

Favorite SkyMall gadget: Gotta love the Gravity Defyer Shoes

Favorite conspiracy theory: Tom Cruise was cloned by Xenu and the clone is the crazy one we’ve seen in recent years

Favorite book: If I Did It. Just kidding. The Seven Lost Secrets of Success. Joe Vitale has mastered success and is passing it along. That’s the way it should be!

Favorite moment at work: There are so many to choose from. While the Montel Williams show was interesting and The Talking Show was a first, neither of them is the top choice. Not quite the top either, the GBK Oscars Gift Suite was certainly enjoyable, as was the Scriptwriter’s Showcase. I even learned about how bad the strike would be months before it happened. Even though having Reggie Bush on the cover of the magazine was nice, that too was not my favorite moment. My favorite moment at work definitely has to be when I realized I had a great advertisement.

Favorite dance event: 2007 US Open. The Moorpark College Swing Dance Team received second place in their very first team competition at the US Open. I was one of the founding members of the college club at Moorpark, so it was particularly enjoyable to see them do so well in their first competition.

Favorite radio moment: When I was doing the Gadget Panel Radio show while on the road, heading to a Dodgers game. My phone cut out and Gadget Panelist Vadim was unable to get himself on the phone circuit. Great radio!

Favorite blog I didn’t write: The blog recapping my trip to New Zealand with the 20GB of pictures and photos I took while down under.

Favorite Movie: Ratatouille. The little ones teach us so much in life.

Favorite Website: Ext JS. The web’s future is so bright it’s gotta wear shades. My favorite demo is the desktop sample.  My nerd side is shining.

I Love Inglewood

Originally Posted on my Myspace Blog

I was leaving my Team Management & Leadership classroom on Friday night when my friend Cecil asked me if I could give him a ride. I know what public transportation is like in Los Angeles. I used to travel via train and bus from my house to the OC 3-4 times a week several years ago. For those of you outside the Los Angeles area… Public transportation in Los Angeles is severely lacking.

Back to Cecil. I asked him where he needed to go. He says, I’m about 10 minutes down La Cienega in Inglewood. Now, if you are not familiar with Los Angeles, Inglewood ain’t exactly Beverly Hills. But hey, if The Dog Whisperer can make it in The Wood, why can’t I? Plus, the LA Center for Landmark is one block west of Inglewood, so I’m eating lunch there regularly.

We started driving down La Cienega and got to talking a little bit. He’s from Houston, and he came out here for music. He’s a singer and musician. He’s a really good guy, and he’s giving a lot of himself to make a difference for others.

I remembered back to the first time I met him. He had just started his Introduction Leaders Program at Landmark, and I was finishing mine up. We were assisting with setting up some of the rooms for the introductions. We made a good team with getting things together. Now, here I am driving him to his apartment and talking with him about his career ambitions and what difference he wants to make in the world.

Really cool guy. I told him that he better invite me to his church when he gets back into singing on Sundays. Hopefully, I’ll be making another trip to Inglewood in the near future.

Related Tags: Inglewood, la cienega, Los Angeles, team management, leadership, friends, public transportation, the wood, the dog whisperer, landmark education, making a difference, music, Houston, singer musician, teamwork, teams, apartment, ambitions, goals, career, plans, singing, church, choir, life, religion, God

Kiwi Ambition

The symbolism of this movie is incredible. While cute and innocent, the kiwi is not immune to the trappings of desire and want. Please watch this Kiwi animation

Kiwi! » SpikedHumor.com

A few questions are raised by this short film. First, how far is one willing to go in order to have what is wanted in life? Clearly, the Kiwi has gone beyond what is ordinary in his life in order to achieve a goal. In fact, a singular goal that he is willing to sacrifice his existence for. A goal that he clearly feels is his innate right as a bird to have but cannot because he does not have the faculties in which to experience this.

The next question is what has it for us to want something so bad that we are willing to sacrifice our existence in order to have it. Yes, the animation involves a flightless bird who will stop at nothing in order to have the experience of flying. It is just a bird and just an animation. Yet, we human beings kill ourselves regularly in pursuit of the same “innate desires“. Literally, he has sacrificed his life in order to have the experience that he could not have from birth. Yet, he feels strongly enough about this desire to fly that he is willing to kill himself for the experience.

In his pursuit of flight, the kiwi was already dead. His entire life was spent pursuing something that he felt was his innate right of which he was robbed, having been born a kiwi, a flightless bird. Rather than being happy with what he does actually have in life, he focused on his wants so much that he became blind to the fact that he was ultimately going to kill himself.

None of this makes the kiwi, or humans, in pursuit of an innate desire bad or wrong. But it does raise the question for me as to where I am killing myself off in my pursuits of my innate desires. This short film is more than just a cute commentary on a flightless bird. Yes, kiwis are cute. I’ve seen them up close and personal. They are adorable birds. However, this animation (cleverly disguised as a cute film) is a powerful representation of just how insane we can be in our pursuit of our “innate desires”.

technorati tags:philosophy, kiwi, new zealand, innate desire, psychology, religion, bird, flight, suicide

Blogged with Flock

The History Channel

The History Channel is the best damn channel on television. I’ve sitting here watching a show about the anti-Christ. It is mostly centered on dispensationalism. I love this stuff. I’d venture to guess that you could take any bits & pieces of the bible in order to prove whatever theory you might have about society.

They have another show on the History of Halloween coming up. Good stuff on The History Channel!

The History Channel – Home Page

Blogged with Flock