Excuses

For as long as I can remember I've been active. I still remember my Dad taking me to the park and pushing me on the swing set. Hell, I remember learning to tie my own shoes plopped down in a dandelion field somewhere and giggling nervous laughter when I actually figured out how to do it. The point is, since I was little I have always made a concentrated effort to be outdoorsy and physically active. Mind you, not all of my endeavors (little league baseball) proved to be things that made me - or anyone else watching - proud, but regardless of the fact, I was still out and still doing something. Not only did I learn how to keep an aluminum bench toasty and warm, but I can eat sunflower seeds faster than most anyone I come across.


Yeah, I was pretty much the 'Smalls' of my baseball team(s), for about 8 years.

When I finally realized I wasn't going to be the next Ozzie Smith, my Dad told me I was going to have to do something, and that I wasn't going to be allowed to "sit around and do nothing." Being a rebellious, slightly dumpy 12 year old, however, didn't give me many choices. I had tried soccer and finished playing sometime before I was 10 (I think), and aside from baseball there weren't many other sports I even knew of. I mean, curling hadn't even made it big in the States yet, so I figured I was shit out of luck. Then one fateful day my Dad told me I needed to start going to wrestling practices at the high school, since that is where he was going to pick my brother up from anyway, and figured he could save a little gas on his commute, and maybe convince me to do something active again. I now know he was heavily leaning toward the latter.
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For the better part of my life since then, I have attacked any sort of physical challenge placed in front of me with a bit of an obsession. Anyone who know a wrestler, knows they are a little crazy when it comes to working out and mental toughness.


No, not that kind of wrestler. Although the late 80s-early 90s wrestlers were definitely "crazy" - to say the least. I'm talking about real wrestling. The original Olympic sport, type wrestling.

Wrestling is by far the most physically/mentally demanding sport on the planet. I can't remember how many times I saw a 'tough' football player come out to a couple of practices and quit not even a week later. It's not for everyone. As Jimmy Dugan said in A League of Their Own, "it's the hard that makes it great." But the mental toughness, the discipline required, and a little bit of the crazy needed for wrestling is what has helped keep me athletic and physically fit my whole life.

At a time when many of us are getting our careers started, families started, or just moving back in with our parents post-college, it becomes much more difficult to keep a schedule of physical activity that not only keeps us looking good, but also keeps us healthy and feeling good. For some of the blessed few out there who have metabolisms like spider-monkeys on meth, they are lucky enough that they can get by eating whatever they want and working out on the rare occasion they get chased by a rabid dog. For the rest of us however, as we get older our metabolisms start to slow and we really need to take care of ourselves.

Sitting at the eye-doctor yesterday I stumbled upon a Q&A with Jillian Michaels in Newsweek, (she being the trainer from The Biggest Loser television show). One of the questions that I found particularly interesting was when somebody asked her, "Is obesity about emotional trauma, bad genes, or poor habits?" Her response was pretty much in line with my rationalization of the issue.

"You can be predisposed genetically, but it's not a sentence. I'm genetically predisposed but I manage my weight. The root of obesity, though, is usually emotional. The poor habits are a symptom of a deeper emotional issue."

Pretty interesting right? How many of us have broken up with our significant other, lost our job, been late on a payment, had crying kids, etc., etc., and the first we did was reach for a tub of ice cream instead of going to work it out? Not only is the exercise good for your body physically, but it also raises endorphins (same things that make sex so awesome) which are good for your body emotionally.

I'm not saying that I don't occasionally skip the gym and veg out on the couch. Everyone needs a little bit of that in their lives. However, I choose not to make it a habit. I choose to get out and do something. It is funny how often I hear twenty-somethings tell me they don't have time to go to the gym, or workout, or go on a run. Yet, they have plenty of time to watch multiple hours of TV in a day or spend countless hours stalking people on Facebook. I think one of my favorite artists/social commentators, Paul Madonna, put it best:

So the next time your pants are a little too tight or you don't have any energy, don't blame anyone or anything else. Stop making excuses and put in the work. I'll see you out there.

8.5 and moving up...

No, not an earthquake - as if we need something else to destroy more of our world. And nothing like that weak ass excuse we had yesterday. This indicates more mileage on my runs! Of course we know that in addition to me burning 1000+ calories, this is also an opportunity for me to take pictures of the awesome/strange/ ridiculous things I experience while I'm out and about in The City.

Today's run started out from my place on Shotwell and essentially resulted in me running down Harrison to the Embarcadero. While much different from the trail runs I used to do in the East Bay, City running is amazing precisely because of all the stuff going on. Sure there are no trees, but there are awesome buildings, crazy people and random sightings. Kinda like this:



Not that any of us need a reminder, but make sure you put your GOD-DAMN seat belt on when you get in a cab. Not only because you don't know who the hell your driver is, but because, as it looks in this instance, you never know who else is out there driving!

As I continued along on my run I started thinking I was somehow transported to the video game world of Paperboy for the Original Nintendo. I mean, I was almost attacked by a dog (luckily, it was on a leash); had to dodge cars and bikes who failed to look both ways; saw a crackhead in a robe (just like the video game); and of course, had to dodge the obligatory trash cans on the sidewalk/street. All that was missing were a full-on Tornado, a run away lawnmower, and an actual Grim Reaper to make it legit. After emerging from the Mission and passing through the seedier parts of the SoMa, I was finally rewarded with some decent views of the Bay Bridge.



And upon turning back from the Embarcadero and running up Broadway, the TransAmerica building



...the 100th tallest building in the world, mind you. At least according to a completely suspect Wikipedia page.

Not sure why, but when I saw this, it made me think of that song that went: "BOOM BOOM BOOM, let me hear ya' say __________!(__________)!"


Oh shut up, you know exactly what song I'm talking about. Apparently it's called, get this, "Boom Boom Boom," by the Outhere Brothers. If that's not trivia, I don't know what is.

Finally, I came across this little piece of history on Van Ness:


For those of you who have no idea why I took this picture, Standard Oil hasn't been around for about a billion years, and split up into what is now ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP (too soon?) and every other oil company there is. Technically this gas station was a Chevron, but I was pretty stoked to see the old school Standard name still up. Maybe everything in SF isn't changing the way all the so-called "locals" keep complaining it is. Maybe...

The "Gayest Theme Party" Ever

Also known as SF Pride 2010, was this past weekend in SF. I don't care what you might have heard, but the gays know how to party. I was lucky enough to be treated to the company of a few gay friends who offered to show me what the weekend was all about.



Here we are at Saturday night's Pink Party in the Castro - this is the event that follows the Dyke March from Dolores Park every year. The event was put on by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, which are actually a great group of folks who do a lot in the community, so it was nice to see that for the most part the event was peaceful and people were having a good time. Like these folks:



While the party at 18th and Castro had a few stages, I'd have to say that it was actually Club 7-1-1 outside the actual event where the real party was.



I mean, this place sold 18 packs, Slurpees, all sorts of candy, and they even had a really sweet front patio where everybody was drinking and having a blast. Hell, there were even strippers...




Being that we had already pre-partied pretty hard (we still are twenty-somethings remember?) and packed in a ton of our own beer before we hit Club 7-1-1, I was actually pretty surprised that we were able to put down another 36 beers out front and on the walk home, all before 12:30.


This of course was only just a warm-up for the actual parade that was to take place Sunday morning.

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Flash forward past the epic walk home/afterparty - partly due to the activities and partly due to the fuzzy memory from the booze - and we find ourselves ready to roll out to the real deal thing over at Civic Center. If the hangover from Saturday was going to hit, it was definitely going to have to wait. Besides, the Beer-Mosas I was puttin' down were only serving to recharge my buzz from the night before and get me ready to put on my 'outfit' for the theme party.








As you can see, it actually made me quite the popular attraction. Second only to the fact that the BACKSTREET BOYS were fucking 'headlining'!!! - which actually turned out to be a lame set of two and a half 'songs'. I blame this douche:



Even though the event was free - and they belted out "I Want It That Way" with the audience participation at 100% - it still seemed like we got a little cheated by the fact that we had been waiting for about 4 hours to see these guys perform, and they couldn't even come with a little "Backstreet's Back, ALRIGHT!" Whatever. In the end, it ended up being one of the best public parties I have ever attended in SF. There were an ABUNDANCE of port-o-potties (*cough* Bay to Breakers *cough*) and an overall sense of community and caring that is rarely seen at large events in The City.

Golf with Dave and "McDuffy"

Saturday morning I got up early and headed out to the East bay to meet up with my brother for a round of golf at Metropolitan Golf Links by the Oakland Airport. The course is pretty decent, for being built on landfill and wedged between an airport and a gun range. The fact that neither my brother nor I had played a round in about 9 months, we weren't expecting much and in fact were more excited just to be getting out and actually spending some time away from everything else in the world.




We met at about 7:45am to hit some balls at the range and get a quick session in on the putting green. It actually turned out that Dave played baseball on some travelling team back in highschool with the guy running the pro shop, and even though they hadn't seen eachother in over a decade, the guy gave us a two for one rate which was definitely rad and made it even that much better since we weren't really sure how the round was gonna go. Turned out, golf is a little like riding a bike. I ended up shooting an 88 which is about average, and Dave beat me by two strokes - also about average. It was also a little weird that Dave was playing with a bent club, and still beat me. Whatever.




The most interesting part about golfing however is the fact that you never know who you are going to get paired up with. For our return to the game we were lucky enough to get some guys that pretty much kept to themselves and played the game. We'll call them "John" and "Chris" - mainly because those were their names. Dave and I were better then both of them, so it was nice that they weren't trying to give us tips the whole time. If you have ever golfed and had that happen to you, you know exactly how annoying it is because you have to end up spending the better part of 5 hours with these people. It would essentially be like having an 18 year old tell you how to drink for an entire night. Now you get it...

It also didn't hurt that one of the guys had a moustache like a Civil War era General.


Paired with the gut, it was interesting that he decided he should play from the tips - those being the teeboxes furthest from the hole (read: most difficult). Due to all of these awesome attributes I took the opportunity to nickname the guy "McDuffy." Basically because he looked like, well...what I think a McDuffy would look like.

The only thing he did that really pissed us off was at the turn when he dissapeared for about twenty minutes to change into those sweet shorts. That, and I distinctly remember him grabbing and massaging Dave on the shoulder in a "congratulatory" way, almost to say "good job" or something. I can't really remember the circumstances because i was busy picking my jaw up off the ground and laughing hysterically. Either way, it was awesome.

After the round we went to the course bar and were able to catch the end of the US/Ghana game, and use the extra cash we saved on the green fees for a couple beers and something to shmack on. Even though the U.S. lost, there was little that could have taken away from a solid morning with one of my best friends. McDuffy.

MJ Flashdance

June 25th was the one year anniversary of the death of Michael Jackson. One year since we lost one of the most interesting/inspirational/controversial human beings the world has ever known. As a tribute to him, hundreds of people from around the Bay Area converged on the SF Ferry Building in order to dance it out and have a blast. Tunes were courtesy of the always awesome 'Deep and Trikeasaurus, and it was ALL MJ, ALL NIGHT. If you are so inclined, you can check out more on 'Deep and his adventures over at www.deeptrouble.com.



Here is a picture of Trikeasaurus, a modifed trike with a couple of huge speakers that acts as a fully mobile sound system. He can usually be found at any big SF type of event, from SantaCon to the Easter Sunday Bigwheel Race.

Despite the fact that there were a couple of repeats thrown in there, we were able to take advantage of a large portion of MJ's entire music catalog - from Jackson 5 all the way to "White Michael". The vibe was amazing, people were in a great mood, and the tourists and passersby were obviously entertained with something that can only be described as "uniquely San Francisco." Some of the highlights of the night were the giant group of us that got the electric slide going at least 40 people strong; the "battle circle" that was cleared out by a huge, shirtless Samoan guy only to be shown up by a 7-8 year old girl who had a sweet little six-step; the white guy who was WAY too into his MJ impressions; and of course, all the random characters who were just too unique to describe with words:



The character with the pom-pom was absolutely ridiculous. He brought a modified broomstick adorned with an MJ face, a bunch of streamers and all sorts of other hippy shit. He kept screaming at the top of his lungs over and over, "Can you feel him? I can feel him!!!" He also had a couple of laminated magazine covers that featured MJ from back in the day. Needless to say, he absolutely made my night.



Then there was this guy, who looked and moved like a geriatric Che Guevara/Mr. Miyagi hybrid. He was pretty awesome, but not as awesome as my favorite Asian, Mr. Frank Chu.



And wouldn't you know it...he was on hand to add his made up words and 12 galaxies tacit approval.

Despite the fact that the weather was a tad misty, the crew still had an awesome time, and ended up heading out around 11:30 so we could catch BART before it shut down - I was also pretty ready for a drink so I convinced the crew we should head back tot the Mission and hit Rosamunde for some beers. Turns out Rosamunde closes at 11:00, so we ended up heading over to Mission Bar for a quick drink.




If you are ever in the area, I would recommend heading over here for a good, stiff drink. I like my Beam and Cokes strong, and these things were STRONG. Having been up since 5:30am I ended up calling the night a little after midnight. I had to be up early for golf the next morning with the Broseph - but that's a whole 'nother blog in itself.

Friday's "Best"

I thought since it's Friday and most of you are already tired from the week and ready for the weekend, I'd give you a nice cross-section of the things I come across on Friday's while I'm waiting for the clock to tick down to the time appropriate to take off the tie and crack open or beer or ten.

My first find today was something that had me crackin' up for a good minute at my desk.


We all know people like this who absolutely have to go to all the "cool" shows and see all the "new" bands that no one has heard of, just so they can be like "awe, man...I used to like these guys back before they were big, now they just sold out." I can name at least a half dozen people I know who would go watch me with a harmonica and a fuckin' triangle if tickets were "like, just about to sell out to his super underground, no one knows about, show." Sorry homie, when they "sell out" they are making money, and strangely enough - get WAY more fans. Which in turn makes them more money. I'm sure there are a ton of prideful bums out there, who refused to sell out, but now they can't even get your loose change.

I also came across this one:

http://brokershandsontheirfacesblog.tumblr.com/.

It's just a website, but in my line of work this is hilarious. These guys aren't actually brokers - they're traders on the exchange for the most part - either way, it's a great concept, and one I'll be checking in on regularly for a quick pick me up. The link doesn't work, so just copy and paste it if you're not a ra-tard. Here's a preview:



This next one I thought was perfect for us twenty somethings since we ALL remember the little tricks we had to make our bootsy-ass Nintendo games work. No matter what - your trick was ALWAYS the best. I remember one trick was to literally bang the shit out of the case inside the console. But I'll be damned if Blades of Steel didn't come in crystal clear right afterwards. If you don't find this funny, you can go to hell, 'cause this shit is funny.


taken from periqueblend.posterous.com
I mean, who thinks this stuff up?


Finally, something a little sad to hear to make you all thankful this didn't happen to you:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/25/BA451E4MGT.DTL

This is the link to an article about a couple of meth-heads down in Salinas who tried to sell their 6 month old baby for 25 buck outside of a Wal-Mart. Yeah. Idiots, right? Don't they know Wal-Mart already sells human babies? Sheesh. But seriously, $25 buck for a baby. I can't really even wrap my head around that. A baby has to be the most depreciating asset on the planet. That's not even a good investment, unless you turn around and sell it to some Asian sex-trade business for maybe $100.

I kidd, I kidd. Maybe some pictures would help us understand...


Typical meth lesions, and this chick looks like she is 16, maybe.

Honestly though...I'm pretty glad someone had the common sense to report this to the police, because, the only thing worse than a parent who is willing to sell their baby for $25 is a parent who is willing to BUY A BABY FOR $25 OUTSIDE OF A WAL-MART [IN SALINAS]!!!

With that, Happy Friday. Go enjoy your weekend. I know I will.

Running again. The Adventures of "Wrong Turn" Rick.

Since I've just now sky-rocketed over the 10 view mark on this blog (almost all from my own computer), I know I must be onto something. And since my largest audience - beyond myself - is probably immediate family and longtime friends, you all know a fair amount about me before having even read a word of this blog. For instance, most everyone here, or from Facebook knows that I had been training for the San Francisco Marathon until I strained/tore some ligaments in my left leg back in April/early May (this is all just a guess, since, as I mentioned before, I'm stubborn and don't go to doctors). Taking the necessary time off to recoop turned out to be about an 8 week process. While I was able to still go to the gym, my actual running went from about 30-40 miles a week down to ZERO.

That was until early last week. I was moving something from my car and jogged over to it realizing that for the first time in two months, I didn't feel any pain in my leg and was completely ecstatic. My first full mile came after a workout at 24 which I figured would be a nice cool-down and recovery from the lifting and cardio. It took me 11:20 and felt amazing. Granted, I was walking the first bit and took it VERY slow as a matter of precaution not to blow out my leg - again.

With the confidence of my pain free-run, my all but dashed hopes of running the marathon had returned. Of course, preparing for a marathon in just over 5 weeks is a sure fire way to injure yourself and swear off running for good. As a result, I contacted some of the administrators of the SF Marathon and was able to change the event to the HALF marathon. 13.1 miles, is a lot more feasible than the 26.2 mile, full marathon, given my lack of adequate prep time.

SO, over the last week or so I've been running every other day and getting my distance back up gradually. I'm sure it went something like this - 1 mile the first day, 2.5 the next, 3.5, 4.25, and 6.25 today. It took me just over an hour to complete the 6.25 miles today, but as I said, I'm taking it easy. Though it has been hard for me to understand, I have to come to grips with the fact that I'm not going to win the race. For me, it's now become something that I just need to prove to myself I can do - especially after an injury.

Point of this post being, I'm back to running. And as a treat to my followers, I'll be chronicling my random adventures with pictures from my wrong turns and certain mishaps along the way. Let's see what I came out with today.


This is Billy Goat hill at the top of 29th/30th in Noe Valley. There is a rad (read: dangerous) little rope swing that I will for sure be hitting sometime in the coming summer months.


Then there was this place. It was definitely somebody's home, and when I ran by - no joke - there were the sounds of somebody banging some native sounding drums. I can only hope there wasn't some sort of spirit cast on me for taking a picture.

After running to the top of Noe Valley, I turned South-East and headed back down to the Outer-Mission/Excelsior - not the best neighborhood, but whatever - I'm sort of Mexican, so I figure I got cred. I finally came out down by the Alemany Farmer's Market where I was greeted with a little "choose your own adventure" type mission:

From what I can guess, I went the Peralta way. Those yellow "houses" in the back happen to be a pretty sweet little housing project with some nice views of the Bay, and the requisite crack deals, I'm sure.


I also found this gem while getting ready to pass under the 101. On the day the iPhone 4 came out, Metro PCS is still servin' fools with the 40 buck a month plan. PERIOD.

After heading under the freeway, and seeing some rather blatant urination and human feces, I continued out into the Bayview/Industrial area for some less crowded/much more eerie running. Along the way, I found a couple of things that made me rather excited:


TILLAMOOK! I mean, I don't even really like cheese, but Tillamook is shittin' on the rest of it. Plus, they've got awesome billboards like this. I mean, "LOVE LOAF," come on...

Finally I saw this up on the hill between Bayview and Hunter's Point:


I mean, come on homie...If you were trying to let everyone know the secret to getting 30 lives in the Contra video game for Nintendo, you were WAY off. Appreciate the effort though.

After that I turned and headed the mile and a half back home, to make for a decent, albeit unorthodox 6.25 mile loop from my house with some good hills and some decent vistas. Legs felt good after a couple miles and through the remainder, so we'll see how it comes. Until next time...

"What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while."

So I originally posted this last night before I went to bed - working East Coast market hours usually puts me in the sack around 10:00-10:30 at the latest since I'm up at 5:30 am - and just thought it was a great quote. I got it from this book Im reading, The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin which you can find at amazon.com.



Anyway, the book is about a lady who spends a year trying to do a bunch of little things in her life to make it that much better. Since I just started on this blogging adventure I thought that this fit perfectly with where I am right now. If I truly want this blog to be a success, I'm going to have to work at it everyday - not just every once in a while.

I also realized that people like pictures. Especially people in their twenties who more than likely haven't picked up a book since college - or high school. Therefore, I'm hoping to bring you updates and stories with a little help from the awesome iPhone 3G camera - recently upgraded with a 5x zoom. Suck on that DSLR of my dreams!

Anyway I hope you keep checking back. Or not.

So long glasses. I have two new mistresses.

Unlike most of my corrected-vision bearing friends who had glasses growing up, I didn't get glasses until my Senior year in college - JESUS, has it already been six fuckin' years? Damn. Let me take a minute to gather myself before going on.

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Okay. Anyway. Despite the fact that everyone in my family has glasses (or at least needs/has had some sort of prescription) I never thought I - the "golden child" - would be a 'four-eyed loser'. So much for that grand hypothesis. As it turned out, my stubborness was inherited from both of my parents, much like their vision, and despite the fact that I couldn't read lecture notes for about a year, I fought the idea that my vision was fading. Clearly the projector was out of focus. Even though every other person around me was able to take copious amounts of notes without even looking at the paper in front of them.

It was sometime around "Winter Break" during my Senior year at UCSB that I made the leap and scheduled my appointment with an eye doctor. Who am I kidding, my MOM made the appointment for me. Anyway, in and out and a couple hundred bucks later I was out of Kaiser with a freshly purchased pair of Versace prescription glasses. Hell, if I was going to be relegated to wearing glasses I thought I might as well look like I have some sort of style. Needless to say, those glasses weren't the best decision for a college Senior...at UCSB.

After three or four weeks of waiting, I finally received my glasses in the mail. If I remember correctly, they were shipped to my parents' place, and THEN shipped to me. Anyway, it wasn't more than two weeks before I had: walked into the shower with my glasses still on; woken up from a party the night before on a rampage worse that Godzilla in Japan - flipping over furniture in hopes of finding my (now misplaced) glasses (FYI: I outsmarted my drunken self and put them in one of the shoes I was wearing that night); sat on them; bent them; dropped/scratched them, etc., etc.

Not everything about having glasses is all bad though. I can't count the number of times insanely good looking girls wanted to try-on my glasses. Whores. It was also nice to be able to read notes in class - summarily boosting my GPA back above a 3.7. Maybe that's why all the frog-eyes in elementary school got such good grades? They could actually read the fuckin' board! Tangents aside, me and glasses had a good run. Once I moved out to San Francisco however, I noticed that the frequency with which I was experiencing the less than stellar side-effects was going through the roof.

"Where are my glasses?" "Do you know where I put my glasses?" "Any idea where my glasses are?" I would ask in a still drunken haze. More often than not they were in my goddamn shoe again, but not always. And not always in one piece. Needless to say, in the matter of two years I've been living in SF full-time, I've spent enough money to feed some 3rd world country for a day or two - at least according to all those "Save the World" commercials that come on at three o'clock in the morning between those jack-off commercials for phone-sex lines.
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Fast forward to yesterday. I went to get an eye-exam and fitting for contacts. I went to this little boutique called Eyelevel in Noe Valley with a couple of Asian doctors that fixed me right up - of course they were Asian, I know, I know. So far I have been to three different eye doctors. All Asian. I guess it's either that or be a Ninja. I guess they both have their merits.

In addition to the eye-exam discovering that my 6 year old prescription was out of date - I told you, I'm stubborn - the doctor was quite impressed with my ability to figure out what 90% of 105 was without a calculator or scratch paper (it's 94.5 for those of you stumped out there), which happened to be the difference I owed for the exam. I'd go on with the Asian stereotypes, but this one failed miserably. After dazzling this doctor with my *amazing* math skills, we had the moment of truth whereby I was told to place the contact in my eye, take it out, place it in, take it out, and place it back in.

For those of you that don't have contacts, you have no fucking idea how miserable an experience this proves to be. First off, the doc tells me that I should hold my eye open with my left hand and place the contact in with my right. Sounds simple enough. WRONG! After about 2 minutes of struggling that feel more like 30, tears streaming down my face, and no contact still in my eye, I begin to get that feeling you get when you have wedged yourself somewhere just a little too tight and start to squirm and freak out because the only thing you are doing is wedging yourself in deeper and deeper. Needless to say, a deep breath was in order before I lashed out and slapped my little doctor straight across the room. As it turns out, it is MUCH easier to hold your top eyelid with one hand and with the middle finger of your other pull the bottom lid down while placing the contact in your eye with your index finger. A couple of tries later and I was in business.

From what the doc said, I'm not supposed to be wearing the contacts more than 4-6 hours a day for starters until I let my eyes adjust, and even after that, no more than 12 hours in a day. Therefore, I can't say the glasses are completely gonzo, but for the most part when y'all see me from now on I'm gonna be frame-and-lens free.

Now I just have to look forward to waking up asking, "Have you seen my contact lenses?"

Hello, and welcome.

My first post.

To quote someone - I don't know who - "what a long strange journey it's been." For the hell of it, I'll give credit to Thomas Jefferson. I'm sure somewhere between raping his slaves and becoming President of the United States he threw that in there along the way.

I'm still not sure how or why I ended up here, but here I am. 27 years old, living in San Francisco, and loving every minute of my lame, stupid little life. As I'm sure most of you are still a tad perplexed by the title of this blog, I suppose I'll start by explaining what the title represents to me, and what you can expect to see from me in the coming months (and hopefully, years).

The aim of this blog is to give a voice to those of us in our twenties trying to live a life outside of the paradox that has been the "Gen-Y" label. We've been told we have a ridiculous sense of entitlement (true). We've been forced - by our own actions and by the actions of our society as a whole - to go to college, live off our parents, and for the majority of us, move back home once we have completed the task we were told "would change our lives." Sure. It changed our lives alright.

For the majority of twenty-somethings, it taught us how to drink (a lot), party (a lot), and to disrespect and distrust authority (a whole lot)..."entitled"? Never...What it didn't do was track and prepare us for the "real world". No, I'm not talking about the MTV reality show - although how sweet would that be, right? You know just as well as I do that each and every one of us has wished/wishes we could be on that show "to have our lives taped. To find our what happens, when people stop being polite, and start being real..." Sadly, this image of "reality" is so fucking warped that we as a collective generation have been let down when we find out life doesn't reflect the images and portrayals that are shoved down our throats by the media.

Nope. What we have now is a vast number of us hitting the so-called "quarter-life crisis". Living at home, barely making rent, trying to find a solid job - let alone a career that will someday make us enough money to retire and live happily ever-after - and someone in there still living it up enough to look back on these years as the "best of our lives".

My goal in this blog is to share my journey. The awesome, the shitty, the serious, and the memorable.