Four Sides

 it’s easier not to be great
and measure these things by your eyes

Live, I Alone

I’ve been home alone today sick with flu-like symptoms. It’s given me the opportunity to catch up on some work ideas that I hadn’t been able to get to earlier in the week (my daughter has been sick this week, as well – fun pair we are!), but also has given me some time to reflect on my situation. Nearly eight months have passed since the ex and I split up, around the time most people start noticing their eyes are wandering a bit when people walk past, “just to see what’s out there.”

In my previous life (BK, Before Kylie), I would have let my eyes wander and think to myself, “Man, she’s hot” or “That’s the kind of woman I would like in my life.” Now, I look at women and find myself going through a laundry list of questions which end up talking myself out of pursuing anyone. Most of the questions are concerning my daughter since, at some point, a potential partner is going to have to come into contact with her. There’s no avoiding that. I have little interest in random hookups, friends with benefits, and the like, so I remain alone.

To take this further, I haven’t been out seeking friends either or trying to connect with people I already know on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and outside the home. I certainly don’t hate people, and I do look forward to the incidental contact have with people here and there (talking with the baristas at the coffee shops, a friendly clerk at the grocery store, the people noticing my daughter). Right now, I am more than content to focus on myself for a change and stop putting everything off that I want to do because someone else needs me to do a favour.

I have come to realize that a great part of my unhappiness in the fall was due to not being able to get things accomplished as much as I would have liked – weight loss, getting stronger, writing more, building up the business, and so forth. Originally, I used the hurt I was feeling over losing someone as an excuse as it seemed to consume my life a lot when I wasn’t spending time with my daughter. Analyzing the journey we had taken together, everything I could have done differently, wondering what the ex was up to, how to repair things to remain friends, and so on.

It was paralysis by analysis, to use the cliche.

A switch was flicked in December when I injured my lower back. I knew it was also caused by the level of stress I was putting on my body mentally (all that analyzing, plus being a full-time parent for majority of December). I had no choice but to change, and I change I did.

I have spent more time writing, reading, and working out in the past month than I did the previous six months, most likely (also, watching Sons of Anarchy, Spartacus, Californication, Fringe). Besides this week (I’m blaming this cold on my daughter), I have been feeling great and experimenting with intermittent fasting. I haven’t seen the radical results like most people have displayed, but I also am just beginning to ramp up the workouts again after the back injury. There may still be hope for a beach body by June yet.

The most important thing though is that I have the business website launched, starting to write blog posts, interacting with LinkedIn groups more frequently, and have a plan in place to locate more clients. It may not interest anyone because of the area of work (hotel industry), but feel free to visit the site and send me any helpful advice you may have. I’d be extremely grateful.

Four Sides Hospitality Consulting

Back to being alone.

Looking over what I have accomplished this year so far, it makes me a bit upset to think of how much time I wasted last year. The main reason why I didn’t get anything done is because I was still hung up on the ex. I started to think about how some people have such an easy time getting over past relationships and moving on, whereas others (like me) tend to over-think and ground themselves until they are able to move on to better things in life.

I have no idea whether I am right in saying this, but I believe that the levels of emotional attachment between two people is not necessarily equal. Being equal is a goal, and the relationships that last the longest are closer to that equilibrium than a couple after a first date.  The more attached someone is to their partner, the greater the hurt is to that person. I also know from experience that the longer I am with someone, the stronger those feelings are, so the hurt is greater even still.

In my head, it became a clear image:

I also thought about some of the crazier people who became deeply attached to me in a short period of time. When I broke things off, they seem crushed, even though in my mind they barely knew me after a month or two. In the opposite direction, you have the more apathetic people who have little emotional attachment (or slower growing) and don’t seem to get hurt much at all when the relationship ends regardless of the length of it.

After seeing the graph, it makes me wonder if I’m one of the crazy ones, and my unconscious self is protecting myself by showing disinterest in women before I go crazy over another one. It’s a horrible sequence of thoughts to get into, so instead I focus on the value of being alone.

On being able to focus on my needs, my goals, planning the next stages of my (and my daughter’s) life, and on being able to enjoy the things I like without regret (hello baseball, football, UFC!).

And repair my heart so it is able to welcome in a new kindred spirit when the time is right.

I should mention that I’m not completely alone. I have this little girl in my life.

Related Posts:

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• Mind Bombs: The Need For Self-Renewal [Unfinished thoughts]
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There’s absolutely no excuse and no reason as to why they don’t include Twitter (or Facebook for that matter) profile results in their new Search+ social areas.

MG Siegler, Not Irrelevant

I have been reading with interest, and a bit of disgust, the story about Google revamping their search results to include Google+ profile pages above other content. Like the stories about the many failure of Android, it’s a story that I kind of wish would go away, but people are very persistent about it. Yesterday, Focus on the User released a bookmarklet called “Don’t Be Evil” that circumvents the new changes in Google Search+ to show more relevant links. It was developed by a team from Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

From their site:

We created a tool that uses Google’s own relevance measure—the ranking of their organic search results—to determine what social content should appear in the areas where Google+ results are currently hardcoded.

They may be attempting to create more relevant results, but its more relevant by their standards, not mine. I actually believe Google is on the right path with their changes. The problems with Google’s approach have been outlined extensively already (look at Techmeme to catchup), but I have yet to see anyone attempt to defend the changes. I would like to try.

The two primary issues that I have seen with Search+ have been:

1) It promotes Google products ahead of other web results

2) It excludes profiles from Twitter, Facebook, and other socially relevant sites.

Here is John Gruber at Daring Fireball:

I think their decision to artificially promote Google Plus pages above more relevant pages on competing social networks is the modern-day equivalent of the ’90s era search engines turning their homepages into “portals”. A search engine should be designed to send users quickly and accurately away to whatever sites on the Internet they’re looking for. The ’90s-era search engine portals blew this, because the whole portal idea was to keep users on their sites rather than send them away. This Google Plus integration is the same thing — an attempt to keep users on Google.com for another page view or two.

If I didn’t celebrate John Gruber like a God, I’d call this bullshit, so I’ll stick to calling it bull.

I would argue that the purpose of the Internet is to find and share stuff – by searching for it, reading what someone shares, sending to others via email, sharing it on YouTube, etc. Most people are rather proud of their stuff and like to share it frequently, make it accessible to be discovered, and want it to be shared with others. Most will not be happy if they only share only one item in their life time, and that compels them to keep creating and wanting to get discovered.

This goes from small-time bloggers who are concerned about Bounce Rate Times and number of page views, to larger corporate sites.

People want their stuff discovered, because they want to make money or feel good about the number of people reading or commenting on their stuff.

It’s a game that has been played on the Internet since the time of gopher, to the competitive nature of hackers putting their names into their torrent files, to the SEO games on websites. Google has been participating in this game for a long time now before Search+, as has Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc.

If you think about the number of services Google provides, its aim is to keep you using Google products to help them build revenue streams. The Google bar, Android, Gmail, Google Docs, Google+, Google Voice, and so on. The same strategy is going on at Facebook with their building in search results (via Bing), incorporating Skype, Messenger on phones,  shared group documents, and rumours of them developing a phone. Neither Facebook or Google want you leaving the site to play on Twitter instead, especially now that Twitter has started to monetize the site – it’s no longer an innocent pre-teen cousin that it was five years ago.

To me, Search+ is disrupting search to steer it in a new direction given the challenges it’s currently facing with Facebook and Twitter. In order for Google to stay relevant, it needed a social tool, because as people keep harping “social is the new search.” People are more likely to discover new products and services more through social media than they do through regular searches in the near future, if they aren’t already.

Flipping the switch on a new social playground is not enough to get people over there, however. The reason why people switch or start using a new service is because it’s relevant to them – they have friends or colleagues already there, it’s within their niche (musicians on Soundcloud). Last summer, people didn’t have much motivation to want to switch over to Google+.

Now, they do, if they want their stuff and the stuff they want to share to be easily discoverable. Once people catch wind that their profiles will be displayed closer to the top or on the side, and links that they share will appear if the user has them circled, they will have more reason to complete their Google+ profile and be more active on the site.

If Google had incorporated the Twitter and Facebook profiles at the top, there would be no point in using Google+.

This also raises the question of relevancy of Focus on the User’s results. Not all Facebook profiles have adjusted their privacy settings to be able to subscribe to them, or have enough of a profile filled out to give you enough information about that person. Twitter profiles only display one link, if any, and then you have to filter through the tweets to find the relevant information you’re after. Is either solution ideal? Not really.

Choice would be nice for those that want it. A better option is to see how Search+ continues to improve in displaying its results over the next six months. Google+ has made some significant changes to improve its performance and usability, I’m sure there will be a similar level of improvement with Search+.

Back to MG Siegler’s statement at the start about there not being a reason for Google not to include Facebook and Twitter in their search results.

If Twitter ended their deal for instant access to the “firehose” of tweets, and Facebook has chosen Bing as its search engine of choice within Facebook, why would Google want to give preference for their competitors? Why is it Google’s problem to come up with a solution on how to include Twitter’s public tweets into search results, instead of people asking Twitter to open it back up? Why don’t people push Facebook to include Google results instead of Bing if Google is the search engine with the most relevant results?

I happen to enjoy the look of Search+ and I have been happily surprised when I come across some older links that have been shared by my friends on Google+ as I search for stuff. It’s the sort of thing that doesn’t show up in Facebook search, and definitely not in Twitter unless I search for a specific user (Twitter could have the option to display results from people you Follow or your Followers).

I’m not going to use the “Don’t Be Evil” bookmarklet. I want to give social search a fair chance.

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I just finished watching Season One of Sons of Anarchy after a strong recommendation from John Bell (Start Your Novel). After watching the pilot episode, I was hooked. I honestly couldn’t stop watching it, and it’s rare for a show like that to come into my life. The last show that had that kind of impact on me was Mad Men. So after finishing it, I thought I would give some of my thoughts about the show so far to further entice people to watch/buy the show.

Quick background, stolen from Wikipedia.

“Sons of Anarchy is an American television drama series created by Kurt Sutter about the lives of a close-knit outlaw motorcycle club operating in Charming, a fictional town in the Central Valley of Northern California. The show centers on protagonist Jackson “Jax” Teller (Charlie Hunnam), the then-Vice President of the club who begins questioning the club and himself.”

People may not recognize the name Kurt Sutter, but he was one of the main writers, producers and directors from The Shield, a dirty cop drama taken place in Los Angeles. That show was highly regarded by critics (and really quite good) and had a good run of seven seasons.

My initial impression after finishing the season?

Sons of Anarchy makes The Shield look like Bambi.

The Shield took a lot of risks with their story-telling, the intricate lies between the task force and their superiors, but also between the members. When you watch The Shield, you see the lies unfolding before you, which it makes a little easier to follow with what’s happening. With Sons of Anarchy, they take the lies and story-telling and kick it up a notch. There is a lot that goes unsaid and gets discovered through the first season, and goes unresolved, too.

This slow, mysterious reveal is what hooked me into The Shield, and has me hooked on Sons of Anarchy. With The Shield, it was “What will Vick do next?” With Sons of Anarchy, it’s “What will Jax discover next and have to do?”

Apart from the revealing of information and lies, the relationships between the characters are all quite complicated in themselves. Women, so far, play a much larger role in Sons of Anarchy than in The Shield. In the latter show, we were only shown the relationship between Vick and his wife. In Sons of Anarchy, there are three spousal relationships shown (so far), plus a few father-son relationships. This doesn’t include the intricate relationships going on between the members of the motorcycle club either.

The world of Sons of Anarchy is quite complicated, which is another real draw for me. I like learning about the differences between the various groups, how they handle conflict, what their indivual interests are, and the mythology surrounding their history with the Sons of Anarchy club. It would be easy to keep introducing new parties to the storyline and then forgetting about them, but shows like The Shield and Sons of Anarchy are excellent in keeping those threads of stories alive later in the season.

Another bonus for the show is how linear the story-telling is. Each episode picks up where the previous one left off, for the most part, and there is no guessing about how much time has elapsed. It’s made quite clear in various ways throughout the individual episodes. Even after watching the first episode of Season Two (which aired roughly nine months after the first season ended) makes it obvious how much time has passed since the last episode. With the storytelling complicated enough as is, keeping this part of the show simple is something I really appreciate.

I really wish I could get into more detail about the plot lines, the characters, and the action, but I think it would take away from part of the fun of discovering the show yourself. There is plenty of action in the series, and I could almost say with confidence that it is far bloodier of a show than, say, True Blood. The degree of violence in the show is much more gruesome than other show I’ve seen on television, which is absolutely perfect in my mind. A dark show deserves dark moments, not something to be white washed and passed over.

If you enjoyed The Shield (or Shawn Ryan’s other series, The Chicago Code), you’ll really enjoy Sons of Anarchy. If you are at all interested in motorcylce gangs, like the Hells Angels, you will love this show. If you like a show with strong storytelling, not afraid to give you plenty of shocking moments, and don’t mind seeing a lot of blood, this show is definitely for you.

If you’re in the United States, you can watch it on Amazon Prime (first month is free), or you can watch it via iTunes. Elsewhere, you can buy the full seasons on DVD from Amazon (Season 1 and 2, 3, 4).

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Jay Dolan, The Anti-Social Media

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You should never read the bottom half of the internet.

Matt Gemmell

I discovered two different curiosities tonight:

1) Matt Gemmell’s post “Comments Off”

2) I have 50 subscribers (?!)

The two items are only related to the quote above, ” do not read the bottom of the internet.”

Matt’s post is excellent in outlining the reasons why to turn off comments on a blog. The point about not “reading the bottom” is that comments do not serve their purpose of developing a conversation further. I had written a post a few months ago in a similar vein outlining how the problem with comments is that they aren’t curated enough (if at all – see Comment Threads as a Nutrient Rich Garden). What was interesting to me about this post was the ultimate decision to turn off comments, and encouraging people to respond via Twitter, a blog post, or email (the last item being highly discouraged).

Marco Arment (of Instapaper) wrote a few of his thoughts about this, stating that:

Comments seem like a relic of the pre-Tumblr era, when starting your own blog was actually a bit of work (and usually a minor expense). These days, if you have something to say about what someone wrote, you have many great options that don’t cause unnecessary work for the author or degrade their site.

The problem with taking the discussion away from the original post and onto a different platform (whether it’s a blog, Twitter, Google+) is that it’s difficult to follow the conversation that is happening. This is not such a big problem in a tight network who follow each other religiously. If you listen to the 5by5 podcasts, you will hear several of them refer to other episodes on the network, or they will do it on their own blogs. The circle of commentary in that network fuels further thoughts and ideas, and helps the readers/listeners go into more depth about a subject, as long as you follow everyone within that network.

Instead of reading one post and a series of comments at the bottom, you have to keep on top of several blogs, Twitter feeds, Google+, and so forth.

Then, of course, there is the other bottom of the Internet – the small time bloggers like myself. I have 50 subscribers, and 1,000 Twitter followers. That pales in comparison to most bloggers out there who write regularly. If I write a response to a blogger on my site, it is unlikely to get noticed.

One of the wonderful things about comments on blogs is I am able to participate in a dialogue with other like-minded bloggers and have my thoughts read (to some degree). I am also able to discover other writers through the comments left on blogs. With comments turned off, I am relying on the author to curate other bloggers for me, which ruins a bit of those “eureka!” moments when you stumble across on awesome site via a comment.

I realize this is a first world problem, and even an A-D List Blogger problem (but not us E Bloggers with no comments to monitor), but I am wondering if there is not a better solution to this? Does Disqus need to host comments on their domain, monitor spam, and let authors curate the comments for their posts if they’d like?

We all like our gardens. There is nothing wrong with taking that garden from the backyard and turning it into a community garden.

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Sparkling Hill Resort is located outside of Vernon, British Columbia, Canada high up in the hills overlooking the Okanagan Lake to the west, and Kalamalka Lake to the east. The resort is fairly new, having opened in summer 2010. I was fortunate enough to have stayed there in the fall that year taking advantage of one of their ridiculous introductory offers as a treat for myself (and the ex). This place is simply incredible and I thought I would share some of my impressions of the place, and photographs, of course.

The journey to the resort is an experience in itself. Located within 30 minutes of the hustling and bustling city of Kelowna, once you turn off the highway, you enter a new world full of tranquility. The road winds up into the hills past Predator Ridge golf course, itself a beautiful and award winning course, and the views around you are breathtaking. Having spent the past few years in the Okanagan hiking and driving into the hills, the location of the resort offers some of the best (if not the best) views of the region.

If the views of the area weren’t enough, once you make the final turn to approach the resort, your eyes are dazzled by crystals. Crystals are everywhere at this resort – the welcome sign at the base of the hill, embedded in the parking lot, in posts lighting up walkways, and that’s just on the outside. The primary owner and patron of the Sparkling Hill Resort is Gernot Langes-Swarovski, patriarch of the Swarovski family and former head of the Swarovski crystal company. The resort contains 3.5 million crystals within its architecture, and their website states that it is the first of its kind in the world.

I would believe it, too.

When you enter the interior of pretty much every hotel in the world, the first thoughts are: check into the hotel, find a restaurant, get to the room and regroup. After entering this resort, however, the first thing that comes to mind is to pause and take it all in. The space above the lobby is cavernous. Walkways cross over to the restaurant and meeting space, but the main attraction is a huge crystal chandelier. Words simply can’t capture how impressive this chandelier is, nor can a picture of it. It really is a sight that must be seen in person.

Lobby - facing the entrance

Checking in at the Front Desk is rather intimidating, as well. Behind the agents are two cupped hands, perhaps offering to you the wellness and health the resort is designed to provide to you. The resort was designed under the influence of European health spas. The General Manager, Hans-Peter Mayr, has operated other large spas in Europe and wanted to bring that experience to Canada. I haven’t been to a European spa so I am unable to compare the experience of this resort to one of overseas. I think I made an excellent choice in my first spa experience ever, however.

The main highlight of the resort is the KurSpa. The area is massive, including private rooms for private massages and beauty care (hair cuts, styling, manicures, etc.), 7 different sauna and steam rooms (all at varying temperatures), an indoor swimming pool and hot tub, outdoor infinity pool, fitness area, a cold sauna, and the Kneipp Water Therapy stream. There are some other rooms for general relaxation, as well, which provide plenty of sunshine and great views of the mountains.

Apart from private sessions and the cold sauna, access to KurSpa is included in the room price for hotel guests, and is available in the afternoon and evenings. Going through each of the different sauna and steam roomsis an enjoyable experience. The rooms vary in temperature from the Igloo room at 10 degrees Celsius (which is different than the other Cold Sauna which is at -110 Celsius – yes, that is not a typo!) to Finnish Classic sauna at 90 degrees Celsius. After going through them all, I found myself picking a few favourites to go between the rest of the evening or the next day I was there.

KurSpa Lobby

Also in the sauna and steam rooms are the experience showers. These showers give you the option to control where the water comes out and the strength of the water pressure. They are not meant to be for washing, but you do feel your body being cleansed in a different ways as you experience the jungle rain shower compared to a more normal shower. The links above are to the Sparkling Hill Resort website and can provide more information about the sauna and steam rooms, the spa treatments, and the Kneipp Water Therapy stream.

There are other little treasures to be discovered at the resort other than the KurSpa. The restaurant, PeakFine, is simply amazing, serving European dishes with the best local ingredients. When I dined there, the menu had three offerings from the chef – a meat, fish, and vegetarian entree, plus appetizer and dessert choices. There were a few other options on the menu, but I couldn’t say no to a lamb sous vide. Breakfast is also served at PeakFine, and is included in the room rate. It is a full buffet with many delicious and tempting offerings to choose from.

Library Room

Located in the basement, Barrique and Java, serve lunch during the mid-day hours when PeakFine is closed, but also have coffee and pastries in the morning, or fine wines in the afternoon and evenings. I found it to be a nice escape in the afternoon after returning from a lengthy hike through the foothills surrounding the resort.

On the level above PeakFine, there is a quiet room which I thought of as my own personal sanctuary while at the resort. It was full of lounge chairs, small coffee tables, and large bookshelves. It was the perfect area for me to sit down late at night to do some reading when I did not want to stay in my room. In addition to this quiet room, there were other sitting areas spread out in the resort. Most areas had incredible views of the area, others were rather secluded and private.

The one area of the resort I have not touched on are the hotel rooms. The room I stayed in was simply the best hotel room I have ever stayed in. I would like to comment on the room, but honestly, I hardly spent any time in it. The room I stayed in had a large shower and a soaker tub in the room, with star lights above it at night.

Glimpse through the shower

The bed was extremely comfortable with a large plasma television directly in front of it. The room was not extravagant in having lots of furniture, but it contained everything I could possibly be looking for in a room at resort. The hotel rooms are definitely something that need to be seen, though. There are a few surprises in the rooms that I think are best discovered in person rather than through pictures.

As I mentioned previously, I took a lengthy hike through the foot hills surrounding the resort. They provide you with a map of the different trails in the area. I went one of the more challenging hikes thinking it would take me to some of the better areas to get a view of the lake. The hike was extremely worth it and was quite the work out going up and down the hills. The view from the top of the hill was almost better than the view from the resort: just forest and a wide-open view of the lake. There are other trails to go through, some were paved or were crushed gravel so they are accessible to anyone who may have some limitations on how grueling of a hike they go on.

Overall, I was blown away by the resort: the location and views, the hospitality, the KurSpa, the rooms, and the dining. The only two things I could possibly wish for would be to either work there or to live there.

As they say on their website,

your personal journey to whole body health and wellness begins here.

A few quick links in case you wish to learn more:

Sparkling Hill Resort website

Sparkling Hill Resort on Twitter

Sparkling Hill Resort on Facebook

Globe and Mail article about the resort shortly before its grand opening, written by Amy Rosen.

Reservations via Booking.com

[Note: photographs were all taken by me]

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I was listening to the short video post (vlog? that never sounds right to me) by Lori Painter at her site, Life by Lori, about jealousy. It’s a topical piece for me to read about, because I still struggle with some strong feelings of jealousy towards my ex-girlfriend. It’s been nearly six months since she left. The first two months were fairly rough on me for many reasons, but the hurt was definitely the strongest during that time. August, September, October were full of change for me, and I had grown to accept more why she had left and the changes I need to continue to make. The past month, however, has been a bit more straining on me.

I was struggling with how to approach and tackle this on my own. Lori’s video helped pinpoint a problem, and then a comment left by delrashid reminded me of something that I was choosing to ignore.

Here is Lori’s comment in response to mine:

“Those jealous feelings are the same with an ex! Your jealousy was a mirror reflecting back at you to take care of your health and step it up a notch and to really do things that fuel you and empower you and give you satisfaction! You deserve to be as healthy and happy as possible and she shined some light on some habits that you may have been slacking off on.”

And delrashid’s comment:

“However we guys tend to  have a ‘selfish’ ego, so learn to be happy for her, and remember , that the people who we meet throughout our lives always leave an imprint on us. True love is unconditional, and time is a great healer. I would take Loris advice to overcome your selfish jealousy.”

Between the video and the two comments, I had a bit of a wake-up call in how I should be approaching this. I have been focusing a lot on how the ex-girlfriend has a lot going for her (dramatic weight loss looking better than ever, getting enrolled into school, vibrant social life). I was getting annoyed that I wasn’t having the same level of achievements (I am losing weight, getting in shape, and have the business growing slowly) and that I wasn’t part of the happiness she has found in her life.

Instead, I need to learn how to be happier for her, which should be easier since she is the mother of my daughter. A happier life for her means a happier life for my daughter. At the same time, the parts of her life that I feel the most jealous about are the areas I need to focus more on in my own life.

• The past several days, I have been working out harder than ever, and will incorporate cardio exercises during the days I don’t have my daughter.
• I am not going to enroll in school, but I will put more attention on growing my business and finding reliable clients.
• I will try to develop a social life (which is probably the biggest challenge an introvert can ever face – I’m sure we’d rather be put in a ring with a thousands lions than to go up to a stranger and say hello).

After I am happier in those areas, I think I will be more prepared to discover love again, as the Tiesto song says.

You have become what you have always been
light flickering around, peripheral vision
no words we can speak, our paths have been chosen
but all trails that we trek,
-should lead us back to here because our

love comes again
just when i’ve broken down i found
love can come again
you’ve got to believe that

love comes again
just when i’ve broken down i found
love can come again

dig within me, turn all the secret stones
forests and fields, breathing with blood and bones
still no words we can speak, our paths have been chosen
but all trails that we trek,
-should lead us back to here because our

love comes again
just when i’ve broken down i found
love can come again
you’ve got to believe that

love comes again
just when i’ve broken down i found
love can come again

Love Comes Again – DJ Tiesto

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At a table, silent in prayer,

I stared at the food before me.

Thank you for giving me life,

I said to myself, while the others

whispered to their God.

Giving thanks? Fuck.

My mind is damaged,

My body broken.

My heart belongs to no one.

My soul clutches to my ribs.

At a table, silent in prayer,

I stared at the knife before me.

Cut me free,

I said to myself, while the others

whispered to their God.

Shed me of this skin I wear.

Eating is no longer satisfactory,

Talking is empty, conversations die.

Blindness overtakes me, but

I still see more than before.

Thankful for that?

I feel sympathy for that turkey

For I have been carved

To be fed to the dogs too.

There was no swift death for me

Only eternal imprisonment.

Hell is not other people

You were wrong, Sartre

Hell is being eaten alive

And spit out in disgust

At the Devil’s Thanksgiving.

[Written in 2005. I like to remind myself of how far I have come in my thought processes, but also to remind myself of how different forms of writing can be more effective for sharing thoughts than a normal blog post. Something I wish I could tap into again. ]

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This is what it must feel to be a gladiator
Dripping in sweat,
Eyes looking forward at the enemy
But the enemy is within
It is the one that restrains you
In hopes of making sure you don’t take that extra step
To keep you human
And not to become God-like.

A gladiator faces fear in the ring
I face only my beating heart
The tears falling from my chest
The stains of dirty gloves
When I lift weights, I am invincible.

I can conquer any challenges put in front of me
No limits can hold me back
I keep pushing until I can push no more
Then I push some more
Causing me to bleed
Not blood, but more salty drops
Stinging my eyes and coating my lips.

Panting breaths, I feel near death
But a pause in action makes me feel alive
The walking dead
An immortal walking among the living
I stare ahead at my challenger,
Looking at him in the mirror,
And question how much of him remains
How much further can he push

There are no words spoken in response
Just a fist grabbing the iron to throw into the air again
More hard breaths
More sweat
All of which breeds
A new gladiator

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11/11/11, otherwise known as my 32nd birthday.

I always lived with the belief that life didn’t really begin until you turn 30, but I didn’t realize how true that actually was until I had turned 30 myself. It seems as though people spend their 20′s mainly figuring out who they are, and where they want to go, without actually getting that far down that path. Of course, there are exceptions out there, but I am not one of them.

Sunset on Okanagan Lake

My 20′s were spent going up a hill, stopping, then deciding I wanted to start all over again. Not build upon past achievements and learn from previous mistakes, but instead try to relive those years and try to do better than I had done before. I stopped my studies at University half-way through to take on an internship in Hartford, CT only to return to University after six months with a newfound energy to tackle on other challenges. Before I left, I was taking on 4 courses a semester, which seemed a lot at the time. When I came back from Hartford, I decided I needed to take 4-5 courses and have a full-time job on top of it.

I was pretty burnt out by the time I graduated. Instead of taking the year to focus on work and not studying any further, I made the choice to leave my job, the city, my friends and business associates to go to Syracuse, NY to work for far less pay and start over. That was a story in itself, but it did teach me a valuable lesson: plans are more likely to fail than they are to succeed, so plan accordingly.

After a frustrating year there, I made the decision to leave and go back to my hometown. I thought I would be getting back into my line of work and study, but instead decided to take a fairly dramatic turn to get into the hotel business. When I took on the Front Desk position at a hotel, it was only supposed to be for the summer, and then I would figure something else out. Funny enough, I’m still working in the hospitality business five years later – almost as long as my theatre career now.

While I progressed through the hotels I was working for, I decided to leave to start all over again. I did leave for a girl who was carrying my child, but I didn’t put up much of a fight to stay in Whitehorse. Off I went to the Okanagan Valley, knowing only a few things: we had a place to stay (that I hadn’t seen yet), and I was going to be a father in two months.

Being a father is an eye-opener to many things in life that you would never notice before. There are too many moments of excitement that you simply can’t plan for. First baths, first taste of a strawberry, first birthday, are all things you know will happen and you can control. But writing my daughter’s name on a piece of paper and having her recite it without any prompting from me? That’s simply priceless.

I have spent the past couple of years since she was born living my life in a similar fashion. I have slowed down my steps to take in the world around me, find those hidden gems, and be thankful for where I am. I am trying to learn to be more spontaneous (which goes against my planning nature) and go with the flow of life.

It seems strange to me now to think about how I have to unlearn how I lived in my 20′s to really live now. I know I am not alone with this, though. I just finished the Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs (buy the book from Amazon, help me buy a coffee). I was struck by how much he actually accomplished after he turned 30 – Mac OS X, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad, iCloud, Pixar, etc.- compared to how much he accomplished before his 30th birthday. He never married until his mid-30s, most of his children were born in his 30s or 40s, and he never helped other people achieve success through mentorship until later in his life.

I want to write more about the book since it does have a powerful message at the end that I think everyone can relate to. If you have not read it yet, try to make the effort to do so.

So, where to go from here?

Continue to unlearn some of my previous habits that led to unhealthy decisions, and keep focused on what I need to do to keep moving forward. I know what I need to do. It is a matter of eliminating the other distractions that get me side tracked and unmotivated.

As I enter my 33rd year of life, it’s time to turn up some big fat bass and keep driving myself forward.

Don’t Stop (Mustard Pimp Remix) - Amazon.

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