working title

I feel good now a days.   I am eating healthy and going to the gym on a regular basis.  I also stopped the intake of large amounts of alcohol beverages.  In turn, I am now considered the “go-to” designated driver.

This is a huge change in my life. I guess I was tired of always feeling shitty and not getting shit done.  Now everything is on the up and up.  I am just ready to do more stuff.

Eating is not an easy thing to change.  But I just asked my bro Freds to tell me how he does it and he said i have to eat protein and cut carbs.  He then gave me a magazine article filled with 30 rules backed with studies.  The rules include things like eating eggs for breakfast and eating sugarless oatmeal as a mid morning snack.  So i started on the things that i could do and i started going the gym and I got sick. I went to the doctor and he told me i need to eat more balanced meals with fruits and a lot of veggies and not too much fish.  There were some nights that i would only eat meat for protein. That is a no no. The Atkins is not a good diet.

So now i follow my common sense and read and research to eat good.  in the morning i eat compex carbs like oatmeal, or whole grain bread and eggs with strawberries or karrots.  i always eat another meal at 10 and lunch. I eat whatever has lean meat and no simple carbs (patoto is the worst). Then another fast meal at 3 and one before i hit the gym that is usually like a snack for energy. Dinner and maybe a late night snack.

To work I always take granola, string cheese, oatmeal, various fruits,  non fat yogurt and anything else for my meals at 10 and 3pm.  I never go hungry anymore EVER!  If I feel the slightest pinch of hunger I eat!

The weekends are FREE!!! I mean I don’t care. I enjoy the food so much more. I earn it for a week of being good.

So the thing about the gym was that I never went.  After I got home from work, i kicked off my shoes and relaxed, then when it was time to go, I always had an excuse.  I decided to go right after work.  3 days a week because that is realistic.  That is exactly what I do now and its been over a month that i haven’t made an excuse.

About the gym thing, I told a good friend (e) about what i was doing and he was so interested, that he decides to join me and now i got a partner.  This is very cool.  I didn’t even care about it, I was so determined to go on my own. But this is a support system that came out of nowhere.

My wife then decided to join me in the way I eat and that makes everything fall into place.  That was the most exciting thing.

This is not a quick fix. this is not a diet.  This is it. This is how we will live for the rest of our days.

I am happier that ever about this and I will only continue to reap the benefits!  Beach…  here I come!

working hard

so yeah I have been a bit of a workaholic lately.  Getting things done for work. I took this last weekend off. That was rejuvenating experience.  I know that these things are something that are so generic that You could find a million post about this.

I worked hard and i took a vacation to relax.

Lets examine the first part of that sentence.  Working hard – what does that mean? some people would argue that one should work smart not hard. To some people doing Heavy labor is hard work and sitting in the office all day is a piece of cake. I know i speak for myself when i say what I do for a living is stressful and hard.  For now the compensation is better than anything else I would likely be doing.

The second part of the sentence is one that could be looked upon with many different perspectives as well in the movie Office Space the main character talked about his dream of doing “nothing.” That is what he would rather do than work.  so I gues he would be happy to take time off and “bum it” at home.  I on the other hand would rather spend that time on the beach or something that is related to the outdoors.

To conclude this blog I ask you why do you go to work every morning?  What is it that motivates you to do the things you do.  That is really what should be the deciding factor in your decision to dedicate your life to a single proffesion.

write, sketch- sketch, write, write.

Spending the whole day at the beach is the most amazing thing.   I went with my wife and Family, and it was great.  It just makes me think about everything with a different perspective.  Nature and all that.  so the fireworks were nice but the waves were much better.

I had to visit the doctor two weeks ago and I found out that my health was really crappy.  I had already cut the crap out of my daily intake and started to exersise.  To little, to late. Now, I have to do that along with cutting out the alcohol. It was good that i went to get checked out cause that makes me conscious of what harm i caused my body with all the fast food and drinking.

so i hope all of you learn from me and cut out the crap before you realize … to little. to late.

Ranting and Raving

Right now I just want to write, so from now on these posts are not going to be in any way restricted by the parameters set and things that will make me put a hold on writing. I want to write more and hence forget any rules I set forth for my “blog.”

I have been thinking about a lot of shttt. Relationships, Design, work ethic, there is all kinds of stuff that I think about while I draft at work. Also, I listen to some good podcast, all the twit.tv stuff and I found a new one about skeptics. I can’t listen to any rev3 stuff because our IT guy didn’t like me looking at that so he blocked it.

Now, moving on to something that I have been thinking about:

Now I’ve drawn a blank… screw it I am sick and tired of the lack of imagination and the waste of my artistic abilities. I find myself sketching through notebooks a bunch of doodles that don’t make any sense and have a lot of creating fonts that i will never use to create a cool design with.

I fill my head with all these distractions and still manage to finish what is required of me at work. It makes Tim Harris’ book The Four Hour Work Week seem to make more and more sense.

The thing I am pissed about is that nothing comes out of all that the podcast that are informative. I write notes sometimes in my note pad, only to be forgotten, along with the crazy babble that I doodle. The notes are mainly surrounded by my mindless cursive of my surname STEVE!!! I always scratch that and write ESTEBAN around it to make me feel better.

I am self diagnosing my self as a crazy person that writes his name over and over to cover up any potential that he might have to actually accomplish great things.

Now what do I do? How do I start working towards something that I could be proud of? As apposed to the piles of doodles in notebooks supplied for note taking in meetings before the meetings?

This is an endeavor that I think could get me in trouble. I should be more focused on the job and less focused on anything else. Sometimes the job is very demanding and requires me to remove the headphones and really focus, but most of the time this is not the case. How do I avoid negative reaction to my attempt at creating something great without causing anyone around me to be alarmed? Maybe they will react by overloading me with things to do.

Who knows? It’s a catch 22. I think I am going to start buying audio books about structures and other stuff so that when I go back to school I will be ready for structures. Maybe some History and conceptual design stuff. I think even some stuff about getting my architecture license. That might be it for now, but what about my doodles?

still dreaming

My last post was not well thought out. First of all, I didn’t even answer the question. I just stated that i would like to have the decision making ability that I feel I lack… and TOTAL POWER!!! HAHaHA

A dream job is a job that besides pay and job security, it meets other needs. It fulfills the need to be proud of what you accomplish. It stops you from having those bad days when you don’t want to get out of bed. For a person in pursuit of a goal, it gives them the freedom to accomplish their goals – in an out of the work place.

In my case, my dream job is a job that realistically wants to create great design and stand out amidst all of the obstacles we face.

Obsticles which include:

1. Budget

2. Time

3. Clients

4. status quo

The list goes on and on, but I digress, these obstacles are what make our job what it is. We must live with them and figure out ways to push good design through their crutches!

My dream job is not too far away. I need only to finish my personal goals and continue my professional ones. The one thing about this that really excites me, is that my comfort level has been raised. I never thought about having a dream job before; I only thought of getting one and keeping one. Even if I hated getting up every morning. and of course power is nice too…

dreaming

A whole bunch has happened since I last posted. The biggest being, our new apartment. This is huge for me because i am closer to work and school. I have more time to do things and my wife is happier.

With that said, I have been far too distracted to think about new things, new thoughts and new ideas to share here. As you may have figured, I am all about trying to overcome obstacles and figuring out what makes us do the things we do. I am trying to self-analyze my lack of motivation and in turn accomplishment.

I feel that I have gotten to the root of it and am on a mission to change my mental wiring. This, as everyone knows, is a daunting task. So here I am thinking that I am well on my way and some one completely knocks me off my rocker.

What would you do to make your job a dream job?

To me, a job is far from dreaming. When it comes to work, dreaming is the farthest thing from my mind. If you know me at all, you understand that if I start thinking of dreaming and working together, you will find me on a couch like the “IDC Grizzly,” (in school i used to sleep on a couch and my snoring earned me that nick name).

I am still trying to figure this one out. I really want to write a good answer to this for myself. Good design, Great design, Design period.

creating something exiting within budget and other constraints. It goes back to my idea of survival through design. I need to become more secure with the idea that I can create good design regardless of the constraints. I need to approach this subject head on and come up with an answer.

I am sorry if this doesnt make sense. But the answer is:

to create my dream job is to be great enough at what I do, to the extent that no one questions my decisions anymore starting with myself.

mobile entry 2 (grammar)

thoughts (2)

planning is never perfect. there are always outside occurrences that stop you from accomplishing your task on time; for instance, family and friends, their  plans, or their problems. One is put in a position where one has to make a choice. Finish our task at hand or push it of for a later date. this is where priorities come in. what are your priorities?  if our priorities are well defined then these choices are not hard to make and we never regret not finishing our task at hand.

insert: to complete this thought, I was thinking that if our priorities are well defined to ourselves then others will have no problem excusing us when we cannot come to there aid. they will do their best not to disturb us on our mission.

first mobile entry (sorry about the grammar)

thoughts Feb. 5, 2008

 

i need to finish di work tonight! i really think i could do a whole lot.

 

last night when i was starting i felt a flashback to when I was in school. that lack of focus and discipline.

 

The same feelings of oh well maybe tomorrow ill work on it.

i keep telling my mom to change her enabling and have more strength to push her kids to do the right thing.

i really think i should practice what I preach (not enabling, but having the strength to push myself) . in a way that talk was for me.

It is Tuesday now and i turned in half of that project. i was feeling like shit for not finishing or for not starting on time, but this time i kept it going, i said i better show that i did do something or else i am in the same boat that i was in. It is still a bad situation to be in but now i see that i do have to change my evil ways i have let down so many friends. i didn’t want Englebert going down in flames like ed green, Ozzy, Hildy, and last, but not least, Edgar. all in chronological order. i think the biggest person i have let down is myself. i need to change that. i cannot continue along that path any longer.

Engelbert is the man. he took it upon himself to help me finish. he did not have to do that. i think that because i actually put forth the effort into almost finishing then that is why he was able to help me. i actually was able to let him help me without guilt or shame and that is something that i needed in school to put forth the effort so that i could allow myself to be helped by the teachers and my peers. my heart was in the right place but my actions screwed everything up.

 

i am dead tired.

pre-post post

Okay. I have not posted in a while. There has been a lot going on in my life that I need to share.  I got a T-mobile Dash. A smart phone. finally! I have been wanting a smart phone with a mini keyboard for some time now. They are so cheap now that Maira and me could finally afford it. Plus she lost her phone which was already busted. 

I don’t know why I feel like I have to justify my purchase.  Its probably the debt that keeps me from making purchases without guilt.

So back to the point. I have been using it to the fullest with the Calender and Outlook tasks.  I made a discovery of the program One Note.  One note Mobile.  This program just makes it easy to write notes on your computer and now your smart phone its by Microsoft – part of Office. 

I started to use it to write my thoughts.  They are very personal, so I am always afraid to post them up here for everyone to see. After much thought, I am going to do it.  I will try to get to it tonight. i have to transfer the text to the computer.

I think that most of my future post will come from my phone so stay tuned. 

sidetracked

vacations are nice aren’t they?  Man! one week and a day; it was bliss. I even had to go back to work on new years eve and I am happy. I wasn’t happy on the first day back and even on the second, but you know you take a well deserved break from the norm with an old friend and you are refreshed and ready for the grind again.  Get your head right.

…so, I  Know that I have been away for a while and stopped working on my portfolio for a while…

I just started reading -I mean hearing-  the 4 hour work week by Timothy Ferris.  I heard about the book through a blog called the Freelace Blog.

It is a life changing book. I suggest if you are interested in the stuff I am talking about in this blog you read it. I will probably post more about it later.