Am.Psych Live at Club Anything

Here is the video for Am.Psych live at Club Anything this past Saturday.

The original plan was that my girlfriend was going to take video of just the songs I had solos in that night, but she ended up getting the whole show and it just might be the best video we have of us so far.

Special thanks to i:Scintilla and Dark Clan for playing that night as well. I know Tony and Amie will not forget it.

10,0000 page views.

Only 29 more to 10,000!

Sometime in the next 48 hours I will hit 10,000 page hits. It's a small milestone for something I never thought anyone would look at.

Thank you to everyone for following along, commenting, and watching the world through my eyes.

SEO - my new job (and other updates)

SEO Ninja

On Monday, I started my new position at work. Search Analyst. I've had a bunch of people ask me what I am going to be doing. The only answer I can give really is this. I will be optimizing our web sites so that when people search for them they are higher in the rankings than other similar pages from other websites.

This is new ground for our company. We have around 100 web sites for various things. My job, get people to our site, without cheating the system. It's Called SEO - Search Engine Optimization. That's what I'm going to be living for the foreseeable future. 

I loved managing the help desk that I created and molded in to what I thought our people needed from a customer service standpoint. But this, this is a challenge. One that I need to take on head strong. 

Most IT departments don't help the company they work for make money. They are usually a service. An expense. I plan on getting traffic driven to our company sites and watch our revenue grow.

Am.psych live at Club Anything

Today is the day. We are going on in a few hours. Sound check is happening soon. But first, pre show sushi.

UW-Milwaukee Sophomore Honors.

I got a strange package in the mail from University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee yesterday. When I opened it, I had no clue what it was.

Seems to be I've been recognized for Sophomore Honors as I have carried a 3.5 or higher the whole time I have been at the school.

I'm kind of floored. From what I remember, I didn't do that well in school.

Yesterday's exercise.

Holy crap, I'm slacking here. I got exercise in on Monday and Wednesday nights.

Monday: 30 minutes - elliptical + leg and arm weight training.

Wednesday: 60 minutes - elliptical + leg, arm, and back weight training.

Food side of things I have a hard time remembering right now, but I pretty much stayed on course. Need to get better at breakfast on weekends, but overall, I'm still doing well in that aspect as well.

Seriously, it's Thursday. Why can't it be Saturday already?

It's our first show of 2012. We said we were not going to do one until the album came out, but hell. This is for a really good reason.

Shameless self promotion, but hell, you gotta do what you can.

(I'll be posting this every day all week)

...doomsday.

This is the track played in the new Borderlands 2 release announcement trailer. I fell in love with it right away.

So good.

Nero - Doomsday

I bought the whole album because of this song. So good.

... I know what I'm doing on September 18th.

I'm going to be a little pre-occupied on this day.

I'm sorry, love. Pandora is calling me back again.

I need to find the vault.

.... 5 days (whooo hooo!)

It's our first show of 2012. We said we were not going to do one until the album came out, but hell. This is for a really good reason.

Shameless self promotion, but hell, you gotta do what you can.

(I'll be posting this every day all week)

...6 days until am.psych plays LIVE.

It's our first show of 2012. We said we were not going to do one until the album came out, but hell. This is for a really good reason.

Shameless self promotion, but hell, you gotta do what you can.

(I'll be posting this every day all week)

...ok can we talk about this?

Vegan whole grain lasagna just out of the oven

I haven't had lasagna in ages. It used to be one of my favorites. Thing is, it's a pain in the ass to make sometimes. Then, a couple years ago after going vegan, I just ruled out eating lasagna ever again...

...until tonight. Look at this. I made it. Whole wheat lasagna noodles, broccoli, corn, carrots, onions, garlic, mushrooms, sweet potato, tomatoes, tofu, spinach, cashews (more on that later), spices, and two jars of sauce later and we were in business.

On the plate

So, on the top of it is what looks like cheese, for those in the know with me, it's not. It's ground cashews. You put it on the top of the pan for the last 15 minutes. It gets a little toasty, but it doesn't smell burnt. It tasted like what I remember to be cheese.

 The tofu served as a type of ricotta in here. I used extra firm and just crumbled it up. Up at the top is a sweet potato mash that seemed to hold everything together. 

Next time, I think I need to make a bigger batch. All in all, this took about two and a half hours to get done. It was well worth it. I have leftovers for a while now.

Om nom nom nom.

I wanted more like NOW, but I know I'll just get over full.

Food and exercise log - 2/15/2012

Exercise: 1 hour on the glider today. I don't like the one I used today. It kept resetting in the middle of the run. I listened to a lot of good stuff to keep me going. Mudvayne, Prodigy, Combichrist. I need to get some other stuff in there too. But it was still an hour solid at least. I do need to find better shoes. My toes go numb after about 30 minutes because of my stride and my knees.

Food:

Breakfast - banana and yogurt
Lunch - Salad
Dinner - Pizza (had to use the last of the ingredients we had before they went bad)

...it's a great big universe and we're all really puny...

Don't know why, but this popped in to my head today.

Food and exercise log - 2/14/12

Exercise: no real intense exercise today. I did change up my work space so that I am always standing. So, I think that should count as some sort of exercise.

Food:

Breakfast - cereal and fruit
Lunch - small salad
Dinner - big salad

Tuesdays are school days so it I have to bring something with me. This day, I just packed an extra huge salad and portioned it.

Food and exercise log - 2/13/12

Exercise: 1 hour on the eliptical.

I'm finding major inconsistencies between gliders. Yesterday, it said I went 3.9 miles. The one I used today was 11. Odd.

Food:

Breakfast - big container of fruit (strawberries, blackberries, green grapes) and a banana
Lunch - my usual salad.
Dinner - Crispy "chicken" covered in marinara sauce with greens and peppers on toasted whole wheat bread with sweet potato fries.

This exercise thing is getting addictive. I love it.

Cthulhu!

Too awesome to not share with everyone...

Cthulhu!

Woot! Standing desk workspace.

I read this article on lifehacker.com the other day and I took it as a challenge: http://lifehacker.com/5881393/one-year-at-my-standing-desk.

I have always wanted to do a standing desk. I used to work retail where I stood all day and only sat down for lunches or breaks. I'm now overweight, have a belly that looks like I'm 6-8 months pregnant, and my knees are for shit from not having activity as much.

So, I changed things up at work today. I pulled down the overhead storage as to accommodate my laptop and monitor and we were ready to go. The keyboard is at the right height for me. This set up will not work for people who are shorter without some sort of modification or step stool.

All I have to do is get some cable management going and some more colors on the walls and I am set with a space that I feel comfortable in.

Note: two of my long time co-workers walked in and thought I was crazy. One of them likes the idea but thinks I am going to just throw in the towel and sit down again in a week or so.

Just as with my diet and exercise, I am here to prove them wrong.

Food end exercise log - 2-12-12

Exercise - elliptical - 64 minutes - 3.95 miles.

Food:

Breakfast - French toast, berries, orange juice.
Lunch - salad
Dinner - Pizza with whole wheat crust. Got so much vegan mozz I don't know what to do with all of it.

Weight: 187

Food and exercise log - 2-11-12

Exercise: early morning yoga!

Food:

Breakfast: big bowl of cereal with fruit

Lunch: Totally missed lunch due to falling asleep and waking up too close to dinner.

Dinner: Loaded Veggie burgers with home made rosemary/dill potato puff fries.
Snack: baked corn chips. Berry and OJ smoothie.

Food and exercise log - 2-10-12

Exercise: Cleaning the storage room at work - 6 hours.

Food:

Breakfast: Banana and some orange juice (ran late that day)
Lunch: my usual favorite salad.
Dinner: Veggie fried rice ad buddhist delight.
Snack: chex mix

Food and exercise log - 2-9-12

Day 2 - 2/9/2012

Food :

• Awesome breakfast as stated here
• Big salad for lunch with assorted greens, carrots, cucumbers, baby corn, broccoli, red and green peppers, sunflower seeds and pepper
• Dinner: pasta with chicken substitute and minimal amount of sauce.
• Snack: Chex mix/mint cookies

Exercise : Didn't hit the gym today. My body needed the night off as my knees are not all that great. They still burn. Today (Friday) I'm kicking it in to gear again.

Note: I get that some of you probably don't care what I'm posting here. This is for me. I need to keep track of this and it makes me feel better.

There's a new WTII comp!

WTII Spring Sampler 2012

Shameless plugging for all our label mates!

Tomorrow you can get 12 tracks for FREE from WTII artists such as Trigger 10d, Stromkern, SMP, Stiff Valentine, Klutae, The Gothsicles, Rein[Forced], oh... and of course Am.Psych represents.

So, with it being free, you have no reason to let this one get away from you. The music is top notch and the production value is amazing as well.

Food and exercise log - 2-8-12 - day 1

Today was the start of the food and exercise change over.

Food :

• Awesome breakfast as stated here
• Big salad for lunch with assorted greens, carrots, cucumbers, baby corn, broccoli, red and green peppers, sunflower seeds and pepper
• Dinner: pizza.

I know what you're thinking. Pizza? Awesome dairy free crust, we put some meat substitutes on here and a very conservative amount of cheese alternative. It was nice. Plus, it's not like I ate a whole one like I used to.

Thanks to school work I didn't get to hit the gym until almost 9.

Workout : 

• 25 minutes on the elliptical. It's was the most my knee could handle.
• leg lifts/crunches/back extensions/curls on the matrix machines
• 6 lengths of the pool.

All of that took me just over an hour.

It was a good day. I completely forgot to weigh myself. I will get that tomorrow.

Tomorrow is yoga day followed by 30 minutes in the cardio theater.

I started eating a good breakfast again...

I'm on day one of the "make my body better so I am around longer" plan.

Those who know me are familiar with me never eating breakfast. I am quite the zombie in the morning. Yesterday I even left the house without my glasses only to notice ten minutes after I left the house.

I'm following a plan that has me eating a lot less processed foods.

One of the things I read and saw was a interesting cereal mix. It contained four different whole grain cereals, ground flaxseed meal, walnuts, almond milk, and fruit. I opted for a banana. I might put kiwi in as well tomorrow for a little bit of a bite.

It was pretty good. It is kind of odd not having any added sugar in my cereal (Lucky Charms are amazing) and it tasted good.

Lunch is going to be a salad. I think I'm doing some sort of pizza for dinner.

After that, time to hit the gym. Upright cardio on the elliptical followed by a few laps in the pool.

I'll update later with the start weight of this adventure. Pictures will follow at the start of each month in a sort of timeline fashion to show any changes.

note: I've had some doubters about my new journey here. I'm doing this for health. As I get older, I want to be around for the people I love, see them grow up, get old, and have great experiences with them. I can't do that from six feet under.

Big changes happening...

So, I've been slacking a little bit. Or, as my lady would say "hey, remember when you had a blog?"...

I'm back in school again. Am.Psych is playing another show, and I waited until February to start my new year.

On the school front, the stuff has been busy for me. More reading than I have done for any of my classes, and these are just 100 level classes. One of them in on interpersonal communications, the other one is on race in the geography in America. Some interesting stuff in there, and there is some overlap between the two classes. All I know is that I am doing a TON of reading.

Am.Psych: Yup. We're playing again. Headlining a night with Dark Clan and I:scintilla for our friends, Tony and Amie Asman who just got married not too long ago. We've got some new tricks up our sleeves, so this will be a good one.

As far as the starting a new year business: Over the weekend I watched Forks over Knives with my kids. This prompted them to want to see the next part that talked about the Engine 2 diet. Both are on Netflix instant if you have it. My kids were in to it and it seemed to open their eyes a little bit.

While I was watching it, I am listening as well. Even though I am vegan... and not a damn thing I eat is animal based... there are still aspects of my diet that are not the best. I think they put in best by saying "for most people that are vegan, that means they eat a lot of processed food."  Know what. He's right. I looked at what I was eating, a lot of processed or boxed food that says it's vegan, but when you get down to it... there is a lot of CRAP in there. Too many oils, added sugar, and added salt. Time for me to make a change. I can't stand the belly I have. It's been there for a while. I'd like to make it go away. So, starting on my next trip to the grocery store it's whole grains and oil free cooking for me. I know I can do this. I am not a fan of butter or oils anyway, so I think I can do just fine.

So, along with taking my diet a little more hardcore, I've joined a gym too. I have missed the days where I used to wake up super early in the morning eat breakfast, head down to the YMCA for a swim, come home and head to work. It really boosted my day. I know I had a lot more energy. It was during that time that I actually gained muscle mass and didn't look like a 145lb skinny kid.

I am going to enjoy this. I can go work out while I do my homework. The cardio stations have shelves so I can bring my iPad with me and read. I just have to figure out how my workout is going to work. I want to do 6 days a week of cardio if I can and alternate 3 or 4 days of weights to bring my strength back up.

Hopefully, I can have my belly gone soon. I know it won't happen overnight, getting it took a few years.

I'll keep people posted on progress. There might be some pictures that don't look the best of me in here... but I'm going to track progress of my adventure in this blog.

I think it's a good place to do it.

Today was better because... I got off my ass and got active again.