So coming off quite the hungover weekend, I was inspired by Brianna’s post @ The Stolen Three this morning. She quit drinking. For how long? Who knows, but for some oddly sobering reason, this sentence makes sense:

There is no specific reason or event that caused me to make this decision - it’s kind of a culmination of the fact it’s expensive, I drink too often, and it just isn’t as thrilling as it used to be.

Wow, three truer facts have not been said. Ever. Not to say that I’m giving up drinking, or even cutting back necessarily…its just food for thought. Plenty of weekends I look back and think to myself - “Fuck, self, how did you spend so much money in one weekend - all on booze!”. Or even - where the hell did that weekend go! As for drinking too often…well I pretty much get loaded on friday nights and incapacitate myself for the rest of the weekend, although supercross and PB said otherwise this past weekend. But her stunning revelation challenged me to wonder what my life would be like if I cut booze out completely. What things could I accomplish? Weekends full of productivity, creativity, inspiration, achievement! Hmmm….the possibilities are endless.

Has my life really regressed to the point where I need to drink every weekend? Why do I do it? For lack of something better to do? Because - at this point in life - its what people my age do? I don’t know. Would I really be more motivated to do anything more with my life if I cut alcohol out of it completely? I don’t really have a whole lot of vices…I quit smoking cigarettes almost completely (Save for a slip in Vegas, where just breathing anywhere is comparable to smoking a pack anyway), I don’t smoke anything else or do any other drugs…aren’t I entitled to an ice cold brew every now and then? For health reasons, would I live any longer if I just stopped drinking? Isn’t red wine good for you - and by association so is every other type of booze (Since one glass of red wine inevitably turns multiple glasses of assorted other beverages). Maybe I’m just weak willed. Regardless…Brianna’s experiment has given me the motivation to try one of my own.

As of today, I will quit drinking alcohol. Lets see what I can accomplish!

On second thought. All this typing has made me pretty thirsty. I could really go for a beer. Who am I kidding - I love to party! Good luck to you though Brianna! And thanks for motivating me to do the introspective soul searching I just subjected myself to. Regardless of the outcome its good to do once in a while. But seriously…when you get back in CA - lets have a beer?

I hope everyone had a great time celebrating Halloween! How did I celebrate, you might ask? I worked until 6 and then came home and laid on the couch. Helped Tiny Tousley carve a pumpkin that turned out pretty awesome, check it out:

Pretty creative, if I do say so myself. We only had about 20 kids come by trick-or-treating, (in about 2 groups of 10). We determined that the reason for this is that Evan went and bought the cheapest candy he could find (I was calling them Jewbies), but I’m not really sure what they were - some nasty gummy shit manufactured in a third world sweatshop. I surmise word got around to the neighborhood kids that we were handing out shitty candy, and the little bastards boycotted our house. Whatever, more jewbies for me.

Remember what it was like on Halloween when you were younger - getting all geared up and grabbing some pillowcases to hold all that fucking candy that was going to jack you up on a mega sugar-high for the next week! Evan, Andy, Cam, and I layed around on the couch and discussed how we should just leave a bowl of candy on the porch and then we wouldn’t have to get up to give it out to kids. But I pointed out how if you do that there is always the kid who dumps the entire bowl into his bag and then there is nothing left for the rest of the night. Ah, the politics of Halloween.

It kind of sucked to watch Halloween come and go from the couch, but I realized that’s all I have to really look forward to anymore. In college we would have gotten blasted even though it was a wednesday night because, hey, it an excuse to celebrate. In High School and earlier we would have gone trick or treating or done something ridiculous…but now - hey we have to work tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. And it never ends. Realize this - come to terms with it the sooner the better. Man I would have a lot of fun if it weren’t for work, and if I could support myself some other way.

It was interested to talk to my friend in Australia and learn that they really don’t have any Halloween at all. She wrote me:

So HALLOWEEN, unlike u americans, it means nothing to us.. Ie i dont think ive ever dressed up in a halloween costume in my life. Maybe if it fell on a friday or saturday night and someone was to have a theme party, they may do it as that, but thatd be as far as us aussies take it! Funny to hear that ur work dresses up but.

How wierd to think that other cultures don’t participate in our traditions. Kind of thought it was worldwide, I’m not sure why. Come to think of it…no one else really cares about Thanksgiving now do they?

Shitty weather comes with the territory of Fall, but we do get to enjoy some killer sunsets living by the bay. This was out on the water on Sunday - kind of a cold, cloudy day, but it makes for some good wakeboarding since no one else wants to be out on the water in these conditions, and we are, well, crazy.

Got to love San Diego sometimes, and hate it others. Checked out the new movie “Return to House on Haunted Hill”, and it was awesome. Super Gory and Extremely bloody, just how I like it. The first one was one of my favorite movies, so this was super awesome.

Finally - I got some culture infused in my plain white life. I MADE SUSHI! Moto and Evan and I went to this crazy chinese store and got a bunch of shit and made the bombest sushi ever! Aided by a huge 2 foot tall bottle of Sake, we got fucked up and had more fun making dinner than we had eating it. Check out the pix:

So there is my update. Sorry I haven’t been posting any great content lately - life has been busy, and ESET is about to release some new AntiVirus software, so its been crazy preparing for that. I will work harder to be better! And, its time to start decorating for Christmas! See ya.

Hey all, sorry about the extremely infrequent posting this week…if it wasn’t for my twitter updates you would have no idea about all the exciting things I’m up to in SF this week (if anyone is reading them anyway).  There has been some interesting situations:

• infiltrating Netsuite
• Going to Haight Ashbury and maintaining my Republican Ideals (and Not getting high!)
• Counting the number of Hillary Clinton stickers on hybrid cars
• shitloads of traffic

Tons of pics and more to come…I get home late tonight so there will be a sweet update tomorrow!

From my good friend, Nick Urbani posted on his Never Stop Learning Blog.  Nick just graduated with me on Saturday from SDSU, and he is working over at eBoost doing some cutting edge work in the digital marketing forum.  I reposted this because I could have used some of that advice while I was in school.  (Oh, wait…I didn’t go to class that much!)  Enjoy, and drop him a line over at his blog!

Educate Thyself, Skip School

How to get the most out of your college experience: DON’T GO TO CLASS.

Instead of going to class go to networking events, get involved, start a business, visit office hours if you want to learn something from your professor.  How much can you retain from canned lectures and 100 word power point slides? Textbooks can only teach so much. With textbooks you can be sure of one thing: that what you are reading does not represent the newest thought in your field of study and by the time you get a job it will most likely be irrelevant (unless you’re a history major).

Why learn from a digital marketing textbook  when its outdated by the time its printed?  Drop the textbook for a night and network where the rich people and business owners hang out.  A 19 year old at a 40+, CEO-only event impresses people whether you know what you’re talking about or not. Trust me.

If you have to go to class make sure to meet and make friends with all of your classmates. Might as well get used to making friends with strangers, because like it or not, that’s what most undergraduates will find a job in: sales.  Hell, everyone works in sales, something you can’t learn in a textbook, in class, or from your professor.

So who are the ones that get the most out of their college experience? We evaluate performance based on GPA, but what did the Summa Cum Laudes spend most of their college life doing? I didn’t tell my parents I skipped class for client meetings or for brainstorming sessions with entrepreneurial friends because they probably would not have understood.

For the ones who have already graduated: Which has a higher correlation to success - your graduating GPA or how many powerful people know you?

Can I get an Amen?