Taylor Vafiades

This is where Media Medic usually has its executive meetings but the other day I decided to come here for lunch by myself. It was nice to break away for a moment and just take a deep breath. I am really trying to do this more often.

And finally some good news to report! After a final meeting with our designer and configuring our phone system, Media Medic is finally ready to do its first big marketing campaign.  It was a lot more work than we had anticipated but that has made it all the more rewarding now that we’re ready.

With 30 just around the corner I have decided to take a different approach to my training and am focusing more on symmetry and definition rather than size and strength. When I get to the point I want I’ll switch into a maintenance routine and settle there for good within 5 pounds of my target.  I think I’ve put enough stress on my body gaining and losing so much weight so many times. So far I’ve gone from 187lbs at Thanksgiving to 154lbs today.  This is probably the fastest I’ve ever done this but I don’t think I’ve ever been so focused either.  Then again I do have a very dedicated gym partner which is key. Tiffany agreed to partner up with me a few weeks back and we have been pushing each other ever since.Yoga is also something I really want to make time for.

I have completely shifted gears from Kitchen Nightmares to Hells Kitchen. Holy crap Gordon goes absolutely nuts on this program and I love it. The tests and challenges he does to bring out the best in people are so creative I find myself just sitting there laughing. I like how he handles people when they try to bother him when he’s working too. There are plans in the works to go to one of his restaurants soon and I am really looking forward to it.

I’ve started to gather a few bits of old junk to throw up on Ebay for fun including all my motorcycle gear. After thinking about it I realized that since I insist on riding a motorcycle wearing a tank top and toy helmet to look cool rather than any protective gear I probably shouldn’t be riding one. Good thing I figured that one out before it was too late!

Oh and on New Years we raged!!

Now that the distraction of the holiday season is over I’ve been able to finish getting our fully redundant gigabit network online here in the bullpen area of Media Medic. The cities power can go out and our entire network will still be online with our APC Back-UPS.  We also finally purchased our terabyte network drive and I have been abusing it ever since. I just got the first two seasons of Kitchen Nightmares and finally found a movie I’ve been wanting to watch ever since I saw the commercial. It easily the best movie I’ve seen all year and I highly recommend watching it. It’s got a good message no matter which way you look at it. It by Bill Maher and its called Religulous.

The New Year is almost here and that means 2-3 weeks of having to wait for a cardio machine at the gym. I do see a lot of good things down the road for this New Year as well.  Hopefully one of us will manage to take some pictures I can post at Together As One Tomorrow!

Today I found this funny World of Warcraft video of Bush getting a shoe thrown at him. Not much else going on except working on Media Medic. I am really looking forward to going to Together As One on New Year’s!

President Bush in World of Warcraft!

Everyone please read this amazing interview Eric did at Mediacontender with B Real. Also a big shout to Donnie for this marvelous video he found. It made me realize I’ve been behind on my worship. PRAISE BOB!!!!!!!

I’ve been MIA for a few weeks setting up a new house and business and now things are  to a point where we can actually get some work done. I will be posting about future travel and current projects very soon, one ongoing one being my personal SEO Project. Media Medic will be another. I still have tons of pictures to post from Europe, New York and other recent travels. Here’s what I’ve been up to….

Halloween 08

Me and B Real

Roadtrip

Birth of the office

Danny’s Roof in LA

Well it’s been about almost a month since I got back from Europe and I have to say its really good to be home. Although I enjoyed my time away it really made me appreciate being back in the USA. I will take the California sun over England’s constant rain and clouds any day! My only regret was not having time to say goodbye to all the great people I met along the way. Hopefully some of you will come out to visit! In the short time I was back in California I was able to go fishing with Glen a few times and make it to Nocturnal Wonderland with Brian and Shelly before jumping on a plane to New York. I’m going to be here for at least another week or two handling some business with my Mom and should have the opportunity to take some great photos. The air is remarkably clear here so I’ve used the past week to cough Europe out and get back to exercising. I ran two miles last night which isn’t much but after 3 months of partying you got to start somewhere.  Some notable pictures so far are this grocery store in Queens that looks like a prison, this egg at Wholefoods and a line of 50 people outside of Trader Joes Manhattan.

I like to think of myself as a pretty open minded guy but this I just couldn’t get my head around black pudding. And because of that I wanted to try it and came pretty close to doing so. Eventually I realized that there is really no reason these days to eat such a thing. Organs I understand in rough times but I can’t imagine the situation that would come up where you would need to eat blood. That’s super rough. At least I found my limit which I don’t think is too bad.  My trip to Scotland was great except the hotel I stayed at was in the middle of nowhere and was about 20 miles from town. Plus they didn’t have any food really except breakfast where I could get some lovely black pudding. I had one really good day of weather there so I did manage to take a boat out on the Loch, go to the Foyer and see the Eilean Donan Castle where Highlander was filmed. I was also able to snap a pretty good shot of Nessie below.

I met a pretty cool cab driver who took some pictures of me also. I didn’t eat much while I was there and ended up catching the Scotch Flu as Toenails put it. It’s basically just a really horrible cold and I ended up passing it to Eric and Mark when I got back. In fact I have been in England for a few days now just trying to get geared up for driving up to Holland with Eric and TIffany tonight. Copious amounts of rest combined with Trailer Park Boys and Futurama over the past few days and I feel great today and ready to take the ferry to France! Waste of time? Nope. I am, after all, on vacation.

Tiffany just got here and we’re getting ready to leave when Eric gets home from work.  Only two more weeks in Europe and then its back to California. I’m only in California 6 days and then I’m off to New York for a month with my Mom. Originally I intended to keep this blog just for my Europe trip but I think I’m going to continue to keep it for my trip to New York and travel beyond. I can’t wait to get back to California and work on Media Medic with much support from friends like Brian and Shelly and Jurgen. Working for myself should allow me to continue to do the things I like to do and travel and still be in “the system”.

The weather here has been typical for a summer in England but has been driving me nuts. Sunny outside one minute raining harder than you’ve ever seen sideways the next then sunny 30 minutes after that. Because of this I wasn’t able to iron out a beach trip to Cornwall. I was able to work with Eric and get the website for one of the businesses (www.mediamedic.org) we are going to be working on in the states. It’s live but still needs minor corrections and additions.  If you see any errors please send them to Taylor@mediamedic.org.  Eric’s dad has already let us know about a few things we might want to look at and those should be corrected shortly.

Back to my trip.  I decided to take a train up to Inverness in the highlands of Scotland for a few nights. It was tough for me to find a place to stay in such short notice but I was able to after a few hours on the phone. I’m excited about seeing the castles and William Wallace exhibit.  Maybe I’ll even catch a glimpse of our underwater ally. I should be able to take some amazing pictures there assuming the weather is somewhat decent.

A side note before I leave. My power adapter I brought from the states for my laptop melted tonight. I have 1 hour or so until my computer is dead for the rest of the trip unless I go and try to find another one. I’m bummed because it just happened but won’t worry about it until I get back.

So I’ve been trying to get a few websites up before I leave to the beach because lately the weather has been shitty here in England. It’s given me time to dust off my HTML skills and think about new ways to generate traffic. I was thinking Spain but might just go down to Cornwall and chill out for a few days before I begin the last stretch of my trip.  I have also been trying to keep up on emails and getting pictures up. I was able to get a few for DOTS that Eric took but I have tons more for it as well as Brighton , Ghent and Rotterdam. I will do my best to get this done before I leave in the next few days. I wasn’t sure if anyone actually read this blog for the first month or two but it’s worth all the time I put into it knowing that some people do even though they might be busy with other stuff. I have been listening to a lot of good music out here in the UK as well and wanted to make a video section on this blog but it didn’t work out. I can’t link most of the stuff I want to from youtube. Sam Sparro - Black and Gold is the first song I really heard in the UK. I dig that new Weezer video Pork and Beans and Perfect Situation too. Euro late night MTV is unmatched. Time for me to go upload some more pictures.

Eric got his .mobi address for his http://www.pixelfactor.org website which is really great because it can be accessed via cellphone now. Below is a blurb from his new http://pixelfactor.mobi address. To the right is a few other blogs I enjoy reading from different people I know.