The Cusp

  I decided to go see what the chances of us winning anything in one of those car dealer scratch off games. They had sent us a letter in the mail that we had a "guaranteed prize" all we had to do was come collect. They are never that easy.
   We went down any way both of us bored and just sitting around the house. While there of course they tried talking me in to buying a car. (They almost succeeded as well.) A nice little 2016 Jeep Compass, they had ran all the numbers and they wanted me in that car. They offered 0$ down, to pay off the mustang I already have and let me keep it and give me zero down. They were trying hard.
  We left with out the car, for now, and proceeded home, our main prize in hand, a little MP3 player. It was the discussion on the drive home that allowed us both to realize, we're almost there. We've almost made it to a point where we are going to be able to live comfortably enough. No worrying over the bills getting paid, losing the internet. We've almost made it out of the lower class.
   This was something that was a bit scary to both of us but exciting at the same time. See we've never had this, we've never been this close to being okay. To having things paid and not having to worry about money the rest the month. We'll be able to go on trips together for the weekend. Have more time at home and off. More time and money to explore the world around us.
   This is absolutely mind blowing to us. It sounds like something small and simple enough to most the world I'm sure. But the sense of relief as you start to realize that your going to be okay, it's all going to be okay, it's absolutely wonderful.

SxSW Journal - Issue #1

Day 1 - Getting started

 We left around 6 o’clock after loading everything up. Stopped in Cullman for food. It was a decent trip even with all the bullshit I dealt with from them. Made it to Montgomery around 9. We had to wait till 1am to leave. While I’m feeling tired I still think I can make it. 

Day 2 - Late Departures

  It’s 1:35 AM we’re still sitting at the meeting point waiting on everyone. Weed smoke is heavy in the air but it’s not a bad smell. TK is playing different rap videos off the YouTube on the TV. Every one is either memorized by the TV or on some sort of electronic device we’re waiting to leave still.
 Almost all of the day was spent traveling once we go to the cabin it was around 6 already and the team had a show that started at 8. Three hours into the show and we’re trying to figure out when it’s ending. Personally I have a headache and am ready to go the, The film team has already all ran through one set of batteries each.

 I managed to fall asleep at the club for a little bit. I was just so worn out. I drove all night and then went straight to work. Everyone understood but that wasn’t the point. I just finished today’s vlog in editing so now to upload it.

(Please note that after this past entry we better learned what we were doing and how to go about doing it. This means the entries will get longer here after.)

Day 3- The Long Haul

  We woke up around 10 finally. I had stayed up a little later than the others because I had fallen asleep at the club. Talked to our chef for a bit and found out how he managed to set all of this up. In the process of I talked to one of the professional drivers they hired for us. He had came down from Chicago to be able to do the driving for us. Not even a few hours after making it to town he found out his father had been admitted to the hospital nearby. We all agreed that the world works in mysterious ways. Life brought him all the way down here right when he was going to be needed most.

  We finally got to the first event of the day around 1 PM I think. I don’t actually remember the time we left or got here. We’re working on shooting a series of performances and bouncing in and out of doing all of the work we need to, networking and everything else we have a whole corner of this bar covered in Mac’s. There’s so much running around going on it’s clear we don’t have enough of a team but it’s been amazing none the less.

  Compared to yesterday we have more of an efficient plan for today. Currently I’m guarding equipment and such while they shoot interviews outside. I’ve managed to catch up on some of my work but not all of it. About to grab the vlog and record that too. This is going to be a long day but well worth it. 

  8 PM We’re finally loading up to head back to the ranch. The video team is splitting and the new guy Fred is planning to go with another artist to a show over on 6th street (the main street for the fest) while the rest of us head back to the ranch to get to work on editing. There’s going to be another show back at the ranch at some point tonight so I’m trying to get back and get ready for that.

Day 4 - The Big One

   It’s technically still day 3 but it’s 2AM and the party is still going on here. Our cabin is far enough away we can sleep with out any problems. I’m just choosing not to sleep yet while I work on promoting. I’ve been on all the social media sites (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) now pushing some kind of work. I have 3 different video plans in place right now. I’ll work on them some after some sleep with luck. 

   It’s currently 3:23 and we are being told we are going to vacate the property for a little while. The show going on here tonight is going to be huge. They don’t want any one feeling uncomfortable so they are taking the whole team somewhere. We’re loading up all of our valuable stuff and leaving some clothes here. We don’t know when exactly we’ll be coming back tho.

Day 5 - Last Call

   Last night was amazing we only woke up around 12 we were up till around 8am tho so we’re doing pretty good I’m not sure what exactly the plan is tonight but I think once we are done with the party we are going to sleep for a little bit. Before we start this drive back to Huntsville. It’s going to be upsetting to leave but this trip has been so amazing. 

   The event was canceled so we pretty much just hung out all day at the ranch and slept off and on. Around 8 o’clock me and Fred finally departed for 6th street. We got there after spending close to 20 minutes creeping through downtown Austin trying to find some where to park. Once we managed to we made a mad dash straight to the main part of 6th. It was packed. Music coming from every corner, kids selling water bottles, it was like a whole other world.

   Granted this was the first time I’ve been to SxSW I thought I knew some what of what to expect, as it turns out, I had no clue. This has been an amazing experience that I thought I would have never gotten to have. I’ve networked with so many people gotten so many great shots. I have a lot to go through and fix and edit. But there is no doubt going to be a lot of great content coming from this trip. Only bad thing is in a few hours I have to make the 13 hour drive back home. This is going to be another long day.

   We made it back into Huntsville around 8 PM. It had been a very long day. I drove back he 13 hour drive with 4 hours of sleep. I got so wired of of coffee and energy drinks. That has to be the only way we made it back. Over all it was an amazing trip. 

Because I wanted to write this in it’s entirety without sleep and proper edit this will serve as the Raw Draft. This is being posted at 12:00 AM Monday, March 20th, 2017. (Or a couple minutes late depending) Edits and full details will come later.

Brief Experiences In Cooking

Food is an experience. It's the best way to get to know a culture, a region, a country. That while my opinion may be heavily influenced by watching and reading way too much Anthony Bourdain. Which I am completely fine with that. The one thing that I learned in following this idea tho is there is an even better experience that comes with food, that's cooking it yourself. 

We used to have the traditional family dinner every Sunday and it was one of the things the whole family looked forward to throughout the week. While I was young it was very much a “stay out of the kitchen” event though. My mom and dad would be in the kitchen for a couple hours and produce some of the best tasting food we could get. As I got older I was allowed in the kitchen and got the chance to help out.

My favorite time doing this was when we would have BLT Sunday's. After my first time cooking bacon having watched my mother do it for years, it was my turn. The best part about it was the fact that on that night my grandfather immediately noticed a difference in the bacon. Once told I had cooked it he decreed that I was the only one that could cook bacon from now on.

It was an amazing feeling. Never before had I really cooked anything. (Let's face it instant ramen doesn't count as cooking.) Since then I've loved being in the kitchen cooking. Experimenting with different herbs and spices, trying new recipes and tweaking them. 

Through the years tho I've found one of the best parts of cooking, again in my opinion. It had been right in front of me for years. Cooking with your significant other. I've done it a couple times now with a couple different girlfriends and each time it was amazing. Cooking is such a low-stress thing to do when you're doing it just for yourself and it's so much more fun with someone. Sharing a small kitchen with someone and working side by side you manage to learn a lot about that person. How much stress they can take, how careful they are, how much or how little they like to follow 'rules.' Then too there's a sense of fun to it as well. 

I remember one of the funniest times was cooking chicken and my friend at the time was tenderizing the chicken as I cooked it. She was pounding the hell out of this chicken. We joked about her getting her stress out that way for a bit and then she opened up to me and told me about what she had been going through.

Cooking and sharing the act of cooking are both amazing things. Not only for the excitement of knowing the food you're going to eat was prepared by you but being able to share an experience with someone and grow closer in the process. If you never cook, cook rarely, have never cooked with someone, try it. It could be an amazing experience for you and even lead to a new passion. 

Question.

   "Where do you see yourself in 20 years?"

   This question and the various modifications of it (5 years, 10 years, etc.) are questions I have never in my life been able to answer. Even today, at the age of 24, about to launch a business with my two best friends, I couldn't tell you where I see myself next week.

   I'm one of those people who don't do the future. I talk about it, all the time, and there are tons of plans. Things I want, people I want to be with me, places I want to go and so on. I desperately want these to be in my future, and I'll make all the efforts to make sure it happens. But I don't see my future.

   I couldn't tell you with any certainty that anything is going to happen because in my years I've learned life is a storm. The winds of change are always in play. Things you think or even 'know' will never change eventually do.

   I can't tell you where I'll be in 20 years, I could tell you what and who I want then. But life has a strange way of moving things. Only thing I can tell you is I'll still be here.

What's In A Photo

   I love taking photos of everything and everywhere.

   I'm not one that lives the life behind a screen tho, I always take the time to take in the area or the thing I'm photographing before I actually take the photo. Recently with starting a daily vlog it's only increased my desire for photos and taught me a lot in the process. It's all about the memories. You can live in the moment and you can remember a moment but in a photo or video, you perfectly capture the moment.

   Now my vlog isn't one of the most interesting and my photos aren't the best, but for me, they tell a story. My vlog I always try to record beautiful moments for my timelapse and then the parts of the day that are important and noteworthy for the rest of the vlog. With photography again your able to capture the moment in perfect stillness. The emotion of a person, the beauty of a landscape or an animal.

   There are so many stories that can be told through both medians. It's not only an easy hobby but it can quickly become an obsession, I find myself wanting to travel and do more and more photography as time has gone on. Then working with my friends and launching Everything Entrikit as a production company has already shown me so many new ways to look at and see the world both through a lens and with the naked eye.

   Stop and take photos, shoot video, go live. In those moments you capture the world around you exactly as it is, even if you can remember the day for the rest of your life its an amazing feeling to go back and look at exactly how things were that day.

Escape From Tarkov

 Escape from Tarkov is a game coming soon from the company Battlestate Games, a Russian development company. Now if you haven't heard of this game yet I'm not surprised, as I recently just learned of it as well. But what caught my attention with it is the fact that it is what another game could have been.
  As far as hype for games goes there are few I can think of in recent years that had more hype than Day Z (by Bohemia Interactive.) It started as a mod for ARMA 3 and later turned into a full-scale game which is listed on Steam. The game received a ton of hype, being played by many YouTubers and streamers. But the fatal flaw was the development and the support the game had after launch.
  While it had been listed as in beta they started charging for the game its self which to date has sold over 3 million copies. On steam alone tho the user reviews for the game show errors in the game. With positive reviews numbering in the 100 thousand and negative reviews being 39 thousand. It is a good game but its lacking in many areas.
   This is where Escape comes in. The concept behind the game is close to the same of Day Z but the gameplay, while in alpha, is much more polished than Day Z is. The gameplay features the same mechanics as Day Z in some ways. But the level of detail and craftsmanship that seems to be but in it is amazing.
  From what I've heard of Battlestate Games, they are a small company. There doesn't even seem to be a wiki page for the company currently. There are some developer diaries and reference videos on their site which is listed here. This is looking like it will be a decent game for many different players and play styles. This will be one to keep an eye on as time goes on the page lists 2016 as the year to be ready to escape.

Getting Into Streaming

  Today so much of our world is online. Youtube brought about a whole new form of entertainment in today's world. With it came many changes to the way we receive information and different forms of entertainment. This was followed by the trend of live streaming. From major events, rallies down to people playing games. Twitch brought a whole new light to the world of gaming in its own right.
   Streaming games have become a major income source for some. This originally sounded like a foolish idea. I remember growing up telling my parents I wanted to find a way to make a living gaming. It was something I had always had a passion for. Of course, like any normal parents at the time, they told me I was being foolish. At the time I was. Streaming wasn't that big of a thing during my youth. But today streaming is major. The CS: GO qualifier event brought in over 80,000 views. People watching groups fight for a spot in a tournament where the prize is $1,000,000.
   But streaming is also a challenge in its own right. As we live now in a world where technology is so readily available to the masses services such as Twitch are overwhelmed with streamers. Some performing exceptionally well, generating enough income to survive and go to college, while others sit in the background of obscurity trying to make it into the big time.
   I'm trying to get into streaming still, I've got a small team backing me up and we're all working toward a common goal. This is a competition between 1.5 million plus people while the odds are stacked against anyone getting into this now, it is a dream many have. To anyone who shares the dream of being able to be an at least somewhat successful streamer, I wish you good luck. Hopefully, we'll get to work together someday.