Your Credit Score is Busted Up

Perhaps you’ve ventured into world of entrepreneurship. Or perhaps you haven’t.  Either way, you may have put yourself in a pickle or two that has caused you to “rob Peter to pay Paul” when it comes to paying those monthly bills.

This is life.

However, your credit score can reflect such activity.  And each time you pay a bill late, your score is dropping like groupie drawers on a 2 Live Crew tour bus. I’ve been thru so many up-swings and down-swings with my own personal credit score, I can tell you.  The first thing that you need to do when you’re going thru financial issues is to get your income and expenses under control.  And once you do that and stop the damage, after the smoke clears you will need to start the repair process with a card such as the Air Korea Skypass card.

Repair that Shit

One of the best ways to start repairing your credit score is by obtaining a credit card that you can start building a good credit history with.  Now, if your credit score is really jacked-up as in less than a 600, chances are you’ll need to get a secure credit card. A secured credit-card is different from an unsecured credit-card as you will be required to deposit the amount of your credit limit with the card company.  So if you want a $2,000 credit limit, you will need to send a check for $2,000 to the credit card company.  Then you will be able to borrow against that money that you’ve already deposited.

Doesn’t make much sense?

Well. If you were a bank, how would you feel lending money to someone who has a 550 credit score?  You probably wouldn’t do it right?  I know that I wouldn’t.  So for these banks to even make this happen, they require that folks with horrible credit scores put up collateral cash.  This way, if there is any default on behalf of the consumer, they have their money to recoup out of your deposit. The benefit to the consumer is that they have a working credit card and a company that will report their timely payments to the credit bureaus.  And usually after 12 months of good behaviour they get their deposit cash back and the secured-card becomes an unsecured-card.All is well at that point. Welp. If you want to make this happen and begin repairing your credit, I suggest finding a secured card that has the most benefits that are valuable to you.  For me, it was finding a secured credit card that also offered frequent flyer miles.  This was a tough search as there weren’t many available.  But I did find that there is a card offered by US Bank called the

Air Korea SkyPass Card
The only Secured Credit Card with MILES!

I’ve had this card for nearly a year now and don’t have any complaints about it at all.  I actually happened to already have a US bank personal checking and savings account, so the fact that this card was backed by a bank that I was already a member of was a great bonus.

The Details of this Card

• You get 15,000 miles after your first purchase
• You earn 1 mile for every $1 that you spend
• The annual fee is $50

The miles that you earn will be Air Korea miles.  And I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying. “Justin, that’s cool and all but I don’t plan on flying with Air Korea anytime soon.  As a matter of fact, I’ll probably never fly with them.” And that’s fine.  Because here’s the solution. The Air Korea miles that you earn, are under the “SkyTeam” alliance.  Which means that you will be able to transfer your miles to any carrier under that alliance.

SkyTeam Alliance Members:

• Aeroflot
• Aeromexico
• Air Europa
• Air France/KLM
• Alitalia
• China Southern Airlines
• Czech Airlines
• Delta Air Lines
• Kenya Airways
• Korean Air
• TAROM
• Vietnam Airlines

So yes, if you’re in the United States and you read that list you can indeed use your Air Korea Miles for Delta Air Lines.  And even Air France/KLM, I think they have quite a few domestic (US) flights available as well.

The Nutshell

If you need to rebuild your credit score, you might as well do it with a credit card that offers the most perks.  And from what I’ve found, the Air Korea SkyPass card is the best card available as it’s the only secured credit card that offers frequent flyer miles.

The post Repair your Credit and Earn Frequent Flyer Miles: Air Korea Skypass Card Review appeared first on Myinnerg.

At the beginning of March 2013, I dedicated quite a bit of time to sit and determine what my athletic goals were for the year. I like to do this on a periodic basis as detailed fitness goals keep me motivated and on track for overall health.

While I’ve had this practice of goal-setting for many years, this year I’ve decided to step things up and to focus as hard as I do in the gym, in the kitchen as well.  Although, I’ve kept a decent diet practice over the years, I’ve never taken it very seriously as I would typically follow a healthy diet from Monday thru Thursday.  Then a cheat day of Friday, would carry over into Saturday and most times Sunday also.  This breaks down to cheating close to half the week.

My tipping point was when I noticed that my mentality of, “eat whatever you want as long as you burn it off”, just wasn’t working for me anymore. I started to notice that my body-fat was starting to get harder to tame.  This puzzled me initially, because I consider myself a pretty active dude.  A typical week may consist of 4 days of weight training with 4 days of cardio.  So, some days I’d workout twice a day, for about an hour each, and I could no longer cancel out all of the pizza, beer, and french toast.  My daily morning routine of a weigh-in on my Withings scale complete with BMI (body mass index) and percent body fat reading was telling me this story.  I realized that a few of the multiple contributors to this difference in my body make-up are; increasing age/slowing metabolism, increased sedentary hours behind MacBook, higher calorie intake, high carb diet. I realized that I needed a new regime.

My new regime is the Paleo diet

If you’re not familiar with Paleo, in a nutshell it is considered a “caveman-like” diet. You mainly only eat organic fruits, vegetables, eggs and meats.  This is basically a very low-carb diet, that the cavemen ate way back in the day.  No grains at all.  So no bread, pasta, cereal, pancakes. None of that.  New studies are beginning to reveal that grains aren’t good for you at all, and many of us are gluten-intolerant.  This is why you hear about “gluten-free” foods more and more now.

Prior to beginning this new Paleo diet…

I wanted to detoxify my body to start with a clean slate

This brings us to the 10 day fruit and vegetable fast.  This was my 2nd attempt at a 10 day juice fast as the first time, I was doing it to prep for a bicycle ride across the United States and I dropped the fast after 5 days and gorged on half a box of Eggo waffles. It was great yet disappointing at the same time. I never quit things.  My number-one mistake during my first juice fast attempt was that I was doing it on top of two-a-day workouts.  My calorie deficit was crazy and I mentally broke-down half way in.

This second time around, I dropped the workouts completely.  I wanted to focus on successfully completing this juice fast.  And I wanted to pay close attention to how I was feeling without the cloud of post-workout exhaustion/hunger.

So I broke out my Breville Juicer (BJE820XL). Which I highly recommend.  This thing is powerful enough to juice a tree trunk.

The fruit and Vegetable Juice Fast

I kept a daily diary to document the 10 days of juice fasting. And like I mentioned earlier, I weigh myself every morning, so I’m also including that information also so you can see the effect that 10 days of only fruit and vegetable juice effected my body.

Monday, February 19th: DAY 1

Weight (lbs): 203
Percent Body Fat: 13.7
BMI: 27

I woke up with the sad realization that this thing had begun. Sipping caffinated Green Tea had helped me out during the first attempt. At least until day #5, before I broke down.  However, due to the fact that I was adding sugar or honey to that green tea, it wasn’t a true juice fast.  So no half-assing this time.  Just straight juice, water, and I found some uncaffinated Cinnamon tea to sip and I’m not adding anything to it.

This day was extremely hard.  My only shot at making it to the end of 10 days is not working out.  So I’m taking 10 days off from that.  My previous attempt, I was working out twice a day while only drinking juice.  I don’t know how I made it as far as day 5.  But I will say, I never knew one could get shredded in such a short period of time.  I definitely was.  I wonder if that’s guys do before they hop on the cover of Men’s Health magazine and other covers.

I have not taken a dump all day.  But I’ve been pissing so much it’s annoying.  It’s to the extent where I’ve just been pissing outside to save toilet bowl water. Yeah, call me a cheap-skate. But I call it “going green”.

I’m starving!

Tuesday, February 20th: DAY 2

Weight (lbs): 196.7
Percent Body Fat: 15
BMI: 26.1

Woke up today without a hunger, which was refreshing.  It was still depressing however to know that this was only day 2.  There’s something about only drinking juice that is severely dissapointing.  I couldn’t imagine what people have to go thru when they have broken jaws.  But then again, they probably drink Ensure, smoothies, and protein shakes. Those are far more filling.

I try to maintain cognizance of my motions, being mindful not to expend any more calories than I have to.  While I sit behind a computer for 12 hours daily among other regular daily activities, my personal stats measured previously (via BodyMedia device) tell me on average I burn about 3K calories per 24 hour period.  And juice-wise we’re talking about a max of 300 calories per cup of juice.  I knock back around 60oz per day max. I make nearly 2 completely full Breville 40 oz jugs. There are 8 oz per 1 cup, so that total is approx 7.5 cups daily consumed or 2,250 calories. Which is approximately a 750 calorie deficit per-day rate.

The loose calculation for weight loss is that a calorie deficit of 3,500 per week will lose you 1-2 pounds.  The opposite is true regarding weight gain.  I’m on an approximate 5,250 calorie deficit per week schedule which means I should be losing weight at a rate of about 3-4 pounds per week.

Wednesday, February 21st: DAY 3

Weight (lbs): 195.3
Percent Body Fat: 15.4
BMI: 25.9

Not much of a hunger this morning. Even more-so than yesterday.  I actually didn’t drink any juice until after I was awake for about 2 hours.  Just drank some water when I first woke and I was fine for a bit.

Today I discovered a new juice recipe that was straight crack.  You ready? One whole pineapple with 4 apples and 6 strawberries.  I could probably bottle this and slang it in the streets. $8 a cup.

No lie.

It’s that good.

It tastes like a melted popsicle, which is right up my alley with my sweet tooth.  I know I shouldn’t be juicing so much sugary fruits, but I’m just trying to get thru this thing at this point.

I still feel light-headed like ALL of the time.  My body is confused.  It’s like I’m playing a bad joke on it.  No food for days, only juice. I miss chewing.

But to end on a good note, I dropped a duece today.  That’s not news to most, but it damn sure is to me granted that I haven’t done so since before I started this fast.  I was starting to have bad visions of where the waste was going. So cheers to that.

Thursday, February 22nd: DAY 4

Weight (lbs): 192.7
Percent Body Fat: 15.6
BMI: 25.6

I think I may be over the hump now.

Morning hunger seems to be a thing of the past. I’m able to function now for at least 2 hours without drinking juice. However, the light-headedness is here-to-stay it seems.  I’m also experiencing a sort of dizziness at times.  I did some Googleing and these are proven side-effects of any type of detox.  Not specific to only a juice detox, as I also happened to be researching about Paleo dieting and I saw the same symptoms reported in forums by those detoxing while transitioning from their bad diet to a paleo diet.

It was also mentioned that these side effects will subside after 3-5 days.

Friday, February 23rd: DAY 5

Weight (lbs): 191.8
Percent Body Fat: 15.7
BMI: 25.4

Although this is only day number 5 of 10, but I have a strong feeling that the hard part is over.  Today is going well with no problems.  Energy-wise I even felt fine riding my bicycle about 3 miles to pick my car up from the shop.  And crazy as it sounds, this was on an empty stomach.  This wasn’t by choice.  I just ran out of produce.  I did get a bunch more on the way back though.

I found myself steering most towards the fruits in the store today.  Although this is only my second attempt at a multiple day juice-fast, I’ve been juicing consistently for about a year now.  And throughout that time, I still haven’t found the solution to make some vegetables not taste like COMPOST when juiced.

The whole point in juicing, is to get good nutrients and to enjoy it right?  Otherwise, nobody is going to stick with juicing over the long haul.  Some of these juice cookbooks out are full of recipes that are straight garbage.  Few of them actually taste good. Maybe I should create a recipe book with only the best tasting juice combos, that are completely original.  I swear these other authors can’t be taste testing those recipes!

I’ll tell you right now, there are a handful of vegetables that I will never juice again.  I don’t care how much fruit I mix it with, they tend to overpower the entire juice batch.  Romain lettuce is one, Broccoli is another, asparagus is a maybe, but even it’s flavour is super pungent.

I’ve been “regular” since the Wednesday, in-case you are wondering.  I guess as regular as I’m going to be, is a better way to put it.  Without grossing you out ‘too’ much, I’ll just say that the quantity is hardly normal (on the low side).

Saturday, February 24th: DAY 6

Weight (lbs): 189.7
Percent Body Fat: 15.2
BMI: 25.1

Today I made a batch consisting only of carrot, orange, and grapefruit.  Peeling the oranges was very difficult with this batch. I think this happens when the oranges aren’t completely ripe.  So for half of the oranges I used, I ended up throwing them in the juicer with the peel on.  I’ve done this before and didn’t like the outcome, but today I felt like I could do it because it was only half the batch.  Welp, my juice batch ended up tasting just like you would imagine.  Very strongly of orange peel.

Still drank it though.

Also, whipped up a batch of my crack juice. Pineapple, strawberry, kiwi.  Too many sugars, I know. I know. But I had to do it.

I watched, “Super-Size Me” today. It must have been about the 3rd or 4th time I’ve ever seen that documentary.  If you haven’t seen the documentary, it’s were a guy experiments with McDonalds by eating only McDonalds for 30 days straight for all of his meals.  He gains 25 pounds, his cholestoral shot up, and he did some damage to his liver. And pretty much almost died.

Despite all of this, I never viewed McDonalds in such a delicious perspective.  I don’t really even like McDonalds and I was craving some after this film.  I was ready to lick the screen.

It seems that even though I’m over the 3 day hump, I constantly fantiszie about food.  When I go out in public, I noticed that my nose is more sensitive to the smells of food.  Everythings sounds delicious at all times.  BBQ, fried chicken, pizza, steak, french fries, lasanga, bacon, pork chops. Everything…Everything bad.

I have to be careful not to binge on horrible foods on Friday when this is over.  The whole point of this fast was to use it as the detox precursor to a Paleo only diet.

Sunday, February 25th: DAY 7

Weight (lbs): 189.8
Percent Body Fat: 14.7
BMI: 25.2

I tried juicing kale for the first time today. My local grocery store just now starting carrying it, so I picked some up.  I juiced with with some grapefruit, celery, ginger and lemon.  With most leafy greens, I tend to have the best luck canceling out their “Veggie” taste with some citrus.  The lemon and ginger combo usually is a given to work.  Not this time.

I don’t see what the big rave is about kale.  I’m aware of the nutritional benefits, but this shit is just plain disgusting.  The only batch that I made worse than this one where I used collard greens as the base.  And another where I used WAY too much asperagus.  But, I’m not going to give up too soon.  I’ve bought some more kale and will give it another shot.

Monday, February 26th: DAY 8

Weight (lbs): 189.5
Percent Body Fat: 15.2
BMI: 25

I think my stomach is shrinking. I’m rarely hungry now. But I still have the urge to eat versus juice.  I had a dream last night where I abstained from eating food that was in front of me because I was on a juice fast. How crazy is that? I can’t even cheat in my dreams. Ain’t that a bitch!

I dropped down to 189 lbs from 203 at the beginning of this fast.  For me that’s nothing to brag about because it only involved calorie restriction through the juice I’ve been drinking.  I’m certain that I’ve lost a bit of muscle also in that weight loss as my percent body fat seems to hover at 15% while my pounds decrease.  Now if I had gained muscle and lost fat, while dropping 14 pounds then I’d be more geeked up about it. That would take the inclusion of weight-training. None the less, my six pack looks pretty good right now without the extra layer of fat over it.

Tuesday, February 27th: DAY 9

Weight (lbs): 189.3
Percent Body Fat: 13.2
BMI: 25.1

This juice fast shit is for the birds. I even fantasize about salads right now. Uhm…yeah…SALADS. Even a ceasar salad would be so right-on-time right now. I can’t wait to chew some food.

It’s almost like I feel like I’m being fed via an IV. Although I don’t have any personal experience with this, I imagine it feels like I’m how I’m feeling.  As, I’m getting my proper nutrients, but my stomach never has the familiar sensation that I just ‘ate’ something.  It doesn’t matter how much juice quantity I drink.

Wednesday, February 28th: DAY 10

Weight (lbs): 187.9
Percent Body Fat: 13.4
BMI: 24.9

The last supper. I’m so glad. I’m fantasizing about what to buy at the grocery store as my fridge is empty at this point.  I should rephrase, it’s empty of suitable foods for my strict paleo transition. I even have AMP energy drinks still in there. It’s crazy because I don’t have any desire to drink one.  I’m almost certain I would get sick if I did.  And because of that, I don’t have any desire to eat any junk after all the hard work of the last 10 days of detox.

I gave Kale juice another shot today. And I’ve got the recipe. Kale, orange, lemon, lime, ginger.  Basically, the recipe is to match the kale with more spice and citrus and then it won’t taste so much like a lawn mower bag.  The juice still smells that way though, but I can live with that.

Overview:

To tell the truth, this juice fast was hands-down one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  I don’t think there has ever been a time where I went 10 days without eating food.  So that’s a first in my life.

Check the graph below of the 10 days of daily weigh-ins.  This screen shot was taken from my account with Withings.com.  Weight is the pink graph across the top, while percent-body-fat is the yellow graph across the bottom.

Unexpected side effects: The whites of my eyes became whiter and my skin looked better.  This was crazy because I initially attributed the better skin to the fact that I switched to using witch hazel as an astringent.  But I then realized that I’d switched to the witch hazel over two months ago.  My skin started looking really, really clear just a few days ago, almost like it was airbrushed.  It was totally the juice.

Conclusion

The first 3 days were filled with withdrawal pains. Prior to this fast, I had a weekend full of junk foods because I knew it would be a long time before I had them again.  French Toast, Pizzas, etc…Mucho carbs.  What I later learned about carbohydrates:

Foods rich in carbohydrates give you quick energy, but that energy wears off just as quickly as it came. Since grains break down into sugar, they create a rise in insulin levels when those levels fall you crave more grains and, thus, the vicious cycle continues. ¹

This completely explains why I had a strong crave for the same foods for the first 3 days.  I was going thru a “carbohydrate withdrawal”.  Now that I’ve learned the term for it, there’s tons of information about it available on the web that I’ve found and it all makes sense to me now.

My suggestion to you:

If you’re looking to kick-start your weight loss and/or fitness regimen with a juice fast, I applaud you.  Here are a few tips:

1. Drink plenty of water in addition to your juices.
2. Find a good tea to drink that tastes good without adding any sugar. I used “Celestial Seasonings – Cinnamon Apple Spice”.
3. I wouldn’t suggest fasting with anything more than a moderately intense workout.
4. If juicing is new to you, you may want to experiment and discover which juice recipes you like before you start the fast.
5. Know that the headaches and dizziness in the beginning is considered ‘normal’. Don’t worry you’re not going to die ²
6. And lastly, It’s best to buy organic produce, however for some produce items it isn’t necessary. Check the “Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen” list below. Dirty Dozen = must buy organic. Clean 15 = you ain’t gotta.

Overall, I am pleased with the detox of the 10 day juice fast.  I have a new feeling inside my body.  I just feel lighter.  And I don’t mean lighter as in lost 15 pounds.  But overall, just less bogged-down.  I will likely plan to implement these 10 day juice fasts twice a year and perhaps a shorter 3 day fast every quarter.

Footnotes. …or better yet Footloose

The post Why carbohydrates are like crack. How a 10 day juice fast can cure you appeared first on Myinnerg.

There comes a time in life when you decide that your paycheck from the 9-to-5 just isn’t acceptable on its own.  You know the drill. Payday comes, the direct-deposit shows-up in your bank account, the auto-payments of your ebills go out, and you’re sick with what’s left.

On one-hand you’re grateful that you have a job that pays the bills. But on the other hand you want to ball-out and buy an all gold macbook ¹,or just plain be able to grocery shop at Whole Foods without a title loan.

So outside of moonlighting with a 2nd job, you do what many folks do.

Side-hustle [sahyd huhs-uhl] verb, noun.

a product or service provided for profit in effort to supplement your primary source of income, thus allowing you to finally replace your college furniture

Your side-hustle could consist of a computer-dependent skill or not and could be based on one or more of a variety of things that you have a specialty in.

A few example side-hustles (computer-dependent):

• Writing – You’re a good writer, there’s high demand for those
• Data entry – brainless work such as recording data from eBay into a spreadsheet
• Typist – retyping a letter that was handwritten and scanned to an image
• Coaching – you’ve succeeded at something that others want to also
• Product research – finding all the information you can about how Cheerios are made
• Data analysis – creating formulas in a spreadsheet so that sales stats can be digested
• Web development – developing a self-hosted wordpress blog for a small company
• Consulting – you’ve got a gang of knowledge on a topic that folks would pay you for

If none of the above examples sounds like a skill of yours, you can peruse Fiverr and oDesk to see what gigs are being performed on a daily basis by the freelancers of the world. You’re bound to find a handfull of services that you’d be confident in offering yourself.

Your side-hustle could be non computer-dependent but any of the above tasks may need to be performed within your own business. For example, if you have a real estate business you may need to develop some spreadsheets for your own use, develop your own blog, research your market, and etcetera.  Therefore, even when you’re stuck at work, you could always be getting something done.

We’ll focus on the computer-dependent tasks which is your side-hustle – or could be for your side-hustle while you’re at work, as otherwise they wouldn’t be applicable. Unless you can run a daycare out of your cubicle. Nah mean

#1 Always ask for deadlines.

Whenever you are assigned a special project or task, get a deadline out of your boss. Don’t let a task get assigned to you with the deadline of, “I need this done as soon as possible”. Deadlines are normally easiest to obtain when you have multiple projects assigned to you at once.

Once you have a due-date/time for your tasks. Get them done as soon as possible.

Then don’t submit your projects until the deadline.

Let’s face it. I don’t care how difficult you like to think your job is, once you’ve been doing it for at least a year it can be done with your eyes closed. I can recall days where I finished a project in 4 hours that I was given 2 days to complete. All of that free-time was then spent working for myself.

Did I feel guilty for that? Did I consider that unethical?

I encourage you to still deliver high-quality work. It’s just that if you’re not paid per project, not on commission, and are salaried, it makes little sense for you to work anymore than you have to. Trust that your company is paying you the least amount they can. You should keep this in mind daily. Therefore, you may not (as I didn’t) have a problem with only working just as hard as you have to. If you’re not aiming to get promoted, don’t jump at extra projects, keep your work-load and quality consistent.

Usain Bolt smashed the 100m mens track and field record at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. 80 meters-in, dude was celebrating. My point is that he ran a 9.69 time. Some speculate that he could’ve run a 9.60 or faster. But he only ran as fast as necessary to win.

#2 Don’t let your co-workers/boss know

Bitches be hatin’. Stay as stealth as you can about what it is you do outside of work for extra cheese (while at work). You’d be surprised how quickly some of your co-workers might start hating on you, most times for no good reason at all. Even your boss.

I don’t really understand why people do this. But I will say that many people have a natural tendency to dislike the strides a peer of theirs is making towards something positive. Good ole’ fashioned crabs in a bucket, I guess.

• Have you successfully dropped some weight?
  Someone who watched it happen, is jealous as fuck.

• Did you recently get married?
  One of your bridesmaids secretly hates your life, because they’re still single.

• So the side-hustle is doing well?
  That underachieving co-worker of yours will just plain not like you. You’ll remind them of success.

#3 Don’t let your boss really get to know you

If your employer feels like they know everything about you, this can truly backfire against you. Let me paint this picture.

Let’s say that you’re an aspiring House DJ and you spin every Sunday night at various bars and clubs around town just to build your skills and get exposure. You love to DJ and everytime you have a set, it’s the party of your life. Each occasion involves tequila super-soakers, glitter, and unicorns. So needless to say, you have a “case of the Mondays”, weekly.

Every Tuesday, you have a TPS report to submit.

If your boss knows of your Sunday night festivities, then he/she might just have a negative-bias when reviewing your work. And the truth is, you had that report done early on the Friday prior (refer back to tip #1) but they didn’t know that.

So what happens? You get pulled aside and notified that your work is suffering and that you need to pick-up the slack. And at the end of that meeting, your boss mentions that you should think about taking it easy on Sunday nights from now on.

The report submitted would’ve been perceived as just fine, had your Sundays not been considered. You can regard the knowledge that your boss has of your extracurriculars a placebo-effect of sorts. In other words, some straight-up bullshit.

What this all means is, now you’re basically on a pre-probation and you can’t even think about side-hustle work on the job. The feds are watching.

#4 Call-in sick strategically

If your employer does not award you with the cash-value of your sick days and doesn’t allow them to roll-over on a yearly basis, you should take advantage.

Play hooky.

If you don’t, it’s like leaving cash on the table. And besides that, using sick days strategically will allow you to go on necessary appointments and run business related errands that couldn’t otherwise be handled during your office hours.

First off, don’t get sick. This only works if you don’t have a need for sick days.

Take care of yourself by drinking plenty of water. Aim for one gallon daily. Also stick to a clean diet with proper portion sizes and minimize the fast-food /processed-food intake to once per week.  Exercise 3 times a week minimum and quit smoking.

Wash your DAMN hands.

The 5 most common ways that germs are spread all involve the hands ². Everytime I see someone in a public restroom walking right past the sinks to the door, I want to hire a second-line parade to follow them for the remander of their day.

My personal rule is that if my hands are dirty, they go nowhere near my face. Don’t touch your nose, rub your eye, bite your nails, rub your ear, none of that. And I can honestly say that by following these rules, I’ve only been sick (non alcohol induced) once in the last 10 years.

All you’ve got is your balls and your word.

Nobody likes a liar. So if you’re not ill, I wouldn’t suggest calling-in stating that you are. You’re grown and can do whatever you want, of course. But what may be deemed an illness is subjective. Thus, the grey area to be exploited. However, so that I personally felt better about not lying, I used to just say that “I’m not feeling the best”. Which I never was. I always felt best when away from the gig.

What days of the week to do this?

Stay away from Friday and Monday. Any and everybody knows of that one co-worker who seems to typically be “sick” on a Friday. People know what time it is. That’s an obvious ploy to manufacture a 3-day weekend. If your boss isn’t dumb-as-rocks, this isn’t going to fly unless you truly are ill. So choose from Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and don’t do so more than once a month. I’d say more like every 6 weeks will keep you under the radar.

#5 Use Google Reader

Some companies are more tolerant than others when it comes to time spent surfing the web on sites non-related to work. If you have a collection of sites (they’d better not be gossip blogs) that you regularly read that put out content frequently, then I’d suggest using an RSS reader such as Google reader. With Google Reader, you’ll have all of the recently published content of your industry sites all in once place.

You’ll be able to read your updates in a shorter amount of time and to those who peer over your shoulder will see only the black text on a white background that Google Reader displays. No obvious cues that you’re reading a blog.

#6 Get a Google Voice number

Google Voice has got to be one of the best services that Google has. It allows you to obtain a designated phone number of your area code of choice and forward it to any phone of yours you wish. You can even forward your Google Voice number to multiple phones.

The best part is that Google voice has it’s own voicemail that you can utilize which has a transcription feature in addition to the text message feature. This comes in handy when at the gig and business calls are coming through. When messages are left, you can read what was said in the voicemail thus bypassing the need to play it out loud. And text messages sent to your number can be replied to on your computer.

All of this communication can happen while leaving your iPhone in your pocket. Don’t look so good to have your phone in your hands, sending a text, while your boss walks-in…right

Nutshell

Are you supposed to be working on your own business while at work?
Probably not.

Are you supposed to be on Facebook and YouTube, as much as you are, while at work?
Probably not, but you do it.

You might just be reading this from your desk at work right now. I’m not saying don’t read this.

But what I am saying is, if you’re going to bend a rule or two on the job, make sure it’s for something with a high-return.

Your side-hustle can turn into your main hustle with the right amount of effort. But you’ve gotta stop wasting your spare moments on Pinterest.  The average employee only works for 4:42 hours per day³, while the rest of their time is spent on social media, chilling-out, and other forms of slacking off.  This gives you at least 2-hours (not including lunch-hour) per workday that you can spend on your business.

When you work an 8 hour day, sleep 8 hours per night, you are left only with a discretionary 8 hours of time per day (outside of weekends). And between eating dinner, hitting the gym, running errands, and spending time with your family, you will have only the shortest moments to work on your side-hustle with what’s left of that spare 8 hours.

There comes a time in life when you’ve gotta do what it takes to improve your situation, be it Grey Hat or otherwise. Human beings can’t manufacture time (yet), so in the meantime it’s your most valuable asset. Have something to show for it. Maximize every spare moment you have, regardless of location.

All of the tips mentioned here are to be utilized at your own risk. Don’t look at me if you get that ass fired.

Photo Credits:
ashtarcommandcrew.net

Footnotes. …or better yet Footloose

The post 6 sneaky ways to work your side-hustle at work, without getting fired appeared first on Myinnerg.

I’m riding my big-wheel from NYC to LA starting Wednesday, August 15, 2012. This bicycle ride is to raise awareness of heart disease, the number one cause of death in the USA, and 100% of the money raised will be donated to the American Heart Association.

You are cordially, officially, enthusiastically, delightfully, and zestfully invited to follow me throughout my journey. I will be tweeting and blogging throughout the entire trip.

Please peep the I dedicated site that I have for this campaign.

The post On a bicycle from NYC to LA. iHeartCardio appeared first on Myinnerg.

Why Thailand?

The question most received from friends and family.  In March of 2011, I had my first international travel experience when I went to Paris, France for 10 days.  I really didn’t have a good reason to go to Paris besides the fact that I found a good flight price and that my friend from college, who invited me, was there on business so I had a place to crash and someone to tour the city with.

This trip opened my eyes a bit. And afterwards, I was left with the desire to explore more of the world.  I guess that’s kinda cliche’ but for me it’s true.

I’ve always been a semi-fan of martial arts, but it wasn’t until 2007 that I started studying Shotokan Karate.  That’s when I became hooked on martial arts of all varieties (Karate, Jiu Jitsu, Judo, etc).  Hooked on the physicality, the challenge, the pain.

Tiger Muay Thai

I first learned of Tiger Muay Thai from another real estate entrepreneur by the name of Colin Andrews Egbert.  I was subscribed to his email updates for his website RealEstateInvestor.com and he would email from time to time about a specific technique or tidbit about business and he would usually save the end of the message to talk about his travels.  Well, for quite some time he was in Thailand and studied Muay Thai at Tiger Muay Thai.  It looked awesome.  I hit him up on Facebook about it.

I did some Google’ing on Tiger Muay Thai and one of the first results I found was of the UFC president Dana White sporting a Tiger Muay Thai t-shirt during the UFC 128 weigh-ins. At that point, Tiger Muay Thai was completely legit to me.

Dana is totally popping a boner during that stare-down

I was sold

Before I knew it I was booking my flights, signing up for training on the Tiger Muay Thai website, and picking up my 60 day student Visa from the Thai consulate in Houston, Texas.  By August of 2011, I actually went back to Europe but this time it was on a Contiki tour.  And directly following that, I jetted off to Phuket, Thailand specifically to train in Muay Thai, compete in an amateur fight, and experience the shit out of the country and culture.

My education Visa to stay in Thailand for 60 days

Land in Bangkok – Wednesday, August 24, 2011

I had a series of flights that took me from London-Amsterdam-Bangkok-Phuket. Once I landed in bangkok, I had to buy new connection on Air Asia because of a mishap at Heathrow. I was a bit salty.  The new ticket only cost $80 but one missed flight also cost me one hotel stay. The flight from Bangkok to Phuket was only like an hour. Air Asia was quite unique. You could order food with your flight upon purchase. And I mean, hot food.  This was definitely a new experience, especially for a one hour flight, but I passed on the food.  And I’ll never understand how airlines make money on flights that are 1/3 full like this one was. I had a whole row of seats to lay out on.

Fresh off the plane in Phuket – Wednesday night

When I first got go Phuket, I was excited and timid at the  same time.  I was ready to get to the training camp and get situated especially since I had been on planes or in airports for like the last 24 hours.  When I was walking towards to exit of the airport, it was hustle-man central.  Everybody wanted your business as a taxi customer.  I kinda already knew what I was looking for however.  Since I was supposed to arrive the day prior, my arranged taxi via Tiger Muay Thai of course wasn’t going to be there.  But, I had a feeling that due to the size of that gym, that they picked up students quite regularly.  So once I got outside there was a barrage of more taxi drivers holding name-signs.  And sure enough, I found a guy holding a destination “Tiger Muay Thai” sign with the names of two girls on it.  I chatted him up and said that I needed to go there too and he said that he had the extra room.  So, it was cool to at least split that cab ride 3 ways with 2 Australian girls. It would’ve otherwise been solo a day earlier.

My first impression of the city was HORRIBLE.  The weather played a huge part in that.  There were grey skies and plenty of rain.  As we were riding in the cab, there were a ton of people zipping by us on scooters.  It was clear that scooter-travel was extremely common here.  The first things that struck me were a) how fast these little things went and b) that despite the wet conditions, folks just donned their ponchos and were riding anyway, some rode as many as 4 or 5 to a scooter and carried awkwardly sized objects otherwise inappropriate for a scooter, like ladders and mini-fridges. Seriously.  Scooters + Thailand = Super unsafe.  But I later learned quickly that to utter ‘safety’ and ‘Thailand’ in the same sentence is a definite oxymoron.

Scooters, scooters, and mo' scooters

This place is literally on the other side of the world

When I got to the gym, my first impression of it wasn’t the best either.  Again, the weather played a huge part.  As it was pouring rain on and off and night by this time.  And it was evident that there weren’t many street lights around.  It literally felt like I was in the middle of a jungle.  But, I made it to the gym and got checked in at the main office.  The folks in the office were super nice people and they got me squared away.  There was one hiccup however and that was regarding my place of residence for the next 60 days.  On their website, I had picked out this nice, reasonably priced spot that wasn’t far from the gym and was located above a 7-11 store.  How convenient, I thought.  But when I mention it in the office, they steered me away from it.  They said that it was too far away and that there were good places nearby.  At first, I felt like that was a little suspect but I took their suggestion for a little bungalow down the road.  I hop in a taxi and go to check it out.  Turns out it was isolated and down a dead-end road and not near anything.  Then as soon as a step into the room it smells strongly of mothballs. Aw HELL naw.  I hop right back into the cab and go back to the office to figure something else out.  I tell them that I need something way nicer and closer.  So then they pointed me to the Siam Hostel and tell me that construction on it had just finished like a month prior.  I go to check it and I was like “now we’re talkin”.

If it wasn't raining, I was definitely in this pool between and after training sessions

It was hard getting used to that bed, which was rock-solid. But I loved this place

First full day in Phuket (Thursday)

Could’nt make it to class on Thursday or Friday. I was jet lagged like a mofo. There was a 7 hour difference from London and Phuket, which had me all messed up and definitely not prepared for vigorous workouts.  So, I just kinda chilled out with the laptop. Answered some emails and had a few skype meetings.

BBQ Beat Down #39. That’s really the name (Saturday)

I was impressed. This is a monthly event thrown by the school. It’s a night of amateur fights, music, BBQ, and drinks. The first match was a Muay Thai women’s match. This was the best fight all night IMO. These girls went so hard!  I was definitely inspired.  It’s funny how I told myself I wasn’t going to drink any alcohol while in Thailand. I planned to have a narrow focus on training hard, eating right, and no alcohol. But then I found out that the drinks were extremely cheap. So how could I pass up a sale?! Plus they had a DJ from Miami there who was jammin’.  So I had to kick it. And I had it all figured out.  Drink one-for-one. One mixed-drink. One water.  I stuck to this all night. This would keep me hydrated and prevent a hangover.  Done this many times before…

Toilet Day (Sunday)

So uhm…yeah.  I lost count of my toilet visits on Sunday, that’s for sure. I may have set a new personal best. I had the BG’s (bubble guts) all day. More like all day and a half, really. I took me a while to trace down why…

It was the damn water cooler at the bar. Freaking tap water. I’ll be damned. I know better than that. My hydration plan backfired (pun intended). Note to self, if it ain’t in a sealed bottle then it’s Thai tap-water, also known as “complimentary Thai enema”.

First day of training (Monday)

These workouts are no joke. Lots of cardio and calisthenics. I started out in the beginner’s Muay Thai class which is 2.5 hours of a ton of cardio, some technique, and some sparring. I learned that my karate background is hindering me in muay thai. I have some habits to break if I want to fight this style correctly.

Bodyfit workout at the beach (Thursday)

Death workout. I think this was the hardest workout I’ve ever done in my life! And I’ve had some hard workouts. Start with stair warmup. Reverse monkey crawl up the stairs. Planks. Hill sprints. More planks. Drag a tire with a team all the way down a hill running, just over half mile. At the bottom, 100 jumping jacks, 50 leg scissors. Drag that bitch all the way back up the hill. This hill is SO steep by the way, like 30 degrees (if you were to ride a bike down it without pedaling, you’d at least be going 40 mph. That steep). Get to the top of the hill. 100 air squats. Then 50 lunges. The payoff was a dip in the ocean at the beach. Warm water, big waves. That water felt SO good.

Here’s a vid that shows a similar workout sequence to what we did (we had less beach work, more hill work).

Run to Big Buddha (Friday)

On the island of Phuket, one of the main attractions is the Big Buddha statue at the top of one of the larger hills in the area.  Many fighters at Tiger would choose to run up this thing.  My first trip to it, it seemed doable for sure.  Then as our taxi neared the base of it, me and another fighter, Jack chose to walk up the hill and run down.  This turned out to be a great idea for our first time.  Even walking up was tiring. This hill is ridiculously steep at points and about 3 miles from the bottom to the top. But once at the top, there was an amazing view of the island which was a cool reward.  A short-lived one as we had to get amped to run down.  Which probably isn’t the best thing for your knees.  But whatever, we did it anyway.  Then we ended up running the extra 3 miles back to the camp from the base of Big Buddha, versus taxiing back.  Pure exhaustion afterwards.

It's very discouraging to be already tired and see it this far away.

The view from the very top was dope. It doesn't get old

Patong Beach Night-Life. WTF (Saturday)

So Saturday evening I ventured out with some other fighters to go checkout Patong. We took a Tuk Tuk taxi on a 30 minute surprisingly uneventful ride.  Turns out all Tuk Tuk rides would be “surprisingly uneventful”.  You could catch an atheist praying to Jesus before getting in those things. After the ride from the mobile sardine-can a.k.a death-trap, we hop out and my first few statements went something like this…”what’s that smell?”…”nice boobs, but she’s got an adam’s apple”…”no I don’t want to buy any”…”Ping Pong show?”…”Hell Naw, I don’t want to see that”…”Well if the cover is only 100 baht, you got yourself a deal”.

A Tuk Tuk aka safety hazard on wheels. Jam a bunch of people in one and hang-on.

About the infamous Ping-Pong show. Uhm…yeah. It was an “experience” to say the least.  So we walk in there and the place just looks like the shadiest of strip clubs.  I mean straight out of a movie.  There were like 3 Thai girls on one stage, with 3 poles, and the stage had seating on both sides.

So, we have a seat and a waitress comes and takes a drink order and for a moment, it didn’t seem like it was different from any other regular strip club.  But then before you knew it a few additional girls came on stage and one had a fishbowl.  Let’s just say that at one moment there wasn’t a fish in it and then one was shot into it.  The following tricks had to do with a bird-cage and a bird, a string with nails tied to it, darts and balloons.  Sooooooo Yeah.  I think each one of us left out of there a different man.

After the ping-pong show, we needed to rehydrate.  We go to the bar for some beverages.  It turns out that these bar girls were super aggressive to get you to buy drinks from their bar. Literally, they would grab on your arms, tug on your shirt.  I hated that shit.  Maybe that’s cool if you’re sex tourist with low self-esteem. I’m not that dude.  And then I noticed that there were no regular women in sight. Most were prostitutes, bar-girls, or ladyboys. And I was paranoid about my drink getting spiked (I’ve heard of women doing this to men, then robbing them). I thought Amsterdam was a crazy place. I think Patong Beach in Phuket wins by a nose.

The view from a bar on Bangla Road in Patong Beach

Cobra blood (Sunday)

We went to a cobra snake park, not necessarily to see snakes. But to drink cobra blood. Literally, that was the whole point in going. I and some other fighters had talked about it casually on Saturday. But then, just the next day one of the girls tells me she had found a place. It was on. I started to have second thoughts though. I mean how do you explain that if something goes wrong without looking SO stupid? Exactly. I don’t think it’s possible.

The thing is, supposedly this practice is illegal. So the whole operation was kind of underground. I pulled out my Flip camcorder and they say not to video tape any of their faces. I started to doubt their credibility.  Thoughts in my mind were like “how many times have they done this?” And, “does the preparer really know what he’s doing? How do I know he didn’t get some of the cobras’ venom into my cup?”

So we go into the place and sit in the same area that spectators watch the snake shows from.  We took some hard liquor to mix with our cobra shots.  Apparently this was suggested.  So we were waiting and I had started sipping a bit.  Shit. Why not? After all, I needed some liquid-courage to do this.

Next thing you know, they’re slaughtering two cobras behind the scenes.  By the time any of us noticed, it was already over pretty much.  We all wanted to see that go down.  But we were able to catch the end of it.  So it seems, they string up the snake by it’s neck and then make a long vertical incision down it’s belly and pretty much let it bleed to death. Gnarly. They set aside the hearts from the snakes which continued to beat for quite a while.  And then they poured the blood across 5 shot glasses and we completed the mix with the help of Mr. Jack Daniels.  It was about a 1 to 1 mix.

Line 'em up

Everyone else took their shots like a G. I was SO paranoid afterwards.  It shows, right?  I was just waiting for the venom that dripped into my shot to go to work dissolving my insides.  I waited for like 5 minutes before I started to relax. It was quite the experience though.  The taste?  Uhm…kinda like what your mouth tasted like for the first 3 minutes when you lost a tooth as kid.  Then mix that flavor with some Tennessee whiskey. And there you have it.

 Jaw-Click (Monday)

There were a lot of new students who arrived over the weekend, thus making class about 35 people large versus the normal 15 or so from last week. We had normal class, went thru all of the same motions and exercises. There’s usually about a 20 minute jog warm-up, followed by punch/kick/elbow drills, followed by some pad work and bag work. And depending on the day there will be some sparring. Here’s where class took a turn. There was this one kid, claims he didn’t speak much English, only Dutch. That’s fine. However some of his buddies that he came with spoke English. So the class is instructed to spar at about 10% power.

The whole point in sparring at 10% is to get comfortable with an opponent in front of you, try new combos, practice blocks, etc. But this dude didn’t get the translation and starts coming at me with all he had. I’m like WTF. I stop him, and tell him to calm down. Motioning my hands as if someone was telling you to slow down.  He nods his head as if he understood, then we trade a few exchanges, and soon enough he starts swinging for the fences again.

At this point I’m starting to get mad. So I’m like what do I do? Some would say, “hit him as hard as he’s hitting you”.  Which I can agree with.  Because that’s sends the message loud and clear.  However, I knew that an unnecessary injury would totally defeat my purpose on being there.  So then I’d be looking dumb watching folks train and limping around camp. So, I tell him again and dude gets frustrated and leaves the ring going on a Dutch gibberish rant.  His friend translates and says that he was hitting me as hard as I was kicking him.  Dude was full of shit.

Turns out this dude was just being a douche to more than just me. None the less I was still pissed off. Dude had my jaw clicking for the rest of the day. I was reminded of him every time I ate. I wanted to fight him at 100% after that.

There was some good in this. The first week I got caught up in much of the partying and other distractions on this island. After whatshisface, I was reminded of what I’m here for. I partied for two weeks straight in Europe before I got here. Now it’s time to work. I’m cutting out SOME of the fried foods and alcohol. Stepping up the trainings. It’s on.

Big buddha run (Wednesday)

Today I ran to the big Buddha hill and ran up it, with no stops and no walking, with was a huge feat for me, let me tell you. The road that goes up this mountain is literally 45 degrees in some parts, at least close to it. I don’t think they’d ever build a road like that back In the states. Not practical/safe. After a brief break at the peak, I ran down.  Once I got home from this, the massage I got was EXCELLENT (and I mean that in my Simpsons, “Mr. Burns” voice)

Couldn’t Do It (Thursday)

Six AM came and went, my body wouldn’t let me train today. I need a day off, then I’ll hit Friday and Saturday hard again. That Buddha run is what did it.  Definitely need more time to recover.  And what sucks is that I’m tired of watching tv. And the Internet is so shoddy it’s a joke. So that means no YouTube entertainment unless you want to endure the 10 minutes of buffering required to watch a 4 minute video. And what really sucks is I can’t watch MTV.com or VH1.com or Hulu.com because they only allow you to watch when inside of the US. I even tried a proxy ip. That doesn’t trick it for some reason. Summamabitch! The only channels on Thai TV in English is Fox news, BBC news, and  2 movie channels that play the same 6 movies 24-7.  I stopped watching the news about 5 years ago and I’ve already seen all of these flicks on the movie channels. I’m hitting the beach. There is absolutely nothing else to do.

The beach never gets old

Surfing. Way harder than it looks

Not a ladyboy in sight. I think. (Saturday)

I trained pretty hard today. Had a personal one hour session with one of my trainers and afterwards attended a group session. I had a business Skype appointment for 7pm. That didn’t work out too well. First off, the Internet at my room is horrible and plus my MacBook has been acting up lately. I think the maid knocked it off my nightstand and put it back like ain’t shit happen.  The maids that clean my room every day are a bit odd.  Sometimes when they’re cleaning and you approach them, seeing them before they see you, you can catch them doing some stuff like rummaging through your things. Taking a sip out of your juice you had in your fridge (I’m not making that up, I really did catch a maid doing that in someone else’s room). Crazy

So after thirty minutes of attempts and reboots for the meeting, I gave up and went to a BBQ at a new bar that opened up down the street. I told myself that I wasn’t going to drink while I was here…yeah. That isn’t going so well. A few beers never hurt anyone, right.

So after (a few) beers and group shots, we went to Patong. This 2nd visit was WAY better because we actually found some cool places with cool music without the ladyboys and prostitutes everywhere. Well, at least they weren’t as obvious tonight. Got home at 5 am. I guess it was a good night.

Chill day (Sunday)

Very surprised that I woke up at noon today (this is early granted the night before). Got some breakfast and then hung out in a restaurant across the street from where I stay with some other fighters all day long. Literally. We were just hanging out and cracking jokes long enough to order lunch and dinner from the same table.

We spent most of the day making fun of each other. Including me there was two Americans, two Brits, and one Australian. The accents and the different slang, provided for too many jokes.

It was raining all day today so there was nothing else to do anyway. The forecast says that there is nothing but rain for the next few days.

Later, I went out and got sushi with a thai lady who has a bar down the street from me. Real cool peoples. And she taught me some thai. So now my thai vocab consists of like 10 words. If I learn enough, I’ll be able to know when folks are talking about me. I hate not knowing.

Bad day (Tuesday)

Went hard at tiger today. Did one hour of body fit. Followed by a 2.5 hour class. That’s the good part of the day. The bad news is that my effing MacBook had been acting up for the last two days.

So I took it to the apple store in the mall (yes, I was surprised to find one too) and they tell me that the hard drive is fried. This will set me back about $150 for a new hard drive with osx installed.

This isn’t the bad part.

The bad part is that although I used mozy backup to the cloud, I hadn’t had it long enough for it to backup all of my stuff. It was still running the initial backup. So what this means is that I have a ton of video and pics from Europe, that are gone forever. No use in crying over spilled milk, right. But that was some good last-of-the-cereal-bowl milk!

Feeling Good (Wednesday)

Good news.I checked my mozy account and many of my europe vids and pics where saved. Only lost like 20% of my files. I’ll take it.

Training was good today, I feel myself getting stronger. Although it’s very easy to overtrain here. There are sessions from 7 to 7. I try to do only two to three and call it a day. So that would be from 3 to 4.5 hours of training. In my opinion that’s a lot and I think that’s a cool max to have. Anything more may be counterproductive.

I wasn’t really in bad shape when I first got here, but now that I’ve been here a couple of weeks, I can definitely feel my body changing.  The main change being that my pelvis bone feels noticeable sharper now.  This must be due to the reduction in fat around it. Also, my core just feels tighter overall. One night, a girl randomly asked me to take my shirt off and pose in a pic with her. I ain’t never had that happen.  I felt like my name should’ve been “The Situation” at that moment in time.

It's very hard to come back to American food/portions and expect to keep that shape. It's a constant struggle

I checked out a muay thai fight tonight in Patong at Bangla Stadium. There were some pretty good matches. I seem to pick-up something new each time I watch a match.

Chillax (Thursday)

Today I really wanted to take it easy. I’m starting to feel like five days of training per week is a good balance for me. So I only did one private session of muay thai. Then I chilled out the rest of the day.

From the first week I expressed that I wanted to fight. I was told today that I’m to fight at the next “BBQ Beatdown” fight night hosted by Tiger Muay Thai once a month. The funny thing is I’ve started to isolate myself more socially. This is because chances are I’ll be fighting someone I know. It would be more difficult for me to really ‘go-at’ someone I’m cool with.

Cheap Massages (Friday)

Today was pretty tough. Two privates and a body fit session. I’m wrecked. Its massage time, foe real. Man, I’m going to miss these cheap massages when I’m back in America ($10 max). When getting a massage, dude next to me was getting his legs waxed. He said that it didn’t hurt. I felt like that completely went against the grain of the stigma. So I got my arms waxed just to see how it felt. Uhhhm yeah. Let’s just say it didn’t feel ‘good’.

Tonight I’m going with one of my trainers to a fight at one of stadiums nearby. There’s like 4 Muay Thai stadiums in the area I think.  Should be interesting. He says one of his friends is fighting. Should be sort of like a class field trip.

Patong Beach…again (Saturday)

The fights last night were pretty good. I’m glad I went. Was able to study the culture of Muay Thai a bit more. And there definitely a culture. Like for example, every fight is 5 rounds. If both fighters know there is a clear winner, they won’t really fight during the fifth round. They kind of take a stance in front of each other and tap gloves multiple times until the bell rings to end the fight. I don’t understand this completely, because if your behind in points you could still win by knock out.

Went out to Patong beach again tonight, to celebrate with some peeps who are leaving soon. I think I had at least 12 beers that whole night. We club hopped and etc. Hilarious night. And sticking to beer was a great idea as I don’t really get drunk drinking them. Perhaps because I don’t binge drink beers? Or maybe my tolerance is sky-high by this point? IDK

Partying in a Tourist club kind of defeats the purpose of travel. But we had fun anyway.

Had an interesting cab ride on the way back. One of the guys hung his head out the window in the front seat to upchuck, while we were moving. And randomly all three of us in the back seat experienced what felt like rain drops. But it wasn’t water. Uhm…yeah.

When we got back home, we had to argue with the cab driver a bit. Dude wanted us to pay extra because there was some “spillage” on the inside of the passenger-side door.  At first I was like, “Sorry-foya! That’s what happens when you pick up some drunks.”  But then we had to do the right thing and pay him the extra fee for clean-up funds.  Besides, a tourist in a cash dispute with a cab driver often ends in a visit to jail, so I’m told.  And I don’t want NO parts of Thai jail…I’ve seen plenty episodes of “Locked-up abroad”.  No dice.

Beer Belly (Sunday)

Not much of a hangover, but I still feel those beers in my stomach. Training today was shit. No energy.

Still Feeling Beers (Monday)

Woke up sore today. Wished I didn’t train on Sunday. Should’ve took the day off. Had no energy today again. I think the alcohol is still affecting me. That’s it. No more drinking until after my fight. now it’s completely clear to me why fighters lay off the booze when training.

Tired of It (Tuesday)

I don’t feel like doing anything today. But I’ll go today and get it over with. My feet are sore from kicking pads like everyday. It’s starting to add up. And I tweaked my wrist a bit a while ago from a punch at the wrong angle. Everyday, I just keep re-aggravating it.

And on top of that I’m kind of bummed that some of the cool people that I’ve been hanging out with are all leaving. Feels like contiki all over again. You meet great folks and then they’re gone. Chances are you’ll never see them again. Definitely not all at once. Whelp. At least there is facebook.

Knee’d in the Nads (Wednesday)

Training today I knee’d my trainer square in the balls. Total accident. Felt helpless as I watched him grimace in pain on the mat. This was during a clinching exercise. I learned today that Im horrible at it. Dude tossed me down like 10x.

I felt like I had no energy today. Can’t figure out what it is. I think I’m not eating enough and hydrating enough. Another fighter also mentioned to add electrolytes to my water. Which is a great idea. I’ll get some from the pharmacy tomorrow.

Again (Thursday)

I injured my trainer again today. This time it was from another clinching exercise where I threw him bad. I had his leg trapped behind mine when I threw him. His knee is now jacked up. Felt like an ass again. Dude was really pissed, he would barely look at me when I attempted to apologize. That’s all I could do though.

I found out after the fact that it was an illegal throw. The good part about training here is that the majority of the trainers are thai. The bad part about this place is that the majority of the trainers are thai. Many can speak just enough English to tell you when to kick, punch, knee, block. But if you wanted a detailed explanation about a technique, rule, or strategy. You better learn thai. Or else your just going to struggle thru communicating like I’ve been.

Substitute Teacher (Friday)

Today I had a different trainer fill in for the one I injured. I still feel like a douche. We had a good session. I was reminded of how it’s good and bad to have multiple trainers because they’ll teach you different techniques and most will emphasis their favorites, however some of their techniques will conflict.

Trained Solo (Saturday)

One of my trainers cancelled today. So I spent that hour just working on my footwork and doing some shadowing. The muay thai style is still so foreign to me. I keep wanting to end up in a karate stance that I’m used to.  I’m slowly coming along.

Sparring (Sunday)

I was supposed to do some light sparring with another student today. But he cancelled on me to go play mini golf. So…plan B was to do some shadow boxing and go for a run, but then I just felt it’d be better to take a full day off and not do anything. And that was the best decision ever. I just chilled out and watched a bunch of movies on tv. Then at night went to Big C (kinda like Walmart). And got some shopping in for stuff I’ve been needing to get. I hadn’t had a full day off in like two weeks.

Found Energy (Monday)

I felt like a million bucks today. That day off helped a lot, and plus I picked up some Kraetang Dang (it’s what Red Bull derived from, way more syrupy with no carbonation) from Big C. I think drinking that a half hour before my workouts is giving me my mojo back also. I’m glad this is working.

I kept a stash of these bad boys in the fridge

Pre-Fight Day (Friday)

Had an easy day today, only one training session. Just worked on some blocks and did some shadowing. My trainer rubbed me down with some stuff that felt like liquid fire. Seriously, in think it was prescription strength IcyHot mixed with Dragon snot. I was just praying that I didn’t accidentally scratch my balls or my eye after contaminating my hands with that stuff. To anyone who’s ever accidentally did that with even just IcyHot…you know what I’m talking about.

But anyway, after my one session, I’ve just been chilling out in the room, laughing my ass off to Ricky Gervias clips on YouTube. Just chillaxing, trying to keep my mind clear.

BBQ Beatdown #40 (Saturday)

Today I laid around all day. Didn’t do too much. My trainer said to just chill out today. So I just ate and laid around, got a massage and did not much else. The fights started at around 8:30. I got over to camp by six.

So I just chilled,taped myself up, zoned out to my iPod. Warmed up with some shadowing and got on the stationary bike.

My videographer showed up. I almost forgot that I hired him.

Then one of my trainers arrived at 7. He was mad when he saw me dripping with sweat from the stationary bike. He felt like I was expending too much energy. It was kind of funny, how upset he was. This is because he had money riding on me.

So around 8.30 he started to oil me up with the extra spicy boxing oil again.

Its time to go to the ring and I’m having a whirl wind of emotions. I can’t believe I’m doing this. There’s no turning back now. Plus I aint no punk about my shit. If I lose, I’ma go in there like a man and lose. But still, ‘volunteering’ to fight takes a lot of strength. I was SO nervous.

I step in the ring. Samart (white shirt) tells me no matter what, win or lose, show that you got heart and you win all the same. He places a Mong Kon on my head, it is a head dress worn by Muay Thai fighters prior to a match when Wai Khru Ram Muay is performed. Wai Khru Ram Muay is a warm-up ritual that is performed to show respect to your instructors and Buddha.  You can walk to the four corners of the ring before going into an extensive Wai Khru Ram Muay. I just walk to all four corners of the ring and send up a prayer each time…to Jesus that is (as he’s my homeboy). Nothing against those that favor Buddha.  Just prayed for me to do my best, to keep me and my opponent safe from injury, for victory, and to stay relaxed. No extensive Wai Khru Ram Muay from me.

Round one.

We touch gloves and it’s on. I try to stay calm, but I want to attack his leg immediately. This is my game plan. My main focus is to leg-kick the shit out of this dude. This plan had nothing to do with me seeing his knee brace.  But please believe, I’m using that insight against him now that I see it. We trade a few blows and before I know it round one is over.

I go back to my corner and Samart (white shirt) and Sowat (black shirt) trainers are both talking as fast as the micro-machine man and at the same time.  I’m barely listening. I’m just trying to concentrate on catching my breath. But from what I did listen too, they basically tell me to keep up the leg kicks.

I’m like cool. I can do that.

Round two.

This round didn’t fly by like te first. But honestly, it was all a blur. An exhausting blur.

The round ends and I go back to my corner. Both trainers tell me to go for more body kicks and lay off the leg kicks (body kicks score more points). I’m tired as shit. So tired I can barely drink the water.

Round three.

Last round, I’m focused on not dropping my hands and opening myself to a knockout. Half way thru the round my opponent starts dry heaving. The ref tends to him with a standing eight count. I’m so hoping this is over. I’m SO tired.

The ref calls the fight. TKO. I win. Aaaw yeah. Sweet sweet victory. It feels so good.

Both of my trainers were pretty happy too.  During Muay Thai matches, there’s a ton of betting going down.  I won them both a nice sum of cash. I’m still waiting on my check…lol.

I’ve got the entire fight below, the footage starts with me getting taped up after the oil rub in one of the extra rings.

Post fight.

I talk with my opponent. Turns out he’s a cool dude. He said that he was out of gas by the third round. I said I was too. He said that was hard for him to believe because he saw me run around camp everyday. Psychologically that may have played a part in my win. This is why a few weeks before my fight, I didn’t like talking to anyone about the fight. And I definitely didn’t pay attention to watching dude train. I wasn’t trying to psych myself out. But anyway, afterwards we have a beer together and check out some of the other fights.

No to the Gatorade. Give me some of that Tiger Beer

I go home and shower. It’s time to party now. There were a few vans worth of people going to Patong. I hop in one. I swear I don’t even like that place. Patong Beach reminds me of a worse Amsterdam which is a worse Vegas.  It’s that sinful and filthy. But none the less, we still partied and had a BLAST.

I officially consider this one of the best nights of my life.

The next 30-days (POST-post fight)

I’m still training, but it’s not the same. I don’t really have the drive anymore to train really hard. Now, I’m just doing it for fitness and overall education of the art.  I thought about taking another fight in like 3 weeks, the next one being not so amatuer and being in Bangla Stadium.  A fight there would be 5 rounds versus 3 and no shin guards, and oh yeah…those viscous Muay Thai elbows would be allowed.

Bangla Stadium situated in Patong Beach above a few bars

I was tempted to do it.  But then I thought about how another 3 weeks of training real hard with the cloud of another fight over my head, would kill all of the fun that I could have over the next month.  I didn’t want my entire Thailand experience to be inside of a ring. Besides, I have no ambitions to go pro at this anyway.

Costs

You probably want to know how bad this hurt the pockets right. Here’s the breakdown.

I stayed in a bungalow with air conditioning, TV, mini-fridge, daily maid service, with community swimming pool. This was one of the better accommodations, was about 400 meters from camp, and cost me 16,000 baht per month.

For Tiger Muay Thai, I got the gym meal plan along with the training. With the gym meal plan, you were allotted 2 meals per day, 7 days per week. The menu was a selection of Thai and “western” food (steak, spaghetti, etc). And for the training, I had the package which included all classes.  These two items together ran 17,000 baht per month. And in addition to the class training, over the course of the 2 months, I had about 40 private 1-hour trainings for around 11,000 baht per month.

Add in laundry service, Patong nights, Death-trap AKA tuk-tuk fare, and so on. And the costs for the extras ran about another 10,000 baht per month.

With the approximate conversion of 30 Thai Baht to $1 USD.
The sum of 16k + 17k + 11k + 10k = 54k baht/30 = $1,800/month

I will say that you could definitely get by for a lot less. And I mean a lot less. You could probably visit and have a good experience by spending only half as much as I did.

Thailand is a pretty inexpensive place to visit. And one thing that I noticed about myself is that because everything was so cheap there, you tend not to save and make up for it by buying more and more often. I literally was getting 1-hour massages daily at one point…at only $6-$10 each, I almost had to.

Overall

My experience in Phuket, Thailand at Tiger Muay Thai was fantastic.  I learned a lot and got in great shape. And due to TMT’s global appeal, I met a ton of really cool people from a variety of countries. I’m planning to go back in the near future.  And when I go back, I’ll definitely not party so hard (maybe), check out some areas off the tourist trails, and step-it-up a bit and fight at Bangla Stadium.

Photo Credits:
Eustaquio Santimano , williamcho ,K Tao via photopin cc

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During the full moon in October of 2011, I headed to Koh Phangan, Thailand to check out the world renown Full Moon Party. I had heard so much about this shindig that there is no way that I could not check this out during my stay in Thailand.

My Experience

So I flew from Phuket to Ko Samui (scared to death on a propeller plane) and then took a ferry to the small island of Koh Phangan.

When I got off the ferry around 2pm I ran into some Australians that I sat next to on the plane.  I hung with them for most of the afternoon, we started tossing back some Chang’s together at a bar on the beach.

There was a cool atmosphere on the beach during the day. Frisbees were being tossed around, Matkot games going down (beach paddleball), sunbathing, swimming, and etcetera. It was a cool scene. I hopped on a jetski that I rented for 45 minutes and had a ball with it. It was by far the fastest I’ve ever been on. At 80% throttle, I had to have been at 60 mph. I was too scared to take it passed that because I already knew from previous experience how bad those crashes hurt. Besides, everytime I looked down I saw a group of jellyfish.

I may smoke some weed from time to time, but I’m definitely not into drugs

After that, I caught back up with the Aussie’s, nightfall was approaching.  We head up a steep set of stairs to a bar nestled in the side of a hill.  The nickname of this hill was “Mushroom Mountain”, if that serves as any clue what this bar is famous for.  All three of the aussies got themselves a mushy-shake.  They tried to peer-pressure me into trying one, I repeatedly declined.  Drinking a special shake that is supposed to make you hallucinate doesn’t sound like a good time to me.  I may smoke some weed from time to time, but I’m definitely not into drugs¹. However, the scene at this bar was priceless. I wish I took video.  There were so many people just completely smashed, it was very intruiging to watch.  The mushy-shake smashed, looks a lot different than the jack-and-coke smashed.  I’ll just say this, one of the guys from the group sitting next to us stood-up, started dancing by himself, then later wrapped his arms around an i-beam that supported the roof of the bar, and proceded to have a full-on makeout session with it². I wish I was making this up.

Following Mushroom Mountain we went back down to the main beach area, as people were starting to come out.  We walked to the area where they have this fire-jump rope. I had seen footage of this on YouTube before the trip and it looked mad dangerous.  I watched them literally dunk these ropes in what smelled like kerosene, then put fire to it.  When I first saw this in person, I was like, “aw hell naw. There is no way that I’m doing that. Uh-uhh not me.” Then, one of the Aussie’s jumped right in and this dude had on his backpack and a beer in his hand.  He made the dangerous look so simple. The result was me being flooded with feelings of bitchassness.  So despite the 2nd-3rd degree burn risks, I had to do it.

Following the jump-rope episode, we wandered towards the various bars where each had their own DJ. Mostly, decade-old Hip Hop or House music was the theme of any bar.  At around 10pm is when the beach was really packed with people having a good time, dancing, fire-jump-roping, mushy-shaking, water-sliding, ocean-peeing, and etcetera.

I was having fun until around 1am, when I realized, that there was literally nothing else to do that I hadn’t done already.  And the kicker was that I had no accommodations on Koh Phangan for that night.  This was on purpose, but this plan had backfired.  The plan to sleep on the beach, was the plan B after discovering that there were no vacancies on that island even way back when I arranged the plans to attend the Full Moon Party.  I wandered about for a couple more hours, by 3am or so I found a hard rickety-wooden beach chair to catch some Z’s on.  I was surprised that I was able to do this with music blasting in my ear while keeping one eye open for anyone trying to steal my backpack (containing my loot and passport) that I strategically hooked around my legs.

Towards 5am, I made my way back to the ferry pier and joined the crowd of people waiting to get off of Koh Phangan and back to Koh Samui.  Many of them had their accomodations on that island.  I wanted to get back to Koh Samui so I could reschedule my flight for 8am versus 3pm and get back to Phuket.

Thankfully, I was able to move my flight-up. No problem, No fees. When I got back to the crib in Phuket, I bought some pizza to-go, showered off the body-paint, and had me a nice 11 hour sleep.

I enjoyed my time at the Koh Phangan Full Moon Party. It was definitely an experience that I’d suggest to anyone who’s up for something new and outside of the norm party-wise.

This is why I felt it was a bit overrated.

1. Beach is way smaller than I thought. For some reason, I thought this stretch of beach would be a mile long at least.  It was really 300 meters, or at least that’s what it felt like.  When I first got there, I was like “this is it?”

2. A ton of people just high off their arse. Anyone who can dance in the same spot from 9pm to 4am has got to be nuts. Or just plain sky-high. There was definitely a consumption of more than alcohol at this function

3. Multiple occasions where a random Thai dude would try to sell me some drugs. I’m no regular customer when it comes to this. But I’m fairly certain dealers wouldn’t approach a random dude while he’s peeing in the ocean, asking him “My friend…Extacy?” This happened two additional times to me even when I wasn’t peeing. I know a setup when I see it.

4. Not as much going on as I thought there would be. I don’t know what I expected from the Full Moon Party, but I just expected there to be more. More than just alcohol, music, drugs, and fire shows.

Maybe I’m just too old for that scene.

If I was 20 and not 30 when I went, I think my opinion of this event would’ve been a bit more favorable.  Binge drinking beyond reason and doing countless things you’d regret in the morning are activities that I got out of my system years ago (minus the occasional relapse here and there).

I’m not here to turn you off from it.

If you’re going to go, be sure to do this…

• Definitely book accomodations on Koh Phangan.
• Don’t take any valuables with you. Take things that you could’nt care less if you lost it. Because I flew, I had my passport on me. I hated that fact.
• Watch your drinks. This function is known for the spiking of drinks. Don’t share with someone you don’t know, don’t leave your bucket and come back to it later. Basically, just use your brain. If you’re drinking, I’d suggest sticking to beer personally. safer option.
• Don’t buy any forbidden substances from these random dealers. I believe they setup multiple ‘sting’ operations on Koh Phangan during full moon nights to catch unsuspecting tourists.  That one little slip-up of you thinking you’re buying the stickiest of the icky can land you in Thai jail. And it could be as long as 6 months before they even hear your trial. I’ve YouTube’d enough “Locked-up abroad” episodes to call myself an expert on this. Trust me

Footnotes. …or better yet Footloose

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There have been heaps of television shows centered around the ooohs and aaaahs of “before” and “after” shots of revamped houses. Flip this house. Flip that house. Flip Flippety. Flip Floppety.

People ask me what I do. And I tell them I flip houses.

People ask me what I do. And I tell them, “I flip houses”.This is the response that is easily digested as most have some idea of what that means. But I’m actually one of those house flippers that does no work to the property. I buy as-is and resell as-is and am typically a couple thousand miles away. I don’t see these properties and the peoples that I sell to are gonna do all of the hammer-swinging. I’m the guy who would supply the property to the rehabber featured on a show like “Flip that house”.

So, technically I’m considered a real estate wholesaler which is just a fancy-term for “middle man”. Some folks would rather find properties on their own.  Others don’t care about buying it from a wholesaler who is also making a profit as long as the price is right.

You too can do this

The name of the game with the wholesaling biz, just like all biz is “Marketing”. You want to go through as many leads as possible. The more bad leads you have, the more good leads, and the more properties you’ll be able to flip, thus the more T-Rex eggs you can scramble.

The main three methods of marketing that I’ve found effective are bandit-signs, craigslist, and direct mail. And all three are capable from being administered from far away.

Bandit signs. These are signs that are placed on the side of the road, that say “We buy houses” and the like. These signs are very effective and yet very tacky. So tacky that homeowners notice the shit out of them and so tacky most cities have a ban on them. Which is why the term “bandit” is in the name because you’re basically breaking the rules by placing them out. Understand this, know the risks of the fines, and all will be good. It’s not breaking the law if you don’t get caught right? You can pay an assistant in your select local area to do this grunt work.

Craigslist. This website is very popular with real estate nowadays. With their clean and simple interface, it’s very easy for most homeowners to place a for-sale ad on this website. You can find tons of property on this site and simply shoot an email to the owner or phone call to possibly agree on a price.  You can also place an ad yourself to attract homeowners that says, “I’ll buy your house and I’ll pay with cupcakes”. Or whatever works.

Direct Mail. You can always go the direct mail route and send letters and/or postcards to those you feel may be most motivated to sell their property at a discount. Best results come when targeting people “going thru some thangs”.  These people could be those who got fired on their day off, going through divorce after a discovered text-message from the mistress, or their pet gerbil just died. Send these people a letter about wanting to buy their house, put it in a hot-pink envelope, with green ink, and litter it with a bunch of strawberry shortcake scratch-and-sniff stickers. In other words, get creative and stand-out if your going to snail-mail it. You can use an online mail service to dispatch your direct mail campaigns or you can hire someone local to your select area.

How to know what price to buy at

Use zillow to analyze most recent sales. Or better yet cash sales. Cash sales are an ideal filter for comparable-sale data because typcially investors are the people who are buying with cash. You’re going to want to sell to them, ideally.  And even if it’s not an investor, you’ll want to sell to someone buying with cash because a cash-offer without contigencies is much stronger than even a higher offer with a bunch of financing contingencies.  You don’t want someone to say that they’ll buy your property, then pull out of the deal at the last minute due to a financing contigency.

Once you have a good idea of what types of property, in what areas, and at what price is selling quickly for cash, you now know what your resell price is competing with. It’s best to price your property as the new low-comparable.  Therefore, you’ll need to work your profit in backwards from the resell price and then arrive at what your offer price per property needs to be. These days people only act fast when you have a “steal”. Not a “good” deal.  If the sales history tells you 3 bed/1 bath properties are selling for cash at 50K. You want to offer yours at 38K.  Which means you want to buy it for 25K.

The name of the game is numbers, numbers, numbers. Everyone isn’t going to be motivated enough to sell their property to you for an extremely low price.  But you will find those individuals, after you sift through enough people. It’s simular to the pick-up game. These guys have some of the cheeziest but funny chat-up lines. But they go through enough rejections to get to the girls that it actually works on.

So with that said, you can’t expect much from 20 bandit signs, you’d be better-off with 150.  Reply to 50 craigslist ads a day not 5. Send 200 letter pieces not 20. You smell what I’m cookin’…

And what price to resell at

Once you actually have a property under contract, the easiest thing to do is to put it on the MLS for resale. That way, you have a realtor who can facilitate showings for you and you can also take advantage of the MLS for exposure, which is very valuable (MLS = Big Ole Database that Realtors share).

With you not being on the ground in the area you want to utilize this realtor to the max. They need to give you an honest resell price opinion. They’ll put a lockbox on it if vacant or communicate with the residents to coordinate showings. If you have a strong roster of investor-buyers, then you may be able to avoid the MLS/realtor route. This is a bit more tricky. As you don’t just want a bunch of random tire kickers showing up to the house, having the lockbox code, or bothering the residents to get inside and take a look. You want the resell side of the transaction to be as smooth as eggs.

You don’t want to frustrate the owners at this point. They just want to close and move on with life. Once you have an end-buyer in place, you write up a contract with them that states yourself as the owner and them as the buyer and list the new price. Once you have two contracts in place you get the title work performed, to make sure that the title is clear and there isn’t a secret lien on the property for a bajillion dollars.

You may hire a lawyer to represent you at both closings.  This is an option as your lawyer can sign for you as your POA (Power Of Attorney = dude can sign your name on the docs) and also can take care of any hitches that may come up during the closing of either transaction.

Payday

You can let the Realtor coordinate with your lawyer, title company, buyer, and seller for closing date/times. Then you can sit back and wait for the wire to show-up in your bank account.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I’m talking about. Go pay $200/hour to someone that does if you are seeking legal advice.

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For only my second time ever out of the country I chose to spend a total of close to 3 months away during the summer of 2011. This consisted of about 3 weeks in Europe and 2 months in Thailand. The Euro-trip was pretty spontaneous, decision-wise. In the spring, a college friend of mine said, “Hey, me and a friend are thinking about Europe this summer. Do you want to go?” and I was like “F#€$ yeah!” Simple as that.

The trip was a Contiki tour. I had never heard of this company or concept before I went. Contiki is a company that facilitates tours, their target group is 18 to 35 year olds and they do Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and North America.

Contiki, contiki…where do I begin. I had ‘no’ idea what I was getting into. This whole trip was one non-stop party. I had too much fun and the tour span of 16 days felt like a week.

The main locations that were included in this trip were Paris, Nice, Monaco, Florence, Rome, Venice, Munic, Amsterdam.

Great times were had, dope memories. And I met some pretty cool peoples that I don’t think I would’ve met under different circumstances.  There were Aussies (Australians), Kiwis (New Zealanders), Singaporeans, Canadians, Japanese, South Africans, and Americans.  If I could do it all again starting tomorrow, I would without hesitation.

 However, I will say this…

There would be a couple of tweaks to make for a better trip. If you’re planning to Contiki it up soon, this may help you.

 The Bus.

Contiki offers different variations of tours that visit different cities with different modes of travel.  For the el’ cheapos, you can go for the bus.  For those balling outta control, you can opt for the train or plane travel mode. During a 16 day trip, we had to have been on that damn bus for a sum of 4 days.  It seemed as the pattern went like, arrive in new city, check stuff out, go on walking tour, get some food, drink, snap some pics, drink, party, sleep, get up at 7am for the bus, try and sleep-off your hangover while avoiding leg-cramps. Next city. Repeat.

Resolution.

Don’t be stingy and spring for the non-bus option. With this option, you’ll have less road time, more in-city time. Otherwise, you better bring a good-ass neck pillow, and an iPad with beacoup movies pre-downloaded from iTunes.

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 Bed Bugs.

Some of the hostels and hotels that Contiki contracts with in select cities aren’t quite up to snuff.  Your digs can range from “home sweet home” to “I’d rather sleep under the stars in my drawers”.  On my trip, there were quite a few cases of bed bug attacks. Seeing how those bites looked on people turned my stomach.  I was one of the lucky ones that wasn’t a victim.

Resolution.

Contiki gives you a new sleeping bag for your trip. Use it ‘always’.  The reason for the sleeping bag, they say is because all of the accommodations don’t have bedding sheets.  Which they all didn’t.  But what they’re indirectly stating is, “some of the hostels and hotels are filthy, so you might just want to use this at all times”.  I always slept in my sleeping bag and even fully clothed at the dingiest places. I was good to go.

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 Euro Wall Outlet.

Sometimes you may be sharing a room with 3 other people and there is only one damn outlet in the whole place.  Everyone wants to charge their iPhones and DSLRs at once.  Not happening.

Resolution.

Bring a multi-outlet extension cord.  Just a small one that is around 4 feet would do and that has about three receptacles on it. In those worst-cases you’ll need the length to plug-in behind some furniture.  And of course, don’t forget the outlet adapter. Get a universal one.

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 Theft.

I took my MacBook, iPhone, iPod, iPad (call me a fanboy, I guess) because I wasn’t going home for 2 months after Contiki.  However, please believe me when I say, don’t bring anything of major value unless you really have to.  When you’re sharing a room with others who may have a guest with sticky fingers, or have them themselves. It’s best not to have anything of major value. I did have a cable-lock for my MacBook, but I preferably wouldn’t have had any of my pricey stuff with me at all. These things stayed on my mind.

Resolution.

Don’t bring anything that would kill your entire mood for the trip if it got lost/stolen.

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 Luggage.

I thought I was being smart by only bringing a carry-on suitcase and backpack with me on this trip.  I precisely folded all of my stuff and surprised myself with how much I was able to get in them.  I only brought carry-on luggage because I didn’t want the hassle of baggage-claim-wait and customs-exit during connecting international flights (if different carriers are used). I was too smart for my own good.  Because I had to play Tetris during the mornings when it came time to leave for the next city.

Resolution.

Bring a large luggage piece, fill it with as much as you can while staying under the 44 pound limit that Contiki enforces. You should also leave room to bring some stuff back, if you want.

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 Souvenirs.

Skip the souvenirs, everything is going to seem so cool at first. You’ll want to impulse buy a bunch of stuff.  But chances are, you’ll get home and never wear or look at it again.

Resolution.

Save  your souvenir money and spend it on an experience.  They’re much better than tangible things.  Splurge on that really nice restaurant for lunch, bet the team of kids on the streets hustling that you can break-dance better than them, pay to have a dozen doves released. Whatever you’re into.

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 Walking Tours.

Many times, you’d be better-off wandering around on your own and checking stuff out.  Walking tours are exhausting.  They feel like a job to me.  Like I should be getting paid to follow you while you walk backwards and say things that I can barely hear anyway.  Besides, a lot of the stuff that is learned, you may just forget in like 2 days anyway.

Resolution.

Don’t just do tours because it’s what you’re supposed to do.  Do them because you genuinely have an interest in the architecture of the house Michelangelo grew up in.

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 Sleep.

Do fight the temptation to sleep-in or go to bed early while the rest of the group is out having a blast.  I promise that the rest will not be worth missing all of the fun.  And the best stuff always happens when you miss-out.

Resolution.

Man-up. Go with the group, even when you’re tired. I made the mistake of going to bed early one night and was mad jealous when I heard about the eventful night had. Don’t do this. Sleep when trip is over.

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 Contiki Clubs.

I believe Contiki has a contract with all of the hostels/hotels that are a part of the trip.  Most of these places have a bar with music and many times, there would just be multiple Contiki tour groups at these places.  Primarily this was the case because the site was far from the city-center.  This is fine and all. But it kind of sucks to be in Rome and be around a bunch of Australians.

Resolution.

Hire a cab and go on a random excursion in a particular city with some of your tour mates.  Find a local hangout. Go where there is a language barrier. This option would definitely trump some of the canned-events that Contiki would have.  I regret not doing this.

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 Drinking.

Contiki tours are known for the party aspect. And when I say “party”, I mean the indulgence in adult beverages. AKA Booze.

Resolution.

If you’re going to lush it up, I’d suggest getting a couple of handles at the airport, duty-free.  This way, you’ll save some cash. And you won’t have to pay the equivalent of bar prices just to pre-game. Nah Mean.

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 Sickness.

Nearly everyone on this trip got sick.  They called it the “Contiki Cough”.  After a while of always being on the move, sleep deprivation, binge drinking, and loads of time on a bus with poor air-circulation. Your body might just cry foul.

Resolution.

Be conscious of your health always and still choose foods that are proper for a good immune system.  Don’t drink excessively. And it might just be a good idea to bring your own asprin, pepto, nyquil, hot toddy,first aid kit, and etcetera. You definitely don’t want to have to hunt for meds when you’re under the weather.

If I had someone tell me this stuff in advance, what was a good experience could’ve been mo’ better. A Contiki trip will give you just a glimpse of multiple areas. This is a good way to sample different locations so you can decide later where to return to for a longer period of time. There are some with bias towards backpacking independently and some towards a tour group. There are pros and cons to each, but I don’t think you could go wrong with Contiki, especially if you’re new to the concept of international travel. It has definitely opened my eyes and given me the desire to see more of the world and create new experiences.

The post Contiki Holidays : The stuff I wish I knew beforehand appeared first on Myinnerg.

The short-answer is. Yes

Per vehicle mile traveled, a motorcyclists’ risk of a fatal crash is 35 times greater than a passenger car. One of the main reasons motorcyclists are killed in crashes is because the motorcycle itself provides virtually no protection in a crash.  Approximately 80 percent of reported motorcycle crashes result in injury or death; a comparable figure for automobiles is about 20 percent.¹

These are the facts. And I can’t argue with the numbers, we know they never lie.

What I can say is. They’re SOOOO FUN

I’ve been a fan of bikes since I was in High School.

But, there was no way, I was getting a bike because my Mom is terrified of the idea of motorcycles (and still is). She wasn’t having that.

A few years back, I got the itch for a bike. At the time I was living in Champaign, Illinois. For such a small college-town, it seemed like everyone had a bike. When it was warm out, that’s all I saw and heard.

I did the smart thing.

I took a Motorcycle Safety Foundation course through the University of Illinois. The class was 4 hours per day for 5 days.  The course started with an overview of how motorcycles work, this is the clutch, this is the throttle, and by the end you’re riding, displaying proper control and technique. A bonus with this course was that by passing it, you automatically received your motorcycle drivers’ license. I passed with flying colors (what’s the origin of that phrase anyway).

Then I got me an 06 Suzuki GSXR 600 (and safety gear of course…helmet, jacket, gloves).

Here’s some footage of me on it and having a little fun with my GoPro HD camera.

It was LOVE.

Despite the acknowledged dangers, you can’t keep me off of it.

Are motorcycles really that dangerous? Yes.

Are they really that fun? F#€$ yeah!

The moral of the story is to ride within your limit, don’t do any stupid shit (wheelies and other pointless stunts), and be aware of absolutely everything and everybody on the road.  Even avoid certain roads if your intuition tells you to. I know I do. Ride like everyone is trying to kill you…

• Don’t just see that car on the right-side of you. See into the car. Is that girl texting?
• Avoid Grandpa who’s been driving along in the turning lane for the last quarter-mile.
• And there’s something about reckless drivers and WalMart and McDonalds.  I find they seem to frequent such establishments. Be extra alert near the entrances/exits of them.

If you’ve been thinking about getting a bike, but have been a bit timid about it.

I say DO IT.

There are plenty of dangers in life and if you let all of them hold you back then you’re not ‘living’.

Footnotes. …or better yet Footloose

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