“At times of change, the learners are the ones who will inherit the world, while the knowers will be beautifully prepared for a world which no longer exists.”

-Alistair Smith

Keep going little man. You’re making your daddy really proud.

Alex Javier Becerra

One year ago today, I was in a hospital room with my wife, Jo. She was a few hours into her 17 hour labor that would result in the birth of my most favorite person in the world: My son, Alex. Now, I Have a One Year Old. Moments after his birth I felt a string of emotions that never thought existed. The way I saw the world changed the second I laid eyes on him. I felt nothing but joy and gratitude.

Then came the sleepless nights, the flying poop, the grumpiness, the constant interruptions, the broken back, and… parents like to complain (rightfully so!), but in all honesty: I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Happy Birthday, Alex. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

I love you.

All That Matters

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about moving. Not just to down the street or over to the next city, but quite literally moving from one state to another. A fresh start.

The video below has got me wondering that maybe it’s not a physical change I seek, but a change in mind. I started thinking of all the boxes and clutter I have around the house. I have so many books and shoe boxes in storage collecting dust.

I find that as much as I buy things, as much as I keep things around; I’m never truly happy. Only when I choose to not focus on those things and have only my wife and son around do I find peace. Only then do I feel whole. Away from all the silly stuff that keeps me consistently distracted from what matters most to me.This video was has got me thinking. Maybe it’s time for an edited life.

Battlefield 3 is a great game with some of the best online gaming experiences this year, yet they have some of the most frustrating server issues on the planet. It’s hard for me to imagine that a game like Battlefield 3 (Developed by Dice. Backed by EA) has ridiculous server issues. Like the multiplayer is offline on DAY ONE kind of ridiculous. Or NEVER being put in the same squad as my party. Even worse is when someone from my party is on the other team. The game is blast once I’m actually in a game with everything working! However, that’s like agreeing to having a great tasting cake with only a spoonful of shit as an ingredient.

In all my years of gaming (yes, I’m a big nerd) I have never seen a franchise with worse server issues than Battlefield. You won’t see this in the upcoming Call of Duty game. You didn’t see this when Gears of War came out. That’s because those games don’t have a bunch of ass clowns running their servers.

Honestly, DICE/EA get some new server people cause the ones you have are a big reason your games don’t (won’t) beat the Call of Duty franchise. Which is too bad cause I really wanted to see you shine.

My Food pre-blender

So I’ve been juicing for the last three days. The hardest day was the second day. I was angry, fussy, impatient, and hungry. I felt pretty miserable and started getting a headache by the end of the day. However, when I started my third day I felt rejuvenated. I had energy and Jo mentioned that my skin looked “Different.” I took a and sure enough, it seemed and felt healthier. I’ve lost nearly 10 pounds since I started juicing 3 days ago. Which is probably all water weight, but I’ll take it.

I feel healthier. I’m getting full on juice. I get hungry about ever 2-3 hours, but I just make another juice and I’m fine. Not as cranky and not as tired, but still craving a pepperoni pizza…and a hot dog. You know, the ones from Costco. Out of all the things I thought I would be craving, I didn’t think it be anything from Costco.

Over the last couple days Alex has been a little sick and it would seem that whatever he has is making it’s way to both Jo and me. My nose is runny, my throat is sore, and I’ve got this cough that’s beginning to annoy me. A cold maybe? I’m hoping that my recent boost in nutrients will help.

I think I might have broken the rules a bit. Yesterday. I had an important meeting yesterday and I was in a bit of a hurry. I was scurrying around trying to make sure I didn’t forget anything and once I was in my car I reached over out of habit and grabbed a stick of gum. 5 Gum to be exact. I started chewing and about 10 seconds later I realized that while I’m not eating anything, I probably shouldn’t be gnashing on this thing like coyote with rabies. I spit the gum out and chugged some water in hopes that my body won’t notice.

One more day to go…

I totally failed.

Recently, I heard about this movie – Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead – from a good friend of mine. I saw it and was completely inspired. I wasn’t so much impressed by the main character of the movie. The man is rich, has the time and money to put his work aside to tend to his health. However, this man helped another. Phil, a truck driver from Iowa totally blew my away. The man weighed 429 pounds when he decided to start juicing. The man looses a ridiculous amount of weight and is healthier now more than ever.

So, I’ve started a challenge yesterday to drink nothing but juice for the next 5 days. I’m doing this in the hopes of detoxing. I also hope that this will change what I think I need to eat. Essentially, I want willpower. I want to feel like I’m in control when the time comes for me to choose to eat. It’s been too long since I’ve had any kind of self discipline when it comes to food and I’m hoping this will help.

I went out to the store and bought what seems like an absurd amount of vegetables. I had initially thought I was doing the 15 day challenge because it seemed like to much. I mean seriously, all this in my body in 5 days. Damn.

This is my food over the next 5 days

Seriously, absurd.

However, something that’s coming across lately is the message that it’s not about being skinny, it’s about being healthy. I’m really tired of caving in and stopping by the closest, most convenient fast-food restaurant. I want to change my lifestyle, I don’t just want another diet.

It’s been nearly two days since I started and the hardest part so far is loosing coffee. I’m an avid coffee drinker and not having any for the next few days seems way harder than I thought it would be. I’m tired and cranky. I’ll have bursts of energy through out the day and then I crash. It’s been hard, it hasn’t been long so I’m sure my body still needs to adjust.

I have little hope at this point and am not sure I can make it. Jo’s been great in patience and motivation. Here’s to hoping I don’t drive her crazy. I’ll try to update my blog daily this week. I might not have the energy, but we’ll see.

Here’s some more info on juicing: Join the Reboot

Good bye cable

Jo and I decided to cancel our TV cable and depend solely on the internet – coupled with Netflix & Hulu Plus – for our entertainment needs. Truth be told we don’t have the time to watch TV as much as we used to. We also tend to channel surf a lot with cable, but when we decide to watch either Netflix or Hulu Plus, we know exactly what we want to watch and how long it’ll take us.

The one thing I’m probably going to miss the most though is HBO. We’re definitely loosing some shows and networks, but what we’re loosing looks so small in sight of what we’re gaining. I’m sure we’ll be back to cable one day, but for now we’re going to enjoy more time together, read more books, enjoy the extra $130 out pocket, but most importantly we’ll be spending more time with our son.

Anthony Weiner taking the infamous snap shot.

So, David Vitter can sleep with prostitutes and the President of the United States can get a blow job in the oval office, but Mr. Weiner can’t take a snap shot of his schlong to send over twitter without being forced to resign.

US politics are joke, the news networks are a joke, and we’re all a bunch of morons who don’t realize that the joke is on us. There are so many more important things to worry about and I can’t believe how disgustingly stupid the everyone has been obsessed with this story.

/rant…

Is this game worth the buy or is this a rental? Here’s the scoop.

The Story
The campaign this time is longer and is a lot more plot oriented, but it doesn’t get to deep. The story is simple really: You’re back as Chell from the first game only it’s been many years later. All you want is to escape Aperture Science, but you have to go through their test chambers. Along the way you run into a bot named Wheatley, who’s more than willing to assist you. All is going according to plan then BAM! Conflict (no spoilers here kids). Test chambers get more difficult and the campaign goes for another half before closing with a bang.

Along the way you will hear some AMAZING voice acting. As well as some hilarious lines that will have you laughing out loud. No Joke, I’ve never laughed so much during a game. Simply put, the writing team really outdid themselves and put something together that has you grinning ear to ear.

Well done. Here come the test results: ‘You are a horrible person.’ That’s what it says. We weren’t even testing for that.

Play the Game Doc
It’s easy to play this game. If you know how to handle a controller you will have no issues walking around solving puzzles. The fact is that these puzzles are just fun to solve. They never get too hard nor reach hair pulling status; you always feel good after solving a puzzle. There isn’t anything too different from the first game with the exception of different sorts of special goo that do everything from making you bounce off surfaces to making you run really, really fast. When these are introduced the game get’s that extra oomph you’ve been waiting for.

Atlas and P-Body take on GLaDOS

The More the Merrier
Multi-player, finally! You get to play either online or locally with a friend. This isn’t the same story as the single player mode, this is something completely different. New story, new characters, new equally challenging puzzles. Even the writing is superb. The multi-player is just about as long as the single player, which is just awesome.

The Bad Parts – Loading…
Okay, this game isn’t perfect. The game suffers from repetitiveness. The levels start to blend together and all start looking alike after a while. The second half reinvigorates the pace, but quickly slows back down until the end. Speaking of slowing down…

The loading in this game is awful! It’s not that it takes forever to load a level, it’s that it’s always loading. Seems like every  5-10 minutes the game is loading. There is a part in particular where you are running for your life, walls are crashing down, fire seems to be chasing you, the music is intense. Then out of no where, “Loading…” A brutal 20-30 second loading screen that completely pulls you away from the action. This is absolutely terrible Valve. There’s no excuse for this, the technology has been around long enough to load more than one test chamber per load. In fact, I don’t remember it being this annoying in Portal 1.

Nevertheless, these issues don’t take much away from the total experience and it would be a shame for you to skip out on this bases on some minor (albeit annoying) negatives.

The Verdict
The issues in this game are nothing to the amount of enjoyment you will have playing this game. It’s definitely worth the buy. The game is jam packed with awesome sauce.

Portal 2 gets my recommendation. Go out, buy it. Then hit me up on Xbox Live for some co-op!