HCM Online: Handmade: the other side of Wiest

My latest report online, check it out.

HCM Online: Handmade: the other side of Wiest

Could be illegal

I must say that even when I was younger and living in Tucson, I didn't like the way that McCain was handling the immigration situation. It just doesn't seem right to put up a huge physical boarder.

Check out this link to npr.org http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126206542

Not my Finger!

This is just unfortunate.

Day 7

So here I am, it has been one week. One week since I have had meet of any sort, and I don't feel that different.

I have been lifting and practicing all as usual nothing has really changed that much when it comes to my stamina while in practice, or in the weight room.

The one thing that gets me though, is the fact that I feel like I get hungry a lot sooner after a meal. When I was eating meet I could have three meals a day and be fine. Without the meet I feel like I have to constantly eat to keep my stomach quiet. I wonder why that is exactly.

I drink a lot more water. I mean like almost twice as much before I started this diet. I feel like I should have it coming out of my ears, but it all stays in.

I was in pretty bad shape last week when it came to having ideas of what I was going to eat, or make that is. I knew that I couldn't just have smoothies and soup, so I got some recipes from my mom. She gave me her ancient awesome recipe to make my favorite, broccoli soup, also some money (that was needed) to go and purchase the ingredients. Thanks mom. Hopefully I can make it sometime this week.

Day 2 Part 2

So I am at the end of my day, and I am feeling different. I have done a minimal amount of physical activity today, just practice, no lifting; I didn't eat as much as I should have, so I feel like I have less energy. I had cereal for breakfast, a salad for lunch, my protein shake, and some couscous with peaches. Think I am going to step it up tomorrow and make some Mac N' Cheese like mom makes it.

Going to have to shop this weekend. I do have some boca burgers still though, gonna have to use those somehow.

Day 2

I just wanted to post this link to an article and graphic that I am keeping in mind with every meal so far.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/medical/IM02769

Trying to make sure that I do this smart, don't want to lose my hair faster than Mike Zimmerman.
Sorry Mike.

Day 1

I woke up a vegetarian. I had a simple meal, it was some Kashi "strawberry fields" cereal. It was a good way to start the day off.

My big hurdle for today though was giving blood. It has been about 2 years since I have donated blood and I was worried about how my body was going to recover from this. I took in about a gallon of water over the course of the day to help the process. Something worth noting while I was giving blood, I witnessed a girl that passed out. She was talking to me just a few minutes before, and she finished giving blood, then I saw her face go pale and neck go limp. First time I had ever seen anything like that. She was ok a couple minutes later.

For lunch I had some cheese pizza, and an apple.

I had practice at 2pm that included a lot of running today, so I didn't really feel to great, I am sure that was because of donating blood. I made it through practice, had an hour off then had to go hit. Hitting went fine, once again I am pretty sure that my body was a little slower because of the missing pint of blood. I actually worked out as well, right after hitting. I felt just fine lifting, felt like I had all of the energy I needed.

Dinner was couscous with some peaches, and lightly sauced potatoes with some onions. It tasted very good. Made me full. I like to eat good food. I capped the night off with some cheesecake that my girlfriend so graciously gave me for valentine's day. Thank You Quinn.

I must say I did have trouble not eating pepperoni pizza today. it was offered to me and I almost slipped up because I was not thinking as a vegetarian. So I am going to have to work on keeping my mind involved in making these eating decisions.

Let's see how I feel on day 2.

Coming soon...Vegetarian

So a while back, I believe it was in august, I was approached by my good friends Sara Tall and Anna Mullen. They told my buddy Colton and I that they were going to try going vegan for 40 days. They asked us if we would want to try going vegetarian for 40 days. We accepted enthusiastically.

Now, Colton and I being baseball players wanted to know when exactly we would be doing this, and when we were informed that it would be during lent, we both started a cold sweat. We were thinking about how it would effect our body and performance. We do workout and have practice everyday, so we don't want to lose anything physically, but we did still agree to try it.

Well, on Monday I let Colton know that we start our new vegetarian diet on Wednesday, the 17th or this coming Wednesday. Colton replied, "I don't think I'm going to do it man." I was mad that he decided to back out on this and let him know. He may still want to participate, but probably not.

Anyway, I have been getting ready for this day. I have been eating boca burgers, more veggies, granola, soy milk, pastas, salads, smoothies, you name it. I am going to try and be a vegetarian for 40 days, that means no meat for me at all, not even fish. I plan on making this a great learning experience not only for myself, but all of the people reading this blog.

I will blog as much as my schedule allows me. I plan on sharing with you what I have been eating, how I feel both mentally and physically, and if it really sucks being a vegetarian or if it is the best thing that ever happened to me.

So my first day already poses a nice start, I am going to give blood, have practice and lift. Plus all of the homework that has to be finished as well.

Here I go.

I was elected to lead, not to read

There have been and will be a ton of people who will step into managing positions. I myself have done this recently, as the station manager of KFKX, but this has not been the only time that I have been considered the head honcho of a group of people. I mean in High School I was the football captain and was involved student government, I was an example, I would like to believe.

I have always been a leader by example. I am not saying that I have always been successful, just saying that is how I do it. Really when I think about the job that I am doing I always think of what I can do to make myself and the people around me better.

Over my Christmas break I was at home and got to enjoy being with my family and seeing friends, but and I know that this is going to sound so stereotypical little boy of me, but I really was glad to see my dad. So many things come to mind when I think about dad, but while at home we had a really good conversation that must have lasted about 5 hours. We had just played racquetball, he killed me. After racquetball however, he took me out to lunch, so we hit a Subway to get some grub. Once we had our meal we got to talking; you know father son time. Anyway, my dad has been a school superintendent in Center, Colorado for the better part of 14 years and there does not seem to be any signs of that changing anytime soon.

I asked him what he does to manage all of those people. Now, the words that he told me next I am going to remember forever. My old man told me that he surrounds himself with good managers, good people, then he leads them.

At first I thought well you manage all of those people. He kinda sounded like Jesus when he told me "I show them the way." I know my dad is not the reincarnated son of God, but damn is he noble. I got to ponder that for the whole break and still do, but this is my rendition of leadership now.

If I can show the people that work with me that working with me will lead them to new heights then that is what it is all about. Not just making sure that a person gets a project done, but inspire them to do more. This may very well be a chain reaction or domino effect; if I do things inspired then perhaps others will be inspired by me and others by them and so on. I am not claiming that I am going to change the world or every person that comes into contact with me like Captain Planet, or maybe that was a bad example. You get the gist though right?

It's not about managing, because that can just ensure that everything will be the same. You have to lead and inspire, because once someone has caught the inspiration bug there is no telling where or how far they will go.

The Mad Media World

I have been very busy as of late. This week I have been spending a lot of my time inside the friendly, demanding and I guess I would say ultimately productive confines of The Gray Center the media building on the Hastings College campus.

I was named the Station Manager for 90.1 KFKX in August this year. I have had bumps to go through, but all of the hard work that I have been doing this semester with my staff has really paid off so far. We are doing News Updates twice a week, We are now Podcasting all of our shows on itunes, a new website is in construction and we have even done a community service project. The goals that i have set for the station, be a window for campus and the community, and increase listener-ship, are a definite reality now.

I am also a part of HC Media as a whole however, and it is just about the end of the semester which means it is time for some changes in leadership. Now, KFKX's leadership is not changing this semester, because I still have another year of school, and people are pleased with my performance so far, but the other mediums will be changing. The Collegian is going to have a new editor, HCTV6 a new executive producer and hcworldnews is getting its own new webmaster.

All of these people are my peers, the people who are stepping down, and the people replacing those people. I find this to be a very interesting period of change. As I am going to become the senior leader within the media all of a sudden. OK, not all of a sudden like it was unexpected, but I didn't realize that this was going to happen until today. Just in August I was the new guy, I was learning how to become a Station Manager. Literally, I was learning how to manage about 30 people who are in some way involved with the station, and at the same time recruit new people and get my goals accomplished. So what I am saying is that I looked at how the other leaders carried themselves and manged their own staffs, I was the newbie. Now I am the example, the old oak tree if you will.

I am excited to see how I can help my peers in there new jobs and molding their particular mediums. I think I will feel like a father watching his children grow up, learning all of the things that I just recently did and seeing them become their own leader. I will be there to help, but at the same time I will be there to observe and not ever interfere with any sort of progress.

Soon it will be time for me to leave, well not soon, but in do time I will be gone and the next kid that inspires to be the KFKX Station Manager will be called up from the minors to the show and so goes the cycle.

I would like to

There are things that I would like to do. I would like to graduate from college. I would like to be happy. I would like to know how things work.

I have been thinking lately about what I will do with the college education that I will have in just a year and a half. What will I do? I certainly don't intend on wasting it, is there a way to waste an education other than choosing to do nothing with it? I don't think so.

How I want to use my education:
I want to hear stories. Not just campfire stories, but life stories. I am extremely interested in human beings and what makes them tick. This is not biological, and I am not looking to find drama queens. With my education, Media Production, Journalism, Design and so on, I want to be able to tell other people's story's. My great plan so far is to find a company or entrepreneur that is willing to spend a little money on me, and ask them to pay for my journey's. Remember, I want to tell people's story's. I will find people anywhere in the world. My intention is to spend a month with a single person, listen to them, ask them questions, see how they handle their lives. I want to show the world how it is to be Joe from Pennsylvania or Jenny the mill worker or Tim the first time home buyer. I want to tell stories.

I will bring all of this together by creating a website that has their stories, remember this will be one story a month roughly, and I will update it while I am with the person. I intend there to be audio as well as video and text and pictures, but the material things are not the focus.

From what I have learned here, I understand that the message is the focus, and my focus here will be their stories.

My update

It has been a while since my last blog. I am now the Station Manager of 90.1 KFKX the Hastings College radio station, I am a college junior ready for anything.

I am constantly busy with the new job, but i remain excited anyhow about what the station can do for the campus and community. I am however, ready for this semester to begin winding down, soi can see friends and family for the holidays.

I will try and keep up to date last week was super busy for me, because of the Artist Lecture Series here at Hastings College, for which I set up a press conference, made audio packages and even wrote my first column for the campus newspaper, The Collegian. If you want to check that stuff out go to www.hcworldnews.com.

The grind it out days

Here I am in Hastings again, I really made the most of break in my mind seeing everyone that I could and just relax.
Being back in Hastings however means once again that it is business time baby. I have plenty of cool things to continue working on in HC media and baseball is in full swing, by the way I had a game doubleheader yesterday in Iowa against Iowa Western Community College, went 4 for 5 with a 2 doubles 2 singles and a pair of walks. We won both games, and I needed a day like that.

Anyway, I had my radio show Tuesday night, that went well I will be uploading the Podcast soon so look for that on itunes under HC media Podcasts. I also created a YouTube Channel for KFKX the Hastings College radio station, so once I load some videos on there be sure to check that out and join our channel it's called KFKX, pretty simple ay?

Another Sunny Day

Yesterday's excursion to Seven Falls turned out great, the weather really held up great for us. I was surprised at how many stairs we had to climb, it was almost a purely vertical staircase. One very interesting note that I have for you is that at the bottom of the falls a person could actually purchase fish food to feed the rainbow trout and the brook trout that are there, cant say I have ever fed trout... well not intentionally anyway. There was some nice short trails back behind the falls we ended up following a trail that led us to another smaller waterfall called Midnight Falls it only took about 15 minutes, but its always nice to walk in the woods. Anyway, I have posted several pictures from yesterday on here hope you enjoy them, even the one of my ugly mug.

It is another sunny day in The Valley here, so I will be outside for sure, maybe golf, tennis, or some fungo golf good time lie ahead my friends.

Yesterday was really cool, The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo was awesome, there were giraffes, peacocks, gorillas, lions, bears... all of the essentials for a zoo. Today however I will be hiking up Seven Falls, because yesterday I spent around 4 hours at the zoo and just couldn't bring myself to go hike up a waterfall. So I will be headed up towards the falls shortly within a few hours I would say, as soon as my sleeping beauty of a girlfriend awakens from her slumber on her elder sister's very comfortable red velvet couch.

After the falls I'm pretty sure that we will hit up one of the shopping malls here in Springs and after meandering around there for a while the next step will be to head back home to the valley driving over La Veta Pass to get home. I will include some pictures of my adventures today hopefully after I get back home tonight.

Colorado Springs It Is!

One day later and I am in Colorado Springs. I realize this was my third option, but after thinking about the possibilities and time constraints and lack of money that is in my budget, "The Springs" it had to be.

Colorado Springs is actually going to be pretty cool for me. There is plenty of things that I have not had the opportunity to take in around here like Seven Falls, The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, and Garden of the Gods. Another plus is the weather; it is going to be around 73 degrees today according to NOAA.com so this really won't turn out too bad. I love the outdoors and hiking so Seven Falls will be a great experience probably will make for some good pictures as well. The zoo will be cool seeing as I have only ever been to Reid Park Zoo in Tucson Arizona, and the less than spectacular Pueblo Zoo. Also there will be enough time to meet up with my folks and have some lunch sometime today, and they are staying in the Broadmore so maybe we will be able to walk around there tonight, a great St. Patrick's day lineup.

First off

It is currently my spring break and I am at home. Home is the San Luis Valley, which hosts the Great Sand Dunes, The Rio Grande River, Zapata Falls, Pennitente Canyon, Potatoes, The Sangre De Cristo Mountains, The San Juan Mountains acres of national forest and the little known UFO Watchtower.

It is good to be home, but it is spring break and although the vernal equinox is nearing the weather here in the valley is not exactly spring material if you know what I mean. So I am thinking about actually heading west or south, (because moving farther away from the equator means colder weather and all that lie east is impenetrable Midwest farmland) and possibly becoming known as a snowbird I understand this, but who doesn't want warm weather for spring break? My budget reflects that of a college student who lifeguards at the YMCA, and does a little lab monitor work one night a week, so the possibilities of travel do indeed come to an end. My girlfriend and I have figured two options for travel, northern Arizona, or southwestern Utah. I suppose if those plans fail there is always Colorado Springs right?