When it comes to time management, different people tell you to spend your time in different ways.  Your trainer will tell you to set aside an hour every day for exercise.  Your music instructor will tell you to set an hour aside every day to practice your craft.  Your pastor will tell you that you should set aside at least an hour every day for activities such as prayer and devotionals.  The list goes on and on.  In truth, these are all things that should be done every day.  At some point in my life I have done these things with some sort of regularity…but never all at once.  The question I have is how much time would be left in my day if I devoted myself to doing everything that I SHOULD be doing on a daily basis.  What will I have to sacrifice?

Now to the point.  For one week I am going to strictly follow a list of healthy habits and self disciplines.  Just because an item is on the list, doesn’t mean isn’t already a part of my daily/weekly routine.
Health:

• Work out every day
• Eat a full and healthy breakfast every day
• Eat healthy meals
• Eat 3-5 servings of fruit and vegetables every day.
• Drink 8 glasses of water every day.

Habits:

• Sleeping for 8 hours every night
• Going to bed early, and waking up early.
• Read a little bit every day.
• Eating dinner at the table with my wife, with the TV off.

Spiritual

• Daily prayer
• Daily bible reading

Hygiene:

• Shower every day (I do this already people )
• Brush 3 times a day (I do this as well, just adding it to the list)
• Floss every day (I floss…just not EVERY day)
• Shave…um…with some sort of consistency (my skin could never handle a clean shave every day)

It really isn’t that crazy of a list.  To be honest if I clean my sleeping schedule most of this should be quite simple to maintain.  The question is not whether or not it can be done.  Of COURSE it can be done.  Plenty of people probably do all of that with some sort of regularity every day.  My question is what can be done on top of all of this.  For the next week there are no rules on what I can’t do.  As long as I finish everything on that list every day, I can feel free to do any number of things that I enjoy doing. These activities include:  playing guitar, watching TV shows, playing video games with my friends, working on websites, working on creative projects, and more.

I am at a point in my life in which I need to take a serious look at my schedule and my future.  I have always been a jack-of-all-trades sort of person, but that always results in me spending a lot of time on a lot of different activities and I have never really devoted myself to anything in particular.  I want to truly devote myself to something, but I know that will mean cutting other things out of my life.

I hope that through this personal experiment I can learn just how much time I can have in a day to focus on other things in life that I enjoy or want to improve on.

This experiment will start tomorrow and will continue for one week (ending on Sunday).  When the 7 days are up, I will write a follow-up post on this blog (www.slightlyoffbeat.com for anyone reading this on facebook).  I will also write smaller daily posts at my posterous account:  http://slightlyoffbeat.posterous.com
If you have any suggestions for things to add to my list of self disciplines and healthy habits, let me know by posting in the comments or on twitter (@slightlyoffbeat).

Here goes nothing.

[dan]

This was a test video for my new Creative Vado HD.  Minimal editing, just a song and some fades.  I was pleased with how it turned out.  Its not the worlds best camera, but for 100 bucks…i’m pretty happy.  Expect some pictures and a full review of the camera soon.

[dan]

[dan]

Check out some of the trailers for 2009 movies. A lot of these trailers are only a week old. Click on pictures or titles for the links.



Star Trek (new trailer posted 3/6/2009)

This movie could be good or bad news for the devoted fan.  Is this the reboot that Star Trek fans want…or will this movie simply be a Hollywood disaster with no respect for the original series.




Watchmen

Early reviews say that the movie remains faithful to the comic.  Its also worth noting that over 120 million dollars was poured into this film.  That amount of money should hopefully ensure that the film will please the already large number of “watchman” fans out there.  It also means that the success and/or failure of this movie will greatly impact how studios spend their money in the future.




X-Men Origins: Wolverine  (new trailer posted 3/2/2009)

Continuing with the comic book trend, the linked trailer is new as of this week, and features a couple of characters that have been missed in the original 3 X-Men movies




Terminator Salvation  (new trailer posted 3/2/2009)

I’m a fan of 1 and 2, and 3 was just sorta…well…ya.  I was hesitant about 4, but I must say that the trailer has renewed my enthusiasm for the movie.  Casting Christian Bale as the lead doesn’t hurt either




Transformers:  Revenge of the Fallen

The first movie was just a popcorn popping summer flick to me.  This one should be fun to watch, but I can’t say I am really looking forward to it.


[dan]

So instead, we decided to wait a few weeks and do something fun.  We chose to go to Anthology in San Diego (Little Italy).  It was refreshing to go to a music venue that seems like it was actually built from the ground up for sound quality.  The acoustics were fantastic.  Anyways, below are a couple of photos from the event.  We had a blast.

I’d recommend it to anyone.  A little pricey though, as a warning.

[dan]

My level of skill and knowledge in the list above varies greatly, but the one thing they all have in common is that they are passions of mine.  The telling of stories, the movement of information, the composition of sound and music, the instantaneous communication between people on opposite sides of the earth….these are the things that I love and that, if given the choice, I would dedicate my personal and professional time to.

I think what draws me to these pursuits is the fact that they all have the ability to affect such a large number of people at a profoundly deep level.  I look at the work of Jason, Laren, and Bobby with the “Invisible Children” documentary and I am inspired.  A couple of GL2 cameras and a mac and they were able to start a movement that is changing the world.  I look at the work of the band MAE and their decision to bypass the record labels in order to help raise money to build houses for those less fortunate.  Their efforts have already raised thousands of dollars towards the cause.

My passions are not merely the geeky pursuits of an individual who enjoys shiny gadgets, but rather I believe my passions are the means to opportunities that could allow a technology evangelist such as myself to be a part of something that is so much larger than I am.

The issue that I am facing now is that, despite my wide range of interests and passions, I have found myself in a point in life in which I am scarcely able to pursue any of my passions on a daily, weekly, or even a monthly basis.  This could be for a variety of reasons.  It could be any combination of my education, lack of opportunities, my past choices, or even laziness.  Whatever the reason may be, I am not where I feel I should be, at least in regards to how I spend my time professionally and personally.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love my life right now.  I am living with the girl that I love, in one of the most fascinating cities anyone could ask for.

But I can’t help but feel that I am wasting my time and my talents.  I should be doing so much more with my life.

I am not sure how to get past this.  Do I lack the vision and personal drive to get past this proverbial brick wall?  When i dwell on these things, I get to the point in which I get so excited, that I am ready to quit my job and pursue my passions full time…but then I get scared when faced with the realities of my bills, mortgage, and day to day responsibilities. Is personal drive really enough to make dreams a reality?

I hope and pray that one day I can find myself in a place in which my faith, time, money, and passions are all working towards a unified goal and purpose.  Sadly though, that day is not today.  Today I still need to fight through the onslaught of excel sheets, emails, and daily repetition.  I suppose I can start by tackling the one thing I actually have control over:  my free time.  My workplace pays the bills and while I am there they rightfully dictate how I should spend those 8 hours a day.  My free time is my own however and any failure to use it properly and productively would be no one’s fault but my own.

I refuse to be content with mediocrity.  I will not stay somewhere simply because it meets my needs.  God has placed these passions in me for a reason, and I intent to pursue them and use them….as soon as I figure out how

[dan]

A couple of years ago I bought my domain and some hosting with ipower web.  A couple of years ago it wasn’t that bad.  I’m not sure what happened, but over the past 6 months, ipower hosting has become so slow that posting and updating this blog was near pointless.

I have now transfered the domain and hosting to godaddy.  I use godaddy for danandkrystle.com and everglowmedia.com so i already know that it has reliable hosting. Sooooo long story short I went throught the painful process of transfering everything and I am now ipower free.  I’m sure no one cares but I hate ipower so much I just wanted to write my own ‘ipower suck’ post (there are plenty more out there, run a google search).

That is all.  Updates should come in much more frequently now that the site actually…um…loads.

P.S.  all my tags were lost in the server transfer.  A few other things are acting strangely as well.  meh.

[dan]

Our Christmas Letter is up!  Check it out on our website at www.danandkrystle.com

Merry Christmas everyone!

[dan]

Now, most big-name actors have at least one or two flops under their belt.  In addition to that, movie-goers seem to have more interest in the quality of the plot and characters than the number of big-name stars appearing in the flick.    A lot of quality independent movies have been hitting it big on the box-office charts lately without the assistance of big-name actors.  There only seems to be one last movie star who can guarantee success in the box-office…

and that is the fresh prince

Seriously….I don’t even know what his next movie is about.  Does anyone have any clue?  I’ve gathered this from the dozen or so trailers I’ve seen for it:  its a drama, and it stars Will Smith.  That’s it.  I do not know what this movie is about but I want to see it.  Why?  Cause its got freaking Will Smith.  A lot of people didn’t like ‘Hancock’ so I guess we’ll see if he’s still has what it takes to bring a movie to the top of the charts.

Also, I sort of appreciate the fact that the entire movie is not given away in the trailer.  I saw Will Smith on with Leno and he said that they could not put much content in the trailer because any small detail could give too much away.

Watch the trailer for 7 pounds

[dan]

Update:  Union Tribune is reporting that two are now confirmed dead.  My prayers go out to their families.

[dan]