American Idol - Bring it On

man so I am getting excited about doing our 3erd MEETinDC American Idol. I think its our third my be the forth. But either way man I was looking through the old video from last year and man it was off the hook. I think char with her costume just blew people away. Very creative. The question is can she beat that this year. me I need to work on my Simon accent. I also have noticed that Simon is like so much nicer this year. So should I be nice or mean this year? I am all confused. Either way this is going to be one friggin show this year I am sure. we got the original crew of me ( Simon ) Willi ( Randy ) , Shannon ( Paula ) and the best ever Ryan Seacrest there is Bonnie Ann. If nothing else this will be funny as heck for people watching :-)



VIDEO FLASH BACK

Escapades on the Ice

man i had a blast ice skating this Sunday. sure there is something always fun about the hot cocco and hangin with good friends. But I think why i had so much fun is the A the people i was with were just goofy and fun and B we were just off the hook goofy. Nothing better then acting goofy on a sunday with ice skate hehe Well check out the video you will see how goofy we were LOL

The fact is if you are with fun crazy people there is never a dull moment in life ♥

The crew on the skates

She's Got a way

FRIDAY
Wow a free day to do nothing see know one be know where. How could this be. Man how nice. I loved it. I did something ever day of the week so it was awesome to just veg for a day :-)

SATURDAY
Fun weekend. I got to do one of my favorite things that i so love to do SING :-) I love that I can throw karaoke events with some great people who also love to sing. Anyways it was an awesome night but the best part was i got my new toy where i can record me and my friends singing. I love this new toy. I wish i could post some of my friends voices on here. They sounded oh so good :-)


Yusef Funny Photos
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She has a way about her - song by mikey

SUNDAY
Nice relaxing day in the pool with friends. Oh man it was nice. we played with a ball throwing it back and fourth and some how we were amused for hours with this simple toy hehe :-)

Corporate Greed

Someone posted this article below on the meetin web site and i thought it was a really good read. Its about how Costco treats its employees customers and share holders compared to Walmart. Costcos CEO seems like a really good guy. Most of these corporation are all about greed and the profit. They take everything leaving the common person who often does the hard work with nothing why the CEO of these companies rake in millions. The whole thought that you can not get rich with out abusing people is absurd to me. Why does my win have to be someone else loss. I always admired people who worked with there hands, worked hard and put in there time to made millions. usually the guys who makes billions ended up doing so only because they messed someone over. They let greed get to them and take them over. Not everything in life is about money. This is the concept I love most about sites like craig list and MEETin.org.

End result shop at Costco DO NOT SHOP WalMart because profit and greed is not what we want in our communities and some times you have to look out for each other as a community. Open the door for someone so they may open the door for someone else. A wise friend of mine used to always say to me "you do not want to be the richest man in the grave yard" and I agree with him 100%. :-)

READ THE COSTCO WRITE UP

Dreams - Just Do it

Its funny when i was a little kid maybe 14 years old I remember I wanted a VCR. They costed so much ( $200 back in 1987 ) but i saved and did it. I was the first person in my family to have one. Then I wanted a car worked hard and got it. Then I wanted to buy a home and after allot of hard work I did it. Then I wanted to teach my self how to program and build web sites so I could earn a good living. I just did it. I wanted to meet some new friends in the DC area and well let just say i did that too:-) Then I wanted to get into real estate more and well I did it. recently I wanted to buy a building to open a cafe a dream I have had for many years since I worked as a buss boy in a restaurant as a kid at age 14. With a little hard work, saving , planning and bargaining I did it.

What it all comes down to is if you set your mind to what you want its not hard to do it. No one can hold you back from your dreams. We all can do what ever it is we want to. Our dreams are only beginning. But doing it is the finish. If you have a dream to do something write it down on paper. Come up with a plan on how you plan to get there. Then JUST DO IT!!. Its not hard to do in fact its very easy. Anything we can image we can do. Just start figuring out where you want to go and get going :-)

Nike had it right JUST DO IT

4th of July Fun

Had a really good 4th of July. Had about 15 peeps over to my place for a nice small get together. We had so much good food it was not even funny. I think way to much. But it was oh so yummy. The high light of the day was everyone just hangin out on my front porch drinking a beer eating some great food talking and smoking a cigar. Lots of fun.

Then I headed over to my boys Brandon and Candice's house for a small while. Brought my swim trunks in case peeps were in the pool but when i got there they were just starting on the food part and I was so stuff from my bbq. No one was in the pool and everyone was looking to play some games. So got to say hi real fast and decided to join some other friends in down town DC to watch the fireworks from a roof top get together. We started off with some bubbly and I got to meet some peeps i did not know that were really nice. Ended up being a great fireworks display and then we all hung out in my friends place and chilled out afterworlds eating some awesome raspberry cup cakes and waited for the traffic to die down some.

ITS WAS A GREAT 4TH OF JULY :-)

WASHINGTON DC FIREWORKS GRAND FINALLY

Future Cafe of Norfolk / Va Beach

ITS FINAL I GOT IT
Well I finally signed on the dotted line to buy my new place in VA beach. I plan to open a cafe with in this place. my pops will run it and has so many great ideas on what he wants to do. The place is really awesome has an upstairs 2 bed room apartment that is already rented out. Pretty sweet little place. Can not wait until we can open it.

No dream can be held back if you work hard :-)

REMNANTS OF AN OLD DREAM
Back in 2004 my dad had a dream of opening a cafe in DC. We had the cafe built and ready to go until the DC zoning would not give us the final Pass on it because they wanted a second bathroom. That would have costed in 20k area to build and we did not own the building. So the even after having everything done we never opened PHOTOS. So now we are back but this time I have the building and we will open :-)


VIDEO OF THE BUILDING

VA Beach Weekend 2007

I did a va beach pool party camping trip that as always blows me away. Just nothing but hangin out relaxing with my friends and some new peeps. It was amazing as always. This has been my third year doing this and each time it only gets better. We swam, we danced , we played games and we eat such good food thanks to the grill queen ( Mellisa and Chad ) all and all this is my favorite event all year long :-)

Thanks everyone for coming and thanks or just being great friends :-)



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VIDEO

Bye Bye To Sibely

Tonight I went out to dinner with my good friend Sibel. She has just accepted a job in New York and is moving :-( Sad to see her go but this is life. It seems in my generation moving to another city for jobs or better opportunity is part of life. I know some day my day will come most likely too as I have already thought about it allot. But not for a little while still some more good years left in this old city of mine. DC baby :-)

Crazy Water Rapids ( West VA Gauley River )

Wow what a weekend. This weekend I went went white water rafting on the Gauley river in West Va. I have never done white water rapids before. It was a thrill. I did not quite know what I was getting myself into when I said sure I will go but I am sure glad I went. I drove up Friday night Jon to camp Friday night then do the rapids Saturday day , camp out Sat night to return Sunday. I got to drive up with Jon a friend I have known for years. But it was really fun driving up with him because we had 5 hours to kill and talk allot about all kinds of different things we never had a chance to talk about before. So got to know quite allot about Jon that i never knew before. The tree's were so amazing. As we went down the river ever where you looked it was breath taking. The boat did tip over , we jumped off a 20 foot cliff into the water just for the fun of it and we went down 5 series of class 5 rapids some of them almost hitting huge rocks. It was so much fun. I will be back next year :-)

PS: Note for camping next time. Bring a sleeping bag or blankets, always bring jackets and do not forget a towel. In other words bring more camping things hehe

I Almost Got My Cafe

I know I have told some of my friends the good news but now its almost official. I got my loan all done for my new place. All I have to do is sign the contract at the end of this month. Its a cute little shop in Norfolk down near va beach near ODU. my pops will run the cafe and will partner up with me on it as i will still be in Northern va for a while. But chances are I may move to Va beach some day. Maybe not for a while still it all depends. Life can change fast. I should be closing the 30th of this month. I have had 3 deals that almost happen so this is one sweet victory for me to finally have a real shop. I plan to make it really nice inside and yes welcome the MEETin peeps in va beach into it with open arms. Not to mention the ODU campus and yes my huge family I have in va beach ( yes the Irish side of the family :-)

I GOT IT...Did closing last Friday.

Some Cool New Press

UPDATED 06/20/2007 new update the articles came out. I think both were pretty darn cool. So fare in DC alone we got about 500 new members this month most of it related to the article. This is great news as it means more people will meet up with some friends and by this time next year maybe met someone they will call a life long friend. Life is strange that way you never know what turn you will take that could change your life for ever.

WASHINGTON POST
BUSINESS WEEK


Wow looks like the MEETin press circuit is heating up again. last week I was contacted by a really nice Washington post reporter for the style section. She wanted to do an article on meetin. We did an hour interview near my work and then she headed over to visit members at a typical event ( Romel's rock climbing ). I think the article should come out in the next week or so.

That being said I was just contacted by BusinessWeek a magazine I have been reading since i was 16 to do an article. How sweet. I told them I was a huge fan and would be honored. I guess they are doing an article on social networks in general.

Man I we still do not have a press kit. We need to get one some day. I guess press just has not been something we have ever looked for. I do wonder like what press is to much press. How could it change MEETin? would it be a good thing or a bad thing. keeping MEETin a grass roots thing is very important but on the flip side if more people find out about it and they too are looking for friends who are we to say no.

Anyways it will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

UPDATE: 06/05/07 Got an interview tonight with a reporter from BusinessWeek at 5pm. How sweet ya. I love that
Mag always have.

UPDATE: 06/06/07 Interview with buinessweek went very well. I also forwarded the reporter on to some admins in other cities in the US and Europe. Not sure when this will be published.

UPDATE: 06/08/07 Washington Post write up should come out next friday so I hear.