The Mind of Justin

Only in Beverly Hills…Rolls Royce with a bike rack.

The Mind of Justin — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:56:59 +0000

Working in Beverly Hills I see just about every ultra high-end car made. Seeing cars made by Bentley, Maserati, Ferrari, Aston Martin, and Lamborghini is an everyday occurrence…heck, BMWs & Mercedes are the equivalent of Toyotas and Fords in this town, the parking lots are overflowing with them.

But today’s sighting really took the cake. Only in Beverly Hills do you see a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe with a bike rack on the back.

This car has an MSRP of $434,000

I quickly snapped these pictures with my iPhone. Too funny. (Oh and the handicap placard on the rear view mirror is a nice touch too.)

Hmmm, I feel like going biking today. I guess I will take out the Rolls. LOL, If only I had that much money.

Hawaii – Part 3: Swimming with sharks…literally

The Mind of Justin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:56:00 +0000

If you have ever met my wife there are lots of ways to describe her, but “Risk Taker” is not one of them. That is why I was shocked when she told me she wanted to swim with sharks. I said, “Are you sure you don’t mean swim with dolphins?”
The greatest shock of swimming with the sharks is how big they are. Several of the ones we saw were around 10 feet long weighing in the range of 400-500 pounds. You realize very quickly, if you are in the water and they want to eat you, there is nothing you can do about it. Also, there is some controversy about whether these types of tours should be allowed. They are worried the sharks are going to follow the boats back and start feeding on the delicious tourists at the beach. There is a study by the University of Hawaii that says there is nothing wrong with it and there are plenty of articles like this one (link) that say it is harmful. Who knows what to believe but I will say this…while we were out there we were educated about sharks, the sharks were not fed, and they were not harassed at all. In the end we walked away with a much greater respect for sharks.

Of course the moment I jump in the water my underwater camera fogs up, so none of those pictures turned out. Below are some screen shots from my video camera.

Another screen shot from my video camera.

Turtle Beach on the North Shore of Oahu.

While I was snorkeling, Jen took this cool picture of a little crab on the beach.

Underwater at Hanauma Bay – world famous snorkeling.

Hawaii – Part 2: Visiting Pearl Harbor

The Mind of Justin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:56:22 +0000

First off, let me say that if you are planning on a day full of smiles and carefree happiness, then Pearl Harbor might not be the place to visit. If you are not prepared, Pearl Harbor can be quite an emotional roller coaster.
With that said, I think it should be required viewing for every American visiting Oahu. Expect to be surrounded by an atmosphere of reverence, sadness, and pride. When you arrive on the site and see the entire scene, the weight of what happened at this location can be very heavy. We saw lots of tears being shed. Much of the time I was there my thoughts were on my grandfather, Miles McGoon. Miles and his four brothers all served in the Navy during WWII. The five of them made us proud and lucky for us they all survived. Sadly, they are all gone now, but they leave behind a large family and hopefully some of the spirit that was found in “The Greatest Generation“.

Below is the old abandoned Ford Island Control Tower. It is one of the few things that survived the Japanese attack untouched on December 7th, 1941. It was in it’s final stages of construction at the time. Only a few thousand feet away bombs and torpedoes pummeled battleship row.

Not many of these left. If you were 18 years old at Pearl Harbor you would now be 86. Over the next decade or so we will lose all of the Pearl Harbor survivors to father time.

USS Arizona: 1177 brave souls lost their lives on this ship. What you see here is the aft (rear) gun turret, under the water you can see more of the ship. If you look on Google Earth you can actually see almost the entire ship submerged.

This is the view from the gun turret on the Bowfin Submarine looking at the USS Missouri.
If World War II was a movie (and it has been countless times), then the USS Missouri would be the part of the movie where the good guys ride in and kick some ass. It was on the USS Missouri where the Japanese surrendered and World War II came to an end…roll credits.

Hawaii – Part 1: Valley of the Temples

The Mind of Justin — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:56:14 +0000

We recently took an 8 day vacation to Hawaii. As you might expect, along the way I took a lot of pictures.

Instead of sharing a bunch of pictures of us standing by the beach, I thought I would share some of the more interesting pictures.

I will be dividing these pictures into multiple blog posts.

The Byodo-In Temple in Oahu, Hawaii. Located in the Valley of the Temples.
Fun facts:
Inside is the world’s largest wooden Buddha carved in nearly a thousand years.
It was constructed without a single nail.
It was used in the hit TV show LOST.

Taken with my iPhone 3GS.

(Click on the image above to see the full sized version.)

This is a male peacock grazing on the grounds of the Byodo-In Temple. There was also a female and a small peachick. I never really thought I was that into bird photography but as I look through my pictures, I sure do take a fair amount of bird pics.

Delivery anyone? These geckos in Hawaii are pretty smart. Four of them wait in each of these outdoor lamps. Bugs drawn to the light literally deliver themselves as meals.

Our love for Apple products grows even stronger.

The Mind of Justin — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:56:30 +0000

A couple of weeks ago we went and got Jen a 13″ MacBook. Low and behold two days later Apple announces that they are discontinuing the MacBook we just bought and are replacing it with a 13″ MacBook Pro…a laptop that is better in every way. At first we were kind of bummed out that we had a computer that was 2 days old and already not the latest and greatest thing. I made a quick call to the Apple store and thankfully they allowed us to bring it in and exchange it for the new 13″ MacBook Pro. Also, because Jen is a teacher we also got a nice discount and a free iPod. We couldn’t be happier.

Jen won’t tell you this, but her favorite feature is the giant glowing Apple logo.

This bad boy can be loaded with 8GB of RAM, has the best screen Apple has ever put in a laptop, a light up keyboard, firewire, and the best part…the battery lasts a whopping 7 hours. The engineering on this thing is amazing. You don’t see speakers, fans, or any of that. It is just so clean looking.

Apple also recently announced the new iPhone 3GS, also known as the “iPhone 3 Jesus”.
I was going to wait for the weekend to stroll in and pick up one of these new phones, but my “gadget geek lust” got the best of me and I had to get the phone the moment it was released. So, I woke up early and got in line at 6:45am to be one of the first to get my hands on it. I have been a pretty harsh critic of AT&T over the past few years, and rightfully so, but I have to say that the crew working the launch of the iPhone 3GS in Belmont Shore did a spectacular job. They were excited, well organized, friendly, gave everyone waiting bottled water, and took care of business very quickly. Kudos to them! Now if they can just fix the three “dead zones” I pass through in the middle of LA on my way to work.

The “S” in “3GS” stands for “Speed”. This thing is FAST! It is way faster than my iPhone 2G it replaced. I still can’t believe that my phone now has a faster processor, a bigger hard drive, and more RAM than the $2000+ laptop I bought in 2001. Mind blowing.

…now all we are waiting for is our Apple robes to arrive so we can be officially inducted into the cult.

There’s been a murder! A murder mystery party that is.

The Mind of Justin — Sun, 31 May 2009 23:56:39 +0000

You see, in 1961 we were invited to a party (to celebrate Kimber’s Birthday) held by the world’s richest man…Jerry Oilman. It was a great party until…gasp…he was murdered!! And the murder mystery began.

See if you can figure out who is who.
Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Groucho Marx, Janis Joplin, Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers, John Wayne, Bruce Lee, Lucille Ball, Bob Marley, Bob Marley’s Groupie, Patsy Cline, Selina the Cat, & Officer Pete Persimmons.

Who was the killer? I will give you a clue…”You people always commit these types of crimes.”. “What do you mean, you people!?“

Spending Memorial Day with Mother Nature in Sequoia National Park.

The Mind of Justin — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:56:33 +0000

Red Tailed Hawk – Sequoia National Park must be like a giant All-U-Can eat buffet for this guy.

Boole Tree (The 7th largest tree in the world) We took what was called a “semi-rigorous” hike down to this tree. It was a 2.5 mile hike. Steve did it in flip-flops. This tree was the only giant sequoia in the immediate area that didn’t get chopped down in the 1800′s. Not many people get to see this tree, because how far out of the way it is.

I kind of like this picture. It was early morning and the sun was just starting to shine through the mist on to a baby sequoia tree, meanwhile the stump of a 1000 year old sequoia tree remains in the foreground to remind us of the past.

Nice easy hiking trail near our camp site. The sun rays caught my eye so I took this picture.

Great Horned Owl – This beast is a killing machine with some sick night vision.

Taken at the Kings River just outside of the entrance to Boyden Caverns. We took a tour of the cave and I took this photograph while hiking back to the car.

The Big Dipper!! My favorite constellation. This was a timed exposure to capture the light of the stars. I shined my head lamp on the tree to light it up a little bit.

General Sherman – the largest tree in the world. It was massive. Oh, the stories this 2500 year old monster could tell.

I literally scared the crap out of this deer. Notice the rear end of the deer. Also, Steve took a fantastic picture of this deer eating some blue flowers, it was probably the best picture of the whole trip. This deer was very comfortable around us and let us get within 10 feet of it. Right after taking these pictures we killed the deer. It was a very painful death and quite illegal but we did it anyway. (j/k)

Also, I want to say a big THANK YOU to our veterans past and present who make all of our wonderful freedom possible. THANKS!!

It’s official, I have created a “Viral Video”… over 1,000,000 views.

The Mind of Justin — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:56:07 +0000

A little warning: This post contains links to explicit content! Proceed with caution!

I am officially a viral video maker! One of my videos on YouTube recently went over 1,000,000 views.

How did I do it?
Sex + Video Games + Violence = VIRAL VIDEO!

The back story of this video:
I was online playing a first person shooting game called Rainbow Six: Vegas on my Xbox 360. It was a full game and it was running very smoothly, so I decide to stay and play for a little while. After a while, the host of the game says that he needs to take a break, but he will leave the game on so we can continue to play on his server. This is where it starts to get INTERESTING. He probably turned off his TV but he did not mute the microphone on his game controller. So while we are playing the game, suddenly over the microphone we start to hear him and his girlfriend have sex. So, I do what any logical person would do…I START RECORDING. The video is really all about the audio. Many people on YouTube think that it might be a porno playing in the background. I assure it is not, as I played with the host of the game for a while and I can say with 100% certainty, it is his voice in the background.

Here is the link to the video: (Arrgh…I cringe thinking about my wife’s grand parents or my mom clicking on this link. Oh well. LOL)
Justin’s Viral Video – Click here to view it

Below is a screen shot of my video:

I actually have several videos on YouTube with a fairly high view total (Over 1,500,000 views total). I also have over 1,000 subscribers. Here are some of my stats as of early May 2009:

4th Annual Crawfish Boil & Pool Party

The Mind of Justin — Mon, 04 May 2009 03:56:25 +0000

Crawfish in Southern California are not a common occurrence. You can’t go down to the local grocery store and just pick them up. So, we flew 45 pound of LIVE crawfish in from New Orleans for our big annual crawfish boil and pool party. Spicy crawfish, corn, potatoes, mushrooms, garlic, Crawfish Étouffée, jambalaya and of course lots of beer & “Banana Sweet Tarts”. Add in a hot tub and a pool and you have the perfect formula for a good time.

I even ordered some alligator sausage and some andouille sausage. It was quite interesting. Laurie even created a new drink called a “Banana Sweet Tart”, it tasted exactly like the candy. Maybe next year we will get some Mardi Gras style beads…that can only lead to good things.

Below is a video from the party. Thanks for all of those who came. It was a lot of fun!!!!

A pot of freshly cooked mudbugs.

Me sporting a brand new crawfish earring.

Who wouldn’t want to eat one of these cute little guys?

The manufacturer of my video camera liked my video so much they put it on their website!

The Mind of Justin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:56:05 +0000

It looks like Creative Labs the manufacturer of my little video camera the Vado HD likes my work.

They put the video of our snowboarding excursion titled “The Mammoth Trip” on their website. (See the screenshot below!)
You can see my video in action on their site -> http://www.myvado.com/videos/welcome.aspx

My video appears to be the default video when you load the page. I don’t know how exactly they found my video but I am glad they put it on their site. I spent a lot of time on that video and it is nice to get some recognition. I have received messages from people telling me how much they like the video and a few people have even told me that MY video is the reason they are buying the Vado HD camera. Wow!! That is kind of cool. (Ok you people at Creative Labs…it is time to send me a few extra Vado HDs for free. I promise to make some cool videos!) On a serious note, I do love the Vado HD and bring it just about every where, as it is about the size of an iPod and the video quality is wonderful for the price/size of the camera.

UPDATE:05-06-2009
I gave the good folks at Creative a testimonial for their website. Screen shot below:
Link: My testimonial on the Vado HD site.

Scott & Tiffany tie the knot in North Carolina.

The Mind of Justin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 04:56:41 +0000

Jen and I were lucky to fly out to North Carolina this weekend for Scott & Tiffany’s wedding. They live very close to the state border just southwest of Charlotte. So, we floated between the wedding site/lake house in North Carolina and Scott & Tiffany’s house in South Carolina.

Here are a few of my favorite pics from the wedding.

Trevor was a great ring bearer.

Scott & Tiffany seal their vows with a nice long kiss. (I have to say, I have been to a lot of weddings in the last few years and this was one of the most lengthy and passionate kisses I have seen. Scott even went in for seconds.)

Like any good bride Tiffany has a flask handy to jump start the party.

The wedding location on beautiful Moss Lake, North Carolina. (HDR Image taken at sunset)

Tiffany the bride and her cousin Kris.

The night ended with dancing, drinking and of course FIREWORKS!!

My Commute from Hell.

The Mind of Justin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 16:56:23 +0000

Anyone who hangs out with me knows I love to complain about my commute. What can I say, it is a very long, traffic filled commute.

I drive 35 miles each way from Long Beach to Beverly Hills. Now, in many parts of the country 35 miles is a very manageable distance. Unfortunately, my drive includes 20 miles of driving on The 405 Freeway (the most congested freeway in the United States), and 15 miles of stoplight and traffic filled surface streets. On average, this drive takes me around 1 hour, 15 minutes. I have made it as quick as 45 minutes…of course it has taken me as long as 3 hours.

I have made this drive almost 350 times. Ahhhh….good times.

Thanks to the magic of time lapse video, you can enjoy my commute in under 3 minutes. I filmed this on a Friday around 10am so the traffic was thankfully light.

Mammoth Mountain road trip – perfect timing.

The Mind of Justin — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:56:30 +0000

Steve, Travis, Sadie, Jen & I all decided to take a road trip to Mammoth Mountain. We got so lucky, instead of typical spring time conditions we got 12 inches of fresh snow. Ahhhh…it was so nice.

There are few things that give me as much pleasure as snowboarding through deep fresh powder. It is so wonderful and very hard to describe, I guess the closest description would be that it is like flying on a cloud.

Give me some good friends, some fresh powder and a day off to enjoy it….now that is my version of heaven.

I spent a lot of time making this video. Make sure your sound is ON. I hope you enjoy it!!

Jen enjoying her first snowfall. Can you believe my wife had never seen it snow until this day. Blows me away.

Travis going big off a jump in the snowboard park.

Sadie wins the award for being the biggest trooper. She has now snowboarded for 5 days. Anyone who has ever snowboarded knows those first five days are full of lots of falls and bruises. Sadie is paying her dues. (Note: Sadie is a badass snowboarder for someone with her level of experience and she is catching on amazingly fast. She should not be considered a Noob.)

Me.

Steve launching off a jump. Nice grab.

Clippers clip the Nets in the last second.

The Mind of Justin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 04:56:55 +0000

Thanks to the great people at my work we got some tickets to the Clippers vs Nets game on Sunday night. Not exactly the most appealing match up.

When most people in Los Angeles think of the Clippers they think…..*yawn*

Yeah, I have to agree, the Clippers aren’t exactly the hot ticket in town. Between both teams I could only name one guy on the court…Vince Carter.

But…

Clippers + free ticket + private luxury suite + free food + free drinks + crazy last second victory = A really good time.

Below is a picture of my wife taking in the sights and sounds of her first NBA game. Of course she gets to spend it in a private suite downing free margaritas. (She loved it.)

To be honest most of our attention was focused on the food, drinks and people we were with. It was more like being at a party and a basketball game just so happens to be going on nearby. I am almost embarrassed to say but I didn’t even look at the score until the final two minutes.

In the in end it turned into on of the best games I have ever watched….I mean…attended…as I didn’t watch anything but the last two minutes. Either way the ending was great.

Check it out.

Hopefully out next game will be a LA Lakers verse Houston Rockets. (Now that I could get into.)

I surprised my wife with a photobook!

The Mind of Justin — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:56:45 +0000

On March 12th my wife and I celebrated the four year anniversary of our first date. (We don’t really make a big deal about it, but we do usually go out.) I decided to surprise her this year with a little gift. I spent a lot of time (and some $$) and made a really nice 13 X 11 photo book of our Honeymoon. It is hard back, image wrapped, and 100 pages of huge colorful photos.

She LOVED it!!!

I take a lot of pictures and I have to say it is very rewarding to liberate the pictures from the computer hard drive and get them printed. I highly recommend it.
I had my book made at Blurb.com. They did a good job. I ordered it on a Saturday and had it by Wednesday.

Front

Side

Back

A sample page

R.I.P. Circuit City 2009

The Mind of Justin — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:56:52 +0000

Gadget addicts like myself are now officially in mourning. Circuit City is gone! They declared bankruptcy a few months ago, but in the last week they liquidated all of their merchandise and closed every store.

Below is a picture of the vacant store…not one item of merchandise left. I went by the building to say goodbye. It kind of reminded me of being at a wake.

Circuit City closing is not good news. They were the ones who kept Best Buy in check, and provided that much needed competition. Whenever I shopped for a specific item, Circuit City almost always had a lower price than Best Buy. Oh well, I guess unless I have to have something immediately, I will buy everything online from now on.

FLASH BACK – Thanksgiving 2007 (Black Friday)
I camped out for 18 Hours to get our big LCD HDTV, a laptop for Jen and another laptop for Jen’s brother. Was it worth it? We saved well over $2000 (over $100 and hour), so yeah in our case it was worth it. Other people spent the night to get only one item and save a few hundred dollars. I don’t know if that would be worth it for me.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

The Mind of Justin — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 04:56:54 +0000

Today I was doing the dishes and I stuck my hand into the soapy water and got sliced by the business end of a knife.

I learned my lesson. I will never do dishes again.

This was a pretty serious cut. It may take as long as 24 hours to completely heal. LOL.

Worldwide female urination leaking problem! Who knew?

The Mind of Justin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:56:55 +0000

The great thing about spending a few hours a day in traffic is that you get to learn all kinds of great things from the billboards. Doing the math it looks like several people who read this post will actually be inflicted with Urinary Incontinence. Oh well it could be worse……see link.

One of my favorite things about this picture is the plumbing truck rushing by, as if responding to a urine leak emergency.

…and the engagements continue!

The Mind of Justin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 04:56:53 +0000

Every few months another one of my friends gets engaged. It is great. This time two of my favorite people, Jeremy & Christie got engaged.

Jeremy surprised Christie with this beautiful diamond while standing next to a waterfall in Hawaii. Good job man. How could she say “No” to that.

Christie was kind enough to let me take a few pictures of the ring. Jeremy picked out the nice diamond and Christie picked out a setting which is on order and should be on her finger soon enough.

My dad came to visit me.

The Mind of Justin — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 06:56:13 +0000

Some people had troubled childhoods and had to live with lots of family drama. I was NOT one of those people.

I have great parents.

The problem is that I live in California and my family lives in Pennsylvania and Texas. So when I do get to see a member of my family it is a real treat.

Unfortunately, I only get to see each of my family members for about a week a year. It is usually bitter sweet because, I am glad to see them, but the whole time I can’t get off my mind that I am going to have to say good bye soon and not see them again for a while.

My dad came into Long Beach for the long weekend. Despite the bad weather we had some fun and got to spend some quality time together. We did the usual tourist stuff. Went to Hollywood & Santa Monica. I also got a chance to school him in a couple of games of Sequence.

It was so hard to say good bye. We are such good friends and I really enjoy hanging out. Hopefully we will see each other soon.

I think he looks sad in this picture. It kind of fits my mood today.