Lent

I am not at all a religious person. I grew up going to church, but I personally feel that organized religion has done more harm to the human civilization than good.

While I know this theory can leave much room for debate, there are some religious practices that I feel can be very beneficial to us. I find one of these beneficial practices is giving up something for the period of lent. I know the reason for giving something up is to better understand the sacrifices Christ went through and then in theory bring you closer to God, but ever since I was a child I have perceived lent as an opportunity to have personal growth.

I always like to give myself a challenge and attempt to make myself a stronger person, and every year I have always given something up for lent. In the past I gave up candy when I was a child and when I was older I gave up alcohol. Once when I was 19 I was inspired by the movie “40 days and 40 nights” and I gave up all forms of sexual pleasure for the 40 day period of lent; that one was a difficult one.

With lent coming upon us I have been giving much thought as to what I will give up this year, and a few nights ago the answer to my question dawned upon me. I had been sitting at my computer for over an hour going back and forth between twitter and facebook and I realized that I was putting off my long list of chores to sit at the computer and waste my time tweeting and making random comments of peoples updates.

I sat there perplexed by the amount of time I wasted sitting at my computer or iPhone doing absolutely nothing but staying connected to the social networking world. There is a great web site out there called TweetWasters.com that allows you to see how much time you have wasted on twitter, and essentially I could have driven from LA to NYC with the amount of time I have wasted on twitter.

One of my biggest pet peeves is people that say the do not have enough time to get things done, when they lead sedentary lives and are basically to lazy to get off their ass and get their shit done. I am constantly mesmerized by the amount of apathy in the world today. How hard is it to get off you ass and do something with your life?

With all of this being said I have decided that this year for lent I will be giving up putting my Ryan Raz twitter and facebook profiles aside and taking the time I would normally spend on them to better organize my time and get more of my personal long term goals accomplished.

I figure I spend a little more than an hour a day on twitter and facebook, therefore over the 40 days of lent I should be able to spend about 48 more hours focused on me and less time wasted on being socially connected to a bunch of people I don’t really know but have managed to become “friends” with.

"Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand" -Bodie Thoene

“Get off your fucking lazy ass and do something you retard” -Ryan Raz

Feb Just Us Boys Magazine Article

Moving

As you can see from my travel schedule and all of my past blog updates, it has always been hard for me to stay in one location at one time.

For the past two and half years I have been able to call New York home and it is a city that I have definitely loved. There was a point where I was bi costal where I had a place in LA also for about 9 months, but LA and I did not get along all so well. There are people the feel at home in NYC and people that feel home in LA, and LA does / did not feel like home at all. I still travel there often, but its still not close to my favorite city.

With my travel schedule staying crazy as it has remained over the past two years, I get about 7-10 days home a month. While I love living in NYC I am paying $1500 for a nice studio apartment in the Upper East Side. For those of you that do not know NYC, $1500 for a nice studio in my location is a fair price. Living in NYC is amazing, but it is now time for me to gather my things and move on.

After what has been much debate and consideration I have decided to make Saint Louis my home base, which is where I grew up. I miss being able to get into my car and drive to the stores, the convenience of the suburbs, and being able to have a big house. Living in a small studio is definitely doable, but growing up I a big house and then switching to a studio can be quite difficult.

My best friend in the industry is Austin Wilde (www.austinwilde.com) who is also a Saint Louis native, and now we are going to be living together. Oddly enough we both grew up in the Saint Louis area but until we meet in Chicago May 2009. Ever since meeting our personalities have been a good match, and I am sure after spending weeks together traveling the world we will have no problems living together.

This month I begin my slow move back to Saint Louis, and by July 1 when my lease is up NYC will no longer be my home. For the next three months I will be living in both places and then eventually Saint Louis will be home. I have many friends in NYC so I am figuring that I will be visiting very often, so often it may even seem like I never moved.

China

When most people decide to go on a vacation they pick locations that are popular, like Paris, London or some Caribbean island. When I decide to go on vacation I want to go somewhere that most people do not think of as a vacation spot. Early this year me and a good friend of mine decided to go to Beijing and explore.

Here are a few pictures of me in the Forbidden City and also at Tiananmen Square. Beijing in China is cold in January, but not any worse than home in NYC, but unlike in NYC there isn't a lot of wind whipping between the buildings.

Anybody that goes to Beijing has to visit the Great Wall. Here are a few pics from that. The best thing about visiting places in the off season is that there are a lot less tourists that normal. We went to the Mutainyu section of the wall and we were the only people around for a long time. It's great being able to explore something and not have a lot of people crowding you.

We brought our mini Dug the Dog with us, he had a blast. Ha.

We made a side trip to a city called Xi'an. This is the area where the Terra-cotta Warriors were found. One amazing collection of artifacts from history. Its quite amazing seeing artifacts so greatly preserved from 2200 years ago.