I never did make it to that Beatswap I was suppose to attend, not entirely my fault though. I did get up early Sunday morning, I did get in my car and I did drive from Orange County all the way to Los Angeles for what was suppose to be a giant gathering of vinyl record vendors. There was suppose to be dj’s spinning and booze a flowing (yes, you read that right). It was something I had been looking forward to for quite a while now, but that morning I missed my exit and I just kept on driving past downtown LA. I drove so far in fact that before I knew it I was in Hollywood…oh and there goes the Hollywood Bowl, hmm maybe I should go back!

I exited the freeway and pulled into a gas station,”ok” I thought “whats the game plan now?”. I quickly checked my phone and the flier I was given when I noticed the show wasn’t until 12 noon, I was still a whole hour and a half early. Because I had to work that evening I had given myself until 1 pm to be in LA before I started to head back. This would of course only give me an hour and I felt like idiot that I hadn’t noticed before. Luckily for me I had been wanting to go to Amoeba Music in Hollywood for quite some time now.

If you are a music lover and have never been to Amoeba you should definitely check it out. It is an independent music store that sells used and new records,cd’s, movies and if you are hunting for some old and current releases on vinyl this is the place to go. There are three locations, the original one in Berkeley which I, oddly enough, lived only two blocks away from (the irony that I had driven this far now didn’t escape me) and one in San Francisco.

Like I said, I had been wanting to come here for quite some time, there were some LP’s on my wish list that I knew I wasn’t going to come across at a record show. For example they have tons of hip hop/rap albums, electronica, jazz and classical. What is really neat about Amoeba is that even their 45′s are in alphabetical order. At the last show I went to I spent close to 2 hours just thumbing through a collection of 45′s.

Inside the candy store

I really had to exercise some self control. One of the drawbacks to buying new vinyl is that it can get pricey really quick. Within 15 minutes of being there I was already over 100 bucks in the hole. Radiohead-Kid A, Drake- Take Care, James Brown-Hell…all had to go back because I felt I wasnt really adding anything new to my collection. I mean I had those albums, granted not on vinyl, but part of the reason I started buying vinyl was to experience new music, not to buy my old collection all over again.

I picked up Ceremonials by Florence and The Machine, an artist whose sultry voice I have been very interested for quite some time now. Of course Dog Days Are Over and Shake it Out are songs that nearly everyone has heard but I wanted to hear more of her. I am looking forward to reviewing that album in the upcoming week.

I also picked up James Brown’s Its A New Day and the Beastie Boy’s Ill Communication for no other reason that they are both brilliant albums that I don’t own and I think they would be a great addition to my spinning repertoire. I knew almost immediately though that I would look for Pressure Drop by Toots and The Maytals, regardless if it came in a “best of” compilation or in its original release.  Pressure Drop is one of my favorite songs and I think it would be a great addition to my repertoire. I had searched for it online and only found it in a 12″ that had 54-46 Was My Number and Funky Kingston. I found the same version at Amoeba and just had to pick it up. Those are three great songs that I would want to add to my collection anyway so in a sense I killed three birds with one stone.

So despite the fact that I never made it to the show I still managed to pick up some pretty awesome stuff. I had to drag myself out of there because I ran the risk of blowing my entire paycheck on music and at the moment there are a few other things I need to invest in like speakers for my turntables. I took out the turn tables last week and played with them for close to three hours, and had it not been for having to meet up with some people I would have kept on going, it is just too much fun!

So look for my review of Ceremonials coming up as well as a report from this months Great OC Vinyl Show in Buena Park which I attend every month.

I’m excited! Sitting on the floor of my bedroom, inside a wooden “coffin” are two turntables I just bought today. I have been, for some time now, collecting vinyl records not just because they sound great but because there is something just inexplicably cool about vinyl. So naturally I decided recently to acquire some turntables….but let me back up a bit, I gotta explain where I am coming from.

It has been a very, very difficult three months and a huge reason why I have been absent from this blog since then. If you have been reading the last few posts you know that I was fighting some serious depression and things only got worse from there. I can’t, and won’t, get into it but it has been very difficult and if anything it caused me to re-evaluate everything I was doing, and I do mean everything!

I decided I needed to make some changes in my life and devote myself to things that made me happy, to spend more of my free time doing something that I was both passionate about and brought joy to my life. The other side of the coin to that was, of course, that I had taken on way too many hobbies in an attempt to compensate for how unhappy I found myself. So, with a very heavy heart, I decided to count my losses and just let some things go. Some things that I knew no longer made me happy but I did them because wanted it to mean to me as much as it once did…like photography.

I have never been prouder of anything than the accomplishments I achieved during my time as a photographer but my passion for it died many years ago. I had been in denial, picking up my camera every once in a while and trying to “get back into it” but I knew deep down inside, it just wasn’t fun anymore. So I am giving my camera to my little brother and hoping that he finds more use for it than I have the last few years.

Gone too is my attempt at playing hockey and that one came down to just plain ol’ lack of time. Hockey is a very skillful game that requires hours upon hours practice, money, and more practice. I am glad that I got to suit up just once in my life, it fulfilled a childhood dream of mine but I don’t have an abundance of those two things it demands and so naturally it had to go.

When I first moved into the place I live at now my friend Ryan lent me his record player, a Crosley turntable with built in speakers. It is actually a really cool record player that has a very retro, 1940′s look to it. I started going to record shows, buying up vinyl at record stores and even online. I became completely hooked on vinyl and it brought back an excitement in me about music that I hadn’t felt since I was a musician in school.

I have been collecting for close to a year now and at no time am I as focused and immersed in the task at hand as when I am buying records, or playing them for that matter. So the idea came naturally, I guess you can say,  to play my records for anyone who would like to listen and so I set forth on a mission to find some affordable turntables.

So here is what I have in mind for this blog. While it is still a place for me to express myself I want to focus, primarily, on music and my love and passion for music. That is not to say I won’t write about other things now and then but I just want it to be predominantly a music blog.

One of the things I wanted to do was to review albums I buy, old and new, as well as write about my experiences as music afficionado.  I had this idea the other day of buying either a 45 or an LP for cheap at the monthly record show I go to and review it. I’m going to call that From The Discount Bin.. the idea behind that is to review an album or 45 that I would normally not even consider but took a chance on because it was cheap.  Ok so thats it, more to come on my adventures in mixing

So this post is coming to you from my phone. That’s right, I have finally ditched my blackberry! It really is pretty sad what has happened to blackberry over the years, I mean it used to be a really good phone but RIM really dropped the ball when it came time to evolving.  In my first year alone I had to replace my phone about 3 times. That really is a lot when you think about how sophisticated of a phone it’s supposed to be. But hey, if you cant keep up you are going to lose customers, right?

Anyway, I just got back from Vegas this past week and it was exhausting! I think it took me about 3 days after the trip to regain all my strength and energy. We had a really good time with my girl Les, the birthday girl, and I had the wonderful opportunity to meet some truly amazing people. Oh yes, I also got to zip line down Freemont street, which was just an amazing experience.

Oh yeah, so while I was there I decided to get a mohawk. Crazy I know, specially since I know  work would have none of it but it was my vacation week and I wanted  to have fun so what the hell. You only live once right?
So now that I am back I am ready to tackle those new challenges I was talking about before. That’s kind of the crazy thing about Vegas, I feel like every time I go it takes something from me. That place is way too much for me.  This time tho it has managed to refocus my attention. Before I left I was feeling pretty blue, and kind of sulking about some one things didn’t work out with, after Vegas (because I had to deal with somewhat unexpected things) it kind of put things into perspective. I have more pressing matters to deal with at the moment, like finding a new job for example.

So this week marks the beginning of my search and I am almost done with my resume. I got a few places I want to hit up and I know it won’t be easy but I am going to try none the less.  Ok so that’s all for now from my handy New phone. Till next time….

Vegas bound…again.  I don’t visit Vegas often but the times that I have gone have been enough for me. Vegas is so incredibly exhausting. I am over Vegas to be honest just because of how drained I have been the last few times I have gone but this time promises to be a bit different. For one I will be going with a group of people, something I haven’t done before and second, it is my friend Lesly’s birthday so that should be a lot of fun. Lesly is super sweet and has worked hard to get this set up so I am really looking forward to partying with her. It should also do me good to get away because lately I have been grinding gears at work.

So we are going for two nights (which is just about all I can handle) and the way it works out I will have some time after getting back to just relax before going back to work.  After the previous month I definitely need to get away from that place for an extended period of time. If I could afford to take a leave of absence believe me I would. Sometimes its good to just detach yourself from the situation and come back fresh. I haven’t taken any time off in over a year and its starting to show. Just the other day I had a situation at work that I wont go into but left me absolutely stunned. In over 10 years I have never had that happen to me and think because of how incredibly careful and meticulous I am that it couldn’t but there you go….there’s always a first time for everything.

When I come back though I have some things I definitely need to get back to work on. For one I need a second job. My current job gets me by but in a bad economy I need to utilize my days as much as possible and get as much as I can saved up. I’d like to only work a day or two at my current job and just start fresh somewhere else. I need a change of scenery!

Speaking of change of scenery I have been thinking more and more lately that I would love to live in LA or Pasadena (still LA technically no?).  For one I am freaking tired of Orange County. Part of the reason I love the bay area so much and always talk about it is because I never really felt like I fit in here.  So part of my Resume/Application Blitz, as I am now calling it, is to head up to Pasadena for a day every other week and just spend the day dropping off resumes and filling out applications. I recently visited a friend of mine up there. His brother drove up and went down this  street that runs by the Santa Anita racetrack. It was gorgeous and I absolutely fell in love with it. They tell me it’s expensive to live up there but we’ll see.

I also need to get back to working out. I have been neglecting it for the past month for obvious reasons. Last month was just absolutely brutal to my psyche and I am slowly starting to pick myself up. To be honest the only thing keeping me from losing my mind right now is the hope that I can work hard and turn it around and accomplish the goals I have set out to accomplish.  Last month just knocked me off my axis but taught me some very, very important lessons that I will take with me everywhere I go, so there was some good in that. I try not to walk away from something without having gained something and maybe at a later posting I’ll get into just what that lesson was.

I was talking to my buddy Ryan the other day and we both talked about wanting to get the most out of not just our days off but any time we where not at work.  He mentioned how much he really liked my postings of me doing things like mountain biking and that it inspired him to want to do something different. It really meant a lot to me to hear that and I realized that was a good part of me that I abandoned amidst the chaos of last month.

So I am determined to back to all of that! My friend Guillermo, who’s gym class played a big roll in my weight loss, has agreed to start training me so I need to dust off the running shoes and crank it up. We should start training at the earliest, the new year. The holidays are crazy not just for people but for people in the service industry so we agreed to wait till the new year when schedules are cleared and work is slow.

Alright, that’s all I have for now. I’ll let you all know how the Vegas trip went.

Today was quiet. I laid in my bed all day, outside I could hear people come and go, children from the near by park playing. During the middle of the day the trash pick up came by, woke me up from a small nap but the rest of the time….quiet. I slept and sometimes I laid there wide awake in the silence, an entire day gone by.  I asked a fellow co-worker to take my shift because I was in no condition to work. My chest ached, like someone had been sitting on it, pressing down for quite some time now and through all of this the only thing that was soothing was the silence….that peaceful silence.

For a long time now it has been slowly building. I have been running away from it, pretending it isn’t there. The truth is I have been sad for quite sometime now. I think I have supressed it as much as possible, tried to pretend it wasn’t there, thinking that it would go away.  The truth is, it hasn’t.  It has come spilling out sometimes, overflowing, just raw sadness.

So I spent the whole day in bed today, frozen and unmotivated. I won’t go into what triggered it this time but it wasn’t pretty. It isn’t easy for me to admit the current state I am in, in fact it is very difficult but I feel it is necessary and quite frankly, I am tired of pretending it isn’t there.  I won’t go into everything that upsets me because that list would be too long and I don’t believe I am ready for that yet.

It is hard for me to admit it. I just don’t want to become a sappy Eeyore type of character, in fact I am the opposite. I do want to get out there and do things, I do want to take my mind off of it, I just want it to be known that I carry some stuff with me I have to deal with on a daily basis.  So there…its out there. phew!

Moving on!

I decided to leave Facebook. Not delete it like last time but just leave it. I can post as The Second Shift which is probably how many of you got here and I think I will continue using it that way.  I have one hundred and some odd number of friends and only 34 followers for The Second Shift and that’s the beauty of it, I know who really is interested in what I have to say and who just wants an extra person under their friend tally.  I like this blog, its roomy, and comfortable and it feels in a way isolated from the fray.  I can explain in detail what I mean and what I am trying to say….and it will be therapeutic.

The plan is to be exclusive to the blog. No more posts as Martin, no more updates….and a big, big thank you to those of you who followed!

Trying to be a consistent blog writer is not easy!  There just isn’t enough hours in a day for everything I ever want to get around to.  Let’s catch up though.

First of all an update on the weight loss. As of right now I stand at about 168 lbs down from 205 lbs. Yep, that’s a whole whopping 37 lbs I lost. Holy smokes! I was rummaging through some old pictures the other day, and by old I mean from just last year, and my jaw just dropped. It’s unbelievable and I feel great finally being able live an active lifestyle and do things I love and have always wanted to do.

Of course nowadays my work outs are a little more scattered. The past few weeks I have been dealing with some personal issues that are not very serious but take up a lot of my time and energy. I encourage everyone who hits this obstacle to take it in strides. Don’t be afraid to take a week off to deal with your issues and then get back on it. Lately I have been in dire need of regaining my focus and I am thinking of allowing myself this week to work out some kinks in my life and get back on it.

What else is new?

We’ll I bought myself a mountain bike recently and took it out for my first ride this weekend. A while back I had decided that I wanted to do things that would take me out of my element on weekends (my weekends anyway) and help me escape and clear my head. Mountain biking, with trails away from the city, seemed like the right fit and after hunting down some bikes I finally bought one for a reasonable price.

So I headed down to Trabuco Canyon to the Whiting Wilderness Ranch. This park is not to far from Tustin, about  10 minutes on the freeway and another 15 minute drive through city streets, east towards the hills. When I got there it was still dark, around 6:30 and the sun was barely beginning to peak from behind the hills.  I rode my bike up the street before going into the park, high above the city, to get a good look at the valley as the sun came up behind me. 

The park itself was gorgeous and since I was there so early I was pretty much free to ride back and forth along the trails at high speeds without anyone being around. It was absolutely one of the coolest things I have done in years. The isolation, the loneliness of being out there in the wilderness while very scary at first, after a while became comforting. While cycling I came across a family of deer, hanging out by a stream. Naturally they turned to me and stared and as I pedaled by they scattered. It’s Monday morning, I’m riding my bike before some people have even gotten up to start their day and there is wild deer running around less than 10 ft away from me. It was exhilarating!

I came back out to the entrance once again and I saw a Ranger there. I started talking to him and asked him about the dangers of the park. Obviously there is wildlife there like the deer and where there is deer, there’s mountain lions. The Ranger gave me some tips on what to do should I encounter one. Make yourself as tall as you can, make loud continous noise (yell) and if need be, throw rocks. He warned me not to run away though, as this would make the cat chase me and take me down.  He assured me though that while there is a danger the last time they had a mountain lion attack was in 2004. I found this comforting, later when telling my dad this story he thought that meant the park was due….thanks dad.

I went back into the park, perhaps a little too confident and while going downhill got a little too excited and didn’t engage my breaks when I should’ve. Because this trail sees a lot of bikes, groves start to form along the path. These groves work almost like tracks and lock your tire along a certain path.  When you’re going too fast, I found out, it is almost impossible to get out of this “locked” position and I got jammed into one that put me in a direct path to a tree.  Now I am going perhaps 35-40 mph downhill and about 10-15 ft from a tree, this is bad news and I know it almost immediately!  I tried to steer out but was jammed and had enough time to do the only thing left for me to do, I bailed on my bike.  I went one way, my bike went another and I slid on my side a pretty decent distance (tells you how fast I was going!) before coming to a stop, scrapping my elbow and leg. I laid there for a while laughing and telling myself that at least I got my first spill out of the way. I got up, dusted myself off and got back on my bike, riding until my legs could give me no more.

Later when I got home I researched what the Ranger had mentioned and I looked up the attack by a mountain lion in 2004. It gave me chills when I read it for obvious reasons. I did not make it entirely around the park but apparently this attack took place towards the back, farther away from the city. There is a bench at the top of the hill where the attack happened and a plaque in honor of the man and I think next time I go I will make an attempt to make it all the way up there.

I am thinking about going back, perhaps next week and taking with me my flip camera. There is just too much beauty in this park for words and I will try and capture some of the beauty of it for you all to see.  So next week I’ll hopefully have a video. Now I am off to grab some dinner and head off to work.

Oh baseball. Well the season is over, well maybe not over but over for me at least. Another dismal year for the Oakland A’s and quite frankly, I am just glad it’s over. This year was like a bad date I just wanted to come to an end. A bad situation you can’t wait to just get out of and now that it is over I can finally breath easier. The Angels didn’t make it to the post season and I can at least take some comfort in that.

It is bad enough to not make the playoffs, to not re-live the excitement we all did in 2006 when I drove up to the bay area and slept in my car in the middle of west Oakland just to catch game three, but to watch the Angels play in the post season makes it worse.  With Texas the winner of the AL West, at least I don’t have to suffer with the constant reminder.

Playoff Predictions?

NL

Philly and Mil battling it out in the NLCS with Brewers beating out Philly in 6.

AL

Rangers  and Yankees in the ALCS with the Yankees taking it. Say what you will, that Yankee team is just brutal, Sabbathia with two outings, is a solid two wins right there. I think the Rangers are a solid team just not as powerful as the Bronx bombers.

Yankees and Brewers World Series? Yes, and while it should be a great match up I am gonna root for the Brewers but not suprised if the Yankees win it. Really rooting for the Wisconsin boys.

Ok, thats all for now! It’s Sunday Funday and I am on my way out to catch the Packers vs Broncos game on a tv somewhere.