It’s been way too long since I’ve paid any attention to this site and I can only blame myself. I thought I’d take a moment and write down what’s been going on since the last time I posted.

As of June, I am now a technology writer for TechZulu.com. I’m always on the look out for something that I enjoy and I can make some extra money from. I know what I’m doing now is not what I’m going to do for the rest of my life so I’ve been a little more active in trying to find out what it is I ENJOY doing. I noticed that a local tech site that I follow was looking for a writer to post reviews, interviews and articles on local startups. I’ve been blogging for almost 10 years and have been posting tech related posts to my site for about 7 years so I figured, why not? I was a little surprised when the CEO responded to me via Twitter and wanted to contact me. After a phone interview and an in person meeting, I was welcomed aboard as the newest writer for TechZulu. I’m about two months in and while I feel like I’m still getting a feel for actually writing for a site other than my own, I like the fact that my articles will be read by a wider audience than my own personal blog. You can read what I’ve written for TechZulu here.

I’m a little late to the iPad 2 bandwagon but last week I won one for a contest at work. I relented on buying an iPad 2 when they were released because I didn’t feel that there were enough features to get me to upgrade. Once this contest was announced at work, it was a no brainer. All I had to do was do what I normally get paid for, AND get an iPad 2? Sure, why not?! At first, the contest said we were going to be allotted a 32GB WiFi only model but for accounting reasons that I’m not complaining about, our manufacturer sent us enough money for a 64GB 3G+WiFi and a Smart Cover. I’ve had it for almost two weeks and while a full blown review would be a little outdated, I’ll write down some quick thoughts about it in a future post.

The previous side gig on the Dos Chinos truck has slowly grown into something that, if I really wanted to, could replace my main source of income. Since I last posted, our truck has been featured in a New York Times article, on KTLA and on The Cooking Channel’s Eat St. And now, the owners are close to opening up a brick and mortar location in Downtown Los Angeles. Hop, one of the co-owners of the truck, has been really pushing me to jump on with him full time and help him launch the restaurant. It’s a bit humbling that he’s tapped me as one of the chosen to help launch the restaurant, but it could also open doors to something that I’ve always wanted to do on my own.

And on a final note, while I don’t like to get too personal, too often on this site, I’ve found myself in probably the last relationship I’ll ever get into. She’s turned me from cynical and jaded to hopeful and extremely happy. I’m thankful everyday that our paths crossed again and she’s back in my life.

If people still follow posts on this site, please know that I’m more interesting, and post a lot more on Twitter.

Over the weekend, I had one of the most frightening experiences anyone can have. On my way back from Las Vegas for my birthday weekend, I had a panic attack. I was in the back seat of my roommates car. We were about 30 minutes from our apartment when I started feeling a tightness in my chest. I couldn’t tell if it was my lungs or my heart but it was a slight tingling/tightness. I thought it was weird when it wouldn’t go away no matter how much I fidgeted. It then started spreading through my upper body and into my arms. At this point, I started to get really scared. I told my roommate and his girlfriend who was sitting in the front passenger side that I didn’t feel good. After the weekend I had in Vegas, they thought I had to vomit but I promptly said it wasn’t that. From that point, everything was a blur. I had tunnel vision and my point of view felt like someone was running around wildly with a handheld camcorder. Luckily, my roommate has had experience with people having panic attacks and knew exactly what to do. As soon as he started to telling me to breathe deeply and that everything was going to be ok, I started to remember everything that was going on. I remember feeling extremely tense. I couldn’t feel my fingers and they were locked into position. My entire upper body was tense. I honestly thought I was having a heart attack. Once we got home, I was starting to feel a little bit better. The next day, I could feel the effects coming back so I took the day off work. Even yesterday, I could still feel the after effects of my panic attack. Not in the same way as the previous days, but as waves of emotion coming over me suddenly and unexpectedly.

What’s even scarier than the actual panic attack is that I don’t know what caused it. I’ve gone through bad breakups, grandparents passing away and being laid off and none of those have triggered anything close to a panic attack. Even as I look at my life now, there’s nothing that I can complain about. I have a decent paying job that lets me work from home, a side job with awesome perks, a great circle of close friends and I recently found someone that I really care about, that I can’t stop thinking about and makes me happy. Regardless, I’m going to get a professional opinion to find out where is all stemming from. Until then…

Some lines from over the weekend.

“We’re so old we’re talking about the 90′s like it’s the 80′s.”

“I love Joe Hill’s birthday. I look forward to it every year.”

“The last time I saw Joe like that was on his wedding day.”

“Bros before hoes except if you’re getting ass.”

“The name of my car is Truck Norris.”

“Cool story bro.”

Yellowcard released their seventh (!) album yesterday. I was introduced to them in 2001 around the time One For The Kids was released. Ten years later and their sound hasn’t really changed since then. On first listen, I was a little disappointed to hear essentially the same Yellowcard album I’ve heard for 10 years. I was hoping in the 4 years since their last album they might have tried something different, something new. A couple listens through, however, I’m glad it’s the same old Yellowcard I’ve listened to since college. I guess you can call it my guilty pleasure but I’ve always enjoyed pop punk songs about love lost and forgotten. They have always been experts at putting those feelings and thoughts into melodies and lyrics so why change? My pick for damn-that’s-a-good-song-because-I-can-totally-relate is “With You Around”.

All I can think about is
You and me driving with a Saves the Day record on
We were singing till our voices were gone
And I was falling hard, you were barely hanging on
And now I wanna chase forever down, with you around

In all, a solid, if not short (10 songs) album. If you’re a Yellowcard fan, I’m sure you already have the album. Otherwise, grab this album (iTunes link) and wait for the weather to get warm so you can blast it with the windows down.

After even more use of Rdio, I have a couple of things that I’d like to see.

• A native iPad app. I use my iPad primarily for reading, surfing the web and watching video. While I do have some music on my iPad, I’d rather save the space on my iPad for movies, TV shows and apps. Since I can now stream music through Rdio, I can give up some of the space I had for my music collection for more video and apps. While I use the iPhone Rdio app on the iPad upsized to double resolution, a native iPad app would make the Rdio even more enjoyable.
• Ability to hide unavailable music. One of the downsides to licensing laws is that, for whatever reason, not all music is available for streaming. Nothing is more frustrating that looking for an album and finding out it’s not available for streaming. I’d like for there to be an option to hide any music that’s not available to stream. If it’s not available, why even show it?
• More social integration. There are some social media aspects to the site but I’d like to be able to interact more with my friends. There is Facebook and Twitter integration but the only thing I can see from this is searching your friends to see which ones are on Rdio. While you can subscribe to your friends’ playlists and can collaborate on playlists, I’d like to be able to make fun of someone when they add a questionable artist to their collection. Or be able to tweet that I’ve added an album to my collection or post that someone released a new album from within the app.
• A more streamlined app. The native Rdio app for Mac is way better than the previous option which ran on Adobe Air. It’s set up like iTunes and feels very familiar to anyone who has used iTunes but I feel like there could be a better way to view your collection and playlists while having the browser to view the Rdio library.

I already have been singing the joys of Rdio but if they made these small changes, Rdio would be near perfect.