Sitting at the state capitol building.
…in the wee hours of the morning
…alone
…reading

I have easily spent hundreds of hours here.

It’s open 24 hours, heavily guarded, meticulously maintained, and extremely quiet at night.

There is something that is simply marvelous about sitting on one of the war memorials inscribed with the names of thousands of people who have died, sacrificed and fought for the unbelievably cushy and enjoyable life I get to lead.

I sit there and read.  Or plan. Or think.

It’s truly a humbling experience that reminds me we all stand on the shoulders of giants.

I sometimes wonder if others have such a remarkable place to call their own.

You can see all my previous posts about FacebookProfile.com here:

• Category listing of all posts
• Introducing FacebookProfile.com
• How I had the site designed
• The chalkboard gimmick
• Because of FacebookProfile I was in a Lebanese newspaper
• Because of the Lebanese newspaper I was on Digg
• Selling FacebookProfile.com
• Sold it

Interesting side note:
Because of the screenshots I’ve posted from FacebookProfile.com of my own Facebook profile back in the day….my whole profile (including phone number, address, email etc.) has been in HUNDREDS of documents including newspapers, magazines, published papers, blog posts, books, news stories and presentations all over the world!

Another interesting side note:
Till this day, if you Google the term “Facebook ASCII”, 98% of the art you find was made by ME! You will see it on many different websites, all by people who:

• Read my blog posts about how much traffic FacebookProfile.com got.
• Made their own Facebook-related site.
• Swiped all the content from FacebookProfile.

After it was bought I didn’t care less.  However the next owner of the site never updated it, then about a year later the site disappeared…

It also doesn’t matter anymore because most of that ASCII made back then is now obsolete due to changes in Facebook’s text editor.

I used to do this with plastic water bottles,
but plastic bottles + lots of heat = not good.

So now instead of gross water that I never sip, I just keep different flavors of tea in the car all the time!

It seems I’ve got the Tim Ferris “4 Hour Work Week” down for my business House Of Rave, because I swear that’s about as much effort I’ve been putting in lately.

I say this in a BAD way.  Just because I only have to work on it for 30 minutes a day, doesn’t mean I SHOULD.  It also means that I can GET AWAY with only 30 minutes per day, but it doesn’t GROW without a little more effort.

While I tend to be productive in other areas throughout the day, I remember seeing a video….I’m not sure who said it, I think Eben Pagan, but it said something to the effect:

What actually “makes you money” in your business is the thing that’s actually interacting with your customers.  This could be web page content they see, or a shopping cart they use, or a video you made…..

… etcetera etcetera ….

I realized I’ve been slacking off in that department, so I dusted off the ‘ole camera and did a little content creation:
http://www.houseofrave.com/led-mood-tea-light-candles.html

“Weird”

“Ummmmmm…no comment”

“Stupid”

“Wacky”

“Awesome”

“What about your eyebrows”

“Punk rocker”

“What the hell happened”

“Don’t ever do that again”

“Interesting”

….all of these are various reactions I get from people whenever I dye my hair blonde.

Sometime in 2001 when we were at a lock-in for our church group…someone said, “Why don’t we dye your hair blonde?”

I have no idea who said this, or even why such an out-of-the-blue suggestion was made…but it sounded like a fantastic idea. Two of us immediately drove to the nearest Walgreens and bought a black-to-blonde hair bleaching set.

I learned that girls really like anything to do with hair….so I had no real input in this whole process, nor did I care.  All I know is yadda yadda yadda my hair ended up like this:

Obviously it wasn’t true blonde…but more of an orangy-yellow color.

The reaction from everyone including my friends and parents was almost always the same:

• Stage 1: “What the HELL did you do?!?!?!”
• Stage 2: “Ehhh….I don’t like it, but it’s alright?”
• Stage 3: “It’s blonde…so what?”

That whole process generally takes about 5 or 10 minutes.

I was in college the first time I did this, and it garnered some interesting results.  First of all, it was definitely a conversation starter.  Secondly, I became exceedingly easy to recognize.

In one class I was working on a group project, and we collaborated with the professor to play a prank in the class which would “advertise” a fake product we were promoting (all part of the project).  My cell phone was to go off, the professor would find me and make me go up on stage to set an example of me (she was particularly vigilant against cell phone use is class and was well known for it).

As the prank went according to plan, I apologetically walked toward the stage in front of the roughly 600 people in that class (all still in shock at the professor’s outburst at me) …then BOOM, I tripped over an extension cord! The entire auditorium erupted into raucous laughter as all my stuff, backpack and a huge stack of loose papers (I purposely bought to class for a more dramatic effect) went FLYING in the air and I came crashing down!

I got on my feet, completely mortified (I was acting), and yelled loudly into the auditorium, “IT WAS THIS STUPID EXTENSION CORD I TRIPPED ON!!”   Right then, another group member got up and said, “Mrs. Cleveland, you know better than to use an old-fashioned extension cord, you should use the NO-STENSION cord!”  That was our “imaginary” product we were promoting for the project.

Anyhow….a group of 600+ people saw me eat floor…and at the time I was a brown kid with blonde hair.  EVERYWHERE I went on campus for the next week someone would say, “Hey, I saw you fall in Mrs. Cleveland’s class!”  I met half the class simply because of my hair!

The next time I dyed my hair blonde was about a year later on 11-7-2002 (I know this because the photo info tag still has the date).  This time it was in my college dorm, and I kind of wanted to do the blonde hair again.  Obviously some girl chimes in and says, “OH PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LET ME DO IT!”

So once again…yadda yadda yadda I had a bunch of bleach in my hair:

(That’s right….I DID in fact have recessed lighting in my dorm.  I ghetto-rigged it out of L.E.D. Christmas rope lights and duct tape).

Once again the hair was completely blonde.

One of the things that appealed to me about this whole change was it’s ability to MORPH.  So my hair didn’t simply stay blonde, it would constantly grow black hair underneath.  This meant it would go from full blonde, to black roots showing, to half-black-half-blonde, to mostly black and some blonde tips….and often some weird stages in between.

Also whenever I got a haircut it would change the entire look. Sometimes it came out good, sometimes it came out bad.  It was always and gamble!

The next time I did it, the bleach wasn’t left in long enough for whatever reason.  The hair came out more gold or orange, like this:

I could spike it up and it looked more punk rockish (or nowadays Jersey Shore’ish):

This picture is relatively accurate of the actual color it turned out:

Once this hair would grow out for a little while, it’d be time to get a haircut.  Often the first hair cut would leave the hair looking like this:

It was black with golden tips:

Take a look at that last picture.  During that time I would frequently get the “Are you you gay” question.  I later found out that having blonde tipped hair and immaculately waxed eyebrows DID IN FACT look hella gay.  It makes me cringe to think I walked around in public with eyebrows like that! You’ll be happy to know my eyebrows are currently big and bushy.

Now previously the hair bleaching had been done by people (or me)…all whom had no idea what they were doing.  You buy the bleaching set, you mix some horrendous chemicals together, you slop it on my head…wait an hour and BAM.  Blonde hair.

The goal was always BLONDE hair…not “orange” hair that always came out instead.  So the last time I made my hair blonde (February 2010), I went to a real salon and told them to make my hair platinum blonde. I was curious to see what would happen.

They ended up bleaching my hair THREE times for THREE HOURS!  Now that’s some DEAD hair!

They also made me sit under one of those heat chair things….it wasn’t the most comfortable thing.  My hair was being bleached to death while sitting under this thing blowing very hot air at my head.

Fortunately I brought a book to read…the whole process took over three hours.

The first machine they put me under created a “swamp” effect…mainly just very high humidity and some heat.  The second machine (above) would blow very hot air at my head.  By the third time they put me under this thing, it was VERY painful.

This is a picture of the hair (look how dead it looks) after three hours of bleaching.

The end result.  It kind of looks like a hairstyle a lesbian would have.  Like I said before, I never know what it’ll turn out like!

The above is about a week or so after the bleaching. It would kind of naturally curl or stick straight up in the morning.

Below, I found whenever I simply pushed the mass of dead hair that happened to be attached to my head straight up, it looked like Kramer.

Just for clarification, I think looking like Kramer is a GOOD thing.

When the hair is down, it looks like a “Blonde Mop” on my head:

It’s difficult to show, but the hair looked “interesting” from the side in its half-black-half-blonde stage:

After a few more weeks, it starts looking even crazier:

At this stage in the hair’s growth, it just started looking crazier and crazier. I though it started to look like Einstein at one point….however it took on more the form of a DragonBall Z character:

The final stage of the hair got pretty long and curly.  The day I cut my hair it looked like I was wearing a big powdered wig around….

I actually did not plan to cut my hair for quite some time.  I liked how I progressively looked more insane as my hair grew out…but it was the same me underneath.  Maybe there’s some sort of moral in that?

Eventually I decided to cut my hair because the maintenance was getting too cumbersome.  Washing the hair required special shampoo and conditioner, and I kept playing with the hair which would make it tangle.  I literally couldn’t run my fingers through my hair without them getting stuck somewhere through the journey.

A quick $11 haircut later:

….now the journey through styles continues as people think I got my hair highlighted with blonde tips.

So this is why every once in a while I change my hair color.  It simply goes through an unknown cycle of looks, styles and generally-not-fashionable stages by itself.  I never know exactly how it’ll turn out, and that appeals to me.

Cheers to looking insane!
-Neville

I’ve encountered every excuse to eat horribly like travelling, being extremely busy, going back home, going to parties, drinking alcohol, not having healthy food in the house, being at unhealthy restaurants….all these problems in the past used to hold me back from achieving any real results.

Now I’m breezing through them like nothing.

The first month was the real test, the 2nd month was a lot easier…mainly just making sure I don’t slip back into old habits, and I’m going on a third month now.  After doing this for a solid 90 days, I’m pretty sure eating healthier will be a lifelong habit.

I DID NOT go on a diet.
I DID NOT starve myself.
I DID NOT try some fad.
I simply stayed CONSISTENT with eating “good stuff” rather than “bad stuff.”

Enough rambling, here’s some pictures I took this morning:

Full disclosure:
It’s absolutely impossible to take shirtless/flexed pictures of yourself in the mirror and NOT look like a douchebag.

To continue the douchebaggery, I have included a video (you might even notice the before & after haircut)!  The 1st part of the clip was taken in the morning, the 2nd part was taken immediately after a big dinner).

I think you can pretty clearly see the 6-pack making an appearance:

So I’d say eating this way has definitely changed the way I look.  I once again thank Adam for helping me on this, and will continue this experiment for another month.

It’s unbelievable what these small changes in my diet have accomplished so quickly!

If this is your first time seeing the Six Pack Experiment, checkout some of the earlier posts that may be helpful:

• All the posts in one long category listing
• Demystifying calories
• Get yourself a tiny plate
• For all the alcoholics out there
• Ab workouts

Here’s also an audio you can listen to (I often record these audios then turn them into a post):

Food is just temporary fuel for your body.

Food is temporary pleasure, but its longterm effect on your body is quite large.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT.
Stupid old cliche or real statement?  I think it’s pretty accurate.

For the Getting A Six Pack Experiment, in roughly 5 weeks I lost around 17 lbs total….and I wasn’t really fat to begin with. That’s a LOT of weight in NOT A LOT of time, HOORAY!

…did I also mention that I was working out LESS than I normally do that whole time?

So I was working out less, but got dramatic weight loss results FAST. Obviously something had changed, and it was my CHOICE of foods.

No no no….I didn’t STOP EATING food, that would just be silly…like not filling up your gas tank and expecting your car to run. Instead, I gave my car premium fuel instead of the shit I was previously putting in.

Eating healthy is NOT expensive….buying packaged foods that say “Healthy” on the label IS expensive. The best part is, those foods AREN’T healthy at all, so you don’t need to buy them!

Why eat them if they’re more expensive AND not healthy?

I primarily ate raw foods for this experiment, and the transition wasn’t exceedingly hard when I made up my mind not to eat any super-high calorie items that weren’t good for me (although it took some see-sawing first).

If you can’t do this yourself, you might want to checkout what Adam at MyBodyTutor offers.  I knew I couldn’t do this myself, that’s why I signed up with the service…it keeps you in check everyday, and soon it becomes a habit that ISN’T hard to keep.

Adam didn’t recommend me to eat mainly raw foods…I was already doing it before I called him (I must’ve been one of his easiest clients since I was already eating so well)!

One of the main things I’ve learned through this experiment was controlling what I ate was more mental than anything.  I’m the variety of person that DOESN’T eat when I feel emotions such as happiness or sadness (fat people tend to be the opposite)…if you have that problem, you DEFINITELY might consider Adam’s help.   However I still had the “Food as a reward” thing going on in my head.

Successes were celebrated with big meals, and special occasions usually indicated a big feast was coming.  I’m all for celebrating victories, but stuffing-myself-silly slowly and slowly seems less attractive.  Why ruin a good victory by running myself down….what’s the point?

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P.S.  I actually first recorded this post, unscripted, on audio.  I kind of like doing the audio thing now.  The audio and post don’t really talk about the same thing at all.  Here it is (click play):