Another year of life gone by.  Has it been a good one?  Did I do it right?  Will I look back in the future and say, “yeah, that was a good year”?  I think so.  Let’s see what happened over this year… but first!  New Years resolutions.

For 2010, I’m not resolving to do much cause I’ve already got so many other things on my list. But two additions are these:
1.) I resolve to play at least one round of golf.  Dianne and I went to a golfing range in LA and it was a lot of fun, so I’d like to try it out on the real deal.
2.) Eat one salad item ever day, every other week.  This means, the first week, I don’t have to, but the next week, I have to have a salad every day for that week.  Then the next week I don’t have to but still can if I want.  The reason I’m doing this is because the food experiment I did last year was not enough.  The affects of it lasted a few months and then I started eating less veges again.  I don’t think I eat unhealthily, but it’s always good to keep things like this in check before a problem actually arises.  So, it’s a resolution.

As for last year, I started out the year in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; not a bad place to start it out.  I had many adventures all over southeast Asia, and even got some snowboarding in when I came home in Tahoe, Park City, and others.  Saw some great bands at both Austin South by Southwest and Austin City Limits in October; not to mention the mudfest ACL became.  I journeyed to Australia to see what’s downunder and saw a croc jump up out of the water.  I met some fun people and dated some very interesting women.  I started a company called Happy Ugg Boots with one of them. I am now in what is the longest serious relationship I’ve had for quite some time: over 3 months now! with a girl named Rosario who I met a few years back at a friends party.  She’s a lot of fun to hang around.

I went to Vegas several times, twice with Rosario and saw some amazing Circ de Soleil shows.  As far as gambling goes, I think I evened out over the year, so no big money there.  I did a show on stage called Mortified: two nights the first time and once in the Alamo Ritz theater downtown, which was awesome! Even got a tv spot live on the Austin Eye.

I only worked 30 weeks out of the year for my travel job which left a lot of time open to travel for fun, hang with friends, and visit my parents which I’ve done a lot of this year; plus I got to see my grandma, aunt and uncles over Christmas which was great!  I’ll prolly have to work more in 2010 though as the paycheck for 30 weeks is not quite up to par for my bank account.  Done a lot of wakeboarding this year and learned how to switch goofy and do an air 180.

Saw some plays in the first half of the year and got to know some of the theatre crowd in Austin but not nearly well enough.  Would love to do more with them.  Had visitors come in from out of town, including Didi from Holland, and Law from LA who was here for SXSW and the documentary he worked on along with three brothers won best overall!  Which is awesome!  I donated blood for the first time EVER and will continue to do it once a quarter, but not in winter.  Found out my blood type is A+, which means I shouldn’t eat much red meat and that’s fine by me, not a steak man.

My parents are doing well in their new house and were able to sell the old one this year.  So having all that new money meant a shopping spree of new furniture and other items.  Guess who has two thumbs and gets the old furniture.  THIS GUY!  My brother and his family are also doing well.  Joshua will be around more in 2010 to see Katrina grow up (they’re poddy training right now), and Vaiva’s got a little boy in the oven.  Timer goes off in a few weeks!

I love Austin and my friends here, but still miss my LA friends.  No man knows any greater friends then those.  I always knew I had found some diamonds in the rough and am often jealous of their activities together and longing to join them… then I go rock climbing and try to be happy with where I am at, or think of ways to make trips over.

As far as status quo, both houses are holding up and retain tenants, although this next year will be a big change for the northern house as I’m going to start renting it per room.  Hope that works out, otherwise I’m hosed.  So here’s to the New Year, may it not be a year of hosing!

Before we jump into the tastings of root beer.  We’ve got to know a little more about its making and what we’re looking for in a flavor.  Root beer was originally brewed using sassafras root.  This same root can be filed down to a powder and is put in many gumbos as a spice.  Sassafras can also be steeped into a tea until the FDA banned sassafras in cooking oils and foods in 1960, siting lab reports that claimed ingesting it led to liver damage and certain types of cancers.  Of course today, they’re more then happy to let us ingest high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils, but let’s not get off topic.

After 1960, soda companies were forced to switch over to artificial sassafras flavorings and spices to recreate their flavors, that is until 1994 when the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act was passed, eventually lifting the ban on sassafras use in foods.  Today, most root beers are still made with artificial flavorings along with some of these ingredients:

• Pimenta dioica – Allspice
• Vanilla planifolia – Vanilla
• Trigonella foenum-graecum – Fenugreek
• Myroxylon balsamum – “Tolu Balsam”
• Abies balsamea – “Balsam Fir”
• Hordeum vulgare – “Barley” (Malted)
• Myristica fragrans – Nutmeg
• Juniperus communis – “Juniper” (fruit or “berry”)
• Cinnamomum zeylanicum – Cinnamon (bark)
• Cinnamomum aromaticum – “Cassia” (bark)
• Syzygium aromaticum – Clove
• Foeniculum vulgare – Fennel (seed)
• Zingiber officinale – Ginger (root)
• Illicium verum – Star Anise
• Pimpinella anisum – Anise
• Humulus lupulus – Hops
• Mentha species – Mint
• Hypericum perforatum – St. John’s Wort
• Cane Sugar
• Molasses
• Honey

Most of which will be hidden under the clandestine “spices” label in the ingredients section to secure each maker’s secret recipe is not revealed.

Each brand has its own history to their specific root beer, but to North America, root beer was invented by Charles Hires, a Philadelphia pharmacist who according to his biography discovered a recipe for a delicious herbal tea while on his honeymoon. The pharmacist began selling a dry version of the tea mixture and also began working on a liquid version of the same tea. The result of was a combination of over twenty-five herbs, berries and roots that Charles Hires used to flavor a carbonated soda water drink. The Charles Hires’ version of a root beer beverage was first introduced to the public at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial exhibition. The Hires family continued to manufacture root beer and in 1893 first sold and distributed bottled root beer. Charles Hires and his family certainly contributed greatly to the popularity of modern root beer, however, the origins of root beer can be traced further back in history.

The historical root beer was analogous to small beer, in that the process provided a drink with a very low alcohol content. In spite of roots being used as the source of many soft drinks in many countries throughout the world (and even alcoholic beverages/beers), the name root beer is almost unused outside of the United States, Canada and the Philippines. Most other countries have their own indigenous versions of root-based beverages and small beers but with different names and branding.

December 4 is International Root Beer Day (IRBD). IRBD was first celebrated on December 4, 1995 in Venezuela with American root beer imported from Curaçao.

Alright kiddies, that’s enough background on the beer of root, let’s get fizzin!

Happy New Year everyone!

For Christmas I got 24 bottles of different types of rootbeer from my parents!

And so of course I must blog about them as I try each one.  You may be wondering “Why would someone buy a case load of rootbeer for someone?”  Well you inquisitive reader you, if you’ve seen my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days, you’d know that I want to taste test 12 different types of rootbeer, now I have 24! And by the end of all this, you too shall know which rootbeer is truly the best.

I’ll be rating based on taste, bite, color, smell, and overall rootbeeriness.  I’ll give an overall rating from 1 to 10, but I’m a harsh judge, so 10 would have to be the best frikkin rootbeer I’ve ever tasted.

So stay tuned for every Mon and Wed for a new rootbeer update!

Hey, I forgot to mention that the Monday before the Mortified show, we did a TV spot on Eye TV in Austin.  It was Michelle, Patrick, and I.  Michelle and I were reading excerpts from our journals and I managed to stare creepily at the camera like a statue for the first half. Nice.  Check out:

http://weareaustin.com/content/video/?cid=41892

Man, it’s been a busy month.  I waited until December 1st before buying gifts and before I knew it, it was December 15th!  It just flew by.

I started out in Ellensburg, WA which was kind of stressful cause of a mix up in flight arrangements, then I flew to Little Rock for an account and  met some really nice people there. I’ll be honest, I hate the midwest, it’s flat, there are tornados a large portion of the year and there’s very little to do there, BUT the people are great; really down to earth, just want to have a good time sort of people. Flew in on Friday at 6p and raced home to change and go to a Christmas party with Rosario’s family.  It was a lot of fun and we cut a rug on the dance floor pretty well. MMmmm, just remember the taste of the tres leches, sooo good.  The next day, I got up early and went to the Alamo Ritz Draft House to rehearse for the Mortified show I was doing that week.  i got to hear all the other journals which were great, but we didn’t have time for me. That was okay though, i’d done it once before earlier this year. After I left there, picked up Rosario and we drove up to Fort Worth for a friend of mine’s wedding. The joining of Lyle and Caroline was quite lovely and afterwards, we retired to share a hotel room with my parents. We played farkle till the wee hours… well like 10 or 11. 

Drove back to Austin on Sunday and stayed up way too late trying to get stuff done I should’ve gotten done over the weekend. Then got up on Monday at 5 to get to work in Kyle by 7am. Worked there until Wed.  Wed night I did the Mortified show which went over fantastically. The laughs in my pauses were actually going on so long I had to start talking over them so I didn’t drag on too long.  I did get to intereact with the audience though which I loved; little improv always feels good.  “Where were you girls when I was in Junior high?”  Those of you who were there know what that means.  Everyone did a great job, it went so well.  I wish I could talk about everyone’s peice but like I said: busy month and much to talk about and it’s MY blog so I take priority.    Couple highlights though I will comment on.

Nat: cried on the page of his journal, circled it and wrote “tear”
Lynn: so much fingering going on for her, loved it. It’s so great to hear those things that you didn’t expect to say to anyone, it’s so opening.  You feel like you can trust that person so much more.
everyone did a great job, those are just two that stick out in my mind. Oh and the band, I think they were called the “After School Specials”, they were so good.  I need to find them in Austin somewhere

::off to facebook to look them up::

On Thursday and Friday, I was back up in the Dallas area working. Over the week, I had started getting sick. Made it through MOrtified without getting a sore throat, but by Friday, I was coughing pretty severely. Plus my bowels hurt. I might have a peritenial infection, but nothing to worry about. Will need some minor surgery this coming year, but we’ll talk about that later.

Then Rosario and I were off to Vegas for 4 days.  Met Arno and Lauren there and we had a grand ole time. I lost a lot of money, but got to see some great shows.  Mystere was AMAZING! You must go and see it. There were two strong guys doing some amazingly difficult things, a guy with a rotationg cube on rings, pole jumpers, a huge fat baby and more! As for David Copperfield, I’ll say two things: DON’T go see his show and He’s a deush.

Walked around Aria and City Center; it had just opened the week before. Reviewed some tv shows, including one new one coming out called Life Unexpected. It was pretty good, I’ll look for it in the coming year. Other then that, just ate ALOT, drank, took pictures and danced around the cacinos.  Oh and the decorations in the Bellagio were very nice, but I still liked the fall decorations better.

Flew back in from Vegas and left the next day for my parent’s place.  Rosario flew to Cali for her nephew’s wedding and Christmas.  My Grandma, aunt, and uncles are visiting too so it’s a full house, but my parents new house has plenty of space. We’ve been playing games and chatting during the day. Around 10p when everyone goes to bed, I’m finally able to work and catch up on all the stuff I need to get done; like my blog!

That’s pretty much a summary of what’s happening here.  Oh! For Christmas I got 24 bottles of different types of rootbeer! That was one of the things on my list (suggested by Kristen Carter, thanks Kristen).  So now I get to blog about rootbeer tastings. Sweetness!  Merry Christmas all and goodnight.

Last Sunday I started a regiment of supplements to get my body healthy and in shape. I purchased a butt load of pills to take some I feel I needed, some were recommended to me by my dad who’s a major health nut. So as of Sunday, I began taking 18 pills a day. That’s 11 different supplements of varying dosages. Now that may seem like a lot… well, it is. But my dad takes more then 30 pills a day. But it’s hard to argue with the result, he’s in his mid 50s and looks great, has all his hair with only a bit of gray. His body is in good shape if not for back issues which are the result of an accident when he was younger.

After starting the regiment, the obvious first sign that I was headed for trouble was that for some reason now, whenever I burp, I taste sea weed. I’m chewing gum constantly. The second sign was that I started to feel bloated and then get gassy. I warn you, the below gets pretty graphic. Finally, I broke out in frequent diarrhea. Love how much these pills are helping me. At first, I thought it was the bad breakfast of the hotel or the so so food of this tiny Ellensburg, WA. But I don’t think that would last the entire week and plague me even after Immodium which usually does the trick.

So there could be a lot of explanations for this. Perhaps my body doesn’t agree with one of the pills I’m taking or perhaps I started taking too many at one time too quickly. Starting this weekend, I’m going to change my game up a bit. I’m going to start over and just add one at a time; a new pill every week, starting with what I think I need most. This way, I’ll slowly gradiate myself into AND by giving myself a week, I’ll fish out the diarrhea causing culprit.

Here’s a list of all the pills I’m taking. I got them from lef.org which is the Life Extension Foundation of which I am a member. All of these pills are natural preventative nutrients which has been scientifically proven to fight cancers, neurological deterioration, organ failure, inflammation, and yes even the swine flu and have none of the side effects assocatiated with pharmaceutical synthetic drugs; well perhaps diarrhea, but i’ll let you know when I get to the bottom of that issue (pardon the pun).

00625 Mega EPA\DHA – provides needed omega-3 (fish oils) and omega-6 fatty acids
00717 ONly Trace Minerals – trace minerals no longer present in most of our drinking water like zinc, manganese, boron, etc.
00802 Anti-alcohol antioxidants with patoprotection complex – formula containing additional antioxidants designed to suppress free radicals, neutralize toxic alcohol metabolites such as acetaldehyde,32-35 and support healthy liver function in addition to vitamin B1, vitamin C, N-acetyl-cysteine and benfotiamine.
00912 super curcumin with bioperine – reduces inflammation response, healthy lipid profile, bowel, and joint functions, and other good stuff for ya
01338 Blueberry extract with pomegranate and cocoa gold – great all around anti-oxidants
01425 super ubiquinol CoQ10 with Mitochondrial support – promots stronger, healthier cells, lowers blood pressure, etc
01409 Optimized resveretrol with pterostilbene – anti-oxidant and anti aging properties
01224 Super K with advanced K2 complex – bone density
01371 Vitamin D3 with sea iodine – protection against influenza, supports immune system
00965 Fast acting joint caps – supports and gives tools to regrow cartilage damage faster
01454 Life Extension Mix – overall health and wellness

As most of you hopefully know by now, I and my business partner Ani, embarked on a business venture called Happy Ugg Boots recently. You can buy authentic ugg boots for discount prices at happyuggboots.com (plug) or check us out on twitter (plug), we also have a facebook page (plug plug plug).  As you can see, it’s taking over much of my life.

This post is more of a venting of stress from the rigors of business.  I won’t go into specifics, but there is some stress involved.  Stress with money, with orders, with people, with the website, with everything; and I’m a pretty low stress kind of guy, so this is gonna be an interesting experience. By interesting, I might mean blood-pressure-building mental!  We are HAPPY Ugg Boots, so I’ve got to figure out how I can run this thing and at the very least not go out of my mind.  Even now, I am getting emails and IMs about ugg boots. But it IS educational. At the very least, I’m learning so much while providing a valuable service for those uninformed or lacking the comfort that is the ugg; seriously they’re super comfy! Never thought I’d be so into uggs, but there are so many different styles!  I know it might sound gay (and I’m comfortable with that), but I really like the Classic Cardy boots. It’s like a sock with a sole… I’m gonna use that.

Anyway… friends, family, loved ones, bear with me during this transitional phase as it seems I will be quite unavailable for a time. Starting a business is like raising a child.  It misbehaves at times, and yes mommy and daddy do fight, but we work it out and the kid grows up;  just the first year or so, it keeps you up at night crying. Grammatically, I don’t know if that sentence said I was crying or the child, honestly they’re both true.

Between this, and training for the marathon, I’m swamped.  But it is riveting.  Each new experience is like taking that next step on uncharted land.  Sure I’ve heard of it; in the village, at the market, it’s legends have spread of what joys the new world can bring, but now I am stepping on it, feeling the grass beneath my metaphysical feet and it is glorious!  Now I’ve just got to keep running and keep typing. Things will work themselves out. They always do.

Plus, I’m in San Diego and I brought my surf board. sweet.

A traveler named Danny Cameron found a camera in Greece full of travel photos. He wondered around Mykonos looking for the owner to no avail. But upon his return home, he started a facebook group which grew exponentially until the chain finally reached the camera’s owner and the camera was returned. It’s really an amazing story of using the technologies we take for granted every day as a way to go something good. If you’re not a traveler, then perhaps you don’t know what it feels like to lose a camera with thousands of memories on it (the downfall of 4gig cards), but it’s like getting a piece of your life back; like waking up from amnesia and having those treasured memories to last you a life time.

I, with my horrible memory, especially understand. I lost a camera on a Peruvian bus once. Luckily, I had just changed the card out the day before, so I only lost 4 pictures. I have since attempted to fuse those pictures in my head, but only one lasted and all the faces are a blur but one. Sidenote: it’s kinda funny, but all I remember is the middle person, everyone else is just faded. And I was upset about that for a day but relieved that it could’ve been worse. i can only imagine what a thousand would’ve done to me. Arg, but I won’t, too painful.

Danny has since closed the group, but here’s the final description he posted. It really hits the mark:

“Congratulations everyone, the camera owner has been found .. thanks everyone for taking part … unbelievable effort. I am amazed and in awe of you all.

We can all leave the group now.. nothing more to see here … pop the champagne !!

Once again, nice work.. Cheers!

How did the story end? The good will of 200,000 people created a stir that rippled into an office in London, where a group of French people were recognised, one being the owner.

In the end it was the help of all that shrunk the world.

How did it start? On my travels in late summer (northern 2009), I found a camera that was full of someones memories, and I want to get it back to them. I tried walking around the main town of Mykonos, in the Greek Isles, the day after I found it, but I didn’t come across anyone recognisable. So this was the last shot.

When I returned to Australia, still with a lost camera in hand, I decided to try and see whether the world of online resources could track down the owner. I have seen groups on social network sites grow exponentially and thought that would be my best bet to reaching the widest audience.

I invited my friends to then invite their friends to the group, who in turn would invite their friends to the group. In theory, with six degrees of separation– the whole world can be reached, and I thought that though that thought is mind boggling, it would be interesting to see if at least the whole online community of the social networking site could be reached, or at least enough of them to find the owner of the camera.

The group started October 17 – 60 people had joined by October 18, 1200 by October 24, 18,000 by October 30, 60,000 by October 31, 120,000 by October 22, 235,000 by November 2. The group had gone “viral” and was growing exponentially.

All it really required was for people to click one button and join the group and then pass it on.

Along the way people were joining the group and really responding to the good natured honesty of the situation.

One lady wrote on the wall and said: “I wish there are more people like you in the world. My husband happened to lose his camera while we are on holiday in Hong Kong. Sometimes, people just don’t know what a camera would mean to a person.”

Another said: “Thanks so much for caring about a stranger– its inspiring to know that some people in this world are as kind as you!”

Another said: “This group put the biggest smile on my face, the world needs more people like you. Good luck!!”

This was a typical sentiment.

But it wasn’t just a random act of kindness on my behalf; everyone who joined the group was contributing. It was the team effort that caused the group to be so strong in its good intentions. And it was a massive mobilization of virtuous people. I was amazed and in awe of them all.

It was on the Australian morning of November 3 that I received word from the crew of people that were in one of the photos. They were amazed at the human chain that had been formed to track them down.

I couldn’t have done it without 235,000 other people though, and a grand and unintended outcome of it all, I believe is that I have given people encouragement that honesty still exists in the world, and so hopefully I have inspired the people on the group to be more considerate in their daily lives, because being kind is a great human trait and there are one thousand people doing one thousand nicer things than just returning a camera.

As a people and with plenty of good will, support, and encouragement we can achieve anything!

Cheers to all who joined ..”

Only been in Madison, WI for a day but I really like it. I love the people of the north, much hardier then those of the arid climates and genuinely nice. Not that you southerners aren’t, calm down Confederacy. Found a place called Inka Heritage that serves up som fantastic grilled trout with an avocado and greens salad. Right now I am enjoying some of their rice pudding and it’s pretty authentic. Makes me think of tamales in the streets, rock stacked walls and above all my host mother and her family. I really need to write them; miss them more then I knew.

Ladies and gentlemen of the internets, loyal readers, and friends, this may be my last posting on ZachsTravels for my body is exuming itself from this mortal coil via the transcendental railroad of the cold. It seems the party was a bit too hardy this ACL weekend for my old, frail body to maintain. And now I must pay the price for my good time. Fare thee well all, live free and light. Be happy and productive. My time on this Earth now comes to a close. And so I lay my head down… and die.

…

Oap, time for work. I’ll die afterward.