Archive for December, 2008

This is the first time I have posted a You Tube video, but this is awesome. Thundercats!!! HOOO!!!!

Merry Christmas.

In 2008 Indigo Studios was hired to create artwork for a truck that will be used to promote ESPN and Nascar.  This was designed to educate the people about a new product that allows you to drink and watch the race at the same time.  It’s a simple concept that reshapes the cup itself and in doing so, allows you to see.

Originally we were provided basic sketches of the concept art along with vector logos of both ESPN and Nascar.  I have to admit that it is fun to see your artwork plastered all over a truck.  I’m not saying it’s my best work ever, but it’s still fun to see.

So my wife Priscilla and I have been talking about buying a house for a couple of years now.  After long discussions about where we want to live, what cities we like, and where we feel we can see ourselves settleing down, we decided that we both love Atlanta.  It’s a big city, but not too big.  It’s constantly growing with new hip, cool places to go to all the time.  Traffic blows, but it takes about a half hour to get anywhere in the city (without traffic).  It has nice neighborhoods, new neighborhoods, expensive neighborhoods, and a whole lot of ghetto.  There is a river, but no ocean.  Everything outside of Atlanta is at least four hours away from including the ocean, but Florida is right next door.  Tallahassee, Destin, Jacksonville, Savannah, Reighle, Charlette, Memphis, New Orleans, and Biloxi are all close enough to drive to.  It’s a five hour flight home to California, and a five hour drive to Priscilla’s parents house in Beaufort, South Carolina.  I think the biggest reason Priscilla and I love Atlanta so much is because it is neutral for the both of us, there is nothing we hate about it.  Plus we have a bunch of friends here and there is no reason to move.

Our journey began a few years back.  We had no idea where to start.  We just got engaged but we were not yet married and, as you could imagin, we were busy with a number of other things.  We asked our friends and family what to do first but we realized that none of our friends own their owned house.  We were lucky though becuase our friend Matt was friends with a realitor.  I wanted to do everything I could to learn about Real Estate before I actually bought something, so I wanted to get hooked up with a realitor as soon as possible.  

Brent Garrison taught us the beginings of Real Estate.  He hooked us up with a lender and we found out our price range.  At this point I realized why the economy and real estate business failed like it did.  We were aproved for some rediculous amount that would put our payments at over half our take home as a couple. Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to know a house and be broke because of it.  So we decided our price range was nothing more than $300,000 which is pretty normal for a starter home in Atlanta.  Our house hunt began.

Brent hooked us up with a series of emails every week with updates of new houses that come on the market.  We checked them out as they came, but nothing really caught our attention.  Priscilla and I were too caught up in everything else in our lives, so buying a house was soon put on the backburner.  We then decided to wait til after the wedding maddness was over before be began to dig into the house buying process once again.

to be continued…

Irish Car Bomb   \ˈī-rish ˈkär ˈbäm\   noun   A boilermaker made with stout (e.g. Guinness), Irish Cream (e.g. Baileys) and Irish whiskey (e.g.Jameson). The name references the drink’s Irish components and the car bombings used most notoriously by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) during The Troubles. The Baileys is floated on top of the Jameson in a shot glass, and the shot glass is then dropped into the stout. Once mixed the drink must be consumed quickly, because it will curdle.

I first had an Irish Car Bomb when I first came to Atlanta.  I’m not 100% sure who I was with or what exact day it was on, or what exact bar I was in.  All I can remember is someone telling me,”It tastes like chocolate cake.”  I thought,”I like chocolate cake.  That sounds good.  Let’s try it.”  If I only knew.  It was awesome.

Now if someone was to explain to me the whole process I initially would spend most of my time on the other side of the bar from the intriguing drink, but after a few tries, you learn to truly appreciate this wonder of this cocktail.  Yes, it takes a strong stomach to handle it. Yes, it takes a quick drinker to get it all down.  Yes, it could curdle on you if your too slow.  Yes, it gets you pretty drunk, pretty fast.  But it’s fun, it looks rad, you get to race all your friends and it tastes like cake.  Come on!  What else can you ask for?

I’ve had plenty of friends that can not quite handle an Irish Car Bomb, and in my opinion that’s weak.  If you haven’t tried it yet, you should. (at least once) And if you are intimidated just know that this is one of Priscilla’s favorite drinks.  She can take them like a champ and beats me every time.

Disclaimer:  This post is NOT about whether or not I think the world is better off without religion.  It is NOT about denouncing traditions and disrespecting my upbringing.  This post is only about the small simple things that could be different in the world without religion.  

First of all, there would be one less subject in school.  (Sucks cause that was usually an easy A)  Next, there would be all that extra real estate all over the place with the missing churches.  Then, all those priest and Deacons would end up somewhere else in our workforce as a sales man, a janitor, or trying to save the world in some other way.   There would be one less way to kill a vampire.  There would be no more discussion about the separation of church and state and the pledge of allegiance would be a little shorter.  There would be one less thing to discriminate against.  It would open up some time on the weekend for watching football.  People would have to find a new reason to fight wars.  There would be no more school on Sunday.  The Crusades and the Holocaust would not have happened.  An Extremist would just mean “Someone passionate” and a “Fundamentalist” would be someone that concentrates on basics of life, not religion.  Al Qaeda would just be a group of people that don’t like America.   There would be one less thing to do before you go to bed.   It finally would be a fact that evolution happened.  Overall, people would just be less afraid.

I hope I don’t sound bias because I don’t want to come off that way.  I mean there are plenty of things that would suck without religion.  I mean, there would be no Christmas.  No Hanukkah. No Easter. No Halloween.  No St. Patty’s.  I can’t think of much more, but I think that’s enough.  

All in all, if religion didn’t exist, I’m still not sure the world would be much different anyway.  I know the war thing would be big, but I’m sure us humans would find something to fight about even without religion.  Also, some people think we base our lives off the morals found within religion, but I’m not quite sure that’s so true. (Have you read the old testament?)  I feel that people are naturally “good” with, or without religion.

Some would say that religion gives us hope, and for a lot of people it does, but I still believe that hope comes from within.  Faith, self-respect, confidence, honesty, respect for the people around you, respect for the planet, love, conflict, responsibility, drive to make yourself better, procreation and sex, marriage, family, friends and community are all things that drive you in your everyday life.  These are the things that mold you to who you are.  You as a person need to find a way to manage these things to form the person you are.  But in the end, I think religion is here for a reason, and I have a great respect for it.  I just believe that the world could survive without it.

Time goes on.  Things change. Traditions evolve. Whether you like it or not, things you once knew as a constant will no longer be.  This applies to a lot of things, but some are harder to take than others.  As is with the Caselli family tradition on Thanksgiving.

As long as I can remember, my family would pack up our things and drive 3 hours west to a small California beach town called Santa Cruz.  Known for it’s awesome Beach boardwalk and incredible surfing, Santa Cruz is located on the west coast of California.  It has long beaches and an endless amount of it’s own unique hippie culture.  We would look forward to it for weeks in advance, and would always think the three hour drive was way too long.

Every year my grandparents would rent a house for a week right on the beach.  All the Caselli’s would attend including my Grandma and Grandpa, my Uncle Mike and Aunt Nancy and their three kids Stephen, Bryan and Lisa, My Uncle Jim and Aunt Julie and their two kids Matthew and Alex, and of coarse my brother Tony, my sister Anna and my parents.  It was a big group in a big house.  We loved it.

We would do the normal Thanksgiving things like go to the movies and eat Turkey and lounge around the house talking in the awesome views from the multiple balconies looking over the water.  We would watch the sunset every night, and we would go play football on the beach even though it was too cold.  Then, before we would make our annual trip to the Beach Boardwalk (which is just a year round carnival right on the beach in downtown Santa Cruz) all the grand kids would line up to receive their 10 dollars from Grandpa.  The memories are great and I will never forget them.

But as I mentioned things change.  I think for the Caselli’s traditions die very hard.  Three years ago Grandpa Caselli hit 90 years old and moved into a Senior Living Facility.  Years before that, it become harder and harder on him to make the trip, so we decided to put Thanksgiving in Santa Cruz on hold for a little while.  It wasn’t easy to swallow (especially for Grandpa).  I can’t say the grand kids didn’t have a part in postponing the tradition, as I now live in Georgia and Stephen and Bryan now live in Southern California.  We all have grown up and are developing our own lives along with our own traditions.

Things change.  Traditions evolve.  Old traditions are changed and become something completely new.  I now have a new extension to my family with the addition to my wife Priscilla’s family in Beaufort, South Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida.  We spent our Thanksgiving in Beaufort at Priscilla’s parent’s house.  Also right on the water, Beaufort is a small town with a large Southern influence.  This new Thanksgiving is not what I’m used to, but is something I am embracing as a new tradition.  But as I will never forget my times in Santa Cruz, I will not see it as a new tradition, but only as a tradition evolved.