Experiment gone wrong

May 16th, 2008

What was a simple experiment to test out the efficiency of a virtual assistant for every day life, turned into a full blown part time job.  Ive not been writing here much anymore because most, if not all, of my time has been entangled with both work and work.

While on Elance.com searching for a virtual assistant, I found that there might be a niche there for me as well.  After some careful underbidding and some long nights, I an now in the full swing of things.  Ive taken on a few partners and also taken on some part time contractors too!  All together it is becoming quite a fruitful endeavor.

The single little glow of my Macbook pro 15 inch screen is no longer adequate for the the current development projects that I am undertaking.  Ive had to purchase very nice 22″ samsung to go along.  My next purchase is going to probably be a desktop system, because I feel like I will need another monitor.  With only 1 video out, im quite limited.

Help save the planet, View a widget!

April 8th, 2008

ABC launched a cool campaign using their widgets to help save the plant! For every ten videos watched from any ABC widget beginning Monday, April 7, a tree sapling will be planted, with the goal of planting 100,000 trees. What a GREAT cause, grab this widget, share it with friends, and watch the videos.

Check out this dancing with the stars widget, while knowing you are helping to plant a tree!

101 Relevant resources for Entrepreneurs

March 21st, 2008

I came across this site on the net and had to share it with everyone. So many tools aggregated into one site that you are going to need a tool to keep track of all these tools. Luckily you dont have to, blogtrepreneur.com has put them all together and categorized them for you. Everything from time management to finding freelancers and Social Networking.

Have fun and dont get to overwhelmed with all the information. Take it in a bit at a time. Its interesting that I already use many of these sites already on a daily basis.

Check it out:
101 Useful Resources for Online Entrepreneurs

Disturbing video, making me think twice about hotels

March 4th, 2008

This will make you think twice about drinking from anything provided by a hotel

Strep Throat

March 2nd, 2008

Unrelated to the diet series, I have come down with strep throat and am discontinuing the diet series until I my anti-biotics can remove the razors from my throat.  Everything was on schedule and working as planned, however, my sickness has caused me to change my eating patterns to very little food consumption.

I should be back on track shortly, and will continue pickup the series where I left off.  Apparently eating nothing also causes you to loose and maintain a stable weight.

Thank you to all who have been following me thus far, please sign up or subscribe to my feed for future updates from my blog.

Day 2 - Low-carb diet series

February 29th, 2008

My second day was a bit more of a success with the consumption of food, however, my mental state is a bit run down. I believe this is due to the effects of sugar/carb withdrawl. I woke up groggy and stressed and throughout the day I had this strange feeling of being overwhelmed, stressed out and depressed. This is a perfectly normal sensation that one might feel if they decide to quit something like this. Much like quitting cigarettes or drugs, you go through a similar withdrawl when you decide to go cold turkey and remove your carb intake.

Aside from the withdrawal side effects everything seems to be going as planned. I went the whole day only eating a few carbs from a small cup of lettuce. Breakfast consisted of steak, poached eggs, and sugar free pudding. For lunch I had about 2 cups of chilie with a full cup of creme and half cup of lettuce, and for dinner I finished off the rest of the steak from the morning along with some spare ribs and a huge block of Monterey jack cheese. In my opinion it was a very successful day.

I also went to the gym for a light exercise routine as well. It consisted of a brisk walk and quick leg workout and back home, all and all it was about 30 minutes.

I know I promised pictures yesterday but this is being posted from work and the pictures are at home. Dont worry though i have been taking them every day at the same time of the day. With the pictures I will also post up my stats and goals for this experiment.

Make sure you subscribe to my blog so you can get all the latest updates along the way, and please let me know what you think good or bad.

Day 1 - Low-carb diet series

February 28th, 2008

gym equipment, originally uploaded by jessamyn.

As promised, today I started on a low-carb diet to show everyone out there that it is possible to loose a significant amount of fat over a short period of time on a diet high in fat low in carbs with a moderate amount of exercise.

Instead of writing down everything I eat on a daily basis here on my blog, I decided to use FitDay.com to keep track of my food intake as I go along. You can view exactly what I eat including calories, fat, and carb content for each day. Its fairly hard to put in exactly what I eat, but I will try to be as precise as possible. You can check out my food log here.

Day 1

This morning started off great, I felt a bit groggy but otherwise normal. Ate 2 poached eggs with some salt, a couple slices of cheese and a glass of black coffee. I would have made more but I was feeling a bit to lazy to cook. Tomorrow I will let you in on a little secret, How to cook the perfect poached egg with very little effort.

Work was a test of my mental strength, and most of you know just how hard it is to stay on a diet in todays corporate America. My office, being a startup, is full of snacks, candy and refrigerators full of soda and tea. Luckily for me they have plenty of diet coke, which contains only caffeine and no sugar and is perfect to drink besides water.

My other battle was to resist eating the lunch food provided by our office. Today we had pasta from the wonderful maggianos restaurant, delicious but I had to resist and get food from a local kabob place. Just as delicious in my opinion, I had a combination of chicken and beef, leaving the rice to the side.

The second half of my day was a down hill battle, I gave in to the request of a coworker making me a mocha frappachino and I even felt guilty for drinking it! I guess thats a good thing, maybe tomorrow I will learn my lesson and just say NO. To end the day I had a slice of cheese pizza, calling it a day. Tomorrow is a new day, thats it im packing my lunch!

Also as promised I will post up some pictures tomorrow of my current sad state along with my initial weight and body type stats. Don’t forget to subscribe to my blog so that you can make sure to follow along with my progress!

When you think your weather is bad…

February 27th, 2008

Check out this video! Condition 3 weather is considered a nice sunny day in Antarctica, where condition 1 weather is… well just watch below…

Looks kind of like the gates of hell in my opinion, except a bit colder.

Low-carb diet - Weight loss series

February 26th, 2008

After reading a post about calories by Tim Ferriss, I have decided to go on a 2 week low-carb diet and against my better judgment, post up pictures and results along the way.

Here are the rules and guidelines that I will follow.

  • Week 1, go from my current unknown carb intake to 0 carbs per day.
  • Week 2, incorporate a minimum number of carbs into my diet, determined at the start of week 2.
  • Post daily pictures of my stomach from the front and side, since thats the main area of fat collection.
  • Write my post at night with food eaten, how I feel, and mental status.
  • At the end of week 2 determine the final outcome of the experiment. Either successful or not and give my thoughts.

I work on a busy schedule and don’t always have time for the gym but will also try to incorporate a mild amount of exercise as well. Everything I do in regards to the diet will be documented in the daily post.

Tomorrow I will post my first picture and the foods I ate for that day. Im looking forward to this…… Wish me luck and let me know what you think. If you have any questions, comments or would like me to try something along the way please let me know.

iStraw, Personal Water Filtration System

February 25th, 2008

While stumbling around on Stumble! I came across an interesting little straw that claims it can filter out 7 Nines of bacteria from your drinking water, using micro-filtration technology.

Very cool and a must for any traveler, hiker or backpacker. Its easy to carry in your pocket and can mean the difference between a horrible or enjoyable travel experience.

Price: 39.99 ThinkGeek.com