Twenty-Six Candles

First and foremost, I'll be twenty-six tomorrow.

Secondly, I really hate to say this, but I'll be discontinuing posting on here for the time being.

Judging from the length and lack of updates, I no longer have the time to be wiring on here anymore courtesy of this taxicab gig and everything else important in my agendas. Also, the blogging trend isn't as hot as it was 8 years ago when I first started blogging. Somehow, my ever constant schedule decreased my desire and interest to write on here.

As I said before, I work at least an average of 12 hours a day, getting six to eight hours of sleep, and the rest of the time, I'm either doing stuff with my family, hanging out at Primitive Shoes and Apparel, feasting at Pizza Rev or In-N-Out, making graphics on Illustrator to escape from stress and/or spending some hours on the phone with the little brother and some close female friends of mine. My time is always occupied, and that shit goes so fucking quick.

I'm supposed to be at Los Angeles International Airport right now picking up people, but I just woke up from over sleeping for three hours since I pulled in extra hours in the middle of the night and I still feel tired. But I have to be there despite the fact that I really hate driving down there and dealing with the headache and the simple-minded ass security down there at the terminals. That place is always corrupt when it comes to going from one terminal to another. And the worst part is the freeways of course. I'm there every five days.

I don't plan on doing this job for a long time. Its something to do on the side until I start getting more relevant in terms of financial stability. Its decent at sometimes and the rest of it is just whatever. That type of shit is like that with every basic ass job. I honestly think not everyone enjoys being at an office desk job wearing a necktie and trying not to get fired from eye-fucking at the young, sexy, female secretary every morning. No disrespect, they're probably working this just to make ends meet for their family, or for themselves until they make enough revenue to venture into investing in their own business of interest. That's what I'm doing with my photograph business. Its not big and hyped out yet, but I'm taking my time to have that happen.

I will say this though. If you don't feel uncomfortable in your work environment, just fucking walkout and find something else to do. Yes, not alot of places are hiring, but you're better off doing something you really like than to have your parents place you somewhere where you make decent money at a place you've never pursued in before. Or better yet, just have some patience while your making money. I've had several jobs in the past 10 years where my co-workers and bosses are just assholes you wanna spit on. That's one of the many challenges in the adult life, and with myself turning twenty-six tomorrow, I have a lot of challenges up ahead later in life.

Another thing is that I'll will be deactivating my Facebook profile after today. Despite the fact that my initial purpose was to showcase my photography work on there, the site just lost its taste. I liked it when I first joined back in 2007 as an alternative to MySpace at the time, but now its totally over-commercialized and the founder of the social network site was on the cover of Time magazine, has more revenue than most of the States in this country and he's not even reached 30 yet. Facebook just sucks now.

If you want to contact me up or send me an unnecessary birthday shoutout, just hit me up on Twitter @justforsneaks or my instagram @justforsneaks07, cause I'm on those two applications alot more everyday on my iPhone 5. Better yet, just send me a text message or give me a call anytime of the day for business inquiries or whatever (if I don't answer, its because I might be driving on the freeway or handling business, so just leave a voice message). My number is 818-736-2986. I might be back on Facebook in the future, not too sure yet. Again, I've been busy alot (real busy, not fake busy) and I really wish I can continue blogging on here every other day, but as I'm getting older to better myself, I just don't have the time to cause typing up one regular blogpost take forever. MY favorite blogger/celebrity jeweler Ben Baller said that he had to stop blogging last year cause he's now focused on his family, his work and his second kid on the way, respectively, so now I know how that is.

Well, for those who have been reading this site since 2009, thanks for your time. I'll leave this active so that y'all can check out the previous blogposts that have been archived for the past five years. (You might want to bookmark this site) Again, if you want photos taken or anything, feel free to contact me. Finally, I just want to leave this Catholic-type saying that I just made up yesterday while driving on Victory and White Oak in Encino:

Save One And Others,
For Ever Given.  

Thank you. Blessings.

Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2014 lineup

Honestly, they should've have Pharrell's name as the headlining act on the poster instead of Arcade Fire again, which would've been more appealing. Oh, and they're still doing that two weekend thing that falls on April 20th. 

New Years Re-Evaluation

First blogpost of 2014. Barely a week into the new year.

I enjoyed making that end-of year recap list from the previous update. The only things I left out on the list were self flushing urinals and ride-sharing companies such as lyft and Uber, which both got so much play in 2013. I'm curious and unsurprised to see which asshole will get his or her fifteen minutes of hype and vanish away from fame this year (previous notables include Nadya Suleman, Ted Williams, Christopher Dorner, Jon and Kate Gosslin among others). However, I'm glad that the New Years Day frenzy is over already so that we can move forward with our busy-ass lives. Every person I've talked to this past week has been telling me that they didn't much on New Years Eve. Some of them just stayed home and kept it low key as opposed to going to a club with a group of friends just to watch a countdown while getting shit-wasted in mini-skirts and black ties. On weeks prior, I didn't even know what I was planning on doing for New Years Eve, until I actually did something useful.

I visited the moms on Christmas Day and that was my first time seeing her since my 25th birthday back in March. She said that she got these non-refundable tickets to a New Years Eve party down in Coronado Island next to San Diego and that she also booked a suite which she claims that it was hard to get while every other room was booked for that week. In the past few years, my moms has been telling me about Coronado Island and that how she and my siblings always goes there every so often. I've never been there before, but I decided to tag along since she went through a lot to always take advantage of the finer opportunities in life for myself (she even brought that up during the drive down there). Plus the other reason I went is just to escape Los Angeles for a bit.

So it was me, the moms, and one of the little sisters that traveled down south of California on the I-5 freeway while my other two siblings went to my uncle's new crib on New Years Eve. The fog became totally thick as we approached Oceanside and then it cleared up later when we got to downtown San Diego. We then crossed the San Diego-Coronado bridge which I always see whenever I used to visit San Diego and but it looked kinda cool at night. After we crossed the bridge to Coronado, that's when the fog started to kick in. The town was very quiet and empty as we drove around, and this was about 7:30PM when we arrived.

We then got to this hotel we were gonna stay at. The moms went to go check in and told us that the suite we were gonna crash at had already been taken, but they did give us a small room with a kitchen and a refrigerator, so we went with that anyways. There was no reception at Coronado but they did have free wi-fi at the hotel which was a bonus. As we got to our room, my mother said that we have to go to the New Years Eve party that she told me about. So I changed into my black Primitive Apparel crew neck sweatshirt and took my Nikon SLR with me as we left.

I thought the New Years Eve party was gonna be at some ballroom filled with several well-doing adults in their forties and fifties since Coronado is an affluent community, but instead, the party was at a bowling alley filled with conservative families and their kids. Its was so PG rated. When we got to the bowling alley, I thought the moms was gonna see some bowling schedules or something since bowling is one of her hobbies, but she told me that this was the party she mentioned. Now if this event took place around 6 years ago, the 19-year-old me would've been very pissed and upset for traveling a hundred miles just to go to a party like that, but the present day me just decided to make use of it. The cosmic bowling New Years Eve party consisted of unlimited bowling and free food and endless fountain drink refills. Also, they were playing tons of 80's and alternative 90's music videos on a screen throughout the night. Most of the videos they played were songs I haven't heard in forever. They also had, of course, Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve with Ryan Seacrest televised on one of bowling score video monitors. We had to bowl with this young couple and their kid because the party had this social aspect to meet new and different people. These were families that looked like they came straight from the Reagan presidency era in the mid 1980's. I'm talkin' collared-sweatshirt, station wagon driving, Sunday School going, "learning valuable lessons at the end of the episode" type families that you rarely see in the Valley, and it was slightly diverse with different races there.

We bowled for 5 straight hours and the moms continued for another hours as me and my sister looked back in our childhood from watching the music videos that were being played. Obviously, they did the obligatory countdown and drank Sparkling Cider (the party was PG rated) as the families pulled down the balloons hanging above the lanes to ring in 2014. I actually enjoyed it for once, despite it being family oriented. When we finished, the fog had already kicked in when we got back to my sisters car and safely drove back to the hotel.

On the morning of New Years Day, we woke up very late and then started packing up to drive back to Los Angeles. I was researching Coronado Island on my iPhone 5 to see what's there to do in that place. Then I read about the Hotel Del Coronado, which is a famous, historic, hotel that every US President and actors from Hollywood's golden age stayed at since it was built. I then told my mother about it and she agreed to drive down there for a bit. The Hotel Del Coronado island was right next to a beach and me and the little sister went to go check it out as the moms slept in the car. The beach is quite awesome and there were alot of people there. The temperature was at 70 degrees that afternoon. I spent my time there taking photos and some video of the beach and the exterior of Hotel Del Coronado. My biggest regret was not going inside to check it out cause I forgot to look for the entrance. Later on, we drove around Coronado for a bit and that place looks similar to Marina Del Rey. Then we gassed the car up and headed back to reality in Los Angeles. It was a good trip, yet I spent it with family which I haven't done in a while.

Here are some of the images I took down there

The New Years Eve traffic south on the 405 Freeway (also known as the San Diego Freeway). Riding shotgun in the Air Jordan 1 retro "Black Toes". I didn't drive throughout the whole trip, which was rare and good. 

 Downtown San Diego while crossing the San Diego-Coronado bridge.

Cosmic Bowling lanes in full effect.

The families and setup for the New Years Eve party.

We made strikes and spares (and some gutters) for 5 straight hours. That's a long ass time.

This photograph, to me, has this Space Mountain/Club MTV style atmosphere.

Ultraviolet Black Lights among the lanes.

Glasses of Sparkling Cider. If this wasn't family oriented, these would've been champagne.

The thick ass fog as we approach my sister's car. 

Checking out Coronado in the daytime.

New Years Revelation written in sand.

This is Bill Pavlacka in the white cap and t-shirt building a sandcastle with these two girls. I didn't talk to him that day cause he was busy showing kids how to build sandcastles, but I learned that this bloke builds them at the beach near Hotel Del Coronado either for a living or for fun, or both. I was amazed to see his creativity in building these large sand castles. Here's his website The SandCastle Man

The legendary Hotel Del Coronado.

The horizon, and Mexico is less than 20 minutes from there.


Anyway, that was my New Years Day recap. I also did another long drive last Sunday down to Palm Springs for some business. I've been to that area before (Coachella, Tamale festival) but this was my first time driving down there instead of carpooling. I actually enjoyed the 2 and a half hour drive there, which took place at night. I would like to do more of those cause once in a while, escaping LA for a bit is pleasing. I need to learn how to take vacations alot more.

Thanks for your time reading this, and have a blessed, fun Twenty-Fourteen.

2013 Year in Review: Final Thoughts

So it comes down to this again. Another New Years Eve today and another year in review recap..

I really don't know if I'll ever see myself blogging again like I used to when I started dong this seven years ago (four years on this site). I honestly do not have the time anymore. Everyday, I'm always either driving around The Valley and the city of Los Angeles for 12 hours a day, doing a photosession and editing the images for several hours, and/or setting time aside to just helping out with my family when they need it. I'm also finding myself getting 4 to 5 hours a sleep every other night and its getting really tough to wake up in the morning. I was told the adult life gets more harder and challenging as you get older, and I started to realized that a lot more this past year from my everyday agendas I just mentioned. I bring this up alot because is damn true.

However, I still like to type stuff like this on here. There were many good bloggers in the past that I used to read their thoughts until they stopped cause they have moved on forward to other important matters in their lives. Another thing I noticed this past year is that time GOES BY SO MOTHERFUCKING QUICK. I'm serious. It felt like a few minutes ago until you realize that its just happened seven hours ago. Maybe its how the mind processes or something. This past year was obviously a lot different than any other years I've experienced. I guess were supposed to work and grind alot in our twenties just to make a decent living for future years. In 2012 I was working, but not as much as this year. Probably three times the work ethic than last year. Moving from Sylmar after living there for two years back to my pops house fits in as one of the occurrences of 2013.

December has always been a busy ass month, including this December that's ending today. There were a lot of fantastic events I would be very excited to type about, such as my Christmas day, The Hundreds & V/SUAL by Van Styles Street Meet photowalk I went to a few weeks ago, and a Quinceanera that I covered two weeks ago with my ex-photography boss up in Lancaster, but again, I didn't have the time to write about it. If this happened in 2009, then I would've typed it the following day after the events. But that was back when I was always at home. Now I'm always doing something. As I'm typing this, I'm doing laundry at my pops house and I'm waiting for the moms to come pick me up cause she wants me to accompany her and the little sister to San Diego for New Years Eve later today. Then again, its always better to do something and stay active, just don't over do it.

As far as the year 2013, it was quite a unique, interesting year full of unpredictability and more-than-average moments. Just like i did in the 2011 recap, I'll just bring up some one-liners recapping this past year, in no particular order.

- that Christopher Dorner manhunt

- Five-panel hats

- Samsung Galaxy S4 and two new iPhone that always looked the same

- Playstation 4 over the Xbox One

- Tesla Model S for rich people

- North West

- Bubblehead billboards

- Kevin Hart is the undisputed, unstoppable stand-up comedian

- Snapchat explodes

- Vine= Six seconds of weird, entertaining talent

- Ariana Grande tho....

- the black out during Super Bowl XLVII

- Lebron James gets a second NBA championship

- Kanye West and the People's Republic of China made Jimmy Kimmel apologize in public

- contract-less mobile phone plans

- This bloke George Zimmerman....

- pictures of Grand Theft Auto V video game covers flooding on everybody's instagram feed

- Miley twerkin'-ass Cyrus (she became legal to drink tho...)

- Breaking Bad and Dexter series finales was more important than everything you were taught from your Sunday School teacher

- Gravity = two A-list actors throughout the whole entire film (probably the best cinema I've ever watched in my life) No extras, no bullshit.

- Magna Carta Holy Grail 

- Electric car driving, Silver Lake residing Eric Garcetti as the new mayor of Los Angeles

- Vaping pens, Vape lounges, and everything "Vape life"

- everybody creating a t-shirt line with a fine ass (literally and figuratively) model and Adobe Illustrator

- Dr. Jerry Buss and Nelson Mandela's passing

- The Weeknd's debut album Kissland

- Shutdown of the Government

- 15 seconds of video selfies on instagram

- iOS 7

- George Lucas sells his Star Wars franchise to The Walt Disney Company

- Original programming on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon

That's all I can think of for now. Again, it was a unique, blessed year in 2013. Even though New Years Day celebrations looks overhyped to me with all the crazy drunk shit, it also shows as a reminder that you can toss away the stuff from last year and renew yourself in the new year differently. Thanks again for your time reading this. Blessings.

Sam Martin Photography

One week ago, my two inspirational photographers/bloggers, Van Styles and Bobby Hundreds of The Hundreds, put together this photo walk event in Santa Monica called The Hundreds and V/SUAL by Van Styles Street Meet. I'll discuss that more in the next blog update, but for this one, I just want to show support to one of the photographers I met there.

The photographer's name is Sam Martin, and his work is excellent. His photos that he took at last weeks Street Meet caught my attention and interest. Hell, he even took two candid shots of myself that were brilliant. Again, I'll post my images from the Street Meet in the next update, yet for now, here are some samples of his work and show some courtesy and feedback by checking out his websites in the links below.

Website: http://expandingmindsproject.wordpress.com/

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/111584216@N05/

Annamarie Rhyne's Graduation Party images, October 19, 2013

I'm very late on uploading this, so blame my crazy schedule runs.

I had the privilege to attend my friend Annamarie's graduation party back in October. She completed a Nursing program that she's been taking and I went to congratulate and show support for her culmination. While being there, I was talking to her friends and her family members and having great conversations with them, and they also served Tamales that were delicious. Here are some of the few images I took with my Nikon 35mm film SLR. Must respect and thanks to Annamarie.

Growing and Going So Fast

Obviously, I don't like deaths. I don't like to hear about celebrities in the news that much more. I don't even like hearing about celebrity deaths.

But Paul Walker's death last Saturday was tragic. His life abruptly ended from a car accident at Santa Clarita that he was riding. The worst part was that he was riding shotgun instead of behind the wheel. I do not know him personally and I've never met or seen him in person, yet, that dude was in several well known films, as well as the Fast and Furious franchise for the past 12 years.

I vividly remember the first ever Fast and Furious movie that dropped when I was in 7th grade (going on to 8th grade) back in 2001. I didn't watch it until two years later during my sophomore year in high school. My homeboy Cory was planning to bring a brick of DVDs to class on this one Friday in homeroom when we weren't scheduled to read books on that day. However, there was no DVD player in the classroom, so I volunteered to provide my brother's Playstation 2 to be used as the DVD Player. The following week, just as I disconnected the Playstation 2 to take to school, both of my parents got very heated and started going off about viewing movies in school, especially at the part when I told them that my homeroom teacher wanted me to bring a DVD player since there was none in the classroom. So my parents made me take the DVD player from the big screen TV instead so that my brother's console wouldn't get jacked or something. That shit was heavy.

So I brought the unit to class and Cory selected the first Fast and Furious video to watch in the class. Again, that was my first time watching this film and already, it got me entertained. We only saw the first 20 minutes of it cause that's how long homeroom lasted. After school, I went back to my homeroom to pick up my family's heavy-ass DVD player to take back home. I had to walk home by carrying that shit. I placed the unit and connected it back to the big screen TV as I got home later. Then afterwards that evening, my pops called me and found Cory's Fast and Furious DVD that was left in there. I thought that he was gonna flip when he saw that, but he just gave it to me without saying a thing. I had to wait till Monday to give it back to Cory, so I figured I watch the rest of the movie during the weekend until them. I thought that was a cool ass movie, with alot of street racing action coming from Paul Walker and Vin Diesel's characters in the film.

I didn't think that this film would keep having countless sequels later throughout the forthcoming years. I watched the Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift which was just fucking shit. To me, I kept thinking that the producers should quit making these Fast and Furious films since its showing that Hollywood is out of creative ideas and just turning hit movies into brands and franchises as financial gain. Again, it was very sad to hear about what happened to Paul Walker. They were still in the middle of production and Principal photography for the seventh Fast and Furious film which is scheduled to be released sometime next year. My guess is that they will have to continue production by alternating the script which "writes off" Paul Walker's character from the movie or just re-shoot the entire seventh movie again. From a filmmaker's perspective, that shit is alot of money and time to re-shoot a film. Very emotional to many just from hearing this. Hope the best for Paul Walker's family and the Fast and Furious cast and production crew.

That, along with hearing about motherfuckers getting jumped and ran over for a $75 big screen TV set at various stores during Black Friday, was the only downfall of that Thanksgiving weekend. The rest of that weekend was mostly positive.

During Thanksgiving, I mostly spent it with the family, just the pops and the siblings. I picked up the little brother from LAX, with my step-mom's Benz instead of the Taxicab, since he was visiting for the weekend from his University in the east coast. Haven't seen him since he left back in August. It was great catching up with him again. I was planning on going to my homegirl Amber's house for Thanksgiving again this year, but my pop's wife is out of the country for now, so I stayed home to keep my pops company for Thanksgiving. We had the usual blessing and Thanksgiving dinner in the dining table. Its been forever since we've done that. The next day on Friday, I worked at the airport and it was fucking slow. Spent hours in the taxicab holding lot waiting to be sent to a terminal. I picked up a few trips from LAX that entire Friday which was alright.

On Saturday, I went to the bank, the car wash for the Prius since it rained the previous day, and then to Primitive Shoes and Apparel to pick up some t-shirts. I was there the Saturday before for the release of their collaboration pack that the did with DJ Clark Kent and Nike SB. I originally was gonna pick up some of Primitive's Holiday '13 gear that Saturday, but I figured I'd give it a shot to try out for obtaining those Nike SB's. After standing in line for an hour, I went in only to find out that all the large sizes (I'm a size 12) were sold. The only had a 11.5 left which was the biggest. I tried it on, in which it fits. The disadvantage was that the show was too damn tight and a bit light for my feet. Instead, I just copped a t-shirt and a Primitive X New Era that goes with those shoes. Not to be confused, I got the hat and t-shirt two Saturdays ago, and I was at Primitive the recent Saturday just to some more shirts. I'm always there.

The line from the DJ Clark Kent X Nike SB X Primitive 112 collab release. I showed up late which is why I wasn't able to get my size.

Like I said, instead of those shoes, I picked up a Primitive X New Era fitted with a 3M reflective bill and one of Primitive Apparel's new t-shirts from the Holiday '13 line, featuring the "Paint Splatter" design.

Another Primitive Apparel t-shirt that I purchased two days ago. This is the "Lazy Sunday" t-shirt. I decided to get this in the Sea Foam color since I have several black t-shirts featuring Primitive's sexy models. 

After that I stopped by Mulberry Street Pizzeria to get a quick slice of Pizza and then I drove off to Pacoima to my highschool classmate Marissa's place for her oldest daughter's birthday party. Before I landed there, I stopped at Target to get some coloring books and crayons for her kid, as well as some balloons for the other kids that were gonna attend. This was my second time being there. I was there two months earlier for her other twin daughter's birthday party. But this one for her oldest daughter was great. Had some conversations with Marissa's family members and ate alot of the food they provided. I didn't take too many photos there, but here's one of them:

Marissa getting a pretend glitter tattoo by her daughter during the birthday party. 

Later that night, I went to my friend Natasha's crib, another old high school classmate of mine, at the other side of the Valley. I brought my copy of the Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Blu-Ray video to watch with her since she's never watched it. I also hooked her up with the Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides movie poster that I got from the private World Premiere viewing at the El Capitan Theater a week before it officially came out two years ago and I lent her the DVD version of the film since the video is a Blu-Ray/DVD combination pack. Also in attendance was her boyfriend and her daughter. Its was great catching up with them again. Thank's again Natasha for inviting me.

I'll end this post here. I'll got another tight week ahead of me in this last month of the year. I'll update this blogsite whenever I have some fresh extra time. Thanks for your time reading this.