the mario blog

Last week, I was in Seattle for two days to film a hair transplantation procedure. When I first started my new job (and with that our new media unit), I had to begin from scratch and pitched a lot of different ideas to our clients. Now that our clients have signed off on some of these projects, I need to make sure these ideas come to fruition. In the coming months, we’ll optimize websites, build blogs, create web videos and program viral sites.

I love being involved in all facets of a project, as it gives me the opportunity to add a level of creativity to everything I do. This last week, I wore the shoes of an account guy, director and camera man. With that being said,  I am not planning to make a career out of filming surgeries.

I’m about to jump on the train and head back to Portland. I really need to write some blog entries when I get back. Lots of stories to tell.

• Went van camping on the Oregon coast
• Trip to Seattle
• Last but not least, I’ve been filming a hair restoration procedure for the past two days - me in surgery room, surrounded by docs and nurses, while barely holding on to my camera…good times

Germany lost against Italy. I’m bummed. But you can’t always win. Still, I am proud of my team.

So I am now thinking about running a triathlon. The Los Angeles Triathlon in September. Olympic style. It’s a professional triathlon and it’s my goal to finish the darn thing. There are different levels of triathlons and I am going to keep at the Olympic one. Right under the Ironmen and right above the Sprint Triathletes. 1.5 k of swimming in the open ocean, 40k on the bike and 10k by foot. All I need to do now is buy a wetsuit and a race bike and figure out how to stay alive in the water. I am really not worried about the running or biking part of this event, but swimming for nearly a mile will kick my butt. But that’s where the wetsuit comes in. And the water wings.

Check out the LA Triathlon

Who wants to compete? Preferably someone who can swim.

I woke up at 6am this morning to celebrate an irish holiday. St. Patrick’s day. Natilee, Jerry and I had signed up for the local St. Pats day 5k race. We met at Jerry’s at 7am, as he had invited us over for a pre- race breakfast. The race really didn’t start until 9am, but what the heck.

Now to the race. It was Jerry’s goal to run the 5K in 26 minutes and that was accomplished. Neither of us won the “best costume” contest, I stood in line for a free brat for at least 35 minutes, our time was beat by at least 2,500 other participants and Natilee wore 3 shirts, a jacket and a headband. It was a lot of fun.

I met my buddy Jared for lunch, worked in a coffee shop called “Zeitgeist” in the afternoon and ate entirely too much at Natilee’s parents house Turkey dinner.

Next week is going to be absolutely crazy. I am flying back to Los Angeles on Tuesday night. Then I will spend Wednesday and Thursday in the LA office, only before heading back to Seattle on Friday. Then I will work in the Seattle office on Saturday, Sunday and fly back on my birthday on Monday. It’s insane but I love it. Things surely don’t get boring around here and I am starting to amass a large amount of frequent flier miles.

BTW, Natilee, Jerry and I are running in the immensely popular Seattle St. Patrick’s day race tomorrow. There are at least 20,000 participants and space for at most 5,000. It will be a slow race.

In the past two weeks, my company has been able to garner two big wins. Since I am responsible for new business, this will be the stuff that goes on my resume. Today we won everyone’s favorite ice cream/hamburger joint account. Think blizzard. It rhymes with HQ.

Too bad I have another big pitch deadline awaiting in the morning. No time to celebrate.

Natilee and I went and worked out together after work. Then we continued the new and healthy lifestyle by simply barbecuing a couple of steaks and bell peppers. It doesn’t matter how healthy the things are I eat, it won’t do me any good if I eat three times the recommended amount.

Now we are watching Beautiful Mind. It ought to be one of the best movies ever made. It makes one realize what emotional struggles the human mind is capable of creating. Oftentimes in people like you and I.

I have been really busy at work. That can make it really hard to write anything meaningful into the blog at night. If I’d just write what I did all day, then you would get the same entry M-F. But no…since editorial excellence is the blog’s main focus, I won’t let that happen. Here is your random look into Mario’s life.

I recently made a significant lifestyle change in my eating and exercising habits. I am going to eat a high protein/high fat/high carbohydrate diet and stop doing cardiovascular exercise. The goal is to get buff and chiseled by gaining muscle mass. Cool,eh?

Regardless, chances are that I will be running in a small 5K race this weekend.

As time goes by and I slowly enter adulthood, the thought of buying a car is slowly starting to cross my mind. I will be spending most of my time in Los Angeles in the next few years and at some point I will have to buy a car. At least, if I plan to be involved in any kind of social activity. I have been looking at the brand new Scion XB. It’s a pretty darn boxy car, but I really like the look and feel of it. Check it out at www.scion.com and let me know what you think.

I decided against collecting matchboxes. I am now ready to give away my 8 different match boxes and books. Any takers?

Today was animal day for Natilee and I. At first, we spend 4 hours at the Seattle Zoo. It actually was one of the best kept zoos I have ever seen. Most of the animals had large and natural habitats. I have to admit that a large chunk of our time was spent in front of the two resident gorilla families. How could it not? One of the fellow gorillas had run across a metal wrench and proudly displayed to us and the rather confused zoo staff. Amazing.

The rest of the day was spent looking at cats in one way or the other. Natilee and I are already fairly frequent visitors (5 times a week) to the local Petsmart. No, neither of us owns any animals, but Natilee is surely starting to develop a certain level of ownership to the Humane Society cats living at Petsmart. Especially, to a cat called Simba. The 10-year old, medium haired cat lady has left her marks. She is by far the oldest cat in the group and until most recently we were under the impression that she had severe heart and lung problems. Who would have known that WNL means “within normal limits.” It was quite the relief to learn this, and Natilee can now stop paying attention to the cat’s breathing patterns. Now, we just need to inform anyone and everyone else who walks in that store. Tomorrow…

Anyway, we spend our entire Saturday night online, looking at homeless cats in the Seattle area. Believe it or not, there are at least 484 of them at this point. And it won’t be long before the first one moves into Natilee’s tiny one bedroom apartment.

We ran across a great organization that rescues cats,dogs, rabits and ferrets just as they are about to be euthanized by the local animal shelters. The name of the organization is “Rescue every Dog” and you can find their web site at www.rescueeverydog.org

I also made Wienerschnitzel for dinner.