Some of you have noticed that my Rentboy listing is no longer ‘on.’ I’m still here in Vegas and I’m still taking calls.

I started working a new day job in marketing back in April. I was doing so well at it that by the end of May they offered me a Sales position. At first I turned it down, but then I saw one of the sales rep’s paychecks and that was that; I wanted in!

It has taken much longer then I expected to get up and running in my new Sales role. Management all went on Vacation in July and left no one in the office to train me (What am I? Invisible?). Never the less, August was spent intensively on getting me up to speed and last week I started closing Deals. I have a feeling that by the end of September I’m going to be an unstoppable machiene. My boss thinks so too.

There are 3 sales reps in the office. 1st Sales Rep gets to pick through the leads first, 2nd Sales Rep gets the leftovers and the 3rd Sales Rep is just lucky to be there. Thats me, I’m the 3rd Sales Rep. I have to do my own marketing and book my own appointments. Fortunately I have all the company’s marketing resources at my fingertips, and because all the leads I created through my marketing position went to the 1st and 2nd Sales Reps, those leads will now be going to me.

So now you know whats going on with me.

I was being a good little steward with my money, keeping my check book balanced, then I got lazy. I stopped putting my earnings in the bank and it was back to the big white envelope. Yesterday I got a Bank of America alert on my iPhone… I was overdrafted! Over two months of living like an adult and I blew it. I felt shame. I was doing so well that I forgot to keep up with the actions that made it that way. The overdraft amount: -$197. Wow!

So now it’s back to the basics. Day one of my awesome new Journey again. An old timer once told me that “Square One Sucks!” But it doesn’t have to suck for long… right?

It’s 5am Vegas time and I’ve had a good nights sleep. Lots to get done today including all of my laundry, cleaning the kitchen, the gym, work on my friend’s website, grocery shopping, my day job (which starts at 3pm) and hopefully an appointment tonight. I deposited all my money in the bank and have a decent balance to start with. I have to penny pinch because of some big events coming in June including a bachelor party for one of my friends from High School where I said I would pay for a table at ‘Sapphire’ for 5 people and a trip to Florida lined up in July. I also want to get back to Ohio for a few weeks sometime this summer, that will be expensive too.

So now its time to get to work. Lets see how well this day goes.

I’ve been busy and I’ve been lazy, that is the reason why I haven’t posted in my blog for a while. I met up with someone who called me specifically because of this blog. “Finally, someone wants me for my brain…” (haha) is what I was thinking when I got there. We’re educated people too, you know.

I started this blog 3 months ago because I sucked at managing my life. I had no discipline and it was no where more obvious then with my finances where I was averaging 5 overdraft fees per month in my bank account. Since I started this blog the average number of overdrafts is 0.

My life is going well now. I feel some promise for my future. I still need good guidance and a game plan, but for now I know that I’m in a good ‘starting position’ to make things happen. I am also starting a new job on Monday, which I am excited about, and I have an old friend who has moved to Vegas that I am happy to have here with me.

Wish I had more to say, but I’m drawing a blank. Don’t be afraid to call me when you’re in Vegas. Lets have lots of fun!

Today I got a chance to watch the NCAA Championship game with a guy new to the business and I found myself in a position I’ve never been in before. We were at his place and he asked me for some advice. I have no problem giving advice to new guys, but what I found different about this time was that I no longer had anyone to go to for advice.

When I started a few years back I was the new Cute Guy. I was so lost and no idea how to manage in this business. I would make a large chunk of money in one night and by the time I got home the money was gone. I needed guidance and before long I met some older Guys who could help me: Greg, Tyler, Casey, Aaron and Chris. They were Role Models and anytime I needed help, or most importantly just someone to be with in this business of loneliness, I could rely on them to always be there. They were like my big brothers who were always looking out for me. Now they are all gone. They have moved on to bigger things (and they knew they hit the age limit and weren’t going to work for less money).  I actually miss Aaron the most because he was my best friend in this business.

During my meditation today I focused on the time I spent with the new guy today and a feeling and Vision came into my head accompanied with a popping noise. The vision was of me walking down the hall of my High School during the last week of Classes my Senior Year. The feeling was warm and I felt so accomplished and confident. It occurred to me with that vision that it is time to graduate. I don’t want to be in this business to the bitter end of despair. Its time to leave while I still Love it.

I have to be the Role Model now as well. I was always the kid who needed guidance, but now the tables have turned, I have to be the person with their shit together and live my life as an example for others to follow. The thought of that gives me the same feeling I had walking down the hallway my Senior Year; and what a feeling it is.

More Deets to Follow, but for now know this: My Purpose is to be the Role Model.

My Goal for the month of March was to ‘Have No Goals and Enjoy Myself.’ Well, it turns out that this was the best month I’ve ever had in a long time. I started this blog a month and a half ago because my life had become a series of Train Wrecks after Train Wrecks. Today I am up to date on all my bills (except the College Loan, I am still 4 months away from being current and am working with them on that), haven’t had an over draft penalty since February, My body is sexier then ever, I have cash in my bank account and every morning I wake up happy. I am happy I took the time to enjoy myself now because the busy Season has started. I’ve learned some things, too; and this blog entry may not be so much for my fans as it is for my fellow brothers in the business, but if you are reading this

#1- “It’s My Life Now. I Have to Live It For Myself” This was a piece of advice given to me last year and I didn’t start taking it to heart until this month. I can’t live my life the way others want me to live it, it has to be the way I want to live it or else I will always be depressed. What a concept! It was 3am, I was coming home from a job and I was mad at myself for staying up too late. I was supposed to make an early phone call to my mom in the morning and I knew that wasn’t going to happen. My mom still wants me to be a Lawyer or a Teacher because of my impressive communication skills. I have no intention of being either of those. That is when I pulled that awesome piece of advice from the file cabinet in my head and when I called her at 2 in the afternoon I told her that I was out until 3 in the morning and didn’t get to bed till 4. That was That.

#2- “If I Don’t Like Doing It, Then I Don’t Do It; Or At Least I Ask For More.” I am not an upseller and pride myself on not being one. But, there is a specific service that I completely dread doing and I usually do it anyways because I am not an upseller. Not anymore. I was speaking with young guy we recently added to the site and him and I were discussing all the crazy things clients ask us to do. He flat out said that he has to ask for more money when it comes to a few specific services. I was always afraid of upselling because I didn’t want to get bad reviews because of it. But, that one service I dread doing could easily be eliminated from the client’s list of needed services if I asked for more money to do it. Sure enough, I started asking for an extra $100 (in a kind and gentle way) and I either did not have to provide the service or I made an extra $100. It’s been a winning scenario.

#3- “Just Look at Previous Months.” Somehow every month, with the exclusion of February, I have pulled through and made substantial financial gains. I never seem to realize that and always think I am behind the ball when Im getting no phone calls. The gains, though, have come in mini-spurts of business that I thought followed no regular pattern. Well, after looking back, I realized that there was a pattern that follows no direct schedule, but rather a form of orderly financial chaos that stretches for 2 months and at the conclusion of a 2 month period, if I save my pennies properly, I end up with a large profit at the end. Its hard to put into words, but here’s an example: This first week of this month I received 3 jobs and 1 agency call; the following week I received only 1 job, 1 Overnight that unfortunately turned into a 5 hour and no agency calls; On week 3 I received 8 jobs (yea… thats a lot) and no agency calls; Last week I received no agency calls and no jobs until the weekend where I received 2 jobs and 1 bad agency call. This week I have no jobs, but a possible overnight on Friday. When looking back, in the long run that is an average of 4 jobs a week. Most calls I get are for over an hour, or they tip properly. So when I put that into prospective, there was a lot of money there. I just got to keep my hands off the cash and it will all be fine.

Oh wow, can’t believe all the incredible things on my old hard drive. In the last post I placed a song for you to listen to and I’ve been blasting that song everyday.

I’m only half way through the hard drive and I keep finding more and more exciting old things.

I guess this is the wave of the future. Instead of sifting through a box of old photos, records and family film strips we’re going to sift through an old computer.

I did come across some fun photos that I thought I would share with you.

Here’s a photo of me at a Halloween Party. I’m not going to tell you How Old I am in this picture, you are going to have to guess.

When I owned my Landscape Business, this was the Hauling Truck. We called it “The Beast” because it was old as hell, pieces of the truck were falling off and it could still drive 100 miles while hauling 2 tons of landscape materials.

Here is an Unpaid Invoice from my Landscape Business. No wonder it went under.

These are the  first photos I ever took with my first digital camera.

As part of my New Start, #8 on the Energy Blocker List was to go through my old hard drive and Pull Out the files that I need. It was like opening up a time capsule and what a bunch of cool stuff I have. Imagine it’s 2002 and your friend built you a Mega Computer for school. You got this new thing called ‘Cable Internet’ that is 500 times faster than anything else out there and you are a bit devious by nature. Needless to say… there was a lot of porn on that hard drive. Lots and lots of really good porn.

But I want to focus on the music I had. I collect all kinds of interesting music; lots of unique songs and dances, and multiple variations of the songs and dances. One of my favorite Pieces of music is “The Peanut Vendor.” The piece became popular during the  mid 1950′s ‘Mambo’ music movement that was introduced by Desi Arnez (I love Lucy). I have over 40 renditions of “the Peanut Vendor” and one stands out as my Super Favorite! I totally forgot about it until I found the copy on the old hard drive. I used to BLAST this song every morning when I would get ready for school, dancing and bopping around. My friends would get in on the action, too, and before long this song was being played all through our Fraternity House.

Here is a copy of the Greatest ” The Peanut Vendor” Recording ever. Don’t be afraid to crank up the volume:

Harry James, Benny Goodman & Stan Kenton – The Peanut Vendor

My cooking fad has moved into high gear. Being in Vegas it is hard to find good ethnic foods and a dish that I miss so much is Weiner Schnitzel. Weiner Schnitzel is an Austrian dish, but has been adopted by most Eastern European countries as national cuisine. I’m Slovak and relate Weiner Schnitzel to my heritage. To put that into perspective, think of Pizza as a purely American food item, which it is even though it has Italian origins, and Corned Beef as an Irish food item, even though it’s Norwegian origins.

Weiner Schnitzel is easy to make, but requires a lot of Mess to make it happen. The primary meat is Pressed Veal, which is a thin slice of Veal that is tenderized. The Veal is then breaded, fried and served with a slice of lemon. The trick to breading the Veal is not to do an egg wash then bread crumbs, you have to coat the Veal in flour, then egg wash and breadcrumbs because the breading and meat should separate from each other when done. It took me 2 tries to make that happen, but I got it done and the meal was incredible.

Everybody knows I love taking pictures by the pool. Now that the weather is starting to break it’s time to shed the clothes and show the muscles. We have a new friend on the website, Escort Tony and he was limited in the number of images he had available, so we went off to our favorite spot with a camera to have some fun.

Unfortunately when we got there the sun went away and the temperature mysteriously dropped considerably. SO we were limited on the number of images we could take before we caught pneumonia. Here is a quick sample of my images, hopefully I’ll have more photos later.

First I’d like to give a huge shout-out to the USA Men’s Hockey Team. That last second 3^rd period goal got my heart racing like I haven’t felt since Ohio State winning the Rose Bowl. Sure, we ended up losing in Overtime, but those 10 between goals was the most excited I’ve been in a long time.

So now that my disastrous month is finally over (Good Riddance) and shitty canceling clients have cataloged into the bad news database, I want to tell you what my main goal is for the month of March. I thought long and hard about it. There are so many things I need to get done, so many things I want to do and have to do, but it struck me this afternoon exactly what my goal should be.

The Goal is this: Have No Goal and Enjoy Myself. I haven’t had this goal in a long time and the last time I made this my goal not only did I reach it, but so many good things happened for me. Why not make that happen again.

Here is the way I see it. In the Fool’s Journey there is a cycle everyone goes through when venturing through life. This cycle repeats itself constantly and at every stage in your journey a new challenge rises to greet you. There are 22 different challenges. If you ever got a Tarot Card reading, the numbered cards represent the fool’s journey; books like Red Wall and the Lord of the Rings are based on the Fool’s Journey as well.

During the final leg of the journey, one of the challenges is called the ‘Tower. On tarot cards the Tower is represented by a lightning bolt blasting the top of the tower with you falling… no… crashing to the ground. It represents an unforeseen catastrophe that knocks you off your pedestal.

Then the next challenge (card ) is the ‘Star.’ The Star is represented by a person, naked, at a stream washing themselves of all the dust and rubble from their fall. In the water they see their reflection and begin to realize that there was no ending because of their plunge from the Tower, but a new beginning and a new freedom, a freedom this person never had while locked in their Tower. This person decides to go forth with their new found inspiration, but there is a problem… It’s still dark. Illuminating the path before them is the next challenge (card): The Moon.

The moon lights only half of a winding path surrounded by dangers and other people’s Towers. The path leads to the mountains where there is only darkness. Your creative Imagination gets coupled with your darkest fears as you traverse this moon light path and you become bewildered and afraid. You want to stop and call out for ‘Mommy!’ But if you keep moving forward something that always happens will happen and that’s the next challenge (card): The Sun.

The Sun rises and illuminates all of the hidden places. It provides clarity to the areas where the Moon provided confusion and fear. You begin to feel and understand all the good this world has to offer you. You are given a new Zest for life after being struck down by lightning, left in the dark with your fears and forced to trudge path you cannot see. Greatness finds you as you ride through life with new hope and optimism. You’ve traveled so far, learned so much and overcame debilitating obstacles. You can’t help but shine like the sun.

This was a disastrous month and I was going to use this blog entry to cry and complain about how crappy it was. Where is complaining going to get me? So here are the good things.

First, despite all the cancelations, I did have some good clients and thanks to them I am able to pay my bills and put a few bucks away for savings. Second, I am much more organized now financially. I have all my bank accounts in order and haven’t had an overdraft since I began my new financial plan. Third, I’m the hottest I’ve ever been. Thanks to my client from last Thursday who wanted to help me out with a new video then canceled at the last second, I put in so much time at the gym that my body is amazing. I haven’t looked this good since college. I love it.

Finally, I feel better about my future. Before my mid-month debacle I was smashing my way to my goal, but now I am sailing towards it. It’s going to take longer than I expected, but at least I know I can make it.

February of 2010 will go down as the biggest blunder in my Vegas career, but like I’ve heard said time and time again: It Gets worse before it gets better. Man am I excited to see March roll around.

For some reason this has been a very troubling month in regards to client cancellations. Actually, even my friends are canceling on me. This afternoon I was supposed to do a job with a friend, then my friend canceled. I scrambled to find another partner, then the client canceled. And the client canceled specifically because he wanted to be mean and hurt my feelings; and it did hurt my feelings. I was totally about to cry. 5 times this month clients have canceled on me at the last second. This has never happened before.

I remember talking to my friend Tyler a while back during one of these ‘Bad Months.’ He said that sometimes you get months that are incredibly amazing and sometimes you get months that are a complete disaster. Well, this month has been a complete disaster. And the madder I get at the clients who make you free up your schedule, seek out other parties for them, require you to email and call them on a constant basis then pull the rug in an abrupt manner from under you; the more I realize that the anger isn’t helping.

I feel like the cosmos is punishing me for something I once did. Time to figure what I need to fix in my spiritual make-up so I can get back to life as usual.

I choose to be the winner that I know I am.

2 hours no Technology starts now. I’m going for a run at Sunset Park. Who wants to join me?