So here is the finished EC Design Concepts Logo!  I have no idea where this is going, but I’m liking it.  The more nervous I am the more off track I get-  There is so much to think about and I’m going back and forth on ideas.  I’m not even sure if office organization is really where this is going, I’m very lost.  I’m still working on my business plan- Its very ABC at the moment and it needs some TLC (oh, that was lame).  I’m taking a couple of days off- just because I have researched business topics for days!  It’s not a bunch of fun, but this has to work.  Today I feel great and I can’t wait to make a decision and stick with it- I’m really awful at that.  Have you ever tried to design your own logo?  How difficult of a task was it for you? 

When you get to that point in life where you are a twenty something and nothing makes sense anymore you begin to doubt everything about life and how to just manage.  I always felt like I was never alone in this, but one day while having lunch with a friend we started to talk about the different paths our lives were taking and how to manage a dream with living in the real world.  After a while we came up with a great idea of creating a site where all 20 somethings could get together and discuss how their lives were moving in either the direction they dreamed or in ways they never imagined.  This site known as “Unscripted Life” is still in the planning stages and will hopefully be a community created page where people can connect and read life anecdotes that can help them in their search to find peace with the direction their lives are heading in.  We each have a unique story, but it is surprising how we all feel the same way about what we are going through.  I’m going to be a contributing editor and with my friends we will create this little home for thought of young lives moving ever so quickly into the future.  No one can have it all planned out, but we don’t have to feel bad about it either.  I hope the site grows and catches on and maybe as people start to join they will spread the message and help out others.  My unique story will be posted and like this blog will chart my journey.  Now that I’m working at starting my own business…I will have a lot more insight into merging my dreams with my life.

Whenever I try something new in life it can be filled with a crazy amount of anxiety, but right now I’m feeling great.  Recently I have been researching job opportunities in film development and production.  There isn’t a bunch out there, but I did find a lot of marketing and advertising projects.  The more I read about marketing the more I saw “small business” and it got me thinking what I could do to get my life going in the direction I choose.  I’m the kind of person who works well alone and I get excited planning things out.  So while I have a ton of e-resumes floating around in space waiting for a response- I’m going to take the first steps to starting my own business.

This of course will be a slow process that will take months or even a year to get off the ground, but I’m determined to have personal success on my own terms doing something I believe I could have fun with.  I’m still actively looking for a job in my field and I have some more school to finish, but it could all work out.  I spent the last three days just researching ideas for a possible small business that would play to my strengths and really focus a niche in my town. 

After hours of lame ideas and things I was just not that great at- I came across a simple line from a site that does nothing but give business ideas- “Organize Offices”.  It hit me that it would be perfect for me and I already posses many of the skills needed to walk through a problem and begin organizing.  I want to create simple streamlined modern office spaces for home business owners and local businesses around my area.  I love office supplies- I have no idea why, but just ask my parents- I ask for office supplies for Christmas!  I enjoy organizing on the business level with concentration in filing and storage.  There are only a few professional organizers in my area and all of them are women.  It would be nice to get a young mans perspective in office design as my ideas will probably be different.  I’ve decided that the name of my business will be EC Design Concepts taken from this site.  I feel like the name has some ambiguity that will allow my company to grow into something different if I find a new direction the more I get into this. I had EC Office concepts for a while, but I feel like it just holds me down.  The next series of steps are to find out the legal forms I will need, a strong business plan, a strategic marketing plan, financial planning, website hosting possibilities, and a career projection.  I have some great mentors who own or have owned their own small business that I can get some feedback from.  I also sent out some e-mails and resumes to local organizing companies that I can maybe start to intern at or just work on a couple of projects.  Next semester I plan to take a financial advising course and a computer management lecture.

I have a part time job, school, intern ships and getting this company off the ground.  I can do this-  I have the talent to create something and make it work (even though I have never done this!).  I’m excited- I’m also starting a website with some friends that will deal with being twenty and just trying to survive and turn jobs into careers.  I will blog about all these ventures as I work through them.  I’m sure there will be a lot of bad luck, negative feedback, and just plain stress- but bring it on!  If the dream job comes along and I get hired or a new possibility starts- I will make the decision that is right for me.  Its funny that I got the idea from driving past an empty store front with a little red sign saying “Live your dream, own a business”  two weeks ago and look here I am ready to live a dream.

To Be Continued…

He stares at his beat up white lace up sneakers with intensity trying to remember what had happened moments earlier.  Its cool outside and clouds hang solemnly overhead casting a bluish tint on the world around him.  He breathes in through his nose and out his mouth trying to focus through the haze.  The wheels of a bicycle turn violently in the distance just spinning against the low September wind.  He had been normal just hours before when worrying about his lunch was the most pressing issue of the day.  He felt he was an average guy driving some small four door sedan from 98’ with a bumper sticker that read “rebel” that some girl with a butterfly tattoo had given him in high school.  He has brown hair, slightly over weight, and stands 6 foot with a scar running down his left arm that he got when he was five years old in a car accident.  He hates the taste of black licorice, but has been chewing the same piece for an hour now.  He is not sure why he did it, but it just happened without any prior motive.  The gun was just laying there on the shelf, maybe having been left by some high school punks who had abandon a lame prank.  Looking down at his sneakers he has a sense that time has just stopped.  Twenty dollar bills are flying down the street covered in blood.  One gets caught in the spoke of the spinning bicycle laying on the cold payment.  He tries to remember how he got here, how something so simple turned into chaos.  It was early in the morning, he pulled into a gas station to get some coffee.  He figured it was the best way to wake up after an evening of watching old black and white German war movies.  He made his way to the back of the store and grabbed a cup and poured what look to be black tar into it.  He went to grab some sugar and noticed a black semi-automatic sitting there on the shelf.  He didn’t know anything about guns because as a kid his mother sheltered everything in his life.  He just kept looking at it and wondered why today of all days he would come up on such a thing.    

To Be Continued…             

Charming Wanna Be....

The Prince and me is an extremely well made movie for such a low rate premise. In this little “Roman Holiday” rip off we get a sad Julia Stiles and an unpromising new comer in Luke Mably. This movie follows every cliché down to the wire and gets in every fantasy before its bleak two hour run is over. I didn’t expect much going into this movie and I really felt that it wasn’t going to offer anything new to the world of princess fantasies, but give me a break. When the Prince of Denmark (who speaks with an English accent, why not Danish?) watches a girls gone wild American commercial.  The prince quickly thinks it’s a good idea to trek to Wisconsin for some sexy country girl action, but as we all know- he finds something entirely different. The Prince is played by new comer or “this is my big break”- Luke Mably who doesn’t dazzle and with an-oh-so prince William look he doesn’t do much else. Luke throws himself into the material and every time is trumped by the more sophisticated Julia Stiles. Julia plays the every-country-wannabe-doctor girl that Hollywood likes to trot out for our enjoyment as a deep character. Julia adapts herself accordingly and makes the material work half the time and the other doesn’t seem to really care. There’s something wrong with her accent- it isn’t country, but its like the Hee-Haw version of what she did in “Mona Lisa Smile”. Julia plays Paige Morgan a down to earth school geek wanting to become a doctor.

Paige is serious about the endeavors in her life and works hard to achieve everything she has so far. Her ultimate dream is to work with “doctors without borders” program. So, you have to give it to Paige for being deeper than most characters for these teen-romance pictures. Paige and the Prince or Prince Edvard meet in a cute way with him asking her to take off her top- (ahhh love at first sight)- of course she douses him with seltzer water, she’s to much of a lady. Later we find that taking her top off in a Library is more tasteful. The two have a nice distain for one another for the first twenty minutes of the film, but as he gives her coaching advice on Shakespeare and she shows him the finer points of doing laundry a love blossoms. Edvard is followed by man servant Soren played with satirical wit by Ben Miller. Ben gets all the laughs in this movie and rightly so- coming off as a classic cynical middle aged man with no real life. Edvard’s parents are played by James Fox and Miranda Richardson, both being slapped in the face and given pathetically flat characters. Wherever Richardson picked up the pathetic accent its gotta go. James seems to make no effort as King Haraald and you really don’t blame the man- given nothing to do.

After Edvard and Paige “get down on the farm” so to speak the movie slowly plots along giving way to more pop music montages and an array of beautiful dresses to make girls feel like the Gap is just not enough. The exciting stunts come from a heart pounding lawn mower race and even some nice horse antics are thrown in later. When the press finds the lovely couple in a compromising position.  Edvard has to tell Paige that he is a Prince who came to America to find himself – or shirtless sexy farmer college girls. The Prince then jets back home where he learns that his father is ill and that he will have to take the thrown soon. Paige desperately follows and then we get to the Princess segment of the movie. She wears dresses and looks just ok the entire time, but then she gets to thinking and would rather be back home, so she decides that maybe this isn’t the life for her. The movie then stretches out some more until they get together- it doesn’t flow very well and at the end of the day were left with a sour taste in our mouths- because really there is nothing that makes this movie okay. The production value is decent and Martha Coolidge directs with a bubbly style, but the four credited writers needed to stop drinking while writing the tired script.

Final MovieFIX:

1/2 out of 5- Julia never really sparkles and Luke barely makes it out as the dashing prince, this fairytale isn’t one for the books or screen.

"The Prince & Me"
Directed by Martha Coolidge; written by Jack Amiel, Michael Begler, Katherine Fugate; photographed by Alex Nepomniaschy; edited by Steven Cohen; production designed by James Spencer; music by Jennie Muskett; music supervisor Robin Urdang; produced by Mark Amin. A Paramount Pictures/Lions' Gate Entertainment release; opens Friday, April 2. Running time: 1:51. MPAA rating: PG (some sex-related material and language).
Paige Morgan - Julia Stiles
Prince Edvard/Eddie - Luke Mably
Soren - Ben Miller
King Haraald - James Fox
Queen Rosalind - Miranda Richardson
Amy Morgan - Alberta Watson

Okay, well I’ve been busy putting out resumes to try to get my foot in the door at some hip cool marketing, production, or advertising firm (like photo above). So the results have been less than stellar..crickets really.  It’s strange how everything feels like a game, like just find the secret to getting in and your in regardless if you have the education as long as you have the talent.  I’m a bit of an untalented individual- well unless you think “Mexican Moon dancing” has any place in life.  I do have some education, but lets face it- the United States school system has let me down…I can barely make percentages without a calculator.  I’m so average that I make that guy from that one Seinfeld episode seem like a gift to mankind.  Yesterday I went to Blockbuster and saw the entire store for sale- seriously you can buy everything including those lame title cards they place behind movies to let you know that there are no movies, really who would want to buy that?  I did get away with some really cool PS3 stuff that will make my hobbit like existence so much more enjoyable.  I spent last week completely editing down my extensively wordy resume that had not been updated in a couple of years to make it more appealing to employers.  My idea of putting $50.00 in each resume I mailed out seems like a sure fire way to get a call back, except at this rate I could only send out like two…or one and a half.  Is life cruel or am I just that far behind?  I think that maybe this will work out and then it doesn’t and wait there is always a plan B, but now I think I might be gearing up for plan R.  So my resume is a hipper version of who I want to be and maybe who I think I am, but who really knows these things.  I believe the paper version of me is floating around to strangers who really don’t know me or care to.  I just want to spend my life working for them and being excited about doing something, could they show some gratitude and enjoy the bio I attach with every resume.  I’m joking- I have a feeling some people will believe me and try to explain to me how to properly send out a resume. I’m just in limbo- Its that feeling of not really being sure what to expect next and maybe that is just ok. 

The field was filled with long golden wheat stalks that stretched towards the sky. That dark blue sky with clouds that tumbled and rolled in like a crashing wave against the shore.  I looked up and then I looked down…the dirt had a shimmer.  A bright shimmer like cold coins against a mid afternoon sunlight.  I wondered if this was a dream, everything seemed so perfect and naturally not real.  My teeth were clinched tightly and my eyes squinting against the harsh sunlight.  I was worried because I had no idea where I was or how I got there.  I looked up again to see strawberries falling from the sky.  Bright red strawberries that were swallowed up into the earth.  I felt alone, but I wasn’t alone.  There was a man standing at the other end of the field holding a gun.  He was a dark shadow against a bright hued blue wall.  The wall looked like the sky melting into its bright blue color seamlessly.  I noticed three other walls surrounding me…this was not an open field, but just a box.  A box holding a memory that invaded my mind closing in on small details from a life lived somewhere else.  The man stood there with his gun by his side saying nothing.  The strawberries continued to fall against the wheat field.  Clouds above my head continued to roll in and grew darker with every crash.  The man took a few steps closer to me.  I  was not worried as if I knew this man and as if I had told him to meet me here in this field.  The sky grew darker and more deadly as the man continued to walk toward me with the gun still by his side.  I can remember looking away to see a bright green hummingbird flying slowly above the wheat stalks.  I looked back to see the man, but he wasn’t there.  I held the gun tightly in my grip.  The strawberries stopped falling.  The ground had swallowed all the strawberries and the dirt shined brighter than before.  I was tired…I felt so tired, but I knew I could not walk past those walls painted like the sky.  The clouds continued to roll in as the sky grew darker.