What I watch every night before I goto sleep

Where the Wild Things Are

Don't laugh. I can't freaking wait for it to come out. Look, my favorite movie is Toy Story and this is my favorite book when I was little. If it doesn't dissapoint and brings me back to when I was 3 or 4 or 5...this might be the best movie ever.

I will almost be 25 when it comes out...and I will be going to the theaters on opening day to watch this movie. I...CANNOT...WAIT

Charity of the Week: Playing For Change

Welcome to a new feature of my blog that will focus on a charity or organization each week that I think everyone should take a look at. These organizations can be chosen for any reason, from causes I feel that should be supported to organizations that just make me feel they are doing it the right way. I will highlight the organization, provide some history and an overview of their mission, and then recommend what you can do to support it.

The first organization I chose is Playing for Change. Their mission is to promote peace and change in the world through music. I have always believed in the power of music- its power to affect my feelings and moods is second to none and I do believe that one thing that can connect people of all races, backgrounds, and religions is music. Here is a quote from them, which rings so true.

As we made our way around the world we encountered love, hate, rich and poor, black and white, and many different religious groups and ideologies. It became very clear that as a human race we need to transcend from the darkness to the light and music is our weapon of the future.

Watch this video of a cover of Stand by Me and try to tell me you don't agree:



Wow...just wow. I found out about this organization from just watching that video. They basically went around the world and recorded performers singing the song and mixed it all together to get this masterpiece. In essence performers hundreds, thousands, of miles away collaborate to create music that transcends all borders. Here are some other examples:

Cover of Bob Marley's One Love


Cover of Bob Marley's War


How can you support this cause? Well, you could purchase the CD, or you could make a donation to their foundation. I bought the CD because it is some great covers of Bob Marley classics and I love the collaborative aspect of these songs.

Another thing I noticed when watching these videos is that I am obsessed with Granpa Elliot, the blind man in the Stand by Me video. He is an absolute amazing harmonica player and singer and I have embedded some of his videos below.

Amazing Grace


Fannie Mae


On The Boardwalk and Stand by Me


I can only hope some day I can go to New Orleans to watch him in person. Wow.

Officially obsessed with Light Art Performance Photography

I came across Light Art Performance Photography (also known as LAPP) on the Gizmodo blog and decided to take a closer look at the official website- lapp-pro.de. Needless to say, I am obsessed and created this compilation video.



The artists, Jan Wollert and Jorg Miedza, create these images using a single exposure. They have LED lights and do very precise, choreographed movements to make the images. For more information on the technique, check out the write up on them in CPN: Behind The Lens: Light Art Performance Photography.

I would love to start playing around with this stuff!

Bird's eye view of flight video

People in Spain have created a really cool video where they attached a camera to the top of a bird and you are able to get feel for what it's like to fly.

Music such as 'I am like a bird, I wanna fly away' or 'fly like an eagle...' or many more are just so fitting while watching this.

I hope I am a bird in my next life.

Time Travel Cheat Sheet

So I have just traveled back in time. No electricity. No health standards. People still think the earth is flat. What do I do?

Easy. Using this cheat sheet, I become the inventor of all things important. People name their children and towns after me. I have my own religion.

And most likely, by now, people would have destroyed the planet, but I digress...here's the cheat sheet.

Why am I always scared?

I live life scared. I have these big dreams. These amazing ideas. Yet I live my life with my tail tucked between my legs like I am scared.

Sometimes I just hate who I am...who I've become.



...sigh...this song hits so hard right now.

Weekend in Revue

So it's 2AM on a Sunday with yet another busy work week starting in a few hours. I always find that Sunday nights are my most difficult nights to fall asleep. I have so much pent up energy...so much I feel that I have yet to do...and I know that once I goto sleep the weekend is over and I have a full week of work ahead.

Some highlights of the weekend, which was pretty eventful as I look back on it:

* Went bowling with some friends on Friday night, barely won the first game, then got bored in the second game so we played 'B-O-W-L'...which is the bowler's variation of HORSE. Fun times. Somehow, there were no injuries during this game.

* Locked my keys in the car on Friday night. Oops...had to wait until AAA came by to unlock my car...which was about 2 AM.

* Went to the GT-UNC baseball game on Saturday. GT came back from a 3 run deficit in the 9th inning to win in the 11th with a walk off grand slam.

* Watched the Braves beat the hated Phillies, 4-1, and decided that I will be naming my first born son Derek Lowe Stigall. After giving up no runs on two hits in eight innings of work, I'm only half joking.

Now it's on to another busy week. I hope by the end of the week, I will be working sales full time, and my long wait will finally be worth it. I feel like it will be my time to shine.

NCAA Frozen Four Hockey Tournament = AWESOME

So I have been a huge hockey fan the last few years, and I have lightly followed the NCAA hockey tournament, known as the Frozen Four. This year I have tried to watch as much as I can and I am hooked!

So far, 3 games really stand out.

Minnesota Duluth vs. Princeton: Crazy game where UMD scores 2 goals in the final minute, including one with .8 seconds left to tie the game and put it into overtime. They wind up with the Golden Goal in overtime. What a game.



New Hampshire vs. North Dakota: You thought .8 seconds was good? Try .1 seconds. That's right, New Hampshire tied the game with .1 seconds left. They wind up winning seconds into overtime.



Vermont vs. Air Force: No last second heroics for this game. Instead the drama happened in OT. In the first OT, Vermont puts in a chip in and starts celebrating thinking they've won the game, but replays show that an Air Force player dove and saved the puck on the goal line. Amazing play. The game is then later decided by a replay- the puck actually goes through the back of the net and the refs had to use replay to determine it. Check it out:



For not really being connected to any team (North Dakota and Air Force were the ones I was cheering for...that worked out well)...this has been some great hockey to watch.

The downfall of YouTube?

Video Insider has a great article about the potential link between YouTube and Geocities.

They bring up some interesting points and I must agree, the amount of business looking for higher quality videos is growing rapidly.

YouTube's current model is ad-revenue....and many companies are hesitant to put up their videos without control of the advertisements going up against it. Also, the terms of service states that you give copyright ownership of your content to them. So most of the professional content is leaving YouTube for a more controlled delivery.

Should be interesting to see how it plays out.

The purpose of this blog

When I started this blog, I had big plans. Those plans are still there but are being refined until I have a more concrete plan. I started this blog with plans for it to have 3 things that I often find myself struggling with: a direction, a purpose, a reason to exist.

See I view my life now as having 2 parts: online and real-life. In the past, I have tried to be someone I am not in many ways, and it honestly wound up destroying some of my relationships. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do, both real-life and online, and I have come to the conclusion that I am going to merge the two together. My never-ending search of direction, purpose, and reason to exist will be a constant struggle, one that hopefully will turn me into a better person.

I have come to the realization that I am a very complex guy with deep thoughts that mingle between reasoning and philosophy. I lie in bed and ask questions that I will never find the answer to and debate with myself for hours. The truth is, though, that I have very simple goals in life:

1. To leave a legacy
2. To be beneficial
3. To be successful

To leave a legacy

This is something that I struggle with. I have mixed feelings about the possibility of an afterlife, and I have come to the conclusion that if there is no afterlife-the only thing that will remain once I'm dead is my legacy. I would define my legacy as what I leave behind to this world after I am dead. There are 6 billion people in this world, and if I live long enough, that number could be more than 10 billion people. What makes me stand out? What is my purpose? How can I create a legacy that I am satisfied with?

My main goal to leave a legacy is to simply just live up to the standards of my family name. My lineage is nothing special, but has always consisted of hard working people who have been very family oriented. I am part of a very small family, and as it stands there are only 2 males with the 'Stigall' name. I hope to have it continue and stand for something. To create a legacy. I hope that my actions, both large and small, consistently follow the path of creating a legacy that will exist beyond my life.

To be beneficial

One thing has always made me happy. Even when I am depressed and have doubts about myself or this world, only one thing can consistently bring a smile to my face and make me proud to be who I am: helping others. For some reason, it is always an easy decision for me to sacrifice my own good to help others in need. I would like to do a lot more charity work in the future and truly focus on doing one good deed every day, no matter how small or large.

To be successful

I have been blessed with many things in my life. I feel that my parents gave me the genetics and environment for me to become gifted in many things. With a defined plan, hard work, and good luck, I hope to one day look back and see that my decision have made me successful. What is successful in my eyes? I want to be in a position where I am making decisions of what I want to do every day. I want this to be sooner rather than later so that I can enjoy it. Whether it comes or not, who knows, because I can be happy either way, but it is still one of the primary goals in my life just because I see people who are extremely successful and I think that it is possible.

So why did I tell you all of this? Well for starters it IS 6am and I got no sleep last night, which is when my mind always starts to go crazy. Also, I have been thinking long and hard about how I want to present myself on this blog. The three things I mentioned will play a major role in this blog.

Legacy- This blog is my outlet to people on a much grander scale.

Beneficial- I hope to become a resource, to be an outlet for people to come to for advice, and for my blog to motivate me to do good things and encourage others to do the same

Successful- I hope to use this blog to further my chances of being successful. I think that there are many ways I can choose to be successful- from starting my own companies to becoming an expert in a specific field

So there it is- the primary reasons I will be writing this blog. Also, the primary reason I have not been writing, because I have not had a clear direction or purpose for this blog. Oh, and the primary reason you should not blog at 6AM with no sleep. My apologies if you have read this far.

Sorry I have been gone

Sorry I have been gone. I have been debating on putting my blog on my personal website, http://www.mattstigall.com, but I think I will continue to keep my blog here. I just like the interface a little bit more.

That blog will probably have more professional stuff on it...this one will be more personal.

I don't know. It will change again in a week.

This bothers me immensely.

Like...no really...

Website is really coming together

So my website is really coming together and I hope to have it up and running (along with 2 other websites) by the beginning of the year. I spent about 10 hours over the break working on it and most of it was on the backend to setup a really dynamic and resourceful website. I think it will be very useful to promote my companies, my websites, and more specifically, myself in the specific interests I want to be an expert in.

I also feel like this website will serve as a way for me to focus my energies. It will keep me organized, focused, and encourage me to turn my ideas into working realities.

Once I have it completed, I will most likely not use this (blogger) as a platform. All blog updates will be done on www.mattstigall.com.

Thanks,

Matt

Christmas Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Future

This year's Christmas was a little different than all others. Unfortunately, I might consider it one of the worst Christmas ever (it'll be hard to be worse than the Christmas I had a stomach virus. Not Fun).

I think the main reason this Christmas was so different from all the others is that for the first time, Christmas was just a day. In the past, Christmas would be a whole season. This was accentuated by the fact that I would be on an extended break from school. Combine this with family visiting from out of town for up to a month, I look forward to Christmas as a series of weeks that featured getting the tree, setting up decorations and Christmas lights, making luminaries and driving around the neighborhood at night, visiting Calloway Gardens, and other special memories that will last forever. This year, I had to work all the way up until Christmas Eve, and it just gave me the feeling that instead of being an entire season, Christmas was, sadly, just a day.

I used to love Christmas so much that I would be depressed after Christmas day was over that I would be depressed that there would be 365 days until the next Christmas. Now I'm upset that there's 3 days until I have to goto work again.

I had a great day with some family (and friends), but it's sad to say that Christmas just isn't the same anymore.

The greatest 5 minutes of my life

Now don't laugh. Apparently I was overly emotional during this, but it is hard to describe what this song means to me. For 2 full years, this was the song that gave me some of my biggest emotional highs. While playing for Harrison, we would play this before every football game and after if we won...and all the players would be hitting their lockers and getting pumped...total and then we'd all go out on the field and kick ass. The one memory I will always have is a JV game against Marietta my sophomore year, I had broken my finger, twisted my ankle, and was throwing up on the sideline from being sucker punched in the gut. I hadn't missed a play all season and we were barely winning with 8 minutes left, and we just got the ball back on offense and the coach (who was a total hardass) came to me while the trainer was taping my ankle and asked if I could play. I jumped up to go in and coach Hines screams "YEEEAAAAAAAA THUNDERSTRUCK!" And headbutts me...while I'm wearing the helmet. Right then any pain I ever had went away.

I go out there. We call 468 Down. I blindside pancake the 290 lb DT in the 3 technique and spring Jason Boyle to a 68 yard touchdown.

After 6 or 7 years...during this song...I remembered all of this like it happened yesterday. Gave me chills. I am still on an emotional high from it. I just stood there with my hands in the air...one of the biggest rushes in my life.

Thunderstuck, baby!!