Brian Alexandrowicz

Well, I did it. I made it to the three-day hump. I broke down and had some a few beers last night, 5 to be exact. At 130 calories each, that comes out to 650 calories total, which isn’t too bad. What I had yesterday:

BREAKFAST
- 1 banana
- 1 cup of Greek yogurt
- handfull of mixed nuts

LUNCH
- Qdoba grilled steak burrito (steak/beans/rice/sour crea/gucamole/shredded cheese)
- 16oz Diet coke

DINNER
- pasta with fresh spinach, tomatoes (fresh + sundries), garlic, and onion in a parmesan-ricotta cream sauce

OTHER
- 1 bag of Cheetos (snack size)
- handfull of Sour Patch Kids
- 32oz of water
- 1 glass of apple juice

I didn’t that badly at all yesterday, save for my beer/snack breakdowns. I probably shouldn’t have gone for that junk, but I was craving it hardcore. I figure that it’s better to have small (again, SMALL) quantities of junk-crave foods occasionally than to pig out all at once. I got what  I had to out of my system, and now I’m feeling much better.

On an unfortunate note, my new workout routine has taken a back seat to school. With Spring Break looming, there was a lot of last-minute work that I had to wrap up so that I don’t have an extremely hectic break. I have a workout plan for the break (to hold me over until I can get back to the gym) that involves jogging and bodyweight exercises. Hopefully, that will keep me in decent shape until I can get back into the swing of things.

Yesterday marked the start of what I’m calling my new diet. Yesterday wasn’t bad at all, but the challenge is going to be keeping up with the good eating habits. I figure that once I get over the infamous “three day hump” It’ll be smooth(er) sailing. A breakdown of my food for the day:

BREAKFAST/LUNCH
- 1 scoop protein powder in water
- 4 eggs (scrambled) in a wheat tortilla with olive oil and ricotta cheese
-  2 glasses of apple juice

DINNER
- 1 chicken breast stuffed with garlic, parsley, and ricotta cheese
- 1 cup mixed white and brown rice
- 2 scoops protein powder in water

SNACKS/MISC.
- 1/4 cup mixed nuts
- 2 beers (Miller High Life, 136 cal. ea.)
- 1 scoop protein powder in water
- 1 container of pomegranate Greek yogurt

total daily protein:  150g (approx.)

I think I did pretty well save for the beer. I think that I’m going to make beer my one vice on this new diet. I enjoy it, and at 136 calories I can enjoy one or two a day and not get much of a negative impact.

I also started a new workout routine courtesy of Muscle & Fitness magazine. It’s intense, but very good.

This is the first post in what is going to be a fitness journal chronicling my attempts to eat right and get in awesome shape… on a very small budget, and with very little time (since school consumes most of my life). This isn’t going to be easy, but it’s high time I got my ass into gear and got into what I hope will be the best shape of my life. I’ve been going to the gym on-and-off since September of 2009, but I never took my diet and exercise as seriously as I should have been. At best, the little time I spent at the gym has let me break even muscle and weight-wise. This is going to change. I know that I’ll have to be patient (and I’ll admit that it’s not one of my strong suits) and I’m going to have to push myself, but I’m hoping that with a little support from my friends and other places, I can be successful. I’m setting a few goals, ones that I believe to be realistic. They are:

- LOSE THE GUT!
- maintain my current weight (approximately) by burning fat and gaining muscle mass
- have a healthier diet – less bad stuff (fatty and sugary foods) and more good stuff (veggies, water, etc.)

I think that these are all relatively simple, attainable goals. I do realize that things will not be nearly as easy as I think, but I think by putting forth the effort and getting support from others, I can absolutely do it. I know I’ll cave in and go for the crappy food, but realistically, I can’t deny myself those things on occasion. I’d go insane otherwise. Before I embark on this journey, I’m going to record my current physical health. Pictures will be posted soon.

HEIGHT: 6′ 0”
WEIGHT: 168
BMI: 22.8 (approximate)
AGE: 21

Now, for the challenge.

You might be thinking, “What are you talking about, isn’t the diet and weight loss the challenge?” Sort of, but it’s only part of the challenge. The other part of my challenge is going to be creating a diet optimized for cutting* on a shoestring budget. I have yet to decide on a weekly budget, but after I return from the grocery story today I’ll have a better idea of what I’m in for, and I can come up with a number.

I’m pretty excited to do this. Like I said before, this is not going to be easy or painless, but I’m confident that a couple of months from now I’ll feel awesome when I can hit the beach and be proud to show off my body.

This semester, the focus of my Typographic Systems class is on motion typography such as that found in film titles. The software used to create this motion typography is After Effects, and I have no idea what I’m doing. Well, that’s not entirely true. I learned some basics, but for the most part, I’m winging it. The first project involving After Effects is the animation of a quote of our choosing. I chose a quote from Winston Churchill: “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” Here’s a video of what I’ve done so far:

Just a note, the project is not done yet. There are some changed I’d like to make involving text animations, timing, and font styling.

Strangely, I’ve been finding After Effects extremely easy to use. I admit, when I first saw the interface, I was a little overwhelmed at all of the buttons, text, and numbers that filled the workspace. Fortunately, I’ve been able to sift through all of it and make sense of it all. I’m going to be learning more about After Effects in another class (involving a logo animation) so I’m pretty excited to learn and do some more.

I finally got around to designing and coding a website for myself. I’ve designed a few before, but unlike this design, I didn’t care for the others and wasn’t to execute them. There are still a few things that I need to do:

- contact form
- bigger logo
- develop some sort of gallery system for my portfolio
- minor bits and pieces

I had quite a hard time integrating Twitter into my site, but it turned out to be because of my stupidity rather than a software issue.

I recently seized and opportunity to work with my cousin, who is part-owner of PortoVino, a wine business based in Genoa, Italy. I was asked to design a simple and elegant front label for a wine called Fuso, which is made from barbera grapes and makes an excellent wine for daily consumption. The label will soon be seen on bottles of Fuso coming to America. This wine, among others from PortoVino, can be found at Princeton Corkscrew in Princeton, NJ.

I’m a huge fan of the whole “getting what you paid for” thing. You’re paying lots of money for things in some cases, so it’s only reasonable to assume that the product you’re paying so dearly for would be high quality and come with the most awesome customer service ever… right?

Wrong. Well, sort of. I got my laptop, a Macbook Pro, through school like everyone else in my class. It served me well for almost 3 of my 4 years at college. It took a good amount of abuse, got me through many a project, and generally has been an all-around sturdy and reliably piece of equipment. That was, however, until a few days ago. I was sitting in bed and catching up on some TV via Hulu when all of a sudden my screen became pixely and distorted. I immediately shut it down and let it cool off for a bit, thinking it was simply a case of overheating (as is often the result of viewing Flash). I turned it back on, and much to my dismay, the screen was still in it’s distorted state. Oh boy, the video card crapped out. I had watched it happen to so many of my classmates last year that I knew the symptoms, and also knew (or thought) that Apple would replace the faulty component, no questions asked.

Oh how wrong I was. Now, I give credit to Apple. Their title of “Best Customer Satisfaction” or whatever it was seems well-deserved. Everyone I spoke with was immensely helpful and nice, and did all they could to get me whatever was needed to get my laptop repaired. Therefore, I have to state for the record that my beef is not with Apple’s customer service, but with some of their policies. Their AppleCare policy states that essentially everything under the sun is covered, except if your laptop has physical damage that happens to be causing the problem. Fair enough I thought, my laptop is pretty dinged up but the physical problems aren’t causing any internal ones, especially not the graphics chip one.

Long story short, I was made aware that my repair was on hold and that Apple needed to get in touch with me. I called them and was told that my laptop, because it was physically damaged, essentially voided my AppleCare and that the graphics chip repair would need to come out of my pocket, should I choose to have it done. I was getting a little worried at this point, but I thought, “How bad can it be?” As it turns out, bad. Really bad. The total bill to repair my laptop’s malady would come to roughly $1,000. Yes, that’s right, $1,000. Why so much? According to Apple, when AppleCare is voided due to physical damage, their policy dictates that they must repair the entire laptop. They will not repair the individual part that’s at fault for the issue.

Unfortunately, they’ve got legal documentation out the wazoo stating all of this, so there’s no possible way that I can fight this. However, I have to ask… Why is it that they absolutely cannot repair individual faulty components, and furthermore, to repair or replace a small aluminum shell, why does it cost $1,000? Does this seem a little absurd to anybody else?

I paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $2-3K for my laptop (including all software, AppleCare, plus extras) and it costs me 1/2-1/3 of the total cost of my laptop to have a repair done? Come on now Apple, I paid a lot of money to get what I thought would be a superior product, and instead I get to pay MORE to fix said product.

I’m starting to think that my next laptop might have to be a Windows machine.

Alright, here goes nothing.

Some time in the beginning of this past May my debit card number was stolen. I’ve been unable to successfully find the business or person that stole my information and debit card number, but I suspect that it was a website that I ordered from back in April. I filed a claim with Wachovia and had my card canceled on 5/23/09. I returned the affidavit they sent me a few days later, after I had gotten my replacement card. Everything seemed to be okay, but I placed a fraud alert on my credit file just to make sure that it was only my debit card that was stolen and not something more serious, like my identity. Luckily though, my identity was not stolen. Phew.

Fast forward last week. I recieved a bill in the mail from a company called “Preferred Platinum Plus” for the amount of $156.02. I was obviously a little freaked, seeing as how they had my name and address. However, having no intention of just paying the thing out of fear, I decided to do a little sniffing around to see what was up. I found out a few things, namely:

- the card used was my old, canceled card
- the charges were made on 6/4, exactly 12 days after canceling my old card
- the name and address of the guy who made the call and racked up the charges
- the company in question is notorious for questionable business practices

Well isn’t all of that interesting? One of the most interesting things, however, is the way in which the company, Preferred Platinum Plan, runs their billing system. Essentially, what they do is this: The caller dials the number and gives a name, address, and credit card number, then creates a PIN. Immediately thereafter, without verifying the card in any way, the call is started and the billing begins.

Now, let’s take a second so I can clarify how electronic credit and debit transactions are SUPPOSED to work for those who don’t know. Essentially, when you take out your card to pay for something, the following happens:

1) You slide your card.
2) The computer system reads the magnetic stripe on the back of your card to get information such as name, account number, routing number, etcetera.
3) The computer takes said information and sends it to the bank via a high-speed data connection, similar to an internet connection.
4) The bank receives the information and checks to see if you either have enough room on your credit limit (if using credit), or enough funds in your checking account (if using debit). If your credit limit is good, or you have enough funds in your account, you’re good to go and the transaction is completed.
5) If, however, you don’t have sufficient funds or credit, the bank rejects the transaction, returning a “declined” message.

Note: In some cases, the bank lets you overdraft if using debit. However, there is a limit to the number of overdrafts. Situations may vary.

Now that we know how a normal, reasonable transaction is supposed to occur, we can see just how absurd the billing method of PPP is. Can you say questionable business practices?

–

I’m slowly taking care of this, so it’s not the end of the world… just frustrating. Either tomorrow or Thursday I have to go to the police station and file a police report to mail back with an affidavit from PPP.

In case you didn’t catch it, I also have the name, phone number, and address of the guy who placed the call. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this information yet, but I have a few ideas. Updated to follow.

Alright, maybe it’s just me… but is anyone else my age worried about getting a job when they graduate? Things suck right now, there’s no doubt about that. However, I have a summer job (and possibly a winter break job), and my parents both still have their jobs. Things don’t seem so bad, and this economic downturn really hasn’t directly affected me yet. I know this isn’t the case for a lot of people though. It seems like I’m hearing about people losing jobs, praying that they’ll make labor cuts, losing money in their retirement funds, plus a whole slew of other depressing things. All of this has me worried… and it has me thinking about what my career prospects are looking like after I graduate college.

A good number of my friends from back home are majoring in things like business, math, engineering, and various sciences. They’re all pretty smart people and I have no doubts that they’ll be able to get jobs right out of college. I’m not so confident about my prospects. Graphic Design is something that I absolutely love, and I have no real desire to pursue any other careers. My problem, though, is that I feel as though the job market is going to be saturated as it is now… and that I won’t have a good enough portfolio upon graduation. Granted, I’m paying quite a bit of money to ensure that these things don’t happen, but there are no guarantees. I’d like to know that I’ll have job security, even though I know that it might be a remote possibility. 

I’m not sure where I’m going with all of this, but it’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a while now. I guess the only thing I can do is keep my chin up, do my work, and hope for the best. I’d like to hear what other people have to say about this as well, so feel free to leave some comments with your thoughts.

I haven’t posted any updates here in a while because… well, nothing too exciting has really been going on. I finished the spring semester up and now I’m keeping busy with work and other things. Recently though, I designed a logo for my friend Jason Howard and his business Image Pulse that he runs with his girlfriend, Shaina. They’re both very cool people and they’re pretty damned talented, so go check the sites out if you have a chance to see my logo in action and see what they’re all about. I’m also trying to work on some identity materials and a portfolio website for my good friend Steph. She’s one of the most talented photographers I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing (and she’s a pretty cool person to boot). If you get a chance, check out her stuff. On that note, Steph: If you’re reading this, I’m actually going to finish your site for real, and give you some other bonus material like a revamped logo and a business card.