Now that the Belly Fat Cure Book is out and available, Jorge Cruise is going to be getting out there to meet folks and one of the ways to do that is by book signing events. At the moment, only the first two are scheduled, and for lucky Costco members, both events are at Costco stores.

For Costco members in the New York area, Jorge will be at the Costco in Westbury, New York on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at Noon. And for Costco members in the San Diego area, Jorge will be at the Costco off Morena Blvd. on January 30th, 2010 at Noon. Come bring your books or buy one there. Jorge want as many people as possible to come down and get their books signed, he wants to meet you, take photos with you and more.

I know two signings doesn’t cover a whole lot of the US and I’m sure more dates will get added in other places. In fact, Jorge is soliciting suggestions from his blog readers on where he should go to do future book signings. You can send in your destination suggestions by clicking here and leaving a comment on Jorge’s Blog.

More specific details on the book signings including the address and phone numbers of the two Costco locations are as follows: (more…)

Share on Facebook

Earlier this month, my good friend Vito Grandolfo, said that he was going to upgrade his iPhone 3G to an iPhone 3GS phone and wanted to know if I would be interested in his iPhone 3G. I was definitely interested and I asked Vito if he was interested in my older Blu-Ray player, a Samsung BD-P1600. And he was interested so we decided to do a swap. A older Blu-Ray player for an older iPhone.

Vito got his new phone on Christmas Eve and we arranged a time to the technology exchange on the day after Christmas as Vito was flying out to another assignment for his job the very next morning. I helped Vito set up the Blu-Ray player on his TV and gave him a couple of the freebie Blu-Ray discs I had gotten by mail order rebate with the purchase of the player and we made sure it all worked.

Because I’m a T-Mobile customer and not an AT&T customer it was going to take a little bit of time to get the new iPhone ready for use. I already knew I wasn’t going to be able to use the 3G network as AT&T’s 3G network operates on a different frequency than T-Mobile’s 3G network and they’re not compatible. But what I was looking forward to was the integrated GPS as the older original generation iPhone I was using was only ever able to approximate my location using triangulation between cell phone towers and was not always the most accurate, especially when trying to use Google Maps for directions or having the phone identify the direction I was traveling on highways for one of the traffic monitoring applications. Additionally the iPhone Vito gave me was double the capacity of the small 4 GB iPhone I was currently using at the time. So plenty of room to expand.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

Not only is today the day you can now buy Jorge Cruise’s Belly Fat Cure book in stores, I received a call from his office yesterday to ask if I would be available to come in today for a follow up video interview to the sugar experiment video. Fortunately I was free today so I agreed to stop by the office.

When I stop in, I like to bring some of my treats from my latest recipes so I unfortunately didn’t have any on hand as I left the last of my last batches at my parent’s house over Christmas. I made sure to leave work a little bit early so I could race down to the health food stores to pick up the supplies I needed to whip up a batch of Nanaimo Bars. Normally it’s best to make them a day ahead so they have time to properly chill in the refrigerator, but I didn’t have a chance to go to the store yesterday and so a few short hours in the freezer was going to have to make up for overnight in the refrigerator…hopefully.

I got all my ingredients ready, raced through the production of the Nanaimo Bars as quickly as possible and got them in the freezer while I got ready. They had asked me to bring a couple of solid colored shirts with no logos on them, which is a small problem for me, as the bulk of my non-work related wardrobe consists of printed t-shirts. If it’s got a funny saying or a logo I love to wear it. Plain stuff is just too boring to me, so I had to make a special trip to the store.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

To get ready for tomorrow’s book launch of the Belly Fat Cure, Jorge Cruise has prepared a series of “Ask Jorge” videos on YouTube to answer the most common questions people have about health and wellness. Jorge also invites you to visit his YouTube Channel to submit your own questions on fitness, wellness, motivation, nutrition, and health.

Jorge will be drawing from the submitted questions for future Ask Jorge videos. So if you have a pressing question about the Belly Fat Cure or health in general, then just click here to visit Jorge’s YouTube page for “Ask Jorge” and click on the big red “Submit A Question” button. I personally find YouTube’s page for the Ask Jorge videos a little annoying to navigate so I’ve gone ahead and provided all of the Ask Jorge questions so far and put them in order and you can check them out below. If you’re interested in picking up Jorge Cruise’s “Belly Fat Cure” book from Amazon, just click here.

We’re starting with Video # 22 because of the way YouTube is set where the most recent video is the first video you see, so the Introductory video is labeled # 22, and Jorge’s first 21 Ask Jorge Questions appear below it.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

We’re just a couple of days away from the launch of the Belly Fat Cure book and if you’re new to hearing about the Belly Fat Cure, you may be curious what it is. For me personally, the Belly Fat Cure has resulted in my being able to shed 74 pounds and 10 inches off the circumference of my belly. I still have more I want to lose, but I’ve already lost about 25% of my starting weight and I’m looking to lose about half of the weight I had when I started the program.

My opinion is that you should just get the book, it’s on sale at Amazon.com for about $10 and it’s loaded with information about how and why you store fat, how to get rid of it, and then tons of recipes and food items to show better alternatives to what you’re probably already doing. But I can understand a little bit of hesitancy and skepticism especially if you’re not sure what it is. Jorge Cruise understands this and has prepared a short series of 5 YouTube Videos to help introduce the program. Just invest a few minutes of your day to check out the 5 videos, which I’ve included below for your convenience. And then if you’re interested in the program, click here to get the book from Amazon.com.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

Christmas 2009 was special in many ways this year. First off my mom and dad were in their new house in Temecula. Also this year my brother and his wife came out from Nashville to spend Christmas here in Southern California. And my grandfather on my mom’s side also came down from Calgary to spend the holidays here. It’s first Christmas in a while that many of us have been together.

My parents’ new home in Temecula looked great with my mom’s Christmas decorations. Some of the things that weren’t yet finished when I last visited at Thanksgiving were finally done such as the backspashes in the Kitchen. The cabinet doors for the cupboards in the kitchen were finally back with the center sections of them cut out and glass inserted to replace the wood removed. The old iron bed frame that was in the lower level guest room had been completely repainted to a metallic grey color and the new mattresses for both the lower level guest room as well as the upstairs bedroom had arrived. About the only thing that still hadn’t arrived yet were the blinds for all the windows.

I came over on Christmas Eve to take my dad and grandpa to the Xanadu production in Costa Mesa. This gave my mom some time to do some errands without my dad and grandpa in her hair. My brother and his wife were arriving late Christmas Eve and I since I had to work I decided to stay over at my folks place, go to work, and then return to my folks place first thing in the morning after work. I had volunteered to have my schedule changed at work in order to work Christmas Eve so that my usual night off could be given to someone on the shift with kids. As I’ve gotten older it’s become less important to enjoy Christmas morning at the earliest possible moment, it doesn’t make much difference to me if the festivities begin at 6 am, 8 am, or 10 am when I’d be back from work. Small kids on the other hand, every extra hour they’d have to wait for mom or dad to come home from work would feel like an eternity so I didn’t want to deprive one of my co-workers from the chance to spend an early morning Christmas with their kids.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

One of the highlights of 2008 for me was the opening of Xanadu at the La Jolla Playhouse. The stage show that became a surprise hit on Broadway and was even nominated for a few Tony Awards, made its debut as a touring show in San Diego. Following San Diego, the show moved to Chicago and then played a brief stint in Tokyo before going on a brief hiatus for a few months, but now the tour is back on the road starting in Costa Mesa, California, just a short drive from San Diego.

I immediately fell in love with the show when I first saw it and then proceeded to see it several more times before it’s run at the La Jolla Playhouse finished it’s two month run. I took several friends to see the show and one of the highlights was when I took my mom to see the show as I was able to get on stage seats for that performance. I didn’t tell my mom until we got there that we’d be sitting on stage, she wasn’t so amused by that, but we had a good time and she enjoyed the show.

With the return to Southern California, I definitely wanted to see the show again, and since my dad was back from doing work in Austin, Texas and my grandfather was in town it seemed like a good opportunity to take them to the show. I asked my mom if she wanted to see the show again, if we did the Christmas Eve matinée show and she said she was interested but had too much to do to prepare for my brother and his wife’s arrival and Christmas to take time out to see the show. But she did like the idea of me taking my father and grandfather to the show so that she could get some things accomplished while they were out of the house. So I booked the tickets for my dad, grandpa, and I to see Xanadu on Christmas Eve at 2 pm.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

The year 2009 has really raced by way too quickly. It really seems like only yesterday the year just began and here it is so close to the end. While it’s been both a good and challenging year, Christmas time is the perfect time to take a moment out of it all to just think about family and friends.

This year, I kind of hit a milestone. This was the first year in ages that I’ve actually been in the mood to listen to Christmas music at Christmas time. I’d worked discount retail for far more years than I care to admit. Let’s just say Christmas time brings out the public’s worst behavior in discount retail stores and the non-stop playing of some of the worst versions of Christmas music non-stop during the month of December in the stores I worked in, I haven’t been in any mood for Christmas decorations nor Christmas music since the early 1992. I thought I’d never find the desire to hear another Christmas song at Christmas time again, but this year I actually wanted to hear some. It’s been six years since I last worked a Christmas in retail, so I’m guessing there’s hope yet for me to find the Christmas spirit again. It could take several more years, but I’m pleased by the sign of hope I had this year.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

My good friend Dan Baggett introduced me to a new iPhone/iPod Application called “Words With Friends” by NewToy, Inc. which is a game very much like Scrabble. It’s a crossword game using tiles except I’m sure to legally not infringe upon Scrabble’s copyright, all the spots for Double and Triple letter scores and Double and Triple word scores are in different spots than a traditional Scrabble board. Also the board doesn’t seem to have as many squares as a regular Scrabble board. I’ve not been a big enthusiast of Scrabble so I don’t know if the number of tiles and point values on the tiles are the same or not.

The game can only be a two player game and allows for two ways to play, it can be played on one iPhone or iPod Touch through “Pass and Play” mode or it can be remotely played with someone on another device in what is described as “asynchronous” online game play or “correspondence” play where the players play the game at their convenience, they do not have to be playing the game at the same time in order to play. There are several options on how to play with someone remotely, you can create a game to play with someone on your contact list (I’m not sure how this one works but I would imagine it sends that person an invitation to download the application.) Next, you can search for specific players by user name, which has been how I’ve played with my friends, you just enter their chosen user name and it establishes a game with that person. Lastly, you can also start a game with a random person as well by allowing the application to find you an opponent.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

Milton Bradley’s (though now made by Hasbro) classic board game “Battleship” makes it’s way to Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. Battleship was a game my brother and used to play as kids. I enjoyed the game but after having played the Electronic Battleship at a friend’s house I wanted one of those. In the electronic version the positions of the ships had to be programmed in and then when the game was played, you’d enter the grid location you wanted to strike and then pressed a fire button which would play a sound effect of a missile firing and if you actually hit something then you would hea and explosion and see a panel light up with a little red light to indicate a hit.

Many years later when hand held electronics were becoming quite popular, I bought several of the games including, Yahtzee, Connect Four, Battleship, Mastermind, and several game show games. It was handy in the bring with you and play on trips or have handy. Ultimately, the one I ended up carrying around the most was the Yahtzee game, but Battleship was probably my second favorite of the bunch. It could be played as a one player game or a two player game, but also had the fun of the sound effects of the missile launch and the hit which could be turned off if you wanted to play it in a quiet place. But they ended up being bulky to carry around as single application games. So they tend to sit in a box not being played.

(more…)

Share on Facebook