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Joey

Campus: Orland Park
Program:
From: Schererville, IN
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My name is Joey Lax-Salinas. I am 27 years old and a lifelong resident of NW Indiana. At only 27, I have already accomplished many feats and goals in both my professional and personal life. I graduated with a Bachelor's degree from a prestigious university by the time I was 21 and started my own business. I've worked with a number of celebrities, including Grammy Award Winners John Mellencamp and LeAnn Rimes, as well as country sensations Sara Evans, Rachel Proctor, and a few other celebrities as well. In 2003, I worked as a Production Assistant for the documentary "Trouble No More - The Making of a John Mellencamp Album," which went on to win an Emmy in September 2004.

In my free time, I enjoy traveling, photography, movies, outdoor life, hanging out with friends, and pretty much everything in the artistic realm. 


Previously on Real Life...

High School Sports - A New Perspective
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  I've mentioned in past blogs that I'm a pretty spontaneous person and like to try new things. I got a call about a week ago from my friend Kenny wanting me to go down to Indianapolis to watch the High School State Wrestling Finals. Now, I've never gone anywhere and not had fun with Kenny, or most of my friends for that matter, but I've never been a big fan of wrestling. I was never a big fan mainly because I just didn't know or hang out with many people who watched it (and I don't mean WWE wrestling). I didn't know how people scored points, strategy, positioning, nothing. So it was never fun for me to watch. All I saw was two guys in spandex pushing each other around, which wasn't exactly how I wanted to spend my leisure time. But, I'm always up for a good time and I didn't have much else going on that weekend, so I figured "what the heck, why not". So last Friday, Kenny, Felix and I took a road trip to Indianapolis to see the all-weekend finals tournament. Needless to say, I had a phenomenal time.

   We left last Friday afternoon and headed to Indianapolis. Since I wasn't as anxious to see the finals as Kenny, I decided to go down to Bloomington, Indiana for Friday night and hang out with some friends I knew, stop at my favorite winery and come back up to Indy on Saturday. I didn't do much other than hang out when I was in Bloomington, but the winery was fantastic! Now in the future, you'll probably see more about this winery because it is one of my favorite places to go (the scenery is gorgeous). So for those wine enthusiasts out there (ages 21+), if you're ever in southern Indiana driving down HY 37, make a stop at Oliver Winery. I recommend Oliver's Blackberry wine. It will be worth the visit.

   So Saturday evening I made it up to Indianapolis to meet my friends at Conseco Fieldhouse (home of the Indiana Pacers) to watch the wrestling finals. I had no idea how much hype was put into it! The lights were off inside the stadium with only a spotlight on the wrestlers as they came out and wrestled (very much like a boxing match). Luckily for us, we had good seats in the balcony on the first row overlooking the entire event. And more so lucky for me because I brought my camera and it was a perfect spot! We watched all of the weight classes go through their matches and then we headed out for a night out on the town in Indianapolis.

   The next day, we woke up around....1:00ish and headed back home to NW Indiana. We had a blast on our road trip and videotaped a bunch of funny 'skits' on the way home. We set the camera under the rear window facing the front and videotaped about 30 minutes of the drive back home, capturing funny moments, all the random comments that were made, and a funny clip of us dancing to Black Eyed Peas - My Hump.

   


SEE A VIDEO CLIP OF THE DRIVE!!!

Click here!

(Not recommended for dial-up users)

Video length: 1 min 16 sec
In this clip, we are driving north on I-65 in Indiana near Lafayette. Kenny complains about how long it takes to drink a Strawberry Fudge Cheesecake Milkshake from Steak N Shake. Also, we discover that cameras do not have a mouth.

   


   Now I have a new perspective on high school sports. When I was in high school, I was very active all year in different sports, so I never really had an opportunity to experience a state final in any sport...there just wasn't time for it and driving to Indianapolis wasn't much of an option. So I leave you with some photos that I took over the weekend. Some are wrestling photos, the others are just snapshots that I took over the weekend. I am happy to say that I was finally able to get a nice skyline picture of Indianapolis, one that I've been trying to get for some time now.

   Congratulations to all of those who participated in this past weekends wrestling finals, both in Indiana and in Illinois!

 

 

Send feedback to:

jlaxsalinas@robertmorris.edu

 

Next on Real Life...

Mural Mania!!!
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 This past Sunday night marks a milestone in my artistic career. Most of you out there who have been following the RMC blogs lately have seen, or at least figured out by now, that I like to do 'artsy' things. The last few months of my life I have tried to indulge myself in art, whether it be with little sketches, photography, writing, or music, but I had yet to dive into this genre.

 Last September, I was sitting with my cousin Ben in his plain, mostly undecorated apartment and we were talking about the things that we could do to make the apartment more 'aestheticly pleasing'. We sat in his apartment throwing out ideas, thinking about posters or tapestries that we could hang, a nice paint scheme, just something to cover up some of the plain white walls that made the apartment look so bare and what we ended up coming up with was a conglomerate of ideas.

 As we were sitting there, we came up with the idea of doing a 3-D mural on the wall. It wasn't going to be anything fancy, but just some kind of a picture that took up a small portion of the wall. After thinking about what kind of picture it would be, Ben came up with the idea of creating a door that appeared to be surreal, yet realistic. The door would go from floor to ceiling, roughly the size of a standard doorway, but would have an odd shape about it. When Ben first thought of the idea of the mishaped doorway, he described it to me as 'the doorway in Beetlejuice'. Remember the doorway at the end of the movie when the fireplace turned into a door and Beetlejuice was trying to marry Lydia? It had an odd, very eerie shape to it (aside from the fact that a little E.T. looking preacher man made of fireplace tools came out of it).

 So there we had it. We had our idea and I had the design in my head. When I started it, I sketched out what I wanted to do, but nothing was definitive until the paint was on the wall. So on the first day, I drew the door on the wall and shaped the inside of the picture. The first picture on the top shows exactly what the bedroom looked like before any paint or pencil touched the walls. It took me around 6 hours to draw the picture on the wall and paint the two green hills with a path running down the middle.

 The next few times I went over to work on the mural, I forgot to bring the camera so I do not have pictures of me doing the sky, moon, or gray stone bricks. And also, somewhere in between the time I started the mural until the time I finished it, we painted Ben's room. We two-toned it, going with maroon on one half and khaki green on the other half. This REALLY livened up the room and made it a warmer place to hang out. The mural separated the two colors on the wall, so it made for a nice transition.

  So finally, Sunday night it was finished. I added all the lines that make up the brick on the pathway, and that was it. It took nearly 50 hours to complete. Of course, it could have always been a never ending project, but unfortunately for me, Ben's lease was up and the mural has been left behind for a new tenant, or to test the trials of time against the vicious painters that come in and smear white paint on everything. Hopefully, the mural will survive for a while and another tenant can enjoy it. If not, that's what I took pictures for. Now, I'm going to be making posters of the mural and turning it into a piece of print art.

 All of the pictures that you see on the right are posted in chronological order in the order that they were taken. The top four pictures were taken as a time lapse piece, but it would be really hard to set up the transitions on here for everyone to see, so for now, everyone will just have to enjoy the pictures. Just for depth perception, there's a picture on the right of Ben lying on the ground with his arm up looking like he's crawling into the mural.

 

Send me some feedback!

jlaxsalinas@robertmorris.edu

 

People are Strange...

When I come home from work at night, I usually come home and sit and relax for a bit. I get home pretty late, so one of the first things that I'm able to watch on television is the news. I was thinking to myself, and maybe some of you can relate to what I mean, but when I watch the news at night, I see some of the strangest people!

Now, I'm no person to judge, but it just seems like some of the strangest people with the strangest situations keep making the news time and time again, while so many other news-worthy storys get swept under the rug. I've always enjoyed psychologyand studying the behavior of people, but some of these stories would blow the minds of many professors, scientists, and professionals of the like!

I've pasted a few of the stories that I have come across that have made news in the past months. Some of it is weird, some of it funny (actually, all of it is pretty funny), and some of it is just outright ridiculous. All of these storys are real!!

 

MAN SHOWING OFF OnSTAR ARRESTED
(ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla.) - A man showing off his OnStar system in his Cadillac Escalade found out the system worked too well. Ralph A. Gomez, 38, was being held Wednesday on $15,000 bond on charges of possession of an illegal narcotic within 1,000 feet of a church and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Gomez was showing off his OnStar system to his girlfriend, but the volume was set so low that he couldn't hear the OnStar operator. OnStar comes on many new General Motors vehicles and allows a customer to contact an OnStar representative in an emergency or to get directions.
If there is no response, OnStar contacts police.
That's what happened with Gomez on Friday night, Tom Clements, a spokesman for the St. Augustine Police Department, said Wednesday.
When police located Gomez' car, they determined there was no problem. But Clements said cocaine was clearly visible on the car's center console.
In addition to seizing $1,900 in the case, the Cadillac equipped with the OnStar system was also seized, Clements said.
There was no information available from Clements or the jail on whether Gomez has a lawyer.

 

POLICE: HOMELESS MAN TRIES TO STEAL SHEEP
(LITTLE ROCK, Ark.) - A homeless man who police say tried to take a sheep from the Little Rock Zoo has been arrested on numerous charges. A security guard at the zoo called police Tuesday evening after spotting a man carrying a trash can with a sheep in it, a police report said.
When officers arrived Grady Allen Carnahan, 32, told them he was a doctor and the sheep was sick. He said he was taking the animal to a veterinary clinic, the report said.
Carnahan fought with officers as they were trying to take him into custody, police said.
He was arrested on a felony charge of violating an animal facility and on misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass, cruelty to animals, resisting arrest, and theft of property.
The animal was returned to its pen at the zoo.

 

MAN KILLS ROOMMATE OVER TOILET PAPER
(MOSS BLUFF, Fla.) - A man accused of fatally beating his roommate with a sledgehammer and a claw hammer because there was no toilet paper in their home has been arrested.
Franklin Paul Crow, 56, was charged Monday with homicide in the death of Kenneth Matthews, 58, according to the Marion County Sheriff's Office.
Capt. Thomas Bibb said Crow initially denied his involvement, but confessed during questioning.
Crow told investigators that the men were fighting about the toilet paper over the weekend when Matthews pulled out a rifle. Crow said he then began beating Matthews with the sledgehammer and claw hammer, according to an affidavit.
Matthews was beaten so badly he had to be identified through his fingerprints, detectives said.
Crow was being held at the Marion County jail without bond. It was not immediately known whether he had an attorney.

 

BIGFOOT HUNTERS CONVERGE ON CENTRAL ILLINOIS
February 14, 2006 - Bigfoot may be roaming central Illinois, at least that's what some hunters hope.
A Bloomington man claims he spotted an 8-foot tall, 400 pound Sasquatch last year in McClean County while he was driving home from work.
Word of the possible sighting reached a group of Bigfoot hunters in California who are now in Illinois for the next few days with their equipment to catch a glimpse of the big and hairy creature.
"What more can be said that hasn't been said? I've been ridiculed, but the proof is in the pudding, Jack, and that's the reason why myself and my team are out here now investigating across this great United States of America," said Tom Biscardi, Bigfoot hunter.
The hunters believe they might be onto something.

 

WOMAN WHISTLES THROUGH HER TOES
An Oklahoma woman takes whistling to a whole new low -- she whistles through her toes.
Betty Bell learned to whistle through her toes as a kid. She said she started her strange talent when she found she couldn't whistle through her fingers.
Bell is in New York trying to get a spot on David Letterman's late-night TV segment "Stupid Human Tricks." A friend painted a likeness of Letterman on one of her toes in hopes of bringing her luck.

 

OREGON MAN BUILDS FOAM HOME
January 30, 2006 - An Albany, OR man is living inside a volcano, one which he built himself out of recycled materials. Steve Fletcher has made a career out of using foam for insulation. Now he isn't just taking his work home with him, he's building a home out of foam.
This foam home even comes with a hot tub made of foam. Fletcher, who owns a spray foam business, was looking for a way to recycle leftover foam when the idea for this house came to him.
"When we moved here, it was a gravel pit, so it looks better than it did," said Markus Fletcher.
Now, with its waterfalls and 30 foot pond, Fletcher's foam volcano has become a local landmark. He's not done with it yet and says the foam home is a work in progress.
Someday Fletcher hopes to give the property to the city. In the meantime he's planning another project: a floating car made of foam which he could drive into the Willamette River.

 

INVESTORS BUY FAKE MILLION DOLLAR BILL
February 17, 2006 (TOKYO) - Bad news for some Japanese investors. There's no such thing as a $1 million greenback.
According to a Japanese newspaper, eight people are out more than $1.25 million. They were duped into buying supposedly rare U.S. million-dollar bills from the 1920's. But the mil notes are fakes.
The largest denomination bill ever produced by the U-S treasury was a 100-thousand-dollar note in the mid 1930's.
The news reports say three of the bilked investors have had to file for bankruptcy. The man who promised them huge returns has disappeared with their real money.

 

GIRL WEDS DOG TO WARD OFF 'EVIL EYE'
February 22, 2006 (NEW DELHI) - A 7-year-old girl wed a stray dog as part of a ritual to ward off the "evil eye" on her and her family in eastern India, a news agency reported Wednesday.
Shivam Munda's upper teeth appeared before her lower teeth considered a bad omen by members of the Santhal ethnic group to which she belongs, the Press Trust of India said in a report from Dhanbad, a coal mining town in the eastern state of Bihar.
Kundan Munda, a coal mine worker, said his daughter married the dog only to "remove the evil eye," a superstitious belief that some misfortune could befall her and the family, and that she would be free to marry a man later.
Friends and family participated in three days of traditional ceremonies and festivities that are part of a Santhal tribal marriage, Munda said, according to the report.

 

TWO TEENAGERS CRASH PLANE THEY STOLE
March 1, 2006 (BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif.) - Two 14-year-old California boys have escaped with just minor injuries after crash-landing an allegedly stolen plane.
Authorities in Big Bear Lake, California, say the plane belonged to the parents of one of the boys. The boys had had some sort of disagreement with them and, according to investigators, took the plane from a hanger at the Big Bear Airport to run away.
The airport does not have a control tower and pilots are not required to check in with anyone before taking off.
The boys ditched the plane in the Joshua Tree National Park after apparently running out of fuel. Neither boy has a pilot's license but the airport manager says the one youngster has flown regularly with his dad.
Both boys now face possible charges of burglary and airplane theft.

 

TWO WOMEN OK AFTER BEING ATTACKED BY SQUIRREL
February 27, 2006 (CRETE, Ill.) - Authorities say two women in the Chicago suburb of Crete are fine after being attacked by a squirrel.
Crete Police Chief Paul VanDeraa says one woman was scratched in the leg and bitten by a squirrel February 16th as she walked from her porch to her car. Three days later, a squirrel scratched another woman.
VanDeraa says the women live several blocks from each other. Will County Animal Control set traps in the victims' yards and caught a squirrel.
He says the squirrel didn't have any signs of rabies, but it is being held as a precautionary measure

 

 

NOTE: News stories are written and published by The Associated Press.