Gettin' Old

I turned 22 today. Not too sure how I should feel about that. I never would have imagined that I would be doing the things that I'm doing right now so I think that's a good start.


By this age, I think I should have been a professional ice hockey player according to my childhood self. I played ice hockey for a little over 8 years until I had to stop in high school because it was just getting too expensive. Ice hockey ain't cheap, but it's a very intense and fun sport to play. I don't care what you say! I love the sport! Give blood, play hockey.


After the ice hockey phase of my life passed, my next goal in life was to become an eletrical engineer. I went from jock to nerd in one year because I had to quit ice hockey and ended up joining the Engineering Academy at Los Altos High School in lovely Hacienda Heights, CA. We built and raced solar car and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in hopes of learning something about the alternative solutions to gasoline consumption. This is where I actually got to know Robert Pfeffer, who helped my brother and I start Glad Rags Ink. He also ended up crashing my solar car, Lightspeed II, the day before the big race during practice runs. The car flipped end over end a few times but fortunately it was only the frame and not the thousands of dollars worth of solar panels. Luckily, our team still managed to re-build the entire electrical and mechanical system overnight and Lightspeed II went on to win the national championship, set a new track record, and win the teamwork award. Just being in the Engineering Academy, I definitely learned about leadership, organization, teamwork, and everything that goes hand in hand with business and management. Pretty much laid down the foundation for everything I went on to do after high school.


In college, I ended up changing my major from Eletrical Engineering to Music Business because sometime down the line I realized that it wasn't the right choice for me. Music Business inspired me to do more for our band Dear Life which resulted in us taking the band more seriously and eventually going on tour all around the US and playing hundreds of shows and selling tons of merch and CD's. I learned how to manage a band, book tours, and promote all on my own - the origins of the D.I.Y. mentality. To make a long story short, after nearly 5 years of being in a band, we're still together and going strong. My brother and I even "took a break" from college to tour full time with the band, which is what we were doing for most of the earlier part of this year as you may recall.


Somewhere in that frenzy that I call life, my brother and I decided to start Glad Rags Ink and LOUD& OBNOXIOUS and well, you know how that went so I won't go in too much detail on that. It just goes to show that you never really know where you'll end up. I never would've imagined myself being so interested in business and management. I always thought I'd be a professional ice hockey player, or an electrical engineer, or a rockstar or something in the music industry. To me, life is a huge journey and you gotta just let it take you for a ride. Enjoy it! As long as you always keep your head on straight and remember what you learned, you'll be fine.

If you got this far, thanks for reading and spending these past few minutes with me on my birthday! I really appreciate it and thank you once again for your support in all the different facets of my life.

- Vince