If you knew me, you’d know a juice machine plays a big part in my day to day existence. I’d go so far as to say juicing has improved my health about as much as anything. Changed my life in a big way.

The Jack Lallanne Power Juicer Pro box had been sitting on my living room floor for more than 6o days and last night was the night I finally took it out of the box. I intentionally left it on my living room floor because I thought it would nudge me to get it out and put it into action. 60 days or so later I finally did it!

It’s a Jack Lalane Professional Deluxe model. I’m not going to do a full review – this is just a slice of life (or fruit if you prefer!) with my first impressions.

OK… so I must have had that Jucieman Jr. juicer for at least 10 years. That thing was all plastic and not really a pro machine, but it did admirable for all those years. Considering I used it almost every day and sometimes 2 or even 3 times a day, means it was a super trooper and must have been made well to last that long.

The new one, the deluxe Jack Lalanne Power Juicer Pro model was a birthday gift. While my old trusty Juiceman Junior thing was still hanging in there, I really did need a nice new clean machine. Mainly because the Jucieman Jr was so tough to really get clean and in fact had crevices and such that never really could get scrubbed. I was always a little worried that something could be growing those hard to clean areas. I had to scrape it regularly with a knife and that black stuff was tough to get out of the plastic. It was not very friendly in that respect.

So – last night I cleaned the Power Juicer Pro and soaped it up and let it dry overnight. This morning I had the new juicer experience.

My first impressions were mixed.

A few disappointments, but hey, 10 years means I was likely emotionally attached :’>

So – for one thing this new Power Juicer Pro one is a big monster of a machine.

It’s mostly stainless steel and looks to be pretty durable. I was immediately disappointed to find it had a lot of parts that needed to be put together. I’m suprised the blade had to be screwed into the screen container thing with a weird handle tool they provided. I hope I don’t lose it – I don’t think they’d have it at the hardware store. Poor design idea if ya asked me.

The Juiceman Jr. blade bucket thang was one piece and just dropped in – this Power Juicer Pro basket and blade required a tool to fasten and then unfasten it.

That’s an extra step times two and shouldn’t be there if ya asked me.

That said – the Power Juicer Pro blade is much more substantial and pretty hardcore.

The new Power Juicer Pro is much quiter than my old one which sounded like a leaf blower pretty much. It’s quiet in comparison.

My first batch was with: 8 carrots, a tangelo, a 1/4 of a yam, an apple and 2 slices of cantaloupe (skin removed).

As expected the juice tasted fantastic. But it also tasted yummy in my old one too – so no edge here. I bet it had less germs though (arghhh) being it was so new and clean.

As expected the Jack Lallanne Power Juicer Pro machine is much bigger so I did not have to slice the apple and could just drop everything in whole, however the large carrots may have been more difficult than if had I snapped them in half as I would normally do.

Here is a big disappointment >>>

The new Jack Lalanne deluxe thingy did NOT come with a CONTAINER to catch the juice in.

THAT SUCKS!

You’d expect a juice container for the 150 bucks or whatever it sells for.  Especially since it was the DELUXE version. So that blows.

Also – the HEIGHT of the spout is LOWER than you’d think – so you can’t just use a LARGE GLASS. It’s not tall enough. That’s a hassle.

That is a disappointment because since the footprint is so huge – a big juicer like this should be able to handle a LARGE GLASS.

Now I have to go out and buy some low riding containers that are low and wide. I don’t want to use the one from the Jucieman Jr. because it is old and moldy also has crevices that never really could be cleaned properly.

Big oversight if you asked me.

Ruined the experience a little as I had to use small glasses and swap them out as they filled up. Messy too.

I normally juice a little extra in the morning and keep it in an airtight container and drink it later in the day for a little boost. That’s why a small glass won’t cut it for me.

If you do single servings and small ones – it won’t be an issue – but me – if I am gonna juice – I’m going do a lot!

Power Juicer Pro is a good machine. $150. is a good price I guess. I won’t be bummed out swapping from the old Juiceman I reckon…

All in all – I am satisfied, because it is fast and quiet and appears to have less pulp (didn’t measure or ccompare so I don’t know if that is accurate)

The clean up process was ok, although because of the extra assembly/disassembly steps with the blade it was slightly longer to use and clean, but since the parts are steel and also not as many crevices, it is easy to rinse – I’m not sure if it is significantly easier – so no major improvement really.

Day 1 verdict – it’s a very good juicer – but should have had a container and ideally would not require assembly/disassembly for each use. The blade should not have to be  screwed in with a one of a kind tool each time the machine is used.

Oh well… it’s good – but, if I had been involved in the design process – it would have been better.

 If you are curious which model I got – here is the link to it

>>> http://www.powerjuicer.com/power-juicer-pro.html

—

2-25-10 Followup Notes: I have used the juicer 2 more since the initial usage on which I based my feelings and all I can say is – what were they thinking when they made the basket and the blade seperate and require screwing in with that custom tool??? I am having trouble getting used to that – otherwise it is a mighty fine juicer but does require more time to set up for juicing and tear down for cleaning. I guess that is the price I must pay for progress… oh well.

Being that I am an enthusiastic photographer and I take a lot of pictures, I have snapped many of them inside and around my house. I just ran across one I took last week from inside my house looking out towards the Pacific Ocean from my desk. The view from my desk.

That’s where I do most of my work.

That’s Catalina in the background, around 26 miles from the coast. Also to the right you see the rocks by the Main Beach next to Laguna Village.

It’s a fantastic place to live and work! The weather is the best anywhere and we get a lot of nice sunsets! I’ll post some more pictures soon. The pictures also help to motivate me to work harder and make me realize how lucky I am!

I just got an email from an Article Underground member. The basic thrust of what she was asking centered around her paranoia that by posting in the Article Underground blogs that she would be revealing her niches and the keywords she was targeting and that other people would “steal them”. (her words)

Now… what’s funny was she closed with saying “I don’t want to sound paranoid”…

Well… isn’t it funny how sometimes we tell what we don’t want to be like, however we do exactly that?

She may not have wanted to come across as paranoid but that is exactly what she was.

My advice instantly shifted to trying to get her to change her perspective.

There are just some things that are not worth worrying about.

Face it – we could get hit by someone who did not stay in their lane while driving – but hey – do we really need to drive in fear that is going to happen? Being aware of the possibilities is one thing – but living with negative thoughts only brings you closer to that negative stuff.

First of all we all need to open our minds up to ALL of the possibilities and imagine that there is an infinite amount of success to go around for everyone.

I’ll spare a lecture on positive energy, but let me just say that one of the things I regularly tell myself is:

“I am surrounded by abundance” and “I intend to surround myself with abundance”.

Wayne Dyer is to be thanked for that!

Do you want abundance??? Or do you want scarcity???

If you think about scarcity – that is exactly what you will get.

The things we think about bring us closer to them in our lives. Not every time, but often enough to be serious about this.

Why focus on something bad or negative, when there are so many possibilities for good.

We all need to stop MICRO analyzing the details. We’ll get stuck if we over analyze. Too much analysis causes what I call “over analysis paralysis”.

Instead of thinking of all the reasons something might NOT work – it’s much better to go out there and just do it!

It’s all about NUMBERS. Not one keyword or one article or one niche.

There are lots of queries on search engines that we can get ranked for and pull in big traffic.

If you find this kind of discussion interesting, I suggest you read some of my articles on this area:

>>> When you change the way you look at things – the things you look at change!

>>> Stop Over Analysis Paralysis!

>>> Is Adsense Dead?

I hope you enjoy them! They have some golden nuggets in there that might help to inspire you!

You know, it’s crazy how many great ideas I get. I’m an idea guy and I am constantly having those “a-ha moments”. Very often I feel that I have come across a winning concept that I truly understand and can embrace to the point of squeezing actual bonafide results from my efforts.

But you know what… those fleeting moments may seem like GOLD and guaranteed success at the time I am thinking about or develoing the concept or idea, but I have found that regardless of how much I have scribbled on paper and/or documented in text files and such, it is almost impossible to recreate the exact MAGIC that captivated and inspired at that moment in time AFTER THE FACT.

Sure, I’ll often keep a folder of notes and I have successfully developed ideas that have been big money makers or succeses… I’m not saying it can’t be done BUT what I just realized is that when I have my moments of clarity and feel like I have not only found a winner, but truly feel I am on top of it, that “connection” is unique and a special gift that should be immediately seized and acted upon instead of being filed away for future use.

Some days I have so many of these “connections” that I could never properly develop the ideas, so I don’t have much choice other than to try and document the flavor of the experience as best I can so I might be able to reignite the spark some time in the future.

It’s hard to describe how it feels and what happens, but I suspect that many of you, if not all of you have those moments of clarity and you too have a special connection with a thought or idea. It can only be described as a stream of consciusness that seems to flow from a place that is connected in an unexplainable way.

I’ve heard Wayne Dyer talk about this. In fact, he describes the way he has written some of his more recent books and basically he puts pen to paper and the ideas flow and come out of a place he describes better than I can ever do myself.

But the point is it comes from somewhere and often can’t be properly explained.

This does happen to me a lot. Whether it is an artistic expression or a literary expression or some kind of a marketing or business idea that suddenly makes so much sense.

What I need to do is try to further develop these things while the iron is hot. But what do you do when you have so many things going on? How do you balance the needs of running an existing business with developing ideas or concepts?

Seizing the moments of clarity surely can hold the key to many great successes and achievements. I just need to start doing this more often rather than adding the idea to my cluttered stack of papers and print outs and such.

I guess it’s a good problem to have – but none the less – I needto start fnishing some of the many things I have started.

Focus on something that is inspiring thoughts and ideas and stick with it to the point of producing something solid and concrete from it. That’s what I need to do!

Then get more memory for your computer!

OK, that may seem obvious, but let me just say that I just now opened up my notebook HP DV1000 and swapped out the 2 puny 256 MB of RAM for 2 jumbo 1 GB RAM modules. It was easy and much needed!

It’s not just a number – this makes real world difference and makes computing an annoyance to a pleasure!

So going from 512 MB to 2 GB is a pretty large leap – especially considering my laptop had matured to a crawl these days and seemed to spite me with slow behavior even upon shutting down.

Do you know how aggrivating it can be to wait for a notebook pc to shut down – when it seems stuck and non responsive??? Or even waiting for a borwser window to open… or screens just stuck and not redrawing…

So – take it from me – get more RAM! Improve the quality of your life just like I did and get yourself more RAM. It’s too cheap not to = 51 for a 1 GB module is a great buy and worth every penny, even times two!

I’ve always liked apples, same as the person next to me, but I must say that I went through a great part of my early life only eating a fresh apple once in a great while. Usually with caramel taffy on the outside… As a kid growing up my idea of enjoying the taste of apple was more likely in a sour hard candy wrapped in plastic, more so than the ripe fruit which I should have had more often than sweets.

There is nothing quite like eating a fresh apple or juicing it!

It wasn’t really till my late twenties and I was in a personal health crisis from over-indulgance and a fast food lifestyle, that I even considered making a conscious effort to add apples to my daily food regimen.

A day rarely passes that I don’t include an apple in my daily juicing routine, as well as sprinkle in some apple pectin.

I’ll spare the long detailed story about that health crisis, but let’s just say that I was in a state of constant haze and fog and I just wasn’t feeling very well.

After going to a doctor for the white carpet on my tongue (thrush) fatigue and not getting any satisfactory help, I found a life changing book called:

Juicing for Life: A Guide to the Benefits of Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Juicing

by Cherie Calbom

The book goes for 10 bucks at amazon. You can also read part of it at Google Books.

This book “Juicing for Life” truly changed my life. In fact, I believe the “big change” happened as I was  standing there in Barnes and Noble reading the forward/introduction by Cherie that I had an epiphony and discovered WHY I was feeling like crap.

Cherie too had what sounded exactly like what I did and she explained her history which also had a high sugar load and a diet of mostly over cooked food, just like mine.

Vegetables were always over cooked or from a can.

I’ll skip the lengthy discussion on what I diagnosed myself with, but I will say I bought the “Juicing For Life” book, ran out and immediately got a juicer and the rest is history! It truly changed my life!

Suddenly I was feeling good again and this simple act of juicing fresh fruits and vegetables started me on a path of nutritional awareness that soon included herbs and vitamins in addition to fresh fruit and vegetable juices.

I was soon able to kick that fog to the side and miraculously changed into almost being able to see out of the back of my head and around corners. Well… that’s what it often felt like, because I suddenly had more senses and awareness than I had in a long time!

It’s all thanks to Cherie and that fantastic book!

So… how did I get on to discussing Juicing for Life after starting this article with a title of “Apple Pectin Health Benefits”???

Well… I have been working with a good friend, the famous Dr. Donna, a well respected nutritionist and author, and she made some personalized dietary suggestions for me after analyzing a sample of my hair about a year ago.

One of the things she suggested for my vitamin and nutritional regimen was Apple Pectin and it came as powder in a ziplock type bag.

Initially I was annoyed by the gritty powder and must say I was resistant to including it in my daily juice, but more recently I started including it more and more. The other day I looked it up on the net to see what all the fuss was about.

Apple pectin is a fiber and is good for you. It helps protect against certain diseases.

And here is some of what I found about Apple Pectin.

• Apple Pectin Benefits and Information

• How To Use Pectin

• Apple Pectin Info
• 
  

  The Benefits of Apples & Apple Pectin

As Cherie Calbom so profoundly says in her “Jucing For Life” book:

“Sickness or Health – the choice is yours.

The physical condition you have tomorrow starts with what you do today.”

That’s pretty good! Very similar to what Doug Kaufmann of Know The Cause says which is something like “If you keep doing what you’ve always done – you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten.”

The point is – if you truly want IMPROVEMENT or HEALING or a better life – you need to take action and do something about it.

If you don’t take action – things may not change for the better – in fact they may stay bad – or possibly get worse.

Since I have had a history of a fungus imbalance (Candiasisis), most likely caused by penicillin and other antibiotics throughout my life (not to mention candy, fast food and booze), I thought it would be good to take some anti-fungal supplements that are recommended highly by Doug Kaufmann, who has written many books on fungus, parasites and “mycotoxins”.

One of the things Doug recommends for “anti-fungal” support is Olive Leaf Extract.

I just ordered an anti-fungal support kit from Seagate

http://www.seagateproducts.com/anti-fungal-kit.html

Olive Leaf Extract has been shown to have a number of benefits in addition to helping to control fungus, mycotoxins and parasites. It appears to have many other benefits such as for people who experience anxiety.

The booklet “Natural Relief For Allergies” talks about Olive Leaf Extract and is very impressive.

http://www.seagateproducts.com/ss-images/townsend-letter-may.pdf

I suggest that you read it.

Almot every day I watch a show on TV called “Know the Cause” with Doug Kaufman and it has some excellent information. Among his views are that many of our ailments are actually caused by fungus and mold. He is not the only one that believes this.

Sure – it may be a hassle to find it on your cable system but why not watch it online!

Know the Cause – Today’s Show – now streaming:

http://knowthecause.com/Shows/TodaysShowNowStreaming/tabid/113/Default.aspx

Basically, in a nutshell, since the 1950’s doctors have been prescribing Antibiotics at an increasing rate. ANTI as in it kills bacteria. While it has saved some peoples lives, Doug and many others feel that the side effects of all this antibiotic use is that it is causing MANY other problems.

Mainly because anti-biotics kill bacteria of all kinds – bad bacteria and good bacteria. We need good bacteria and without it all kinds of things get out of whack.

Taking “probiotics” such as acidophilus, which helps get some the good stuff back in our bodies (it’s in yogurt) is a step in the right direction, but we also need to get out the bad stuff that came in. The main problem is that when the natural balance is out of whack from antibiotics and the bacteria that would normally help us fight invaders such as fungus, mold, parasites and other “mycotoxins” is not there – the bad stuff starts to thrive in our bodies causing cancer and heart disease and all kinds of problems.

In the case of fungus – it thrives on sugar and carbohydrates.

So basically – we kill the good stuff and open the door for the bad stuff – then we feed the bad stuff by eating lots of sugar and high carb foods.

It’s no wonder people get sick and have so many problems, not to mention overweight.

So, it is my mission to start being more aware of this and trying to get the balance back and get rid of the bad stuff that is living inside me. I’ll do this by eating food like garlic and carrots which help fight that off as well as take some vitamins and herbs that also help. Plus Doug Kauffman has a “low carb – low sugar diet” called the Phase 1 diet that promises to help fight off the bad stuff by eliminating sugar and carbohydrates for a long enough period to get rid of the invaders. Interesting stuff!

 More info like this at the Know The Cause site

I think I will go see it again! It was a massive thrill ride and I even stayed for the credits it was so good (good credits too).

And the music was great and geezzzz even though it was gritty to the point of revealing skin pores on poor Amy Smart (still hot) the movie so original and so unique it is in a class of it’s own!

CRANK 2 – aka Crank High Voltage – it’s a must see movie (unless you’re a prude).

Wow - at Apple – it’s actually huge – you can watch a 1080 P version Crank 2 Trailer – wow – if you have a 24 inch screen like I do – it’s sweet! 1080P is HERE

Don’t wimp out – watch the BIGGEST ONE YOU CAN – 1080p is intense!

HD TRailer at YouTube >>> Check it out >>> Crank High Voltage Trailer

Wow… what a great movie!

I was looking at some Wordpress themes I had just bought and it had a sample video – the Max Payne trailer – and the music was so good it prompted me to do a search on Google for Max Payne soundtrack mp3 and sure enough I found a page with a playlist from the soundtrack and it streams in high quality

http://www.imeem.com/ifankucel/playlist/68wc90q_/max_payne_music_playlist/

Oddly enough the music reminds me a bit of Icehouse. An Aussie band that broke big in the USA about 10 years ago. Icehose cd’s always had a fair share of atmospheric haunting soundscapes and one cd of theirs in particular was great – it was mainly remixes – I forget the name – but of you ever get a chance to grab an Icehouse cd of remixes – I say give it a go!

note: I looked it up and sure enough I found the cd – it’s “Full Circle”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Circle_(Icehouse_album)

Icehouse has some other remx cd’s… those might be good too…

As for the music on the Max Payne page – not bad! Sometimes soundtrack music can be really boring – but this is perfect background music – not too ovewhelming for working. Give it a listen!

I was excited to discover the TED Conference 2009 is here! It’s in Long Beach, California right now – but don’t think about going… it’s been sold out for years…

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Conference.

I’ve written about TED in the past – in fact I previously gave links to the Anthony Robbins video from a past TED… (I’ll put that video link at the bottom of this – it’s one of those priceless videos so be sure to watch it – even if you’ve seen it!)

So what is the big deal about TED??? TED is a meeting of some the greatest minds! From all walks of life. Really!

If you are not familiar with it – let me tell you TED is a brilliant concept! Their slogan is “Ideas Worth Spreading”. It’s similar in concept to Twitter as in “less is more” – because they LIMIT their presenters to only 18 minutes! Let me tell you – it’s not easy for some of these brilliant minds to condense into 18 minutes all the thoughts and ideas they are having – but – that is part of what makes TED so great. The speakers jam cram their 18 minutes with profound stuff!

Wow… look who’s there this year! Tony Robbins, J.J. Abrams (LOST), Chris Anderson (Wired/Long Tail), Seth Godin, Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Bono (I know!), Richard Branson, Ray Kurzweil, Bill Clinton, Thomas Dolby (really? oh he’s the TED music director – cool!), Peter Gabriel, David Pogue, Al Gore among others… wow… the ultimate festival lineup!

You can see the complete list of the current 328 “presenters” at:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers

If you wanna see some videos of TED presenters in action you’ll find them here:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/list

TIP: sort them by “date filmed”

As of this moment there is only 1 video from the current 2009 TED conference and it’s of Bill Gates.

Whether you like him or not – I highly suggest you check out the video of the TED 09 session with Bill Gates. He is getting a good deal of press because he released “bloodsucking mosquitoes” into the audience during his 18 minute presentation.

See the clip for yourself. And I know – it’s irresistible to not think of Bill Gates and his Mosquitoes and think of Bugs… as in Microsoft bugs… Ironic he did that!

Well, that’s all for now! Hope you get a chance to go snoop around the TED site! Not all of the videos will be something to connect with – but some are pure gold!

“Most people fail in life because they major in minor things. Success is simple, but it does require certain consistent things each day.”
- Anthony Robbins

P.S. I promised I would dig up that info and link to the videos from Tony Robbins speaking at an older TED event…. here is the info from an older Words Equal Money issue…

I have a video for you with Anthony Robbins from the documentary “TED: the future we will create”. This relates to the theme of my new product and offers a great segment with Tony Robbins (Anthony if you prefer) talking about his curiosity and how he is not the “motivational guy”, but rather the “WHY guy”.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/96

As Tony himself says – he wants to know why we do what we do. Check out the clip. It’s worth watching!