Kids today are totally retarded when it comes to Halloween. And they can blame over-protective parents. So, in the interest of keeping arcane Halloween knowledge alive, I've compiled this list of tips for crushing Halloween. We're not just here to get candy, we're here to own that shit.

• If you are over the age of 8, ditch your parents. Seriously. But don't go it alone. If you're a lone ranger, no one will be there to witness your exploits and report your epic night to everyone at school. You'll be stuck telling stories about yourself, no one will believe you, and you will go down in flames. So, set it up with your buddies and find any way possible to convince your parents that you'll be ok. Take a flashlight, wear reflective strips on your clothing, etc. Whatever it takes to get rid of the folks: do it.

• Forget plastic sacks or lame-ass plastic pumpkins to carry your booty (no, not your ass. I'm talking about your candy). You need to use a pillowcase. A king-size pillowcase. It won't rip, you can hold a lot of candy.

• Eggs. Don't take them out of the carton and put them in your pockets. Don't ask me why I know that's a bad idea. I'm just saying. Anyway, Halloween is about chaos. Raising a ruckus. Fucking shit up. This means eggs hitting houses. Eggs hitting cars. Eggs hitting rival kid gangs. This shit is serious. Get out there and cause some problems. Bonus points if the cops talk to you. You lose those bonus points if you give them your real name.

• Make a plan. Get a map. Plan out your route. Don't go to a rich neighborhood. They'll give you healthy food, or they won't be there, or they'll give you apples or stickers or some bullshit like that. You also don't want to hit up new neighborhoods or neighborhoods with lots of young kids, because they will be out taking their kids trick-or-treating. This is what you want: trailer parks, apartment/condo buildings, or old-people neighborhoods. The doors are close together. Minimal time between doors. Run. You can fill up that pillowcase. That is your goal. Anything less is failure.

• Long-johns. It's cold outside. Damn cold. Cold is your enemy. You can wear long-johns under your costume and not mess it up, unless you're going as something with a dress or some crap. Forget it. Wear a pants costume, and wear some long-johns underneath.

• Take a flashlight, but only use it tactically. Here's what I mean by that: use it to shine it in the faces of people who get pissed off over you egging their house. You shine the flashlight in their eyes, then you run. You run hard. Run fast, and hide. They will give up. Then you move on to the next target.

• So you get an apple or a salad or a piece of tofu or some other piece of crap "treat". You can't afford to have that take up valuable space in your pillowcase, so you throw that shit out. Don't throw apples at cars or houses, because you can break shit. But if you get some other crap, throw it at a house. Preferably, at the house of the person who gave it to you. That will make them re-think their treat supply for next year. You have to take care of the people coming behind you too, you know.

• Attack any jack-o-lantern you see. Think of creative deaths. Ninja swords, firecrackers, throwing them, whatever. But pumpkins are your enemy. Every pumpkin you don't kill will turn into a pumpkin zombie at midnight and start hunting down little kids and eating their brains. You want to live with that on your conscience? You gonna sleep tonight while pumpkins eat little kids? No. No one wants to face the carnage the morning after Halloween if you don't stop the pumpkin zombie invasion before it even starts. Mow. Them. Down.

• Black is not the best color for tactical night operations. Moonlight is reflected sunlight, and sunlight is blue. So you wear dark blue. Dark blue will make you invisible. Black will get you caught.

• Aaron Draplin, over at Draplin Design Co., added one more rule to the list in his post this morning. I'll let Aaron spell it out: "Hey Firth, you forgot one rule! You know the house where the people aren’t in town, and just leave a light on with a big bowl of candy? Maybe a sign saying something like, “Happy Halloween! Grab a piece and have a safe night!” Well, here’s what you do: Depending on how many guys you are with, you simply grab the bowl and dump it evenly into each dude’s bag. Done. Leave that bowl as empty as possible. Then maybe kick the sign over and scram."

That's all I got, kids. Get out there, raise some hell, and bring the tricks back to "trick or treat". You only have one childhood. Don't fuck it up by watching Charlie Brown re-runs eating pizza when you can be out celebrating the power of stupid. Get out there, get your candy, and fuck shit up!

When I was young, I thought that toughness was a physical trait that you were either born with, or you weren’t. And I wasn’t.

My dad worked out of town a lot (he is a welder), so when he was home, I wanted to be with him. Deer season was coming up and my dad was going deer hunting. I was five, and I wanted to be with dad, so I wanted to go deer hunting, too. Dad said, “It’s going to be cold. You have to be tough because I’m not going to wait around for you.” “Ok, Dad! I’ll be tough!”

The morning of our trip arrived, and I got up, put my long-johns on, ate a hearty breakfast prepared by Mom, and we were on our way. When we arrived, it was still dark. And cold. I hopped out of the truck, eager to show I was tough, and to be with my dad.

We started walking. Moon boots are not great hiking boots. They’re clunky, and I started falling behind. And my gloves sucked. My fingers started to get cold. “Dad, wait up!” He just kept walking. I started crying. I started getting more frustrated, but I knew I had to be quiet or the deer would be scared away. I stopped my crying, eventually. My hands were numb, just starting to hurt from the cold. Snot was running into my mouth (mmm, salty!), and my eyelashes were getting iced up. But I eventually caught up to my dad. I still wanted to go home, but Dad said, "We're deer hunting. We'll go home when the deer lay down to sleep."

We didn’t see any deer that day, but that was one of my first lessons in being tough. I’m still learning about it.

Tough isn’t like having blue eyes or brown hair or a hitchhiker’s thumb. And being tough doesn’t mean you don’t have that voice in your head that says, “This is going to suck. You shouldn’t do it.” Being tough means listening to that voice, and doing it anyway, and not complaining about it.

This morning, I was reminded of what “tough” means by my stepdaughter, Miray. She’s 12, and this is the first year since 1st grade that she has ridden the bus to school. This morning the temperature was 28F, and the wind was blowing around 15-20 mph. It was cold. Miray hates the cold.

Miray got herself up before sunrise, got dressed (two layers on her legs, three layers on her torso), made herself breakfast, got her shit together and walked out the door. She’s been dreading this day since school started. She knew it would get cold, and she hates getting cold. The first really cold day arrived, and instead of complaining and whining, she got up, did her best to prepare for the cold, and caught the bus.

Miray, today you were tough. And I’m damn impressed.

I'm hoping the Chicago airport has internet. If it does, you'll get to read this while I'm flying from Chicago to Salt Lake. If it doesn't, you'll have to wait until I'm back home. I like the idea of writing in the sky, and I hope you get to read this while I'm still in the sky. I've flown over 200,000 miles in a plane, and the idea that I am currently sitting at 37,000 going 550 mph is one that still makes me catch my breath. When I first started traveling, I loved sitting next to the window and watching the land slip past the airplane. Now the idea of being able to stand up or go to the bathroom without disturbing anyone else outweighs my fascination with the geography below.

This entry might get long. If you need to get some coffee or turn down the t.v., go ahead. I'll be here when you get back.

I want to talk about discipline. And my lack of it. I also want to talk about authority, and my problems with it. Both of those things have been getting in my way for a long time. Both of those behaviors served a purpose in my life. They were learned behaviors that developed out of necessity, but the necessity has long passed. I am living my life out in a reactionary state, and what’s even sadder, is that I’m reacting to circumstances and environments that haven’t been a part of my life for years.

But here’s the tricky thing: our brains are wired to ignore evidence around us that doesn’t already agree with our current viewpoint. We’re hard-wired to make up our minds, and to continue to find evidence in our environment that we’re right. Imagine how much of your day would be spent doing cost-benefit pro-con analysis of every decision you made before coming to a conclusion. You wouldn’t make it out of your house.

It’s like when you learn to drive. The first few trips make your muscles sore, you’re exhausted after 20 minutes, because you’re tense and super-alert and constantly thinking about what to do. “Crap, I’m going 38 and this is a 35 mph zone. I need to let off the gas. Crap, I let off the gas too much. Now I’m going to slow. Now that guy behind me is too close” and so on. After a few trips, this all gets hard-wired and now you drive while listening to the radio, texting your boss that you’re going to be late (again), while watching for brake lights in front of you.

The problem with hard-wiring comes when we create these hard-wirings in a traumatic or stressful situation. When we’re stressed, that’s when our brain learns most effectively. It says “scary shit is going down. What other things are going on that might have started this or contributed to it” and it starts noting all the environmental conditions and it associates this trauma with the conditions around us. And, once we associate trauma or stress with loud noises, or certain tones of voice, or certain body language, when we are in that environment again (or something similar), we start feeling tense. And anxiety is born.

So I had a shitty childhood. Most people do. Don’t get me wrong. There was a lot of good. I have many special memories that I go back to and draw comfort from. But I definitely developed anxiety from an unpredictable (some may call it volatile) environment. And part of me is angry about that. Part of me is angry that chaos and pain and confusion was forced on me.

And that angry part rebels. It says, “you can’t control me. I can do what I want. You’re not the boss of me.” That’s the part that leads to unmet deadlines, to unkept promises, to unrealized dreams and goals. And all those unmet obligations lead to guilt, because I know I’ve let a lot of people down. So then I start avoiding the guilt. I play more video games. I start watching more t.v., reading on the internet, looking at porn. All of those things are ways of helping myself feel better (for a few moments, at least.) Those activities quiet the voices in my head. The voices say, “You’re a bad person. You let people down. You don’t keep your promises. You don’t get anything done. You’re wasting your life.” So I commit to changing.

And it starts out good. I add a couple of small routines to my life. I start feeling a little better. Until one day, something interrupts my routine. I miss a day. And I feel guilty about it. And a part of me says, “Well, you don’t have to do it EVERY day.” The voice continues, “Besides, you hate routine. It’s boring. You’re not a machine. You’re a human!” And that rebellious spirit comes out and says, “I can do what I want.” Sigh.

I wrote about this awhile ago in my depression entry. Cycles. Over and over again this cycle plays out.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. He also wrestles with anxiety, and his observation was that I do well in routines. He said, “every World Series of Poker, you get in this routine where you get up, you workout, you go to work. Then you come home, have some dinner, and relax with your family. You do really well. Then the World Series ends and you fall into depression, because you fall out of your routine and you don’t get anything done, and you start feeling guilty about it. You should try keeping some regular hours. It’s done wonders for me.”

This is the same advice my wife has been giving me, by the way. And I just read the same advice in a book I am reading called The Daily Coyote. Routine is the answer.

So Monday through Friday, I get up, take a piss and take Supi for a walk, first thing. No looking at computer, no coffee, no turn on the t.v. Hit the street, leash in hand, and run. Good for me. Good for dog.

Come back, cool off, drink some water. Talk to the girls while they get ready for school. Help Safi get dressed. The preschool kids show up at 9:00, which is when I’ll go to work. Attack the projects list. Get shit crossed off the list. Do what’s important.

At 11:00, the first class leaves, and I’ll take a break. Hang out with Banu and Safi. Check the mail. Grab a snack.

12:00 means preschool class number two, which means work session number two for me. Work until 3:30, then write in blog at 3:30 until 4:00. Go workout (either at CrossFit or in my gym, depending on my pre-programmed workout).

This is Monday through Friday. Banu’s preschool makes this much easier for me to commit to. Easy to stay focused when Banu and Safi are already occupied. After my workout, I’ll shower, have dinner and relax for the evening.

Tomorrow will be my first day of this new schedule. First thing on the to-do list is clean my office and turn it back into a work space, instead of a monument to chaos. I don’t need to assert myself against being controlled anymore. It only hurts me. I mean, who likes working in a junky, cluttered office?

I just wanted to let you know that I'm leaving Warsaw and heading home. I'm tired, but we put up some good videos this week, and the World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table (an obnoxiously long name for an event) is right around the corner. I'll be shooting interviews from there, so a trip to Vegas is in my future.

I went out and shot some photos today of a place that meant a lot to me. It was the embodiment of a lifelong vision I've had. I'll share more details when I put the photos up (which will be soon! As in, a day or two from now!) I just wanted everyone who has starting coming here every day to have something to read. I just want to let you know I'm here, I'm paying attention to life, I'm learning, I'm noticing, I'm improving and I'm writing about it. And it means the world to me that you read what I write. To say thank you, click on an ad and buy something. Or just send happy thoughts.

I actually left the casino today to go to Old Warsaw to shoot some out-on-the-town video. Old Warsaw was virtually destroyed during WWII, but has been painstakingly restored into a beautiful shopping destination. We wandered the back streets and ducked into a few shops, capping the outing off with a great meal in a great restaurant. You can see the photos from my daytrip in the new Photos page!

I have wanted to update the look of the site for awhile and finally got it where I want it. Now that it looks good, I will be adding some new features soon. I will add a video portfolio page, a photo portfolio page, and a "my gear" page where I review all the gear I use in my work and in my personal life. Keep your eye on the navigation bar, because these items will be coming soon!

Let me know what you think of the new look in the comments.

I got an email asking me about options for fitness work during the winter. I came up with this list of things I enjoy, and thought I'd share it with you. Feel free to pick one, or two, or all of them. Whatever works for you. In no particular order:

• Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe - be sure you get the Book + DVD combo. They work well together and one is not complete without the other.

• Enter The Kettlebell! Strength Secret of The Soviet Supermen - again, be sure to get the book + DVD.

• CrossFit.com - This and Starting Strength is what I'm doing.

• P90X - a few of my friends have had success with this one.

• Combat Conditioning: Functional Exercises for Fitness and Combat Sports

• RossTraining.com. This guy is a former boxer and currently a trainer and coach. He's written some great books that require little equipment, and he practices what he preaches. Check out his videos and you will be amazed at his abilities. These are the workouts I use on the road.

• The TRX system is a little on the pricey side, but well worth it if you travel a lot. Easy to pack and easy to use anywhere, and it enables you to do about 34,241 exercises.

• Clubbells kick your ass in a unique effective way. These are some medival magic.

• Yoga - I have no references for this. Find a local class. Get a DVD. Very good stuff. If you know of a good DVD, let us know in the comments!

• Bruce Lee's Isometrics program - just be sure you turn down the volume when you watch this video, or else you'll think I'm insane for sending you there.

That about wraps it up for things I know about that you can do indoors in the winter time. You can do all of the things listed above outdoors in the winter, too, if you want to take your training to the next level.

What do you do t o stay fit in the wintertime? Let me know in the comments!

My grandfather gave me some advice when I was a young man that turned out to be golden. However, I'd like to share the backstory to give the advice context.

We were moving our cows from the winter pasture (property by his house) to the summer pasture (leased BLM land in the mountains). My grandfather runs his cows with his best friend, so his best friend is also moving some of his cows. When we arrive at the summer pasture, one of the already-moved cows is in labor and looks like she's having some problems. We immediately go over and after some investigation we discover that the calf is stuck because it's breech. Well, about three hours later the calf was delivered (stillborn) and the cow was fine. Dehydrated maybe, but fine.

Right about then, the wife of my grandpa's friend showed up. "I was worried about you guys. You said you'd be home in an hour or so and it's been four hours and I just thought something might have happened. I've been worried sick..." blah blah blah.

TL;DR We got in the truck and my grandpa said, "Right when you get married, tell your wife you're going out and you'll be back in an hour or so. Come home four hours later and don't explain yourself and don't apologize. Do this four or five times in the first year you're married, and then your wife won't try to keep you on a leash."

TL; DR the TL;DR No man should be on a leash, however well-intentioned the leash-holder may be.

I don't have any great stories from Warsaw yet, but I just wanted to drop in and tell you that I exercised today. A lot. And it's already helping me feel better. I normally just put my workouts in the training log, but since this goal is related to my self-treatment for depression, I thought I'd put it here.

I did double-unders with a jumprope using the Tabata protocol (20 seconds go, 10 seconds rest) for 5 minutes. I then did situps using the same protocol, 10 reps per 20 seconds, for 5 minutes. I then did Prisoner's Workout, which is burpees in a pyramid (10, rest a minute, 9, rest a minute, 8, rest a minute and so on down to 1).

I sat around until I cooled down and stopped sweating, hopped in the shower, then I hit the street to walk to work. Walked 1.5 miles to work, wearing my 45-pound backpack and pulling my 50-pound hard case filled with video gear. I kept my heartrate above 140 for most of the walk and got to work soaked in sweat. Luckily, it was raining outside, so everyone just thought I was wet from the rain.

Been hard at work on the factory floor cranking out video widgets ever since. Thanks for stopping by.

Greetings from Poland. In case you were wondering, it's cold here. It's currently 37F with 87% humidity, which makes it feel much chillier. I'm about 1.5 miles away from the casino. I walked there today to shoot a video, then ran back to the hotel. A very refreshing run! Most people speak English, the dollar goes a long way and the beer is excellent, so it should be a good week.

Had a long flight here. Flew from SLC to Chicago, a two-hour layover, then flew directly from Chicago to Warsaw. The SLC-Chicago leg was about 2.5 hours, and the Chicago-Warsaw leg was 9 hours. It wouldn't have been too bad, but I had a middle seat for the Chicago-Warsaw flight. Ugh. That's what happens when your tickets get booked at the last minute. I put on my noise-cancelling headphones and put a shirt over my eyes (I don't have a sleep mask. Yet.) and tried to sleep. I got probably 4 or 5 hours, and the rest of the time I watched ATHF or South Park on the iPod.

I also started reading The Daily Coyote. I got about halfway through it and I'm really enjoying it.There's a strong voice inside me that craves living a small, simple life, and this book speaks to that side of me. As soon as Miray and Leah graduate high school and move on to start their own lives, Banu, Safi and I are going to sell everything and live small. I can't wait.

Depression requires a multi-pronged attack. That's the way I am looking at this: war. Warpaint, sharpening the tomahawk and lacing up the mocassins. Shit's about to go down. Here's the battle plan:

• Exercise. Every day. Logged in the Training Log. Gotta do the work and gotta record the work.
• Thirty minutes of sun every day. At minimum. Here's the multitasking method: walk the dog. Dog gets exercise, I get exercise and I get my vitamin D dose.
• Clean up the rooms where I live. Bedroom looks pretty good. Office does not. Get that shit in order. This will be attacked when I get back into town.
• Get projects off the to-do list. Using the timer method. Set a timer. Work until it dings. Take a break. Rinse. Repeat.
• Post to this blog every day. No exceptions. Something cool/noteworthy/interesting happens every day. Notice it. Share it here with you.

That's it. Gotta keep it simple. This list gets long and shit drops off and the clouds show up again. I will keep you updated.

Today I was sitting on the couch watching some preschool show with Safi. She laid her head on my lap, looked up at me and said, "I love you, Daddy." That's the first time she's ever spontaneously said that to me. It brightened my whole day.

I have taken some other steps to break through this morass of depression. I'll share those with you tomorrow. For today, Safi saying "I love you" was enough to break through the clouds and bring some sunshine into my mind.

Unfortunately, I'm not referring to the economy. Since about mid-July or so, I've been steadily declining into a bout of depression. Listless, not interested in things that normally interest me (especially exercise), no satisfaction doing things I normally enjoy, insomnia, insane levels of procrastination (worse than normal), and general paralysis. And the most frustrating part: not really being sure what caused it, or how to get out of it. Every time I would think about it, I would just get more paralyzed. Yes, I know that doesn't sound rational. It's not.

The symptoms creep up and creep in. Corners of my office start getting messy. I don't unpack my things after a work trip. My side of the bedroom starts looking like a donation room for a second-hand store. Dust settles in and books start piling up. Then the phone calls from toll-free numbers or "Unknown number". Those are companies calling to say, "Are you going to pay that bill?" Yes. When I get some money. Then I get some money and spend it on bullshit. And get more depressed.

So long into this process, long after everyone around me has noticed that I'm depressed, I wake up and take a shower (the first shower in three or four days), and think about how good that felt, to be clean. So I brush my teeth. (Maybe it's the first time in five days. Maybe only three. But usually at least five.) And that feels good. And I think, "Man, I haven't felt good for a long time. I think I've been depressed." And I get the dog leash and take the dog for a walk. The sun definitely feels good. And it feels good to walk outside. And the dog is excited and happy, which cheers me up a little bit.

I start paying attention to things that make me feel better. Exercise. Sunshine. Getting projects finished and out of my conscience. Cleaning up my side of the bedroom. Cleaning the office. So I start a to-do list. I start doing things and getting things done and feeling good.

But then the to-do list gets pretty long. And it starts looking overwhelming. So I stop doing some things. And feel guilty about not doing those things. Then I get more frustrated and feel more overwhelmed. And I stop doing other things and start playing more video games. Start watching more tv. The dog didn't get walked today. Again. She's anxious and every time I get my shoes on, she's hopping around thinking we're going for a walk. Except we don't walk, which makes me feel guilty. So I stop cleaning my side of the room, because who cares? And it's just a few shirts and a couple of pairs of pants. And I really don't want to look at this mail right now, so I'll just set it on my desk and look at it later. And I'll just put this book I was reading on the floor of my office. And I just got home from a trip and I'm really tired. There's no way I'm unpacking right now. I'll do it later. And the undone things start adding up, and I feel guilty about it. "Yes, I'll do that. I'll get that project done." Except I don't. And I feel guilty. So I play more video games and watch more tv and don't exercise. And I'm depressed again.

EPT London Intro - Final Version from Jeremy Firth on Vimeo.

Changed the font on "London" and trimmed the clip down a bit. Tightened it up. Looks good, so we're going to use it as a template for upcoming tournaments from now on, because it can be created beforehand.