Live to Love, Love to Live

Surrey's Cafe and Juice Bar was my second stop. When we were in Louisiana for our Filleo Project I found it necessary to go to down town New Orleans and locate a triple D Guy place. I wanted to go to this amazing smoke house with smoked ribs, pork, and they make their own smoked salad dressing. But, they were closed on Sundays. So, we went to Surrey's. I am a huge breakfast guy. It is my favorite meal. So, Surrey's stood out to me with it being mainly a breakfast joint.

They are known for their home made bagels. Bagels are a must have for breakfast I think. I literally almost eat them every single day for breakfast. I especially love them with eggs and cream cheese. I always have to order what a triple D restaurant is known for.

But, Surrey's is known for especially their locks and bagels. They rub their salmon the morning before they serve it. They let it soak in a brown sugar rub that smells amazing. I have never had locks before but I figured it was salmon and should be good. I received my food and honestly was kind of bummed because the slice of salmon they put on the bagel was very thin and not too much. Well, you know me the amount is half the battle. So, my experience was a 6 out of 10. Just the 6 alone was because the home made bagel was extremely good. Ohhh I loved that bagel. The locks tasted good, but not amazing, maybe because I did not have enough.

All in all, it was another good adventure and I look forward to the next. I have a picture of us inside, but not outside, bummer.

So, my boy Jared Montz who helped sponsor a trip to his city asked me to do some training videos for his online soccer academy, www.jmsoccer10.com.

Now, we first did this training video, but after a long day's work of community service with Filleo I was in an extra goofy mood. If you know me at all and I say I am in an extra goofy mood that means it is sooooo goofy. We also did a skillzzzz and tricks video underneath his back porch roof. It was very fun. Props to my boy Jared who was the videographer the whole time, he is sick wit it. Here are the links to the videos on his blog. www.jmsoccer10.com/blog

I posted the Online Soccer Academy bloopers clip with Jed. Check it out here Bloopers

Also if you haven't seen it yet the Skillz video is here Skillzzzz

On back to our trip to New Orleans. I hope you all enjoyed the "dagwood", I did. All in all it still tasted great. I kinda want to make a rap out of it. haha. I know, I know save my sick skillz for another time.

After our clinic where I perfected the log roll, Emily got a 28 mph shot from a kid, Jared found a sick vantage point for videos, Jared Montz showed the kids how sweet soccer bowling is, and Katie did an amazing job at registration and clean-up.
We then brought them inside and had them sit down and listen up. Jared montz gave is famous "Believe in it" speech, encouraging the kids to go after their dreams. Then he passed it on to me and I did my famous rap that incorporated a sick b-boy breakdown then transitioning into a windmill on the ground. Ha I wish I did that, maybe next time.

I talked to the kids about how I grew up being the youngest child in a single mom household. How I went to sleep and woke up hungry most days. Also, that trophies and awards have no real importance. What we should desire for people to remember us by: is our kindness, work ethic, generosity, and most importantly love we give to others. I gave a jersey of mine to a player that was not the best, but exemplified those qualities the most.

We then gave out Imazine watches for the kids. They are these sweet and sporty watches that the kids can wear no matter chill or play (www.ionwatchusa.com). We also were able to bring soccer balls, basketballs, pumps, school supplies, and soccer gear for the kids.

We bought a bunch of the stuff at a Kmart shopping spree the day we got there. Super fun shopping for kids that do not recieve many things that often. We ended with some pictures and we signed some autographs for them. We also asked them to sign posters of ours just in case they become famous one day.

It was an amazing clinic and an even better experience for the Filleo Staff. There is nothing better than giving your energy, efforts, and money to help those less fortunate. We were all made to do this.

But, after all this we ended up going to Drago's to eat. Whoooohooo so good. They have chargrilled oysters that are soooo amazing. I had a shrimp po boy and it was good. But, these oysters were some of the best food I have ever had. A must do if you go down. Then we had a little bedate ( this is how I pronounced it, I know a bedate is a toilet that cleans a yuuhooo). Umm a beignet yes that is it. It is a fried piece of dough. Honestly I dig a funnel cake much more, sorry New Orleans folk.

Check out the video below, and yes I actually let them do this to me, I do not know why. By the way he blew powdered sugar on me, a whole lot of it.

Waking up in the morning was pretty hard. Yesterday was pretty exhausting and well when you walk outside and it is 28 degrees it is not fun either. I mean, come one, we came to New Orleans for a Filleo Project. We were not planning to come here for a nice beautiful trip, we came to help the kids. But, in the back of our minds we did think, "Sweet! We get to spend a few days in New Orleans in warmer weather." Well, "Earth to Jed!" it is not warm out here- it is freezing!

I was glad though that the day started with a laugh. Jared Emily Montz who were our drivers and host family were having trouble with the defroster. When they tried to turn the dial to defrost the dial broke and they could not defrost the front windshield. So, we are sitting there watching Jared and Emily use their hands and rags to wipe the windshield down so he could see while he was driving. They are not used to cold weather at all. We fixed it with pliers the next day though, atta boy RadioU Jared.

We pull up to our event at an inner city school and see a sweet soccer field that has the new turf on it. Also, there are about 30 kids playing on it. I immediately thought I was in the movie "The Big Green." The things these kids said only added to my perspective, oh what a laugh, but I will get to that later.

The night before our big event Jared Montz had us all sit down and we planned out the event to a "T." It took a couple of hours, but we thank him for wanting this event to go as smooth as possible, which it did.
We set up the table and all the kids start to bring over their registration forms we sent out to them. We thank God so much because come six days before the event we had 0 kids registered, yes ZERO. But the day of our event we had around 30 kids show up. For an event planned with few staff and little time it was a HUGE success. We brought them all in and separated them into groups. We had stations for the kids to go to every 12 minutes. Then at the end we would play a big scrimmage.

My station was sharks and minnows. It's my favorite because I love the "log roll." Yes, it is a sweet technique in this game. All the kids get on a line and they have to dribble across to a line that is about 20 yards away. The curve ball is that you have to get past the shark-- ME. I had to kick their ball away and I did that with the "log roll." I would get on the ground and stretch my hands and legs as far as I could go and roll at the kids. There was only one kid who beat this dangerous roll and he flicked it over me and ran. Touché my friend! Touché!

We also had a shooting station with a radar gun that showed the mph that the kids kicked the ball. This was a huge hit, thanks Emily. Jared Montz did a fun passing game that he made into soccer bowling; I never had seen it before but will use it now, thanks Jared. Then a volunteer named Grant helped with World Cup. That is a game where each child gets a partner and those teams pick a country they will be named after. They then try to score against the other teams on one goal, let's just say "CHAOS" but still very fun chaos.

We then ended with a scrimmage that was pretty crazy because the field was 40X25 and we played 11 on 11. Well, I kinda cheated and threw on a couple extra kids and played 13 on 11, that may be the reason why my team won 2-0, sorry Jared...

Here are some pictures from our clinic, I will have a video of the clinic posted in the next couple of days and part 2 of our day Saturday to follow after that. Thanks for spending time with me.

On to lunch now and a little break. I’m thinking Chipotle, Pei Wei, or maybe Quizno’s. Check that iPhone, and Oh snap! There are none of those in New Orleans. Haters. So, we end up getting the next best thing: KFC/Tacobell. We had some good rest and well some decent food.
We met up with T-roy and he gave us, in his words “I have something sweet for you J, it is a fame glorious job of packing up a library in trailers and moving them to the new school.” After some funny moments at the RSD (Recovery School District) he took us to the High School where the trailers were. We found Miss Celeste packing up her books. We ended up taking the next four hours packing, organizing, taping, and labeling books in boxes. We had Katie color coding everything with the dewy decimal system. Shoot whatever that is, still trying to figure it out.

We were able to finish Celeste’s entire week’s worth of work in four hours. They have been in these trailers for some time now and apparently she is moving from a small 800-900 sq. ft. library to a 4000 sq. ft. library. There are pictures before we helped and pictures after.
I have also put at the bottom Celeste’s email that she sent me on Monday when she came into work and saw what we did.

“Jed...thank you, thank you, thank you so MUCH. I walked into the library this morning, and I couldn't believe how amazing it looked in here. I can't stop smiling! I am so excited right now- because I can actually think clearly enough to get some serious work done now that everything is in order. Setting everything up in the new library is going to be a cinch now. If ya'll ever come back to the city, please come by our new school and visit!
Please thank everyone who was here- I remember all of you, but I'm terrible with names- Jed; your wife, the teacher and graduate student; Jared Montz & Mrs. Montz, (whose mother is a librarian); The radio personality from Radiou...(was his name Jared too?). Please let everyone know how thankful I am for all of the work that was done here last week, and also how much easier my life is going to be because of it...I feel like going out and doing something nice for somebody!”

Filleo and what we are about is more than a shirt and it is more than the services we bring. We are a unified body of people who stand for One Cause and who live for One Love. This email makes us at Filleo so happy, not as much because she is so happy and thankful for what we have done, but because of her last line.

“I feel like going out and doing something nice for somebody!”

If our love is contagious we have done our part. We hope and pray that people will catch onto our love and do something with it.
I replied to her, “Remember to pay it forward, as you already are being a teacher, but all we ask is if you could do something special for someone else.”
We hope you will join us in pursuing a life of love each day towards others.

What a great trip! Filleo, my non profit organization, just got back from our first project community service outside of Ohio. We went down to New Orleans and it was such a rewarding trip. This project was two years in the making. We flew in and Jared and his wife, Emily picked us up at the airport. They were our hosts for the trip and we had such a great time with them!

For one, always remember when you buy a ticket online for Delta, United, or one of these airlines that charges for baggage that it costs that much more. If it is the lowest price on expedia or another website it still may not be if you add the cost of the bags. I was like, "Dang yo! What is up with that?!" It makes me think of the Southwest commercials and how smart the guy that made those is. These airlines should just put it in the ticket price. Man, what a bummer. I say this because we had a box of shirts and other stuff to take down so it ended up costing like an extra $90 just for the trip there.

Well, to get back to our trip, I was so thankful to have my wife Katie on the trip with me, and having Jared from Radio U was a blast. Jared took care of the video footage and was a master at getting in my face with the camera, especially my eye. Weirdo yes, but I get that a lot. Do you think so? Haha.

On Friday, January 7th, we met a guy named Troy (T-roy) who helped set us up with our activities for the day. He works for the school recovery program in New Orleans that helps with the schools that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Okay now, if he made up a rapper name for himself do you think I love the guy, ummmmm yesssss. This dude was awesome. Here we are coming in on Thursday and he finally emails me back that morning, (he forgot we were coming) and his e-mail starts with the letter “F”…That’s it, that is what he put on the email to start. He writes the way he talks, that’s my boy. Well, we took some sweet footage of him also. Organized? Not so much... He was genuine and honest for sure, which is an awesome quality. When Jared Montz () asked him if he liked his new website he responded saying, “It’s F’in Beautiful!" Thanks Troy, you were a hit!

We went to read to some elementary school kids who are attending school in trailers while a new school is being built.

These kids were awesome. Jared started us off with a book about a silent cricket. He did a great job by not helping the kids to figure out what a cricket sounds like. Haha. Try right now to do a cricket noise and see what comes out. I am trying right now and it is making me laugh because I have no idea, this is awesome. But, the kids ended up doing pretty well at it.

Then my wife Katie read a book called “The Day Joey’s Boa Constrictor ate the Wash.” It was a great pick-me-up. Well, let's just say they thought a snake was as cool as me getting a superhero party for my birthday, yep that sweet. They recited most of the book with Katie. They loved knowing it and following along. A job well done wifey, that’s my girl.

So, I come up next to read. If you had to guess any book I would read what would it be about? No, not magic, but great guess. Soccer, well definitely not, come on. Dancing- yes dancing! That was what my book was about. The book was called “Giraffes Can’t Dance.” Before I read I told the kids, “Now, every time I say the word dance I will point at someone and they have to get up and spontaneously dance.” So, we end up getting through the whole book with pretty much everyone dancing. We got spastic jigglers, shakin’ it like salt shakers, the robot (yes a kid tried the robot, awesome), Michael Jackson wannabe (he did the moonwalk, coolest thing I have seen from a kid), and then we also had a kid trip and fall and still go on with the show while on the ground. Yes, I do have video of this and yes I have attached it for everyone to see. Oh yeah by the way at the end I told everyone that they had to get up and we all did a spontaneous dance together.

Then we did something that was chill and we just helped them correct their English test in groups for the next hour. Lunch time, meant a break for lunch for us, and a break from typing for me.

Round two from New Orleans to come in a couple days or less.
Fun day so far? It was sweeeetttt.