Sam Xander Profile

Profile: 
Height; 1.75m (5'10")
Weight: 84kg (185lb)
Eye color: Blue, Hair: Jet Black, shoulder length, half-pony styled 
Attire: 

Skills:  metallurgy, armor smithing, roughly 6 years of cross-study in structural/& mechanical engineering, improvised sword training, practical mastery of alchemy - what most people think of also as chemistry, various applied sciences,   

Personality: Willful, disciplined, stubborn, equipped with a pair of gauntlets (styled after the Witchblade/Edward Elrich's forearm)   

Abilities: Sam has the ability to project his bio-energy as an extra-dimensional field capable of absorbing, analyzing (causing a complete subconscious understanding) & replicating any form of matter or energy.  This field is most commonly used as a protective filter.  Since the field is an extension of his body's own energy he has complete control over its shape, most commonly forming it into spheres, cubes, flat planes as well as a tightly fitting field around himself and anything in contact with him. As touched on earlier, he has the ability to replicate anything he has already encountered within one of his fields, thus allowing him to create a normal air atmosphere when traveling in harsh environments such as underwater, the vacuum of space, or areas with high levels of radiation.  The absorption and replication properties of the field also allow him to use them as short range teleportation by moving in & out of them or sending objects through it and having the field materialize the object elsewhere.
(Note: with careful study and practice he has learned to use his abilities as a form of alchemy, think FMA: Full Metal Alchemist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0HdqPjxXiE) 

Background -- Born on July 8th, 1983 in Pacific City. His parents had moved there just a year before he was born. Sam's father John & mother Sera were both chosen to be part of the initial move to the newly established landmark city because of their positions in the fields of mechanical/architectural engineering (with side projects in futurist technologies and applied quantum mechanics respectively.  Pacific City was originally just a fantastical concept by a small group of civic dreamers that may never have been realized were it not for the government-funded efforts of The World.  This mysterious organization seemed to have the scientific know-how and technical prowess to bring the dreams of a bridge-way between L.A. and Hilo, Hawaii into reality.  Pacific city itself is connected to the edges of either side of the transpacific roadway by heavy gauge triple-interlocked magnetic clamps and suspended one-half mile above sea level by heavily tested prototype graviton repulsor engines.  After the city's completion, it was to be used as a gathering place for the world's scientific and scholarly elite. Sam's life growing up in this new & amazing city & among these scholarly yet compassionate people was like most others in many respects, as much as it could be considering his aloof & constant wandering nature. He was always trying to keep himself occupied & finding something to do & something to create. He went to school with all the other kids but classes were a breeze to him mostly and they didn't keep his attention or challenge him, but he paid enough attention to learn what he needed to in order to pursue his passion. He had been tinkering with metal-smithing since his early teens & researching for 5 years before that.  ... more to come soon.

Sam Xander Bio

Born on July 8th 1983 in Pacific City. His parents had moved there just a year before he was born. Sam's father John and mother Sera were both chosen to be part of the initial move to the newly established landmark city because of their positions in the fields of mechanical/architectural engineering (with side projects in futurist technologies and applied quantum mechanics respectively.  Pacific City was originally just a fantastical concept by a small group of civic dreamers that may never have been realized were it not for the government funded efforts of The World.  This mysterious organization seem to have the scientific know-how and technical prowess to bring the dreams of a bridge-way between L.A. and Hilo, Hawaii into reality.  Pacific city itself is connected to the edges of either side of the transpacific roadway by heavy gauge triple-interlocked magnetic clamps and suspended one half mile above sea level by heavily tested prototype graviton repulsor engines.  After the city's completion it was to be used as a gathering place for the world's scientific and scholarly elite.

Sam Xander - Powers/Abilities

Sam has the ability to project his bio-energy as an extra-dimensional field capable of absorbing, analyzing (causing a complete subconscious understanding) and replicating any form of matter or energy.  This field is most commonly used as a protective filter.  Since the field is an extension of his body's own energy he has complete control over it's shape, most commonly forming it into spheres, cubes, flat planes and for just himself he likes to form it into a tightly fitting field around himself and anything in contact with him. As touched on earlier, he has the ability to replicate anything he has already encountered within one of his fields, thus allowing him to create a normal air atmosphere when traveling in harsh environments such as underwater, the vacuum of space, or areas with high levels of radiation.  The absorption and replication properties of the field also allow him to use them as short range teleportation by moving in and out of them or sending objects through it and having the field materialize the object elsewhere.
(Note: with careful study and practice, certain ways his abilities are used could be considered similar to and have many of the same end results as FMA's alchemy.)

Whole 30 Paleo Challenge

This is what I'm doing: http://whole9life.com/2010/12/whole30-2011/ < This will be a challenge on such a low budget, but I've been using that as an excuse for far too long (4-5 months at least) and it's called a challenge in the first place and part of the point of it is to be able to pull it off and make it work under any circumstance anyway, so...
Here's what I'm doing in brief:

The Whole30 Program, As Outlined

Eat real food – meat, fish, eggs, tons of vegetables, some fruit, and plenty of good fats. Eat foods with very few ingredients, all pronounceable ingredients, or better yet, no ingredients listed at all because they’re natural and unprocessed.

More importantly, here’s what NOT to eat during the duration of your Whole30 program. Omitting all of these foods and beverages will help you regain your healthy metabolism, reduce systemic inflammation, and help you discover how these foods are truly impacting your health, fitness and quality of life.

Do not consume added sugar of any kind, real or artificial. No maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, Splenda, Equal, Nutrasweet, xylitol, stevia, etc. Read your labels, because companies sneak sugar into products in all kinds of ways.

Do not eat processed foods. This includes protein shakes, pre-packaged snacks/meals, protein bars, milk substitutes, etc.

Do not drink alcohol, in any form.

Do not eat grains. This includes (but is not limited to) wheat, rye, barley, millet, oats, corn, rice, sprouted grains and all of those gluten-free pseudo-grains like quinoa. (Yes, we said corn!) This also includes all the ways we add wheat, corn and rice into our foods in the form of bran, germ, starch and so on. Again, read your labels.

Do not eat legumes. This includes beans (black, kidney, lima, etc.), peas, lentils, and peanuts or peanut butter. This also includes all forms of soy – soy sauce, miso, tofu, tempeh, edamame, and all the ways we sneak soy into foods (like lecithin).

Do not eat dairy. This includes all cow, goat or sheep’s milk, cream, butter, cheese, yogurt, whey, ice cream, etc.

Do not eat white potatoes. It’s arbitrary, but they are carbohydrate-dense and nutrient poor, and also a nightshade.

Most importantly… do not try to shove your old, unhealthy diet into a shiny new Whole30 mold. This means no “Paleo-fying” less-than-healthy recipes – no “Paleo” pancakes, “Paleo” pizza, “Paleo” fudge or “Paleo” ice cream. Don’t mimic poor food choices during your Whole30 program!

One last and final rule. You are not allowed to step on the scale for the duration of your Whole30 program. This is about so much more than just weight loss, and to focus only on your body composition means you’ll miss out on the most dramatic (and lifelong) benefits this plan has to offer. Give yourself a well-deserved, long overdue break from fixating on that number on the scale! Absolutely NO weighing yourself or taking comparative measurements during your Whole30.

I don't have a definite plan set out yet, but I'm starting tomorrow anyway. Complete, OCD proper planning was another thing I was using not having done as an excuse to put this off. So I'll do the best I can as I go, look up recipes and menus and such tonight and tomorrow and eat what I can when I can and let that be that. :) Things will work out. As long as I do my part and get up and get things going. :) I'm not sure where this motivation came from, but it's making me smile.

Join me if you'd like I'm sure it'll be interesting and you'll come out feeling amazing on the other side. :)

My Minimalist Journey: Day 5

Day 5 Otherwise known as The Things You Think You Need... Basically: You don't need any of those... lol... You only need the things you actually need. Things you don't need to think about to know you need. You don't need extras, you don't need things you only want. You don't need yearly/seasonal fashions, over and over again. You don't need all those apps. You don't need all those random accessories or nick nacs... Why do you actually have all that stuff? What did I get out on Day 5 that I didn't get out on Day 4.... let's see... Nothing. So little to think about, so little to hold you back or weigh you down... Feeling good already...

My Minimalist Journey: Day 4

Day 4 The next few days are important. They're about you taking things out of your packed boxes (or closet) in a thoughtful and controlled manner. If you take stuff out without reason this exercise is pointless. This is the first day, so you should take out the essentials, all your hygiene things you're going to use today and clothes for wearing. Well, this post might not be all that long, because as far as my Day 4 went, all I had to do was get my work clothes out and go... and that's all I did. More on the next day. :)

-- M.P. Essex

My Minimalist Journey: Day 3

Day3 you’re going to need to set some major time aside for, depending on how much stuff you have maybe even a whole day, take off work, work all plans around this kinda thing. Me, thankfully I only really had to devote my evening to it and it still worked out really well. To do this you’re going to need your Minimalist Tool Kit, or some approximation thereof. This consists of a big cardboard box, inside this box: nothing! You need nothing to prep for this Packing Party you’re going to have except the willpower to go through with it whole-heartedly. On the plus side, now that you have a big empty box, you have something you can use to put all your stuff in. :)

Now, today involves a “Packing Party” because what you’re going to do is, invite over everyone you can that’s willing and able to help, you and all your supportive friends/family are going to pack up everything you own. ALL your stuff, pack it up. The idea is that over the next week you only take out what you need, and at the end you discover how little you really need.  

For me, I didn’t have moving boxes or anything readily available, so I just used my relatively small closet. And at the end of the night, everything was in it, except for say, my dresser and bed, but the dresser is completely empty and has nothing on top of it. I took a bit of time and a good deal of thinking about and feeling about, especially for a few certain items. I used the packing party as a easy way to take inventory of the things I had as well, and decide on what could be taken out of my life right away at the beginning of this journey, which worked out really well to add on to the packing task. By the end of things I had a box that was packed full of books reduced to less than half: an entire box of clothes gone, nearly half my movies gone, and a box and half of other random things that I don’t need at all and don’t even want badly enough to keep... So for the next week, I’ll be living out of my closet…

3 boxes of randomness that I don't have anymore

My Minimalist Closet 

— M.P. Essex