Model Matt Hackney

This past weekend, Jasmine – my assistant –  & I had the pleasure of sitting on the judge’s panel for the Miss Teen Santa Barbara Beauty Pageant with Nationals Incorporated.  Unlike most beauty pageants, this pageant honestly was an “inner beauty” contest.  The contestants were 7-19 years old in different age categories and Jasmine & I worked with the 12-15 year old group on Friday with around 40 interviews.

During these three minute interviews, we tried to get a glimpse of the girls’ personalities. Some were quite mature in their responses with goals of opening charities in third world countries, already writing books, or setting up rescue horse ranches here in the county. Others were, well… little girls – excited about being in a pageant and wanting to look glamourous in front of their family and friends. These were the majority & when asked what they’d do with $1 million dollars our typical response was “shopping.”

You’d think they’d know better than to give that answer, right? Nonetheless, we continued the interviews for a few hours and took our notes & thoughts home with us for the night. Saturday afternoon, the pageant began at the Lobero Theatre in downtown Santa Barbara.

I was quite pleased to see a lack of silicone in our sights as the pageant began. These girls came from all walks of life – home schooled with rich parents to the general population. I honestly felt the pageant had a strong mix of the community and was pleased at how genuine each girl presented themselves. The audience was filled with parents and siblings, mostly who were cheering on their little girl.

We ended the pageant around 7pm with after going through semi-finals to pick the winners. The final contestants were great role models & I’m pleased what our other 10 judges helped conclude. Below is a picture of our judges & the winners.

Our company donated dance lessons to all contestants & a contract to publish the book of the Jr. Teen winner – a cancer survivor in the Santa Barbara Area.

Popularity: 66% [?]

With everything I’ve trained for in my life, being a race director just makes sense. Having been a runner competitively for over 13 years and having coached hundreds of people to their first 1 mile walk, let alone 5k or marathon run – I feel it is appropriate to step into these shoes.

So far, MOVFitness has hosted less than 5 races, but we are storming into the field with an extremely small carbon imprint and going to draw crowds of around 500 to our future races. We have these races setup around our retreats with destinations set in Mexico, France, Bali, and New York to name just a few.

Our greatest success so far has been the Santa Monica Boardwalk 5k/10k Walk & Run. This is a really fun event that I came up with after researching all the races in the LA area. With little surprise, I realized all the runs were through the city grid. Seriously, who wants to run through blocks and blocks of city? The view here is gorgeous and so little traffic on the boardwalk makes it nice for even beginners to run on the course.

I hope to see everyone out at our events. Feel free to ask me about volunteering or running. I can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning

Popularity: 60% [?]

Well, I gotta say, it’s nice to be right. In this facade of a falling economy, smart businesses continue to excel. Evergreen Energy, Inc. is one of those companies. Back in November, I recommended investing in this stock when it was less than 40 cents per share. Jump forward 4 months and you’ll see it now closing around $1.50 – over a 400% gain!

So now what do I recommend? You know, this stock was at $20/share back in late 2005 and I don’t think we’ll see that price anytime soon, but $5 a share by the end of the year wouldn’t surprise me. Top executives continuing to buy their own stock and further progression with deals in Asia could lead this stock into a continued upward spiral.

Any business helping with alternative energy, such as Evergreen Energy has a lot of potential. What will really set this apart from the others is their ability to follow through with future development and continue to invest in their own company. Both these qualities will result in a strong foundation to regrow the business and get a step ahead in today’s economy.

Popularity: 54% [?]

I’m glad to say that I’ve made some progress on my upcoming cookbook, 10 Weeks to Skinny. I’m excited to offer this to potential runners.  It’s not exactly a cookbook, but not exactly a diet book, either.  A very interesting twist that teaches people how to properly meal plan, exercise, and even has over 30 recipes in it.

The book is designed for people who never have ran and taking them on a journey much like I would if I were their personal trainer.  Think of this as a couch to 5k program all in book form.  For those who have already been runners their entire lives, the book is still very valuable.  I train much different than most running coaches & I’d recommend they start the meal plan from week 3.  By week 10, the book is training you like an olympic athlete, so it is really catered to just about any crowd – you just want to pick it up in different places depending on your own level of progress.

To see more on the book check out the new website: 10 Weeks to Skinny

Popularity: 62% [?]