So this is how it feels. The greatest feeling of accomplishment in my life. I've never done ANYTHING like this before...but after months of driving to San Diego, TokBox meetings, promoting, hair-pulling hair-receding stress...everything fell into place.

And it was EPIC.

It's different compared to anything I've done in the past. It's not like class project where you're presenting something that you don't care about to a bunch of random students that you don't really know. It's not like in research paper where you can procrastinate to the very last hour, and when you get desperate, beg your teacher/professor for an extension.

This was something to be seen by hundreds of friends, over a thousand fans, and lots of money. The deadline was July 25, 2009 at 3:30pm sharp. Absolutely no exceptions. Oh man, the stress and the pressure of all this was beyond intense.

But it was totally worth it.

If there's one thing I've learned in my lifetime, it's that good things -- just like BTVfam -- tend to not last forever. I've seen it happen with my old baby, www.justbball.com. I started it back in January '03, watched it grow into a very tight community of friends and bball heads...but after three years of bliss, life started to get in the way. People graduated. People started working. People got into serious relationships. All sorts of real world commitments came up and slowly picked away at the tight community we had grown...until it eventually become nothing.

That's the way it goes. Life gets in the way and people move on. Lesson learned.

Having learned that has really changed my outlook on life. I know that BTVfam won't be around forever. So that's why I always go all out. Like the whole BTVfam bracelets thing...I started it because I want all of us to have something tangible to keep us bonded. Sure, it's kinda expensive...but it's worth it. Driving to NorCal for FYS. Flying to NYC. Driving to 40 mins just to grab dinner with Paolo. Commuting to SD ten times in nine weeks for shows/FAP...It all takes a lot of energy but it's soo worth it.

Years down the road, I wanna be able to look back on all of my BTVfam memories and tell myself, "I did not take a single second for granted." For me, as long as I have the money, I will figure out a way to make it work.

I remember back in January, Jae and Ron first pitched the idea of organizing an epic blogTV meetup...and I jumped at the idea of joining the staff (granted, I had no idea how much work I was committing myself to, hahahah). BTVfam is given so much to me, so I felt like this was my chance to give something back.

After talking to Jae, we really wanted to achieve a few things:

1. Inspire Music in SoCal -- Mainstream music today sucks ass...so we want to bring back music to its purest form -- acoustic. Hopefully somewhere out there, someone was inspired by the music and/or musicans at FAP.
2. Get Our Names Out There -- It's been a blessing to hear our guys make music, and we deserve to be heard. Many people are more talented than what their YouTube stats give them credit for. We were hoping that FAP would be the perfect opportunity.
3. Bring People Together -- This was by far the biggest motivation for me. You might've heard me talk about Three Degrees of Jae/Phil/Ron/me -- how almost everyone from blogTV has hugged each other within three degrees of any of those guys.

I remember thinking, "Damn, I haven't even met Timirose but I'm connected to her through three different ways." And I was trippin' out when I found out Wilson, who I met through Jan in NYC, befriended Courtney when he moved to Vegas.

Our little BTVfam circle is tight. And after FAP, that circle got even tighter. It was such a beautiful thing to see.

I love watching those priceless moments when friends see each other for the first time. It always amazed me how many of these artists have known of each other forever but had never actually met each other. And the same goes for BTVfam. We've blogTV'ed/Skyped/Tokboxed/AIMed/OMGPOP'ed/texted/known each other for so long, the first time meetings always feel like a reunion more than anything.

I love it. I love you guys. And I can't wait to do it all again next year.

Shout Outs

• Artists -- It was an absolute blessing to see all of you guys sharing the same stage. Watching you guys tweet prior to the show, interact during the show, and upload collab vids after the show...I'm glad you guys had as much fun as I did.
• Photographers -- Thank you for all your hard work at the show. I know I kept you guys working throughout the whole day with no breaks but you guys did an amazing job of capturing all the smiles and moments.
• Staff including Adrie, Christian, Diana, Francis, Jackie, Scott Yoshimoto and many, many others -- Thank you for surviving with us, hahahahaha. Apologies for being pushy and throwing stuff on you plate last minute. Everything from reserving a bonfire pit the whole day to picking up/delivering supplies to making a last minute promo videos to endless tokbox meetings...all those little things added up.
• Glenn Clancy -- I know you weren't added to Staff until a couple days before the show...but you were the MVP for us. Managing the stage with 40+ performers in limited time is no easy task but you made it run like machine. The show would not have run smoothly at all without you.
• Jae -- When I first saw you on blogTV, the first thing I thought to myself was, "Who the F is this drunk ass motherfucker?? How does he have so much energy at 4:30 in the morning??! Why is he licking with that broomstick??" Hahahahahahaa. Damn man, we've come a long way since then. I remember standing on the bridge, looking out at all the smiles in the audience. I thought to myself, "We did this. We made this happen." Nobody can ever take that away from us.

And of course, thank you to everyone that was a part of FAP. (I tagged as many of you as I could think of below...hopefully I got you all.)

In closing, I just wanna quote the little passage that Jae wrote in the last page of the show program. I can't think of a more eloquent way to say it myself:

BTVfam would like to thank everyone for supporting this year's event. This is the first of many Playlists to come. We dedicate this show to all our friends and family that could not be here to celebrate with us. Special thanks to...all the organizations that have helped us make this event possible. To all our extended family online and offline...we dedicate this show to you.

Much love, everyone.