I wrote this super long blog about the gym, and then my internet dropped and i couldn’t save it. Here we i again.

My good friend J. Manly opened a fight gym the other day. If you look closely at the flier below, You can see J. with his big North American Championship Grappling belt. The gym is located in Berkeley off of Channing and Telegraph, its in the complex under the parking structure.

The Design aesthetic of the Gym is simple, clean and refined. The over all black and white timeless contrast pours in from every angle of the gym. The Showers and changing rooms are reminiscent of The Four Seasons meets the Mark Jacob store. Think of it this way, this is the first premium fight gym of its kind.

Its further heightend with the juxtoposition of the chandeleres and other refined details.

The gym was packed on opening day!! I took my first class aswell, after the first hour I’ve learned how to break your arm and brain, not that i ever would. Thanks J. Manly( ass kicker/ gym desinger and more) and Jake Shields (welter wieght champion) is also and instructor at the gym. This is the best fight school in the Bay Area.

WHAO! look at J.Manly’s belt!

Sign up at the gym, before all the classes are full.

The Homie Isaac Helm of ekoj showed me his latest and greatest! Issac is currenlty in the lengthy process of doing up my rear disk for my track bike.

Isaac’s been working on my disk since spring. It probably has over 200 hours of work put into it now. Haha. Wasup Isaac!!!!

Today i have a tough decision. What buttons to go with for my cardigan. The Redish color is rubbed into the button to bring out the lasered homeroom text.

Email me which one you like better. A or B (alval@homeroomclothing.com) Your choice might make it to the store.

While Niko is preparing for his California tour he is crashing at my house. Over night my home has become a recording studio, anime shop, vintage watch shop, a shoe store, and the Obama Campaign headquarters for San Francisco. That Niko and his left wing politics hobbies.

Here are the tour dates encase you want to see the best show of your life.

The Nieghborhood that Gian and I grew up in has gone to shi7 now. You can see it [here].

Our office and Benny’s “office” is a few minutes away. We get together every few weeks and shoot the spit. It’s great to see Ben’s line growing so rapidly and how he manages to run the entire operation on his own.

“When things get tough, the tough get going”. I never really understood that at all. If your tough wouldn’t you stick it out?

I send out a quote to all my friends and family twice a week. Today’s quote was:

“All great achievements require time.”
— Maya Angelou: is an American Poet

Sometimes people forget that.

I have been lucky enough to witness two very successful companies rise up in front of me as a child. It took them 5 years of growth, to just be able to pay themselves, but in the next ten years they made enough money to last them 4 life times. Even though money isn’t everything it sure would help out a lot of people that i know, that i wouldn’t hesitate to help.

I remember when HomeRoom was first started it was so exciting, because its was all in fun. We were able to make everything in-house and design everything with out the aid of computers. it was a real old world style of working and being creative. We defintly got cocky and let our egos take over because we were really, really young and  just didn’t know any better. We’re human. I remember as soon as we realised that we can’t make it all in house, and that there was stuff on the market that can give us a run, we got humbled real quick. Not to say that we don’t do aything in house any more “Le HomeRoom” is still in house, but we just couldn’t live up to what we thought we were capable of. We got through it though, and came up with a different outlook on the company and switched gears. As we grow the company to be everything that we want to be, we make mistakes. Through trial and error we explore the possibilities of design, relationships, and money. We’ve designed good stuff, we’ve also made bad stuff. We have made good relationships, we have burnt bridges, we made money, we lost money, it all comes with the experience of having your own company in an industry that has no guidelines. So, while the tough get going, the faithful give it time. With time all wounds heal and all things come full circle. The bigger picture takes years to expose it self.