Sunday, 27. July 2008, 22:54:28
Correspondence, Road Trip, Travel
I have a dear friend who is a reporter in Mexico City for a large US company who I met through surfing. Even though he is a little younger than I am he has been a great source for "adult" conversations. He has so much passion and energy for life that he is exactly the kind of person to bounce ideas off of during my search for my calling. I hadn't corresponded with him in a while so I wrote him a letter telling him about the beginnings of my adventure across the country, which I have also talked about on this blog. He wrote me back, telling me of his travel plans to Spain and back to the States to see family and a possible hop down to the Caribbean for some warm water waves.
I'm posting my response to keep a record for myself. Because not these communications are as much a part of my journey as the places I visit. I hope that I can read this later and find that I have taken my friend's or my own advice and found myself closer to finding my passion.
Brah-Dude,
One night stands happen. It is our zest for life that lures us into such ventures and we occasionally are no more than passengers on the ride of our lust.
Trippp is moving to Maui on the 12th of August. I'm hoping to catch him one more time in Chapel Hill before I start the HoJa march. I am excited to walk, but I do feel that I could be spending my time spending the same amount of money crashing on your couch and checking out MC or revisiting my love affair with Barbados. I got the taste of hostels again in Montreal and it lingers still. Meeting people and hearing their stories is something that I really love; everybody's story is unique, but the more stories you hear, the humanity that connects us all surfaces and I think it's a very cool thing. Plus meeting fellow travelers is a special circumstance, you can create accelerated friendships that can be so amazing because of the sureness of their brevity.
It sounds like you well and spry in Mexico, which is good to hear. Trippp and I spoke a lot about you and your sister on our drive. We agreed that you both have a solid head on your shoulders and are not only sure in your shoes but perceptive to the undercurrents of group dynamics - basically you are pretty chill. Most of this was stirred by a seminar I took for work about personalities. We took a test that told us our unconscious motivator in life. Mine was to seek enjoyment and avoid pain - not too bad. But you also have a secondary set of behaviors, adding some complexity to your Print. The seminar was fun and added a lot to our ongoing conversation about our parallels in circumstance: achieving a success that brings no satisfaction. It helped answer the question we have both been asking ourselves, how can we walk away from such great opportunities, opportunities that my family has never come upon so easily or that my classmates from high school and college haven't found. No offense to Joney and Whitney, but having my two closest college buddies still living at home makes it hard for them to be good sounding boards for someone in my situation. I think you and I have some things in common that the others don't in that we are thinking bigger, not in subjunctive fantasy, but with the weight of responsibility. We feel we are capable of big things and therefore prohibited from squandering the opportunity. From what I know about you, you want to make an impact in a positive way on human issues that really matter. Me, I feel like a sports car with the engine revved but the transmission in neutral, yearning to charge on all cylinders just unable to pick a direction. But I did learn a valuable lesson over the past 18 months and that is what I don't want. Seattle will bring change. If it is not what I truly want I will change again, but I am at least putting the car in drive. There is a creative and passionate spirit in the Northwest and I hope to know it. I hope that I find something to pursue for more than money and security. I am young still and the zest for life that leads us to lustful indiscretions can also lead us to where we most need to be.
Send some surf pics, or any pics for that matter, if you get a chance. I just bought and SLR (Cannon EOS Rebel XTi). I'll pass on anything worthwhile that I take on my way out West.
Good luck and good waves brah,
NCB
Friday, 25. July 2008, 23:53:58
Adventure, Hiking, Travel
Having graduated from such a wonderful university, which provided me with countless memories of good friends and good times, leaves me feeling a need to pay my respects, in some way, to my alma mater. What better way to honor the halls of where I explored economics, history, art, beer and girls than to follow in the footsteps of its first student, literally? So with good intentions and a great deal of nervousness I am recreating Hinton James' semi-historic hike from Wilmington to Chapel Hill - the coast to the piedmont. 170 miles, no shade, no trail, just a few friends and masochistic bend. Blisters be damned.
www.hjwalk.com
Thursday, 24. July 2008, 16:37:18
I have cooled down a bit since my last post. However, I have called no less than six AT&T stores and none have the iphones that are plentiful at the Apple store - truly punished for my business. I tried to go to an AT&T store this morning to get a cheap phone while AT&T got its act together and got the phones, but the cheapest phone is $200 bucks. There is no phone cheaper than that. Think about that. Luckily for me I have insurance on my phone that took a swim and for $50 they are sending me a new (refurbished) phone - they being assurion the same company Verizon contracted to some of its insurance work and was successfully sued by a group of customers for being shady and screwing them out of money and sending them bad equipment. So in the end it is only costing $50 for a phone to use while I'm waiting for the opportunity to spend $500 on the iphone. I must be some kind of genius.
Wednesday, 23. July 2008, 22:01:01
Having lost my phone when my canoe capsized, I needed to get a new one quickly. The timing could not have been better because for my birthday my parents said they would buy a new iphone when it came out. So it turns out, the cheapest thing for me to do is to get a new iphone, which is also what I would get if money were no object. I am pretty sure this should be filed under win-win. But it turns out that Bill Gates himself designed the new iphone purchase procedures. So below is the letter I wrote after a frustrating stop in Albany on the way home from Montreal which left me seething. I did not send this letter, except to my friend Joney who waited in line for his new iphone because he has that kind of free time and is, apparently, the bee’s knees.
Dear Steve Jobs,
My favorite thing about Apple is that it just works, you plug it in and you are off to the races. It was with that in mind that I journeyed to the Apple store to buy a new iphone. Upon arriving there I was overjoyed to see stacks of them ready to be sold and I happily waited in line to get my very own. Luckily for me I switched to AT&T in January to make getting the new iphone easier, since it only works on the AT&T network. It turns out that since I have AT&T I get to pay double for my own piece of the craze, something I am more than happy to do since I have purchased multiple iPods and have a Mac at home; I understand that loyal customers must take their place in the back of the line. Furthermore, not only do I get the pleasure of double the price, I get the joy of mingling with Joel at the AT&T store while he talks on his Bluetooth to his shorty, because the Apple store can't handle my discount from work. But malls being the one stop shop that they are, I simply took the elevator and waited my turn with those good folks at the AT&T store who are proving that college degrees aren't necessary and I was gladly informed that not only does the AT&T store not have the iphone, but no stores around have them. This obviously excludes the Apple store a few meters away - those are just for the blessed Johnny-come-lately’s, not us lowly loyal Jobs followers. Supply chain blunders aside I would like to thank you for holding on to your core principles of simplicity and customer satisfaction.
Here is a spoon, eat my a**hole.
Regards,
NCB
Wednesday, 23. July 2008, 20:57:37
With the border control agent assured that we were carrying no weapons and planned only to stay one night in her country we made haste through southern Quebec towards the old Olympic city of Montreal. After abandoning our French only rule in the car we wondered how we would fair in a city known for being unaccommodating to English speaking buffoons such as ourselves, who had stumbled into French speaking Canada. I was hoping that our fears were more hype than reality but the ubiquitous “Un Noveau Pays!” signs on Quebec flag adorned balconies, had me hoping that my French was still fresh. It was not, but we managed without hindrance.
Planning ahead not being our style we tagged along with some folks from the hostel through the clean and efficient metro from Jean-Talon station to the McGill campus stop. Our new friends knew of a jazz club known for its New Orleans style. It turned out to be more big flop than big easy so we ate quickly, drank more so and rallied to pub lined Rue Crescent, looking for some action. In Tijuana fashion, most of the places were cavernous and empty inside with the balcony terraces packed to give the illusion of a capacity crowd. We settled on Thursday, possibly a play on Friday’s? It took only a couple Molson Dry’s to lubricate the conversation and only a few more to get Trippp and the girls dancing on the rotating dance floor in the basement club. Before we knew it, it was half passed three and we were tripping over the owner of the hostel who had fallen asleep on the porch escaping the humidity and heat.
Birch Island was a serene getaway as Montreal was a beautiful, slightly exotic escape. It reminded me that traveling only stirs the passion for more travel. Luckily for me my road trip to Seattle has yet to begin.
Wednesday, 23. July 2008, 20:35:17
$4.37 a gallon and a climb into the heart of the Adirondacks ahead of us – at least we were splitting the gas. Birch Island is appropriately named; smack in the middle of Upper Saranac Lake, New York, it wicketed by White Birch and Evergreens. The island is a summer home for six familys who bought an old camp in the 1950’s. Accessible only by boat, I was sprawled on the bow of Trippp’s runabout nervous that our gear would blow into the lake as we made our way towards the island.
All things accounted for and dry - for now - taking in the island by way of a path that runs its circumference, hand carved by Grandpa Wilson Sheldon, I could understand how one could lose track of time on this remote buoy of land.
Upper Saranac Lake is not for beginners in the second home game. The after dinner boat ride was as tour of the boathouses of the rich and famous. CEO hardly set you apart in this crowd. But Birch Island is unassuming, quaint and rustic. The interior of the Sheldon’s home is remarkably unchanged since the forties. The water from the faucets is pumped directly from the lake and laundry dries on the line.
Our tour guide was Trippp’s mother, who knew not only who owned every mega mansion away from home and where they were from, she had the dirty details on their personal lives. “She took the kids to Hong Kong and he is divorcing her,” described a mammoth house that had subdued the surrounding nature. “You know Stanley tools? That money built that boat house.” Mrs. Sheldon had just dropped off a casserole, by boat, of course, for a family who had lost a grandfather. She had the place pegged from the northern shore to the canoe carry to Middle Saranac Lake.
We woke with gusto and the smell of blueberry pancakes on Sunday morning, our first full day on Birch Island. We had planned a two day canoe/camping trip south and were eager to explore the Adirondacks from the water. But it rained. It rained all day. We trimmed the second day off our trip and finally pushed off the dock Monday morning. We paddled into a headwind through Upper Saranac and carried our canoe through the woods to Middle Saranac, helpless to stop the feeding the mosquitoes from sucking our blood. Thinking we were clear of our bug problems, we explored southward through the lake that had been carved glacier’s blue ice ages ago.
Picture the old Peanuts cartoons with the cloud of dust circling Pigpen. Imagine a cloud twice that thick but made not of dirt but blood thirsty mosquitoes. That was the image I saw in front of me enveloping Trippp’s head as we paddled through the marsh of southern Middle Saranac on our way to the locks, the gateway to Lower Saranac Lake, the largest of the three lakes. Our only solution was to paddle like hell. We did such a zealous job of paddling that in an instant our paddles were flying and we had capsized in leach infested waters with our gear floating in away in all directions. If it weren’t for the teenage boy in a Department of Environmental Conservation boat that happened on us shortly after we flipped, we would have been up you know what creek having abandoned our paddles. The weather, sensing trouble, turned quickly and our boat ride to civilization left us blue-lipped and shivering. After a nap in a warm bed, only my phone, sunglasses and one of Trippp’s sandals were unaccounted for or worse for the ware.
Saturday, 19. July 2008, 13:43:10
Modern science has finally done it! I am riding shotgun through scenic upstate New York and I can remain totally oblivious to nature by surfing the net with my new wireless card. Thanks AT&T, no more do I have to waste all of that time appreciating God's beauty and can better spend my time playing spider solitaire and internet hearts.
But my joy truthfully comes from today being Saturday. And not just any Saturday, the first Saturday after leaving my job. Not only is today Saturday, in a way, tomorrow is also Saturday and every day after that will be Saturday until I get another job. Being liberated from corporate stiffness hasn't set in yet but I'm enjoying the early intoxication of freedom.
I am driving to Saranac Lake with buddy Trippp for a long weekend - but isn't it now just one long weekend for us both (Trippp recently quit his banking job in Richmond to move to Maui) - full of canoeing, hiking camping, water skiing and hopefully a trip to Montreal for some delicious french fries and Gravy.
I will start my search for the job that isn't very soon, but for now I am taking in the scenery out the window and on my screen, taking a few days to decompress and let life unfold as it may.
My road trip to Seattle with my buddy Joney will now probably be a solo trip so I am taking suggestions from anyone about can't miss things on my trek to my new home. As of now I'm thinking some white water rafting in Tennessee, maybe the Big Easy, perhaps Vegas. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Wednesday, 16. July 2008, 15:39:02
Until recently I never understood the scarcity of life. I blame this squarely on my childhood. Because of it have always struggled with picking what I want to be when I grow up. The main reason for this is that I want to be everything. As a child, I found fun in everything I did, I could see myself having a good time as a janitor pushing a garbage can and jumping on for a brief ride, or as an astronaut, or a musician, or an economist, teacher, lawyer, or librarian. My error is that I assumed that I would get to try them all.
While growing up, school was the penultimate experience in life, after playing outside. And school was an unending tunnel of experiences, linear and with nothing left out; everything to be looked forward to was a grade or two ahead - the science fair in fifth grade, lockers in sixth, electives in seventh. The crux of what led me to my misperception of life is that I got all of the things I was waiting for. I presented a science fair project, I had a locker and I chose my own electives. I even wore a cap and gown, twice. But the one lesson I failed to learn was that life was not as school was. I cannot be passive and subjunctive about my life waiting for the next event to appear while I'm ushered through it.
I recently discovered that time is a commodity, very much like money, only more like a debit account with a no deposit policy, making it scarcer and therefore, more valuable. This is pretty late in the game for an econ major to wrap his head around the concept of scarcity, but I had to learn it for myself and at my own pace.
Discovering that I couldn't try everything was a heavy realization. It took some time to sink in and had a paralyzing effect for while. Now that I can move, I feel that I must choose something that I think I myself want, not what happens to cross my path. I will probably make the wrong choice, but I am happier to aggressively choose incorrectly than passively decline to choose.
With that in mind I am choosing something big. I am moving from DC to Seattle with no job, no want for a job, and no idea what I will do when I get there. Further seizing the opportunity at hand I will take an extended cross-country road trip for the second time. The highlights include:
-Canoeing, hiking and camping in Saranac Lake, NY
-Hiking from Wilmington, NC to Chapel Hill, NC (167 Miles), retracing Hinton James' steps as he walked to be the first student at UNC
-Hike in the mountains of western North Carolina
-Carolina BBQ
-Tennessee BBQ
-Austin, TX's live music
-Texas BBQ
-Hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
-Surf in San Diego
-Surf in Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach, CA the town of my birth
-Visit family in San Francisco, maybe catch a Giants game
-Microbrewery tour from Chino, CA to Portland, OR
-Bumbershoot music festival in Seattle, WA
So this is the beginning. I know I don't want a job or a life like the 45 hour a week consultant I have now. My sincere hope is that I will discover my passions and answer the question of what I want to do when I grow up that I have, until now, passively left unanswered.
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