Day 1

So we started out on our journey yesterday, alex and I in our Nissan Versa. Cruise control was abused and the air conditioning never stopped as we made our way from Syracuse through the top right of Pennsylvania and into Ohio.


Eventually we ended up in Columbus, where the people who were possibly going to put us up for the night were nowhere to be found. Not to be deterred we got some amazing burritos at chipotles to kill some time. After eating we still needed something to do while calls were made and close to distant relatives were mobilized to get us a roof and a place to sleep, so we went to the local rave


(it's a movie theater) and saw robin hood, which was fairly well done, an interesting revisiting of the time honored story we know so well. The action sequences were well choreographed and the interactions between the main characters felt pretty good with the notable exception of the robin/marian pairing which seemed slightly contrived and rushed. Other than that good movie and worth checking out if you like the genre.

After the movie we had a confirmed place to stay and headed over to jeni's ice cream,


a place that had been recomended to us as "the best place on earth". Slightly skeptical I approached this supposed beacon of human creation and I raised a hopeful eyebrow at the long line of people queued to partake in this experience at 10pm. As we traversed the line we saw flavors the likes of which have never been seen, with names so odd and foreign that none remain in my memory save cherry lambic sorbet, which was the final decision I arrived at. Ladies and gentlemen the flavor which was contained in that freshly made waffle cone was unexplainable. The hype was not hype at all but an honest relation of the great quality of their product and service. My only regret is that we did not stay longer in order to sample the entirety of their collection.

After our brief ascent into the realm of flavors previously unknown we headed to a sister of a friend of alex's house. She and her husband put us up for the night in their living room and I had a lovely nights rest, a hot shower, some apple jacks and much entertainment by Kaiden, 3 years old.

We are now on the road again for the next 13 hours with a destination of a campground in southern Minnesota. Alex has the first shift and as we pass through brooksville, Ohio I'm pretty sure it's gonna be a good day.

Location:Reynoldsburg, Ohio

Day 3

Wow. Today was amazing. The beginning was kinda lame, getting up at 2am kinda sucks no matter how you slice it, but the drive wasn't bad, just one road for around four hundred miles. I had first shift, which was broken up by a lovely sunrise, many pictures were taken and then we resumed our journey to arrive at badlands national park around 9am.

There are no words. No seriously. I'll put up pictures and you can watch the videos but neither will even come close to the sheer beauty of this 70 mile stretch of land. I was in awe as we rounded a bend on route 90 west and suddenly what had been flat for lord knows how long turned into one of the most picturesque landscapes I have ever witnessed. There are mountains, yes, but they aren't what comes to mind when the word is spoken. To give you an idea of what I mean when I say that I was and am completely caught up in the atmosphere here Alex and I decided to go hiking on a trail that was supposed to take about an hour to complete. In all honesty in terms of straight speed I probably could have done it in about twenty minutes, but we stayed on that trail for a good three hours. The views were spectacular and the formations were exactly what I like when I want to play. I make no exagerations when I say that I was in full play mode that whole time. It was awesome. The most freeing part of it for me was me being my usual self. The trail we were on led through a canyon, and while canyons are fun and it was gorgeous I obviously had to kick it up a notch and find something dangerous, exhilerating, entertaining or any combination of synonyms to those wondeful words. This started with mild climbs off the beaten path, and slightly larger than safe jumps from ledge to ledge, but my aspirations were greater still. The end result was my scouting a route to the top of he canyon, by no means an easy venture with only one route that I was able to find, and the discovery of a pack of bighorn sheep(otherwise known as mountain goats) at the top that I can pretty much guarentee that no one else saw. The coolest thing with that was when they decided our presence was not to their liking and RAN down the side of the sheer cliff I had just spent an hour trying to get up, across the canyon/ravine and straight back up the other side which was equally steep. Nature win.

So yeah we're now in our tent sheltering from the rain which held off all day and I'm completely content and happy with how this day turned out. Tomorrow is mount rushmore and a drive to yellowstone where we'll be spending the following two days. I fully expect my awe and amazement to be topped again, as I said before it's only day 3, and there are so many things we have yet to do.

Two p.s.'s; one is that buffalo burgers are delicious. The other is that my computer is almost completely broken which means uploading pictures may or may not happen in a timely fashion so sorry about that :( who knows I might cave to alex's suggestion that we stop at an apple and pick me up a new piece of hardware...

Location:Badlands south Dakota

Captain's log 2

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Dreams

When did we forget our dreams? The infinite possibilities each day holds stagger the mind. The sheer number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking, and I'm sitting here refreshing my inbox.

We live trapped in loops. Reliving a few days over and over, and we envision only a handful of paths laid out ahead of us. We see the same things each day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation on the last, every moment smoothly following the gentle curves of societal norms. We act like if we just get through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us.

And no, I don't have all the answers. I don't know how to jolt myself into seeing what each moment could become. But I do know one thing: the solution doesn't involve watering down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of someday easing my fit into a mold. It doesn't involve tempering my life to better fit someone's expectations. It doesn't involve constantly holding back for fear of shaking things up.

This is very important, so I want to say it as clearly as I can.

Fuck. That. Shit.

I'll be starting to post more, hopefully, but I felt this needed to be (re)said. Change for the sake of fitting into a mold? Please.

It's gonna be ok

it's what we say when there's nothing else to say. when you are in a place thats so dark you just can't justify saying it's all for the best or every cloud has a silver lining. some clouds are just rain, and some things just aren't for the best.

it's what you say to your father when you think about how he lost a father and a brother in two months. it's what you say when the man you've looked up to your whole life feels completely broken and so beyond what the word "hurt" implies.

it's what you say when you are talking to a man that's in so much pain, the only thing he can do is breathe. it's what you say to a man whose body is completely broken, where the doctors come up to you with the look in their eyes where you know exactly what they're going to say. it's what you say to tell him that his family is gonna be alright, that we'll be there for them, and love them hopefully half as much as he did. it's what you say to him when you know he won't last another day.

it's what you say to two six year olds who don't really know what's happening, just that their father isn't there anymore. it's what you say to them when you are the one tucking them in at night and they ask why daddy isn't there to read to them. it's what you say when they cry themselves to sleep, and then you cry yourself to sleep.

it's what you say to a woman who lost the person she loved and shared a life with. it's what you say to her when she watches that man deteriorate past anything you could ever imagine.

it's gonna be ok. it's not ok right now. it's dark, and painful and we don't want to be here.

it says i feel it too. it says im going to hold you until you're done crying, and that there's light somewhere. it says that our family will mourn this loss together. it says there will be a day sometime when i can think about him and not tear up. it says that there are two children who will grow up and remember their father as someone who loved them, and is watching over them.

it's not ok right now. there are tears and pain beyond pain. there is heartache and loss. i look forward to the day when i can look back on this and not feel what i feel now. it's gonna be ok says that that day exists. it's out there somewhere.

so i'm gonna not be ok for a while. but i know that i will be, someday.

rest in peace rick.

Postponing the Inevitable

So I'm pretty sure no one has found this blog yet, and even if they had and liked the first two, they would probably be mildly dissapointed that there hasn't been a post in like ten years.  But hey, just like my journal, my entries are usuall pretty far spaced out and carry a more general trend line for my life rather than a day by day cataloguing of everything I have ever done.  

I think I actually like this way better, or maybe I just want to defend my lack of writing, because I write at intervals where I remember most things, but the unimportant things, to me anyway, kind of fade into the background and I'm left with the stuff that has impacted me the most over the past mildly long period of time.

So here I am again, killing some time putting off what might/probably will end in a fizzle like so many other things in the life of a human.  I guess I write to process, things do become clearer and I evaluate things in a slightly different way when they're in georgia, normal font size, black and white letters, but with the scarcity of the posts I gravitate to a slightly different reason.  I think it's because I'm scared a little.  

I've got alzheimers coming at me from both sides of the family and my prospects for sanity past the age of like 70 don't look amazingly good.  I care about the people around me deeply and I don't think there are many things worse than when someone you love doesn't remember your name.  I'm scared I'm going to hurt the people who care for me the most and while I don't need the minute by minute recounting of my life, I think subconsciously I want some record of who I am and where I've come from.  

Identity is a funny thing.  Many people have many different ways of defining the word but I think everyone has the same basic understanding of what it means.  It's what you mean when you say "I".  One letter representing however many years may be in your life.  All the exeriences, opinions, friends, enemies, ups and downs of the period of time since you came into this world can be summed up in three pen strokes.  I never want to lose that.  If the ink of I starts to fade off the pages of my DNA I'll be in what I consider to be possibly the worst position I could be.  Not in a position to hurt loved ones, but unable to not hurt them.  

So here I am, postponing the inevitable.  May my ink never fade, that I may never be the cause of tears on my loved ones pages.  

Variety is the spice of life?

Do you ever wonder at the ridiculous variety of personalities and character traits that exist in the world today? I do...fairly often actually. It amazes me that people can be so different, and while sometimes it can be frustrating, other times it is exactly what is needed. Pretty much every analysis of team building exercises (from corporations to baseball teams) will tell you that having three people with different ideas, values and thought processes is better than having five people who are exactly the same. Solutions that one person missed will be caught by another, the different roles in the group will be filled by those who best fit them; the directors, the organizers and so on.

On the other hand I am pretty much positive that no one can look back on their life and say that they don't wish that in some situations everyone thought like them. The wish for that unity under one thought is common to everyone in the world. Ever had an idea that was obviously the best solution to a problem and had someone argue against it because they thought theirs was the best? The time it takes to list all the pros and cons of each idea and then compare them results in a time inefficiency that often makes the goal difficult or impossible to achieve. In that moment I know I wish that everyone had my insight into that particular subject.

But how do two people, at the simplest level, decide on one idea over another? The problem of inefficiency boils down to one of communication. Both sides need to argue-not necessarily in the conventional sense but in the philosophical sense, merely stating points that lead to a conclusion, the more solid the line of reasoning the better the argument-their points and try to convince the other person of the merit of their idea. Without emotions this process might go quicker, but the time it takes would still be fairly high, and with emotions, with attachment and personal connection to ideas, the whole thing can drag out indefinitely.

What would happen if we were all connected? Not in the way some people, such as myself, believe we already are, but in the sense that all ideas, all thoughts were instantly conveyed to everyone else. In this pretend little world when you walked out the door in the morning you could flick and switch in your head and get connected to the world. How much greater would our efficiency be? I don't refer to this as a hive mind idea, rather it would be more like you having a question about something and then getting responses from all the experts in the world, and everyone in your workplace or even the world if we wish to expand the illustration, knew what you were doing and what you were planning on doing so before you started typing that memo to your boss, your secretary would notify you that it had already been done and when you were on your way to deliver a letter to a friend they would meet you halfway for coffee, knowing that you were coming the whole time. Obviously the personal and more secret details would not be broadcast but my question is what would this do for/to us?

My guess is that many people would learn many things, corporations would function more smoothly and war? I don't know about war. On the one hand my example was a willing network, one you could disconnect from, implying that people who didn't agree with the status quo could drop out. On the other hand the system in my mind implies complete transfer of ideas instantly, would this be enough to change the mind of a terrorist? The thoughts of the innocent and the logic of the vast majority of the world? What could you do against a couple billion people unanimously agreeing that murder is wrong? I think it could change some ideals for the good.

On the other other hand, we don't have anything close to this system. We have words and body language to communicate our ideas and our reasons for them. The diversity of our planet results in some lovely clashing, but because we don't know everything teaming up with people who think differently than you is still the best way to get the best solution.

Variety is the spice of life, and if it's a little hot for you, well it's just the price you gotta pay for good food.