Vagabonding begins!

A trickle of sweat ran down my overheating cheek.

Tens of thousands of strangers were shouting at me, pointing, there was no place to hide as I made my way down the street…..

No, It wasn’t an angry mob finally forming over my reluctance to get a proper job in 2.5 years. There were no pitchforks or not even a single rotten tomato was thrown in fury. it was the Independence Day parade and I found myself right in the middle of it!

For the first time ever, I wasn’t on the outside bumping elbows with onlookers. I wasn’t having slushies, random fried objects, and all the other filth that Americans feel the need to eat at parades spilled all over me…I was actually in the street where the action was!

Tops in Lex, the local magazine that I have been shooting pictures for invited me to walk with them in the parade. It was a strange experience, with literally thousands and thousands of eyeballs burning down on me from windows, bridges, and the sidewalks. It was also exhilarating. We had a limo, mostly for show, and all of us swarmed the streets in our dangerously yellow T-shirts to join the politicians, midgets, and other oddities that you find in a parade.

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I knew something was wrong from the moment my bare feet touched the ground this morning.

I climbed out of bed with a slight groan here, a subtle pop there. A shifting of something inside my spine that probably shouldn’t be shifting. I looked around waiting for my brain to slowly finish its reboot for another day and then realized……

I’m one year older!

So I just turned 25 today….plus or minus 8 years….and would like to say that I don’t feel any different.

Sitting here now, my back is reminding me of the nasty fall I had climbing a few years ago and even my hernia that I received exactly 3 years ago today (courtesy of my first skydive) is tingling. For some reason when I am sleeping on the ground, or trekking up some unnamed hill, all of these ailments disappear…..my conclusion is that staying indoors makes you old.

Birthdays have always been special to me. Anyone that can survive another year on this insane planet deserves to get a cake and eat it too. I thank God for letting me see 33 of them, I’ve been given enough second chances to upset the whole system.

Lyndsey made a big deal out of my birthday by inviting loads of friends, both old and new, over for a surprise cookout. It was fantastic, and despite it being a work/school night, we partied like it was the last birthday for any of us. Ever.

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The ARMY Rangers were famous for something called a “Ranger pause”.

When they entered the woods or jungle on a mission, rather than just blundering forward, they would sit for 15 minutes or as long as it took for everyone to get their “pause”. No talking, moving, or messing with gear was allowed until everyone had aligned themselves with the woods and knew all the ambient sounds. By doing so, they became a part of the environment, rather than just guests in it - giving them an advantage.

It does work, and I try to practice it every time that I go on a hike or hunting.

Last week, while on a hike at a nearby nature preserve, it didn’t take a pause to know that something was up. Something different.

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Its almost like looking under your car as your are filling it with gas, only to see that same gas pouring out and going down a drain.

And so, after more than 2 years of maintaining this blog, sometimes in very difficult situations while traveling, I have watched my readership crumble from more than 400 readers a day to around 50 die hard fans (or maybe my mom hitting the refresh button 50x to make me feel good). This blog has reached over 68,000 unique readers and hopefully inspired at least one fed up cubicle dwelling guy to rip off his tie and make a Rambo style bandanna with it around his head. Believe me, it hurts to see hard work come undone.

But who can blame them? 29 months ago I vowed to make this a travel blog, and not an online diary. Sure, I have shared some personal things along the way, but the bottom line is that no travel for the last 6 months = very little to write about. I doubt people want to hear about my latest dinner adventure or how my shoelace broke this morning.

They want the same thing that I wanted 3 years ago when I was sitting in a cubicle reading blogs…. ADVENTURE dammit….ADVENTURE!

The fact remains, like an aging sex goddess from the 70’s, this blog has peaked and is now sliding down the ugly side of the hill with varicose veins and mysterious growths starting to appear.

And so, maybe its out of nostalgia for the golden years when readers were sending me loads of emails, or maybe its because I’m slowly but steadily going mad and feel the need to document my decline for future generations…I have decided to start writing again, pretty much about anything I can wrap my greedy little brain synapses around.

I guess I could say that this blog is going through a metamorphosis, but that’s too much of a buzz-word (plus, it conjures up images of larvae and crawly things oozing out of shells). So its simple, if you want to read I will love you forever. If you don’t, there are lots and lots of other productive ways to spend your lunch break on the internet….grooming for example: http://www.nobodyhere.com/justme/nose_send.here

Moss growing on a log

My favorite month.

Maybe I’m a little biased because I was born in June….making me a Gemini (twins), and according to some, gives me an excuse for acting schizophrenic. (I agree) wait…no I don’t. (yes I do). Never mind.

Like clockwork, I saw the first fireflies of the season last night. It never fails, every June they rise up out of the wet grass and announce that summer is back. Like the constellation Orion, I’ve sat in a lot of different places and watched those fireflies. One of the most memorable being sleep-deprived, covered in mud, and wanting nothing more than just 15 minutes of peace with no shouting or firing, during training in the Army.

I love the summer. It feels good to sweat….to be bitten by hungry things with wings…..to damage skin cells with Ultra-violet radiation. On the upcoming agenda… a serious rock climb, kayaking, fishing, anything that is soft on the budget but heavy on adventure.

Life is good. No it isn’t. Wait…yes it is….

My job is so hard

Trabajo!

During my photography gig in Acapulco for American Eagle, my buddy Jason and I came up with that as a codeword for approaching strangers for photos….as well as leveraging the press passes to get into the VIP sections of every club in Acapuclo.

Once again, I find myself doing that (minus the VIP), and having a blast!

I recently got with the folks at Tops magazine here in Lexington as a freelancer and have already been on 2 shoots. The pay isn’t exactly extraordinary, but these are pretty cool guys and I’m definitely a sucker for a local creative upstart. Even better, it gets me out into local events and meeting interesting people.

As a perk, the photographers get to retain the rights to their photos, so I have been placing them on www.kyphotographs.com.

Its nice to point my camera at something different than horses.

Geez….this blog went from being the “life is good” blog to the disaster blog!

10K people dead in Chengdu, China. I spent 2 weeks there back in November, and still have a couple of nice friends there that I have not been able to get in contact with since. I got to know the guest house owner and some of the workers at Sims and wonder how his brand new building survived.

It is scary stuff knowing that people you were clinking glasses with a few months ago might be under a pile of rubble at the moment.

I have to give the Myanmar regime (Junta) in Burma credit….every time I start to think that they couldn’t get more blatantly, disgustingly evil, they find a way to prove me wrong.

If you didn’t hear, the recent cyclone that hit Myanmar has killed an estimated 60,000….most of which are still lying around contaminating the remaining food and water. Educated men are guessing that 100K people will be dead in a month because of no clean food/water.

The US and UN have both sent people and supplies - crates of high energy “biscuits” that allow people enough calories to survive on a couple a day….like something from Star Trek. So what did the regime do? They seized the supplies!

They took the loot, turned around the aid workers (by saying that the paperwork for their visas didn’t come through!!), and pretty much said “we’ve got it covered from here…but send more goodies”. You’ve got to be kidding. Every leader in the world knows that these bastards intend to distribute the food only to government/military and their families first. Meanwhile, the average person in Myanmar is screwed.

These lying sacks of shite have done it before, so the world responded by haulting planeloads of food - after all, why give high-tech food supplies to Myanmar’s 500,000 strong standing army? They maintain the largest and most brutal army in Southeast Asia, and even have some love from China - frightening.

Somehow, we’ve got to get these guys out of there. That is exactly why I just launched the site http://www.peacbookings.com. The money goes to raise awareness and to put pressure on our political leaders to keep Burma in the spotlight. I know it isn’t much, but its better than nothing.

My home in suburbia before selling it to travel

I went on one of my usual, periodic neighborhood walks last night to get away from the laptop and to get some circulation flowing in my numb bottom. The walks give me a much needed chance to be on my own away from electronics, and more importantly, a chance to think.

This particular walk stands out in my mind enough to write about. As I made my way up a nearby street, a gray haired man was taking out his garbage. In the dim yellow light of the streetlights, I could see that he was looking at me quite closely. Even once he got back inside, he stood staring at me from behind a glass door, frozen in place, watching stone-faced in a way that almost seemed hostile. He didn’t even flinch when I threw a friendly wave.

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True story. Inspiring. Great directing. Slightly depressing…..but a must-see for vagabonding types.

Go get this movie….!

(and thanks to Amanda for the suggestion)