why am I still awake at 2 in the morning?

This has to be quick - because, as you can tell from the title, I'm up much later than I should be. What to expect in the next few days:

* For those of you new to this site - here's the gist, the three of us [Amanda, Nick and myself] are riding from Santa Monica, CA to Seattle, WA...

* We'll be updating from the road whenever possible - which pretty much narrows it down to public libraries... hopefully no less than twice a week.

* We are bringing along - ontop of the GL2 - a digital still-camera which holds around 800 pic's at a time, so if anything, we'll have major-slideshows to share when we find a computer we can plug into...

There's more... I'm sure of it, but it's very late, and I'm waking up in a few hours and I'm drawing a blank. Wish us luck - we'll need all the help we can get.

leaving

I've spent the last hour-&-a-half packing my GL2 away on my bike, then unpacking it, then again - I just can't seem to find an efficient and compact way to carry it... not to mention a safe way.

It's close - I can't hardly wait, it hasn't quite hit me full on yet that I'm leaving in the morning, but enough to keep my heart pounding all afternoon. It's time to cut myself off from the distractions, the bad habits, the routine...

cutting it close

With only a day left before we leave - we are still waiting for Nick's pannier's to show up, without them, he has no way of strapping on his thirty-some pounds of cloths & equipment... we are hoping that, despite the fact that it's memorial weekend, UPS or FedEx - which ever it is - will still deliver on sunday. But if it doesn't show in the mail, then we'll have to wait until tuesday... which will push our leave-date back till wednesday, which we just can't do.

So - just to be on the safe side, we're picking some up at a bike shop tomorrow morning. On top of this, I've been waiting for a miniDV head-cleaner in the mail for eight days now - luckily it just showed up today, which saved me $25 bucks and a trip to BestBuy.


I also just remembered I have to finish designing several "postcards" for project pedal, then get a few-hundred printed off at Kinko's - 'promotionals' I can hand out or leave stacks of on our way to Seattle... draw some more attention to the film. Giving me yet another last minute errand to run before monday morning. Here's a sneak peak:







I'm sticking with black & white on the first run due to my being dead-broke... not to mention anything I spend now starts cutting into my food-money.

should I be concerned

For the past four days my right eye has been "flickering" uncontrollably... of course not constantly, but still - in mid-conversation it just starts doing it's own thing.

may 26th - yesterday

This post is a day late - but things have been a bit busy since Nick has arrived, the three of us [Amanda, Nick & myself] have been running around all over town taking care of the last few things before sunday. For example:

* went into Burbank to buy Nick a sleeping-bag...

* stopped by our post-office to let them know we'd be out of town for the next month...

* ran into the apple store in Glendale, not really for any reason associated with the bike-trip...

* walked around Borders for a while - Nick bought two history books to bring along on the ride...

* stopped by the optometrist office to pick-up my one year prescription of contacts...

* walked into the washington mutual bank across the street from the book store to cash in on all the change in our toostie-roll bank, and on-top of the fact that there was no change machine in the bank, on my way out the crappie cardboard tootsie-roll canister buckled in my hand and it fell on to the ground... sending 15-some bucks worth of pennies and dimes in every direction... it was awesome.

Hmm, when I started this 'list'... I went into thinking I had accomplished a lot more during the day. I suppose not. I guess when we weren't busy doing the above - we've been trying to find the time to finish the following in the 30-some hours we have left:

* packing up our bikes...

* Nick is returning a rack-trunk bag he ordered from nashbar and over-nighting a set of ATB panniers...

* playing with my new toy - a wide angle lens for the canon...

* watch city of God...

This entry was suppose to be all about the 26th being the four year anniversary of my first bike trip. I guess I got carried away, now that I'm on the spot, I'm really not sure what to say about it - I suppose this post is a bit anti-climatic.

I have a few other things to write about but I'm going to give them their own post, so check back soon.

six days left...

Nick flies into LAX tomorrow morning at 10am… from there we’ll have five days until our adventure begins.

Its very odd for me to remember this same time four years ago, when I was the age that Nick is now, days away from my first bike trip. A part of me wishes there was no advice I could give him, or stories I could share… as if anything I might have shared with him in the past might have spoiled the best parts that lie ahead. But mostly, I worry that this trip won’t be long enough, or challenging enough, that it won’t drain us, both physically and mentally, to the point of exhaustion – the kind that leaves you in tears on a viscously steep hill somewhere in the middle of a dry and lifeless 500 mile stretch of desert.

My first bike trip holds so many powerful moments and memories for me, because it was so long, because it held many days that pushed me further than I would have ever imagined – I just hope this trip doesn’t come off simply as a scenic joy ride… but, in the event that it does, there is always next year.

no...

The last few days I’ve been looking around – realizing just how many things we won’t have access to, or how many things we’ll be intentionally avoiding: no tv… which I’m actually quite anxious for, no ‘daily show’… which I’m very sad about, no refrigerator, no bed to sleep on at night, no arclight… which means no early premier of ‘Batman Begins’, no work, no car… no gas, no roof over our head… not even a tent, no computers… with the exception of libraries, no iPod… unless Amanda forces me to bring it, no paying bills, no running errands, no cleaning the house, no a/c or fans...

cut off

Just a quick update on why I've disappeared - Amanda and I are house/ dog sitting for her 'uncle' Dennis in Van Nuys... the perks include: a pool with a diving board - lots of hunter s thompson I haven't yet read - an iBook & an eMac... the downside: the internet has been down the last four days we've been staying there.

Which wouldn't be so bad with the pool and the books, if it weren't for the fact that we are leaving on bike for Seattle in several days and there's a long list of post I need to get off my chest before hand.

So - tonight I'm taking my laptop with me... I won't be able to get online of course, but I will be able to jot things down in word and get them ready. Till then...

the slideshow of: my first bike trip

part one of seven [ one . two . three . four . five . six . seven ]
update: 2 - 7 replaced with interactive slideshow

I've been intending to do this for quite some time, but just recently got around to re-scaling all the images for the website - with the Pacific ride approaching fast I thought now was as relevant time as any to share them.

I have 65 images total from my first bike trip - which lasted 55 days, starting from my hometown Onsted, MI and finishing on the Golden Gate Bridge... these are in no order of importance - and yes, I'm fully aware that the majority of them aren't much to look at. But all the same, each one re-sparks countless faded memories for me...

I'll do my best to specify when and where each photo was taken, but I'll admit, I didn't do the best job at keeping track of that info'... which I regret now. If I can, I'll include random journal entries related to certain photos, and anything else I can dig up. Enjoy & stay tuned for more:


06/07 . day 13 . "A back-road in Iowa" - This picture was taken somewhere between Colesburg, Iowa & Lansing, Iowa. This is a day after we phoned Chuck from a small town [just one mile out of Marquette] and found out that his doctor said he couldn't get back on a bike for at least 30-some days... from here on out it would just be Tim and I.


"A birds eye view" - This was our second or third day on the road... Tim & I had a thing for climbing on top of stuff, while Chuck had a thing for wearing spandex pants...


06/04 . day 10 . "A bridge in Muscatine, Iowa" - I remember Tim & I were really excited when this picture was taken because the landscape was beginning to change, to explain: every last inch of ground between Onsted, MI and Muscatine is flat as... [trying to think of something very funny that is "flat"... nope, I got nothing], just trust me, it was flat. This was probably the first time in 6 or 7 days that we had seen any kind of hill what so ever. We excite easily I suppose.


"A cave in Montana" - This was the day after we first met the "pittsburgh six" at a park about 10 miles east of where this photo was taken. The plan was to ride with them for a day - but almost immediately Tim and I got the impression that they were having second thoughts, or maybe they just wanted to size us up, either way, they left us behind in a cloud of dust.

When Tim and I stopped on the side of the road to decide whether or not we should [or could] catch back up with them - we noticed that the road we were standing on divided the "look" of our surroundings in a strange way... to our left was a pure green stretch of flat land covered with tall-grass that was swaying slowly in the wind, and to our right was a dry, lifeless mountain of dirt and rock... the occasional cactus plant. These two places, that seemed like they belonged half a world apart from each-other, were only separated by the small paved road - Tim and I choose to explore the hills... thats where we stumbled onto this cave.

While I was crawling around down there, the walls of the cave were wet with something that didn't smell like water - I managed to get the back of my navy blue shirt I was wearing covered in the stuff and before I knew it - the back of my shirt had turned pink.


"A cold day on the road" - I'm not sure where exactly I snapped this photo, but I'm guessing from the look of the land that it was somewhere in Ohio...


"A lava bed in Washington" - at this point in time on our trip, Tim and I were putting in so many miles per day that we began to slack off on our journals... so I'm having a hard time remembering what park this was taken at... I do remember that this hardened river of lava was a half-a-mile across and something like four miles long, if that helps anyone solve the mystery.

Half way through writing the above - I remembered the extremely winding hills that lead up to where I snapped this picture and how Tim, who was ahead of me by twenty or so feet, had suddenly disappeared when I turned one of the corners.... I slowed down on my bike and started to look around confused, wondering how the hell Tim could have just disappeared out of the blue... right about then Tim bolted out from the thick wall of evergreens screaming, "bear!", at the top of his lungs. I almost fell off my bike... good times, good times...


"A muddy river in Illinois" - not quite sure why I took this picture...


06/17 . day 23 . "A night after a muddy day" Here is a journal entry from the day:

Due to extremely strong winds from the west... we have pulled off the road and stopped to dry off in an old abandoned cabin right on the shore of Devil's lake. I hope we [aren't] forced to sleep here tonight - there is glass all over the floor - looks like teenagers come here quite often to beat down the walls and get drunk. Tim just climbed down from the attic - he had to bust down some of the ceiling to get up there.

Today without a doubt is the worst day by far... today we have dealt with: two flat tires... a whole sky full of rain... lots and lots of mud... a long and boring dirt road with lots of loose gravel... went four miles out of the way to get food at a store that is no longer open... [and] really, really strong winds... we were pedaling our butts off out there and only making 4 or 5 miles an hour [opposed to 13 or 15 miles an hour].

It's cold... it's shitty outside... we are hours behind schedule... and it doesn't look like it's going to let up today... and I wouldn't rather be doing anything else.

06/19 . day 25 . "A really bad day" - First before I explain this picture and what exactly Tim is doing... here is the journal entry from the day before [which also happens to be the day after the entry above]:

An hour or so after I finished writing the previous page, we packed up and left... easier said than done. The constant rain fall had turned the 'once dirt driveway' to forty feet of mud and clay. It built up on our bike's tires... chain... brakes... everything - so not only did they weigh far more than normal... the tires wouldn't spin and the wind was [literally] pushing us over...

Tim was almost out of the driveway (after a good five or six minutes of pushing as hard as he could) when the mud and the wind got the best of his grip on the heavy bike - he tipped right over on his side in the mud. Both of us got a good laugh at it.

I also have a correction - earlier I said we had 2 flats - but now the score is 4 flat tires in less than 15 miles... bad luck indeed. So we walked to a wind generator for camp - we spent two hours or so down on the dock of Devil's lake cleaning up our bikes...

So, okay, now to explain the picture: Tim and I woke up after camping underneath the wind generator [which is actually a very scary place to sleep], we packed up and didn't get farther than twenty feet out of the driveway when Tim's tire went flat... for the fifth time in less than a 24 hour period. We had used up all of our inner tubes the previous day - that's when I remembered hearing if you stuff your tire with grass you can ride on it for a short period of time and not ruin your rim or spokes... which might have worked perfectly if it weren't for the 60 pounds of gear strapped to our bikes... Tim, in the end, had to run his bike to the next town - which luckily [and I'm really reaching here with the word "luckily"] the next town was only 3 or 4 miles away... not 30 or 40.


"A sunset before Iowa" - this picture doesn't do any justice to how amazing this sunset actually looked... I remember this moment very clearly - the air was the perfect temperature, the road was completely empty except for just us... Tim and I spent the evening biking and talking about faith, religion, God, evolution, life... it was probably the first level-headed, calm conversation I've had with someone on all these broad topics in my life... it was an amazing moment.

[ps. yes, I realize how amazingly boring this post was... it happens...]

14 days left

tue 17th - 10:15 am eye doctor appointment... because I'm walking around with one good contact lens in my left eye.

fri 20th through fri 27th - house & dog sit for Amanda's "uncle" Dennis.

wed 25th - brother, Nick arrives in LAX airport.

thurs 26th - marks the original leave date for 'Project Pedal'. Also: the four year anniversary of my first bike trip from Onsted, MI to San Francisco, CA.

mon 30th - Memorial Day. Also: Amanda, Nick & myself get on our weighed-down bicycles and pedal north for 1,300 miles...


Did anyone else notice that all the above dates fall on a "th" date... no "rd", no "st", no "nd". Coincidence? Perhaps.

flash woes

For quite some time - I've been intending to swap out project pedal's main page, with a less overwhelming-design. My great idea was to use flash to design a very simple main page with two links. The first being a link to the film related info [synopsis, mock trailer, etc...], and a second link to the blog you're reading right now. As a visual - I sketched the picture below with the fattest sharpie I could find:


This is actually, now that I look at it, a terrible example of what I actually have in mind, forget you ever saw it. The dark thick line that separates the road from the two links, I wouldn't have it - same goes for the thick lines between "film" and "blog", the only distinction between to the two would be the 'selected link' would be black text, and the 'inactive link' would be a light-gray text. Third; the road image above wouldn’t be an image – it would be a movie... this is where the real trouble begins, to explain:

I have a video clip in mind that I think would work well - but [keeping visitors with slower connections in mind] I'd like to set-up a "loading" screen above the two links to let people know that "something" is happening, and to please be patient. Inner monologue: “So, a ‘loading...’ screen, that can't be too difficult, right?”

It's now been weeks, and I've spent many random late-nights staring blankly at my computer screen... going over countless tutorials... all hopped up on pepsi... with nothing to show for it [but carpal-tunnel and poor night vision]. Here is the video clip I'd like to loop in my flash file:

I'm not 100% sure why I'm sharing any of this - maybe I'm hoping some overwhelmingly generous flash guru will send me an email with the answers to all my web page problems. Or maybe I’m just writing to watch myself type… that doesn’t quite work as well as “talking to hear yourself talk”.

It's late and I'm two hours past tired, so 'goodnight'.

23 days left...

I've had a strange knot in my chest for the past two weeks - an awkward tension that probably consist of nerves, excitement, worry [for example: worried that I'm not in good enough shape for this trip]... [worried that I'm going to be too broke to eat when we get back from Seattle]... [worried that I'm not going to be able to ride a bike and film at the same time, well enough to give me any usable footage to edit later on]... [etc]

I guess another part of it is; it doesn't seem real. I keep telling myself, "you're going on a 12 hundred mile bike ride up the coast at the end of this month, are you prepared?", but it hasn't really hit me yet. Which I suppose happened the first time as well, everything seemed a bit surreal the first several days into the trip.

In all honesty - my only one legit worry is that the trip won't be long enough to really have any long lasting effects on the three of us. The whole point of a bike trip is that it's a clean slate... you spend your whole life building bad habits & materialistic dependencies, and a bike trip allows you to step back far enough to see things from a different perspective. Not even necessarily a "bike trip", anyone could gain from the same effect by: "climbing a mountain, traveling to a third-world country, seeing the Earth from space...", I really thought I would be able to come up with more examples than that, but I'm drawing a blank.


Here's a slightly random but related journal entry from before my first bike trip:

feb 23 01 "My worries on the bike trip" - I don't know my exact balance - but I know I am behind on my savings. I need 11 hundred dollars by early May - and I don't even have 400 in the bank yet. Shit! I need this bike trip - or at least I have convinced myself I do... every day I wake up scared that I am yet one day closer to realizing I won't be leaving for Cali' on a bike like planned. And I hate it.

i need a new scanner...

90% of the following pictures don't look anything like they are suppose to... I tried scanning them with several different settings, but in the end, they all became overly desaturated and bright with not enough contrast. I tried to hide this the best I could with photoshop, but now they just don't look natural - I guess I should have added the 'kodak picture CD' package when I did one hour developing at 'Target'. Either way.

These don't have much, if anything, to do with 'project pedal', but I thought the website could use some 'show & tell':



I placed this one at the top because it's the worst, now there is no where to go but up... the area in the lower left half of the picture that is completely blacked-out here, isn't that way at all in the print. Anyways, enough about the scanner... this picture was a balancing act to take, the 'run-off' was only five-or-so inches wide, so I was balancing on one knee while leaning over with my head tilted almost upside down just so I could get the camera far enough down while still seeing through the viewfinder. I wish someone had snapped a picture of me while I was taking this one...


I just had to stop and take a picture of this RV'ish... thing. Actually, there were about 15 more RVs and trailers lined along this road with-in a half-a-mile stretch - if only I had a wide enough lens to fit them all into frame.


This picture was taken while Amanda and I were on our two-day coastal ride... we went snooping around two side-by-side houses in Malibu that were abandoned - the foundations had slipped, and I'm sure they were anything but safe to walk around in. This doorknob caught my eye though, I'm really not sure what happened to it - at first glance, it might look like fire damage, but there was no signs of fire anywhere else in the house... I'm guessing it's some kind of acid...


This was around 4 in the morning, on my way from helping out with the short film I mentioned several post ago. It's a complete accident - but the shutter took so long to snap it gave me this dream-like wave coming off anything that reflected light.


At the top of these stairs, about two minutes before I took this photo - this same homeless man had stumbled up behind me and shouted something I couldn't make out to maybe me... but maybe no one, I was hard to say. Anyways, because of it I decided to take this picture while he wasn't looking... that'll teach him.


This is the same house that the photo of the doorknob was taken in - about half a second after I took this picture two pigeons freaked [because of the shutter's "snap"] and came out of hiding from the rafters - they made a break for the ocean but both crashed head first into the glass doors... then they staggered back in mid-air and made a break again through the next section of door, smacking their heads again [but only one pigeon did it this time, the other was smart enough to watch] - finally on their third try, they flew over my head and left through the giant gapping hole in the wall. I tried very hard to get a picture but it all happened so fast...


It might be hard to tell in this picture because I've scaled it down so much, but the three cars ahead of me all have a 'Michael Jordan' logo on their back windows. The red'ish car on the far right was the first I spotted, we drove next to each-other for about a minute, then he moved up a few cars... then the truck that is farthest ahead in this picture passed me on my left - thirty-some seconds later I saw the car on the left merge from two lanes over... they just all came together at once and drove right in front of me. Coincidence? Perhaps...


Not much to say about this one... it's a shopping cart with no back wheels sitting in the middle of some unused train tracks.


The picture above and the picture below were taken behind a gas station just off Hwy 5 - these pic's might be too small now to really make out what all the screens say so I thought I'd list them for your reading pleasure [in no particular order]:

"1+1=3", "get it together", "everyman for himself", "need? or greed?", "face the disgrace", "point of view", "make it happen", "smile", "never too late", "[heart]", "that little voice", "taste the waste", "social-in-security", "spread demockery to all", "make art", "quantity not quality", "I.D. thief", "gotta hustle", "free-dumb", "shame on us", "health is wealth", "it's not all good", "process aint' pretty", "thoughts have power", "got war?", "never enough", more more more"...


[cont'd...] "gotta hustle", "time of fear", "what if?...", "respect for all", "angels are for real", "pray for peace", "urban voice", stop cellphone abuse", "capitol culture", "positive response", "this too will pass"...

Whew. Okay, I only took two pictures of the hill, but there were actually enough tv's and computer screen to fill up four photos. I'd be interested to meet the person who does this... it's not something you see everyday. That's all for now.