Hello California!

Good to be back, in all of your waterless glory.  Gotta go dip my toes in the Pacific before it gets away.  Got at least a week off, and then maybe another big job for a while, with the best, most ridiculous director I am lucky to be able to work with.  Life is good, X-Games were awesome.  Love is lost, but always sweet when it shows up for a few.

Chill out week, here we go.

The Things That Just Keep Happening

Thoughts from right now:

hello world.

Reporting from Austin Texas now.  Imagine that.  It’s no south american World Cup, but it is the Austin Summer X-games.  Somehow I managed to land myself put up in the Hyatt for 12 days, and I have no idea who I think I am when it comes to things like this.  

Life is behaving pretty greatly.  I should write some more LOV stuff.  I should write some more stuff.  Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda, never does anybody any good. 

Anna sent me this link today for a TED Talk about how some languages don’t have the subjunctive tense and how it seems to serve them well, at least when talking about the past.  If you don’t have the vocabulary or grammar to describe how things could have or should have been, then those things don’t torture you with regret and doubt.  When referring to the future, however, they facilitate the impossible becoming reality.  In that way they are great for mankind.

This Austin trip is interesting.  Seems lonesome, but welcomely so.  A little time for me to spend with me.

(a few hours break)

Ok, i’m back.  So much for lonesome.  Even though it kind of still is… there are people all around.  I was sitting in the lobby for just a few minutes really.  My food hadn’t even come yet and Jason and Josh showed up back from dinner to get a drink.  Of course they bought my next one, as gentlemen do, and we sat on the patio for a while, chatting and appreciating.  

And now here I am, sipping on some sizzurp? how the fuck do you spell that anyway?  All by my lonesome at the Hyatt in Austin, on the patio just on the river, right next to the bat bridge.  I  like to think one day my writing will be interesting enough that someone will research the bat bridge, and they will sit around in an English or history class talking about the reference.  Very, very unlikely.  

When I think about great writers, and the way people study them, and they way we, who are not great writers, have made a list of “literary techniques” to identify and appreciate, I think the truth about the writers is different.  I can't imagine they even try to use the “techniques”.  I suspect it just comes out that way, while editors tidy things up a bit.  Its simply how they see the world, just as true mathematician doesn’t understand why these formulas need any explaining at all.  I do like to think I have a bit of that in me, I’m just a little less dedicated to the calling.  I get distracted by all of the shiny things.  The shiny things are fun and have served me well, so I don’t mind.

I don’t know how to tell a story.  I like to document the story I live though.  And if I’m going to do that, I like to live a good story.  

The most recent story, with photo evidence soon to come:

Left LA to drive solo (the start of the kind of lonesome theme) to Austin late Monday night (technically Tuesday morning at 3am).  I arrived at the Organ Mountains just out side of Las Cruces, New Mexico by dusk.  I camped out (in my car) to wake with the sun and mosey in to the White Sands National Monument by 8 am, where I got to run around in the desert for a while, before driving the rest of the way to Austin,  Texas to work the first ever XGames event in Austin.  This whole thing is cooler than is worth putting in to boring words so far, and the actual event hasn't even started yet.  And now I am where I said I was in the beginning of this post, after driving golf carts around the massive venue exploring all day, standing at the top of insane structures amazing people will ride wheeled boards and bikes down and around, and preparing to host thousands of people who appreciate them for doing so.  After work I took a lovely run by the river, and watched at least the start of what is estimated to be a total of around 1 million or so bats fly out of a bridge to go hunting insects for the night.

Anyway, I think I'll add some pictures tomorrow... Check back if you please.

Kicking Ass, or Something

It's 11:30pm on a Tuesday.  I'm 28 years old and wondering what most normal people my age do at 11:30pm on a Tuesday.  Then I realize there is probably no such thing as normal, even though there seems like there would have to be.  But then again, what does it matter what most normal people, if there is such a thing, do at 11:30pm on a Tuesday, because they are not me and I am me and this is all I've got so I'll do whatever I damn well please, thank you very much.

So anyway, as I was saying, it's 11:30pm on a Tuesday, and I've had several glasses of wine.  I'm in California, as previously stated, and embarking on a kind of new beginning over here.  Old friends, new missions.  If I had to guess what normal people were doing, it would be something like, "developing their careers," "getting to bed at a reasonable hour," "getting ready for work tomorrow," "studying up on these marketing strategies," "being a real person."

Me on the other hand, I'm not a real person.  I'm merely a figment of my imagination, and maybe of yours too.  Sometimes it's a dream come true over here, and sometimes its a total nightmare.  Whatever it is, its conjured up somehow and brought to life.  Sometimes I feel like I have control over it, sometimes I feel like I'm being shoved this way and that.  

It's been a wild ride, all 28 years of it.  Well, maybe just a few less.  The first several years I can't quite recall.  But as far back as I can retrieve it seems to have been... words fail me.  There was a lot going on, we can just leave it at that for now.

I've been riding some kind of wave for the past several months that seems to be treating me well.  At this point I get the feeling that this wave is slowly fading out, but god damn did I get some great turns out of it.  Surf mojo is back, and I'm feeling like I've got a clear shot to paddle out and catch the next one.  Looks like a pretty good one coming my way.  

This last one was a bit of a mystery.  I pretty much paddled out into familiar but foreign waters, and dropped in on something gnarly.  Results were better than could have imagined, and I'm grateful the sun, and the stars, and the people that aligned to be a part of it.  

As for now, I guess I can't say too much cause I don't really know just yet.  I just keep believing I'll be better than fine.  I guess I have to, cause why else would I keep it all up?

New Post Again

So, it has been a while.  Sorry about that.  And here I am, again, on the left coast USA.  Something about that Pacific Ocean, always calls me back.  I have my affairs with other bodies of water and other alluring landscapes, but time and time again, I find myself here at the edge of the North American continent, gazing west.

I had a plan (kind of) way back when I started this blog.  Then I guess I had another plan (kind of) when I disappeared for a little while.  And now I have no plan, and in a way I feel like I'm right back where I started.  But that couldn't possibly be, could it?  It's been 2.5 years since I last wrote here, and 3.5 since I first wrote here.  I must have gotten SOMEWHERE.  Right?  I would certainly hope so.

Many things have happened.  I abandoned you.  I feel I owe you an explanation.  But you know what, that's just not going to happen right now.  You'll just have to trust me that I had an interesting time while I was gone, and I learned some things, and it feels nice to be back.  So if you'll have me again for a while I'll try to tell some more stories.  Maybe you'll like some of them.

Sorry for the typos.  Sorry for the run-ons.  Sorry for the shitty grammar.  I hope you'll take me as I am.  I promise to always strive for better.

Is there anyone alive out there?  Can anyone hear me?

Duty Free

Shopping while you fly is the most fun way to buy!

That's the United Airlines jingle for their in-flight Sky Mall, played on the screen while we wait to take off.  How ridiculous is that, really?  You can shop till you drop until you get to the gate, and then you can shop some more from a catalogue in your seat.  Seriously, can people not take just a few hours off?  Who the hell gets on a plane and decides they need a pearl necklace anyway?!

I just landed in SFO, and had a step outside to breath some California air and absorb a little California sun.  People talk funny here.

Of course, the US dollar is now, for the first time since I arrived in Australia, stronger than the Australian dollar - really, on the day I leave Australia it changes.

My time in Australia was too good.  So good that I don't even want to talk about it really. But I will say this: all the adventures, all of the fun, all of the beautiful scenery, all was wonderful.  And then, there are just a few people who will also stay with me forever, and that's really something.

I'm hungry, and have one more flight to go.

Dear Blog,

I'm a slacker.  I know.  But I'm here now, so I'll tell you what.

I'm in Cairns, way up north.  Staying with Christina who used to live in a tent on our backyard in Byron.  Today I'm heading out to sea to dive the Great Barrier Reef for a few days.  You get to sleep out on the reef and everything, should be a good time.

I'm pretty grateful for tropical weather at the moment, and also grateful for Australia in general.  The only thing that sucks about Australia is knowing that it's here all the time, even when I'm not.  Also, there no Sierra Nevadas, or Rocky Mountains or anything really comparable.

Slacking on photos, slacking on content.  Got a lot on my mind.

Going back to the good old North East USA in a couple of weeks, and quite looking forward too it.  In the mean time, I'll go look at some fish.

Australia Again

That pretty much sums it up.  Back at Sydney International, waiting for my shuttle to come pick me up and bring me to a hostel.  It's raining hard, I'm feeling pretty under the weather and my flight was 12 hours early.  Yeah, that's right, 12 hours early - which made me realize that I had no idea how f'ed up my original flight plan was.  I lucked out.

More soon.