Disclaimer: The Barton Creek Greenbelt is my favorite mountain bike trail. I might be a little biased, so bite me.
It may not be the best, or the most difficult trail in the world, but those are relative terms anyway. It's familiar, it feels like home, and it's mine. I know the different sections of the main trail and some (but definitely not all) of the backtrails. I know the sequence of the technical spots and which ones give me the most trouble, something my mind never fails to remind me of as I am trying to psych myself up to clear one. I know, from riding with others who know far more than me, when to call out before taking a blind corner or ascending/descending a blind hill.
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, other than the fact that flying Coach after knowing what you're missing out on in First Class is a heartbreaker. haha The flight was not bad, other than the fact that for some reason the EVA Airways plane had no air jets, so it was pretty hot on the plane. If only you could open the windows and let in some of that -40 degree C air, it would cool the whole plane off so well!
Also, it was rather annoying that they played some loud, flashy commercials as we taxied before take-off. Considering EVA Airways is based out of Taipei, I can only guess that this is a Taiwanese influence and not Japanese, especially after the quiet, polite, subdued nature of my experience in Japan. I should counter this by adding that when boarding the plane, they were playing classical music at a very pleasant volume. I found this to be very soothing, contradictory to how I feel about most other aspects of air travel.
Three weeks of seemingly non-stop home improvement work and wrapping up the logistics both of renting my house and moving overseas culminated nicely. One last night ride on the Greenbelt (I had my ass handed to me), one last San Marino party (Live Oak keg + moonbounce slip 'n slide = Slip Cup), many last meals and visits with friends ending with great hugs and "goodbyes" (or in my case, "Come visit!" instead of goodbye).
After the mayhem of leaving Austin was over, it was time to tie up loose ends around Grapevine. Figuring out exactly how much stuff I could take and what exactly I would need (I overpacked, as usual) and finding places to store things I just couldn't get rid of around my parents house (a few bicycles, nostalgic pictures and card/notes from old friends, and other knick knacks such as my collection of indigenous artwork from the various places I've traveled).
One final road ride with old friends in Grapevine, one of whom recently started riding and I had never before ridden with, and then Izabella was packed up and prepped for travel. I let my friends know how excited I was that they ride now, so that I can share my world with them. Oh, and we might have shared some whisky. That was delicious.
And then, it was time to go. Running on two hours of sleep, I spent nearly an hour at the check-in counter before I went through security. First, there was not enough time (right around an hour) between connecting flights in Tokyo for them to transfer the bags to my flight to Taipei, and then came the task of figuring out excess/oversized baggage for my 2 checked bags and bike.
All in all, Maritza was incredibly helpful. I was her first customer (patron?) of the morning, still sipping on her coffee as she stepped over the conveyor belt to her desk and called me up. She took the necessary time and steps to ensure that my baggage would arrive with me safely and that I was paying minimal fees to do so. Lesson learned from this experience: when traveling (moving?) overseas, the one thing you absolutely cannot forget to bring with you is patience.
By the time I made it through security, I had time to go to check in at the gate (still room on first class, score!) and use the restroom before it was time to board. Sitting down in my leather seat with 3 windows all to myself(!) and a leather ottoman, a female flight attendant came by gave me a menu (wtf?), a pair of Bose noise canceling headphones (uh, yes please!), and a complimentary copy of the New York Times. By this time, I realized about the only thing this had in common with any of my other limited experiences on flights was that I was on an airplane. I suppose I should mention that I was able to fly first class because I am fortunate enough to friends who can get me that privilege as a standby passenger for less than the price of a ticket in coach. Thank you, thank you!
Holy hell. It has been a while, no? So much has changed, and it is all changing so quickly at this very moment. But, let's cut to the chase. My flight leaves for Tokyo in a little over six hours. It is a 14 hour flight, and then I have an hour to catch my next flight to Taipei. From there, I will hopefully be successful in navigating the Taipei airport and getting myself and all my luggage on a bus. I have never been on a flight longer than maybe 6 hours, never experienced jet lag, never left North America... the list goes on.
I keep getting asked the same question: Why? Why are you going? Why do you want to go? Why Taiwan?
Honestly, I do not have an answer... Well, I can answer "Why Taiwan?" I chose Taiwan because I have friends there and have a job lined up that should allow me to pay off a substantial part of my debt, while hopefully also saving up enough money to sufficiently explore that corner of the globe.
But still, why am I going? I do not know. Maybe I am looking for something? But I do not know what I'm looking for, and maybe it will become more clear once I get there. All I know is I was offered an incredible opportunity in Moab, and I turned it down for this. Something in my gut just felt like this was right, and I still don't know why. I think a lot of it has to do with the anxiety of wanting to see as much of the world as possible. I felt that if I did not go abroad now, I would be stuck in the US forever. It is time, for whatever reason, and I plan to make the most of it.
I definitely want to start writing more, as I used to, and hope to have plenty of pictures to share as a result of getting a new camera. I will be updating my couchsurfing profile as soon as I figure out where I'm living, and hope to see you over there, as well as lots of new faces!
“…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” -Franklin D. Roosevelt
Recently, I have found those words to be truer than ever. After more than a year of bad decisions and uncertainty of what I was doing and where I am going, the future has become the present. It’s time to move on and start doing the things I have been dreaming about. I suppose the big step is that I got accepted to an alternative certification program to begin teaching this fall in Austin and become a fully certified teacher by next year. So, I will be back in Austin at the beginning of June for the six weeks of training and the job search that will follow. Am I excited? Hell yes. Nervous? Never been more nervous in my life.
Working in a restaurant for the past 8 months had made me a rather bitter, cynical, judgmental, and generally unhealthy (both mentally and physically) person. I made some good friends and had some great times but overall, it was not what I wanted to be doing, and I didn’t like who I had become. I know, I should have been stronger and not let the situation affect me so intensely, but I was not strong enough to overcome that, a failure on my part. In light of the coming career change (or career beginning really) I needed to take the time to slow down and clear my mind a bit. Plus, there are just too many things I want to do and wasting my time being unhappy is not on that list.
Just about a month ago I cleared my schedule for a week and headed to Denver for an interview and some time to myself. I stayed with a friend in Denver who had another friend visiting who needed a ride to Moab. I had a car and the free time, so I figured why not? I spent a couple days thinking it over before I actually said aloud that I would give her a ride. But during that time I could not think of a reason not to go that was good enough to keep me from going. I had always wanted to go to Moab. And so it was done.
Driving back to Texas from Moab, I was feeling adventurous and picked up a hitchhiker who happened to be a young guy from Belgium named Diego who was headed to Monument Valley. It was his first time in the US and he wanted to see the Southwest, a part of the country I wouldn’t imagine many foreigners are interested in seeing, but there he was. He gave me the info for his blog and again I was inspired by the spontaneity and commitment to his dreams. All of this really got me thinking.
I have always been jealous of people who seem to do as they please and make decisions on a whim and somehow make everything work in their favor. They always seem to be the happiest people, and I could never figure out how they did it. This has been on my mind for a while, and it seems so silly now that I have realized how it works.
The only difference between people who enjoy their lives and experience those amazing adventures and those of us who are envious of their adventures is that they are actually doing it and we are sitting around, dreaming about doing it.
Back in grade school, I did Odyssey of the Mind with 3 of the best friends anyone could ever have, and our coach would always tell us “If the judges/rules don’t say you can’t, do it.” Effectively, he was saying that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, something we have all heard. And something I have recently worked out in my head and would like to commit to is this: If there is something you want to do, and you can’t think of a good enough reason not to, do it! It’s so simple, and to think I never thought of it before.
And so, after spending less than 24 hours in Moab on a whim with a girl who had made a point to do as she pleased and meeting Diego, I fell in love and knew I had to come back. Working at the restaurant was proving to be less fruitful than hoped for, and I had secured a teaching job for the fall, so when I returned home I turned in my two weeks and began figuring out a way to spend my time in Moab until June.
WWOOFing is something I had heard of on multiple occasions, and it always piqued my interest, but I had never done anything about it. And one morning it hit me: Why not WWOOF in Moab?
And so, here I am, WWOOFing in Moab. And why? Fear. Not the presence of fear, but rather the absence of fear. Maybe the ignorance of fear would be more appropriate. After all, ignorance is bliss, right?
I may not be able to generalize, but I can at least speak for myself in saying that so many of those times I have not taken or created the opportunity to do something I wanted it was because of fear. Fear of uncertainty, fear of leaving my comfort zone, fear of making the wrong decision. And while I have made the wrong decision several times in the past year, I can at least look back and say that I new the risks but I overcame the fear of making the wrong decision and went for it. But maybe it wasn’t even the actual decision that was wrong, but rather how I went about it. Either way, I’m not letting fear hold me back any longer, and I feel I have made significant progress in committing to doing so.
Time to enjoy Moab. Feel free to visit. If not, hopefully I will see you soon.
Not a whole lot going on in the big Dee Eff Dub (DFW), but now that Sweatin' Burnt Orange is over, I expect to have more free time (i.e. more time to pick up shifts at work and try to make monies...). Speaking of Sweatin' Burnt Orange, it was, uh, a wash out... literally. I didn't get a chance to snag any photos, except for the Friday before when I went to the Real Ale brewery to pick up the kegs, but oh well. And speaking of the brewery, those guys live the life, I tell ya'! They live out in the gorgeous Texas Hill Country, where there is a never-ending supply of good, no, GREAT places to ride, and their job is to make beer! How much more could you really ask for? They seemed to really enjoy their jobs, and I only hope I can be in a similar position one day. But I digress...
The first ever (but hopefully not annual) Swimmin' Burnt Orange Bike Tour was crazy. But, it was great to not be 100% in charge, as there were at least 3 other people doing as much, if not more, work than I. Sean and I had the privilege of more or less being supervisors/consultants, which I liked very much. Anyway, the forecast all last week called for a 10% chance of rain on Sunday, and Josh even said the forecast on Sunday morning had said 0% chance of rain. Welll... someone fucked up... It rained, kinda hard, for about 5 minutes around 8:15 as everyone was beginning to get ready for the ride. But then it stopped, and we figured we were in the clear. Around 8:35, Jacob, our resident poet, bestowed upon the riders some eloquent words, and I led them out in Danielle's car. Well, about 10 minutes later, it began to rain again. Only this time, it didn't let up. In fact, it only got worse.
Now, the roads our ride follows are mostly smaller country roads with many turns, hills, and cattle guards. So, they're not boring, to say the least. In fact, there are spots that can be a bit hairy when it's dry. Throw rain in the mix, and you have a very, very sketchy course... I got to the first rest stop and decided to hang out there for a bit to see how things were going.
It wasn't long before I got a call from the leader of our medical support team. (A HUGE shoutout to MSET, by the way. Those guys were badass, and totally legitimized our little grassroots fund-raising ride. If you need medical support for any sort of running, cycling, or triathlon event, I would highly recommend them! Just call them early because they get booked up quick!)
Anyway, I hear from the guy in charge of our medical team that we've already had multiple riders go off the road, several broken chains, and people were having trouble walking, much less riding up the fairly steep, wet hills... This was all before the first rest stop, so within the first 12 miles, mind you.
A few frantic phone calls later, we determined from weather radar that the rain was not going to let up and in fact there was another storm cell to follow the one that we were currently experiencing. I was advised by the MSET leader to cancel the ride altogether, or at the very least hold everyone at the first rest stop until the storm passed. Given the information we found out from the radar, I made the difficult decision to cancel the ride...
This was just as the first riders were reaching the rest stop, and I was on the phone with everyone I could get a hold of, trying to get as many of our support vehicles as possible to the rest stop to SAG all the riders back to the start. We basically told everyone that if they REALLY wanted to ride, the only route we would support them on was the 25 mile route, but that we could SAG them in safely and they would have BBQ and beer awaiting their arrival (Josh got a call from Riley's BBQ who always does our catering for the ride, and is awesome by the way, and they offered to move the BBQ inside their restaurant, out of the rain, which was such an amazing thing to do on their part!)
At this point, we got all of our SAG vehicles, including the Mellow Johnny's mechanic and Tour de Cure volunteers to take people and their bikes back to the start/finish, and sent the medical team down the road to provide support for anyone who wanted to ride the full 25 mile course.
I ended up standing in the rain, wearing a 100% cotton sweatshirt and jeans, trying to co-ordinate everything on the phone, for about an hour and a half to 2 hours, and by the time I realized my mistake, I was soaking wet and freezing cold. But, we still had riders on the course, and they took priority over me when it came to getting a ride back.
In the end, we managed to get all the riders and volunteers out of the rain and fed in a timely fashion (riders a bit moreso than volunteers, but that's to be expected when they paid for the ride and, ultimately, our support) By the time I got back, there was nobody to be found as most riders had left, and most of the volunteers were over at the BBQ.
When all was said and done, I heard most riders were not unhappy with the ride, as we cannot control the weather, and they were just glad we were able to get them out of the ride safely and quickly.
After putting so much work into the ride, to have rain practically erase all of that work was rather disappointing and frustrating. But, at the same time, we had been blessed by beautiful weather for the first four years of the ride, so it was bound to happen at some point. Most of all, it was certainly a huge learning experience, and while I think we did pretty damn well at responding to the situation, especially considering we had not even thought of rain as a possibility (maybe a bit too much wishful thinking?) But, we can certainly use this for the future and discuss what to do in the event of rain BEFORE the rain actually happens, and hopefully have things go even smoother, should it happen again. But let's hope it doesn't.
Everyone who worked so hard on this ride did a fantastic job, and it went swimmingly (heh, get it?) and I can only hope that the ride grows to it's full potential in the years to come. I mean, seriously, Hotter 'n Hell, in Wichita Falls (i.e. flat, BFE) draws that many people on a hot summer day, and we can't get more than 300 people when we're <1.5 ahref="http: com=">Cyclebum has gotten stuck in my head (thus the post's title):
Yeah... intentions of posting a video, and then my hands threw up all over my keyboard. Well, I'm sure someone was curious as to how the ride went, and I suppose I could adapt it to a more diplomatic version and post it on the team's blog with photos that hopefully someone has.
Oh yes, and I am the new owner of a pair of very expensive running shoes... so I pretty much HAVE TO start running now. That should come in handy when I'm in Atlanta and separated from my bikes (I know what you're thinking, and I'm not sure yet how I'll cope either) But more on that soon when I actually have something to say about it.
So, as you may well know by now, I have relocated, mostly against my will, to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Yeah, I know, I throw up in my mouth a little when I hear that too... But, I am doing my best to keep an open mind and remind myself that it's for the best. Basically, things were not working out in Austin, and UT, well... yeah, uh, fuck that. Anyway, I am here now, working at a restaurant, trying to pick up a second job to repay my debt and begin saving money in hopes of leaving Texas by next summer. Where to?
The land of red rocks, Colorado! I have always wanted to live there, and it's time to start making those dreams into realities. I do miss Austin, very much so, and it hasn't even been a month since I've been away, but I think once I get to Denver, I won't miss it so much. Plus, Austin isn't going anywhere, and there's a whole lot of world out there to see!
Anyway, I managed to find a job up here at a restaurant. It's alright, and it pays, so it'll do. I've got a lead for another part-time gig that will hopefully turn out for me, and then I will have insurance too! Yay!
Being in cookie-cutter suburbia, life is a bit different, to say the least. The biggest change is the amount of driving I have been doing and the amount of time spent indoors. It's a fucking concrete jungle here, and it's hard to deal with sometimes. But, with the weather FINALLY giving us some relief, hopefully that will begin to change.
I managed to break my streak of inactivity last week, as I began riding with a local team on their weekly rides. It's your standard hammerfest, except it's all juniors and older dudes. I'm the only person in the group between the ages of 17 and 45. The first time I showed up, I chilled at the back to get a feel for the ride, and got dropped like a bad habit as the juniors attacked up front and I got stuck behind the older guys trying to keep up, and got yo-yoed off the back. They don't like to call out turns, and some even ride with aerobars, so that made me a bit nervous about riding in the pack as well.
This week, I still got dropped by the juniors, but hung with a group of 3 other older guys who were still quite strong. I took a few pulls, but overall, they kicked my ass. But, I enjoyed myself, probably more than any other road ride I have done in this area. I think the secret is simply in going harder. There's not really any enjoyable scenery or terrain out here, so to make up for it, just hammer and focus on the wheel in front of you. I dunno, but I think I'm going to keep riding with these guys. There's also one other local group that host rides I want to check out.
Also, my dad goes to work out at the city's rec center almost nightly, and after two weeks of turning him down when he asked if I wanted to join him, I told myself that if I have not yet done any physical activity that day and do not have to work that evening, that I have to go with him. As a result, I have resumed weight training and core workouts, after more than a year's hiatus. Also, he and my brother play racquetball frequently, and I have been joining them and very much enjoying myself.
That's about it for now. I have been bored and wasting a lot of time online since I have been here, so I figured I could use some of it to write here. I guess I could also work on finishing up that other blog I started a while ago...
And, I've been lonely, so there's another reason you may see me here more often.
