here's to friends

Well folks it’s been about a year and a half since I graduated college and I still don’t know what to do with  myself.  My last two blog entries were about my part-time jobs.  In May I quit both of them and embarked on a coastal roadtrip.  The trip took me from friend’s houses in Eugene, Oregon, through camping on the Oregon and Northern Californian coast, down to San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, San Diego, Lake Arrowhead, and Ashland.  This trip was originally envisioned as a journey of self-exploration.  But the longer I traveled the more I realized that I am much happier when I am exploring the world and other people rather than myself.  It’s not too tricky to explore myself, I’ve lived with the guy for 23 years.

In the last few months I have dealt with some issues of anxiety and depression.  So I gave myself some free time do some ‘soul-searching’ through journal writing, traveling, and recreational drug use and I am thankful for that opportunity, don’t get me wrong.  I fully admit that my existential angst has been largely produced through my own voluntary life choices.  Existential angst requires plenty of free time within which to express said angst.  It can only be produced in leisurely cultures where we can drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and discuss the futility of it all.  No one has time to apine the human condition when they are digging through heaps of trash to survive.  These people are living in the shit, not talking about it. 

While I may be a bit whinier than most, I don’t think I am in a unique situation for someone my age.  Everyone who graduated with me seems to have the same dumb-struck expression on their faces at the moment.  We are recent college graduates entering a tough economic world.  Pair that with the fact that our generation, which was raised largely by hippies and free-thinkers, has been told that we are all wonderful individuals who can achieve anything we put our minds to and we have a vicious recipe for unsatisfaction.  We were all given the well-meaning but misguided idea that we can achieve our dreams.  We came to believe that we not only deserve well-paying jobs but also self-fulfilling, satisfying jobs and lives where our hard work will be recognized and rewarded, and, that, to boot we don’t need to work exceptionally hard to do this.  I think that many people my age, including myself, expect a lot from the world but don’t know how to put in the work to achieve it. 

 The only person I know who is 100% sure of her future is my friend Sophie who is well on her way to becoming a professional dancer.  She has a singular focus that most people cannot or do not possess.  However, everyone I hung out with on my roadtrip has some project they are working on which has value.  While I wouldn’t say that any of my friends ‘got it all figured out,’ each of them impressed me in a particular way, whether it be with their creativity, their heart, or their sheer tenacity.  As a born writer, reader, philosopher, and overall neurotic-worrier type I am given to bouts of general ennui.   But every time I slip down towards nihilism I look up and see people around me doing great things. With friends like these how could I not try to step up to the plate and produce something of worth myself? 

***

My first stop on the road trip was Eugene where I stayed with Dustin King.  Dusty has continuously impressed me with his generosity.  During the summers of our college years Dusty would always open up his home to his friends for nocturnal hangouts.  This was a haven where we could pursue our collective passions to our heart’s content:  playing smash brothers and smoking weed.  Dusty hasn’t changed a bit.  He generously shared his home with me even after I rudely forgot to call to ask if I could crash at his place until the day I arrived in Eugene.  That same weekend he played party host to a gaggle of students from Southern Oregon whom he knew only as friends of friends.  Dusty is also a great dj and mash-up artist: djdkmode

Katherine Lonsdorf also resides in Eugene.  Not only did her and her boyfriend provide some sterling conversation, she also served me free beers at the seafood restaurant she works at in Eugene.   Bless you Katherine!  Her hard work at the restaurant inspired me to look for more work as a bonified server or bartender and graduate from the ranks of casual caterer.  Her plans to teach English in Korea impressed me immensely as a courageous and adventurous decision.  Many people talk about doing such things but few actually go through with it as she is doing.  And she gave me a great recipe for a juice fast, which, I will probably never have the determination to follow through with, but which she followed to the T while working shifts at a busy restaurant.  Dang this girl is nuts!

In San Luis Obispo I stayed with Alex Werner who I am dubbing the king of pop.  Not pop-music, that’s Michael Jackson’s exclusive throne, but pop culture.  Alex knows everything there is to know about music, movies, fashion, and current events.  Even more impressive than his encyclopedic knowledge of all things current is his ability to balance a populist appreciation for mass culture with a distinctly critical taste.  I rarely find someone who can enjoy both trashy horror films and art house classics like Holy Mountain.  Alex has always been a musical aficionado but he has finally put his tastes to work in the last couple months.  Alex started a blog where he posts links to downloads of new music that he has discovered.  This blog is extremely useful for people like me who have tone deaf ears and non-discriminating tastes.  Now I can slip on a track from the blog and say things like, “well there earlier work was simply wonderful but I find their later stuff somewhat shallow” with confidence.  The cool thing is he even takes suggestions for new albums to post: http://nvrmindtherain.blogspot.com/.  

In Los Angeles there were tons of kids to take inspiration from, too many to list here so if I skip you don’t be insulted, or be insulted and start your own blog so you can toot your own horn. 

First, I was impressed by Sir Alex Wolf and his commitment to the tao of the bicycle.  Wolf got me into bicycling in LA in the first place when he generously lent me his old, Peugot road bike.  One sunny afternoon in May he took me on an amazing ride through downtown Los Angeles and the Silverlake, Highland Park, and Los Feliz neighborhoods.  We breezed through yellow lights and used hand signals to weave our way through traffic.  I felt free as a bird on wheels.  As a duo we were more visible to cars and could go where a single rider wouldn’t dare.  I had ridden in Los Angeles before but had always been hesitant to stray too far a field because of the lack of bike lanes and the general disregard paid to bicyclists by ulcerated, super-ago Angeleno motorists.  I hope Wolf reads this and posts his invaluable route to this useful site:  mapmyride.com.  I also wish Wolf luck on his business venture to create a mixed-use warehouse space in LA that will draw musicians, artists, and intellectuals.

Then, of couse, there’s Amy Wax who holds the honor of having the shortest name of anyone in this year’s graduating class at Occidental.  Amy manages to party harder than almost anyone else I know and get good enough grades to see her into one of the most prestigious masters and PHD programs for industrial psychology in the country.  One of my friends is getting a PHD, I can’t believe that shit.  

Shout out here to my buddy Shoshone who is one of the most socially conscious fellows I know.  We always have the most interesting talks about race, gender, class, income, social status, and all those other topics most people in our generation are too jaded to care about.  A philosopher is one who retains a curiosity and sense of wonder of the world around him or her and Shoshone fits this description perfectly. http://dreamofsafety.blogspot.com/Shoshone also inspires me with his lifestyle choices, consistently home-cooking three healthy meals a day.  He tells me that what you put into your body is the most important thing you do every day because that is the stuff that is digested and becomes your cells.  I think he got that idea from this fellow.This guy has some other strange and controversial ideas about diet such as suggesting that we should eat lots of vegetables and avoid fast food.  What a nut, huh? 

My wonderful compatriot Keegan Vance hosted me in San Diego and Lake Arrowhead.  When I wasn’t too busy gorging myself on latte’s made from his uncle’s fancy espresso machine to listen to him, Keegan was giving me many informative facts about the city I was visiting. Keegan is the king of city knowledge. He has led several walking tours of Portland to great success.  He disusses the history, culture, and architecture of the city.  His tours are much better than this rinky-dink operation  but not quite as colorful as this Portlander's  take on the city.After being in San Diego for less than three weeks Keegan decided he knew enough about the city to lead his own walking tour there.  But since he’s gone gallivanting off to Thailand and other areas of Southeast Asia we will have to wait for more urban erudition until a later date. 

My good friend Hal taught me all about how to be the life of the party.  His pad in West LA is decked out with every possible imaginable toy:  drawing supplies, board games, fanciful party hats, three video game systems, musical instruments, trippy lights…the list goes on.  But it’s not the toys that make the place special.  It’s Hal’s infectious personality and laugh that draws people in.  His music is also sweet but he hasn’t posted his song online yet (Come on man!!). 

And finally there is Ari, my new friend I met on couchsurfing.com.  She has some of the most infectious energy of anyone I have ever met.  She is one of those people that is authentically interested in many things.  A true polymath, Ari knows French fluently and is also learning Italian and German.  She wrote an entire novel as part of this project: http://www.nanowrimo.org/. And to boot she knows a scary amount about geology and dinosaurs. I don’t know how some people muster this amount of energy but whatever spunk this girl has I want to bottle it up and pour it all over me (yeah pun intended you perverts.)  And I almost forgot another Ari I met at Sasquatch who is a wonderfully talented rap and spoken work artist.  My favorite work of his is a little ditty about the natural life called “pooping in the woods.” 

Oh wait, I forgot Darcy, a friend of Katherine’s whose going on a round-the-world trip.  Apparently you can buy a plane ticket which gets you around the entire globe and you can pick when and where you want to be let off along the way: http://lasttraintowherever.wordpress.com/

And then there’s Brooks who renovated an old school London double decker bus into a pimped out party bus complete with tv’s and surround sound.  He’s going to debut this bad boy at the first Thursday block party in July. DoubleDeckerpdx.com

Oh, one last person.  I can’t forget Matty from Sasquatch who took 12 hits of acid and snorted two pills of molly and ingested a plethora of other intoxicants and still managed to be conversational in the English language.  Bravo my friend, you are an idol to us all. 

Well, after seeing all the things my friends have done I am realizing that I might not be such a terrible fuck-up after all.  I may be a self-obsessed, neurotic, anxious, caffeine and sugar addicted slob, but I have done a few worthwhile things.  I ran 13 miles without stopping in Eugene.  I tolerated a bunch of crying six year olds for four solid months before heading out on my grand adventure. I went without my computer for over a month, a challenge most people my age would consider the worst of tortures.  I lived and got along with a complete stranger for two days.  I can fry an egg, juggle three balls, and type 80 wpm.  And I have my own weblog, which pretty much makes me famous, right?   

From dedicated employee to gonzo travel writer

Well soon the travel blog will begin again as I take off on another great adventure. This time its down the coast on historic highway 101. With my drum in one hand and my anthology of beat poetry in the other I’m going to take off for sunny California. I’m looking forward to trying out the bohemian lifestyle for a little while, surfing couches, experiencing nature, and generally bumming around. This is really the beginning of a summer of travel and personal exploration. In order to preserve a flexible schedule to accommodate a trip to California and a trip to Guatemala, I was forced to put both of my jobs on a temporary and possibly permanent hiatus. It was with mixed feelings that I gave up the life of the employed. Especially in this economy with lots of people desperately seeking work it seemed rather silly to give up work for unknown adventures. But I have been told that life benefits those who take risks and I’m sure that most of us do not look back on our lives and say in our heads, “man, I wish I worked more!” So here’s to owning your own time, and making of it what you will.

Before I once again delve back into gonzo travel writing I want to insert two entries here about the work world. One about the joys of catering and one about the challenges of coaching younguns. So sit back, relax, sip on a cold one, and enjoy.

COACHING

If you know me then you know that I like to do physical tricks.  I have explored breakdancing, free-running, gymnastics, partner acrobatics, pilates, yoga, and capoeira.  All of these test the human body’s flexibility, balance, and strength.  So it was with this interest in mind that I contacted a local gymnastics facility in January when I saw a posting on craig’s list looking for a gymnastics instructor.  When I called the facility the director of the girl’s recreational gymnastics program, Lynne, my future boss, answered the phone.  I started off the conversation by proving my acrobatic credentials.  I mentioned the free-running club I had been involved with at Occidental.  I mentioned the break dancing sessions I attended.  I told her I could do a backflip, a backhandspring, a front punch.  After I had finished running through my biography she asked me one question, “ok, but can you teach little kids?  This job involves coaching 6-10 year old girls.  You have to be able to put on your nice voice and sweet-talk.  You have to control them in a loud and busy environment.  You have to run a safe and fun class.  Do you think you can handle that?” 

            “Oh yes, definitely, I love kids,” I responded.  I expressed enough confidence that Lynne gave me the job but in reality I had no experience with kids and no idea what I was getting myself into.  To be honest, I really just wanted to use their kick-ass trampoline and foam pit. 

***

I knew my life had taken a torn for the weird when I learned how to tie up a girl’s hair into a ponytail using a rubber band.  The girls had to tie their hair up at the beginning of class, but some forgot or weren’t capable of doing it themselves.  I imposed the rule strictly, partially because it was a safety issue, but mainly because I was afraid of getting lectured by the head coach of the men’s team.  Luke kept a watchful eye over the entire gym and whenever I felt his gaze on me I became very nervous, trying my best to keep some modicum of control over my little brats. 

Coaching gymnastics is not an overly stressful job.  I got to wear sweatpants to work every day and as a teacher in the recreational department there was no expectation that I mold these kids into serious gymnasts.  I did, however, have to suffer quite a bit of abuse from my students.  As a girls gymnastics coach I was seriously physically and emotionally abused by my kids.  I am no match for 6,7, and 8 year old girls in terms of their combined physical strength or mental ingenuity.  Don’t get me wrong, I love kids (this is the disclaimer that every person who works with children uses before they proceed to detail all the ways that they hate little goobers) but dealing with a rambunctious crew of tumbling tots can get to be pretty intense. 

            One day my intermediate class was getting very rambunctious.  They were running around, screaming, jumping on equipment they weren’t supposed to be jumping on, and generally not paying attention.  I leaned over to one of the particularly wild ones and asked her, “could you just do me a favor and take it easy on me today please?”  She looked up at me, giving me an adorable smile that was missing several teeth, and said politely yet definitively, “no,” pulled her hand way back and delivered a full slap to my face. 

            Other students would jump on me and refuse to let go.  They would latch their arms and legs around my torso or my back or my legs and hang there like barnacles on a rock.  I would first try to coax them off with polite words, “I am not a jungle gym” I would say, or “there’s plenty of things to jump on in the gym, but I am not one of them.”  Then, getting more fearful as they increased their death grips I would try a more direct approach, “alright, you really need to let go now.”  Of course the child would simply laugh, delighting in my unease.

            Then there were the personal questions.  “Are you married?”  “Do you have a girlfriend?”  “How old are you?”  “Why do you have holes in your ears?”  At first I made the mistake of answering the questions truthfully, not realizing that this would simply lead to more follow up questions and future harassment. 

I watched the goings on of the gym with some curiosity when I worked there.  I was an outsider with a rare opportunity to see the operations of a tight-nit group of people.  Competitive gymnastics draws a core group of followers who spend so much time together that they begin to gather attributes similar to those of a cult.  I always found it funny that parents will pay the gym and the coaches thousands of dollars to train their kids in a sport which offers little or no opportunities for financial gain and is sure to give them some form of an eating disorder.  But there are believers in the sport and most of the coaches at the gym stay for decades to mold wave after wave of students into acrobatic machines.  One of the most interesting characters in the gym is Luke, the pony tail nazi.  Luke is solidly built with a body which leans towards the chunky side.  He is in good shape; he would often show up before his classes to practice basic tumbling and trampoline skills, but he had also relaxed his diet to include plenty of cookies and milk.  He sports a large bushy beard and long brown hair tied back in a ponytail.  But it is his voice that is the most intimidating thing about him.  It is loud and rumbling.   I remember typing in my attendance sheets in the office next to the gym after a class and hearing Luke berate a boy for goofing off as clearly as if he was standing right next to me. Luke is a strict coach who demands discipline and respect from his students.  His lectures were not only loud but long as well.  He would talk for minutes on end about one behavioral problem with a student, attacking the issue from every angle.  I think of him as the bear of the gym.  Once I found him taking a nap on a foam matt under the stationary rings. At first I thought he was a homeless person who had snuck into the gym to sleep of a hangover because of his hirsute appearance and dingy sweatpants.  Several times I saw him grab boys and put them in headlocks, wrestling with them in a carefree manner.  I never understood how he could do this without fear of sexual harassment lawsuits.  In another strange practice coach Luke and coach Bryan would sit on top of boy’s shoulders while they sat in a straddle in an attempt to get them to stretch out to their maximum potential.  This was just one of the many moments when I realized that gymnasts have a very strange obsession with molding their bodies into certain shapes, resulting in some rather hilarious stretches.  One of the other memorable incidents occured when I happened to glance over at the high beams and see the entire girls team standing side by side on the beams, engaging in deep, synchronized squats. 

The other boys team coach, Trent, is equally as strict and demanding as Luke but goes about managing his class in a completely different fashion.  Where Luke will loudly and publicly discipline a student, Trent will quietly and calmly line his entire class up and lecture them for 10 minutes straight.  Trent was so calm and collected in his disciplining techniques that I very rarely heard him speak.  He never had to raise his voice to keep control of his kids.  And, whereas Luke is a lapsed gymnast, Trent maintains his gymnastic form.  I once saw him casually bust out a set of perfect flares on a pommel horse as a demonstration for his class and he is flexible enough that he can sit in a straddle and put his chest to the ground.  The high point of Trent’s career was being part of a high bar act in cirque du soleil.  My first day of work Trent talked to me for about 30 minutes about his cirque days, even showing me a video of the act.  After that I never had another conversation with Trent of over a minute in length.

My last favorite character of the gym that I am going to mention here is teacher Torren.  He always cracked me up, mostly because of his sheer goodness and earnestness, which, at first, I though had to be an act.  Torren is the hardest working person I ever met.  He goes to high school and takes tons of AP courses, he trains hours a day for the team gymnastics, competing for the all-around title, and he coaches boys and girls classes at the gym as well.  I couldn’t believe his diligence until I found out that he is a mormon.  Then it all made perfect sense.  Of course he is incredibly productive, he never thinks about a beer at the end of the day or a coffee in the morning to wake him up.  The only thing I ever saw that kid consume was oatmeal.  And, the amazing thing is, that he seemed perfectly happy, content in his substance free tumbling and kid-filled world.  The gym is Torren’s true home.  He knows all the equipment, the foam blocks, the matts, where the dead spots on the spring floor are located.  When he moves through the gym he literally bounds about, as if his legs were two pogo sticks.  It’s Torren’s last year as a gymnast.  Then its off to BYU for a year where he will be the school mascot, flipping and juggling (yes he’s a double threat) as Cosmo the cougar, then on a mission for two years, back to BYU for another three, then off to physical therapist school for another three. Within those nine years I’m sure Torren will marry a nice, Mormon woman and have nice Mormon kids.  I always wondered if I should do the same thing Torren had done.  Pick a life path which commits a decade of your time to good causes and follow through with it.  This means that your life will have security, safety, and purpose.  Instead I decided to quit my gymnastics job, pack up my belongings, and head out on an open ended roadtrip that will involve camping, seeing friends, and various forms of cardiovascular exercise, not necessarily in that order.  So much for commitments.    

           

Catering

The Governor Hotel sits in the middle of downtown Portland on 11th and Alder, next to a Starbucks and across the street from a cluster of food carts. In front of the main entrance valets dressed in funny suits chat with doormen, who also wear funny suits. It has several dining rooms on the second, third, and fourth floor. Because of the age of the hotel the rooms have names which are suggestive of culture and splendor such as ‘the grand ballroom’ ‘the billiard room’ and ‘the fireside lodge’. Back in the day the hotel was a private club for wealthy men, a place where old white guys would gather to smoke cigars, drink bourbon, and make fun of their wives.

Today the ballrooms in the governor hotel play host to a variety of private parties, all serviced by Jake’s catering, my employer. I work at Jake’s as a caterer, not as a server in the restaurant which is housed in a connecting building. This is an important distinction. While restaurant servers deliver food to a rotating group of different people at the same group of tables every day, caterers work by the party. Each event is different and requires a different level of service, a different room set-up, and a different time table. Unlike servers we do not get cash tips every night. Instead our gratuity is put into our paycheck at the end of each pay cycle. The gratuity rate is not based on our own individual performance but how the company did overall in the last two weeks. Because of this the caterer pays less personal attention to the guests than the server would. We do not introduce ourselves, we do not provide descriptions of the menu, we do not go the extra mile to ensure a wonderful guest experience because, quite frankly, we don’t have to. I’m getting my tip whether you liked my service or not…sucker.

The caterer’s job is simple. Every day we do the same thing with slight variations. I clock in, affix my bowtie to my neck, don my white jacket with ‘Jake’s’ lettering on the chest, and grab a piece of paper stuck on the bulletin board which tells the details of the event I am working on that day. One of the cool things about the job is that I never know what kind of event I am going to be working at on any given day until I grab the Banquet event order sheet. It could be a fundraiser for the college of naturopathic medicine, or a wedding, or an end of the year party for the electrical worker’s union of Oregon, or a wine tasting for the Oregon Pinot Noir society. The most important part of the sheet to look at is the projected start and end time. This is what gives me an idea of what time I am going to get off work that day.

Once we put on our catering duds we pour water, and coffee, and juice. We set glasses and bread rolls on the tables. We outfit service stands with water pitchers, and tea bowls, and extra napkins to cover up dirty dishes (God forbid the guests see a dirty dish). We always have a pre-meal meeting when our manager tells us all about the event and how we should service it. Often our boss, Nong, will enter the room and give us a talk about how this particular event is very important to business and that we have to remember to practice good customer service. In his accented English he will tell us, “It is vewy important that we treat the customer well. That means remembering to serve the lady first, knowing what type of wine you are serving, what type of food we are serving, always serving from the left and pulling dishes from the right.” The worst part of this emphasis on customer service is Nong’s insistence that we offer to dress each customer’s salad. I always feel incredibly silly picking the dressing up off the table and offering it to each guest, as if they are small infants who are incapable of pouring some vinaigrette on their own greens.

After the pre-meal we are sent back out on the floor which is what we call the room that we are serving the meal in. Once the guests arrive we serve the breakfast, or the lunch, or the dinner. We put down plates, fill glasses, clear dishes. We stack up plates in the back, fill up racks with dirty glasses, throw copious amounts of food into the trash. We take a break and enjoy some free grub. Then its back to work. Once the guests are gone we clear out the entire room. We clear out trash and silverware and dishware and glassware. We strip the tablecloths off the tables and vaccum the floor. Sometimes we move in tables or take out tables. Someone brings up the tablecloths and silverware for the next event and we do ‘the set’. This involves preparing the entire room for the next event. Sometimes we don’t have to set for the next event if it won’t be occurring for a few days. This means that we do a ‘stack and vac, pull top linen,’ meaning that we stack up all the chairs, vaccum the floor, and get rid of the top tablecloth, leaving the bottom one on the table. This is the easiest way that events end and on Friday and Saturday night everyone prays for a stack and vac. After the dishes are sent to the dishpit and the back is mopped and everything is cleaned up one of my managers will tell me to take off. At this point I throw my jacket into a hamper, clock out, and leave the Governor.

And that’s it. That’s the job with some slight variation here and there. It’s routinized, largely unthinking work. It’s pretty easy work. There’s a decent amount of downtime, waiting for guests to arrive or finish eating. However, there are some periods of intense physical labour when we carry full plates of food into the room or empty plates out of the room. The trickiest part is paying attention to detail. Making sure that you haven’t forgotten to fill all the creamers on the table, or to check to see how many vegetarians are sitting at your section, or to grab the ketchup the woman requested while you were right in the middle of serving breakfast to people at another table.

The job itself isn’t highly interested or rewarding, but meeting the people who work at Jake’s makes it worth my time to work there. It is an incredibly diverse bunch of folks who work at the Governor. People work there for different reasons. There are people who see catering as a long-term career, there are people who see it as merely a pit-stop on the way to greater things, there are people who do it to pay the bills while they are going to school, there are people for whom it is a fall-back after a failure in another career, and there are people who see it as a trap from which they can never escape. There are the young, the middle aged, and a few of the old. There are Americans, Russians, Iranians, and Africans. There are the pot-heads and the alcoholics, the sweets fiends and the coffee hounds. There are the ecstatic, the bitter, the depressed, the resigned, the lethargic, and the manic. The thing that cracks me up most about the job is that, no matter how hard you work we are all paid the same and get almost the same amount of hours. So much for America being a meritocracy.

Some of my favorite people to work with are the long-term dudes. These are the older guys who have been doing the job for years and will be doing the job for years to come. They have all found ways to carve out happiness in a rather boring, unfulfilling job. One skill they all share is the ability to constantly look like they are working but, at the same time, never exerting too much energy. This is an invaluable skill because we do not have one of those jobs where you are free to relax and shoot the shit with coworkers when there is downtime on the job. Since our labor is not cheap the managers are always looking for ways to cut hours. If you appear to be slacking then they will send you home, or, potentially worse, assign you a menial chore. The strictest captain, (that’s what we call our managers) Victor, is notorious for assigning chores such as scrubbing down all the walls, counters, and sink surfaces with a brush and sudsy water or polishing all the silverware.

While the younger people are working frantically when the pressure is on, loading their trays to the brim with plates and glasses and then standing around not knowing what to do when their tasks are done the older guys pace their work out. The old timers are more likely fill up each tray to about ¾ capacity, knowing that once they clear it off all that’s waiting for them is another tray. The young people always want to finish the job quickly so they can rush off to whatever post work activities they are eager to enjoy. But the older timers realize that rushing is only going to wear you out faster, possibly lead to injury, and result in clocking out earlier and losing money.

One of my favorite co-workers is Phil. He is the catering philosopher. He always gives me tips on the correct way to do things. He can expound on the most banal subjects for an absurd amount of time. Some topics I have discussed with him include: how high to fill the creamers we set out on each table, how to carry water glasses, and how to organize items on your tray. Phil is in his 50’s working as a caterer and getting periodic cash from his mom to pay for health costs, but he thinks that he has it all figured out. Most of the other workers are annoyed by Phil because of his know-it-all ways and his tendency to take forever to do even simple tasks. He will often start with one task, such as setting down forks on a table, and then he will suddenly switch over to setting down plates or glasses instead. But, despite his shortcomings, I like Phil. I enjoy the confident, factual way he presents subjective opinions as objective truth. For instance, after one shift when we were changing into our street clothes he told me:

Well, we got 5 hours today, and that’s good enough. Generally I’m happy with anything over 4 hours. Anything less than that and it’s not worth your time to come down here and work. But 4 hours is enough money.

Phil delivered this statement with a calm assuredness, as if he was delivering the conclusion to a developed dissertation. But the term ‘enough money’ is completely subjective. Who knows what enough money is? That figure depends on the person. If I have tons of student loans, an extravagant lifestyle, or a gang of kids the target of ‘enough’ money is going to be set way higher than if I am a single, moderate individual living alone. But Phil has his system worked out and knows how much he needs to support himself and he assumes that everyone else should take a page out of his book.

Then there’s Hassan, another old-timer. He’s probably in his late 50’s, a dinosaur in an industry that demands a good amount of physical labour and long hours of standing on your feet. Hassan has lead an extremely interesting life. I only get tidbits of his history during lulls in the job so I have to piece his story together, weaving the isolated tales like pieces of a quilt into a cohesive whole. So far I have gleaned that he took part in the first Iranian revolution, he has lived in Russia and Germany, he has backpacked across most of Europe, and he has dated a woman who loves to bike ride in the nude. He is also politically active. One shift I saw him wearing a pin on his lapel and getting others to sign a form. He told me that he was getting signatures to petition the employers at his other catering job to give them a raise and pay them for some hours which had not been paid to them correctly.

My favorite thing about Hassan is his fastidiousness. When he changes clothes after his shift he is always immaculately dressed. He wears cotton wool vests, dress pants, and leather shoes, all the time. He often talks about the value of craftsmanship and how in his country you can buy a pair of individually tailored shoes that are much more comfortable than the factory produced shoes of this country. He also is careful about what he ingests. He loves tea, but only if it is seeped correctly and he enjoys coffee on rare occasions when he has time to prepare it and sit down to enjoy it. He will only drink coffee or tea from metal thermoses. He refuses to use paper cups because of their harm to the environment. Hassan lives at a neat, sedate pace. He enjoys gardening and preparing meals for himself with fresh ingredients. Hassan always seems busy at work. When he’s in the back he’s wiping down surfaces and when he’s on the floor he’s holding a cocktail tray, ready to take garbage from customers. But, he always has time for a chat and he doesn’t ever seem to wear himself out. If Phil is the catering philosopher then Hassan is the catering Buddha.

One of the most colorful employees is Albert. He is a Russian immigrant who speaks with a rolling accent. He is tall and desperately thin. His face is pinched and wrinkled, hair thin and graying. His teeth are a brown and black cobblestoned mess. Once in a while you might pass him in the back hallways and see him staring off into space, a thousand mile gaze in those black eyes. He has been known to kill time at work by riding up and down the elevator over and over again. He lives next to the hotel and will always eat his meals during breaks with lightening speed shoveling food into his mouth so that he has time to run back to his apartment and chain smoke a few cigarettes before his break ends. But, despite his strange demeanor, habits, and character, Albert retains a child-like humor, and a boyish exuberance which shines through his gruesome visage. He always whistles or turns on rock and roll music while we are putting out place settings. He likes to crack jokes and play pranks on coworkers. Albert doesn’t talk much about his life but rumors abound around the kitchen about him. Rumor has it that Albert was once a rock star in Europe. “I used to be the man, man.’ He tells me on one occasion. He has given several of his cds out. One of my favorite song titles on the cd is, “America, fuck you.” Albert will try to make you uncomfortable. He stands too close when he talks to you and he will grab your elbow or lightly poke you in the side on random occasions. He says things in order to be controversial. He asked my coworker Dominique if she knew where he could acquire food stamps. He told me during a shift that his leg was shaking because he drank too much wine the night before

When I worked as a caterer at my college there were only two groups of workers, the students and the non-students. The school liked to fill a certain percentage of the staff as student positions so they would hire us with little or no interview or pre-employment screening. I remember smoking a bowl of strawberry hash with my friend on a hill on the top of campus before going into my interview. I was pleasantly high when I entered the conference room. It was just the perfect level of stoned where I felt elated yet no sign of paranoia or worry creeped into my thoughts. The non-student workers were first or second generation immigrants of phillipino or latino descent. They were interviewed separately and given a separate payscale.

It was an interesting culture clash to have the sons and daughters of the bourgoise work next to these people whose financial well-being often depended on working 14 hour days at several different jobs. I remember one incident that occurred between a spoiled student and our manager. Our manager’s name was Pinky, a manic hard-working Phillipino woman who had moved to the states when her husband picked her out of a mail-order bride catalogue (no joke). Pinky acted as if her job hung in the balance on every shift we worked. She was in constant motion, setting tablecloths, running dishes, doing all the tasks at lightening speed. Brent was an effete, prissy first year who had signed up to do catering with the idea of collecting an easy paycheck. But catering is not one of those campus jobs where you can sit on your butt and collect some quick cash, like the library entrance desk attendant whose sole responsibility was to glance up from his/her reading material whenever anyone entered into the library. Brent didn’t like to lift anything over 10 pounds and considered clearing food off tables as, “icky.” He would often hide in the bathroom to avoid work. Pinky was infuriated at his lackadaisical approach. She couldn’t quite pronounce his name so she referred to him as ‘Branch.’ “That Branch, he worthless,” she would say. But that’s the difference between someone whose working to pay rent and someone whose working to pay for Subway sandwiches, beer, and weed, the three greatest expenses for a college student.

some FREE pearls of wisdom

‘Free’ is an intriguing and often misunderstood concept. I am putting the word here in quotation marks to highlight it as the subject of a critical examination. The quotation marks act as a question mark. I wish to question the meaning of free. This interpretation of the concept of free is not theoretical but rather practical. I am examining the everyday use and meaning of ‘free’ as it is expressed in our lives (by us I mean Americans who are similarly economically and culturally situated.)
A month ago my friends and I went to a bar on a Monday night to participate in a pub quiz. There was a section concerning portmanteaus (two words that are pressed together into one word). One of the questions asked, “who is a person who looks for free passes to movies, or cuts off other drivers?” The answer was - a passhole. My friends and I laughed at this term and we began to use it in conversations. We adopted a broader meaning of the term to encompass not only a person who looks for free movie passes but anyone who looks for any kind of free things or free activities. We joke that if you are looking for such a deal you are, “exercising your passholeness.” I will admit right now that I am a serious passhole. I always have my eyes out for free deals. In the last nine months my passhole urges have been insatiable. But recently I have begun to question the value of being a passhole, especially after more deeply examining the deceptive concept of ‘free’.
There are a variety of free things one can find. Newspapers give out free movie passes. There are contests for free airplane and concert tickets. There are free band performances, dj shows, comedy acts, and improv skits. One can take free introductory physical fitness classes such as yoga, pilates, martial arts classes, and dance classes. Bars give out free drinks in open bar hours. Offices, meeting places, and banks give out free coffee, cookies, and cakes. Breweries and distilleries offer free tasting samples. Internet companies offer free shipping and grocery stores offer ‘buy one get one free’ deals on merchandise. There is a huge world of free for passholes to take advantage of, but is any of it really free?
Free has many meanings and definitional contexts but the one I am going to work with here is, “Costing nothing; gratuitous.” Fittingly, I acquired this definition from freedictionary.com. The internet is a place where many things are offered for the price of free. Embedded within the concept of free is the idea that there is no cost or penalty for an item or a service. One acquires a benefit without having to pay for it. The opposite of a free acquisition is a trade, wherein one person exchanges one thing for something else. In our society this is often an exchange of a good or service for cash but in other societies this can be conducted as a straight barter. In trading we gain something and give something of equal value in return, in a free exchange one party gains something and gives nothing in return. But is there such a thing as a free exchange? Even the term exchange implies some sort of reciprocity. I would argue that there is no such thing as a free lunch and that everything has a price.
First off, let’s look at my acquisition of a definition from the free online dictionary. While I did not have to submit my credit card number and pay a fee to gain access to the definition, I was submitted to several advertisements while my browser was on the site including one for acai berry, a teeth whitening product, and the telecommunications company Verizon. Many free services sell advertising space to make money. Bit torrent clients make their cash through ads as well as television shows. So should being subjected to ads be considered a cost? I think so. Advertisements demand my attention, subjecting me to their displays without my express consent. They also work nefarious deeds upon my subconscious, motivating me to be a mindless consumer. Advertisements are designed with human psychology in mind and they often motivate us to purchase products. I would argue that a person who watches a lot of tv is much more likely to buy an assortment of consumer goods which they see advertised on their television sets than a person who watches little or no television. So the cost of these free products translates directly into a dollar amount which is spent on purchasing the goods and services which are offered on television.
Now I want to examine the idea of free food and drink, a big category in free. Oftentimes groups will wish to have their events well attended and will offer free food and drink to incentivize participation. Of course, the food and drink are supposed to be an added bonus to the event, not a main draw in themselves. But many a scavenging passhole take advantage of such events for purely gastro-hedonistic purposes.
Last week I attended an admitted students event at Lewis and Clark law school. While on a tour of the campus I talked with a current 1L student. I told him that I had heard that the school was having difficulty drumming up volunteer students for the event because it was occurring the week before spring break. He told me that this was true but that he was participating because he could get free food and beer out of the Friday reception as long as he volunteered on Saturday. Of course as commensurate passholes we got along right away and chatted for a bit more. I told him that I had attended a talk at the law school by a constitutional law scholar where free pizza had been offered. He informed me that this was a common practice at the school and that almost every day one could find events at lunch time which proffered free food and drink. While we chortled over our thrifty ways my mind’s proverbial wheels began to turn and I started to question whether we were being quite as smart as I thought we were.
I think free food and drink have some intangible costs. One tangible cost of free food and drink is ‘time.’ Many times free food events require that you sit and listen to a lecture or speech in return for enjoying the sampling of foods. The law student I talked to complained that when he would take advantage of free food on campus he would have to sit through an hour long talk during a time when he would normally be getting work done for class. Another intangible cost is one’s health. Oftentimes free food and drink are of the unhealthy variety. Free food is often sugary and loaded with carbohydrates. When I worked at an office there would often be free cake for people’s birthdays and on every other Friday there would be complimentary donuts, pastries, and bagels. Free food is rarely good, healthy food and it is often food that you would not normally eat. But because it is ‘free’ one will eat foods one would normally avoid for health concerns. Sometimes I even use deals as an excuse to myself for eating something unhealthy, “well I wouldn’t normally eat ice cream but it’s dollar scoop day at Baskin Robbins sooo…” Also, Having a great urge to eat free food distracts you from a very simple and truthful motto, ‘eat when you’re hungry.’ We should be eating according to our need, not according to when we can get food for free. Free drinks are another unhealthy category. They are often sodas or coffee. I rarely see juice or other healthy beverages being offered for free. Also, at open bars which serve complimentary alcoholic drinks people will often get much more intoxicated than they would under other circumstances. They think, “hey it’s free so I might as well drink as much as I can.”
A recent episode of the Office reflects the last negative effect of putting too much value in free food. In this episode the sales team begins to think that they rule the office. Members of the sales team order other employees around in a demeaning fashion. When the rest of the office revolts the sales team realized that they cannot afford to alienate their fellow employees. They discuss giving the rest of the office a percentage of their commission as a reconciliation gesture. Instead they offer them cookies, donuts, and coffee. While the office people greedily chow down, Stanley, who didn’t realize that they had given the snacks in lieu of a cut of their commission, makes an angry comment about the commission, potentially ruining the plan. At this point Jim cuts him off and says, “they have accepted our simple offer of treats, nothing more.” This illustrates an important point about free treats; they distract us from what is truly important. We should not value treats as of primary importance in our lives. Careers, relationships, culture, intellectual stimulation, and creative expression should all be valued over treats. When we put our passhole goggles on we forget the things that really have value in our lives.
By the end of my analysis I have discovered that free isn’t all it’s cracked up to be (unless you straight up steal, but that comes with its own problems). With that said I am still going to free promotions, but trying to cut back on the relative importance which I allocate to them. Of course, the first step to recovery is admitting one’s problem. So I’m going to stand up and say it proudly, “My name is David and I am a passaholic.”

DIALOGUE WITH A PORTER

People are really interesting. I love talking to people who have vastly different life experiences than I do. Some of the best stories are from people who are incredibly passionate about something that I have no interest in at all. For instance, accounting bores me to tears but if an accountant described his love for his profession to me I would be intrigued. It’s fascinating to discover what people put meaning to in their lives and what things they decide to invest time in. Last weekend I took a trip up to Seattle to ostensibly visit a law school. The school offered to pay my travel expenses so I decided to squeeze in a quick 24 hour trip between two work days. I had some interesting encounters with a woman who was establishing her own food cart in north Portland, a worker at a hostel who enjoyed break dancing, and a workaholic Serbian who had his sights set on Alaska. But the most surprising and enjoyable encounter occurred on my ride back to Portland on Amtrak. Tired and hungover I spent most of my time in the bistro cart, chugging waters and desultorily staring at the scenery passing by. I noticed that the gentleman manning the snack counter was the same individual who had worked on the train on my ride up. I had only spoken enough words to him to politely order a coffee on the way up but this time I decided to ask him a few questions.

At first glance he seemed rather dull. He was a hefty fellow with a large, bushy brown beard and he served food and drinks without much emotion, ringing people up and then returning to his seat behind the counter to gaze out the window. I could tell he was bored and how long his work shift ran. This led to a twenty minute narrative about his life. All I had to do was nod appreciatively and ask simple, leading questions in order to keep the story going.

First, my train friend gave me some details about the lifestyle of a person who works for Amtrak. He had worked in both long haul and short haul train routes. Currently, he works the Vancouver BC to Portland route. He has one day a week where he works an 18 hours shift, two days where he works a short shift, then three days off. In the past he worked the train that traveled from Seattle to Chicago. Doing this trip there and back would take a little over a week. While he was on the train he would work 18-22 hours per day. When he did get a chance to sleep he was relegated to a sleeping cabin that was the size of a spacious coffin. The train would arrive in Seattle and he would have one epic night out and then the next day he would return to the cramped confines of the train. He told me that as long as the people on the crew were cool then it was a tolerable existence but if the crew didn’t get along then the narrow hallways of the cars began to feel like prison cells. He told me that one of the benefits of the long hours and poor conditions were that he got a full week off at a time so he had tons of mini-vacations throughout the year. And with all the overtime money he had accrued he was able to go out to eat, see shows, and generally enjoy himself.

This fellow (let’s call him George because I forgot his name) had done more with his life than working on a train. He had completed two years with Americorps NCCC. One year he worked in several schools, including one for youth offenders. The other year he worked outdoors, mostly across the Midwest, building schools, and maintaining park trails. He is also a perennial student. He has attended eight institutions of higher education, including Evergreen College. While he has lots of credits he is nowhere near attaining a degree because he took a random collection of courses. He opted to take classes that interested him rather than focusing on particular subject areas. Two of the schools he attended give write ups as their form of assessment rather than grades, making transferring credits difficult. George plans to continue his education at a school called Naropa University (also named the Jack Kerouac school of disembodied poetics) in Colorado. This school was established by Alan Ginsberg in the 1970’s. It borrows many ideas from eastern religion and students can choose some unique educational options, such as living in a Buddhist monastery and taking a vow of silence for a semester. George hopes to use his time at Naropa to hone his writing skills in short fiction.

What a life George has had. I was impressed by the variety and breadth of his work and school experience. While I don’t envy his job, I do hope that when I am his age I have just as interesting a story to tell to another young person who is just beginning his or her own life journey.

The next great adventure

I’m getting that travel bug again ladies and gentlefolk. It seems that anytime I start settling and extending roots in one place I get the urge to pull up camp and start fresh somewhere else. Recently I went on a trip to LA and while I was there I was researching ideas for the next place to travel. I don’t fully understand why I so desperately want to leave good situations where I live a happy and fulfilled life. This blog entry is a self-examination of my travel obsession. This blog started out based on the presupposition that travel is an important facet of my life and now I am going to take the time to parse apart the reasons why this is so. I need to figure out why I have this pressing desire for change and whether it would benefit me (whatever that means) to follow this unremitting compulsion.

Life is good in Portland. I could easily spend many more enjoyable months doing exactly what I have been doing in the city of my birth. I have several jobs which satisfy me in different ways. I enjoy my work and also feel that I am well compensated for it. I have a job serving food to rich people at a fine dining hotel. This job pays pretty well and I work with some interesting folk (hippie burnouts, alcoholics, general depressants, and one mad Russian). I also have two gigs working as a coach for kids, one teaching gymnastics at a large gymnasium and one at a school cafeteria teaching my own passion, breaking. Coaching is rewarding work. It’s my first time working with kids and I am learning how to be assertive, gaining leadership skills, and group management skills. It also makes me feel more like an adult. I have to make decisions and enforce them. Surprisingly, these kids see me as someone who knows what he is talking about and I have had some great moments watching the kids improve their skills under my tutelage. Working with kids is a delicate balance of encouragement and constructive criticism. Yesterday was a great day at the gymnastics center. Usually I have to coax, prod, and weasel the girls into working on the skills they are supposed to work on but that day one of the girls said “I like to work” and skipped our fun event, jumping on the trampoline, in favor of working on her bar routine.

No only do I have a great job, I also have a great group of friends in the city of roses. I am lucky enough to live near many of the friends I made in high school. We know each other well and after years of association we have a comfortable ‘kicking it’ groove. We have fun whether we are going out or just chilling and staying in for the night and I think we have struck a good balance between these two. Portland has lots of great bars and clubs to visit as well as fun events such as art walks, pub-crawls, and movie screenings. Many of my friends live with their parental figures so we have houses stocked with board games, flat screen tv’s, and stereo systems. In addition to my high school buddies (nicknamed ‘the running dog’s by my father because we all met through running together in the cross-country program) I also have several friends from college in town and some new friends that have developed through socializing and work that I can hang out with in case I need a change of pace from the uniformly serene nights in suburban paradise.

Then, of course, one cannot forget that living with mom and pops affords me an extremely cushy lifestyle. People say that in the 20th and 21st century humanity has seen an elongation of the adolescent period. Careers, marriages, and children are increasingly things that people are putting off into their 30’s and 40’s. As a 23 year old living at home with no imminent plans of fleeing the nest I am an example of this trend. Lots of the things self-sufficient adults have to worry about do not bother me. Do I need to worry about cooking dinner? No. Do I need to worry about paying rent and utilities? No. Do I even need to worry about fixing the broken light in my room or changing the oil in my car? No, my dad loves taking care of practical things. (But yes, I do worry about putting gas in my car and rotating my laundry, and I wipe my own ass too!)

Of course things aren’t perfect here. I miss my college friends a lot. I don’t have a lady friend in the city of roses, and, although living with the parents is cushy, it doesn’t really scream cool (my friend Taylor told me that if I bring over a woman I should tell her that I live in a single unit apartment that I rent from an older married couple.

So my work is satisfying, my social circle is entertaining and diverse, and my home life is comfortable and stable. Could it get any better? Yes! I have even been able to satisfy my travel bug with short vacations because my work schedule is flexible and it’s possible to take time off if I schedule this time far enough in advance. Since moving back from college I have been to LA twice, San Francisco once, Oakland once, San Luis Obispo once, and Eugene twice. I am also in the midst of planning another short trip to Seattle. So what’s the problem, David? Friends, family, work, play…who could ask for more?

***
I think it’s that feeling of adventure that I am missing out on while living in Portland. I’m going to law school in late-August and this fact looms over me like a foreboding, paper-spewing, fun-gobbling behemoth. The average age of a law school student is 26. Since I will be 23 when I start I consider myself as ahead of the curve in the professional/career advancement/responsibility type game . I am worried that, with my early entrance into graduate school, I will miss out on all the crazy/awesome/eclectic things young people do before they enter into stultifying careers where the best perks are free coffee and bagel Fridays. Once law school begins my chances for random adventures diminishes. First off, the massive amount of debt I will accrue unless I can convince the admissions committee that I am a lesbian, Native American with Downs syndrome will deter me from doing any sort of travel. Second, I just won’t have all the free time I do now. During the school year studying is a full time commitment, then, over the summers, the best students will get internships in the field of law in order to accrue valuable experience/brownie/networking points. If you’re going to pay the equivalent of a house for an education then you better have a good idea how you’re going to make some money once the final school bell rings.

I think another reason I want to travel is that I have a masochistic urge to be uncomfortable. I want to be stuck in the pouring rain trying to change a tire on the side of a dirty interstate or half starved backpacking through snowy mountain fields. That sounds like fun. For me, the great dichotomy that marks the difference between the good life and the bad isn’t comfortable and uncomfortable or success and failure, it’s interesting and boring. I can deal with failure, what I can’t deal with is monotony, stability, sameness. I relate to that wild impulse Christopher Mccanliss exhibited in “Into the Wild” when he burned all his money and took off into the great unknown. I feel incredibly lucky and grateful to have been born into a social and economic situation that has afforded me more luxuries than 99% of the world possesses, but, at the same time, I want to honor the blessing I have received by challenging myself to live outside the comforts of my life. Some people just can’t accept being happy, safe, and prosperous and I think I’m one of them.

Another reason to travel is to learn some practical ‘man skills’. Something that has always bothered me about myself is that I don’t know much about practicalities. For instance, I can’t fix a drain, change a tire, lay a hardwood floor, or power wash a wall. On a camping road trip you can’t do these things but you can learn such useful skills as: starting a fire, conducting routine car maintenance, cooking on a campfire, reading a map, navigating through woods and roads, and surviving adverse weather conditions. Right now my life is relatively hip and urban. I sit at coffee shops drinking lattes reading books with characters who are experiencing severe cases of existential ennui. I visit thrift stores, watch movies at independent theaters, and dance at nightclubs. I love all these activities but they also make me feel a bit effete. I want some survivalist, man vs wild skill points. I want some grime under my nails and some hair on my chest.


So now that I’ve described in minute detail all the reasons why I want to travel and all the reasons why I don’t need to, here’s the travel idea. I’ve done a few car trips but they’ve always been variations on the same theme. - Depart from point A and travel north or south along the general area of the I-5 corridor. I’ve traveled up and down the West Coast plenty of times but never made any advances into the great central part of the states. I haven’t even set foot in Idaho which is right next door to Oregon. I know nothing about the South or the Midwest. There’s tons of cities, towns, and countryside that I am dying to explore in this country. I think if I had my druthers I would take a southernly route through the US, traveling through New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, then travel up the Eastern seabord hitting North Caroline, Washington DC, New York, Massachusetts, then swing back around through the northern part of the US through Illinois, Montana, Colorado.

In high school my favorite author was Jack Kerouac. I loved the energy he wrote with and his fast-paced, jazz-inspired prose. I was fascinated by his manic characters who had too much energy to burn, who traveled across the continent with little or no pretence to practicality. The beats were about experiencing adventure and they cared little for material or professional gain. They were basically wild creatures who didn’t want to work or do much of anything productive. Instead they expelled energy in massive exhalations by criss-crossing the continent in cars and trains, screaming, drinking, smoking, and fucking along the way. As the first counter-culture figures the beats were the ambassadors of cool and one could do much worse in my book (not yet written) than to immulate their hijinks. I have always dreamed of hitting the road like Dean Moriarty and ‘balling that jack straight through the great heartland cat.’ (my poor impression of beat lingo)

So there are several possible strategies for an awesome road trip this summer. one idea is to do a cross-country road trip in a car like the one I described above. Another, more modest proposal is to do a tour of the Western states (Oregon, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, California) in a car. This may be more practical considering I either have to (A) us my 1986 volvo station wagon which tops out at 55 mph for the trip or (B) ask my parents to borrow one of their cars. Another is to buy an Amtrak train pass. You can buy passes for an affordable price which allow you to board the train multiple times in a given week or month. In this fashion one could travel across the country about as cheaply as driving without having to worry about the car breaking down. This would also give me more leisure time to read, write, check out the scenery, and talk to other train riders. The downside I see to the train expedition is that I would be limited to traveling to whatever places the train stops at and it would cut down on the wilderness exploration side of the trip since trains mostly travel through major cities. In any of these scenarios I would bring my bicycle, either on top of my car or with me on the train, and I would ride for exercise and fun every day. Tying for a distant third in potential trips would be doing a motorcycle or bicycle tour trip. I love the idea of doing either of these but what makesme hesitate is that both of these require a lot of planning and there is a lot that could potentially go wrong. There is only so much gear you can bring on a bike so packing right is very important and I don’t have a lot of technical knowledge that is required to deal with potential maintenance on a bicycle or motor bike

The road trip I have in mind would not be just a mindless, partying gallivant through a bunch of cities. It would be a trip with a philosophy. I would mostly travel through areas of outstanding natural beauty, state and national parks. I would live life at a more basic level and experience things at a slower pace. There would be some imposed hardships on the trip. I would stick to a strict budget so that I can afford to travel for a long time. I would prioritize my accommodations on the trip by price. Most of the time I would camp or couchsurf at friend’s houses. I would use hostels only for when I came to a large urban area where I didn’t know any locals and I would avoid hotels altogether. Second, I would avoid junk food and fast food chains. Sometimes when I travel I compromise my diet because the easiest food to grab on the road is at gas stations and fast food chains right off the highway. On this trip I would shop for food at grocery stores or, on occasion, eat at local diners. I would avoid food altogether from national chains. What’s the point of traveling if you’re eating things you could easily eat at home. Lastly, I would make every attempt to meet new people and record these encounters. As a traveler I would feel obligated to aid other voyagers in their adventures. I would pick up hitchhikers whenever I drove past (as long as the don’t look tooo sketchy) and I would do some couchsurfing through the social networking site.