#Sunshine2Seattle Day 2 – Oregon, Ho-shit…

Our first hour in Oregon, we met one of the five state patrol officers.  $600 worth of speeding and miscellaneous fines later, we were officially on our way to Portland.  I’m told by my friend Cole that it’s one officer per 400 miles in Oregon.  Awesome, we got his autograph!

I’ll post photos here later – for some reason I can’t upload them on this Wifi (sitting in Goldrush Coffee, Portland OR).

Okay, so the day wasn’t all doom and gloom (though the road mostly was – snow and freezing rain all the way).  It was a bit of a disappointing start out of Utah – we discovered that you can’t actually get to the Spiral Jetty without a Jeep, a goat, and four sherpas.  We did find the Golden Spike, though – the place where on May 10, 1869, they drove the final connecting spike in the transcontinental railroad. Read more on our adventure through Utah here.

Wow, We're in Idaho

We “arrived” in Idaho completely by surprise, stopping at what we thought was the last gas station in Utah only to find out that we were actually in Delco, Idaho.  A quick stop-over at a Jack in the Box in Boise with an outdoor fireplace and we were back on the road.  Liz managed to alert us to the fact that we’d entered Oregon, as well.

Department of High Fives

Arriving in Portland around 10:30 PM, we received our cavity search from the officer, and plowed through to Xena’s house.  Xena introduced us to what Liz refers colloquially as “Food Carnies” – a row of trailers that serve a variety of different foods.  Kevin, Si and I had some amazing poutin fries and Liz had something good enough to inspire her to marry her food-carnie chef with whatever implement looked ring-like enough (we found a washer in the car).

Food Carnie husband in tow, we hit Voodoo Doughnuts – and Liz snagged the last Maple Bacon Longjohn while Xena and I had a conversation about why ducks are so goddamn creepy.  I wasn’t sure I agreed until I heard her arguments.  As it turns out, warrior princesses are very persuasive.

Voodoo Doughnuts

This morning, we’re going to hit up The Meadows, a salt-tasting extravaganza, and Kornblatt’s Deli, and maybe dropping Si off with some bike carnies (we’re finding there’s a lot of them in Portland).  Updates to come – check out our Twitter stream.

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#Sunshine2Seattle Day 1 and 2

Later than we expected, and with Kevin sans his cell phone (oops!), Liz, Kevin, Si and I climbed into the car and took off from Fort Collins, CO around 3PM yesterday.  We hit up Bill Tucker before we left town, who gifted us with an aerobed, a pedometer, and mirrored sunglasses to aid us on our quest.

Leaving Vail!

We made a quick stop-over in Vail, where everyone we met had a French accent and visited a “please rape me now”-style bathroom, down the stairs in a concrete bunker.

Refreshed and ready to go, we jumped back on the highway and headed toward Grand Junction, Colorado where my Great Grandma Bailey was celebrating her 85th birthday (as it turns out, she’s the same age as Warner Brothers – and questioned why they haven’t sent her a present yet).  We all sang Happy Birthday to her and had a good time hobknobbing for some birthday cake and ice cream.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

The Blue Plate Diner

Jumping back on the road from Grand Junction to Salt Lake City, we hit up Wendy’s and totally forgot to grab gas (though, we TOTALLY rocked the tweet exiting town).

Deb's Greeting Cards

The road between Grand Junction and Salt Lake was foggy – but in Utah, there’s all sorts of amazing signage.  We stayed with Deb, who lives with the Minority Leader of the Utah Senate – David.  Deb and David are kick-ass hosts – David makes a killer coffee and Deb makes amazing, custom greeting cards.

Deb shared an amazing diner with us, the Blue Plate, where we were served by Ruby.  The owner, Von, shared the story of the diner and we’ll post that video later.  It’s been the best first restaurant experience we’ve ever had.

Blue Plate

We stopped in at Signed and Numbered, run by Leia and opened up 5 days ago.  She’s the first person who knew about the Spiral Jetty – which is where we’re headed today before heading to Portland!

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Oh, By The Way (aka – all for the want of a doughnut)

Good Morning Seattle!I’ve always wanted to go to Seattle.  Always.  My good friend Liz Sunshine, a graphic design ninja, shared similar sentiments (particularly about some sort of bacon donut from Voodoo Doughnut in Portland?)  I immediately contacted Brady Forrest, one of the founders of Ignite Seattle (the first Ignite) and told him we were coming.  Hopefully we’ll get to meet up with him!

Thursday, Liz got laid off.  Friday, I asked her and Kevin Buecher and Si (Kevin’s roommate) if they’d all like to go on a roadtrip to Seattle… today (Saturday).

I’m crazy like that.  Emphatic yesses all around.  Turns out, they’re crazy like that too.

Today at noon, we’re getting the hell out of dodge.  Our route will take us through Salt Lake City, Boise, Portland, and finally, Seattle.  While there, we’ll be treated to a personalized tour by my buddy Rob!  On the way back, Spokane, Missoula, Billings, Casper, Cheyenne, and home on Wednesday.

We’re going to be taking our laptops and blogging and videotaping our crazy adventures.  If you want to connect with us, (858) 598-3389 is my Google phone number.  Call us and say Hi!

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Online Dating: Used Car Sales for People

1980 Ford Pinto

I’m not sure when it happened, but we’ve transitioned into a culture where we think people are about as unique and valuable as used cars.

Want proof? Check out PlentyOfFish.com. Plenty of Fish is a free online dating website.

Yours truly, being of sound mind and judgement, signed up to find some cool new people to become friends with (and by extension, maybe a spark or two). I started by writing out a thorough profile for myself – a solid four or five paragraph description of me and what I was looking for. Having spent a good hour on it, and uploading some great pictures of myself, I figured I was ready – and I started my search. What I found was not what I expected.

Aside from the 1% of what has to be brain damage-induced CAPS LOCK-ONLY PROFILES or people who can’t discern the difference between its/it’s and they’re/their/there, about 98% of the profiles fall under what I affectionately refer to as, “Used Car Classifieds”.

Almost every girl in this category describes herself with, “I love to dress up and go out, but I also love to hang out at home. I love my friends and my family and I love to laugh.” Great. You’ve just described almost any human. These girls usually also describe themselves with a short paragraph (as short as possible, usually) with the most generic BS you can imagine. How the hell do I start a conversation from, “I like music and cats” ?

That’s not the kind of stuff I want to know. I want to know the crazy shit you don’t tell anyone else… what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? If we’re on a date and you have gas, do you let it loose and blame the waiter? (for the record: awesome) What songs do you sing in the shower? What kinds of flowers will cause you to punch me in the junk? You know, the important things in life.  Holy hell, just tell me the truth, even if it sucks – that’s how I live my life.

Hair FlickDon’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be a jerk or a snob… but, really – what girl can’t be described with “warm, friendly, loves to laugh, and loves to hang out with friends”? Some of these girls post generic, far-off photos or photos of them and their best friend – so you have no idea whether the girl you’re going to converse with is the cute redhead with eyes greener than the plains of Scotland or the snaggletoothed hunchback who may or may not be her brother.

I’ve never been concerned with looks – first and foremost I’m attracted to a great laugh – but sonofabitch, I’m not a small guy. If our combined weight is going to bottom-out my car, I should at least have some advance warning.

What ends up happening is, with so many “average” listings, you end up looking for the different ones. The ones that don’t smile in their pictures; you know, the ones that talk about stuff like black magic, sacrificing goats, and drinking the blood of their enemies (especially that bitch Sally from 3rd grade!) In essence, you’re now delighted by Edsels and Pintos. “So, is murder just a hobby or your full time profession?”

Worse still, the girls who only love to talk about themselves (and have tricked you into thinking they took a long time to write their profile) – these girls will ask one question to your three, leading you to believe they’re interested in learning about you. Instead, they’ve lured you into their narcissistic chasm of despair that can only be escaped from when you realize they’re about as deep as Deimos’s gravity well (you could literally sneeze yourself into orbit).

When you -do- discover the rare girl who has done a great job writing her profile, you have to contain your excitement so you don’t scare her off. Plenty of Fish shows you if they’ve read your message or not and if they’ve deleted your message. Too excited? Read Deleted. Bad joke in title? Unread Deleted. To girls this skittish, however, the delete button is just a ruse to connect better with more people on their favorite subject: silence.

I love rejection, but that level of skittishness should be reserved for people who talk about raping clowns and hoarding cats, neither of which appear on my profile.

What the hell happened? Why don’t we take pride in who we are and what we love? Why are we so afraid to open up to people? Surely you can think up more than a paragraph about yourself? I guess average works for people who want or settle for the average. You want a car with seatbelts, maybe an airbag. It should go places without much trouble. Maybe it has a few scratches, dings, dents, but the headlights work. You can put junk in the trunk. And that’s how they approach love: they want the average, the safe, the standard. Average is what you want when you don’t know what you want.

I don’t want average. Fuck average - I know exactly what I want and I’ll find it. I want to share a love like the world has never seen before – I deserve that. A girl who lights up like a nuclear bomb just at the thought of me, because I certainly do for her. A girl with fireworks in her eyes and a sense of humor like a Ninja on Redbull. A girl who can swear in Klingon and kick my ass with just one look. I want a love that people will tell stories about for ages.

Now I’ve just got to find her.

Posted in Personal, Too Real To Be Fake | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments