I Got Jet Li in my Bentley

Adding to the heap...

Distance: 7.83 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 223.36 miles

Eddie Vedder Es Una Cantadora Peor Que Yo

here comes the month of November, and with it a number of changes in the life and times of our forum here. Up to this point, i have made an effort to check in every (or every other) day with the distances. As we have come across the most desolate stretch of land the United States has to offer, i am proud to announce that i no longer have a home for the entire month of November, and will be checking in considerably less, depending on my internet access whereever i find myself from day to day. I assume i will be walking more, and bet your bonnets i'm counting every step, but expect the clock-ins to be sporadic and in larger chunks. the way i see it, this is the most appropriate time for my housing hiatus, as it is an entire month to walk across the empty Nevada desert in peace. I can't imagine there is much to say about the towns along the way, but i've found sometimes that the emptier the landscape, the more reason to delve into your own thoughts and perceptions of the void. so cheers. see you on the other side.

Do NOT Buy Lola Straight Jeans Off a Filipino Guy Outside Carls Jr. This Week!!

i didn't even know i'd be given the nod today, but it was my first day as MOD on the sales floor, and i was actually in charge for a good part of the day. the store kicked a ton of sunday ass, great sales, fun environment, free ponies for little girls UNTILTHISFUCKER runs in and jacks a stack of jeans right in front of my FACE and books it out the god damned door. yeah. my first day in charge. could this have happened one of the other eighty or ninety days i've been in there? i guess today felt right for the filipino guy in the blue striped shirt. bastard.

i'm not really in trouble, and wouldn't be posting this if i didn't want to entertain at least three of you out there. it was kind of hilarious really.

so more sweating meant just under 10 miles on a sunday. that's a lot more than yesterday. brain no work. legs like farfalle.

Daily Distance: 9.41 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 215.53 miles

Fernley, Nevada

more on fernley soon. it's the last stop to gas up for a while.

General Sharp's Pointed Pencil Brigade

General Sharp is marching on Gilpin, Nevada at an alarming pace. All six cacti have been notified, and know better than to hide out near the old abandoned water tower. In other news, There are far too many ambulances running rampant in Excelsior. The chinese chickens are still headless, and nobody has bought the yellow futon from outside Western Donuts #28. Charles Dickens has been upgraded to stable condition however, as mustard wins the derby at Kauffman stadium to my chagrin. damned be relish. a metaphor for it all. 2007 is just around the riverbend, pocahontus.

Daily Distance: 2.58 lazy miles

Total Distance Crossed: 206.12 miles

Welcome to Nevada!

James Thurgood Walter Prescott Pedometer the Third was born mid-day thursday, and be damned it feels good to be back. Nearly 18 miles have ticked off my belt in the past 36 hours, and that means business. Only it feels like i haven't left work in 4 days. Or slept for that matter. But how else do you get your face on the 200 dollar bill?

2 Days Official Distance: 17.89 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 203.54 miles

Clark, Nevada

Crap! we've blown clear through the Nevada border, and didn't even stop in Reno for a crappy burger, a bad gamble, OR a slap in the face. We're out of state! And not just out of state but well into the crappin desert. How did this happen? I've been galavanting so much i forgot just how close we were getting to crossing a state line. i wonder if i was in the store when it happened. i'll tell you this much: this time next year, when i'm getting anywhere remotely close to the bridge in New York, and this whole ball game is almost over, i won't accidentally be walking past that finish line and into the Atlantic Ocean. It won't be like, oh, i finished my walk, blah blah, guess i'll just go to Europe. No. It'll be over. And those last steps will happen somewhere great. They'll be on my hands off of a waterfall or out of an airplane or something. They wont be at the job.

Next stop: Gilpin. And if you don't think we're out of California, check out the only image to come from my search for this neck of the woods.






I'm on that fake train, despite the fact that it appears to be rolling west through Clark, which is obviously wrong. This is just a tricky angle. I'm glad to get Nevada out of the way too.






Oh man, i feel fresh. Like a cactus being born. Cheers to progress and homelessness and donuts.

Sympathy Miles, Part Deux

2 Days Distance: 8 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 185.65 miles

Wasted Walkin' Blues

here's how it goes:

oh, i ain't got no pedometer
cause everytime i do i'm bad to her
left her on the bus
oh baby baby
left her on the bus again
oh no, baby
i ain't got no pedometer
cause i'm a run-down no-good foolin man-child, honey
yeah yeah, thats why i sing the blues.



Two Day's Pity Points: 8 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 177.65 miles

Don't Think Twice

Here's the skinny: i can't possibly take zero for a day like this, i really walked my ass off. So i'm going to give myself 5 miles on the day. I still suffer a loss, as i surely covered over 8 miles of ground today, but it's my own fault for losing pedometer numero dos on the autobus.

In other news, did anyone else see this happen?

Because it was basically the equivalent of me walking in on jesus shaving in the bathroom with my single-blade razor from walgreens. Totally astounding, and the fact that the mets couldn't pull a win out with that momentum suggests there may actually be injustices in this universe, and that everything isn't in fact perfect, despite contrary evidence like donald fagen and the invention of the airplane and donuts.

Since this website is supposed to be about walking and not baseball or jesus, though i hope to enjoy plenty of both along the way, i should get back to a commentary on the nature of my surroundings and my belonging to it and the weather. The past two days have been among the finest San Francisco has coughed up as long as i've been here, now bordering on three months. There are moments in the sunsets where the streets are steep enough to prolong its setting on the hundreds of thousands of rooms where people sleep. Packs of street-worn birds fly low enough to make tourists duck, and in the mornings sometimes it still feels like the city just sprouted from the ground overnight, and i'm among the first to walk it.

Partial Credit Pedometer-less Distance: 5 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 169.65 miles

Doo-Whopping The Lid

Checked the pedometer on my belt as i boarded the bus home, sat down at the chair and it's gone. Unless it turns up bobbing in the toilet or on my next batch of toast, i think pedometer number two has ticked its last. Which means more steps for naught... Dark days ahead, me heartys.. Hold on to your snappers, and doo-whop the lid..

Two Days Distance: 11.23 miles

Total Distance Covered: 164.65 miles

Greetings From Kingvale!

and thats about it.


Daily Distance: 7.02

Total Distance Crossed: 153.42

Kingvale, California

I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes

but thats not what it takes to walk across the united states.

*notes on the english language*

there are no perfect rhymes for the word "earthquake" in the english language, although one might argue "strawberry milkshake" gets close.

also, the word "rhythm" is the only one that has two syllables without a single vowel. can you think of another? no you cant.

also, i'm fairly sure i walked under a mile on friday, and it was, in a word, marvelous.

Weekend Distance: 14.14 miles

Total Distance Covered: 146.40

Emigrant Gap, California

Stop Looking At Me Swan

Daily Distance: 7.61 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 132.26

Forebay, California

Dan Quail's Potatoe Pie

Internet crapped out like dem dere ford 350 pickup last weekend wen dat squirl got way from yer shotgun pellets and tore ass through dem trees man, hoooooweeeeeeeeeee shoot...


Daily Distance: 7.80 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 124.65 miles

One For Ze Germans

Wilkomen to Weimar, Germany!


Oh wait, thats the wrong weimar. It's kind of like how i live on Prague St. and it looks more like
this


than this:


know what i mean? nah, me neither. so here is a peek at where you might find the real weimar, california:

if the world were cut off and texas was the smallest state and florida didnt exist. oh well.

Daily Distance: 6.65 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 116.85 miles

Weimar, California

Frank O'Hara Ghost Rides The Whip

naturally, the aftermath is still glowing around my head like a chernobyl helmet...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OtT7Og2LBbE&mode=related&search=

this is the story of how we begin to remember
this is the powerful pulsing of love in the vein
after the dream of falling and calling your name out
these are the roots of rhythm
and the roots of rhythm remain

Paul Simon


Daily Distance: 7.50 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 110.20 miles

Approaching Weimar, California

What Does a Lullaby Sound Like To You?

falling into a dangerous habit of letting days blend without clocking in, my only justifications are the numbers themselves. i've walked twenty miles in two freaking days. so i'm obviously running around somewhere, and not eating cheese doodles in front of a power rangers marathon..

auburn, california is located thirty miles east of sacramento, and was huge in the mining days, but has become progressively less huge since. perhaps tom homer, a local writer, describes it best in saying: "Arriving in Auburn, California is like traveling back in time - a time when life moved just a little slower, when people appreciated a well-designed community building, and took time to say hello to their neighbors".

i think we could all take a little more time from our days or lives or whatever to appreciate a well-designed community building, don't you? auburn "strikes" me as a real "goldmine" of wisdom. meanwhile, in san francisco, a woman almost got strangled on the 47 bus tonight when she boldly insulted a crazy man on the bus who demanded to bring his wheelchair full of flannel shirts and garbage on the bus, and park the chair in the handicap section. he screamed "shut your little retard mouth!"at the top of his old lungs, and the whole bus was uncomfortable. then a far nuttier guy got on the bus and sat not in a normal bus seat but IN THE WHEELCHAIR! the silence was unbelievable.

there are a ton of questions that are floating around this project, and i swear to zeus that they're all going to get figured out. just keep showing up, and bear with me on the tired days. the hundred mile marker has been trampled, and i smell nevada.


2 Distractingly Dastardly Days Distance: 19.27

Total Distance Crossed: 102.70 miles

Auburn, California

The Only Living Boy

For Pete's Sake
I've been everywhere, man
I've been everywhere, man
Crossed the deserts bare, man
Breathed the mountain air, man
Of travel i've had my share, man
I've been everywhere

I've been to Los Angeles to see Paul Simon, straight from the Burbank Airport. Paul played everything, man. The Greek Theater, man. Steve Gadd, man.

Three days of absolute chaos, work, and confused elation. Things are wonderful on this side. Pedometer has been the whole way, more news to follow. Check in soon, friends. I'm all over.

3 Amazing Days Distance: 21.48 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 83.43 miles

Sacramento, California

Red Elephants Scrambling When Minds Become One

I'm getting an early sense for my daily average, and find it interesting that i walk roughly 7.5 miles a day on weekdays whether i work or not.

There was a raving lunatic woman on the muni tonight, not that raving lunatics are scarce in the city, but i always find myself caught up in some part of the chaos, and am so interested in how the general public deals with people who can no longer cope with their own lives. After somebody does something unruly in front of a ton of tired people, you expect at least eye contact from everyone around you to support your hope that we are all "in this" together and looking out for each other in the most basic of basic sense- but it's usually only or two people who will confirm such a thing with a half-smile of recognition. That guy was nuts, but i'm not.

I envisioned the straight road through eastern Colorado that lashes across the open nation like the waistband of a tight belt, 1-70! the endless road that binds midwest metropoli like an asphalt rope between tin cans. I saw it all ahead of me as i took more steps, leaning against the San Franciscan grade and knowing each was another footprint in a field somewhere outside of Manteca, California. This is October, and i am coping with the first-ever feelings that i might actually be finished with this school business. But then i'd have to ask myself what i'm really doing where i am...

http://www.heydaybooks.com/public/books/eco.html

Daily Distance: 7.72 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 62.36

Entering Manteca, California

All The Trees Of The Field Will Clap Their Hands

for we have crossed an early milestone: the fifty mile marker, and approximately 2% of our journey is complete! right? i think so. close enough.

hold on to your butts,

Daily Distance: 7.81 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 54.64 miles

smells like progress, people... fuck the escalator.

With the Tail and Everything

The eye of the fish watched us through the whole meal, as if to say "go right ahead.."

Daily Distance: 5.86 miles

Total Distance Crossed: 46.83

Leaving Livermore, California

Bob's Donuts is my Mom

Welcome to Livermore, California!

Not just a clever name, nor pretty face. Where the average air temperature is 59 degrees and the median income is 80 grand a year. I think that i've determined at the current pace i'm at that i'd be lucky to make 14 grand this year, living in one of the most expensive cities in the country. So 80 is bitchin.

Livermore county is host to 26 wineries, and 80 thousand people call it home. 80 thousand people making 80 thousand dollars a year. put that in your captain crunch.

Daily Distance: 7.29

Total Distance Crossed: 40.97 miles

Livermore, California