Coming to Decisions

I've come to a couple decisions lately, on things that were once up in the air. For one, i've decided that i've lost my pedometer again, and not just misplaced it under my bed, bo jackson poster, typewriter, or girlfriend. It seems genuinely gone, and it's time to accept it. This most recent pedometer lasted at least five long months, making it by far the most faithful to date. It lost all but one button, the one i needed, and went for about a thousand miles. Sigh.

In more positive news, i have also come to the decision that i need to support my lifestyle by coming up with a hair brained scheme that will land me enough money so that i dont have to sell jeans, clean a toilet, or hold eight-hour long conversations about nothing with people that make me a shallower and overall dumber human being. SO i've come to the decision that my entire family lineage (essentially being Scandinavian and horrifically tall) has all led up to my birth for one specific purpose. I am going to catch Barry Bonds' 755th homerun, and sell it for three million dollars. When Barry breaks Aaron's all-time homerun record in either June or July, there will be nonstop media buzz about the worthiness of his title as king/slugger/guru, but there will be NO doubt that the ball itself will sell for millions. Millions of US dollars. And those millions will be mine, as soon as i catch it.

The thing is, i've never gotten a ball at a game before, and i think i'm about due. I've been to eight games already this season, and they are starting to land really close to me. Couple this with the fact that i've been forcing my girlfriend to play catch with me at least twice a week (unknowing of my plan to get rich) ((if i DO catch it, please don't tell her)) and i'm getting really good, and by that i mean i can throw it at her hard enough that she gets pissed off. Hence, good.

And so my real decision is that the defining purpose of me coming to San Francisco, and being born and tall in the first place, is probably due to the fact that i'm going to catch this ball pretty soon. Also, imagine how big of a deal it's going to be after i call it months in advance on this shitty website! All five of you reading will be famous for having known me before i flew in a gulf stream five, snorting blow out of K-Fed's belly button. I'm looking forward to this, enough that i've begun drafts of my two week's notice to leave work. Stay tuned, and please believe.

Another Week's Wanderings: 39.91 miles

Total Wandering Accomplished: 1,391.25 miles

Now Leaving: Skiddy, Kansas

Sa-lide on in to Salida!

While the Royals were sliding into home plate all over the Oakland A's this weekend, we've slid another fifty miles east of the halfway meridian into Salida, home to 45 thousand faithful royals/ barbeque/god-loving Americans!

Salida de emergencia! Spanish for "chase this shrinking B-52 bomber down these very small stairs!" Spanish is hard. So is working for a company that exploits an aging demographic's once-great, artistically rich culture, capitalizing strictly off of nostalgic novelties! And listening to the same three or four Bob Dylan songs on repeat every day, watching graying hipsters faces brighten as they come on, pulling out three hundred not-so-hard-earned dollars for two t-shirts and a pair of shitty jeans that i was forced to trick them into buying.

Dear Reader: please please please try not to become too enraptured with cultural influence to invest your nickels in needless, overpriced things that will not help you to become better people in any way. Please go to baseball games, pursue realer happinesses, and make yourself useful through art. As you age, you will have access to a more expendable income, and feel an increased desire to compensate for your aging with investments in material "improvements." Do not be fooled by tomorrows actors and models who are currently wearing diapers, their culture will be one that you will be excluded from, regardless. Isn't that awful!?

This is getting a wee bit dark for my tastes, considering life is a fist of lollipops, but i just wanted to make it clear that my job isn't, like, good. And you shouldn't feel alone if your job isn't, like, good too. You should probably be working toward a freelance career, or joining the ranks of the majority, ignoring international politics and numbing yourself through substance abuse! More on Salina soon! yeah!! go rockets into outer space!!

Week's Distance: 43.91 miles

Total Distance Covered: 1351.34 miles

Salina, Kansas

Halfway. Mark. Kanopolis. Death Match 9000?

Well, my faithful, it appears we've come half way. at 1,300 miles we are now officially closer to the Brooklyn Bridge than we are to my friendly-neighborhood-red-as-a-robin golden gate. How can it be, you ask? Well, it can be because i started in September. and we're only halfway there. So jesus christ, what do you mean how can it be? It can totally be.

I've done about half an hour of my typical antics attempting to research something worthy of a halfway marker post, it should be great shouldnt it? But let's face it, the only thing amazing about Kanopolis is its name. 500 people live there. Judging by the photographs i'm finding, there is a lake nearby. With fish in it. Chances are the fish outnumber people by enough that the fish could easily rise up and take the city back. Back from, like, i dont know. The way it was before. When the fish had it. Before, like, oh god. Forget it.Check out George Brett. How much longer before i get to talk about him? We're in the eastern half, my babies. Now i'm going to Denver.


Weekly Distance: 51.67 miles

Total Distance Covered: 1,307.43 miles

Kanopolis, Kansas

Motel Mustache

Now we're talkin. Welcome to Hays, Kansas, once one of the wildest towns in the old west, now boasting over one thousand motel rooms! Wild Bill Hickok was sheriff of the town in 1867, and roughly 30 homicides took place in that span with vagrants like Calamity Jane, Wyatt Earp and "Buffalo Bill" Cody taking lives every other night over dimly-lit games of whisky-infused five card stud. Hays was the epitome of the "lawless" western town, with dance halls and great bars to die in on every dusty corner. Toward the end of the 1870's Hays calmed considerably, nearly everybody fun was dead, and Russian immigrants began to populate the region.

Not that its history is entirely violent, Hays also boasts a number of artists, including Alexander Gardner, who makes these nifty three-dimensional photos you may or may not have seen:So if you put on a pair of 3-D glasses, you can actually see the real image, which looks like something along these lines:
Four Day's Distance: 22.62 miles

Total Distance Covered: 1254.76 miles

Leaving Hays, Kansas