Amtrekker

Hey Team,

I know why hell is so hot. Salt Lake City is using up all the freakin’ cold! Wow. Just…wow. When Taylor wrote to the site and said come on over to Salt Lake City and my friends will teach you some survival skills she was careful to add that it was cold. She also said, “But that’s what hats and coats are for!”

What she did NOT say was that she meant, “Bring at least four hats and eight VERY warm coats otherwise pieces of you may start falling off shortly after freezing solid and cracking like the liberty bell. I had to stop at every coffee shop I walked past today just to use their bathroom so I could check on things.

Half the time I couldn’t tell if my phone was vibrating or I was just shivering uncontrollably.

I’d also like to add that, although my couch surfing host, Peter, disagrees and insists it’s god’s gift to urban planning, there’s definitely something wrong with the street naming they’ve got going on here. Anytime you can tell someone to meet you at the corner of 200 and 200 and be talking about not one…not two, but FOUR different intersections, it’s time to rethink your naming convention.

Now before you Boston douchebags pipe up. I understand that it’s 200 N and 200 S etc. But here’s the thing. If you have John Smith Sr. and John Smith Jr. in the same room you’re probably going to start calling one of them Little Johnny. Just because the suffixes are different doesn’t mean that’s enough.

All that being said: Salt Lake City is absolutely GORGEOUS and my couch surfing hosts are some of the most generous I have ever met.

Another thing that needs to be addressed is the fact that I’m falling asleep face first in Charley’s lap over and over again. I’ve had a grand total of three hours of sleep the last three days.

I HAVE to do something about that. I’ll finish updating this and post some pictures in the morning.

Not done yet.

Brett.

HA! Made it!

With time to spare even. If the train hadn’t been late in Reno I couldn’t have done it. Way to be quasi-lame Amtrak!

Enjoy my day.

[update] Here’s the youtube link for the podcast.

OH! It’s here!

Later.

Brett.

If you like seeing videos of me sitting around bored out of my mind then maybe you’ll want to make a donation!

Seriously.

Hey Team,

I fully expected to be on a long miserable bus ride to Salt Lake City right now. Unfortunately Greyhound and nature had other ideas. Apparently the roads to SLC are closed due to snow right now so I have to wait until morning to catch a train instead.

This is especially good news since this is the first week I’ve said, “Every Wednesday 6pm PST blah blah blah.” (Sometimes sarcasm just doesn’t come off the way you want it to in the interwebs.)

So here I am. Sitting. Waiting. More importantly, I have no videos ready to upload tomorrow and no startlingly interesting footage to cut up and show off. On the other hand this is almost exactly the kind of thing I was hoping having a timeslot would force me into, although to a much more stressful degree.

So basically I have T-Minus 16 hours to show you people a slice of the Amtrekker life and upload it despite the extremely spotty connections I tend to get on trains. Wish me luck!

Either way I’m excited by the prospect of showing off something other than me falling on my face for the first time in weeks!

Okay, onward and upward.

I’m done.

Brett.

If you like seeing me squirm, what ever you do, DON’T make a donation.

Seriously.

Hey Team,

I suppose the smart thing to do (if I were willing to cheat you people), especially in light of my last post promising to have a new video up every Wednesday at 6pm PST, would have been to hold onto this video for just a couple more days. But then you would have been gyped one whole video I haven’t even thought about making yet! (Yikes!)

PLUS, who could, in good conscience, hold back this kind of excitement and adventure from an eager group of people? So with out further ado…no wait, just a little more ado.

Sandboarding was awesome! I just want to take a second to thank everyone that made it happen…Cody, Rebecca, Erica, Saadia and Nate!

Okay, no more ado…I promise.

And here’s that youtube link to the same video!

Okay, don’t forget. New video up Wednesday by 6pm PST. Tell your friends…and your friends’ friends…and at least two of your friends’ enemies.

I’m done.

Brett.

If you liked this video then make a (tiny little itsy bitsy) donation to make sure things get to keep happening!

Don’t let me stop you.

Hey Team,

Why wait for another new year to make a resolution? In that spirit here’s my New Day’s Resolution:

In an effort to bring a little more consistency to the Amtrekker site, from now on new video content will be posted every Wednesday by 6pm PST. (Yes, I am going to regret saying that as soon as I hit the send button…but as long as type fast enough I wont regret it until AFTER I hit that button and by then it will be too late! MuhHAHAHA!)

I’ll be able to post the Sandboarding video before Wednesday so I’ll have to come up with another one for “Video Content Wednesday” (That’s a terrible name, someone please hurt me if I ever call it that again.

The idea here is to give you guys a better idea of what my life is like and still give me a chance to not be strapped to Charley editing video 24/7 while maintaining a deadline and thus (yeah, I used the word thus…so what?) a little urgency in the work.

This doesn’t preclude a second video in the week if something exciting happens. Rather, no matter what, you guys get a new video on Wednesday, if I cross something off the list then (Ka-Kow!) that’s what you get. If nothing gets crossed off then you’ll get something similar to those Day in the Life videos or TASTHIB. But it will probably take a little more of the “This-is-what-I’m-TRYING-to-do-to-get-something-crossed-off-the-list” tone.

So, be happy! Be excited! And someone please tell me where I should be going next!

I’m done.

Brett.

If you like what you heard then make a donation to make sure things get to keep happening!

Don’t let me stop you.

Hey Team,

Looks like it’s time to bail on Vegas. I made a couple of good connections that will probably bare fruit as far as being part of a stage illusion goes but the wheels of networking turn slowly in this city and I’m starting to get antsy.

I have to take care of two quick things back in Southern California and then it’s time to hit the road for realsies. So riddle me this good viewers, “Where to next?”

Take a good look at that list running down the left hand side of the site and let me know what you think you can help with lickety-split. If you say come to Iowa and do some crop circling then by gum I’ll start making my way towards Iowa.

Sorry for the lack of posts the last two days I was stumbling through some video work. That should be up soon. But for now I’ll leave you with the other Vegas story I teased since so many people asked for the details:

There’s a little dive of a casino in Downtown Las Vegas, not only off the strip but off any visibly beaten path. I mentioned the name to a woman working the craps table yesterday and she insisted it didn’t even exist.

But I assure you it does. It’s called The Western. No need to waste your time there, I did it for you. The requisite cloud of smoke hangs over the entire casino and the bar smells distinctly of vomit. I was told the smell had nothing to do with the night I visited. “That’s normal.”

I was standing near the bar chatting with the three girls I walked in with when a scruffy old man, less than steady on his feet, grabbed my neck and leaned in close.

I said something witty like, “Hey man, that’s my neck,” as I smiled and brushed him away. (I’m a firm believer that a good solid smile will defuse 90% of situations.) But he insisted in leaning in close to my ear to exhale a warning, “My friends say if you don’t get out of here they’re going to kick your ass.”

Now, I consider myself a pretty observant dude. So before this guy ever said a single word to me it was pretty clear that he didn’t have any friends hanging around. There were however a lot of others like him. There’s no doubt the four of us were the odd men (well, man…and women) out.

Bottom line: despite my overwhelming sissiness I was pretty confident the old man couldn’t hurt me as fast as I could hurt him.

I laughed it off and thanked him for the warning but the girls were pissed and he could tell. He backed off for a couple minutes.

Then came the next warning, this time he chose not to grab my neck, “My friends said if you don’t take that hat off they’re gonna knock it off.”

“But I like this hat.”

That’s when one of the girls, Shana my couch surfing host, yelled for the bartender to get him out. A security guard came over and I tried to explain that he was just a harmless creepy old drunk and who’s to say we wont all be looked at that way sometime or another? (Maybe not so much the old drunk part.) He just took himself out of his element and now he’s back where he belongs.

On the other side of the puke stained bar; nowhere near me.

I’m done.

Brett.

If you liked reading about this adventure feel free to make a donation!

Don’t let me stop you.