Archive for August, 2008
Charley’s Malaise
Aug 12th
Hey Team,
I still have to figure out what to do with my week before I head down south again to finally knock out that pesky moonshine objective with Dr. Tiki. SO, today I’m taking off for Crater Lake National Park and the State of Oregon so that I can finally cross off the geocaching in that state. (Which, by the way, I’ve failed at TWICE.)
In other news: the diagnosis for Charley’s malaise has finally, officially, come in from the Apple geniuses and no joke, it makes me kind of sad. Being told that his battery was going bad was kind of like finding out my cat had Leukemia. At first I didn’t understand how it could be possible then I just didn’t want it to be true. And to make matters worse batteries aren’t covered under the Apple Care warranty so Charley is just going to have to limp through life for the next couple months until Amtrekker is over and I can actually afford to grab the little guy a new battery.
On hindsight maybe the anthropomorphism of Charley wasn’t such a great idea. I wouldn’t be so disappointed if I didn’t think of him as my favorite travel companion, one More >
Welcome to Crazytown. Population: Me
Aug 11th
Hey Team,
Sometimes it concerns me that when I’m forced to spend a lot of time alone I may not be much more than a hop, skip and a jump from Crazytown. It feels like there’s a thin wall between sane and insane in my life but that wall is really more of a sheet of rubber than a stack of bricks. If I lean to hard I end up crossing that line…but so far I rebound back.
After this last week I wouldn’t be surprised if maybe there were a small tear in that sheet too.
The funny thing about Amtrekker is that people assume I spend a lot of time alone. But nothing could be further from the truth. If anything I have less alone time now than I ever have before. The alone time that I get now is a different flavor though. I don’t end up just alone but sometimes completely cut off.
This isn’t the greatest example but over the last five days I spent a total of 24 hours on a motorcycle with nothing but the sound of wind bouncing of my helmet to keep me company. In the meantime my brain took a running jump at that More >
Hugfest 2008
Aug 10th
Hey Team,
Today was a surprisingly hectic day considering ninety percent of the time I was sitting still. I rode the motorcycle from San Pedro, CA to Oceanside, CA to meet up with Sonny and Sandy of podcacher.com fame and do a little interview with them (both SUPER nice people) before jumping back on the bike and riding another five hours to my cousin Chris’s wedding reception.
Most of the people at the wedding have been watching my every move via the website but this was the first time I had seen many of them since Amtrekker began. Hugfest 2008 started as soon as I walked through the door (an hour late) and most of the conversations were very similar.
“Brett! How are you?”
“Great!”
“I saw you ________. I can’t believe that happened! How many do you have left?”
It was actually kind of fun to tell the same stories over and over again to audiences that were that excited to hear the details though. However, here’s what I learned (and I honestly believe this is an important topic and before today I didn’t even realize it was an issue): Never underestimate how important the ability to end a conversation is.
It wasn’t much of More >
Lake Shasta Shenanigans
Aug 8th
Hey Team,
I’m officially back in the real world and officially disappointed in all of you. Did no one decode Charley’s answers to the emails?! You’re making my heart sad people. You’re all lucky I like you so much.
Fine. To the update:
I’m in Los Angeles right now. I came down to meet up with Dr. Tiki to try to make moonshine (neither of us know what we’re doing) but that got pushed back until after the 17th so now I’m just catching up on stuff here on the site that I’m so ridiculously behind on and we’ll see what happens from there.
The Lake Shasta vacation was a blast! It was a literal boatload of some of my best friends all wake boarding, relay racing, dressing up in eighties garb and pretending we were navy seals. (That sounds wrong. Just to clarify, we weren’t dressing up in eighties garb TO pretend we were navy seals…those are just two separate things we happened to do.)
In fact the Navy Seal pretending has resulted in a ruthless laceration on my leg and a swollen ankle…so obviously that was a blast! (What is it about getting hurt while having fun that makes the fun so much More >
Get Well Charley
Aug 3rd
Hey Team,
Just wanted you all to know that Charley and I really appreciate all the support during the little guy’s difficult times. I’m out on a lake off the grid right now on a little mini Team Amtrekker get away so I had Charley pick out a few of his favorite pieces of mail to show off. The site is all his today! Enjoy!
Hey Charley,
Ya gotta pull through buddy. Who else is going to keep the Amtrekker warm at night?
Get well soon. Let me know if I need to send a prescription!
Karl J. Blessinger, MD
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Dear Charley,
I’m writing this using Rachelle’s email address, because “they” won’t let me have one of my own! Darn people…literally. But I’ve heard a lot about you in relation More >
#50 Hike to the Bottom of the Grand Canyon! [podcast]
Aug 1st
Hey Team,
Obviously my self imposed deadlines have been a joke since I bought the Greyhound bus pass. BUT, never fear…the videos are still coming. I just get fewer opportunities to team up with Charley and get them done lately.
Oh, look! Here’s one right here! Handy.
“Team Amtrekker travels to the Grand Canyon National Park on a three day journey to the world’s most famous hole in the ground!
Immense beauty and heavy breathing ensues.”
Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player. var WT1_1 = { params : { wmode : "opaque", allowscriptaccess : "always", allownetworking : "all", allowfullscreen : "true"}, flashvars : { file : "http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amtrekker.com%2Findex.php%3Fxspf%3Dtrue%26id%3D7", volume : "80", bufferlength : "5", controlbar : "over", 'logo.hide' : "false", shuffle : "false", playlist : "bottom"}, attr : { id : "WT1", name : "WT1"}, start : function() { swfobject.embedSWF("http://www.amtrekker.com/wp-content/uploads/player.swf", "WT1_1", "437", "522", "9.0.0", false, this.flashvars, this.params , this.attr ); } } WT1_1.start();AND, as usual…here’s the youtube link.
Thanks!
I’m done.
Brett.
If you enjoy the podcasts…why not donate?
Don’t let me stop you.
AKPC_IDS += "350,";
