Archive for December, 2008
The Next Four
Dec 31st
Obviously I let a couple of guest articles and some other writing projects distract me this week but to get now I’m ready. Let’s get back to those whys so you guys can stop emailing me about why I haven’t written the rest of the whys.
5. Enter a hot dog eating contest: The truth is this one was a long standing desire and I’d kill to be in just about any “eating” contest it’s just that hot dogs are kind of the end all, be all of eating contests and I’ve always believed that the more specific your goals are the more likely you’ll be to step up to the plate and make it happen.
Once upon a time I though that I would finally get my chance to out-eat anyone with less dedication to the task during an after-school program sponsored caramel apple eating contest. I got off to a great start and was at least a half apple ahead of everyone else by the time I reached for the fourth and final caramel coated confection…
Which turned out to be an onion instead of an apple. At the risk of tossing out an absurdly bad pun…that always left a bad taste More >
The First Four
Dec 20th
Hey Team,
Ready for some whys? I’ll start explaining why some of the items made the list and just cut it off when I hit about a page so I can continue tomorrow. This will probably be a fairly long process. As I mentioned before, I don’t have a lot of good answers for why I do the things I do.
1. Tube down a river: I had a roommate in college who grew up in Northern California and used to rave about floating down a river for hours with an ice chest and friends every summer. It was one of those things (like so many others on the list) that I’d always said I would do. Every couple months the offer would be extended and I would always find some excuse for why I wouldn’t be able to go. In other words “life” would get in the way.
It’s funny how often we let life get in the way of living.
My own tubing escapade wasn’t quite what he often described so I’m totally willing to give it another chance but for the most part it was just an exercise in forced relaxation. (Relaxing isn’t exactly my favorite thing to do with More >
#14 Make Moonshine Pt. 2
Dec 14th
Hey Team,
Here’s the fun stuff!
“Amtrekker and Dr. Tiki travel into international waters under cover of night to show you how to distill moonshine.
Mistakes are made…not the least of which are actually tasting the booze.
(Part two of a two part series! Part one is right here.)”
Follow Amtrekker, Dr. Tiki and TikiTosca on twitter.
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%3D2", 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();Subscribe to Amtrekker on iTunes!
And here’s the YouTube link.
Thanks Team!
I’m done.
Brett.
Just for the record. Bookingbuddy really is a pretty rad website if you’re looking to plan a trip. It actually allows you to search most of the top website from one location. Pretty handy! But more importantly…our new affiliation with bookingbuddy.com means all you have to do to help out Amtrekker is click on one of their ads and sign up for More >
Stories Behind Stories
Dec 4th
Hey Team,
I’ve been working on a narrative that ties together this whole wacky adventure for a couple weeks now. (Some might call it a book…I don’t want to get that excited.) As a result I’ve had to put a lot more thought into the whys and hows of Amtrekker than I’ve ever had to before and strangely, it’s been pretty enlightening.
It’s amazing how much I didn’t know about why I did this and what I learned along the way. I assume it’s pretty typical but over the last year I guess I just got so lost in sound bites that I didn’t really consider just how complicated a process it has actually been. With all of the radio and television interviews people didn’t want a complicated story. They just want a quick, concise, witty answer to their question so they could move on to the next one.
I can do quick and witty til the cows come home so that part was easy…but the “truth” is a lot more complicated. As I’ve been going through some old interviews to get a feel for the questions people want the answers to I’ve noticed that (maybe because I get bored) I’ve given different More >