Amtrekker

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 in my mouth and I wanted another opportunity to strut my stuff.

Enter Paul Parowski, Cody Willard and the crew over at Happy Hour on Fox Business News. Thanks, guys!

6. Walk to the top of the Empire State Building: This was one of those things that, upon writing the list, I always thought of as a slightly lame tourist trap that would take zero effort and maybe a ten dollar bill to make happen. Little did I know that two years later whenever anyone asks me what the toughest thing I had to do on the trip was I would, without hesitation, tell the story of trying to find a way into a stairwell that is mandated closed by the NYC fire marshals 364 days a year.

7. See a live taping of the Colbert Report: I’m not sure this one requires any explanation at all. Who wouldn’t want to see a live taping of the Colbert Report? And since the story of how I got snubbed and had my camera taken away is already on the site there’s nothing left to say but, “Thanks, Ace!”

8. See a game at Fenway Park: I’m not nearly as big a baseball fan now as I once was but I still remember that feeling of walking into a major league ballpark (the Oakland Coliseum) for the first time and being blown away by the enormity of what I was about to experience.

I guess what I was hoping for with Fenway was to relive that experience but in a different time. A prouder time, maybe? It’s hard to describe because for some reason baseball and America are inextricably linked in my brain and I think I’m continually searching for those little nuggets of life that I can point to and say things have been great and they CAN get better. Too much cheese?

Regardless, I was blown away by Fenway and if you ever want to see baseball played in a place that just FEELS like that’s where baseball SHOULD be played…go there. Thanks, Jill!

P.S. Since it’s kind of apropos, here’s another article I wrote this week for Amateur Traveler

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 an awesome newsletter filled with travel deals! Thanks everyone!

Thanks!

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 my free time.)

2. Ride a horse through a covered bridge: This one has an easy explanation. I’m a geek. Most of my life has revolved around Disney in some way (as sad as that may be). Literally, the ONLY reason this one was on the list was because of the image of Icabod Crane trying to escape the headless horseman in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. As a bonus, when I wrote the list I had never ridden a horse before. Check and Check. Thanks, News To Me!

3. Sleep in a lighthouse: After college I moved to LA and lived in a boat on LA Harbor for about a year and a half. At least three times a week I would run to the nearest beach and out onto the fishing pier, occasionally stopping to stretch and stare at the lighthouse at the mouth of the harbor. I can’t tell you how many times I wondered if it would be an easy task to climb the break wall and break in with a sleeping bag in tow. Why? Who knows any more. The point is I spent too much time thinking about doing it and not enough time doing it.

Luckily. I didn’t have to break into Point Betsie.

4. Learn survival skills: Specifically, I was disappointed by how much cooler Les Stroud and Bear Grylls were than I would ever be. Not that being able to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together puts me in the same ant-eating, shelter-building league as them but at least I gave it a shot and learned that my place is in a warm climate where the only use for fire is to light the candles around a warm bubble bath. (Don’t give me that crap about cooking. That’s why god invented microwaves.)

Okay, team. Let me know if you want to hear the stories behind the rest of the items on the list or if I should just stop here.

But for today…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 an awesome newsletter filled with travel deals! Thanks everyone!

Thanks!

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.

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 an awesome newsletter filled with travel deals! Thanks everyone!

Thanks!

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 answers for a lot of the same questions.

Weirder still is that all of those different answers are just as true as any of the others. I guess what I’m getting at (poorly) is that there is no real “AH HA!” moment. Everything in life kind of built toward the moment I jumped on that first jet to Philadelphia with a “backpack full of technology.”

I do, however, remember the tipping point when I realized that I could actually make this adventure happen. I sat in my car in a parking garage in Orange County calling everyone I was close to excitedly telling them the outline for my idea. I sat in that car on the phone with one person after another until the battery died and I finally walked into the mall hours after I had parked shaking with excitement.

So, here’s the new plan. There’s a lot I don’t want to talk about right now that is potential fodder for the book but there are plenty of side stories that I doubt will make the cut. Lots of whys and hows. I think I’m going to start with telling the stories of how most of the items made it on my list in the first place. (Expect some weird nebulous answers.)

But if you guys have any specific questions about Amtrekker let me know by leaving a comment at the bottom of this page or just shoot an email to brett@amtrekker.com and I’ll spend the next couple weeks worth of blogs trying to wrangle the truth out of myself. If nothing else the posts should be a fun break from the book proposal!

Let me know!

I’m done.

Brett.

Also, here’s why bookingbuddy.com is cool and why I’ve been using it so much lately. You know how sites like expedia and travelocity aggregate airline prices and what not? Well, that was all cool and well but now they have individual deals with airlines. So if you check flights through both you get two radically different prices…BUT, booking buddy is like an awesome travel aggregater AGGREGATER! Pretty handy, right?! But more importantly…our 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 an awesome newsletter filled with travel deals! Thanks everyone!

Thanks!