What kind of world do you want?

It’s time to begin anew. Time to build a new life. Leave the bad decisions behind me and concentrate on the good ones I’m going to make, we’re going to make. Make this new life a better one.

School is back in my life now. I have high hopes that I may have grown up enough to actually do well, and Lauren has honed her skills in nagging at me to go to class when I go into Alan mode.

The depression is being dealt with. Winter is still here, and with it darkness and a lack of desire to move, but there’s hope underneath it. I’ve found that taking a steady diet of vitamin D is making a huge difference in my indifference. It certainly isn’t as good as being back in San Diego would be right now, but it does the trick.

The Ironman books are coming back off the shelf. This is a dream I need to get back on. When I don’t train and race, I seem to lose focus in the rest of my life. I become too jittery, too restless. I need to get into some events this year, not just plug along by myself every day. I need to try to get in there, and find some sort of competitive streak in me. It must be there somewhere, and I’m going to need it in life, so I’ve got to find it through tri. This is going to be the year of fast times. Of RUNNING, not just loping along trying to get to the line. Of riding my bike until every muscle in my legs is crying out in agony. Hell, maybe I’ll even learn how to swim.

It’s a whole new game now really. It’s not about me anymore. It’s about us, and what’s best for us. It changes everything when you have to account for another person when you’re making decisions, especially when it’s someone who matters more than the decisions themselves. It’s tough, but I’m trying babe.

Having gone to California and found the promised land of sunshine and coffee shops helps too. There’s a real, tangible goal. I’ve never really had one of those. That place was heaven, and I need to be back there. It’s not something I want, it’s something that I must have. I’m a whole different person there, and one that I greatly prefer to the embittered asshole that I tend to become when Michigan is forced upon me.

This is the time for me to apply myself. I never have, and I’m not even completely sure what it means. I’ve lived my life the easy way. I’ve raced to finish, jobs have fallen into my lap, and school has been blown off repeatedly as soon as I became bored with it. Well no longer. I’m not going for the finisher’s medal in life anymore, I’m shooting for the podium from here on out. Lets just hope I don’t get a flat.

So here I am world. It’s time to try. Its time to become what everyone seems to think I can. No more dead end jobs and dropped classes. No more ex girlfriends and whiskey. It’s time to do with my life what the trip to California was supposed to do for it. Its time to leave the past where it lies, stop waiting for life to happen to me, and to go out and get it.

History starts now.

I miss my bike.

It’s not just the bike really. I miss everything about California, aside from the unemployment I suppose. I miss waking up and riding my bike down to the coffee shop on the beach. The coffee wasn’t even very good, but you could sit there and drink it, while looking out at the sea, literally smelling the salt as you sipped your java.

I miss the 10-mile bike ride to La Jolla, and the coffee shop with 3 walls looking out over the cove, gazing off into the seemingly infinite blue. The dots of triathlon swimmers in training a constant. Cyclists flying by the window in perpetuity.

I miss the newness of it all. Driving down roads unknown. Getting lost, daily. Each trip a journey. Each restaurant or café a discovery. Each day feeling like a new beginning, a second chance at anything that didn’t go so well the first time around.

The song Temecula Sunrise came on today and it hit me. I’ve been there. I’ve seen that. The sun rose as I drove up the state to ride my bike through the mountains and vineyards of Temecula. The sunrise was less than spectacular that morning, the area between Temecula and Ocean Beach being mostly shrouded in a misty rain. The ride was nothing short of amazing though. One of the most difficult and most inspiring rides I’ve ever had the pleasure of participating in. (More info at my other blog here.)

Now I’m sitting here, playing the song. Looking out at overcast skies and cold rain. Spots of snow on the ground here and there. I’ve still got some good coffee in my hand, but it certainly isn’t the same without the ocean, the mountains. Just playing the song. What happened?

How do you put behind you the perfection of that place? The place where you always wanted to be, the place where you were, the place that you’ve lost. Every day I wake up and look out the window, hoping it was all a dream and I’m really waking up in an apartment by the sea. But there it is, dead trees, dead grass, snow, rain, Michigan.

Not to say there aren’t positive sides to my return. I still live with, and am now engaged to, the woman I love. We both have work here, and therefore can continue to eat and do all those things humans love to do. It’s good to be back amongst family and friends, but something is just missing.

I think it’s the energy. There’s an energy where the land meets the sea. It motivates, inspires, drives. When you wake up and look out the window, you gaze down the hill to the edge of the sea, and out into the infinite. At night you gaze into the nothingness, and see yourself. The sun pushes you through the in between with every photon.

I can barely leave my bed now, the depression of winter setting in. The muscles atrophy, the body aches and the mind wanders. I long to be back in that place by the sea. Back among the hippies and cyclists and artists. Back with my feet in the sand and my head in the clouds. Back where happiness pours from the sky. Back in the sun.

Return to OB.

So a final update. We’re back in Ocean Beach now, long enough that we’ve both started referring to it as OB. We now consider this home, and plan to find ourselves a place here soon. Sadly, we are both still without work. It doesn’t seem to be the same problem down here though. The jobs don’t exist up north, down here it’s just massively competitive to find one. Prep cook jobs require 3 years of experience. PREP COOK. So we’re having a hard time of it, but loving it the whole time.

It’s hard to be depressed in a place like OB. When you wake up, its sunny and warm, every day. When you ride your bike people wave, when you go for a run you get to stare at the ocean from atop cliffs at the coast.

Having been here for just over two weeks now, we’re starting to see some promise for jobs and have begun the apartment search. There are lots of them, they are cheap, and they aren’t miniscule in size. All we need to do now is finish up this job search so we can afford them.

The money is getting pretty tight. We are beginning to break into the savings that were meant to be for our first month’s rent and deposit. I’ve been talking to anyone I know (even some people I don’t) who might possibly have some connections in the area. Lauren is using her uncle Ray as a reference on applications since he seems to know everyone within 4 miles of his house, but we still haven’t quite had the luck we were hoping for. Depression has hit us both despite the weather. I find myself escaping into dreams for longer each day, knowing that when I wake up I go back to being jobless and friendless.

We sleep on the floor of a kitchen, in a basement. I’m thankful for the fact that we at least have this, but its still rough. Lauren has had back problems on and off, and my legs are stiffer with each day from trying to stay under the sleeping bag. We are dependant entirely upon the kindness of Ray and Kathy at this point for housing, and I cant stand it much longer.

We’ve talked about when we have to realize we didn’t make it and return. We aren’t there yet. I hope we never get there. But if there’s no work, there’s no work. At least back home we have families and friends, though I don’t know how I could look anyone in the eye again if this fails.

Through it all, we still don’t hate each other. We’ve had our little arguments, but we’re sitting in bed together right now, both writing on our laptops. I don’t think we will ever have a harder time in our lives, or be forced to spend nearly this much time together again. The silver lining in this whole shitfest of moving out west, is that we’re still together and still every bit as crazy about each other. I’m amazed we’ve made it this long, and each day I’m happier with her.

Who knows what the future may hold for us. Now if we can just get some jobs…



On a side note, for those who saw the entry from a couple days ago, the bike was found. Whoever took it apparently decided they didn’t like it and dumped it two blocks away, where I happened to walk past it on my way home. At least life isn’t all bad.

San Jose: A wasted month.

I’m going to try to keep this brief to avoid going off on a ridiculous long rant about how badly things went in San Jose. You already read my rant about my bike, you don’t need another entry like that this week.

We arrived at Gail and Chris’ place and took a day to relax before heading out to look for jobs. We spent nearly a full month looking for said jobs. We did not find said jobs.

There are very few jobs to be had in California, we realized. The unemployment rate is nearly equal to Michigan. We left a dying state to find ourselves in one that isn’t so much dying, as it is just supersaturated with people. I make myself a resume for kitchen work, and one for coffee shops, and hand out tons of the things. Lauren fills out countless applications.

We hear nothing.

One job does call me back, the Red Rock coffee shop in Mountain View. A great little place, with an awesome staff and stellar coffee. After a 3-part interview process and waiting awhile, I hear back and I did get the job. Unfortunately, in the end, I have to turn it down. Lauren still can’t find any work, and a part time coffee shop job isn’t about to support an apartment and two people in northern California.

We had some good times, met some nice people, got to watch part of the Tour of California, and were able to catch up with some of Lauren’s family, but it was time for us to leave. We made the decision, I made the call turning down the job, and we prepared to leave once again.

But not until we had one more good time. My friend Chelson from Starbucks had moved to the bay a few months before us to pursue his a career in rapping. Lucky for us, he had a show the night before we planned to leave, so we checked it out. It was pretty cool. It was in this swank little bar in Mountain View, and there were a couple good acts. Sadly, the rap scene in the bay apparently treats outsiders like shit and Chel doesn’t get on until pretty damn late. He was worth the wait though. The guy put on a good show, had some good rhymes, and definitely made it worth coming down. Thanks for the invite Chel, good luck.

So the next morning we booked. We would make our way back down the state, stopping in LA to make dinner for Corey and Jacque and crashing with them for the night, then heading down to Ocean Beach again to try to make a name for ourselves in San Diego.



It is at this point that I should tell you something. San Jose is NOT California. When you think California, you are not thinking of San Jose. In the month we spent there, it rained all but 3 days. Most of them, all day. It was gray and gross. People were super uptight about everything, and it looked like Troy. Even downtown San Jose wasn’t very cool. I mean it was alright, but certainly not anything to write home about (and yet here I am). The place was no worse than what we left behind in Michigan, but this was certainly not what we just drove 3000 miles to come to. We tried, and we were saddened by our failure in finding work, but I can’t say that I miss the place.

Catching up to move on.

Where did I leave off? Day 5 I think was next. So here we go. I’m gonna compact the rest of the trip thus far into this post so I can be caught up and not feel weird when I post about things that happen now. Lets do this thing.

Day 5: Leaving Las Vegas

Well it’s been fun, but its time to bid farewell to the most fun city anyone has ever seen. The day starts out nicely, its nice and toasty out again. We get the car out of the garage, tip the valet and roll.

After about 10 minutes we pull over for petrol and my first taste of the splendor that is Jack in the Box. Tacos for breakfast, win. Back on the road we go. Today is only about a 5-hour day, and its all pretty much in a straight line. No substantial mountains to deal with either. Lauren is quickly asleep again, and I cruise on into California, smiling quietly to myself as we pass the sign. We finally made it.


After the fun that is the California highway system for a while, we arrive in Ocean Beach, a little beach town near San Diego that appears to have stopped changing in the late 60’s. After a mile or so we get to Ray and Cathy’s place. Lauren’s uncle and aunt.

You can see the water from their front porch, seriously. The whole yard is a garden, and the house is filled with art. I am in my mom’s version of heaven.

We hang out in the living room for awhile, take the bikes off the back of the car, and chat with Ray and Cathy, the most laid back people I have ever met. Afterwards, we roll down to Hodad’s, a little local burger joint.

Oh man. The food orgy of Vegas continues. The burger is both huge and awesome, and the chocolate shakes that we order could feed a small town. I am wearing shorts, sitting outside, and eating awesome food in February. Life is good.

The evening continues in that sort of way. We just wander around the town, stop by a lookout to check out the awesomeness that is the ocean, set up our bed and get our sleep on. We sleep on the floor in their basement kitchen, but it certainly does the trick.

Day 6: Making our way through LA.

Another beautiful day in sunny San Diego. We’re up around 7 in the AM, as is everyone else in the house, and we all head out for coffee at a cool little place called Newbreak. The decor reminds me of the first Thai restaurant I went to, but the espresso is tasty and the barista reminds me of an old friend from Starbucks.

After coffee we head back to the house and get our directions for the day printed out, we’ll be heading up past LA to Corey (my cousin) and Jacque’s place to hang out with them and crash for the night. However, its only a 2 or 3 hour drive (which seems like running down to 711 to us at this point) so we dick around for awhile before we leave.

For the first time, Lauren is heading down to the beach, and is downright giddy. She refuses to leave though, until she gets a picture of her Uncle Ray and I on our bikes. Not to disappoint, we’re off. Ray will be taking me to a place called the Cabrillo Monument today, where I’m told the view is phenomenal.

Now I was warned that Ray was an incredible cyclist, and I knew I was out of shape, but I was not at all prepared for this. As soon as we get out the driveway we turn left and head up a hill steeper than anything I’ve ever ridden on, and we continue on it for a while. Ray is nice about it and takes his time, not losing sight of me, but I am DYING. I didn’t quite realize how badly I’d let myself get out of shape. There were times that I was seriously concerned about having a heart attack.

But we made it, and it was worth it. The view was pretty great, despite the fog that had rolled in that night, and most of the ride was quite nice. Ray and I hang out up there awhile as he shows me around and we get to know each other a bit, then we head back down. The hills were rough going up, but going down them for the first time may be even worse. Suffice to say I have put some time into making sure my brakes are 100% since then.

After meeting back at the house and having a bit of lunch, we bid our farewells and are off again, not knowing that we’ll be back here in just a few weeks. On to visit Corey and Jacque.

We got lucky. Very lucky. We are driving through LA on Superbowl Sunday and there is near zero traffic, so we hit their house pretty quick. Then… spend 15 minutes trying to find a parking spot. So Superbowl Sunday is both a blessing and a curse I suppose. We get to their place and are surprised to find that Mr. Uhlar is going to make us dinner. Score.

A fine meal was had and we all caught up while watching a little TV. A nice relaxing evening that was much appreciated. Soon the old folks went to bed, and we weren’t far behind them. More driving to be done tomorrow.

Day 7: Do you know the way to San Jose?

We didn’t, so we looked it up when we got out of bed. Lauren had some breakfast as I went for my first run in California. It was pitiful, maybe a mile. Lauren even made fun of me for it. I got cleaned up, grabbed some coffee at the Starbucks Jacque was kind enough to point out the night before, and we were on our way once again.

Today we would make our way up to Milpitas, a little suburb of San Jose. We decided, after getting on the highway, that we would take the scenic route today and roll up the coast, stopping in Santa Barbara on the way. We wound through vineyards and orange fields making out way to the coast, and had the beauty of the Pacific to our left for the couple hours it took to get to Santa Barbara, then we stopped for lunch.

Don’t ever go to Santa Barbara. You will be pissed off for the rest of your life that you don’t live there. We wanted to, but the prices were out of hand. Seriously, they are just RAPING people for housing there. We would later look at a studio apartment that we would have a hard time lying down in since we’re kind of tall, and wouldn’t ever be able to hold our 3 bikes. Oh I forgot the important part; it was over a thousand dollars per month. Yeah. What the fuck.

Anyway, for the time being we were in love with the place. It’s a perfect little combination of beach town and civilization. We wanted to stay there forever, but we had places to be, so we pushed on to Milpitas.

The sun went down, and we drove through more hills. I’m still not quite used to this by this point and it’s still pretty unnerving, so the second half of our trip goes a bit slow but we make it to Gail (Lauren’s cousin) and Chris’ place after a couple tries finding it.

We are in Troy, California.

Chris is a cool guy, he gets us set up with some pizza delivery and we all just hang out and watch terrible MTV shows. We have made it to our destination, and can actually do some laundry and unpack a few things. Its nice to finally be here, their house is beautiful, and a bedroom is set up for us in the loft. Awesome. Sleep time.

Hey, fuck you.

So things have been a little rough moving to California. What with there being no jobs and all. Been out here for almost two months and yet Lauren and I are both still jobless. The market out here is about as good as what we left behind in Michigan.

Things have been looking up a little bit though, with call backs, interviews, and old connections coming through in the pinch. We’ve survived thanks to the help of family, friends, and tax returns.

The weather has been amazing, and I’ve been able to run and ride more in the last month than I did from November through to February. I’ve been riding my bike everywhere I go, barely even using the car.

Which brings us to today’s title. Today while sitting in Starbucks job hunting online, I stopped paying attention for a few minutes and my bike vanished. I’ve been using my old Schwinn LeTour as a commuter bike, having just rebuilt it to be a fixed gear. Not 3 months after that rebuild, she is now gone. Thanks a lot asshole.

Thank you for taking away the good feeling I had about this place. Thank you for stealing a thirty year old bike with almost no monetary value from me. Thank you for stealing my main means of transportation and insuring that I now have to either use a car, or a two thousand dollar bike to get everywhere. Thank you, for being such a piece of shit.

I hope that you’re local and I see you riding. I hope that you try to sell the bike to someone that knows me. I hope that you count on that janky front brake stopping you at the bottom of a hill and you get hit by a fucking truck. My bike will be pretty mangled from that, but it’ll be worth it if there’s one less piece of shit like you walking around.

So thanks asshole. Thanks for reminding me that as a general rule, people are pieces of shit who don’t deserve the air they breathe. I hope you come across this some day. In fact no I don’t, because I really hope you’ve already died trying to ride my bike. Fuck you.

Interlude: Midnight snacks.

(As I'm sure you’ve realized by now, Lauren and I are writing these trip updates after the fact. In fact, we’ve been off the road for a good couple weeks now and just haven’t been very motivated to bang out the trip writing.

Today will be more along the lines of what you can expect from LTD after the trip entries have been completed. Here goes.)

The first thing I’m buying when we get our own place is a toaster oven.

Tonight I went for a little bike ride, and felt terrible after. Due to this fact, I didn’t so much eat dinner as I instead picked at it a bit and watched TV. Around midnight though, the hunger hit hard. So I wandered down to the kitchen for the best of meals: the midnight snack.

I had picked up some French bread from the bakery earlier in the day, as well as some spinach-artichoke dip. Seemed like the perfect midnight snack to me so I pulled it all out and began to munch. Something just didn’t feel right though. As I looked around the kitchen I saw the microwave and the toaster oven. Brilliant!

So I threw the dip in the micro and sliced the bread into little sticks, then threw it in the toaster oven. A few minutes later I had nice crisp bread, and melty, gooey, delicious dip.

Now I’m standing in the kitchen, barefoot in my pajamas, eating freshly made breadsticks with piping hot spinach-artichoke dip. As I stand there I glance toward the half empty (or is it half full) bottle of wine from dinner. Oh yes, that’s what this needs.

Bare feet. Pajama pants. Dip and bread. Wine that has been sitting open long enough to actually taste good now. My headphones on, jamming some Of Montreal. A wide smile draws across my face as I stand there. The food wasn’t incredible, the wine wasn’t blowing my mind, but the moment was perfect.

I mean really, these are the moments that I imagine all chefs must have as kids. Sitting in the kitchen at midnight with Mom, eating simple food. French toast, breadsticks, even just a bowl of cereal, but there’s a serenity to it. The midnight snack is a pleasure left to very few of us who can’t sleep. It’s always delicious, and always calming. It’s just always perfect.

Obviously I went a little out of the way to make my perfection tonight, but it doesn’t always have to be the case. A left over taco would have felt just as right. It’s the moment. The house is silent, and there’s nothing else in the world for you to be doing since it’s all closed. There’s just you there in the kitchen, in your pajamas. Enjoying your food in the silence, feeling at home in the darkness.

Well you’re not alone midnight snackers. We’re out there, munching by the fluorescent under cabinet lights. Contemplating our lives, our day, and of course our food while all is still.

While the world sleeps, we dine.