Winter had sucked all the color out of the world.
The prairie in the glory of midsummer had been a surge of green, summer winds sending pulses through the tall grass, causing it to wave like an underwater kelp forest in a strong current. Now, however, it had relinquished its blooming majesty, its former radiance dulled to straw the color of a deerhide. The flowerheads were stripped of their colorful identities, appearing like sepia photographs of themselves; the ghosts of summer past. The sweetclover, which had extended from one horizon to the other back in June, covering the prairie in a blanket of gold, was now skeletonized, its broken-off stems rolling like tumbleweeds in the winter gales.
Trevor was over it. Another South Dakota winter, another four months until the snows would cease and the ice would melt in the creek. In March and April, the spring blizzards would bury the world and on the subsequent sunny days, the combination of blue sky and white land would be startling, like finding oneself living in the center of a bicolored flag.
But for now, a capricious midwinter thaw had left snowdrifts only in the prairie draws, on the north-facing ridges, in the shadows of the ponderosas that speckled the hills. And around the trailer, mud. In a few nights, a deep freeze would turn the sides of the tire ruts into knife edges, testing the suspension of any vehicle that took the approach too fast. Still, that was better than the loamy mud, which could imprison even a 4x4 until freezing cold or drying winds finally freed it.
The view from the front porch could be gorgeous. Back in July, when the church group from Virginia had constructed a wheelchair ramp for the trailer, the evening sun had set the prairie on fire, its light reflected by a thunderstorm hanging in the sky as if by a puppeteer’s strings. “God almighty,” the youth pastor had exclaimed. But now, grays and browns mingled in a decidedly drab palette. Over at the little bird feeder, the goldfinches were no longer yellow-and-black exclamation points, but had acquiesced to dullness, dressed for a time of year when vibrant color seemed to be outlawed by some unseen authority.
Trevor stared at the expanse of mud that spooled out from in front of the trailer and unwound into a ribbon that led over the hill toward the old sundance ground and, eventually, the paved road. He wondered if he would get out today. Always a calculation this time of year. Driving on the muddy channel that was his approach was out of the question; he would set a course across the grass, which would provide enough barrier to keep his tires from sinking in again. Two-tracks radiating out onto the prairie showed how many times he and his family had taken this course of action since the last snow.
It felt ironic that their approach took them by far the long way around – heading north to go south; harder than it needed to be, like so much of life around here. But the way south was blocked by Roanhorse Creek. This wasn’t all bad; the creek provided nice wading in the summer and water for the horses for most of the year. It also gave rise to the only trees on the property, although the cottonwoods whose leaves whispered in the summer breezes now stood dumb and impassive, and resembled skeletal wraiths at nighttime.
A horse would make it, of course. He could saddle up the buckskin, ride cross-country and be in town in twenty minutes. But that would be silly…he snorted at the ludicrousness of this thought. First of all, he had to go way beyond town today. And even if he were just going to his old job at the tribal building, was he supposed to just hitch it up outside for the day? Tie its reins to one of the smokers’ benches by the entrance? What was this, 1895? No, better not to risk TȟatéZi getting stolen or having some gang sign spraypainted on it or some shit. Besides, he needed to pull into his job interview looking halfway decent, not spattered with mud and smelling like horse sweat.
Trevor regarded his truck, sitting smack in the middle of the sloppy mess. Fuck, he thought.
Still, he didn’t really have a choice today. No job interview, no job. No job, no funds. Another calculation, but this one was straightforward. He went back into the trailer and made his way to his bedroom in the back, passing his brothers in the living room. One was sleeping on the couch and the other was crashed out in the recliner, oblivious to the flickering hearth of the muted TV. Let ‘em sleep today, Trevor thought.
In the bedroom, he stepped across piles of clothes – some clean, some dirty – and over the miscellany of his life; a pile of old DVDs, a defunct gaming console, a canister of Bugler and squares of broadcloth for the tobacco ties he was supposed to make for ceremony, a scattering of empty Mountain Dew cans, a 24-pack of ramen, a basketball.
He hunted around in his closet for the dressy clothes that he knew were there. He had worn them once, on the day of his high school graduation, three years before. And there they were; a purple button-down shirt, a solid black tie, and black chinos. Further rummaging found him a pair of brown loafers and a tan braided belt. He would look sharp for this interview – couldn’t hurt.
Trevor took a quick shower. The hot water always took forever to come and once it did, didn’t last long. He got dressed hurriedly, glad the tie that had come as a set with the shirt was a clip-on, and ran a comb through his hair. It wasn’t long enough to do much with other than backcomb it a little with some hair gel, but he figured that looked better than not. He considered putting in big stud earrings to look extra fly, but decided again it; might not be the right look for the occasion.
Now fully dressed and ready, Trevor took stock of his appearance. His summer tan was long gone and his skin was as pale as the white kids he had met during his one semester of college. The same change of season that had desaturated the prairie and garbed the birds in dull colors had undone all those days spent out in the badlands sun – working with the horses, swimming at the dam, helping keep fire at sundance. Too many French fur traders in his lineage. He recalled the book that his eighth grade teacher had assigned them – Part-time Indian or something – and thought, Yup, that’s me. Indian in the summer and wašiču in the winter, like changing plumage.
Trevor envied his brothers their melanin. He had learned that word in one of his college classes and now thought of it nearly every day. Travis was a rich brown complexion even in the dark days of midwinter. Trenton was in between the two but had jet-black Lakota hair and definitely looked “ethnic,” enough to be followed around stores in the border towns. Trevor knew it was his privilege to be exempt from such treatment, but it bugged him nonetheless. He hadn’t asked to be light-skinned. His brothers called him žiží – a reference to his tawny hair. They had gotten into scraps over this, and Trevor even bloodied Travis’ nose in one such altercation. Once one of them had even called Trevor a “half-breed” but Trevor retorted with “Fuck you, boy, you got the same blood as me. Fuckin’ dumbass.” This seemed to put the issue to rest.
Trevor’s brief stint at college had been at an out-of-state school, which now struck him as an ill-advised decision. At least South Dakotans had some experience with Natives. Even the East River kids had at least crossed paths with one at some point, and didn’t think of Indians as something from the pages of a dime novel. Trevor was the first Native in many years – maybe ever – to attend the small-town liberal arts college in a neighboring state. He thought the fact that the college was reasonably selective would mean that the students were smart enough not to ask dumb questions. He was wrong.
The queries were predictable enough, clichéd even; Are you really Indian? (Yes) Do you speak your language? (No) Did you get in because you’re Indian? (Who knows? I’m pretty smart and got good grades.) Does the college have admissions quotas for Indians? (If it did, you’d think more would go here.) What’s it like on the reservation? (I don’t know; different.) Do you prefer “Native American”? (I find the question annoying, to be honest.) Do you like Leslie Marmon Silko? (Who?) Have you seen Dances with Wolves? (Some of it.) Do you know a guy from Pine Ridge named Verdell? He used to work with my dad. (Maybe) His last name was something Horse. Running Horse? (No)
Fielding these questions was exhausting and added another layer of weariness and alienation to his college experience.
He found himself having to answer such inquiries from his roommate, classmates, professors, his R.A…Sometimes they were cloaked in well-meaning concern (I bet you get tired of all these questions, huh?) but they were always there. Most evenings, Trevor would retreat to his room and call his mom. His roommate, Skyler, a cross-country runner who was handsome in an unspectacular way and who monitored his water intake religiously, was hardly ever around. He seemed to have no trouble making friends in college and reveled in the social opportunities around him.
In his phone calls back home, Trevor found himself experiencing a homesickness that inhabited the pit of his stomach like a hunger pang. He had never been gone from home for that long. Really, his only trip away had been the summer before his senior year, to a weeklong STEM camp for Native kids that one of the state colleges had put on. But that had been with a half dozen other students from his high school. Here he was alone.
The subjects of their conversations would leave Trevor feeling a gravitational pull toward home: Trenton got into a fight at school and got suspended. Travis is drinking again. We had sweat for your auntie because they have to amputate her leg after all. Those dogs were back again. Everett hit $200 at the casino on Tuesday night but of course he put it all back in. They’re having a basketball tournament for that boy who got paralyzed in that wreck. Our hot water heater went out but uncle came and fixed it. They still haven’t found that Two Arrows girl that went missing. Travis wants to go up on the hill this spring – maybe that will get him to quit drinking.
Good news, bad news, mundane news…The latter tugged at him the most. Like many who grew up on Pine Ridge, he had a love-hate relationship with the reservation. It was the home of his people after all, and could be so beautiful (“God’s country,” as it was called by even those who had no time for the white man’s God). But the hardships, the tragedies, the death…it all wore away at your spirit, hardened you. Still, the news of day-to-day life going on in his absence; a school powwow, a bingo tournament, tribal council drama, rumors of a Dairy Queen opening. It made him miss home in an ineffable way.
The last vestige of his indecision evaporated after a particular conversation in the lounge of his dorm. He had been sitting on a beanbag chair, discussing random topics with two friends (at least, he considered them friends, in some ill-defined adolescent way). They had all left a dull party that hadn’t livened up even after a couple of drinks, but still felt heady and obligated to prolong the night a little longer. So, they were shooting the shit, in a garishly-lit common space that smelled of burnt popcorn, and Trevor was feeling rather collegiate. An off-campus party, late-night conversation; weren’t these the trappings of university life that he had seen in teen movies, if a much more prosaic version?
Kayleigh, tipsy off Jäger bombs, started the chain of events that would unravel his college experience with a simple, but pointed question: “How Indian are you, anyway?”
Colton snorted at this comment. “Kay, you can’t just ask that!” But he was clearly more amused than disapproving.
“You mean like my blood quantum or what?” Trevor asked.
“Is that what you guys call it?” said Kay, now playing the innocent party. “I just mean, like, you say you’re Indian, I mean like I know you are, like, I know you are on paper…” The alcohol was causing her to trip over her words but she plowed on. “I mean like, okay, if I were to like, run into you on the street…” Kay was now gesturing expansively, as if the meaning of what she was saying wasn’t explicit from words alone. “Like, I wouldn’t be like, ‘Damn, look at that Indian,’ right? I’d just assume you were a white guy. I mean you know what I mean? Ugh, I’m not making sense.”
She was making perfect sense. Colton looked embarrassed, and for a second, Trevor thought he might shut Kay down. But instead, his inhibition similarly worn down by a few shots of German 70-proof, he followed suit. “I think what Kay’s drunk ass is trying to say is, like, your ancestors are Indians, right, like in the history books. Like Geronimo or whatever. But do you consider yourself one of them? Or are you, like, their descendant?”
Trevor could feel the ball of rage growing within him, a sea urchin radiating spikes in his gut. Stop talking, he thought. Just stop talking.
Colton continued, heedlessly. “Okay, so like I’m Irish but I’m not like Irish Irish, like a leprechaun or some shit. Like my ancestors…”
Trevor stood up, his fists balled. He was now stone-cold sober but his anger was its own intoxicant. “It’s none of your fucking business. It’s none of your business what the fuck I am!” He was shouting; he couldn’t help it. He picked up a half-empty can of PBR and threw it at the wall, slamming the door to the lounge on his way out. The sudsy contents of the can leaked onto the ugly orange dorm carpet, as Kayleigh and Colton sat in stunned silence.
“Jesus,” said Colton finally. “Just trying to ask an honest question.”
After that, Trevor had holed up in his room for a few days, skipping classes and avoiding other students. When he told his mom he was dropping out, she hardly sounded surprised. He knew she would be glad to have him back home; the prodigal son returning. Trevor, the one who had his shit together, who had gone to a STEM camp and was almost salutatorian. He knew she thought that once he got back, he could do what she couldn’t; get Travis on a better path, bring another income to the household, fix what needed to be fixed around the trailer, shoot at the stray dogs when they came around. It would all fall to him. His failure was their blessing; they would lean on him as long as he could stand.
So here we fucking go, he now thought, patting his gel-stiffened hair and giving himself one last hazel-eyed glance in the mirror. Gotta get that bread. His brief stint at the tribal building hadn’t panned out. He was a good worker but wet weather made his road too sloppy to get out easily. Too many latenesses had translated into a pink slip. “Shit man we all got bad roads. Gotta leave earlier,” his boss had said.
So, lesson learned, he was giving himself extra time getting ready for this interview. Really, the lady had just told him to come by “around mid-morning,” so he’d probably be okay. The job was off-rez, down at the county livestock auction and sale barn in one of the closest border towns, “white towns,” as Ridgers called it. It was mostly going to be paperwork – inventory and itemizing and that kind of shit – but it was decent pay and Trevor hoped that he could transition over to working with the animals before long. On most days, he preferred their company to dumbass people.
Grabbing his bag, Trevor stuck the loafers inside with his other miscellany. He would need to wear his cowboy boots across the muddy expanse between the bottom step of the porch and the door to his Blazer so he jammed his feet into them. Outside, he walked gingerly so as not to stain his black slacks with muck. Once in the driver’s seat, he figured he would leave the boots on for the drive, since they were already smearing mud on the floor liner, and in case he got stuck and needed to get out. Trevor knew that the people who worked at the sale barn were as countrified as he was and wouldn’t judge muddy boots under most circumstances, but he also knew that being from Pine Ridge meant he had to put his best foot forward, literally in this case.
Trevor fired up the Blazer, put it in four low, and gunned it. His tires found grip and he jerked along, slimy divots of earth spattering his windows and roof like hail. His windshield wipers left a pasty smear that obscured much of his view, but he practically knew the way by feel. As soon as he could, he bumped up onto the grass, gopher holes and clumps of prairie bluestem jolting his ride, testing what was left of his suspension. When he finally hit the pavement, the smoothness was startling as it always was, like a TV being suddenly muted, like silence after a door slamming.
He cruised through town, passing the gas station, the other gas station, the commod building, the quonset hut, the old BIA headquarters…and turned south into Nebraska. He tried to ignore the persistent squeal under the hood that had gotten worse lately. The overcast sky reflected the dullness of the land – as below, so above – and Trevor alternated between zoning out and counting hawks on telephone poles. A handful of miles south of the border, the vehicle gave a jolt and Trevor felt a temporary loss of control. He hit the brakes and steered toward the shoulder, but the Blazer was suddenly steering like an army tank. Fuck, he whispered.
Once he wrestled Blazer off the road, Trevor got out and popped the hood. He already knew what he would find under the rising steam. “Fucking serpentine belt,” he hissed to the universe. Trevor was good with cars but he didn’t have the tools for this fix. Luckily, he thought, out here in the country, somebody who did would be by soon. Lots of Natives on this road, maybe even a cousin would happen by who could at least give him a ride to town. Trevor thought of calling his dad’s brother Everett on his cell, but figured he’d give it a bit. He hated the thought of owing Uncle Ev anything.
Sure enough, in a few minutes, a gunmetal gray truck passed by slowly, hit a u-turn, and pulled up behind him. Trevor felt a twinge of envy over this late-model Dodge Ram MegaCab with duallies. It had county plates on it, so the cowboy-hatted driver was a local guy, and as he got out, his Carhartt overalls and mud-caked boots identified him as a rancher.
“Trouble?” MegaCab asked, giving Trevor an easy smile.
“Serpentine belt busted,” said Trevor, unconsciously smoothing out his rez accent in favor of a more neutral affectation. Code-switching – another term he had learned at college (by the professor who asked him if he prefers “Native American”).
“No shit, huh?” MegaCab considered this information. “I got nothing for that but I could give you a ride somewhere. You call anyone? Someone coming after you?”
“No,” said Trevor. “I’m trying to get down to the sale barn for a job interview.”
MegaCab looked at Trevor as if for the first time. “Oh ok so that’s why you’re all fancied up. Well, hop in if you don’t mind leaving it here.”
Trevor considered this. He was off the rez so there was less of a chance that the Blazer would end up with busted windows or slashed tires. And he was eager to get his interview over and done with.
Before he could answer, MegaCab added “I have to stop in Whiteclay first but then I’ll take you down.”
This was only a few miles out of the way so Trevor assented and climbed into the rancher’s idling behemoth. It still retained some new-truck smell, mixed with a tinge of manure and rich earth. Really, it was almost luxurious.
MegaCab flipped a u-ey again and headed back north toward Whiteclay. Formerly notorious for copious alcohol sales to people from the dry reservation whose border it sat on, Whiteclay’s package stores had been shuttered after the state had revoked their liquor licenses following years of protests over their depredatory business model. Now, it was just a town of a couple small stores and fewer than a dozen permanent residents, its streets empty of vagrants, its ghosts banished.
“So, you from Hot Springs?”
Trevor momentarily wondered where this question had come from, and then remembered that he had 27-plates on the Blazer – Fall River County, a relic of when he bought the car from a white lady over there. He had kept the off-county registration because the plates were far less likely to get you pulled over off-rez than the infamous 65s of Oglala Lakota County.
MegaCab continued without waiting for an answer. “I used to go up to Hot Springs a lot when my dad was in the V.A. hospital up there. Nice town.”
“Yup, it’s pretty nice,” said Trevor, wondering if he would have to sustain this small talk the whole way.
Luckily, MegaCab took it from there, reminiscing about his high school football team dealing Hot Springs a particularly lopsided loss, and then they were at Whiteclay. Trevor played around on his phone while his driver of the moment went into the little grocery store. He looked up his old roommate Skyler on Facebook (why, he didn’t know; certainly not to friend him) and then Googled “Pine Ridge South Dakota Dairy Queen” just to see if there was any truth to that rumor.
MegaCab returned with some mail – Trevor had forgotten that there was a little post office in there – and they turned south toward Rushville.
Two miles and five hawks-on-telephone-poles into their trip, MegaCab got chatty again:
“I still can’t believe that the state revoked the liquor licenses. They had no legal right to do that of course, but just like everyone else these days, they bowed to the pressure from liberal special interest groups. Those store owners – my brother was one of them – followed the damn law to a T but still got their rights taken away. They’re the real victims in all of this.”
Trevor, whose father was found dead in Whiteclay when Trevor was ten years old, didn’t answer.
“You know it’s just going to push the problem down the road. These Indians are gonna get their liquor one way or another. You guys must see that all the time up in Hot Springs.”
These Indians. You guys. Trevor suddenly recognized MegaCab’s presumption, and wondered when if he should correct it.
“If they wanted to buy millions of cans of beer in Whiteclay every year and drink themselves to death, shit, I say let ‘em. It’s a free country, right? Those AIM types are always going on about Native rights and shit, y’know? Well shit, you have the right to drink and die if you want. Not saying that I want that for those people or anything, but the nanny state can’t be protecting everyone from problems of their own making.”
Trevor, whose brother had first gotten jailed for drunk and disorderly at age 14, two years after their father died, said nothing.
MegaCab continued to rhapsodize about “the Indians” and their problems, adopting the tone of an expert, one who knew all about them. Trevor felt the blood rise to his face. Some coloration at least, he thought darkly. In the pit of his stomach, the sea urchin had returned to stab at his insides. What must it be like, he wondered, to live a life in which people aren’t constantly telling you who you are, naming your characteristics like symptoms, trying to trap you like a spirit in a photograph?
The Blazer came in sight on the shoulder ahead. “Can you let me out at my ride?” Trevor asked, his voice hardly recognizable to his own ear, like hearing himself talk underwater.
“Sure, you need to grab something out of it?” said MegaCab, reluctantly pausing his diatribe.
“No it’s okay,” replied Trevor, “I’m gonna call someone to come help me fix this after all.” He fiddled with his phone as if to underscore this intention.
“Well, if you’re sure,” said MegaCab. “And hey,” he added as Trevor stepped down onto the running board. “You be careful around here. One of these rezzers might see you here all by yourself and try to mess you or your car up. And watch out for drunk drivers. You just never know with these Indians.” MegaCab gave a serious nod to accentuate this show of concern. Then he wished Trevor luck and drove off.
Trevor watched the truck recede into the distance until it was merely a gray speck between the monochrome earth and the steely sky. He sat down in the cold front seat of the Blazer and looked into the rearview mirror. Hazel eyes stared back at him under a pale forehead. Fuck it, he thought; people are dumbasses. Let ‘em believe what they want; that he was from Hot Springs, that could be was related to that Apache, Geronimo, that he was only Indian on paper. Trevor saw what they didn’t; the hidden depths beneath the surface, and in their faces, in the spaces between their words, their ignorance displayed like a tattoo.
In another minute or two, he would call Uncle Ev for a ride. In another hour or two, he would be offered a job at the sale barn that would bring another income into his household (and buy him a new serpentine belt). In another day or two, he would finally finish the tobacco ties for ceremony, at which he would pray for Travis’ sobriety and his auntie’s diabetes. In another month or two, the lengthening of the days would be unmistakable.
Spring would come as it always had, first heralded by a single meadowlark piercing the predawn silence with his song. This would be followed by a green sprig on the prairie, pushing up, perhaps, through snow. Then a cluster of pasqueflowers appearing suddenly on a hillside, a skein of geese overhead, sheet lightning on the horizon. Small miracles, one after another. Finally, color would surge back into the world like paint scintillating on a canvas, causing goldfinches to glow like stars and evening thunderheads to stand like towering fires.
The brilliant Dakota sunlight would stoke the melanin in Trevor’s skin, and nobody would mistake who he was. He would go up on the hill for two days and nights with Travis that spring, and Trenton would keep fire for them. He would pray for the coming year, for the survival of his people, for enough blessings to outweigh the hardships. And there, among a sea of undulating green, facing the crimson blaze of sunrise, he would again know himself and find the strength to carry on, in the face of all the peculiar indignities of this world.

List acquired here.
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Hi, last week I reached the 2nd most popular post on Medium! I'm posting the entire post here on Reddit. Proof imgur Tried to format it the best I can. Links are missing.
TLDR: Build your startup before your day job, use a smarter alarm, drink coffee as early as possible, and break your startup into micro-startups.
How to Wake up at 5AM and Build Your Startup What does your morning routine look like? Mine used to be waking up at 7AM, sleep walking to the shower, frantically getting dressed into socially acceptable clothes, pouring myself a cup of caffeine, and walking amongst drones of zombies to a crowded bus station.
Of course, getting out of this hellish cycle is quite the “Catch-22.” The last thing you want to do after working eight-hours is to work on your startup. Yet,if you don’t spend time building your own business, you’ll be trapped in an endless loop of corporations. Racing to the office before 9AM. Managers breathing down your neck. An eternity of smiling at your coworker’s snide comments. Which is a horror movie in and of itself.
Rise of the Morning Superheroes So I decided to wake up at 5AM and build my startup before the soul sucking day of a gleeful employee started. And he lived happily ever after… would have been great! If I managed to wake up early the moment I decided to become a morning person. I quickly found that my half-awake zombified determination could power-through any obstacle blocking my sleep. On the lucky days I did manage to wake up, I would just sit there and stare into the abyss.
Productivity blogs make it look easy. You’re constantly bombarded with amazing feats that only these mythical morning people can achieve: 8 Things Every Person Should Do Before 8 AM, and 7 Things Morning People Do Differently, and Why Productive People Get Up Insanely Early. Watching these superheros catch falling airplanes before 8AM somehow makes you feel guilty for oversleeping. I mean are they even human?

Square/Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Wakes up at 5:30 to meditate and go for a six-mile jog. He kept up that routine during a period where he shuttled back and forth between Square and Twitter, spending around 8 hours a day at both companies.

The truth is waking up at 5AM is hell. Your “morning self” is not the friendliest of people. Mr. Morning Jekyll will subconsciously turn your alarm off before early morning meetings and snooze your alarm when you have to catch the morning train. You can’t trust yourself in the morning. So let’sappease your morning demon by changing how you wake up.
Find an Alarm Smarter than You I’m not sure when the trend of being violently shocked awake took hold, but we seem quite content with our morning shock therapy. Instead of willingly accepting a blitzkrieg of violent noises, find an alarm that gradually wakes you up. Waking up slowly allows your body to accept the fact you’re waking up. So when your mind actually does wake up, you’ll be less in the mood of killing your innocent alarm.
You can use a coffee alarm that masterfully brews coffee to match the time you wake up. A light-up alarm that gently emits artificial light on your face while you reflect on how man has conquered the Sun. A vibrating wrist alarmto wake up early without having your spouse wanting to murder you every morning. Having a dog/cat/small-human walk over your face at 5AM is also a good option.
Personally, I use the “Warmly” alarm app alongside the default smartphone alarm. Slowly waking up to 5 minutes of birds chirping in your ear, before opening my eyes to Yo-Yo Ma’s Cello vibrating through the air is quite the morning experience. Outsmart your morning demon starting with your alarm clock.
Have a Long-Distance Relationship with Your Alarm Building a habit isn’t rocket science. A simple model of building positive habits (reading, exercising, socializing) and discarding negative habits (drinking, smoking, junk food) is through “Perverse Accordances.”

In design, you create affordances when you want your user to do something, and disturbances when you want them to not do something. Thus you encourage desired behaviors by making them easier, and discourage undesired behaviors by making them harder.

If you want to build a habit of “not” turning off your alarm, make turning off your alarm as difficult as possible. Set multiple alarms, download a puzzle alarm app, or place your smartphone in a jar. While I would love to cuddle my smartphone before I fall asleep and glance into its lovely glass screen the moment I wake. If you want to wake up early, move your smartphone far away and have a long-distance relationship.
Force Yourself to Drink Coffee For those who survived the Hunger Games and actually woke up, staying awake is another problem. I mean you did just wake up at 5AM, why not go back to sleep? You have all the time in the world! You can always wake up early “tomorrow.” All the while regretting having listened to my morning temptations after falling back asleep. I’m simply a terrible person before my first cup of coffee. So let’s get caffeinated.
You can’t treat your 5AM coffee like a normal cup of coffee. It doesn’t matter if you painstakingly prepared a cup of hand-dripped Guatemala Starbucks coffee. If coffee is not part of your waking process Mr. Morning Jekyll will just ignore it. Don’t rely on your morning self to go out of his way to wake up. He’ll try everything to go back to bed.
Find a way to directly integrate your coffee into your morning routine. The goal is to make your alarm a”trigger” for your coffee drinking habit. “If” the alarm rings, “then” you drink coffee. Experiment on different ways to automate the coffee drinking process.
Initially, I planned on brewing a cup of coffee the first thing in the morning. I didn’t even make it to the kitchen. Then, I tried preparing a cup of ice-coffee the night before and placing it on my desk. I didn’t make it to my desk. Eventually, I placed the cup of coffee on my alarm (smartphone). So in order to turn my alarm off, I had to literally pick up a cup of coffee. Once the coffee is in your hand, you might as well drink it. Not drinking coffee at this point is just cheating. Treat 5AM as the start of your work-day, drink some coffee and build your startup.
Procrastinate Yourself Awake Still not awake? A little procrastination never hurt anyone. Then again, self-professed Internet addicts don’t provide the best productivity tips.
I spend a ridiculous amount of time looking at funny cat pictures on Reddit, Imgur, and 9gag. Hopelessly dependent on my next viral fix. I just can’t help myself. Visiting the same website over and over again in hopes of new content. Consciously knowing there isn’t anything there.
So let’s justify our procrastination under a more productive light. While looking at funny cat pictures before you sleep, gives you temporary insomnia.Looking at your smartphone/computer first thing in the morning can actually help you wake up.

Why Screens Ruin Your Sleep “Exposure to blue light of LED screens affects melanopsin, which leads to a suppression of melatonin, and ultimately keeps our bodies from feeling sleepy.”*

If you can’t bear the thought of working on your startup first thing in the morning. Spend a few minutes procrastinating until your morning demons settle down. Remember, you’re fighting a two-front battle. Waking up at a freakishly early time “and” working on your startup.
Break Your Startup into Micro-Startups When I can barely turn my alarm off, I’m not going to start my day debugging a server destroying bug. Your morning self is an asshole. Starting the day with a daunting task just provides extra incentive to go back to sleep.
By now I’m going to assume your New Years Resolutions has failed, like thenormal 88% of us. One reason you probably failed is you chose too BIG of a goal. “I want to end world hunger” “I want to have six-pack” despite never having exercised in my life. This isn’t a Miss Universe pageant.
“The Art of Manliness” shows how using micro-habits can help build towards a macro-habit. The goal is not to build your entire startup first thing in the morning, but to simply “start.” Once you get the engine rolling it’s easier to switch to a higher gear.

If you want to floss your teeth, just floss one tooth. Commit to flossing just ONE tooth — and make that your goal for the day. If you are able to do that, you’ve accomplished your goal. You can check it off your list. But here’s the trick: Once you perform the micro-habit enough times, it becomes muchharder NOT to complete the entire habit than to simply do the whole thing.

Break your startup into micro-startups that you can work on in the half-awake hours of the morning. Build your app by writing one line of code a day. Start your blog by writing one paragraph a day. Build your portfolio by sketching one design a day. Build your startup in 100 small increments rather than spending 100 full-time days. Every work doesn’t have to be a Picasso. By decreasing the barrier to entry, you’re more likely to follow through and stay awake.
Build a Lean Startup It’s hard to admit, but no one really knows what they’re doing at first. Even the largest startup unicorns in the world, took a long time to find their footing.AirBnb survived by selling political themed cereal Obama O’s and Cap’n McCain’s. #Slack came out of a failed game “Glitch.” Even YouTube began as a video dating service “Tune in Hook Up.”
Micro-startups work well with the Lean Startup methodology (The Lean Startup by Eric Ries). Not only are micro-startups easier to implement, but provide a shorter feedback loop that keeps you more in touch with your audience. With 75% of all startups failing, would you rather spend 100 days in a basement building a product your customers “might” like or connect with your audience everyday “while” you adapt your startup to address your customer’s pain-points? Don’t build another Blockbuster.
Start with the assumption that you’re wrong. Constantly validate your theories through micro-experiments. When I first started “Krown.io”. I explained the service as an “Annotation Blogging Platform.” That was, until I found out the majority of people have no idea what “Annotations” are. We tried a variation of “Smart Blogging,” “Highlight Blogging,” “Feedback Blogs,” and “Contextual Blogging Platform.” Which surprise, surprise. People still had no idea what we were talking about. So we added a bare-to-the-bones explanation, “Highlight a text and add comments directly on the highlighted text.” Validate your hypothesis.
Make Your Work Public We all have that irrational fear the moment you publish your work, trolls all over the world will unite and make it their life’s mission to downvote you tooblivion. The truth is they don’t really care. In a world with 2 million blog posts published daily. Getting discovered is the bigger challenge. You really need stand out.
If you can’t even get yourself to wake up early and build your startup. Why worry about your content’s likability? That’s the same as worrying if you study too much you might become a Harvard Professor. If you’ve been struggling with your masterpiece for a while. The simple act of public accountability can help you wake up early and build your startup. Don’t just take my word. It’s supported by scientific evidence!

Our findings are of relevance to those interested in changing their behavior and achieving their goals, as well as to those who want to help them, like weight loss programs, money advice agencies or sport coaches. Prompting people to monitor their progress can help them to achieve their goals, but some methods of monitoring are better than others. Specifically, we would recommend that people be encouraged to record, report or make public what they find out as they assess their progress.

You don’t have to build a interstellar satellite to broadcast your progress, simple tools like Twitter can help you wake up. Thomas Frank from the “College Info Geek” uses Twitter and Buffer in an ingenious way to force himself awake. Basically he sets an automated Tweet about donating $25 and has to wake up early to prevent himself losing $25. Trust yourself. Your work is interesting.
Be Obsessed with Productivity Try to hit two birds with one stone and kill the third bird from shock. Making your micro-startup more productive provides extra incentive to wake up early. I start my day by writing a public journal. If I were just writing public journal for the sake of writing a journal, I probably wouldn’t be as diligent. A single journal helps build my startup in three ways.
First, writing a morning journal helps me reflect on my progress. How do I increase engagement with my audience? Should I switch over from Wordpress comments to Disqus Comments? Are Adsense ads still viable against the rising climate of Adblock? What is the best time to publish a blog post? What tasks can I automate? Am I crazy for starting a business?
Secondly, writing a daily journal builds content for my blog “TechMob.”Building a niche blog takes time. You need at least 1,000 short articles to begin gaining substantial organic traffic from Google. Writing a daily journal helps build the necessary content foundation.
Lastly, writing a public journal promotes my Contextual Blogging Platform “Krown.” TechMob is built on Krown and uses sentence-level comments to add contextual information. Every post on TechMob promotes Krown through the sub-domain “techmob.krown.io” and the CTA at the bottom of each post.
Prepare to Run a Marathon Starting from 7AM completely switch gears to accommodate your 9–5 day job.While I would love to work on my startup full-time. Sadly humans are trapped in biological prisons where you to have to constantly eat, drink, and feel the urge to sleep with other people. Damn you Darwin. Working in micro-startups sprints in the morning, opens the possibility to continue working at your day job.
Be smart. Don’t bet your entire life on a single game of Poker. Allocate a portion of your assets to a life-changing Poker game, while working at the casino itself. Startups take time and you need to eat.
Based on Nassim Taleb’s Barbell Strategy (Anti-Fragile) you should allocate 20% of your resources to high-risk/high-return anti-fragile activities (ie. startups, bungee-jumping), and invest the remaining 80% in low-risk/low-return assets (ie. school, day job, family dinners). Experience the best of both worlds. Build your startup as a side-project first, gain validation, then jump into the unknown when you’re ready.
Wake up Early and Build Your Startup Every morning startup routine will be different. Try to find a routine that fits your goals. If you’re going to spend 8 hours doing something you hate, at least invest 1 hour on something you love. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is madness. Don’t let your current “reality” drag you in the wrong direction. Face the odds, try to live the life you were meant to live. Wake up early and build your startup.

If l’ve learned anything in my life, it’s not to trust anyone. You’ll never be disappointed.

Basic Info

Hero Name: Barb
Real Name: Barbara Quartermaine
Occupation: Champion (Formerly), Enforcer
Nationality: Australian
Affiliation: Junkertown (Formerly), Talon

Health and Role

HP
Health: 100
Armour: 100
Shields: 0
Total: 200
Role:Damage Dealer
Subrole: FlankeDisrupter
Strengths: Able to combo her abilities, deals sustained damage in an AoE, Wildfire damage can become very high with high heat and utilisation of the ‘sweet spot’
Weaknesses: Short range with her primary fire and limits of the Heat system
Movement Speed: 5.5m/s

Abilities

Passive 1: Heat
Barb’s abilities generate heat. Heat empowers her primary fire. However, if she overheats, she is forced to cool down.

• The damage dealt by Wildfire and Fastball increases by 15% for every 25 heat built up
  
• Barbara can reach a maximum of 150 heat before overheating
  
• As her heat rises, her arms begin to glow orange, which becomes more intense as she gets closer to overheating
  
• Overheating triggers a 3 second animation in which Barbara rapidly cools her arms, losing all heat at a rate of 50 heat per second. During this time, she is unable to use any abilities including her primary and secondary fire
  
• Cooldown can also be triggered manually by pressing R. However, once this effect has started, it cannot be cancelled until her heat reaches 0
  
• While not using abilities, Barbara loses heat at a rate of 25 per second. This effect begins 0.25 seconds after using an ability and is interrupted by the use of another ability
  

Passive 2: Fuelling the Flames
Damaging multiple enemies with Wildfire heals Barb over time.

• If two enemies are damaged by Wildfire simultaneously, Barbara restores 20 health per second for 5 seconds
  
• This amount is increased by 10 for each extra enemy caught in the fire
  
• Fuelling the Flames refreshes once per second, resetting the 5 second timer and adding any extra damage
  

Primary Fire: Wildfire
Barb releases streams of flame from her palms, creating a deadly cone of heat before her.

• Fire rate: 5 ticks per second
  
• Projectile type: Beam (Blocked by Barriers but not Defence Matrix)
  
• Range: 9 meters in a 5 meter wide cone
  
• Damage: 5 damage per tick
  
• Crit: No
  
• Ammo: 2 heat per tick (10 heat per second)
  
• Reload Time: N/A
  
• Sweet Spot: Deals 2x damage within the 0.5 meter wide cone where both streams cross over (10 damage per tick)
  

Secondary Fire: Fastball
Barb creates a volatile ball of flames before launching it at her enemies.

• Fire rate: Fastball has a 2 second charging animation, after which the ability is stored. Pressing the secondary fire button while a Fastball is stored will launch it. After this, a new Fastball must be charged.
  
• Projectile type: Projectile (Blocked by Defence Matrix and Barriers)
  
• Projectile Speed: 9 m/s
  
• Damage: 85 damage for a direct hit + Applies burn damage over time that deals 10 dps for 5 seconds
  
• Splash Damage: 55 damage within a 3 meter radius (splash does not apply burn)
  
• Crit: No
  
• Ammo: Generates 30 heat over the charging period
  

Ability 1 (Shift): Flame Burst
Barb blasts flames behind her, propelling herself in the direction she is facing.

• Projectile type: Hitscan (Blocked by Defence Matrix and Barriers)
  
• Damage: 30
  
• Range: 5 meters with a 3 meter AoE (behind whichever way Barb is facing)
  
• Movement: Moves Barb 5 meters in whatever direction her cursor is pointing at a speed of 7.5 m/s
  
• Crit: No
  
• Ammo: Generates 50 heat per use
  

Ability 2 (E): Phoenix Blast
Barb blasts the ground around her with molten flame, damaging enemies in her vicinity. Dropping from higher up increases the damage, but also the heat cost.

• Projectile type: Beam (Blocked by Barriers but not Defence Matrix)
  
• Damage: 25-75
  
• Range: 6 meter AoE
  
• Ammo: Generates 10-30 heat per use
  
• Deals 25 base damage and generates 10 base heat while on the ground. When dropping from the air, it deals 5 more damage and generates 2 more heat per meter dropped, maxing out at 10 meters
  

Ultimate Ability: Infernal Overdrive
Barb utilises the prototype cybernetics provided by Talon to create a fiery tornado, pulling enemies towards her before releasing an explosion of heat at point blank range.

• Fire rate: 15 ticks per second
  
• Projectile type: Beam (Blocked by Barriers but not Defence Matrix)
  
• Enemies are pulled towards Barb
  
• Range: 12 meters in an 8 meter wide cone
  
• Damage: 30 damage per second while the vortex is active. 120 damage in a 5 meter explosion around her at the end of the ability
  
• Active Time: 8 seconds
  
• While using this ability, Barb cannot move, however, the vortex will follow whichever direction she faces
  
• After the explosion, her heat is reset to 0
  

Lore

Story:
Barbara Quartermaine grew up in the Scrapyard, quickly becoming the champion of the arena in her trusty mech, Firebrand. She earned the nickname of ‘Junker Princess,’ due to her charisma and fame in the arena and many believed she would eventually take control of Junkertown from the Queen.
This worried the Queen, hoping to keep her iron grip over the population. Before her next bout against the mysterious stranger known as ‘Wrecking Ball’, the Queen ordered for Barb’s mech to be sabotaged. When the fight began, her mech exploded and Barbara’s arms were heavily scarred from the explosion. Wrecking Ball was crowned as the Queen’s new champion while Barbara was exiled from Junkertown.
With nowhere to call home, Barbara travelled the world, working for criminals and lowlifes as an enforcer. It was only after a chance encounter with the omnic, Maximillien, that she was employed by Talon, who replaced her arms with cybernetic prosthetics with built in flame throwers. Working as Maximillien’s personal enforcer and bodyguard, Barbara has been tasked with aiding Doomfist’s forces against Overwatch, as well as to keep an eye on Ogundimu himself for Maximillien. Despite her exile, Barbara believes herself to be the rightful heir to Junkertown, and plans to one day return and claim her prize.
Allies: Maximillien, Talon
Enemies: Overwatch, The Junker Queen, Wrecking Ball

Interactions

Barb: If it isn’t Talon’s number one traitor. I always knew you were too much of a hero to stick with us.
Baptiste: I’m honestly not sure whether that was a compliment or an insult.
Doomfist: So, Maximillien sent his best. Consider me honoured.
Barb: Heh. Max wanted me to watch your back… real close.
Barb: Mako, right? I remember hearing about you when I was a kid. You’re a legend in the Scrapyard!
Roadhog: Grunts
Junkrat: Nervously Princess?
Barb: Chuckles Relax, Jameson. I don’t work for the Queen anymore… but call me Princess again and you’ll be more than ‘toasty’.

Appearance

Age: 24
Hair Colour: Red
Eye Colour: Black
Height: 1.7m
Build: Well-built but slim
Clothing: A tattered, sleeveless leather jacket, combat pants, tinted goggles and large boots
Notable Features: Cybernetic arms and bright, stylised hair

Skins

Epic:
Cybernetic
Infernal
Legendary:
Enforcer – Maximillien has a strict dress code within his casino, even for his bodyguards. Fortunately, Barb is still able to inject her own style.
Ruffian

Notes:

I’m trying out a new design template, so feedback on that would be nice. I’m sure I’ve probably forgotten something important.
I think Barb’s design is pretty solid for a mobile flanker. She has the self-heal while using Wildfire but is hard countered by barriers.
My only real concern is that stacking Sweet Spot with the boost from having high heat would deal too much damage but I’ll see what you guys think. Other than that, I welcome any critique and I’d love to discuss this concept with you.

So, you wanna go to SHOT show? You think it's all fun and games? Get to play with guns? See Jesse James and R. Lee Ermey? SHOT show is the annual pilgrimage of the unwashed masses to Las Vegas to rub elbows with youtube celebrities, bloggers and overseas businessmen copying US made equipment and share infectious disease.
If you love guns, gambling and gonorrhea - SHOT show is for you! It is not my typical idea of a good time. I am not a big fan of Las Vegas.
However: I do attend for a few reasons. First, I do enjoy travel and I'm platinum on AA so I can usually score an upgrade. Second, industry people are in there that I do hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars with business with so it's nice to put a face with the name and see what deals are out there. SHOT for me has been a bust for the past few years. Being a value guy, I want to buy at $1000 and sell at $3000 and as of recently the gun business is more like buy for $1 and sell for $1.10 if you get what I mean.
We used to do business at SHOT and now it's just checking in on foursquare, instagram and rubbing elbows with bloggers and the like. I want to make money, not spend money so this is very annoying to me.
Anyways, onto the play by play.
Monday, January 16th. One day before SHOT show.
http://imgur.com/a/HoFUm
Every time I've been rejected by a woman, I move $1 from checking into savings and I take the bankroll down to the Wynn for some play. Lets do this.
The TSA line is a shitshow thanks to, well TSA.
I slog my way to the lounge, as shitty as it is to wait for my winged chariot to DFW. I have gone from being in an abusive relationship with Delta to being in an abusive relationship with AA. Although if you really want to experience the battered spouse feeling, UA is a few gates over. This trip's light reading is trying to finish "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. Such a good book as well as "Outliers" if you want a good read.
I walk up to the podium to find out that my upgrades do not clear, even as an AA Plat thanks to the addition of a FOURTH elite tier. Goddamn fucking W. Doug Parker. Asshole. I gate check my bags to make life easier for me and the rest of the folks. The gate agent calls concierge key and executive platinum passengers. I look down and realize I'm wearing a suit and board with the executive platinum folks because I do not care and I look the part. If you walk with a purpose and are dressed reasonably well, you fit the profile. I settle into my window seat and try to finish outliers. I pass out before takeoff and I'm awoken by the dulcet tones of the flight attendants preparing for landing. We land at Dallas a few minutes early and I hightail it to the Centurion for a quick bite to eat. I grab a plate and help myself to some of the excellent brisket, pecan encrusted chicken and some roasted jumbo asparagus. Yes, my pee is going to smell funny. No, I do not care. The lounge is packed. The bar is full and I grab a quick single malt as I have my meal since American's not going to feed me. They begin boarding to Mccarran as I walk out of the lounge. No time for a stop in the spa on this trip. I make it to the gate just as the call group 2 boarding.
I bypass the main line and walk up through the priority line giving no heed to the people that have been waiting there before me as I hold up my paper boarding pass with PLATINUM to the gate agent. I board and take my usual seat - the exit row without the seat in front of it. I'm aghast to see this sight.
http://imgur.com/a/dygil
The savages. Literally. The savages.
I put my loathing away for a moment and look down at the exit row. I have the window. The aisle is a large middle aged man and in the middle is what I believe to be a formecurrent linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys wearing a 52 regular sports jacket. He's not a fat guy in a little coat, he's a big fucking hulk of a man stuffed in an exit row seat that is already an inch narrower due to the tray table. I grimace as I take my seat and give him the manly nod. He does not look happy about the fact that his knees are in the seat in front and I'm stretched out like a Cheshire cat in front of a fireplace on a cold January afternoon.
The boarding door closes for an on time departure and Stephanie the FA takes her seat. He leans over and asks if he can take the empty row across the aisle and she takes one look at the three of us and gives him the nod. I bail out to give him a path of egress and suddenly the trip to Las Vegas has just become way more comfortable. I finish The Tipping Point somewhere over west texas, so I pop a xanax and dr pepper and zone out for the rest of the ride. I awake to feel one of the FA's jostling me awake telling me to put my seat up. I do so and we have a ride so smooth that not even the Delta guy behind me can complain about light chop. We catch the TYSSN4 arrival and the next thing I know it the Messier Dowty landing gear of the A321 touch the paint at Mccarran for a smooth rollout down 25L.
My phone battery is approaching grim death since this seat has no power plugs and I find bartman383 has sent me a message. He has been enjoying LV with his wife and their due to bad weather they are in the city of sin for a few extra nights. He invites me to dinner. I'm still pretty full from DFW and I tell him I'll be over there once I get my bags and the car and I'll see him when I see him. He gives me the info for the hotel as we pull up to the gate.
First stop: Centurion lounge. AA's app tells me bags being unloaded. I grab a quick bite of fried chicken and brussels sprouts since they are good for you and a chocolate pudding. The brisket and pecan encrusted chicken from DFW still has me full but I'm well aware of the speed of a union baggage handlers nowadays and who doesn't like chocolate pudding? Terrorists. That's who. Want to know how to screen for terrorists TSA? Set up a table of free chocolate pudding at the airport. The people who don't take any are members of ISIS. It's just that simple.
I grab my bag and hoof it to Hertz. I'm an idiot and I am an hour late for my pickup. Oops. Will an Audi A3 suffice? I sigh and I accept my Teutonic quattro chariot. I do a burnout in the parking garage and hightail it to the exit. I flash my #1 card and my ID and the gatekeeper gives me the go ahead. I get onto the the strip and traffic is awful. I'm going to be late for dinner. I make a left onto Russell Road and hightail it up the 15. I manage to get the car up to 100 as I pass the Luxor. My phone is dead so I can't message Bart about being late. Fuck. The exit approaches quickly as I put the 4 wheel disk brakes to work and sling the car around and head south on Las Vegas Bl. I accidentally turn into the Bellagio and I'm now running even more late. Fuck. Eventually, I get the car into the garage at the Cosmopolitan and head upstairs. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant but I head up to the third floor where all the restaurants are and I see this sign that's reminiscent of my days in retail.
It says RESTAURANT - LOUNGE - PAWN SHOP.
I laugh. I walk in. It's literally a pawnshop. I look around puzzled.
FC: Is this a restaurant?
Bald Headed Guy: Yes, through that door.
He points towards a door. I walk in to find a bustling restaurant, lounge via the entrance of pawnshop. This is insane. I pass a mirror and check myself out. I adjust my tie, after all it is YSL and the ladies LOVE YSL. Remember that. I find the hostess and inform her I will be joining some friends for dinner. They probably do not have me on the reservation though but I turn on the charm and she smiles and says no problem at all. She asks if my tie is from Hermes. I say no, I'm a YSL guy. She looks impressed as I tell her I'll make a quick lap of the room to see if they're there and surprise them. She gives me a nod and tells me to go right ahead. Still got it.
I spot bart and his wife who I can only remember vaguely from gunnitlive after party video and I pull up a chair. Bart is surprised to see I made it and they are in the middle of dinner. They offer to ply me with food and beverage but I decline as I'm driving so no booze for me and no food since I am stuffed from Dallas. We chat about life and liberty over libations. Bart's wife thinks I am hysterical. She's had a few drinks and they are already into their main courses. The brussels sprouts are way too salty and we have to send it back. No bueno.
Bart invites me up to his suite on the top floor of the hotel where we are to meet Brogelicious later in the evening. I say, when in rome......we head to the top floor of the hotel tower where Bart shows me his view from the balcony and cracks open the mini bar for some more libations. He asks if I want a drink and I say I better not. I'm driving.
Not 30 seconds after arriving, brogel shows up. Bart's wife hugs brogel. She's infatuated with him. We start shooting the shit and bart opens up the minibar and tells us to take anything we want, it's on the hotel. I laugh and I look outside as bart opens his yeti 110 for some silver bullets. Apparently he is so baller the hotel will send up a yeti 110 filled with beer to make him happy. His wife is apparently such a baller. I ball on a budget. They just ball. Hahaha.
We shoot the shit some more about guns, gun stuff and people on the reddit for a while. I get a little thirsty and I crack open bart's cooler. I ask him how long the stuff in the cooler is supposed to last and he says until Wednesday.
I look down and I am agape at what I see.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.
I mentally prepared my butthole and I decided to help myself to a coors light against my wishes but Bart, Bart's wife and Brogel are all drinking so I let peer pressure take hold as I cracked open a beer with them. We head out to the balcony to smoke some cuban cigars together as bart's wife takes a photo of all of us. We all look like hell. Haha.
As bart downs his second beer, he asks me a question.
Bart: ever go hunting?
Me: Ducks a little bit but not much
Bart: ever want to hunt some deadly game?
Me: Like on african safari?
Bart: No, I mean like.........man.
Me: Hahahahhahaaha you're just fucking with me. Hahahahahhaa. That's really funny.
Bart: No really, the concierge here at this hotel will set it up for us. It's amazing. I remember my first hunt......
Brogel starts laughing and I realize they've been doing a bit. I've been had.
We bullshit about SHOT and Barrett's shotguns and other things and next thing I know, it's late but bart hands me a mixed drink. I sip it a bit and I was in the middle of a tirade complaining about my customers. Suddenly, there was a terrible roar all around us, and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the city, and a voice was screaming: Holy Jesus. What are these goddamn animals? Nobody seems to understand what I'm talking about. It's cold on the balcony. Our cigars are done. We head indoors. No point in mentioning these bats, I thought. Poor bastards will see them soon enough.
Back indoors I realize Brussels sprouts and coors light is a bad choice. Seriously no bueno. I excuse myself to the bathroom and drain the vein. The asparagus funny smelling pee and the side effects of beer and brussels sprouts is a noxious combination that a defense contractor should weaponize it. It's pretty bad and not even cuban tobbaco can mask the smell.
I sit back down and continue to talk about guns and stuff with bart and the gang and bart asks who ruined the bathroom. I apologize as he sprays a bunch of febreze around and opens the balcony. I apolgize to brogel. He is not accepting my apology. (sorry :( )
Nearly 11, it's about time to pull chocks and mosey on down the dusty trail. I don't want to prompt an evacuation of the hotel due to noxious odors so I decide to leave and bart seems to be kinda mad that I've ripped ass and polluted the sanctuary of his hotel. Half a coors light and brussels sprouts are no bueno in my book now. Bart decides to party hard with his wife and I offer brogel a ride home. He seems skeptical to share a confined space with me after I have just destroyed bart's hotel room. The car has 4 windows and the Uber will cost him a few bucks he can put towards ammo. He relents as we head down to the garage to find my car. Thankfully we find it quickly and I manage to contain the weapons of ass destruction for the 16 minute ride off strip to casa de brogel.
He says I'm not that bad a dude and I agree as I hightail it to my hotel. I cannot find my hotel reservations so I call my travel agent to see.
Apparently the Wynn was not in my travel budget this year. I have come to find out I have been booked at Circus Circus, much to my chagrin. How bad could it be? I've stayed at the Wynn. I've stayed at Encore. I've stayed at the hotel that Elisabeth Shue's character got raped in in Leaving Las Vegas - but Circus Circus? Did I mention that I HATE CLOWNS? I HATE CLOWNS. Fuck.
I pull into the parking garage and the check in line resembles something straight out of the TSA line at Mccarran. 45 minutes to check in. The clerk is friendly and says he's also from Louisiana which is neat. He asks if I've stayed there before and I, being a connoisseur of old vegas history I decide to make a joke and I tell him the last time I was there, Jay Sarno owned the place. He got a laugh. I head up to my room and unpack. The lobby is clean as an old vegas casino can be, the room is clean and there's no way to plug anything in since the hotel predates personal electronic devices. I plug my phone into my external battery and collapse on the bed. I message Bart and chugbleach instead of falling asleep about show tomorrow and I offer to pick bart up early since there is no shuttle from the cosmo.
Tuesday, November 16th SHOT Show Day One
I awoke several hours later in a daze......the clock said 10AM. The show opened at 8:30. Fuck me to tears. I hurry up and get dressed and down to the sands convention center. The parking lot is FULL. The entire complex is a mess. When my man Steve Wynn built his joint he didn't build enough parking. So people would park at the Venetian and now FUCKING NOBODY CAN GET A PARKING SPACE. Holy shit. I eventually say fuck it and park over at the Wynn and walk over to the Sands. I meet up with a few of my regular suppliers and I see nothing interesting at all. Bart went to bed at 6AM after spending all night partying with his wife over at the palazzo. I joke and say that he just should have stayed there. Bart is amazed at the size of the show and we have lunch at the most disgusting place in las vegas - the convention center bistro snack bar. Bart is a wise man as he grabs a powerade and a fruit cup. I decide to try an "italian beef" and a fruit cup instead of fries to stay semi health conscious. The "italian beef" is the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten. It is flat out depressing. They give me fries with it and I demand a fruit cup. The sassy black woman working the stand asks me "DID YOU ASK FOR FRUIT? CAUSE RIGHT HERE SAYS FRIES" and I channel my inner Louis CK from the "this is how I talk" bit from SNL as I shoot back "WHY YOU FRONTIN ON ME I ASKED FOR FRUIT AND YOUR ASS BETTER BACK UP AND GET ME SOME FRUIT" so she goes back and gets me some fruit.
The "italian beef", my fruit cup, bart's fruit cup and powerade comes to $81. My platinum amex comes out and I treat bart to "lunch". We bullshit about guns and stuff in the Springfield booth as we wait at the world's worst concession stand. We eat and Bart is so hungover that he thinks he is in need of physical therapy and a wheelchair. There is no way he is going to party tonight before his trip home. Or so I think. Haha.
I meander around the show a bit more and I find this, the most USELESS PRODUCT OF 2017. It's made by a company called radetec.
http://imgur.com/a/GOiCB
It's a shot counter. For your gun.
A digital odometer, for your gun.
The only person that would buy this is the guy like my dad that kept a spiral bound notebook in his car where he documented how many miles he traveled per tank, gallons dispensed, PRICE, service station and whether they had a different price for cash/charge, oil consumption, tire rotations, alignments, all services - scheduled or otherwise, and a running odometer. Does anyone know the gun owner who asks for a round count when they are looking at a used gun? The question I always shoot back is "do you want to be lied at a little or do you want to be lied at a lot?" because that's what you're asking for when you ask for round count.
UNLESS YOU BUY THIS PRODUCT!
I roll my eyes so far back into my head that I nearly lose my balance. This is idiotic. I cannot fathom anyone willing to buy this. What a waste of perfectly good exhibition space.
Bart heads back to his hotel after visiting SHOT show for a few hours, not getting any swag and to get an IV of fluids since he looked like he was rapidly approaching grim death.
I wrap up visiting prime vendors and checking out the new products, or lack thereof because I have something on the schedule. At 4:30 there's a suicide prevention for retailers seminar hosted by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. As many of you know this is an issue that is important to me and perhaps we as retailers should be doing more. The keynote was from their chief medical director talking about the accessibility of firearms and the mindset of the "typical" suicide. Mostly men. If you are a veteran you are at a significantly larger risk. The information was presented very not surprisingly and one of the things discussed was that we only spend around 21M a year on suicide prevention.
A few take away facts from the keynote:
When suicide barriers are put up on a bridge, suicide rates for the entire area drop. The key to preventing suicide is getting people to talk about their problems. Once you can get someone out of that mindset, they are statistically less likely to do it and live productive lives afterwards. There are certain terms that they are trying to get away from - for instance, they are not saying "committed suicide" they are now saying "died by suicide" in order to bring awareness and tell it like it is.
One thing that really was interesting to me was my reading on the flight in from Dallas. In The Tipping Point, Gladwell discusses how things stay the same and suddenly they all change. One of the things that he discusses is in micronesia - where teen suicide was practically unheard of became an outright epidemic. One teenager did it, for reasons passing understanding to me as an outsider and then all the other kids realized that they too could escape their pain by hanging themselves as well and suddenly the suicide rates in micronesia became so high to where it became a public health issue. I wish I could show you all the article I wrote on TTAG about my friend's death but it has been lost in the cloud and I am unable to find the last draft I sent to print, but it echoes some of the problems we have with suicide and mental health in the firearm industry.
After the keynote, the good doctor opened the floor up for questions. Her keynote posed a lot of statistics but not a lot of answers. I am a detail oriented granular data guy and I did not get a solid grasp of the AFSP solutions posed, if any.
Several firearm dealers discussed the lack of a cohesive solution and the takeaway was they're trying to develop awareness for the suicide problem. Their goal is to lower suicide rates but how they get there is yet to be determined. I didn't like hearing that and the comments from the crowd reflected the lack of a "here's what you can do TODAY to help this problem" part of the initiative.
Going around the room, one dealer who used NICS said that if a customer was just flat out acting funny - he'd lie to the customer and say there was a delay with NICS even though there was an approval just to get them to not be able to have a gun for a few days. The crowd applauded this initiative, however I'm not sure lying to customers is the best way to run a business and treat them with respect. Another dealer brought up an interesting point. When someone comes in looking to buy a gun and they don't know what kind of gun they want, what caliber, and are generally clueless - they're either buying a gun to kill themselves with, OR perhaps they are a very uneducated prospective customer - and there is no clear way of finding out which is which.
The problems presented by the AFSP are real. The solutions aren't there though. Yet. Ideally I'd like to see some change to that. However, there's some problems.
I hung around and asked the good doctor and her staff some questions and I am in no way denigrating her life's work and her dedication to preventing suicide since she has dedicated her life's work to the issue, but the conversation went something like this.
Did you do any research on the accessibility of firearms from a retailer from the legal standpoint?
"No, we haven't"
Do you know how the NICS or state POC background systems work in regard to mental health holds, etc?
"No"
One of the problems that I foresee right off the bat is that you talked about how you are fighting time, and if you can get someone out of that suicide mindset - even for a few hours, you can get them into that higher survival bracket. If we apply a one size fits all solution to it like California and put a 10 day wait on everything with the goal of protecting someone from their own life, how do we balance that with the needs of the woman who has been hiding from her abusive spouse and needs a gun right away?
"That's a good question that I don't have an answer for."
Their initiative, I admire - the lack of solutions is a little off putting however. I tell the doc about how my friend's suicide has impacted me and she seems to be sympathetic to the situation as does her colleagues. I am given her cards and told to call the next time I'm in New York so we can get together and discuss things within the industry. I'll give them a buzz in a few weeks when I'm up there on business. On my way out of the hall, I run into Massad Ayoob. Nice guy. I've admired his work over the years. Bart invites myself and chugbleach to dinner, I can't reach Chug and even though I am beat I decide to hang out with Bart and Mrs Bart
Bart: What do you want to eat?
FC: Let's find a nice seafood restaurant and eat some red salmon, I feel a powerful lust for red salmon.
I begin vomiting.
God damn mescaline. Why the fuck can't they make it a little less pure?
We eventually head downstairs and order too much food. We are tired and not very hungry. Bart is still hungover and barely able to process food. His wife is grazing on all sorts of meat products. I am in awe of how they are both still upright after six nonstop nights of partying. I've only been here one day and I feel like I am about to die.
Dinner concludes with an awkward hug with bart's wife - I don't know how other men feel about wife hugs so I have just avoided the prospect entirely. Like flying through Denver on Frontier. Or flying on Frontier. Ever.
I drive over to the Wynn to set up my markers and the poker room is full. I draw a $2500 marker at the craps table and watch the game a bit. I have never played craps before in my life but the three people there seem to be having fun.
I look down at my phone and I realize a plane has landed. fluffy_butternut has landed in Las Vegas on business. I had lost a bet and offered to pick him up from the airport. I cash back in my chips against my casino credit and head back to my car. I cannot find my car. Fuck. I wander the wynn garage which is covered in construction debris. I eventually find it and haul ass to the airport. Now, I didn't know this but fluffy has the WORST SENSE OF DIRECTION AT ALL. Seriously. I have no idea how he even made it to the correct city. He lands and has to get his bag and stuff and I circle the airport. He lets me know he's at door 77 wherever the fuck that was. I drive into the pickup portion and I see no sign. He then says he's coming up a level, and I tell him that I'll be there shortly. I park the car and Metro PD starts yelling.
Metro: You can't park your car here.
FC: Why not? Is this not a reasonable place to park?
Metro: Reasonable? You're on a sidewalk! This is the sidewalk!
I give the man a $20 and tell him to keep it running as I wander Mccarran screaming FLUFFY! HERE FLUFFY! I message fluffy to let him know I am the car parked on the sidewalk. I instantly figure out who he is having never seen a photo of him and I throw his bags into the car as we head for his hotel. I haul ass out of the airport and get the A3 on the highway.
Now this was a superior machine. Thirty nine grand worth of gimmicks and high-priced special effects. The rear windows lit up with a touch like frogs in a dynamite pond. The dashboard was full of esoteric lights and dials and meters that I would never understand.
We check in at the Rio where the desk clerk is friendly and flirty. I express amazement there is no line. Fluffy checks in and we take his bags upstairs and he offers to buy me food for driving him to the airport. I decline. We head to the bar anyways. He orders two beers and we decide to call chug. He's staying out in Summerlin or something because his company is apparently run by cheapskates. He asks if we want to hang out and shoot the shit. I say sure and ask if he wants us to pick up food or anything from CVS or something since I have the car and I'm able to do anything I want. He asks for some toothpaste. No problem. I may be an asshole on the internet but I have a heart of gold. We get some toothpaste get to the hotel.
Arriving at the lobby, we have no idea where he is. It turns out he gave us the address for the hotel across the street. We laugh and go to that lobby and shoot the shit till 3AM much to the chagrin of the hotel clerk. Fluffy has some beers and we plan on dinner the next day. I drive fluffy back and arrive at the hotel at 4. Fuck me to tears.
Wednesday, January 18th. Day 2 of SHOT show.
Alarm goes off at 7:30 AM. I wash up, eat and get breakfast. In the garage by 8:15. Nice. I get some dillo dust and check out the new Sig 220 DA/SA and SAO legions. Daddy likey. I go to a competing firm and I piss of my state sales manager by telling him his newer designed triggers suck ass. He says the company tested them and they're the same in every way. I ask him why the triggers have two different part numbers in the catalog and how come they're not interchangeable and if that's really the case, how come there's X changes in the supposedly identical pistol parts that he's holding side by side. He gets mad at me and says I'm not an expert on their product and perhaps I should take his job since I'm so smart. I agree that I'm smart and I hold firm that if he didn't want me to complain about the shitty trigger, they should stop selling guns with shitty triggers. I am nearly kicked out of the booth.
I meet up with some of my wholesale reps and I'm mid convo when I see Itsgoodsoup and his friend walking around the show. I yell SOUP but he does not hear me. So I grab his friend and find him and I tell him we should get together at dinner with fluffy and chug. He agrees.
The show winds down, I get some business done and nothing much else. We break for a shitty gunnit live lite and I take a few questions from the crowd in fluffy's suite at the Rio. Dinner is at 8 and we arrive at the restaurant late to find soup and his friend sitting at one table and chug and his girlfriend sitting at another. Perhaps we should have gotten here a little earlier. Hahaha. So, fluffy said the place is really good and I order a few of the specialties of the house. Apparently according to yelp they do a kickass peking duck. Soon to be mrs chug is a vegan. But we can eat meat in front of her. I wonder how it's served and Soup's vancouver raised asian friend tells me that they normally carve it tableside. Our vegan says as long as there's no head she's cool. We're not sure if they can fulfill that request. So we order and food starts coming out and we tell tall tales of shot show BS and other stuff. Sure enough, the duck comes out with the head. No bueno. Haha. But I decide to treat us to vegan donuts at the vegan bakery across the street later. Seven courses later we are full. Vegan bakery closed. I am committed to getting her some vegan donuts though. We head to Fremont street to gamble. Fluffy wanders about and we try craps and we're not impressed. We hit some slots and eventually I hit the craps table where chug explains the game to me. We start betting on dice. And somehow we start winning. I find that the house allows you to take 10X behind the line. No idea what this means so I plop $5 on the pass line and the point hits 6. I drop $50 behind it and it hits. We go a few rounds and leave ahead. It's 2:30 AM. Fuck. I drive everyone back to their hotel. I get to sleep around 4.
Thursday, January 19th. Day 3 of SHOT show.
Wake up at 10AM feeling like crap. Debate whether to head straight to show and wander about. Fuck it. Went to halal guys for some halal. Delicious. Got vegan donuts. Dead drop them at the Palazzo lobby for chug and his girl. Show is a bust. Literally nothing exciting. Fluffy offers to buy me dinner. One of my customers who lives in Summerlin offers to take me to dinner. I pass on fluffy and he destroys the seafood buffet at the rio. I head to Sinatra at the Wynn for dinner with my customer. All good in the hood. Chug has been invited to the Glock dinneafter party and I'm not so we all go our separate ways. I call foghorn5950 and due to some weather, he's flying home early and our plans to hangout are fucked up unless I go tonight. I grab fluffy and we head to Whiskey Down. He orders a makers and I give him a funny look. I tell the waitress make it a bulleit. Everyone laughs. I talk shop with Jeremy also from TTAG and we shoot the shit over cigars and talk about useless products. Next thing we know, chug is out of the dinner and wandering the strip. We decide to meet up at the Linq. It takes us nearly 30 minutes to get out of Whiskey Down at MGM because the waitress was awful and messed up everyone's tab. It was a fucking disaster. To boot, MGM is now charging for parking.
FC: What a bunch of fucking jews
Fluff: You should just tailgate that lady in front of you out and screw them out of the $7
FC: I should
We pull behind her and watch as she gets flustered at the awful parking machine. Her nevada license plate says VETERAN. As the gate goes up we haul ass and screw MGM out of $7. I shout "THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE" out the window as we blow right by her up to the Linq. Through fluffy's awful navigation, we wind up at the loading dock for the Linq. Eventually we find chug and gf hanging at the penny slots. They are holding vegan donuts, which she is very appreciative of. Least I could do after showing her the head. Fluffy plays the House of Cards slot machine.
He stuck $100 in, played for 6 minutes and then got really mad and hit the cash out button and $80 was left after 5 minutes.
ITS EXACTLY LIKE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!
Chug's gf asks to play a special slot machine called kitty glitter. We ask and the linq does not offer it but Harrahs next door does. So we head over there and the slot tech finds the kitty glitter machine. Fluffy sticks a C note in there and tells her to play and have a blast. So she's banging away at the one armed bandit WHEN SUDDENLY I HEAR THE SOUND.
It's PUTTIN ON THE RITZ in shitty .wav file internal speaker format. Hahah. She's just hit the progressive jackpot on the penny KITTY GLITTER machine. THIS PLACE IS AWESOME! We cash out after some play and a good time was had by all. I dump off fluffy at the rio since it was very close and drive everyone else back. It's late, I'm tired and the Palace Station oyster bar is open 24 hours......I head over there and there's a 45 minute wait.
So, I pull out my backup bankroll and using everything chug and fluffy have taught me about craps I belly up to the $3 min table where they let you take 10x behind the line. I'm still learning and the table is slow so one of the boxmen start explaining the game to me.
Box: So if you place the 6 or the 9 or individual numbers you can bet those but you gotta pay a little juice on it like a commission
Me: Like when you buy the hook?
short pause
Box: Yeah! Exactly like that! You got this!
So I played a little and went up a bit and down a bit. As you do. Plunked $5 down on the pass line and took full odds and the point hit. This game is pretty cool! So I hung around and watched for about an hour and finally decided to eat my winnings. I take $5 off my stack and, drop it on the pass line and announce dealer bet - $5 to pass. It hits. The dealers love me.
Maybe Vegas isn't so bad after all.
http://imgur.com/a/LGhDj
I have the pan roast at the oyster bar. No line. It is DELICIOUS. I get back to the hotel at 5AM. I don't care when I wake up.
Friday, January 20th. Day 4 of SHOT show.
Wake up around noon feeling like crap. Go to show. Debate destroying milk cart with wheels with an ax borrowed from fire station. Decide against it. Gas up car and find myself out by palace station again. Played some craps, hit the buffet and went for an early sleep.
It's midnight. The neighbors in my the hotel are having sex. A LOT OF SEX. I can hear everything. I gently knock on the door. No answer. I knock slightly harder. No answer. I head back to my room and close the door just as I hear their door open. I zoom back out to find a puzzled middle aged stocky and perhaps sticky Latino man looking both ways.
I get in his line of sight.
Me: Hey. I'm next door. It sounds like you're having a lot of fun. I get it. I really do. In fact I haven't had sex since the bush administration so I'm gunning for you man I really am. But it's midnight and I have a 6am flight and a rental car to return. So trust me when I say I'm really happy for you but if you don't mind I really need to get some sleep tonight okay?
The awkward silence is deafening. He nods without saying a word and mouths okay. I give him a manly nod and thumbs up.
Me: thanks. I'd shake your hand or fist bump but well you know.....
I give him a peace sign as he goes back into his little pleasure palace and I turn to realize that I have just locked myself out of my room. I am wearing boxers, a tshirt and barefoot. I head downstairs to the lobby. The check in at the front desk resembles the TSA line at Mccarran. Normally I would not be this rude but desperate times call for desperate measures.
The line is 50 people deep. I walk past every person. Fuck your queue. I approach the desk where someone is helping a guest and I raise my right hand as if I were in a deposition to get them to stop. The staff and guest looks puzzled as the angry barefoot man clad in nothing but boxers and a "uzi does it" tshirt approaches the desk.
Me: excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt. I have an emergency. I'm up on 8 and my neighbors are having a lot of sex. I mean a LOT of sex.
(This is the same front desk clerk who actually checked me in Monday night by coincidence looks back at me very awkwardly and puzzled.)
Me: this isn't your regular sex. I'm talking this is your (I begin air humping the front desk and slapping the granite counter with my palm and grunting loudly) sex. You could hear the plan B packaging open.
At this point - the ENTIRE FRONT DESK STAFF HAS STOPPED CHECKING IN GUESTS. The people in line and are watching the show. The clerk is stunned. Speechless. Shock and awed. Crapped out and busted. The women are covering their children's eyes and ears. The men are wondering if this show requires a 2 drink minimum.
Me: now I get this is Vegas. Everyone wants a good time. It's midnight. My flight leaves at 6 which means I have to be up by 4. And this just isn't working. So I asked them to keep it down and I locked myself out of my room. So if you can make me another key or move me I'd appreciate it.
The clerk nods.
Clerk: of course. may I see your ID?
Years of ballet have prepared me for this day. I step back to make sure my genitals are still ensconced in my boxers as I pirouette and gesticulate wildly.
Me: DO I LOOK LIKE I HAVE ID?
The floor manager steps over and asks me to head down to the end of the desk where she will make me a key. I give her the room number and thank her after she offers to have security sent up to shutdown the best little whorehouse in Vegas. I tell her it may not be necessary. As I take my keys and walk away the people in line break out in raucous applause.
I take a bow and miraculously my boxer shorts don't rip. These people are my subjects and I have been crowned the the king of the three ring circus that is the circus circus lobby. Im offered a $1 tip from a kind soul but I decline.
My walk back to the hotel elevator bank is uneventful. So much so that I realize it is going too well. The other shoe, if I were wearing one felt as if it was about to drop. Suddenly a dumbass in a rascal scooter is heading toward me at flank speed as his head is turned to look at everyone BEHIND HIM. There's no way this will end well.
For you gentle readers joining us mid conversation - it's midnight and I need to be at the airport in 4.5 hours. I can just see it now. (Cue the harp noises)
Scene: Emergency room
Nurse: Allergic to anything? Me: NKDA Nurse: cause of injury? Me: what's the IC10 code for "run down by drunken buffoon on motorized wheelchair?"
I saw my life and confirmed upgraded first class seats home being given away by the Mccarran gate agent flash before my eyes and my catlike reflexes kicked in and I jumped to my left into the wall, mid 1960's Las Vegas union construction being the path of least resistance. Think "The Bodyguard" with Kevin Costner.
The buffoon barely realizes what happens. Children are amazed. "HEY MOM! Look! That guy just ran into a wall!"
Me: it was that OR GET RUN DOWN BY SOME JACKASS ON A GODDAMN SCOOTER GOING FULL SPEED DRIVING LIKE A....
I look down and a midwestern nuclear family with two children of formative age are waiting for the elevator. I change my last word.
Me: LUNATIC!
I look over to the parents.
Me: I'm really sorry. This is a family joint and I shouldn't have cursed the drunken scooter driver like that. Sorry kids.
Parent: no big deal. They've heard fucking worse.
I crack a smile at her word choice. Fucking worse. Yeah. That sounds like my evening.
After jumping into a wall, I'm now wide awake and unable to go back to sleep. I make the plane and push on time. The 737 comes to a stop short of the runway and holds. Something is wrong. The pilots come on and say that they loaded more cargo and passengers than planned so they have to redo their numbers. We're waiting on the taxiway with both engines running as they do this and the waiting music comes on. What's the first song?
Whitney Houston - "I Will Always Love You"

Verified? (This bot cannot verify AMAs just yet)
Date: 2013-12-18
Link to submission (Has self-text)

Questions	Answers
Obviously, a big part of hitchhiking is the human aspect, but let's talk about vehicles. You've spent more time in the passenger seats of more vehicle types and makes than most. Have you developed a preference? Freightliner vs. Mac., which is the better truck? Strangest vehicle you've ridden in? Most luxurious? Smoothest suspension? Most likely to be driven by somebody who will pick up hitchhikers?	Love this question! Honestly, any time a truck stops it's one of the best feelings you can know. Last summer I was in south east california and the sun was almost down. I was just about to go set up camp when a huge 18 wheeler pulls over. You always have this moment of frantic euphoria as you run towards the truck where you think to yourself "HOLY SHIT HE ACTUALLY STOPPED FOR ME". Riding in the back of a pick up truck is a close second for most fun. Got a long ride (also last summer) in a pick up from Arizona to New Mexico. Felt so good to have the wind in my hair as we blazed through the desert. Good times! Strangest Vehicle? Freight train, 60s VW beetle, minivan piled high with birdfeeders one time. Smoothest suspension? Trucks aren't bad, had some very nice luxury 4x4s which were great. Most likely to be driven by a hitcher-picker-upper? Beat up cars are slightly more likely I suppose. Pretty rare to get picked up by a flashy sports care. In general not too much of an obvious trend. Preference? Trucks are comfier and offer better views... but cars are faster. 80kmph vs 130-220kmph can make a big difference if you have a long way to go. Depends on how much of a rush or sightseeing mode I am in. However a car with heated seats is fantastic when you are cold! :) Most luxurious? Several high-end Mercedes sports cars or similar and I hitched a chauffeur driven luxury car. Most often the really nice cars are high-end busniess saloons with a big engine and all mod cons. A mate this month hitched two jaguars in one day(!) and a Porsche two weeks later. Suspension? Well, that would depend on the road. Some of the best cars you will mostly just see on autobahns etc, where you have no way to judge it. Most likely to pick up hitchers? In Europe Polish trucks are pretty good for picking up hitchers (especially if you speak Polish) assuming there is only one driver in the cab already. Other countries, moreso in western Europe and especially in the UK often cannot for insurance reasons. Likewise any trucks carrying flammable or dangerous goods cannot pick up hitchers, and will actually risk being stopped by the cops if there are two people in the cab. Trucker's rides are the best: so comfy, so much view, so much distance, some times a bed, and that oh-so-appreciated little-yellow-thingy that lets you adjust the tightness of your seat-belt (to the ones that have ridden a truck, you know what I'm talking about). Most luxurious: I got picked up by a few sports car, one had retractable ceiling. Not like I cared, really, though... I would still say a truck is the best because of the awesome seat, the yellow-thingy, and the bed. Trucks are nice but in America they don't stop much for you. Been in maybe 2 altogether. For regular vehicles, I've gotten rides in everything from oldschool Porches to the Tesla and everything in between. Amazing Chevys with 800,000 miles on them, a Jaguar with 3000 miles on it (the driver cracked the block on that ride, too!), even got to drive a newer mustang as well. I rarely ever get picked up by VWs, which always throws me off. Don't really have a preference for vehicles. Anything with space works for me! Most luxurious: One of those hummers. They have enough room for your feet to fit two more full on yous. Smoothest ride: The big rigs I've ridden in were really, really comfortable. The best trucks are the ones with two bunks and a driver who is willing to let you sleep in one of them and continue driving in the morning.
How did you guys get the idea to do this? What percentage of drivers do you estimate actually gave you guys rides?	I think we all had different reasons. I was in Tasmania and there was no other way to travel as I didn't have a driver's licence. It was either hitchhike or don't go. Once I started though I realized how much fun it is, and was hooked right away! The percentage of drivers varies incredibly from place to place. New Zealand and Bhutan were the best. You'd wait 5 minutes max (Maybe 1 in 4 cars would pick you up). Mississippi and Western Ontario were the worst, huge wait times (1 in a couple hundred I'd guess).
	A) A desire to travel and really see the country and meet the people rather than just out of bus/train/plane windows. Also, I hate long cramped public transport journeys and was aware that by making my money last I could travel further and for longer.
	B) Depends on country, the area of the country, the weather, the time of day, how you are dressed, if you are alone or in a group, the spot you are hitching from, the number of upcoming turnoffs from the road etc etc. You have to be patient and you will often get a ride quicker from a small village with almost no traffic that you will with a city. That said, I have also been offered lifts by people before I even got a chance to finish making a sign or approach and ask them! :) Percentage? Anything from 100% some days to 0% others.
	Free transportation. on average maybe 0.5-5% will pick you up depending on location.
	I live in a pretty rural area, so getting around wasn't easy for a broke teenager in high school. Eventually I fell in love with the people and the experiences and decided with hitchhiking I could go anywhere I wanted. All it takes is a bag and some gumption.
	Ride percentage strongly changes based on location. In Utah the rides were extremely few and I only got rides from people not from Utah. In Colorado they lined up for me.
	My father hitch-hiked a bunch when he was younger. When I learned about this, it impressed me. I thought the adventures I would get out of such a trip would be pretty awesome.
	The other side of it is that I had been refusing to get my driver's license because I believed we could organize ourselves as a society in such a more efficient way than by simply all having our individual car. I thus tried to opt out of the system by trying hitch-hiking as it created absolutely no economic demand that would stimulate the oil-economy or the car-economy (unless we count the (small, I believe) amount of extra fuel burned caused by my extra weight in a car). Nowadays, I wish I had my driver's license already because I would have been able to help out certain sleepy drivers and thus give them a pay-back, in a certain way. Hell, a trucker in Ontario this year even asked me if I wanted to take the wheel, but then he ended up denying me the opportunity due to my license-free condition. Ah, the errors of the youth! However, no regrets: the last three years of hitch-hiking have been totally awesome.
	Another point would be the cost of travelling while hitch-hiking: the difference is so enormous you wouldn't believe it. If you adopt a rent-free life-style as well, you are looking at an extension of your trip possibly by over 200% (if not way more, depending on the current way you travel/budget). I mostly only pay for food when I am on the road: this means I can easily budget to around 10$/day. Actually, this year I decided to come back to Montreal from Western-Canada by going through the US: the whole trip lasted 32 days (I took my time to take a look at the wonderful National Parks) and cost me 200$... that's a single day of work as a tree planter. (But keep in mind that I also practice dumpster-diving out of disgust toward the horrible amounts of food that can be wasted... and for budget purposes as well.)
	The last point would be about the travel itself. When taking a bus, a plane, or whatever, you usually only get to see Point A and Point B. Now if you think about it, hitch-hiking from Point A to Point B has many advantages: it gives you more time to explore the in-between, it lets you meet the locals and talk with them about their political issues and views, and they also tell you about all those little secret places that the bigger crowd doesn't necessarily get to see, and finally there is a chance for you to find a random adventure to be proposed to you.
	For your second question, I am afraid it'd be too hard to give you a correct answer. A "percentage" wouldn't be representative of any situation in particular: "waiting time" is a more precise data to ask, if you want my opinion. In terms of that, I would say that I can wait anywhere in between 1 to 75 minutes on average (I mostly wait 30-55 minutes), with a fairly high probability of waiting several hours when you are trying to get out of a big city (higher demographic densities usually correlate with less trust toward each other). That and my love for wilderness makes it so that I tend to avoid big cities as much as possible. The smaller towns have the best adventures and people. :)
How do you handle safety concerns? As a woman, I would be paranoid about getting robbed/kidnapped/etc.	I have met a lot of women who hitchhike alone and say they've never had a bad experience. They carry phones, a knife or can of mace, and let people know their route before leaving. That being said it is probably best for women to hitch in pairs, or with a male friend if possible. When I discuss with solo female hitchers, they are not denying that there is a risk to hitching solo, but they're not convinced it's any more dangerous than walking alone downtown at night.
	I generally do not worry too much, though if my spidey-senses tingled I'd decline the lift. Besides, there are far wealthier looking people to rob than me! I do understand the worries about the safety of hitchers as we never know who will stop for us, and while some female hitching friends prefer to hitch solo, some will only hitch with guys. Again, this varies upon where they are hitching, as some areas are safer than others (often for cultural reasons).
	Most of us dont bring any sort of self defense other than a good head on our shoulders. that is the only weapon which cant be used against you.
	If you feel threatened and someone doesn't pull over you always have the option of grabbing their steering wheel and causing a wreck. they will have a hard time kidnapping you.
	Never had any violent situations. I've always carried a knife but its never been anything but a tool. I've travelled with and talked to female hitchhikers and they also never had any real violent experiences. I can imagine it being much more scary for them, but females also tend to get rides faster since people tend to want to try and help them.
	From my personal experience, the solo-hitching women that I've discussed with told me they some times meet jerks or perverts, but that those persons never tried to be forceful about anything. As soon as you identify their "little game", simply let them know you are not in their car for that and they usually either drop you, or drive you safely.
	As a general rule, it seems like for girls, you will have to cover up (don't hitch with a skirt kind of thing).
	In terms of safety in general, I have never felt threatened. People usually assume that a hitch-hiker is pretty poor, so robbing is kind of a ridiculous thought that doesn't come to their mind. In terms of being kidnapped, as TheWindAndRain said, you do have a certain control over your situation: when someone goes away from the planned route, ask them why, and if it sounds fishy, asked to be dropped right away (most of the people are aware that a hitch-hiker may be stressed a bit if they move away from the planned route so they will explain it ahead of time anyways)... and if they refuse, that's when you indeed want to turn to wheel, or use the hand break, or whatever. Realize that they have to keep driving safely so they can't concentrate all their energy on defending themselves from your attacks. Also, if you carry a knife, please make sure you know how to use it for self-defence: else it is too easy to be turned against you.
	But really, I don't think you should be worried about that too much, though it's always good to be prepared.
To be fair, you wouldn't have much chance to talk to a woman who had a very negative experience.	This is a good point. I would imagine, however, that these dangers exist in many aspects of traveling solo, not just hitchhiking. That being said, if you ever did want to try it, find a friend and hit the road!
Have there been times where the person picking you up seemed a bit off, and so you decided to wait for another driver? Or do you guys pretty much get into the vehicle of whoever stops?	There have been a few odd ones, but nobody that has made me feel threatened. If ever I do feel threatened in future I will definitely not get in the car. It's a good policy to say you're not going to the same destination if you feel threatened.
	Turned down lifts because of tingling Spidey-senses, though it happens rarely. I have also accepted lifts from what are called 'The Travelling Community' in the UK/Ireland (Gypsies basically) who have a bad reputation. They were mostly lovely, with one exception in Scotland. Was offered to go to a party with one set in Ireland, offered work by ones in England and other in Scotland saw me getting out of a car in my destination city and asked if I was looking for casual work! :-D.
	Generally though we are fine, my way of looking at it is the assholes drive past. Lots of nice people too, but virtually no assholes will stop.
	I have never turned down a ride that was going where i wanted to go. plenty of times i have gotten bad vibes and no one has ever tried to hurt me.
	Yeah you gotta get a vibe for the people. Its really rare to turn one down, though. You can't go on visuals, either. One ride looked like an axe murderer but was the nicest guy with the softest voice. I've had uncomfortable rides, but never felt in fear for my life. People are generally good.
	I have refused very few lifts, maybe 4?
	Two of them were refused because they weren't driving very far (under 5 km) and the further point was not going to add any new traffic, and I was hitch-hiking at a very good spot (you never know if where you'll be dropped will be a bad spot, so some times it is in your interest to stick with a good shoulder).
	One was because she asked me right away that I would have to split half-half the gas cost if I wanted to enter her car, and it's not like she looked like she was part of the lower socioeconomic classes. To me, that didn't sound like a person that I wanted to meet, so I just refused.
	The last one was because I had been given 3 lifts over 1 km each (without having to wait a single minute in between!), and that one was also going only 1 km ahead, so I decided I had had enough of those lifts. Luckily enough, right after she departed, a guy did a U-turn for me and decided to go for a 14-hours detour to drive me to my destination.
	EDIT: I'm forgetting a lift where I was simply not headed the way it was going.
What is the longest you've waited for someone to give you a ride? What's the longest distance someone drove you?	Longest wait time: about 24 hours in the Australian Outback. I was well stocked with water, and I had a tent, so I knew I wouldn't die. If ever I started running low on supplies I would stand in the road and flag down a car. If a car sees you are in distress (or waving an empty water bottle) they will stop right away. Longest distance, probably North Carolina to Syracuse, whatever that was. Though I did have 1200km on the east coast. I think payne007 had a massive one down the west coast from Alaska to California or something.
	A) Spain, 2 days. I hate hitching in Spain.
	B) From near Nimes in France to a bit north of Valentia in Spain. About 700km, including an overnight stop in Barcelona. Also been offered, but had to decline, a lift from Poland to London (about 1200km). Had a football game to go to, so only went the first few hundred km with them.
	3 days in phoenix. other than that my longest wait is 8 hours in kansas.
	My longest distance ride was from palmer alaska to bakersfield california, 3,250 miles.
	The longest I've ever waited was about 2 days. Finally got a ride by pouring out my water and waiving someone down. Had to sit on someone's lap for over an hour and hang my head out the window but a ride is a ride!! Longest ride was San Francisco to LA. Awesome dude, I still keep in touch with him.
	11 hours, up in Watson Lake (Yukon). After that it's 9 hours out of Vancouver (BC), and 7 hours out of Winnipeg (BC). 6 hours out of Calgary (BC).
	As you can see, it's mostly with big cities that you wait several hours. The Yukon one was because I wasn't trying too hard: I was reading, or juggling.
	You can assume you'll have a ride under 75 minutes for sure generally.
	This year, I got a few pretty (some times only potential) good rides: I had a trucker that went all the way from Hearst (Ontario) to Edmonton (Alberta), and another trucker from Oklahoma to New York. I also had a ride from Whitehorse (Yukon) to Kitwanga (BC), but she was actually going all the way to Sudbury (Ontario), and I had to get off there to go to Terrace. From that same spot she dropped me, as I was hitching to Terrace, I had to turn down another epic ride that was going all the way to California! That damned detour to Terrace was pretty awesome though: I met a nice family that hosted me for a few days and we went hiking around and stuff. Last year and the year before, I also had a trucker that went from Montreal to Winnipeg.
Really?! You just walk up to the locomative's driver and ask them? By that time, you are already trespassing, I believe, so the good old white-truck can bust you, no?	There was no barrier where I was between the tracks and the road, so yeah, I just walked up and said "Sorry to bother you, I don't want to do anything illegal or dangerous, but I'm trying to get east, could I ride with you?" The guy set me up in my own cabin with water and AC. Sweet deal!
Jeez! Whereabout? Got pictures?	New Mexico. Here's my only pic. Typewriting in the cabin.
You had the typewriting machine with you? Or it was already there? EDIT: Funnily, my only chance to hop on a train was right out of New Mexico, in Hereford (Texas).	I brought it. I love typewriting and wanted to write about things as they were happening, as opposed to after having got back. It was a bit of extra weight, but worth it.
I remember someone posting on digihitch a long time ago about hitching with a typewriter, was that you? by the way I have heard from multiple people that just walking up the the conductor and asking for a ride does indeed work.	Nope, wasn't me. There must be at least two of us.
Did all the people that picked you up fit into a particular demographic? Personality type?	Not at all! And this is one of the best thing about hitching. The only similarity is that they are all profoundly good people, but other than that they come from all walks of life. I've had soccer moms, architects, physicists, a fashion designer, single dads, other hitchhikers, mexican refugees, religious, atheists, people driving to find themselves, a math teacher, a set designer for HBO, one of the merry pranksters, and honestly this list could go on forever. Because of the huge diversity of people you learn so much that you wouldn't have considered otherwise. It's a great way to introduce yourself to different worldviews.
	Never! Its always such a variety, all good people coming from different walks of life. You never know who you're gonna meet and the variety of people broaden your understanding of the world around you. You start seeing every individual differently.
	Most of my lifts were from a male of about 35-40 years old. - About 60% of those were self-employed. - 85-90% of my lifts had hitch-hiked at least once in their life. - 5% of my lifts had never picked up hitch-hikers before. - 15-20% of my lifts were from woman (ranged mostly from 30 to 55 years old, and the fact that they some times tend to be older is probably due to their motherly nature?). - 75% of my lifts had been in contact with marijuana at least once in their life-time. And 65% of those had been/were actual drug dealers. - 5% of my lifts did a U-turn to come back to pick me up. - Only 4 or 5 lifts had a baby in their car.
	(This is, obviously, very subjective and approximate.)
	I can't think of other categorization, but if you ask specifically, I could probably give you a number.
What's the most unexpected thing you've used your towel for?	Haha, I loved the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy series. Honest answer: nothing especially interesting comes to mind besides drying myself off.
	Hmm... Aside from the regular drying myself or lying on at the beach/park? Can't think of one thing, but other uses mine has achieved are...
	Wringing with met clothes inside to dry them quickly (quick-drying travel towels rock), head/neck-protecting bandanna, to tie things together (when twisted into a rope-like thing), to carry stuff (holding all 4 corners), across the top of my sleeping bag to catch some of the morning dew, pillow/cushion, to prevent unwanted complaints about my sexy nudity, to block cold drafts from under a door, to create shade on a hot day...and of course as an emergency cape! :)
	I came to believe that a towel is fairly useless. If you have enough clothing, you can simply use clothing to dry yourself out.
	I always carry a towel in my banjo case! Keeps the snare drum dry!
I've always wondered. What about money for your bills? (School loans, credit cards, phone, etc) How do you deal with that while traveling?	I have no debts nor contracts. I also hate owing money to anyone. When I am travelling I am usually on longer trips and thus have no rent/electricity/gas bills to pay either as I move out of my rented accommodation. Just day-to-day living costs. I have a bank account, so I can access funds whether I am in the country or not, so long as I don't loose my cards. Which I usually do not.
	I usually make sure I'm square with everything at the homestead before I leave. I have very little, and it frees me up. I don't really have an address, I don't have any credit cards, my expenses are few and I like it that way. My phone and expenses on the road are taken care of by saving up some money and busking my banjo. Finding work on the road is also an excellent way to go.
	I am homeless and have no bills whatsoever other than a storage unit and a gym membership to shower at, and even that is temporary. Any company that wants to collect a debt from me would find me impossible to contact or find. I am entirely untraceable. I never stay in one place longer than 7 months and often that means no longer than one day.
	When I need to provide an address for something, I make one up.
	I stay away from periodic payments: any interests on payments, rent, phone, etc..
	I work as a tree planter 2 months per year, and as a cherry picker for 2 to 3 weeks per year. Then I pick up any job offered to me on the road.
	Since I usually budget to 10$/day, if not lower, it is very easy for me to have no debts, and yet even actually build up my bank account for the day I'll be done with the road-life.
That bolt of fear that shoots through you when you're hundreds or thousands of miles away from home and you can't find your card! Ahhh!	Or drunkenly put the wring code into a cash machine thrice when it is your only card, you are on the opposite end of the continent from home...And you have only €0.07 in your pocket. :(
What was the best story you heard from the people you were traveling with?	Heard stories from people being abducted by ufos to someone supposedly hitchhiking and having someone pull a gun and try to shoot them as they ran. Most of the stories were probably bullshit. Everyone wants to tell you a story, or be told one. There are some good ones, one dude launched sattelites for a living. Worked with NASA. That was neat. One guy was musician and went into detail on some mothedaughter groupie hookup threesome. Are they true? I don't know but I choose to believe them because that makes life more fun. I had one recently who had dropped out of school and hitched from England to India when he was young. Great to hear people do these things, as it is far better to regret the things you have done than the things you haven't. Not that he regretted doing this! :-D.
Also I thought the title said: We are five Hijackers who have used our thumbs to travel over 270,000 km collectively in 30 countries. With the plane in the image icon I was confused for a bit.	A few good ones come to mind. I had a brit pick me up in Australia who wasn't happy with his life in the UK, so he quit his job, bought a ship and sailed to Australia to start a new life. I was picked up by a 'prison architect' (that's a thing apparently) once who had amazing stories about every pub we passed. He had once picked up a hitchhiker who had left home at 16 in France and had traveled nonstop ever since. He was 35 when the drive had picked him up. An Ecuadorian man who picked me up in Louisiana had ran away from home (also at 16) and lived for a year on top of a bakery. Heaps of good ones!
Share a interesting story/experience!	Interesting experience? Many of them, it's one of the reasons I hitch. I'll give one coincidence story, one funny story and one sad. There are not many sad stories, but I feel this story gives a good indication of the openness of conversations you can have with a stranger.
EDIT: also, sign or thumb. What do you prefer? What do you think gets more rides?	I prefer signs, though sometimes when there is only really one place the road leads I won't bother. Like physicshipster I usually prefer signs, unless the road only goes to one place. Coincidence story: In rural Morocco, just south of the Atlas mountains. Passed the same Polish car and van twice in a day in rural Morocco, first in the morning in the same town as we had stayed in the night before when going to our hitching spot. The second time could see they were just stopped for photographs, and I knew we had about 5km before we were getting out. I quickly made up a sign in Polish on the (correct) assumption that that the car and van would be there soon after us, and going to the gorge at the end of the road. When the car we were in stopped I hopped out, grabbed my bag and while my friend was still getting her bag out of the car spotted the Polish vehicles. I held out the sign and saw the most stunned look on the drivers space before they pulled over and screeched to a halt next to us. Their confusion was compounded by me being a Celt and my friend being Lithuanian - neither being Polish! :-D Anyway, they too were going to Ouarzazate - our destination city a few hundred km away. They not only found space for us but also we went and saw both this gorge and another we wanted to see (the second we had not expected to have time to see, but it turned out they were going to see it too en-route) and we stopped and ate together. The driver of the car knew one guy in Ouarzazate whom he had met before (he did regular charity drives from northern Europe to Senegambia region of Africa). We had a CS host in Ouarzazate, so we were delighted to have a lift to the city. We got to the city and it turned out our host lived almost opposite the hotel our drivers were staying at. Shortly after we got to our hosts place there was a knock at the door - and it turned out that the one guy the Pole knew was our host! :-D It's a small world as they say! :) Sad story: Again with a Polish link. This lift involved a long conversation in broken Polish with a guy with his life in the back of his car who was moving to Germany to work to support his wife and kid. His wife was an extreme alcoholic. I felt really sad for him, I wished I was so much more fluent to be able to speak better with him, to be more comfort to him. I think it was gong him good to talk about it to a stranger, but I felt so sad for him. One of the truly heartbreaking experiences I had hitching. He loved his wife and small son so much, but was being put through the emotional grinder by the wife. He was welling up at times while speaking. I sometimes think about him. I really hope his life has picked up. He didn't even want to move to Germany, he just had to in order to earn a decent wage. Poor guy. generally thumb over sign except when going long distance between major cities.
Have you ever had any sexual encounters or proposals through hitchhiking, if so details?	I ended up skinny dipping with a MtoF transsexual in California once. There was nothing sexual about it, but wow did the surgeon do a good job on her boobs.
	Only once: I was hitching out of Oklahoma City (waited 3 hours there) and this black guy picked me up (the very first black man to pick me up in 3 years). He was maybe 35-40 years old? Middle-class. He was headed to a casino to the East.
	We started talking about segregation (I had so many questions: I was quite excited to meet someone that had gone through it). Then once that topic wore out, he asked me if I had a girlfriend. And then if I had ever been picked up by gay drivers. I said yes, and that I had no problem with it at all.
	I'm fairly open-minded, so I simply assumed he must've had a few experiences, so I asked him about that. He said he did, back when he was travelling with the military forces.
	The whole time, he looked very stressed (I initially thought it was simply his way of being, and it might have been, who knows). By that, I mean he was changing which hands he was holding the wheel with very often. Anyways, he ended up asking me if I needed to take a shower, and that he could pay for a motel room. I had previously mentioned that I was open to the idea of sexual relations with men though hadn't been presented with much opportunities. That's why he asked me if I wanted to have some fun as well. He then proceeded to mention that he wasn't into "ass" but that he loved sucking dicks (as he said, "sex is sex").
	Anyways, I refused his offer, and he dropped me at his exit. I still don't consider this to have been stressful in any way: as I have often said, no one wants to be forceful about those things... simply refuse will remaining open-minded and everything will be fine. I was actually cracking up a smile when he specifically asked me, thinking "well, it took 3 years to be asked that question".
	Obviously, I eased him into asking me that question. It was fairly easy to guess that he was getting to that, but I didn't care. Had I not been so vocal about my open-minded point of view, maybe he would've simply asked me quickly as he was dropping me anyways. But yeah, I broke a few rules for when it comes to trying to avoid this kind of proposal, and I consciously knew it.
	One older lady in Colorado. It was gonna be a cold night so I took her up on the offer more for the nice warm bed than the sex, but it was a bonus.
	A younger, prettier lady in Colorado. She gave me a ride to her hometown and I wound up sticking around for a few days. Saw her again and we wound up watching a movie and going out for dinner. Next thing ya know!
	In Santa Cruz I met a travelling girl from Ireland and we hooked up. We traveled together and she was a lot of fun to be around. The sex was a bonus.
	On the other hand...
	I've had a few guys proposition me in one way or another. Some even offer to pay me, but I've never took them up on it.
	Sexual encounters aren't too common, but they do happen. At least for me. If you look like a movie star I'm sure it would happen more.
	I have had a dozen or so propositions from men which i had no interest in.
	Have had two opportunities to get with women on the road (maybe more for the subtle ones that I didn't catch on to) but my crippling social and performance anxiety meant that it has never happened.
That's amazing because that is exactly what happened in a scene from the movie Transamerica (2005) starring Felicity Huffman.	Haha, never heard of it. Who woulda thunk.
That actually sounds like a hilarious story.	She was great, we camped together by the Pacific and shared stories about our lives by the campfire. Shame I'll probably never see her again. Oh, I should also mention I only discovered she was transsexual when we first got in the water. A wee bit of a surprise to say the least, haha.
MtoF?	Male to Female.
Have you ever paid for a motel room on the road?	I like "spaghetti + tomato sauce + canned tuna + celery + carrot + garlic + onion" (all those things can be carried nearly eternally except for celery/carrot which you can simply munch on if they're getting old... also, that recipe is a perfect mix of carbohydrates/proteins/, and is cheap). Trail mix peanuts. PBJ sandwhiches. Vanilla yogourt + Granola cereals. Else, always keep in mind the dumpster diving option! Motels, never, although if I'm traveling somewhere cheap where a hotel room is 5-10 dollars a night sometimes my gf and I will splurge. Couchsurifing is always my first choice though.
What are your classics in terms of food? What is your average daily budget?	Food classics - peanuts, bread, canned chicken, multivitamins - Patience brings you what you want. And also that you can learn to adapt yourself. That we are capable of doing whatever we want, generally. That it is important to do what you love in life. That psychedelics are seen too poorly by (or are scaring too much the) current society. That it's better to live by your own set of morals rather than someone else's, hence civil disobedience.
What is the most unusual pet you've encountered on the road? What has The Road taught you?	What has the road taught me? People are good. Before I headed out on the road I had become cynical about modern life and the way it was turning people into money chasing pricks. After hitching though I am very happy to say I was wrong on this, that people are still good. Yeah, there are still jackasses out there, and yeah there will always be greedy people - but at the end of the day most people are good! :) Unusual Pets: Only dogs so far, though I heard of a guy who traveled with a pet squirrel.

Last updated: 2013-12-22 14:47 UTC
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