DIY Adventure

There is a guidebook for everything. I mean EVERYTHING.

Sometimes it just feels nice to create something for yourself and not go along with something someone has already done.

Last summer I found a $300 sea kayak on Craigslist, scooped it up, and created a world of adventure for myself over the months that followed.

Guidebooks are for people who want to play it "safe" (which is usually me), but every once in a while you have to go out and try to create an adventure for yourself, one that you think up and shoot for.

Back in June I took my P.O.S. sea kayak and circumnavigated Fort George Island.


It was great. The feeling of planning something and executing it successfully is like a drug. 

The portage across Hugenot

Where your Mayport shrimp come from.


a little over 13 miles
The circumnavigation was HOT (felt like 100 degrees) but uneventful.  I remember getting back to my car and drinking a gallon of water.


Today I set out to conquer some new terrain in White Springs (cue banjo music) on my mountain bike. I have been hearing about the trails along the Suwannee River, and given my love/hate relationship with that river I thought I'd give it a try.

I met my buddy Ethan at the most "hick" boat ramp and we decided to ride in the Big Shoals Conservation Land first.



We didn't really follow any map, which was kinda nice. When your agenda is to get in some miles/exercise, you care less about where the trails take you.


Big Shoals is the only class I-III rapids in FL, depending on the water level. Today the level was 66 feet above sea level, which is extremely high, so high that they close all of the river camps and the river to kayaking.









I always enjoy getting out into the woods and away from everything. Today it was incredibly windy, which made it to smell all of the things that were coming from the woods: grass, the fire in the national forest to the east, and the mud from the recent rain.




Now off to work to try to change come lives. That is an adventure of it's own...
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Shelly

We all remember our first car.


Towards the end of my high school life I was a real shit-head. Cocky, no-it-all, ungrateful, etc.

I remember getting accepted in the UF school of music with an ok scholarship and deciding with my mother, to use my Florida pre-paid collage plan to get a car. This was a HUGE step but also a gamble.

I remember being jealous of all of my high school classmates who had cars, throwing that in my mom's face, and thinking that I deserved a car of my own. I remember fighting with my mom about what kind of car "I wanted":

Coupe (duh), something sporty, V6, needed to be FAST, cool, etc. My mother, of course, wanted 4 door, safe, ugly.

I threatened that if she bought me a car I didn't want I would just sell it (like I said, I was a complete shit-head).

About a month before I graduated high school my mom and I looked at a few cars, but soon found a pontiac vibe, with low miles at a local dealership. Being the car that someone I admired had, I was instantly ready to take a look.

I remember my mom talking to the salesman, offering the price we could afford, the salesman saying something to the effects of "don't you have a rich grandparent who can pay the rest".

Long story short, we walked.

A week passes by and the search continued. It wasn't until while I was at a lifeguarding class that my mother received a call that they WOULD in fact accept our price and then proceeded to pick me up with the keys in hand as well as a dealership booklet hyping this car.

Again, I was (am) a shit head and the countless stories and positive memories I have made with this car are punishment enough from my rotten 18 year old self.


When I drove the car off the lot for the first time it had 66,000 miles. I remember driving all the way around the 295 loop. It was awesome. 

In the early days I washed and vacuumed it every Sunday after church. 

About a month after we bought it the fuel pump went out and the hell my mother raised was unforgettable. 

Many people say that they "love their car". What kind of love? Love in the way it looks? drives? makes people think a certain thing about you?

I love my car because of all of the memories it has given me. 

The day before I graduated high school I drove my wife to Jax beach, watched the sunrise, and then blindfolded her and drove her all the way to Tampa, where I later that evening, during the sunset asker her to marry me. 

she didn't even know what was coning. 

I started calling my car "Shelly", after a friends girlfriend. For some reason that name always stood out as a good car name (there is a fat joke in there somewhere). 

Shelly took me and my then fiance safely back and forth from Clermont to Gainesville for 2 whole years. The 90 miles stretch of road between the two of us felt like an eternity, though Liz claims she made it in less than an hour when her BFF went into labor (BS if you ask me). 

Shelly in front of Liz's apartment


I owe much of Liz's and I's long distance engagement success to my car. In addition to the weekly commute back and forth from Gainesville to Clermont we also ended up making 3 trips to Nashville and a big trip up the New Jersey, where the saga of the frozen windshield washer fluid still haunts me when I drive on the interstate when I drive near Washington DC. 

I remember hearing a rhythmic *bump bump bump* the entire way home to NJ, only to be later diagnosed at a tire shop as an incredibly unsafe bubble in the tire and I quote "you wouldn't want to trust your life with that thing". But as always, Shelly got us home safe. 

Swimin' with the manatees.

After getting married and getting settled in Gainesville, we ended up figuring out how to really put our car to work, putting one or two boats on top. 


I owe 90% of my adventures to this car, allowing me to travel very far for a reasonably low price. The last 5 years were filled with memories and adventures that will be with me for the rest of my life. 




I could write about my car for hours. I could write about how there is a stain on the passenger and driver side, each above the window, where Liz and my sister each tried to throw fruit out the window and missed (the stains are still there). 

So I will end with this: On Tuesday my car hit 200,000 miles, approx 140,000 with me at the helm. 

I still to this day feel convicted about how I acted towards my mother and how I thought I "deserved a car'.  If karma was a thing and I was to get what I "deserved" it would be to have gotten in a fatal wreak on the test drive. 

Instead I have a car that was and is a huge factor in the shaping of my life. 

So thank you Mom, for still loving me even though I am a shit head.
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Quiet

Where is the quietest place you have ever been? The kind of quiet where the tinnitus in your ears start to scream and you feel REALLY uncomfortable because of the constant stimulation that has been part of everyday life.

I need to set up my story: When we eat a sno-cone, we get an intense flavor that is awesome, and we can get that flavor on demand at any given time, whenever we want it. Some countries have indoor water parks that have the “perfect weather” all the time, on demand, without a doubt. 

Contrast this to strawberry’s and blueberries: When you get a carton of strawberries or blueberries they are most likely all ok and taste like the “should”, but there is always that one, in the entire carton, that is sweeter and has a better texture to the rest. 

This same theory can be applied to weather: out of the entire month of February there might be a handful of good days but there will be at least one that is 100% PERFECT. No clouds in the sky, virtually no humidity, bright sun.  Basically, it is the one “strawberry in the carton” that is sweeter than the rest, and cannot be duplicated on demand at any time like a sno-kone or the indoor waterpark.

The day we visited Crater Lake we had a “sweet strawberry” day: NO clouds, NO wind, NO humidity.  Now, if you were in the 904 during a day like this it would be nice and it would be easy to make a day of it, but at Crater Lake I experienced one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed to date- something that I have not experienced anywhere else in my life: complete silence.


Maybe it was the juxtaposition of the stillness despite being in an exposed place that could easily be effected by harsh elements (over 8,000’ above sea level) that struck me as amazing.


We sat that afternoon for hours and just stared. Never have I been so content at doing nothing, and never will I forget or take for granted that day that we found the equivalent to the entire carton of perfect strawberries.



I think it’s important we seek out places we can go to experience this quiet, even if it’s on a smaller scale. From my residence I can hear the hum of the interstate, the neighbors arguing, the next text message coming through, an email update from a spammer, Ace snoring….you get the point.

So I say all of this to make the point that to get back to normal and to experience peace we have to experience quiet on a regular basis….and that takes effort.



-BSY
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$7.99 A Month

The day I die I imagine that I will be laying in a facility, staring at the ceiling, thinking about how I spent my time on earth. I imagine I would be thinking about the relationships I made, the things I accomplished, the places I traveled too, the career I chose, and the things I wished I had done instead. 

As weird as it sounds, this is something that has been on my mind lately: living with “no regrets”. Living with “no regrets” sounds like a thing that churches would title a cheesy sermon series or the phrase that a scared straight campaign would adopt. 

There have been many things in my life that I have made happen that have gone along with this mentality, such as getting engaged and married at a younger than normal age or more recently canceling my internet and Netflix account. 


How easy it is to come home, plop down on the couch, and get sucked into the TV for hours upon end. I’m not talking a casual hour of TV but rather 4-5 hours a night  of “The Office” reruns or some other show that takes you to another place. 

For eternity’s sake I’ll be nice and round down: combined use of internet/phone/netflix per day in my life was AT LEAST 5 hours. AT LEAST. That’s easily, AT LEAST 45 hours a week or 150 hours a month or 2555 hours a year, not counting the summer when nothing is going on or the weekends or the breaks from school. 

HOLY HELL!!!!

So instead of going into the “what I could have done with that time” I’m going to go the “what I plan to do with my time” route. 

I plan on going out and doing things without thinking about rushing home to watch TV. 

I plan on not sitting on my computer all night and ignoring my wife. 

I plan on reading books and building relationships. 

I’m going to be free from being bound to technology. 


It’s socially acceptable to pay $7.99 a month and waste away in front of the TV, all the while not getting out and doing things that really matter.






So here’s to getting off my ass and taking back my sanity. 

 -BYS
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Josh Dreams of Sushi

This weekend commenced with the usual: mattress on the living room floor, pug under the sheets, and Netflix sucking up the internet speed.

In the Bond house, Netflix is the "go to" background noise, filling our living quarters with the sounds of many popular TV shows. Because the well has run dry, we stumbled on a documentary about the famed Jiro Ono and his world class, 10 seat, sushi restaurant in Japan.

Normally, my 4G LTE American self would not sit through a movie that required one to actually READ, but soon after the movie started,  the Sushi master said these words:

"Once you decide on your occupation... you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That's the secret of success... and is the key to being regarded honorably.



How opposite is this from what the average person feels about their occupation? This man, a mere sushi chef, spoke these words, and has one of the most highly sought after sushi joint in Japan, one that foreign leaders go to as a first choice of cuisine!

So how do we get there?

I think that we have to be in a field of work that we actually love (or once did). I also think that you can't be in it to " show off" or be "better than the other guy", because in most cases the other guy isn't that good in the first place. We do, however, need to find those people that are better than us and align ourselvs with them very closely.

So to pay tribute to this idea, the next day I decided to try to make sushi.

Keepin' it simple with a veggie roll.


Was it good? ehhhh. Did it taste like sushi? Somewhat. Did Liz like it? She said she did. :)

I went on a MTB ride that evening, thinking about all of this and how I can apply it to my life.



And realized that the quest for answers is one that is going to be a long one.

Maybe ace knows:
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Staying Sane


A wise man one said, "Do what you can with what you have where you are".


That wise man was Theodore Roosevelt.


When I came across this quote on reddit, I suddenly had  an epiphany: The enemy of this quote is a nasty combination of human nature and advertising, and I might be the most guilty.


If you are like me, you have said to yourself  "if I get a ______ then I will ______", or "If I just buy this one  piece of equipment then I can do ________" or "If I just get in front of that one band then I can get a __________ rating" or "I will eat a certain way when I buy ___________."

All of the questions above are personal examples of how I have fallen victim to this mindset.


So how do we combat this toxic way of thinking? We do what we can, with what we have, where we are.

I can't tell you how many miles I have driven to pursue things or hobbies because I was not content with what I have in my own "backyard.


Most recently I packed up the kayak, my wife, and my Pug to head out on a little adventure, with the above quote in mind.

The destination was the Nocatee Paddle Launch. Located on the intercostal waterway in Palm Vally, it is my go to place for an easy afternoon outing.






The plan was to paddle south on the ICW to what I like to call "Picnic Island" to have just that: a picnic. As the crow flies, we had just over a 2 mile paddle ahead of us. With a strong NE wind pushing us, we made it to our destination in no time. 


Our time on Picnic Island was spent in our hammock eating simply cooked chicken, sea salt and vinegar chips, and drinking peace tea and observing some feeding  storks in the shallows. 




Sometimes adventure can be found and supplied without the stress waiting in the Publix sub line or spending $30 of little snacks that you don't need. All you need for adventure is the willingness to get out there and find it, because this is the only way to really fight the need for more "things".

For me right now I am accepting the fact that the statement is not "when I get/have/do/find __________ then I will have peace" but instead peace can happen right now in the moment. It is just up to you to make it happen, not wait for it.  


May peace be with you.


-The Brisk Young Sailor
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Movement I


Andante con moto:

 So it beings. A road to mental equilibrium. 

 Today I deleted my facebook is an effort to go "off the grid". Though going cold turkey is not a recommended approach to any addiction, it is my hope that I can use this blog to chronicle my life in a way that is less of a pissing contest but more of a honest timeline and look into the things I find that possess the power to make one "come alive". 

 Here are the blog rules:
  • Grammar doesn't matter

And that's it. 


Let the adventure begin


-The Brisk Young Sailor





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