You know who’s amazing? James Randi. Now that I think about it, I suppose that’s why he’s called The Amazing Randi. Huh. Go figure. If you don’t know who I’m talking about then let me give you a couple broad strokes. Randi is a retired performer who used to be a magician and a mentalist and currently heads the James Randi Educational Foundation. You may have heard of his Million Dollar Challenge, which offers a prize to anyone who can prove under scientific rigor that they have some type of extra-sensory perception. All you have to do is be able to say what it is you can do and under what laboratory conditions you can perform said talent. It’s been available for decades now. Guess how much the foundation has given away in the name of the challenge. That’s right. Zero.

(I’ll embed a good video when I have a better internet connection but for now just click this link!)

Pretty awesome right? It’s great to know that someone is out there trying to prove that “real” psychics are more often than not, ridiculous amoral performers preying on people who miss their dead relatives deeply. In short, James Randi is one of my personal heroes.

And…I got to meet him at dinner the other night! It was a pre-Carl Sagan Day dinner in South Florida filled with skeptics and snapping dressers. (I was wearing a t-shirt. I probably should have been at the kid’s table.) My childhood hero was looking a little haggard but still impressively spry and hip considering not only his advanced age but also the fact that he is neck deep in a radiation battle with colon cancer.

I sat about eleven people away from him on an ‘L’ shaped tabled and spent most of dinner either talking to a painfully pompous guy next to me or candidly watching Randi’s every move. Finally, dinner ended and the time for the group to mingle was upon us.

I met a few very cool people (whose names escape me right now but I none the less enjoyed my conversations with) until finally I had made my way around to the man of the hour. Justin, the friend who took me to the dinner (and editor weirdthings.com) had worked with Randi recently on a couple of projects, so he made the introductions.

Up close Randi looked even more fragile, but considering the amount of respect and reverence I was carrying with me he might as well of been ten feet tall and dressed like the Beast Master, primed and ready to kick the collective asses of any people that dare insult his ferrets. Our lengthy discussion went a little something like this.

Justin: “Hi, Randi. This is my friend Brett. He spent two years traveling around America crossing crazy things off of a fifty item life list.”

Brett: “Hello!”

Randi: “Oh! Look, they have food over there.”

(That’s what he said as he walked away…)

I’m done.

Brett.

There’s a lot to say about the Boston trip (and I’ll post most of it over the next couple days) but the real action happened during the cavalcade of errors that was my trek back to California. With that in mind…

After an early morning flight from Beantown, USA, I landed in San Francisco around noon with every intention of being back in Fresno by 4pm at the latest. Unfortunately, it was shortly after landing that I discovered I had hit the first of many snags in the day to come. You see, I’m not exactly what some folks would call “a planner” or “intelligent,” and as such, even though I knew this trip was coming a month in advance I still never thought to see if I had a ride from SFO to my car (which happened to be a full 45 minutes away from the airport).

During the glory days of Amtrekker I wouldn’t have thought twice about slinging my backpack over my shoulder and walking to the nearest public transportation, but this time around there was a new wrinkle. Arizona, my seven month old pup and the world’s greatest mutt, had escorted me to Boston for the week so suddenly I had to navigate the world with a backpack, a dog and a very awkward travel crate.

After a few phone calls I managed to find a ride into the city but technically no closer to my actual car. That’s when I decided to suck it up and head to the BART station. Apparently, however, they have a no dogs allowed policy…unless it’s a Seeing Eye Dog. To compensate, I put Zona’s backpack on and hoped it would confuse people long enough to jump on a train and watch the doors slide shut.

And that was the last time things worked out in my favor.

Eventually the train stopped in Pleasanton, CA and I realized I was still about 4 miles from where my car was parked at a friend’s house. After a long doleful sigh I thought to myself, “What the hell! I’m the freaking Amtrekker! Let’s do this!” I slid my pack on, tied Arizona’s leash to the waist strap, slung the crate over my back and started walking. I’m pretty sure it was less than a half-mile before I started hating life.

Arizona kept wanting to tied up my legs by running around me in circle sniffing everything in sight and the crate, despite the laws of physics, continued to get heavier and more awkward…but I trudged on. Then, what did I see?!

A bus stop, yes, but more importantly a Wal-Mart shopping cart just sitting there beneath the shelter begging to have a back pack and crate tossed inside! Then I though, “Why not?” and tossed Arizona in for good measure. Suddenly I was freed from my burdens and with a spring in my step and wheels beneath my feet I started to use the shopping cart as an impromptu skateboard. Now I was making great time! Suddenly the world got a little brighter.

However, being the responsible and loving dog owner that I am I started to get concerned that Zona didn’t have enough space in the cart to lay comfortably while I skated us to glory. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and started trying to shove my pack underneath while making sure AZ didn’t make a break for it. I was pretty engrossed in the whole process. Which explains why when I looked up I TOTALLY wasn’t expected to see a cop standing over me.

“What are you doing?”

My only response was hysterical laughter. How exactly DO I go about explaining this?

“You know it’s an arrestable offense to take a shopping cart.” More laughter from my end. “I know it sounds silly but these companies lose a ton of money to stolen carts.”

“Well, to be fair officer, I didn’t so much take it from where it was supposed to be as move it slightly further from where it was supposed to be…”

“You’re in possession of it. It’s right here.” He pointed down emphatically. “With your dog in it.”

“I think I see what you’re saying.” I smiled again, hoping to keep things light.

I spent the next several minutes relaying how I came to end up there with my dog and her crate in a shopping cart while he had my ID checked to make sure I didn’t have any warrants out for my arrest. (Good thing I got that thing in Utah all cleared up. )

Eventually he decided I was mostly harmless and called me a cab. I hate cabs.

Luckily my friend that wasn’t able to pick me up earlier showed up right before the yellow van did.

Problem solved.

I’m done.

Brett.

Today’s post wasn’t written by me. Instead, the story of Beaumont comes from Christine S. a.k.a. The Brass Bunny. Thanks for the help, Christine! If you’re looking for the explanation for what the heck is going on here…click here.

Now, all that’s left for me to do is to step out of the limelight.

I’m done.

Brett.

Crustaceans and Rubber bands
by Christine S. a.k.a The Brass Bunny

My friend lives in Maine. That’s right Maine, the place that ass kisses Canada and where
the image of abundant seafood and lonely men come to mind. But this short tale is not about lonely men on a fishing boat finding love. Nay! This is about seafood dammit! More precisely about a rather unbelievably large lobster named Beaumont.

In my mail one day came this package. I was not expecting a package and I was wary. My first instinct was to think it was a bomb. Hey, I’m an irrational hermit who jumps to such conclusions. Needless to say I managed, before the blind panic set in, to look at who sent it. I was relieved to find it was from my friend in Maine. He had sent me a surprise. He had sent me, you guessed it, a giant ass lobster.

Now, I am not sure why he had sent me this or why he thought he should but he did. More intriguing though was the note I found attached to the lobster, who was also wearing a tiny top hat. Note is as follows:

Hey,

Thought you would enjoy this very big lobster my friend Tim caught the other day.
Tim was so surprised when he caught it that he had to take a picture of it. Tim is stupid like that.
Anyway, he took the picture before banding him and in the course of posing with the lobster, and don’t ask me how, one of the claws grabbed his pecker.
Yep, thing had a vice grip on his crotch like you wouldn’t believe. Thankfully, we got a picture of it, I put a copy of it in with the lobster.
We managed to get the lobster off him without damaging the claw, which is the best meat in my opinion.
Tim had to have a few stitches and has, so I hear, one hell of a bruise. Guess that will teach him that God made rubber bands for a reason.
Anyway, he let me have the “cursed thing” as he puts, Tim is also a drama queen. Well, I hope you enjoy it he is a big one.

P.S. By “big one” I mean the lobster, not Tim’s penis.

P.P.S. Oh, and I named him Beaumont, again the lobster, not the penis.

So, my friend in Maine decided, in his infinite wisdom, to send me this mammoth sized, penis pinching lobster. Not only that but to dress it in a top hat and give it a name. I don’t know if this was the proper motivation need to convince me to consume the beast. But, who am I to pass up free giant sized lobster anyways? Nobody with pride, that’s for sure. So I sent my friend back an email thanking him:

Hi -

Beaumont was a fine and tasty lobster. We ate like kings. All appendages spared. Enjoyed the picture, its on my fridge. Tim is kind of cute, is he single?

Later – C.

Here’s another little guest post treat to hold you over. This one is comparing Portland to Seattle as a result of the recent road trip. Feel free to leave a comment or two over at the Amateur Traveler site.

Here’s the link

And don’t forget about yesterday’s post!

I’m done.

Brett.

Here’s the thing about how I write posts for Amtrekker now days. I usually get an idea while I’m in the middle of doing something else that I can’t just drop so, like a respectable and professional writer, I whip out my trusty notebook, jot down a few lines and open up a Word document first chance I get. The trouble is, it seems Future Brett never speaks the same language as Past Brett.

Case in point: The only line I gave myself to go off of for this post was two words long. It said, “Rubber bands.” It’s even underlined. So…apparently there’s something that Past Brett really wants to say about rubber bands.

I’ve been wracking my brain for the last two days trying to figure out what the heck I was trying to tell myself. The only clues I have are:

1) I know where I was and what I was doing when I wrote the note and

2) I know it has something to do with travel.

As much as I love the movie Memento…this is kind of pissing me off.

That said, I suppose it could be worse. I once wrote myself a note that said:

Q: Why is he dead?

A: Crustaceans.

I would LOVE to know what that was supposed to be about. Whatever the thought behind that was I bet Past Brett was really proud of it and couldn’t wait to share it with the world.

In fact! I’m so curious, if someone wants to write me a post that would fit in with either of those notes I would be more than happy to put it up on the site as a featured guest post! That’s a great idea! This could be really fun! Send me your story (it doesn’t have to be long…I try to keep my stuff under 500 words) by Friday and I’ll pick out the best ones and let the world see what could have been!

Maybe with the help of Present You, Past Brett will finally get his message out!

I’m done.

Present Brett.

I’m been writing my poor little tiny behind off for the last week but most of these poetic pontifications are guest posts so you haven’t had the opportunity to see all my hard work on here. Then, in a lightning strike of clarity I realized, “The internet has these crazy things called…links!”

So here’s the post that went up at http://www.weirdthings.com yesterday and ties in nicely with the previous roadtrip stories. Enjoy!

Duh Duh DUH…the LINK.

I’m done.

Brett.

I’ve been staring at a blank page on my computer for the last twenty minutes trying to decide what to write about from yesterday, but no matter where I try to take the story in my head it always begins and ends with: I ate a maple bar. It had bacon on it.

Which is silly because there are plenty of other things that happened yesterday, most of them fairly interesting. I drove through the birthplace of Steve Prefontaine wearing a “Pre Lives” T-shirt, I had lunch with an old friend from high school in Corvallis, I explored Powell’s Books, a HUGE used bookstore and I finished the day with a girl, a dog and a pint on the back patio of the Lucky Labrador Brew Pub in Portland.

But, in the middle of that somewhere…

Voodoo Doughnuts smells like homeless people and feet. (Maybe it smells like the feet of homeless people, I’m not sure, I try not to get too close to my feet.) However, despite the rational side of your mind trying to convince you otherwise, underneath the layer of body odors there is an undeniable and distinct tinge of deliciousness. The interior is decorated with only three elements in mind: doughnuts, rockabilly and dirt. The walls are plastered with obituaries of dead (I guess that’s kind of redundant) musicians and the occasional piece of incredible artwork. In short, Voodoo Doughnuts has far and away more character than any other doughnut shop you’ve ever seen. Period.

On the menu you have choices ranging from “Cock and Balls” to “glazed” (whatever that means).

“What’s the ‘Tex-ASS’?”

“‘Sa big ass doughnut.”

“Oh…um, I’ll have an Old Dirty Bastard, a Voodoo Doll, a vegan glazed and a maple bacon bar.”

Having been vegan for a month it was cool to see that most of the doughnuts came in a vegan version (the maple bacon bar being an obvious exception).

Turns out the Old Dirty Bastard was a little too much. It’s tough not to be overwhelmed by a chocolate iced doughnut covered in Oreo crumbles and drizzled with peanut butter. The Voodoo Doll was a chocolate, person-shaped doughnut with a pretzel through the face and raspberry filling. The vegan glazed was delicious and didn’t taste noticeably different from a regular glazed doughnut.

And then I ate a maple bar. It had bacon on it.

I’m done.

Brett.

If you like the site, it’s still your help that keeps things going! Thanks a ton, everyone!

In light of 1) the fancy pants new website you’re looking at right now and 2) the not so much fancy pants, as dirty pants, road trip I’m smack dab in the middle of right now, I’m trying to get back in the groove of writing everyday…or at least most days. So…

Yesterday was leg one of our fast-paced, multi-day road trip through the Pacific Northwest. It started out as a non-stop drive through Northern California straight to the rocky coastline of Oregon…but eventually Katy got tired and let me drive for awhile. Apparently, unbeknownst to her, my predilections towards being distracted by shiny objects directly translates to several small, unplanned pit stops.

While driving through the mountains north of Redding, CA a sign caught my eye.

“Winery 1¼ miles Next Right”

Unfortunately, the next right was only 50 feet from the sign so it woke Katy up when I slammed on the brakes and swerved to see what a mountain top winery looks like. Do the grapes grow right up the side of pine trees? What role do the pinecones play? Do they hire yetis for the annual grape crushing? These are the questions we would never know the answers to if we didn’t stop!

“What are you doing?!”

“I’ve never seen a winery in the mountains.”

She seemed to leave it at that but she was clearly trying to decide if letting me drive was the right move, tired or not. It didn’t help my cause that, despite the beautiful surroundings, when we pulled up to the One Maple Winery we were met by a fairly cold reception from the owner, Ernie. However, by the time we had gotten to the question about the grape crushing he had warmed up quite a bit. After twenty minutes of friendly banter from Ernie (and a purchased bottle of Chardonnay later) Katy was willing to cede that it was worth stopping for after all.

Back on the road it was AT LEAST half an hour before we passed Bigfoot Burger and I murmured, “Shoot! I wish I had’ve gotten a picture of that.” It was a couple more seconds of careful consideration that I hit the brakes again and pulled off to the side of the road.

“What are you doing?!”

“How many times do you get to stop at a place called ‘Bigfoot Burger’ in ‘Bigfoot Country?’”

“You just want a milkshake don’t you?”

“Oh, do they have milkshakes? Hmm…that’s a bonus!”

One vanilla milkshake and another 20 miles down the road and what do my sparkling eyes perceive? THE BIGFOOT MUSEUM! I only had time for a sharp intake of breath before Katy caught sight of it too and figured out what was going on…

“NO! We’re NEVER going to get to Seattle!”

“But…the Bigfoot MUSEUM! What do you think is in there?!”

We did end up stopping.

So Katy could drive.

At least for the time being I seem to have lost my privileges. I was scared it meant no more weird things, so I just took a nap…but then I woke up to THIS.

Katy’s a good road trip partner.

I’m done.

Brett.

Ah HA!

Don’t worry. Everything is under control now. All it took was a little bit of…well, a LOT of finagling and WAY more effort than the average consumer would ever want to put into a clearly broken piece of equipment.

After SEVEN years of faithful service, including an intensive year and a half long period of travel crammed into a tiny backpack, my little old Sony Digital8 camcorder finally gave up the ship and shuffled off into that Japanese consumer electronics scrap heap in the sky…kinda.

I powered up the ol’ champ to get some footage of Arizona (the puppy, not the state) playing in her pool (hmm…I wonder how much I could get for footage of the state of Arizona playing in a pool) and it wouldn’t do anything but turn on and off and play the tape already in there. It wouldn’t record and most importantly it wouldn’t eject the tape.

I really wanted that tape.

An intensive Google session and three dollars later I was staring at a .pdf of the service manual for the DCR TRV340. Here’s the thing I didn’t know about sweat shops: those little kids must have some ridiculously nimble little fingers and they CLEARLY aren’t being paid enough. After HOURS of carefully removing tiny screws, removing ribbons and unhooking clips I had…a pile of junk. (With my tape still trapped inside a little metal cage I might add.)

The service manual said I needed to:

“Add +5V from the DC POWER SUPPLY and unload with a pressing the cassette compertment.” [sic]

Since I must have left my +5V DC POWER SUPPLY (whatever that looks like) in my hip pocket last time I did the laundry I thought I might be out of luck…until I dug up an old cell phone charger who’s transformer dropped the 120V coming from the wall to a much more manageable 6V and Eureka! (Hmm…I really don’t think that “Eureka” is being properly used, but you probably get the idea.)

Since cutting up the charger and attaching the bare wires directly to the little motor on the death cage that the tape was trapped in seemed to pop the sucker right open I suddenly had newfound hope! Maybe this pile of scrap hadn’t outlived its usefulness after all!

After some quick soldering to extend the contacts outside the case I put the camera back together and now I can use it to transfer all the footage from my TALES FROM THE VAULT adventures to Charley so new videos can once again return to these pages! (All I have to do is plug the charger into the wall and use its exposed wires to either open or close the cage depending on the polarity while holding the camera just right.) Yay!

And I hardly had any extra pieces!

I’m done.

Brett.