The group (me, Marcos, Rick, and Kim) made it home alive and well last Wednesday from the Houston-Canada-Houston motorcycle trip. It was a lovely, yet determined motorcycle trip that included my Honda Nighthawk 750, Marcos’ Triumph Bonneville, and the two ST’s (1100 and 1300) from Kim and Rick.

The route of the trip looked (very roughly) something like this:

Too many stories happened to put into one blog post, but here are some points for added excitement to the pictures!:

• Even a dead bike on the side of the interstate didn’t stop Kim and the crew. She dumped the bike in Rockford, Illinois and bought a new one on the way home to finish the trip!
• There is some amazing food in this country in shacks in the middle of nowhere. Country Girl’s Kitchen will get you the biggest whitefish fillet that I have ever seen in my life plus what seemed like 8 other courses for $7.99. And how can I forget the huge and tasty chicken jerk wrap made from scratch by a South American living in Canada for the last 28 years. I need to fast for a few days in memory of these meals.
• Highest price of gas paid for - $4.29 in Michigan.
• Two unexpected coolest towns on the trip: St. Louis, Missouri and Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
• The women in Canada are disproportionately beautiful and I must go back.
• We met a motorcyclist who was on day 28 of his trip from Cuernavaca, Mexico and had done over 8,000 miles with his buddies through Florida, DC, Maine, Canada, and was on his way home when he ran into us at the same hotel in St. Louis.
• No speeding tickets for us law abiding beatniks. Although I did get one on my way to San Antonio two days later. Ahem.
• Over 3,500 miles in 10 days!

On to the pictures! You can view the entire album here at Google Picasa Web Albums.

http://picasaweb.google.com/koverholt/CanadaMotorcycleTripLoneStarTrippers

View all photos in the album

Plumbing, trees, lighting. Websites, motorcycle rides, freeway traffic. Bills, checks, 30%. It’s like a Google Set generated from my abstract days. School is set to start in a week, and I am ready; or I adapt instantly - the same mindset gets accomplished in a successful way, no? This semester presents me with a weird schedule, open of course to all sorts of things.

Certainly it is not just me who is addicted to mountains of change over and over? Either way, the idea of a core mind or something to hang onto that changes constantly is intriguing to me and I learn more about it every waking day as my brain connects and reinvents concepts that it thought it had down cold.

My definition of the purpose of life changes seemingly every week. Not my mission or intention, but my purpose. And five years ago, I didn’t really know or care what the difference between those was. Maybe such an adaptive purpose leads to stronger purpose. Wait, of course it does.

A world of fire, math, engineering, minds, and so on is useless without shared minds or minds. Are the words of a writer that much valuable without anyone to read it?

Back to plumbing, bills, and music for now. After you read this blog post from PickTheBrain and start off YOUR new year with death, don’t forget to embrace the randomness in life: not just on an ultimate planned trip in the next 1.5 years, but today, and tomorrow, and the infinite tomorrow.

Thanks.

View the whole album

On a whimsical decision, I took off into the place I call home: the forest. Nature in its many forms helps me to get back to and understand the deep implications of “time”. It helps me to relate the concepts that I see in books day in and day out into a practical experience, most of the time in a way that is not describable in words or pictures. It speaks a different language. It helps me to see my place in the world and the direct resources and experiences that I am trying to preserve. And that is just on a night’s visit.

“The boy awoke as the sun rose. There, in front of him, where the small stars had been before, was an endless row of date palms, stretching across the entire desert.
‘We’ve done it!’ said the Englishman, who had also awakened early.
But the boy was quiet. He was at home with the silence of the desert, and we was content just to look at the trees.

He still had a long way to go to reach the Pyramids, and someday this morning would just be a memory. But this was the present moment, and he wanted to live it as he did the lessons of his past and this dreams of the future. Although the visions of the date palms would someday be a memory, right now it signified shade, water, and a refuge from war. Yesterday, the camel’s groan signified danger, and now a row of date palms could herald a miracle. The world speaks many languages, the boy thought.

[...] He had only one explanation for this fact; things have to be transmitted this way because they were made up from the pure life, and this kind of life cannot be captured in pictures or words. Because people become fascinated with pictures and words, and wind up forgetting the Language of the World.” - The Alchemist

That being said, here are some pictures from my visit, as it is one way I can try to share the beauty - just don’t forget the Language of the World. To see all of the pictures, click on the photo albums link on the right side of my blog (or click here) and then the Fall 2007 Efficacy Album.

It’s been a busy two weeks, and whenever I wait this long between writing posts the subjects will vivaciously meld together since I’ve let too many thoughts go on by without taking their toll. I am about 80% moved in, and of course, I realize how much crap that I have. I plan to give away, donate, or sell 75% of my belongings until I get rid of this looming feeling weighing me down, suffocating my sense of freedom. On the other side of waking life, it is lovely to wake up and eat breakfast on this porch:

It is interesting to describe life here in Eastwood, which is one of the first planned subdivisions in Houston. Living here, I take in a small town feeling like no other place I’ve been - despite the fact that I am smack in the middle of a humongous city. Consider the fact that this neighborhood has barber shops, local grocery stores, hardware shops, family-owned dollar stores, more small restaurants/shacks/buses than you can handle, art supply stores, and so on. Also think of the fact that the closest Walmart is a 10 miles journey. In addition, you observe trees, people actually walking around outside - interacting - relaxing on the porch. This is Eastwood, in the 77023 area of Houston, and this is the place that I can gladly and comfortably call home for now.

Moving back to daily life, it has been a hectic two weeks as I struggle to set up robust systems for home life, school work, future grad. school work, and helping other organizations. I think a lot has been done in this short time. Giving myself about one more week to get everything in line sounds good, as I have only been back for %18 percent of the time that I was gone for during the summer.

This year - between the greatest schedule ever, friends and new friends to stimulate mind and life, getting to work with fire dynamics and FDS day after day, finally getting to work with numerical analysis and get on track with my true fascination, and having the supportive and most caring fiancee in the world - this is going to be a wonderful year and I can’t wait to see where I will be posting from in exactly a year from now.