About

“You look at where you’re going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you’ve been and a pattern seems to emerge. Project forward, then sometimes you can come up with something.”  –Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

This quote comes from the most enlightening book I’ve ever held in my hands.  Indirectly, it’s the reason this collection of writing exists.  It’s a tool I can always use to look back at where I’ve been, so I can then project forward into whatever future my world places in front of me – the foundation and the first few steps of the ladder of my life.  I’ve had an exciting start so far.

My childhood introduced me to a dynamic and excited outlook to the world.  My earlier years were spent in Anchorage, Alaska, where I learned to love and interact with my surroundings outside of man-made walls.  We were an active young family, and while I didn’t always wear the nicest clothes to school, my eyes were always seeing and my hands were always on the more important things.  My parents introduced me to and provided me with the best things in life.  In the fourth grade, Alaska turned to Texas.  The sleds were replaced by bicycles and soccer balls, and the mountains surrounding Anchorage were replaced by Texas lakes and much smaller mountains in Oklahoma.

I did well in school, but learning always came easily enough to never necessitate effort.  Before my last year of High School, my family moved to a small town in England.  The transition was difficult for me, but the advantages of living in Europe far outweighed the pains of leaving home.  I lived in England for a little over a year, graduating from school and traveling around the new continent.  My eyes were always set on Texas though.  I was accepted into the University of Texas in less time than it took me to fill out the application, and moved to Austin in the summer of 2004.

Austin was a new world for me.  My only family was living on the opposite side of the globe; UT had 50,000 students, compared to the 120 I went high school with, and I didn’t know a single one of them.  But I adapted well.  Most of my classes were stimulating, I started racing bicycles, and I became connected to a fantastic network of friends still around me today.  I was the only one who among us who took a plane “home” to England for Christmas and summer.

My junior year at UT is when life really started to change.  I joined Texas 4000 for Cancer after the urging of my friends, and the inspiration of my closest friend at the time.  Texas 4000 is the world’s longest charity bike ride – going from Austin to Anchorage, Alaska in 70 days, raising a ton of money in the process, and touching countless individuals with cancer along the way.  I became director for the organization, and for a year filled with preparations and fundraising prior to our departure, fighting against cancer consumed my life.  And then, in the summer of 2007, I left with my teammates on the greatest adventure of my life.

Those seventy days are a chapter all to their own.  At the end of the ride, my teammates would become family and my view of the world would forever be altered.  Back in Austin, the year that followed seemed to go in slow motion.  I graduated from UT with a concentration in cultural anthropology, focusing on the social injustices that plague our society.  One could say I took a different path than most of my peers – instead of college molding me to mesh with society’s upper-crust, my education enlightened me to its flaws and shortcomings.

What I’m focusing on now is seeing the pattern – the projection from past to present – and where that should take me as time continues to tick by.  How I can best utilize my experiences and education to properly shape the world.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’ve hit a snag; it’s more of a deliberate carefulness to make sure I get my choices right.  These days, I share my passion for the real world with the people at REI, clear my mind on the open roads atop my bicycle, and continue to connect my thoughts through written words.  I hope that following my adventure brings you happiness.