Virginia: Part 2

Virginia: Part 2

Part 1 has been freed from the exclusive contributor’s content page. You can check it out here: Virginia: Part 1 I leave Luray Caverns energized. My mind sparks electric as we pull out of our second shoot. Lesson are learned. Adjustments made. We roll on. Hours of road lay ahead of us before we can rest. Virginia has thrown it all our way. Heat. Humidity. Hours of road. And now, rain. Our producer Lauren gets on coms to check in, her tone is audibly nervous. Unfamiliar roads wind and twist before us as we bomb down a Virginia mountainside. We alternately lean in, accelerate out, ride the clutch, and ease the breaks through beautifully treacherous country. The chaos of the day slides away, and I find a groove. The gorgeous landscapes of Virginia flow over, under and past us. Forward momentum heals all hurts and we’ve got our eyes set on the horizon. The rain eases, the road straightens out, and we hit the interstate. As light fades, so does the exhilaration of the day. Miles of road pour underneath, while we seem to stand still. Trucks approach, their prehistoric rumble a last minute warning before sucking the bikes into their airstream, only to push them out again. The sensation is unnerving, but it helps keep weary heads alert. Night is upon us and Jeremy and I ride side by side. At times we’re separated by a mere foot as we attempt to make the most of our headlights. He could easily pull ahead, but the light thrown by my bike is weaker, and he hangs back to ensure...
The best education can be found in a pub

The best education can be found in a pub

I’ve always enjoyed sitting in dive bars. I’m not talking about the hipster-chic types, where yuppies can safely slum it, but the taverns, bars and pubs found in working towns across the country. The places with dark wood, stained even darker from years of cigarette smoke and contact from countless bodies. There’s a level of comfort I’ve found in these sacred places. No matter what town or state they’re in, they feel familiar. Populated by workers, regulars, and professional drinkers, these bars are the new campfire. Looking around at the introspective gazes of the patrons, it’s easy to find the ones who have lived their lives, experienced the world, and basked in success and failure alike. They’ve got story after story, and while they might seem as world weary as everyone else, their eyes are alive. The most common of these stories is the “if only…” tale. The lottery ticket that was almost a big win… The sport that could have led to a professional contract… The business that would have made millions… …if only… And if there is one thing I’ve learned from sitting in these bars, it’s there is no shame in the “if only…” story. The shame comes from only have one. After listening to these modern day bards wax poetic, it’s not long before I’m feeling restless again. Picking myself up, I’m ready to leave the stale air behind, venture out into the world, and continue writing my own story. This way, if the day ever comes when I’ve settled into just one bar in just one town, I’ll have a few of my own...
A Rising Tension

A Rising Tension

As with my last blog post, I’d like to start by referencing a previously written article, if only to start the conversation   “The Dark Side of Getting Into College,” written by Lauren Stiller Reikleen, takes a look at the colossal amount of pressure being placed on children to get into college. It should come to no one’s surprise that all of the practices, tutoring sessions,  and extra-curricular activities are leading to highly stressed, anxious, and sleep-deprived kids. This is not a problem that ends with a student’s acceptance into college either. I would argue this upbringing is one of the biggest underlying factors the  generation of 20-30-somethings, most affected by the Great Recession, are now coping with. When a large portion of someone’s life and identity is wrapped up in the concept of higher education, the result is two-fold: Certainly, it cultivates a generation of intellectually-minded individuals who appreciate art, culture and music, but it also breeds a generation that will find it harder to cope when they are unable to put their education to work — say, when an economy collapses in on itself due to greed and predatory lending practices. What we have now is a new class of citizen. This class has been shaped and molded to become the new bourgeois, but has found limited employment opportunities within this social class, and instead, works in traditionally lower class, proletariat occupations. The result is the creation of the poorgeoisie. And the poorgeois are just as hard-working, motivated and intellectually minded as they ever were — but now, many of us are also more stressed and anxiety-ridden...
Broke Out West Manifesto

Broke Out West Manifesto

For as long as I can remember, the American Dream was tangible: Get an education, work hard, and prosper. It was simple. It was straightforward. It was fair. It was American. And in my experience, it’s all we 20, and now 30, -somethings wanted. Yet, here I am, and very likely, here you are. We’re killing ourselves in dead-end jobs. We work in warehouses, in the back of trucks, and behind grills. We wait tables, we pour coffee, and we live paycheck to paycheck with bachelor and masters degrees that we earned by placing ourselves in crippling debt. We are a generation of highly capable and motivated individuals. We are highly educated. We appreciate high culture, art, and music, yet our paychecks barely leave our encouraged champagne tastes within our beer budgets. It should come to no one’s surprise then, that we are a highly transient and restless generation. We are a generation yearning for the challenges we were trained to face. We want to work, and we want a fair wage for that work, yet both have been denied to us. We are the lost and forgotten. We are the discarded. We are the poorgeoisie....