Hello everyone. I've been trying my best to keep my distance from this computer. I just hate sitting in front of it, then before I know it 4 hours have gone by, and I feel like I've wasted my day. I'm focusing on spending my free time doing more constructive things.

Lately, I haven't had much free time. I've started babysitting for Nick, who is my Uncle Thurmon's son. He was born January 9th and about 5 weeks later they called me up to see if I could come by for an hour or two and I've been going there, 2-3 times a week for 3-4 hours at a time, ever since. It's nice. I really enjoy it.... so much better than spending my time at IKEA. He's a pretty freakin' cute baby. He's a very jolly chubby lil' guy. He is very big for a 10 week old. He was born about 2 weeks late and weighed in at close to 10 lbs. He's now somewhere around 17 lbs, I think.


Wow. What a cutie.

So, whenever I’m not a work, I’m babysitting for Nick, which means I very rarely have a complete day off. I also got my bike a few weeks back (I know mike already wrote a post about it). We’ve been trying to get out and ride whenever we get a good chunk of free time. We’re shooting for 2-3 times a week.

Last Thursday we rode to Burbank and up the mountains to a nice hiking trail, that we like, right next to a golf course. Going up the last bit of hill was so tough. It really was a big shock. From looking at the hill it didn’t seem so bad but when we got going it was really tough. I was so out of breath and completely out of energy, I was pushing with everything I had I just didn’t seem to move. It was a really big let down. I felt like if I couldn’t do this stupid hill how was I going to get up the hills we'll come across on the trip that will, no doubt, be much harder. It was a major let down. I felt like I was letting Mike down and myself. It just felt like something I should’ve been able to do.

We did, eventually, make it to the top. Yesterday we went for another ride. We headed west into the valley, just trying to see how many miles we could get. The valley is a pretty hard place to ride, too much traffic. I got a bit banged up and so did mike’s bike chain. So we had to cut it short. We're going to have to get his chain fixed by this weekend. We both have the weekend off and we’re planning a 2-day trip. Hopefully to Malibu were there is a pretty cool campground right on the beach.



The first one's my hip the second is my elbow. Ouch!

Easter Sunday was a great day, for me, anyway. I think the boys had a pretty rough day at work, for some reason IKEA was incredibly busy. And to top that off, Billy’s car broke down just as they got home. But when they did get home, I had a great big dinner waiting for them. I spent the whole day cleaning and preparing a huge Easter dinner feast.


After I woke up and took a shower I got right to it. Dyed some eggs and made up some Easter baskets.



Then I deviled up the (free-range organic) eggs and started on my fruit and coolwhip jello desserts. It was pretty fun. I had the iTunes on shuffle and I was wearing Billy’s apron dancing around the apartment. As soon as Mike walked in the door he started snapping pictures of me. And the food was great! After we stuffed ourselves with organic free-range fried chicken and organic mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, biscuits, and corn, we all squeezed onto the couch and watched Toy Story 2. All in all it was a pretty good day.

Billy and I drove down to Long Beach the other day to catch the comic-convention. This was a double 'first-timer' for me; I had never been to a comic-convention or Long Beach before. Having been there, I really wish Long Beach wasn't so far south of us - I loved it, I know it has a bad-rap of being a dangerous town, and I'm sure if you turned down the wrong side-street, you could find yourself in trouble, but compared to Ypsi [the town I used to live in... where out the kitchen window you could see the toothless-40-year old cracked out hookers working main st], it's not so bad - hell Ypsi didn't have a Ferris wheel or a roller coaster that crossed above the street. Anyways, here's a bunch of random pictures from our day:


Here's the Ferris wheel I mentioned... and you can see a bit of the roller coaster behind it. This is all right behind the Long Beach Convention Center.




The guy on the far right, wearing the Incredibles shirt is Alex Ross, and the giant blow-up of all the super hero's is some of his work.


I almost crapped my pants when I found out Ryan Reynolds was at the convention - they were there to plug their remake of Amityville Horror, the girl is rumored to be playing the new supergirl... for those of you who might find that interesting.


Stan Lee. He's cool...


When Billy and I were in line to buy something to snack on - the girl in front of us was wearing this... and shouldn't have been. Billy made me take a picture - some of you are probably thinking, "yeah right, mike, you pervert". But I really didn't want to - I was afraid the flash would make her turn around and shoot me the evil-eye. So I put my fingers over the flash.




I was taking a picture of this guy to make fun of later... but he stopped and shot me this ultra-cool pose. So I have nothing to say...


Billy eating some 5-dollar French fries as he watched the storm-trooper guy walk away.


Kevin Smith signing stuff.




This is the Aquarium behind the convention center - I really wish we could have gone in, but I had to work at 6 - so we didn't have time.






Billy had the hots for the lady in the middle... she was very nice.


I'm not sure what that look on Billy's face is - and he's probably going to hurt me for posting an unflattering pic' of him - but all the same, here he is in the entrance of center.

By this time in my life, I feared I had lost sight of almost everything that was valuable and true from the bike trip – my rough split from “Rolling Chair” combined with a short list of emotionally-draining events in the past two years had left me feeling unfocused and caught-up in route, I had, since Sept 11th, become obsessed with world politics, something that on one hand I found fascinating, but on the other, this obsession, often times, left me angry, confused, distracted, cynical…

I desperately wanted to leave on another bike trip – this time; sharing the experience with Amanda – to get away from everything that I found distracting: TV, my day-job, politics, errands, bills, money, etc… On my first trip, everything was so clear, the perspective was different, instead of feeling distracted through 80% of the day, I felt clear-minded, able to focus on things that are eye-opening, for example: “there are more links in a person’s brain than atoms in the entire universe”, or “no energy is either created nor destroyed, everything is recycled and reused and replaced”… Of course, not everything that consumed my thoughts on the bike trip revolved around science, maybe these are terrible examples, but you get the idea. These thoughts broke the boundaries of the day-to-day-mindset in a way that was liberating…

It was around this time, of planning a second bike-trip, this time, with Amanda, that she suggested to me creating a documentary around the cross-country trip. But before I get ahead of myself; right around the time the bike-documentary was born, Chuck entered our lives again, he had started living at the dorms over at Eastern, which were minutes away from where Amanda and I were living in ‘Ypsi’. In the beginning, I made it a point to not bring filmmaking into our friendship. The three of us – Amanda, Chuck and myself – began hanging out quite often; hanging out at Chuck’s dorm-room, going for late night walks around Ann Arbor. At this point that I was working for myself as an editor / videographer, I began asking Chuck for his help in shooting events that required more than one camera… it was around this point that Chuck showed an interest in the bike-documentary idea, and although I intended to not bring “film” into the picture, he was so genuinely excited and anxious at the mention of the project that I --

I think it’s important for me to stop and take a moment to explain something relevant to this story and my relationship, both personally and professionally, with Chuck: shortly after the bike trip, but before we moved into together, Chuck and I made a promise to each other; “that we would, no matter what, make films together”. I rarely make a promise to someone - only when I truly believe I can keep that promise 110% do I feel comfortable making it in the first place – and this promise was always something that weighted on my conscious when “Rolling Chair” seemed broken. I always wondered if there was more I could have done? Was I too intense or pressuring? So you can imagine my predicament here: do I put our friendship at risk again by starting “Rolling Chair” back up? Or do I tell him no and avoid taking responsibility for my promise?

Having said that – we began planning the bike-documentary together – we even designed a new logo for “Rolling Chair”. Then winter came, it was terribly cold and miserable in Michigan – one night, out of nowhere; Chuck suggested we move to California. At that point in time, he was suggesting we leave that night, just pack up everything and drive west, tell no one, just go – but this was something I couldn’t and wouldn’t do because I had editing jobs I was currently working on that month, not to mention it seemed a bit inconsiderate to our families.

But we didn’t dismiss the idea – we spent hours that night discussing the move. For Amanda and I, moving to L.A. was something we wanted to focus on after our bike trip. But at the same time, Chuck and I were close again – and I couldn’t and wouldn’t leave without him. So when he suggested the idea, we didn’t have a lot of reason not go besides the fact that we were all broke at the time.

But, for whatever reason – maybe simply because it was so amazingly cold outside - we started seriously discussing the possibility of moving. Chuck wanted to follow his dreams of directing films and “what better place to do it than in Hollywood, right?” He said. It was a terribly frightening/ risky decision – and in my experience, those are the risks you regret not taking the most.

Amanda and I picked up her new bicycle today. Then we decided to take a ride down the bike bath that runs along the beach from Venice to Santa Monica.


This isn't the bike path - this is just a park that runs along 1st in Santa Monica. You can't tell from this photo, but it gives the best view of the ocean - just to the right of us is a cliff that drops down a good hundred feet to the beach below...


This isn't exactly where it happened, but Amanda and I were riding side by side when two pigeons walked in front of my tire - the first one had no problem dodging us but the pigeon to my right went crazy and flew, I kid you not, a foot from my face. I saw my life flash before my eyes, I only wish I had it on camera - the look on my face must have been sheer terror.










Amanda and I just chilled under the Venice Pier for a while watching the wind kick up some big waves. The camera has a bit of delay when you take a picture - so I could never snap it at the right moment, but many times the water would hit against the beams so hard it would shoot up as high as the bottom of the dock.


I think is so smart on the city's part - they've put up walls everywhere for people to graffiti, they even let people do the sidewalks and bike paths - I'm assuming as long as it's nothing obscene it's okay.


Here's just another day in Venice on the boardwalk - always lots of people, always a great atmosphere to be in.


I don't know if you can make it out - but that mound the guy is leaning next to is an eight foot long alligator made from sand.


These are the greatest. I had to jump up and grab the first ring with both hands and then have Amanda give me a shove to get started - but once you get going, you can swing from one ring to the other like a monkey.


This is the walkway that runs under the Santa Monica Pier, you can't tell in the picture but the walls of it look very pirate-ship'ish.


This was a very awkward picture to take - I'm completely turned around while riding, not paying any attention to wear I'm heading.

Originally posted at Project Peadal...

Six months later, Chuck and I rented an apartment outside of Ann Arbor together, with the hopes that it would give us the freedom to work on film-projects more consistently. Chuck began taking film-courses at Washtenaw – and at first, things seemed promising. We would often work on Chuck’s film assignments together, I was even allowed to sit-in during classes on occasion. A highlight of “Rolling Chair” was seeing two of our shorts played at an Ann Arbor film-festival in ‘The Michigan Theatre’.

We’d completed a few shorts and shot several small projects, mostly just goofing around, but we never shot anything serious or wrote another script. Over time, I found it increasingly difficult to spark Chuck’s interest in personal-projects. Weeks between “Rolling Chair” projects quickly became months. Many of our works-in-progress never made it past a late night of brainstorming. In public, Chuck was quick to point out our interest in film – “Rolling Chair” though, was becoming more of a conversation-started for Chuck than an actual routine.

“Rolling Chair”, for me, continued to grow as an idea. I often spent my free-time working out details and storylines to a number of different projects; it was a form of release from my everyday life. I spent many nights pacing the top-levels of parking garages in Ann Arbor; several scrap pieces of paper and a pen in my pocket. The parking garages gave a birds-eye view of my favorite theater, ‘The Michigan’. But, it seemed the more my interest grew in film, the more distracted, on a monthly cycle, Chuck became with: his girlfriend going off to college, zines, stamp-making, aggressive-inline-skating, starting a sticker company…

By the next spring Chuck and I were no longer living together. The lack of hands-on filmmaking/ screenwriting had, over time, driven an uncomfortable wedge in our friendship. I hadn’t talked to him in months. He was living an hour away at his cousin’s, and I was now living with my girlfriend, Amanda, in a house just down the street from my first apartment.

At this point, whether I liked it or not, Rolling Chair seemed dead, and I was getting used to the idea of going-it-alone. Which almost brings us “Project Pedal” – but before “Project Pedal” there was moving to California, well… kinda.

May 26th, 2001 – this was the morning the three of us – Tim, Chuck and myself – said goodbye to family and friends and started west on our bicycles; there was 4,000-some miles between us and the Pacific - and none of us had the first idea what we were in for. The 55 days that followed hold too much to even attempt to break down into a few paragraphs – if I had to sum up the experience in a few words, I would say, “it was the most beautiful and difficult experience of my life” – but only the first three days of it are relevant to this story:

Hurricane Alice was stirring up some of the strangest and most-severe weather the mid-west had seen in decades, we spent our first night camping in a muddy strip of trees running behind an unfinished subdivision about 50 miles south of our starting-point, unknown to us at the time, there were several tornado watches and warnings in our area all through out the night.

We weren’t more than four miles into our second day when something unexpected happened, something that changed everything; Chuck stopped his bike in the middle of the road, let it fall carelessly to the ground, and sat, Indian-style, on the yellow line, not talking, just staring silently ahead. When we approached him – without looking up at either of us, Chuck flatly stated he was “going home”. It was a side of Chuck I’d never seen before – and, I’ve always believed, it was the beginning of the end for our friendship.

Chuck didn’t turn around that morning – after a heated argument – we continued on in silence, the next several days consisted of constant rain and continuous threats from Chuck of quitting. One night, in private, Tim told me I shouldn’t expect Chuck to ever have the endurance for filmmaking – a part of me wanted to believe that was a harsh statement, but in the back of my mind, I feared Tim was right. Days later, Chuck would go home due to a knee-injury.



For me, the bike trip symbolized a test: in my mind, I saw the challenge of riding across the country, and the challenge of making a film, as one in the same, both required a kind of “stubborn-determination”. In a strange way, at the end of every exhausting day, I felt stronger as a filmmaker – maybe ‘confident’ is a more fitting word, but in any case – after thousands upon thousands of endless miles, Tim and I reached our destination; the Golden Gate Bridge, it was the most enlightening moment of my life – a powerful emotion I’ll never be able to fully explain… and one that I was eager to experience in filmmaking.

The other night, I decided to go for a run at one in the morning - I headed west down Magnolia towards Lankershim, and turned right towards the subway station. I stretched for a while as I watched the last train leave for the night, then I decided to loop back and head home. At the corner of Magnolia of Lankershim, there's a Starbucks, and next to that (going back down Magnolia) is one of the many North Hollywood Art's District Theaters--

Here's the first part of my coincident: I decided to cut behind the Theatre, there's an alley way that runs parallel to Magnolia, just as I turned the corner a young guy with a cock-eyed baseball cap was turning the corner in the opposite direction, taking a deep hit off his cigarette - we weren't that close to each-other, we didn't almost hit, but we looked right at each-other in a strange way. Then that was it - he kept walking and I kept running down the alley towards Ralph's.

It's important to keep in mind that at this point I was heading straight home - and that this guy was walking in the opposite direction. So, it's probably been two or three minutes since my run in with the only other person walking the streets of North Hollywood at one in the morning... when just as I'm kicking-in the last quarter mile of my run, sprinting past all the apartments that hug the sidewalk in-between Ralph's and Cahuenga Blvd, the same guy wearing a cock-eyed baseball cap turns the corner out of an apartment complex, taking a deep hit off his cigarette, heading in the opposite direction. We both look right at each-other for a moment, but keep going. This was especially a strange experience because at that very moment I was thinking about 'coincidences'... I ran another forty feet and then stopped and turned around - the guy had also walked several yards down the sidewalk and stopped, and we both just stood there - eighty-some feet apart, no one else around, looking at each-other, both thinking how Deja Vu'ish that just was. But neither of us said anything, we just stood there for a moment before slowly going back to our business.


Maybe this wouldn't have messed with me so much if I hadn't just watched 'I heart Huckabees', a similar thing happens in the movie - which basically starts the whole plot of the film, the main character runs into the same guy several times and hires two existential detectives (Hoffman and Lily Tomlin, who is from Detriot... but that's besides the point) to find out what the coincidence means. As strange as that plot might sound, and it is, the movie is so amazing and funny and profound... I can't get enough of it. Our friend, Lorrie came over the other night to watch it with us and ever since then we've both been obsessed with the questions in the film - which are questions I've always found interesting, but they are questions we forget about in day-to-day "life".

One of my favorite quotes in the film is when Hoffman, Tomlin and Jude Law are having an important conversation, and Jude Law defensively says, "How am I not myself?" - and the two detectives just stop, as if this was the most important question anyone's ever off handily asked, and they just kept saying, "how am I not myself"? "How am I not myself"? "How are you not yourself"? "How am I not myself"? "How am I..."

I think if you're going to watch this movie, you should definitely also watch the film, "What the @%$! do we know", (click here to watch a trailer), it's all about quantum-physics, I think I've mentioned it on the site before, but all the same, it's an amazing movie - and it will leave you 'very confused' for a good-month, which, in this case, is a very good thing I think. Both films talk about so many things that we know so little about, and they are really mind-blowing. Like the fact that when you look close enough at a person, a coffee pot, the computer I'm writing this post on - in it's simplest form, it's all made of one thing: energy. When you look close enough, there is no distinction between you, or me, or the air in this apartment, or the airplane I hear outside right now... "everything is the same, even when it's different".

And that... to me, is such an important thing to remind yourself of every once in a while. And it's the just the tip of the iceberg - in "What the @%$! do we know", is talks about how we are all made of energy, and nothing is created or destroyed in the universe, everything is recycled, and we are all, therefore, connected - not even really "connected", that's a bad word because it implies that "two separate things are linked", and in reality everything is "one thing". But anyways, because everything is the same - an important question to ask is: how do I intentionally/ unintentionally effect someone or something else?

The most interested answer, is this study that was done in D.C., here's a clip:

This study presents the final results of a two-month prospective experiment to reduce violent crime in Washington, DC. On the basis of previous research it was hypothesized that the level of violent crime in the District of Columbia would drop significantly with the creation of a large group of participants in the Transcendental Meditation® and TM-Sidhi® programs to increase coherence and reduce stress in the District.

Analysis of 1993 data, controlling for temperature, revealed that there was a highly significant decrease in HRA crimes associated with increases in the size of the group during the Demonstration Project. The maximum decrease was 23.3% when the size of the group was largest during the final week of the project. The statistical probability that this result could reflect chance variation in crime levels was less than 2 in 1 billion.

The police chief of D.C., prior to the study, publicly trash-talked the event, saying nothing short of a blizzard was going to dramatically effect the crime-level. After the study ended, and he saw the 23% drop, he was it's biggest advocate. It really makes you wonder how little we know about ourselves - how little we understand our influence on those around us. According to this - as crazy as it might sound - being in a good mood might save a total stranger's life.

But yeah, long story short, check out these two movies - they are great. Another favorite scene of mine in "Huckabees" is when Marky Mark and Jason Schwartzman are having diner with a very religious family who have taken a guy from Sudan into their home - the guy from Sudan happens to be the 'coincident' guy - and they all start arguing with each-other, the family gets furious at Marky Mark's character because he's saying they aren't good people since they use petroleum - but that's a whole different sub-story of the movie - but they say, "we took a Sudan refugee into our home"! And Marky Mark yells back, "Yes, but how did Sudan happen"? It's a great scene and a great example of people with big-hearts and good intentions, but closed-minds or maybe good people who aren't willing to ask hard questions. And it makes you wonder - how better of a world this be if those same big-hearted people asked themselves: what's better, taking one Sudan refugee into their home? Or standing up to our government (who heavily supports the dictatorships in Sudan in exchange for cheap petroleum), demanding that we stop supporting oppressive-dictatorships and in the end, freeing millions of Sudanese? It seems like such an obvious choice... but for whatever, it's not an easy one.

Well, I've rambled on long enough... time for me to go to bed. Goodnight.

[Originally posted at Project Pedal...]

Whatever our reasons for failing at “Love at Last Sight”, “Rolling Chair Productions” was just beginning, but before I can tell the story of Rolling Chair, I have to tell the story of my first bike trip, but before the bike trip I should introduce Tim:

Tim was voted 2000 runner of the year for Michigan – which in itself, goes a long way in explaining the kind of person Tim is – it’s important to note though that Tim wasn’t the “fastest” runner in Michigan, there were other runners who, on occasion, could out-race Tim. That’s not to say that he didn’t win an overwhelming majority of the races in his high-school-career, but it’s important to point out that his performance stood out from the crowd, I think, because of his energy – before, during and after the race, a rare form of modest-determination that rubbed off on both his teammates as well as his “rivals”.

But this isn’t the real reason Tim needs an introduction – the real reason is; Tim was my best friend from our four years of cross country, and more importantly, was this moment:

It was our senior year of high school; Tim and I had been running the one mile together all season long for Track & Field, the two of us were expected to go 1 and 3 in the 1600 - Tim, of course, finishing first, Ida’s star-miler second, and myself third – but as the two of us were warming up for our race, Tim was worried about the last lap, he knew that Ida’s miler had a far stronger finish – and if, in the end, the two were nose to nose; Tim would lose first place. Tim told me he needed to me to stay with him during the mile – that he needed me there to out-finish Ida’s runner if it came down to the last 200 meters – but most importantly was Tim’s support and genuine confidence in me.

Long story short; this was the first time, over the course of four years – and hundreds upon hundred of races, that I had finished first in the mile – and in a way, the first time I had really won at anything important or challenging in my life – but it wasn’t necessarily the “win” that made the moment so unique to me; it was the first time I had greatly exceeded my self-expectations… the first time I had set out to do something that I believed was unreachable. I owe Tim more than I know I’ll ever be able to repay.

Well, as a few people have already pointed out in the comments, it's been a year here at 'caliblog'. This same time last year, Amanda and I were only a few hundred miles outside of Hollywood, crashing at a cheap-hotel in Vegas. It doesn't seem like it's been a year - I don't know if that's a good thing, or a bad thing, but whatever it is, I'm glad we did it all the same.

It was really rough there for a while - emotionally - it's a hard thing to adjust to, overall I'd have to say it was a good five months of 'weirdness'. I'm not really sure what else to say about our year anniversary, we'll have to come up with something cool to do, if anyone has any suggestions, let us know.

Instead, I think I'll share a few things I've been meaning to post: These pictures are about a month old - but Amanda just got them got them developed... we took them when Tim and his friend, Jade spent the night here before leaving the next afternoon out of LAX, but that's a whole different story for a different time [or when 'Will & Grace' isn't on the TV behind me].


So, keeping this quick: here's a guy building a huge sand-castle - strange thing was he was probably the only other person on the beach that day, usually it's packed in Santa Monica.


Here's Tim and I posing for the girls by the pier.



And, just to be funny, I thought I'd post this picture of Tim and I from four years ago during our first bike trip... looking a little rough. I can't imagine what the people taking this photo for us must have been thinking.


Here we are sneaking up on the guy making the giant sand-castle...


I know this is a boring picture - but the painting and the wall besides the stairs were cool.

Originally posted at project pedal…

This was the end of graphic design school – the beginning of our friendship - and “the rest of our lives” - which brings us to “Love at Last Sight”:

I thought about going into detail about the night Chuck told me he wanted to make an independent film, I thought about going into detail about the plot of “Love at Last Sight”, or sharing the story of Chuck impulsively buying a Sony Hi-8mm camcorder with his graduation money before we wrote one word of script, or explaining our run-in with the local police during our first day of ‘location-scouting’…

But the two most important points here are: one, it was this moment in my life that sparked an interest in film, maybe an interest that was there all along, maybe film was appealing to me simply because it was an artistic outlet I had yet to explore, whatever the reasons or lack thereof behind my decision, I had no idea of the long-term consequences it would have on my life and my friendship with Chuck. And two, for Chuck, this “commitment” of making a movie together was no more serious – whether he knew this or not - than “…starting a sticker company, stamp-making, or vegetarianism”, although it would take me four years to come to this realization.

But before I get ahead of myself: writing, “Love at Last Sight” was an amazing experience for me. Chuck and I survived off a steady diet of IBC root-beer and ham hot-pockets for three months, staying up every night until 5 in the morning writing, rewriting, and storyboarding. With the help of Kevin, a friend of Chuck’s family, we began working under the name, “Rolling Chair Productions”. The walls of my bedroom where plastered with pages of screenplay and sketches of scene ideas. We would walk the empty streets of my small hometown, Onsted, Michigan, with a pad and pencil, brainstorming the story and fine-tuning our punch lines. We had no idea what we were doing, and we were enjoying every last minute of it.

A year later, half of our actors and actresses had left for college; we had no money to our names – let alone our movie, and only several hours of footage under our belt. “Love at Last Sight”, slowly but surely, fell apart, I’ve always been embarrassed to think that I could have done something to save it – perhaps I was just too young to know how disappointed in myself I would later become – or perhaps I didn’t, at the time, realize how important the experience had become to me. Whatever our reasons for failing at “Love at Last Sight”, “Rolling Chair Productions” was just beginning, but before I can tell the story of Rolling Chair, I have to tell the story of my first bike trip: