10,000 Hours -- Day 3

herbertholmes (56)in #mentalhealth • 6 years ago

Straight Outta Power

Damn. First week trying to make daily posts and I already screwed up. But, I have a somewhat legitimate excuse; for part of the time, anyway. The other day, when I was about halfway through my post on Moondog, my room mate Connor asked if I needed anything from the store. He's pretty used to watching me become super absorbed in the computer and not move for hours- so he was surprised to hear me say I would come with. We were the only ones at the house at the time and we carpooled over to the nearby market to buy some food.

We couldn't have been gone more than 15 minutes, but as I opened the door I saw an envelope flutter to the ground. Electric company. Flipped a light switch. Nothing.

The total owed on the account amounted to over $600. I've been in the house for about 3 weeks- so it was something I had no interest in handling. I wasn't pissed- again I've been here 3 weeks so I don't know what's been going on- but I was really frustrated. I tried to walk out into the yard and find a place to set up a hot spot on my phone but it wasn't long before my computer died.

Whatever. Shit happens. We had a powerless night before they could turn it back on for us. Lost some food. Life goes on.

Yesterday I headed over to my friend Trevor's house to work on his bike jumps. I meant to take some more pictures with my actual camera but I had forgotten that I had taken out the battery to charge right before we lost power and had forgotten about it sometime between trying to create internet in the woods and figuring out what food was going to go bad. So, instead here are a few random iPhone pictures of his woods.

Trevor is quite a bit older than I am and co-runs the terrain parks at our local mountain. He bought this property a few years ago with his wife and their two dogs. The dogs do not like strangers and so far I haven't been "allowed" to bring Raiden over, unfortunately. He gets really bummed whenever he sees me leave. But Trevor assures me that one day once the dogs are more used to the traffic I'll be allowed to bring him.

After you follow the path circling the dog enclosure, you enter the woods and find an ongoing web of bike trails. This is a project he's been working on for a little bit now and I have been helping as much as I possibly can. There are a few really cool DIY projects going on around here that I have been a part of and will certainly miss- but also I am ecstatic to see how they will progress in the time that I am gone.

The main track is a little big for me. I'm starting to get the first jump once in awhile but prior to riding these trails I have zero dirt-jumping experience so it's a little intimidating to learn on. Recently, however, we have started another smaller pump track that will loop in and out of the larger track. The goal is to eventually have different lines all over the place, but there's a lot of work between here and there.

Yesterday Trevor discovered a clay hole that will help us get there much faster however. Given our geographical location, dirt/material for building has not been easy to find. We've been transporting the majority of the material by wheelbarrow from 3 individual spots- none of which are ideal.

The path to the clay pit

The new clay pit allowed us to build an entire berm in a matter of 5 hours and 3 people. That doesn't sound that impressive until you actually try to do it. Of course, we are going to have to continue to build it up over time- but still. It was pretty remarkable.

I thought I had more pictures of Trevor's but it turns out I just took a bunch of video. Maybe if I get bored later on I'll edit some of it together and put it on dTube. I wish you could upload multiple dTube videos into a single post but as far as I know you can't do that. If I'm wrong, please let me know how. I'm pretty inexperienced with that platform still.

Two weeks 'til go-time

Another day spent counting down the days. I've ran into some shitty financial problems so getting everything road-ready is taking longer than expected but I sincerely hope that two weeks is long enough for me to get everything handled. Before I went to Trevor's yesterday I spent a solid two hours at the DMV which was just downright unpleasant; but progress still.

I've realized that I'm probably going to want to have an emergency fund just in case so I have started accumulating my Steem rewards(along with a fiat emergency account, of course). I sincerely hope that I can get to my destination without ever having to use it, and I can just power it up once I get to Oregon. I have plenty of work available there so once I get there I can make some cash pretty quick before I continue on; so that will be a good chance for me to feel more secure about money.

I also have started to accumulate Steem for another reason that is somewhat of a "long-shot" but I'm committed in my attempts to make it happen. Since joining Steemit I have heard about Steemfest plenty of times. Since I joined in January, however, I have not actually been on the platform during a time when people are really actively talking about it. I was tracing a series of posts @abh12345 made concerning his "Road to Steemfest" and it really inspired me to go.

As I've talked about in my previous posts a big goal of my upcoming trip is to meet as many Steemians in real life as I can. Meeting you all along the road would be/is going to be absolutely wonderful, but I would love to attend a Steem-specific event and really get involved with the community.

Steemfest in Poland this year is completely unrealistic for me. I'm aware of that. Not only because it's coming up so soon, but also because I have absolutely no idea where in the country I'll be at that time. I don't know where I'd buy a flight out of. I don't know where my dog would stay, or my car. My life is too up in the air right now to make a commitment like that- plus financially it's almost impossible to book an international flight that soon.

However, I am completely committed to going next year. Since I've heard tickets cost a good amount of STEEM, I will probably try to keep some put away just in case I can't buy it with fiat(I would obviously much rather do that than lose any previous STEEM). Are any of my friends here going to try to make it to Steemfest 2019? Can I convince you to?

Thanks for reading another rant of mine. If you want to contribute to my emergency gas fund for the trip coming up you can always do so by giving me an upvote :) No pressure though, haha. Your engagement means much more to me. Please, any Steemians in North America that want to meet up during my upcoming trip leave me a comment. You might not be on my current planned route but you could always influence my future route. <3

Source

10,000 hours is my personal blog series about my battles with mental health, and my abandonment of "normal" life in search of a more organic happiness. The title is based on the theory by Swedish psychologist K. Anders Ericsson of the same name that implies that anything can be mastered with 10,000 hours of work. I am applying it to traveling and spending as much time as possible doing what makes me happy and overcoming the hurdles along the way. Obviously I'm not keepin track of hours, it's just a title. If anyone is having problems with mental health please feel free to reach out <3