Time of My Life

"Life sucks and then you die. You go all through life and then you get hit by a fucking bus." Or so says my mom after her heart fluttered picturing herself and Patrick Swayze Dirty Dancing together at a mountain resort in upstate New York in the early 1960s.

While fanning herself, her dream was interrupted by the realization that such a reality may never come to pass due to Mr. Swayze's unfortunate bout with pancreatic cancer. And thus the basis for her pessimistic statement about human existence.

In a way, I think the same thing. We're born, we live, we die. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean it's not good that The Swaze has a life-threatening illness, but you can't say that he didn't lead a good life while he was here. I mean the guy can act, dance, sing (She's Like the Wind still makes this guy's pants fall off at an alarming pace), was a stud in his heyday and world famous. So when the topic of his cancer came up, my mom thought of the "fucking bus," but I didn't see it that way.

My mom is right though in that a bus could just come along and run you over, or a badger could target you in a woodland killing spree, or you feel the need to defy reason and try and beat Jumanji.

Alot of people have asked me if I'm scared or nervous and aside from some anxiety over whether I left something important at home, I'm not really at all. People worry about bears and cougars, and I'll do my best not get eaten but if it's my turn to go, it's my turn. And like The Swaze has Dirty Dancing and Ghost, I'll have the PCT.

But I wouldn't have the PCT without the help and encouragement of my friends and family. I know that my decision wasn't received well initially, but in time everyone in my life came to see how important going on the hike was to me and offered words of encouragement and support right up until I left.

My family really took to Hike4Autism and at this point it feels like they've done more to promote it than I have, so an extra special thanks and an I love you to Madre and Padre, Young Z and the Useless Dean.

I also want to say thanks to Kile Garguilo for driving me to the airport at 4am. He works in the upper reaches of the Comcast Center (Philadelphia's first green skyscraper) with a nice view of City Hall, loves gardening and is a homeowner. Grab this one ladies before he gets away!

It would be infinitely more difficult (not to mention very infrequent) for me to post these stories to my blog without Joe Mohne and Andre Laboy who have agreed to handle the emails I'm writing while out blazing trails.

I could thank many more people specifically but I'd hate to leave someone out, so just know that I appreciate all of the support and help of everyone. It took a lot to get me here and you really eased my path.

Alright Minions, we're in the air and this thing isn't even supposed to be on (at least the FAA's investigation will be short) so syonara and I'll talk to you from the Golden State soon.

Daily Record Blogging

My local paper the Daily Record is going to be doing a feature on me sometime this week or next and are coming to take some pictures of me fully decked out in my gear tomorrow. Now the world will witness for the first time the beginnings of my trail beard, not to mention the oozing machismo, animal masculinity and my beautiful Irish tenor voice (I guess that one wouldn't really come through in print, but take my word for it).

I'm going to be blogging for them as well, but just to make it easier for any new readers and for myself when I'm writing on the trail, both blogs are just going to have the same content. For now, I reposted my favorite entries from here and any fundraiser-related information.

Here is a link to the blog at DailyRecord.com. One thing that is different - I got to use a picture I took of a trail at the Delaware Water Gap last summer as the icon for my Daily Record blog.

But I guess it's not much of a difference as I can just show you them here. I've been wanting to use them somehow in some sort of thematic way, but I don't know anything about Web design, so this is as close as I'll come to that.

Mr. Snake

Mr. Lake - A group of Russian tourists were absolutely loving Mr. Lake. Also, there was a deer across the way but my camera wouldn't zoom in close enough.

Mr. Garden State

And again...

And again...

The 50th Time's the Charm

Sweet, sweet Danica, my future wife, became the first woman to win an IndyCar race at the Japan Indy 300. I attribute it to her hard work and my constant encouragement via unreturned letters and emails, and lighting prayer candles at the Danica Patrick shrine in my closet.


Here's one of us hanging out at the beach together. Don't we look stunning?

Pizza Anyone?

There was this homeless guy Hyrdafry that used to hang around Dover drinking a cup of nothing and claiming that he was responsible for the death of Biggie Smalls.

Hey, Hydrafry. Did you kill Biggie Smalls?
"Shit yeah! Notorious B.I.G.!"

I haven't seen him in a long time, but the last time I did, it's pretty much the way you want to remember a homeless guy. Okay, you'd rather the last time you see a homeless guy be at his housewarming party, but this wasn't so bad either.

I had just left some useless college-resume-building school activity with pizza and bagels that were going to be thrown out. I went with my high school ex Maggie to try to give it to a soup kitchen or someplace where it wouldn't go to waste, but we couldn't find anything that was open. The one church we went to was even closed. I didn't even know that could happen.

We were driving past JFK park and I look over and see Hydrafry sitting on a bench talking with some guy. I stop the car and get out and say I'm going to go over and see if they want the pizza and bagels. Maggie tells me not to and says they're going to attack me, but I bravely wander into the mouth of the beast where they remain seated and politely say "Sure" to my offer of food.

Hydrafry did not have a cup of nothing and was not speaking in tongues about dead rapper conspiracy theories. He seemed like his head was on straight for one time in the five or so times I ever actually spoke to him. It was a sunny day, shorts weather, Hydrafry had velcro shoes, food and a friend. For a homeless guy, not the worst situation. Then I never saw him again.

I remember three rumors about Hydrafry - 1) He killed Christopher Wallace, 2) He owned three or more houses, 3) He was homeless because he got messed up on acid and mushrooms and because of that, saying "Hydrafry" was a trigger that would make him start talking nonsense.

The first two...come on. But the third might not be so out of the question. Once my co-worker was in New York and had to go to the ATM to deposit a check. She gets to the bank and is about to go inside when she sees a bum laying on the floor with his ass half hanging out.

Not wanting to disturb the bum during his "activities," afraid he wasn't exactly the most stable minded of people, and not the least bit happy that the security guard normally on duty to prevent half-moon homeless guys from sleeping on bank property was absent, she flagged down a passing cop to kick the guy out.

Cop walks in. "Alright guy, let's move it...what the fuck?"

Bum grabs a nice oily slice of New York City pizza and slides it down into his dirty pants. Mmmm. Fromunda.

How the guy wasn't arrested, I don't know. The cop told him to clean up his mess and hit the road. He took that to mean fall all over the place while gathering his things.

While I was cracking up, my phone rings for an interview that I have no interest in conducting, thus partially ruining my enjoyment of the story. But I was chuckling to myself about it later when good old Mr. Fry popped back into my mind for the first time in I can't remember how long.

Unfortunately, I couldn't help thinking that even though he was sitting having a conversation with his fellow man of the street on a quiet park bench, acting the most normal that I had ever seen him, that I gave some pizza to a homeless man who claimed to have killed Biggie Smalls and enjoyed sipping air from a styrofoam cup.

Is it a stretch to picture Hydrafry's velcro shoes and crinkly butt cheeks on the floor in front of an ATM, laying half on top of an empty Dominos box? I guess not anymore.

Dear Inconsiderate Ladies

If someone comes up to you in a bar and says hello, asks to buy you a drink, or just tries to strike up general conversation, don't say you're about to go with your friends to the club upstairs when you have every intention of remaining in the same spot for the next hour and a half to two hours. Just say you're not interested.

Now the other three girls, they just politely said "No" when asked to take part in the Brad Schmidt Experience. Their honesty was much appreciated after I finished shedding tears into my Coors Light in a dark corner.

Wouldn't You Watch This Show at Least Once?

"Eat This Piece of Shit for $500"
...I think you could get one season out of it.

Autism Links of the Day (04.02.08)

Just so I don't keep linking to CNN.com articles, they're running features every day for Autism Awareness Month. And after saying that, I'm going to link to one anyway. Jenny McCarthy claims that her son was able to recover much of his neurological function after treatments that included "a gluten-free, casein-free diet, vitamin supplementation, detox of metals, and anti-fungals for yeast overgrowth that plagued his intestines." I know it's easy to write this off as Tom Cruise craziness, but with autism, the medical community has just as little clue about how to treat autism as everyone else. So there could be something to it. Then again it could just be Tom Cruise craziness. Either way, nobody can be sure.

If I Only Had Super Powers
Thanks to 30 Minute Mommy for this link. A busy ass mom and speech therapist, who deals with autism on a regular basis. She's devoting most of her postings this month to autism. Give her a look. She says all the rain in the Pacific Northwest can get to her, so more readers might cheer her up.

Larry's Autism Lounge
A guy named Larry from Texas has Asperger's and this is his own personal page. He created it to try to give individuals with autism and their families a unique perspective on how to cope with the disease.