The 5 Hour Energy LiveBlog

Don't get me wrong - I'm as accomplished a coffee drinker as anyone. But for the last several months, I've been trying to wean myself off of the stuff, the idea being that the less I consume, the greater the impact it will have when I do drink it.

Today I had my first 5 Hour Energy. I chose Pomegranate. What could go wrong?

4:06 p.m. Examining the bottle of 5 Hour Energy. Trying to decide if I really want to do this. Claims to be like coffee, but quicker. Comes with a warning label. Coffee doesn't come with a warning label, except when it's hot.

4:07 p.m. Reading about Niacin flush, a "natural warming sensation" that occurs when your body processes necessary minerals of which it was previously deficient. That's the 5 Hour Energy way of trying to convince you that the way you're about to feel is healthy.

4:08 p.m. What could go wrong? I love pomegranates.

4:09 p.m. Oh, gross.

4:13 p.m. Head upstairs feeling normal. Time to get to work and pound out some projects.

4:16 p.m. Notice a delightful jump in my typing WPM. That's if you count "pnusctuality" as a word. Unclear if this is due to 5 Hour Energy.

4:19 p.m. Niacin flush.

4:21 p.m. Toilet flush.

4:36 p.m. Working on a parent letter. You know how sometimes when you say a word too many times, it starts to sound funny? Every word is that word right now.

4:45 p.m. I literally cannot stop thinking about bridges - how they're made, who designs them. How do we really know they're safe? I can't focus on this letter right now. All I can think about is bridges.

4:47 p.m. Reading about bridges on Wikipedia.

4:50 p.m. Force myself to focus on the parent letter. Just spelled the word "contact" with a semicolon. And an umlaut.

4:57 p.m. Looking for Rick Keller's phone number. He's a structural engineer and I've got a lot of questions about bridges.

5:00 p.m. Saved from a very awkward conversation by the fact that I don't actually have his phone number.

5:10 p.m. Go downstairs to help with dinner. Hold the baby. Bounce the baby. I am not intentionally bouncing the baby.

5:15 p.m. I am literally yelling at a pot of green beans for what I suspect to be blatant malfeasance.

5:28 p.m. Drink a glass of water as an attempt to flush the 5 Hour Energy from my system.

5:29 p.m. I feel like I drank that glass of water awfully fast.

5:30 p.m. My shirt is soaking wet and there are ice cubes on the floor. Can't figure out why.

5:45 p.m. Eating dinner. Trying to hold it together.

6:00 p.m. Offer to clean up after dinner. Ask Lindsay to "time me." She declines.

6:02 p.m. Done. Wish she would have timed me.

6:05 p.m. Back to work. So excited AND so scared.

6:12 p.m. Just realized I'm not wearing a shirt. Not sure how long this has been.

6:44 p.m. Drooling. Thanks 5 Hour Energy.

7:00 p.m. 25 emails in 2 minutes. All to the same guy.

7:16 p.m. Less concerned about bridges than I am about asteroids all of a sudden.

7:40 p.m. Watching the 5 Hour Energy commercials online. That guy seems so happy at the office, but trust me, he's using every ounce of his willpower not to go outside, strangle a bunny, and eat it raw.

7:55 p.m. Well, this is the third time I've gone to the bathroom "just to be sure." And for what it's worth, I'm 0-for-3.

8:02 p.m. I'm Batman.

8:17 p.m. Parent letter finished nearly four hours after it started. Thanks 5 Hour Energy.

8:34 p.m. I wrote down "Great idea for sitcom." Post 5 Hour Energy, I have no idea what it was.

8:39 p.m. When did I take my pants off? I may have eaten dinner in my underwear.

8:45 p.m. What is the stuff made of? Chihuahua concentrate?

9:00 p.m. Is five hours over yet?

9:14 p.m. Struck by inexplicable urge to blog again.

9:16 p.m. Really just excited by all of the labels I get to use again.

Amos Barton

I recently finished my eighth book of 2010, The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton by George Eliot. Someone recommended Eliot's slightly more noteworthy novel, Silas Marner, but when I couldn't find it, I settled for Barton. Hey, it was right there.

The book is about a pastor who is mediocre in every way, although he himself doesn't think that. He is generally not well liked by his constituents. The one thing he has going for him is that everyone thinks his wife is fantastic. He reminds me of someone I know, but then his wife gets sick and dies.

Because of the pessimistic nature of the narrative, I'll concentrate instead on something else of the novel that was of interest, and that is this: George Eliot was a woman.

This seems like something that someone probably tried to teach me, but that I failed to retain.

Eliot's real name is Mary Anne Evans, and her story starts most notably with a harsh critique of female authors - Silly Novels by Lady Novelists which appeared in The Westminster Review. The screed tears apart the idea that a woman could ever write a novel. This is fun because Evans' own criticism is a part of the reason she had to use a pen name.

Throughout Barton, the narrator goes out of her way to make the kinds of remarks you would expect from a chauvinist, almost as if Evans felt a need to defend her pen name beyond its obvious masculinity.

But of particular interest to you, dear reader*, is this. In her lifetime Evans was reviled by literary society and people in general for her public affair with author George Henry Lewes, which shows that TMZ has been around longer than anyone thinks.

* This is the kind of technique Eliot utilized frequently, the narrator's address to the audience.

However, as the dust jacket of my library book informs me, Eliot's legacy did not end with the shunning she and her partner endured, and after a number of years she was remembered not at all for that, but for instead for being one of the most gifted and beloved writers of her era.

That's great news for Tiger Woods.

What the Dog Saw

Today I finished my seventh book of 2010, Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw. This was one of those books that required a two-month wait at the library. Uber-bestseller Gladwell has the remarkable ability to make uninteresting things seem positively intriguing, and writes at the kind of pace that causes you not to realize that you've been reading about the history of ketchup for forty minutes straight.

This is what makes Gladwell so unique. I wouldn't expect that you could pay me enough money to read about the Ronco guy, but there I was, riveted as I followed the life arc of the same guy who peddled the Veg-O-Matic, the Showtime Rotisserie grill, and the Ronco Flavor Injector.

For example, did you know that Ron Popeil's mom once paid a hitman to kill his dad? Furthermore, did you know that's the reason they divorced?* And did you know that a year later, they got back together again?

* If you knew the first part, I suppose you could have guessed at the second.

Still, there's something a bit dissatisfying about this latest bestseller. Dog is a compilation of Gladwell's favorite articles that he's written for the New Yorker for more than a decade. It's not such a bad gig to make a few million dollars again, merely by reposting the stuff that made you a million dollars to begin with. And while it might be detestable for us to think about, it's not so detestable that I wouldn't consider doing it myself.

I've already worked on several drafts for what my book would look like, and thanks to blogger's ubiquitous labels tool, it's easier than ever for bloggers to compile articles into ready-to-print book forms:

• I Am an Idiot: The Aaron Helman Story
• The Men Who Inspired Me: The Nudge Toward Mediocrity
• Kind of Gross: Things that Are Kind of Gross
• Stories Where I'm Not Wearing Pants
• Reasons I Will Always Be Single: An Underdog Story
• Ferret in a Sweater: The Coffee Table Book for Aficionados

September 29, 2013

A few things happened this week that made me ponder my thirtieth birthday. Chief among these is a message I gave on Sunday about the way we end phases of our lives. Secondarily, there's the fact that Lindsay's got a special birthday coming up this weekend. She has no idea how excited she should be about this. I've got big plans. Good thing she doesn't read this blog.

--

The sun rose again. This is not notable. The sun always rises, or at least that's what I've been led to believe. Anyway, it's there when I wake up, and reliable sources have informed me that it's because its risen from the horizon. That's good enough for me.

Today is different. Today is different because the sun isn't hanging above the earth waiting for me to rise, but because I'm waiting for it. Actually that's not right either, because as my shoes rebound from the pavement underfoot, I run west along the side of the road. I'm not waiting for the sun. I'm chasing it.

Left foot, right foot, and again. Sweat drops from my jaw, and the sweatshirt that looked like a good idea earlier would probably look a lot better hanging from that guy's fence. I'm through the first three miles in 23 minutes which doesn't seem like much except when you realize that despite a good deal of training, I'm still a lousy runner.

--

I've come to realize that there's no way to dry off quickly after a shower, but that there is a way to do it poorly, and so that's what I do. My shirt sticks to my back when I pull it over my head.

I sip coffee while I pull on the rest of my clothes, and it tastes how Hawaii feels. The smell of the stuff dragged me out of bed, and the taste made me want to lay down in a hammock. The coffee jolt has been numbed to a flick, and I move at roughly the same pace before I swallowed the juice.

A quick breakfast and four quick goodbye kisses escort me through the threshold and into the car. It's not much of a vehicle, but I own it and it's generally faster than the bus. The garage door opens behind me and I roll down the driveway and down the drive, mostly alone, early on this Sunday morning.

--

I always park in the back of the parking lot. It's selfish of me because the doctor says that it's a great trick to lose weight, and I guess I don't have much weight to lose. But it is nice to peek out of the windows and realize that just about every spot nearer the building is filled.

I started parking in the back long before the lot filled up because it was a good way to trick myself into realizing the potential of progress instead of the stench of success. Success is a funny thing because dwelling on it is the surest way to prevent it.

Work is good. We have developed a solid routine, but try to do a good job of making sure no one else does. We unlock the building at the same time every week, but then transform it into a different thing altogether, and that's a good thing. People have developed high expectations even if they're not sure what to expect.

I'd tell you what we did on September 29, 2013, but I'd hate to ruin the surprise.

--

I love this grill. I don't mean that I love it and want to marry it, but I do mean that I wouldn't rule that out as a possibility.

It's my birthday, and the birthday boy gets to make the rules. This year, the birthday boy is making his own steak. The secret ingredient is the rub, and it's nearly as tightly guarded as my sermon plans for this morning. We'd spent all morning yesterday finding the right cuts of meat, because I'm only going to turn 30 once, and I prefer New York Strip.

After I flip the steaks, I descend into the yard and pick up a football. Five sets of legs emerge from the house to play, even though only one of them can throw a football more than two feet and only three of them have thumbs. The game ends the way these games always do. I lose.

--

The first book is done, so I sit down to write another. The house is quiet. I am eating another cupcake. Lindsay kisses me on the head and tells me she's going to bed. Of course I'm going to follow her.

--

I sleep well, waking only four times to pee and once because it's going to rain and I can feel it in my knees. Let's face it - I'm thirty.

The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork

Tonight, I finished my sixth book of 2010, The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, another work from famed leadership guru John Maxwell. I'm not entirely sure how one becomes a guru, although I do know that it doesn't sound like a bad gig. Maxwell talks continually about life in Atlanta, which sounds like a warm place. It's worth noting that before he attained his guru status, Maxwell was in ministry in Indiana, and it doesn't take a guru to figure out that the gentler climes of Atlanta might make for a better home.

17 Laws, like any business book, is full of valuable advice, but can easily be dated by the twists and turns of the particular businesses it chooses to study. In Good to Great, Jim Collins refers to Circuit City as one of his great companies only 24 months before it shuddered doors across the country. And in 17 Laws, Maxwell espouses the praises of one company that holds tightly to a rigid moral compass, and that company is, as you would have guessed, Enron.*

* Later, we're treated to the rhetorical question: What kind of people chose to go into leadership at Enron?

Anyway, all of this talk of the laws of teamwork made me think real hard about some of the best teams I've ever had the fortune to be a part of.

1. The HAKK Team: It's a church leadership team featuring Herb, Aaron, Karen, and Kim. We joined a dodgeball league this spring and finished 4-2 with a disappointing finish in the semi-finals against the staff of Barnes & Noble.

2. Aunt Jane's Pickles: My little league team in the 4th grade. I played first base and batted sixth. We were a good team because our two best pitchers had to shave.

3. This one time, Paul and I got on the same team at Ultimate Frisbee: He's fast, and no one realized that when we were choosing teams. I'm tall, and apparently, no one realized that when we were picking teams either.

4. 2002 Cory Bretz Flag Football: We finished 9-1 in the regular season and lost in the championship game, but we smoked the cigars anyway.

5. 1909 Chicago Cubs: Talk about being a day late and a dollar short.

Have a Little Faith

Earlier this year, I asked for book recommendations on the condition that if someone recommended a book, I had to read it. So today, I finished my fifth book of 2010, Mitch Albom's Have a Little Faith. I've never been a big fan of Albom*, because a lot of what he says is a little too syrupy for my taste. This isn't to say that he doesn't relay quality stories with quality insights, just that he does so with a little too much sugar.

* And who listens to Alboms anymore!?**

** Pun.

The book centers around Albom's wrestle with faith and religious co-existence as he works to write his beloved rabbi's eulogy. He also dives into the economic downturn of Detroit, by getting involved with a rundown church that's doubling as a homeless shelter. But mostly its about his waning Jewishness* and how he comes to reclaim pieces of that as he gets reacquainted with the old rabbi.

* That's a quality band name if I've ever seen one.

It is also about Albom's refusal to use quotation marks when he, himself, is a part of the dialogue; a tool that has become a trademark style, and a little annoying at the same time.

This makes me think that maybe what I need to differentiate myself as a writer is a trademark style to call my own, which is why, for the remainder of this post, I will end each sentence with two periods instead of one and capitalize the letter P every time I use it.. Albom's blatant disresPect for grammar made him a bestseller, after all..

--

Faith made me wonder about Pieces of my own eulogy, and who I might ask to deliver it when the time comes.. Ricky Gervais handled the Golden Globes alright, and I think he'd do a fine job at my funeral.. But I'd be awfully disaPPointed* if I didn't outlive that guy..

I suPPose it doesn't matter too much who gives the sPeech, just as long as he or she hits on the high Points of my life so far: My first chest hair, for examPle, or the first time I ate entire Pizza by myself.. This Person will need to know about these events, and in the case that my eulogy is transcribed for a literary audience, as it was in Faith, this Person needs to ProPerly use syntax, grammar, and Punctuation, because - darn it Mitch! - this stuff is hard to read..

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

Today, I finished my fourth book of 2010, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller, the same affable fellow who wrote the bestseller Blue Like Jazz. He claims that the book is about his efforts to try to turn Jazz into a movie, and what he learned about his life while he was editing it for a screenplay.

Of course, that's really not the case at all. The book is, like Jazz, a collection of personal stories, all tied together through the common thread that is Miller's unmistakable style and trademark humor.

I'm also struck by Miller's strange habit of naming the book after a single memorable phrase* that happened to be contained in its pages, even if the phrase has little to do with the crux of the book.

* I suppose it would be like me naming my book A Moment of Restrained Euphoria. It's a random phrase from a random post, and I'll give a dollar to the first person who can identify it.

It also has a picture of a bicycle on the front, so I had to read it.

Thousand Years reminds me a lot of what my blog might be if I turned it into a book and found creative ways to tie together stories about riding bikes, hitchhiking, adventures in coffee shops, and a series of stories in which I wasn't wearing pants. Come to think of it, this book is my blog, were I a better writer and in poorer shape.*

* This would be Miller's concession, not mine.

It was a good book, but it was a frustrating book. In short, it was the book I should have written over the course of the last three or four years. In fact, it's the book I always intended to write over the course of the last three or four years. And of course, now that Miller's written it, I can't.

I would feel sad about it, but instead I'll try to find ways to differentiate my own writings from those of Donald Miller, and I've got at least one thing going for me that he doesn't*:

* And I swear to Mohamed, if Donald Miller's next book is about ferrets in sweaters, I'm suing him for identity theft.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

I finished my third book of 2010, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. He tells the story of how four very different meals arrive on our dinner tables. He explains the life of a McDonald's value meal and the life of an environmentally friendly* organic meal. He goes on to explain how at least one local farm works, then proceeds to exegete the history of an entirely locally-grown meal. Finally, he creates a meal out of food that he either grew, killed, or foraged for himself.

* And actually, this might not be true. In order to eat organic asparagus in November, the veggies have to be flown express from Argentina. Maybe not the environment-friendly scenario we've been led to believe.

I learned all sorts of interesting things. 97% of the calories in your McDonald's sack come directly from corn, and that might not be a good thing. Argentinians eat far more red meat than we do, but theirs being entirely grass-fed, the population suffers almost no heart disease.* Their only trade-off is that they are forced to eat a tastier beef, one that tastes like beef was intended to taste.

* Don't cry for beef, Argentina?

I learned about the highly secretive underground culture of mushroom collectors, and I can understand it. Pollan attaches himself to a group that pulls in more than 60 pounds of morels, and sells them to restaurateurs at $20/pound. Do the math.

Most interesting though was the ecological web of the small local farm. Poop is collected and used meticulously for the benefit of the farm, the animals, and the end-consumers. The texture of the eggs is different. The color of the yolks is different. In short, eggs, the way they are meant to be, are not the same thing as the eggs we eat today.* Of course, all of this makes me want to own chickens and collect poop. Lindsay is not too keen on this.

* If you are what you eat, then it makes sense. Mass-produced farm animals always eat things other than what they're supposed to eat and it changes them.

It's one of those books that you read and then have your greatest epiphanies afterward. You mean, 60 pounds of mushrooms could get me a used car?

Writing without Fruit

Every now and again, I'll pull up Blogger, sit down to write a sentence much like the one you're reading right now, and then I'll begin to realize that I don't have a clue where I'm going with it. I am intent on writing something - because I want to write - something, but I just don't have anything to say. I suppose it's sort of like wandering onto a grassy field with a football helmet, a baseball bat, and a basketball, then saying: "I want to be good at sports." Sure, you've got a pile of equipment, but you really look like an idiot.

And in this grand metaphor, I suppose it means that I look like the idiot right now. But due to the wonders of the Internet, if I complete this stream-of-consciousness blathering and I don't like it, I won't post it, and you'll never know how stupid I really am.*

* Unless of course I'm stupid enough to hit "Publish Post" anyway. I guess you'll be the judge.

--

As we were watching American Idol last night, I mentioned to Lindsay my disbelief at some of the poorer singers that try out for the show. For my part, I think that at least half of them are aware of their suckitude, but play it off well so that they can win a bar bet and enjoy their 15 minutes of fame.

But I'm sure that there are at least some of these people who actually believe that they can sing. In and of itself, this isn't what throws me. I can fully understand how a poor singer can delude himself into believing he's a decent singer.* I can understand how a mediocre singer might believe himself to be good. But for the life of me, I cannot understand how a poor singer might believe himself to be one of the 24 best undiscovered talents in the entire nation.

* If I couldn't do it, I wouldn't sing. I'm the expert here.

One guy said he couldn't believe he didn't make it, even though he "hit the really loud notes." This is clearly a guy with zero training, because musicians wouldn't convince themselves that volume is what makes a good singer great. If this was the case, my neighbors would have won multiple Grammies.

Of course, almost all of these people claim that their friends always tell them how great they are, which has to lead you to believe that either these people aren't really friends or that compliments lead to delusion far more frequently than illumination.

--

Someone who I didn't know once approached me and told me she enjoyed my blog. Another person told me that if I didn't write for the rest of my life, then I'd be missing my calling. Another told me she'd laughed so hard she cried, and another told me my prose was touching enough to bring her to tears. I suppose it takes a certain degree of talent to cause humorous and serious tears at the same time. I suppose it takes even more to do that with a blog that's standby material involves a ferret wearing a sweater or inappropriate jokes about meeting Scientologists in my underwear.

--

Then I remember, that when I was 24-years-old, someone told me I should try out for American Idol. There might be something there too, but I know that I can't hit the loud notes.

Times When Headphones are Important

Scene: Barnes & Noble cafe. Quiet section, filled with readers and people diligently typing away (or more likely screwing around on Facebook) on their laptops. Yuppie crowd is full of people wearing thick-rimmed glasses, indoor scarves, and fitted t-shirts.

I walked into Barnes & Noble, immersed myself fully into the pretension of my environs, and proceeded to read The House of Morgan, a book about the meteoric rise of the Morgan banks.* It was interesting stuff.

* Nine-year-old Aaron wants to give me the beatdown for getting into stuff like this and calling it interesting. But if we got into a fight, I'd definitely win. At 9, I weighed 60 pounds. Seriously, it wouldn't even be close.

Just then, a confused-looking man walks in, sits at a table, and immediately loads YouTube onto his MacBook. After fielding a few phone calls and completely spoiling the plot of the new Sherlock Holmes movie for me,* he proceeded to begin loading videos for his enjoyment.

*His quote: "I liked the movie, thought Robert Downey was great, but I knew that the ******** was the villain the whole time." Thanks man. Seriously.

He watched videos - at full volume - for about three minutes, much to the chagrin of a group of timid yuppies who needed a hero. It was my time.

I let fly a couple of stifled coughs and gave some dirty looks, but apparently this fellow was oblivious to subverted social cues.

So I did what I had to do. I walked up behind the guy and watched the video over his shoulder, chuckling at appropriate moments. It took him a shockingly long time to realize what I was doing, but then he responded as expected: "What do you think you're doing?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. If you don't want us all to watch your videos, then maybe you shouldn't make all of us listen to them."

Scene: As Aaron returns to his seat, a bald 22-year-old with thick rimmed glasses and scarf, reading Kurt Vonnegut and a book about veganism, places his hands together, bows and issues a mock applause. The day saved, Aaron does what any superhero would do. He sits down and reads about early 20th-Century bank deregulation and its affect on the global commodities market.*

* Just like the Punisher would have done.

Traffic

I just finished my second book of 2010 - Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt. Aside from the over-punctuated and heavily-worded title, it was an interesting glimpse into the genesis of traffic jams, the danger involved with driving a car, and what we can all do about it.

What makes all of this so perplexing is that cities have employed traffic specialists since the 1800s (to manage all the horses, not even to speak of their poo), and no one can nail down anything close to an accurate answer to explain much of our traffic woes.

Traffic engineers have gone to miraculous lengths to make safer, more forgiving roads only to learn later that these roads encourage drivers to try even riskier high-speed maneuvers. Some more dangerous roads actually operate more safely because drivers concentrate on driving safely. Vanderbilt interviews traffic experts (more than you would have ever thought existed) and even speaks to "one of the leading experts" in queue formation.

But there are answers.

To put it simply, the easiest way to alleviate traffic is for you to get off of the road and get out of my way so I can get to work on time.* Of course, it doesn't work, because what's good for society (or for gridlock) certainly isn't good for the individuals most affected. It's why listening to the traffic report works best when you're the only one listening to it. When the radioman says that an alternate route in Chicago is faster, it's not surprising that 30,000 people sprint to clog up the alternate route.

* From the Onion: 98% of People Favor Public Transportation for Others.

Similar is the concept of night driving. One of Vanderbilt's most ostentatious claims is that in order for night driving to be as safe as day driving, we'd all have to move at 20 mph. Of course, if you move along at that kind of a speed (or lack thereof) on a highway, you are in significantly more danger because not everyone is going to heed that advice.

Smaller, lighter cars are safer - but only if everyone drives one. If you're the only one, then your car is significantly more dangerous, at least to yourself.

This book made me think, and mostly it made me think about this: I wonder what it would take to become an expert in queue formation.

Can't the Washer Just Do It for Me?

If I had any idea how to apply for a patent, I'd do this myself. But I don't, so my great ideas are merely a call for you to invent it, give me one, and make the world a better place.

Washing machines should automatically default to the cold/cold setting after every single load.

Think about it.

No one ever gets too upset about accidentally washing their whites in cold water, but no one's thrilled when they pull a stack of color-bled doll clothes out of a washing machine that's a little bit warmer than it was supposed to be. We've all done it at least once - washed something improperly and turned it into the kind of garment only a rodent would wear.*

* Strictly so I could use this:

Here's what I want to do. I will turn the dial to hot for the whites, and the washing machine will turn it back to cold again when the load is finished.

I would guess that most families, at least in this country, don't go through enough white clothes* to justify doing more than one load of whites anyway. There's very little reason for a washer to remain on the hot setting for consecutive loads.

* I know what you're thinking: Klan members. But you're wrong. Klan members don't wash their clothes. Ever.

So my great idea is a washing machine that defaults to its safest setting. It just makes sense.

And no, this post is does not owe it's birth to anything stupid that I've done.*

* At least not recently.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

Yesterday, I completed (and started, not coincidentally) my first book of 2010, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett. It's the true story about the rise and fall of John Gilkey, a sad and obsessive man who stole an estimated $200,000 in rare books.

Many rare book thieves have found that it is far easier to pilfer and resell a rare book than say, a Tiffany necklace, and therefore make a profit. But Gilkey's motives were not financial. Instead, he appears to have stolen because of his obsession with books, and his ambitions to have the kind of library John D. Rockefeller would have had.

But perhaps most fascinating is the glimpse that Bartlett provides into the occasionally seedy world of rare book collectors, dealers, and mediators. Most of these people will never read the books they collect* and instead merely want them for display or merely to experience the satisfaction of knowing that they are one of only three people who owns the First Edition of the Cat in the Hat.

* The rarest books are frequently the most controversial ones. When book-bannings and book-burnings happen, they create a lower supply; and so these books are the most heavily sought. One man described a book he had just purchased for more than $100,000 as "pure filth" and that he would never allow himself to read such garbage. Imagine your priest purchasing a Farrah Fawcett autographed Playboy simply because he liked rare things, and there you are.

Gilkey himself, is a haunting character. Harmless, but convinced he hadn't done anything wrong (just making things fair, he would explain), Gilkey doesn't believe he's committed any moral transgressions, and seems likely to do it again. He explains that if you want something, but don't have the money to purchase it, than what other possible recourse would you have?

--

I read the book in its entirety will sitting in Barnes & Noble. I selected it when I arrived and reshelved it on my way out. I wonder if that makes me a different kind of book thief, but I don't really feel guilty about it.

I Am Jack's Self-Deprecation

At the prodding of my wife, my mother, my grandmother, my cousins, and strangely enough, the fifth-grade teacher at Dawson's school, I have an announcement to make.

I've returned to the Drawing Board.

Blessing or curse, you decide.

--

I should mention that many times, I've fully intended to return - to come back to the drawing board. It's just that I would sit down to write a post, knock out a dozen empty meaningless words that never drew toward a point, and realize I had nothing to say.*

* In fairness, that never stopped me before.

But, I think I've finally realized why the writer's block existed in the first place. I think it's because it's far more difficult for me to pretend convincingly to be the person I used to pretend to be.

I wrote this blog primarily from the standpoint of an aloof bachelor. Nearly all of my best jokes had their genesis in a degree of self-deprecation that is almost never mirrored in my reality. So if you can fully grasp this - in the online fantasy world that I created for myself, I made myself significantly more lame than I actually thought I was.

I made bank when I threw around labels like: "I am an idiot," and "Reasons I will Always be Single," and "Stories Where I'm Not Wearing Pants," and the list goes on.

So while Lindsay would argue that there are maybe some good reasons that I was single for so long,* the difficulty in managing an overhumble alter-ego is that it's incredibly difficult to be convincingly self-deprecating when your wife is a 10.

* Flatulence, primarily.

Of course, marrying a beautiful woman doesn't preclude me from being an idiot, and it certainly doesn't mean that I wear pants more. I learned that when I watched Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, Still Standing, and According to Jim.

It just means there's something redeeming about all of that, right?

Devil's Lake, ND

Last summer, I rode a bicycle from Chicago, IL to Devil's Lake, ND. Since I've never written about the adventure, and since it was a long December as far as temperatures went, I thought January might be a good time to talk about summer 2008. January is Bike Month at the Drawing Board.

--

The howling wind woke us earlier than we would have wanted, but there we were. We had to dismantle the tent immediately, as the thing would have blown to Canada without our combined body weight to hold it down.

We snacked on the remainder of our food, hoping desperately to find a town large enough to restock our virtually depleted supply. Devil's Lake loomed just about 80 miles away, a long ride considering the whipping wind, and Paul's further diminished health. If any day of our trip was going to kill us, it was this one.

We rolled out looking for food, and as Paul announced, a doctor. Our first sign of civilization was a town called Petersburg, which was disturbingly empty. Everything was closed down, shut down, and boarded up. A man gave us a heads-up on a doctor, miles away in a town caled Michigan.

We rode out again as we had so many times before, rolling west. The wind ravaged our bodies and bikes and made everything very difficult. Bridges posed a very real risk - we were literally in danger of being blown off of any one of them.

A man pulled off in a truck, delivering a warning. Storms and tornadoes were ahead; also chasing us from behind. We had an hour, maybe two, to get ourselves safe; and at the rate we were moving, Devil's Lake was another nine hours away. This was North Dakota.

We found Michigan and rolled into a town that was little more than a strip with a few buildings on it. One of these was a doctor's office. It had to be our first stop.

The place turned us away, saying they didn't have the technology to diagnose a sick person. This was not the best kind of news, but left us wondering what sorts of technology they had to treat a sick person could they have identified them.

Continuing to Devil's Lake at this rate was foolhardy; setting up camp in the tornadoes along the way would have been even moreso. I'm not sure how we got to this point, but hitch hiking quickly became our best option. We tooled over for a gas station breakfast and hoped for the best.

--

Jim was the kind of nice guy who liked to curse at cyclists who'd managed to get themselves into a mess like this. His advice: Get well and get the hell out of North Dakota. After a few more well-meaning barbs, we wound up at an emergency room in Devil's Lake, ND.

The doctor spent several hours with Paul, while I spent several hours with All My Children. The people at the hospital were extraordinarily kind, lending whatever aid they could. Eventually the diagnosis was extreme dehydration - Paul was in worse shape than either of us imagined. The doctor advised us to halt our journey as immediately as was possible. The hospital shuttled us over to a hotel in a van, just as soon as Paul had taken his sixth bag of IV fluid.

--

Paul decided that Chinese food sounded good. The check-in attendant at the hotel loaned us her car - another bit of unexpected kindness - so that we could get into town. The Chinese buffet was just about what you'd expect from a Chinese buffet in a town like this. It was gross, and it wasn't quite what the doctor would have ordered for my sick compatriot.

Our bike trip ended there as much of it had already been. We laid in a foreign bed and watched our nation lead the charge in another medal round in a place around the globe.

--

Within 36 hours I was home in South Bend; strangely tanned, oddly lean, and somehow different than I'd been before. My life became a new thing and an old thing altogether; soon enough I'd find employment and engagement and all of those other things.

Then, within a day or two, it was as if it hadn't happened. Only the memories and pictures, and even now; a few lingering tan lines remain.

Niagara, ND

Last summer, I rode a bicycle from Chicago, IL to Devil's Lake, ND. Since I've never written about the adventure, and since it was a long December as far as temperatures went, I thought January might be a good time to talk about summer 2008. January is Bike Month at the Drawing Board.

--

Getting out of Grand Forks was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. Here was a large, sprawling city with beautiful greenways, theaters, hospitals, a university. Then we rode west for twenty minutes and it was all gone as if it had never existed. I've never experienced such a sharp line between the decivilization that was the townless parts of North Dakota - which was most of it.

We rode for a few hours before stopping for a quick lunch at an air force base somewhere in North Dakota. Suffice it to say, we didn't exactly fit with the regular clientele.

And so we rolled out again. North Dakota is the kind of state where you can celebrate individual trees. In Indiana, uncivilized land is farmed or forested or claimed - truthfully, none of it is reallt uncivilized. But in North Dakota, the roads cut through a kind of landscape that's remained untouched since Native Americans passed through a few hundred years ago.

It's in this context that the trees stand alone, fighting a losing battle against a furious wind.

And it's the same way that we rode west on US-2; alone in North Dakota, fighting a wind that was battering us violently from the south. I suppose we were cutoff from most of the news of the world, but I had heard something about a hurricane in Florida. I dismissed it, thinking that such a thing would hardly affect me while I was in a state like North Dakota.

I received news the day before that windy weather was ahead; a result of the hurricane. To quote a local, "There ain't a single tree between here and Florida to block that wind."

Beyond belief, that toothless man was right. We rode with a crosswind from the left that was as vicious a thing as I've experienced. I worried about literally blowing off of every bridge we traversed. We rolled along at 11 to 12 miles an hour, stopping briefly at a rest stop so Paul could nap. Meanwhile, I commiserated with motorists who had to stop to take a break from the wind. This kind of riding was not fun.

After 40 miles of this kind of slow torture, we settled on finding the first town we could and rolled into the town of Niagara, North Dakota.

People in North Dakota use the word town pretty liberally, we learned. It was the first sign of development we'd seen all day, and the place didn't have a gas station, a store, a restaurant. It also featured no paved roads. It did have a post office, which offered little in the way of assistance at 6:00 in the evening.

We spent the next hour looking for someone in the town that could offer some advice; perhaps a sandwich. Woefully, we discovered only a few dogs who looked angry to see us. We wandered, hoping for something that might be called dinner.

A local pastor was the first person to spot us, probably because we were trying to break into to his church. He introduced himself, explained that no, there was no food for miles, and offered us a frozen pizza for dinner. It went down easier than it was returned.

We set up camp under brutal wind conditions and prepared for bed. A five-year-old boy arrived, announced that he was hiding from his grandmother and proceeded to remove his pants so that he could show off his Spiderman underwear.* I'd heard about this kind of stuff. Fearing a sting operation from Dateline, we ran from the kid as if he was a movie monster, and when we returned, he was gone.

I don't think either of us knew it would be our last night in that tent.

Grand Forks, ND

Last summer, I rode a bicycle from Chicago, IL to Devil's Lake, ND. Since I've never written about the adventure, and since it was a long December as far as temperatures went, I thought January might be a good time to talk about summer 2008. January is Bike Month at the Drawing Board.

--

We'd been riding bikes through Minnesota for 12 days now, and pretty soon we'd be leaving it all behind. The people here had been beyond friendly, offering their food, their homes, their hot tubs, their beer, and their companionship.

Still, there was a sense that we'd been in Minnesota too long; we'd had enough of the mosquitoes and the accents didn't sound so weird anymore. In fact, I'd started to pick one up myself.

We continued from Erskine along Highway 2, unperturbed by the anti-Christ, and rolling into an increasing wind. Paul was recovering slowly, but recovering. We moved modestly into Crookston, Minnesota and stopped for a coffee break at a small bookstore. We were out of there almost as quickly as we had arrived. We made a pit stop at a gas station and we fell further and further into the de-civilized world.

Then, like a Jack-in-box, the town of Grand Forks appeared. The metropolitan area is shared between Minnesota and North Dakota; their border celebrated unceremoniously by a bridge over the Red River. We rolled through the beautiful city and into North Dakota where we did the thing we did best. We found a coffee shop.

Quickly, one of the baristas offered up her own apartment for our showers. The place was huge and fully furnished and was reminiscent of a loft you might find in the suburbs of New York. I was left with one impression - baristas in Grand Forks, ND make an absolute truckload of money.

Of course, it's possible that baristas were paid so well because the place was absolutely haunted by a small girl who spoke at roughly 430 words a minute. She played chess with Paul and gave him other orders too. Finally she explained the inner workings of the coffee shop, told us where she lived, and exegeted the annals of Roman history. It was an exhausting process that I observed from a safe and hilarious distance.

Later, we found a bike shop on the other side of town, ate dinner at a Perkins,* and did the thing we do where we try to talk someone in to inviting us to their home for the night. It never happened.

* Perkins? Perkins? Seriously? A Perkins?

Paul was still on the upswing and so we decided another good night might be for him what he needed. Another night in a crappy hotel was absolutely called for and that meant there was a zero percent chance we'd be on the road before 11:30 the next morning. Also, I would be eating a dozen bagels for breakfast.

Erskine, MN

Last summer, I rode a bicycle from Chicago, IL to Devil's Lake, ND. Since I've never written about the adventure, and since it was a long December as far as temperatures went, I thought January might be a good time to talk about summer 2008. January is Bike Month at the Drawing Board.

--

I want you to know that I just spent 40 minutes on Google Maps trying to figure out which town we stayed in next. This was the part of the trip that really just started to run together; days in nowhere began to blend together like oatmeal that's been cooked with too much water.

And yes, all of this is an attempt to finish off bike month in less than 60 days.

--

Good gravy, what is there to say about Erskine? Not much that I can tell, so let's start about 60 miles away. We left Bemidji as late as our hotel would allow check out. I spilled coffee on my very favorite shirt, threw the thing away, and like that, I was out of casual clothes that didn't zip up.

We rode west along US 2, through farmlands and small town USA. Each town gave us an opportunity to stop for a minute to pick up a drink and each town offered roughly the same amenities. We'd become all-too accustomed to lounging in the gas station the way we would a Starbucks; this was amplified when the place featured a Subway.

Our breaks are the only thing I can remember. The roads were flat and easy and the winds hadn't picked up the way they would in a few days. Our last stop came in the town of Erskine, MN. We searched desperately for a little bit of help. The churches were locked up and the town was too quiet to provide any assistance. We ate dinner at one of those places that aspires to be a crappy diner but falls woefully short. That's where things start to get interesting.

We were approached by a woman who had noticed our unique matching jerseys. Bright orange, they were emblazoned with the words BIKERS FOR JESUS, a leftover gift from our friends back home. Anyway, she saw the things and wanted to talk to us.

She told us her life story - how she'd come here from California. She told us of her struggles and her victories over drugs. But most of all, she told us that the town of Erskine was infested with demons. She told us that the town of Erskine was the home of the anti-Christ. She told us the story of a local pornographer who claimed to be the devil incarnate. He could control minds through the television. In fact, he would probably be coming for us; that night. Her advice was to ride out and to ride fast.

But we were tired and brave so we thre up our tent and hung our jerseys like flags in the wind. The night passed without incident. The devil was scared.

Bemidji, MN

Last summer, I rode a bicycle from Chicago, IL to Devil's Lake, ND. Since I've never written about the adventure, and since it was a long December as far as temperatures went, I thought January might be a good time to talk about summer 2008. January is Bike Month at the Drawing Board.

--

Bemidji, Minnesota is perhaps most notable for being the fictitious home of legendary axe-man Paul Bunyan. It's also the home of the United States Curling Team, and a lovely downtown area that sits on the tamer parts of the Mississippi River.

I have no idea how we got into Bemidji, although I can guess our ride in was just boring enough that I can't remember it even a little bit. I believe we went to Target for a little bit, but that might be a fabrication. At some point we probably went to a laundromat, but I can neither confirm nor deny that.

We ate pasta and lounged on the river and made our way to a coffeeshop. I ate a muffin and drank coffee and enjoyed the free internet they offered. It was one of the greatest coffeeshops I've enjoyed, and that was before the owner of the place offered us a bed for the evening. She had a camper in her backyard and it had a TV and showers and everything and we were welcome to use it.

We spent the afternoon in bookstores and at pubs and finally we made our way back to the home. Our host was more than hospitable and handed us over to the camper. We made beds and switched on the Olympics and got ready to take showers. Paul hopped in first while I did everything in my power to not touch anything with my more stinky parts.*

* Which was basically all of me.

Then, it was my turn. I got in and I soaped myself up real good and that's about when the water ran out. In one of my more desparate moments, I completed the rinsing process with a few bottles of refrigerated Aquafina. Still, I was soon dry and warm, so no harm; no foul.

More alarming was the fact that there was no water running into the toilet. This would become an issue later.

I slept as soundly as I had in weeks. The same could not be said for Paul. I woke up to find that he had spent the night with GI problems; the worst second-hand illness I'd ever experienced. The kind lady delivered an exquisite breakfast of coffee, oatmeal, and peaches; oblivious to the destruction that Paul had earlier wrought. I hope she never asks herself where that wastebasket wound up, and I hope even more that she never finds it.

We left the place with boisterous thank-yous and silent apologies. We wouldn't be leaving Bemidji today. It was time for a rest.

Blackduck, MN

Last summer, I rode a bicycle from Chicago, IL to Devil's Lake, ND. Since I've never written about the adventure, and since it was a long December as far as temperatures went, I thought January might be a good time to talk about summer 2008. January is Bike Month at the Drawing Board.

--

Even before we'd gone to bed on Thursday, we knew that Friday was going to be a rough day. Our map showed very little between Ranier and Bemidji, a city that was more than a hundred miles away. We knew we'd have to roll through Big Falls all over again, a corner of uncivilization I'd be happy to never ever see again. So we dreaded Friday, and that was before I woke up with a case of the Backside Blues.*

* Diarrhea.

We packed up our tent and wandered down to a restaurant called Grandma's Pantry for breakfast. Some of the more profane locals called by a similar sounding and far less appetizing name.* We ate wild rice pancakes that could have deliciously substituted as a footprint for our tent. We drank coffee. This amplified my GI problems. Then we rolled out.

* You're going to have to figure that out on your own.

We rolled back through International Falls, said goodbye to Smokey the Bear, and quickly found ourselves, once again, somewhere between a pair of nowheres. Along the way, I discovered proof of a loving God in a bottle of Pepto, and I took a nap on a picnic table in hell. By that I mean, I slept for an hour in Big Falls, Minnesota. We ate a lunch of peanut butter crackers. It was the best we could do.

We rode for the next six hours at a non-stop clip, stopping only for a mid-afternoon gas station snack. We had decided we were ready to be done for the night, and so we asked the gas station attendant where we might find a meal and quit. She recommended the town of Blackduck. They served pizza from the bowling alley and we could probably camp there too. Trouble was, Blackduck was still 25 miles away, but not to worry; she told us it was all downhill.

The gas station lady was a liar. We rode up and up and up, fighting each stroke; although the scenery was improving drastically. We skirted rich farmland on a firm shoulder, and everyone was feeling better about the day. We arrived as scheduled in Blackduck; which is to say we never had a schedule and neither did Blackduck, apparently.

We tracked down the first pedestrian we could find and enjoyed the following exchange.

ME: Is there any good place to eat in Blackduck?

HER: There's a little place right over there. I ate lunch there today.

ME: Is it any good?

HER: Depends who's cooking.

ME: Who's cooking?

HER: Well, there's no where else to go.

And so a one-armed chef, who may or may not have been the preferable purveyor, made us fried chicken while an overwhelmed waitress continuously refilled our shot glasses that were filled with water.

We moved from there to a bar, where we hoped to watch the Olympics. Instead, we were treated to a mediocre beer and a jukebox that was stuck on repeat, and of course, it was stuck on Discovery Channel* by the Bloodhound Gang. After the fifth iteration of the tune, we'd decided to vacate the place.

* "You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals..."

That's when the bartender approached us carrying a cordless phone.

HIM: Phone call for you.

US: That seems unlikely.

HIM: Nope, it's for you.

US: That's actually impossible.

HIM: Are you the guys riding bikes from Canada to New Mexico?

US: Lucky guess.

Our interest was piqued and so Paul took the phone. Some dudes were camped out a softball diamond and wanted us to bring them beer. Even now it doesn't make much sense. Instead, we snuck into a mosquito-infested campground and left early the next morning without paying the required fee. In our defense, we weren't caught.