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

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..

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?

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.

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?

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.

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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.

Ranier, 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 am not nearly writer enough to describe the way our morning in Big Falls went. After just about two weeks of consistent riding, our muscles were taut and stiff like an old rubber band. We'd slept directly on top of the concrete while overnight temperatures dipped again into the 40s. Standing up again became less an action; more a process.

This was the part of the day when we stretched, dressed ourselves, stretched again, brushed teeth, and finally stretched before hauling into town for breakfast. I ate an omelette. Paul ate a cinnamon bun that was roughly the size of our tent.

We were kind of in a rough place in deciding our route for the day. We were 40 miles from International Falls*, which was supposed to function only as a turnaround point. Like a schoolyard race, we just had to touch Canada and come back. Trouble was, we'd have to come back through Big Falls. If we just rode to I-Falls and returned, we'd hit Big Falls at just about mile 80; we'd be done for the day, and we'd be stuck in this awful place for another night.

* It's worth mentioning that there were no falls here either. Minnesota is kind of a big liar when it comes to naming its settlements.

We rode north along low-travelled roads, intending not to stop until we hit civilization again, a thing that we'd missed far more than expected for the past 48 hours. There was a gas station that lived in a log cabin and a right turn and a few more cars and then there was a K-Mart. I'd never expected I would appreciate the glory of a K-Mart, but there I was. There were gas stations and trashy salons and Chinese buffets run by Mexican immigrants. After the previous night, it was like heaven.

We meandered into town and found a coffeeshop for lunch. We ate sandwiches and sipped coffee and agreed to spend the rest of our day doing very little. It was the prettiest day we'd seen all week. We fixed a flat tire and visited a bike shop. We spent a few hours at the library. We didn't nearly find ourselves a place to stay.

And so at about four-in-the-afternoon, we left. We weren't sure where we were going; still we left.

We rode east a few miles; north just a little bit too. After waiting on the longest train I'd ever seen, we stumbled into the tiny town of Ranier, Minnesota; four or five square blocks completely overwhelmed with people. There was music and there were tents and we must have looked like tourists because we were immediately greeted by a lady named Tara, who ran the town's bed-and-breakfast. She offered up her free showers and plenty of snacks.

As fate would have it, we arrived on the eve of the town's bicentennial celebration. They were celebrating with music from a Johnny Cash tribute artist, and a big party featuring free food. This is where we would spend our time tonight.

Tara offered up her yard for our tent, so we made camp and took tour of the town. We watched the sunset over Canada, I believe Paul got himself into a paddleboat, and we ate ice cream on a bench. Then we watched the Olympics at Woody's Pub before stumbling back into the tent for another night.

Big Falls, 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.

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Kimbra the Bartender had to be to work at the country club by 7:00 in the morning. That meant that we had to leave her home by 6:45. Again, this was a shame, as I'm fairly certain I could have slept until Inauguration Day. The morning temperatures were flirting with the 40s, and so we moved as quickly as we could into town to wait for warmth. Again, we found a coffeeshop and enjoyed the free internet they offered. I believe I ate a peach muffin.

We left town earlier than we'd been accustomed; definitely before 9:00. It was a big day to our destination, and there was hardly a town* between us and Big Falls. We'd spend the entire day on one road, riding north, further away from what normal people called civilization.

* Screw that. There was barely a mailbox between us and Big Falls.

We left with a sun that disappeared almost immediately. We acclimated to the cold and rode headlong through a rainy mist that never stopped, but never got too bad either. We stopped at a shack for lunch. It was a shack with a bar and crappy sandwiches. I won't say that the sandwiches tasted any good, but they were definitely the best crappy sandwiches I've ever eaten.

We stopped only once to take cover from the rain, an ill-advised move. Once stopped, the mosquitoes were thicker than any kind of precipitation. The little bloodsuckers ravaged my body and we were quickly gone again.

It got colder and rainier. There wasn't a thing to see. We peed at an intersection. A wolf chased us. We rode bikes for about six hours without stopping, never seeing a home, a mailbox, a person, or a car. Eventually we arrived in Big Falls, MN. We were cold, wet, exhausted, and most of all hungry.

That's when we started to learn a little bit about Big Falls. The first thing we learned was that it was not big. Secondly, it did not have falls. A better name for the town might have been Some Rocks. This was as big and fally as it got.

More importantly, we learned that no place in town served food after about 2:00. It was the most depressing visit to a gas station that anyone has ever made. We found a post office and a liquor store and a closed down restaurant. We found a motel that was constructed by connecting trailers. And we found a bar that didn't have beer on tap, but would sell us a frozen pizza for the low, low cost of $10. What choice did we have?

We took showers at a campground, naked and surrounded by hungry mosquitoes. We ate bratwursts with some potheads on a kayak trip. We fell asleep on a concrete pad as early as our bodies would allow. The next morning, we got out of there just as quick as we could.

Aitkin, 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.

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This day was going to be different. For nine days now, we'd known every morning roughly where we'd end up in the evening. When we fell asleep behind the steakhouse, we set no alarm, we had no agenda. We had a tent and we had some bikes. We were at the whimsy of the wind.

It was the first night we'd slept on the ground, and I was taken aback by just how chilly August could be. Early morning temperatures were in the low 50's; so we made the executive decision to wait out the bite in the first coffee shop we saw. This would become a theme.

I can't remember too much about the place. It appeared to be an old, converted diner. I drank coffee and ate some sort of pastry and spent some time with my nose buried in a newspaper. I wrote a letter to the girl I was going to marry. I moved with no sense of rush since there was nothing to rush me.

We rode out and headed north along state highway 169. The road was wide and clean and virtually devoid of traffic. It was the kind of road that went nowhere and wasn't even the fastest way to get there. We held the shoulder at a quick but calm pace.

We coasted through the town of Milaca, and chose not to stop for the town play, a musical about how Paul Bunyan met Babe the Blue Ox.* I only wish I was making this stuff up. The whole state seemed to be obsessed with Paul Bunyan.

* Paul Bunyan: Holy crap! You're a big ox!

  Babe the Ox: Holy crap! You're a big guy!

  Paul Bunyan: Holy crap! You can talk!

So we paced through Milaca, regrettably without a second thought. In Indiana, no matter where you are, you can count on being within 20 miles of a town. That means that if you decide not to stop for lunch in one town, you'll almost certainly have another opportunity in an hour or so.

That's how we arrived in a town called Onamia about an hour after we'd decided we were famished. It's tough to say what makes a town a town; in this case, it was a food court on the side of the road. Also, they sold sweatshirts that featured a phoenetic pronunciation of the town's name. You know, in case you want a souvenir from a town that's greatest feature is that it's difficult to pronounce.

* oh-name-ee-uh

Just after lunch, we discovered Mille Lacs Lake. Of the state's ten-thousand lakes, it's the second largest one that's held entirely within Minnesota. On the map, it was the size of my thumb and from one shore, I couldn't see to the other.

It's the home to several posh fishing communities, extravagant summer homes, and a particularly poor-looking Indian Reservation. The road runs along the curvature of the river and so every hundred feet provided a vista of wealth or destitution, seemingly at random intervals.

It's tough to say what we were looking for as we wandered through Minnesota. A campground? A cool restaurant? A coffeeshop? At some point, we were going to see something that made us want to stop for the night, and if we didn't, nightfall would.

That's when we saw a sign that said in big letters:

FREE SPAGHETTI DINNER TONIGHT

That was pretty much it. I nearly wrecked myself following the arrow that pointed to the east. We found a Lutheran church and we had a lot of questions. Is it really free? Is it really dinner? Is it really spaghetti? Is it really tonight? Can we take showers?

All of our questions were answered affirmatively, so we locked up our bikes, showered in a renovated part of the building and toured the town for an hour while we waited for dinnertime. We found a natural foods' store and a bootery* and an internet cafe and everything a person might want from a town that was a 12 hour stayover.

* They love putting the suffix -ery on the ends of words of there. More to come.

We ate spaghetti and then got some more and then even offered to clean up the church. This piqued the interest of a man named Bryan Johnson who asked us about our quest, our homes, and whether or not we'd seen much of the Olympics. Would we like to go to his house tonight to watch the Olympics and sleep in beds in guest room in the basement?

Um, yes.

So we went back to his house and watched the Olympics and ate brownies and slept in beds and we learned that the chance that you might be abducted by a serial killer is sometimes worth the risk. Besides, he seemed like a really nice guy, and he was.

Somewhere, half a world away, the U.S. was sticking it to the French in a swimming pool, and it's amazing the power that has to unite people. I slept like a rock instead of on top of one.

Princeton, 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.

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The ride out of St. Paul was tough. We spent the morning fixing flats and trying to figure out just how we were going to replace a van that had been, until that point, highly underrated. In all, we carried a tent, two sleeping bags, two tarps, two changes of clothes, a notebook, various tools, and a pile of energy foods that wouldn't last the week.

We attended a church service, and this was the only thing that reminded me that days still had names and roles. My excitement to leave was eclipsed by the growing knowledge that too soon, I'd be rolling one way, and Lindsay would be rolling another. It was August 10. I'd see her again in October. That seemed even further away than the other side of the country did.

Our target was Mexico, but in order to make a complete circuit, we'd have to ride north for several days until we got to Canada. We started that way with Hans, a friend I'd met on a mission trip only two weeks earlier. He'd built a route out of the twin cities and agreed to spend the day with us.

The cities featured as many bike trails as I've ever seen, each playing around the Mississippi and around the hundred bridges that traversed it. Quickly, we longed for the companionship of our dozen friends from just two days ago. When Paul and I spotted a man in a brightly colored bike jersey our spirits were lifted for the few moments that we believed it was Glen. Turns out, Glen's not the only cyclist who occasionally dresses like a fruit.*

* Another dude wearing the Sesame Street bike jersey? What are the odds of that?

We rode north, into Minneapolis, around downtown, quickly through the red light district. We moved through poorer neighborhoods and followed the same road into the wealthy suburbs. It's impossible to say when the sprawl of the city ceased, but soon we were headlong into the country, free of traffic, free of most everything.

We climbed hills that were just tall enough to conceal the horizon, each mound of concrete giving way to a new and different vista. I climbed strong, eager to see the other side; then slowed as I was blown away by the stark scenery I beheld. I'd never win a race like this. I wanted each moment to last forever, and racing only makes it a blur.

It was in the middle of this kind of visual poetry that my stomach reminded me that, no, I hadn't eaten lunch. It's impossible to say why, but we still never stopped beyond a potty break.

August in Minnesota is a lot like January in Minnesota. It's colder there than it is in Indiana. As the day wound down, I started to feel it. The chill always preceded the setting of the sun and served as a warning that it was nearly time to call it a night.

That's just about the moment we realized we were hopelessly lost. Fortunately, a man on a mountain bike was there to help. Uri* wore camo pants and a hat and spoke with the thick accent of a Minnesotan the way I'd imagined all Minnesotans did. He directed us several miles into town for dinner, then offered his own yard for our lodging.

* Urii? Uree? Ureigh? Uriieiieiey?

We destroyed that steakhouse. We were three sweaty, dirty bikers, now unashamed of the fact that we were wearing only the spandex that our bodies had moistened. We ate and ate and I don't remember that I even washed my hands first, although I do remember that they were nasty. Paul and I agreed to never skip lunch again.

The trouble with dining indoors is that it's tough to notice the decline of the sun when it's concealed behind window and shade. This wasn't the time to panic, but it was the time to hurry. Yuree lived five miles back, and light was fading. At that point, neither of us desired to ride a bike ever again. Besides, he wore camo pants, lived in the middle of nowhere, and was far too eager to welcome strangers.* His home wasn't ideal.

* At first it was creepy when a dude was eager to welcome stinky strangers. We got over that fast. Like, by the next day.

A bit of quick research and a bit of flirting on Paul's end yielded a lead. The owner of the restaurant would let us camp out behind the parking lot. She promised traffic would be light, and also said she'd leave the bathrooms open for us. This kind of spirit became a trend in the state. She even wrote us a note in case the cops came sniffing around.

The cops didn't show up, but Uerei did. He found us pretty easy, and seemed genuinely disappointed that we'd elected not to stay with him. We explained that as we lost the sun, it didn't seem best to double back his way. He rolled home, saddened, and we went to sleep without taking a shower. It would be one of only two nights we roughed it so viciously.