The Great Outdoors

Few things are better than outdoor adventures, especially with some good bros. Being out of school for the summer and currently unemployed I have been determined to live life to the fullest. It's the Summer Of Colin!! (I stole that title from an old episode of Seinfeld, one of my favorite shows of all time). I make it a point to not turn down opportunities to live. Well, Monday night two of my best bros suggest we go camping so on Tuesday we packed up some supplies and trekked to the edge, as far away from the city lights of O-town without going on a full-blown road trip.

Camping is fun. It provides an opportunity to get away from it all and just absorb the company of friends. No computers, television, air conditioning, whatever. It's refreshing. The most exciting part of your night is building a fire and then just chillin' around it, having a good time. I'll be honest though.. camping in FLA during the summer is a bit taxing. The tent was damn hot (I woke up in a pool of my own sweat a few times) and the bugs are relentless if you forget to pack bug repellant (we made this mistake). But all in all, it was still a damn good time and I urge you to give it a go some time soon. And check out our awesome tent-building skills!

Inspirado.. where does it come from?

I love experiences that are inspiring. You know, give you goosebumps, make you envision yourself doing something awesome. Moments that make you feel really good, and nothing else in the world matter at that moment in time. I experience moments like this a lot because I guess I'm just lucky, but I had a real good one last Friday...

It was the day Warped Tour stopped off in Orlando to rock some faces off. This was my fifth Warped Tour in my short life, and I think it was my favorite. My two favorite bands at the moment, along with a plethora of other bands that I'm a fan of and enjoyed rocking out to. The band that stole the show that day was The Devil Wears Prada. To think, a christian metal band from a small town in Ohio made up of five guys my age (19-21 yrs old) that was absolutely nothing a year ago totally owned Warped Tour. It was like nothing else going on while they were playing mattered. 90 percent of people there were fixated on this performance, and for good reason. From the second these doods took the stage, you could tell they were in their element. They went all out, went freaking crazy; they rocked races off for sure. Looking back on how passionate these guys were/are about what they do, their music, their shows, all for their love of it, made me realize that that is what people need to seek out in life. Do something that makes you feel like you're on top of the world. Do something you're passionate about, something you absolutely love. Really, The Beatles were right, all you need in life to make you happy is love.

Harden Up

So yesterday MTV was airing a marathon of this intriguing show called "World's Strictest Parents". The concept is that MTV takes two teenage delinquents and has them live in a house with very strict adults to try and instill some concept of maturity in these rotten kids. I tuned it periodically and realized something that I think is a big problem with the youth of America these days; young people are so damn lazy and soft, afraid to lift and finger and break a sweat.

These kids were usually asked to do some sort of manual labor, like cleaning and stuff of that sort. It was funny to see how much they bitched about spending a few hours cleaning or whatever. All these kids wanted to do was go out, party, get wasted, whatever. Kids like this are going to crash and burn in a giant cloud of failure. Partying is fun and all every once in a while. But come on, there are much greater things out there. I remember seeing so many of my friends back in high school drift down that path and all of them now? Working in pizza shops. It's sad to me to see it happen and I just hope these people wake up and learn something about life and what it's all about.

Got a tune in my head I can't quite shake.

Remember when MTV and VH1 actually played music videos? Yeah, it was a long time ago. If you click over to MTV at any given moment you'll probably find yourself watching some staged, bullshit dating show or some pregnant 16 year old ruining her life in front of a video camera crew. VH1 is not much different, but a little better. They actually play music videos at 6 AM and have the top 20 countdown once a week. Well two days ago I flipped over to VH1 to watch some of the top 20 countdown and I caught this new video from a band I've never heard of, but I got hooked instantly and I haven't gotten the song out of my head yet. I found an acoustic version on youtube and included the video for your viewing/listening pleasure. check it outtttt.

Getting lost in the pain cave

Lately I've been riding my bike way more than ever. It's summer, I don't have school, don't have a job, and nine out of ten of my closest friends are traveling the world right now. So what does that mean? I have a shitload of free time on my hands and no real distractions pulling me in every direction. So with all of this awesome riding I've felt I've gotten on some pretty damn good form, if not the best form of my short life so far. Luckily I decided to test it out last night at Orlando's time trial series.

Since 99% of people have no clue what a time trial (TT) is, I'll quickly elaborate. A TT is a bike race in which each rider races on his own against the clock. Each rider goes off in 30 sec or 1 min intervals and rides a given course as fast as possible, hoping to set the best time. Last night's course was a 14.5 miler, mostly flat, but wide open and windy as balls. I did this same course three months ago and suffered like a dog the entire time. I felt awesome, legs on fire last night. From the beginning I focused on catching my 30 sec guy, and I did in about 2.5 miles. After that I was focused on chasing my next carrot dangling in front of me, the guy who started 1 minute in front of me. I blew by him after a few more miles. I was raging.

When all was said and done I came in second, riding 14.5 miles in just at 32 minutes. Last time I did this TT I finished 6th, and I was two seconds behind one of my local adversaries. Last night I beat him by almost a minute.

Seeing first hand how hard works pays off gives a feeling of happiness that is hard to match.

This is my light, I'm gonna let it shine

I love that old saying "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade". That's a piece of some really great advice. Sometimes it seems like a lot of crap happens all at once, but I've learned the best way to deal is to just laugh it off and make the best of it. Hating life won't get you anywhere. It seems like I've been following this advice well lately, and today I was really tested. I went out on a ride and it seemed like everything that could go wrong happened in the span of about 45 minutes (this happened to me about a week and a half ago as well). But hell, I saw the lighter side in it all, and I literally laughed it off as I crawled home on my busted bike at 10 mph in a whaling thunderstorm. There is way too much too be happy about in life for us to get mad over pointless shit, right? Put a smile on.