Circle the Country

I left greenville on a greyhound bus towards Ijamsville, MD, a tiny town near Frederick. The bus ride was fairly uneventful except for a 90 minute layover in Norfolk, VA.

It was around 10pm and I was pretty hungry, so I set off looking for a burger king about a mile away. Almost immediately I was approached by an old raspy voiced man and his girlfriend asking for 60 cents, which I didn't have. I told him I was using a visa gift card to get some food and he was welcome to join me (Jenna gave it to me for helping change her oil, although I still don't know if there's any money left on it).

Burger King was closed, as well as the McDonalds we checked after that. After a bit of walking around nothing seemed to be open, and he was getting frustrated with how slowly his girlfriend was walking. I was running out of time needing to catch my bus, and ran ahead to a gas station to get some sandwiches. They too were closed, and the homeless guy was out of sight. Not sure what happened to him, but I made my way back to the bus station. We both went hungry that night.

Turkey day was good times with my uncle, aunt and cousins. My mom, step dad, and little bro + sis came down too. I later caught a ride with them on their way back north. They dropped me along the way in White Plains where I caught a train to Grand Central in NYC. From there I jumped on a subway and met Mark at the Shake Shack for the best burgers I know about.

We grabbed a beer and then jumped on the train headed for CT where Sean was waiting, and we all headed out to the bar where we got our share of beers and saw faces we haven't seen since high school, ending the night with a diner trip. I crashed at their place and went to their concert in Norwalk the next day.

So at this point I've made an oddly shaped circle around America. I'm by no means done making circles as some may assume, but I am back in familiar territory for the moment. Tomorrow I'm headed to Yorktown Heights, NY where my dad lives and possibly getting temporary work at a wine/liquor store, as long as they're cool with me only sticking around a couple weeks.

Beyond that there's thoughts of going to Boston as well as spending some more time in NYC with everyone who's there, and staying in the north east through christmas most likely. If you're in CT/NYC/Boston or somewhere else in the northeast, give me a shout anytime through december and we'll have a good time.

Compilation Video

I pulled some clips together from the past 13 episodes and made a compilation trailer. The song is pretty good too. Here's a direct link to the video.

Futon Development

Since I made it to Greenville, I've met a few characters here and there, and even helped set up a Scholastic book fair. One guy has a stuffed duck on his wall that he ran down with a remote control speed boat. I had some chances at making some cash - painting a house, doing yard work, and shoveling horse crap - all of which fell through. The horse crap is at the barn where I've watched Jenna ride around a couple times so far.

Most of my time though has been spent where I am now, sitting on the futon, laptop on lap. Anyone who's been following me knows I have various websites at different levels of coolness and completion.

One creation I've made on this very futon, is a Google Gadget for Hobo Lifestyle. If you're saying "WTF? Google Gadget?", then it's just for you. You've probably noticed already you have a personalized Google homepage, meaning when you go to Google to do a search you see a calendar or top news stories or something. This is the Hobo Lifestyle gadget. Click that to add it to your iGoogle page. It shows where I am on the map, latest blog entry (like this one), my latest bubbles (pictures I take from my cameraphone throughout the day), and my latest YouTube episode. All that without leaving your Google page, it was pretty fun and easy to make.

I also made a less exciting web site yesterday called QuoteConversation.com. The idea is to string famous quotes together to form a mock conversation. Check it out if you're really bored, if you make a funny conversation I'll link to it in my next blog.

I'll keep making HoboLifestyle.com better too, both for sharing experiences, and the next step, which is to connect people to create new experiences. Facebook has been helpful to an extent, and I thank everyone who's offered up their couch, I'll find my way to each and every one of you sooner rather than later. As Jenna, Carolina, and a few other have learned, yes, I do actually make my way to your part of the world even if I was a couple thousand miles away a day or two ago.

That reminds me, I'm pretty sure I'll be in New York City around xmas time if not sooner and I can only assume more than a handful of good times kinda people will be around. Give me a shout and we'll find something to get into.

Rounding out a Greyhound Trip

Greyhound is full of interesting stories, some being told and some unfolding right then and there. The deeper south, the better it seemed.

Leaving Shreveport, LA I sat next to woman around 40 years old, an innocent but tired looking doctor from New Mexico. Behind us were a group of people being somewhat loud, just shooting the shit and cracking jokes. At one point the woman next to me turned around, and very poorly communicated whatever she was trying to communicate.

"It wasn't me before, who said the BFN word".

They were all confused, but somehow knew she was talking about the word "Nigger", as they had been tossing around niggers and niggas pretty loosely, but it still wasn't clear what she was talking about.

"Bus Full of Niggers" she almost whispered, "It wasn't me!".

"We'll stop using the word", they confusingly replied. No one knew what the hell she was talking about. She turned around and apologized to me for some reason. The group behind us got a decent laugh out of the whole thing, and continued their conversations.

She still appeared worried, and explained to me that earlier the bus broke down and she overheard someone on their phone saying "I'm on a bus full of niggers, and it broke down!". She, having never heard that kind of language, repeated what she heard to whoever she was talking to on the phone, "Can you believe that?!" . Apparently she thought that someone might have heard her repeating "Bus Full of Niggers" (BFN) and mistaken her for saying it herself. I guess she was now afraid of every black man and woman on the bus, and wanted off. Sure enough, she jumped off at the next stop with all her bags, much to the confusion of everyone.

Shortly after that little deal, we had an hour layover in Jackson Mississippi. Nearly before the bus left I went over to a side street to take a hit or two off an old joint for the ride. A bearded man who was black toe to head with a darker version of the hat I have came strolling by with a subtle limp. He came closer to me from behind a railing.

"I'm the only other hobo around here, just got off the train, where you headed?"

I guess being bearded myself and the bags I carried gave me away. "I'm headed to North Carolina, taking the bus though".

"That'll do ya better, look what they done to me by the tracks when they caught me", he pulled up his pant leg to show a decent looking bruise near his knee. He'd hopped the freight train, and was telling me that Jackson was not too friendly to people like us, and he even avoided the shelters.

"Buy me a hamburger!" he said, almost interrupting himself in the middle of another thought. The way he said it made me want to buy a couple cheeseburgers for both of us, but I my bus was leaving in just a few minutes. I'd have to of bought it on credit too, so I couldn't even give him a few bucks to grab one himself. He wished me luck catching my bus and getting out of Jackson, then he hobbled down the road in search of some street or some food.

Later on the bus, I was surrounded by a southern drag racer, a drunken hobo, and a few other characters to keep it interesting. I mostly sat back and listened, as the drunken hobo would often go off on stories with or without anyone paying him any direct attention. Slick Silver was the name he gave us, he polished silver of course, and he'd been everywhere. He was talking about a small town named Hammond and a specific car he was working on, and it turned out to be the drag racers' mother's car.

Finally we made it to Atlanta, the city Slick Silver called the best city in the world. "Hot-Lanta boy, that'll put New York City to shame any day!", all I saw was the packed greyhound station this time around. I hopped on yet another bus and drove into the night.

After sleeping, stopping, sleeping, and stopping again, I made it to Raleigh, North Carolina. I stayed there for a couple hour layover, and made the straight shot to my final destination, Greenville, North Carolina. I was picked up by Jenna and her room mate, and now I rest on her futon, looking forward to a good night of sleep and the days ahead.

Bakersfield and now Eastbound

I made the bus out of Vegas, and even got to Bakersfield a few minutes early. Kindra, the same couch surfing host from before, came and picked me up at the station. Being Halloween night, her house was set with gravestones, a woman in white, and eventually fog machines.

It was a good Halloween, and I ended up crashing at her dad's place. Her dad is an interesting guy, I spent my day working on websites while he was getting into his routine of day trading and playing guitar here and again.

I bounced between his place and Kindra's spare room for about a week, I even stayed in the haunted room one night without getting too spooked. My mom, wanting me close for thanksgiving, hooked me up with an eastbound ticket to North Carolina and another ticket from there up to Maryland for later. I was easily convinced into one more night in Bakersfield so put off my ride east one more night.

As attractive as it was to stay in Bakersfield a bit longer, my itch for the road got me going, and I hopped a greyhound bus around 9pm. At the moment I'm in a bus station in Shreveport, LA, about another day or so left of travel to Greenville, NC.

Of course greyhound is never without incident, there's been several delays, re-routing, and whatnot. We were stopped by border patrol twice, both times we drove away minus a passenger or two. With a little luck I'll make it without too many more delays. I still have my remaining 2 dollar bills from vegas somehow too, so that's a bonus. There's also the potential of floating in the atlantic ocean as a deck hand at some point. Things are looking good, eastbound I go.