friends

I am now a part of Tempe. I've run into people around town - Ari, one of my couch surfing friends, at the Bicycle CoOp; I've seen some of the kids from the Ultimate turf around campus; and just today I passed Steve, Leslie's baby's daddy, riding his bike.

I have been working on my bicycles and fixed the men's version up to where it can ride. I am bringing both to San Francisco tomorrow to ride around town with Ryan Lewis. At this CoOp I have learned a lot and made some more friends with the kids involved.

I hung out last weekend with Wendy Alfonso, who graduated high school with my little sister Erin. She brought me out on the town in Scottsdale. The Saturday after that I spent time with the Tillman community meeting some of the families of the Scholars and Shawn and I hopped around Tempe passing through a few bars and hanging out with his buds (as he calls them).

And this afternoon I met Katie Ringler and Eric Iverson at Casey Moore's for a couple beers. This orchestra and band geek, respectively, are some cool cats.
They have been my best friends here and we have plans to hang out more - going to Prescott in two weekends to play another Ultimate tournament with Eric and Katie is going to come along. And I will continue to drop by the Ringler household for some mac and cheese and an occasional family night of television viewing.

In other news, I've voted. I like sticking to the B's.

I found these around Tempe.

frisbee, bicycles, and a bloody toe

This past weekend was another relaxing and fun one. Since I am staying so far away for the moment, I have yet to actually hang out on the town in Tempe, Scottsdale, or Phoenix and thus the latest I have stayed up has been around 11:30 p.m. and that was to watch Saturday Night Live. But that doesn't mean I haven't been getting to know the area. I've been out meeting a lot of new people and taking part in some new and old activities.

After sleeping in from a great meal at Lo-Lo's, I woke up to some college football before heading to ASU to play in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament with Eric, Katie's boyfriend. I was ready with my white and dark jerseys, some sunscreen, a Nalgene of KoolAid, some coffee, and a CamelBack full of water. Eric and I joined a team of some of his Fall League friends and got right to work beating the first ASU team we played significantly. What I didn't anticipate was the effect of the heat on my energy and my old cleats on my feet. After playing the first game I had already developed a blood blister on my right big toe and my asthma was in full gear (even though I have been consistently running "long" distances since my return from Cameroon) and I was lucky that we had a bye for the next slot. We won our second game and my level of play increased as well. The good news is that my shoulder is feeling good and I was able to throw with it throughout the tournament. However, I only used my left hand for long distance pulls. As I got back into the groove and the tournament moved on I just ignored the pain in my toe. Our third game was a classic which we lost 14-15 and after this a lot of our team left because the sun was setting and so we faced the Northern Arizona University team almost savage and lost in a game to 7. All in all it was a great day but my legs were definitely feeling the soreness of an entire 7 hours of running. After, Eric and I left to his house to clean up and when I took off my right cleat this is what appeared:


I had been playing with a bloody sock which was caused by a bloody toe.

Sunday consisted of watching some NFL before heading in the afternoon to Bike Saviours bicycle Co-Op where I left my bike to begin refurbishing it. I arrived at 3 p.m. and spent 2 hours checking and cleaning my stem and fork and the crank and pedals. I set it aside to work on the front and back rims and axles next Sunday and left to meet Katie and Eric and Katie's sister Leslie, her baby daughter Louisa, Louisa's dad Steve, and Katie's friend Erin at Cafe Boa for Sangria Sunday. Though not a good experience because they only had two servers, we drank some sangria and I called it a night watching the end of the Tampa Bay/Red Sox game.

I spent the day at home on Monday and today working on my project and on some course work. As I continue to set up interviews with the former Tillman Scholars, everything else with my project is running smoothly. And I have taken a few photos and plan to take more as the time comes.

Camelback Mountain, at an angle

back from the future

Who knows Southern?

Well, the past week has been usual. I was in and out of the office and back and forth from North Scottsdale (a 25 minute commute) to Shawn's place passing by the beautiful Camelback Mountian both ways. Shawn and I have been, as he calls it, "roomies" and have exemplified that by doing some running together and eating healthy meals together. Marie came in for two nights and I was demoted, as Shawn calls it, to "R3" or "roomie 3."

As for my project, I attended the Leadership Through Action class again on Tuesday, E-mailed all of the former Tillman Scholars on Wednesday and already set up 11 interviews with those who replied. I am still designing my assessment tools but will have that done soon and will start interviews at the end of next week.

Now, the purpose of this post is to answer the question of the title: Who knows Southern? The answer is Lo-Lo. Last night I met up with Liz G (who I couch surfed with on my second night) and her friends and headed down to south Phoenix. After a short search through a dark neighborhood, there it was - Lo-Lo's Fried Chicken and Waffles.



The group I was with are all from the valley (what they call this entire Phoenix Metro area) and kept commenting on the "health" issues that come with grubbing at a place like Lo-Lo's. They only plan to go there once every two or three months - this is the type of food I ate every Tuesday with Zachary at Your Mama's Good Food. When we got there and ordered some sugarlicious Kool-Aid I gulped it down and got right into ordering the SoulFood Platter with a piece of fried catfish (okay), a piece of fried chicken (down right delicious), some cheese grits (great), a piece of cornbread (sweet) and some mac and cheese (amazing). If you'd like to see what a plate looks like just go here - http://www.loloschickenandwaffles.com/index.php. After finishing up this plate and trying some of Liz's waffle, I got a refill with sweet tea and let the food settle.

Needless to say, Lo-Lo knows Southern.

tour de fat

I woke up early Saturday, showered and drove to Tempe to meet Katie Ringler at her friend Joel's house. When I got there I got bikes prepared and threw my new lock in my Camelback as we readied for the Tour de Fat - an 11 city tour run by New Belgium Brewery to bring awareness to bike riding. Read more about it here at this website - www.tour-de-fat.com. This event starts with a bike parade and ends with a festival of drinking and fun.

Right before we left to meet up with the other thousands of bike riders, and after seeing one of the other guys we were with in a Pirate costume, I threw on my plumbing one-piece cover-all and jumped on Eric's bike and headed to Tempe Town Lake. This is the same costume I wore on my last bike parade during the SoMa 5-block Mardi Gras parade when I rode with Carly and Amanda with the ReCycle Bikes CoOp in Little Rock. We crept down the Tempe streets with thousands and thousands of costumed bike enthusiast, most with souped up bikes and mustaches, and some with amazing stereo systems. I just happened to be near some of the cooler looking bicyclists when a local newspaper gal was snapping pictures (look for me to the left of the guy with the halo, I also have on a green headband to match the cover-all):



Now I'm a local celebrity.

I wish I had more photos to show y'all but I haven't received any from the guy in our group who served as the historian. But maybe some soon. After this photo, though, we ended the parade back at Tempe Town Lake and enjoyed the celebrations. Even though the beer was $5 a pop and the entertainment okay, it was much better than the carnival-style Oktoberfest the week before. The best part was the enclosure of trick or crazy bicycles that I got a chance to experiment on - they were awesome ranging from a bike with tennis shoes as tires to little bikes that you had to pedal so fast to even move an inch.

Beyond that, the weekend was nice with temperatures in the mid-70s and windy, but still sunny and no clouds.

I had expensive sushi on Friday night with Shawn and talked about the Foundation and his life. I watched football and baseball on Sunday. I didn't go to the Cardinals vs. Cowboys game but did see it in its entirety on television.

And I also bought two new bikes - matching red Schwinns from the 1980s. One is rideable but squeaks and the other needs some work on the back gear before riding. I'm going to bring them by the CoOp, Bike Saviours, later this week and get started on fixing them up a bit.

Other than that, I have been looking for flights for Christmas and am deciding whether to take the Foreign Service Officer exam in November or February.

Any advice?

PLEASE do not park in front of our home, THANKS

Since I wrote on Tuesday, I visited the Leadership Through Action class with Professor Michael Mokwa and the 17 Tillman Scholars. It was nice to experience the class and meet more individuals involved with the Foundation. The greater my understanding of what happens with this Foundation and the LTA program, the more effective my project will be.

In visiting the class this was my first time to try to navigate the Arizona State campus and so I drove to the business building and looked for free parking working my way back south toward the Foundation office. I came from Palmcroft (basically 21st street), all the way to 13th and started zig-zagging around past no parking and "only 1 resident pass holders can park here" signs until I reached 20th street and parked legally near an elementary school 30 feet from the stop sign because any closer was not legal. I got out and walked to campus, making it to Dr. Mokwa's office only 3 minutes late. Well, when I got back to my car, I got this note on my windshield:



I almost knocked on their door to ask for some sugar, but decided to leave so I could catch the rest of the terrible Presidential debate with Katie and Gary Ringler. At least they were polite - "please" and "thanks."

The rest of this week I have run with Gracie, watched some baseball, swam, finished my work plan and met with the Executive Director (Marie Tillman) and Director of Development (Shawn Jones) to finalize my work plan for my project. This was a good meeting and now I am on my way. I also went to a social event last night for the Tillman Mentors - it was nice, small, and way out northeast of here. Now I'm in the office, where the AC is on and off and as that goes so goes my sweating.

I've also found a place to live - in an apartment complex with this 38-year old Intel/Real Estate nerd (not in a bad way) with braces named Stephen for $475 a month, all utilities included and the complex has pools and hot tubs and a work out room. It is right down the street from where I was house sitting, a nice location, with a Whole Foods and $3.17 gas right around the corner.

So things are looking up and below are some photos of my trip across Texas to Tempe for you to enjoy:

at the air force base with todd


with kelsey before dropping her off at class


chris and judson on stage at ACL


me with jud at ACL


me with amy at ACL


the future

temperature in tempe

I've been here for a week now, and on the road for two. A lot has happened and there is a lot more, expected and unexpected, to come.

Before I get into stories, let me list the reasons I am creating this so-called blog. #1 - as a personal reflection tool and story recorder. Basically as a journal in all its raw honesty and unnecessary detail. As I have been told by many people in my life, I need to write about my experiences because I spend a lot of time thinking out loud about them anyway. Now I'm giving you the choice to share in these stories or not. #2 - because Russ asked our class to continue our blogs from the summer. This is for you Russ. #3 - because Jimbo Mitchell challenged me. Your done Jim. #4 - I am sure there are more reasons, but I can't remember them now.

Now the stories, and this will be a long one because you need to hear them all. But choose the stories by bold titles if you don't want to read them all.


THE HOUSING SEARCH - CouchSurfing and Larry
Right now I'm staying at the house of Suzanne Reddie, the day-to-day operator of the Pat Tillman Foundation. She is on vacation to the Mexican beach (Rocky Point) with her husband and two daughters (Madi and Julia) who are on Fall break. When they get back I will probably move into Shawn's house - he is the Director of Development for the Foundation and back-and-forth from New Jersey right now. I am still searching for a permanent home but my hopes are high that I will find one by the end of the month that fit my financial and comfort needs.

Who knew that finding a place would be this tough. Before any of the above housing was decided upon I had an adventure. I thought I had a place to stay with this kid named Wayne but he didn't ever call me back until 4 days ago and then asked me to just call him to smoke sometime. I searched and searched the first day for housing, visited a couple places, stopped by REI and applied for job, and went twice to this coffee shop to use the internet and drink coffee. After no luck I resorted to Couch Surfing and looked at the 5 people I set aside before I started my journey. The second guy on the list was the guy who had just served me a Red Eye coffee and he owned the coffee shop. But he had left and I couldn't get a hold of him. Thus I drove around and waited for a call and finally my sister made me get a hotel. My first night in Tempe was spent at the Motel 6.

Same thing the next day, again with no luck on housing. I stopped by an awesome place but they took another guy who could commit to a longer stay. Then to the Bike CoOp to introduce myself and get my hands greasy working on a bike for an hour. And back to the Coffee shop and on to CouchSurfing. And CouchSurfing came through at the last moment. I requested to stay at 7 different people's houses and got a call at midnight from Liz G, the pirate, and went to her place. She is also a twin, not identical, and stayed up talking with me for another hour and a half. She was my first friend in Tempe. Then on Thursday I found two other couch surfers who offered their places, since Liz's roommate was coming back. I met up with one of them and hung out. That was Ari - an Indonesian business student with great style and cool experiences (and a cool girlfriend who also offered me her place to stay). And then I went over to Katie Ringler's later that night to stay with her and her parents which is where I was until here. They were awesome. The first night I went out with Katie and her boyfriend Eric to Four Points Brewery. He plays Ultimate and I am going to join a league with him. She just got back from a year traveling abroad following the steps of Mother Teresa. This was all paid for by a $25,000 fellowship. On Friday night we ate sushi and stopped by a carny-style Oktoberfest. On Saturday I tried to find disc golf and after finally reaching a course at the second park I tried I threw my first disc in the water and had to recover it inner-thigh high in the streamweed. That night we played junior high-style Jenga and watched movies with the 'rents. And then Sunday I ate lunch with the Ringler's and moved in to the Reddie's.

So, I've been bumming around Tempe. I've met some crazy cats while on the house search. The most interesting of which was Larry - the crazy, mulleted, financial advisor by phone. I can't even begin to describe him but he is 49 and advertised his place on Craigslist as a "bungalow" and when I showed up he made me a cocktail and in an amazing movie character-like voice said "We drink alooooot of beer." Sadly enough, I hung out with him for 15 minutes and decided against the place because of the proposed "bar" where all of the patrons would have to use the only bathroom in the house. Even though I didn't mind his statement that "if you only have to piss, just step outside."


A TRIP THROUGH TEXAS - stolen bike, family and friends, a New Mexico light law, and Charlie the hitchhiker

The trip started off amazing, cruising into Mesquite to stay the night with Wesley and Holly and catching a movie. Grabbing lunch with Jay and Wesley the next day in Uptown Dallas, then getting a little lost driving to Wichita Falls to spend the next night with Todd. I shopped on the Air Force base for toiletries (the first antiperspirant I bought since arriving back home - I just used Zach and Camden's while at home) and a bottle of whiskey for the weekend. Then back to Dallas and riding around for an hour in a park trying to get a hold of Wesley who wanted to meet me for lunch, and finally leaving for Waco to meet Kelsey. A late lunch with Kelsey, a run, The Office, and an early morning coffee before heading to Austin to meet Judson, Justin, and Chris at the festival. I sold my extra bracelet and got to hang out with Amy, Jud, and Olivia during the show. I then met up with Ben Casey and his wife Suzanne who graciously let me stay at their place for the weekend and even cooked me eggs and bacon Saturday morning. The shows on Friday were awesome - Automata (this cool Irish band before Chris), Christopher Denny, Jakob Dylan, Vampire Weekend, Jamie Lidell, David Byrne, and the best of all, Mars Volta. After the shows I got to my car and smelt whiskey - the entire bottle of Knob Creek had spilt in my suitcase and onto my comforter. A bad omen for the weekend I think but the Casey's washer and dryer came in handy.

Then Saturday morning I met up with Judson and Amy while they were shopping, ran into some Razorback football parents who recognized me from the Alabama game, and then got some Stubb's barbeque before parking my car with my bike since it had a flat tire from riding it around town that morning. Locked and ready I jumped in with Amy and we were off to see Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. We missed them, totally my fault, and another bad omen. I then caught Erykah Badu, MGMT, John Fogerty, The Black Keys, Yonder Mountain String Band, and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, before ending the night sneaking backstage with Judson and Amy who had artist bracelets. We stayed back there until they closed the bar and walked back to the car and they dropped me off near my car. I turned the corner and the worst feeling I have ever had about a possession dropped my heart to my stomach, my eyebrows to my hairline, and the ends of my lips to my jaw - MY BIKE WAS GONE, lock and all, with the bike rack holders still up as if someone was just on a quick ride and was going to drop it back off. I immediately called the cops and, while my phone was dying, reported my stolen property and opened up a case. What a night and what a bike. It was perfect for me. I had searched for it for almost two years and found it by happenchance at J&P two months used and for sale. How could someone take another person's bike? And I thought Austin was a bike-friendly city.

The next day was hard to wake up to but I did so anyway with a bowl of cereal and a somber mood. I went straight to the festival and sat by the creek and went inside to take in Gillian Welch before heading back to the creek for a swim. Then I finally met up with Thaddeus Leopoulos, who I had been texting and calling back-and-forth with over the weekend. We stayed in one place and watched Neko Case, Okkervil River, and The Raconteurs (another awesome concert). Then I left him and met up with Judson and Amy to see some of Gnarls Barkley then exit to grab a slice of pizza before skipping the Foo Fighters to get back and spend some time with Kelsey.

I woke up in the morning and got coffee with Kelsey again, said goodbye to my final family member on the trip out and headed on back Texas roads to Abilene so I could catch the I-20 to the I-10 to Tuscon to stay with Brad Handloser for the night. An hour in I passed by a young-looking hitchhiker and stopped to pick him up. He was a little crazy, not hearing my introduction at first but just cracking the window to let his smell exit and starting his two hour long almost non-stop talk. I finally got his name, Charlie, and asked how long he had been traveling. He had been on and off the roads for 14 years, since he was 17 and had been to every state except Alaska, Hawaii, New Hampshire, and Deleware. But he couldn't remember exactly if that was right. He had a ton of inventions and entreprenurial ideas that he had yet to execute and he wasn't let inside Canada. He was a diabetic and couldn't stay on the road in Texas because he needed his "juice" and they didn't have a lot of it out here. He told me he had hoped to make it to Abilene tonight and asked where I was going. I told him Arizona, and he said that was his final destination too. During his two pauses from talking, both shorter than 5 minutes, I turned up the music. Entering Abilene he saw a Cracker Barrel and said how great the food was. A perfect exit point for me so I pulled into the next one I saw, dropped him off, handed him $20, and said goodbye to his telling me that he would always remember this and that I would probably always remember him. You're right Charlie, I will always remember you. It was nice knowin' you and also nice to know that I will probably never want a life entirely on the road. But it still is a possibility.

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful except for seeing tons of windmills in and around Sweetwater, Texas, arriving in the red hills of west Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, seeing the border in El Paso (right across the way is Juarez with a huge Mexican flag), and the police stop in New Mexico. I was driving along, talking on the phone with Ryan Lewis, at 65 mph (I lost the adolescent urge to speed a few years back) when I passed a group of four cops and then saw the lights. I pulled over, rolled down my window and the cops came knocking on the other window. They asked for my liscense and registration, I asked what was the problem, they said that my liscense plate wasn't illuminated. They came back, I asked if that was a state law, they said yes and that they would let me off with a warning but that I needed to go get that fixed at the next truck stop. I drove off and got to the Arizona border 15 miles away, arriving to Tuscon late, talked with Brad, and got some sleep. In the morning I was off, an hour and a half drive to Tempe, first stopping at the REI and then grabbing lunch with Suzanne Reddie and Corissa Vasquez from the office before starting the housing search.


OTHER NEWS
I will probably go to the Cardinals vs. Cowboys game on Sunday.
I am heading to San Francisco for Halloween to hang out with Ryan Lewis.
I already bought my ticket home for Thanksgiving - I'll be home on the 20th, and leaving on the 1st.

I don't know why the title of this entry is significant except for the fact that I arrived in Tempe on the last day of September to a 101 degree Fahrenheit day and today it is around 98 degrees Fahrenheit.

Farewell.