Traveling with the Cleveland Browns (2016 Edition)

Picture a baseball diamond, if you will. Now picture Cleveland as home plate and Maryland's Eastern shore as third base. We're starting on third base for the first four weeks of the season. We'll head home for Week 2, the season opener, but third base will provide us with a great base location to visit the first three away games.  Week 1 is in Philly which is less than a two hour drive away (from where I stay), Week 3 is in Miami (booked a cheap flight on Spirit Airlines to Ft. Lauderdale), and Week 4 is against RGIII's old squad in our nation's capital.  Perfect! After that, we pack up our things, head home ＊  and.. uh..score.  From Cleveland we'll be able to easily road trip to the remaining road games with the farthest city being Nashville. I should have at least one partner-in-crime for that game and I've always wanted to visit Nashville as an adult so we'll probably make a few day trip out of it. Question: Why are we ‡  starting with a...

Father, it has been 11 days since my last confession, I mean, post. I suck at this game. This isn't how popular blogs are run. I don't even know if I want to be popular. Really, I just want to document my adventures so I can have something to show for all of this.  Kinda like, if a tree falls in the forest, did he really catch a fish THAT big? Last year I drove to Astoria, Oregon for my friends' wedding and then proceeded to drive down the 101, meeting up with friends and making new ones along the way. Instead of blogging about it I posted pictures on Instagram with little captions like, "Not a bad way to wake up." or "If anyone asks, this is where I was at 7pm." Minimal writing, nice and easy. This time though, I want to document the whole process, first for myself, second for anyone else in the world that might want to do something awesome like this, and third for my mother in case she ever questions what I'm doing with my life (I'm half...

Fuck! You're allowed one f-bomb in a movie, but can still consider it PG-13. That was my one. Have you ever put together a Halloween costume at the last minute? Pretty crappy, right? Now of course there are some exceptions, stories of the epic last minute costume that drew the admiration of the drunks and may have even won a contest, but those are few and far between.  One of my Top 3 Halloweens of all-time happened in 2013. My friends and I got together to do an epic Street Fighter Halloween, but the main reason for it being so epic was we started planning it out in February of that year (read: I started bugging my friends in February). Bottom line, we're not going with the RV this season.  I could rush it, but it would be better if we could plan it out and take our time getting a great deal, fixing it up, etc.  HOWEVER, travel mileage-wise it is still a great season to follow the Brownies and if we setup a home base in Cleveland... Stay tuned.

One of the opening statements in the Declaration of Independence states, " that  all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness . " Certain unalienable rights...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Life is pretty self-explanatory. We, as citizens under this independent nation, have the right to be alive. Liberty, by definition, is  the power to do or choose what you want to. The pursuit of happiness, may be the most misunderstood. It's the pursuit to which we have the right, not the happiness. So here I am, living life, doing what I want to do, and pursuing this thing called Happiness.  If I get anything from this adventure, I hope that it inspires you to do the same; pursue your Happiness. Enjoy your Independence Day!

One of the two "mission-critical" items on today's to do list was to come up with a realistic budget for this four month excursion. I came up with a rough estimate on Monday from the 4-Hour Work Week dreamline exercise, but I knew that in order to make this work I needed to be honest with myself and really break down my costs. First was the cell phone, roughly $80/month for unlimited everything PLUS 5gb of High-speed hotspot data via T-Mobile. The hotspot is clutch for traveling and although T-Mobile f**ked me out of my data last cycle, it has been an affordable option compared to traditional home internet plans. Second on the list is gas. Roughly 5500 miles if I drove directly from stadium to stadium, but that won't likely happen so I rounded up to 6000, divided by 15mpg (gets you 400 gallons), times $2.50 per gallon (projected average gas price), gets us $1000 (I was never really a fan of showing my work, but this one is for you, the fan.) Out of all the estim...

I think we all handled it well.  I felt like I was able to handle their rebuttals while explaining my passion for this project and they handled the fact that their oldest son is going to "f**k around" for another six months instead of committing to a 9-5, building a 401k, getting back out of debt, finding a nice girl with whom I can settle down, and delivering a grand kid or three.  Don't get me wrong, those are all nice things, but they're not for me right now.  In fact, I don't think the 9-5 will ever be for me.  My next major goal is to be globally and financially independent and I've always been a major proponent of the "fake it 'til you make it" movement so...here we are.  However, I'm not about being fake so I'm going to have to reword that phrase, get a trademark for it, put it on snapback hats, and sell it across the globe in 50 different languages.  #lifegoals