more aboot pat

Written by Patrick

Sunday, 01 July 2007

Who has two tumbs and likes adventure? This is where I bloviate about myself, something I'm not very good at. If I leave something out, shoot me an email and I'll answer it. I'll start with the basics. I'm 25 years old, 5'10" 230lbs of pasty white beauty. After Highschool, I attended Cal. State Monterey Bay for two years before dropping out. I was given a mercy job working property maintenance that I think was initially supposed to scare me back to college. But in two years I had worked up to manager of that property. I then left to give school a second try. After two more years I left again and took a position managing a large apartment complex. Of course there is always more to the story, but that's the quick and dirty version. As with most things, Scott and I came to this idea of riding completely around Australia from different places. My current job was initially going to end in may when the owner was planning to sell the property, so I began saving last summer for a motorcycle trip through Canada and Alaska to commence at lay-off. Scott had been expressing some dissatisfaction with his job for a few months, and in November proposed the idea of saving up some money and taking some time away from corporate to bicycle around Australia. A side note for a second - that might seem like a completely random idea to most people. We actually already have a bit of experience doing this. In 1998 while he was still in college and I was still high school, we took a trip to Australia together and rode out bicycles up most of the eastern coast. SO it wasn't completely original. Back to the story. Anyway, he proposed a ride, at some indeterminate time in the future, circumnavigating the continent this time. I told him it sounded great, but I wasnt so sure. Frankly, I didn't think he was serious, and that the idea would fade and be forgotten in a week. But it stuck, and by Christmas we were debating time frames for departure. I still thought I was going to be jobless by that summer, and already had a good jump on saving for my motorcycle trip. He didn't think he could leave his job on good terms before Jan. '09. I still didn't take him too serious anyway, as I wasn't seeing any effort from him towards preparing. So I paid the idea lip service but was still planning on taking my Canada trip. Then something happened that I've never experienced before. The weather in Texas turned absolutely beautiful for weeks on end. And dammed if that seed Scott had planted didn't start to grow. I abandoned my Canada trip and began taking the Australia trip seriously. Then it became a matter of making real plans. Scott decided he couldn't wait until jan. '09, and my circumstances changed and I had a job for the foreseeable future. We settled on a nov. 7th launch date. And beyond buying bicycles and continuing to save money, that's where we still are. But as I was saying, scott and I are coming to the idea from different places. If you read his 'about scott' page, you'll learn he's doing it because he hates his job and needs some time to be happy. I'm doing it because it's a trip dripping with adventure. It's perhaps the last chance my brother and I will ever have to take such an epic trip together. Those two things make it just feel right, and I don't think I'd feel good ignoring it in the interest of some concept of stability. Move on down that road....

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 14 April 2020 )