Peddling for Affordable Housing

So if you haven't heard yet, I made it in! Super spoked (yes I used spoked instead of stoked)! If you know me you know I've been wanting to take a bike and visit the country for some time, and now I'm officially doing it with Bike & Build. B&B is a nonprofit geared (pun intended)  toward raising money and awareness to help squash the affordable housing crisis. As a rider, I'll be rolling with their cause.

Affordable housing issues affect over 9 million Americans, but organizations like Habitat for Humanity and Rebuilding Together help construct affordable houses for families in need. Bike & Build supports these organizations, and many others, and as a rider I'll be dedicating my muscle stuff to lend a helping hand as well.

My trip is schedule to begin June 14, and wrap up sometime around August 22, but we'll see if the date changes a little bit. I head out of Providence, RI and end up in Seattle, WA. I've never been a huge biker, but I've always thought biking was fun, so we'll see how fun I think the activity is after I've gone all 3900 miles from here to there (PS: Can I call it biking or should I be saying cycling?). I'll be propping up the kickstand in a couple of states along the way, hopefully seeing a few friends and taking lots of pics as I pedal. I wouldn't be me if I didn't try to find some off-the-wall, random food, so we'll see what the trip cooks up.

The trip comes with a huge responsibility. Aside from the wonderful commission of raising more awareness about affordable housing, I am also tasked with raising 4500 dollars to help alleviate the housing crisis. I'd be eternally grateful if you made a donation by clicking here. The link takes you to the donate page. Select my name from the rider scroll down bar and follow from there. If you aren't comfortable doing it online, feel free to mail a check to me or them (see website on how to fill out information). A million thanks for your support! Not sure how much to give? Try sponsoring a section of the trip, or a certain amount of miles, donating a dollar for each mile. If you tell me which section you want to sponsor, I'll be sure to get you all the pictures I take from that part of the trip, and maybe even a nifty souvenir.

I appreciate you all and all of the support you have given me over the years. I've been all over the place, but you've been there every step of the way, reminding me I'm only a quarter past half-crazy. Now, on this new adventure, I'm honored to have you every pedal of the way (had to keep things corny), and I look forward to keeping you posted about the trip. Again, super spoked!

If you want more information, or just want to help me train, I'd love to hear from you. Spread the word. Tell your friends, tell your mom, tell your husband, get involved and help someone less fortunate than you. I promise it'll make someone smile.

Welp, that's all for now, so as usual thanks for listening with your eyes!

Who Gets My Vote?

So voting is in full swing, and swung right on past me. Tons of people think I'm a passionate voter because of how many political discussions I get into (talking to you Christina before I told you I don't vote lol), only to give the UUWWAAHH face when I tell them I don't vote. Call it lazy or disrespectful, but the truth is I'm just lazy. It's not that I don't love my country, because I do. And as many people that are going to talk about the civil rights movement, I do understand that the right to vote was fought for and many died to give me this right. But, no, I still won't vote.

The reason I won't vote is not because I'm a disrespectful person that does not care about the struggles of forefathers. I respect that, but the forefathers did not struggle to force me to vote. If that were the case, they would be dying to be free from enslavement, only to tell me to be a slave to the system (sounds weird but I think ya'll get my point). So one reason I don't vote, is because I don't have to, and having a choice is really what they fought for, making the choice is my option.

Reason numero dos for all my spanish speaking buds, is because I don't necessarily believe in the system. Literally, the electoral college decides who gets elected. Not you. With that in mind, did you actually vote for the president? Kind of, but in a sense no. According to the definition of the electoral college, they have the final say, not the people? UUWWAAHH (lol saw someone say that today and now it's stuck in my head...so just cause...UUWWAAHH). If you don't believe me, click here and check it out for yourself. Don't take this as an excuse for you to stop voting, because you should do the American thing and go vote. Though if you still haven't voted and are planning to, you may have to wait another four years.

Third and finally reason is.........you guessed it, I'm just lazy. Even if the other two weren't applicable, I wouldn't vote unless they made it online (why haven't they yet?). I'm not going to use my gas, time and brain power (not much of it left now a days) to theoretically put someone into office that is going to lie to me (you know how much I hate lies). Then my political discussions will get emotional, because I'll be so much more upset. Ever notice how carefree I am. Now you know why lol.

On a completely unrelated note, I tried out my running shoes yesterday (you better not even be thinking I should have ran to the poll and voted) and was not impressed. They felt like every other shoe to me. Oh well, maybe I just have to put a few more miles on them and see what happens. Though I'll be super blown if I get into Bike & Build because then I'll be riding bikes everywhere. SMH.

Welp, that wraps up this edition, and please don't hate me for not voting. I promise I'm not the worst person in the world. So, thanks for listening with your eyes.

Blown Back Again [Update at bottom]

Sooo I don't know if anyone remembers a loonnngggg time ago when I had the tornado-strength winds plow through where I lived back in Iowa? Well, wind is at it again. Granted, I haven't had to evacuate down to the tunnels that don't exist this time around, but the longer I sit here, next to the worst place in the house (the window), the more I wish I had some tunnels to hide in. God is mighty...period! (Does saying period and adding an exclamation point seem like a paradox to anyone else? There were definitely birds flying backwards today. Poor bammas. As this picture shows, apparently I was the only one dumb enough to drive out in this hurricane. The cars driving the other direction are heading away from Sandy's wrath, but of course I couldn't help but try to befriend the crazy cane.

It wouldn't be my life if my job didn't decide to close until after I needed to stay inside of it, but that's a different story entirely. So far we still have power in the house, so until we lose it I guess I can update this. I'll also do another plate full of words, and this time it's for my latina/o people's. Definitely had another super nice experience at work. One of the regulars just came in and bought the crew some papusa revuelta y curtido y salsa. It was pretty good. Even threw in some jugo de maranon (accent over first N).

From my understanding, papusa revuelta is corn tortilla filled with cheese, beans, and pork. The curtido is fermented cabbage relish. Salsa is exactly what you think it is. Jugo de maranon is the juice of a maranon fruit...again, accent over the first N. Overall the papusas were the best papusas I've had, but according to my salvadorian coworkers, not the best ever.

Even though I couldn't make the trip to Richmond tomorrow, the inclement weather also destroyed any chances of jury duty, so that's a plus. And since I work alternate hours this week, the day off is just a freebie. Woot. Probably do some writing for the nonprofit and go from there.

Welp I'll keep you posted on this dirty storm. As always, thanks for listening with your eyes.  

--------------------------------------------UPDATE--------------------------------------

Sooo the hurricane definitely eased up through the night. God kept my family safe and the power on. Definitely had the most fun with the leak in the basement. Glad God has a way of turning a calamity into family bonding time. I wish there were more pictures I could show you guys but Moms says they're too "embarrassing" to share with everyone. But i do have a picture of the contraption below.

ALERT ALERT You'll have to utilize your mind's eye for most of this. Think of my family (as crazy and quirky as we are) building a contraption to keep the leaking hurricane water at bay. Not sure if you guys remember back when my moms basement flooded from the last hurricane, but this hurricane brought on more leaking. My mother and sister tried everything (puddy, duct tape, other crap), but in the midst of all three of us, we devised a path to success. We, drum roll please, we used aluminium foil! That's right, we taped aluminium foil to the walls and pipes where the leak was, formed funnels with it, and then drained the water into buckets. Imagine all three of us working together to keep wet duct tape to a wet surface while forming foil and trying to keep dirty water off of ourselves. The success made things much easier on everyone. Goes to show what a little family power and wisdom from God can do. First picture shows the contraption, second picture shows how effective it was (we had to change the buckets regularly).

Even learned something new. Discovered that if you put large amounts of water into a toilet, it will flush on its own! Crazy right (you better not be over there laughing at my ignorance). Mom says it's cause I grew up privileged. Well that's it for the update. So unless sandy is a phoenix I think she's done for this area. Prayers go out to all the people affected by the storm. As usual, thanks for listening with your eyes. 

Today Everyone Was A Colored Person

So the color run finally happened! It was super packed and super messy, but overall it was a good time. There were a bit over 6000 people running in the 5K, so if I told you I was trying to come in first, things didn't go as well as planned. They released groups of runners in waves of 500 to 1000 people at a time, so I'm not sure who the very first person was, but thank the Lord  I still got a good run. Not sure which wave I actually finished with, but it wasn't competitive so I guess it doesn't really matter. Not sure of my time either so don't ask. Yay to my girlfriend and Ana and Quin (SP?) for finishing as well! Woot team fitness. We taped our shirts with the team name so the color made an outline. Sweet!

The back of Missy's was better looking than mine, but the tape was falling off so we didn't get a good picture of it. Some paint brushed down over my E, but you can still kind of read it says Team Fitness. 

People weren't lying when they say you get paint everywhere! My silver underwear is definitely stained yellow, my socks were pink, and I was definitely blowing rainbows out my nose for a few hours. Luckily all the paint washed off, but I'm tossing the shoes. They were old and moldy and now that they're covered in paint they really aren't worth wearing. Good thing I'm about to get some new ones. Enjoy the pics. Got some nice ones of the event. 

We hit up a restaurant called ketchup when we were finished and it was decent. They definitely had six different types of ketchup, none of which were very good lol. Guess nothing beats the original. I was going to  do a separate Plate Full of Words entry (cause I know how much you guys and gals adore reading about all the food I eat) but I figured I'll just cram it all onto this. So here are the pictures from the restaurant. Def had a burger they called the king. Was peanut butter and fried banana. Pretty good, but I can feel my stomach's anger. 

We hit up that crazy man out of sand statue after and peeped the peeps store before heading back and getting stuck in traffic. Feeling down from the wait, we got another free redbox and some ice cream to end out the night. Enjoy the pics, comment if you want, and as always thanks for listening with your eyes. 

Plate Full of Words - Me With an Empty Plate?

I know these Plate Full of Words editions are supposed to be about food and such, and this one kind of is, but yes the title is telling the truth. I participated in the taste of DC event this past weekend (Thanks Jaz and Mom for the rides), and I did not buy any food from the event the entire day! Cray cray right? Of course, I blame them for my lack of desire to purchase from the row of restaurants (everything was cash instead of with tickets), but either way I didn't purchase a thing. I did walk away with these lovely samples of tapioca based non-dairy products that actually weren't half bad. The top is a pepper jack flavor and the bottom is cheddar and havarti flavors.

The trio was a lot better than I ever imagined a tapioca-based anything would taste (considering how emesis inducing tapioca pudding is). But that did not make up for otherwise empty plate I endured for the entire event. They had me serving beer for five hours, and I'm pretty sure I'm the quickest cup-filler with the name Jeremie Guy, but aside from that it was at least fun to walk around. Saw an old friend from Towson, though we didn't have a chance to hang out.

Since I didn't eat at the taste, I decided to go to Subway and try their Tuscan chicken melt.

I got it made like the picture they advertise (with some spinach and onion) and it was decent. No where near my favorite sub, but I'm not bad I bought two. No I didn't eat them both sadly. I demonstrated self control and will eat the other on Monday evening. If you want to see the couple other pictures I took at the event, click Here. 

Still on the job hunt so keep praying. I forgot to give God the glory with my last post, talking about the short story I recently had published, so...TO GOD BE THE GLORY! If you missed the last post but still want to read the story, click Here. It's a horror story called Family Time. Feel free to post any comments or send any feedback. Hope you enjoy. As always thanks for listening with your eyes. 

Plate Full of Words - TGITuesdays

Started off the weekend of food with some family fun time. Mom had a coupon for Ruby Tuesdays so we decided to see what was cooking. It's been a little over half a decade since I've set foot in a Ruby Tuesdays, but I must say I was not disappointed. Granted, service in a restaurant will vary based on the waitress, but our waitress put up with my stupidity so I give her an A+. She even gave me a lemon just because I forgot to buy some for my daily guacamole consumption.

Now my guacamole can be tangy and awesome just like it should be. I tried to finagle a free refill on my plate, but apparently that only works for drinks. Meh, I tried, and she awarded me with some miniature biscuits  Times are tough, even for restaurants. Picture is grossly enlarged (the biscuits were good, but not bigger around than a silver dollar. 

For the main entree I had Asian glazed salmon with a side of asparagus and spaghetti squash (with a little lemon butter for dipping) which was well worth the 13 buck price tag. Though, I'm not sure why it was Asian glazed because it was just a tangy BBQ sauce. Meh, it was good either way. 

Overall a good day. To make matters even more yummy, I managed to get another short story published. This time it's getting published in Liternational's October issue (as a part of their Santa Claws contest). I entered the "Claws" portion so far, and had my short story "Family Time" accepted. If you want to read it, click Here. As a semi-finalist, I'll be eligible for the contest prize but I won't hear back about that for a while so keep me in your prayers regarding that. 

Still no luck on the job front so keep praying! And as always, thanks for listening with your eyes.