Hello and Welcome

So this might look like an arbitrary day to start a blog and in some ways yes, yes it is. But the way I like to look at it, the day I chose to start a blog is its own day and thus is not arbitrary but soon to be celebratory....that is, if it's a decent blog. So I am officially inviting The Sierra Club, MoveOn.org, Cnn, The Discovery Channel, The Travel Channel, HBO and or PBS to sponsor my blog. Enjoy, I plan on it.

The names byron but thats not important. 

I live in Laingsburg today. I went to middle and high school here living with my mother, 2 sisters and one brother. I graduated from Michigan State University in 2007 (after a 1 year stint at Western Michigan University). I had a lot of fun in college and I am glad I did everything I did there. My times in East Lansing, and Kalamazoo, have shaped me and make me what I am today. I have many friends that I met at said university that I plan on keeping forever.

But college is over now and its been onto the real world for me since May 2007. That may I started interning at Such Video, a small video production company that does mostly corporate videos, local commercials and web-based videos. 

I was mostly an on-location guy, setting up lights and monitors and other various field equipment. This experience was my window into the corporate world. Wanting to be taking the right steps with my life I started to follow orders blindly, yes to this, yes to that. It got to a point where I didn't really know how to say no. To tell you the truth I still don't really know how to say no when I step into a track-lit, silver stinging aura of an office park. BUT, I am extremely grateful to have this experience. It grounds me. Its like watching the O'Reily factor on occasion. It's not because I like it, it's because you need to know what you aren't to know what you are.

Things might have changed for me when my brother had an accident involving a bad combination of prescription drugs (kinda like Heath Ledger) and MRSA. He was in the ICU for about two weeks, we didn't know, and I don't think the docters did, what was going to happen to him. He has recovered and is now living with us again, he's planning to go back to school next semester at Wayne State University. But if you really want to ask me I think I started re-examining things when I was videotaping the CEO of a company in her office. This was, of course, on the top floor of this monstrosity of a building. The entire floor smells like supermutant tea leaves and Ikea warehouses. Corporate art that means nothing on every wall. We had just finished videotaping her speak as she sits on the front edge of her desk. She couldn't have been on the desk for more than 6 minutes but when she stood up she started crying out. Two assistants came rushing in with the fear of panic on their faces. After several indiscernible mumbles and curses she finally blurts out that her foot has fallen asleep. The assistants look at her, then each other and rush out of the office. 

Now I have to admit, at first I figured they were running out to fix it somehow but then my head realized the situation I was witnessing and I started to challenge this. How on earth could two human beings be rushing out of a room, scared out of their wits, to find a solution to a sleepy foot. After all the years of perfecting our domination of the world in the centuries of hunting and gathering, after all those years (something like 90% of the existence of the world) how can we now be reduced to this? In what is supposed to be the most free society in the modern world, this is the answer to the question: "How can I succeed in America?" No. No way.

Now I travel. Far, near, whatever my money affords. For now I suppose I am locked down to currency and the way we do business. That solution has not presented itself. But the fear of panic in the eyes of the two assistants will never enter my own. Instincts are something that everyone has that can never be taken away. Trust them, they are there to protect you, even from yourself. So I have spent much of my free time this summer at the beach, at festivals, anywhere my instinct takes me.  I have made a lot of new friends and can't wait to make more.

I now have 5ish weeks till my last day at Such Video. Time cannot move fast enough. I have interviewed for, and been offered, a job in Vail, CO working as a lift operator. I sought out this job because it is outside all day every work day in one of the most beautiful regions in the world. Free season pass to go up on the mountain 7 days a week. Work four days, ski at work, off three days, ski and see on my own time. I will likely accept this job. I still need to protect myself and keep my eyes open for other possibilities. I have also applied to a ranch in Montana. We shall see. I will likely know in about a week.