Zen and I made the cutest baby, I still can't believe it!! He is the perfect mix of her brown skin and my white skin. I thought we should name him Mutt but Zen wasn't going for that.

Ok, I've been out of the state for a month and out of my mind for about three.

When the world goes crazy around you there is nothing better than a road trip to bring perspective, renewed zest for life and a deeper love for friends and family.

Highlights:

Cramming my sportbike inside of my Element for the trip west.....
Nothing but miles and miles and days and days of being alone with my thoughts....
Breakfast with my sister at my favorite breakfast place in Salt Lake City.
Running around SF with all my siblings
Surprise family reunion in central CA.
Skating a shitty little small town park in Sonora CA
Crashing a hippie wedding in Bend and randomly bumping into a girl i went to high school with.
Partying in Portland with three of my dearest friends
Drink and breakfast with a long lost friend in Boise ID.
Watching my friends race motorcycles at the new race track in Utah (fuck it should be me out there at 130mph with my knee down!!!)
Playing at the paragliding park in Salt Lake City
Loading up a trailer with two motorcycles and the rest of my shit and driving back to NC in the rain....
Getting my 45 back from a dude in boulder CO
Randomly running into an old skate buddy at a coffee shop in CO
And the best part....... Finally getting back and seeing my dear friend zenobia again.


Things have been tough and confusing since we broke up. There has been some heavy shit go down too, but she is amazing and we are doing our best to redefine our roles in each others life.

Anyway, i'm back and may have some some really good news for everyone soon! (don't want to jinx it)

Sorry for the lack of pics. I need to take solvieg with me next time since she has such an amazing eye with her camera....

Sorry to for the lack of replies to everyone. I have really gone underground for a while to get my head and heart together.... I'm sure you understand.....

Much love to all!!!

may the gods of mercy, wisdom, and patience come and visit me and a dear friend.....

Note to self:

What's your problem? I think I know. You see it in the mirror every morning. Temptation and doubt hip to hip inside your head. You know it's not supposed to be like this, but you drank the Kool-Aid and dressed yourself up in someone else's life.

You're haunted because you remember having something more. With each drag of the razor you ask yourself why you piss your blood into another man's cup. Working at the job he offered, your future is between his thumb and forefinger. The necessary accessories, the proclamations of success you thought gave you stability provide your boss security. Your debt encourages acquiescence, the heavy mortgage makes you polite.

Aren't you sick of being tempted by an alternative lifestyle, but bound by chains of your own choosing? What about the gnawing doubt that the college graduate, path of least resistance is the right way for you - forever? Each weekend you prepare for the two weeks each summer when you wake up each day and really ride, or climb; the only imperative being to go to bed tired. When booming thermals shoot you full of juice and your Vario shrieks 7m/sec, you wonder if the lines will pop. The risk pares away life's trivia. Up there, sucking down the thin cumulus, the earth looks small, the boss even smaller, and you wish it could go on forever. But a wish is all it will ever be.

Because the ground is hard, Monday morning is harsh. You wear the hangover of your weekend rush under a strict and proper suit and tie. You listen to NPR because it's inoffensive, PFC: Politically Fucking Correct. Where's the counter-culture righteousness that had you flirting with Bad Religion and the vintage Pistols tape over the weekend? On Monday you eat frozen food and live the homogenized city experience. But Sunday you thought about cutting your hair very short. You wanted a little more volume and wondered how out of place you looked in the Sub Pop Music Store. Flipping through the import section, you didn't recognize any of the bands. KMFDM? It stands for Kill Mother Fucking Depeche Mode. You didn't know? How could you not?

Tuesday you look at the face in the mirror again. It stares back, accusing. How can you get by on that one weekly dose? How can you be satisfied by the artifice of these experiences? Why should your words mean anything? They aren't learned by heart and written in blood. If you can not grasp the consciousness-altering experience that real mastery of these disciplines proposes, of what value is your participation? The truth is pointless when it is shallow. Do you have the courage to live with the integrity that stabs deep?

Use the mirror to cut to the heart of things and uncover your true self. Use the razor to cut away what you don't need. The life you want to live has no recipe. Following the recipe got you here in the first place:

Mix one high school diploma with an undergrad degree and a college sweetheart. With a whisk (or a whip) blend two cars, a poorly built house in a cul de sac, and 50 hours a week working for a board that doesn't give a shit about you. Reproduce once. Then again. Place all ingredients in a rut, or a grave. One is a bit longer than the other. Bake thoroughly until the resulting life is set. Rigid. With no way out. Serve and enjoy.

But there is a way out. Live the lifestyle instead of paying lip service to the lifestyle. Live with commitment, with emotional content. Live whatever life you choose honestly. Give up this renaissance man, dilettante bullshit of doing a lot of different things (and none of them very well by real standards). Get to the guts of one thing; accept, without casuistry, the responsibility of making a choice. When you live honestly, you can not separate your mind from your body, or your thoughts from you actions.

Tell the truth. First, to yourself. Say it until it hurts. Learn the reality of your own selfishness. Quit living for other people at the expense of your own self, you're not really alive. You live in the land of denial - and they say the view is pretty as long as you remain asleep.

Well it's time to WAKE THE FUCK UP!

So do it. Wake up. When you drink your coffee tomorrow, take it black and notice it. Feel the caffeine surge through you. Don't take it for granted. Use it for something. Burn the Grisham books. Sell the bad CDs. Mariah Cary, Dave Matthews, and 'N Sync aren't part of the soundtrack where you're going.

Cut your hair. Don't worry about the gray. If you're good at what you do, no one cares what you look like. Go to the weight room. Learn the difference between actually working out and what you've been doing. Live for the Iron and the fresh air. Punish your body to perfect your soul. Kick the habit of being nice to everyone you meet; do they deserve it? Say "no" more often.

Quit posturing at the weekly parties. Your high pulse rate, your 5.12s and quick time on the Slickrock Trail don't mean to shit to anybody else. These numbers are the measuring stick of your own progress; show, don't tell. Don't react to the itch with a scratch. Instead, learn it. Honor the necessity of both the itch and the scratch.

But a haircut and a new soundtrack do not a modern man make. As long as you have the safety net you act without commitment. You'll go back to your old habits once you meet a little resistance. You need the samurai's desperateness and his insanity.

Burn the bridge. Nuke the foundation. Back yourself up against a wall. Have a fucking opinion one way of the other. Get off the fence and rip it up. Cut yourself off so there is no going back. Once you're committed the truth will come out.

You ask about security? Fuck security. What you need is uncertainty. What you need is confusion. Something which forces you to reinvent yourself, a whip to drive you harder.

In Dune, Frank Herbert called it "the attitude of the knife," cut off what's incomplete and say "now it has finished, for it has ended there."

To carve out your place in the world of gravity, you must make a commitment. All you have to be is good at your chosen discipline. It's a meritocracy out there, with gravity as the auditor. Inconsistency, incompetence, and lies are all cut short by the ground. It will stop you if you can't stop yourself.

The ship is battered
The sails are torn
The anchor holds.......

for now..

In our world today, particularly in Western countries, we are tending to demonize the other. It is "us," the sane, and balanced, against "them," the demented, violent, and inhuman. We must resist this attempt to polarize "the good" and "the bad," for it leads to complacency at best and to the rationalization of violence, death, and destruction at worst.

Andraes D'Souza

I'm back bitch monkeys.

All the fun and the ton of new friends at the East Coast SG Camping Trip made me want to come back so i can keep track of everyone!

Thanks to the scores of people that made that PA trip so fucking fun. special thaks to my baby zenobia and pavlovsdog for sharing the ride... You guys kick ass.

My prediction in my last journal was right! Everything has changed...........

I am now living in Charlotte NC part time and Asheville NC part time.

I'm part owner and crazy active participant in Dreamer Distribution Inc. We are building a company to manufacture and market a new skateboard tool. We have a new skateboard truck in our product pipeline too. This is one wild ride! We are fully funded, patent pending, and ready to go into production.

I'm back in school. And it is 100% because I want to be there. I've long had "get that MBA" on my list of things to do before I die. It just seemed that all of the travel and adventure related things on that list got my life's attention to date.

I'm trying to buy a small cabin high in the mountains of North Carolina. It is small, quaint, tucked away in the woods and 100 yards from a pretty big spring fed mountain lake. Absolutely beautiful.

After a year and a half of nearly perpetual travel in the US and South America, it is a bit strange to be involved in so many things that tie me down, but I am enjoying this process of building roots again and investing all of myself into exciting pursuits. Good shit is happening my friends.

Of particular pertinence to you guys...........I'm out of here. I haven't been too active for a while now. SG has served it's purpose and I have made many many great friends here. Some of you I will have life (yes you zenobia). Many of you have helped me though times good and bad, and many of you I will see again.

Come find me on myspace. I’m not really that active there either, but I would love to keep contact with those I’ve made friends with here.

http://www.myspace.com/mr_miah

Thanks all, much love....

miah

Peace, its usually something I find in the pursuit of chaos. All of the adventures, all of the dangers, all of the physical and emotional pain, it all leads to an eventual peace. Call it the calm after the storm. My love of chaos seems to be slipping. I choose the car over my motorcycle, coffee over my skateboard. Given the choice between a book and a hike, the book wins; intense thoughts are softened by the drone of the TV.

Is my passion slipping? Am I moving more to a state of constant contentment over a state of passionate extremes, or is this a temporary state of affairs? Am I accepting less for my life or am I simply appreciating more?

I am not unhappy, and I don't intend to give that impression, but I don't feel that burn in my soul either. My life has trained me to be dependant on that fire, that stoke, that burn to drive me, to push me to world class heights, but that fire is just a little ember these
days. Maybe I know it will eventually burn me up if I keep feeding it. Maybe age has given me the wisdom to protect my fire and release it only when absolutely necessary.

I don't know or understand the reasons, but I feel a seismic shift in my world. Everything is changing........