The Burly Unknown!

Friends, family, fellow bloggers, and finally, spammers.

A little over a year ago, a boy with stars in his eyes had a dream. A dream that one day people would read his words and become inspired. Maybe not to do great things, but to make little changes in their lives to improve their situation, or at least to have a sense of humor about life on this little ball of clay.

Yeah that kid couldn’t write worth shit. Fortunately, I found him and punched him in his fat face before he could start blogging.  Having released the fury, I set forth to create  the most rockstar, face-melting, tear-provoking, fist-pumping, lunch money-stealing site on the web. Why, you ask? To celebrate me.  Glorious me.

When I first envisioned The Burly Unknown, I saw a forum where the masses might take  respite from the drudgery of corporate America so deviously foisted upon them. Instead I created a staggering tribute to a mental giant, a land-bound leviathan of logical luminosity, once again: me glorious me.

To commemorate this joyous and momentous occasion, I am going to link to some of my better previous posts… that is, the ones that aren’t complete drivel. Why would I do this, you ask? This is for you, oh my horrorshow readers. That’s right, you with the chubby, sticky fingers and vapid expression. All five of you.

What I’m going to need you to do is this: send a link to this post to everyone you know. Everyone. This includes (but is not limited to): your mom, your dad, your pet therapist, your masseuse, your stylist, your entire business rolodex, the flying spaghetti monster, your ex-girlfriend, your ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, once again: your mom, all of your facebook friends, all of your AdultFriendFinder contacts, the Dalai Lama, the email address of that guy/girl that you have but are terrified to contact because of your innate fear of rejection, Puff the Magic Dragon, the ghost of Bob Ross, your local congressman, whomever you split sandwiches with, NASA, and finally… your mom…

…thrice.

If you don’t, I will send a specially trained pride of lions I have been breeding specifically for this purpose to your home or place of work to ridicule you in front of your friends, family, and co-workers.  They are very sarcastic and don’t mind bringing up awkward subjects.

I present:

The Burly Unknown’s Top Five Burliest Posts of all Time

1.  Variety is the Spice of Life - An insightful and heartwarming essay ridiculing everyone but me.

2.  Stuck in Utila: War is Hell - A grisly account of my ordeal of being stuck on a small island off the coast of Honduras and the haunting emotional toll it took on my stricken… er… emotions.

3.  Central America: In No Particular Order - A video diary of my journeys in Central America set to rad music.  Watch it.  You will like it.

4.  ’twas brillig - My famous and historical first blog post.  This is up there with the birth of Jesus and the Big Bang.

5.  Don’t Go to College:  From the Beginning - Oh silly reader.  Did you really think that I would get through an entire post and not shamelessly plug my magnum opus?  You can be so dumb sometimes…

DISCLAIMER: Any legal recourse taken by anyone even remotely related to this post is their own damn fault.  I do not represent AT&T or T-Mobile.  I don’t represent that this will work for you.  It just worked for me.

1. Buy an iPhone and sign up for the two year contract - save your receipt
2. Move to an area that AT&T doesn’t cover*. This is not difficult. Pretty much anywhere out west (barring Cali) will suffice.  Or send it to me.  I will use your phone out of area.
3. Wait for AT&T to call you to drop your service. This will take 3-5 months.
4. Get indignant on the phone when they call to inform you that you are being dropped. Try to cry.  Get all snooty about your “$300 piece of junk” that still functions as an iPod touch (and at the same price).
   They will give you a check for the price of your iPhone from AT&T. They will also drop your AT&T contract with no charge.
5. Do the gloat dance.  This is very important.
6. Call t-mobile. Sign up for their special deal. This is 1000 minutes, free nights and weekends, unlimited data and text. This is a little less than $60. Compare this to your $100 minimum phone bill from AT&T and laugh maniacally. Now calm down.  Now laugh again.**
7. Instead of paying $9.99 for a SIM card from t-mobile, get a free phone. I recommend the Motorola Motozine. It retails at $350. You will get this for free. It costs nothing. Hence my overuse of the word “free.” Free.
8. Jailbreak your iPhone and unlock it.*** While you’re at it, download the NES emulator and 79 free Nintendo games. Then download the video camera app for iPhone. You will need these to make your friends extra jealous.  Every time you see someone playing “Solitaire” or “Breakout” on their phones, bust out with Contra.
9. Replace your iPhone SIM with the SIM you got from t-mobile. Port your number over by calling the t-mobile porting service. This is also free.
10. Sell your brand spanking new t-mobile phone on ebay. The “buy it now” price for the zine is around $275.00.
11. Put your boner away before someone sees it. Or don’t. Be extra smug about it.

Congratulations. You now love the smell of your own farts.

*This doesn’t necessarily mean areas with no cell phone coverage.  This just means areas with no AT&T coverage.  Most AT&T plans come with free domestic roaming.  This means that if you are in ANYONE’s cell tower coverage area within the US, AT&T pays for any roaming charges resulting from you not being within range .  See the map above.

**Seriously, stop it.  Ok keep going.

***  This is ridiculously easy.  I’m hugely intimidated by technology and I did it in about half an hour with no fuss or holdups.  NB:  These instructions are for the iPhone 3G.  At the time of this writing, there was no jailbreak/unlock instructions for the 3GS.

Just to shake things up a little, I’m going to post about something other than Colombia.  Here is that post.

It has come to my attention that, since January, I’ve had 7 jobs.  What did I do before that to support myself?  NOTHING! GLORIOUS NOTHING!  This is not entirely true.  I did work at a hostel (here’s a story)for a bit.  My salary was beer.  Best.  Incentive.  Package.  Ever.  Oh and also liquor.

So now, beautiful readers, I am going to recount for your greedy little edification the jobs that I’ve had this year.  It has been (and continues to be) a beautiful ride.

1.  Doorman at a bar:

On Karaoke night (BOOYAH!).  Each Sunday I was a doorman at a bar.  I would check ID’s and sneak a cheeky beer every now and then.  This doesn’t seem so bad, but in a small town like Telluride where everyone thinks they’re a big deal, it can be un petit pain in el ass.  Here’s what a typical interaction would look like:

Dave Barman: (As the bar patron is brusquely brushing past me) Um, excuse me, can I see your ID?

Girl who thinks she’s the bomb.com: Seriously?

DB: Uhhh… Yeah… sorry…

Bomb.com: Do you not know who I am?

DB: Oh are you the girl with the horrible thyroid problem?

Bomb.com: What?

DB: err… nothing

Bomb.com: Well, I’ve lived here for four months, people know me.  You should know who I am.

DB: Oh I’m sorry, I just moved here Tuesday

And then I pull a Temple of Doom and rip her heart out (which inexplicably bursts into flames), all the while shouting in some dead language.  Ahhhh hyperbole, my favorite care bear.

So that’s job #1.

2.  Substitute teacher:

This was a fun job.  Apparently, they will let just anyone be a sub*.  Present company INcluded.  The only requirement is that you have to have a college degree and you don’t have any outstanding felonies.

Here’s how this went:  I would get a call in the morning**, and I would throw on my best (read: only) pair of khakis, a collared shirt, and a sweater and head to the school to enrapture the children with my scholasticness.  I would arrive a little early, look at the lesson plan, and decide how I would inspire the kids.  Most of the time the lesson was a movie or a worksheet.  Tough stuff.  I would then proceed to either teach the lesson or nod off in a corner.  The rare instances in which I would actually get to teach something, the kids would challenge me at every opportunity.

There was one math class that I taught where they were learning basic two-variable equations.  The kids were using a method they so cutely named “plug and chug.”  This meant guessing the answer over and over until they came close.  Being a huge nerd, this was not cute to me.  A typical response to a problem would be “about 15.7″.  This is infuriating to me.  There are no “abouts” in math.  I told them this in no uncertain terms.  I’m afraid I destroyed several self esteems.  I’m not proud of this***.

3.  Salto operator:

One of the best jobs ever.  A salto is a set of bungies that you connect to yourself whilst jumping on a trampoline.  This enables you to jump around 30 feet in the air and do somersalts.  Here is a link to the salto site if you need more explanation.  I would fling kids into the air at neckbreaking speed while their parents looked on in horror.  This in conjunction with my substitute teaching job allowed me to destroy children mentally AND physically.  I felt like I was doing a real thorough job.

The only problem with this job is that it was EXHAUSTING.  I was pulling against bungie cords all day trying to give a good ride to kids who didn’t have the wherewithal to jump… on a trampoline.  Some nights I would crawl home and lie panting and silently weeping under my sheets.

4.  Night auditor:

I posted briefly about this job earlier this year.  So I’m going to plagiarize the best writer of all time:  moi.  I “ran the numbers” for a five star hotel three nights a week.  For all you masochists out there, I can provide a rundown of what “run the numbers” actually means, but I don’t recommend it.  It’s not fascinating.

The best part of this job is that I would get off at seven in the morning, eat a huge breakfast/ bacon celebration, ski a half day, and then come home and crash.  However, staying up all night is not good for your sleeping patterns, especially if you have to loud roommates who can’t get it through their head that you work at night and are always wondering “why do you sleep so late david duurrr duurrr durrrr” while trying to chew their own ears off.

Well, it looks like you only get descriptions of four jobs this time.  Don’t look so glum, there is more to come.  I know you’ve TiVo’ed “Lost.”  So go wrap your atrophied little noggins around that and let uncle David set and rest awhile.

* In the movie “Hook” with Robin Williams, Rufio and grown up Peter Pan get in a war of insults.  One of Peter’s “lame” insults is “substitute math teacher.”  I find this hilarious.

**Most of my calls to sub came on days when it just snowed and the skiing was ridiculous.  I haven’t gotten a call since the season ended.  Coincidence?  I think not.

*** Weeellllll….

Hello friends!

As you have noticed (unless your my sister, and didn’t catch the whole “raw steel and sex appeal” thing until about 5 months after the website’s inception), I have changed the name of the site to “The Burly Unknown.”  This means you can go to www.burlyunknown.com and you will be sent to this site.  Don’t ask me how this works.  It’s internet magic.

I named it The Burly Unknown because I want this site to be about adventuring in everyday life.  I want it to be a tongue-in-cheek repository of fun stories and a place where you recognize the hilarity in everyday things that this world has somehow conspired to make mundane.  I want you to do silly things in everyday circumstances.  I want you to walk backwards to work one day.

I did this because I didn’t want the website to be just about me.  I wanted it to only be mainly about me and maybe a little about you but mostly about me.

Just playin.  Kinda.  I did it because I want the site to grow beyond me.  I want other people to contribute their stories about travel and random/funny/stupid/awesome/nerdy* things.  I want people to send me links they think are funny and get the awesome attention they deserve for being awesome (internet high five [5]).  I want this to be a forum for all things awesome.**

If you are tolerating my writing on this site, chances are you have a similar sense of humor and are ridiculously intelligent and good looking, so I have no problem sending out this electronic casting call.  I trust you, readers, don’t let me down.

I hope you are enjoying the updates.  I’m making a genuine effort to write at least three posts a week and grow the website.  So, if you’re digging the site, spread the word and let all of your (more intelligent and awesomely funny) friends know that there is someone out there that is providing a little bit of humor and a smidgen of escapism.

Please contribute something awesome.  Even if it’s in the comments section.  Don’t worry about sending me something and being nervous that other people might not like it.  If you think it’s worthy, then I think it’s worthy.  Plus I have complete control over everything on this site and will nix anything that will make you look like a douche.

Thanks again for your support, and spread the word!  If you have an idea, want to contribute something, or just tell me that I’m an asshole, please email me at david.garrett.byars@gmail.com.

David

*It’s funny, most of the things I like can be described by all of those adjectives.

** and awesome

This is one of two “comprehensive” projects that I’m working on to tell the story of my trip.  The other one is a more complete account of the trip and how I got to the point where I would drop everything and buy a one way ticket to Guatemala.  That one will most likely take a while.  This one is more of a fun aside where I get to show some of the lighter moments of the trip.

I shot all of this on a little point-and-shoot Olympus with a video capture feature and put the video together with Windows Movie Maker.  I’m a little pissed that I had to put in on youtube to get it to embed because the quality kind of sucks but oh well. So I wasn’t happy with the quality of the youtube video, so I used these instructions to publish a higher quality video in Windows Movie Maker and then uploaded it to Vimeo rather than youtube.  I had a lot of effects that weren’t showing up well on the youtube version (the aged film/ pixelated effects are intentional) and I must say I’m rather impressed with the difference in quality (take that mother-effing internets.  Inyaface!   Atomic elbow to the head blaDOW!).  I’ve left the youtube version up for comparison sake.  Enjoy.

Central America - In no particular order from David on Vimeo.

Back in the late 90’s, an enterprising soul decided that he was tired of seeing jungles by simply walking through them.  After a gruesome and fiery death by rocket jungle chariot accident, someone else came up with a better idea:  Canopy Tours.

There are several spots throughout Central America where one can go on a canopy tour, but Monteverde is where they became famous.  Instead of engaging in my usual pithy commentary, I will let the videos and pictures speak for themselves.  The zipline in the following video was nearly a kilometer long (look how all international I am using the metric scale).  What the video doesn’t show is the seven dragons that I slayed with my Furious Lance of Vengeance (+2 strength).  Maybe I will engage in pithy commentary after all.

In the midst of all this ziplining, we attached ourselves to a rope and flung ourselves into the misty void (which begs the question, is it a void if there is mist?).  Enjoy the bonus Dio on this clip.

At the end of the canopy tour, we hiked along suspension bridges that were erected above the trees.  Hiking on some bridges after a canopy tour is a little underwhelming.  Let’s just say I was completely whelmed after the ziplines and tarzan swing.  Oh well, here is a pic anyhow.

Over the past month and a half, I have met a fair amount of other backpackers. In general, these are normal people just looking for a little adventure in their lives. However, some of these people have idiosyncrasies (or multitudes of them) that set them apart from your everyday traveler. These journeying souls are truly gems and should be cherished and nurtured, for they provide much needed hilarity in our lives.

1. The Expert: The Expert knows more about traveling and is better at it than you. In fact, you suck at traveling and at life in general. You went to Tibet? That’s probably good enough for you, but the Expert will tell you how much better it was last September when he was there and saw the most amazing sunset while sipping hot green tea from the cupped hands of the Dalai Lama. You hiked the trail to Machu Pichu? He did it faster. In the dark. With no food. Walking on his hands. He is the guy wearing local clothing, because he can’t condescend to wear anything western (a dirty word, in his book) and ruin his vast understanding and intrinsic empathy with whatever local culture he is currently absorbing.

   The Expert generally travels alone and is characterized by a smug/ disdainful expression. The Expert has no friends because no one can really relate to him on his level because of the deep and meaningful experiencess he has had.

2. Super Technical Gear Guy (STGG): The STGG wears technical pants with zip-off legs and a hat that conveys the sense that he just traversed the Sahara desert strapped to the top of a Land Rover. He has more zippers on his person at any given moment than the entire cast of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” That bag that you’re traveling with? Piece of crap. The STGG will tell you why the neoprene lining is subject to corrosion under certain conditions. His bag is bullet proof and doubles as six person raft in an emergency. Flip flops? Don’t be so stupid. Big. Ass. Hiking. Boots. Period. STGG understands that he may have to summit a mountain at any given moment. Cotton t-shirt? Nothing touches STGG’s skin that doesn’t immediately wick away unwanted moisture and protect from malaria, dengue fever, and dozens of other exotic tropical diseases.

   STGG is more prepared than you. First aid kit? His portable triage unit can treat scores of burn victims while simultaneously curing a plague epidemic in a mid-sized village.

   The STGG can travel alone or in packs. They can be glimpsed in between billion mile hikes lounging next to their gargantuan packs drinking vitamin-enhanced water from Nalgene bottles wearing matching Chacos or Crocs, their only acceptable footwear outside of hiking boots.

3. Travel Hippy: Travel Hippy is wearing a bandanna and hasn’t shaved her legs or armpits in 3 months. She is a vegan and doesn’t eat anything that casts a shadow. She can’t stand to be at the same table as anyone who is eating “animal flesh” and flounces off in a huff if anyone orders a hamburger. The carrots in her organic hemp carryall died of natural causes. She rolls joints and smokes pot.

   Travel Hippy has a terrible secret. Travel Hippy is not a hippy back in the States. In fact, Travel Hippy secretly misses her Louis Vuitton purse and $900 pumps. Four months ago Travel Hippy was wearing a sorority t-shirt and blasting Britney Spears in her white SUV. She doesn’t even like Phish and can only name two Grateful Dead songs. Travel Hippy has a low self esteem and likes to get drunk on Bud Light. Her first meal upon her return to the States will be a Big Mac and Diet Coke.

   The Travel Hippy can travel alone or in pairs. Any more people that know who they are in real life can endanger the faux legitimacy of their newfound persona. They answer to “forest names” such as Pupa or Wombat.

4. Idiot: Khaki shorts. Baseball cap. The Idiot doesn’t understand why everyone doesn’t speak English, except when he loudly complains about his host country, in which case he clearly expects that no one near him understands English. His blank stare is devoid of comprehension when you tell him that “bathroom-o” doesn’t mean bathroom in Spanish. He thinks everything smells bad and refuses to sample the local cuisine. He carries American junkfood in his ubiquitous Jansport backpack and plans his travels around major metropolitan destinations that are likely to have American fast food restaurants.

   The Idiot travels exclusively in groups, aspiring to bring as much of America with them as possible. You can find the Idiot in your nearest McDonald’s.

5. Party Guy: Party Guy’s sole purpose in traveling is to get drunk at every destination. Party Guy doesn’t care about the 12^th century monastery at the top of the mountain… unless they sell beer. The Party Guy saw a sunrise once. He was passed out on the top of the Mayan ruins in his underwear. Party Guy still wears his wrist bands from all the clubs he went to in Cancun, and will continue to do so until spring break comes along.

   The Party Guy is readily identifiable by his frosted tips and tribal armband tattoo. He is sunburned. He is usually accompanied by other Party Guys and Party Girls whose vocabulary mainly consists of “wooo” and inarticulate ramblings about how effed up he or she got in Belize.

The beauty of these travelers is that there is a little bit of them in every one of us. I find myself guilty of the same infractions that these stereotypes have elevated to such an art. The trick is to have fun, try to find a good balance, keep a sense of humor, and not take yourself so seriously.

Utila

Day 15

1800 hours

Fear. Fear pervades our every thought. Conditions are deteriorating rapidly. The rain has forced a hasty retreat beyond our former entrenched position. The platoon remains pinned down on the south side of the island. Scenes of Iwo Jima flash across our battle scarred minds. Except for the death. And the artillery. And there are no Japanese whatsoever.

The once joyful and gay streets are now cratered and littered with the remains of once enjoyed candy bars. The carefree laughter of Honduran festivity replaced by a swampy no mans land populated only by the weakening moans of the injured.

Our repeated amphibious evac calls have gone unheeded. It seems high command has left us here to rot. Our offensives have been brutally repressed by the impenetrable aquatic defenses of the Honduran 63^rd National Socialist Paramilitary Ferry Company.

Casualties are swiftly mounting. Those that are not dead or dying are sinking slowly into a deadly cocktail of malaise and moderately priced rum.

The innocent youth of our younger years has been cruelly ravaged.

All that remain of the original 300 strong platoon are a wearied and malnourished half dozen. Our once proud fighting force has been decimated by the slow cruel attrition of disease and sporadic napping. The wrecked remnants are in a pitiable state.

Private Watson is nearing death. He remains motionless under the burden of his murder mystery novel, his chest rising and falling with the loathsome rhythm of his own impending mortality. The incessant screams of Lt. Tom are taking an emotional toll on all of us. His glazed eyes betray no remaining vestige of humanity. I fear that we must take extreme action to salvage the waning sanity of our unit.

I fear this may be my last communication. My laptop’s lifeblood is slowly and inexorably draining. Our only chance is a dawn offensive that is likely to prove suicidal. Dusk is falling, and with it, our hope of salvation.

Silence. Terrible silence. For now.

Spanglish is, by its very nature, hilarious. However, not all Spanglish is created equal. If this example of Spanglish were an animal, it would be a fire breathing lizard/tiger/shark that can shoot laser beams out of its eyes and crap diamond necklaces.

This is the description of a movie (The Black Pimpernel) advertised on a flier outside of a bootleg movie house.

Here is the transcript:

Santiago Chile, 11 of September of 1973. Beyond it is defeated. Based on the life of Swedish ambassador Jared Edelstam (Michael Nyqvist) and his fight to help Chilean refugees. During the terror that sembro the coup d’etat, Edelstam fights for human rights, justice, and the dignity. That it reason?! That price had to pay to become jumbled? Tormented by the past, we followed the busquedad of a desperate man to find love once again.

That is just plain inspirational. If I knew how to do a slow clap over the internet, I would.

That it reason?!?!

I departed Semuc Champey unsure where I wanted to go. I knew I eventually wanted to get to Honduras for scuba diving, but that was a several day trip and I wanted to find a way to break it up in an interesting manner.

I looked on a map and saw that Rio Dulce was somewhat on my route to Honduras, so I decided to head that way. I arranged for a shuttle to pick me up in the morning at 7 a.m. to transport me to Rio Dulce. Around 9 a.m. (official travel time [“OTT”]: 2 hours) it became apparent to me that the shuttle was not merely running on “Guatemala time”, it was not going to arrive at all. My choice at this point was to either stay in Semuc Champey for another week or try to get to Rio Dulce on my own.

I shouldered my backpack and started up the hill to try to find a ride to Coban. I waited an hour and a half before a minibus showed up that was going my way. I arrived in Coban just in time to catch the bus to El Rancho, which is just a huge bus stop in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately for me, I was not aware of this. My ignorance of the specific geography combined with the lack of any signs or announcements for bus stops resulted in me overshooting El Rancho by a good two hours. The bus attendant thought it was great fun that I missed my stop so grievously. Needless to say, I disagreed.

They were kind enough to drop me in the middle of nowhere, sweating and seething, to try to flag a bus going in the opposite direction.

After another hour wait (OTT: 8 hours), I finally found a bus going in the right direction… or so I thought. The conversation with the bus attendant went something like this:

Me: Does this bus go to Rio Dulce?

Bus guy: Yes, to Morales.

Me: Oh, so I change buses in Morales to get to Rio Dulce?

Bus guy: No, Rio Dulce and Morales are the same place.

Me: Ok, so if I’m in Morales, I can take a boat to the coast.

Bus guy: No, you have to go to Rio Dulce to get a boat.

Me: …

Me: …

Me: …

Me: So can I get a bus to Rio Dulce from Morales?

Bus guy: No, they’re the same place.

I don’t really remember what happened at this point as I was distracted by the sound of my head exploding.

Lady luck smiled upon me; the only seat left on the bus was directly above the engine and next to the bathroom (my theory about this bathroom is that it eventually became so disgusting, that rather than cleaning it, the owner of the bus simply locked it. Problem solved.). It was obvious that the other passengers were saving the best seat for the lost gringo. The heat of the engine simmering all of the bathroom’s typical contents made for a fragrant stew.

I finally arrived in Morales (OTT: 12 hours), which apparently co-exists at the same location as Rio Dulce but is a bus trip away. I had a sandwich and a refreshing vomit and then set about fumigating my nostrils with whatever industrial cleaning solvents were at hand.

I found someone that existed on the same ethereal plane as me who gave me directions to Rio Dulce that didn’t involve bending the fabric of space-time. Turns out it was only another half hour bus ride to Rio Dulce and there was a bus coming in 15 minutes!

Obviously, the bus was a good 2 hours late and standing room only. If anything can be said about my luck on this trip, it was at least consistent.

I finally got to Rio Dulce at around 10 p.m. It felt more like 27 p.m.

The one saving grace on the trip was that I had a book in which I was completely engrossed.

I left my book on the last bus. A final parting shot from the gods.

DGB: The trip wasn’t as awful as it sounded. Just long and frustrating. I met a couple of Guatemalans on the buses who were awesome. That’s the beauty of traveling on the buses.