The Burly Unknown!

Welcome friends.  It seems that I haven’t posted in a while.  This is because I’m very important and have to tend to important things from time to time.  I wish you wouldn’t be so needy.

You probably want to freshen up on your DGTC history.  It’s like re-reading all of the Harry Potter books before you tackle the finale.  I can’t believe I just made that reference.

Read.  Enjoy.  Go to my sponsors.  Send money.  Or cookies.  No, just send money.

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So I hunkered down to become a financial genius. And by hunkered down I mean I did a moderate amount of work and a significant amount of partying. After all, I had just proved myself cool in high school. Shouldn’t I be cool in college?  My abercrombie wardrobe sure thought so…

I was semi-serious about my studies. In my second year, I decided to spend a semester abroad in Barcelona. It was the closest I got to actually utilizing the great gift of higher education. It spit me out of my comfort zone and away from the (in my case) developmentally atrophying environment of a small private school. I studied art, history, literature, language, and, to appease my future financier-persona, international business.

I cringe internally when I look back at this juncture in my life. This could have been a turning point for me. Never were subjects that I embraced and loved so starkly juxtaposed with subjects that I thought I would grow to enjoy but secretly despised.

People are always convincing themselves that they really love things that they don’t. I once met a guy who said his passion was manufacturing or supply chain management or something like that. I quietly excused myself, strapped on roller skates, and kicked him in the mouth.  Show me someone who says they are enthralled by logistics and I will show you a liar. At best, they are interested in it or find it stimulating. The word love is too lightly used, particularly when it comes to vocation.

After my semester in Barcelona, I came back to my little comfort nest. Except now I was different. I had been abroad*. I was distinguished from my peers in a way that I couldn’t describe and others couldn’t fathom. I began every third sentence with, “Well, in Barcelona…” I can’t imagine how annoying I was. This is something that I still find myself guilty of. Throw a couple pints in me, and I will find a way to mention my travels while insinuating that I’m probably the smartest guy in the bar. It’s horribly embarrassing.

* If I could italicize this any more, I would.  Extra slanty.

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…

Hellooooo.  Read this and enjoy it.  If you don’t enjoy it, I kindly request that you go back in time and unread it.

Once again, here it is from the beginning.

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I jumped into the shuttle for Antigua and an hour later was dumped in the middle of the main square. This is where I think I finally stopped sweating. Metaphorically. Physically, I was still pouring sweat. It was around 1000 degrees there…Celsius.

I consulted the guidebook and chose the hostel with the most ridiculous name: Jungle Party. I picked my way through charming Antigua and arrived at the hostel. I had to shout through locked bars that looked stout enough to repel charging rhinos to gain entrance. I later learned that this hostel had been the victim of a recent heist. Apparently masked gunmen swept in and held around 40 guests and workers at gunpoint while they robbed them blind. A month after I left, the hostel was robbed again, presumably by the same gang, in spite of the gate and armed security guard. The rhinos never showed.

At this point in my travels, however, I was blissfully unaware of any trouble. This turned out to be a providential theme in my journey. I was always just ahead or just behind some sort of crime. At the end of my trip, I had traveled with a knifing victim, two bus jacking victims, and one pistol whipping victim, not to mention countless theft-ees. My solitary great tragedy was a stolen iPod that I left on a restaurant table overnight. It was blind luck that things turned out as well as they did for me. It certainly had nothing to do with any sort of special wherewithal on my part.*

As I bumbled along in Antigua, grinning like an idiot, drinking the water (replete with delicious and exotic component micro-organisms), and sampling the finest food each market stall had to offer (oh streetmeat… shall we ever cross paths again?), I fell in with some travelers.

Travelers are naturally herd creatures and crave the approval of others. I was no exception. And at this point I was starting to fancy myself a true traveler. After all, I had shrewdly maneuvered my way to this beautiful colonial town in Guatemala that I had never heard of. Who cares that five hours earlier I was in the Atlanta airport munching on a Cinnabon?  I was practicing my facial expressions of deep contemplation and cultural understanding. I probably just looked constipated.

The question was: where to next? I had no clue. I had gotten myself somewhere, now I needed to get myself somewhere else… somehow.

* My strategy if confronted by any sort of criminal was to squeal like a woman and then proceed to scream “Not in the face!  Not in the face!”

Word up homeslices.

Lucky you.  You get two parts today!  Mainly because part 5 is four sentences and three fragments.

Once again, to start from the beginning, go here.

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I saw a cabbie with a sign. Antigua. “What the hell is an Antigua?” was my first thought.

I consulted my guide book. An Antigua turned out to be a supposedly charming colonial town about an hour from the airport. Guatemala City vs. Antigua. Death and dismemberment vs. Baroque architecture.

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Don’t get me wrong. Middle management is great for most people. I’m just hoping that there’s something better in store for me.

Things have become too easy for us. Moderate wealth is easily attainable. Our parent’s generation was obsessed with not being poor. Our generation won’t be poor. Oh we’ll have good times and bad, but ultimately, none of us will starve. Most of us will have big ass televisions. Where does this leave us? What do we strive for? Fulfillment? Hardly.

I become ill whenever the purchasing of a house is referred to as the “American Dream.” I’m sure at one point owning a home was actually an accurate symbol of the American Dream. Maybe it meant that you had bettered yourself enough to be able to become a homeowner: a rarity, an owner of land. Now it’s easy to make yourself part of the new bastardized American dream. Mortgage peddlers are chomping at the bit to get you on board.  All you have to do is saddle yourself with 40 years worth of debt. Which at some point you’re likely not going to be able to pay. You become enslaved by this debt. You can’t take chances. You can’t start your own business and leave the drudgery of your current job that pays the bills and leaves you empty. Security is your number one priority.  This strikes me as the antithesis of the American dream. But that’s just me.