Cody

There’s my organization skills for you… I pile everything I need up in the hallway then start filling the backpack… whatever doesn’t fit must not of been that important in the first place
The “plan” is still to ride as far as possible hopefully making New Franklin, MO before sundown (New Franklin is where I intend to meet up with the Katy Trail). Ride the Katy Trail to the end and maybe find a place to cross and go over to Wentzville where I’ll find Rotary Park and go to the St. Louis Ren. Faire site where Pirate Fest is going on! But if I can’t find it that isn’t really a huge deal. I’ve still got a bit of planning to do as far as the exact course I’m going to take, but it looks like I’ll be heading down Barry Road most of the way, cut up towards Liberty and head out with 210 and Old 210 Highway… Most of it is small enough roads to ride on past Liberty going East/North so it’ll be good.

Since I’ve still got to pack and tons of things to take care of before I go this is going to have to be cut much shorter than I wanted it to be… but I did want to say to Jesse thank you for being awesome! I’ll be honest I was sort of worried about what you’d think about me going… which is odd for me in the first place since I don’t generally care what anyone thinks about what I do. I do care what you think, especially when it comes to spiritual matters.

This last month has been odd for me… Not to say that there haven’t been very good things about this month, but it has still been odd. First off it has been a little over a month now that I’ve been talking about going on this “bike trip.” The whole bike trip in itself is an odd deal… It all started with one day me feeling an overwhelming sense of “what in the heck am I doing in this world, or with my life?” Which then immediately lead to me asking that very question to God. Conventional wisdom from people like my dad has been pushing me towards “hey just get a job at McDonalds go to school for a while, learn a trade and make a good living” where as something inside me has been poking back with “hold strong, keep running your business and when the time comes that you need it, the money will be there.” Ok, so I’ve been holding strong, I’ve been building my business… or at least trying. I’ve spent countless hours, and small fortunes in establishing myself… and guess what I’ve got to show for it…. nothing… I can count the number of orders that have been placed on my website on a single hand, heck I don’t think I really even need half a hand to count all the orders. After a while conventional wisdom begins to creap in… these seeds sown by my father and some others about what I’m doing being irresponsible, lazy, and worthless start to flower. So that night in a rather depressed state I asked very directly for God to show me in a physical way which path I should take, and in fact I gave God almost 2 weeks to answer. Less than 6 hours later I had it… and it was exactly what I had asked for showing me to stay the course and continue doing things the way I am…

Where does the whole bike trip fit in though? That’s an odd one as well. When I asked God to show me some sort of sign as to what I needed to be doing with my life I lumped together staying at home and running my business with a minimum 500 mile bicycle trip across Missouri… why? uh… I don’t know. It’s actually been something that I’ve wanted to do for some time, but I wanted to do it on the Katy trail the whole way… I didn’t want to start from my house, ride to the Katy trail, ride the Katy trail, and come home the same way…. that’s insane! But for some reason that’s what I said for this one. The original plan was to leave the Sunday after the Leadership Summit, upon telling Jordan about the plans he said that he would love to come as well if I gave him a little more time…. What he needed was to get another paycheck from Reece and Nichols which required that he made a couple of websites. I offered to completely design and build the websites for him along with optimize them and do everything necessary for him to get paid… he agreed and it never went anywhere… All I needed was FTP access and the sites hosted, and it never happened. Tired of waiting I decided to just go alone again. One of the big reasons why I even agreed or wanted Jordan to go with me is because one of the themes at the Leadership Summit was that of not fighting this fight alone… being that Jordan has always been one of my closest companions I really think that we work well together… what I fail at he succeeds, and vis versa.  So it only made sense that this discovery journey I was taking before leaping out to follow God’s direction of sticking it out with my own little business would be taken with someone that I work so well with.  Never the less I couldn’t wait any longer for this so I was to set out alone again.  Within a matter of days I get a call from Jordan asking if I was still planning on going, and he said he could go… He had gotten fired from his job for putting family and this “church thing” above his job (he was working for our Uncle Guy and he’s a little crazy).  This was great news!  I wasn’t going to have to go alone, and we could have a great devotional time as we traveled across Missouri on bike.  Now Jordan has gone and signed up for a Quintiles study so once again I will be going alone.  The odd thing is that I was to leave last week… however God in his infinite wisdom plagued me with customers on my website (here’s a site that has been dormant for some time all of a sudden gets tons of customers right when I want to head out).

As I understand it from several events that have occurred what God wants to teach me is to trust him completely, and with no strings attached, and that it isn’t good to go alone.  The second part has been made even more clear with Jesse coming into my life.  I think one of the common topics that always comes up is how we’re both “willing to walk alone until God brings someone else, if he brings someone else to walk with us.”  maybe not word for word that, but it often comes up… ironically just about everything that we’ve talked about along those lines the other of us could be that person.  When it comes to trusting God he has been so amazing this last month with finances that there is no way I couldn’t trust him in that respect.  Every time I’ve looked at my checking account and said “woops… I forgot about that one” there is a random purchase on my website that fills in the gap just about to the dollar.  I’ve come to grips with the fact that I’m never going to have an over abundance of money in my life, and that’s fine.  I’m also slowly coming to grips with the fact that there probably won’t be a spare dollar until the very moment I need it… So the question is if I’ve already learned these lessons why am I still going?  Besides the fact that it is something that I’ve wanted to do for a couple of years now… I made a promise that if God gave me the sign to stick it out and run my business I would take some time off to unrestrictedly follow Him and spend time in his word… I think it’s more about the promise I made to God now than anything… Don’t get me wrong the idea of being out far away from all the distractions that keep me from reading His word as often as I should is great… but the idea of going without “proper supplies” and some sort of emergency food source scares the crap out of me.  God has been very generous to me lately so I’ve got spare money to stop and eat along the way… the problem is on some of the routes before I make it to the Katy Trail there are spurts of 50 - 60 miles between towns… That’s a long way to go before being able to stop for… well anything!  So maybe there is still a lot of room for me to grow in the trust area with God… The biggest thing I’m struggling with now is that the whole trip has just become my stubborn pride pushing me to still go when I really shouldn’t.  I’m afraid that if it is my pride that is taking me on the trip now that… well it’s going to sound silly… but I’m afraid that God won’t take care of me because it’s not what he wants… of course it is a ridiculous notion… I think I’m going to just have to grin my teeth, close my eyes, take a deep breath and leap out to watch what amazing things God does.

Despite the fact that I’ve had to delay my bike excursion for one more week this week has been fantastic!   First off I got a kitty!  The kitty is great, she’s really adjusting to the new home and is getting to fighting the dogs and stuff so she’s been great.  I could go on forever about how great the new kitty is… but that’ll be some other time.  For now be satisfied to know that her name is Hiei (pronounced he-ay) it’s a Japanese word that means hidden shadow!  And she is to become a ninja kitten in due time.  It has also been great that my business is growing and surviving on its own… which is still all good and fun… but not the best part of this week.

The best part of this week came also with a blindside to my priorities.  Still living with my mommy, and working at home doing something that pays rather well I’ve never had to put much priority on anything other than my little business, myself, and entertainment for myself (computer games mostly).  God does fit in there somewhere too…. I’d love to lie and say he’s at the top of the priority list, but I’ve gotten into the habit of being rather honest on here, and lets face it I don’t make as much time for God as I should… especially seeing as I have all the time in the world to do basically whatever I want.  Most of the time after working on the website, or saturating my mind with the numbing effects of working on chainmail for several hours I’ll hop online and play some games to destress, or regain consciousness.  Believe me if you’ve ever sat around for 8 hours putting ring, after ring, after ring, after ring, after ring, after ring, after ring onto a piece of chainmail (be it a necklace or a full shirt) you’ll know what I mean about losing consciousness.  I’ve found something else, much better than video games this week however to keep my mind occupied.

I always used to make fun of Jordan when we started up a game of CoH or WiC where you rely on your teammates 100% and he’d get called by his woman (as I often referred to her just to tease him I’m not sexist it was just fun to mess with him… I’d never say it to her). I’d get kind of frustrated with him since I was losing because he couldn’t concentrate… I’ve been more distracted this week than he’s ever shown… not in a bad way either; good distractions.  It sounds absolutely silly for me to say it now, but I’ve been waiting for 2 months for the game World in Conflict to come out (played the Beta 2 months ago and fell in love, since then have become addicted… until recently).  WiC was the greatest game for relieving stress because I am freaking good at it!  It’s a strategy game that I can just manipulate to my likings.  I can join a losing team and lead them to victory most any time because I’m good at organized attacking.  Anyways, I seriously played the game all the time… it officially came out Tuesday (mind you I had it pre-ordered 2 months in advance).  Now I wouldn’t mind getting my money back for it… because it’s not as good in the full release?  Absolutely not, it’s much better with many more maps which makes it much more exciting and engaging.  Thing is it went from being high on my priority list to dropping off the radar screen.  Thing is I only play games on the comp to get away for a while, some entertainment, and a little relaxation… that was replaced this week :-D  Now I have to say I don’t even understand why Jordan would stay in game to play with me… distracted as he might be, while talking to “his woman”  haha I can say that because she’s not really his anymore, they’re on a break right now… but looks to be breaking up… but anyways you guys don’t need to know all that.  Actually my distraction started as a MySpace friend request.  A girl from our church found me on MySpace (not that I knew it was her at the time, I was actually quite confused as to who it was when I saw the request).  We talked back and forth on MySpace for a couple of days and filled up each others pages with comments before starting to talk on YIM.  The freetime I’ve had where I’m not doing work for my business I’ve spent talking with her, and it has been great!  In fact tonight we’ve talked for nearly 8 hours straight now!  It’s been a great conversation the whole time though, we’ve talked about everything from her kids and how she’s raising them, to our lives, and pack rat natures.  I can’t even begin to put down how great it has been either… I love solid engaging conversations, and this has most definitely been that.

Ok… so not gonna be able to leave on the bike trip as I had promised this week… there’s always something isn’t there?  Luckily I did get to talk with Tiana and Pirate Fest will be next weekend as well.  So the plan (key word PLAN) is to leave next Tuesday.  What happened is that Tuesday I got a CRAZY flow of customers to my website (and when I say crazy flow keep in mind that the entire existence of the site I’ve sold a grand total of 5 items in 3 years that I’ve had it)  all asking questions, none buying yet.  One of them is a guaranteed buy, they talked to me at the St. Louis Ren. Faire and were going to pay then, I told them to wait because it was a custom piece and I hate taking money for something that I’ve not done.  I went home and made the item the next week… it’s just now getting back to them finally buying that item Still there is another order that looks promising that will total to about $300 unfortunately the purchase hasn’t been made yet… and haven’t heard anything from the person other than the initial contact email.

So that’s the real delay, I have absolutely no choice to leave my business in the dust when business is finally picking up… however I will still go on this trip, things only get more difficult as time progresses.  Maybe Jordan can come next week with me on the ride but who knows.  He had to say no to this week because he is doing a Quintiles study (he recently lost his job, and would like to do work as I do online but we all know that’s a double edged sword in itself when you have bills to pay).  Problem with working online is that unless you just get REALLY lucky like me and get hooked up with a killer job working for Viacom you work your butt off to see results 3 months down the road.  I know you guys all think that the internet is instant… it is much faster than a regular business, but the truth of the matter is that all business online takes 3 months to establish, during which time you must have 100% devotion or you make nothing at all in the end, and the site never launches.

A new daughter!  I posted a little bit ago (might of been my last post) that I needed a new daughter… well I getted one!  It was sort of unplanned but luckily I’ve got money running out my ears in excess right now so it really worked out.  Tiana found a lil kitty kat under the hood of her vehicle yesterday… being that it was a lil itty bitty kitty she couldn’t just leave it somewhere, so she called me up and asked me if I wanted her.  Got her this morning and she’s gorgeous.  A little black kitten.  She’s a little bit of a scaredy cat  so she spends most of her time hiding, I let her hide for the first hour or so that she was here, then I pulled her out and gently petted her until she was calm then got her some warm milk and continued petting her until she drank a little then she went off and hid again… gotta make sure she keeps eating so I do this every half hour… find her in the mess of a room she’s in warm up her milk (actually do that one first) pet her till she calms down and starts roaming around in my lap, then she gets a drink and sneaks off to hide.  She really is a sweetheart though, I think she’s going to be a lover kitty… which is good I like cats that will cuddle.

So we officially have reached 100 posts!  Ok, we haven’t I have since I’m the one who writes on here pretty crazy though if you ask me.

Anyways, that wasn’t really my point in coming on here, it’s been 10 days and I’ve said nothing so a real quick update (since I always tell people if they want to know what’s going on in my life to go here, may as well keep this up to date huh?).  Gonna be heading out towards St. Louis on bike around Wednesdayish of next week.  And the big reason why I’ve been gone is because I’ve been working on www.applymyway.com a new website idea that I had.   The idea behind it was that I was bored and thought I should create a girlfriend application (yeah, don’t ask because I don’t know).  I mean I’ve got the means to do so… so why not?  Then the idea grew into… why not make some money from it?  So the plan is within the next 2 months (hopefully MUCH sooner) to have a fully functional website where you can create your own applications (for whatever you so desire) and they’ll be hosted on my site.  Smaller businesses can create profiles on the site and host their own applications too, to be more professional, and for a small monthly fee those people can get the ads removed from their application so that it really looks professional.  Much like Lowes has an online application process that is not hosted by them… well I could be that person (not that I’m going for any big accounts right now anyways).  Also the big thing with the site once it’s all ready I plan on releasing it to all the major social networking sites (Facebook, Myspace, MyYearbook, and StumbleUpon to start with).  People will be able to create applications for whatever and put links in their profiles so that their friends can fill them out… sort of like all the retarded quiz sites that are going around… anyways, the goal is to have you guys help me and hopefully it will grow virally and I might actually be able to start coding full time
That’s about it that’s new and going on with me.  It is back to coding for me… if you visited the site you know that the only thing up is the user registration system (which is fully functional), currently working on the user profiles, and then to the actual application process… should have the profiles done later today, if not tomorrow, then the rest will be ready soon (soon is the best estimation I can give, may get it done a week after I get back from my ride, may be a month).

So have I ever told you guys that I love making lists?  Because it’s true I do.  Well as a fun little “hey I’ve been forced to wait a while in taking my bike trip why not use the money I have now to actually get something for the trip” I’ve spent quite a bit of time this last week digging through survival sites, and the like finding necessary equipment for the trip.   I managed to get a killer list together including 30 day food supply, GPS, shelter, endless water supply, portable recharging station for my AA batteries used for GPS, lights on bike, digital camera, etc.  I had it all planned out to a T!  Seriously I had about $15k worth of supplies on a $700 budget simply because I planned everything to coincide and work together perfectly so that with a little creativity every item served at least 5 purposes and could be combined with other items to go even further… Everything was made for longevity, flexibility, and integration… it was an amazing list of supplies and truly could have supported me on this bike ride nearly indefinitely.

So where does the fail come in?  Well, as it turns out behind Zona Rosa they are doing some construction, building some new buildings and… well… they built me a playground in the process.

Sorry bout the poor picture quality stupid 2 megapixel camera phone.  I was ridding along and saw the big dirt mount… and well… couldn’t resist.  I’ve been ridding for a long time, and do a lot of extensive off-road ridding.   So I know how to ride in order that I take my fair share of any bumps or impacts but also allow the bike to absorb shock where it is designed to… Obviously ridding out here I am standing most of the time to keep weight off of the seat.  After going down one of the large hills I sat down kind of resting ridding up to the next… but something was different.  Somehow my seat got moved or something because it definitely did not feel right.  I decided play time was over and that I should head home.  After getting home I realized that I had broken my seat, one of the support posts was bent/twisted… Did I tell you earlier that I had planned my trip down to the dime?  And that everything I was going to be getting pretty much is only useful if all the other components are available because they all integrate with each other?  Well it’s true, I did, and even this little hickup of needing to fork out $50 for a new seat is enough to throw the entire plan out the window… well funny thing is I never quit ridding.  I’ve gone out a couple more times since I broke my seat… just rest less
Coming home from Downtown Parkville this last trip I was noticing that my chain keeps slipping more and more… never a good sign, but the chain is 5 years old so what the heck my budget has been thrown out the window anyways.  When I got home and looked everything over there was something interesting about the chain… it’s fine… As it turns out the slipping, and also loud clicking I’ve been hearing is because my Cassette is worn out.  (if you don’t know what the cassette on a bike is it’s the large set of gears on the back tire)  When you stand to ride your bike it puts a lot of pressure on your chain, and in turn your cassette, which also has the chain moving back and forth to different gear sets.  Well after 5 years my Cassette is starting to wear out (pretty common).  Just that the last couple of days me keeping a consistent 150 pounds of pressure on it even when changing gears has just about done it in.  Alright… fine… fun part is when pricing a new cassette I ran into all kinds of fun little things.  My bike is a 24 speed bike, which means the rear cassette has 8 sprockets on it… nobody makes 8 sprocket cassettes anymore.  They’ve all gone in favor of the closer spaced sprockets and less jump for the chain on 9 sprocket cassettes.  Funny thing is that in going from 8 to 9 sprockets I’ve got to change over my entire gearing system.  On oldschool bikes you had the little lever that you pushed or pulled and kind of listened or turned back and looked to change your gears.  Newer bikes, especially high end ones don’t do that anymore.  Everything is done by the push of a button, you push a button to go up in gears, you pull another go go back down… problem is this system must be made specifically for what you’ve got… in moving from 8 to 9 sprockets you not only must change out the cassette you have to change out the shifters as well…  In short in order to fix my bike properly (new tires, gears and mechanics, shocks rebuilt, and new seat) it’s going to run me in the range of $700 almost to the dollar…

In short God has said, “I thought I told you to go out on this trip with nothing… so why are you planning all these other things?”