April 28, 2008 by dunny.

”The joy of suffering.” That phrase has passed through my ears countless times, never quite meaning the same thing twice…the Christian view on the constructive aspect of suffering for Christ…the Buddhist thought that to live means to suffer due to attachment to transient things (joy being the cessation of such suffering)…the capitalist way of deferred gratification…athletes’ motivation to punish their bodies in order to be the best…the emo notion that, wait there’s never joy in emo…

In any case, the idea that satisfaction and fulfillment can be found through suffering has its merits. The ability to conceive and quantify mental and emotional suffering is a unique ability of humans, or as the great Elbert Hubbard said, “If you suffer, thank God! — it is a sure sign that you are alive.” I’d like to offer a slightly different version, though, a more optimistic alternative if you will: “Joy due to suffering, among other things.”

Although one could interpret both phrases exactly the same, there is an element of should in the former. We as people feel pain, anger, frustration, disappointment, heartbreak, rage, sadness, and any other emotions in the spectrum of suffering. We all endure times of hardship. The key is not to rationalize these experiences through self-induced guilt. Too often we try to dissolve our suffering as quickly as possible, saying “It could be worse, I should just suck it up” or “I should just think about all the good things in my life instead” or “I should just get high.” Rather, the key is to accept and process these sufferings, experience them fully, and naturally come back to a state of calm and contentment, all the more appreciative of the present because suffering was overcome in a comprehensive, healthy manner.

Start with the emotions that rise and fall so quickly that one might not even remember them minutes later…frustration in traffic (honk honk!), anger over loss (cheaters!), resentment of strangers (douchebag!). It’s so easy to shrug them off that often times they become a natural part of our persona. Sit back and consider, though. Was it the traffic that actually caused that frustration to boil over, the loss that actually caused anger to take shape, the stranger doing something strange that actually caused judgment to materialize…or were they just triggers for something already there? Were these quick reactions to the unfamiliar simply the evidence of deeper issues that have been impatiently brushed aside?

Then what of the deeper issues, the negative energy accumulated through emotional and spiritual hardship? If hateful reactions to uncomfortable situations become the natural way of things, then suffering truly has taken hold of the life itself. The supposed “joy” is no more than the assumption that hardship is the only reality and always “could be worse,” the following rationalization that destructive thoughts are acceptable because they are in keeping with that reality, and finally a mindless walk through day after day of emotional turmoil and spiritual torment. Sure there will be fun times, but contentment will be rather short-lived.

The second phrase, on the other hand, implies that tragedies cannot be scaled against other tragedies. Rather than finding inherent joy in suffering or even the ability to perceive suffering, it finds joy in making suffering a completely subjective and independent experience, processing it as such, and overcoming to the extent that the mind is cleared of those distractions to the present. The “joy” is the pride and satisfaction that comes from overcoming such hardship, and the associated contentment that comes from creating a mind open enough to recognize the infinite beauty the world has to offer (thus the “among other things”).

Bottom line…we experience suffering on a daily basis on varying levels. If we can strive for “Joy due to suffering, among other things,” the process of accepting, processing, and healing that suffering can become a natural part of our lives. Ultimately, we will cease to call our suffering trivial or dwell on it unnecessarily, consciously or unconsciously, and reach levels of clarity in our minds and hearts we never thought imaginable…and dare I say, suffering will give way to contentment over and over in our lives as love and tolerance abound.

Here’s to it folks.

(I’m baaaaaaaaaaack!)

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November 28, 2007 by dunny.

Go here:

http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=7420633

The video link is in the top left corner of the story.  Hopefully this is the first of a series of media coverages.

Skip, out. (SkipLizard Homepage)

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November 27, 2007 by dunny.

For yall Austinites, watch the 6:00pm news tonight on NBC.  You might see some interesting footage of bearded Texans making noise in Central Asia.  How exciting!

Skip, out. (SkipLizard Homepage)

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October 31, 2007 by Andy.

Let’s start by reading an article from the CBS Associated Press.

CBS Article

If you want to see the incident then here is a link to the video.

taser video

You can tell by the title that justice has been carried out in this case.

The first question that comes to mind after reading this story and then actually seeing the incident is…”How free is our Freedom of Speech?” Once that initial question opens the door and runs through it, the rest of the questions run into your mind like beers 3 through 10 run into your mouth on Friday night.

We all understand that we have a right to “Freedom of Speech” as part of being an American. But…how far does this right extend? Does it extend unrestrained allowing us to say anything we want at any time at any place? The obvious answer to that is no, and by establishing that, we have a maximum boundary on our right to free speech. How far do we need to regress before we actually figure out what we can say and what we cannot say?

Can we walk into our place of work and start saying whatever we want? Probably not, unless you are self employed. Can we walk into a business and say whatever we want? Probably not, unless the business encourages that. Can we go to our school, a place that is supposedly open to ideas and new arguments? Probably not, unless you want to spend an afternoon with the principal or campus police. Can you simply go out to the street and start espousing your views? Maybe, but you better have a permit and not be saying anything that will upset anyone…so probably not. Can you use an amplifier to project your message? Well…once again you have to have a permit, a designated space, and it must not be done so with the involvement of a sound truck…so probably not. Where can we go, and what can we say?

Can you go to a political rally and question your leadership? Well…if you watch the video and read the story then apparently not. The invent of the taser also tells us otherwise. Man…maybe you can send a letter that expresses your views to a politician? You can do this, but you have to pay to send the letter; so in essence, there is a restraint on that method as well. The concept of free speech seems to be very narrow after you ask all of these questions….doesn’t it? There are a many questions but none of them really have any concrete answers that give us an ultimate limit on our right to “free speech.” So what does define our right?

Is our right to “free speech” limited simply to saying things that people agree with? Are we estopped from saying things that people don’t like? If you ask the student who questioned John Kerry, you probably would get a resounding yes. Did he have the right to stand before a Congressman and former Presidential candidate and ask him a non scripted question? According to the campus police he didn’t. Doesn’t the article say it all…no charges will be filed. Whew…we can all breath a sigh of relief because a potential threat to national security was avoided. It only took one objectionable question and 50,000 volts of electricity to prevent charges and keep the peace from being disturbed. And what would those charges have been? Disturbing the peace…maybe? Was he really disturbing the peace, or was he simply asking a tough question? Was his “disturbing the peace” really disturbing, or was it an attempt to shed some light on a system that has helped a few but hurt many more? Was his “disturbing the peace” an attempt to clarify some confusion regarding the democratic process? Was it an attempt to exercise his right to free speech? Was it a way of holding an elected representative accountable? Was he speaking for half of the nation or simply interrupting a scripted performance? It is a good thing that nobody has to answer these questions because they are tough, and we should all be grateful for those officers protecting the peace.

Despite the many other issues that this scenario raises (abuse of power, excessive force, forced conformity, restraint on opposing views, etc.), we can stand proudly on the fact that our rights, national security, and most importantly peace were preserved on that day. But wait…might a little disturbance in the peace be good? No way. It is not possible for a person or a group of people to say something unpopular and have any type of good result…right? We can all be assured that our Founding Fathers knew that things such as womens’ suffrage and a movement toward racial equality would simply result from an evolving nation…can’t we? I mean no one had to stand up and ask some tough questions or say something that was unpopular did they? Not that I am comparing the student from the article with Martin Luther King, but he is representative of a value that we hold dear as Americans…the right to free speech. His questions represent our ability to seek answers from those we choose to represent us. He represents a minority that will not stand silent and complacent, but who seek to grow, evolve, and improve. And for this he was tased. The proper remedy for this situation is not only to decline to file charges due to the fact that no crime was committed, but it would be to allow that student to sit down with Mr. Kerry and ask every question that came into his mind. Instead of restricting our right to free speech with a taser, why not allow the tough questions to be asked? Why not seek out deficiencies in our system so that we can then seek solutions? Why not stand on the idea of free speech in hopes that something good will come from it? Or maybe we should just give everyone a taser to protect the peace.

Just a thought

Andy Out

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September 25, 2007 by Andy.

Ever since coming back I have had the pleasure of being an American. I see many driven people push themselves to endless feats; I see many people push themselves so hard in fact that all they know is work, what they have to do, work, and tired. This is our America. It is what we know. It is what we live, breath, preach to our children, strive for, embody as our life goal, and most importantly it is what shapes our view of the rest of the world. We as Americans know that this has to be the way that the rest of the world wants to live; they have to want our cars, our health-care, our land, our big houses, our communication, our religion, our freedom, and most of all our money. It just has to be that way. I mean why would anyone not want these things?…Right!?!?

Well…yesterday I had opportunity to see this concept at its finest. The President of Iran came spoke at Colombia University (one of the most prestigious universities in America), and yes it is the same Iran that we know is enriching uranium to try to blow up everyone with weapons of mass destruction. Wait…are they really? When questioned, the Iranian President said something about supplying power to all of its citizens….nah…they want to blow us up; I mean America and only a few other countries are the only ones capable enough of having nuclear power without using it to blow people and places up…right.?.?

I don’t like where this is going…let me start over.

We assume that everyone wants what we have and live our lives. This has led us to the almost unquestioned belief, held by Americans, that we are right. Well here is my question…are we really? What happens when we actually try and see the world through the eyes of someone that is not American, and no the English do not count because they live in almost a parallel universe. What about those people in the Middle East that we KNOW want to kill us all…do they really? Would the average every day person walking down the street in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, or Kuwait really want to kill us? Ask nearly any American and I would almost be willing to bet that there would be some form of answer to the positive, and even I cannot say that this would be a false answer…but why is that? Would these people really be willing to just kill any old American that they met? Do they not need some sort of provocation? Why do they hate freedom so much? Of course they don’t want to kill us, and of course they don’t hate freedom. The answer to all of these questions, at least after i put my limited knowledge and logic to it, kind of made me sit back and wonder…was the President of Iran really the devil and hate monger that we absolutely knew him to be? Maybe, but might he be saying something else that we refuse to hear?…Probably.

One of the foundation shaking questions that I was asked repeatedly on my journey was, “Why does America want to make war?” That is a difficult question to say the least. How do you answer that…what would you say if some person came up to you and asked you with an honest curiosity absent any hostility…what would you say? The easy answers are: (1) we want you to be free, (2) we are fighting terrorism, and (3) we were attacked first and we are just defending our country. In our eyes all of these are the fervent reasons that we continue to be a presence in the Middle East, but wait…have we mistaken our resolve? What does our freedom mean to the people of the Middle East? Does our freedom that entails wal-mart, McDonalds, big corporations, high divorce rates, more police and people in jail (both literally and percentage of population), high rates of debt, and an updated idea of manifest destiny serve as the answer for these people? Does our worry, our angst, our self-hatred, our greed, and callousness act as a means of freeing these people from their intolerable oppression? If the tables were turned and a country were making its presence more than felt here in the US, and through that presence they were telling us that everything we believed was in essence wrong…what would the sentiment be? Would we feel as if we were being invaded by a culture that we really wanted no part of? Is our idea of freedom universal? Should Wal-Mart be the backbone of every economy? The answer does not seem so clear to me.

America is by far and away the most advanced country in the world, but because we are…does that mean that our ways are appropriate for everyone else? Are we an example of someone sitting in a really nice castle, waving our castle flag, screaming about how we have the nicest castle in the kingdom, but no one really ever bothers to look at other castles or venture outside the castle walls? Are we comfortably ignorant? Do we really care? Are we a modern day Roman or Mongolian Empire? Is it possible that maybe another castle has a better bathroom, better designed entry-way, or even a different way of meeting the needs of its residents? Would it be disrespectful to invite another King into our castle, chastise him before he addressed the people, accuse him of wrongly living differently than we do, publicly laugh at him when he responds to questions, and then tell him that he is trying to obliterate us from the face of the planet? To this the Iranian President responded by saying that in Iran if a speaker was invited into the country he would be shown respect by those that invited him; he said that their version of freedom was different than ours; and he said that he had no desire to create nuclear weapons. Instead of asking further about why he believed this, or what they considered freedom to be, the audience and the national media (Anderson Cooper especially) simply told him that he was wrong and that we were right. Are we really? What is the effect of that on a global scale? How does it make America look to invite a foreign leader to our country and the publicly laugh at him? I sincerely would hope that it would make him and his people like us and our leaders more, but I have to cut off my Unicorn-like optimism on this issue, because I know what would happen if the tables were reversed.

Having had the opportunity to sit down with people from Turkey and other countries that predominantly share the beliefs of Iran, I learned several things. They do not want to hurt anyone (including us)…they just don’t want us to kill them; they don’t really want our “free society”; they are not aggressive unless provoked, and what we see as aggressive defense of our country actually has had the opposite effect of the one so desired; they just want to be left alone without western influence; they really don’t even care what we believe; and most importantly, they would leave us alone if we stopped using our military to force freedom on them.

The other day I was watching Saving Private Ryan, arguable one of the best war movies ever to be made, but as I sat there watching the opening scene when the American troops were storming the Beaches of Normandy, I was overcome with absolute shock. For the first time in my life I was actually able to put myself in the shoes of one of those soldiers, whom I have the UTMOST RESPECT FOR. Our soldiers are our protectors, and they deserve all of the support that we as a nation can put behind them, but can you imagine what it would do to the already frail psyche of a person to watch a fellow soldier be blown up? For the life of me, I could not imagine why, such an advanced species would use all its knowledge to create things that would do such harm to others. Why would humanity do that to each other? And then it occurred to me…we have an entire genre devoted to war movies. That in and of itself speaks volumes about American culture. Is that something that would seem appealing to other cultures? Granted none of these are new ideas, but they are my realizations that have occurred from traveling outside the castle walls. Part of living in the moment is appreciating the beauty of all the things that surround you and keeping an open mind to the way others see things, not simply sticking your fingers in your ears and shaking your head vehemently like the four-year-old that refuses to listen because he knows he is right.

America is truly the greatest nation in the world….for you and me. It has the potential to solve nearly any problem without ever firing a single shot. I am happy to wake up every single morning and live the life that I do; however, my life is not right for everyone else. Maybe there are people that do some things better than I do. Maybe there are people that have a better outlook on life than I do. But the worst thing that I could ever do, would be to simply close myself off and say that I do it best and everyone else should live as I do. Open your eyes and see what surrounds you. Open your ears and listen to what others are telling you. Open your heart and embrace the good that presents itself before you. Most importantly, open your mind and think about what life best suits you and those around you. Who is really right here anyway?

Just a thought or two,

Andy Out

P.S. for those of you who are still interested, feel free to continue to give to our charities, for that is one way you can truly help.

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September 21, 2007 by dunny.

For starters, thanks to all you loyal readers who are still keeping posted.  I hope you’re not a fence by now!

My glorious reentry to Austin, which somehow worked out to be ACL weekend, has passed.  In some ways, though, I still haven’t returned.  I’m here in body, and I’m certainly here in spirit.  I just tend to trail off from time to time.  I get lost in conversations about simple things…not because I lack interest or feel it’s below me, but because too many small things trigger concrete or spiritual memories without me even realizing it.

I find it ironic that the adventures I’ve had that led me to such discovery of the beauty to be found in the present are the very things that pull me away from the moment.

Even this past weekend, with all the music and people I had looked so forward to seeing on my return, was full of obstacles to my mindfulness.  I would constantly overhear people around me talking about what show to see next or about plans for that night or even (heaven forbid) work, and I would take it as a reminder to just enjoy the place I was in.  All of a sudden, though, I’d be staring at the sky and my mind was back in Mongolia.

One conversation in particular comes to mind.  We had a house party Saturday and I was chatting with some cats I’d just met (by the way, it’s so much easier to talk to new people when they speak the same language as you).  Out of nowhere this van pulls up and out pops a British dude who turned out to be the drummer from Muse.  They stuck around for a while and our discussion turned to what it means to be extraordinary.

It would seem to include challenging oneself constantly, and that’s the direction our talk went, but it wasn’t long before these hypothetical challenges were being materialized into the same cliches we’re all accustomed to…set goals, work hard, set up retirement, have a family, etc.  I couldn’t help but fade from the conversation.  Again, it wasn’t because I lack respect for those who strive for these things in their lives.  They are completely noble pursuits.  They just don’t give me that weightless feeling in my chest, that sudden restoration of faith in humanity.  I was off in Neverland before I knew it.

Then it hit me.

An extraordinary life is one that refuses to be measured by material or concrete things.  An extraordinary life is one that maintains a positive frame of mind, fosters optimism and peace, and exists in constant mindfulness of whatever moment or situation it happens to be in.  Those other things will come.  All the hard work gets just a little easier.  Family comes naturally when you’re smiling.

This by no means is an excuse to be lazy, or to forget the past, or to ignore the potential future.  It’s simply a way to bring all those feelings and experiences and plans back to the mind of the present.  I tried out an exercise that night, and I’d like to share it.  At different times during your day - whether you’re busy or tired or relaxed or excited, whether your telling stories from the past or talking about plans for the future - force yourself to notice one aspect of the moment your in that stands out to you.  Maybe you’ll be telling this great story about something you did years ago, but you’ll still manage to notice that giant spiderweb or even the feel of the chair/ground around you.  Maybe you’ll be making important plans with someone close to you, but you’ll still manage to notice the look on his/her face as yall made them.  Maybe you’ll be wildly busy with something, but you’ll still manage to notice that first breath of morning air.

The important thing is you had something to bring all that energy back to now.  It will multiply.  Think about it…how many times do you set your keys down and forget where they are immediately…or lose an interesting thought you had because something else distracted you…or reach in the wrong pocket and try to pay for a beer at ACL with Kazakh money?  These are all things you suddenly become aware of when you foster your own mindfulness.  You just never know what you might encounter when you’re awake every moment of every day.

That’s super.  Wow wow wee wah!!

Skip, out. (SkipLizard Homepage)

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September 11, 2007 by dunny.

The last yall heard things were moving along flawlessly and we were waiting on the sleeper bus from the border to Beijing. Let me tell you something folks. Although we had no major issues, the Chinese sleeper bus is legalized torture. They jam you in this half-reclined non-adjustable seat that was designed for a 4 foot tall person. There’s a compartment for your feet in the seat in front of you, but there’s no storage so that’s where our bags went instead. I was on the top bunk in the middle row so I couldn’t really roll to either side either. The other riders fart relentlessly without shame. The Mongol dude behind me snored so loud I could hear him even with my Ipod on full blast, and every 20 minutes or so he’d throw his legs over and kick me in the face.

Oh, and there was a 6-hour dead stop traffic jam on the highway that prompted the drivers to just lock the door and go to sleep. There’s no windows so that bus was basically a fart fermenter for the better part of the night until Wolfy and I woke them up to let us out and just laid down right there on the highway.

It was an awesome experience though. We got to stop at a little hut for food and mix with locals. We buddied up with other folks on the bus who were forced outside by the rising fart steam. Hell, I even made nice with the fella who kept smearing his feet on my forehead. In a way it was a microcosm of China…shameless people, crowded places, strict organization broken only by catastrophe…we loved it. Even the delay was a blessing in disguise b/c we rolled into Beijing around noon instead of 4am and got to go straight to our hostel and start the day.

We ended up in our hobo suits in Hu Hai (the party district). We took one step out of the cab and were grabbed by some chick who dragged us to a “good bar” that turned out to be a “lady bar” where women force you to buy them drinks and pay for their company, neither of which we did. The kung fu almost made an appearance. We made it to some nightclub with just enough time to tell a couple Russian girls that we were famous back home and wanted to interview them for MTV. Radge.

The next day was the bittersweet separation of the last two Ralliers, the wildest of the wild, the radgest of the coonts…Wolfgang Shultz and the newly donned Dirk Bifschtik. I hopped a sleeper train to Shanghai while Wolfgang stuck around in Beijing to wait on a Tokyo flight. I’ve been preaching all through this trip that Baku, Azerbaijan was the worst place on Earth, a land with no redeaming qualities…but as it turns out it may have been the best place because it’s where we met those rowdy Hobos, our kindred spirits and brothers in awesome. I’ll see you boys in a month…I already miss conversation that never manages to extend beyond food, alcohol, women, and bowel movements.

I managed to spend the early part of the day in central Shanghai, which is completely different from Beijing. Both are amazing cities, and like so many places we’ve been through, I’m dying to go back for a longer time. I made my way to the airport, threw on Pinky, pretended to be famous, and flirted my way into a first class seat. After travelling from London to Shanghai by way of bumpy jeep, dirty trains, and steamed up farty buses, I think I earned it.

That one took me to Chicago where I had a standby flight back to Texas, but it turned out I was #140 on the list so they sent me to Columbus first where I then waited all day for a Texas flight…but hey, would any other end really be fitting?

I’m here now, body and belongings intact, having circled the globe in 72 days. As much as possible was done on the ground. All in all I can say that the limits of my patience and resolve were recalibrated, my abilities to sleep anywhere and eat anything were refined, and my faith in humanity was completely restored.

I haven’t shaved since June or cut my hair since God knows when. I’ve been gawked at by more people in more places than I can remember. I’ve seen deserts and mountains and seas and steppes, sometimes all in the same day. I’ve smiled. I’ve screamed. I’ve cried. I’ve laughed. I’ve bargained. I’ve bribed. I’ve fallen in love. I’ve lived. I’ve seen generosity and brotherhood to levels that made my chest and neck swell nearly to the point of exploding. I have goals and dreams for the direction of my life that were previously unimaginable.

It’s one lesson from all this that really matters though.

It doesn’t matter what you do in life. All that matters is how and why you do it. You can travel around the world or around your street. If you do it with the intention of fostering love and peace, and you stay calm, keep you wits about you, and take a genuine interest in the people you encounter, every day is a new adventure.

What if we all spend our days accomplishing things with our time rather than spending our days finding new ways to waste our time? What if we automatically assume the best in people, despite their appearance or background or beliefs? What if we offer our homes and ourselves to people in order to learn about each other rather than to make some extra cash? What if every moment of our lives was its own reality, independent from time and full of beauty and potential?

I’d say we’d all be pretty content with ourselves and each other…and dare I say, that’s when we’d start to learn and fully experience the brilliance of humanity.

Here’s to it, my friends.

Skip, out. (SkipLizard Homepage)

P.S. Keep checking in. We’ll be putting up a big recap and what pictures and videos we manage to dig up from other teams, and possibly even end up in the media. Hey, I have to atleast try to back up all my stories about being famous

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September 6, 2007 by dunny.

Left UB last night along with Wolfgang Shultz, but in radge fashion.  We had to catch the 8pm overnight train to the border, but certainly not without a proper send off from the locals.  We hit a bar for a quick beer and were supposed to head to the station around 6:00…we left the bar at 7:15 and showed up at the station 5 minutes before the train left (rides are damn near impossible to get around then…we ended up jamning Wolfy and me along with Enkee and Togoo and all our luggage in the backseat of a junker car to get there).

Then we got on car 10, when we were supposed to be in car 5.

So after a lot of wandering and flirting we managed to get the attendants to show us to our beds and had the first decent rest in days, and trust me it’s needed.  The bumps and screeches and sand blowing in the window couldn’t even stop our slumber.

The train arrived at the border around 8am, and we found a Mongol fella who said he’d take us over the border by Russian jeep (don’t get me wrong though, this is actually the way it’s done, not winged) for 80 yuan.  Great.  We made our last border crossing (from Zamyn Uud, Mongolia to Erlianhot, China) after a couple hours and then dumbed our way out of an extra charge to get to the bus station, where we have to be back in a couple hours to catch our sleeper bus to Beijing.  Piece of cake.

I’ll give you a taste of this mysterious Wolfgang of the Hobos.  The two of us manage to out-party even the local Mongols (with stories not suitable for public knowledge).  Just now we figured we’d hit the internet here while waiting for the bus and he asked if I wanted a coke, then came back with 2 huge beers and a grin and said it’s all he could find.  Radge koont as them Hobos say.

We’re actually surrounded by about 14 local kids right now.  If any of them read English they’ll be happy to know that they’re awesome, what with all the fireworks they keep setting off outside with the police station next door.

Right, so Beijing tomorrow where we plan to stuff ourselves with cheap delicious Chinese food and meet up with some Mongols we met in the countryside and, you know, keep puttin up awesome.

Skip, out. (SkipLizard Homepage)

P.S.  To Enkee (Enkbashi), Togoo (Casper), Gans (Toothy Pizda), Sam, Ogi, Meg…we miss yall already.  We’ll be back soon to get more VIP tables by saying we’re famous back home and party ourselvse ragged.  Thanks for everything…it was by far the highlight of the trip of a lifetime.

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September 3, 2007 by dunny.

Many thanks to the gods of Awesome that Andy’s made it back…if anyone can find a way to merge the experiences and realizations of this trip with the grind of law school, it’s him.

I’m still here in Mongolia though…just returned from a trip through the countryside, where faith in love and humanity is fully restored.  I can’t begin to describe the hospitality and friendship that pours from these people, who have nothing and want nothing beyond land, animals, and family.

There’s obviously many stories from the 7 nights with Master Enkee, Wolfgang from the Hobos, and Sophie from Miss Daisy (and the 30 bottles of vodka that went down along the way), but I’d rather break from our normal pattern of giving the events without the details and tell one story in particular…

We’d made our way through Hahorin in Central Mongolia and on up to Lake Khuvsgul to visit my family there and deliver the blanket Ma made for them.  We managed to find their place and drive up in front, but the main man Batjargal had already left to lead some tourists on a horse-ride.  I’d remembered the way to the ger so Enkee asked if I could grab a horse and ride off to catch him before the group left…and next thing I knew I was on a brown horsie riding off into the woods on my own.

I got lost immediately.

Nevermind the 30 minutes or so I needed just to get my bearings on the land, it’s been a while since I rode Mongol style.  In all my glory I managed to lead the horse into a steep mud-soaked cliff and spook the daylights out of him.  He yelped, he reared back, and he freaked, as I held on for dear life.

I didn’t fall though…even managed to calm him and jump off for a rest.  I knew the general direction of where I was supposed to go and had a vague idea of where I was, so I stopped.  I listened.  I reached a moment of peace with both the land and the horse and after 20 minutes or so heard the good sounds and realized exactly where I was.  I found an alternate path down to the main road and let the horse take me the rest of the way (lesson learned, he probably would have taken me the whole way if I’d just let go from the start).

He galloped in, and after two hours lost in the woods I found the pops and gave him Mom’s blanket.  It was perfect.

It’s an experience I’d hoped for and an experience I’ve been waiting for…a concrete reminder that the only sure thing we ever have is the moment we’re in.  So often our lives become a muddy hillside in the forest, when we’ve ventured off alone and overconfident and find ourselves lost and frustrated.  These times of struggle are not to be fought or feared, though.  They are a blessing.  These are times to stop and listen…to relax and relish the opportunity to truly find peace in the present…to perhaps find an alternate path.

Take some time to slow your lives and quiet your minds, my friends, even if it’s only for a minute.  You’ll find that there’s peaceful energy and loving people all around you at any moment, and ultimately you’ll find contentment.

That’s all reality is, after all.

Skip, out. (SkipLizard Homepage)

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August 22, 2007 by Andy.

Well folks…here is the skinny on the other half of awesomeness.

I left UB the day after ariving to set out on a 3 day flying excursion to reach the homeland. My flight schedule consisted of the following:

1. International flight on Air China from Chengis Kahn airport in UB to Beijing, China (approx. 2.5 hours);

2. Domestic flight from Beijing, China to Shanghi (approx. 3 hours) (had to fly to the other airport in Shanghi because my original flight no longer existed);

3. Bus across Shanghi to Pudong airport (approx. 1.5 hours);
Side note and this is a very sad tale. While making a phone call in Pudong Airport my back pack was stolen…yes it was stolen…it had my laptop in it…sad…my laptop had all of our pics on it…more sad. (I hope that Ryan does not kill me…but if he does it is probably justified.) I also slept in Pudong airport that night on a bench.

4. International Flight on Virgin Atlantic to London Heathrow (approx. 11 hours) (brilliant flight and brillaint airline…they gave me socks for goodness sake);

5. International Flight from Heathrow to JFK in New York (approx. 6 hours) (slept in JFK…the bench in Shanghi was more comfortable);

6. Domestic Flight from JFK to DFW on American (approx. 3 hours) (turbulence a plenty, but it was relatively soothing after 10,000 miles in the shockless charriot);

7. Domestic Flight from Love Field in Dallas (after lunch with my family) to Lubbock (approx. 1 hour);

8. Shower and sleep.

After 3 days of flying and traveling 3/4 the way around the world, I can say that every minute of the trip was worth it. Now you have had a taste of awesomeness.

The loss of the pictures was very unfortunate, and those are the only things that I cannot replace, but all that really means is that I will have to work twice as hard to describe the beauty and awe that some of these places inspired. I guess it means that we will have to do it all over again. Here’s to being awesome.

Andy Out.

P.S. Ryan send me an address to mail the keys…i found them in the pocket of my jeans that were in my bag.

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