Little Fish, Big River, Bigger City

So, I landed in San Francisco in January and puttered about until it was time to get a new job. I had toyed with the idea of riding a SEGWAY across the country for the heck of it. Eventually, the ATM kept my bank card and I figured it was time to get a job.

I landed at a great little company called LegalMatch.com and was enjoying some success and all the trappings including free coffee and characters that put Seinfeld to shame. About two weeks into the is job and I get an email from my buddy Brian Toohey in DC. He's a former VP at Segway turned lobbyist. I'm supposed to call Dean Kamen's office.

I do, and am told that Dean will call back. Faster than you can say "one-six-delta-kilo" I have a couple of discussions with Dean and eventually, my girlfriend, LoLo and I are at dinner with him here in the city. His energy was tempered out by his PR and bizdev people but not enough to keep him from throwing the offer of a lifetime on the table. "Did we want to fly out on his jet over the next few days?"

Duh.

We flew out on his jet the next day and the details of those few days will get covered at some point in this journal but not now. What's important now is that I recently got off the phone with the PR Director who has asked me to fly back to New Hampshire on Monday and start working on a project on Tuesday morning. Not to give too much away too soon, the project will cover the next four months and will eventually include something consisting of chase cars going six miles an hour over 6,000 miles coast to coast.

Oh, and the chase cars will be following me as I attempt to be the first person in history to ride a Segway across the continent. I'm still in disbelief, I'm still waiting to wake up from this koo-koo dream, but it's a pretty cool feeling right now. I haven't felt this good since I was sitting in my motel room in Key West last November assembling my bike and trailer for my nutty bike ride.

A note on "parking karma"...during my bike ride, there was a day when I was riding along on cloud 9 (nine). I thought to myself, "this is what I am MEANT to do...I'm supposed to take adventures like this and write about them..." but ever since that trip ended, I haven't known how to get the next trip underway. Luckily, the universe seems to have barfed this grand opportunity up into my khaki covered lap.

There are some huge logistics to work out, including the fact that I'm already missing my incredible girlfriend who is also understanding and patient. I'm already missing our dogs and it's still three days until I leave. I'm counting on a few things happening including somehow being able to include the girlfriend and dogs on the trip...or at the very worst that this whole thing is a whirlwind and over in the blink of an eye even though it's going to take four months.

In any event, I've been on the fence, on pins and needles for the last two weeks while a final decision was made on this whole thing but it's really a "GO" and I'm really "THE GUY" who is going to do this. I think the oddest part about it all is that I really did nothing more than "dream" about it and wish for it and "kablooie!" it just sort of serendipitously (is that a word?) landed in my life. In any event, I've got some packing up to do so in the meantime, go and dream your dreams and take the chance to actually believe they'll come your way. You'd be surprised.