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Your journey is unfolding exactly as...

Oh really? Are you sure? As bumper sticker/ greeting card wisdom goes this one takes the @$#&)! cake. Displayed in a coffee shop I haven't been to in eight years, my first instinct was to look around for Morgan Freeman in a white suit, posing as the janitor, the electrician, and the boss.

And why is that first shot blurry? Probably cause I was too pissed off to hold the camera still – see I'd just received an email that yet ANOTHER job interview went nowhere, they're going "in a different direction," which I assume that means they're hiring an alien life form to produce magic jelly that's both a concentrated weapon and all-encompassing cure-all. In other words, anyone but me.

Sheesh Alden really? Is that how far you take one job rejection?

Uh, after six years and over 300 applications yes it is. I don't know about anyone else but that's where artist's minds go - the worst scenario and the most personal reason.

I must suck. I must. I am unemployable.

Life Is a (Lost) Highway

The reason many of you are reading in the first place is because you jumped on board during my epic road trip of 2016: 10,000 miles, 23 states, in 4 months in an old awesome boat.

"Dude I loved those stories" - I heard as I traveled and shared. "Alden I really enjoyed following your trip as you drove, hearing about the people you met on the road and all that you saw - keep blogging."

Thanks. But it's all gone.


Due to a glitch in the space-time-continuum and the this-blog-platform-is-free world, the blog unfortunately was lost.

Good thing I wrote a book.

Thanks to the Internet Archive - a non-profit that takes billions and trillions of snapshots of the internet every couple of weeks some of the blog is still viewable, if not shareable or downloadable. The Wayback machine and towers of hard drives humming around the clock are housed in this old church off Park Presidio in SF.. yes Harris there are stranger things in the Universe than exist in your imagination.

Back to the job.

Right, so I didn't get the job. Did I want it? Who the $%&@ knows?! I don't even know anymore. I don't know what I want, I don't know where I want to live, I don't care. All I know is if I'm not supposed to keep TRYING to find a job - THAT I'd like to know. Like maybe this really is my future, my life. I know it's my present whether I admit it or not - but maybe this IS my destiny, my cross to bear, my Everest.

But I saw that Everest movie and I don't want frostbite, I like my fingers and toes. And nose.

Positivity through Podcasts

Podcasts are great right? Yes they are. There's a few I listen to, one is How I Built This - great stories of entrepreneurs like the guy who bought a pickup truck and started 1-800-Got-Junk and grew it into a billion-dollar business. Or the girl who started choosing outfits for friends and now Stitch Fix is indeed a fixture in many people's busy lives.

But haven't you tried that...?

Thanks for remembering and yes I have. At 19 I dropped out of college to start a BMX bicycle company making US built frame and fork sets with a lizard from South America as the namesake and color scheme.

The Basilisk or "Jesus Christ" lizard in action in South America.. go dog go!

A few years later I took a screen printing class and started making t-shirts, actually selling a few that are probably still out there today... as Saturday work shirts or oil rags.

Then I got into photography.

Then wedding films.

Then postcards.

Now tote bags.

Davis Cotton tote bag for sale at Nugget Markets Covell Blvd. Davis, CA ©2018 Alden Olmsted
Sonoma County cotton tote bag for sale in Nugget Markets Sonoma Market Sonoma, CA ©2018 Alden Olmsted

Which is all great. Don't get me wrong.

And yes it *almost* funds my adventures.

So what then? Why care? Why does it hurt to get passed over for an inside sales job that would have grown my bank account but also probably my waistline? Why do I even apply to these day jobs anymore? Are all these rejections the equivalent of an airplane message flying above a packed beach at the peak of summer "Save BIG at Joe-Bob's furniture warehouse!" "Sunday Sunday Sunday Monster truck jam at the Fairplex in Pomona!" "Marisa I love you will you marry me!"

Maybe they are.

Maybe I'll go watch Bruce Almighty again and this time the message will stick.

In the meantime it's smoking hot today, go jump in a lake. Or the mediterranean, if your creative-artist lifestyle affords you the adventure.


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