About Mike

"Breathe, breathe in the air, don't be afraid to care; leave but don't leave me. Look around and choose your own ground, for long you live and high you fly, and smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry. And all you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be."
~ Pink Floyd


Wow, I'm not very good at this kind of thing mainly because I don't know what would interest you people and at the same time not completely embarrassed myself. Anyway, it seems to be the best place to start is by talking about where I'm from and such so enjoy.

For my entire life I have lived within a 50 or so mile radius of Kansas City in either Overland Park or Lawrence, Kansas. For those of you who somehow just seemed to stumble on this site, let me tell you that I've never owned a cow or a chicken or any other kind of farm related nonsense. In fact I'd say that the area of Kansas that I am from is pretty much like any other suburb that I've visited throughout the US. Plus I live right next to Missouri so that when we get bored we can just drive 30 minutes and check out our 1st place caliber baseball team the Royals (hahaha). Anyway, I'm getting bored just righting about this stuff so lets move on.

My life has not been one to complain about. I've grown up with just about everything that anyone could want, for example I've traveled all over the US with family and friends. However while doing all of these things I honestly can't remember every doing anything that felt risky. Of course this is totally a subjective term, but to me it feels like I have passed on many of great experiences. This is most likely due to the fact that I've always felt that if something makes me feel uncomfortable then it's probably easier to not do it than try it out. This has been changing as of late though. My goals in life have changed from just wanting to go out and have a blast in my already created (as Brandle put it) "bubble" world, to wanting to go out and have a blast while at the same time challenging myself by experiencing new things. This is actually something that I started thinking about over the past few months. Although I agreed to go on this trip before I made these new life-changing goals, this trip is just the thing to help me out.

So what are my actual goals for this trip? I would say that I'm looking for what most otherworld travelers are looking for. I want to gain life experiences by meeting new people from other lands and doing the things that they do. I want to experience other countries cultures and histories and learn anything that they have to offer. I want to become a better person and gain a better understanding of myself and others. Most importantly, I want to have a great time and just experience all that life has to offer without worrying about the petty things.

So there it is, as of now I'm just a college kid who is about to invoke on a journey of a lifetime full of self-learning and experience. Along the way I'll do my best to keep a log of what I learn, experience and see. When I come back, I'm sure to be a different man so if you like what you have currently you best take a picture cause it's not coming back (once I leave).

If you have questions or suggestions for me just leave me a note online or shoot me an e-mail.


FYI: For those who don't know I leave for Ireland May 31 2006.

For more info about me go here



Update --- 3-15-06

It has been brought to my attention that my about me page seems to be a bit too serious for those people who know me. Well let me explain something to you people... sometimes I can get a bit serious but only for a couple of hours at a time. Then when it's over I will start yelling things out like "LISTEN" or "DONKEY". Actually I haven't realy used the donkey line but I figure now is a decent time to start. So what i'm really saying is that just because I wrote down some seriousness about what I was feeling at the time... don't go into any kind of panic mode or freak out. Thus I will end this update with a BLAH BLAH BLEE BLAH and the letter D.