I don’t advertise this site to most people I meet.  I think maybe I should start.  It has been mentioned a few times recently that I am much less talkative than the average person and since it is such a persistent problem for me I thought I would try to explain.  “Try”, being the operative word there.

If you have met me in person at almost any stage of my life you’ll already know what I’m talking about.  Or not, as it were.  Basically I don’t say much, regardless of how much I have to say.  Its never been a secret that I am a much better writer than I am a talker, but why is that?  I can think of two reasons.  The slightly smaller reason being old social hang-ups that I haven’t been able to truly shake since I moved to North Carolina when I was 13.  Long story short, I was a very awkward kid.  I was shorter, pudgier, I had just gotten glasses, had a bad haircut and my self esteem was around -5 on the 1 to 10 scale.  Everyone at the school had already known eachother since kindergarten and I couldn’t find any place to fit.  I didn’t adjust well.  There’s a lot more to be said on the matter, but this isn’t the place.  It gradually got better toward the end of school, but even to this day that part of me is still there.  Even after all that’s happened and how hard I’ve tried to change, somewhere in the back alleys of my mind I’m still that awkward kid who can’t image why anyone would like him.  That’s why I have trouble making really close friends, that’s part of the reason I don’t talk so much and still struggle with self-confidence issues.  This combined with the other reason I’m about go into, works to all but extinguish my social life which.  And [i]that[/i] is why I find myself so alone so often.

This other reason being my thought process.  I’m not sure I’ll be able to explain it well enough for your understanding, but I’ll give it a shot.  When I say that my head is a mess, I mean it in a very literal way.  Have you ever seen me staring off at nothing with a blank look on my face?  Of course you have.  I do it all the time.  My brain is always churning away at something.  It never stops and as it constantly moves from one line of thinking to another everything gets… scattered.  Words become harder to find in the debris.  When I’m talking to someone the conversation can grind to a halt not really because I don’t have anything to say, but because picking out my thoughts and arranging them into words with everything else going on can be a real challenge for me.  Its like a jigsaw puzzle.  I have to dig around in the pile of pieces to find the right ones that fit together and form the full picture.  It takes me time.  A few people over the years have mentioned that I always look like I’m struggling to find the words and that’s because I am.  Some days its much better, some days its a little worse.  This is why I love so much the things that allow me to concentrate on something singular.  Surfing, skiing, kung fu, videogames, fire poi etc.  And to a certain extent writing as well.  Writing allows me to sit back, focus and organize my thoughts into something expressible.  And when I can do that the words pour out like rain.

So much so, in fact, that I have taken the suggestions of a few people and begun writing a book.  Its official.  The working title for it as of now is “When it Rains” and I’ll tell you a little more about the project in the coming days.  In the meantime I hope this helps those that know me understand why I am how I am sometimes.

-Tyler

Today I’m going to do something a little different.  Being a lover of photography in all it’s forms, I thought I would show some of my nerdy colors and present to you the single most important image ever captured by the human race.  I’ve known about this image myself for about 3 years and for [...]

There is a very distinct sound produced when wind meets flame and for a few moments it is all that you hear.  The crowd fades, the ocean quiets and all that you see is fire.  All that you hear is the roar as it passes around you.
Its called Fire Poi.  Two chains (one for each [...]

As you’ll notice the frontpage is now clear of that massive block of entries and pictures that took so long to load.  I’m still looking for a way to display it elsewhere, but I’ll have to figure that out later.  I wanted to start fresh with a plain old news update.

I’m still on the island [...]

It has happened.  The inevitable is upon me and it has come a bit sooner than I expected.  This island has a very tangible pull to it and one of the things that makes it so unique is that you will not find one foreigner living here, literally not a single one, that came to [...]

Every year around this time for me comes a certain trifecta of holidays.  Starting with Mother’s Day in May followed later that month by my father’s birthday and capped off with Father’s Day this month.  It is with this in mind that I find now a fitting time to address a few thoughts and realizations [...]

Let it first be said that I like this island.  I like it a lot.  I like my job, I like the people I work for/with and I certainly like the lifestyle.  That should be fairly obvious given that I was meant to be here one week and the six month marker is now speeding [...]

So I left the island of Koh Tao, Thailand for my usual day-and-a-half visa run into Burma and back.  Four days later I’m sitting in a guest house in Penang, Malaysia making a mental note of how every article of clothing I’m wearing is from a different country.  My glasses are from Thailand, my shoes [...]