On earnestness...

...and why it should be more widely embraced:

Fluff, I imagine, tastes to them like cotton candy, and real, raw feelings more like just-cut broccoli.

Then again, last time I checked, cotton candy was bad for you, and greens were quite good.

And yes, I like broccoli -- and think spun sugar is too sweet.

Above: what earnestness tastes like.

So... what are your career plans?

On a scholarship application, I was recently asked: "What are your career plans?"

Huh? At first, I honestly didn't have an answer. I felt bad about that -- as a 22-year-old with just one semester of college left, that's a question to which I should be able to produce a whip-quick response.

Then I thought for a second.

Oh, right! Those career plans. Turns out, I have such a good plan, it didn't even occur to me that it was in question. Here's my response:

If you asked me what city I will be living in a year from now, I wouldn't be able to give you an answer -- simply because I don't know. If you wanted to know what I will have for lunch tomorrow, I'd say to you, "food, delicious food" because that's as much as I can divine from my current mood. I know I will eat something, and that something will be good. But exactly what that something is, it's up to the cosmic menu of life to serve up, and for me to chew. But if you asked me what I'm going to be, what I'm going to do when I grow up, I'd have an answer for you before you even finished the question.

I'm going to be a writer. And furthermore, I'm going to be a journalist. I think it's one of the noblest, most fulfilling, and necessary professions yet invented. It takes all the creativity of a novelist, the pragmatism of a contract maker, and the moxie of something that goes beyond either art or arithmetic to perform. And it's a "job" that lets you adventure, explore and investigate -- virtues of life that I feel have been lost in the career pursuits of many the modern man.

Yes, it's true. Despite a life filled with every kind of unknown, every permutation of uncertainty, I'd sooner become a vagrant than abandon the only work I've found that doesn't really seem like work at all.

So when I leave the Times (a day I don't look forward to), I intend to finish my degrees in journalism and political science, and then find a place for myself in this Brave New World of news gone wild. Be it taking over the spot of a bought-out veteran at a redlining daily, or trying to find a focused audience on a Web-bound e-zine, I'll be a reporter for someone, somewhere.

In a nutshell: My career plan is to be a journalist, the best journalist I can be, for the best publication that will have me.

Capturing the $100 fill-up, take 1

With gas at more than $4.30 for premium (recommended by Nissan for my Pathfinder), I can theoretically push the $100 mark for a fill-up.

So when my "low on gas" light blinked on this weekend, I decided to see just how much a full tank costs me these days.

My buddy Andrew Dunn lent his video skills to produce this video of the experience:

Fort DeSoto, pt. III: Distance to sunset unknown

When my Pathfinder left the main park road and trundled down a grassy rise toward the mangrove bank, the day was beginning to grow orange with age. The sun was past its warm yellow prime, and falling into a deepening arc across the Gulf.

I intentionally plowed through two large rain pools on the gravel trail I'd merged onto, and delighted as the plumes of clay-white water gushed from under my tires, and rained down on my SUV's jet-black hood. I drove fifty more yards, and parked next to Justin and Joel, who were waiting there in the grass in Joel's Civic. I quickly got out to meet them. We had an unknown distance to travel ahead of us, and the day was not long for this place on Earth.

Yanking the plastic watercraft from the vehicle, one from the roof and the other through the tailgate, and snapping together the tall paddles, we wasted no time preparing our launch. I locked my phone, wallet, camera and every key but a lone car key inside the SUV.

We carried the kayaks to the hole in the mangrove wall, and set them into the brackish, tannin-red water. I climbed inside the forest-green river model, using bungee straps to secure my Nalgene bottle to the vessel's stubby bow. The liter container was only half full, and filled with the remnants of my morning coffee, at that. It was our only provision.

My launch was straightforward, but the others, on the thinner and only slightly longer sea kayak, had some boarding logistics to figure. The craft was designed for one rider, but necessity demanded that two somehow fit, and the vessel still function. Justin sat on the foam-covered back brace at white plastic kayak's extreme stern. Joel sat on the bow, cross-legged.

With 300 pounds evenly distributed across the top-heavy ride-on kayak, the craft drafted low in the water. Its shallow keel scrapped along the submerged mud well after pushing off from the bank, until the rig floated into the center of the mangrove channel.

After a few minutes of feeling out the paddles' rhythm, I got up to speed and approached the first bend in the mangrove trail. Justin, piloting the other kayak, was doing well keeping pace, despite the extra burden of a passenger without a paddle.

As we rounded the bend, the sun hit us with a full broadside. I turned to see my friends. The sunlight was glinting from Joel's new blue-tinted shades. Ahead, a glimmering passage to the Gulf of Mexico was wide open, lightly lapped by a hot, ocean-borne breeze.

Justin made a comment about how unstable his kayak was. He jokingly rocked the craft back and forth. Joel gripped the sides of the kayak. I laughed.

After paddling close to a quarter mile down the mangrove channel, my friends' kayak began rocking again. This time, I'd end up laughing even harder. In a sudden, quick twist, the thing dumped both its passengers overboard.

Justin splashed down in a flailing mess. But Joel had seen the imminent dunk coming. Mid fall, just before he hit the water, Joel squeezed his mouth shut, and with his fingers pinched his nostrils closed.

Both carelessly grinned as they floated in the still, dark water, their kayak innocuously bobbing as it drifted away.

To be continued...

*Getting the watercraft dismounted was perhaps too easy, due to my own haphazard handling: After finishing my sandwich at lunch, I drove home alone. I cut through crosstown interstate traffic, and moved faster than I should have. I was aware of the dwindling daylight. When I arrived at my rented bungalow, where the watercraft were, I stuffed one kayak through my vehicle's tailgate, and knotted the other to the roof rails. I then sprinted back, a 15-minute drive.

Fort DeSoto, pt. II: from the gains, grandure

The grand fortress and its ramparts rise from the sand.

The citizens of the Crescent Protectorate were a hardworking people, getting out of life what they put in.

And if you judge that return on size, order and grandeur, innovation and aesthetics, their seaside hamlet was a spectacle among peers.

From the harsh, sun-splashed shores of the balmy Gulf, bounded by an endless coast and lethal desert, the people built their castle, their walls, comfort and safety, while surrounded by an environment stacked against survival.

At their peak, the Crescent people (named so for the large crescent island of luxury condos built behind their castle) claimed a large moat/tide-abatement system, a shell-speckled spire dedicated solely to high art and science, and a barrack cluster with enough hardened sand missiles to destroy the will and walls of both neighboring civilizations, the isolated Reservoir Builders, and the heretic denizens of lord Dunn's Rick Astlia.

Despite the pathetic efforts of the Rick Astlians to fell the walls with their grotesque pickets, the Crescent Protectorate survived tide changes and winds, and even raids from fat, bathing-suit-clad female ogres seeking to pillage its fine array of sea shells.

But not even the greatest empire can survive the will of its creator. For reasons unknown, the guiding force behind the greatest structure and culture to grace the white-sand shores for miles exacted a sudden, indifferent Armageddon.

The destruction of the great castle is watched in frozen awe by lord Dunn of Rick Astlia and other peoples of the Gulf.

And that is how I spent my day at the beach. After the saga of sand castle building, me and the gang headed to a little Italian restaurant near Fort DeSoto run by Mexicans. The food, I should note, was delicious. I had a cheeseburger on sub bread.

As I waited for the food, my cell phone rang. It was Justin and Joel, driving in from parts beyond. I stepped outside and flagged them down. The next chapter of my 12-hours under the burning sun was about to begin.

To be continued...

Fort Desoto, pt. I: Slap me five for a good morning

The morning began with an early start after a late night. Stirring under thin sheets, I rose to the sound of two alarms pulsing and wailing, begging to be slapped and silenced.

The taste of red wine was dry on my lips. It had been a good night before, with a cameo from a pair of Wing House waitresses who played the board game of Life just as they'd played their own.

"Elope and get engaged!" The blonde chirped. "That's so funny, how that's like real life!"

A few spins earlier, she decided to skip college and get paid right away, as a hair stylist.

It was a good night. But back to the morning.

I left bed and went to the kitchen. I made coffee, black and thick. It was Sumatran blend.

I dumped the sludgy mix into my Nalgene. The heat and the lexan plastic, they say, can give you cancer. But I have nothing better with which to transport my caffeine.

I wake my roommate, Eddie, and I call our friends. It is time to go. Today, we're traveling to Fort Desoto, one of the finest beaches in the country.

We pick up Jackie in Gulfport on the way. Jake stays behind, to wait for Andrew, who is off to a late start.

I drive toward the gulf sloppily. My mind was still hazy from sleep, and preoccupied with good dreams I can't now recall.

We take a route that requires a $0.50 toll. I go through the "Change provided" line despite the exact change in my hand. I like to meet the toll attendants. They're always friendly in Florida, with tropical-themed shirts and genuine smiles, despite their job.

The grinning middle-aged cool cat at the booth did not leave me disappointed. After I gave him my change, he made a fist. Before he raised the gate, he said, "Slap me five."

Our knuckles butted, he laughed, I laughed, and both our days were going better.

I piloted my Pathfinder over two long clean bridges, and suddenly, we were surrounded by water and sand and grassy little rises and palm trees ringed by sea scrub.

We'd arrived.

If only I knew how much more of the pristine island I would see by day's end.

To be continued...

Welcome to St. Petersburg, and my musings from it

Among the old and rich, the young and hip, the space between gulf and bay swings low and sways slow.

Open streets and featherweight traffic. Wide skies and splaying palms. The ethos is as much greenie as church-son or beach bum, sun-loving as southern.

It's a place of fresh starts and fresh-air ends. Sand lots and cafe spots abound; in them, it's not hard to come by friends.

As the haze of a languid history is sliced and recycled, a modern lattice emerges from the compost. Art-house bits pave the streets, and fiber-optic bytes pulse above them.

Until summer turns into fall, I will live among it all.

This is the first post of the Daily Muse, St. Petersburg. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for adventures near and far, large and small.

A Reminder from the Welcome to Miami Post in January:
Carrying on the compulsion to document the nuances of my surroundings with a prying eye and eager pen, this blog is my new sketchbook for recording the thousands of fascinations, without fable, I see every day.