Scooter Quest has been quite the project over this spring/summer and my goodness, it has been so much fun preparing it.

Scooter Quest is an educational adventure from Minnesota to New York City entirely on fuel efficient scooters. We’ll be burning rubber for a good cause, spreading the news that scooters are a fun and easy way to get where you want to go, without forking out a lot of dough. “By coming together on the road we hope to show the rest of the United States that each of us can make a difference. It can begin with an eco-friendly alternative for road travel,“ says Sean Blake, one of the founders of Scooter Quest 2008.

Scooter Quest began, where else, on a scooter. In 2007, Dustin Saunders moved to Minnesota. Once he settled in, the love for his scooter he left in Utah was too much to bear. Dustin then traveled with his friends to Utah to pick it up, and drive the scooter back to Minnesota.

Scooter Quest was originally meant for family and friends to check to see how progress was going as the crew made it back from Utah, to Minnesota. Now, in 2008, Dustin, Michael, and I will take their scooters and venture across parts of the United States on an epic adventure of traveling, exploration and fun. The adventure begins on August 23rd, 2008 from Minneapolis, MN ending in New York, NY with checkpoints in Chicago, Indianapolis, and Philadelphia along the way.

The scooters will be equipped with cameras streaming the entire event live on scooterquest.com! You’re able to come along on the ride through the latest in technological interactivity provided by Seero.com.

Our trip’s goal is three-fold:
• To show you don’t have to give up your freedom to travel due to high fuel prices
• You can conserve the Earth and protect the environment through more eco-friendly means
• You can still have fun while doing it

From one American to another, we are all suffering from these fuel prices. And with so many of us relying on our cars, we are slowly losing money that we all desperately need. Scooter Quest isn’t here to get you to replace a truck to haul equipment, or take your family to the movies, but it shows you can save money on all those trips you take on your own. And together we can all make a difference.

-Sean OUT!

I was cruising digg today and catching up on some posts about “What I hate about becoming a designer”. It had some statements that made me laugh, made me question the writers sanity, and also, made me blog about my own experiences…

A part of the post I liked was,

So to testify to this, here is my then/now’s of being a designer.

Going to get pizza

At parties

Free time

(Some things don’t change!)

Websites

In short, I love being a designer… I can’t imagine going to someone else with a website issue or a design request. I find “teh interwebz” so interesting and vital, that I couldn’t think of a better career to be honest… All of these side hobbies I have are a blast, but its all about doing what you love… And I love being a designer.

So in my last blog post I said

I’m not going to blog for a while here. Not until I re design sean-blake.com. You can always catch me on twitter and check out my latest projects over at scooterquest.com and theleetgeeks.com.

But I lied… I can’t stop blogging. I’m officially addicted… The reason I came to post today was to talk about the new love in my life… My new computer:

It’s not the BEST PC in the market, but for the money, its in the top 3. Cryisis runs fine on this computer. With everything at max.
I figured I would post my specs since people ask alot. So there you go! As for this new site I’m talking about, scooterquest.com is ready for viewership! We will be launching the official site on the 20th of this month. So stay tuned!!

Well my forty days have been over and I must say, its been a trial and a half. No soda was by far the hardest part about this entire quest of no junk food. only 30 grams of sugar every 24 hours in general is just intensely tough! It’s very interesting to be off though. I still drink alot of water and a half a can of sprite makes me very sick… I guess thats a good thing on my part! Either way, I wanna thank everyone for the support that they have given!

As for what is next, I got to focus on a few new projects. But I feel much better about myself and personal image. I’m not going to blog for a while here. Not until I re design sean-blake.com. You can always catch me on twitter and check out my latest projects over at scooterquest.com and theleetgeeks.com.

I have had the most pivotal point in my 40 day lifestyle change. And it hit me so hard that I was blown away almost to the point of tears.

Let’s Tarantino and back up a bit.

I woke up and went to work thankfully accepting all the birthday wishes everyone was giving me. I then thought about my grandma… It’s been less than a year since she died and I was looking forward to a corny card in the mail with an old fashioned signature and twenty bucks inside. That’s when so many emotions flared up inside me, my brain and body just stopped to think about her with my grandpa… I felt so sad. I realized that each day that passes, the next event in your life growing up is the scariest day you’ve faced. You think you have it under control and then the next event in your life completely blows you away.

Ben folds once said,
“…Everything for the rest of this life is gonna be another thing where it’s like, ‘I’m tough enough, I’ve taken this’ and then the next thing coming up is going to take you completely by surprise; it’s gonna be the scariest thing you’ve ever done. Everyone has had the scariest thing they have ever done right on the horizon coming up.”

I continued into the night to celebrate my birthday at Chili’s. The entire time I was contemplating if I should break lent for a day to celebrate my birthday. Now I’ll try to break this down as easily as possible. If you get lost, just keep reading and you’ll catch on:

The whole entire point of doing this 40 day trial is not to stay in shape or lose a couple pounds (though it is a nice plus!) The reason I do this every year is to see if I still have control over my body and it’s cravings for useless items that my mind believes it needs. So with that said, I had an internal struggle between me and myself. I though if I eat the cake, then I have failed to tell myself what I can and can’t control. On the other side of the spectrum, if I don’t eat it, I’m not celebrating my birthday. After all, you only turn 21 once.

The fact is that I had this pressure on myself and I started to get frustrated. But then it hit me: I need to prove to myself that eating this will not start a chain reaction of binging on junk food. So I took two bites and enjoyed that molten lava chocolate cake but, I had no further appetite to eat the entire thing. I sat back and relaxed in my seat cause I knew then that I have overcome my obsession for sugar. I had no craving whatsoever to wash it down with a coke or beg for more. I was truly happy with myself.

Overall, it’s been a great birthday and a pivotal point in my life. This is an experience that I won’t soon forget.