Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Brooke. Many of you know me as @B_i_B on twitter or as “BrookeinBama”. I’m not a writer. I’m just a college student from Alabama, who is studying communications (media) and am a social media fanatic!

Like many of you, I’m just trying to find my place in the world. I’m a very loyal twitter user, and have been fortunate to have met some awesome people through its services. Two of these include @jacklhasa and @scarab. We became friends through twitter and really hit it off.

I remember when the idea for Twitter Travels was first introduced back in the spring. I encouraged them to follow through with the plans, because they seemed to be very passionate about the dream they shared, and I knew their intentions were good. I know many people who would love to be able to say that they got to go out into the world and chase after their dreams, so I voiced my full support.

As the plans for Twitter Travels were in review, I extended an invitation to Jack and Scarab to stay in Florence for a few nights and offered to show them around town. Florence is located in the Shoals Area in Northwest Alabama, which wasn’t very far from their starting place. It’s a college town that is culturally diverse and historically rich. So, they thought it’d be a good place to start their journey.

They took me up on my offer, and luckily we all hit it off just as well in person, as we did online. Both of them were very gracious to me, and I enjoyed the time they spent here. We had many good times, even though I missed out on a lot because of homework and my night class. I’ll never forget the time when we went out to the old train bridge and the 99 cent draft beer night at Applebee’s! By the end of their stay here, they had many stories to tell and were even teaching me things I didn’t know about the area.

I can honestly tell you that my intuition about Jack and Scarab proved to be true. They want to see the world through a different pair of eyes, to see what makes us all tick, and I think, eventually, find peace with it all. To top it off, they want to bring people together, an idea that really floats my boat because I love meeting new people! I know that Jack and Scarab have endured some hard times along the way since then, but they have seen so much and have met so many amazing people. The best part is that things are still moving forward.

-Brooke.

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Everyone give Brooke a big welcome as she joins the Twitter Travels team for a while. You can look forward to seeing more of Brooke’s writing here in the future. I’m sure we’ll all get to enjoy watching her writing abilities grow!  You can also follow Brooke on twitter.

-Jack.
I Listen.

My good friend, @darkgracie, has been kind enough to talk about Twitter Travels on her tumblr again.  Gracie was one of the first supporters of Twitter Travels, and we are very proud to have her still behind us.

So, we are off again! Heading to St. Louis. We’ll be driving up and spending about a week there. We’ve had a temporary lineup change just to keep things interesting. Scarab will not be along for this trip. Instead, because of a special invite from Brooke, I’m going to do some traveling, writing, and posting with her.

I’m very pleased to have Brooke as a traveling partner for the next month. She is witty, intuitive, and insightful. Plus, I thought that Twitter Travels could use a female touch. Yes, just like Twitter Travels is going to have guest posters, we’re also going to have guest travelers. Scarab will be re-joining me in about a month.

We’ve already got meetings set up with Tojosan, Zach Flauaus, and PreppyDude. If you are in the St. Louis area, please let me know so we can catch a meal or a drink!

While on the road in Southern California, we were met with some major challenges. The primary one being a lack of proper funding and mobile-computer equipment. We took a chance and flew out to Los Angeles and found ourselves lost and scrambling.

We met some great people and learned some hard lessons while in LA. Our biggest challenge was that we didn’t post enough. We take full responsibility for that. We were ill-prepared for the harsh realities of a big city. We didn’t have a car, we didn’t have money for food, and we didn’t have a solid plan.

People who we thought were friends and could count on, didn’t follow through. We were told by the person who helped us to arrange for a one-way airline ticket, that she would be able to get us a car from a manufacturer. This never happened. We found ourselves stuck in Los Angeles. In LA, you have to have a car. We regret not being able to accomplish what we set out to do. We relied too much on too many things outside of our control. We definitely made some mistakes.

Luckily, people who we hardly knew on Twitter stepped up to help us out. We were overwhelmed by the unexpected support we received from @christyxcore, @markdavidson, @thevixy, and @MONEKE. We also got to meet a lot of people from Twitter at @gregbarnett’s TweetupLA.

Other people who we thought were helping us, ultimately ended up hurting us. At some point we will address what happened but for now, we are taking our experiences as a lesson learned and moving on. We’ve made commitments that we need to keep and we intend on forging along with a new found wisdom that could have only come from our experience in LA. In order for Twitter Travels to keep up our end of the bargain, we have to have equipment, a working budget, and consistent funding. We need to post every day. We need to be who we are and to do, what we do.

Brooke will add a new element to Twitter Travels and in the future, we’d like to have even more travel partners. Twitter Travels is a community-based project. Our mission is to connect the Twitter world with the real world. Our ultimate goal is to work our way back out to California because we loved it there but the reality is, Los Angeles is not a city to be in without a car or funding. This is the harsh reality we learned. The dollar sure does stretch a lot farther in the South and Mid West than it does in other parts of the country!

Moving forward with our project, we need to start raising more funds immediately. Brooke and I will be gathering some of the money through sponsorship but we really do need the community’s help again with donations. Donate if you can; even the smallest amount is appreciated. You can use the Chip-In widget to the side, or send money via PayPal directly to my email. As usual, if you can’t donate but want to help, please pass this on to friends. Blog about it. Retweet. Anything at all for more exposure.

Our next stop will be St. Louis. We need to raise around $1200 more to make this happen. We also have a new sponsor and I’ll include more details about that in a future post. For now though, we really need your support. If you have a company and you would like to sponsor our travels with used laptops, a previous generation iPhone or Treo, or even a small budget for promotion, please contact us. Thanks again to everyone for their support. We look forward to meeting you on the road!

-Jack
I Listen.

P.S.

We’d like to make it out to Las Vegas, Arizona, and eventually back to California by September. We’ll do a better job of keeping everyone up to date as we continue to move forward.

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My old friend Vaspersthegrate talks about my savvy twitter profile on his blog.

Oliver Gassner talks a little about Twitter Travels on his blog.

It’s hard to quantify things when you are looking backwards through the filter of memory. What happened? What did we do? Where did we go? Two months in California, surely I have stories to tell. For a singular moment in time, I am that goofy, straight-faced, storyteller again. I remember. I remember good things. I remember bad things. I remember sloth and melancholy. I remember unbridled joy and wonderment. If anything I mention here has been in a previous post, I apologize. Perhaps the stories will be slightly different now with the influence of time.

So, let’s get started.

Scarab and I are walking down Sunset Boulevard to the library so that we might check emails and such. We’re a little early and the library is not yet open. We light up cigarettes and try to kill the ten minutes or so before we can go inside and get out of the heat.

A man, no younger than 60, approaches us. His clothes are tattered and he carries a small backpack and a 3 day beard. He asks for spare change. We scramble through our pockets, but find nothing. Scarab offers him and cigarette and begins to roll up several as we talk. He tells us that he’s homeless, which we could have guessed. Talks a bit about his former life. A happy gleam in his eyes. Then the present breaks through the dream-memory. He says his wife is gone. His children won’t speak to him. Everything he owns is in the pack on his back. He was a Vietnam Vet, like so many of our nation’s homeless. He sleeps on the wheelchair ramp to the library when the LAPD don’t run him off.

Scarab finishes up a handful of cigarettes for the man, and he departs. I’m sure we’ve already faded from his memory. But we don’t forget.

Jack.
I Listen.