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YouGuysAreStupid.com Walking across the country so you don't have to... View Intro (Sorry, it's not ready to view yet!)
Walking across the country so you don't have to...

4 We are going to do did something stupid...
We're walking We walked from Chicago to San Francisco.  Many have responded with, "You guys are stupid!"  Some, on the other hand, have said, "Wow, that's cool!"  Either way, we hope you'll keep coming back to see what will happen next in our walking adventures.

So, Who are you guys?
We are Andy, Erik and John.  We're in our upper twenty-somethings and live in the Chicagoland area.  We'd be lying if we said we're the most interesting people in the world, but you can learn more about us as this site develops, we promise.

Now, we know you've got more questions, and we've got answers.


For those who didn't notice it before we do have an online store where you can buy your own stuff with our stupid (yet cool) logo on it!

John, Erik and Andy
This is us: John, Erik, and Andy
Yes, we're aware
that we're freakin'
nuts. J

Wanderlust
(wŏn'dər-lŭst')
noun: A very strong or irresistible impulse to travel.
[German  : wandern, to wander (from Middle High German) + Lust, desire (from Middle High German, from Old High German. See las- in Indo-European Roots).]
Dictionary.com

Wednesday, December 29, 2004:
    OK, so if you know what the word "wander" and the word "lust" means, then you don't even need to read the definition above to understand what "wanderlust" means. My own personal definition is "the passionate need to explore [the world]." It's been over half a year since I last wrote something on our home page, and I know it's long overdue. The fancy word above has been on my mind lately. It seems like all of my friends and relatives are already married or are getting married. Many have already gotten married and divorced.
    I'm a 30-year old guy (some say man, but I tend to think that I'm more of a boy) and I'm not ready to lock-in just yet. My girlfriend, Teresa, is ready and, more than likely, waiting. She's been taking me to look at houses and, while I would love to be in a nice big house rather than the apartment that she, Erik and I share, it represents the next level of commitment.
    Speaking of such things, Erik has a new girl, Jen, whom he's pretty serious with. She's very cool and they've been looking at houses, too, and I think Erik's on the path to marriage himself. Soon, his life will be over! (o;
    I'll try to make this short (which you all know I'm not very good at doing), since it's not supposed to be a journal. To the point: I am feeling some serious wanderlust. It's not her or even my current situation since I work for myself and happily set my own hours, get to spend good times with family, friends, and play video games! (o; Erik and I have discussed walking to Washington when we're old enough to run for President and V.P. (Erik would make a great V.P., don't ya think? (o;) but that's a few years off.
    My buddy, Jeff, and I have been joking about riding motorcycles to the Southern tip of South America, which would be fun (and amazingly dangerous considering the political clime.) Andy is planning a very interesting trip, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to mention it yet, so that'll be a mystery until enough people pester me enough to ask Andy if it's OK. Where do we go next?
    I'm not sure, but I know I want to go and you can bet I'll be updating a new portion of this site, to be sure!

John's brother-in-law, Jon, falls off a house!
Monday, April 12th, 2004:
    Time just flies by, doesn't it?  Here we are, and it's already the middle of April.  In less than two months, it'll be the one year anniversary of our departure.  That's just nuts!  Anyhow, I (John) will soon to return to San Francisco.  My sister Michelle's husband, Jon (whom we stayed with in San Fran at the end of the trip,) ran into a problem with gravity at the site of the new home he's building, so I'm heading out there to help finish up the house while Jon heals.  I may fly, although there has been some thought to driving out there and stopping to say hello to a few of the awesome folks we met along last year's trip.  I also hope to visit with the cool people we met in the San Francisco area while I'm out there.
    Oh yeah, and now that it's been like months and months, I've finally replaced that idiotic picture of myself with a picture of Ian, the winner of the backpack drawing.  Sorry about the insane delay, Ian! (o;  Speaking of pictures, I've also put up the pictures of the fine folks at the local Batavia American Cancer Society office.  We're seriously considering being involved in their next Relay for Life walk.  I am also likely to participate in the same walk, but in Nebraska.  My cousin, Shelley, is a very courageous cancer survivor, and you can read more about her experiences (both good and bad) in the bulletin board.  I want to walk in their event just for her.
    We're still looking into some possibilities when it comes to movie and/or book deals and we promise to keep you posted.  I'm going to say that we're tentatively planning to do something for the one-year anniversary (June 1, 2004) but I'm just not sure what yet.  Again, we'll keep you in the loop for that.  Currently, Erik and I are involved in building robot vehicles of the future and also working on roles for a very cool independent film (unrelated to the walk) as well.  Why talk about doing cool stuff when you can GO OUT AND DO IT!!!

Meet the ACS Staffers...
Sunday, March 28th, 2004:
    OK, so for those few of you who are still paying attention, the site disappeared for a few days this last week.  I'm moving the site once again and I've now got it up on a temporary server in our apartment before it moves to its real new home on an actual Internet Web Site Host (but this time it's a free one!)  For those of you who want to know the technical aspects of this situation, I am moving all server stuff out of the apartment so we don't have to worry about it.  A generous friend of mine, Pat, is giving up some space on his hosted server, which the sneaky fellow got for free for three years (at www.1and1.com).  It's taking me a while to move to the hosted server because it requires that the pages be written in a different language (PHP instead of ASP) so I'm actually learning this new language by converting this entire site.
    Why, you ask, are we bothering?  Well, we want to keep it alive for those who might stumble across the site and for those who might want to see if we spill out an update here and there.  In fact, I'm very much hoping to get out a six month post-trip update in the next few days.  I know, promises, promises. (o;  Since it's late (2 AM) I think I'll ramble a bit and then give up trying to type coherent sentances.  Right now, Erik is watching Radio, which Teresa and I just finished a couple of hours ago.  I must recommend the movie, because it's yet another reminder that humans are capable of some very cool things, and not just blowing stuff up (although I have to admit that's the kind of movie we generally prefer, hehe.)  Seriously, it's an excellent feel-good movie.  Did I meniton I work for Revolution Studios now?  Just kidding (sheesh, you guys will believe anything!)
    Erik and I recently made a visit to the local chapter of the American Cancer Society and met the very nice folks there.  I'll tell you more about that in the next update, which will also include some pictures from the ACS.  Oh yeah, and that picture of my lame butt holding a backpack will be changed with the next update.  Jeeze I look dumb.  Good night, all.

Ian, Winner o' the Bag So this is Ian, Happy Bag Winner...
Tuesday, November 18th, 2003:
Finally, you say, more than two weeks after the November 1st party, one month after we arrived in San Francisco, California, we have the drawing for the CamelBak back pack shown above.  The winner is Ian Bradley, who turns out to be a relative of Erik's who was nice enough to show up for our little Chicago shindig.  You can watch the big or small video of the drawing (depending on whether your Internet connection is high-speed or dial-up.)  John doing the drawing Many of you want to know what's going on with us since we returned, and, as some of you might have read on the Bulletin Board, Erik has a job and Andy and I are looking for ways to fatten our bank accounts as well.  The book is still an idea, although we're not quite sure how to proceed yet; I suppose we'd better finish up the journals first, eh? (o;

  'Finally!
Away from 
crowds, 
horns & 
alarm 
clocks.'
             'Don't
             forget
             to recharge
             the laptop
             and GPS.'

- John's girlfriend, 
Teresa, found this 
comic before the 
trip even began. Wednesday, November 5th, 2003:
Yes, the party was a blast, with friends, family and YGAS fans coming to hang out with us.  We have yet to finish the drawing for the backpack, but when we do, we'll post the winner here (with his or her permission, of course.)  You're probably thinking, "At the rate they're putting out journals, they'll never give that Camelbak thing away!" Hehe, we understand your frustration, but bear with us as we try to get our little apartmentalized lives back together again! (o;  Thanks to everyone who came to the party and thank you all who've been with us by visiting the site.  As we get settled into our new/old places, we're finally able to start stirring up enough time to do a journal here and there, along with all kinds of photos and video, so stay tuned!

Saturday, November 1st, 2003:
Come hang out with us today at Fox and Hounds inside the Grand Victoria Casino in Elgin, IL.  There will be food and fun - enough pizza to fill John's belly and yours.  Climb inside one of our tents and enter a drawing to win a Camelbak Rim Runner back pack and hydration system.  You might also get to meet the famous Kev and Sor and even some of the family of Andy, Erik and John.
Yes, we are working on getting our apartment (and Andy's nook in his parent's house) set up so we have some place to live (and so Teresa doesn't kill us for having boxes all over her living room.) Hopefully, a day or so after today's festivities, we'll have the time to go all-out journal/picture/video-a-thon! As we promised, we won't leave you out in the cold, but it might take a little while to get it all done!

Sunday, October 26th, 2003:
After a week in the San Francisco area, working our butts off on journals, checking out the local bar scene and visiting awesome observatories, we're now on a train, heading back to Chicago!  The train ride is made possible by a very cool lady named Deanna, from Springfield, Illinois, and wow, it is a much more comfortable way to travel!  Right now, we're relaxing a bit, but we'll likely start doing some more journal writing very soon and we have a boat-load of images and video that we plan to upload once we get home on Tuesday.  It'll be nice to finally be home and we very much hope to see all of you (and your friends!) at our little party back in Chicagoland (Elgin, to be specific.)

Monday, October 19th, 2003:
We are in the middle of working our tails off doing journals as well as responding to e-mails from our excellent fans (that'd be you!)  By this evening, we'll have some journals up for you to check out, and perhaps some pictures, too.  As we plan to be in the San Francisco area this week, we're planning a party for Friday night, October 24th, and we'll let you know the second we've worked out the details on exactly where and when (plus there'll be another E-Vite so you can tell us you're coming!)  Once again, thanks to all of you for virtually hanging out with us during the last four and a half months, but don't stop visiting as there's much more content to get up on the site (so, for those of you who need to waste more time at work, we'll have more for your entertainment, hehe.)  Not only that, but all of our experiences regarding books or movies or any other appearances will be in our journals as well, and, as Erik mentioned on the Bulletin Board, we plan on keeping journals for some time after we return, about how we adjust back to "normal life."  So, again, stay tuned!

Saturday, October 18th, 2003 (Night):
We are, finally, DONE with the walk!  Now, that doesn't mean we're done with this site, and technically, we're not done with the adventure yet as we're going to hang out in San Francisco for a while, so we'll continue to keep journals while we're here and perhaps for a while after we get home since we haven't decided exactly what's going to happen yet.  So, stay tuned as we start getting caught up on our journals and pictures and video as well.  We'll be starting a massive journal-a-thon Monday morning and it'll probably last for a number of days, to be sure, not to mention all of the video and picture processing we've left to complete.  And don't worry, we won't leave you hanging!  It's hard to believe it, but we are in San Francisco!  (Michelle just corrected me: technically we're in Oakland.)

Saturday, October 18th, 2003:
Yes, we're hours away from the official END of our walk, whatever happens after we get to Alcatraz is a big question mark, but ya know what, it's just awesome as hell. We friggin made it, I still can't believe it, we're here! Our schedule is going to be us hitting the bridge around 11am and then walking down to Alcatraz to catch the 2:30 ferry. The "party" last night wasn't like I had originally wanted it to be, but our friend Karin came out with some of her friends and we hung out at the visitor center in front of the bathrooms for a little while, then we moved it to a cool place. We're also going to try and organize a party for Sunday afternoon at a cool place in San Francisco. More on that later... And of course, we've got about 500 pictures to upload once we get time to name them and stuff!


View All Updates (older updates have been hidden to make the page load faster)
Check out the Photo Gallery for photos taken while preparing for the trip as well as some totally stupid videos! We'll be updating this while on the trip, but the updates will be a bit delayed, of course.

Don't worry, you can still contribute to our trip by buying YouGuysAreStupid.com stuff at our online store.  Get shirts, hats, undies, stickers and other stuff with our logo and/or web site address fashionably affixed.  If you want to buy something and can't find what you like at the store, please let us know and we'll see if we can't find or make what you're looking for!

We've choosen the American Cancer Society as our charity o' choice. All contributions will be applied to this charity with a small portion of proceeds used to help fund our trip. Check out the Contribute page for more details.

Hey, as amazingly unimportant as they might seem, the Random Polls are now finally working, so vote your behind off and see how many other people think like you do, ya big freak! (If you don't see a Random Poll in the side bar under the Contribute box, just refresh this page a few times until one appears - they are random, you know.)

We've got a new Guestbook and you can sign it and everything. On the other hand, if you are looking for a conversation or twenty, check out the new Bulletin Board.  If it doesn't work, just remember, they were both Erik's ideas!

The Ask Kevin page has become the Ask Kev & Sor page because we've signed on our good friend Chris (also known simply as "Hoser" or just "Sor" because he is originally from Minnesota and says "aboot" and "hoos" instead of "about" and "house") to work along-side Kevin answering your questions and providing knowledge. Note: sometimes Sor's knowledge will be random, but it tends to be true!

The trip start date has changed (it was originally May 11th.) Check it out on the Trip Info page!

The plan is to put some highlights of the trip here on a very frequent basis, but as you might have figured out, the trip hasn't started yet, so we don't have much in the way of highlights!  Be sure to peep down here each time you visit the site.  Don't worry, there's tons more content coming to the site, we promise.
 

We're not affiliated with stupid.com, but their site has an awesome amount of stupid stuff on it and, hopefully, they don't mind us linking to them.  We would also like to thank gorp.com, as their site was immensely helpful in planning this crazy-fest.  Check out their site to find out about how to do all kinds of things from making spiffy camp sites to snazzy igloos.

It took a while to decide upon a domain name, but when we thought of the reactions to our little plan so far, youguysarestupid.com seemed to fit best. J

We'll have a site worthy of your full attention soon, so stay tuned if you're looking for some stupid entertainment!  (We apologize if it turns out to be really interesting instead of totally stupid.)


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