How I ended up in Glacier National Park... and made a website about paradise
Growing up in America--the land of opportunity and dreams--this can be hard. You’re brainwashed from parents, from television, from the Government’s brilliant marketers, that your life’s a list:
Maybe you return for grad school because you realize the debt you incurred to obtain a college degree in English is worthless (so you get into more debt). If you're lucky, you don't die before retirement and enjoy your 'golden years' on cruise ships and retirement communities. No. Not me. I refuse. I want to travel, to live my life for my passions, to avoid falling into the American trap, to travel when I’m young and open to sleeping in tents and on beaches. The biggest problem? Overcoming the obstacle of people telling you, “No, you can’t”. Well, in a year’s time I’ll be able to tell them, “Yes, I can”. And, with SiteBuiltIt, so can you! How? Read my story. My Life I grew up in suburban New York. My passion: writing. All my life my dream had been to bartend and write on a beach. Well, now I live in the Rockies and write in the mountains, but bartending’s wearing thin and making money as a writer’s damn near impossible. Yet I’m motivated, passionate, and dedicated to changing my life, to avoid more grad school debt, to live my dream. So, I made a website. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to suburban New York. I graduated high school. Went to college at the University of Michigan to study film and screenwriting. Like most college kids, I returned home for my first summer to find I could no longer live with my parents after enjoying the freedom of college. So the next summer I decided to do things differently. The Summer that Changed My Life I found a site called Coolworks. From there, I discovered a community of nomads, spending their summers in National Parks and winters chasing summer into Australia or as ski bums in Colorado or Utah. I got offered jobs in Yosemite, Alaska, Zion, and Glacier National Park, Montana. “Montana?!” I thought, “who goes to Montana?” I looked up Glacier National Park and was blown away. My application was sent in and it was set: in the summer of 2005, I would be living and working in Montana. I bought a whole load of hiking and backpacking equipment and left the flat, boring landscape of Michigan and the dirty, city-scape of New York to discover the Rocky Mountains. And fell in love:
I returned to school in Michigan and yearned for the mountains so much I became an insomniac. And so I returned again the following summer. Uh-oh... Reality Sets In Graduation loomed on the horizon. My parents, having spent a fortune to help send me to the University of Michigan, insisted I get a real job. So, like a good college graduate, an all-American boy, I returned to New York City, got a ratty apartment in Brooklyn, and an 8-6 job as the personal assistant to a film producer. I hated my life. 22 years old. This is it. I’m going to be trapped. No escape. The world was awash in superficiality. My dreams of hiding in the Rocky Mountains of Montana’s Glacier National Park suffocated beneath the smog of New York City. After a few months of numbing myself with each consecutive happy hour, I finally gained the courage to quit my job, told my parents I’m moving west and pursued my dream. I wrote Portland, San Francisco and Boulder on three separate index cards, closed my eyes, exhaled a shaky breath and drew a card: Boulder. I’m moving to Colorado. A week later I was boarding a plane with a one way ticket. My plane landed. I found a job waiting tables at the Mountain Sun, Colorado’s best micro-brewery. My days were spent whittling away at film scripts, my nights bartending. But after a year, I found myself uninspired. Do you know how difficult it is to sell a script? You have a better chance of landing on the New York Times’ best seller list. And I concluded, most appropriately, that no matter how much your Mom insists you're special, perhaps I wasn’t. But, I do have a quality that I was always certain would allow me to succeed: my unwavering determination. The Decision That Changed My Life And as I was writer-blocked, procrastinating, trying to get myself to continue writing a script on an American tank crew in Iraq that would probably never sell, I stumbled across SBI. SBI stands for SiteBuildIt! And helps you turn any hobby, passion, skills, existing business, or love into a successful and profitable online business. I had no idea that almost any topic can make money with a website! But, make a website? I’m probably one of the least proficient people with a computer. In fact, I prefer an old school typewriter than one of these expensive laptops. But no matter how new to computers and the internet you are, SBI will take your hand and guide you, step by step, to make a profitable, content-driven, traffic-generating website. ANYONE CAN DO IT. You don’t need to be a good writer to make a profitable web page. Just knowledge on a hobby or passion. Forget html. Forget Dreamweaver, photoshop and other design programs. You don’t need any knowledge besides your passion to turn your hobbies into a profitable, online business. SBI has all the tools you would ever need and teaches you step by step how to make money from your passion. SiteBuildIt! Walks you through
Take a peak at their Video Tour to get an idea of how it works (or the Quick Tour if you're on dial-up). But when I first discovered this, I thought this has to be a scam. No way can I make money from a webpage on travel and the things I love. Then I discovered the hundreds of successful SBI websites, built by normal people just like me who wanted to ditch the ‘real world’. And by successful I mean that they’re in the top 1% of the most successful sites on the web. But this isn’t done overnight. This isn’t a get rich quick scheme. Like I said, my best quality’s dedication. In the beginning, making a web site (let alone a successful one) is a LOT of work. But unlike waiting tables, slaving away in New York City to a film producer, banking in Chicago… whatever ‘real job’ you have, this is fun. Me? I'm writing about Glacier National Park, the Crown of the Continent. You’re sharing your passion. Your love. Your hobby. And you’ll make money from it! And you can work at the pace you want, the hours you want, on your own schedule. I’ve become my own boss! Best part: it’s totally risk free. SBI has a full, money back guarantee. You’re not satisfied? Get your paycheck back. Plenty of people do it. People who aren’t great writers, who are stuck in the 9-5 slavery, who have passions and dedication. People longing to escape just like you and me… So, what are you waiting for? Just like the Hundreds of Successful SBI Sites you, too, can do this! “100% of the shots you don’t take don’t go in.” This is your only life. Don’t let it pass you by. Try SBI for free! If I can do this, if hundreds of other people just like you and me can do this, so can you! Return home from |
