Kansas!

For the past week or so I have been traveling around the grand state of Kansas. I am really enjoying Kansas. I have been to Kansas City, Wichita, Clay Center and now I am in Great Bend. The people and connections that I have made on the road have been really cool. I met a couple that goes to Central Christian Church in Wichita and through that I got to play soccer and meet up with other young adults from that church. Like LaSalle Street Church, Central Christian Church is non-denominational so I felt pretty comfortable there. It has a lot more space and stuff but it's a pretty cool place. I also have been lugging my duct tape supplies to different restaurants and setting up shop creating duct tape things. This has allowed me to talk to others about what I am doing and my plans. It has also been really cool to have everything organized enough to do that. I have also been spending more time reading and trying to work on documenting more of my trip through video and writing. It's going pretty slow but hopefully it will pick up pretty soon. With all of this freedom my imagination is running wild and I love it. Time to make some duct tape creations at McDonalds! Until next time, this is David signing off.

Updates

I have arrived back in Chicago after my tour of the East Coast. My route was New York City to Washington DC to Boston to Chapel Hill to Upstate New York for Camping to Nashville and now to Chicago. On Monday I plan to head out to St. Louis and Free Hug with a contact that I have met there. I have also created Free Hugs Tour posters that I can now ask to post at local coffee shops and places where I visit. It is actually really cool.

So yeah. What do you think? I think it's a cool poster. So far on my trip I think that the best part has been Boston. I was only there for a couple of days, Free Hugs Friday at Boston University which was one of the most amazing experiences ever and I also got to help out doing flowers at a Hindi wedding!! :D It was a really cool experience. Over this past month I have been able to get my car organized in a way that makes it a lot easier to live out of and comfortable. I may try and get a picture when it is a little bit more organized again. Another improvement is I have been able to sell 3 duct tape free hugs signs, a flower and a card wallet on my trip and have been able to pick up a couple of odd jobs in order to earn some money to fund more of my trip. :D Overall I think that the snowball is beginning to achieve some momentum and my business will improve steadily throughout the year. (You know best case senerio) I have also been working hard to make contacts in different cities as well as come up with a schedule of places that I will be going so that I can give people in those places fair time to prepare for my arrival. It doesn't always work out that way though because I am open to changes and the schedule is loose and can change at the drop of a hat. I have slept in my car a few times and now have a bedish setup in my car which is really cool. I leave for St. Louis on Monday and I will be there until Wednesday or Thursday. I then have an appointment in Chicago on Friday and after that appointment I will head out for Sedgwick, Kansas to visit some friends there. From there I will go to Kansas City. From Kansas City I will head out to Twin Falls, Idaho and Boise, Idaho on my way to Spokane, Washington. From Spokane I will go to Seattle and Auburn Washington and visit Oregon. After that I don't have a schedule so far. I will try and keep you all updated more frequently. Thank you all!! :D

The Laundry Room.

When you go to a campground, you don’t really think much about the laundry room. At least I never have before… It’s a room you think associate with, well laundry, but today I find it’s really the place to hangout!! Well not a lot of people are really here, and they aren’t doing laundry… it’s mostly me, myself, and I, using it for writing this blog post, staying dry from the rain out of my cluttered and disorganized car, and making free hugs T-shirts with fabric paint!!What better place to let my paint dry than in the laundry room? It also has outlets for charging my electronics that are safe from the ever constant rain that is being experienced by the setting in which I am present. It’s perfect! I never thought about the laundry room as a place to “hang out”…. Until now. Now that I stop and think about it, the laundry room is a safe place to meet and find all sorts of adventures. As two strangers wait for their laundry to finish, stimulating conversations are usually had. Maybe, Sometimes, I don’t know it really has never happened to me yet but it makes me think. Come to think of it, the laundry room has a lot of characteristics in common with duct tape. It’s a room that is usually taken for granted, never really pay attention to in our daily lives, but its one of the staples that we have come to need in order to survive. Just like duct tape is such a common household item that people never really give it the credit it deserves. It’s the most common, the most taken for granted, and the most skipped over things that really are the most fascinating. As you look at the world around you its ever changing with new innovations and items that get thrown away for other newer items. What is common between laundry rooms and duct tape, is I haven’t seen anything invented could ever take their place. Hurray for the Laundry Room!!!!

Boston University Free Hugs Friday!

Last Friday when I was in Boston I had the honor and pleasure to meet The Boston University Free Hug Fridayers!! It was really awesome to meet such a great group of people that is dedicated to giving away free hugs every Friday to wish their fellow classmates a good Friday and weekend. I would just like to say that it was one of the greatest experiences, giving away free hugs with them. I am planning on visiting them again to be able to interview them for my Free Hugs Documentary. A way to get into the mind of a Free Hugger and try to understand the motivations behind the decisions to Free Hug and what it means to them. I am really excited about that. I am going to try and find some film majors to help capture some footage in different places. Hugs, David

Washington DC/ Boston!

Today (Thursday September 22, 2011) I got into Boston, well Medford actually but Tomorrow is Free Hugs Friday at Boston University!! I am really excited for free hugs friday... hopefully people show up.. It's supposed to rain tomorrow and that is worrying me, but hopefully it will be a good time and I can get some interviews for my free hugs documentary project. Hold up stop. Did he just? Yeah I said a free hugs documentary project. :D I have less than one year, a 7.1 megapixel camera, a broken tripod, my camera on my phone, and some duct tape to keep the tripod from not working and I think I am going to make a pretty awesome documentary. How you ask? That's a great question. I'll keep asking around. While I was in Washington D.C. well, it was raining and there weren't many people outside so it wasn't the greatest free hugging weather either.. I seem to be hitting all the bad weather here and its really rather inconvienent. Anywho, I got a readers card for researchers at the Library of Congress so I can look at books and stuff and do research there which is really cool. I also went to the United States Postal Museum which was pretty awesomely cool too. Very interesting how our mail is delivered and how it has changed over the years. Hopefully I will get some free hugs in Boston. I am beginning to get the hang of this traveling thing. Pretty exciting. Hugs! David

New York!!

SO I have been in New York for a few days now, since the 13th. On the 13th I tried going free hugging downtown and got 10 hugs, not too many but it was pretty okish. Then on the 14th I went to see Daniel Radcliff in a showing of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying which was a wonderful show. (Especially for the great price of $30!) Today I went and met a friend of mine who stayed at our house while he interned at LaSalle Street Church, Kyle Sandison. It was awesome to get to talk with him. It was even cooler because he was with me the day that I first learned about free hugs and saw people free hugging!! That was a historic day right there. As we were talking one of the quotes he showed me by C.S. Louis was really interesting. It went something like this: "It is a serious thing, to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal." Which got me thinking about all of the different people that you meet off of the street. The smallest ideas or gestures could determine their whole future!! Imagine if those teenagers had never been free hugging on the street that my family and I were walking on to go and see the 5th Harry Potter Movie for my brothers birthday? I would be a completely different person!! What else is so crazy is that those huggers had no idea how much their act of offering Free Hugs impacted my life! Can you imagine a David Melia without free hugs? The tiniest moments, the meeting of someone on the street, the smile or hug of a stranger, the compliment or willingness to look silly really can make a difference. As I go out into the world and Free Hug I think about all of the times that others have impacted my life in brief moments that last a lot longer in memories and that is what keeps me going. It's the girl that wrote "Keep it up, your saving lives" on the back of my Free Hugs shirt when she was signing it, it's the lady who emailed me that she wasn't having the best time in Chicago and after passing me by a couple times, got a hug and her time in Chicago was saved because of that hug, it's those people that keep me going. It makes me wonder exactly how many lives I have touched? Those whom I don't know about, those who have experienced a change like I did when I first saw a free hugger. Those huggers have no idea how much their presence that day actually meant. It really makes you wonder, how much a small interaction on the street really can affect a life doesn't it? As Leo Buscaglia beautifully states: "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn around a life" I challenge you not to underestimate the power of the smallest act of caring, to do something nice no matter how small to someone you meet on the street, someone you work with, someone you love. The smallest things make the biggest difference. Lots of Hugs! :David

Nashville

SOoo I am in Nashville!! Its rainy and I got here yesterday at 2 pm and it being labor day, all the cool places and resturants that I wanted to hang out at (namely Starbucks) were closed! SO yeah I walked around, got wet, tried to get a lay of the city. Nashville is a cool place, I think i would enjoy it more if it were sunny and there were more people out. But as I write this what's that? I GOT MY FIRST HUG!!!! IN NASHVILLE! THAT'S THE FIRST HUG OF MY TRIP!!! YIPEE!!! I think that hug just made my trip. That hug is the highlight. I love hugs. Alot. SO also I am going to the Tiffany Alvord Concert today. I am pretty excited. I have a meet and greet ticket which is cool. That is really exciting also. A hug can really have a difference on one's outlook on the world. I would also like to point out that I got that hug at Starbucks.. so yeah Cool right? Yeah I know. Anywho's I slept pretty well last night in my car. It's still not very organized. I need to find my phone charger that plugs into an ac outlet and stuffs but yeah. I brought an umbrella too. I haven't used it yet. Maybe I should get on that and stay dry.. Yeah, I think I'll do that. Brb. Maybe... like later later but yeah. Hugs! David

Blah Blah Blah... Wait, whats going on?

I leave later today on my big huge free hugs road trip, after my mom and sister get back from Kansas City. As I think about all of the thoughts and plans and expectations that I have had over the past two years or so and all of the research that I have done to try and make this happen, its really hard to believe that my departure date has finally come. I have a vague notion of what I want this trip to achieve and what I want to come out from the experience but the truth is, I have no idea what I am going to get away from it. What is going to happen after I run out of the money that I have in 2 months? Will my products sell so that I can survive? What if something crazy bad happens? How trusting should I be of others? There are plenty of good people out there in the world but there are also one's that want to hurt you. I usually trust people until they give me a reason not to.. what If that comes to bite me in the future? Where am I going to park when I am in New York City? (yeah, any help is appreciated on that one.) But as I set off today I try to think about the endless possibilities that could come out of this trip, the different people that I could meet, the friends that I get to visit all over the country, the support of my followers and maybe the creation of an inspirational documentary. This trip is more than just to give away free hugs and brighten others lives, its a trip for me to try and help me find who I am, what I am meant to do in this world, how I fit into the greater picture of the world. It's kinda like going to college, except there is no teacher, your the teacher and the student, teaching yourself through experiences in the real world. I don't know what this trip is going to give me or where exactly I will end up but I do know that it is going to be a transformative year for me and maybe for you, my followers. Thank you for your support and together we will see what this trip has in store for us. See you on the flip side. Hugs, David

Packing!!!

As I sit down and write this post, I just got back from white water rafting in Maryland with my best friends Chad and his dad,Charlie,my brother Stephen,and my dad. It was a great trip!! The rapids were awesome! We almost fell a couple times. We didn't though. There was a raft on our trip that threw 3 of the 4 people into the river though. That was pretty cool and funny to watch. :D
Before that I went on vacation with my family to Universal Studios in Orlando for 4 days. Pretty fun stuff. Anyway, on to the interesting stuff. I leave for my trip in 12 days so I have to start packing. Packing is pretty chaotic because I have to make sure I have everything all organized and take the minimal amount of things so that I have space in my car to be comfortable. It is a bit scary because it's going to be such a new experience and I am going to have to get used to it but I am also really excited. I am going to go make a video about all the stuff that I am going to take with me and how I have to organize it all and fun stuff like that. Be sure to check it out! Thanks for all your support!

Free Hugging Trip!

So I have my preliminary itinerary so far for my trip! I did a video of it if you would like to watch that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPnMTKcWqeg
or here is the itinerary: We start out in Chicago.
Then I go out to Nashville for a concert
then New York (Pottersville, Red Neck, New York City)
maybe stop in Washington DC on my way to
North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
Tennessee (Nashville and Memphis)
Kansas (Sedgwick and Wichita)
Colorado (Denver)
maybe stop somewhere in Idaho
then on to Washingon (Spokane, Seattle, Auburn, Bellevue)
Oregon (Portland)
California (San Francisco, Los Angeles)
Arizona (Tucson and Pheonix)
New Mexico (Albuquerque)
Texas (Austin, Houston, Kennedale)
Georgia (Athens, other places)
Florida (Orlando)
Then visit Chicago on my way to Maine :D
That is what I have so far so tell me what you think?! :D
Also If you want me to visit somewhere that is not on this list, and hug me, lets make it work. :D
So yeah. Also I got my car today!!!!! and I went free hugging today and yesterday. Yesterday I got 65 hugs and today I got 159 hugs and handed out a total of 95 free hugs business cards between the two days. I am planning to leave September 4th sometime during the day so Watch out world David Melia is on the road!!