Running out of Gas and Correspondence

So I ran out of gas about two weeks ago on a trip back from Columbia. I took my motorcycle to interview a candidate for state rep for my video blog. I was so embarrassed about running out of gas that I didn't tell anyone for a while. But I lucked out. And my luck has been documented!

I mounted a camera to the back of my motorcycle(thanks Dilip), and the following is video of me running out of gas on Hwy 70 between Columbia and the STL. The video shows me departing Columbia and then cuts to about 5o miles east of Columbia where I run out of fuel.

Second is a copy of my post the The Royale website thanking the man Patrick who helped me out.

The third is a response from Patrick mailed to me by US Mail on Saturday.

#1 Video of me running out of gas:

Click To Play

#2 Link and my post to the Royale site:

Thank you to Patrick

Filed under: News, Events, Blog, Managers Blog — July 29, 2008 @ 8:33 pm

Hello Patrick,

I would like to thank you. I met you last week on a stretch of Hwy 70 somewhere between here and Columbia. I was riding my motorcycle I just picked up. I was pushing it and trying not to stop. I was almost out of gas, but I was unsure of exactly when I was going to run out of gas. You see, on a new motorcycle some reserve tanks have more gas than others. And I was only at 116 miles on my tank.

But alas, I bought a gas pig of a motorbike. A Yamaha VMax. It is a fun bike, but oink oink!!

So Patrick, thank you for helping me out last Wednesday. I coasted into the rest stop, for I was out of fuel. I coasted next to an old mobile home with a trailer. I noticed a small sign on the trailer that read “Laverda Mid-Ohio.”

I felt a sense of relief. Laverda is a scooter and motorcycle brand from Italy. Patrick, thank you. I saw you at the rest stop having lunch with your daughter.

Thank you for taking your time to help me out. And I hope you had fun out in Ohio with your different hot rods at the rally. That hopped up Laverda street buggy looks crazy fun.

I heard you were in tonight for dinner. I was upstairs finishing up a few things, so dang I missed ya! Thanks for stopping down.

Thank you Patrick, I owe you one!

I love America!

Steven Fitzpatrick Smith

#3 The letter then sent to me by my fellow traveler and good Samaritan:

New MTV videos

I have two videos I posted up on the MTV blog.



The first is on Stephen Webber, the Democratic candidate for the 23rd district of the Missouri State House. He has a very interesting story. At 25 he is running as the youngest candidate. He grew up in Columbia Mo, and graduated with a degree in economics from my alma mater, Saint Louis University. His graduation was delayed twice with tours in Iraq. He served as a Marine with one of the tours in Fallujah. He worked in DC for Claire McCaskill before he announced his bid for state house. He has a great grip on the issues. There is much more to the guy, so I will likely be doing another piece sometime next month.

Don't forget to vote next Tuesday.



This video is an interview with Magan Wiles. She is a young woman, also studied at Saint Louis University, who went to Palestine to see what was going on. She returned home and in order for her to express what she experienced she put together a rather heavy play called "Beautiful Resistance."

New content

Okay, I got regular stlstreets.com content coming, but here is some stuff I have embedded from my MTV gig. I actually really like these pieces. I hope you do too. They are fun. They take a while to produce, so I haven't been able to blog all regular like I want to. So check these out till I get my really funny regular blog out soon.



This is the best edit so far and the content is pretty strong as well. I am still working on everything. Let me know what you think. This is an interview with Scott Ritter, a former USMC Intelligence Officer and UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq, the former Soviet Union and Mid-East. He is a really interesting cat and has a real straight take. I got to make these interviews short, so it doesn't quite do justice.




So this is the interview with Pamela Merrit of Angryblackbitch.com. She also came along to the convention and gave some really great insight to just how screwy the whole deal was.