Well, it's kind of a long origin story, so if you're not down with that kinda thing you might want to find some other page to navigate to. I promise I won't judge you for that.
My name is Dino and I live up around Calabasas. I'm a professional nerd, and by that I mean I work in video games. In January of 2025, I took a job in Santa Monica thinking, "you know, an hour commute can't THAT bad... right?"
Well for the first few days I was totally right. An hour commute was more than I was used to, but the morning drive down the PCH wasn't all that bad. The ocean in the morning is gorgeous, the drive down Malibu canyon is relatively stress free; life was good. But the universe had other plans, and the world literally started burning.
My family and I were very lucky - all the things that happened to us during that time could be filed under mild inconvenience. Apart from having shitty air-quality and no power for 5 days, evacuating to the coffee shop a town over, then to Solvang for the weekend, and coming back to a disgusting fridge that I had to purge the living shit out of, the fires did not do much to us.
The only real fallout happened a week or so later, when I tried to go back to work. The PCH was closed and I had to take the 101 to the 405 during rush hour. Navigation routed me through neighborhoods, and it took me two and a half hours to drive the 26 miles into work. I tried this a couple times, it never got shorter.
One other thing that starts to be an issue during a multi-hour morning commute is that I need to go to the bathroom at around the two hour mark. There are NO good stopping points along this commute. One time I tried stopping at a 7-11 in Santa Monica as soon as I got off the 405. They didn't have a public restroom, so I went outside and peed on the wall next to the puddle that the homeless guy left. Another time, I stopped at the Skirball center and the security guard told me they were still closed. My response was, "I don't think you understand the situation. You either help me find a bathroom, or I WILL find your stairwell." She pointed me to the restroom and I literally raced my pelvic floor there. I apologized profusely on the way out, and swore that there was no world in which I would continue to do this.
The next week, I started on my journey.
I decided that I would roll out of bed as early as humanly possible for me, leave before the sun is up, head to Santa Monica before traffic knows I'm awake, workout, shower, and get to work earlier than the employee of the month. In order to do so, I would need to prepare...
I've got a mild sense of OCD, so I am incredibly meticulous in what I think I need for an optimal experience. I did a shit ton of research on the right type of quick dry camping towel that I could toss in my trunk without it turning into a swamp; a hangable mesh bag to carry my toiletries in and hang them; an odor-proof, bateria resistant bag to put my sweaty gym clothes; and a gym bag big enough to fit all that plus work clothes, shoes, oh, and it had to be able to be stuffed in a locker - yeah, I'm not high-maintenance, right?
Well, I got all that highly specialized shit together, packed it up the night before, laid out the clothes I planned on wearing in the morning, and I registered for a 6am class at Barry's Bootcamp.
Monday morning, I woke up and stumbled through my vitamins. I managed to navigate the 30 minutes to Santa Monica in stupor without killing anyone. I finally came to in the shower - the workout was over and I was finally starting to wake up. I got to work early, laid out my day and I felt absolutely incredible. The two extra hours of my life that I would have spent in the car swearing at traffic were once again mine.
That one 6am workout is where it all started.
I guess the rest is history.
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