Plan 9 from Syracuse

Let me tell you a story, a story about a man driven to see his dream get full filled and setting out to do what most of us would consider to be insane or at the very least not our first choice of ways to achieve that dream.

His name is Ryan Dacko, his dream is to make a truly independent movie. The making the movie part he is still working on. Actually the part he is working on right now is getting to L.A. to meet with a producer (currently Mr. Mark Cuban). Now here is the interesting part that makes this whole thing blog worthy.

Ryan isn't driving to L.A. in the hopes of meeting Mr. Cuban, Ryan is running across the U.S. from Syracuse New York to L.A. thats somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,950 miles.

Now that I have your attention. Ryan started running in August of this year. With no guarantees of even meeting a producer. And there are still no guarantees of a meeting.

So where do does your humble blogger Tom fit into all of this? I don't really fit into any of it. Actually Cody fits into all of it. Cody knows Ryan from his days in the Coast Guard on the ship "Polar Star". Now all I had heard from Cody before today about Ryan was how he wrote scripts for movies on the boat and worked on storyboards.

For three weeks in December Ryan has been running across Northern Arizona on I-40. Not a fun task to be sure. Somewhere in those three weeks Ryan would be running through Flagstaff and as we all know I'm never one to pass up a trip to Flagstaff.

So that is how I got involved with Ryan.

Just so that we are clear. I get winded on a tread mill... So there was no way in hell that I was going to run through Flagstaff with Ryan and Cody. I could however play support truck. So I with Ryan's sister Delaine waited for Ryan and Cody at multiple points along a very cold and windy I-40 in and around Flagstaff. It was interesting talking to Delaine since we did have alot of time between Ryan and Cody visits.

I spent one afternoon working with Ryan and Delaine and found a ton of respect in just this one little dose. Ryan has been running across the country for 115 days now and Delaine has been with him for the last 55 days.

What can you do? You can start by "Digging" this story after that you head to Ryan's myspace page and add your self as one of his friends. Finally don't forget to write Mr. Cuban to tell him why Ryan should get funding to make his film.

As Cody says doing all of this is much easier then running 2,950+ miles across the country to achieve your dream.