Every Thursday, we will feature some of our favorite travel stories found on Sosauce. We call it our “Weekly Wow” as these excerpts are not records of your standard trip to a Parisian cafe but those experiences that widen the eyes and drop the jaw. You’ll gain access to the story told first hand and will also see how you can tell your own fascinating stories on Sosauce. Last week we told of Mako’s journey to the sparse, yet beautiful, country of Mongolia. This week it’s the story of Schuyler and his lock picking exploits in the Netherlands.

Schuyler, a competitive lockpicker, has attended one of the biggest events in locksport, the Dutch Open, three times.

As stated by Schuyler, ” Locks draw the line between private and public, they determine, more than any money, any lawyer, or any receipt, what is mine and what is yours. Though many people are trusting by nature, we are distrustful by evolution, locks allowed us to trust, to congregate without fear of the security of our families, selves or possessions. Then, as now, locks have served as a great social equalizer. A simple lock can stop the biggest thug. It puts the value of your loved ones and loved things at exactly the same value as your neighbor.”

It’s hard to argue with those words and is cause for pause when thinking about the role locks play in our lives. How someone gets into lockpicking, I don’t really know but Schuyler is more than happy to tell you about his regimen and what it entails. As a casual observer, I must say that lockpicking is quite an intriguing sport.

You can read more about his lockpicking exploits in his Sosauce journal, A Year in Locksport or check out his photos from the Dutch Open.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 5:32 PM and is filed under Weekly Wow. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.