Traveling Around the World

On March 13, 2007, I handed over the keys to my house, put my possessions in storage and headed out to travel around the world with nothing but a backpack, my laptop and a camera.

Three and a half years and 70 countries later, I’ve gotten the equivalent of a Ph.D in general knowledge about the people and places of Planet Earth.

Here are some of the things I’ve learned:

20 Things I’ve Learned From Traveling Around the World for Three Years

Thanks to Debby for the link.

Reading the author’s personal website I found this:

“I’ve had people ask me if they should take their SLR with them on their trip because they are worried about theft. My answer is, if you aren’t going to take your good camera with you on a trip around the world, there is no point in owning the camera.”

Best lines of this date

And so let freedom ring — from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring — from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring — from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring — from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring — from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that.

Let freedom ring — from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring — from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring — from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual,

“Free at last, free at last.

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
__________

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., 47 years ago today

The 240th day of the year is the birthday

… of German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born in Frankfurt on this date in 1749. Goethe said, “One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

… of Mother Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, the first American-born saint, born in New York City on this date in 1774.

… of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, born near Tula on this date in 1828.

… of ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson, born in Jamestown, New York, on this date in 1908.

… of Nancy Kulp, Miss Hathaway of The Beverly Hillbillies, was born on August 28th in 1921. She died in 1991.

Eilleen Regina Edwards was born 45 years ago today. We know her better as Shania Twain.

Jack Black is 41.

LeAnn Rimes is 28.

Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site (Arizona)

… was authorized on this date in 1965.

Hubbell Trading Post

Feel the old wooden floor give slightly beneath your footsteps and hear it squeak as you enter the doors of the oldest operating trading post on the Navajo Nation. Step back in time and experience this original 160 acre homestead, which includes the Trading Post, Hubbell home and Visitor Center with weavers. Hubbell Trading Post offers you a chance to become a part of this unique slice of history.

Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site

Redux post of the day (and a best line)

From three years ago tomorrow.

Quick thinking

A Florida senior citizen drove his brand new Corvette convertible out of the dealership. Taking off down the road, he pushed it to 80 mph, enjoying the wind blowing through what little hair he had left.

“Amazing,” he thought as he flew down I-75, pushing the pedal even more. Looking in his rear view mirror, he saw the state trooper behind him, blue lights flashing and siren blaring. He floored it to 100 mph, then 110, then 120.

Suddenly he thought, “What am I doing? I’m too old for this,” and pulled over to await the trooper’s arrival. Pulling in behind him, the trooper walked up to the Corvette, looked at his watch and said, “Sir, my shift ends in 30 minutes. Today is Friday. If you can give me a reason for speeding that I’ve never heard before, I’ll let you go.”

The old gentleman paused. Then said, “Three years ago, my wife ran off with a Florida State Trooper. I thought you were bringing her back.”

“Have a good day, Sir,” replied the trooper.

Would You Rather Be Richer, Thinner, Smarter or Younger?

The Consumerist asks, “Imagine if you will that you are standing before four doorways, each of which could magically improve one facet of your life — wealth, waistline, IQ, youth. You can only go through one doorway; which one do you choose?”

The results from an Ad Week/Harris poll:

43% chose richer
21% thinner
14% smarter
12% younger

Lord, what fools these mortals be! There’s always the chance to make yourself richer or thinner or more educated (if not actually smarter).

But younger, that would be the ultimate prize.

Ouch!

Stephen Strasburg of the Washington Nationals has a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament. The final word isn’t in yet, but he will probably need Tommy John surgery and be out next season.

Update from Deadspin: Strasmas Is Cancelled:

This is how it works in baseball. Power pitchers are delicate little roses, things of beauty only because their mortality is assured. We rarely get more than a few years of them at their peak, so to prolong our enjoyment, we fire up the hype machine. Strasburg was mythologized for years before he put on a major league jersey, and now it’ll be another couple years before he does it again.

August 27th

Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, was born 102 years ago today. He died, at age 64, in January 1973.

William Least Heat-Moon was born as William Trogdon 71 years ago today. He’s the author, among other works, of Blue Highways, an excellent travel memoir published in 1982. (The roads in blue on highway maps go to the out-of-way places Least Heat-Moon wrote about.)

Daryl Dragon, the Captain of the Captain and Tennille, is 68 today.

Once-upon-a-time sex kitten Tuesday Weld is 67. According to IMDb, “At nine years of age she suffered a nervous breakdown, at ten she started heavy drinking. One year later she began to have affairs, and at the age of twelve she tried to commit suicide.” Weld turned down the role of Lolita and of Bonnie in Bonnie and Clyde.

Paul Reubens, Pee-Wee Herman, is 58.

Chandra Wilson of Grey’s Anatomy is 41.

Best line of the day

“We’re The Greatest Nation In The History Of The Universe

“But some things are just too expensive.”

Eschaton linking to this news item:

“Fire departments around the nation are cutting jobs, closing firehouses and increasingly resorting to “rolling brownouts” in which they shut different fire companies on different days as the economic downturn forces many cities and towns to make deep cuts that are slowing their responses to fires and other emergencies.”

Oddest lines of the day

“Thus, on several occasions I have apologized for almost bumping into a large bearded man, only to realize that the large bearded man was myself in the mirror. The opposite situation once occurred at a restaurant. Sitting at a sidewalk table, I turned toward the window and began grooming my beard, as I often do. I then realized that what I had taken to be my reflection was not grooming himself but looking at me oddly.”

Oliver Sacks, writing about prosopagnosia, a condition that makes people unable to recognize faces. Link is to abstract of article.

Cutting the cord

Anyone living without cable/satellite TV?

I’m considering giving up DirecTV and cutting the cord again (I didn’t have cable for 2½ years 2006-2008). Except for ESPN and FSN Rocky Mountain (for Rockies games), I almost never watch regularly scheduled television, instead relying on Netflix and Hulu streaming for movies and TV series.

And I can view my local channels in HD with an antenna to see what’s live, local and stupid.

It would be OK if I could order a TV service and pay for just the channels I want — ESPN, HBO, MLB, NFL, maybe a couple others. But why pay for 200 channels when you only want six? Am I at the tipping point?

Just wondering what others are doing. Is TV via internet there yet for you?

BTW, the Netflix app was updated today. It now works on iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as iPad. I tested it by watching an episode of Have Gun — Will Travel from its first season (1957). Dated in some ways after 53 years, of course, but surprisingly well written. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek wrote some of the episodes I’ve seen. It’s remarkably non-violent compared to current action series.

Line of the day

“In fact if you follow Fox News and the Limbaugh/Hannity afternoon radio crew, this summer’s blowout has almost seemed like an intentional echo of the notorious Radio Rwanda broadcasts ‘warning’ Hutus that they were about to be attacked and killed by conspiring Tutsis, broadcasts that led to massacres of Tutsis by Hutus acting in ‘self-defense.’ ”

Matt Taibbi

He has examples of their inflammatory talk.

And this:

“There’s nothing in the world more tired than a progressive blogger like me flipping out over the latest idiocies emanating from the Fox News crowd. But this summer’s media hate-fest is different than anything we’ve seen before. What we’re watching is a calculated campaign to demonize blacks, Mexicans, and gays and convince a plurality of economically-depressed white voters that they are under imminent legal and perhaps even physical attack by a conspiracy of leftist nonwhites. They’re telling these people that their government is illegitimate and criminal and unironically urging secession and revolution.”

You should read Taibbi’s whole post.

Steam Me Up, Scotty

On August 26, 1791, John Fitch and James Rumsey, rivals battling over claims to the invention, each were granted a federal patent for the steamboat. They devised different systems for their steamboats. Four years earlier, on August 22, 1787, Fitch demonstrated a steamboat—a Watt-type engine with a separate condenser that transmitted power to oars mounted to stroke in a paddle fashion. The forty-five-foot craft launched on the Delaware River in the presence of delegates from the Constitutional Convention. Rumsey’s craft was powered by direct force—jet propulsion. Fitch went on to build a larger steamboat that carried passengers and freight between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey.

Nonetheless, Robert Fulton is generally credited as the inventor of the steamboat. In 1814, Fulton and Edward Livingston, the brother of Robert R. Livingston, brought commercial success to steamboating when they began to offer regular steamboat service between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi. The boats traveled at the rates of eight miles per hour downstream and three miles per hour upstream. In 1816, Henry Miller Shreve launched his steamboat Washington, which completed the voyage from New Orleans to Louisville, Kentucky, in twenty-five days. Steamboat design continued to improve, so that by 1853, the trip to Louisville took only four and one-half days.

Today in History: Library of Congress

America’s 10 Dying Cities

“The economy has evolved so much since the middle of the 20th century that many cities that were among the largest and most vibrant in America have collapsed. Some have lost more than half of their residents. Others have lost the businesses that made them important centers of finance, manufacturing and commerce.”

The article has some details but here’s their 10:

1. Buffalo
2. Flint
3. Hartford
4. Cleveland
5. New Orleans
6. Detroit
7. Albany
8. Atlantic City
9. Allentown
10. Galveston

Take the ballgame out to me

When my kids were playing sports in California decades ago, a local pizza place would send out a high school kid with a step ladder and video camera. After the game, we’d go get pizza and watch the video of the game. I was surprised when we moved to Virginia (and then I moved on to New Mexico) that I’ve never seen that anywhere else. They sold a lot of pizza that way.

Well now, it appears from this story in the Times that we have the 21st century version. The basics:

But what is most startling about technology is the ways it may soon be changing youth baseball at the recreation field around the corner. The biggest change: if you can’t be in the bleachers for your child’s game, snap open your laptop or reach for your smartphone.

In an ambitious plan, Youth Sports Live is striking deals with local leagues around the country to make that possible by installing and maintaining Webcams at local baseball and softball fields. Games can be replayed on demand. Subscribers to the site are charged $14.95 per month or can buy access for an entire season. They can also purchase games on DVD for $19.95.

Amendment XIX

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

It’s only been 90 years (August 26, 1920).

Idle thought

Modern life may in fact bring on more anxieties than our ancestors faced. And the constant barrage of drug advertisements and self-indulgent articles and books on this and that and every other ailment surely makes us more self-aware than they were.

Even so, I assume human beings have faced emotional problems beyond their control for centuries — and they were every bit as miserable as us, without any of the understanding, or any of the possible remedies.

It’s a wonder to me that the human race has lasted this long.