Travel Archives
I am writing this from a city made famous by the Eagles, Winslow, Arizona ("I'm standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine site to see. It's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me."). Jena and I (and the dogs) are traveling across the country to Phoenix, AZ. My mother and sister live down there and my other sister and nieces are coming down as well. It will be the first time we have all spent a holiday with each other in many years. Jena and I are driving and decided to, more or less, follow the old Route 66 highway through Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. In some places the road no longer exists or is in severe disrepair. Interstate 40 runs most of the way along its trail as well and we often jump over to that road. For the most part, the trip down Route 66 is trip down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, as so many business that relied on the traffic of Route 66 can no longer continue operations now that 40 has diverted so many travelers. I have posted some photos of the trip so far. Enjoy
I am now officially planning my next vacation for late August 2008, preferably outside the U.S. I guess it is either that or get arrested for the first time. Hmmm, both sound tempting.
Just finished up a two day conference in San Diego on Strategic E-HR - yeah that's what I said. It was better than it sounded. Really. I am going to stick around for next week's Emerging Technologies conference from O'Reilly and so I have some time to kill in between. What better way to spend some time than taking photos around town. Check them out at Flickr.
For one reason or another, I have never been much of a consumer of magazines. In many respects I am grateful for this. Time is always an issue and I can rarely get through a full magazine before the next one comes. But I also do not like the waste magazines generate. It is very visible and apparent to me as I retain stacks of magazines and then have to recycle them. That being said, there are a few magazines to which I really ought to be subscribing:
The New Yorker - I am always impressed with the content of this magazine and the esteem that it has throughout my network of friends and beyond. It hits right on most of the issues it tackles, and does so much better than the daily newspapers.
Paste - I love to find new music and film and Paste makes it easy. Not only can I read about a ton of great artists and projects that are just coming out, but I can also see and listen to them thanks the CD or DVD included with every issue. They are right on with my tastes too.
Aperture - The few times I have seen this magazine I was very impressed and since I would like to be a better photographer it would help me out.
National Geographic Traveler - Travel magazines are hard for me. I really feel like I need a good one and this one seems very good (though I am tempted to want the traditional National Geographic instead).
Make - I am curious and love to build stuff (or rip stuff apart. Is there another magazine that is better suited to those types of activities?
Wired - The only magazine on this list that I actually do get. I like it, I really do, but more and more often, I get this type of news via the osmosis known as being online.
These were all listed in the order I would like them. If anyone knows how I can get any of the following delivered free for a year let me know. Anything else missing?
A couple that didn't make the list but were very close were:Dwell, Real Simple mostly just because I don't think I would have time.
Following Jason's and Hanna's examples, here is the list of cities I visited in 2005
Minneapolis, MN*
Saint Paul, MN*
Duluth, MN
Austin, TX
Custer, SD
Mitchell, SD
San Diego, CA
Madison, WI
Chicago, IL*
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
San Jose del Cabo, Mexico
Cabo Pulmo, Mexico
Boulder, Colorado
Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days.
Throw in more than a few weeks spent in campgrounds and it was a pretty eventful year (really half year as all but 2 of those cities were visitied in the second half of the year), though certainly not as crazy as some globetrotter's lists.
I am back from a week in Los Cabos, Mexico, in which I did virtually nothing but play in the water and eat good food. This vacation was a bit more relaxing than most of the trips my wife and I take. We often fall into the trap of trying to do too many things each day. It was exactly what we needed. Just about the only disappointment was that we didn't get out to snorkel on the reef at Cabo Pulmo (the only living reef on the west coast of the Americas) as it was too windy.
Here are some photos.
Here was my basic itinerary:
Day 1 - Get into Cabo San Lucas (late) - Go out to eat/drink
Day 2 - Hit the beaches in Cabo San Lucas
Day 3 - Travel to San Jose del Cabo; explore, eat/drink
Day 4 - Take glass-bottomed boat to Playa Amor; eat/drink
Day 5 - Rent car, drive along dirt road (2.5 hrs) to Cabo Pulmo (pop. 111)
Day 6 - Snorkel near reef; drive to San Jose del Cabo
Day 7 - All day on beach behind hotel; at nite, eat/drink
Day 8 - Morning out on beach (San Jose del Cabo); gorge on tacos; board plane
Perfect.
Before I get to dispensing today's links I wanted to announce a couple more posts to the
Alt Text Photo Gallery. Within the
Travel - Road Trips section I have posted two new galleries of some recent travels this summer / fall. The first is a
Labor Day weekend trip through the Badlands and Black Hills that Jena and I took with some friends and the second is
a canoe trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (my second and Jena's first time to a beautiful part of the world). I didn't do much in the way of optimizing or messin' with the photos but, I hope you enjoy them, nonetheless.
Now on with the links:
"If Kevin Garnett were only 5-foot-8, pudgy and going to work on a newspaper delivery truck, I doubt if many sports journalists would fret about his future."
-Mike Royko, Buffalo News, June 30, 1995
Having just come back from "up north" as we like to say in Minnesota I have a few instructions for all those people that aren't quite sure how to drive on interstate highways (primarily for 4-lane divided highways) throughout this great land. Here we go with step-by-step driving instructions for the driving etiquette-challenged:
- Make your way to a freeway/highway entrance ramp and proceed down it, steadily increasing your speed, until you can merge with traffic at their pace.
- Proceed to your destination while maintaining a constant speed. (hint: Cruise control works well here)
- If your speed of travel brings you upon a slower moving vehicle switch lanes into the passing lane (left lane) and pass the vehicle in question.
- Return to the right lane (all the while maintaining constant speed
If everyone follows these simple rules, everyone will have a stress free trip - it is a well functioning system. If everyone drove this way there would be no breakdown in the system (by definition) and much more efficiency would result. (even fuel efficiency as constant speeds would always be maintained)
Some people claim, however, that other systems would work equally well - particularly the "I just drive in the "fast" lane until someone wants to pass then I get over" method. There are two reasons this technique doesn't work: 1) the majority of people are trying to follow the rules listed above and 2) this system requires people be more active - always watching for people coming up behind you. It should be the responsibility of the faster car coming up from behind to pass.
I don't really know what to expect of
SXSW. I have gone to other web conferences before but they were huge and the focus was much more on design principles and specific technologies. They were faceless, monolithic productions. I get the sense that SXSW is much more focused on the web design and development
communities. I am excited, but also fearful of this idea. I am really looking forward to meeting many of the people whose site's I have been reading, enjoying, learning from, and copying for, in some cases, years. I am talking about sites like:
whole lotta nothing,
bluishorange,
jish,
cam world,
praystation,
zeldman,
37signals,
anil dash,
little yellow different,
bradlands,
harrumph,
dollar short,
six different ways,
movable type,
ben brown,
cockybastard.com,
jjg, and
so many more
There will be some folks there whom I know including:
Jason who I consider a friend as well as ex-coworker and I have at least met
Meg,
Derek (at Web 2000 or was it Builder?),
Peter (Web 2000 also), and
Jeff (Web 2000).
Then I get to wondering how many of these people have been to my site? How many of them have never heard of it? Worse, how many have come and clicked away out of boredom. These feelings of "fitting in" bring me back to my junior high days. Those were not good. Were they for anybody? The awkwardness associated with those days was overwhelming at times. These anxieties aren't enough to dull my excitement however. Not even the fact that I may not be able to speak (as I have by this time nearly lost all ability to speak due to some mysterious throat issues) and thus miss out on a bunch of great opportunities for interesting conversation, has me down.
So if you are reading this and you happen to be attending SXSW and a person comes up to you, tries to audiblize a greeting but only a few hoarse croaks come out, rest assured that it is just me expressing my compliments on you and your beautiful site.
This
new show, The Osbournes looks to be pretty funny. I may have to remind TiVO to record it.
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T-minus 4 days until
SXSW gets underway. Be sure not to look at me too weirdly if I come up to you and say I love your site. I will be staying at the Homestead Austin - Downtown at 507 S. First St. Look me up or call me (512-476-1818) if you have a hankering (I have to start talkin' like a Texan)
Each time I go on road trip in the U.S. I notice a few things and I thought I would share some of my observations and random thoughts with you.
- First off, the U.S. is a huge country with so many wide open spaces. Wow!
- Most of the population of the U.S. lives in small towns and suburbs and not in the 20 big cities of the nation.
- Most places are much more similar than they are different. They have the same restaurants, stores, zoning configurations, etc.
- Minnesota has fewer good (some would say none) radio stations than other cities of similar size.
- People drive poorly everywhere, but nowhere is worse than in Phoenix, Arizona.
- On a related note, when you factor in these drivers, the speeds we often go on the freeways, and all of the assorted critters that like to get to the other side of the road - driving is very dangerous business - it would be really easy to die doing it.
- There are not too many fast food chains - in fact there are very few.
- It is very difficult to find vegetarian-friendly fast food. (How many time's can you have a veggie sub at Subway or a 7-layer burrito at Taco Bell on one trip?
- Krispy Kreme is the best doughnut chain in the country.
- most people drive in the right lane and only use the left to pass. Those who don't do this, suck.
Here is also some bonus commentary on the various states I visited/drove through this last week:
Minnesota - home base, I am sort of biased. It is like the Iowa with trees, lakes, and industry.
South Dakota - flat boring first half with a nice change up for the western side (+ Wall Drug and all its signs)
Wyoming - flat and boring on one side, more rugged on the other - I should have driven further west.
Colorado - I could live here - well, in the middle part: Boulder, Denver, etc. not the south which is too much like New Mexico and not the north or east which are too much like Wyoming or Nebraska.
New Mexico - stark, would like to see more of Albuquerque, Taos, and Santa Fe
Arizona - pretty, bad place to try to avoid a semi rollover, nice police officers who only give warnings for going 95 in a 75.
Nebraska - Flat, boring - who has ever heard of thunderstorms and tornados in October?
Iowa - poor Iowa. does anyone ever even get off Highway's 80 or 35 except to get gas?
I am off again. This time for a drive across this land. Out west across the Dakotas, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. There is a point to my voyage - my baby sister is getting married - but hopefully the getting there will be a great experience as well. We plan to camp in the mountains and desert, stop at roadside diners, and do all the other fun things associated with road trips (the 3000+ miles of driving isn't really one of those though).
I am heading south of the border on Thursday and no I don't mean going to Taco Bell for a chalupa.
My wife and I, and her parents and 2 brothers are travelling to Aguascalientes, Mexico for the wedding of Tanya, my wife's sister.
The town is not on the coast but I am still looking forward to going. I will let you all know more about it on Sunday or Monday when I return.
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I almost forgot to post the photos of my puppy.
Here they are.
Somehow I feel the need to apologize for the lack of updates and for the site being down for a couple days. I have been into other things—other non-web things lately and haven't been paying attention.
I am going to New York and am pretty excited about that. I have never been there, but I found cheap airfare and so my wife and I decided to go. We're staying right across from Central Park in Midtown Manhattan.
I'll write more soon. I promise?
