…or maybe I’m too lazy to write.
Days on the road (total this year): 163
I’ve been home for over a month now, but it’s been a hell of a trip! 5 months and 12 days, 5 countries (6 if you count Scotland, 7 if you count Québec…), 13 cities, 3 conferences, 1 folding bike and a lot of old and new good friends. See for yourself:
I cannot wait to travel again.
Yesterday I found a bunch of mix CDs I made before I even owned an mp3 player of any sorts. I played this particular one on a drive to downtown, it’s called #7 (yes, I numbered them – #1 I think was a mix tape) but it might as well be called “The early days of podcasting”. Tracklist:
When was the last time your browser gave you free stuff? For me, it was yesterday! I had entered a Opera photo contest on Flickr and yesterday I got an email letting me know I was one of the winners. Here’s my entry, displaying the same site on Opera desktop and Opera Mini on my phone (wich btw I totally love):
They will be renewing my pro Flickr account when it expires next december! Woohoo!!
There, I took the typical omg-look-the-back-of-my-ipod-is-like-a-mirror-i’ll-totally-take-a-pic-of-it photo. Now that the novelty is completely worn off I can start actually using the thing for what it was intended. I like podcasts, I like video and I have a video iPod. Let’s find me some videocasts!
I’m already subscribed to a couple, but it’s not the same. I spend enough time already at the computer, the last thing I want to do is sit here even longer to watch videos. My Four Eyed Monsters feed has about 10 items marked as “keep new” for months now. On the other hand, last night I went through 10 episodes of The show with zefrank in a row (though the fact that the show is freaking hilarious has probably more to do with it than the fact that I watched it on the iPod)
So, I’m on the look for new videocasts to watch. Feel free to give me any recomendations.
edit: I can’t make a post about my iPod without thanking Mark and Andrea :)
Technorati Tags: iPod, self portrait, zefrank, Four Eyed Monsters, videocast, videoblog
That’s what I was doing a while ago. Sitting outside, reading A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson. He mentions this town in Pennsilvania called Centralia, whose claim to fame is that it sits on an anthracite coal vein that caught fire in 1962 and has been slowly burning since. The estimate cost to put the fire out was so high that the government decided to tear down the town and relocate all it’s residents instead. Bill says about his visit:
As people moved out, their houses were bulldozed and the rubble was neatly, fastidiously cleared away until there were almost no buildings remaining. So today Centralia isn’t really a ghost town. It’s just a big open space with a grid of empty streets still surreally furnished with stop signs and fire hydrants. Every thirty feet or so there is a neat, paved driveway going fifteen or twenty yards to nowhere.
I pictured the place on my head, thinking how interesting would be to see this place someday and wondering what it would really look like. But, I realized, I don’t have to wonder. As the rain drove me back inside, all I had to do to see some images of this place was look it up online. 10 years or so ago, I wouldn’t have known more about Centralia than what Bill tells on his book. Now I can see photos and get more background or even a different point of view on the story from the confort of my living room. I found, among many other things, a site with lots of info and photos on Centralia and even a documentary called The Town That Was, wich of course I totally want to see now.
Yes, I know, I had said on the last post that this blog would undergo a renovation. But, of course, now that I said that I feel like blogging again. I haven’t discarded the idea of a new look and feel of this site. I’m still working on it. We’ll see as time goes on how the new look develops and how I’m feeling about the current state of this blog. One thing I know for sure; there’ll be more activity here. I don’t want use my daydreams of a new site as an excuse to procrastinate.
Technorati Tags: Centralia, Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods
Is this the digital age or what? I’m in the Miami airport right now; i snapped that pic and had it on my blog in 5 minutes. Well, actually, i had to look around a LOT to finally find out how to access the wi-fi here. You first have to access the intranet wich is free, and tells you all flight info and stuff. The you have to go to a link and you can buy internet acces at $10 for 24 hours (or $5 for 30 mins – hmm… wich one should i pick…), BUT, it only works in Safari (and i’m guessing IE on pc). Once you’re in, you can use any browser you want.
The flight from Buenos Aires was fine. It rained pretty hard on the way to the airport, but once it stopped the sky cleared up a bit. I got there a tad over 3 hours in advance, like they tell you to, expecting to find lots and lots of people. And lots and lots of people there were… but on other flights. The line on my airline counter was empty. Took me about 5 minutes to check in – now i had 3 hours of waiting ahead of me. And yet after waiting 3 hours, i ended up running across the airport. How, you ask? Well, a friend of mine had reminded me to declare all my stuff at customs, because they don’t remind you. I went to my gate at the time i was told, only to have the lady there tell me i had to go right next to the counter i was at 3 hours ago to declare my stuff. So i run all the way there, took out the laptop, grabbed everything quickly (computer in hand, and with my backpack all messy) and run back to the gate. How fun.
One thing i was worried about was entering the US. You hear all kind of horror stories about people being interrogated by airport security or even being denied entry. None of that happened. The people at the MIA airport were mostly really friendly and helpful. I went through immigration in about 2 minutes, even faster than a US citizen ahead of me. The bags x-ray took like 30 seconds. Overall, i spent more time figuring what i had to do than doing it.
So about 3 hours more to go, then i’ll be on my way to Montreal! More pics to come, as soon as i get settled there.
Technorati Tags: Miami airport, miami, MIA wifi, flight, travel
I know i have to loose some weight, but there are better ways to say some things, sheesh. (heh, i’m not overweight, i’m just dumb! It clearly says Tap to start, wich i didn’t do)
By the way, 4 days to go for the trip! Busy days, getting things ready to leave and finishing some work. I’ll be posting more once i’m done.
Big big BIG hailstorm a couple of days ago. We only suffered minor damages (a couple of small dents on the car and some broken tiles), but there were major damages across the city; broken windows, fallen trees, walls and roofs fell down, 30 people injured and even one dead.
Floyd doesn’t like the rain (no, he wasn’t out during the storm, this was taken afterwards)
Keep in mind the size of those hailstones when you see these videos (click on the images to go to YouTube):
Technorati Tags: Hailstorm
