I recently received a very interesting email from an old co-worker. He wanted to know what he had done to offend me. Wha?! He said that on Facebook, he didn't have access to my wall or pictures or notes or anything. The poor guy was genuinely distressed! Oh, my.
Until I decided to leave Seattle and drift, I avoided social networking like the plague. I'd rather hear from you in person. Preferably over a beer. That you bought. Ahem. But from the road, social networking is simply the best option for staying in touch with folks. So I caved and joined. And it was fun.
But then co-workers started friending me. Aunts and cousins, too. You know the drill. I started worrying about offending someone with an offhand remark, or getting in a tussle with some loved one about politics or religion. It's easy to offend, out there on the intar-webs. So I dialed my privacy settings up to 11 and (oh, the shame!) put my friends in bins: friend, friend, family, friend, co-worker, etc.
But some co-workers are friends. Family, too. Why do social networking sites encourage us to bin our friends like that? And in case you missed the irony: by trying to avoid offending people, some people got offended!
So, f*%$!k all that. (Apologies if that offended you.) I'm done with putting my friends in bins. Friends are friends, and that's that.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
"Another roof, another proof"
I'm not dead. I'm not done traveling, either. If anything, I've been too busy traveling. After Melbourne, I spent 2 weeks in San Francisco; 3 weeks in Seattle; a long weekend in Spokane, WA; a week at a programmers conference in Aspen, CO; and a week in Phoenix, AZ. I'm now burning the midnight oil at a friend's place outside Charlotte, NC. Next week, I'll be cooling my heels at my parents' place out on Long Island. Whew!
Why all the moving about? Necessity, in part. Being a traveling professional means keeping up professional contacts; hence, the conference in Aspen. Besides, Aspen is purty:
May snow in Aspen, Colorado
But in larger part, my moving about was to see friends and family, who are inconveniently located all over creation. (Why can't you all just move to the Bay Area?)
After Long Island, my next move will again be of a professional nature. I'll relocate to Boston to collaborate with another freelance programmer on a project that interests me. I was inspired by a stray comment made by a fellow conference attendee after he heard about my nomadic lifestyle. He said, "You don't look like you sleep on the street... much." Hah. That wasn't the inspiring bit. He then compared me to a mathematician named Paul Erdős. I'd never heard of the guy, but apparently he was a bit of a nomad himself, showing up on the doorsteps of other mathematicians and sleeping on their sofas while working together on papers. In fact, he's published so many papers -- more than any other mathematician in history, in fact -- that other mathematicians calculate their Erdős number as a sort of geeky six degrees of Kevin Bacon. (The title of this post is a nod to Erdős.)
Anyway, this whole Paul Erdős thing is just a round-about way of saying that I've found a solution to a central problem of my wanderings: no interaction with professional peers. I often prefer working alone, but sometimes it's nice to have a hacking buddy. Since I'm free to drift, I can just drift in the direction of the people and problems that interest me.
I'm really looking forward to the upcoming Boston hack sessions. I won't be crashing on my Boston buddy's sofa, but I still think Paul Erdős would approve.
Why all the moving about? Necessity, in part. Being a traveling professional means keeping up professional contacts; hence, the conference in Aspen. Besides, Aspen is purty:
But in larger part, my moving about was to see friends and family, who are inconveniently located all over creation. (Why can't you all just move to the Bay Area?)
After Long Island, my next move will again be of a professional nature. I'll relocate to Boston to collaborate with another freelance programmer on a project that interests me. I was inspired by a stray comment made by a fellow conference attendee after he heard about my nomadic lifestyle. He said, "You don't look like you sleep on the street... much." Hah. That wasn't the inspiring bit. He then compared me to a mathematician named Paul Erdős. I'd never heard of the guy, but apparently he was a bit of a nomad himself, showing up on the doorsteps of other mathematicians and sleeping on their sofas while working together on papers. In fact, he's published so many papers -- more than any other mathematician in history, in fact -- that other mathematicians calculate their Erdős number as a sort of geeky six degrees of Kevin Bacon. (The title of this post is a nod to Erdős.)
Anyway, this whole Paul Erdős thing is just a round-about way of saying that I've found a solution to a central problem of my wanderings: no interaction with professional peers. I often prefer working alone, but sometimes it's nice to have a hacking buddy. Since I'm free to drift, I can just drift in the direction of the people and problems that interest me.
I'm really looking forward to the upcoming Boston hack sessions. I won't be crashing on my Boston buddy's sofa, but I still think Paul Erdős would approve.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
One Year and Counting
April 1, 2010: April Fool's Day, the day marks the one year anniversary of my wanderings. Man vs. the world, finding his limitations, and all that other romantic nonsense. A fool's errand? Perhaps, but it's taken me some wonderful places. April 1, 2010 was also the day that I finally boarded a plane, left Melbourne and returned to the United States. Here are some pics I took in those last few days of my Melbourne life, days that went by so fast.
The apartment in St. Kilda where I lived for 3 months. On the sofas are Plato and Tess, the two dogs I shared the place with.
Inside The Pelican, a cafe/bar with wifi where I quickly established myself as a regular.
In a hammock-ish chair by a beach drinking coffee. 'Cause that's how I roll.
Sunset over St. Kilda. Until next time, Melbourne.
There...
A year ago, I told people I'd drift until I felt like stopping, but I told myself something different: a year on the road or bust. A year later and I'm still loving the freedom, but I've come to see the downsides, too. Christmas away from family was really hard. Saying goodbye to good people all the time is also really hard. Knowing I'll meet new good people in new places is cold comfort. I find myself wanting to pack my friends into my backpack and take them with me. When I planned this journey, I was obsessed with lifestyle, freedom, places, and technology. I never guessed that I would spend more time thinking about people than That Other Stuff. Look at that! I have heart.
That Other Stuff is important, too. It just turned out to be a lot simpler to be a nomad than I was expecting. In fact, it's been (almost) totally trouble free. Sure, I've had health issues and my laptop died, but those are small things. Take a bit of planning, add helpful and friendly locals, mix with a dash of winging it, shake and enjoy. Why don't more people do this?
... and Back Again
Now I'm back in the States, in the city I love, staying with the couch-surfers I made friends with over the summer. I've been gone long enough for American money to look funny. I forget to walk on the right side of sidewalks and run into people. Beer is suddenly twice as cheap. The coffee comes in enormous mugs. The Internet is free, pervasive, and very fast. People everywhere are obsessed with technology. (Blah, blah, blah, iPad, blah, blah.) But still, these are my people. I've never felt that before.
Funny the things you learn on the road.
The apartment in St. Kilda where I lived for 3 months. On the sofas are Plato and Tess, the two dogs I shared the place with.
Inside The Pelican, a cafe/bar with wifi where I quickly established myself as a regular.
In a hammock-ish chair by a beach drinking coffee. 'Cause that's how I roll.
Sunset over St. Kilda. Until next time, Melbourne.
There...
A year ago, I told people I'd drift until I felt like stopping, but I told myself something different: a year on the road or bust. A year later and I'm still loving the freedom, but I've come to see the downsides, too. Christmas away from family was really hard. Saying goodbye to good people all the time is also really hard. Knowing I'll meet new good people in new places is cold comfort. I find myself wanting to pack my friends into my backpack and take them with me. When I planned this journey, I was obsessed with lifestyle, freedom, places, and technology. I never guessed that I would spend more time thinking about people than That Other Stuff. Look at that! I have heart.
That Other Stuff is important, too. It just turned out to be a lot simpler to be a nomad than I was expecting. In fact, it's been (almost) totally trouble free. Sure, I've had health issues and my laptop died, but those are small things. Take a bit of planning, add helpful and friendly locals, mix with a dash of winging it, shake and enjoy. Why don't more people do this?
... and Back Again
Now I'm back in the States, in the city I love, staying with the couch-surfers I made friends with over the summer. I've been gone long enough for American money to look funny. I forget to walk on the right side of sidewalks and run into people. Beer is suddenly twice as cheap. The coffee comes in enormous mugs. The Internet is free, pervasive, and very fast. People everywhere are obsessed with technology. (Blah, blah, blah, iPad, blah, blah.) But still, these are my people. I've never felt that before.
Funny the things you learn on the road.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Phone Phreak
A friend of mine who was about to set out on her own travels asked me the following question:
I remember having lots of similar questions myself before I left on my trip and wrote a few posts about it. Here is the answer I gave my friend:
You know what's better than carrying around two phones? Tell me. Please.
The other day, a friend showed me his Skype phone, a phone that uses a local Wi-Fi Internet connection to let you call other Skype users for free, and all other phones (even international ones) for a ridiculously low rate. But I refuse to carry a third phone.
(Remarkably, there isn't a Skype application for BlackBerrys, though they keep promising one. There are other VoIP BlackBerry applications (e.g. Truphone), but I haven't been satisfied with them.)
Hey, what are you doing for a phone while you travel? Did you buy a prepaid sim card for the phone you had? Or do an int'l phone plan? I'm trying to figure that out.
I remember having lots of similar questions myself before I left on my trip and wrote a few posts about it. Here is the answer I gave my friend:
I have 2 phones: a Blackberry with an international calling plan, unlimited data and worldwide email. And I have a second handset for local SIMs. The second handset is a piece of junk that I got for free from a friend in NZ, but it's quad-band, unlocked, and GSM. That's important. I had thought that I would just use my US number and not worry about the expense of international calls, but it turns out it's really important for a lot of reasons to have a local phone number.
I thought the Blackberry would be all I would need since (unlike an iPhone) Blackberrys can be unlocked and used with local SIMs, but I found that swapping SIMs was a real PITA -- I couldn't reliably receive calls at either number because I might have the other SIM in at the time. Two phones is a crappy solution, but it's the best I've found so far.
You know what's better than carrying around two phones? Tell me. Please.
The other day, a friend showed me his Skype phone, a phone that uses a local Wi-Fi Internet connection to let you call other Skype users for free, and all other phones (even international ones) for a ridiculously low rate. But I refuse to carry a third phone.
(Remarkably, there isn't a Skype application for BlackBerrys, though they keep promising one. There are other VoIP BlackBerry applications (e.g. Truphone), but I haven't been satisfied with them.)
Monday, March 8, 2010
The Great Ocean Road
I had been wanting to do this famous drive ever since I arrived in Melbourne in January: The Great Ocean Road. I mean, it sounds pretty ... great, doesn't it? With my couchsurfer friend T, a borrowed car, and a stowaway Punjabi passed out drunk in the back seat (don't ask), we picked up The Road in Torquay and set out for a weekend of long drives, beautiful views and peaceful slumber under the stars.
Required touristy photo op
The drive itself strongly reminded me of Highway 1 down the West Coast of the U.S.: a windy cliff-hugging road chock full of sights and tourists eager to see them all. It rained intermittently all weekend, making the driving conditions treacherous -- all the more so considering that the rear tires of our borrowed car were bald, as we discovered the hard way in one particularly tight slippery turn. No harm done, we took the rest of the drive at a leisurely pace.
We stopped at a campsite near Johanna Beach after a day of beach towns and surfer dudes. By nightfall, the guy in the back seat had roused himself enough to down most of a box of wine, blasting Punjabi music in the car and passing out drunk again. We turned off his music and quietly poured out the rest of his wine before falling asleep ourselves to the sounds of the ocean and the patter of rain on our tents.
The next morning, after a quick picnic brunch, we broke camp and headed West toward the Twelve Apostles, a series of sandstone pillars just off the coast. The rain cleared just enough for us to get a couple of sunny seaside snaps.
Mission accomplished, we turned around and cut inland for the drive back, through thickly forested park land, eventually setting up camp at the trail head of Beauchamp Falls. I was less impressed by the falls than by the trek, surrounded by towering beech and gum trees and a thicket of fern.
That evening, a noble effort of sausages and onions grilled over an open campfire was very nearly quenched by another sudden deluge. The rain let up long enough for us to scarf our damp sausages and retire to the relative warmth of our tents to sleep once again to the sounds of rain.
The ride back was uneventful, unless you count the sobering of our Punjabi friend, who then refused to pay his share of the petrol because he hadn't seen anything. <sigh>
Required touristy photo op
The drive itself strongly reminded me of Highway 1 down the West Coast of the U.S.: a windy cliff-hugging road chock full of sights and tourists eager to see them all. It rained intermittently all weekend, making the driving conditions treacherous -- all the more so considering that the rear tires of our borrowed car were bald, as we discovered the hard way in one particularly tight slippery turn. No harm done, we took the rest of the drive at a leisurely pace.
We stopped at a campsite near Johanna Beach after a day of beach towns and surfer dudes. By nightfall, the guy in the back seat had roused himself enough to down most of a box of wine, blasting Punjabi music in the car and passing out drunk again. We turned off his music and quietly poured out the rest of his wine before falling asleep ourselves to the sounds of the ocean and the patter of rain on our tents.
The next morning, after a quick picnic brunch, we broke camp and headed West toward the Twelve Apostles, a series of sandstone pillars just off the coast. The rain cleared just enough for us to get a couple of sunny seaside snaps.
Mission accomplished, we turned around and cut inland for the drive back, through thickly forested park land, eventually setting up camp at the trail head of Beauchamp Falls. I was less impressed by the falls than by the trek, surrounded by towering beech and gum trees and a thicket of fern.
That evening, a noble effort of sausages and onions grilled over an open campfire was very nearly quenched by another sudden deluge. The rain let up long enough for us to scarf our damp sausages and retire to the relative warmth of our tents to sleep once again to the sounds of rain.
The ride back was uneventful, unless you count the sobering of our Punjabi friend, who then refused to pay his share of the petrol because he hadn't seen anything. <sigh>
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Tasmania!
Some Aussie friends of mine were taking a long weekend in Tasmania, and I decided to tag along. Before coming to Australia, I probably couldn't have found Tasmania on a map. Now I know: it's the big island under the right butt cheek of Australia. Just a short, cheap flight from Melbourne, it's perfect for a long weekend get-away.
We flew to Hobart, the biggest city in Tasmania, on the south part of the island. My friends and I drove right onto a ferry and headed out to Bruny Island. For you Seattleites, think of the San Juan Islands, but with better beaches and water you can swim in.
On the ferry to Bruny Island.
The views in Tasmania are spectacular. On Bruny Island, the coast and the bay are separated by only a hundred meters or so in places. There are penguin tracks all over.
We flew to Hobart, the biggest city in Tasmania, on the south part of the island. My friends and I drove right onto a ferry and headed out to Bruny Island. For you Seattleites, think of the San Juan Islands, but with better beaches and water you can swim in.
On the ferry to Bruny Island.
The views in Tasmania are spectacular. On Bruny Island, the coast and the bay are separated by only a hundred meters or so in places. There are penguin tracks all over.
I'm a huge dork.
The water was a little cold, but we went in anyway. Lots of surfers on every beach we went to. Unlike us morons, they were wearing wetsuits.
Mostly, we wandered around Hobart and hung out on beaches, but one day we drove into the bush to visit friends of friends for a barbecue. We ate English sausage and drank Tasmanian beer. I can enthusiastically endorse Moo Brew. When the sun set, the pademelons (pronounced "paddy melon") came out. They're like small wallabys, which are like small kangaroos. Sadly, it was too dark for me to get any pictures.
I also didn't take any pictures of downtown Hobart, which is a pretty little English-style town. But Google street view works there, so have yourself a virtual walk-about.
The water was a little cold, but we went in anyway. Lots of surfers on every beach we went to. Unlike us morons, they were wearing wetsuits.
Mostly, we wandered around Hobart and hung out on beaches, but one day we drove into the bush to visit friends of friends for a barbecue. We ate English sausage and drank Tasmanian beer. I can enthusiastically endorse Moo Brew. When the sun set, the pademelons (pronounced "paddy melon") came out. They're like small wallabys, which are like small kangaroos. Sadly, it was too dark for me to get any pictures.
I also didn't take any pictures of downtown Hobart, which is a pretty little English-style town. But Google street view works there, so have yourself a virtual walk-about.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Healesville Sanctuary
I had been in Australia for over a month, and I hadn't seen a single kangaroo or koala. This past weekend I rectified that situation. With a few friends and a rental car, I headed to the Healesville Sanctuary to get my fill of Australia's wildlife.
OMG, koalas! Zzzz...
It was a hot day. All the 'roos were out of hop. I tried hopping around myself to give them the idea. They looked at me like I was nuts.
Eric N, crocodile hunter!
OMG, koalas! Zzzz...
It was a hot day. All the 'roos were out of hop. I tried hopping around myself to give them the idea. They looked at me like I was nuts.
Eric N, crocodile hunter!
We watched a pretty amazing Birds of Prey exhibit. This guy is a brown wedge-tailed eagle named Ace. We also saw a osprey, a brown falcon and owl that buzzed the crowd and nearly took off with some small children.
I still hope to get out in the bush and see some wild kangaroos. I'm having fun here in Australia, so I've extended my stay until the end of March.
I still hope to get out in the bush and see some wild kangaroos. I'm having fun here in Australia, so I've extended my stay until the end of March.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
