Staying Connected Abroad

You might think that as the world continues to shrink that staying connected while abroad would be getting easier. Not so. We are currently witnessing a sea change in world-wide wireless: Carriers everywhere are canceling their unlimited data plans. Android handsets are taking over and rightly inspire techno-lust, but the best plans are still for BlackBerrys. Sadly, BlackBerry OS is a terrible development platform--there are tumbleweeds in their app store--and their hardware inspires about as much enthusiasm as plain white toast.

Take, for example, the newly released and much hyped BlackBerry Torch.  Read the specs. Now read the review. Choice quotes:

If you don't already own a BlackBerry, you will not want this phone. And if you do, you still might not want it, even if it may very well be the "best BlackBerry ever."

 ... and ...

BlackBerry isn't good enough anymore if you're comparing it to other smartphones. What does it do better than the rest? That's the fundamental question. And the answer is that for most people, in most situations, compared to Android and iPhone, not a whole lot.

Ouch! I've been using a BlackBerry Bold 9000 for a while now, and while it gets the job done, I can't help noticing that the real party is happening in the Android and iPhone camps. Is it time to switch?

I called up AT&T (my carrier) and got the details of my plan and extras. The kicker is my unlimited international data plan, which is BlackBerry specific--and no longer offered. The rep told me if I ever canceled it, I'd never get it back. Yikes.

So I spent some of yesterday going from provider to provider and seeing if they can offer me something competitive. Here's what I want: an Android GSM phone with an unlimited international data plan. One by one, every provider turned me away: Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile. The closest I came was Sprint, which just canceled its unlimited international data plan about a month ago--and it was only for BlackBerrys. Bah.

Incidentally, AT&T doesn't even have any Android phones yet. When they get them later this year(?) I'd have to give up my magical BlackBerry-specific data plan to get one. No deal.

So BlackBerry, it looks like I'm stuck with you.

Walden Pond

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life. And see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
-- H. D. Thoreau

People sometimes ask me what gave me the idea to travel. It seems a crazy thing to say, but I wouldn't be on the road today if I hadn't read "Walden" by Thoreau 13 years ago. Going out to Walden Pond yesterday and seeing what Thoreau saw, walking where he walked and putting my feet in the waters of Walden, was deeply fulfilling.


View of Walden Pond from the site of Thoreau's cabin in the woods.

Thirteen years ago, I was starting my "grown up" life: I had graduated college and gotten a job. It payed well. I liked it well enough. I was on The Path. But something wasn't right, and I couldn't put my finger on it; I just knew that it was going to continue being not right unless I did something. So I read. A lot. Everything I could get my hands on.

I can't remember why I picked up that trade paperback copy of "Walden" at Twice-Sold Tales in downtown Seattle, but it came at the right time. It changed how I thought about life.


Walden Pond

In "Walden", Thoreau relates his experience living in the woods. Others will tell you it's a book about living simply and getting back to nature, the source of all morality. That's true, but it's not what really grabbed me. For me, it's more this:

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
--H. D. Thoreau

We're all born into a culture. We don't even see it most of the time, but it profoundly influences who we are. It's like religion: if your parents are Muslim, you're probably Muslim, too. Likewise, had you been born in a culture where the job/spouse/kids/house-in-the-'burbs/2-car-garage weren't the norm, you might be leading a completely different life. So how did you get here? Did you actively choose your life, or did you just accept the defaults?

By going out into the woods, Thoreau distances himself from his culture and so perceives it more clearly. Through his eyes we see that it can really be pretty absurd at times. Why do people break their backs working jobs they don't like to afford things they don't need? Why are houses so expensive? And fashionable clothes? Why do we think we need them? Why, why, why? Questions I hadn't even thought to ask.

Thoreau gleefully lobs philosophical grenades at the men of nearby Concord, MA, calling their lives, "lives of quiet desperation". That hurt. My life was one of quiet desperation, and I finally knew what had been bothering me.

I wasn't living deliberately.



Nothing dramatically changed after I read "Walden". I still went to work. I still payed my taxes. But I couldn't un-ask all those questions, and 13 years later I'm still finding my own answers. And sometimes my answers surprise even me. The journey continues.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
--H. D. Thoreau

Bostonian

I just got off the T in my new home, Boston, and headed straight to Harvard Square. You can learn a lot about a new place just by being inconspicuous, observing people and listening to their conversations. ("Eavesdropping", if you're the sort to put a negative spin on it.) Subways like the T are perfect for that. And just on the short ride here, I heard two older guys talking about XML, saw a young coed studying accounting and a professor-ish type with a meticulously kept chin-strap beard and a baseball hat that read, "Physics". I wanted to hug each one of them and exclaim, "YOU ARE MY PEOPLE!"

I think I'll like it here.

I'm off to pick up the keys to my new apartment. Check back in a few days for my first impressions of Boston.

Nicholas Perkins Dupre

On this day fifteen years ago, June 10, 1995, my friend Nick died.

He died of complications from his cancer treatment. Every year on this day, I mark his passing. He'd have some choice words for me for being sentimental about it. Better to remember him by having a party, he'd say; "After I'm dead, prop me in a chair with a drink in one hand, a girl in the other, and have a big party." Typical Nick-style gallows humor. He never wanted any sympathy or complained about anything. He worked hard when it would have been easy to give up. He always chose life, and lived it on his terms, right up to the very end.

I miss him.

Confessions of a Friend Binner

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.

"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.

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.