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Blog Neglect
August 26, 2009 at 7:32 am (Personal, Writing)
I, like many others, have been guilty of neglecting my blog, and for that I apologize. I, like many others, have been very busy. However, some of my busyness has been directly related to travel, the supposed theme of this space, so the fact that nothing about any of it has been making an appearance here is just plain sad.
Some of the reason for the lack of postings here can be blamed on Facebook, where photos of my trips have been getting uploaded regularly. Most of the rest of it (other than laziness) can be blamed on Twitter, where it is so easy to post a snarky, here’s-what-I’m-doing-ain’t-it-great comment, that almost no thought need wander by my cerebral cortex. These things are too easy and writing a blog post usually takes some actual concentration.
The upshot of all this noise is that I’ll try to do better. I promise. I’ll try.
–Jay
Afar Magazine
August 26, 2009 at 7:21 am (Travel, Writing)
A few weeks ago I received the first issue of a brand new and absolutely gorgeous travel magazine named Afar. You owe it to yourself to check it out if you’re at all interested in travel. It’s the kind of magazine Lonely Planet might put out if they put out magazines. The articles focus primarily on international travel and I was pleased to see that a number of the advertisers were also international. A couple of my favorite aspects of the magazine are that it isn’t about luxury travel (something that is hard to sustain and often rather silly), but about getting to know and getting involved with the locals, and also that it stresses low impact travel. If you want to visit theme parks instead of neighborhoods, look somewhere else. This magazine isn’t for tourists, it’s for travelers. I love it so far.
Arthur Frommer: A tribute to Canada
August 22, 2008 at 11:55 am (Travel, Websites, Writing)
Most people that live in the USA have a pretty high opinion of the place, and while it is a pretty wonderful country to live in, there are other spots on the planet worth a visit. Instead, Americans (a misnomer by the way, since there are non-USA North Americans as well as the residents of those Americas south of Mexico) tend to bash places they think are inferior to home. Canada in particular gets a bad rap from people in this country and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. In the few times I’ve visited Canada I’ve always found it to be a wonderful country, full of wonderful people.
This morning I ran across this piece from Arthur Frommer and thought it was a nice read.
Oh Canada!
iTunes is playing The Fix from the album “The Seldom Seen Kid” by Elbow
Liz in Deutschland
July 3, 2008 at 12:05 pm (Images, Personal, Travel, Writing)
Liz is studying in Germany this summer and has just posted about her weekend trip to Switzerland. Check out the photos. Wonderful.
Liz in Deutschland: Die Schweiz: Wunderschön!
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Waiting in the Wings
June 4, 2008 at 6:45 am (Travel, Writing)
The book “Long Way Round” is one I’ve been pondering off and on for quite a while so I finally nabbed it from the library. Apparently there’s a DVD of the trip as well.
iTunes is playing Arnie from “O” by Damien Rice
The Geography of Bliss
May 14, 2008 at 9:44 pm (Travel, Writing)
Anne found the book “The Geography of Bliss” at the library and brought it home for me to read. It’s interesting, funny and even has a section on Moldova. I read the Moldova chapter first and realized I’d had quite a different experience than he did.
He found Moldovans to be overwhelmingly depressed whereas I found them to be fairly positive, but very, very poor. The author pointed out the high rate of alcoholism, which was a very visible problem when I was there too.
iTunes is playing One Day Like This from “Seldom Seen Kid” by Elbow
Current Book – Window Seat
February 15, 2008 at 7:57 am (Travel, Websites, Writing)
Window Seat: Reading the Landscape From the Air
Interesting book
iTunes is playing So May It Secretly Begin from the album “Still Life (Talking)” by Pat Metheny
Karen’s Japan Blog
October 9, 2007 at 12:13 pm (Personal, Travel, Writing)
Ever wonder what it’s like to be a US exchange student in Japan? Read Karen’s blog
iTunes is playing Acoustic Sunrise from a captured KFOG internet stream on October 7, 2007
Badlands
September 24, 2007 at 8:34 pm (Travel, Writing)
Currently reading “Bad Lands: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil” by Tony Wheeler
Read it to get a different perspective on places currently in the news, most importantly an inside view of the people and what their lives are really like. The book also presents quite a bit of history for each country. You won’t get this information from the evening news.
iTunes is playing Another Cup Of Coffee from the album “Beggar On A Beach Of Gold” by Mike + The Mechanics
