Tag Archives | traveling

How I will spank 2012 like it owe me money

Written by on January 1, 2012
Filed Under Personal Reflections

2011 was pretty much an amazing year of travel for me.  It started with snowmobiling in the mountains of New Hampshire, visiting Portland in Maine, hanging out in Boston, flying to Texas for SXSW, visiting Austin and then Dallas, doing a road trip that spanned Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho and Utah, and finally a few days stay at Los Angeles for BlogWorld, which included a short trip to Simi Valley to visit the Reagan Library.

I’ve also made inroads into learning how to network with tourist bureaus and PR firms to help dramatically reduce the expenses of traveling.  While it doesn’t provide a living for me, it at least keeps traveling I do from making any major dent into my finances.

I think 2012 will be the year of self-discovery, and maybe the year I finally start traveling abroad too (though to where God only knows.)

Self-discovery, because I need to take a hard look at what I want to do with my life.  I envy people who know what they want, what kind of career they are looking for, and they set out to do whatever it takes to succeed in their goals.

I’m not so lucky.  Once upon a time I thought I knew what I wanted.  I grew up wanting to be a cop, or more specifically, an investigator, either as a detective for a police department or as an agent for the feds.  Law enforcement was where I thought I wanted to be.

But because of my hearing loss, I would never be able to fulfill the physical criteria needed to pursue that career path, so I looked into alternatives, a way to still perform investigative work, only in a civilian capacity.  There are jobs like that, such as being a background investigator, or maybe forensic examiner for the FBI, but I could never get a bead on them.  I would apply everywhere, go on job interviews, take civil service exams, only to keep spinning my wheels.

Then there was a time that I thought maybe being an attorney would be a good fit for me, where instead of investigating people I would investigate the law.  Helping to bring justice wherever I could.  But those plans fell through as well.

From there I just sort of drifted through life until I started traveling again, and then realizing how much I really liked to travel, I wondered if maybe somehow, I could combine that with my love for writing and thus pursue a new type of career.

While I enjoyed marginal success with that, there’s still something… missing.  Like I’m still a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.

There is an easy solution to all this though:  Be rich.  That way I could do odd jobs here and there at my leisure (and without pay) until I finally land on something I actually enjoy doing.

I think that’s part of why I travel too.  I’m looking for something.  Someone?

It sucks because it also impacts my efforts to find true love as well.  One thing women HATE, is a man who lacks ambition and doesn’t know what he wants out of life.  So not only is my soul searching impacting my career, it’s impacting my chances of ever having a family too.

If 2012 can bring any kind of major life change, I hope it’s the kind of change that will help me discover where I belong, and what I’m truly meant to do.

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A Tale of Two Tracking Bugs

Written by on March 9, 2011
Filed Under Geocaching

In the world of geocaching, there’s a fun activity that involves the use of what’s called Travel Bugs. Basically, Travel Bugs are items of virtually any nature small enough to fit inside a geocache, with a unique tag attached to each one. These tags are shaped like dog tags, and have tracking numbers that can be used to log a retrieval or a drop-off of a Travel Bug, or just to prove you discovered one. Each bug has their own profile page where you can track their progress online and learn about what its mission/objective is. Some bugs have a goal of traveling to specific locations, while others have no specific objective in mind except to move from cache to cache.

To join in on the fun, I decided to release two Travel Bugs of my own last year. I went to a Walmart and found one of those split heart necklaces (those sappy necklaces where two lovers wear one half of a heart each,) then bought two tracking tags off Geocaching.com so I could release them separately into the wild. I released the first half of the necklaces in Boston near the sight of the famous Boston Tea Party, then the second half at a geocache in Central Park, Manhattan on Valentine’s Day. The goal I set was that these two necklaces (now Travel Bugs) would someday be brought together by a geocacher. Whoever accomplished the task could then keep both necklaces.

I know, silly right? I was feeling particularly sappy and stupid when I came up with this idea, but I figured why not. It’s been over a year now and both Travel Bugs have already traveled over 1,500 miles since their release.

Guess where they are now?

The first half is in AUSTIN, TEXAS, specifically in the hands of a pastor, who is planning to hand it off either to me or a nearby geocache once I arrive. The second half is in DALLAS, the very same city I’ll be visiting shortly after Austin.

What are the odds that the very same Travel Bugs would be in exactly the right cities, at exactly the right time when I’d visit, over a year and several thousand miles of journeying later?? It’s nearly unfathomable.

I used to daydream that I would someday go out and retrieve these bugs on my own, and in the course of doing so I would meet the girl of my dreams, who would also happen to be looking to unite the Travel Bugs as well. Two hearts, at long last united through geocaching, after a lifetime of looking. Sigh… if only.

It’s a silly and stupid dream, and I know it won’t come to pass. Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence after all, although in my case, they’ve become more like instruments of torture. Just fate continually playing cruel jokes on me, to the point that I’ve lost all belief in the idea of there being soulmates, that the universe wasn’t random and senseless, and that there really WAS a purpose to all the events I’ve experienced in my lifetime. Nope. Life is random, cold, cruel, vacuous and utterly meaningless.

… Isn’t it?

Still, for them to be so close by, at just the right time in just the right places, it behooves me to resist going after these two hearts while I’m down there in in the Lone Star State. Maybe there’s a reason for it, and maybe not, but either way, I’ll have a story to tell.

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Oh my aching ovaries…

Written by on February 18, 2011
Filed Under Travelogues

I’m sore all over from a half day of snowmobiling, so I’m taking it easy while I check out of Jackson, New Hampshire and lazily meander my way towards Boston.

I was staying at a sorta B&B (more like an extended B&B inn with additional cottages you can stay at.) After that experience I decided B&Bs are probably not my thing. The lack of a desk for my MacBook and the cramped conditions (despite it having a jacuzzi and fireplace) really threw me off my writing game. Plus the wifi kept going in and out on me too. They weren’t kidding when they said their inn was tailored for romantics rather than single losers like me looking for a place to write in peace. Ah well.

Hopefully the Lenox in Boston will be better. I hope Beantown welcomes me with open arms as affectionately as it did last year.

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How Traveling Changed My Perspective

Written by on February 1, 2011
Filed Under Personal Reflections

Once upon a time when I was but a virginal traveling weenie, I would watch a movie, a TV show, or maybe a video on YouTube that often depicted a place in the world I’ve never been to, and I would wonder to myself what it would have been like to actually be there.

Nowadays though I would find myself watching a show on TV where the setting is say, Las Vegas, and I would nearly shout out to no one in particular: “I was there! I was there!!!”

I did the same thing when I saw a preview of Russell Crowe’s film, The Next Three Days, and immediately recognized the Duquesne Incline of Pittsburgh that I took a ride on last October.

“I was there! I was there!!!”

Suddenly, the world was no longer as alien to me as it used to be. Places once exotic are now familiar territory. A jaunt around Arkansas no longer required the need for a GPS like it used to. And yes, in fact, it is indeed possible for pubs in New Hampshire to make good pizza. :-D

Just the act of traveling changed me in a way. I no longer have to wonder about the world and the many wondrous places it offers. Instead I am finally experiencing it firsthand, and I know eventually that experience will expand beyond the country’s borders as well once I make my first international trip ever, either to Vancouver this June, or perhaps Germany this October.

If only I could do this for a living. Unfortunately though I can only stretch the umbilical cord that is my job so far before it ropes me in again with a vengeance. There must be a way, some way to achieve the life I’ve always dreamed of.

One that doesn’t involve winning the lottery of course.

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Using the best credit card rewards program (ScoreCard Rewards) to buy Jet Blue tickets and I STILL screw it up

Written by on January 5, 2011
Filed Under Personal Reflections

Despite SXSW being 2 and a half months away, it was time to get the ball rolling on planning for my trip to Austin, so I decided to book my flight today. I had enough points on my ScoreCard Rewards to take at least 3 flights for free, so I won’t have to pay anything out of pocket (other than surcharges) for my flight there and back. I don’t doubt that this probably the best credit card rewards program out there too, especially after fiddling around with the travel section and checking out some of the items you can buy with their points system. They even have a wind generator you can purchase! :-D 400 watts baby!

Anyhow, as luck would have it, there were nonstop Jet Blue tickets right out of JFK for the day I needed to leave. YAY! I was worried that I would have to take a {gag} American Airlines flight instead if I wanted to go nonstop, but the JetBlue airline at JFK Airport came to the rescue. This was the one airline I wanted to try too, especially after hearing nothing but good things about it from some of my coworkers.

The earliest Jet Blue reservations I could make were available at 8AM, so I carefully checked my options, and happened to notice there was another flight leaving around the same time. For some odd reason it cost $30 less, so I figured why not, I’ll book that flight instead. I ended up adding trip insurance for another $30 as well, and booked my flight. I quickly received my email confirmation, excited and terrified that once my Jet Blue tickets officially arrived, it would be only the second time in 20 years that I’d be flying again.

Then I noticed the departure time: 8PM????

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!

I hadn’t realized the flight that was $30 cheaper was departing 12 FRICKING HOURS LATER AT NIGHT. I had gone over the details with a fine tooth comb, and yet somehow I still couldn’t notice 8AM was actually 8PM.

I can’t believe how stupid I am. It never once dawned on me that there’s no such thing as there being 2 planes from the same airline leaving the same airport, for the same destination, at the SAME TIME.

I scrambled to call the ScoreCard rewards program hotline, and was placed on hold for probably over 30 minutes while I banged my head on my desk. Finally, after endless minutes on hold, the rep reimbursed my points again, freeing me to re-submit the Jet Blue reservations with the CORRECT time. Eeesh. I hope I finally got it right now.

I’m telling you, if left to myself I’d book a flight to Denver and then wonder how I wound up in China after getting off the plane. Sigh.

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