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skyringI’ve been reviewing the livejournal entries I made last April, when I did the round the world thing. Sparse, very sparse.
I’ve been mining them for snippets to print out and paste in my Levenger Circa travel journal (as facilitated by the wonderful Buffra) but it looks like I’ll have to write a whole chunk more, from memory.
Of course, this is nothing new. I’ve still got the final day or so of my Washington trip in 2005 to write up...
The problem with travel is that it takes up a lot of time, one way or another. Time when it’s not really feasible to sit down with a computer and an internet connection.
For one thing, there’s the physical environment of travel. Packing, waiting for a taxi or a train, checking in, moving around terminals (and some of the world’s terminals are massive affairs, with internal public transport systems spread over several huge buildings), going through security, queuing for checkin or boarding. Not to mention the flight or train trip or boat passage itself, though I can usually whip out my laptop, even if I have no internet connection.
If I’m in an airline lounge, there’s usually free internet and decent computers, and I lap this time up, getting a drink and a few snacks and settling in for the odd half hour, one eye on the boarding time for my next flight.
Travel makes for a lot of “froth” or wasted moments spent in finding things out, checking in and out of places, doing laundry, exploring, waiting for places to open, a million little things out of the day.
The exploring time, though pleasant and a necessary component of travel, is time spent having adventures that should be written up. If I’m working my way through a huge camping goods shop with Elhamisabel, I’m not writing. I’m adding to my problem. The fact that there are few things in this life I’d rather do than spend time and money in a gadget shop with Elhamisabel is beside the point. One of those things is eating icecream on a sunny day in the Romer with Elhamisabel. Or looking through an antique submarine in Chicago with Mojosmom and Tzurriz, strolling along the Charleston waterfront with WhyteRaven, gasping over photographs in a London exhibition with Semioticghosts, taking a dawn ride on the Staten Island Ferry with thebiblioholic, stumbling over seals in Dunedin with FutureCat, getting merrily tipsy in a bar with Gizmopuddy...
And when I’m not doing any of these things, I’m sleeping.
The times in my travels when I can sit down with a computer and a connection are rare indeed. And I spend a lot of that time checking email and livejournal.
So I put things off for the normal days when I’m back home. And then life runs over me and I’ve got a whole swag of other things to do...
I’ve been mining them for snippets to print out and paste in my Levenger Circa travel journal (as facilitated by the wonderful Buffra) but it looks like I’ll have to write a whole chunk more, from memory.
Of course, this is nothing new. I’ve still got the final day or so of my Washington trip in 2005 to write up...
The problem with travel is that it takes up a lot of time, one way or another. Time when it’s not really feasible to sit down with a computer and an internet connection.
For one thing, there’s the physical environment of travel. Packing, waiting for a taxi or a train, checking in, moving around terminals (and some of the world’s terminals are massive affairs, with internal public transport systems spread over several huge buildings), going through security, queuing for checkin or boarding. Not to mention the flight or train trip or boat passage itself, though I can usually whip out my laptop, even if I have no internet connection.
If I’m in an airline lounge, there’s usually free internet and decent computers, and I lap this time up, getting a drink and a few snacks and settling in for the odd half hour, one eye on the boarding time for my next flight.
Travel makes for a lot of “froth” or wasted moments spent in finding things out, checking in and out of places, doing laundry, exploring, waiting for places to open, a million little things out of the day.
The exploring time, though pleasant and a necessary component of travel, is time spent having adventures that should be written up. If I’m working my way through a huge camping goods shop with Elhamisabel, I’m not writing. I’m adding to my problem. The fact that there are few things in this life I’d rather do than spend time and money in a gadget shop with Elhamisabel is beside the point. One of those things is eating icecream on a sunny day in the Romer with Elhamisabel. Or looking through an antique submarine in Chicago with Mojosmom and Tzurriz, strolling along the Charleston waterfront with WhyteRaven, gasping over photographs in a London exhibition with Semioticghosts, taking a dawn ride on the Staten Island Ferry with thebiblioholic, stumbling over seals in Dunedin with FutureCat, getting merrily tipsy in a bar with Gizmopuddy...
And when I’m not doing any of these things, I’m sleeping.
The times in my travels when I can sit down with a computer and a connection are rare indeed. And I spend a lot of that time checking email and livejournal.
So I put things off for the normal days when I’m back home. And then life runs over me and I’ve got a whole swag of other things to do...
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 05:22 pm (UTC)OMG! Pete! There's this amazing thing I have to tell you about! It's almost....well, it looks kind of like a stick. But, unlike a stick, when you push along on a flat surface, it leaves a trace behind! These things can be called pens OR pencils. And you can use them anywhere!
You could use one of these amazing things (new-fangled gadgets....what will they come up next, I ask you?) to write down bits about your trip and then add it into your computer later.
Just trying to help.
:)
(have you heard the joke --or maybe it's true-- about NASA and the Russian space program?)
no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 05:52 pm (UTC)I have a Moleskine which I use when I have leisure but no computer. In fact one of the first things I do when I board a plane is to whip it out and record salient facts about the flight, and then go on to record my activities of the previous hours or days.
But when it comes to writing up my proper annotated pictorial travel journal, it's no good as a time-saver - I have to copy stuff out of it, rather than cut and paste.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 05:53 pm (UTC)I know that joke. Years wasted by the NASA. :-D
Pete, we had icecream? Woah! I don't remember.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-03 01:57 am (UTC)Full of campwear and campware it was. Elhamisabel loves gadgets as much as I do, and we had to explore each aisle. I couldn't find the exact strides I wanted, but it was a lot of fun anyway.
The sub in Chicago was the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterseeboot_505#U-505_becomes_a_museum_ship>U-505</a> and we toured her through doorway holes cut into the hull. I've poked through other (U.S.) subs in SF and Charleston and this was much the same inside. Cramped, full of pipes and valves and knobs and dials and technoguff. With a full crew and storeload, I'm astonished that people could move around inside. http://www.flickr.com/photos/skyring/464006789/in/set-72157600029372039/ for the sub.