Naked in Thought

pnendick @ 2008-02-19T13:01:00

2008-02-19T15:18:44Z

This little site of mine is just a reminder of that time I was fortunate to enjoy a good deal of the world. I learned then that travel is not about places visited but life experienced - invaluable moments shared with others seeking the same. It's serendipity and magic and the bonds tend to last forever.

Today I've lost one of the greatest of them, my good friend Alex Staeubl. It's a loss that's hitting me terribly hard and personally. I'm writing this entry today as a sort of epilogue to the travelogue prior.

Alex is being memorialised on this facebook page.

Unlike the travel experiences previously documented here, I'm not willing to have this particular moment mis-interpreted by the masses. Please only comment on that page if you are one of the lucky people to have known Alex.

The rest of you feel free to say what you will right here instead.

pnendick @ 2006-12-05T15:35:00

2006-12-05T21:35:32Z

It just occurred to me that the recent Lancet estimate of 655,000 Iraqis killed by the American invasion there is nearly three times the estimated 229,000 killed in the tsunami of 2004, the deadliest natural disaster of this century. Now consider the world's - much less America's or Britain's - reaction to the plight of these victims.

pnendick @ 2006-12-04T16:14:00

2006-12-04T22:14:46Z

So I'm in Dublin at the moment where things are progressing slowly but steadily toward an established lifestyle. But not without a sidestep first. I'll be in London from this Wednesday through to the weekend - and possibly for good if the interviews go well. So if you're among the 3-5 people still left reading this page and you live in London, ring in. I'd love to partake of your hospitality!

pnendick @ 2006-11-26T09:33:00

2006-11-26T15:33:56Z

Maybe someday I'll put something of heart back into this page. Until then be satisfied to know that I'm in Dublin interviewing for work. That's going rather well; better than expected really. And should things go my way for a bit I hope to be in London soon for some more interviews. Wish me luck as I flirt with the 'real world' once again.

pnendick @ 2006-10-23T19:58:00

2006-10-23T20:02:44Z

pnendick @ 2006-07-02T19:40:00

2006-07-03T00:58:59Z

Today things have taken yet another dramatic turn for the worse and I have yet to regain the desire to these details here. I get a lot of criticism both online and off for not updating this weblog to the satisfaction of my readers. I counter you get what you pay for. There's long been a disconnect between the energy I receive from this place versus what I put in. Until that changes the forecast calls for nothing.

Fortunately the more vapid thoughts are still happy to come out and dance for everyone. Today this is particularly true as someone has done the writing for me. Curious about my take on America ? Those that really know me will be shocked to find I have not personally penned this.

"The United States of Total Paranoia" by Jeremy Clarkson
The Sunday Times, July 02, 2006

I know Britain is full of incompetent water board officials and stabbed Glaswegians but even so I fell on my knees this morning and kissed the ground, because I’ve just spent three weeks trying to work in America.

It’s known as the land of the free and I’m sure it is if you get up in the morning, go to work in a petrol station, eat nothing but double-egg burgers — with cheese — and take your children to little league. But if you step outside the loop, if you try to do something a bit zany, you will find that you’re in a police state.

We begin at Los Angeles airport in front of an immigration official who, like all his colleagues, was selected for having no grace, no manners, no humour, no humanity and the sort of IQ normally found in farmyard animals. He scanned my form and noted there was no street number for the hotel at which I was staying.

“I’m going to need a number,” he said. “Ooh, I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m afraid I don’t have one.”

This didn’t seem to have any effect. “I’m going to need a number,” he said again, and then again, and then again. Each time I shrugged and stammered, terrified that I might be sent to the back of the queue or worse, into the little room with the men in Marigolds. But I simply didn’t have an answer.

“I’m going to need a number,” he said again, giving the distinct impression that he was an autobank, and that this was a conversation he was prepared to endure until one of us died. So with a great deal of bravery I decided to give him one. And the number I chose was 2,649,347.

This, it turned out, was fine. He’d been told by his superiors to get a number. I’d given him a number. His job was done and so, just an hour or so later, I was on the streets of Los Angeles doing a piece to camera.

Except, of course, I wasn’t. Technically you need a permit to film on every street in pretty well every corner of the world. But the only countries where this rule is enforced are Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea and the United States of America.

So, seconds after breaking out the tripod, a policeman pulled up and demanded that we show him our permit. We had one that covered the city of Los Angeles . . . except the bit where we were. So we were moved on.

The next day I was moved on in Las Vegas too because the permit I had didn’t cover the part of the pavement I was standing on. Eight inches away was fine.

You need a permit to do everything in America. You even need a passport to buy a drink. But interestingly you don’t need one if you wish to rent some guns and some bullets. I needed a 50 cal (very big) machinegun. “No problem,” said the man at the shop. “But could you just sign this assuring us that the movie you’re making is not anti-Bush or anti-war.”

Also, you do not need a permit if you want — as I did — to transport a dead cow on the roof of your car through the Florida panhandle. That’s because this is banned by a state law.

Think about that. Someone has gone to all the bother and expense of drawing up a law that means that at some point lots of people were moving dead cows about on their cars. It must have been popular. Fashionable even.

Anyway, back to the guns. I needed them because I wished to shoot a car in the Mojave desert. But you can’t do that without the say-so of the local fire chief who turned up, with his haircut, to say that for reasons he couldn’t explain, he had a red flag in his head.

You find this a lot in America. People way down the food chain are given the power to say yes or no to elaborately prepared plans, just so their bosses can’t be sued. One expression that simply doesn’t translate from English in these days of power without responsibility is “Ooh, I’m sure it’ll be fine”.

And, unfortunately, these people at the bottom of the food chain have no intellect at all. Reasoning with them is like reasoning with a tree. I think this is because people in the sticks have stopped marrying their cousins and are now mating with vegetables.

They certainly aren’t eating them. You see them growing in fields, but all you ever find on a menu is cheese, cheese, cheese, or cheese with cheese. Except for a steak and cheese sandwich I bought in Mississippi. This was made, according to the label, from “imitation cheese”.

Nope, I don’t know what that is either but I do know that out of the main population centres, the potato people are getting fatter and dimmer by the minute.

Today the average petrol pump attendant is capable, just, of turning on a pump when you prepay. But if you pay for two pumps to be turned on to fill two cars, you can, if you stare carefully, see wisps of smoke coming from her fat, useless, war losing, acne-scarred, gormless turnip face.

And the awful thing is that you don’t want the petrol anyway, because it’ll simply get you to somewhere else, which will be worse. A point I shall prove next week when we have a look at what happened in Alabama. And why the poor of New Orleans will sue if the donation you make isn’t as big as they’d hoped for.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,24389-2252271,00.html

pnendick @ 2006-05-18T13:07:00

2006-05-18T18:19:03Z

FYI I'm largely silent these days because my life is consumed with things I don't feel comfortable sharing here. This situation will hopefully improve soon.

But in other, light-hearted news, today marks a moment I thought would never come: I have now desire to visit Florida. What epic event has occurred to overtake my healthy aversion to America's appendix? They've sunk an entire freaking aircraft carrier as an artificial reef. Oh my this is on my list. I think I might have to combine a visit here with one to the U-352.

pnendick @ 2006-05-08T16:22:00

2006-05-08T22:02:32Z

I'm killing time in the range of an unprotected network, so why don't I keep my fingers warm with a good rant.

Recently Chicago (nes "The Jungle") banned the sale of fois gras citing concerns of force feeding and otherwise unethical treatment of the birds. It's hard to argue against the practice of ramming feces and remnants of other farm animals along with shredded Chinese newspapers down cute, cuddly geese gullets to the point of their internal organ damage. Of course that's not the whole story but it's all that matters to the stimulus-response relationship of the media and public sentiment. I just wanted to write today to remind us to be careful of the slippery slope people. You don't want to know how your food is prepared. Don't go there. You will end up an emaciated vegan. Can't we just agree fois gras is insanely delicious and damn the moral consequences?

OK, at this point in the choose-your-own-adventure, you may choose to disagree. If you think there's a moral line somewhere around here I suggest you consider what's done in neighboring Iowa at a kosher (read: supposed to be better) abattoir. If you protest and say "I only eat fish!" I would like you to consider the global fish crisis. If you're already a vegetarian, I say well done - and ask if you have found a way to keep from being tired all the time?

Sometime a few years back I developed a severe aversion to hypocrisy which mandated I abandon my vegetarian ways. Having since embraced my inner metro-savage I rarely feel the weight of hypocrisy on my shoulders. Let's celebrate with some contraband French goodness tonight - prepared by an illegal Mexican immigrant chef of course. We'll take my really inefficient motorcycle there. No helmets necessary. Bring some cigarettes.

pnendick @ 2006-05-05T00:33:00

2006-05-05T05:45:31Z

There's little more disappointing to me than when I travel to a new, far-away place only to find it familiar. As a kid I imagined the furthest place on earth was China - just an endless dig in the ground beneath my feet - so China remains on my short list of must-see-before-I-die destinations. I hope for more unfamiliarity there than anywhere else. Well today that dream is gone.

Hello! China! What the hell is wrong with you? L.A. is the world's living dystopia. Believe me, I come from the future...
...
Be sure to follow the links in that story to pictures of the development and to the official news story. Note the cute musician girl is wearing what looks like Air Jordans. Bleah! Am I doomed to see the world only to confront poorly appropriated versions of a life I already know?

pnendick @ 2006-04-25T23:25:00

2006-04-26T04:41:20Z

"It may be that we have become so feckless as a people that we no longer care how things do work, but only what kind of quick, easy outer impression they give. If so, there is little hope for our cities or probably for much else in our society. But I do not think this is so."

RIP Jane Jacobs, you're one of my heroes and will be missed.

In vaguely related news of another hero of mine, Jack Kerouac's house was recently sold to someone who "(isn't) familiar with the author". I've coincidentally been re-reading Jacobs lately. Maybe it's time to switch to Kerouac. From On the Road:

"I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

pnendick @ 2006-04-18T23:35:00

2006-04-19T04:48:08Z

I keep quite a few things in this journal private - it is a journal after all - usually copies of emails or websites I want to save. This post is one of those but left public. It's an advice column I stumbled across that reflects much of what is going on around here inside my head. And no, I am not the advisee.

Where is my home?
http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2006/04/19/where_is_home/
I've uprooted myself over and over again in a short time. Now I don't know where I belong.
By Cary Tennis

Apr. 19, 2006 | Dear Cary,
Two and a half years ago, I left New York to move to Chicago to be close to my family. I was burnt out from working too hard and my mother had breast cancer. I telecommuted from home and attended a seminary at night on weekends. I was happy.

My mother's cancer went into remission and my company decided to rein in the telecommuters. I was offered the choice of returning to New York, going to California or going to Dallas. I chose California. It had its ups and downs and I wasn't always happy, but I really grew there. But after a painful breakup and an increase in layoffs at my company, I chose to respond to a job offer in the Netherlands. I got the job and moved here last summer. I was not prepared for the increase in racism, ethnocentrism, and the general anti-immigrant climate that is sweeping much of Europe. The more I got over my loneliness here, the more I realized that I had no long-term future here (due to extremely restrictive government policies) and there wasn't much joy in the day-to-day. On several occasions, I was told that this was not the country for me and that I should return to the States. After one time too many, I quit my job, and am now packing up for my return.

But I know you can't go home again. Yet, that is what I am trying to do. I am trying to figure out how I'm going to rebuild my life after having started over so many times in such a short time. And what am I going to think of the Midwest or East Coast after my experiences in California and Europe? Can I really stand yet another trip to Ikea to furnish my entire flat in one go for under $1,000? Can I keep investing in places and lives not knowing if I or they are going to come or stay? Nothing feels permanent anymore. I feel like a perpetual transient, yet that is never what I intended to be. What I want is a place to call home, but I don't know where that is anymore.

I admire people who go away and always have a place to go back to. I am in awe of those who are constantly on the move and never return, yet never seem to break. But I seem to be neither of those kinds of people.

So here I am in Europe trying to force myself to pack to return, but not really wanting to. Unfortunately, it's not legally possible for me to stay. What do I do? How do I orient my thinking so that I can move on and value the experiences I had?

The Wanderer

Dear Wanderer,

It makes sense that you feel the way you do. You have been a transient. Nothing has been permanent. So nothing feels permanent. You feel like a perpetual transient. You don't know where home is anymore. And you feel caught between a committed state of nomadism and some kind of rooted existence.

So how do you orient your thinking? I think that first you just acknowledge that what you are feeling is appropriate. It is a reflection of reality. It would be strange if you didn't feel this way. And it is natural that when you look to the future and imagine more of the same, you say, I can't do this forever. Of course not.

Sometimes when we are in a situation that seems intolerable we forget that it is a story and it does have an ending. Stories begin with disruption. In your case your mother got breast cancer and that uprooted you, started you on your journey.

Then there are ripples of that original disruption, and complications and revelations. You went to the Netherlands and found the natives unfriendly. You went to California and ate delicious fruit. You had a breakup that you learned from. But always you were trying to find your home.

You haven't just been wandering. You've been responding to trouble -- first your mother's trouble, then the needs of work. You've made choices, but in a narrow realm defined by powerful forces beyond your control. So it would make sense not only to feel homeless, but powerless too.

But here is something key to remember: The fact that powerful forces have narrowed your choices doesn't mean that if you had the freedom to choose to live in Maui or Santa Barbara or anywhere you wanted, that you would feel at home. Rather what seems to affect your happiness is the kind of limits you are dealing with, and their source. Where the job has limited your choices, it has led to this chaos and isolation. But where it was your mother's condition that limited your choices, somehow that led to happiness. While caring for your mother, you found a life that worked for you. You felt at home. Interesting.

Many things make up a home. If we are accustomed to thinking of home as an ideal environment, freely chosen, a place that reflects our dreams and aspirations, there is one element that might seem surprising or counterintuitive: Home is often a place we do not choose. Rather, home is the place we have to be. Our very first home we do not choose. And after we emerge from the womb it is still many years before we will live in a home of our own choosing. When we finally exercise our choices, we often think that what will make us happy is a home that suits our aesthetics, or reflects our values, or is in the image of what a home should look like. And so we move into this idea of home and start rearranging furniture. But we are unhappy in this idea of a home. We are unhappy in this place we have chosen for ourselves. Why is that?

I think it is because of the overlooked element of necessity and service. To be a home, a place must choose us. It must require something of us. It must need us.

In what sense is this true?

Well, home is where we give up our separateness, and we do not give that up easily. It must sometimes be taken from us by force. We cannot will ourselves to merge with the landscape. We are pulled out of ourselves not by the beauty of the landscape but by the fact that it requires us to dig a drainage ditch or fell some aging trees. That is why one can move to a beautiful place and be beautifully unhappy. Beauty alone does not suffice. What we need is what needs us, something that requires our presence, something that will bleed us of our insularity. It can be a landscape; it can be a community; it can be both.

I see in California many pretty houses. I see people go in and out. I wonder whether the landscape has invaded their dreams. I wonder if their mothers live there.

I hope your mother is OK now.

So we do not choose our home is what I mean. It chooses us.

It sounds to me like your home is in Chicago. That is the place that chose you. That's where your home was the last time you were at home. I would start there.

Now maybe you will go back to Chicago and find your home is gone. Perhaps your mother does not need you there. What then? Then I think you have to search for the elements of home somewhere else: service, commitment, family, spirituality. Where are you needed? Choose the place that chooses you. That will be your home.

pnendick @ 2006-04-16T17:38:00

2006-04-16T23:31:40Z

As a popular topic here in the states this weekend seems to be the high cost of petrol, I feel implored to vent a bit of my perspective on this dead horse topic. Petrol in America is cheap. In fact, it is TOO cheap.

In Europe, petrol costs much more than the US. This is not due to some market difference or a disparity between America's and European nations' buying power. It is also not due to America corporations dominating the oil industry as two of the biggest players - Shell and BP Amoco - are Dutch and British concerns respectively. So what does a gallon of gas cost in these places? From this relatively recent price comparison the cost of petrol (converted for imperial measure) is just over $6.50 a gallon in the UK and about $6.75 in the Netherlands. That's 2.5 times what it is here. Two-and-a-half times more!

How can this be? My belief is that the American prices don't reflect the true cost to produce that gallon of gas. The difference most likely lies in that the price of a litre of petrol in Europe isn't offset by the massive subsidies an American gallon is. A European litre of petrol carries much more tax at purchase time. That means the American gallon carries the same tax burden elsewhere. Do you know any Americans that get a tax break for NOT driving a car? I don't rely upon a car and neither do most of my friends. Yes, we benefit from infrastructure for things like ambulances and cheap interstate commerce but we also ride bicycles and take public transportation. Should everyone pay the same taxes regardless of their relative benefit of this massive investment? The money to support the cheap petrol is coming from the larger tax pool - the income tax and property taxes. And let's not overlook the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Any action toward "political stability in the Middle East" takes the American socio-political interest in global oil price control for granted. So factor in the American military budget - the largest business in the world - too.

This encourages me to see high oil prices as healthy and to hope they go much higher. Progress environmentally and politically in our world is hindered by a myopic view of high prices at the pump. Let's suffer this financial pain to motivate us to choose leaders that will detangle the inter-relationship of the American economy from the short-lived era of uber-cheap oil. Let's take the tepid improvements made to CAFE standards last week and bring them even closer to what's realistic for the 21st century.

Our current oil-centric economic system is so brittle it's begun to require terribly inhuman and unpopular wars to sustain itself. It will inevitably fail. Just ask the Dutch and the Brits about what happened to their former empires.

pnendick @ 2006-04-05T11:22:00

2006-04-05T16:26:04Z

The only credible reporting I've found on Iraq war is from Michael Yon, a well-spoken soldier on the ground there. Today he's written a brilliant piece that shames me into writing about my own travel experiences. Check him out.

pnendick @ 2006-03-30T14:21:00

2006-03-30T21:13:08Z

duets of frustration from this day in my life:

just because we're all getting older
doesn't mean we're all becoming adults

something about succeeding in the 'real world'
diminishes the ability to recognize what's real

and

trading everyday happiness for security in the future
only secures a future of days with no happiness to spend

I miss traveling like a crack whore misses payday

pnendick @ 2006-03-27T16:12:00

2006-03-27T22:20:02Z

In an uncommon respite from my rather morbid social life of recent weeks, I spent Saturday evening in the company of several people that also swim in the deep end of the pool. It's become something to cherish when one meets another open-eyed dweller of these fly-over states. Oh, the joy of having conversation avoid my inability to discuss local real-estate prospects or the multitudinous ways a Jetta bests a Camry.

The topic: life in the States versus Europe. The contestants: myself and former residents of Denmark and Germany. The verdict: a draw. While I've often been misconstrued by the readers of this journal (both of you) as some sort of unbalanced, anti-american american; the truth is that I'm rather balanced on the matter. While I do prefer the way of life in Europe writ-large over the American one, I have often extolled the relative virtues in reverse to other travelers. You decide why when I travel I meet so few Americans and so many Europeans. Anyway, the discussion pretty much concluded this: America is both great and lamentable for its openness and disregard for culture. European cultures are both great and lamentable for their introverted perspective and cloistered attitude. My two cents: the American way will ultimately prevail as the EU systematically trades culture for the open-market globalisation mania that defines our age. And that just plain sucks.

This state of mind implores me to share a duet of nonsense. The first is this article from the UK paper The Times (the paper without Page Three girls). The gist: IQ tests across Europe indicate Germans and Dutch are the smartest. The perspective taken by the English: "At least we're smarter than the French and beat the Germans in WWII". What is it with the French anyway? Why does EVERYONE have a problem with the French? While I'm no Francophone Francophile France-geek the French and their ways rank very well on some of my personal lists. Very Imporant Lists like the one titled "Wine, Women and Song." Hey France, it's official: we're all jealous. The topic of endless vilifying Germany over WWII is a topic for another time.

One of the things I genuinely like about the US - and increasingly dislike about the EU - relates to this identity crisis. I recall a moment standing on a summit in the Alps, turning circles to see Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy all at once. Even the memory of the moment makes me smile but while there I overhead the equivalent of "If it weren't for the Italians over there, this view would be perfect." Huh? Get over it. This typifies an attitude that's at the root of Western Europe's current immigration problems. Immigrants - particularly from Turkey and/or Muslim cultures - are largely failing to mesh with the homogeneous local cultures wherein serious conflict tends to result.

I'll return to a point I often try to make about America to other travelers. For all our faults, once one actually arrives in America people tend to treat each other pretty equally. We have the whole multi-culturalism thing figured out better than any other place I've seen in the world. Today do people tell you you're not American because you speak with an accent, or don't share their physical features, or practice a different religion than they? Not often, and it's certainly not institutionalised. Women can vote, drinking fountain technology now serves all colors and churches here are burnt down for sport instead of malice. I'm purposely ignoring the heaping portions of xenophobia and jingoism on America's plate so I can justly claim to have posted one pro-american comment publicly. Play along.

Which brings me to the second feeling I need to share today. Being in Chicago is tough on me. I've learned from my travels I have a need for the outdoors and a love of the ocean. Chicago is an asphalt oasis in the car park of man-made pleasures. There's crap beer in the watering can and cigarette smoke in the hothouse. Nature's law has been replaced with parking laws. Nine out of ten curmudgeons agree:

We just expect to keep running American society exactly the way it has been set up to run -- as a nonstop demolition derby, with hamburgers and fries between laps around the freeway.

And from Robert Crumb:

OK, enough wallowing in my own crapulence. Off for a cleansing run past Walmart, around McMansion Park then finish at Starbucks.

pnendick @ 2006-03-15T13:49:00

2006-03-15T20:00:20Z

Where's Paul?

I'll tell you. Things aren't going all that well for me at the moment and I just don't turn to this weblog unless I have fun things to report. You see, a weblog really doesn't work that well on the return trip. One can give personal details up for public amusement but cannot expect much more than misunderstanding in return. This famous blogger has elucidated the phenomenon rather well.

So today, 15 March 2006, nothing really good has happened or is expected to happen. My grandiose plans are stagnated, stress has over-flowed, money is gone and dreams are on probation. Did you enjoy reading that? I didn't think so.

pnendick @ 2006-02-28T23:08:00

2006-03-01T05:21:02Z

Alright, so I officially didn't get the motorcycle job. Consider this post an open invitation to everyone still reading to help me get an IT job in London or Dublin. Hell I'll go anywhere in Europe or Asia or Africa for that matter but these two cities seem to be my best bet at the moment. Any information on costs of living, websites where best to pimp myself, places to crash when I'm in town for interviews, neighborhoods to consider living, etc. will be rewarded with tales from last weekend.

Why last weekend? Well, for one I turned 34 years OLD and for two me and a bunch of my good motorcycle buddies tore down one side of Louisville and burned the other. It's amazing how much fun one can have in America's 26th largest city when that city is home to so much bourbon and so many muffin tops. More on that in a bit.

pnendick @ 2006-02-02T17:07:00

2006-02-02T23:44:21Z

A few weeks back I got word of a job opening for tour leader at a famous motorcycle adventure company. I'm trying to not get overly excited for fear of jinxing my slim chances of getting this job but suffice it to say it seems really cool and many people - including me - think I make an excellent candidate. On girl_on_a_stick's advice I found a friend-of-a-friend with a camera and editing skills to produce a video c.v. Craig produced in record time and minimal budget a stellar, pimped-out DVD to accompany the written application. The full DVD is unsuitably large for the internet - here is a lower-quality version for the curious:

Wish me luck on that one. Plans B & C aren't nearly as exciting but much more likely. A word of advice from your friend Paul: coming down from the travel-life ain't so easy and may be impossible.

pnendick @ 2006-01-16T17:12:00

2006-01-16T23:13:59Z

In the course of a project I've been engrossed in I came across this stinkingly hilarious travel video. Oh man, that's great. More on the project soon.

pnendick @ 2006-01-08T23:33:00

2006-01-09T05:39:34Z

My fascination with China grows steadily. Today it's all about the future city of Dongtan. The plan is to make "the first self-sustaining city environment in the world". The Chinese seem to have a firm grasp on the "image thing" when it comes to their national agenda. I'm just going to have to go there soon and see it for myself!

I suspect it's rather inevitable that China's economy, people and culture are going to dictate much of the coming decades. Chief among their saavy moves is the winner's circle they've secured as we race to erase market boundaries and bargain shop our standard of living steadily downward.

pnendick @ 2005-12-28T02:01:00

2005-12-28T08:12:19Z

A photograph of mine from Egypt (the one on the right) is being used by a travel guide. Cool! I'm glad I've licensed my photos with a Creative Commons license. Basically non-commercial projects can use my photos as long as they accredit me. Now if I could just get some commercial types to take a liking to my work...

pnendick @ 2005-12-24T23:37:00

2005-12-25T05:53:35Z

Well it's Christmas and therefore tsunami anniversary time for me and many others. I'm with family to pay respect to those that suffered the most worrying about me. At the same time I'm missing terribly my friends that lived through that madness with me and I wish I could be with all of them right now. Many of them are back in Thailand for a sort of remembrance and much of my heart is there with them. To you guys, please know I miss you all terribly. To my friends that died that day, especially you Matt, I hope you can somehow read this and know I miss you most of all. I promise to never forget you or the great times we spent together. Peace everybody.

pnendick @ 2005-12-21T13:59:00

2005-12-21T20:43:11Z

The latest short-term life plan opportunity list:

~~office gig in Stockhom~~
~~dive post in fiji~~
~~dive officer in Africa for UK NGO~~
office gig in London
office gig in Dublin
guiding motorcycle adventure tours

The three that remain on the list are all relative long shots. Is there no room in the world for a adventure traveler that would like to get paid a bit more than living wage for a change?

pnendick @ 2005-12-04T15:42:00

2005-12-04T22:08:25Z

Still no definitive news on my next destination but it's certain it will wait until after Christmas now. I've been working on the domestic tasks of a traveler, things like researching destinations (salaries, costs of living, etc), reconnecting with family and friends and catching up on documenting what I've done already. For the latter I've consigned my collection of over 5,000 travel photos to the rising internet genius of flickr as I'm soon decommissioning my old homepage. From here on out it's going to be all livejournal and flickr.

Everyone with a digital camera should join flickr. It's by far the best way for us to share photos with each other and will certainly remain that way for a good while to come. You can find my collections here and unless you nab your free account, you won't get to see the photos of mine that I keep private between my friends and family but not the public. Be sure to add me as a contact if you do indeed sign up.

As I've dug into this service the last days I've got this to share:

For those that once clamored for my underwater photos, take this.
Any research I do on a new location now involves perusing personal photos of a place. For instance, curiosity about Limerick, Ireland led me to find this lad's impressive photo essays. This is proving to be a great way to meet people before I go places.
Others are focusing more acutely than I on preserving historical moment on flickr. Take for instance this CIA Sabotage Manual.
I'm beginning to "meet" interesting people that have interests similar to mine as they search for and find my photos' subjects. I never expected to meet someone who photographs herself to illustrate Henry Miller and Franz Kafka quotes but did just that yesterday. Cool.

OK, enough fanboy gushing. Thanks Maggie for hooking me up with the pro account, you're a star! Now back to the regular scheduled hangover for me.

pnendick @ 2005-11-28T23:14:00

2005-11-29T05:20:46Z

Random moment of the day: I was at Starbuck's writing cover letters for jobs and enjoying some free coffee when this cute young thing came to talk to me after many furtive stares and a few of those awkward, shared grins that betray attraction.

"You look just like Keith Urban!"

"Ever so sorry, but I have no idea who that is. Is that a good thing?"

"Um, he's only like the hottest guy in country music!"

And with that the attraction was tempered by embarrassment to the point of insignificance. But, country? Tell me, is this a compliment or am I right in being a bit concerned I can be mistaken for a country musician?