Where Is Hawkins?Where travel is cheaper than psychotherapy.

After sacking out in bed, getting a few hours of sleep and listening to absolutely horrible sex where the mystery guy said “sorry” more than a few times, I got up early and headed out the door to try to get some good photos of St. Mark’s Square before the tourists descended upon it like locusts. It was a Sunday morning, and I figured that everyone and their mother would be running rampant.

This time I did actually get to sneak into St. Mark’s Basilica (without that stupid backpack ban) and stood for a minute or two in the back while services were going on. I thought about doing the ol’ “cough and click” to fire off a few discrete shots with my camera, but the shutter’s loud and I’d be busted. Shit.

The first stop for the day was the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Now, I’m learning to like and appreciate art, but I still don’t understand it. The Guggenheim collection had art types I don’t get: Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism, etc. I do wonder if my logical brain freaks out when looking at these and wondering “what the hell is this?” After all, when Jackson Pollock makes the most sense, you’ve got some unique works of art. Plus, no photography. Sucks.

And then you have this gem from Marino Marini:

What the fuck. A horse with a dude with a guy with a boner? The name of the piece is The Angel of the City. What this means, I have no idea.

I decided to walk to the Basilica of the Salute, an impressive church that was liberal with their photographic policies. Damnit, I’m Nick -- I have a professional camera, LET ME TAKE PHOTOS!!!111. I was happy, though. After that I went to the real art museum, the Gallerie dell’Accademia. The museum was way better -- better classical art, free and allowed photos. Take that Peggy’s ghost!

After that I walked over to Campo Santa Margherita, a nice square that was desolate because of the rain. I ducked into a bar and watched half of an Inter Milan game with locals. When it’s rainy, you can’t sit outside and soak up the sun or the Italian cafe culture. What else is there to do?

The final stop of the day was the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, one of the most epic churches I’ve been in. Naturally, no photos. No nothing. And they were on the ball about busting people who tried to sneak photos. They had some really cool monuments to the designers of the church. I like that. That’s what I want.

I was tired of the rain, so I ducked into a cafe, stood and had my various coffees and ate some lackluster food. It does make me wonder that if I’ve grown up on Americanized Italian food and I encounter the real stuff, am I in the wrong for thinking the food wasn’t that great?

The next day involved a few hours bus ride to Ljubljana across the border, so it was time to get my gear stowed and ready to roll in the morning. I was beat, and roboknee was aching badly.

I’ve never been one of those travel bloggers who can write long diatribes about their flights. I never could -- “flight was ok” sums up 99% of my flights. Seriously -- nothing exciting happens.

Flew the 9am flight to London’s horrible Heathrow airport, sat in business class, napped a bit, read and then transferred to Gatwick. Now, the big question is what to do at Gatwick at 1am?

The plan, initially, was to visit the Yotel and crash there for a few hours, but I was wide awake and not going to crash. Instead, I hit Marks and Spencer at the airport, bought an excessive amount of cocktails and drank and read.

Once security opened up, I went into the BA lounge, ate and read then hopped on the flight to Venice.

Flight to Venice was uneventful. A bit crowded but overall, ok. Took the water bus and got off at San Marco and dropped off my stuff at the guest house. After that, it was time to get lost.

I enjoyed San Marco but the crowd was out of control. Damn tourists. I couldn’t get into St. Mark’s Basilica because of their no backpack rule (that, and no photography -- that sucked) so I walked around in, tried to sneak in but gave up and kept wandering. I didn’t have a goal in mind, but I just kept wandering. The first thing that hits you is the cost: Venice ain’t cheap. The food wasn’t that great either. Ended up drinking and eating near the Rialto Bridge. From there, I just kept wandering and taking photos.

Around 6pm, I ran out of steam and hopped on a vaporetto back to the guesthouse and chilled. It’s been a while since I’ve indulged in the cafe lifestyle and sat and did nothing. I crashed early in anticipation of a marathon day in the morning. Overall, I felt good and ready to explore more.

I haven’t blogged about Ecuador and now I’m back from Venice and Slovenia. Sorry.

This is the vicious feedback loop I get in:
*Get on a trip.
*Want to share about my trip.
*Upload my photos.
*Get neurotic because no one wants to read about my travels.
*Get even more neurotic because it sounds like internet braggery.
*Retreat into my shell.
*Consider deleting my blog.
*Book another trip.

Oh well.

The more I’ve traveled, the more I’ve tried to push my personal boundaries. At the same time at home, I feel myself folding inward. It does make me wonder about the elasticity of self-image and perhaps the more I push myself outside of Chicago, the less I want to go out. It’s a strange feeling.

I’m off again on a jaunt in 16 days. Again, underprepared and feeling a bit nervous. It’s something I’m used to doing several times a year, and yet still can’t get over it. Maybe one day I’ll be able to have cajones that size like Earl would throw.

I’ve revamped the postcard list. It’s not that I don’t like sending them, it’s just that thank yous for getting them are in short supply. I’m never told that they get postcards, only that they never arrive. I think my sent to received ratio is something like 70:1, and that’s disappointing.

I’ve decided that I’m going to pick up the cello and take lessons at Old Town School of Folk Music. I figure, what’s another seemingly “useless” skillset to pick up?

Other than that, I’m looking forward to April 29th, where I’ll drink 4 beers in 4 countries in 24 hours. Life could be worse, even without the prozac.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve appreciated things from my childhood. Like the jovial Mister Rogers. Two things:

Did you watch this gentle smackdown of a US Senator? Senator Pastore went from total dick to sympathetic guy.

And during the 1997 Daytime Emmys, the Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Rogers. The following is an excerpt from Esquire’s coverage of the gala, written by Tom Junod:
—--

Mister Rogers went onstage to accept the award — and there, in front of all the soap opera stars and talk show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, “All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are. Ten seconds of silence.”

And then he lifted his wrist, looked at the audience, looked at his watch, and said, “I’ll watch the time.” There was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn’t kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch, but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked. And so they did. One second, two seconds, three seconds — and now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier. And Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said softly “May God be with you,” to all his vanquished children.

—--
A gentle giant slays the powerful, making think about themselves and making them feel better. That’s awesome.

While I’m waiting for Lightroom 4 to rerender my 45,000 previews (standard, then 1:1) and realizing that a) my naked lady machine is slow and b) drinking a beer, the big storage debate popped into my mind.

Now, I like taking photos. I’m not an expert but I take some halfway decent ones. And I’m very anal about keeping them organized, cataloged and archived. And when you’re pushing 900gb of storage in digital RAW, you learn a few things.

It would be simple if camera companies stuck with something like DNG from Adobe (you know, a nice open standard) like PDFs. But whatever. Instead, I have probably close to a dozen types of Canon RAW files from cameras I’ve owned over the years. Instead, every camera has their own proprietary way of laying down sensor data.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m too lazy to move to DNG.

I don’t think Canon’s going anywhere, and if they do, there’ll be ample enough time to move my photos into a format that can be read generations from now. I’m sure if Canon did tank, I’ll get plenty of notice.

DNG also has a psychological component as well. It doesn’t make sense when you move from one lossless format to another and have it shrink 30%. Part of me is like “Dude, WTF? WHERE DID ALL THOSE MEGUHPICKSELS GO?” That, and writing metadata of the file goes inside the DNG, not into nice neat little XMP sidecars. That makes for a slow slow editing session.

I shoot RAW because I can. Drive space really isn’t an issue and I don’t want to subject my photos to aggressive noise correction and other nice things that the camera will do. The thought is with the RAW file and that over time, I’ll be able to do more to my photos as the technology progresses. Have you seen that sweetass de-blurring preview from Adobe? It’s amazing, and I figure I can salvage some of my photos. Yay for technology!

My advice? I don’t have any. Keep shooting what you like. If you’re a pixel peeper, OCD or got time and money, then stick with RAW. JPG is fine if you’re not shooting with a dSLR. Just remember to have fun shooting.

I really enjoy the travel world -- there’s a lot of wanderers out there, mostly trying to “find themselves” out and blogging the hell out of it in the process. It’s fun to sit back and watch because I’m finding myself increasingly disassociated by the entire mess.

The social media landscape has erupted into this great exchange of ideas as well as made to a feeding ground for new-age con artists. Well, con artists may be a bit too strong of a word -- but they all take advantage of someone’s vanity to make themselves infamous and make a few dollars in the process. How else can you explain a desire to have “more hits” or some artificially created metric?

Travel bloggers sell you the concept of freedom. That freedom generally comes with tradeoffs -- living in third world countries or countries with a very low cost of living while making a few dollars blogging, selling their wares (e-books, with a good few making halfway decent photos) and living a pauper’s life. None of which is sustainable because like all good cons, everyone jumps on the bandwagon and competition is fierce, leading our cons to develop the new cons. In the workplace, we’d call that professional development.

The professional nomadic set, the ones who have managed to “quit the cubicle life” or something along those lines, are the ones who I find extremely fascinating. It takes a lot of chutzpah to say that can’t handle their entry level job and that we’re all suckers for working for a living. Or that they’ve somehow become “master hackers” during their brief time in the workforce or some tall tale that fails in an attempt at seduction. Amateur cons try to get your confidence while professionals give you theirs. Maybe being a con is too strong a word. Perhaps they’re unaware that they exist in a world where they don’t know how to contribute, and they exist for us as a temporary distraction -- something we shrug our heads at.

Part of it, I think, is perception. They see a person with nice things -- the businessman in first class or in a luxury suite, and they see it as an object of derision. I see it as a reward for hard work. They see themselves as “citizens of the world” -- I find myself wondering why they believe nature is a great benevolent place. One of the things that you learn from extensive travel and the outdoors is that nature wants you dead.

The Secret Knowledge that they try to sell you is that there is no Secret Knowledge. If travel becomes your job, then you deprive yourself of what it’s like to reward yourself with an adventure.