Where Is Hawkins?

Chicago is essentially two cities. One city is the city of big shoulders, that has compassion for people across the world but not within a few miles of our residences. We have skyscrapers and sports teams. The second Chicago is where the criminal elements have taken over, and violence is endemic.

As of July 29th, 2010, there have been 255 homicides in Chicago. 183 of those have been African-American males. 206 homicides have been due to gunshots, proving how well Chicago’s war on guns has gone. African Americans represents 36.77% of the population of Chicago, but account for being the victim of 80.78% of the homicides this year. Chicago’s neighborhood of Humboldt Park had 18 homicides this year with all of them being African American males. That’s one about every 12 days.

All of this makes me wonder: if River North or Lincoln Park had this many homicides, would the National Guard be on the streets? Or is it that society cares in general when white people get killed?

The FCC is requiring bloggers to disclose freebies and other stuff to bloggers. And I figure, travel bloggers are suckers for them because a) it’s free and b) being nice to a blogger is cheaper than a full page ad.

So, here we go.
I write two blogs, this and my blog over at ChicagoNow. As of July 27, 2010, my blogs have netted me a total of $0.00. That’s right, not a god damned cent. In fact, they’re a net loss, from paying a friend for a design of the header for my ChicagoNow blog to personal web-hosting.

I do have an Amazon referral program on my blog, providing you click through and actually order something. How much has that earned me from this blog? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Zip. In fact, the only way I was able to make *any* sale was because my friend Tim was nice enough to buy a GPS through one of my links. Thanks Tim. :)

I am a member of Amazon’s Vine program, whereby I’m provided with items to keep after reviewing. Most of those items are given to friends and my mom after I’m done with them. The only real disclosure I have to make is that I sometimes review the books of my friends, who I adore and give good reviews because I genuinely like their books.

I’ve been offered freebies in the past from companies who want me to say nice things about them, and I’ve turned them all down. Why? Because if it sounds cool, I’ll do it. And if it sucks, I can say it sucks because it’s my own hard-earned money spent on it.

I also work for a big company whose name I will never mention. They are not in the travel industry, but are a major employer in my metro area. Suffice to say, my words are my own and do not in any way reflect the thoughts/feelings/intentions of the place that I work for. They’re nice people and I want to stay gainfully employed.

Yay, now I feel all ethical.

All of these were taken in 2008 and prior. Just thought I’d dust off the ol’ panos.

USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawaii:

USS Utah, Ford Island, Hawaii:

From the USS Arizona Memorial:

Port of Cascais, Portugal:

Amber Fort, Jaipur, India:

The urban sprawl of Los Angeles, CA:

The Danube River, Budapest, Hungary:

I spent my Fourth of July white water rafting in Costa Rica instead of being patriotic. Today’s epic adventure featured me, 30km of the Rio Pacuare, and some Class III-IV rapids.

I’ve rowed and kayaked before, so I figured, what’s the worst that can happen? I decided that my best position on the raft was to sit up front and call cadence because, fuck it, lead the way. That’s how I roll.

The first few “easy” rapids were fun – a few class II and III rapids that made for some exciting “oh shit!” moments. Then came the first Class IV. I figured that my job would be to focus and keep paddling until I heard the guide yell stop. Despite being about 10 feet behind me, I couldn’t hear him for shit. So I paddled and down we went – a steep little dropoff and we all got soaked, but we emerged victorious. So we did the paddle “high-five” thing, and I thought, fuck, that was rather simple.

The next Class IV rapid would be my downfall. We took the ready position, hunkered down and ready to paddle our asses off. First came the drop and I heard our guide scream to paddle hard, so I dug in with my paddle and kept crankin’ away like I was some paddling rockstar as opposed to a barely coordinated guy. With the waves, there were strokes where I didn’t catch any water, but I kept paddling like a damn paddling savant. And then came the wave. The next thing I know, I’m leaning backwards, trying to use my foot that was kept under a strap on the boat and crunch my stomach despite my beer gut in order to keep from falling out. I failed, and I was in the drink.

I was about 6 inches under the water, struggling for air. Despite that, I was pretty calm. I saw two of my fellow boatmates reach for me with their paddles for extension, yet all I could think about was handing my paddle back to someone on the boat so we didn’t lose one so I wouldn’t have gotten charged for one. I didn’t float as well as I should have – the sandals, baggy shorts and shirt kept me under water and less buoyant. But I was fine even though I was gasping for air. See, being waterboarded actually helps prepare you for the outdoors. Take that, ACLU!

Eventually, my fellow boatmates pulled my fat ass back onto the boat, and I regained my composure and more importantly, my breath. I was shaken, and my pride took a beating. I shouldn’t have fallen in, and yes, I know, shit happens. I secretly wanted another boat from our tour group to suffer the same fate so I wouldn’t be known as “that fat guy who fell out on our rafting trip.” Ego, I tell you.

We did a few more Class II and easy Class III rapids. Every time I felt something, I took one hand off the paddle, and grabbed the “oh shit” strap on the boat. That screwed up the boat’s orientation, and we’d yaw as a result. I felt bad, but got over it. After all, they didn’t get tossed.

We prepped ourselves for the next series of Class III rapids, and I was anxious to get back going since I felt like crap, and needed a self-esteem boost. Naturally, when you want something, you don’t get it. We hit a fucking rock. Not a tiny rock, mind you, but a god damned Rock of Motherfucking Gibraltar that came out of nowhere. With the current and waves, our boat was pinned sideways against this rock, and I found myself along with my boatmates standing on the side of the boat, leaning against the rock. I don’t know where this rock came from. Our guide didn’t know where this rock came from. So here we are, chillin’ while being pinned against this rock figuring out what to do with ourselves. After a few minutes, the rescue guides said our best bet would be to jump off, get fished out of the drink, and then free the raft. Since I was already drenched and had no pride left after my previous falling out, I figured, fuck, and crossed my arms, closed my eyes, and jumped in. I bobbed along like a pudgy moron and grabbed the back of a kayak and crawled ashore, feeling like a total dick. I know that shit happens, but it felt like at that point, I could fuck up a wet dream – no pun intended.

It took the guides and kayakers a good 20 minutes to free our stuck raft, and in a way, I felt that hey, we got it stuck really good, so this was a freak occurrence. After we got the boat free, we got back on the SS Bad Luck and took a few more rapids before lunch. Lunch itself was quite nice – sandwiches, juice, tea and Costa Rican food. And there were feral pigs too, which made it that much funnier. I wasn’t hungry – I was dehydrated and in need of a beer or six along with some Advil and a hug.

We made it back safe and sound after some floating and relaxing and general fucking around. There were several more Class II and III rapids, and we negotiated those with ease. Our boat’s mood got progressively better, and I felt better despite being achy and sunburnt in weird spots. Eventually, we got back, got cleaned up, and had some beer and talked with my fellow boatmates. All of them were moving on, but I was heading back to San Jose and in less than 12 hours, en route back home. Still, not too bad for a 3 day weekend from work, even if my legs and ass were sore.

I’m testing out Microsoft’s Seadragon technology to better display the big panoramic photos I take while on trips. In this case, they range from 87 to 325 megapixels.

A farm along the slopes of Irazu Volcano.

And the Irazu Volcano itself…

Orosi Valley:

Gosh!

Two days in Costa Rica, 500+ photos. One of those days was me white water rafting, and no such luck with photos on that. I’m not taking my beloved SLR on a trip like that and have no water-proof camera, so essentially one day of photos. Out of the 500 photos, I took about 400 of them as pieces of panoramic photos. Now comes the fun part: assembling them.

Here’s what I’m up to:
1) Stitch together the photos automagically using Autopano Giga. Take the Canon .cr2 files and make one huge TIFF file.
2) Import photo into Lightroom, export photo as DNG.
3) Geotag the photos using GeoSetter, then reimport them into Lightroom.
4) Perform post-processing on the photos in Lightroom – color correction, cropping, etc.
5) Export a mega-hugeass JPG (>100 MB), then upload it to Fotki.
6) Upload them to Gigapan for a better viewing experience.

I would have done it over the weekend but instead, Justified and Damages got the best of me…

I’ve been uploading some of the large panoramic images I’ve taken/assembled over the years to Gigapan.

Thoughts? Feedback?

I woke up Sunday to the neighborhood not having water, and thus, I was unable to take a shower. Also, some sonofabitch at the hostel stole my gallon of water that I was going to load up the Camelbak with and stay hydrated (it takes a lot of effort to keep my skin looking ah-maze-ing!)

I had thought about going up to see the Salt Cathedral, but everyone I talked to said it sucked, and wasn’t worth going to. The country itself was at a standstill, so not much happened, except for wandering around with friends from the hostel. It was fun to parade around the neighborhood, and with all the fanfare around the elections, it was neat to see supporters out and about.

I also did find out the problem with postcards: I wasn’t going to be able to send any. Colombia lacks a proper national postal system and all international post, if you want it to actually make it to your destination, needs to go via a third party. That means for me, sending a postcard would have started at $5 per card. So after much consternation, I decided – fuck it, I’m sending them when I get back to Chicago.

After a few hours, we headed back to the hostel where we polished off what was left of the beer supply. I spent my last night talking with the hostelmates, and had a good time and called it a night since my flight back was at 7:30 am, and I wanted to be there early because I didn’t know what sort of formalities lay ahead of me the next morning. The plan was to be out the door by 4:30am.

Naturally, I overslept, and woke up from a powernap at 5am. Fuck. Try to go take a shower, and alas, no water again. Fuckity fuck. That’s two days without smelling pretty.

On arrival at the airport, I found where AA was ticketing passengers, and then found out that I needed a tax stamp to leave the country (presumably to pay some sort of exit tax if you’ve stayed longer than me), then through passport control on the way out, giving me three pretty Colombian passport stamps.

Flight back to Miami was uneventful. I got some brief work done in Lightroom and made smalltalk with a Marine Sgt. Major who sat next to me. I forgot people in coach actually talk to each other, and it’s been far too long since I’ve had the chance to talk and say hi.

Sadly, I wasn’t detained by Immigration in Miami. I had all the red flags – short trip to Colombia, carry-on bags, a fully-stamped passport… c’mon, I was begging for it. I flew through both Immigration and Customs and was a little perplexed how, it being Miami Intl, somehow fortune smiled and everything just worked and was efficient. Seriously – wtf?

I grabbed some Burger King for lunch, in the spirit of “when on a trip, eat something you never eat at home,” and headed towards the Admirals Club instead of the Flagship Lounge. I got a shower in, and relaxed and had some Presidente beer. So good.

The trip home from Miami was not direct – short layover in Orlando that turned into a long layover. It sucked for a few reasons: First, I have no clue as to why it was cheaper to throw a stop in, but I went with it. Second, all the cool restaurants/shopping were past security, so I would have had to exit and then go through again and I was far too lazy to do it for a third time today. Third, since there was no lounge to crash in, I actually had to sit with people and interact with them. Horrible!

Orlando’s airport’s saving grace is that it has free WiFi, albeit slow. That meant I couldn’t upload photos nor torrent tv shows to watch, but I did have ample enough time to harass and annoy people via IM.

Finally we boarded and I napped for about 20 minutes on the flight home and threw myself into a taxi home. I picked the wrong time to visit, but would love to go back providing I know *some* Spanish next time…

I’m not that familiar with Fernando Botero, other than he likes to draw fat people. And that he’s THE Colombian painter. That and he went to a school to be a matador when he was 12. That makes the nerd camps I went to as a kid just downright lame in comparison (in addition to that them being a “gifted and talented” camp.)

So he paints still lifes – so do most painters. I like his style. It’s artistic and yet accessible, because they look like a Gary Larson cartoon. The museum itself also had works by Picasso and Chagall, which was interesting because they have drastically different styles. The museum rocked. It was free, and well worth spending time there.

The next stop was the Museo del Oro. It’s an impressive amount of gold and it was amazing to go through. I liked that the pieces were well preserved, and despite my misconceptions about Bogota and thinking that this place would have been gutted and robbed – but… it was amazing. It was nice to look at the Americas before Europeans discovered the New World.

It was fun paling around with a nice girl from the hostel, despite her being taken. It wasn’t like *that*, it was interesting to talk to someone who’s traveling for months on end with her boyfriend. I like hearing other travelers’ stories, and keeping love going on the road and the stress of traveling and how they can somehow stick together without wanting to kill each other and end up richer for the experience. There’s a lesson in those conversations with strangers whose names you forget.

Dinner was at a place aptly named Crepes and Waffles, which, as you guessed – serves sushi and thai. The crepes were good, and it was a total date place that had free wifi – and gladly catered to the student population.

Since it was Saturday night, I expected to go out and do something – but sadly most of the bars were closed due to the election, so I sat and drank beer and swapped travel stories and had a good evening. It could have been worse.