Safe and sound, as luck would have it. More on that later. But first, here's the view from my hotel room this morning. Feel free to tell me to GFY.
April, 2008
24
Apr 08
Nick’s Safety Tip
Don’t put orange colored 409 spray next to your orange flavored Listerine in your bathroom, otherwise in a half-tired state like say, after a post-work nap, you might end up with a mouth full of cleaning solution.
That is all.
22
Apr 08
Sleepthief
Anyone that knows me well knows that I have trouble sleeping. I can go weeks averaging a few hours of sleep a night, dragging myself to that next cup of caffeine. Then there’s that one day where I’ll get 12-14 hours of sleep because my body needs it. I rarely wake up feeling refreshed, am prone to night terrors, the occasional apnea, PLMD and a sad feeling towards sleep in general. CPAP machines don’t seem to help at all. During the sleep study I had close to 2 years ago, I was asked history of mental illness. “Well,” I said “I’m depressed because I can’t get a good night’s sleep.”
When I got my report back, it clearly said: “Patient has a history of depression.”
Naturally, that made me more frustrated about sleep. Even with medication, erratic sleep is status quo most nights. I’ll get 4 hours of solid sleep, wake up at 3am and feel like I’ve gotten my ass kicked and have a hangover to boot.
Right now, it’s not nervousness or being excited for Egypt – it’s that I can’t sleep that’s foremost on my mind. Everything else can sleep fine, just not me. I remember when I was a teenager, the family dog would wake me up most mornings with kisses to my nose and look at me like she had a great night’s sleep, dreaming of chasing balls and running around and that she was ready to take on the day. That notion of being fresh in the morning is something I’ve never really known.
As a science experiment, I taped myself sleeping (now I know what you’re thinking, and stop it, you pervs). I was shocked at the amount of how much I tossed and turned and ended up in odd positions. In a way, I’m glad I’m single because I would have accidentally hit them because of flailing limbs.
On another note, 72 hours before I’m on a plane to Cairo via Amman. Bitchin’. I’ve also been beating Beady Belle’s Belvedere to death on my iPod. It’s not my fault, “Apron Strings” makes me think of someone special.
17
Apr 08
Why I love my Macbook, redux
I’m having issues whereby inserting a video DVD leads to a kernel panic, and low and behold, it’s a seemingly known issue according to the Apple Discussion Forums.
Great. Just great…
13
Apr 08
12 days and counting meets Google Mashups
I got bored and created a Google Maps mashup for Luxor, Egypt. Since the maps that I had across 3 different books didn’t really help me be spatially aware, I had to create my own and in the process, rethink my plans for my 3 days in Luxor.
Without sitting down and doing this, I really had no clue how fucking huge the Valley of the Kings and the Thebes Site was. Perhaps doing this all in one day is a wee bit ambitious (everything in green in the west bank of the Nile). If the weather cooperates, it’s doable. However, if it’s over 100 degrees F (the forecast isn’t too promising) I’m going to have to slow things down some. But it least it will be a dry heat.
13
Apr 08
Why I quit buying Lonely Planet books
I’ve noticed throughout my travels that people seem to gravitate towards one particular publisher of travel books. I used to like Lonely Planet’s books because they were crammed with information and were seemingly up to date but have gone by the wayside because of inaccuracies (plus their layout changed – don’t screw with fonts!) Also, I just felt like the author’s tone creeped into the books, turning it into more of a travel journal than a tome of information.
Now comes this lovely revelation:
The Lonely Planet guidebook empire is reeling from claims by one of its authors that he plagiarised and made up large sections of his books and dealt drugs to make up for poor pay.
…
In one case, he said he had not even visited the country he wrote about.
Oops.
(I was going to write a paragraph about selling drugs, and then make a joke about “let he who has never smuggled in Afghani heroin from Istanbul in a bodily orifice cast the first stone,” but that didn’t really come across as funny as it does in person, sorry.)
LP books used to be close to the perfect guidebook – it used to be the only one you needed. Now, it’s a mess in picking guidebooks for a trip. For Cairo, I ended up picking up 3 books in order to get the breadth that LP used to have (well, ok, 2 were for the breadth – I picked up DK’s Egypt because it’s got lots of pretty pictures but is scant on practical information.)
Being a travel writer has to suck in general. It seems like an awesome gig in theory, but you’ll never get recognized for doing good work and being up to date. You’ll only get recognized if you carve out a niche for yourself as a travel “personality,” like the intolerable Rick Steves or the awkward Megan McCormick (watching Megan is like waiting for the inevitable car crash in auto racing but in the interim, you’re forced to endure punches in the stomach.) The only travel writer that seems to be interesting is Bill Bryson simply because he’s able to keep that open mind without being pretentious about things.
I could never be a travel writer. I lack the ambition and have difficulty writing out a travel log without boring myself to death (I can only imagine how you 3 readers must feel). I did try keeping a travel log for India and it went something like this:
Day 5:
Went to the Taj Mahal. It was awesome.
It’ll be interesting to see how this entire thing shakes out.
6
Apr 08
Happy Hanukkahmas!
Well, my mom and stepdad finally got me a Hanukkasmas present. I figure, it’s either a 8 month early one or a 4 month late one – I’m not really sure.
It’s a Pleo. Yes, I got a robotic baby dinosaur. And I’m 30. I should just shoot myself right now.
Let’s take a step back for a second: What are they trying to say? “Nick, you’re never going to get married, so have some toys?” or are they genuinely trying to feed my love of all things gadgety? I’m not entirely sure.
Anyway, I named it Poppy, only because it’s got that alliteration thing going on. After spending about 90 minutes with it while it progresses through infancy to adolescence, it’s pretty interesting. It tries to nuzzle with you, I’ve managed to train it to sit. But I’m still confused as to what is going on. In a way (and with apologizes to Nick Swardson), it’s like hanging out with a tiny drunk person.
“Pleo, would you like some food?”
“AAAAAAAAAHHHH ROAR ROAR ROAR!!!111″
“Shit.” *confused* “Are you tired?”
“ROAAAAAAAAAR!!!!”
“Do you need to go the bathroom?”
“ROAARRRRR!!!!1111″
“Oh well, where’s that power switch?”
I’ll give it a whirl later this week. My knee is sort of jacked up. I went riding on the trainer and I heard a felt a *pop* that sort of made me walk with this super hot gimp all of yesterday. And it’s probably a blessing in disguise: cycling on the lakefront bikepath in horrible condition with idiots since it’s nice weather only could have led to anger and frustration.
1
Apr 08
She said yes!
I’m officially engaged, so dispel those rumors of me living an alternative lifestyle and dust off your calendars for next summer!!!
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