January « 2009 « Where Is Hawkins?

January, 2009

Trans-Siberian Railway — No Comments
30
Jan 09

The Trans-Siberian Railway Trip

Here’s what I get to do in 5 weeks:

Schedule:

March 6: Fly to Moscow

March 7-11: Lovely time in Moscow

March 11 (evening) – March 15 (morning): That’s right – 80+ hours on a train from Moscow to Irkutsk.

March 15-17: Spend some time in Irkutsk near Lake Baikal. I hope to do some dog sledding.

March 17-19: Roughly 30 hours on a train from Irkutsk to Ulanbataar, Mongolia

March 19 AM – March 22 AM: Mongolia, baby!

March 22 AM – March 23 PM: 30 hours to Beijing via train

March 23 PM – March 27: Beijing, round two!

March 28 – March 29: Fly home. Beijing to Tokyo to Vancouver to New York to Chicago

Resources:

My Google Mashup of the Trans-Siberian Railway

Yes, I’m Twittering the trip.

GPS tracking. Naturally I’m not going to have it real time since it’s dependent on data coverage with my Blackberry.Hopefully every 6 hours or so I’ll turn it on so you can track me. Bonus points for finding where I am on a map and going “Nick, what were you doing at that strip club?”

Camera geekin' — 1 Comment
21
Jan 09

Goddamnit

My Canon 40D has taken a nosedive, 48 hours before I go to Hawaii. :(

Blog / Hawkins' Useless Crap / Trans-Siberian Railway / travel — No Comments
19
Jan 09

Luv 2 Stalk U

Often times family and friends ask “Where is Hawkins?” Is he in town? Azerbaijan? Zimbabwe? Somewhere in between?

Never fret. Thanks to my beloved Blackberry, T-Mobile and Instamapper, you get this: Where is Hawkins? Tracker.

Naturally, this only works when I’ve got cell phone coverage or when I decide/remember to turn on my phone’s GPS. I’m hoping that I can get away with intermittent pings while on trips so you can see that I do indeed travel and it’s not some elaborate hoax (although it’d be sort of funny if all these years I was fooling you.) But this way, you can hopefully follow me across the world, from Moscow to Beijing and various places in between.

Uncategorized — 1 Comment
13
Jan 09

Bad news

I’m filing a restraining order against the Missus. :(

Uncategorized — No Comments
11
Jan 09

Happy New Year, February Edition

I’ve been struggling with the idea of the blog as of late, seeing that my love for Twitter and Facebook status updates are making a move up since I’m more geared towards quick blurbs than anything.

Russia/Trans-Siberian is still a-go for March 6th. Fuck it, I’m in.

I’m also off for a long relaxing weekend in Hawaii again, I hope. Typically I don’t like going to tropical paradises. My pasty skin makes for instant burning, which also will get me the ridicule of friends and coworkers (true story: I came back from a weekend in Kansas City where I was outdoors at a soccer game – came into work the next day and I had raccoon eyes and everyone looked at me like “What the fuck happened to you?”) That and I haven’t figured out the key to unwinding. I’m a clock minder, and that’s what I do best. But knowing me, I’ll run from tourist destination to tourist destination and take a lot of photos.

Where Is Hawkins?Where travel is cheaper than psychotherapy.