Sure, I feel absolutely safe flying. Right after my second Absolut® Bloody Mary.

Just as I was thinking that my biggest fear of flying was exploding underwear.

 

How we don’t go insane given the onslaught of headlines of threats to our well-being, I haven’t got a clue.

 

Long after the underwear bomber accidentally (one would presume) torched his crotch, it’s been one thing after another.

 

We are given the impression that leaving our cell phone, iPad, Kindle, Garmin, or battery-operated Margarita-loaded portable blender in the ON position while flying will kill us all.

 

Or, apparently not, as many (most?) of us don’t even bother to. Turn them off, that is, as directed by the on-board flight authorities.

 

Recent news reports provide—not so surprisingly if you have flown lately—significant statistics that many of us “accidently” forget to do so.

 

Clearly, it is by accident, like the guy in 3C is accidently talking on this phone as we are in the air, or the gal in 5A is accidently checking her latest Facebook posting, or the kid in 4B is accidently texting.

 

(Oh, I know that my blender is not turned off, but, hey, you expect me to wait until the drink service gets rolling down the aisle?)

 

        

 

Even scarier is the latest not so comforting news that anyone can buy a computer printer for home use that creates 3-D objects, such as a plastic gun that fires real bullets.  Well, at least those airport metal detectors keep catching that lint-covered loose change in the bottom of my pocket.

 

As to the whole issue of our safety in public places, according to a story in Vanity Fair, “one of America’s top security experts” on the subject, claims that,

“…the great bulk of the post-9/11 measures to contain [the threat] are little more than…security theater”

 

Well, funny he should use the term “security theater.” And by funny, I mean not so much, if you are the one sitting next to guy with his underpants on fire, on the verge of going thermonuclear.

 

And, it comes out that our aural security has even come under jeopardy while flying. Last month, an American Airlines plane had to make an “emergency” landing due to some woman doing an apparently painful to the passengers version of a Whitney Houston song.

(The YouTube video is posted below.)

 

Ironically, as the law enforcement personnel were escorting out the wannabe soul singer, the flight attendant made an announcement over the PA,

“No photos are allowed to be taken on the aircraft.”

 

Well, while people are packing printed plastic guns and “forgetting” to turn off their electronic interference generating devices, at least I am safe from someone snapping a picture of me scratching in places that the wife-person only tolerates from good looking, highly compensated, well equipped professional baseball players as seen on national television.

 

Speaking of the wife-person and baseball, we occasionally attend sporting events—Go Giants!—and since 9-11, it is not uncommon to get “wanded” by “security personnel” as we enter the event.

 

   

 

The funny thing here is that there is something fishy about the whole, “we’re wanding you to make you safe” routine, and by funny, I mean I am pretty sure it is fake.

 

First, I noticed the “wanders” were fairly inconsistent on how much they wanded, and to whom. The guys with the highly sensitive electronic portable metal detectors seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time wanding the good looking women, and seemed especially concerned that something interesting might be hidden behind those protruding upper body undergarments.

 

And second, when I got wanded while I was carrying enough metal objects to fashion an anchor—think keys, binoculars, flask (of course), and lint-covered loose change—their highly sensitive electronic portable metal detectors made nary a peep.

 

It was almost as if they were just bit players in some kabuki security theater.

 

      

 

But, in reality I actually do feel relatively safe when I am out in public, whether flying at 32,00 feet or at a local ballgame.

 

Why, you might ask? Well, I guess it’s partially because I view it based on my vast knowledge, gained through my advanced college degree earned at the University of California at Berkeley, during my study of differential calculus.

 

I just calculate that it will probably happen to someone different than me.

 

That, and those multiple Absolut® Bloody Mary’s.

 

I went to the Nevada desert looking for a motorcycle race and found a hooker. A whole truckload of them.

It was by choice that I ventured out into the hot, dusty desert. After all, I promised Jackson that I would, almost a year ago.

 

    

 

What I didn’t know, was a chance encounter with a prostitute could have been my last act of free choice, except her offer was neither free, nor really a choice.

 

The premise was a motorcycle race that started on the saloon filled streets of a storied Nevada mining town, but almost ended when I found out that the scantily dressed blond beauty “working girl,” who put her arm alluringly around me, did not come without a steep price.

 

       

 

The imposing hulk that was her handler was quick to hook us up, as he was pressing the establishment’s menu of services into my, now profusely sweating, palm.  (Apparently, a Neopolitan doesn’t always refer to an ice cream treat of different colors.)

 

While I might have fantasized that the well-known pimpaurateur Dennis Hof was making me an offer I couldn’t refuse, the fact was, I couldn’t afford to not refuse it.

 

    

 

First, I couldn’t afford the cost.

“They charge how much to do what?”

 

And more importantly, I couldn’t afford what the glare I was getting from the wife-person would equate to in post-pleasure repercussions. (Hint: our house has cooking knives and a garbage disposal.)

 

Just like the nonexistent negotiations that were going on with the lithesome young lady, so went the beginning of the motorcycle race.

 

Things on the Old West main street were going nowhere fast. The sea of powerful two-wheeled moto machines stood motionless, as the leather-clad, ruggedly handsome riders waited anxiously for the signal to fire them up and head out onto the remote race route.

 

   

 

Finally, the mass of knobby-tired, rattling machines cleared the starting line, and headed out to dust-choked narrow, rocky canyons, for a grueling, bone-jarring multi-hour motorcycle race.

 

Although, as the YouTube video (below) shows, sometimes the race course was as backed up as the start.

 

But, truth be told, it really did not matter to me as I had other things occupying my concentration. One of those high-priced Bunny Ranch party gals had me in a partial body clench (actually, it may have been more of a self-defense hold), but, nonetheless, I wasn’t in any real hurry to get anywhere fast.

 

After all, there are some things where finishing fast is not the desired outcome.

 

   

 

As in the previous year, Jackson showed very well out on the race course.

 

I, on the other hand, just had to show the good sense to let go of Krissy Summers before it really was going to cost me.

 

It’s always best to stay out of foreign prisons.

It’s no secret that I want to go to Cuba.

 

But, for some, being there ain’t a choice, and neither is their cuisine.

 

Once again, GITMO is in the news, and the news is bad.

 

I happened to think about this as I was paddling ” up the river”— literally— to Folsom Prison, this weekend.

 

      

 

Hell, in California it’s against the law to feed a goose like these people are being “fed” in Cuba.

 

Thank goodness, this gang escaped before they suffered any uncomfortable situations.

 

    

 

Think of today’s post as a political cartoon; the delivery might be funny, but the message, not so much.

 

 

Edited with BlogPad Pro

Climate-Strange® It’s a brave new world of travel. Pack accordingly.

I can see the wind.  You are not supposed to be able to see the wind.

 

We live in the spacious agricultural belly of California’s mid-section. From my cluttered, second-story farmhouse World Blog Headquarters window, I look out onto acres upon hectares of fruit trees, planted crops, and the meandering valley creek, which occasionally flows behind our place.

 

Unfortunately, the view today is nothing like the pastoral backdrop that we are accustomed to.

 

The insistent north winds are blowing with an unrelenting vengeance, thick with the fine-grained topsoil of recently tilled fields. You can see the wind in the brown haze that obscures what little snow is left topping the spine of the magnificent Sierra Nevada mountain range, to the east.

 

And you can taste the acerbic grit that feels of dirt in your mouth.

 

The wind today is like yesterday, which was like the day before, which was a repeat of the day before that. We have lost count. Insanity is said to come of stretches like this. The old timers claim they cannot remember a spell of wind like this in their many years.

 

This is where you skeptics are probably screaming at your screens, that this has nothing to do with climate change, and is probably just a case of C.R.S.

 

All I know is that we are living in strange times. A few weeks ago, we had unseasonably hot early spring days, in the 80’s. That was followed by a cold spell that sent me packing to the hills for one last day of skiing, where the temperature fell to the,

“Oh my god…I can’t feel my face.”

 

    

 

Then, a couple of weeks later, it was back into the high 80’s, even bumping the low 90’s.

 

The warm weather got my blog brother and I up into the foothills for a flower finding mission in the Bear Valley area. Even the wildflowers could not figure out the seasons, and apparently just decided to skip their typical cavalcade of color, which we witnessed the last time we visited.

 

    

 

The new normal is abnormal®

 

(Full Disclosure: the phrases in this blog post aren’t really registered trademarks. I just like using the ® symbol.)

 

Back on the homestead, this unrelenting wind is taking its toll. I am starting to see strange sights.

 

I swear I just saw a jackrabbit flying by in the adjacent field, with its enormous ears billowed out like spinnakers on a sailboat, using its almost comically long rear feet as rudders as they trailed across the ground.

 

Did I mention the rabbit was pink?

 

    

 

 

See, I told you the climate was making me strange.

 

O.K., making me even stranger. Climate-Stranger® as a matter of fact.

Here is where iTravel by iPad. The question is whether iSuck.

Finally, I’m getting lighter.

 

Oh wait, you think I mean me, personally? Heavens no. 

 

Hell, whenever I travel I manage to find every bakery, pizza joint, and pub along the route. Lighter is the last thing I’m getting on these trips.

 

No, I mean I am now traveling with less electronic crap. It used to be I hauled my ancient–by today’s standards–IBM Thinkpad laptop on my travels, which weighed in at about the same as a case of beer. And, just like a case of beer, that old laptop had its use, but it was such a pain to schlep around.

 

Next came the netbook, which got the bulk down to closer to that of a six-pack. The problem was, by the time I packed the external mouse, the charging cord with the transformer, and other accessories, I lost a good portion of the weight I thought I had saved.

 

In my attempt to go small, iOpted for an iPad. This seemed a logical choice, given that my current smartphone is a Blackberry (you can stop laughing any time now) with a screen the size of a postage stamp.

(You kids can Google what a postage stamp is.)

 

 

 

So, here I sit, engaging in full-out thumb-to-screen combat with my iPad’s make-shit-up auto correct, creating my first blog post using the BlogPad Pro app for IOS, which I recently purchased.

 

Seriously, I don’t know if it is my iPad, or this new app, which turns an errant keystroke–or, more accurately, off target screen touch– into a string of nonsensical words. Arrggg!

(According to the app’s FAQ’s,  it seems to be both.)

 

While I typically create my unbelievable blog posts (unbelievable how much time I spend trying to be funny) using Microsoft Live Writer, and then post to WordPress, I have found using the WordPress app for the iPad to be about as satisfying as a soggy hamburger bun. 

 

O.K., now I want to add a couple of random pictures and see how this posts. For my fellow bloggers, I will report my ratings on this new app down the road.

 

 

For the rest of you, normal programming will return to your screen shortly.

 

 

Late Breaking News!!! 

My initial impression is that BlogPad Pro doesn’t suck. 

(It certainly is easier to post, and subsequently edit, than using the WordPress app for Apple.)

 

 

 

Edited with BlogPad Pro

Extreme outdoor adventure never looked so good (or felt so comfortable).

Here we are, sitting in near darkness, seduced by the spectacular scenery of this wilderness setting.

 

We are neither cold nor uncomfortable, or bothered by the hard ground.

 

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we are sitting in plush seats of a temperature-controlled movie theater.

 

Nevertheless, I recently asked myself,

“Self…why do we wander out into the wilderness? What does it do for, or to, us?”

  

       

 

I have been getting into the great outdoors for as long as I have been breathing. While I came onto this planet in the suburban setting of the San Francisco east bay area, I was lucky to be born to parents who had a love for the fresh, pine-scented forests of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where I spent many a youthful summer.

We used to take annual family car camping trips up to places like Lake Tahoe, and stays at Camp Mather, just outside of Yosemite.

 

In my formative years, I donned the merit badge-festooned uniform of the Boy Scouts of America—long before scandals of homophobia and the concept of low-impact camping techniques were de rigueur.

(One of our first tasks when making camp was to surround our canvas tents with drainage ditches cut deep into the fragile soil.)

 

      

 

While in college in the early 70’s, I joined the Chabot College hiking club, where we would venture up to the central Sierras. My love of wilderness grew during those treks, which may have had something to do with the recreational herbaceous materials we would pass around in the back of the van during the drive.

 

Or, maybe it was that I discovered women would backpack topless and were—occasionally—not averse to sharing a sleeping bag, after the ritual herb sharing around the campfire.

Hey, remember that was the post Haight-Asbury, Summer of Love era.

 

But, what really broadened my horizons was my 30- year affair with the iconic outdoor travel writer, Tim Cahill. Whether from Outside Magazine articles, or his series of travel tales with tantalizing titles, his evocative prose, infused with self-effacing humor, created an impetus for global adventure discovery.

 

I also discovered that the outdoors meant different things to different people.

 

Over the intervening years, a lot of people decided that the wilderness was not just a place to get drunk, get naked and sit around in a drum circle all night.

(That is what Burning Man is for.)

 

The fact was, adventure travel seemed to lean more and more towards the adventure aspect of the outdoors activities.

 

      

 

Enter the world of extreme adventure. Doing it harder, faster, longer—and scarier—became the attraction, in and of itself, for some.

 

       

 

Is there some form of “runner’s high” which revs up the desire for extreme adventure? Can this just be the outcome of self-induced morphine-like neurotransmitters, namely endorphins, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and even something called endocannabinoids, which the human body naturally produces?

(Thanks, U.C. Berkeley Wellness Letter for all those intelligent sounding words.)

 

Whatever the catalyst, for some, it ain’t a good time unless they bleed and it hurts. And, it gets filmed.

 

Back a few years, the goal for a few was to be labeled Jackass and get their videos viewed in a hit movie and television series. (I am not sure, but I think now days, you might find some of those that survived those exploits on Tosh.0)

 

Those wishing to forgo the gaping wounds and severe pain can still venture out—at least virtually—into slightly less testosterone-stimulated situations by viewing various adventure films.

 

       

 

This would include offerings from Warren Miller, Radical Reels, and locally inspired versions, like the Lake Tahoe Adventure Film Festival, or what I just saw at the Davis High School theater, a showing of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour.

 

I could not help but notice that the majority of the attendees seem to be a league of  like-minded, tattooed tribe of wannabe adventurists, displaying a true sense of uniform individuality by their apparent requisite costume, bearing labels of Columbia, Patagonia, North Face, and REI.

 

       

 

But, my guess is that most of that audience does get out, notwithstanding the tagline of one of those adventure film posters that boasted—albeit absurdly—watching others out there in a movie is ”the next best thing to doing it.”

 

Nah, we know that is not even close to being true. Really, how likely are you to see even one topless woman in an adventure film audience?

 

I certainly did not see any at the Banff Mountain movies last week.

 

Although, I did smell some smoke of a particularly distinctive odor in the parking lot during the intermission.

 

       

What they don’t tell you about travel planning. It wears the hell out of me and it just might not be worth the effort.

Travel planning is not for sissies.

 

And at this point, I am not sure I’m up to the task anyway.

 

It is not just the unfathomable hours spent clicking countless computer sites, pouring over piles of guidebooks, and making copious notes that typical travel planning entails, but sometimes all that work is for naught.

 

There once was a guy named “Ike” who got this.

 

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, who was the Supreme Commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II, planned and led military forces into North Africa, and then France and Germany, and happened to have been the 34th President of the United States, knew something about planning.

 

It was Ike who expressed the conundrum of planning when he said something to the effect of,

“Planning is essential; plans are worthless.”

 

And, kind of like the WW II secret code encryption machine, the enigma is whether all that travel planning is really worth the effort.

 

Maybe that device’s mathematical basis can provide us the secret key to successful travel planning.

 

Ah…then again, maybe not.

 

But, not knowing something has never stopped me before from talking about it at length;

so how much planning is appropriate?

 

      

 

Marsha, over at Wanderlust for One, posits in her post Praise of Travel Planning, that for some travelers, less is more when it comes to voraciously compiling pre-trip information, and planning the trip down to the most finite component.

Is spending a lot less time and energy—and sometimes mental anguish—the best plan for trip planning?

 

The answer is…it depends.

 

It depends if you are a member of the Church of Feel Good Serendipity, or an officer in the National Anal Retentive Society.

 

Marsha—can I call you Marsha?—certainly leans towards the more is better. Much more.

“All the experimentation has done is to teach me–the hard way, you might say–that unplanned travel is not for me.”

“A natural scaredy-cat, I need lists and schedules [and have a] compulsive need to have itineraries and check-off lists and follow schedules.”

 

Hey, I’m not being judgmental here (O.K., maybe I am), but if Marsha is a self-professed scaredy-cat, hell, I’m the king of the jungle.

 

I won’t go as far as to say, I know the location of each toilet within a quick trot on the trip, but let’s just say, I have an app for that on speed dial on my smart phone.

 

Now Tracy, in her website The Suitcase Scholar, is one that wants “wiggle room” when planning for her next trip. Apparently, she set up a schedule on a previous trip which was unattainable, and she went as far as saying that the trip had been “doomed from the start,” as indicated by the 36-page itinerary she had prepared.

 

(I must say, I am not sure what is wrong with a 36-page trip plan. I might need that much space just to map out local pubs along the route.)

 

Agreeing with Tracy is a bespectacled balding bearded guy named James, who wrote on that topic at About.com.

“Most new travelers do what I did- they plan out everyday. Their entire route is planned, sometimes even down to a specific day. This holds true especially among young or gap year travelers. They try to race and see it all. 2 days here, 2 days there. This is a bad way to travel. When you travel, less is more.”

 

       

 

Yen Lee, over at HuffPro, takes a somewhat sexist approach to the question of travel planning, claiming he is beat by women. (I, on the other hand, get beat by just one woman, and I usually have it coming.)

“Men are more likely to wait until the last minute to book holiday travel. Perhaps in an effort to best William Shatner’s negotiating skills or outwit that wily roaming gnome, they also tend to waste their time and effort on hunting down the best airfare.”

 

Lee, Yen, makes the case that we don’t remember a trip by the success of the planning that went into it.

As a consummate planner, I might take exception to that concept.

 

That his metric of success includes meeting some guy along a mountain path who shares his home-brew beer, well to this point, Lee and I have a similar yen.

 

But, based on his research, and the accompanying blog comments, apparently there is something to the sex aspect. Apparently, us guys have just been in the wrong position. When it comes to travel planning.

 

Boyfriends and husbands – you have been forewarned.

 

Thinking about sex (yes, that is in fact what most men do 23½ hours a day), as we look for resources for travel planning, SexySocialMedia.com  mentions five social networking sites, such as Foursquare and Gogobot, that are said to “make trip planning fun.” 

 

As I prefer independent travel to quiet spots, off the tourist beaten paths, I would like to find the unsocial networking sites. And, I am not sure the wife-person wants me spending too much time on websites offering fun sexy social networking.

 

There is no doubt that the web has a huge audience when it comes to travel planning, and where there is money to be made, there are people who are paying close attention to our web-based planning activities.

 

Brandon, at his blog Buuteeq, posted a Google interactive infographic tool that provides a visual picture of the five steps of trip planning. While the colorful graphic is interesting to click on, “Oh look, colorful spinning object!” this “tool” seems to provide more business related statistics—albeit interesting—than helpful travel planning information, especially given the promising title of “How to Plan a Trip.”

 

Another website, which is dealing with how web content shapes our travel choices, also provided a colorful infographic that seems to me to be more orientated towards web marketeers, rather than trip planning surfing.

 

While there are a few of us who still prefer paper maps and written guidebooks to peruse, the vast sea of Googleable resources available make waves that we all are affected by. Especially, when the waves are occasionally rogue, thus less than reliable for those of us wishing to surf our way smoothly across the interwebs towards our next trip.

 

But, can you depend on what you read?

 

In his book, “smile when you’re lying, confessions of a rogue travel writer,” Chuck Thompson broaches the subject of how travel writers are sometimes less than totally truthful.

 

Numerous exposés have been written about less than honest travel evaluations, laying out the half-truths and outright lies you might find within online travel information and reviews.

 

Trip Advisor gets gazillion of views, by folks wishing to check out vacation providers, hotels, restaurants, and more, but they have been accused of bias and censoring on some occasions. 

 

Then there were the stories of people who do their travel planning on Apple computers being shown higher prices, ostensibly since Apple product owners are of higher affluence.

 

    

 

I got to writing on this subject as I spent way too many hours—days? (I lost track)—as we prepared to book our first European river cruise for next year. I bounced around from website to website, trying to make sure we had every last detail and every last eventuality planned for. (Recall that I am a charter member of the National Anal Retentive Society.)

 

I was more than a little alarmed when I read that cruise ship message boards were being accused of selectively deleting unflattering reviews.

 

So, I guess it like I have said on more than one occasion, read everything with a jaundiced eye (unless you have been vaccinated against that malady), throw out the best and worst reviews and average the rest.

 

For those of us who spend way too much time travel planning, depending on less than accurate information is clearly counterproductive.

 

Obviously, what—or whom—to listen to is the challenge. An article from BootsnAll on getting bad advice, many times from best intentioned friends and family—often those who never travel themselves—suggests how to make your own good choices.

 

And, for those of you who pay little attention to all this noise and prefer to simply grab a few items of clothing, your smart phone, and a box of anti-diarrheal medication, and then hop on the plane, well, I admire your serendipitousness. 

 

I’ll be the one next to you on the airplane, buried under piles of printouts and tomes of travel tips, and bugging you for any information you might have on our destination.

 

My suggestion to you is to pretend you are asleep.