Yesterday morning we had an early start to get on a local bus to Liberia. Four hours of fast but largely not so scary driving. I think some others thought it was a bit hair raising, but maybe it was good I zoned out with my iPod. Arrived in Liberia about 11am and made our…
Exhausted but here! I drove back to the ATL late Saturday and still had to pack. The result is next to no sleep to make 6:45am flight and minimally a forgotten Spanish phrase book. Oh well! Flight to Houston was late and full. Literally ran to next gate and into line to board. No layover…
I’m still working on photos from England in September and my next trip is literally on the horizon. I’ll be in Costa Rica just a few days after Christmas, and in Nicaragua when the New Year rolls around. I’ll accumulate more photos, so I really have to buckle down and finish with London already! I…
Okay, for weeks, I’ve been hating how dark it was in the morning. The late sunrise made it seem even harder to rise and shine. Okay, I never shine, but I do rise. Now the sun is going down too early. There is no winning is there? Where to begin on updates? Hmmm… I don’t…
Picture this, I had to go to Chicago on a business trip this past week. There wasn’t a lot of advance notice, but it was not the first time, so I sailed through the trip arrangements and off I went. Arrived Monday afternoon for an all day meeting Tuesday. Tuesday flew by, quite busy, and…
I’ve been back in the states for over a week now. There are days it feels like I never left in the first place. There are always a little bit of the blues whena trip ends. That’s how you know I had a good time. There’s not much to say about the trip back other…
That was my time in the UK whizzing past at a bit over the speed of sound. I fly back in the morning. I should rightly be in bed already. I for some reason thought I had a flight back around 1pm but checked the print out when I got back in tonight and realized…
I lazed about a bit this morning. Because my two nights here were unintentional and there was, in fact, only one spare bed tonight, I have to change rooms the first two mornings. If I hung out until 10am I could go ahead and change rooms rather than dumping my bag in storage. As I…
I have no idea where to begin. I really haven’t properly logged my experience in Cornwall, and I don’t have my notes with me and I’m bushed. For the moment, we’ll leave it at incredible. Newquay was a gorgeous piece of earth, as was all of Cornwall. It was the quintessential English experience, even if the…
Arrived back I’m London late afternoon to a bit of an issue. There was a fire in the tunnel under the English channel. All service today canceled. A descision on tomorrow to be made overnight. I’m at the train station now to sort out what I can do. Very lucky to have booked a room…
Day 3 in the UK. I wandered a lot my first afternoon. Bright and early the next morning was my meeting with the Haggis Tour bus for my Cornwall tour. It’s a relatively small group of 10, which I think is fairly good as tours go. First day was making our way down to Newquay…
Although I was doing my usual scampering around at the last minute Saturday, getting to the airport that night was relatively simple. Hardly any wait for the train, chech-in, or security. I walked the whole distance from the main terminal to E gates, hoping to tire myself out so I might sleep on the flight….
All in all, when I travel, I like to stay in a given place a few days. Much of my selection of the Intrepid trip I chose to Egypt earlier this year was that every night was not a different city. If I had longer than two weeks, I would have waited to languish even…
A few weeks ago, I got a macbook pro, as previously mentioned, and partially left the world of windows (my media center PC is still a PC). I found out (before I made the switch) that Adobe will allow you to swamp from windows or mac when you chance PCs if you already own their…
Well, first to follow up on my post about the old laptop, yes, I bought a mac. I splashed out on a macbook pro, but I bought a refurb. They carry the mac warranty (and I used the savings to get the three year Apple Care, so I’m well covered). The refurb looked completely new. …
After the post about considering a mac, I feel like I’m confessing to a religious conversion here! Yes, I was one of the sheep who stood in line on the day the new iPhone 3G came out. In my (admittedly slim) defense here, I have had the same old motorola V400 for 4 years. I…
That’s something I never thought I’d say. I’m actually considering a mac. I don’t mean that in a negative way, just that sometimes I’m a creature of habit, and I’ve spent over a decade using Windows based PCs and most recently laptops. I’ve had a fujitsu for nearly three years now. I still love the…
This past Saturday was the first time in ages that I’ve gotten out with my camera. It really has been that long. I came back from Egypt and less than a month later made a quick weekend dash to Boston as part of a business trip. I came back and edited photos until April. Can…
It’s been a few weeks now, but British Airways posted a pretty good deal to 20+ European cities. I was feeling the need (note NEED not desire) to get away for a bit. I pondered all the different routes I could take, but scheduling the places I wanted was hellacious because of the timing of…
Okay, I’ve had news of one type or another (nothing overwhelmingly earth shattering or anything), but have just been a complete slacker lately. I could write one overwhelmingly long post and bore everyone to death, or attempt to break it into smaller more digestible chunks. I’m going for the chunks route. At least then news…
Okay, I can only guess at how long they’ve been awaited, but I have been very MIA of late. Nothing super exciting, but I suppose I should do a bit of updating here. The biggest thing of late has been re-doing my kitchen. I moved in to my current abode nearly 8 years ago. The…
Okay, anyone who knows me fairly well will be sufficiently puzzled by that one. You see, to cast that same mystery for you all, both of my grandmothers have passed on, the last one over 5 years ago now. It doesn’t seem like that much time has passed, but in the interim, I’ve been to…
The past few weeks have been busy as usual. Work has been demanding of late, and I’ve been trying to get ready for a photo show that was on Friday. It was one of those things I kept meaning to put out there for everyone and never got around to it except for a bulletin…
Coolness! This evening I discovered that I came in first in a Lonely Planet photo challenge on flickr. It’s a weekly thing where they give out a theme and you can submit photos to the theme. This past week’s was “Most High” and my travel photos of the hot air balloons from Egypt seemed to…
Alas, the end of the sunrise hot air balloon photos shuffles to an end. The flight was a bit over an hour. I took a 100 pictures in the first maybe 20 minutes and then I sort of relaxed and just soaked it in. The most dramatic light was past and it was really down…
One hundred and five years ago, my grandmother was born in the tiny community of Midway, Alabama. She was the eldest child of Joseph & Gertha Johnston, and was born at the home of her grandparents, Proctor & Lula Johns. My grandmother, who I called Ma-Ma, also called her grandmother Johns the same. They were…
I think I may well have been one of the few who took note of Earth Hour in one of Georgia’s newest “cities” – Johns Creek. On one of my typically many tangents, I find it hard to accept this as anything more than a tax district. There’s no city center and no real history….
I’ve documented elsewhere that I recently went all digital. All my music is now in the form of ephemeral bits and bytes on my hard drive (and backed up elsewhere). And my three shelves of CDs have been compressed down to a couple of binders. Although a freeing experience, I’m still dealing with the effects…
Despite the tons of pictures I still have to go through from the Egypt trip, the weekend found me continuing my spring cleaning. I had a closet with two stacks of comics to file. I won’t say how long I had put this task off but it’s not a short time. I began sorting everything…
First, I have to explain, because many may have no idea that my favorite band is a little band from Tempe, Arizona. Roger Clyne led a band in the mid 90’s under the name, The Refreshments. They had one big hit that most people who listened to music at the time would recognize if they…
It’s very interesting where we find inspiration sometimes. For a few years now, I’ve been a casual reader of Wil Wheaton’s blog. Yes, Wil Wheaton AKA Wesley Crusher of Star Trek. For one reason or another, I relate to some of the things he has to say, which I would never have anticipated, but same…
My camel guide, bless him for his patience, was maybe not the best photographer. He had the right idea, but everyone of my group pictures have something that is, for me, a glaring flaw. Most of them, he stood behind another guy taking pictures. So, I have about 4 pictures, of other guides taking pictures…
It seems hard to believe my trip to Egypt ended over a month ago, but that was January and even February is speeding to a conclusion. Where does time go? I’ve been busy with work lately. And when not busy with work, doing some spring cleaning and organizing. I know it’s not spring, but when…
I spent the day doing some website maintenance. Funny, I thought I was going to do some house cleaning. Coincidence or procrastination? Hmmm…. Anyway, while I was chained to the laptop, I finally caught up to the latest podcast at Have You Heard – a fairly new but swift growing local podcast. The folks doing…
I’m slowly getting over the crud, but Friday heading for Boston (business meeting Monday that I was able to roll into some me time). So, I’m at a standstill for the moment on editing photos. However, there are plenty of the pyramids and a small taste of Cairo in my Egypt Gallery. Here’s a taste….
The last few days in Egypt, I had a cough, which was particularly rough when we got back to the smog of Cairo. I thought the smog was what started things, but as I looked back, it started before we returned to Cairo. Still, when I got back, it did improve (so was likely worsened…