On Thursday night, about 50% of Portland, Oregon descended upon the Pied Cow, a local beer garden to talk about travel, entrepreneurship, blogging, and all kinds of other topics.
At one point a waitress came over to ask what our group was working on, and someone said "World Domination." Nice one. Later on, the same waitress told me we were "the most polite group of non-conformists" she had ever met, which I also appreciated.
This is a story that involves a) a frustrating series of calls to Expedia, b) a way to repay Expedia's unhelpfulness by giving many of you $200, c) my attempts to order a total of $16,500 coins from the U.S. Mint, d) a Lasik eye exam in pursuit of Delta SkyMiles, and much more.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we survived a heat wave that kept temperatures near 100° F for much of the week. I felt like an asthmatic Superman at times, but I completed all my running as planned.
Now it’s over, and running this morning at “only” 88 degrees felt like I should bundle up in tights and mittens. Life is good.
I’ve been a dedicated runner for about five years now, and a casual one for several years before that. I find that running is the best overall exercise I can do, and the minimalist in me enjoys the fact that running is very low-tech. All you need are some decent running shoes – no fancy equipment or nice clothes are necessary. I like to listen to music when I run, but other than an iPod shuffle, I don’t take anything with me.
Congratulations to the great Lance Armstrong on his third-place victory in Paris yesterday.
I'm aware that third place is not a real victory. Lance knows this too, and said so himself in the post-race interviews. However, when you've been out of the tour for four years, you broke your collarbone a few months ago, and you're more than a decade older than the teammate who ended up winning, I think that third place is pretty good.
Lance is still a winner in my book. He's already planning to come back next year, and I'm pretty sure he won't settle for a mere third place out of 180 riders in 2010.
To be truly awesome, you have to go above and beyond the efforts of those around you, look for alternative solutions, and refuse to back down from the truth. There's a whole article about it for those who are curious.
But it all starts with showing up. Or, as a friend of mine puts it:
"I'm sorry you feel bad about not meeting your goals -- what I would suggest is that you begin meeting your goals, in order to feel better."
I'm home! What a great trip – I had a nice swing throu South America, successfully avoided deportation in Saudi Arabia, and met with friends and readers at five stops along the way. On the last leg of the trip I picked up what I call "swine flu lite" – I'm not dying, but I haven't been able to do much of anything over the past couple of days. Since I don't get sick very often, I figure I might as well go all the way when it happens. Who needs moderation?
Greetings from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I've arrived on the final leg of my Monster Trip of 2009. I've wanted to share some of the details behind my visit to Saudi Arabia for a while, but as you read this article, you'll probably see why I had to wait before writing about it publicly. Also, fair warning that this will not be a short story.
On the flight back from South America last week, the airline was showing Yes Man, a film starring Jim Carrey. Left to my own devices, I rarely finish a movie, but I watched the first two-thirds of this one and thought it was great. The premise of Yes Man is that a guy who usually says no to everything - requests from friends, growth opportunities at work, and so on - has to make a sudden switch where his default answer becomes yes to any request he encounters.
Greetings from Malaysia, my home for most of this week before heading back to my real home on Thursday. After nearly getting deported from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia a few days ago, I managed to deport myself a few days later to fly this direction. It’s a really long story, one that I look forward to ...
Greetings from the Persian Gulf. The most obvious observation to make about this place is probably, “Wow! It's hot here!”
I hope you'll forgive me for being banal. I've been in the Emirates, Oman, and Qatar before, but not usually in July. I'd say I'm hardcore and have been going for 10-mile runs in the heat, but that would be exaggerating by at least 6 miles.
Greetings from the mobile version of World Domination HQ, currently roaming throughout South America on my recent tour of the known universe. Thanks to everyone I’ve met so far on this trip – Alastair, Karen, Ryan, Angela, Gabe, Toby, Ellie, Alan, Emily, Eileen, Gonzalo, and Alberto. Traveling is a lot easier when you have friends…
I previously wrote about how a long trip begins from Seattle. I didn’t have a car there either, but public transport required a high threshold of patience and pain. In Seattle it took up to two hours to begin a trip, which was especially interesting when the first flight was at 6:00 a.m.
Last year at about this time, I took what I called the Monster Trip of 2008.
It involved four continents, driving through Italy in the middle of the night, visiting Iraqi Kurdistan, roaming by train and bus across the Baltics and Moldova, and finally coming home through Asia – where I mistakenly double-booked myself on two non-refundable tickets home from Japan.
What fun that was. Now it's time to repeat the process, although with a completely different itinerary, and hopefully without getting stranded on a faraway continent three days before I'm supposed to come home.
Greetings from the Atlanta-Hartsfield airport, home to Delta, Chick-fil-A, and a hidden post office in Terminal E. I used to fly through ATL all the time, but since I've switched airline allegiance, this is the first time I've been here in nearly a year. Tonight I'm headed down to MIA and then further down to South America. I'm excited! But first, let's catch up on the past week ...
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