Category: Travel

Here’s a guy who sets himself up to be pickpocketed and then picks the pickpocker’s pocket! Take My Wallet, Please.

How do you track down pickpockets?
I stuff my wallet with paper and keep it in my pants pocket. Then I linger in prime tourist spots in foreign cities. Sooner or later, someone steals the wallet, and I try to steal it back.

He consults to foreign governments, coaches cruiseship travelers and leads workshops.

There’s Simply No Excuse for Being Bored on a Trip – New York Times.

That’s when it occurred to me that there is no such thing as a boring place. Only boring travelers.

A list of exactly what you can and cannot carry on: TSA: Permitted and Prohibited Items.  You’ll be glad to know that cattle prods are not allowed onboard.

And here’s the states I’ve been to from Visited States.  I’d like to point out that I visited most of these in a car first.  Quite a few of them in a VW bug with my entire family!

create your own visited states map

You can use this website to quickly make a map of the countries you have visited.  Here’s mine:

create your own visited countries map

I’m in Washington DC and it’s the first time I’ve wanted to go home early and just couldn’t because the flights are all full.  It’s a strange feeling.  (I have been stranded due to snow storms before but the last time that happened I had Frank to keep me company.)

Luckily, it’s not a bad thing to be stuck in DC since I have great collegues to hang out with during the day and my cousin Leif is an excellent city host and has made dinner plans for us.

If, like me, you are a bit skeptical that your cell phone, or even more unbelievable, your iPod might cause a problem on an airplane, IEEE has an article that attempts to explain the danger and point to specific annecdotes where electronic usage might have caused navigation problems, IEEE Spectrum: Unsafe At Any Airspeed?.  While I’ll continue to turn my cell phone off, I still maintain that if my iPod is causing problems with the airplane’s electronics than we have much bigger problems with airplane electronics.  I hope they are more robust than that.

Here’s a cute story of a couple trying to smuggle their dog into Hawaii (which has a six month quarentine): Busted! Please Put the Dog Down, Sir, and Step Away – New York Times.  But what I want to know is how did they just happen to end up on a plane with Mickey Hart and Bill Cosby?  What are the odds of that?  I’ve been flying a lot of a long time and the only famous person I noticed was a professional basketball player.  And I only noticed him because all the kids in the airplane were leaning in the aisle trying to catch a glimpse of someone in business class and there was this six foot six inch plus guy in business.

Always wanted to see Antartica?  Here’s your chance.  Raytheon Polar Services is hiring a Blaster for a project in Antartica.