States visited 2016

Meme post like it's 2006.

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Current Fixations: New York City

One of my current fixations is the city that never sleeps. Despite growing up in Canada, thousands of kilometres away from New York City, parts of that city have ingrained into my psyche. We receive a lot of US television in Canada, and the amount of NYC imagery and culture that comes with it is surprising, and detailed! Should a Canadian kid know how hard it is to get a table at "Sardi's?" How many restaurants can you name from cities where you've never been? Few cities form such a cultural substrate.

Being in the “raised-by-TV” generation, I practically grew up on Sesame Street, not just the show, but somehow on that street itself. The street was clearly representing New York, with its distinctive brownstone buildings, a stop on the subway line and proximity to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I learned at a young age not to eat the pictures at the museum, long before I realized the Met was an actual place.



I knew muppets were puppets with hands up their backsides, so why would their environment be any more tangible? It's this kind of blurring of the real and the fantastic that makes New York magical.

I know NYC neighbourhood names such as Morningside Heights, Tribeca, SoHo and the Bowery, but I couldn't tell you what the neighbourhood I currently live in is supposed to be called. The streets and villages within NYC each have their own stories and culture, and the post-war tract housing of my youth can't compete for the same passions that “Wall Street” “Madison Ave” and “Broadway” do. Those aren't just addresses, they are Ideas. No movie worth watching was filmed in my hometown, and no one ever wrote a song about any of the streets there.

I know that much of the information that I have soaked up is dated and wrong. Sitcoms and movies set in New York are often written by people living in Hollywood. “The Brooklyn Dodgers,” is a phrase that falls from my mouth too readily for a team that hasn't existed since 1957. Tavern on the Green and the Rainbow Room are closed, Sardi's and The Russian Tea Room are well past their prime. The Cotton Club currently on west 125th street has no historical connection to the great jazz club of the past.

New York is simultaneously the present, the past, and the fictional.

In an effort to track the parts of New York that I could actually visit so I don't sound like Frank Sinatra in “On the Town”, I started keeping track with a simple map on Google. Whenever a travel show talks about the best bagels in the lower east side, or a website talks about an art installation at the Museum of Modern Art, I open up the map and drop a pin. I started including major landmarks and interesting stores, so over time the map became more pins than page.

Thoughts on a convention Hotel

The science fiction convention season is upon us again. Every year I read various tips and guides to see if there is anything I'm missing, or if my convention experience can be improved in any way.

In all my reading I have found that people have a very conflicted relationship with the convention host hotels. We demand everything from them, and begrudge the cost such demands require. Here are some of my tips I have regarding convention hotels.

Make a Budget
Hotel rooms cost money, get over it. I understand that not everyone has the same income, and splitting a room 8 ways, or staying in a cheaper place down the road is unavoidable for some. If that is what it takes to get you there, so be it. However conventions typically get good rates for their members so griping about the price is ultimately pointless and not very classy.

Not getting a hotel room and trying to camp out in the video room or bathroom is really not a responsible option unless you are attending Hobocon. Shitty behaviour like this can ruin a convention's reputation with a hotel.

Room and food costs at the hotel are the biggest portion of a convention budget, even including airfare. Recognize this before the convention and make a budget you can live with. I'm always amazed when people scramble a month before a convention trying to make last minute cash, especially when the event occurs yearly. A little planing will make for a less stressful event. I have a spread sheet for each convention I go to, that basically does this:

Room rate x number of nights / number of people = Room Cost
Food per Diem x number of days = Food Cost
Room Cost + Food Cost + Membership + Spending allowance + Airfare = Total cost
Total Cost / 12 = Amount you need to save per month to afford the convention.

Some numbers are fixed like the room rate and airfare, buy adjusting the food costs and spending allowance I can make the final cost something I can work with. It is easier to save a little every paycheck for a big event than it is to scrounge a bunch of cash together in a month.

Respect the amenities
Anytime you are on vacation, you should treat the hotel as part of the trip. At conventions there are constant panels and parties that are the real reason for attending, making your room not much more than a pit stop for the weekend. However, you will enjoy the experience more, and grouse the cost less, if you take in at least one hotel activity during your stay.

These hotels hire good chefs for their restaurants, so treat yourself to one high-end meal. Or go to the pool, get a massage, or treat yourself room service. Not every day, obviously, but doing one fun "away from home" activity will make your trip more enjoyable. It is a shame to stay in a four star hotel, eating nothing but ichiban out of a coffee pot.

Also, eating at the hotel really helps out the convention. The total cost to the convention organizers is dependant on how many rooms the event fills, and how much food and drink revenue the event generates.

Finally, Remember the rules apply there too
Many treat the convention space as a private compound, where the laws of man and God have no meaning. Destruction of property, public nudity, wielding weapons, non-consensual groping are not appropriate at a convention, or anywhere else. I think this is part of the chaotic neutral world we live in, where each values his own liberty but doesn't strive to protect others' freedom.

World Travel Meme

The "world travel map" meme is making the internet rounds again, so an update is in order.


visited 13 states (26%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

It is very difficult for me to do the "what countries you visited" list because I went through Eastern Europe in the late 80's. I went through "Yugoslavia," not "Bosnia and Herzegovina."


visited 23 states (10.2%)
Create your own visited map of The World

Previously on Slashboing

• States I have visited 2006
  

Ely rhymes with freely

I was in Ely, Minnesota for a week on business. I was very busy, but I did manage to get out and take some photos. Ely is a small mining and fishing resort town, which makes for some interesting architecture. I'm a sucker for vintage and well worn signs, and here the bar signs seemed to be from the 50's. There are are also great rusted out and preserved historical mining implements to be gawked at. One day I came back to the hotel, and the parking lot was full of antique cars. Apparently there were a few steam cars driving around town, but I didn't catch any of those.

However I did spot a cool boarded up castle-style mansion of sorts. The signs said it was being renovated into condominiums.

My flickr set is here for your Ely viewing pleasure:


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Paris: Photography update

I have spent the last several nights uploading photos I took in Paris to my flickr account. I had +860 pictures to review and I uploaded them at full resolution, so it took quite a while.

I picked over 300 pictures and a few videos to share, so I won't be posting them all here. The set is in chronological order, with the oldest pictures first, so you can follow my trip along, monument by monument.

I used specific date tags if you want to view each day on its own:
10 APR | 11 APR | 12 APR | 13 APR | 14 APR | 15 APR | 16 APR

Here are some cool monuments and Museum tags to view:
Louvre | Eiffel Tower | Museum of Arts and Metres | Notre Dame Cathedral

I was downloading pictures off my camera every night for backup, so if I ever lost my camera, I would at least have all the previous pictures safe. Reviewing them nightly I was getting annoyed as the inside/no flash shots mandated by most museums were coming out blurry and the resolution of my videos was terrible.

I still managed to score some great shots from the trip, like this tower "upskirt" so it wasn't so bad in the end, but the shortcomings of my camera became quite clear. These issues were echoed by a CNet review that came out after I had purchased the camera, so don't be surprised if a new camera is in my future.

Back in town - Travel Update

According to a stack of visa receipts and various reports from the web, I was in Paris a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday morning I was in Argentina. I will be updating my flickr account with appropriate pictures, and this blog with suitable stories from the road.

The following is a picture from my window whilst in France. Drink it in.

I sleep now.

How I spent my trip to Chile

I spent my recent trip to Chile at work in a maintenance shop in an open pit mine. My work can send me almost anyplace on the planet. There is the possibility of ending up in Greece, Croatia, or Guinea. There is also equal likelihood of ending up in a very small town in Illinois or Minnesota. Some of our trip itineraries look like the the doted-line-on-a-map montage from an adventure film. However once we end up where we are going, work is work, and a shop is a shop and there is little time to sightsee.

My trip to Chile was typical, with a total of forty-fife minutes of free time in La Serena, a popular beach resort. However I took a lot of pictures, enough to gain the moniker "paparazzi" from the local guys we were working with. I tried to take pictures of everything I ate, at the request of Mr. Smith, however the formality of working lunches and business meetings made this difficult. I did however eat very well, and got to sample a lot of typical local food. Pastel de choclo, Pisco Sours, and Cazuela de pollo (left) made this trip very comfortable.

My hotel was across the street from Iglesia Santo Domingo, a great looking church and a popular destination. My room overlooked a palm tree and a pool. Very nice indeed.

I wish I got a picture of the LAN airlines stewardesses. Changing planes in Miami, I watched ten air hostesses go through security together. The LAN airlines outfit has retro red skirts and neckerchiefs. The temporal displacement of travel and timezones made the sight very surreal, as if they were getting ready to board in 1962.

It was a good trip over all, despite the long hours and short-notice inconvenience.

[Chile Trip Photo set on Flickr]

Flying with a friendly guy

From the livejournal "Mfiles," I read of the exploits and adventures of Flight Attendant and voice-over performer, Michael McAdam.

See: The photos of hotel rooms from around the world. [Link]

Hear: The tale of the flight to Toronto with only one passenger. [Link]

"I did all the announcements to Ron, not to "ladies and gentlemen," and I only had to do them in English. The captain came on, congratulated him ... We took pictures with Ron and laughed."

It makes for a great read.

States I have visited

It turns out I have visited 11, or 21% of the states in the U.S.A. (counting, as this map does, DC as a separate "state").

I can thank many business trips and flight transfers to count for many of those. In the future I should travel alphabetically, to make tracking easier.


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