Home Page Archives

December 8, 2006

 

Scoop here. Currently hanging with the good people of Hyland Software, Inc., who've been nice enough to give me a job. A fantastic job, as a matter of fact.

 

Meanwhile, Barbi is in Chicago, moving us into our new condo and taking care of all the crazy stuff that goes along with that. Of course, since you're a regular here, you need an example or two of what she's going through. How about being on hold with a negligent cable company and then walking past a 10,000 pound piece of furniture precariously standing on end that has apparently been forgotten by your movers (look for the Union label!) while a nasty cold bides its time, waiting for her most vulnerable moment?

 

All part of the game. 

 

You do know it's all a game, right? 

 

And the most important thing to remember while we're playing a game is that we're supposed to have fun. Sometimes the other players and all those rules obscure that fact. 

 

Don't sweat it. I forget all the time. I'm writing this as much for myself as for you. 

 

13 June, 2006

 

My subscription to "Witty Phrases Monthly" just ran out, so I guess I'm going to have to make stuff up on my own from here on out.

 

Let's see, have you heard the one about the priest, the chef, and the cobbler?

 

Me neither. Sounds like some cool adventures though.

 

How about the local sports team and how bad they're doing? Boy oh boy, if they lose another game, I'll run somebody's underwear up the flagpole quicker than Epstein can forge another note from his mother!

 

Nope. That won't work either.

 

Wait, I've got it. ...[EDITED FOR YOUR PROTECTION BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA]...

 

Please send a lawyer to Gitmo,

- Inmate # 001607

 

20 May, 2006

 

Dr. Skalpien's ultra-scientific survey of the world is finished! The findings aren't ready for public consumption yet, but we are able to leak the following info: Columbians rate #2.376 on the list of The World's Nicest People.

 

In other news: Barry Bonds** tied Babe Ruth's home run record. 

 

* He's a cry baby.

* Babe Ruth didn't need to use steroids to hit his first 700.

 

15 May, 2006

 

Okay, so all the secrets are now out there in the public domain:

12 May, 2006

 

Took a jaunt over to Uruguay today. Pretty cool. Tomorrow morning we head to the mystery destination.

 

11 May, 2006

 

Buenos Aires has given me time for some introspection.

 

Here are a few things that I've learned on this trip so far. At least what I'm willing to share with you:

6 May, 2006

 

The real update: after a full week, we have walked around almost the entire city of Buenos Aires. By my calculations, after a few more days of walking, there will be approximately 7 streets that we have not traversed.

 

The upshot is you find restaurants that serve South America's largest chicken and ham sandwiches for $3 US and sausage that comes in the form of steak.

 

Tomorrow we're going to see Cirque de Soleil somewhere in a park by the riverfront. If we can find it. They're all good hiders, those circus freaks. I guess that's the upshot of having the ability to hang upside down from a tree for hours with your pinky toe.

 

1 May, 2006

 

The last Brasil picture gallery has been loaded. I have nothing else to say to you.

 

30 April, 2006

 

Buenos Aires: Today we met up with a good friend from Chicago to celebrate the end of his six months of traveling throughout Central and South America.

 

Old Man Segal, we bid you a fondue! Good luck on that big date next weekend. Said the spider.

 

In other news: Another Amazon picture gallery has been added to the Brasil page.

 

26 April, 2006

 

Oh yeah, we made it to the big daddy, the Amazon.

 

And we survived. Kind of.

 

More on that later.

 

13 April, 2006

 

We're in Olinda, waiting to head out to the paradise that is the island of Fernando de Noronha, which lies 525 kilometers (315 miles) off the coast.

 

My favorite thing about Olinda is the fact that 90% of the males we run into offer me the following conversation. And it doesn't matter if the guy is wearing a yellow shirt, which means that he is a licensed guide, or if he happens to be ten years old, the pitch always goes the same way:

 

"Amigo, amigo! Olinda muy tranquilo, tranquilo. Marijuana? Tranquilo, tranquilo."

 

Tranquilo means tranquil. If I need to translate anything else, maybe you shouldn't be on this site.

 

Hugs, tranquilo, tranquilo, an illegal offer or two, and for good measure, a dose of peace...

6 April, 2006

Ah, sweet Rio. Just enough seediness to be interesting, just enough helicopters to make us feel safe, and more than enough beach to reinvigorate us.

For those of you who may have received a travel- weary email from me that hinted at our early return, I'm sorry to announce that Rio has revived us and prepared us for the last big push of the trip. Then again, for many of you, I'm sure it's good news to hear that we won't be back soon.

2 April, 2006

A lot of fast walkers here in London. Some of them even put me to shame. Seems they've got somewhere to go, something to do, someone to see, even more so than me.

Hmmm... Don't think so. By the time you read this, we're in Brazil.

Pretty cool.

In other news: there are plenty of pictures from London for you to look at while we hop across the pond.

31 March, 2006

Another gallery has been added to the South Africa page. But more importantly, we have television, and American Idol is on! Life is beautiful, but where is William Hung when I need him?

29 March, 2006

This morning we said goodbye to Samuel, Julia, Donna, and Sam Rumph after their brief – but very important – visit with us in London.

We are hanging here for until Monday, 3 April for our Brazilian visas. Then we're heading back toward the equator, in a hurry.

23 March, 2006

Inspiration. If Nelson Mandela can successfully write and publish a book from a maximum security prison while being beaten, starved, and even deprived of paper to write the book on, hide it underneath an apple tree, copy the entire thing by hand, then smuggle it out of that prison, I think I can hang in there and successfully bring How to Travel with Men to the marketplace. I'm on page 180; I apologize for not sharing all the good stuff from the trip, but there's no such thing as a free lunch, right? It's $9.99 US.

Enough about me, how are you?

11 March, 2006

So far, we SCUBA dove the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, took a train across the outback, watched the sun set over Uluru (Ayer's Rock), flew in a helicopter and went hiking on a glacier in New Zealand, walked across "the world's longest canopy walk" over a 130-million-year-old rainforest in Malaysia, watched the sun rise at Angkor Wat in Cambodia, spent two months exploring Thailand, I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, we went on safari in the Serengeti, we trekked chimps on the shores of the world's second deepest lake in western Tanzania, I kayaked close enough to the DR of Congo's border to be kidnapped...

...and we're only half done. 

Who knows what the next six months will have in store for us. Tune in soon. Same bat time, same bat channel.

13 March, 2006

We were extremely sad to take our leave of Tanzania after 33 fantastic days. But the show must go on, right? So on we've gone, to the coast of South Africa. 

But that doesn't mean I'm done adding pictures to the Tanzania page. Oh no, not for a while. So go have a look, there are some great photos there.

8 March, 2006

Okay, so I didn't freeze to death while summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro. No matter what that two-hour blizzard had to say about it. 

Much to your chagrin, I'm still alive. Therefore, you must keep your end of the bargain - whether you were aware of said bargain or not - and buy a few copies of my brand new book, Wired to Run. And don't worry, Amazon will ship it sometime this decade.

That's right, I'm contractually obligated to ***** myself out and pimp the book to all prospects, near and far. Haven't bought a copy for your friend, colleague, or grandmother? Shame on you! 

24 February, 2006

I apologize to all of you who have recently been stymied by the site. No, it was not you, nor was it your computer that was having problems, it was me. While we were out on our 11 day safari, I ran the computer's battery down while publishing to the site. I didn't bring the power cords with because I had no idea that one of the places we stayed at had wireless capabilities. I only had time to change the home page and one or two other things before the computer went night night.

Therefore, there were no pictures to look at. If all goes correctly in the next few days, I will be summitting Kilimanjaro while Barbi is successfully publishing the site. And you will be enjoying some great pictures.

I'm also waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind on stories. Hopefully, I'll catch up soon. This I will say, trekking chimpanzees for two days was one of the coolest things B and I have ever done. The first day, we trekked for 6 or 7 hours, high up into the rainforest, and got within 5 or 10 minutes of the chimps, only to have the sky open up on us and rain just about as hard as we've ever been rained on, so we bailed on the whole deal.

The next day, we hiked back up to almost the same place, found them, and then hung out with a group of 10 or 12 chimpanzees for over an hour. An amazing experience, that's for sure. Then, the earthquakes began. A few massive rumbles that sounded like they originated from hundreds of miles away. Everybody but me felt the ground shake a little. We got to within a half hour of camp in Mahale - one of the coolest places on Earth - and of course, it started to pour again.

Doesn't care. (If this doesn't make sense to you, wait until the next book comes out. I explain it there.)

19 Feb, 2006

Tomorrow we're off to Mahale Mountains National Park, where we will trek chimpanzees through the rainforest. Mahale lies on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, the second deepest lake in the world, and is the furthest east you can go in Tanzania. The midpoint of the lake actually serves as the border between Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

18 February, 2006

Just back from safari at Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge, and the Serengeti. There's not much power left on the computer, so I'll only use one word to describe the experience: totally awesome!

Contradictory moment #1,376.

9 February, 2006

I just added another photo gallery to the Thailand page. Looking free.

8 February, 2006

Sadly, we leave southeast Asia tomorrow.

But happily, we're not going home. By definition, you can't do that when you're homeless. Happier still, we leave for Tanzania tomorrow. 

31 January, 2006

Only 10 days left in southeast Asia. Unbelievable. 

It seems like just the other day when we sat down with a map and said, "Okay, we have two months. Where do we want to go?"

Indeed, Australia seems like it was a different trip that we took years ago.

Before we set out for the year-long extravaganza, I read a book about traveling round-the-world; the author said that after a month or two, time would slow down and days would seem to last forever. My opinion: wrong. If anything, time continues to speed up. Any minute now I'm expecting to look in the mirror and find that I've lost all my hair and turned into an old man with a hippy goatee hanging off of my chin in one last futile effort to hold onto my youth.

Hmmm...

27 January, 2006

We're in Chang Mai, northern Thailand. Yesterday, we went elephant riding, mountain biking (kind of), and white water rafting. I am now an "officially licensed" white water rafting guide. More on this later.

25 January, 2006

Okay, so the last Home Page update may have been a little confusing. Let's see if I can sum up what most of you were thinking: 

Well, all that's all behind us now. I have successfully changed the Vietnam link to Malaysia, and the site still works. Genius. Pure sexy genius.

In other news, the Cambodia Home Page has been updated, and two new photo galleries are there. There's also a new gallery on the Thailand Home Page. Go. Now. Hurry!

And for those of you who have been looking for a reason to get the creative juices flowing, we are now accepting submissions via email for the "Why Barbi & Scoop Should Live in our City" essay contest. The winner gets an all-expenses-paid visit from us for a month while we eat your food, clog up your shower drain, and pretend to look for a house.

16 January, 2006

NC-17 alert! The following idiotic words may not be suitable for consumption by youngins.

Okay, make believe time. Let's all pretend that Barbi and I are still in Cambodia, even though we're back in Malaysia (use the Vietnam link to see pics) for the night. 

We couldn't plug the lap top in anywhere in Cambodia, so there was no way to update the site while we were there. So, do whatever you have to do to crank up your creative mojo, slide into the wonderful world of make believe, and then go look at some cool pics of Cambodia. 

If that's your thing. Maybe all that talk about creativity inspired you to take off all of your clothes, dip your privates in colorful paint, and run around the outside of your home or apartment. If that's the case, make sure you drink enough water, and then go for your life, mate! 

9 January, 2006

Just back from Taman Negara, a 130-million-year-old rainforest. With over 100,000 acres of parkland, it's seven times the size of Singapore. The photo gallery is already up and running! Just use the Vietnam link on the left. 

6 January, 2006

Hah! We certainly have shaken anyone who was trying to tail us. Spur of the moment, kind of, we slipped out of Phuket, Thailand, and flew to Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia. So we're going to skip Vietnam for now.

Or so you think.

I gotta say, being two big city kids, it certainly takes a lot for a city to impress us. But the verdict is in, and KL has done the impossible, it has impressed us, and then shocked us by going a step further by being inhabited by wonderful people. Where we come from, city folk don't take you under their wings until they've roughed you up a bit first. Emphasis on "a bit." Not so here, as we were taken in and shown around the city by our fantastic hosts Audra and Kalis.

2 January, 2006

First of all, thank you for coming here. You may not think it's a big deal, but it means a lot to me. To us. Both Barbi and I really want to share this adventure with you. Indeed, there are times when we draw much strength from all of you. Three quick examples: when Donna Rumph sends candles to celebrate the new year, Rick Kirk writes the words, "We are with you every step of the way," or my parents let our insane dog take over their bed.

Second, I feel like I've been holding back on those of you who are actually coming here, looking at our photos, and reading my rants. Over the last few months, I've written over 120 pages for my (hopefully) forthcoming book How to Travel with Men: A Guide for the Cleaner, Less Aggressive, More Responsible Gender, and many times, I feel like I'm putting all the good stuff into that, and not sharing it with all of you, the people who deserve to see it, even if it's in a raw form. 

Therefore, much to a wonderful woman named Evelyn's chagrin, I will be posting a sample chapter from the book. Probably the massive chapter written about the 30 days we spent traveling around New Zealand in a camper van. Look for it soon, and thank you all again for your support.

Third, as of today, Vietnam has officially changed to Malaysia. Not as a country or a political entity, but as one of our destinations. More on that later.

Home Page Archives 2005