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30.01.10
"What's Nicaragua?" he asked. The question hung in the air of the train during the evening rush, as several people who had been listening to the conversation thus far tried to suppress giggles (I plead guilty). The asker was a young man, long light brown hair (I could be unkind to blonds and call it dark blond), and a degree of vacancy in his mien; as if he had suddenly grown overnight and not realized the new dimensions of his being.
"It's a country in Central America, before Costa Rica and before Panama," said his more worldly and well-informed friend. This was in response to the first guy's stated plans to backpack his way through South America with another friend. "You'd have to go through it to get to South America."
"Why are you starting from Mexico?" asked another companion.
"Flights to Mexico are cheap."
"Flights to Mexican resorts are cheap, where in Mexico are you going?"
"I don't know."
"Then how were you planning to get to South America."
"We were going to take the train."
Since when was there a train? Not that I'm an expert, but a co-worker drove from the Southern States to Argentina, and their stories involve plenty of challenges even with a private vehicle, including a transportation and logistics nightmare in Panama involving shipping their van to Ecuador. A labmate had stories about border crossings in Central America only being able to occur due to well-placed bribes owing to a particular linguistic finesse in Spanish. And from my own recollection, there was only a moderately well-kept two-lane highway going all the way through Costa Rica, and it runs out somewhere before Colombia.
"Maybe you should choose something easier for your first time abroad." I silently seconded this.
"Maybe you should just go to a resort in Mexico and stay there."
Or go to Southeast Asia, I thought, recalling my Cousin's trip to Thailand and my time in Malaysia.
"Or go to Southeast Asia," offered his friend.
The conversation ran out somewhere around here, owing to people's stops coming up. I don't think anything was resolved, though I hope they revised their South American plans. If they didn't, I'm sure I'll catch up when it's on the news.
22.01.10
My current bus-book is Everything is Illuminated, which is hilarious (box mastication) and heartbreaking (that metaphor about a diamond falling onto a jeweler's felt). Compelling either way, and the ride goes quickly, though it's hard to keep a straight face. 'Cause if you've been standing for over half an hour on a packed bus, you really want the guy sitting down in front of you snickering to himself. On the verge of tears however, is fine.
Before that it was The Word for World is Forest, which I left on the shelf for a long time because the 1989 edition has a horribly cheesy cover. Embarrassed-to-be-seen-with-it-as-an-illustrator level of bad. Regardless, first published in 1976, the plot is the progenitor of what Cameron ripped off for Avatar. Or so I gather.
20.01.10
I'm raiding my personal library of digital photos. As a very good place to start, I started at the beginning. This goes back to when comparatively low-resolution digital cameras cost a few hundred dollars. With my then-job perks, this number went down significantly and I revelled in my early-adoptive behaviour.
There are photos of nothing, almost literally. I took photos for no reason at all. In hindsight, if I knew you back then, this was really annoying and I apologize. However, we have a visual record of exactly what I did all through one day in 2002. There are unflattering shots of everyone. I shot blind, I shot into the sun, the pixellation in the early ones is terrible, the colours are over-saturated, I was going for way too much contrast, I couldn't take a decent macro, but a few still look good. Maybe it was the law of averages; every one in a hundred came out okay. Still, there are times I can respect my own willingness to take a picture of a concrete curve, the shadow of a cherry, the light coming through a milk glass bowl.
Hundreds of thousands of photos lie in between then and now (have I topped a million?). I've been paid to take photos in more than one job. You can buy my photos in a book (like, a real one). Some part of almost every work day is spent in Photoshop. The net result is I've stopped taking photos for the sake of taking photos. Sometimes not taking photos (and not tranferring files, editing files, organizing files, backing up files) feels like a vacation. I guess anything can become work, and as it goes, this ain't too bad, but I'd forgotten how much fun it was; that click, the capture of light and time, those moments we don't remember, the unremarkable, the images that surprise you, the passing of those pictures which show us our lives.
19.01.10
I'm watching my computer being shipped, it left Shanghai, went to Anchorage, and was in Lousiville, Kentucky a few days ago. Is that really the most efficient route?
18.01.10
Bus driver on arriving this morning: "Welcome to Starfleet Academy; any engineers on board, I want the first cloaking device."
He got a few chuckles and a few confused looks.
16.01.10
And the pictures...
As close as we got to Downtown Seattle.
Midnight shopping.
Who needs fresh vegetables?
The frozen food section in the dollar store.
Coach makes shoes?
Land of opportunity.
This was mid-way through.
TMNT: Donatello
All we saw of Portland was the traffic.
...
No comment.
It was pretty deep suburbia.
93% off men's size 24 ankle-length swim trunks.
The stash.
Forseeably swamped for the next few months without respite. Expect less, and I'll see if I can't underdeliver on it.
02.01.10
I suppose it's the start of a new decade, though it certainly doesn't feel that momentous. Perhaps there's the letdown since the last decade involved turning the corner of the millennium. Or, in the Chinese Calendar, it's the year 4707, which feels just like any other year.
Back to the trip...
For dinner stateside, we ended up in a mall. Not necessarily bad, but not particularly hopeful. After several days without Asian food we were drawn to a "Japanese" place. We got fried noodles, which was spaghetti impersonating yakisoba, and I opted for cooked vegetables, to the incredulity of the server. Also available were "cheese wontons". If you ignored what the food was supposed to be, it was fine, and several other (non-Asian) people walked up and got stuff, including two mall cops decked out like cartoon county sherriffs.
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