Lima: LAN, Chifa, and Walter the Language Guy (Peru Part 1)
Our journey began at 4:30 in the morning in the Santiago airport: a group of 11 bleary-eyed Gringos carefully checking and rechecking our bags, and getting ready for the trip. Most had been able to grab a few hours of sleep before coming; I, unfortunately, had not.
I’d been kept up writing a last-minute piece for the Santiago Times, a quick tale of my personal take on Chilean wine, accompanied by the note to my editor “I think this is what you were talking about…but please let me know if I’m just way off the mark and I’ll figure out something else,” thinking to myself that this had better be on the mark, or there was no way I’d be able to fix it in time while on my trip.
And on your right, you’ll see Santiago, the capital and largest city of Chile…
Right now I’m procrastinating going to bed, which is somewhat of a bad idea, considering that I need to get up early to make it to the strangely prohibitive 8:30-11:30 am hours for the American Embassy tomorrow for their help planning my trip, but until I’m actually set to fall asleep, I figure now’s as good a time as any to update.
A New Take on the Handset
With school ending this past Thursday and a few hours to kill before the Thanksgiving meal, I decided to start a project I’d been thinking about doing for some time. The idea is basically a phone headset built into a glove, allowing a user to do a comical hand motion while actually using the phone (pictured below). Below, the steps taken and the final product, and finally the final product in use by its designer.
Despedidas, NoBOs and Viajes
I’ve been failing pretty hardcore at this whole “updating” thing, but I’m hoping to get back to a more regular schedule in the next couple of weeks that’ll let me do a better job. I’ll do what I can to update, and hopefully there will be several more coming very soon.
We’ve entered into a sad part of my trip; many of my friends are finishing up school and heading off. Some are going straight home, others are traveling around for a while in Patagonia, Buenos Aires, or other various LatAm destinations before heading back to the states, where UC’s new semester begins in way way early January. I’ve got a bit more freedom and in no rush, so I’m staying until my classes are over and then heading out. My plan is to go down to southern Chile for a couple weeks with a friend of mine in early December and get back to Santiago in time for my parents’ arrival.
A Nerd’s Metaphor for the California State Government
I’ve had my iBook G4 for a long time. I got it in the summer of 2005, right after high school, making it almost 4 1/2 years old, roughly 143 decades in computer years. It’s been very good to me, though I regularly have to change and update it as times change and old programs become obsolete. There are a few structural problems, certain issues that have never been resolved and continue to be a bother, but for the most part they are just minor nuisances, paling in comparison to the many ways in which my computer helps me in every aspect of my life.
What are you reading right now? Do you like it? Would I?
Bonus points to anyone who comments.
Procrastination is a Hell of a Drug
I’m back from Argentina, which I will talk about in greater detail soon, but in the meantime please check out THIS ARTICLE that I wrote for AssociatedContent.com. AC, as the cool kids call it, collects stories from all around and pays its writers based on page views, so check it out, I says. This particular story netted me $1 upfront (woo!), and I hope to make a tiny bit more as people read it. Other than that I’ve apparently made 26¢ from page views, which is 26¢ more than I’ve made from the Santiago Times, though mostly what’s up there are my articles from the ST.
Speaking of which, I quit my job, basically. I’ve been having differences with the publisher, which I went into some detail about in a previous post. I told them I’ll still try to write a little about the election, but I’m basically over it. I told him it was because school is too time-consuming, which is partially true, but I’d rather just have the time to travel and do other writing, either for this blog or for other places more likely to turn into money, or my new favorite activity: reading in the park.
A Lover and a Sword Fighter
Being 6′5, one becomes pretty used to comments about height, and the inevitable question of “Do you play basketball?”
“No, do you play miniature golf?” has become my favorite response, but seriously, I don’t play basketball, or football. I tried both, and I’m pretty terrible. I do, or did, play hockey, I might say, which seems to satisfy their curiosity for a moment, though I always feel bad saying that. Sure, I played something that had the word “hockey” in the name, that is the bastardization known as “floor hockey,” but if someone called on me to demonstrate something as simple as skating in a straight line, I’d fall every six seconds. Floor hockey, on the other hand, is played on a floor. You know, something that humans can walk on without strapping blades to their feet.
But I digress.
The sport that I got the most into in college was fencing, including taking a class for a couple of years and competing on the team in a few tournaments. And while I would be the first to admit that my footwork never proceeded beyond “terrible,” I was quick enough in my upper body to consistently stay one of the better students in the class. It helped that the majority of students switched to the club when they reached a high enough level and quit the class, following the eternal hatred between the class and the club, but shut up. I was good. I have a lot of pictures of me winning, but they’re all, um… on a different computer. But I swear they exist.
Oh wait, here’s one! › Continue reading
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