The Crop Circle Video! Finally!!!
Dec 31st
Hey Team,
Enjoy the New Year’s Eve shenanigans! Here’s my gift to you (inspired by a desire to vindicate myself in the face of that crazy SOB William Shatner).
“Amtrekker travels to Beulah, MI to create a crop circle!
Failures and ethnically insensitive impressions ensue.”
Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player. var WT1_1 = { params : { wmode : "opaque", allowscriptaccess : "always", allownetworking : "all", allowfullscreen : "true"}, flashvars : { file : "http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amtrekker.com%2Findex.php%3Fxspf%3Dtrue%26id%3D52", volume : "80", bufferlength : "5", controlbar : "over", 'logo.hide' : "false", shuffle : "false", playlist : "bottom"}, attr : { id : "WT1", name : "WT1"}, start : function() { swfobject.embedSWF("http://www.amtrekker.com/wp-content/uploads/player.swf", "WT1_1", "437", "522", "9.0.0", false, this.flashvars, this.params , this.attr ); } } WT1_1.start();I’m done.
Brett.
AKPC_IDS += "818,";
A Few Rambling Thoughts on Cruising
Nov 22nd
Hey Team,
Cruise ships are not a form of transportation. They’re more like huge freaking hotels that you’re locked inside of for 16 hours at a time with a few thousand of your closest friends (provided you don’t have many actual close friends), and when they finally open the gates, you’ve been mysteriously teleported to yet another strange city. I guess teleportation is technically a form of transportation…but let’s not dwell. Here’s my point:
You can’t go around comparing cruise ships to airplanes just because it makes your environmental impact argument sound better. Hell yeah it takes less fuel to fly from Ft. Lauderdale to Grand Cayman than it does to take a boat. Know why? Cause you’re transporting 200 people…not five THOUSAND people in a huge freaking floating city that allows for more entertainment and adventure in exotic locales than the average working class family would have the opportunity to experience during their one and only week of vacation a year by any other means.
And for those people, cruising is perfect. I can’t imagine a better way to get a smattering of everything a great vacation has the potential to offer. Not everyone can drop everything and travel for extended periods. More >
Cruise Overview (in haiku)
Nov 16th
Hey Team,
I’ve been sitting here staring at this blank page for a little over twenty minutes now trying to decide what I’d like to write about the Princess Cruise that a handful of twittering travel folk were invited on (and I got to tag along for some reason). I think one of the big problems is that I had more fun than I expected. It’s a tough blow when all of the stupid cruise ship jokes you have prepared don’t quite fit the situation any more. (Case in point, I didn’t get to spend all week fighting sunburned, overweight old men for the pole position at the buffet so my Formula-1 joke is out the window.)
Most importantly however, I’m just not used to writing about great experiences. You guys know better than anyone that 90% of the content on this site is a direct result of me having done something colossally stupid and the mad scramble to either rectify the situation or, barring that, at least come out relatively unscathed. If I have any complaints it’s that I kind of felt like I had my hand held for a week and I wasn’t given the opportunity to fall overboard, flounder at More >
I hate Best Buy
Nov 11th
I could have made this post WAY longer than it would need to be to satisfy everyone’s curiosity and, as such, it may not make a ton of sense (Let’s be honest, how many of these do anyway?) but at least it was cathartic. As always, thanks for listening.
Hey Team,
I hate Best Buy.
I know what you’re saying, “Brett, you’re such a nice guy. I can’t imagine you being judgmental enough to not be willing to walk a mile in their shoes and try to see things from their perspective. Surely, they aren’t as bad as you would have us believe. In fact, I would venture to say that you are jumping to hasty conclusions and that you’ve probably had perfectly respectable encounters with Best Buy in the past and somehow you must be letting a single negative experience color your views of a fine upstanding company. Frankly, I expected more empathy from you, Brett.”
To you, I have only three things to say.
1. You talk too much.
2. You sound pompous.
3. I HATE Best Buy.
You guys already know that I’m currently somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean thanks to a generous offer from Princess Cruises and Gary at Everything-Everywhere.com. What More >
Meeting the Amazing Randi
Nov 10th
Hey Team,
You know who’s amazing? James Randi. Now that I think about it, I suppose that’s why he’s called The Amazing Randi. Huh. Go figure. If you don’t know who I’m talking about then let me give you a couple broad strokes. Randi is a retired performer who used to be a magician and a mentalist and currently heads the James Randi Educational Foundation. You may have heard of his Million Dollar Challenge, which offers a prize to anyone who can prove under scientific rigor that they have some type of extra-sensory perception. All you have to do is be able to say what it is you can do and under what laboratory conditions you can perform said talent. It’s been available for decades now. Guess how much the foundation has given away in the name of the challenge. That’s right. Zero.
Pretty awesome right? It’s great to know that someone is out there trying to prove that “real” psychics are more often than not, ridiculous amoral performers preying on people who miss their dead relatives deeply. In short, James Randi is one of my personal heroes.
And…I got to meet him at dinner the other night! It was a pre-Carl Sagan More >
Arrestable Offense
Oct 1st
Hey Team,
There’s a lot to say about the Boston trip (and I’ll post most of it over the next couple days) but the real action happened during the cavalcade of errors that was my trek back to California. With that in mind…
After an early morning flight from Beantown, USA, I landed in San Francisco around noon with every intention of being back in Fresno by 4pm at the latest. Unfortunately, it was shortly after landing that I discovered I had hit the first of many snags in the day to come. You see, I’m not exactly what some folks would call “a planner” or “intelligent,” and as such, even though I knew this trip was coming a month in advance I still never thought to see if I had a ride from SFO to my car (which happened to be a full 45 minutes away from the airport).
During the glory days of Amtrekker I wouldn’t have thought twice about slinging my backpack over my shoulder and walking to the nearest public transportation, but this time around there was a new wrinkle. Arizona, my seven month old pup and the world’s greatest mutt, had escorted me to Boston for the week More >
Northern Northern California
Sep 3rd
Hey Team,
Here’s another little guest post treat to hold you over. This one is comparing Portland to Seattle as a result of the recent road trip. Feel free to leave a comment or two over at the Amateur Traveler site. Here’s the link
And don’t forget about yesterday’s post!
I’m done.
Brett.
AKPC_IDS += "779,";Past Brett vs. Future Brett
Sep 2nd
Hey Team,
Here’s the thing about how I write posts for Amtrekker now days. I usually get an idea while I’m in the middle of doing something else that I can’t just drop so, like a respectable and professional writer, I whip out my trusty notebook, jot down a few lines and open up a Word document first chance I get. The trouble is, it seems Future Brett never speaks the same language as Past Brett.
Case in point: The only line I gave myself to go off of for this post was two words long. It said, “Rubber bands.” It’s even underlined. So…apparently there’s something that Past Brett really wants to say about rubber bands.
I’ve been wracking my brain for the last two days trying to figure out what the heck I was trying to tell myself. The only clues I have are:
1) I know where I was and what I was doing when I wrote the note and
2) I know it has something to do with travel.
As much as I love the movie Memento…this is kind of pissing me off.
That said, I suppose it could be worse. I once wrote myself a note that said:
Q: Why is he dead?
A: Crustaceans.
I would More >
