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 >
Weird Things and Bigfeet
Aug 25th
Hey Team,
I’m been writing my poor little tiny behind off for the last week but most of these poetic pontifications are guest posts so you haven’t had the opportunity to see all my hard work on here. Then, in a lightning strike of clarity I realized, “The internet has these crazy things called…links!”
So here’s the post that went up at http://www.weirdthings.com yesterday and ties in nicely with the previous roadtrip stories. Enjoy!
Duh Duh DUH…the LINK.
I’m done.
Brett.
AKPC_IDS += "771,";Road Trippin’ Day 2
Aug 14th
I ate a maple bar. It had bacon on it.
I’ve been staring at a blank page on my computer for the last twenty minutes trying to decide what to write about from yesterday, but no matter where I try to take the story in my head it always begins and ends with: I ate a maple bar. It had bacon on it.
Which is silly because there are plenty of other things that happened yesterday, most of them fairly interesting. I drove through the birthplace of Steve Prefontaine wearing a “Pre Lives” T-shirt, I had lunch with an old friend from high school in Corvallis, I explored Powell’s Books, a HUGE used bookstore and I finished the day with a girl, a dog and a pint on the back patio of the Lucky Labrador Brew Pub in Portland.
But, in the middle of that somewhere…
Voodoo Doughnuts smells like homeless people and feet. (Maybe it smells like the feet of homeless people, I’m not sure, I try not to get too close to my feet.) However, despite the rational side of your mind trying to convince you otherwise, underneath the layer of body odors there is an undeniable and distinct tinge of deliciousness. The interior is More >
Road Trippin’
Aug 13th
Hey Team,
In light of 1) the fancy pants new website you’re looking at right now and 2) the not so much fancy pants, as dirty pants, road trip I’m smack dab in the middle of right now, I’m trying to get back in the groove of writing everyday…or at least most days. So…
Yesterday was leg one of our fast-paced, multi-day road trip through the Pacific Northwest. It started out as a non-stop drive through Northern California straight to the rocky coastline of Oregon…but eventually Katy got tired and let me drive for awhile. Apparently, unbeknownst to her, my predilections towards being distracted by shiny objects directly translates to several small, unplanned pit stops.
While driving through the mountains north of Redding, CA a sign caught my eye.
“Winery 1ΒΌ miles Next Right”
Unfortunately, the next right was only 50 feet from the sign so it woke Katy up when I slammed on the brakes and swerved to see what a mountain top winery looks like. Do the grapes grow right up the side of pine trees? What role do the pinecones play? Do they hire yetis for the annual grape crushing? These are the questions we would never know the answers to if More >
Geek Cred
Jul 14th
Hey Team,
Ah HA!
Don’t worry. Everything is under control now. All it took was a little bit of…well, a LOT of finagling and WAY more effort than the average consumer would ever want to put into a clearly broken piece of equipment.
After SEVEN years of faithful service, including an intensive year and a half long period of travel crammed into a tiny backpack, my little old Sony Digital8 camcorder finally gave up the ship and shuffled off into that Japanese consumer electronics scrap heap in the sky…kinda.
I powered up the ol’ champ to get some footage of Arizona (the puppy, not the state) playing in her pool (hmm…I wonder how much I could get for footage of the state of Arizona playing in a pool) and it wouldn’t do anything but turn on and off and play the tape already in there. It wouldn’t record and most importantly it wouldn’t eject the tape.
I really wanted that tape.
An intensive Google session and three dollars later I was staring at a .pdf of the service manual for the DCR TRV340. Here’s the thing I didn’t know about sweat shops: those little kids must have some ridiculously nimble little fingers and they CLEARLY aren’t More >
