Saturday, June 21, 2014

not burning down the house again

Two years is a long time in blogland. My blog goes all the way back to 2006 but it really wasn’t noticed much (it’s all relative but not relatives) until about 2010 (yo 2014 - 2010 is 4 years).  Confused, I usually am.  You will know why I started with "two years" before you finish reading this post. A few readers/followers have stuck with me on this crazy journey. Some have dropped off. (probably infected by a FB page) A journey without a destination would be an apt description for my blog. Posting ideas, odd thoughts, song parodies and memories (I could go on with minor benefits like being able to eat popcorn while blogging but you get the gist) makes blogging a fun hobby.

One type of memory is travel memories. As in most everything everyone has different tastes in travel desires. Also, over time your taste can change. Mine have. I started wondering why I have not posted more travel related stuff, then I popped a bag of popcorn (too bad I can’t add the smell here).




I was in the first train car when I snapped this



In addition to taste, another factor is the-been-there-done that concept. That’s closely related to the bucket list concept which I don’t subscribe to. Even a trip to the same place can be different every time but don’t readers want current travel info, tips and suggestions in a travel post? Well they are not going to get that here.

Oh did I mention this post might be a longer than usual post? Longer thought out posting is a benefit of blogging vs. the FB stuff and the too short for long words twitter thing.

Blogging should be more sharing than bragging or self promotion. I tend to dislike highly status-conscious big ego people. The blogs I follow are written by real down-to-earth regular people. Well I think so, but who knows they might be cats from an alien world sent here to mess up our social media.

Ok, this is not a slideshow (could be sideshow but I would want to charge you for that) and I don’t like writing in bullet points. Maybe I could try an executive summary.  Alright, I’ll hide it here in the middle since who the hell is going to read a blog post starting with an executive summary. I learned early in my career that most executives don’t read much.

Summary: I’ve enjoyed a good amount of travel both around the US and internationally. Most of it was paid for by the businesses during my career. I got a few lucky breaks, earned frequent flyer miles for family travel, had great meals and beautiful scenery. Even comfortable beds most of the time. I probably don’t post enough about my travels. My current travel is very very much reduced. I have not used my passport in years. Writing a travel post would be remembering a trip from years ago. I detest appearing like an egotist or show-off. Many people get bored with old home movies and besides I don’t have too many pictures since I started traveling before our digital picture age.
 



end of the road or something else?

Today I’m going to combine two travel related posts from two years ago (2012). If you are really interested and that would surprise me since most old posts seldom generate interest, I’ll include the two post links at the end.


Watch out
You might get what you're after
Cool babies
Strange but not a stranger
I’m an ordinary guy


Really it’s not like I’m burning down the house. Just blogging around a little. Maybe if I had the energy of Talking Heads’ David Byrne on stage then I could get a fire started with a few readers. (after a little searching I discovered he’s a little older than me)  

Back in 2010 I posted some random travel photos and asked readers to guess where the photo was taken. Like I said, it wasn’t burning down the house. It was fun.


So where is that ferry in the above picture?


Where’s the Clown is a simple game (no prizes - life is not all wedding cake you know). You can place you guess in the comments below. I will give hints in the comment replies.




Listening to a John Mayer song, “Stop this Train” I realized maybe my train is on a dead end spur in some deserted industrial park. It seems to shake and rattle more than ever. Not sure what will get it rolling again.
 

My brother and I had a train set that took up one and half ping-pong tables (did you know a ping-pong table is a standard measurement in basements?). It was more fun when you could control the movement of your train.

There are times my train of thought is a trainwreck. 

Well before I derail this post, I’ll get back to that song.
 

According to the all-knowing wikipedia, John wrote this song during a time of, what he calls, "solitary refinement". He was in bed suffering from double kidney stones, and living in a hotel while finding a new residence. If so, those kidney stones generated interesting lyrics.

This young songwriter guitar player writes about things moving too fast (probably NOT referring to kidney stones) and being afraid of getting old because “I’m only good at being young”.
The line that had me rewinding and playing it over was:
Had a talk with my old man.

Said “Help me understand.”

He said, “Turn 68... you’ll renegotiate”

So hey conductor, can I renegotiate this ticket now?


Here's links to the original posts: 
Burning down the house
start this train

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