"Roll on, Columbia, roll on Your power is turning our darkness to dawn So roll on, Columbia, roll on." - Woody Guthrie The lyrics of Washington State's official song came through my head this morning as I crossed the river on I-90, marvelling at it's scale. I'd just woken up after a long night spent curled-up in the bed of my truck at a truckers' pull-off. The sun had just reached a height where it's rays would hit the water, and the river sparkled like it might do in some great poetry. This all made me think quite a bit of [View Full Entry]

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I've been laying here, trying to sleep, bacause I have to begin a 14+ hour workday at 1:00AM in Bellevue. And I'm freaking out a little bit, panicking. I have only 3 weeks left in America. So little time and so, so much to do and so many people to say goodbye to. I know I'm going to see Emeralds play with Whalebones tomorrow night, but I'm not sure about the rest of the weekend. Is this my last weekend in Seattle? Maybe I should go spend it in Longview at that party mansion that Chris Crusher rented for the weekend... [View Full Entry]

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Taking time tonight to wonder at the complexity and ingenuity that lies behind the American Interstate Highway System. According to the website for AASHTO (the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials), and a summary of their publication "A Policy on Design Standards - Interstate System" found on Wikipedia, the initial notion of an interstate system goes back to the early 1930s. Studies commisioned under Franklin D. Roosevelt evaluated the nation's needs, and Congress' 1944 Federal-Aid Highway Act enacted those reccomendations, leading to the development of a complex, evolving, but universal set of standards for America's interstate highways. These standards [View Full Entry]

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So, just like with my previous blogging attempts, I think I'll be reposting a lot of interesting things that I've written in other places (interesting to me, at least). This is a post I wrote today in a travelblog.org discussion forum entitled, "Does blogging keep you in touch?": In 2005, I had a friend head out for six months in Southeast Asia. He kept a travel blog and I learned a lot from his experience. First, as a reader, I learned just how inspiring and interesting it is to have a friend doing such a thing. His blog kept me up [View Full Entry]

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So, after buying my tickets and dealing with all my other business (including booking a job for next week--with this company from Israel--that will pay for my entire ticket in one day), I headed out to the San Juan Islands to kayak with my folks and their friends from Boston. There's something about the peace of the water that induces reflection, introspection, that makes me feel calm. And there's something about all the islands and mountains and trees that keeps me from feeling agoraphobic or exposed. The net effect is that trips to these islands (and around them) fill me with [View Full Entry]

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US states that I've explored That map over there is all the U.S. states that I have visited. I've traveled through many more of them and seen enough of the U.S.A. with my own eyes to feel content. I guess it's high time for me to venture out and see some other countries, eh? So, I've been dreaming about this trip for years, talking it up for months, planning it for weeks, and procrastinating the whole damn time. Even if I wanted to, I can't put things off any longer. 'Cause I bought my ticket today. Hours of shopping at over [View Full Entry]

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