Random Notes Before a Trip

Around
48 hours before leaving on a major trip, the On the Road Mode kicks in.
The On the Road Mode is an altered, heightened
state of consciousness, typified by a slew of altered perceptions and
awareness designed to both take advantage of the opportunities to see
and experience new stuff, and to protect against the myriad dangers and
potential disasters that confront the traveler. These dangers are exponentially
increased when one travels outside of the United States.

We are there now. Our mind is a series of lists and mental memory tags.
Things to do before we leave.  Stuff to buy. Things to remember
to pack, and in some cases how to pack. A certain low grade
creative paranoia reigns, a constant sense of self and possessions (kind
of a drag, that),  a
self-contained focus which cannot be dropped, even for a moment, even
when blind drunk, stoned or stunned by consecutive hours of cramped travel.

The reason this state of consciousness is so refreshingly different
and addictive (at least for us) is that the longer we stay in one place
and settle into a comfortable routine, the more minor details about our
situation
and
surroundings
we filter out, block as uninteresting or unworthy of attention, in order
to free up our higher brain to ponder such important affairs as the NCAA
basketball brackets, the comparative advantages of various bit torrent
clients, or that weird sound coming from our right front wheel well.
Hitting the road is like waking up from a long, dreamy semi-sleep, and
it clears
out the mental crud that accumulates like the lint and cat hairs in our
keyboard.

*******

We should be able to blog throughout our trip, first in Florida where
we hope to find wi-fi hotspots, then in Ecuador and Peru, where we will
have to rely on cyber cafes and probably eschew graphics for a couple
of weeks.

*******

I expect to be contributing to, and commenting on, the Blogging 101
WIKI, which is in the process of whipping up a series of super-simple
Getting Your First Posting Up video tutorials up for various blogging
platforms.

*******

Why is it that some days the morning paper has 8 or
10 bloggable stories, and other days there’s nary a one? Is it in the
nature of the news, or our state of mind, or a combination of the two?

*******

Maybe this trip will be a chance to finish up some of the dozen or so
longer postings we have in various states of gestation. If we were more
organized we would preposition some graphics on the server so we can
just plop them into postings from the road.

Stay tuned for further developments….