Travelogues, Travelblogs

A clarification:

For the next ten days, I'm traveling for both business and pleasure--The Best Friend is conveniently located nearish the conference city/state, and so I can have 5 days of work and 5 days of fun. Not necessarily in that order or so neatly divvied up. Today (or 5 hours from now) is devoted exclusively to traveling, as I was a cheap bastard and got some ridiculous deal on Expedia that forces me to have a 4 hour layover in Huge Airport in Hotter Than Hell City. That won't count as another state in the Union I've visited. Airports are like embassies--you have to step outside to really say you've set foot in a different country/jurisdiction. And I'm such a nervous traveler about making connecting flights that I hardly ever step out of the airport, much less out of the secured zone (missing many a duty free shop). Likely, if you ever see me in an airport, I am the tool who's working rather than reading some guilty pleasure of a novel or chatting up a passenger. I'm the type that wears fake wedding rings just so that no one bothers me. Yes, this is part of my genius plan to die alone.

I'll write about my experiences in a travelogish way, and might be tempted to take pictures of a random bit of non-obvious scenery. Say, five different doors. Or door knockers. I have always dreamed of going to someplace overrun with different types of steeples. And I have a particular fondness for such uncelebrated architectural details as interesting brackets and supporting beams. I love shutters.

I'm going to stick with the ridiculous and cumbersome pseudonyms to make sure I don't say something as obvious as "ooh, the Louvre" or "wow, I saw the Liberty Bell." Actually I can't imagine how that could be made non-obvious like "I saw the Big Bell of Freedom today." But I'll try to accurately and representationally depict the sights, sounds and smells without resorting to obvious giveaways. When I hear "chestnuts" I think of Paris; "Spanish moss" makes me think of Louisiana; "cherry blossoms" = D.C. (or Japan); bamboo = China; starfruit/papaya = Vietnam; redwoods = anywhere in the Pacific Northwest; etc. etc. So no names of characteristic flora or fauna or bodies of water. Fortunately this is the time of year when the weather is same almost anywhere in the U.S.--the difference being one of "degree" and intensity: hot or hotter, slightly painful or truly miserable. No, I don't like hot weather.

And when I said "points for guessing where I am," I meant, you can shoot me an email. Comments will likely not be approved, unless they're so funny and wildly inaccurate that I couldn't resist.