A semi-regularly updated collection of thoughts, meanderings, and liberal use of em-dashes

The Blog Archive

· Friday May 4th 2012 · Between two continents and homes: doing the limbo in Istanbul

Between two continents and homes: doing the limbo in Istanbul

I left Bangkok at the tail end of Songkran, the Thai new year. At some point, Songkran was mostly about various Buddhist rituals of cleansing and bless­ings. It’s since evolved. For three days, the entire country erupts into a massive full-scale water­fight. It was impossible to walk to the nearest 7–11 (in Thai­land, this is always only a minute walk away) without being soaked through and covered in chalk, which strangers smudge on your face and arms like warpaint. In Bangkok, a city that’s blazing hot year-round, I swear the tem­per­ature shot up ten degrees the first day of Songkran. It was fiery out....

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· Thursday April 5th 2012 · My night in a Thai jail, and other sordid tales of despair

My night in a Thai jail, and other sordid tales of despair

When I wrote about losing my mind in Cam­bodia, I wasn’t kid­ding. I really did start to feel as though I was losing my grip on sanity. I’d love to say I’ve beat it and now everything is hunky-dory, but that hasn’t been the case. Some days over the last month, I’ve felt great. Most days, though, I’ve been breaking down into panic attacks at least once a day. I’ve been working essen­tially from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep. I know it isn’t healthy, but I’ve been stressed about money—especially with my upcoming jaunt to Europe coin­ciding with that delightful time...

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· Friday March 9th 2012 · Things I lost in Cambodia: my purse, a phone charger, my mind.

Things I lost in Cambodia: my purse, a phone charger, my mind.

From Bangkok, I took a bus to the border, made my way through two brutal little border towns (the Wikitravel page for Poipet, on the Cam­bodian side, actu­ally makes a point of rhyming the town with “toilet”), then con­tinued along to Siem Reap. I spent a week there, swim­ming in my $8/night guesthouse’s pool, vis­iting Ankor Wat, and firing off machine guns at the rifle range on Valentine’s Day. (No cards needed!) I spent another week in the dusty, chaotic, and infin­itely broken city of Phnom Penh—a city big enough to hold mil­lions of people, but so broken it couldn’t sus­tain any form of public trans­port­a­tion....

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· Friday February 17th 2012 · Lost and displaced like never before: a farang in Asia

Lost and displaced like never before: a farang in Asia

I’ve been in Asia a little over a month now, and some­thing strange has been hap­pening. Some­thing I’ve never exper­i­enced before. Some­thing I never expected. Some­thing I just don’t know how to handle. I’m home­sick. I have never, ever, been home­sick before. Maybe that sounds strange coming from someone who travels so much, for such long periods of time, or in such a weird way, but I think I’m suited to being a vag­a­bond. I feel more grounded when I’m con­stantly moving and my envir­on­ment is always chan­ging. I miss the people I love, and it’s often heart-wrenching to say good­byes, but there’s a part of me that really enjoys being...

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· Thursday January 12th 2012 · The sacred and the profound: surrealism in Mexico

The sacred and the profound: surrealism in Mexico

Mexico will always hold a spe­cial place in my heart. It was the first country I trav­elled to on my own, and I did so rather impetu­ously, at a time when I was an emo­tional basket case on the verge of a nervous break­down. I showed up late at night car­rying only a vague address of a woman who didn’t seem aware I was coming, car­rying nothing but a little kid’s back­pack and a know­ledge of Spanish far more rustic than I have now (which isn’t saying a much). I had a hand full of fresh new stitches and nerve damage. Everyone who knew me was pretty con­vinced I’d either come back dead or land myself...

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· Tuesday December 20th 2011 · Breaking rules and busting heads

Breaking rules and busting heads

In the past twelve hours, I’ve booked two flight itin­er­aries for six dif­ferent flights to be taken in the next three weeks. In December and January, I’ll have vis­ited around eleven dif­ferent cities (pos­sibly more), in five dif­ferent coun­tries, on two dif­ferent con­tin­ents. In Feb­ruary, I’ll be adding even more coun­tries and cities to my list. By the time I return to Canada in the summer, I’ll have lived in seven dif­ferent coun­tries in four continents. I am, without ques­tion, a vagabond. Booking a flight can make my heart race. The feeling of landing in a strange city, lost and con­fused, gives me great...

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· Thursday December 1st 2011 · Five tricks for staying sane as a long-term nomad

Five tricks for staying sane as a long-term nomad

A little more than a month into my Grand World Tour, and I’m still utterly thrilled by it. My sense of time is all skewed—it feels as though I’ve been away from my “home” and the people I love so much longer, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve been living in México for a month. I’ve been absorbing, learning, and chan­ging so much, and I don’t think I have, for even a single moment, yet regretted my decision to under­take this grand venture. It’s pretty intense what I’m doing, and I often find myself overly emotional—not in a neg­ative or pos­itive way really, but I think it’s my way...

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· Thursday November 10th 2011 · “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

All the way to Mexico, that’s all people asked me. The US cus­toms officer, before I’d even left Hal­ifax, looked at me like I was insane when I said I wasn’t staying in San Diego, but was just plan­ning to meander across the border. (Tech­nic­ally a lie, as I stayed in San Diego the first night, but I have such rotten luck with cus­toms officers that I find it’s best to give them the simplest answer pos­sible, and they’re often con­fused enough by my vag­a­bond ways.) “You’re going to Mexico?” he asked. “Near the border? By your­self? Don’t you know how dan­gerous it is down there?” I’ll admit...

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· Tuesday October 25th 2011 · Getting scared: on becoming a nomad

Getting scared: on becoming a nomad

Okay, I’ll admit it. Some­times, I get ter­ri­fied. Tomorrow morning, I hop on a plane bound for San Diego. From there, I’ll walk across the border and take a bus from Tijuana to Ensenada, where I’ll be living for the next couple of months (assuming I find some­where to live). After that, I’ll head up to LA, and fly over to Hong Kong for New Years’. I’ll spend a few months flit­ting around South­east Asia, living mostly in Thai­land and Vietnam, depending on how the visas all play out. Come spring, I’ll hop over to Spain, and finally get to tour around—ideally vis­iting Morocco, Por­tugal, and...

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· Thursday September 15th 2011 · How a motorcycle made me a better businessperson

How a motorcycle made me a better businessperson

Last weekend was my birthday. (I won’t tell you how old I turned, but I am now offi­cially starting to feel old. If you’re really inter­ested, I’m sure a quick Google search will turn up some­thing that’s not yet a lie.) As a present, a friend took me on what can best be described as a “whirl­wind trip”: we rode his motor­cycle 3000 kilo­meters to New York City, and back, in four days. It wasn’t until we’d hit Bangor, Maine on the second day that I real­ized just how insane of an idea that was. For starters, when I say “motor­cycle”, I don’t mean a cushy touring bike with back­rests, stereo speakers,...

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· Thursday August 11th 2011 · 5 strategies for coping with the summer slump

5 strategies for coping with the summer slump

I have sent out so many estim­ates in the past couple of months, it would make your head spin. This week alone, I have three open estim­ates floating about, and another couple of leads to follow up on. I hate writing estim­ates. It takes a lot longer than invoicing and feels much less rewarding. It’s always a tiny little bit nerve-wracking waiting for the response back: will we be making beau­tiful things together? I don’t know if it’s some­thing I’m doing wrong, but I haven’t heard a single yes in all this time. I’ve been doing my reg­ular client work, and I’ve been taking on little...

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· Thursday July 21st 2011 · The Seven Deadly Sins of Websites

The Seven Deadly Sins of Websites

For­give me father, for I have sinned. Actu­ally, I haven’t, but you prob­ably have. I don’t mean glut­tony, lust, et. al. Hon­estly, some of those really have their time and place. I’m talking about the things that I see over and over, on web­sites big and small, that abso­lutely drive me insane. I make web­sites for a living. If I can’t use yours, or get frus­trated by it and leave, there’s a good chance that your target market (unless they’re more technically-inclined than I am, which they’re prob­ably not) is having an even worse time. Lucky for you, I’ll tell you about it! (Just ask about the time...

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Client Love Notes

I began my quest for a graphic designer a couple of years ago when the seeds for my Nightmare Nibbler project were first sown. Although I had never gone through such a creative process like this before, I had a pre-determined list of qualities that I was looking for in the person I was going to entrust with “my baby”—a few of them…

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