2007 March | Hole In The Donut Cultural Travel

Monthly Archives: March 2007

Just When I Thought I’d Planned For Everything

Published March 13, 2007 | By Barbara Weibel

I’ve been planning this around-the-world trip for months and already I’m having problems. I’m using my iPod as a PDA (I put all the monthly online bill payments into my Outlook calendar and exported it to the iPod) so that I can just check it every morning and remind myself of any business that need to be taken care of on the road. I’ve also carefully whittled down the equipment that I needed to carry, since every extra cord is something else I need to carry. One of the things I jettisoned was the charger for my iPod because I just figured I’d bring the USB cable and charge it through the MacBook. However I didn’t stop to think that I had the iPod set up on the PC (Windows) computer at home, which launched iTunes every time the iPod was connected and updated the Outlook calendar in the iPod. So last night, in the hotel room in LA, I booted up the laptop with the iPod attached to charge them both, and when iTunes was launched I panicked. You see, I don’t have a calendar on the MacBook, so I was frantic that my entire calendar would be simply wiped out when the system tried to update the iPod. Fortunately, the fact that I’d switched the iPod from the PC to the Mac made the iPod freeze up completely and I was able to change the system settings so that the calendar is not automatically updated each time the iPod is connected. Of course, then I had to figure out how to unfreeze the iPod.

Second, my Skype software – the one that I will use to phone people while I am traveling – suddenly stopped working. So I had to download and install it all over again. Strange gremlins are at work – it worked yesterday right before I left home. Continue reading →

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More Stupid Stuff

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Tipping Is A Privilege, Not A Right

Dear President-Elect Barack Obama

The Universe Wants To Shower Us With Blessings

Posted in Uncategorized |

Tagged Around The World, cryptology, Free Spirit, iPods, Krispy Kreme, Skype, Star Alliance, Tokyo, Travel |

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I’m On My Way – Excited and A Bit Scared

Published March 12, 2007 | By Barbara Weibel

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On my way, waiting in the airport

I’m on my way! This very moment I’m struggling between the need to eat and the need to write, so I’m juggling between the keyboard (precariously balanced on a TINY table in an airport restaurant) and a huge plate of Nachos. My fingers are greasy and so is the keyboard, but this will probably be my last chance to eat good old American junk food for a while and I am taking advantage of it.

Here I am, looking exhausted, but I wanted a photo of the way I looked on the day I began this adventure, because as my friend, Leah, said yesterday, I’ll come back changed:

Seems only too fitting that I am sitting in a North Carolina airport – Charlotte to be specific – since the only reason I am able to take this trip is that North Carolina was so good to me over the past eleven years of living and working on the Outer Banks. North Carolina really is an enigma. On the coast the Outer Banks has become a playground for the wealthy while Continue reading →

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Posted in Uncategorized |

Tagged Around The World, Free Spirit, North Carolina, Travel |

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Secret Of Round-The-World Travel

Published March 9, 2007 | By Barbara Weibel

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So many people have asked me how much my trip will cost that I thought I’d share a little known secret. Star Alliance is a program especially designed for round-the-world travel. It is an alliance of 18 airlines that includes United and USAirways. They sell a RTW ticket that is based on the number of miles you fly, with four levels of mileage, the highest allowable being 39,000 miles. There are a few basic rules to this program:

You can travel for as little as ten days or as long a a year
You must head generally in an eastward or westward direction during your travel
You are allowed to travel in any direction within a continent – so you could go to Europe and stop in London, then go on to Germany, then backtrack to France – but once you leave the continent of Europe, you cannot come back to it and you must continue onward in your chosen direction
Once you have visited a city you cannot return to it unless it is to travel through it to get to another destination
You must cross both the Atlantic and the Pacific ocean
At the end of your trip you must return to the same continent where you began your journey
You total mileage must be 39,000 miles or less

The beauty of this program is that, once booked, you can change your days/dates/flight times as many times as you wish without penalty. You can even change your routing for a $100 fee. I think this program was originally designed to appeal to the younger folks – college kids doing “gap year” travel between graduation and going into the workplace – but it works for me. I’m sure you’re all asking the million dollar question – how much does this cost? The price of my ticket Continue reading →

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Posted in Travel tips |

Tagged Around The World, Free Spirit, itinerary, meaningful life, midlife crisis, Star Alliance, Travel |

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The Secret, The Dooce Effect, and Travel Plans

Published March 3, 2007 | By Barbara Weibel

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I hardly know where to begin. I haven’t written much lately because I’ve been mired in travel planning – I’m up until the wee hours every night doing research and finalizing arrangements – there’s a lot to think about when you are leaving the country for six months. But yesterday I looked at my remaining list of things to do before I leave and I realized I’m going to make it. Almost all the crucial things are done – taxes, powers of attorney, setting up all my bills as drafts or activating online bill paying, etc. Now just the little stuff remains and I decided to take a breather. One of my new friends loaned me the movie “The Secret” so I decided to kick back in my recliner, make a big bowl of popcorn, and enjoy the movie.

This movie is all the rage right now. Oprah has featured it on her show and discussion about it on the Web is rampant. For me the film was just OK. It contained nothing I haven’t known for years. That’s not to say it’s not worth watching. It’s just that I found it to be a rehash of information that was previously examined on the film “What The Bleep Do We Know?“, which I found to be so much better than “The Secret.” The premise of “The Secret” is startling in its simplicity – that we create our reality with our thoughts and our intentions and that there is only one Universal law, the Law of Attraction. In other words, if we dwell on the negative things in our life we will attract more negativity into our lives.

I have always believed that that there are two clouds of energy out there in the ether – a dark, black cloud composed of fear, hate, judgment, envy, despair, sorrow (basically all the negative emotions) and a pure white cloud composed of love, joy, gratitude, willingness, honesty, peace, etc. (all the positive emotions). I believe that if you stay in a positive emotional state – and this is absolutely a choice on everyone’s part – you will draw positive energy to you, while if you dwell on negative emotions Continue reading →

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Posted in Inspirational |

Tagged Around The World, Baby Boomers, Dooce.com, Free Spirit, Lyme disease, meaningful life, midlife crisis, Spirituality, The Secret, Travel, True To Myself, What The Bleep Do We Know |

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Minor Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Published March 2, 2007 | By Barbara Weibel

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OK, I admit it. I think am probably borderline OCD. First, I am an inveterate counter. For instance, I know that there are 19 steps to my second floor apartment because I count them every time I go up or down the stairs. I know the numbers to my credit cards, driver’s license, passport, and license plate by heart. Once I have dialed a phone number a couple of times, I can remember it until I no longer need it, at which point I erase it from my memory. I count the number of steps I take when I am walking. I even count the seconds it takes to get from one place to another or the number of seconds between events.

I also seem to have an amazing internal clock. Once, when I was in High School, we were learning how to give artificial respiration the old way – with the victim face down, pushing on the upper rib cage to force air out of the lungs and then pulling both arms up and off the floor to force air into the lungs. We were graded on how close we came to completing 12 rounds in a minute. I did it in EXACTLY 60 seconds. I can wake up at any time of the night or first thing in the morning and know what time it is without looking at the clock. I stopped using an alarm clock years ago.

While it doesn’t bother me if there is a little dust on the furniture or the floor needs vacuuming, it drives me crazy if a stack of books is crooked or papers on my desk are not lined up just so. Frankly, I think if people would always put things back where they found them, life would be Continue reading →