Because I blog about my travels, I carry a lot of equipment with me when I am on the road. Most of this equipment stays in my backpack, where I can keep a close eye on it, and with a laptop, camera, lenses, cell phone, iPod, AirCard, cords, etc., the pack can get pretty heavy.

I have often thought about traveling without my laptop and blogging on computers in Internet Cafes, but the problem has always been what to do about my photos. I shoot high quality, large format photos because they are sometimes used in printed publications, so I need a photo processing software to reduce the size of the photos for use on the blog. Since I prefer taking shots with saturated colors and high contrast, when I shrink them down to blog size, my photos often ‘block up’ – the blacks become too dense and the colors too intense – so I also need to do some post processing to tinker with the levels in the photos before I use them on the blog. When I carry my laptop, that’s not a problem, as I simply use Photoshop.

Without a laptop, I’d have to find a way to do post processing on the Internet, but I’d never found any online software that offers the tools I need. Until yesterday, that is. Yesterday I discovered Picnik.com, an online photo editing program that works in your browser. I tried it and Read the rest of this entry »

Who among us doesn’t remember the scene in Rain Man where Dustin Hoffman glances at the box of toothpicks that has been spilled and calmly informs his brother that two toothpicks are missing. The film was loosely based upon the true life story of Kim Peek, a Savant who lives in Salt Lake City.

When he was born, Kim was diagnosed with autism. Doctors advised his father to place him in an institution, waning that Kim would never be able to learn. Fortunately, his father disregarded the doctors and raised him at home. When Kim learned to read at the age of two, the doctors were astonished. Eventually his diagnosis was changed to Savant Syndrome, a rare condition in which persons with developmental disorders have one or more areas of brilliance that are in contrast with the individual’s overall limitations.

To this day, Kim reads as many as eight books a day. A page that might take a normal person three minutes to read will take Kim about 10 seconds. He reads the left page with his left eye and the right page with his right eye and retains about 98% of it. Unlike other Savants, whose abilities are usually restricted to one or two subject areas, Kim has 15 areas of interest, but he can’t reason out mathematical problems.

Enter Daniel Tammet, another of the world’s few Savants. Daniel’s two areas of expertise are math and language. He can do calculations to 100 decimal places in his head and once recited Read the rest of this entry »

Visitors to the Outer Banks are often fascinated by the history of piracy that surrounds these barrier islands. Bluebeard and Blackbeard both hid out along the Outer Banks and legends still abound about buried treasure that has never been discovered. These days, although stereotypical peg-leg, patch-eyed pirates no longer sail the seas off the North Carolina coast, every now and then something happens on these remote islands that makes us wonder whether pirates of old left more than buried treasure on these barrier islands.

Consider, for example the saga of the Gypsy Dane, a 50-foot, double-masted sailboat that got caught in the surf off Hatteras Island two weeks ago and washed ashore. True to their tradition, Outer Bankers rushed to the rescue. Owner of the boat, Yves R. Oger, of Toronto, Canada, was safely assisted from the distressed vessel by the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Park Service, and Hatteras Island Rescue Squad. Volunteers with the Avon Volunteer Fire Department cooked him dinner and allowed him to take a hot shower. One local business owner even let Oger use their Jeep, allowing him to sleep on the beach in front of his boat where he could keep an eye on it.

Because the boat was sitting upright and appeared to be undamaged, with only its keel buried in the sand, a marine towing service in Hatteras attempted to move the boat using a system of anchors and winches at high tide. When that didn’t work, they tried to turn the Read the rest of this entry »

Some years ago, Japanese scientist Dr. Masaru Emoto discovered that crystals formed in frozen water revealed changes when specific thoughts were directed toward them. He found that water from clear springs and water that had been exposed to loving words formed brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake crystals. Alternatively, water from polluted sources or that had been exposed to negative thoughts formed incomplete crystals with asymmetrical patterns and dull colors.

Using high speed photography, Emoto recorded the formation of frozen crystals from water that had been exposed to different words, thoughts and feelings. When he typed the words “love and gratitude” on a piece of paper and wrapped it around a bottle of water, the crystals that resulted were exquisite and perfectly formed. The same results were obtained when he wrapped the bottles with the words “thank you;” regardless of the language used, the phrase “thank you” always produced perfectly formed crystals. Alternatively, the words “I hate you” produced deformed, incomplete, unattractive crystals.

Since the earth and our bodies are predominantly made up of water, Emoto theorized that we could positively impact the earth and our personal health by changing our thoughts, words, and feelings. Further experiments proved that even polluted water could produce lovely crystals after being subjected to positive words and thoughts.

Perhaps Thanksgiving has put me in a contemplative mood this year, but lately I have been thinking a lot about words, feelings, thoughts, and actions. And of course, about gratitude. Four years ago, despite the fact that I had a successful career and a lovely house, I was seriously ill and severely unhappy with my life. In about five weeks I will celebrate my anniversary of “chucking it all.” On December 31, 2006, I Read the rest of this entry »

Caught this waterspout off Islamorada while traveling through the Florida Keys

A few weeks ago, Hole In The Donut was nominated in the category of best travel blog over at Divine Caroline.com, a really great online woman’s magazine (I especially like them because they have a lot of content about travel). I excitedly emailed all my friends, and asked them to vote for me if they were so inclined, which resulted in an initial flurry of votes. But now I am stalled at 35 votes. The top site has 111 votes as of this writing and I certainly don’t expect to be able to beat that tally, but I would absolutely LOVE to be in the top ten!

So, where am I now? I am currently in 11th position, at the top of page two. In order to get into the top ten, I need at least three more votes. The contest ends on November 30th, so there isn’t a lot of time left. If you would be willing to vote for my blog, navigate over to Divine Caroline’s voting page and click on the button to the right of my blog that says “VOTE.” If you are not already a member of Divine Caroline, you will have to register, but it is free and you are given the opportunity to opt out of receiving any correspondence from them at the time you sign up. Thanks in advance to those of you who are willing to help, and a HUGE hug to those who have already voted for me.

I had lunch the other day with a friend of mine here in Sarasota who is a real estate agent. I’ll call her Suzie (for reasons that will become obvious, I’ve changed her name). Midway through lunch she began to tell me the story of a situation that occurred with a new client last week. The previous Wednesday she’d contracted a bad case of the stomach flu that put her down for three days. On Friday morning, still flat on her back in her sickbed, she received a phone call from her friend, Clarice. The conversation went something like this:

“Hey, Suzie. I’ve got a new client for you. He wants to write an offer on a million dollar house.” “Hi Clarice. Can we do it tomorrow? I’m sick in bed with the flu.” “Nope. He insists it’s gotta be done today.” “Well, can we at least do it late this afternoon? Maybe about 4 p.m.? “Sure, I’ll set it up.”

Later that afternoon, Suzie dutifully dragged herself from her sickbed, gathered the necessary paperwork, and drove to the client’s house. They spent a couple of hours preparing a low-ball offer of Read the rest of this entry »

Of all the things I still long to see on this beautiful planet of ours, the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) is at the top of my list. I’m not sure why I am so intent upon seeing this exquisite display of nature’s power and majesty. It may have something to do with my spiritual beliefs. I think of God as pure energy, and perhaps for me the Northern Lights come closest to representing “the face of God.”

I have long been able to see people’s auras – the energy fields that emanate from and surround them. Each person’s energy is a different color or combination of colors, and the colors can Read the rest of this entry »

I like to travel light because about half of what I carry is on my back. When I pack, I consider every ounce because even if something is going into my small 22″ rolling case, I still have to carry it up steps and such. So I am always up for a new device or bit of technology that makes my traveling easier. Since I recently posted my travel destination wish list, I decided to post this companion list, my travel device wish list. The following are the three items that will, no doubt, be coming along with me on future travels:

The Chargepod charges six mobile devices and weighs just 1.12 ounces

Read the rest of this entry »