awkward pioneer

Parisian Adventure

2010-05-18T10:48:00.001-07:00

2009 Travel Report

2009-12-31T11:13:00.000-08:00

Salton Sea

Fontana

Big Bear

Buttonwillow

Portland

Long Beach

Pioneertown

Palm Springs

Buttonwillow

Barcelona

Aix-En-Provence

Nice

Monaco

Girona

Zaragoza

Madrid

Vegas

Disneyland

Desert Fieldtrip

Burning Man

Indiana

Pasadena

London

lost at sea

2009-12-11T13:52:00.000-08:00

Virgin Atlantic Flights - Upper Class & Premium Economy

2009-12-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

starting the flight with feet kicked up & a glass of champagne:

cutesy plane salt & pepper shakers:

tomato bisque, chicken & potatoes, apple tart:

in bed mode, going to sleep for the rest of the flight:

airbus a340:

sample of food on the way back in premium economy:

Natural History Museum, London

2009-12-03T09:55:00.000-08:00

"and the hippo was allergic to magic..."

2009-11-07T12:50:00.000-08:00

must learn more french so my kids can tell me stories like this!

Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

t-mobile epic fail

2009-11-06T11:35:00.000-08:00

While traveling in Indiana I thought I was just in an area where my T-Mobile Sidekick was without coverage and went days without data/internet access, chalking it up to the small town's lack of signal. Only when friends came to town from Chicago did they inform me that T-Mobile was having a system-wide outage on all Sidekick data! For some reason I was never informed about it (later they sent vague texts about hopeful progress on restoring the data, but never anything useful).

The old adage used to be "if you have a problem, take out the battery" and I basically stopped calling customer support because that's their end-all trick to solving problems. Except NOT THIS TIME. This time, if you removed your battery you lost your address book and pictures and anything else stored in the cloud, which meant the phone/address book for all of the people I was trying to meet up with on my travels was suddenly nonexistant.

Since I didn't have data, I called the one number I knew by heart and asked for assistance on my route. I normally use Google Maps to find my way, but was suddenly rendered directionless. My 300 minute plan was basically exhausted instantaneously because instead of Googling things on my own, I had to call to get any relevant information necessary along my way. You never know how much you rely on Google until it's not on hand in the middle of a state where you've never been and you just need to find the highway that will take you to Turkey Run State Park so you can get a photo of the ladders that looked so neat on flickr.

On top of all that, my battery is dying. I've had the phone for probably a year and my usage (if you couldn't tell by the previous paragraphs) is outlandishly often. I schlepped into the T-Mobile store to ask for assistance with both my bill (because I knew I'd gone over my allotted 300 minutes due to the data outage) and my battery dilemma, but after I waited in line for 20 minutes, they declared that their system was down and actually couldn't help any of us right then. I forged forth, stating I just needed a battery, so the employee searched their inventory as well as the online inventory and neither had a battery in stock, but I could try Radio Shack OR upgrade to a new phone... !! I'm like yeah, NO and left, figuring I'd find my own battery and fix the billing issues online.

Came home and logged into t-mobile.com to change the billing and/or my plan and everything keeps coming back NO, try again later. WHY IS EVERYTHING ALWAYS BROKEN? The data outage, the in-store system outage, and now an online outage!!!!!

So I called Customer Service - will their phone system work?? - that is the question! The cocky representative told me "Uh, didn't you try logging out and back in?" Like that's what everybody does and have I ever even used the internet before? I said I hadn't tried that, I will, and he's like "That's how websites work. We make changes and sometimes the servers on one page aren't updated yet when you log in." I'm like "Or you can make the changes and then update the page from the previous rendition?" And he's all "Ma'am we serve 30,000 customers!" In the end I weaseled a $20 credit for the overages but to solve the battery issue I need to call back on another phone line, since everybody has another phone line waiting around for these instances. WTF I HATE T-MOBILE SO HARD.

Sad, Pathetic & Broken T-Mobile:

Pacific Ocean Lobster Hunt

2009-11-03T00:42:00.000-08:00

tonight's misadventure: searching for lobsters for dinner... straight from the sea!

Edwards AFB Air Show

2009-10-18T11:11:00.001-07:00

Woke up at the crack o' dawn and ventured out to Edwards AFB to watch the air show & trip around the planes on display. The pyrotechnics reminded of Burning Man, but the C-17 was by far my favorite with a wingspan that reaches half the width of a football field, takes off & lands in the shortest distances I've ever witnessed and whispers its way through the sky. We need more of that in the world! The biggest bummer was LEAVING. What the heck, Air Force? It took 2.5 hours circle back to the exit gate - like 1/2 a mile? - a total clusterfuck. Next time I'll go on a motorcycle (if at all?!) cause that was freaking stupid.

Monasterio de Piedra

2009-10-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

Flew all the way from Santa Barbara, CA to Madrid and immediately jumped in our rental Citroën and drove to a monastery tucked away in the remote countryside. It seemed as if the sun never set, but the church bells chimed a melodic tune and carried us off to sleep in our converted cloister habitación. It was an epic awakening, getting off the beaten path and finding ourselves surrounded by a beautiful treasure of wilderness and waterfalls. Plus, breakfast.

Affordable & adorable!
http://www.monasteriopiedra.com/

Gyrocopter Flight!

2009-10-08T10:12:00.001-07:00

Planned on going out for a ride in a Cessna, my one true love, but the landing gear was broken so we took the gyrocopter out for a spin instead. Now I'm convinced I need to get my pilot's license so that I can take to the sky at will. Surely makes commercial planes seem boring, but the flight was fast and my hair didn't get as mussed. :)

Turkey Run State Park

2009-10-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

Trail 3! Brought back fond memories of scrambling up cliff-sides and altering song lyrics in makeshift canoes. One gigantic scam is that non-residents have to pay $7 for entry instead of $4. Encourage tourism, don't punish it!

Sultan Ahmet - Blue Mosque - Istanbul

2009-08-27T20:47:00.000-07:00