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Dr Wholittle

After completing an English teaching course in Thailand we meandered our way across Asia and the middle east. We dipped our toes in the Mediterranean and then headed down the Sahara through to the west side of Africa.

It was in the Congo that we were befriended by a tribe of pygmies and have been busy helping in the war effort to defeat the multi national companies that are busy deforesting the pygmies homes. In our most recent raid we used a special blend created by our resident witch doctor to adulterate the camps water supply. This had a couple of good affects. It rendered the camp dwellers completely paralytic and incredibly susceptible to hypnotism. After commandeering the camp foreman announcement system I was able to connect my EEE-PC and play back a pre-recorded message from the chief of the pygmies chief boonwatu-bigchoc asking the loggers to return home

Logging has ceased for the interim. However we know a long term solution will lie in the successful lobbying and manipulation of the political system. Anna and I have been busy gearing the pygmies up for a political march. Each morning they are drilled in uniform walking and chanting slogans. In the afternoons Anna teaches them decorum and power fashion. In the evenings we practice public speaking. I have taken on the role of official speech writer and have been busy writing several oratories which I hope will have some affect.

Tomorrow we say goodbye to our temporary home under the thick lush canopy and move towards the capital of Congo, Brazzaville. Pygmies thankfully are a nomadic people and I am certain that we will succeed with a little help from our little friends.

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For my next trick

After an altogether extraordinary evening on Saturday night I have a new series of of articles to write. Think of them as future fiction fusion. Some of you may remember reading choose your own adventure books from your childhood. If you don’t remember them please read my link. I do not include them because I am fond of blue and underlines. It is now time to write my own adventure. All of the next posts will be set exactly one year in the future. Who knows they might come true?

MFMC
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Platitudes in Absentia

Continuing with my inexhaustible series of leaving New Zealand tales, I thought it would be prudent to think through what I will miss about New Zealand well in advance; this way I will be prepared for home sickness. The geeks among you will smirk at this next phrase, I call it preemptive grief caching.

Friends & Family.

All though I do not see my friends and family as much as I would like, It’s nice to know they are only a short drive, instant message or phone call away. Distance will make this harder. But perhaps it will make it INTENTS!

INSERT: Actual digital rendition of how I might look instant messaging from inside a tent.(the inside of the tent resembles a house)

Work

Yes, I miss work. Actually I don’t really miss work but I do miss parts of it. There you go people who might be reading my writing from my old work. I miss you. I do not miss the people not reading my writing, but I am sure they miss me.

Breakfast

For the past two and a half years I have faithfully eaten the same breakfast with out fail.

  • 3/4 Cups of whole grain oats
  • 2 Cups of water
  • Artificial Sweetener
  • 2/3rds of a cup of fruit
  • 2 table spoons of sultanas

heat till porridge then serve with

  • 3 scoops of protein powder and water.

This has served me well. It is interesting to note that the humble Roman Legionaire marched on porridge for breakfast.

I expect we will find something equally as satisfying depending on what country we are in but it will be weird all the same.

Radio

I listen to a fair swag of radio. Listening to the radio is comforting. If you learn a radio station well enough, you can hear a familiar voice any time of the day. I recommend

national radio for stimulating your mind
upfm for stimulating everything else

Moro Gold

The Moro gold proves that it is possible to transcend the trappings of mortality. Never has evolution provided such a delightful morsel and they can be found everywhere in New Zealand.

English

I am actually quite a fan of the English language but we will not be able to take English for granted. I have never been very good at charades or drawing either so it could be an interesting time.

The Internet

I have always had a healthy internet addition miss managed by my frazzled dopamine receptors. Chin up however, no net means more time to do stuff!

What I hope to not miss

Winter

After one of the best summers on record. It is certain that we are suffering one of the wettest winters. It has not rained like this since the last time I moved house. It may be prudent to make my next formal home in a rain strapped continent. I am thinking Mars.

Talk back Radio

Sometimes when I feel blue I delve into talk back radio just to remind myself things could be worse. I could be calling talk back radio to share my ill informed opinion on things I have no experience of. I could even be a zombie host, tethered to a microphone and traipsed out every morning with a list of niggles to canvas.

Let it be duly noted that I love being the host of this page on the internet sharing my ill informed opinion on all manner of things.

Did you hear that?

I think the weekend just landed. Good bye!

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Rate it

Gazooks! Laid low with a brain freeze I have been able to write much today. I have written an incredibly long and detailed post cataloging everything I am taking away with us adventuring. Unfortunately the detail contained within it has meant I ran out of steam before I got a third of the way through it. So my post lies fallow waiting for me to fertilise it and reap its content.

Anyway I have been tinkering with a few things. If you look at the bottom of each post you will see stars that you can click on to rate each post. If you can not see the stars look for the annoyingly purple rectangles.

If there are any web wizards or art people out there who want to have a lash at improving the look of things here let me know. I will happily write spin, press releases and rosy sounding references in return.

If anyone has a topic which needs ranting on feel free to leave a comment. I will gladly wage war on any injustice, just give me an angle.

Sweet Zombie Jesus. I do believe I have given myself an angle! more later.

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2 Weeks till Blast off

We have officially entered the home stretch in the run up to lift off. It is actually quite crazy how quickly your calender can fill up when you have an empty one. Well in my case the wifes diary looked quite busy. My calender was quite empty, then I took pity upon myself and transplanted her diary into mine. This served a useful purpose, it made me feel busy so I made better use of my spare time. Hence my blog post.

It’s amazing how perceived task shuffling can lead to productivity gains. I could have been a bureaucrat of world renown. Instead I am a writer using the internet to reach an audience. I cannot fathom what it would be like to be writing without the internet and a computer.

I have handwriting with an incredibly high encryption algorithm which renders it unreadable literally as soon as it hits the paper. Couple this with my astounding organisational skills and I could have lost several novels already or have driven myself mad multiple times trying to compile my first chapter.

However, given that Tibetan monasteries and archaic ruins are not the first place that spring to mind when you think of internet access, I have been practicing making notes. I have also been typing posts disconnected from the internet. This is high altitude training for when we become less than well connected.

Which reminds me, take a look at this eee-pc user who pulled out his eee to copy some photos at Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

Such a neat picture.

The kind words keep trickling in. It is amazing how far a little encouragement can push one. Special shout out to one of my favourite columists; Mr SD. Back before the internet, SD was no doubt etching his mark across caves and learning establishments in the heartland of New Zealand. His current writing habitat is here.

Since this post has been a missed mash of not much, I suppose I could let you in on some of the projects that are on the way or are bouncing around in my cranium.

I am currently writing about my favourite female mind. Consider it a written admiration piece. I hope to send it to her this weekend. I hope that it gives her a laugh and I do not get a court order.

Books I would like to write
 How to write your own self book

The problem with most self help books is that they are largely the sum of the authors own experiences. They prey on peoples weaknesses; in my experience the actual writing of such a book would be where the largest benefits came from.

Therefore – single handedly, actually perhaps two handedly – I will write a book which will help you to write your own self help book. In one swift movement I will destroy an industry and help a lot of people at the same time.

Further books in this series will include

How to be your own lawyer
How to be your own Real Estate Agent
How to be your own New Age Guru.

Please excuse me whilst I remove my tongue from my cheek.

Dans book of realised but not actually tested and possibly structurally unsound inventions.

I pride myself on thinking up a lot of excellent solutions to problems that both exist and do not exist. The problem is by the time I actually get around to investigating the practicalities of my invention I have thought of a new invention. However in true Dan fashion I have thought of a way to get some mileage out of my thoughts.

With my book of inventions I will help all of those inventors out there that suffer from inventors block. My inventions will be free to use and will not require any licensing or similar agreements. It must be duly noted that I will not be held responsible for any deaths, damage or rips in the space time continuum as result of anything contained in my book.

Being an environmentally conscious traveler.

We watched an inconvenient truth about a week ago. It was a nice but somewhat scary movie. Since getting my EEE-PC I have felt like I am doing my part using a low powered computer. There is also quite a few things we can do whilst traveling and I hope to share these with everyone.

That is it for now. I am off to do some people watching. After some watching I will write, people will watch my words. The circle of life will be complete.

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Snow is Crap

I have learned during my time on the Internet that controversy generates traffic. So consider this post a shallow but fantastically clever salvo during my fight to stay in your minds. My one sided debate will be free of interjections and will compel you to stay away from snow at all costs. It is not nice stuff at all!

Let us begin with the moot.

Snow represents Winter. Nobody likes winter therefore nobody should like snow?

Alas if only this were this simple. Tourism hot spots, doctors, liquor companies, fluro dye manufacturers and other industries are all involved in the world wide conspiracy that snow is indeed fun.

Do not get me wrong. I think snow does have its uses. It helps to obscure otherwise ugly landscapes. Thats about it. Snow does have a use.

But really, snow is cold. Snow is wet. Snow is hard. How many of you snow lovers roll around in car parks during your wet winter weekends?

In fact the best thing about snow to my knowledge is drinking inordinate amounts of alcohol after falling down on this cold, hard wet stuff all day. This is of course if you have not managed to break a limb in which case you get to go straight to the doctors and get filled up on less traditional anesthetics.

Now I am the last person to inform about fashion but the peacock pageantry that accompanies snow is disturbing. Puffy, gaudy and unflattering it is right up my alley but when everyone else is wearing the same thing it rapidly loses its appeal.

I have a news flash for people that take part in winter sports. Summer has better ones.

Even more laughable is the Mardi Gras that accompany the opening of snow seasons. I mean let us compare the best examples of contrasting events.


vs

People that have *enjoyed* this snow this weekend. I welcome your comments as you creak in your chairs, sniffling, feeling all of your years. I do not need the snow to do this on a winters morning.

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What is on my Mind?

It has been a reasonably hectic week! Who would have thought being homeless and jobless would be a full time job? I have not had much time for my mind to idle and start vomiting a rich ambergris of valuable oily malaise.

But in between the chores and sometimes whilst in the midst of them I have pondered thus.

Angry House Work

I have noticed that the angrier my wife and I have been before housework the more productive we are whilst doing the housework. If we get angry during the housework our housework per hour rate actually increases. Initial anger can be created by delaying the housework or better yet not being able to find something because a cloud of deep permeating household disorder hides everything.

Moving house equals drinking beer

The sheer magnitude of house moving I have had to do in the last week has made me drink a lot of beer. The only rational explanation for this is that beer and moving are intertwined and it would be foolish to attempt one without the other. Want to prove me wrong? Try drinking a beer in a house without moving. I dare you.

Optimum Shopping Conditions

Not being a fan of shopping, I have come to learn that shopping satisfaction is entirely dependent on the following.

-Shopping should be done during standard business hours but not at lunch time
-Never shop when there are school holidays or after 3:30pm
-If you must write a list, make sure you take it with you. A written list left at home is closely related to a migraine infused mother in law.

There that does it for a domestic themed post. Somewhat boring and dry, but definitely beats working.

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Where are we going?

We have been getting a bit of this and its only natural when you signal your intention to bugger off for four months. The problem is that it is quite hard to both keep it freestyle and also know where you are going to be. To help reassure some of you wondering if we are staging a trip like a poorly acted fake moon landing I have spray painted this map.

The red line is projected as somewhat certain. We fly in to bangkok on the 16th of July and we fly out on the 9th of November. We intend to head north through Laos into Vietnam then down the coast into Cambodia and back thr0ugh Bangkok to the Thai islands. Places of interest that we may visit as are the blue lines. We have friends in China and Taiwan. India is also a neat place that we want to see.

I have found a fantastic website resource that I am busily mirroring as I type.

http://www.travelfish.org/ backpacking website that specializes in South East Asia.

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2x Shots in the arm

I am back on the internet. Being without the internet is seriously strange. I promised I would write something today, and here I am. Thankfully the universe has provided me with an interesting topic to write about.

The Travel Clinic

Yesterday we visited a medical clinic that specialises in travel health. Gentlemen readers, a trip like this is only conciously contemplated when you are married or close enough to it. Anyway I am positively happy to write the trip was both fascinating and enlightening. Just like me.

The travel clinic is full of travel gadgets and tools. We bought and will be buying a few, including

-A self purifying water bottle
-Compression Stockings
-Universal Voltage Adapters
-Top to toe medical kits

The clinic is full of neat things. Even if your idea of a trip is only across town I am happy to say you could equip and provision yourself ridiculously well for any journey.

The nuts and bolts of our trip was to see a doctor and gather advice on the part of the world we are journeying to. Let me borrow a handily placed bio of the doctor we saw.

The medical director is Dr Anwar Hoosen (qualified as a doctor in 1984) and he has many years of experience in the fields of travel, tropical and emergency medicine. He has previously worked with Worldwise Travellers Health and Vaccination Centers NZ, Travel Doctor New Zealand, Travellers Medical and Vaccination Centers Australia and Travel Doctor Africa. He also has a special interest in emergency care and repatriation medicine, working part time in Accident & Medical clinics and for International SOS.

Dr Hoosen spent 45 minutes giving us a thorough run down on the clinics services. The travel clinic provides worldwide travel alerts online. These travel alerts are referenced when providing location specific recommendations on medical advice. It is very reasssuring that advice is only an email or call away anywhere in the world.

After some deliberation we have commenced a three week course of various immune system protection and resequencing. We should be protected from rabies, tetanus, typhoid and hepatitis A and B before we get on our plane. Handy for those hungry looking, rusty edged and suspiciously addled flight attendants.

We both had a couple of shots yesterday. This was largely painless but we have been a bit lethargic today. Ideally we would plan around this but necessity is a compelling foil.

Good day to you all.

The Travel Clinic can be found at

Address:
Apollo Centre, 119 Apollo Drive, Albany , North Shore, Auckland

Contact Details
Tel: +64 9 4773747

Website is http://www.travelclinic.co.nz

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Nothing but No Net

Do you know how hard it is to find an internet cafe when you actually need one?

Incredibly hard.

I did find one. It is called the Devils grotto. We are about two days away from moving out of our house so the internet has gone. Goodbye internet. The cat has gone as well. Goodbye Ferris.

We booked our flight tickets this morning. We fly out on the 16th of July to Bangkok. Two nights in Bangkok so I can write a suitably exciting and 100% improved post called “two nights in Bangkok”. Then four months of Traveling yippee

Anyway packing to do. Thanks to everyone that came on the weekend. I will return on Wednesday I think.

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