@inthehands@airspeedswift I can tell you from experience that this works best when the photographer is a solid foot taller than the hiker, and also the hiker is very slow.
Shout out to the hotel above a gay bar that left a zillion earplugs strewn about, so I shoved a few in my bag. Coming in extra handy with a group of drunk ass college kids next door to us tonight at what does not seem like a drunk ass college kid hotel.
#uspol I’m sure Trump and his crew will appeal this verdict until the heat death of the universe, but man it's nice to finally see a (criminal) jury say "Yeah dude, that's a bunch of bullshit.”
As I was flying back from London, I got some iMessages from my wife with pics that didn’t download because I was on plane WiFi, and then a message that says “Call me as soon as you can.”
I turned my cell service back on at ORD with trepidation, but apparently we just used all the good karma we’ve accumulated for about the last decade.
Somehow, our house is in one piece and nobody got hurt.
Thanks for your kind words about my cousin. It’s really bizarre being on this huge trip with my in-laws with all this finally coming to an end.
I’ve talked about the corkscrew of the rollercoaster between good and bad I’ve been riding for the last 18 months, but today has really been some serious emotional whiplash.
2023 has been great and terrible and exciting and frightening and really above all else just an enormous pile of chaos that expanded exponentially every time I asked the universe to hold off on sending more.
Thanks to those who joined me on the ride this year. Here’s hoping 2024 is a solid one.
@endocrimes the monkeys on the rock of Gibraltar are very photogenic and will pickpocket your snack bars
At least as of 2010, when you go to the Alhambra hang on to your ticket even after you’re in, or when you go to tour the main palaces they’ll make you buy another ticket even though you clearly had to pay to get in
If you ever visit Cambodia or Laos, which I have been lucky enough to do, you will learn a lot about why all of SE Asia is ecstatic about Kissinger's death.
There's a reasonably direct line from the illegal bombing of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge's takeover, enabling their reign of terror that killed 1/4 of the Cambodian population and drove out or killed most folks who were educated.
There are still "bombies" from cluster munitions all over Laos, which kill or maim people on a regular basis.
There is a long, complex history of interweaved problems in Southeast Asia, and the Nixon administration, spearheaded by Kissinger, just came and poured gasoline on it, then got a Nobel Peace Prize for "putting out" the fire (which they absolutely did not do).
There's a part of me that's glad he lived long enough that a significant number of the obituaries are focusing on the long-term consequences of his illegal acts rather than the image he cultivated of himself.