Bits and Pieces » Travel

Looking forward to my Las Vegas flight

Jonco — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:16:31 +0000

Click to enjoy…..

Thanks Gene

Two Kiwis On A USA Road Trip

Jonco — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:08:28 +0000

A couple of Kiwis (New Zealanders), Redfish and Nigel are on a road trip from Houston Texas to Detroit Michigan. Their 30 day, 6,000 mile trip is almost over. They’ve had quite the experience and have documented it on their trip blog. There are good descriptions and lots of pictures from each day along the way.

Here’s a picture of the storm they encountered last weekend as they passed through St. Louis.

Wish I’d known they were passing through, I would have planned to meet them. Nigel is a fan of B&P.

Here’s their planned route

They really have some great pictures. It’s worth a look. USA Road Trip

Thanks Nigel and have a safe trip back home.

Bored At The Airport

Jonco — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:48:43 +0000

via

Me and Mr. Mike

Jonco — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 03:46:39 +0000

We had breakfast Saturday morning with Mike Firesmith at the Denny’s in Valdosta Georgia. He didn’t realize how tall I was and I didn’t realize how young he was. We got along just fine and discussed all of you in depth. Nah, seriously it was nice to meet Mike. He’s very articulate and talks like he writes. He’s quite an interesting person.

After breakfast we stared right into the sun for a photograph hence the squints before heading our separate ways.

Florida Trip Update

Jonco — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 02:16:58 +0000

We spent three and a half days visiting my brother at Miramar Lakes complex in Fort Myers Florida. He is there for the month and invited us down for a few days. We crammed a lot into those days. We shopped, beached, took a sunset sightseeing cruise in Naples, walked through a nature preserve, ate waaay to much, toured a $1.5 million home, visited the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford summer homes. We shopped some more and ate even more and played cards every night.

We’re now on our way home. On the way out we stopped at a Flea Market in Fort Myers. Then we headed to Port Charlotte for lunch and a quick visit to my Aunt Iva’s grave. It’s hard to believe she’s been gone over two years.

We made it to Valdosta Georgia for the night. We’re having breakfast with Mike Firesmith in the morning before heading on towards Atlanta. Anyone around there interested in a quick meet-up / late lunch around 2:30 or 3:00? Hopefully somewhere not too far off of I-75.

Homeland Security

Jonco — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 11:16:49 +0000

Thanks sg

Yosemite

Jonco — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:55:20 +0000

I’ve never made it to Yosemite, but I think it’s a place I’d like to see.

via

Thanks Harry W

Around The World Time Lapse

Jonco — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:40:35 +0000

via

Four days in L.A.

Jonco — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 06:21:26 +0000

My time is up for this trip to the City of Angels, Los Angeles. Here are some thoughts on my brief time here.

BlogWorld: It was interesting… smaller than I expected, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. There were things I expected to see that weren’t here, and things that I didn’t expect to see that were.

I only had the one day Expo Pass which allowed me to go to the Expo and a couple of Keynote sessions. I went to one keynote session that featured the CEO of Technorati. She gave a report on the current status of the blogosphere and there was a shot Q&A session afterwards. There were a lot of stats that I normally don’t think about but I found them quite interesting. I think the next time I go I won’t be so cheap and will go for the whole package because I think I’d enjoy the breakout sessions by various speakers.

I’ve been blogging for almost ten years and spent very little time on the business part of blogging for most of that time. I predominantly focused on content and very little on the business end. After people told me I could make a little money I put ads on the site a couple years ago and that helps with expenses. I want to look into the business part of blogging a little more seriously in the future. That means doing more with social media and stuff like that.

Traffic: Traffic on the highways is just hideous. I finally figured out that I could take the streets and get everywhere a lot faster, especially during rush hour which seems to be from about 4:00 am to 3:59 am. Everywhere I went was less than 30 minutes from my hotel in Marina Del Rey.

I also learned that in Los Angeles yellow traffic signals mean nothing at all. They just add a little color to the scenery. Red traffic lights mean that 3 more cars can go through after it changes. I also learned that pedestrian crosswalks are sacred and people take them very seriously as one ~~gentle~~angryman pointed out.

Dining: I hardly ate while I was in L.A. I had a small continental breakfast at my hotel each morning (cereal, cinamon roll, fruit and some juice). I think the only other food I had was a sandwich at iHop near my hotel one night, a couple tacos at Jack in the Box, chicken dinner from Pollo Loco and a burger at In and Out. Friday after returning from BlogWorld I discovered a little BBQ joint in Venice (not far from my hotel) called Baby Blues BBQ.

I love places like this. It’s not fancy at all. All the tables and chairs ate mismatched and there is various old memorabilia on the walls. By definition you’d think memorabilia would be old, but in this case I feel the need to ad old to the description. Some might prefer to call it junk rather than memorabilia, but I found it interesting.

The food was excellent. I had a BBQ chicken breast sandwich that had coleslaw piled on top of it. It had sauce on it but you could add more from the four bottles on each table. I sampled all four varieties; one marked BBQ, sweet, hot and one labeled XXX. The sweet was excellent to my tastes. The others were hotter and even more hotter. The XXX was properly labeled. WOW! The place reminded me of Bubba’s in Dallas Texas that we visited last year. I would definitely go back to Baby Blues BBQ.

Now… back home to St. Louis.

La Brea Tar Pits

Jonco — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 04:08:13 +0000

I visited the La Brea Tar Pits this afternoon. It’s right in the middle of Los Angeles.

An odorous swamp of gooey asphalt oozes to the earth’s surface in the middle of Los Angeles. No, it’s not a low-budget horror movie set — it’s La Brea Tar Pits, a truly bizarre primal pool on Museum Row where hot tar has been bubbling from the earth for more than 40,000 years. The bubbling pools may look like a fake Disney set, but they’re the real thing and have enticed thirsty animals throughout history. Nearly 400 species of mammals, birds, amphibians, and fish — many of which are now extinct — walked, crawled, landed, swam, or slithered into the sticky sludge, got stuck in the worst way, and stayed forever. In 1906, scientists began a systematic removal and classification of entombed specimens, including ground sloths, giant vultures, mastodons, camels, bears, lizards, and even prehistoric relatives of today’s super-rats. Today it’s one of the world’s richest excavation sites for Ice Age fossils. The best finds are on display in the adjacent Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, which houses the largest and most diverse collection of Ice Age plants and tar-stained skeletons in the world. Archaeological work is ongoing; you can watch as scientists clean, identify, and catalog new finds in the Paleontology Laboratory. An entertaining 15-minute film documenting the recoveries is also shown. Text via

Replica of an elephant trapped in the tar pit. Notice the bubbling up asphalt/oil ring. There is a distinct aroma of asphalt like you’d smell if you were having a driveway laid or an asphalt coating put on your roof. I didn’t visit the museum, but I’ll bet it is interesting.