PICTURES

{{2011}} London, GB | Rail N Sail | Amsterdam, Netherlands | Prague, Czech Republic | Budapest, Hungary | Sarajevo, Bosnia | Romania | Chisinau, Moldova | Ukraine: Odessa - Sevastopol | Crossed Black Sea by ship | Georgia: Batumi - Tbilisi - Telavi - Sighnaghi - Chabukiani | Turkey: Kars - Lost City of Ani - Goreme - Istanbul | Jordan: Amman - Wadi Rum | Israel | Egypt: Neweiba - Luxor - Karnak - Cairo | Thailand: Bangkok - Pattaya - Chaing Mai - Chaing Rei | Laos: Luang Prabang - Pakse | Cambodia: Phnom Penh | Vietnam: Vung Tau - Saigon aka Ho Chi Minh City

{{2012}} Cambodia: Kampot - Sihanoukville - Siem Reap - Angkor Wat | Thailand: Bangkok | India: Rishikesh - Ajmer - Pushkar - Bundi - Udaipur - Jodhpur - Jasalmer - Bikaner - Jaipur - Agra - Varanasi | Nepal: Kathmandu - Chitwan - Pokhara - Bhaktapur - (Rafting) - Dharan | India: Darjeeling - Calcutta Panaji | Thailand: Bangkok - again - Krabi Town | Malaysia, Malaka | Indonesia: Dumas - Bukittinggi - Kuta - Ubud - 'Full Throttle' - Gili Islands - Senggigi | Cambodia: Siem Reap | Thailand: Trat | Turkey: Istanbul | Georgia: Tbilisi

{{2013}} Latvia: Riga | Germany: Berlin | Spain: Malaga - Grenada | Morocco: Marrakech - Essauira - Casablanca - Chefchawen - Fes | Germany: Frankfurt | Logan's Home Invasion USA: Virginia - Michigan - Indiana - Illinois - Illinois - Colorado | Guatemala: Antigua - San Pedro | Honduras: Copan Ruinas - Utila | Nicaragua: Granada | Colombia: Cartagena | Ecuador: Otavalo - Quito - Banos - Samari (a spa outside of Banos) - Puyo - Mera

{{2014}} Peru: Lima - Nasca - Cusco | Dominican Republic | Ukraine: Odessa | Bulgaria: Varna - Plovdiv | Macedonia: Skopje - Bitola - Ohrid - Struga | Albania: Berat - Sarande | Greece: Athens | Italy: Naples - Pompeii - Salerno | Tunisia: Hammamet 1

{{2015}} Hammamet 2 | South Africa: Johnnesburg | Thailand: Hua Hin - Hat Yai | Malaysia: Georgetown | Thailand: Krabi Town | Indonesia:
Sabang Island | Bulgaria: Plovdiv | Romania: Ploiesti - Targu Mures | Poland: Warsaw | Czech Republic: Prague | Germany: Munich | Netherlands: Groningen | England: Slough | Thailand: Ayutthaya - Khon Kaen - Vang Vieng | Cambodia: Siem Reap

{{2016}} Thailand: Kanchanaburi - Chumphon | Malaysia: Ipoh - Kuala Lumpur - Kuching - Miri | Ukraine: Kiev | Romania: Targu Mures - Barsov | Morocco: Tetouan

{{2017}} Portugal: Faro | USA: Virginia - Michigan - Illinois - Colorado | England: Slough - Lancaster | Thailand: Bangkok | Cambodia: Siem Reap

{{2018}} Ukraine: Kiev - Chernihiv - Uzhhorod | UK: Camberley | Italy: Naples Pompeii | USA Washington DC | Merced California

{{2019}} Las Vegas Nevada | Wroclaw, Poland | Odessa, Ukraine | Romania |

For videos with a Loganesque slant, be sure to visit here. You can also Facebook Logan.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

70 days to go!

We the writers would like to make it clear that the opinions expressed in this blog are my own thus hold no truth whatsoever. Miming or doing an interpretive dance of this blog is strictly forbidden by the Geneva Convention.



COMMENTS

If anyone wants to leave a comment in the 'comments' section below, please feel free to do so. After all the stuff Jamas had to go through to make the comment section work and show up, I'm feeling vaguely guilty that nobody has left any.



A BIG THANK YOU

Well, I think the blog is a bit more successful than I thought it would be. It's getting an average about thirty hits per day from currently seven countries. I wanted to thank everyone who helped me out with all of the stuff to get it into the right format and stuff.



SMALL SNAG

On the HC boards, Pete wisely pointed out "One thing with the EU Schengen Convention is that it's 90 days for all the countries in it, not 90 days per country before you need a visa." This is something I did NOT know about. That means I will have to be sure to bounce back and forth between the 'Schengen' countries and non-Schengen ones. That makes it a bit trickier for me - I was under the delusion I could stay in say Poland for 90 days then Czech Republic for 90 days. I'm thinking that there may be some clever way around it - like getting a visa for say Poland that would get me out of the Schengen visa. I'm not sure if that is possible but it might be good to check out when I'm over there. If not, I can do something like bounce between three countries - that will keep me from undergoing any lengthy waits as I must leave one country and wait till I can get into another. Again, I think it will be something to find out more about when I am over there. I can check with the US embassies on my journey. It will be one of the least critical problems they've probably had to deal with.

Pete is a clever bastard but the rules there make me sad.



NETBOOK

Well, my new Toshiba 'netbook' arrived. Bert kindly came over and spent some time stripping all of the useless crap that computer manufacturers delight in putting onto it off. It appears that (after upgrading the memory) we will have enough to run Skype and record at the same time. Bert also got me a link to something that works like 'powergramo' but is free. I will be recording the next game session with it. Fear not, at the urging of Richard I tried simultaneous recording with Audacity and it seemed to have no difficulty. I'm not sure what it does for the memory, but we'll try it out. For those of us just now joining us and not knowing what the hell I am recording, be sure to go search iTunes for Silhouette - the explicit one. It is a recording of a tabletop RPG game I do. Anyway, if the Toshiba actually works out OK and doesn't get blown up or stolen it should be a handy 'link to the world' and I should (if I have internet) be able to have the option of running stuff while away on vacation.



STATE DEPARTMENT WARNINGS

I'm just not sure how accurate these are. I know that if you act like an idiot in any country you can get into some hot water. [Stay tuned for "Logan in Hot Water"...] But some of the stuff they have on there - I'm just not sure after reading it what the actual danger level is in the countries I've considered going to. In order to try to compare with somewhere I've been, I looked up the UK. Here are some of the key phrases I picked up from the State Department:

"As with any major metropolitan city, U.S. citizens are urged to be cautious and aware of their surroundings.

Typical criminal incidents include pickpocketing, mugging, and “snatch and grab” theft of mobile phones, watches, and jewelry."

"You should avoid walking in isolated areas, including public parks, especially after dark, as these are advantageous venues for muggers and thieves. You should be especially careful using underground pedestrian tunnels at night or when there is little foot traffic."

Doesn't that make the UK sound scary? I realize that it's been twenty years since I've visited it but at that time the whole terrorist thing was still going on and I thought the UK was one of the safer countries I've been in. Full of nice people.

So, I'm taking the US State Department's advice with some salt. I know there are a lot of people with no common sense out there who don't know when they're entering a 'bad area' or spot a 'rough crowd' but I'm not bad at figuring that kind of thing out.

So, I think I'm going to have to get 'feet on the ground' in these countries to really figure out 'is it actually dangerous'?



PUBLICATION FREQUENCY

I've had some folks ask me how often I intend to publish this blog. Pretty much 'as I get interesting enough stuff - and enough of it' is my general answer. I'm not trying to 'publish every day' - just as I get enough content.

9 comments:

  1. Yeah, after reading this blog, I think the UK is full of nothing but muggers and thieves, and I wouldn't have anything left in my luggage after getting out of the station...

    Some of those hits might be me rechecking to see if you've posted anything. Be easier if I could follow you on Google Buzz (you need to be on Gmail for that). [Yeah, I could use an RSS feeder, but where's the fun in that?]

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  2. I do have gmail but I don't really use it.

    Always good to have people upping the post count.

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  3. BTW - if you hit 'follow' on the upper left hand corner of this page, it apparently tells you when I've posted new stuff.

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  4. I'm already following. And it only shows up new posts when in the Blog Dashboard, and, honestly, who spends time in that?

    Another annoying thing is that you've said your blog is Adult-ish, so I have to keep saying "yes" to see your content. (Not to mention the slightly over the top requirement of stupid captcha on the comments.)

    Oh, and to continue the bitching, your dog smells funny.

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  5. I would agree with you that the state departements warnings are talking about things that are common sense and writing them down makes it looks scarier than it is.

    That being said, I was robed twice, once here in Prague, once in Paris. Both times it was partly my fault for not paing attention. In here it was at a KFC, i was working on my macbook and somebody took my bag. Macbooks are a bit fancier than other notebooks so i understand why they choose me, hoping for nice stuff in the bag also. In Paris it was at night, we were a bit drunk, siting at stairs under the church of Sacre Ceur and some wierd guy kept asking us directions. Of course it was a distraction, but in our state nobody realised. The man who took my bag had to be good, becouse i had it very close to me and didnt notice a thing. Luckily i didnt had passport in there... But money, keys and other IDs were gone.

    So yesterday, when i was in a bank with my brother who is lending my some money to help out with the new appartement, when some strange men sat next to us and kept asking if he can take money out of our account and laughing maniacly, we were very carefull to leave when he wasnt looking.

    (Im at work and noone else is here. Free time, hooray!)

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  6. Been reading your blog, bro...entertaining! :)

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  7. Jamas: Sorry I had to say my blog was 'adultish' but I figure I can put on whatever kind of horrible shit I want now and not get yelled at. I thought that they would make it so that if you followed a blog you could get an e-mail when new shit was added - that just seemed like common sense to me. I was wrong.

    Typing all of this from the netbook - keyboard will take some getting use to...

    Jana - avoid KFC! A greater hive of scum and villainy has yet to be found!

    Andy - glad you're enjoying the blog sir!

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  8. I just keep picturing you entering a pedestrian tunnel and ten the scene from A Clockwork Orange ensuing....

    http://wesclark.com/burbank/clockwork_orange_underpass.jpg

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  9. Chris: Link you gave doesn't work.

    No, I am hoping that I don't get the shit kicked out of me but I'm hoping that if I do it will by people so stylish dressed.

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