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.