Chad Things

Yes, i’m finally really getting excited. Or anxious and stressed. I kinda switch back and forth. But today i actually packed my bag and got really excited. Yes, i’m bringing just one carry-on bag – never checking a bag – taking Rick Steve’s advice and traveling light. Here’s me wearing it as well as the only things i’ll have for the next 5 months (thanks to monica for a sample packlist).

My Packing List
• Shirts – 5 t-shirts, 1 capilene, 1 longsleeve
• 1 Jeans, swimsuit, 2 shorts (green one and brown)
• belt for shorts/pants
• 6 sets underwear, 4 pairs socks
• tevas, boots and/or shoes
• waterproof jacket (??)
• Sweater/Hoodie
• warm hat (?)
• scarf (?)
• pillowcase
• quick drying towel
• baggies for wet stuff or food
• kits: first-aid, sewing
• bathroom: toothbrush, paste in bag, soap, razor, deodorant, shampoo
• sunscreen insect emergen-c plastic-spoon
• balance bars, power bars
• clothesline
• earplugs?
• money belt
• $100 USD, 2 credit cards, atm
• passport and copies of it
• immunizations card
• tickets, itinerary, copies of it
• daypack
• camera – SD600, memory, battery, mini-tripod
• 400D camera, bag, cable, battery, monopod, etc
• power plug adapters (?)
• lock
• headlight
• water filter ? nalgene?
• books and maps?
• journal, pen, addresses for postcards
• sunglasses and case
• iPod, usb cable for iPod,
• watch? alarm clock? use ipod?
• headphones, 1/8 inch Y adapter
• 1/8 inch to RCA video cable
• Laptop, bag, power cable,
• USB drive
• packing bags

This song kicks ass and the video chops up the ass and gives it to you on a platter.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwd-hZHvok0

Child 1 :
Why don’t you tell me a story?
Child 2 :
Please tell me a story too.
Man :
You know, I think I’ll tell you the story of my life.
Child 1 :
You tell me!

Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto!
Check me out!
Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto!
Check check me out!
Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto!
Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto!

I’m a bad ass motherfuckin’ DJ
This is why I walk and talk this way!
I’m a bad ass motherfuckin’ DJ
This is why I walk and talk this way!
I’m a bad ass motherfuckin’ DJ
This is why I walk and talk this way!
You suckers!

He’s the master of disaster and the master of beat

Come-Come-Come-Come-Come with it
Ghetto-ghetto-ghetto-ghetto-ghetto-to

He’s so quick
He’s so fast
He’s so quick, he’s so fast
He’s upper-class player / He’s on the crossfader (?)
DJ Shadow with the scratch
Moves through town like a skater
Come on, rock
Check out the cut you suckers

This is why, this is why I walk
This is why, this is why I walk
I’m a bad ass motherfuckin’ DJ
This is why, this is why I walk
This is why, this is why I walk
This is why, this is why I walk and talk this way
Check me out

Rave! Rave! Rave! Rave! Rave! Rave! Holy shit!
Rave! Rave! Rave! Rave! Rave! Rave! Holy shit!

Let the beat rock.

– DJ Shadow, Walkie Talkie

I almost forgot i have a 2004 blog of my India trip (now on chadnorwood.com). It contains many long entries and fun picturs, but most importantly a list of vaccinations i got in 2004. Hurray. I checked with the CDC for the latest, and there were no vaccinations required, but several recommended for Australia/NZ, Southeast Asia, India, and Europe. The CDC’s yellow book is useful, and here’s a nice tip from it – dengue and mosquitos are one of the biggest problems, and applying insect repellent with Permethrin or DEET to skin and clothes is good advice, especially after dawn and before dusk, and around still water where rain might collect.

I went back to Overseas Medical Clinic in San Francisco (415-982-8380 49 Drumm St., 1-4p walk-ins). I love that place – they are so the opposite of every other doctor office – they specialize in shots, so are very knowledgable about what you need. I got a Hep A shot ($100), which lasts 12 months, and if i take another in 12 months, that will last 10 years. Here’s my previous shots from 2004 that are still valid – Oral Typhoid (5 yrs), Diptheria-Tetanus (10 yrs), Polio (10 yrs). She also gave me a prescription for Malarone, an anti-malaria pill. She suggested buying them in Bangkok ‘cuz they are way cheaper than here. Malarone is a daily pill, but there’s also a weekly pill called Lariam but that one drives people a little crazy.

I’m ready. Bring it on, ASIA.

We all know oil companies are awesome. Exxon especially so. They are the biggest oil company in the world but the worst for the environment see How they compare – pdf. Also, an estimated $37 billion in profits last year, and they still has not paid the $4.5 billion in punitive damages it owes for the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill! So far, 6,000 fisherman and others harmed by the devastating spill have died awaiting compensation. Also, “Exxon has dished out at least $19 million dollars since the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol (1997) to fund an elaborate network including over 75 industry front groups mobilized in a misleading campaign to cloud the public’s understanding of global warming.” – Robert F. Kenndy, Jr. Here’s more exxon facts and a little exxon movie for the kids.

This morning shayna and i had a discussion on child abuse. I’m a bigger fan of statistics than she is, and it led to a brief tangential discussion of good statistics vs bad statistics. Yes, sometimes statistics are a bad thing. I define good statistics are ones that are fact based, complete, and useful (i should prolly work on that definition). Bad statistics are ones that are incomplete, contain subjective elements, and/or could be used to support either side of the same argument – you gotta take ’em with a grain of salt. For example, “4 out of 5 dentists recommend crest”. That is bad because it is incomplete – we don’t know how many and what type of dentists were asked – they could have asked only dentists that are employed by crest. We assume that alot of dentists were asked, and because we have to assume it is incomplete and therefor a bad statistic. And statisics aren’t always bad, but they could be better. Both of the following are from 2006 Statistics – Which is better and why?

• 36.7% of all women in prison and 14.4% of all men in prison in the US were abused as children.
• More than a third of women in the nation’s prisons and jails reported abuse as children, compared with 12% to 17% for women in the general population. About 14% of male inmates reported abuse as children, compared with 5% to 8% of men in the general population.

I would say the second, because it puts it in context. That is, if percentage in jails and out of jails were the same, it’s not as noteworthy. But it’s 2-3 times greater for those in prison. Makes sense. However, the second doesn’t mention US, which it should, and actually is the case. Here are some more interesting statistics from the US in 2004 .

• An estimated 1,490 children died due to child abuse or neglect (src).
• In the US, 12 out of every 1,000 children (age 0-17) were known victims of child abuse (1.2%). For children 3 and under, its 16 out of 1,000 (src).
• There were 868,000 known victims total out of about 73 million children total (age 0-17). Florida had the higest rate of about 32  victims per 1,000 children (130,000 victims of 4 million florida children) (src).
• When looking at each race, and comparing only child victims in that race to other children in that race: (src)
  • African-American – 19.9 victims per 1,000 children
  • Pacific Islander – 17.6 victims per 1,000 children
  • American Indian or Alaska Native – 15.5 victims per 1,000 children
  • White – 10.7 victims per 1,000 children
  • Hispanic – 10.4 victims per 1,000 children
  • Asian – 2.9 victims per 1,000 children
• 83% of victims were abused by a parent acting alone or with another person (src g1 g2).
• 56% of alleged child abuse reports were made by professionals (educators, law enforcement and legal, social services, medical, mental health, child daycare, and foster care). 44% of reports were submitted by nonprofessionals (including friends, neighbors, relatives, etc.) (src).

However, i sadly could not find info linking child abuse to economic status (but race was included), which my gut tells me might matter, but i could totally be wrong. I actually found a great webpage by Jim Hopper that discusses child abuse statistics (how i found the above), with an emphasis on taking statistics with a grain of salt, which is really the point of this blog. He also points out that many child abuse cases go unreported, its hard to tell how many. He suggests a few books to read regarding statistics:

“Again, widespread uncritical faith in statistics is historically fairly recent. And it causes significant confusion – among members of the media, politicians, judges, and advocates for various causes, not to mention average citizens. Therefore, having tools for thinking critically about statistical findings reported in the media (and on the web) will help you better understand a variety of important issues, not just child abuse. Two good, recently published books can help you cut through the confusion and hype that surround most presentations of statistical and scientific findings in the popular media … It Ain’t Necessarily So .. and Damned Lies and Statistics ..” – http://www.jimhopper.com/abstats/#s-statistics

NOTE: See end of blog for recent updates.

If you haven’t heard, i’m traveling for 5 months around the world (Actually 6 months now). This blog entry will serve as my master itinerary – that is, it will change as i travel, containing the most up-to-date and accurate information on where i’ve been and my next move. If you want to track my travels, bookmark this dude.

Overview of flights/countries (2007):

Sat, Feb 03 - San Francisco to New Zealand - SFO-LAX, LAX-AKL
Sun, Feb 18 - New Zealand to Australia - CHC-SYD
Wed, Mar 14 - Australia to Thailand - SYD-BKK
Sat, Mar 24 - Thailand to Cambodia - Bus from Bangkok to Siam Reap
Sun, Apr 08 - Cambodia to Vietnam - Bus from Phnom Penh to Saigon
Sat, May 05 - Vietnam to Laos - HAN-VTE
Sun, Jun 03 - Laos to Thailand - Boat from Huay Xai to Chiang Khong
Wed, June 27 (orig Sun, Apr 30) - Thailand to India - BKK-DEL
Fri, July 20 (orig Fri, Jun 01) - India to London - DEL-LHR
Sat, July 21 - London to Switzerland - LGW-ZRH
Wed, July 25 - Switzerland to London - ZRH-LGW
Thu, July 26 (orig Thu, Jun 21) - London to New York City - LHR-JFK
Mon, July 30 (orig Mon, Jun 25) - New York - San Francisco - JFK-SFO


Details:

• Sat 3-Feb – leaving San Francisco, 3:50pm
• Mon 5-Feb – arriving in Auckland, New Zealand, 11:15am
• Sat 17-Feb – Good Vibrations Concert in Sydney – tickets (Beastie boys, Jurassic 5, timo maas, cassius)
• Sun 18-Feb – Fly from Christchurch, NZ to Sydney, AU (CHC-SYD NZ 781 7:00a-8:30a)
• Wed 21-Feb – Fly from Sydney to Brisbane (SYD-BNE QF520 11:05a)
• Sat 25-Feb – Fly from Brisbane to Melbourne (BNE-MEL QF617 10:50a)
• Wed 28-Feb – Fly from Melbourne to Hobart Tasmania (MEL-HBA QF1011 8:35a)
• Fri 2-Mar – Fly from Hobart to Sydney (HBA-SYD QF1020 10:30a)
• Tue 6-Mar – Fly from Sydney to Alice Springs, 6 day Uluru tour to Adelaide
• Wed 14-Mar – Fly from Adelaide to Sydney (ADE
• Wed 14-Mar – Fly from Sydney, AU to Bangkok, Thailand (SYD-BKK TG 996 5pm-10:20pm)
• Tue 20-Mar – Shayna joins me in Thailand SFO-TPE, TPE-BKK
• Sat 24-Mar – $7 Bus from Bangkok to Siam Reap, Cambodia
• Thu 29-Mar – $13 Boat from Siam Reap to Battambang, Cambodia
• Sat 31-Mar – $4 Bus from Battambang to Sihanoukville, Cambodia
• Wed 4-Apr – $3 Bus from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh, Cambodia
• Sun 8-Apr – $5 Bus from Phnom Penh to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam
• Thu 12-Apr – Bus from Saigon to Mui Ne, Vietnam (part of $17 open ticket to Hanoi)
• Mon 16-Apr – Bus from Mui Ne to Nha Trang then to Hoi An, Vietnam (overnight)
• Fri 20-Apr – Bus from Hoi An to Hue, then overnight bus to Hanoi, Vietnam
• Sat 21-Apr – Overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Cai (Sapa), Vietnam
• Tue 1-May – Overnight train from Lao Cai (Sapa) to Hanoi, Vietnam
• Thu 3-May – 4hr Bus from Hanoi to Halong Bay, Vietnam
• Fri 4-May – 4hr Bus from Halong Bay to Hanoi, Vietnam
• Sat 5-May – Flight from Vietnam to Laos (HAN-VTE)
• Tue 8-May – 4hr Bus from Vientianne to Vang Vieng, Laos
• Sun 13-May – 8hr Bus from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang (LPB), Laos
• Thu 17-May – 8hr Bus from LPB to Luang Nam Tha, Laos
• Sat 19-May – first of 3-day trek in Nam Ha
• Tue 22-May – 2hr Bus from Nam Tha to Muang Sing, Laos
• Thu 24-May – 6hr Bus from Muang Sing to Oudom Xay, Laos
• Fri 25-May – 4hr Bus from Oudom Xay to LPB, Laos
• Sun 27-May – Shayna flies to Bangkok
• Mon 28-May – Shayna flies home BKK-TPE, TPE-SFO
• Fri 1-Jun – 9hr Slow Boat from LPB to Pakbeng, Laos
• Sat 2-Jun – 8hr Slow Boat Pakbeng to Huay Xai, Laos
• Sun 3-Jun – Crossed border to Chiang Khong, Thailand, bus to Chiang Mai
• Tue 5-Jun – 4hr Bus from Chiang Mai to Pai, Thailand
• Wed 03-Jun – 4hr Bus from Pai to Chiang Mai, then 11hr overnight Bus to Bangkok
• Wed 27-Jun – fly from Bangkok to Dehli (BKK-DEL)
• Thu 28-Jun – Delhi to Leh (himalayas) ( DEL-IXL)
• Wed 4-July – 3hr mini-van from Leh to Lamayuru .. 10 day trek to Padum
• Sat 14-July – 11hr jeep from Padum to Kargil (6:30a-6pm)
• Sun 15-July – 6hr minibus from Kargil to Srinagar (12:30-6:30am Monday)
• Tue 17-July – 1hr flight from Srinagar to Delhi SRI-DEL
• Thu 19-July – 2hr Train from Delhi to Agra (Taj Mahal) back to Delhi
• Fri 20-July – 7hr flight from Delhi to London DEL-LHR
• Sat 21-July – 2hr flight London to Switzertland LGW-ZRH
• Sun 22-July – Train from Zurich to Luzern and back
• Mon 23-July – 1hr Train + 1hr bus from Zurich to Amden (Mt. Speer) and back
• Wed 25-July – 2hr flight from Switzerland to London ZRH-LGW
• Thu 26-July – 7hr flight from London to New York LHR-JFK
• Mon 30-July – 6hr flight from NYC to San Francisco JFK-SFO

Cheers,
Chad.

Wed, Mar 14 Update: Changed my flights to leave Australia today (14th), and plan on leaving BKK in June

Wed, Mar 28 Update: Extended my trip to arrive back in USA at the end of July (instead of end of June). 6 months.

Sat, Apr 21 Update: Updated more details of countries and cities

Mon, Jun 4 Update: Changed India dates again, added Switzerland and Atlanta, Georgia

Sat, Jun 16 Update: Last change for India – Delhi and Leh, updated SF arrival, removed Atlanta

Well, i’m just another sucker who thought Apple designed products well. Apple products sure are pretty. But what could be the absolute worst thing that could happen when you use iTunes? Besides blowing up in your face killing your baby nephew. Yes, erasing your harddrive without warning. I backup my laptop, but not my iPod. So of course today i got my iPod wiped clean by iTunes 7. For you techies out there, its like the old “sudo rm -rf /”

What do you do when iTunes erases your iPod??? well, first stage is denial. What? no songs? eject ipod, hold it in my hand, look at artists .. blank. WHAT?? Ok, maybe i can recover .. search the web .. Oooh.. “iTunes 7 erased my iPod” happened to this guy, too. Hmm.. most of the 48 responses are people complaining how it happened to them too. OK, so maybe it did happen. Any recovery tools out there .. a few for windows, none for the mac. Let’s recheck the iPod, maybe my songs are there now. Nope. Videos gone, too. But my photos are still there. Wow.

Sigh. Luckily i have copies of my mp3s on a backup server, but i did lose all my playlists. I spent many many hours creating and tweaking these playlists – those run mixes, driving in the car mixes, chilling out on a bus mixes, and many more. I hate iTunes.

Ok, for the record, here’s what i did – I reproduced it to make sure i got warning message and steps correct. With my iPod plugged in, on iTunes 7 I clicked on chadpod (my name for my ipod). I clicked on the Music tab, and unchecked “Manually manage music and video”. I got the warning message in the image above – “Are you sure you do not want to manually manage music and videos on your iPod? All existing content on the iPod ‘ChadPOD’ will be replaced with content from your iTunes library.  Ok, i think “merger” when i read that, not “YOUR IPOD WILL BE ERASED”?  Clearly i was wrong.  Then I clicked Summary tab just to the right of the Music tab. I tried to sync one of my playlists automatically by checking the “Sync Music” box and selecting one of my playlists. I then had an interruption, and when i got back to my computer, I decided i didn’t have time to finish this right now, so I went to eject my iPod.  Then i got the following warning: “You have changed the settings for iPod ‘ChadPod’.  Would you like to apply these changes?”.  Umm.. Ok.  At that moment it erased my ipod – i could tell cuz it took a few seconds. Now my chadpod is blank. Wha?? Unplug from my macbook pro. Yep, wiped out. I admit that popup was a warning, but i definitely didn’t expect to lose my music and playlists. What i still don’t get is that it didn’t even sync. I have tons of music in my iTunes, none were copied.. No playlists copied. Whatever happened, it definitely was not a design flaw, it’s a bug in iTunes.

Lessons Learned:

• Use Manual Mode to update iPod (apple info on switching to manual mode).
• NEVER accidentally click on anything in settings – especially do not try and sync a playlist if you’re in Manual mode
• iTunes SUCKS.

Hmm… I think i feel better now that i vented.

I’m very excited today .. I finally figured out how to reorder my playlists on my ipod. I’ve been using iTunes 7 on my macbook pro for a while, but could not figure this one thing out. I read numerous postings where people had the same problem i had – I reorder my iPod playlist on iTunes, but when i eject the iPod, the playlist order is still random. The only solution i found was to create a new playlist and drag each song to it one at a time in the order you want. Then remove the old playlist and rename the new one to old playlist name.

But today i found out what to do – pick the iPod playlist you want by clicking on it in the left pane of iTunes 7, reorder songs in your playlist how you want, sort on title/artist/album, and/or drag and drop how you want them. When you’re ready to save the playlist order to the iPod, goto the left pane, ctrl-click (or right-click) the iPod playlist (which should already be selected), choose “Copy To Play Order”.

EXAMPLE: Change “Favs” playlist to be sorted by album, except switch the first five items with second five items.

1. Click your “Favs” playlist on left pane under your iPod symbol
2. Sort by album by clicking album column in main (right) pane
3. Save current order by ctrl-clicking “Favs” playlist, selecting “Copy To Play Order”
4. Sort by playlist order by clicking on column to the left of the ‘Name’ column (has no name, contains just numbers). Make sure arrow is pointing up.
5. Select first five items, then drag down right below the next five.
6. Save by repeating step 3.

Note: this was on a Mac using iTunes 7.02, iPod version 1.2.1

For me, this is huge – most of my music is live sets and the mp3 tag info is poor. Plus i love my playlists, several are 50 songs are more, and now i can easily pull out one song i’m sick of, add another song or two, or switch the order around to my full pleasure. Hurray.

It was a big year for me. I quit yahoo, travelled, had alot of fun, got back together with shayna, and was happy most of the time. That last part is key, being happy. However, the most significant event was quiting yahoo to find myself. I opened that can of worms 9 months ago and have not made much progress, but intend to over the next couple weeks before my travels kick off again.

Looking at my Flickr sets, I’ve been pretty busy. I’ve definitely enjoyed friends and events in San Francisco and the bay area as well travels in the U S and A (borat) and Costa Rica. Travels include many snowboarding trips to tahoe, my cousin’s wedding in Ft. Lauderdale, Dusty in Sarasota, WMC in miami, Coachella, Hikes to Mt. Tam, Mt. Diablo, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite; New Orleans, The Carolinas, Pirate Summercamp, Swimming Priceless, Raindance, Burningman, Road Trip USA, Lusty Wedding in Tahoe, Rick and Zetta wedding in Costa Rica, and Christmas in Atlanta. Other fun stuff includes many amnesias, Checkoway’s bday, Class 6.2 Cycroan, brewery tours, QUITING YAHOO, Bay to Breakers, Many Jason and Monica events, and just being with my friends. My family also had a big year – We had one death (my grandma) and one birth (my sister’s baby katherine) last year, in addition to 3 weddings already mentioned. I even summarized my pics in Flickr Best of 2006.

Those were the broad strokes. Here i am, January 2007, reflecting the past and envisioning the future. What does it mean to quit your job to find yourself? I’ve been asking myself that for a while. Most people don’t really know what that means, implying it’s a rare thing. Do people think about stuff like this or do they just go through the motions of life. Hop in the raft and float on down the river and see where it takes you. Perhaps they have found themselves – floating down the river is what they want. But i’ve tasted things that make it hard to go back. I know what it’s like to really enjoy your job, even though most of the time i didn’t. I know how to put my all into something. I know how to really have fun. REALLY. I know it is possible to change your life significantly for the better, and that makes me question my current life. I feel extremely lucky and blessed. So what do i do with myself? The only thing i conclude is that i have to find myself – be confident in who i am and what i’m doing so i can put my all in it and feel good about it. Put my all into what? Not easy. Could be a careers. Could be a woman or a family. Could be a calling to help others. Could be something i have yet to discover. Could just be doing a bunch of little things the best i can.

2007 will also be a big year for me. Cheers to hoping for a good one.

Update: Original itinerary below, or see Actual Itineray that I’ll update as I go.

It’s ON. Today i dropped $3,000 for my round-the-world trip. The last couple weeks i’ve been trying to figure out what i wanted, and its definitely not easy. Well, i finally did it. My decision was based on one hard date – doing australia with my california friends in February. Also, I knew i wanted to hit New Zealand and Thailand, and additionally i had a long list of countries i might want to hit, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Taiwan, China, Korea, Japan, India, Turkey, and Spain. I decided to let cheap air fare and fate help me decide, and it did – my itinerary is listed below. After Australia, all my dates are flexible except my last one, arriving in SFO. But even that can be changed for $100.


Sat, Feb 03 - San Francisco to New Zealand - SFO-LAX, LAX-AKL
Sun, Feb 18 - New Zealand to Australia - CHC-SYD
Mon, Mar 05 - Australia to Thailand - SYD-BKK
Sun, Apr 29 - Thailand to India - BKK-DEL
Fri, Jun 01 - India to London - DEL-LHR
Thu, Jun 21 - London to New York City - LHR-JFK
Mon, Jun 25 - New York - San Francisco - JFK-SFO


In the business, my route would be listed by airports like this:
SFO-LAX-NAN-AKL, CHC-SYD-BKK-DEL-LHR-JFK-SFO
Note that i’ll work my own way from Auckland (AKL) to Christchurch (CHC) in New Zealand.
This trip is 25,236 miles total – according to Great Circle Mapper. Wow.

How did i pick this you say? Well, first i looked into Round-The-World (RTW) on wikipedia, but also found this RTW Guide helpful as well. RTW tickets are great – you get 10 days to a year, you have to pick your route but you can change the dates without any fees. However, the cost when originating in California (or anywhere USA) starts around $4,000. Originating in London is about $1,000 cheaper, and originating in Thailand, Turkey, and a few others can go as low as $2600. Using kayak.com, I figured I could fly to Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand for about $2200, so that made RTW tickets not such a great deal for me. I looked into other options, and dealt with several travel agencies, eventually getting my tickets from World Traveller’s Club. You can find more RTW sites on myweb.

Right now i have about 2 months in Thailand/Vietnam/etc, and a month in India. I’m not sure what i want to do, 2 months in Thailand includes all of SE Asia. Since India is really hot in May, i might reduce my time there and spend more time in SE Asia. I don’t have to decide till march. Hurray for procrastination.

Next thing to do is prepare for the journey – get my travel gear in order, get everything situated in SF for extended leave of absence, and get siked.