Some of this will played by ear but this is the zig-zag path I think I will be taking on my trip:

Denver
Newark
Berlin
Frankfurt an der Oder / brief excursion to Poland
Leipzig
Weimar / Hirschaid
Rothenburg ob der Tauber
Tübingen
Augsburg
Ulm
Heidelburg?
Strasbourg
Freiburg
Lindau
Füssen
Garmisch
München
Plzen
Prague
Berlin
London
Newark
Denver

Four weeks from now I will be in Berlin. Cool.

I just received an e-mail from my airline notifying me that my flight from Denver to Newark on Tuesday has been cancelled. I am now traveling from Denver to Houston, and then to Newark, before flying to Glasgow.

I leave two hours earlier form Denver, and make it into Newark only 50 minutes before my flight to Scotland is supposed to take off. Who's taking bets that we'll be on time? Or that the extra flight and connection will allow me to loose my checked bag? I may just have to carry my big backpack on the plane to make sure it arrives with me.

This is not the way I wanted this holiday to begin.

Heavy snow causes travel problems

Heavy snow falling over much of England and Wales is disrupting travel - as forecasters warn of the heaviest and most widespread snow for six years.

Thanks, BBC News!

update
Apparently, I should take a pillow with me, too, since I am connecting through Newark tomorrow:

“Heavy snow may cause delays in the following U.K. and European destinations: Amsterdam, Brussels, Birmingham, Edinburgh, London-Heathrow, Manchester, Milan, and Paris-Charles De Gaulle.

Newark-Liberty Airport may experience delays and/or cancellations on 3FEB09 due to snowy conditions. Customers scheduled to travel on 3FEB09 should confirm their flight status tomorrow morning.”

Fabi was certain she could get George to play with her at my family's farm in Oklahoma. George didn't seem to care what Fabi was doing, however.

We have a tradition on our farm, started by my grandfather, that we call all of our cattle “George”. He started this behavior long before George Foreman decided to call all of his children by that same name. No matter which animal he was talking about, he called it George... and somehow we knew which one he meant. Even the females.

There are over fifty cattle named George on our farm at the moment.

The photo above shows a light pole about 25 feet from my parents' house in Ponca City, Oklahoma. Ponca City is not what I would consider a metropolis, or even a large city (wikipedia says the population was about 25,000 in 2000), and there aren't a lot of high-tech businesses -- there are some, mostly related to the petroleum industry. Yet this pole can do something that utility poles in cities with millions more residents and many more high-tech businesses cannot do: it provides free WI-FI internet service.

Imagine my surprise when my mother asked me about an article she had read recently about "free WI-FI" that the city was providing to all of its residents! I was skeptical about such a service, and if it was actually running it probably was over-loaded and very slow. I fired up my iPhone later than night and was surprised when it found a very strong access point named "Ponca City Free WI-FI." I joined the network and noticed it was quite fast. Again, my cranky-old-man hat was firmly on my head as I imagined that a) it was almost midnight and there probably were not a lot of people using it, and b) it was just recently turned on, so perhaps nobody knew about it yet.

I downloaded a movie trailer that averaged about 130 KB/sec (1040 kbps) with a peak of about 190 KB/sec over a ten-minute preiod.

The next day, I worked from my parents' dining room and the laptop reported that during the day (when the kiddos were supposed to be at school) I was getting close to 1 Mbps down and 500-700 Kbps up. That's very, very good for FREE FREE FREE internet service (my folks' DSL line is the el Cheapo SBC special: 756/256 Kbps). My informal testing also showed that the ISP for the service is also SBC -- but I assume for a city-wide network they have more than one pipe out to the net, probably several, and if they were trying to provide a really robust system they would have several different ISPs connected. Nevertheless, I was fairly impressed with the service provided, as none of the things I attempted to access were blocked (IM, video chat, Skype phone calls, e-mail, BitTorrent), and web browsing appeared to be unfiltered, too. I tried YouTube, hulu, and even some porn sites (just to see if the network was filtered) and all loaded normally.

The system is apparently designed as a mesh, so any node that fails can be replaced in the network by adjacent nodes. The mesh also allows the ISP to connect to just a few access points and be shared across the whole city. This saves the cost of running a DSL line to each access point and is likely the only way the network could have been provided. Luckily, the project was approved and budgeted before the Global Economic Meltdown.

In my few driving outings around town, I have seen the access points on light poles all over the city. My testing has shown a good-to-great signal almost everywhere, even in the open space ("park") a block from my parents' house where there are no streets and obviously no light poles, so the signal is coming from the edge of the property.

In a rare move, the network was originally meant for the use of the city only (police, fire, city employees) but was opened up to the citizenry at large. There's more information in this press release:

http://www.myponcacity.com/cms/City-Government/wifi/wifipressrelease.aspx

So, would I move back to Ponca City now that they're on the "cutting edge" of technology and appear to be more progressive than the typical Oklahoma city? Hell no. It does make it a little more palatable to visit, however.

I will post more about this as I spend more time in town this week. I'm curious to see how good the coverage is in the "poorer" parts of town, where this service should be very welcome. Yes, SBC DSL can be had for only $20 per month, but that's on top of a basic phone line. If you could cut up to $75 per month from your budget, why wouldn't you?

Fabi and I went up to Steamboat Lake State Park this weekend to get our bodies and minds clear and ready for the Democratic National Convention taking place this week just up the street from our house. Fabi, of course, is an independent voter and will feel the pressure this week as the Dems attempt to sway her vote their way. I just wanted to get the fuck out of town for a while, and since next weekend is Labor Day, I chose to not fight the insanity that is a three-day weekend at a Colorado State Park.

We had a nice campsite next to the lake. I cooked hot dogs and pork 'n' beans for five different meals (including breakfast), and the dog swam/chased chipmunks/chased squirrels/chased crows/chased other dogs/pooped all weekend long. One downside was that she awoke at every strange new sound, all night long... which meant I was awake, too, as she got up from the bedroll and investigated by glaring menacingly at the tent door flap.

Today was the big, depressing day: time to head home and back to real life. The driver met me at 6am and we headed back to the airport. If you're too scared to skydive or bungy jump or some other extreme sport, try riding in a taxi in Lima... it is exhilarating and frightening at the same time! We made it to the airport with no issues.

I spent most of my remaining Soles on gifts for friends and family before heading off to the security -- of course I barley had enough US currency to pay the $30 departure tax (the ATMs in the airport used a network that did not work with my Wells Fargo card, and you can only pay the tax in cash). I managed to find my stash of singles in my backpack and made my way to the departure lounge.

I normally don't fret too much about flight delays and such, but today I was a bit concerned there would be some deviations from the schedule. My connection window in Miami was short (100 minutes) and I had no prior experience with clearing customs, gathering luggage and checking back in at the Miami airport. Would it take a long time? Would the flight from Lima be delayed by weather or mechanical issues? The reason for my concern was that the connection from Miami to Atlanta was my only chance to get home that night... otherwise I would be stuck in Atlanta overnight.

Luckily, all went well and clearing customs could not have been faster. I had time to eat dinner before boarding my flight to Atlanta, and by 11 PM I was back in Denver. Of course, I didn't make it home for another hour, but finally I was sleeping in my own bed.

Tomorrow morning I pick up Fabi from my neighbors. I am looking forward to seeing my dog again.

My trip is winding down now, as I flew from Puerto Maldonado to Lima on LAN. The flight was uneventful and the hotel pickup was just as easy. I was met by my driver and we headed to central Lima where the Hotel Posada del Parque is located. I checked in and took a shower, as I had sweat through my clothes prior to boarding the plane.

I think I took a quick nap, then went out on a walk to find some dinner. I eventually ate in a small deli/snack shop/bar where I watched some Peruvian football (soccer) matches. I headed back to the hotel and went to bed. They don't call me Mr. Excitement for nothing!

My second day in the jungle started with a 6 am boat ride around the lake. Why so early? Any later than that, and the sun is sizzling hot. In fact, half-way through our boat trip it was nearly unbearably hot. We did spot the river otters again as they were fishing along the shore, as well as birds, caimans and several types of monkeys.





We made another hike through the jungle at midday and it was still extremely hot, even in the shade. I stopped taking photos at one point because the combination of sun screen, inspect repellent and sweat made it difficult to grasp the camera.


After a long siesta in the afternoon, we made another evening boat trip around the lake before dinner. Again, I somehow found the bar and took advantage of several beers (or did they take advantage of me?). Oscar made a presentation about how the cattle industry was so destructive on the forest: it takes 1 hectare (2.5 acres) to feed a single head of cattle, and many of the ranches in Brazil have over a million head of cattle... so 2.5 million acres of tress are cut down to provide grassland for those cattle -- at a single ranch!


I slept better on the second night, and it was a good thing as the next morning would be hectic as we rushed to get back to the airport for our departing flights. The fun hike into the jungle seemed a little longer as we headed back down to the river. My flight was at 11:30, so the timing was going to be pretty close, as we had to go back to the InkaNatura offices and get everyone's large suitcases before heading to the airport. Luckily, the office personnel had printed out our boarding passes online so all I had to do was check in my luggage and proceed through security before boarding my flight to Lima (via Cusco). It was so nice to be on the plane as it sat on the tarmac with the air conditioning on!