Insidethe.com

Insidethe.com

Random Life and Technology Bits

Central America and Back

Great travel experiences, no matter how big or small, always leave you with something of special value. Maybe it was a tangible souvenir or artifact, a poorly taken picture with immense sentimental value, a memory, idea, or receipt from dinner at a great restaurant with excellent company. Depending on the trip, simply getting back home safely may be the lasting highlight.
After returning from a spontaneous week long trip to the town of Chilibre in the Republic of Panama I look back at the experience and consider what I returned with. The list below is a short synopsis of some of my experiences and random thoughts about the trip and traveling.

  • Tarantula spiders can run, surprisingly fast.
  • In a tropical jungle sleeping with ear plugs will cut down on the noise from chirping bugs might not help the quality of sleep considering the screeching bat flying around the room will go unnoticed all night.
  • While on vacation I finished the book “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau. His inanely articulate writings about the pond remind me of my own writing style. From now on things will be different.
  • Always bring a medium sized towel.
  • Your grand adventure may be paltry in comparison to someone else’s adventure but then if everyone had the same adventure would it still be adventure?
  • The best thoughts and pictures exist only in my heart and mind.

In case you were wondering about the Fort Lauderdale pictures below, they were taken during my 10 hour layover in Florida.

Friends Lost After Cataan Game

The subject is an accurate fact but a bit sensational on my part. Actually, they moved away.

BC, SH, VA, TN, JB, MA had one last late night game of Cataan. MA almost walked away with the victory but beginners luck (and a little underhanded under-the-table trading between BC and SH) sent BC home as the new super power on the dinky island of Cataan.

No, they didn’t move as a result of losing the game :)

Christmas Eve at the Corner of Westwood and Fairview Avenues

The Christmas lights strewn on the trees lining Westwood Avenue in downtown Westwood are simply elegant yet symmetrically impressive. Standing on the street and gazing a down the street across the 3 blocks of lights creates an illusion the lights stretch on forever into the infinite darkness. It may have been a brown Christmas but Christmas lights have a way of blinding you to surrounding circumstances and bringing the reason Christmas is important to mind, if only for a short while.

For best results click here to open the panorama in a new window.

Christmas Eve on Westwood Ave.

Westwood, NJ
Notes: First night panorama picture. Used a remote shutter to prevent camera shake during each of the more than 50 source images. The nadir cap picture was not used because I couldn’t hold the camera steady enough and I couldn’t blend out my shadow. So I emphasized my shadow and put a black cap at the bottom. The overall result was quite good, most of the pictures were clear and stitched cleanly.

Click to open in larger window