Oil Travelogue at Chicago Tribune

by Erik Olsen on

This isn’t exactly the kind of trip you’re going to want to take with the family, but it is a worthy trip to make online, at least.

This fine interactive over at the Chicago Tribune, takes a long, interactive and video look at where a gallon of gas comes from .The reporter, Pulitzer-Prize winner Paul Salopek, traversed the globe to find out where our gas comes from, how we’re able to drive those SUVs, what is that stuff, exactly that comes out of the pump .It is a superb piece of travel/issue-oriented journalism and is worth spending a lunchtime watching. In addition to the video interactive, there is also a series of articles.

I give this a big thumbs up.

Point It

by Adrienne Wilson on

A friend of mine was just telling me about this revolutionary book helping travelers globally become better communicators – Point It. I know we’ve had to have mentioned it here before, but it’s worthy of another blurb. The concept is quite easy. Let’s say you’re in a European restaurant. I’ll be more specific and say mmm… Latvia. You want to tell the waiter you do not wish to have Latvian bacon buns, but you know neither word in the lang. You’re stuck and destined to have this fine Lativan appetizer unless you can point your way out of it. You turn to your trusty Point It guide hoping it has bacon buns pictured with a huge red “X” in there somewhere. Does it? Heck, if I know – my copy is in the post, but you get the idea. If you don’t know how to say it there are 1,200 pictures so – point it.

via Flight 001

World Wide Panorama: Gardens

by Erik Olsen on

I’m not sure how I missed this since I have participated in several of the World Wide pano projects, but I did. I think it has to do with the fact that the WWP people send out notifications about the project via emails and I get so many of them, that I just started deleting them without reading them.

That sucks for me, because I’ve enjoyed shooting panos for this project since early on. And more than that, I’ve enjoyed seeing all the other work of all the other participants. People literally from around the globe shoot and upload beautiful (and sometimes not) panoramic photographs to the WWP site and you can spend lots of time just cruising around and checking them out. Which leads me to the point of it all. The newest project is called gardens and is worth your time.

Each quarter at the equinox for solstice they do a new series, and you’re supposed to shoot your pano according to a theme. Market was one theme, and so forth. So this time around it’s gardens and the interpretations are varied and wonderful, as usual.

Amnesty International Ceasefire Photo Gallery

by Adrienne Wilson on

Here’s something to spend just a few moments checking out. On August 7th, Amnesty International held a global vigil for ceasefire in the Lebanon/Israel conflict. The gallery showcases how members and supporters from over 30 countries came together to show their solidarity for victims and survivors of both sides. Quite moving in a way – it includes shots of people covered in banners, sprawled out in streets, and candles spelling out “ceasefire” in Arabic from Beirut. Take a look at how folks in Paris, Pakistan and Santiago demonstrated their cry for peace and ceasefire.

Word for the Travel Wise (08/15/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Hmmm….With each travel wise word feature I do I try to frequent the various tourism sites out there for each country. This Discovery Bangladesh seems like a newbie to me unless I missed it somehow, but the content is spectacular for travel planning. Very clean, neat and informative site for all things in and around this lesser explored Asian gem.

Today’s word is a Bangla (Bengali) word used in Bangladesh:

nir dohsh – free (gratis) as found in the LP phrasebook / innocent; as noted by Gadler

Web resources for Bangla are few, but you can pick up quite a few words reading (not skimming) through the Wiki and from this Bangalinet site which has a small tutorial on how to write in the script. Beyond those two I’m sure there are others, but as I mentioned above it was like pulling teeth to get this word. With that being said class is dismissed.

Past Bangla words: bhromon, shobbho