Rootless Lit: Call of the Wild

Credit: American Literature

Just finished re-reading Jack London's Call of the Wild on my Kindle. I downloaded 37 (!) works of Mr. London's. Free, you know.

Jack London: What I thought I knew

• Call of the Wild
• White Fang
• To Start a Fire
• Alcoholic
• Yukon
• Gold rush
• Wanderer

Jack London: What I didn't know

Prolific writer. Until I sought out White Fang and Call of the Wild for download to my Kindle, I didn't realize what a prodigious writer Mr. London was. More than 20 novels, more than 20 collections of short stories, a number of plays. A list here.   

Racism. I also had no idea of the grotesqueness of his racism (as evidenced in his novel, Adventure).

Maybe not alcoholic. There is some debate on this score.

Here's a comprehensive chronology of Mr. London's life.

Call of the Wild

Synopsis: Pampered dog in California sold into canine slavery during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897, taken up north to Yukon during gold rush times. Innocence, betrayal, brutality, indifference, acceptance, ignorance, greed, suffering, salvation, love, grief, transformation.

(Note: For packing list aficionados, here's a pack list of the typical "Stampeder" in the 1897 Yukon Gold Rush. Thanks to Adventure Learning Foundation, which strives to offer a "global classroom experience" through the prism of virtual, history-based expeditions.)

I first read Call of the Wild when I was in junior high school. The story of Buck, a St. Bernard-Scotch shepherd mix, gripped me as tightly yesterday as it did when I was a child.


It begins:

Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost. 

Mr. London's writing style is economical, often accomplishing two goals with one word. For example, with just a few words, he can deliver a full-color visual and set a tone.

"Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness..." In only three words ( groping, Arctic, darkness), the reader gets a physical picture of men reaching for something in a cold and dark place; a sense of the men's mental state - seeking out, fear, hardship - and a concise definition of the story's stage.

His writing is uncomplicated. "These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs ...." I like this redundancy - want dogs/dogs wanted - clearly, these men would get what they wanted, and there was no doubt what was in store for the dogs. 

To tell a good story, Mr. London did indulge in some anthropomorphism of Buck and other dogs in the book, but with the exception of the "did not read the newspapers" bit at the beginning, he didn't go overboard. To a great extent, the reader never forgets Buck is a dog, driven mostly by instincts,  moderated by experiences. This seems to conform with Mr. London's naturalistic world view. Mr. London espoused social Darwinism (and had an interest in eugenics) and Mr. London stays true to his philosophy in how he depicts both humans and animals in Call of the Wild.


Which, sadly, brings me to Mr. London's racism. I recently read his book, Adventure, for the first time. From the very first paragraph, I was appalled at language such as this:

He was a very sick white man. He rode pick-a-back on a woolly-headed, black-skinned savage .... the man-horse ...

Several pages later:

Stretched on the platform, side by side and crowded close, lay a score of blacks. That they were low in the order of human life was apparent at a glance. They were man-eaters. Their faces were asymmetrical, bestial; their bodies were ugly and ape-like.

And then:

With the automatic swiftness of a wild animal the black gathered himself to spring. The anger of a wild animal was in his eyes; but he saw the white man's hand dropping to the pistol in his belt. The spring was never made.


Later:

Seelee was more intelligent than the average of his kind, but his intelligence only emphasized the lowness of that kind. His eyes, close together and small, advertised cruelty and craftiness. ... His broken-fanged teeth ... As he talked or listened, he made grimaces like a monkey. .. 

Even though Mr. London is restrained in his anthropomorphism of Buck, the dog, in Call of the Wild, he does imbue him with certain  human attributes such as dignity, strong work ethic, love, sacrifice, and rage. 

Mr. London does the opposite in his book, Adventure, in his treatment of the Solomon Island slaves. He dehumanizes them. With few exceptions, Mr. London does not even award them names, whereas in the Call of the Wild, we learn a lot about Buck and a little about his canine colleagues, all of whom have names and distinct personalities. 

So while I loved Call of the Wild, I couldn't help contrasting Mr. London's respect for the intrinsic worth of the dogs versus the contempt he displayed for the Solomon Island men in Adventure. 
  

Hobos: "House-less Not Homeless"

Train, road, and silo in Kansas

Britt, Iowa hosts the Hobo Convention every summer. The town has been doing this for 112 years. The most recent was earlier this month.

According to Britt's Hobo Convention web page:

Ask a veteran hobo at a convention jungle what a hobo is and you'll receive a definite answer. 

The hobo is a migratory worker, some with a special skill or trade, others ready to work at any task, but always willing to work to make his way.

The tramp, they'll tell you, is a traveling non-worker, moving from town to town, but never willing to work for the handouts that he begs for. 

A bum is the lowest class, too lazy to roam around and never works.

Awhile back, I introduced two of my great-uncles, Philip and Toby, who were part-time hobos during the Great Depression, riding the rails in search of work.

Train going through New Haven, Missouri

Matt Stopera over at Buzzfeed, wrote this article recently, based on his experience at the 2012 Hobo Convention: 61 Things I Learned at the National Hobo Convention.

Holly Dorhn's dad started riding the rails as a hobby in 2003.  She tells the story here.

"Northbank Fred" offers a rich stockpile of articles about current hobos or offshoots here.

I wonder if Glenn Campbell considers himself a hobo. He does call himself "homeless by choice."

Robert Heinlein wrote Day After Tomorrow, which featured hobos and the hobo jungles. It was about a small group of scientists tasked with taking the U.S. back from "Pan-Asian" invaders (read: Chinese) invaders. One of the characters, Jeff, a well-educated guy who lived the hobo life before the Chinese took over, used the hobo network for his revolutionary activities.

As for me, I'm not a hobo. I am rootless. I'm neither house-less nor homeless, but I don't have my house or my home.

About That Intoxicating Chocolate Ice Cream in Istanbul

Twice I experienced a decadent chocolate-chocolate ice cream bar in Istanbul.

It surpassed any other ice cream I tried there. Fabuloso.

Istanbul, Turkey. Magnum ice cream bar.

Back in Missouri, I was talking to one of my brothers the other day, and the subject of ice cream came up. I described the Istanbul ice cream bar to him, naming the brand. He exclaimed, "They had the same brand in Malta! We couldn't believe how delicious it was!" (That was about 15 years ago when he'd been in Malta.)

So you know where else you can get this chocolate-chocolate fabulous ice cream bar?

Walmart. Right here in Misssouri.

Three bucks for a box of three.

What am I to learn from this? Other than to reinforce my earlier thesis: Istanbul - Kind of like Cincinnati.

Email Accounts Maintenance: Revisited

In January 2011, I confessed to having 11 email accounts. Too many?

Yes, maybe. After acknowledging this to myself, I was able to unload one.

So how am I doing today?

**Counting**

Ah, yes. Eleven. Wait, no, 12.

But two are on the way to becoming inactive.

Stop judging me.

New Mexico Enchanting Me

Tres Piedras, New Mexico. Pink Schoolhouse Gallery.

When I was in high school, I read a book that made me laugh out loud many times. It's about a kid who moves from Alabama to this foreign, inter-cultural community in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico circa 1945.

The book was Red Sky at Morning.

Taos, New Mexico. Holy Trinity Park.

Author Richard Bradford's characters were vividly drawn, as was the geographical stage of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on which all of the events played out. The images of a fantastical New Mexico that Mr. Bradford planted in my mind took root.

It wasn't until many years later that I first set foot in New Mexico. Since then, in 1999, I've visited New Mexico two or three times more.

Montezuma, New Mexico. Scarecrows.

 
In some locations, I relished the sensation of having been there before, because they so strongly evoked Red Sky at Morning:

• At the Chama Visitor Center, talking to a volunteer who explained that although she and her parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were New Mexico natives, English wasn't her first language.
• In a wooded lot in Taos, the Holy Trinity Park, decorated with that New Mexican outsider art that fuses Roman Catholic iconography, naturalism, magic, and perhaps a dash of schizophrenia.
• In Tres Piedras, the Old Pink Schoolhouse Gallery (sadly gone now), a cacophony of bright color and media in the middle of nowhere
• Desperate hope, visible through cruciform prayer offerings left at the Santuario de Chimayo.
• The mountain-hugger road between Las Vegas and Tucumcari.

Desperate prayers left at Santuario de Chimayo, New Mexico.

New Mexico is American, but it's also a foreign land. There are layers of language, ethnicity, traditions, religion, art, climate, geography, and light that I haven't found anywhere else in the U.S., and I feel drawn to it.

And it's got the Spaceport, you know.

Road from Las Vegas to Tucumcari, New Mexico.

The Rootless Undead

Real unreal life imitates art

Back in the 70s, Frederick Pohl wrote a terrific sci-fi series called the Heechee Saga.

As the saga unfolded, there were "meat" people and virtual people. If you were super-rich like Robin Broadhead, you could execute a brain dump into a computer application and live on in a sort of Second Life universe. (See how real unreal life imitates art?) Virtual Robin could communicate with meat people, including his wife, and with never-real, virtual personas such as his computer-generated psycho-analyst Sigmund.

I'm confident that some day, a monied few of us will become immortal in a virtual way, in that we can "live" an undead life out in the ether with other undead, perhaps continuing relationships with our surviving family and friends.

(Gosh, we think same-sex marriage is complicated. When we have the power to become undead, will there be constitutional amendments to clarify that marriage is between one living-in-the-flesh man and one living-in-the-flesh woman? Need to redefine the meaning of [end of] life? Allow voting privileges to the undead? Allow them to donate to political candidates? Retire the phrase "pull the plug"? .... I digress.)

Our undead selves in the cloud

In old-timey cartoons, when someone dies, we see them lounging on white fluffy clouds.


Google Docs (which has morphed into Google Drive). Dropbox. Amazon.  Skydrive. SugarSync.

Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, Tumblr, email accounts ... .... 

Repositories of the data of our meat lives assumed into the cloudly heavens.

What happens to our undead, fluffy cloud selves?

And who 'owns' our undead, fluffly cloud selves?

Dave, over at The Longest Way Home, offered detailed instructions for handling undead email and other accounts in his article, What Happens to Your Online Digital Assets? in September 2011.   

Kindle library

Read the answers to Kyle Gerrard's question: Where Do E-Books Go When You Do? in his New York Times article.

"Planned departure" 

"Planned departure" is the name of a company: "Be in charge of your online and digital assets after your death and decide what should be deleted or transferred to someone you love and trust."

I imagine it won't be long before online/digital 'asset' providers will enable a beneficiary or "instructions upon death" feature, but in the meantime, here are some other products or services

Legacy Locker, the "safe and secure way to pass your online accounts to your friends and loved ones."

Lifehacker (or in this case, Deathhacker) writes about another company, Entrustet, here.

... ah, but Secure Safe recently bought both Entrustet and LifeEnsured for what it calls "data inheritance."

I haven't fully explored these services, but I intend to do so soon.


When the Rapture Comes: Guarding Digital Assets

This article, 10 Things IT Groups Need to Know About the Rapture, always makes me laugh.

Credit: CDC

An Era Ends in Ethiopia

The hard and soft that is Ethiopia. Nazret, Ethiopia.

On August 21, Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's prime minister, died. He'd been the guy in charge for more than 20 years.

When I visited Ethiopia for two months in 2011, I heard many comparisons between Meles Zenawi and the Derg (which was the oppressive regime preceding Meles Zenawi's 1995-2012 tenure):

From my March 7, 2011, post: My experience thus far in Ethiopia is that men of a certain age (e.g. those who were at least late teens at that time...) tend to believe that living conditions were better under the Derg than under Meles Zenawi. Men who are in their 20s and 30s tend to like Meles Zenawi. 

Even a man whose brother was killed during the Red Terror believed living conditions to be better under the Derg than under Meles Zenawi. (This sentiment is similar to what older Georgians say about things being better under Soviet rule than under the current administration of Mikheil Saakhashvili.) On the other hand, the younger men admire Zenawi, seeing hope with new roads (built by the Chinese), government works projects (such as cobblestone road building in the cities, financially supported by other countries), and the promise (though without the reality) of jobs after graduation from university.
 
Some of what I know about the Meles Zenawi era is what I've personally observed. So while our world leaders sing posthumous praises of Zenawi (and he has done some good things), I remember these facts: 

• Too many girls standing on the streets of Addis Ababa after dark, waiting for customers. 
• A former academic colleague, Taye Woldesmiate, imprisoned in Ethiopia for six years, convicted of treason.
• Another gentleman of my acquaintance, a husband and father of four children, imprisoned in Ethiopia for more than 10 years, similar charges. 
• Farm fields that used to grow food, now given over to grow tchat (qat), the narcotic cash crop

Meles Zenawi. Photo credit: The Telegraph

Ethiopia is rich in its illustrious and unique history, natural beauty, enduring traditions, Ethiopians' tolerance of each other's religions, languages, regional traditions; its humor, music ... so many attributes. I hope the transition between the Zenawi regime and the future is a fruitful one.

Rootlessness and Health Care, Part 3: Lab Work

Part 1 talks about rootlessness and access to affordable health care in general.
Part 2 talks about prescription drug prices.

Here in Part 3, the topic is access to affordable lab work. "Lab work" encompasses testing samples of any of your bodily fluids or solids: blood, urine, feces, sputum, etc. 

Patient assistance programs (sliding scale fees)

From Aurora Almendral in her article, How to Get Health Care While Uninsured (in The Billfold), I learned about Qwest Diagnostics' sliding scale program for lab work done at their facilities. Which, by the way, are distributed throughout the U.S. (and, I believe, the U.K., Mexico, and Brazil.)

It's possible other labs provide similar programs.

Shop around for labs

It's a conflict of interest for a physician to require (or imply requirement) that you get labwork done by a particular operation. This is because sometimes physicians or the organizations with which they're affiliated own a lab, so they may derive a financial benefit if you go to their preferred lab.

Call up labs and ask what they charge for the tests you've got an order for.

If the amount is scary, ask the labs if they've got a patient assistance program. Better yet, go online and look first, because the front-line staffer on the other end of the phone may not know if his/her company has such a program.








  

Rootlessness and Health Care, Part 2: Drug Prices

In Part 1, I talked about health insurance and some ideas on where to get affordable health care.

Today, I got a fresh reminder of the importance of checking prices for prescription drugs.

Last week, I had need of an antibiotic. The generic version of same was filled at Walgreen's (my usual place) for $12.66.

Today I refilled the prescription at Walmart. Same generic version of the drug. Same dosage. Same quantity. Four bucks.

Grrrr.

I did learn about six months ago that sometimes a prescription drug and an over-the-counter (OTC) drug might be identical in composition and dosage, but you may pay significantly more for the drug if you buy it as the prescription rather than the OTC.

Take omeprazole, for example. You can buy OTC Prilosec (which is a brand name for omeprazole), 20 mg. for far less than if you fill a prescription for the exact same thing, assuming you don't have insurance coverage for meds. Crazy, eh?

Note: Verify with the pharmacist that the OTC version is the same as the prescription. By the same, I mean that it's not only the same drug, but that it "deploys" in your body the same way as the prescription. 

Kiowa County Hospital post-tornado in Greensburg, Kansas. October 2007.

Kansas City 2010 Trip Report: Day 4, Nelson-Atkins Museum

In January 2010, my mother and I took the train to Kansas City, Missouri. This is part 3 (and final part) of our trip report, which includes comments from our original trip-report recipients.  

Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum, Bloch Building

 

PAULA'S REPORT
 

On Wednesday, we visited the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum.  I preferred this to the Chicago Institute of Art Museum; Carol liked the Nelson-Atkins, but prefers the Chicago museum. 

Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum, Bloch Building

We both loved the interior design of the Nelson-Atkins'  Bloch Building, with its clean lines and shadows and light play. 

Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum, Rozelle Courtyard

We lunched at the Rozelle Court which, although it is fully interior, creates the effect of a Roman courtyard complete with central fountain and surrounding arches on two levels. Skylights are above. Carol had a club sandwich and a cup of chili; Mzuri had a trout cake salad. We shared a slice of key lime pie.

 

We agreed the museum's store is excellent. Here, too, I believe it surpasses the Chicago art museum's store. Although smaller, it has many truly creative, beautiful, interesting and affordable things. As I write this, I do believe there was not a t-shirt for sale. If I were a tea drinker, I would have snapped up an exquisitely simple tea set for two. Very clean lines, off-white color, spare curves. Carol bought a reasonably-priced art book devoted to Vermeer.

Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum

This week, we're enjoying Augusta Winery's vignoles, a spicy white wine.

In the evening, some relatives joined us. We all threw together wine, beer, and carryout BBQ to make a merry get-together. There were a few sparks that flew around the topics of Facebook and the merits of Republicans, but other than that, it was convivial.

Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum

Carol participated in this gathering from a prone position on the bed, eyes closed, with a quietly thoughtful expression on her face.


CAROL'S REPORT
 

6 AM Winding down..our bags are packed....we're le-a-a-v-in.  Last nights guests were a treat but I was beat - they accepted my apologies and I took to my bed and for a long time listened to the cacophony of four voices.  There was a short period when I thought I would need to rise up and separate a few.  Don't know the subject only the elevated voices - feminine, I believe which is always off-putting for the peacemaker.  That was a half a sandwich by the way.


EMAIL RESPONSES TO DAILY LOG:

Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum

 

 

FROM SHILO GIRL:

Glad you enjoyed the Nelson-Atkins.  I read an article in the Post Dispatch about the museum and had been looking forward to seeing it.  Pleasantly surprised you preferred it to the Chicago Institute of Art.  I was especially interested in seeing the Native American exhibits. 

Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum

FROM MZURI:
The native american exhibit is smallish, but of the greatest quality.

Am now home; looking forward to a nap later this afternoon.


FROM SHILO GIRL:
a nap sounds wonderful.  if i were off i don't know if i would nap but i sure would be relaxing!

Kansas City 2010 Trip Report: Day 3

In January 2010, my mother and I took the train to Kansas City, Missouri. This is part 2 of our trip report, which includes comments from our original trip-report recipients. 

Kansas City, City Market

MZURI'S REPORT
 

Tuesday, we visited Steamboat Arabia, which is within the City Market.

In brief: Steamboat sank in Missouri River in mid-century 1800s. All contents still within, tho all humans escaped. River course changed. Boat encased in muck and mud til 1990, when museum owners dug it out. Contents preserved and on display. Sort of a snapshot in time of everyday items - many totally new at the time, as they'd been intended for mercantile stores along the river route.

I'm not all that interested in all of the minutia arrayed in the museum, although there is power in the sheer quantities of like items, e.g. boots, nails, buttons, coats, tools, etc. The thing that I like is that the individuals who unearthed all of this are still a daily part of the museum, and they introduce themselves to visitors. Also, the docent is very knowledgeable about the dig and the museum contents. I was especially interested in talking at some length with one of the textile preservationists.

There was a bit of an incident when Carol was talking to one of the museum owners, one of the men who led the whole adventurous gamble of the dig. The boat was in a field owned by a local judge (a mile south of Parkville). Carol asked about legal threats to the ownership of the boat's contents, to which the museum owner replied there were none. Carol noted that it was likely a good thing the landowner was a judge and not  "an ignorant ..... " at which time my hand suddenly, without any warning to me, shot out and struck her thigh. Carol and the gentleman looked startled, and Carol asked, "what, were you worried what I was going to say next?" I allowed as how, yes, I was. Carol asked what I thought she was going to say, and I said I didn't know, but whatever it was, it probably wasn't going to be good.

Carol might have been really angry except that only moments before, the museum owner had exclaimed that she couldn't possibly be old enough to be my mother. So Carol was like a lion who'd just eaten, willing to let small prey live.

Kansas City, City Market

I liked the City Market. There seems to have been some effort by the powers-that-be to ensure some interesting diversity there. The restaurants include: Italian, middle eastern, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Indian, Mexican, Chinese, and American. We lunched at the middle eastern place; Carol had a chicken gyros and I had a lamb/beef one. She had a great salad with feta, olives, etc. and I had hummus with my gyros.

I picked up fresh dates at the middle eastern market, ginger at the Vietnamese market, and berbere spice at the Ethiopian restaurant. Carol picked up a used book at Auntie Em's, an antique store.

CAROL'S REPORT
 

When the gentleman said I didn't look old enough to be Mzuri's mother I was wearing the red coat.  [See Chicago trip reports for red coat reference.]

Mzuri punched my leg; it startled me and I knew she was cautioning me to watch my rhetoric which puzzled me, but am getting used to my children expecting some untoward remark made by me.  Beekeeper [Carol's 4th son] even asked me to refrain from sighs at his son's recent concert.  Anyway Mzuri explained later that she thought I was going to say "ignorant farmer" instead of what I did say which was ignorant person.  By the way, the group responsible for digging up the boat were a father and his two sons all in the family air conditioning business.  The City Market was unique - as Mzuri said many cultures and native food choices present.
 

My passport card was Discover.  Today, the Art Museum.

EMAIL RESPONSES TO DAILY LOG:


FROM LABARQUE:
I love these reports. They are great escapes. Thanks for sharing them. ....I especially enjoy the two different reports.  I love Mom's clarifications.  It's the difference in the two perspectives that I find the must humorous and interesting.

Kansas City 2010 Trip Report, Days 1 and 2

In January 2010, my mother and I took the train to Kansas City, Missouri. This is part 1 of our trip report, which includes comments from our original trip-report recipients. 

Kansas City, WWI Museum, in the trenches.

MZURI'S REPORT

Our train arrived at Kansas City's Union Station on Sunday afternoon. There'd been bit of a snafu about the tickets, but we straightened all of this out when we arrived.

While at the Union Station, we had lunch at the Harvey HouseDiner, where I was accosted by a Monte Cristo sandwich (who knew?). Carol had an always-reliable reuben. As to "who knew"? Carol evidently knew, but as she'd also been assaulted by one in the past, I think she felt secretly gleeful to witness another's demise. After I'd placed my order and the server had left, she did ask coyly, "Have you ever had a Monte Cristo?" Look it up. Shows the importance of clear writing; specifically, where the word "fried" sits in the description.

We're staying at Residence Inn Downtown/Union Hill. Very pleasant, like a studio apartment. Free shuttle service within five-mile radius. Free breakfast. Free light dinner Mondays through Wednesdays. 

Kansas City, WWI Museum, in the trenches.

Yesterday, Monday, we went to the Liberty Memorial/WWI Museum. Very impressive museum. The trenches were especially vivid due to the visual design and the audios of soldiers' descriptions of their experiences in the trenches. There was a great movie that bridged the European and American sections. The movie displayed on a corridor-length wall that overlooked a battlefield diorama below. Exceptionally well-done.  One enters the museum proper by walking on a glass bridge that overlooks a "field" of 9000 poppies.

Kansas City, WWI Museum. Glass walkway over field of poppies.

Carol's father, WWI soldier

[Note: The WWI Museum has particular interest for Carol, as her father fought in that war. He didn't like to talk about his experience there, but he made it clear the war was horrific.]

 

We enjoyed a quite respectable lunch at the Over There Cafe at the museum.

In late afternoon, a former colleague of mine came by for a visit. Carol joined in for awhile, and then Donna and I went to The Brick , funkyish little bar for its Monday-night Rural Grit Happy Hour. Rural Grit is a sort-of open mic deal. Music is roots, americana, bluesy/jazzy, folksy whatever kind of stuff. Some was great, some was ok, some interesting, and some godawful. Cool vibe there, though.

Weather dreary, but as with Chicago, there is a vast difference between vacationing in KC in dismal weather versus the Lake of the Ozarks. Vast. 

[Note: A week-long stay at Lake of the Ozarks the previous year, during the winter, was deadly. Dead. Ly. Nothing to do except visit the outlet mall. In Chicago there's plenty to do regardless of weather.]


CAROL'S REPORT 
 

Accurately reported by Mzuri.  While the experience has been enjoyable, engrossing and educational I feel as if we have  been here for about a week which makes the trip very economical.  The weather, even tho gray and foggy, is mild and we walk from our second floor "suite" in the fourth building to the reception room where breakfast buffet is set up and a roaring fire and newspaper cheers us up as we enjoy the vittles.  Kansas City, Missouri, seems newer than St. Louis which, of course, is true...smaller also.  After touring the Steamboat Arabia today, we plan to find a tour bus or city bus and see more of the city.  The Residence Inn provides us with shuttle service within a five-mile perimeter which makes it only a cell phone call away at any time up to 9 PM.  By the way, the National WW1 Museum was wonderful - one of a kind as far as scope is concerned.



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FROM SHILO GIRL:

LOL.  I have heard the Monte Cristo sandwich story before.  And I believe Mom ordered it twice.  The second time to give it another chance.  I think she was enticed by the picture of the sandwich on the wall of the restaurant (in the Ameristar complex).  Humorous to hear, not so to have been the recipient of the sandwich.

 

I can picture her internally enjoying the whole deal with you, from order, to presentation, to finally the first bite!  What a hoot!  She can be so sly.

 

Sounds like you are experience some promising "must-sees" for a future trip for me!

FROM STORMY:

So very happy to receive your "report". I was having withdrawal symptoms.

Happy travels girls!

FROM JACK:
Enjoying the travelogue.  I am uncertain about references to Lake Ozark and Chicago.  I know Chicago had a snowstorm while you were there. Sounded cold and oppressive, but survivable apart from the bus drivers.  How do the three compare?  Was Lake Ozark the worst or best under these circumstances?  Anyway, enjoying immensely.  Carry on people.

TLGers in Ethiopia

I am so excited that former TLG colleages, Jennifer and Martin, are in Ethiopia this very moment, volunteer teaching at the English Alive Academy.

Their new blog, The Beels in Ethiopia, is pretty hilarious. And I love reading about the cool stuff they're doing at the English Alive Academy in Nazret.

Reading their experiences and mine just shows again how everyone experiences a country differently. For example, where they had a fabulous time in Lalibela, I had a meltdown. I survived my mullet phase; they survived theirs.

Bates Hotel in Nazret, Ethiopia?

Earn Money by Screwing Your Neighbor

Back when I was a full-time captive employee with a sustainable wage, and the span between Noon and Sunset yawned wide, I blithely socked a portion of my earnings into the employers' high-risk/high-yield retirement accounts. I mean, why the hell not?  I could afford a gamble.

Post global economic crash, job elimination, and the come-hitheriness of that Sunset, I learned I'm not much of a financial risk taker. (Although in the Suze Orman universe, I'm a Nero-ette playing my violin.)

Also, I'm not very knowledgeable about investing in the stock market.  I can say ETFs, but truthfully, I don't know what the hell they are.

Now being rootless and of modest means, I find myself making a little bit o' money through the larger category of Smoke and Mirrors, in the specific subcategory of Screw Your Neighbor.

These schemes don't work for me when I'm outside the U.S., but while I'm domestically rootless, they're good. Legal, too. 

Money and art in Yerevan, Armenia

High-yield checking account

When I first moved my money into my financial institution's high-yield checking account in March 2010, it paid 4%. This was an astonishing amount, given the dismal CD rates out there then (and now). Not to mention the uncertainty of the stock market (and see risk-averse me above).

Since then, my high-yield interest rate has dwindled to 2.25%, but this still beats hell out of most alternatives for liquid assets. 

There are also hoops I have to jump through every month to get my interest rate:

• Use my debit card in credit mode at least 15 times (the purchase still comes immediately out of my checking account); 
• Look at my account online at least once; and
• Have at least one automatic deposit into (or online bill paid out of) the account.

The cap for the account at my financial institution is $20,000. Exceed this cap and there ain't no 2.25%.

How does this account screw my neighbor? Well, every time I use my debit card in the credit format, the vendor I'm using has to pay my financial institution a fee. And of course, such fees are built into the cost of goods and services, so all of us consumers pay more for our goods and services to cover the fees the credit card companies charge the vendors to accept the cards.

Smoke and mirrors, ladies and gentlemen.

If you're interested in a high-yield checking account, look at your current financial institution, but also shop around, looking carefully at the hoops you've got to jump through and what the minimum balances and maximum caps are.

I saw one financial institution that offered a whopping 6% return, but you only received that for the first $500 in your account. Even this could be worth the hoop-hassle if all you've got to work with is, say, $1000. Thirty bucks a month ain't shabby - it'll pay for 2/3 of a tank of gas, a fair amount of groceries, or most of a pay-as-you-go phone for a month. (6% x 500 = $30).   

Plastic rebates

A l-o-n-g time ago – years ago - one of my sisters, who is more frugal than I, went completely plastic. That is, she got a Discover card and paid for everything with it. Her groceries, her gas, everything. Everything, that is, that accepted the then-new Discover card. At the end of each year, she got back about a thousand bucks in cash from Discover.

I was a cash-or-check girl back then. The idea of charging everything made the old-timey, Swiss Mennonite blood in me recoil in virtuous denial.

But last year, Chase Bank offered me a deal I couldn't refuse:

• Get its Freedom card
• Charge $500 in the first three months; and
• Get back a $150 bonus. 

You read that correctly. A hundred fifty bucks kicked back to me for buying stuff I needed to buy anyway. Since then, I earn a 1% or 5% kickback on all of my purchases, with the 5% rate focusing on this or that purchase category (i.e. gas, restaurants), which changes quarterly.

That $150 bonus offer is gone now, but here's a summary of the best reward cards for 2012. Read the comments, too.

Ok, so anyway, once I meet my high-yield checking requirements (15 uses of my debit card in credit mode), I switch over to paying for everything with my Chase Visa card. 

Exception: I pay for all high-ticket products (i.e. gas) with my Chase Visa, as there is a direct correlation between amount spent versus amount recouped. It's the reverse with my high-yield, as only the quantity of purchases matter. Consequently, a $1.60 coffee purchase has the same "value" as a $50 gas purchase.

As a rule, I only pay cash for a product that is less than $1 or if I'm at a venue that only takes cash.

It should go without saying that if you don't pay your monthly credit card bill in full every single month, then you're only screwing yourself. 

Best Travel Books of All Time?

Reading in Lalibela, Ethiopia.

My new Kindle + rootless frugality = demand for free travel books.

Alas, there aren't as many copyright-expired travel books as I'd have thought.


But here are several lists of best travel books, regardless of vintage:

The 86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time  in Longitude Books' ("Recommended Reading for Travelers") list from a 2007 Conde Nast article.

Ultimate Travel Library: Around the World in 80+ Books in National Geographic Traveler

The 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books of All Time at Worldhum, with links to a number of related lists.


Below are some free books that I gleaned from these lists:

Mark Twain: Innocents Abroad
Mark Twain: Life on the Mississippi
Mark Twain: Roughing It
D.H. Lawrence: Sea and Sardinia
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton: South: The Story of Shackleton's 1914-1917 Expedition
Fridtjof Nansen: Farthest North Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship Fram 1893-1896, Vols I and II
Alexis de Toqueville: Democracy in America, Vols 1 and II
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark: Journals of Lewis and Clark
Tobias Smollet: Travels Through France and Italy
Herodutus: The History(ies), Vols I and II
Winston Churchill: The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan
'Sir John Mandeville': The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
Alexander William Kinglake: Eothen, or Traces of Travel Brought Home From the East
Sir Richard Francis Burton: First Footsteps in East Africa (Harar)


Over here at Gutenberg.org, is a plethora of free books on travel to download.  So it appears there are more free books for my Kindle than I originally thought. 

Reading in Tbilisi, Georgia

Letters from Matt #10: Guam

Letters From Matt are letters from my brother, Matt, from various of his domestic and international travels. The letters span decades, and I share them on Living Rootless at intervals, in no particular order. 


September 1990
Guam

Dear Family,

The weather in Japan has finally started to cool down. Today it’s about 70 degrees F and cloudy. They are talking on the news about typhoon #20 which will hit the southern coast some time today. The last typhoon hit the day I left for Guam. It killed 28 people. In my town, however, the only casualties were a couple of TV antennae.

My trip to Guam was fun. First, I went to Tokyo and visited the zoo. I saw several pandas, and a black panther that roared “save the rainforest”! as I passed by. I used the train to get to Tokyo and connected to the subway system to get to the international airport. The trains are very clean and always on time down to the last second. When the train stops a man jumps out with a watch in his hand. They wait one minute for people to get on or get off. Then he blows a whistle and waves a flag. All the doors on the train close at once and off we go again.

When the train reaches the very last station on the line, a crew of custodians rushes aboard and tidies up the train. After cleaning, the conductor presses a button that automatically rotates all the seats to face the other direction, then he goes to the other end of the train and takes off again. This way they never lose time turning the train around.

My friend, Chuck, who is a junior high school teacher on Guam, picked me up at the airport. He teaches in a small school on the less populated south side of the island.

The island is about 250 square miles (about 40 miles long by six miles wide). Population is about 125,000, 42% of which is Chamorro, a people who inhabited the island about 4000 years ago. They are thought to have originated from Malaysia. The school Chuck teaches at is mostly Chamorro.

They are culturally a lot like Filipinos because Magellan landed in Guam in the 16^th century and it became a colony. After the Spanish-American War, the U.S. ruled it under the authority of the Navy. In the 50s, Guam became a territory and now it has a booming Japanese tourist economy.

There is a university in Guam that is fully accredited. The public school is constantly looking for teachers, so they will pay full scholarships for those who want to be teachers. The starting pay with no experience is 24,000 a year. That’s for 184 days of actually showing up to school. I picked up an application and some other info. I’m considering it as a possibility.

While I was in Guam, I taught Chuck’s students about rainforests. They seemed to like it. I wish I had my rainforest rap tape, though.

I made a petition to George Bush for them to sign and located a place they could recycle aluminum cans for money. It felt good for me to do something like that.

Among other activities on Guam, I found time to go snorkeling several times near the coral reefs that surround the island. I don’t think I could ever get bored of looking at such beauty.

Well, I just looked at the clock and realized it’s time to go teach a class. Until next time.

Matt

Airline Freebies You Should Collect

Ethiopian Airlines, amenity kit

You can get some cool travel stuff on your flights.

Based on the detritus I see when I debark planes, I think most passengers discount the post-flight usefulness of these items. 

A caveat: Domestic flights in the U.S. are pretty Spartan when it comes to freebies. So this post is based mostly on international flights. But: Keep your eyes peeled on domestic flights as you pass through business and first class when you debark at your destination.

A number of airlines provide these free goodies on international flights, even for cattle class:

The amenity kit: 

• Lip balm
• Sleep mask
• Slipper socks
• Ear plugs
• Tiny toothbrush and toothpaste
• A container to hold these items

In-flight meals: 

• Packaged crackers
• Packaged cheese
• Packaged jam or honey
• Packaged moist towelette
• Pretty-good quality paper napkins
• In some airlines, free alcohol dispensed in cute little sealed bottles

Lip balm

I'm not a user myself, but many fellow travelers are addicted to the stuff. It's a nice item to give to someone.

Sleep mask

Generally, I don't need a sleep mask, but many people have a terrible time sleeping when there's the least sliver of light in their vicinity. So it makes a thoughtful small gift to a light sleeper.

For an ESL teacher, sleep masks are great tools for classroom games. For example, split a class into two or more teams. Each team has someone who wears the mask while the other team members direct him through a maze of obstacles using only English. The team who gets its masked member through the obstacle the fastest wins.

Slipper socks

Good to wear to bed in a cold climate, whether on your feet or your hands. Pitch 'em out when you want. Or continue to wash and wear.

Ear plugs

I've found that in some countries, people PLAY THEIR TELEVISIONS REALLY, REALLY LOUD! OR THEY TALK VERY LOUDLY! OR THERE'S CONSTRUCTION GOING ON NEXT DOOR! OR THE CALL TO PRAYER BY THE MUEZZIN IS RIGHT OUTSIDE YOUR WINDOW!

Ahhhh, so anyway, even these cheap ear plugs take the edge off the volume. They make the difference between painful and tolerable.

Collect all unopened packages of ear plugs you can find, left behind by fellow passengers. Keep one pair in your personal bag. Just a few weeks ago, I pulled a pair out of my purse when I found myself too close to the speakers during the international dance competition in Istanbul. 

Tiny toothbrush and toothpaste

Collect for:

• Houseguests who forget their toothbrush 
• Domestic flights in your personal bag or a pocket
• Cleaning grout or other hard-to-reach areas

Container the freebies come in

I use the Ethiopian Airlines case to keep my small electronic paraphernalia.

Until recently, Turkish Airlines put its comfort items into a nice, ivory-colored, leather-like zippered bag that was useful as a small toiletry bag. Now TA uses a flat metal container; don't know why.

Other potential uses for such bags:

• Small toys or crayons for kiddos
• Sewing kit
• First-aid kit
• Hand laundry kit (line, clothespins, universal plug)
• A tidy place to pack a collapsible hat, lightweight scarves or bandanas
• For one-night trips to hold underwear, socks
• Pack a swimsuit    

Packaged crackers, cheese, jams, etc.

If you've got a long layover for a second flight after you debark, you can save some serious money by conserving such items til you land.

Alcohol

Unless you've got to move through another security check to board a next flight, conserve a sealed bottle of your desired alcohol for:

• A relaxing drink upon arrival at your destination; or
• A sweet token gift to someone

Decent-quality paper napkins

If your destination is a developing country, then these will come in handy for toilet paper. Stash your extras into a snack-size ziplock bag you packed. (You did pack ziplock bags, didn't you?)  

Debarking through business or first class

Take a look at what these passengers have left behind but not used, such as the ear plugs, socks, or whatever your favorite amenity is.  Collect one or two on your way out.

Amenity kit reviews

Some folks take their amenity kits very seriously.

Amenity Kit Review series from Frequently Flying

Exceptional Amenity Kits From First-Class from Fodor's

In Airline Gift Bags, A Chance to Sell from the New York Times