Do I need to say more? Follow the link for the story. Thanks for another laugh Wend Magazine!

Stoned Wallabies Make Crop Circles

Labels: interesting, random

Photo credit: clobsSometimes life just gets too busy. Work, eat, bills, sleep, exercise, relax (for a moment) work, run errands. It just seems to go on and on. Even for someone like me who tries to keep their life simple, it doesn't always work. When I am home I seem to keep myself too busy, and fall behind on all the things I want to do. Making an hour to just sit with a book never seems to happen, no matter how little is on my plate.

Quite honestly, as my girlfriend has correctly pointed out to me, I think a lot of my time disappears into the Internets. Keeping up with my RSS feeds, following Tweeters, checking the news, the weather, brainstorming ideas for my website, following links that follow links... You get the idea. In fairness though, I enjoy it, and I do also find time for other things like working in the garden, doing yoga, and watching a little guilty pleasure TV. And also, all that time spent online does keep me up to date with the world, as I seem to just devour all types of media, from blogs to news to real paper publications, but have found myself all to often starting sentences with "I read this article the other day" or "This guy whose blog I follow" and it makes me feel a little too dorky.

So when your time just seems to disappear and you can't seem to find time for the simple things, what better than a weekend camping in the mountains?


Photo credit: °FlorianSure, more than one night would be great, but when you're on a tight schedule, taking 24 hours away from the distractions of home can be a miracle cure. Just this weekend I drove out to the mountains east of San Diego on Saturday afternoon, and returned Sunday afternoon, and getting away like that worked great. The relaxation factor is much higher than if the same time had been spent at home. There are no temptations from the computer, none from the TV, and best of all there are no bills to look over and no cleaning to be done. Only the most simple tasks need to be tended to; setting up camp and preparing food. And when you drive back into town already you notice how the pace of life is moving too fast.

After a simple night like that spent relaxing -- having a few cocktails by the fire, sleeping under the stars, and reading a book -- you can return home recharged and feel like you escaped life for just a bit.

Related Links:
How to find the job you love
Simplify and De-clutter

Labels: camping, how-to, lifestyle, outdoors, random, San Diego, simple living, tips

Thanks to Matador Life for the info below -- 6 Online Resources to Satisfy Your Inner Locavore

...By only eating foods produced in their community, region or country, adherents, known as locavores, aim to reduce pollution and support ethical farming practices.

With more and more people defecting from supermarket to farmer’s market, a number of websites have appeared to help users find local food in their own communities...

And the six resources are:

• Local Harvest
• Sustainable Table
• Food Routes
• Eat Well Guide
• Foodzie
• Bigbarn

Again, thanks to Matador Life for this info, See their article here

Labels: health, lifestyle, local foods, organic, sustainable

Photo credit: cizauskasI grew up in the Northeast, where there were a lot of microbreweries, so I got past drinking Bud and Coors pretty early on. Since I've been with my girlfriend who used to work at one of the best beer pubs in San Diego, I've been introduced to even better beer. I've since learned two things about San Diego that I didn't know before. 1) It is home to one of the biggest craft beer markets in the country and 2) it is well known for producing some of the hoppiest beers in the country. My college days were spent in breweries back east, and now almost ten years later I have gotten my second schooling on beer; not in breweries but in brew pubs, and have been introduced to some of the tastiest beers that not only San Diego, but the entire West Coast, has to offer.

Being environmentally minded though, the one thing I noticed was that options for organic craft beers, or at least beers produced with organic hops, was limited. But now thanks to a very informative write up by Wend Magazine, I have learned a lot more about craft brewing, and most interestingly, how more often than not craft brewing can be inherently sustainable due to its very nature, even if it is not certified organic. I'm not saying that I wouldn't like to see more organic brews out there, but supporting local and small businesses that in turn also buy and support local is better than the alternatives.

Check out the full Wend Mag article about sustainable, craft brewing here

Labels: beer, interesting, organic, sustainable

If you are into sports, basketball, or just like seeing people with some pretty interesting talents, spend two minutes watching this video.

When I was younger I played a lot of basketball, and spent a lot of time trying to come up with interesting ways to shoot a basket, so I definitely can appreciate this video. And I know some people will say he probably makes one out of a hundred, but regardless, to make one of these shots at all is pretty impressive.

Enjoy.

Labels: basketball, interesting, random

Falling Uphill,
Scott StollFor the last two months or so I have slowly been reading my way through Scott Stoll's book, Falling Uphill. It is quite an enjoyable and inspirational book, and the fact that's it's been taking me so long to read it actually bodes well for the book, ironically enough. I find that if I am enjoying a book, I tend to take it slow because I am not ready to be done with it. The exception to this rule is for novels that end each chapter with a cliffhanger, in those cases I have been known to sit and read for hours.

In Scott's book, there is plenty of substance, and quite a bit that gets you thinking about life. I particularly enjoyed the following quote of his, and wanted to share it with you.

I like the challenge of cycling up a mountain: breathing hard, my body burning, and the feeling of peace when I reach the top: sweat being whisked away by the wind, watching the lizards scuttle, listening to the birds sing, sitting on a rock, the whole world spinning beneath me. That's what I enjoy most in life. I want to walk through the world barefoot, as if I were a child again, letting the leaves of grass tickle my toes even if my feet get dirty.

As I mentioned last week, if you know of any inspirational blogs, websites, or stories, please share them with me. I am always interested in reading and promoting stories that inspire.

Also, check out Scott's blog here, as well as his twitter.

Related Links:
Long Walks and Inspiration

Labels: biking, books, inspiration, reading

I realize I have been pretty slow about posting recently. But that doesn't mean I haven't been working on the site. Over the past few weeks I have spent quite a bit of time reorganizing and cleaning up, hopefully to make the site better down the road.

A few things you will notice that are different:

I have made some subtle changes to the layout and the look and feel of the site. This is pretty insignificant to you, and I realize it's probably foolish on my part to spend my time on trivial things like this when I should probably spend it on more important things like creating content and increasing my readership.

Another major change that has been implemented is the rollout of the "shopping" part of the site using Amazon's Astore feature. I know this is also trivial, but I figured rather than having random links send traffic over to Amazon, now I can increase my branding and the site experience by keeping readers on my domain. So now if you click through on an Amazon link you won't end up over at Amazon unless you are actually purchasing. I decided on doing this after reading Chris Guillebeau's 279 Days to Success Manifesto.

In short, he says that by using Google Adsense (yes I know Adsense and Amazon are different, but bear with me) you essentially devalue your site, give your users a worse experience, and also send your traffic away to sites that you don't endorse. The fact that I still run Google Ads, and also that Amazon and Google are two different beasts is not lost on me, but in taking a tip from Chris, I have attempted to customize my Amazon store to mostly products that I have used, or at least product categories that I would use myself. And by incorporating it into my site frame, if you do browse over there, the experience is seamless and you can easily come back.

Lastly, I have reorganized my travel section for better SEO, and also have focused on updating it to include my recent travels. I should be fully caught up in another week or two, at which point I can set my mind at ease and re-focus on putting out more content and increasing my readership.

Thanks for reading, and as always, I welcome your feedback here.

Labels: updates, work

An excerpt on my new article about last fall's trip to Spain, Morocco, and Gibraltar:


View of Rock of Gibraltar from SpainAfter a relaxing two days in Tarifa, (well mostly relaxing, with the exception of my day trip to Tangier), I had one last day and night before an early morning flight out of Málaga. All along I had really been hoping to make it to Gibraltar, but I wasn't sure how it would work out. But of course as so often happens in travel, everything fell into place perfectly for me to make the run over into Gibraltar on my way out.

I woke up early and caught one of the first buses out of Tarifa. I am writing this a while after the trip, if I recall I think I took the wrong bus. The idea was to catch a bus going direct to La Linea de la Concepcion, but I'm pretty sure I took one going to Algeciras. But from there it was a piece of cake to get to La Linea. In Tarifa there was some confusion, because it is so small, and there is not a real bus station, so there is no one to ask for information. But it turned out to be still only a few euros for the entire trip, and maybe 45 minutes or so. La Línea de la Concepción is the small town that borders Gibraltar, so it has to be your jumping off point before the border crossing. If you are coming from Tarifa my advice is to hop online and check the bus schedules. If you are coming from Algeciras, it should be no problem, there are enough buses that run. I'm pretty sure from both Tarifa and Algeciras you can get to most nearby cities, including La Línea, Algeciras, Málaga, and I'm pretty sure even Cadiz and Sevilla too. But you will want to hop online to check that, and of course from Algeciras there will be more options.


Barbary Macaque on railing. Rock of GibraltarThe station at La Linea is small, but they have lockers which makes a quick run to Gibraltar very easy. I locked up my backpack, grabbed my daypack, and walked over to the border. It was a 5-10 minute walk, and crossing the border is simple. You just walk across, I didn't see anyone getting checked. I didn't have long enough to explore the caves at the end of the penisula, however I did want to be sure to get up and see the barbary macaques that live on the "rock", as it's called. So from the border I hopped the bus into town, which was only a Euro or two. It seems that most places in Gibraltar take both Euros and British Pounds, so don't bother exchanging money if you're only there for a day. I took the bus to where the cable car that takes you up to the top of the rock. The ticket for the cable car was a tad expensive, but as I was only there for the day I had no problem paying the 15 or so Euros.

Once at the top it is an amazing view. You can see the Atlas mountains of North Africa, and you can see much of southern Spain as well. Looking out over the Strait of Gibraltar is quite a sight. But of course the real stars of the show are the macaques that have made their home up there. It seems quite an odd place to see wild macaques, but apparently there are a few families that live up there, arriving there at some point from their native habitat in the mountains of North Africa. All the signs say to beware of them, since they are so used to people they know to associate humans with food, and I watched one try to snatch someone's water bottle. I guess they also will take your bag and run away if given the chance.

See the entire article here

Related Links:
Tangier, Morocco
Tarifa, Spain

Labels: adventure, gibraltar, photos, spain, travel

A few weeks ago I came across this video on YouTube, which I've posted below. It's a video made by a guy named Christoph Rehage from Germany who had the goal to walk from Beijing to Germany. From the looks of his blog, The Longest Way, it looks like currently he is not walking, but is at university. Also, it doesn't appear that he has completed the entire trip just yet, but walking over 4000KM is quite a feat none the less.

Here on Idealist Cafe I would like to start profiling inspirational blogs and websites, so if you have one or know of one, feel post in the comments or email me. I would love to hear about any journeys or adventures that are outside of the box and are inspirational. They don't have to necessarily be about pushing physical limits, as I am also interested in stories that create a greater connection with humanity or show what is possible if only we follow our dreams.

Enjoy the video. (If video doesn't show up, you're probably reading from a feed and need to visit the page.)

Labels: adventure, fear, inspiration, interesting, travel, unconventional living