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First, if the dogs are approaching you from the front, your best bet is to slow down and stop if necessary. You would be surprised how often this stops the threat, as it seems to be your motion which gets them excited and now that no longer is the case. Also, now that you are stopped with both feet planted on the ground, you are more of a threat to them, since your hands and feet are free to kick or throw stones (or pretend to). You couldn"t carry enough rocks to get you thru some doggy prone areas, by the way (ECuador is notorious). Its just as easy to fake a throw. If you are stopped and the dogs continue to approach, you can always get off the bike or reach down and get a few rocks. This makes alot of dogs back off fast, especially in central and south america where the locals have PLENTY of experience throwing rocks at dogs, including their OWN dogs! If they still approach, and there is more than one, get off the bike and keep the bike between you and the pack of the canines. In the country the owner, usually a farmer, will show up pretty quick. In the city or town, the locals will help. DO NOT try and outrun the dogs as they can run really fast in pursuit and you are likely to pay to little attention to the road ahead.
Now, if the dogs approach from the rear--that is they don"t notice you till you are nearly past them--its harder. You can"t see them directly and its harder to appear as a threat. In this case I always IMMEDIATELY get off the bike and turn around to face them down. If you wait to long the dogs can be right on your tail and nip at your nice tasty leg as you try to pedal or try to get off the bike. Again pretend to throw rocks or keep the bike between you and the pack. You should be able, in both cases, to continue walking the bike forward until you are out of the dogs "territory". By the way you might try just calling the dogs and making friendly sounds...they assume you are hostile at first and may give up on you if they find you friendly.
IF YOU ARE QUITE SURE YOU ARE ABOUT TO BE BITTEN....the best thing is to hold your foot out and "hope" the dog bites your foot. When he does, step on his lower jaw and he"ll give up real fast. This works whether you are walking or riding. Your shoe or sneaker should prevent the bite from breaking the skin.
By the way, a few tricks. If the dogs come from across the road to get at you, you can try and lure them into traffic and let the vehicles take care of them. Readers of my travel chronicles know that I was being chased by three Rottweilers near Chichistina, Alaska when the dogs ran into the road to get at me. One was killed, another one severely injured by an oncoming Winnebago in one of the most spectacular accidents I have ever seen while cycling. If the dogs are chasing you from behind and nipping at your heels, try weaving back and forth as you ride, making them risk getting tangled in your rear wheel...just be careful of the traffic behind you.
In general though it is not effective to try and "throw" things at the dogs WHILE you are riding...it throws YOU off balance on the bike, and you just don"t need that.
First, unless you are allergic to bees (in which case long distance touring is awful tough to imagine), it is not the STINGS that will get you when you are being attacked. Most bee sting victims/fatalities occur because the victim suffocated! This occurs not because the bees "clog"your breathing passages, although this does occur...rather it is a reflexive reaction you have to bees swarming about your neck, nose, eyes, face and mouth. And believe me...they DO! Thus, what you must do in this case is get them out of your face so you can breathe.
I carry a pair of women"s nylons and a baseball cap with a big visor, and I have them wrapped and easily reachable on the top of my front pannier rack. If I am attacked again I hope to have the common sense to put the hat on, swat what bees I can away from my face, slip on the nylons, kill the few still left inside, and then deal with wherever else I am being stung. In my attack I was stung dozens of times on the arms and head (I had on long cycling pants so my legs were Ok)...but the only real pain and fear was from the bees crawling all over my cheeks, lips, nose and eyes.
In addition, I carry a signal flare...available at most auto parts stores and such..that you can scratch and use to start a smoky fire. The smoke should help deter and calm down the swarm..at least this is what the folks in Mexico who stopped to help, told me. A signal flare is good to carry for other purposes anyway, and is light and easy to store. The red smoke will attract attention, as well.
You will NOT be able to outbike, or outrun the swarm with the bike by your side. You will need both hands to keep the swarm out of your nose, eyes, and mouth...so, if and when you are attacked, get off the bike, drop it by the side of the road, and get to work on prevention. I must admit i don"t know HOW well this method will work, as I have been attacked by bees only ONCE in all my touring...but with killer bees throughout central and south america, give it some thought.
By the way, if you have access to a can of WD-40, the petroleum product in it will clog the bees breathing passages (turning the tables!!!!) and they"ll leave you alone.
A word about other insects..which can be annoying. First, make sure you have glasses on...a bug in your eye is no joke going down a big hill...and it might not be a small bug, either. Coming down Lincoln notch in Vermont a a hardshelled Junebug hit my left lens so firmly it knocked it out, completely. If you don"t wear glasses, or use contacts, get a pair of sunglasses. Second..underneath your helmet put on a liner so that little bugs that get thru the helmet don"t annoy you. I use a small cycling cap, backwards. The cap absorbs sweat..far more sweat than those stupid foam absorbers helmets have...and if a small insect gets thru I don"t feel it. You can try using a cloth swimming cap, which fits tightly, also. But you WILL want a helmet liner. Do NOT use the type of liner which is OUTSIDE the helmet, as this prevents aeration and makes the helmet warmer than it should be. (Also the lining looks stupid and doesn"t completely block bugs anyway).
(2)"Speak the native language....". This piece of bullshit is big amongst Europeans who think they are rats ass cool that they speak four or five languages, most of which are 95% similar anyway. Don"t get me wrong..learn some basic words and phrases..but your best language is your smile and your sincerity, in any country at any time. For that matter, if you DID get into a nasty scrape with the locals your command of the language priobably wouldn"t be good enough, anyway! Instead, again, use your credibility as a foreigner and long distance traveler to make the most out of communciation with people in shops, on the street, in restaurants, etc. Please, thank you, your welcome, hello, and goodbye are five words most of todays dumbed-down rude boys don"t use enough, anyway.
Ok....brass tacks time. One general overview, which goes back to what I said at the start. The road IS, and always has been, and always WILL be, a dangerous place. ACCEPT that risk, or do NOT go out to begin with! It has nothing to do with size, strength, intelligence, etc. I know a US Marine "commando"(he isn"t REALLY a commando, but I call all marines commandos) who let his guard down in a restaurant one night, got slipped some burundanga (widely available in Colombia) and woke up naked, penniless and embarassed in a small motel three days later. A similar fate awaited a close friend of mine in Vladivostok, who got locked into his own bathroom for two days before coworkers went looking for him. But these guys are alive and kickin" and still out on the road, loving it...and you can be too.
(1) First, to minimize the hassle of being robbed, you have to be willing to carry SOME Stuff...some money, papers, etc...on your person. Otherwise, if all of your gear gets stolen, you are just as clueless and penniless as my marine friend was. Carrying stuff on your person increases your risk a LITTLE bit, but need not be serious. I carried my passport, some money, and one of my two credit cards (more later) on my person throughout central america and northern south america. While I moved things around a bit, in general I had the credit card in one shoe (between TWO pairs of socks) and the money (US dollars) in a waterproof plastic pouch which in turn was in a pouch of my jockstrap! I figured this way if I was REALLY robbed, at least I would enjoy it. Neither the credit card nor the money were easily detectable (I tried it out on a couple of australians in Esteli, Nicaragua). Also very useful for hiding things on your person is to use an ace bandage around your lower leg. I was able to carry some ID papers, and some money this way. The ace bandage was dirty and covered with Mercuracrome. I told people I had been bitten by a dog. Most offered to bring me to the hospital, and asked if I had rabies shots! I especially like the ace bandage idea since its so "obvious" it doesn"t come to a casual thief"s mind.
Now, I also used the traditional neck strap and money belt kind of stuff...but what I put in those was (mostly) fake. I had two old expired passports, numerous expired cards and things that looked like credit cards (including library cards!), and other official looking bull in these straps and belts. If I was accosted and asked to hand over my stuff, or if it was "taken", my hope was that it would look official enough that the thieves would stop looking at that point. I did have some small US bills in there, just to make it look realistic. In fact, deception is your most effective weapon against a non-professional, casual thief or robber, which is the most likely enocunter you will have on a bike. (Professional thieves have more juicy targets than cyclists, though more about this later).
(2) Second, you can deceive people as to who and what you are, as well. I have always toured alone, and have always rode into a town or village alone. But you can always say you are meeting your friend or partner sometime soon...have the name of a major town up ahead in your mind. The key here is to discourage people who figure they can get away with something (including kidnapping, unfortunately) since you may get no help soon. There are limits here, but you"ll sense them pretty easily. If there is only ONE road between towns (such as in Colombia"s Pasto-Popayan region) you are"nt kidding anyone if you say your friend is on the other side of the mountains. But you can be creative. You can also deceive people about your nationality. This is especially true for Americans, as we are targeted more than others since we are supposedly richer and, also, US STATE DEPARTMENT CONSULAR OFFICIALS ARE THE MOST GUTLESS AND USELESS in the world (lots more about this later) and don"t raise a stink about Americans who are robbed, beaten, eaten, killed, or in general hassled. In any case, if you know some french, or spanish, or other languages you use them. When I was in Colombia i often masqueraded as a French Canadien rider, and it was effective. I was riding thru a town and a group of kids started to hop on their bikes, and when I answered in French to their taunts of "give us some money!!" they stopped pretty quickly. It was a very brief encounter, and hard to really judge, but it did work. Again the ruse has limitations, but it can useful in averting further interest in you.
(3) More helpful perhaps is to be streetwise or travel wise, and learn to take the initiative. PEOPLE DO NOT ROB PEOPLE THEY LIKE, RESPECT, OR ADMIRE IN SOME WAY. Thus, try and make sure you establish a positive interaction with the locals as soon as you arrive. Patronize their businesses...cafes, kiosks, restaurants, etc...with an air of confidence and genuine good cheer.
What I mean here is easier to use an example. 99% of the time when you ride into a small town, some guy in a group of locals will catch your attention. Maybe he will smile...or say, in broken English, "Hello my good friend!"; or in any case his body language will indicate he thinks your arrival is kind of a neat, good thing. THAT PERSON IS YOUR LINK TO A SAFE AND SECURE ENCOUNTER.....I usually ride up to them, say hello, ask them a question (where is food, shelter, etc...) and often stop and have a cup of coffee or snack at that point. By taking the initiative, setting the agenda as it were, you set the tone and make your stay far more pleasant and safe. I did this, literally hundreds of times, and it is just second nature to me. And my command of foreign languages (except French) is very, very limited. Make clear from your words and actions that you are there for a reason, that you like that area, their country, their people.
Patronizing local businesses helps in another way, too. You can"t buy their stuff if you are robbed, or hassled, or annoyed by punks and dweebs in the region. YOUR COMFORT becomes as important to these people as it is to you. For example, if you are unable to leave your bike in front of a store or kiosk because some kids are (perhaps) eyeing to steal your stuff, I make it clear thru my actions and words, as I leave the establishment without patronizing it, exactly what the reason was. Most restaurants and cafes will let you take your bike inside, anyway. DO IT!
(4) Most of the people who try and steal, snatch and grab things from you, or hassle you in some ways, are "bad boys" through and through. They are probably punks in the local community, use and/or deal drugs and or tobacco, mess around with prostitutes and may be prostitues themselves, on and on. THESE ARE BASICALLY NIGHTTIME activities and these folks are basically nightime people: they use the cover of darkness for their activities. This means that the early morning hours, they are likely to asleep. Thus, when I was in Colombia and a few other places, I often tried to get alot of riding done in the early morning hours and find a place to stay (motel, residenciale, etc) around 4 PM or so. Almost all the "roadblocks"(more on these later) I ran into in South America were late in the afternoon after kids came home from school, were bored senseless and went out to have fun/cause trouble.
I might add more positively that people are in a better mood in the morning and going is easier in many ways. This is especially true at border crossings, where it is important to get in and out quickly with minimumn hassle. Late in the day tempers are short, people are tired, and the crossings are busy. Early in the morning it is often quiet and more pleasant.
(5) Fifth, keep track of information on guerilla activity and civil unrest or areas dangerous because of thieves. YOUR BEST SOURCE of this information is from truckers who are on the same road as you...you can talk to them in restaurants and truck stops along the way. They are in EXACTLY the same position as you are, vis a vis thieves, and they have alot more to lose. DO NOT count on information from local police authorities or travel bureaus. It is unrealiable: they will lie to you so that you are not scared to go into their region. Similarly, bulletins from Embassies and the US State Department are often too vague and HOPELESSLY out of date.
For example when I was in Peru I was warned CONSTANTLY by truckers and locals not to ride thru the northern coastal town of Chimbote because of civil unrest. No one in Lima (when I finally got there) had heard ANYTHING about these problems. In any case, the truckers who pass you are among your best friends on the road, even if they do bully you for road space a bit. Many of them honk, wave, and yes, they DO keep an eye on you and talk to one another about your progress as they see you, day after day, move onward. If you ARE robbed and left on the roadside with just your socks and skivvies, it is one of these truckers who probabaly will stop and give ya a ride to the nearest help.
(6) Make sure your finances are in defensive mode before you leave on your trip. I opened a joint account with a friend back in the states...he can track my account on a daily basis thru the bank"s electronic services and investigate any sudden huge withdrawals or attempts to break into the account if one of my cards are stolen. I have BOTH HIS card and MY card...so that if ONE of the cards is stolen (see deception, above) I can still go to an ATM with the other and shift money out of the account, change the passwords, or still have access to cash for other needs.
Finally, I must add, keep all this in perspective. Your bike, your equipment and gear probably would cost a total of $1500, maximum, if stolen and you needed to COMPLETELY replace them. In the contect of a long tour such as mine, a 2 year world trip costing close to 25,000 dollars, thats not all that much. If you budget for this kind of replacement it"ll make it alot easier on you mentally, if it occurs. When I was planning my trip I assumed that, in the worst case, I would have to completely replace all my gear twice! (Am I paranoid or what!) As it turned out, so far I have lost nothing. I came close to losing my bike and stuff while fording a swollen stream during Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua...but thats as close as I have come. With some of the precautions above, you should have the same degree of good fortune.
On my trip so far I have had about 5 or six incidents where a person or group tried to hassle me. I have come thru all six unscathed, if somewhat rattled by some of them. Four of them were on the open road, and two were in towns.
(1) Roadblocks: The most annoying event that I ran into in Central and South America so far is roadblockks caused by children and/or adults stringing a rope (and sometimes a wire) across the road to try and get traffic to stop, briefly, and toss them a coin, some candy, or whatever. For cars, trucks, buses, etc, this really is no problem since they can, and often do, just bust right thru or ease their way thru. The folks drop the rope, and wait for the next car. (PS. NOT ALWAYS..sometimes people stand in the road and stop traffic that way. It REALLY is a hassle in that case, and people come close to getting hurt. Personally I think the only way this behavior will stop is for some truck or bus to just blow by and spaltter someone"s viscera over 25 meters of highway, like that RV did to my friendly Rottweiler in alaska. My attitude toward these roadblocks is they will keep going until someone gets hurt...and I have no intention letting it be ME!) Anyway, for cars its no trouble...but for bicycles it is a NIGHTMARE. If they do not drop the rope, which they don"t in about 10% of the cases, you simply MUST stop...or else you"ll get caught and hauled down like an animal on the serengeti. The problem is once you stop very often (again..not always) you get rushed by one or more kids and yes, adults..who want something. What do they want?? By the time you find out it may be too late. GENERALLY you can tell by the tone and body language of the people whether they just want a coin..or if they want to try and grab what they can.
Lets just deal with the latter case. I was in Nicaragua and many stranded/abandoned vehicles (from hurricane mitch) were being looted for whatever folks could get. Not the best time to be cycling! I come along to one of these roadblocks, and sure enough three or four teendages come running out of the bush into the road. I was instantly (and correctly) convinced they wanted to rip off my stuff.
FIRST..you simply MUST get off the bike in this case. Self defense begins with foot placement..riding a bike, your feet are on the pedals, not on the ground. Self defense continues with arm and fist placement...riding a bike, your hands and arms are linked to the handlebars. Self defense ends with mobility and agility...on a bike, you are going only in one direction. GET OFF THE BIKE and start walking forward..firmly, quickly, and in the middle of the road. IF A CAR IS COMING IN EITHER direction use it as a way to get by the block...this is especially useful if it is coming from behind you...stand in front of the car/truck, and let it "push you" thru the roadblock. Once by you can get on the bike and resume riding. Oncoming cars are less helpful but they still must lower the rope to let them by. Thru all this KEEP MOVING...a moving target is harder to surround, and it makes the people around you commit themselves to stopping you if that is their intention...valuable information you must find out quickly.
Thru all of this you should be yelling and making clear you want the folks to leave you alone. Yelling attracts attention, disrupts their ability to communicate with one another, and reduces the built up tension in side of you. 99% of the world understands FUCK OFF, so I say that, no matter what the age group or gender of the person/people are. Most of the time they try and rip off equipment from the back of the bike (sleeping bag, tent, etc) so a few quick backhands may be useful, especially if you hit the folks in the face.
Now..just one moment. If in the course of events its clear this roadblock isn"t that evil, you hardly have to call out the cavalry to get thru it. Some kids come forward and, just with a silly squeeze to the head, off they go, laughing. Like I said...judge quickly by the TONE of events. But to be honest, 99% of the time it will be PERFECTLY clear what their intentions are.
Anyway, back to the war. You are walking thru this block, perhaps swatting at a fellow or two like flies. Exactly what is the point where it gets more serious...that is, where do you draw the line? Again, in the heat of battle it will be more obvious where the point is, but for me the rule is simple. Once contact is made either with my PERSON or with my EQUIPMENT, I am going to try and defend myself to the fullest extent I feel is possible and worth the risks (more about this risk, in a minute). I did not carry any "weapons," but I did carry a horse whip. You can get one from your local dominatrix in the red light district (told you I had a mongrel past!!!). It is hard to see until its too late, inflicts a nasty sting, stays attached to you thru a loop on the handle, is light and easy to whip around, and not easy to take away from you. I can tell you there is one teenage kid in Nicaragua who got a very sharp welt on the forehad as a result of this whip that I had. That is the ONLY time I had to use it directly, although at two other roadblocks (both in Ecuador) I brought it out and whipped it in the air. I was fairly lucky in this sense...the weather was drippy so I had my raingear on, and had the whip up my left sleeve where i could get to it quickly. In fair weather I am not really sure where I would keep it for easy access. In any case...i got through.
These roadblocks were on rural roads and tended to be isolated events, there were not alot of people around to help (me or them!). Thats one reason to wait for a car, if you see one of these roadblocks ahead of you, especially if you are riding uphill. If a car comes up from behind I tend to cut it off and we both ride thru the block together...an oncoming car and I pass rope at the same time. DON"T DON"T DON"T try to "run"these roadblocks as often the rope, which appears to be "held"by the folks on each end, is often tied to a tree or a gauradrail on both sides. Like I said....its a joke alot of the time, and they usually just let the rope down. But in some places you run into roadblock after roadblock kilometer after kilometer, and your luck runs out. On the Pasto-Popayan road in Colombia I must have hit fifty raodblocks within ten kilometers of the town of Remolino..and if people see you have trouble at ONE, you"ll have trouble for the whole damn series! I repeat I repeat i repeat...this is NO JOKE.
By the way deception can work here, too. I often had small plastic bags full of paper or garbage lashed onto my rear panniers undedr the bungie cords...they grab that, it comes loose, and off they go. Sometimes I would throw them a coin...usually worthless Mexican centavo coins, which they didn"t recognize until it was too late. If I misread the block and the people were, in fact, nice or humorous, I often tossed them or gave them chocolate eggs or gum I was carrying. But in most cases I rode by, scowling even if the dropped the rope and swearing to high heaven if they did not.
There is some risk involved in your actions but it is not very great. This type of activity is too open (and accepted!) for the folks to be carrying knives or guns. Your worst case is that they fight back, and that has not happened to me yet. This type of thing is done primarily by cowards, so they usually just back off, and maybe throw a rock or two as you leave, which usually misses you.
(2) Local kids on bicycles: Two times I had kids follow me on their bikes, and maybe try and snatch something on the run. Once it was a group of three...the other time a solitary rider. In general I was able to outrun them, even with the weight I was carrying, but again if they are persistent you are better off getting off your bike and walking. My solitary rider just gave up when I left him behind on a hill (I am a strong uphill rider). The other case was very funny by the time it ended. I misjudged their intentions...they were just being friendly...but they were strong riders! We all tore off down the road for about 2 kilometers at the most amazing pace I have ever seen...I was spinning in my highest gear, full of adrenalin, weaving from side to side to try and force them into oncoming traffic aren"t I evil???) DAMN if they didn"t stay with me! Finally I just stopped and congratulated them on their strong riding, we all shook hands, had some broken Spanish conversation, and off they went.
That sums up the incidents I have had with people. I guess I am lucky, but it seems to me I have had my share. From other incidents I have had in Russia and elsewhere (that are NOT bike related, but still helpful) I can offer the following pointers.
(3) Corrupt border officials or other officials. At this point you might be asking...you mean there are still MORE dangers! Yes...and unfortunately they aren"t always wearing the coats of the bad guys. They can be the good guys (cops, customs officials, etc) too. In fact, for many people the prospect of encountering a corrupt official is the most intimidating prospect of traveling in dangerous places, and it is qhat I am constantly asked about since I lived in Russia for two years, where corruption has replaced communism as the new state ideology.
First...the good news. MOST incidents have greatly declined in frequency in recent years in Mexico, central and south America. Tourism is a bigger industry, it is more legitimate, the borders are busier and more openly patrolled, the process if more documented and transparent, and professional. My MOST professional border crossing of ALL...was at the Ipiales crossing between Ecuador and Colombia...where I had every right to expect itto be the worst. I was so stunned and grateful I told the border official right then and there how calm , professional, and courteous they were. (Heh...perhaps I should have slipped him some Colombian pesos??)
I have never heard of a major incident involving cyclists. We are just to vulnerable, easy to track down and capture, and too loveable(!) to do things like carry illegal drugs, contraband, antiquities, or other things that might make border guards suspicious. They can"t realistically PLANT drugs on you and then try and get a bribe, for no one in their right mind would even IMAGINE that a cyclist would have more than just the smallest amount of (marijuana, if anything) on them. Instead, you are more likely to be asked to pay small amounts for things that really should be automatic, or perhaps not even necessary. It is impossible to tell at some of these borders just WHAT stamps you need, where you should go, and what you should pay. Often you are approached by young, but honestly helpful, kids who will help you thru the steps and offices. A guy I met in Costa Rica says these kids are THE BEST WAY of getting across the borders. I recommend doing this if they are around and they don"t appear overly deceitful or eager to help. But...rule number one: DO NOT GET SEPARATED FROM YOUR EQUIPMENT AT ANY TIME. Take your bike and equipment with you to every office you go to, even if it means you have to lug them around a bit. MAKE IT CLEAR THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS to this rule. You may not be able to take your bike into the smaller offices...but keep it in sight. If you are traveling alone this can be a bit tricky, but you"ll be able to manage when ya get the feel of it. Rule number two: LOOK YOUR BEST AT THE BORDER. Shave, shower, have clean clothes on, wipe the grease and oil and junk off your equipment and bike. If you look shady you will arouse suspicion. Don"t wear a hat with a visor that hides your eyes; and look people in the eye (pleasantly) when you deal with them..it helps establish rapport and you can get their mood, as well. In general crossing a border like that to El salvador, Nicaragua, etc, takes between 15 minutes and half an hour. Be brisk, but not impatient, and when your business is done, GET OUT OF THERE. Only bus and train stations rival borders as places for thieves and con artists.
NOW...two pointers that I can offer from experience. First, Register your valuable equipment so that you can prove ownership. I have my bicycle Frame number (usually stamped on the bottom of the bottom bracket) stamped in my pasport...they did this for me at the Nicaraguan border, but you can have them do it elsewhere if ya ask, as a favor...so perhaps have it done before you leave. If you carry a camera, thats not bad either, especially if its one of those expensive video cameras. I say this because, when i was at the Chilean/Peru border, one of the Peruvian drug police started walking off with my bike while I was in one of the offices!! I walked out and grabbed the bike, and for just a moment a tug of war and a war of wills ensued. I finally said, in perfect english...THIS BIKE IS REGISTERED AND IN MY PASSPORT, SIR...in a firm voice...and he let go. Perhaps he didn"t understand a word, but it worked. WHEN SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPENS IF IT HAPPENS, concentrate on getting the name of the official involved and register an official complaint as soon as possible. Again, concentrate on getting an accurate version of events instead of getting all riled up or frightened, or angry, which generally does not help. Most border crossings now have a chief (jefe, in Spanish) and this may be your first line of appeal.
Number two: Carry exact and small change...not always easy. If a service costs 6 pesos and you give the official a ten, don"t be surprised if he doesn"t make change for you...it may be baksheesh or it may be a test of your assertiveness, but it will happen. On the other hand, the small change can be used if you feel you DO want to try and expedite matters, though I have never done this. In general, attempts to extort small amounts of money from travelers for small favors, are best met with a patient, silent refusal. The friend of mine in Costa Rica was bringing his cat across the border from Panama. The official said to him, at the end, "Well, sir...what about the cat??" while looking away...a sure tip it was a try for a payoff. My friend replied.."oh...its a cat!" This silly game went on (what about the cat? ...oh, its a cat!) for about 3 minutes...when finally the official just waved him on.
Oddly enough I have a better story. When I entered mexico at the crossing near Big Bend National Park the Mexican officials did NOT STAMP my passport!!! 50 kilometers in, sure enough, I come to the interior police who want to see the stamp. I told them.."Hey, when i was at Ojinaga, they just waved me by! I tried to get the stamp, but they said they were havinhg enough hassle with a trucker, and just get lost!" I could tell instantly..as soon as I said Ojinaga they rolled their eyes...that they were familiar with problems at this crossing. They let me go. A month later, just before the border with Guatemala, a Mexican soldier wanted to see my entrance visa before I could proceed. Of course I still didn"t have it, and he spoke no English, and I certainly couldn"t explain well enough in Spanish, and so.....well, I just talked him to death, and he let me go. To this day, looking at my passport, you"d swear I never went thru Mexico!
(4) Guerillas: I"ll say here that the South American Explorers club ( http://www.samexplo.org ) has a good article about encountering Shining Path guerillas in Peru, on their website, so I can refer you to them. I have no direct experience with Guerillas on my bike or off. I will only extend one piece ofd advice/experience I have had with similar situations (corrupt officials, police roadblocks in Russia).
(1) Go to the local police and fill out a denuncia (report) as well as you can. This may be necessary in oder for you to file insurance claims for any valuable equipment, so don"t ignore it. If your passport is stolen you will be given a temprrary ID document till it can be replaced, probably in the country"s capital city. Don"t be surprised if the whole process seems like a joke..it often is, and many cartoonists show police filing denunciae in their local circular file.
(2) Contact your appropriate consulate and consular official and be as specific as possoble as to when and where the incident occurred. Don"t forget to comment on cooperation (or lack thereof) of local authorities. This will help your diplomatic corps raise the issue of their citizen"s security thru appropriate diplomatic channels. THE WAYS OF DIPLOMACY ARE DEVIOUS, DARK, AND LITTLE UNDERSTOOD BY THOSE OF US OUTSIDE THE DIPLOMATIC COMMUNITY...so, while it looks and feels like nothing may be done, its still a good idea to contact these people. An honest aside comment to the Peruvian ambassador at a Christmas cocktail party may be what it takes to start asn investigation into repeated robberies or whatever. Perosnally I think most embassies and ambassadors are totally useless, but, hey, others have told me differently.
(3) Contact the country"s tourist authority--perhaps even thru he internet. Tell them what happened and where, how such an event hurts the country"s image and suitability as a tourist destination, and suggest they do somethg about it. Tourism is big business, even for low budget cyclists; and in todays competitive tourism market a country does not need a black eye.
(4) Finally contact the many (again, "net based in many cases) organizations that post information about tourism, threats and dangers to tourists such as the South American Explorers Club, or the Thorn Tree from Lonely Planet, etc. This helps them keep theire info up to date, too.


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Space Studio FAQs
What age can my child start at the Space Studio?
We currently take students in year 10 (14 year olds) and in Year 12 (16 year olds).
Are both boys and girls welcome at the Space Studio?
Yes. One of our aims is to get more girls involved in science.
How many places are there at the Space Studio?
There are only 75 places in each year group.
Does the Space Studio have a uniform?
Our uniform consists of a white shirt and branded blazer for Year 10 and 11, and business suit for our sixth form students. We expect students to dress appropriately for the activity they are involved in - smart for presentations with employers and universities or suitable for lab work or written project work.
Can my child leave the Space Studio at 16?
Yes. We are keen to support students into the next phase of their education so that they can progress and be successful, wherever that may be.
Where is the Space Studio?
We are situated in a separate building on Aspirations Campus, Ruskin Road, Banbury, OX16 9HY
Can I come and look around the Space Studio?
We hold various open evenings where prospective parents and students can meet the principal and the head of Space Studio and talk about the school and ask any questions.
Open Evenings for 2018-19:
Open evening for prospective year 7 students to Wykham Park Academy Banbury for September 2019. Space Studio Banbury will also be open on this evening for you to come and look around with a view to joining the Space Studio in year 9. Dates to be confirmed.
If you cannot attend one of our open events there are opportunities to visit the school and meet the principal and the head of Space Studio. Please ring to make an appointment; we are always happy to show people around.
Does the Space Studio have facilities such as a library, computers for my child to use, and lockers for personal belongings?
All of these aspects are available along with a great deal of high tech equipment including computers, tablets and other mobile technology. Secure spaces for students' belongings will be available, as well as a library facility containing print and online materials.
What is the relationship between the Space Studio and Wykham Park Academy?
The two schools are separate entities sharing a Principal but with their own buildings, based on the Aspirations Campus.
They have separate budgets, are inspected separately by Ofsted and employ their own staff but also share some staff. Students will enrol only at one school.
We see some significant advantages in future working together between the two schools – for example, joint trips and visits, sharing of staff expertise across schools and sharing of resources and facilities for the benefit of students in both schools.
They are both Aspirations Academies with the Aspirations Academies Trust nationally providing an overview.
Who teaches at the Space Studio - are they qualified teachers?
All of our teaching staff are qualified teachers.
What do you teach at the Space Studio - it's not just ICT, maths and science is it?
A full and rounded curriculum will be taught. This includes English and a Modern Foreign Language. In the sixth form students will also have the chance to complete the Extended Project Qualification.
What time do lessons start and end at the Space Studio?
Each day will formally start at 8.45am with a 3.05 pm finish expect for Year 11s on Tuesdays and Thursdays when school finishes at 4.30 pm. Students may stay to complete private study/prep until 4:30 pm. The school is open from 8.00 am to 5.15 pm.
What qualifications can my child take at the Space Studio?
In years 10 and 11, GCSE is the expected exam package and in the sixth form we expect students to take mainly A levels.
What will my child be able to do next when they leave the Space Studio?
The strong and unique focus on employability means that many of our students could go straight into high-level apprenticeships from the Space Studio. Many others will go on to university and then into employment.
What pastoral systems are in place to look after my child at the Space Studio?
Each mentor has a detailed understanding of their group of students. They meet each day to review progress and plan forward. The Principal and Head review the progress of students regularly with the mentors and the teaching staff. There is a great deal of coordination between the pastoral and the academic sides to ensure that each student gets exactly the right programme to make excellent progress and be successful.
What makes the Space Studio different from any other secondary school?
Small class sizes, project-based learning, focus on employability, excellent teachers and the space context.
Small class sizes - students learn mainly in small groups of about eight, although they also work in other ways some of the time. For example, sometimes they work in pairs with a visiting employer or attend lectures with their whole year group (75). We feel this variety reflects better the world of work and the way we behave in the workplace, as well as allowing tutors to focus on small groups for much of the time, and really get to know the students well. Of course, it will allow students to get to know their tutors and each other well also!
Project-based learning - students spend approximately six weeks on each project, in learning blocks of two hours per day, investigating real problems set for us by industry. The projects are all space-related but could range from the physical challenges of humans living in space for extended periods of time to keeping satellites safe in orbit to designing innovative telecommunications methods to aid global security. All students have to investigate the problem, come up with feasible solutions, write up their findings and present them to a panel of tutors and peers, and often an industry representative as well. We believe this helps students really get under the skin of the industry and understand what it means to work in the space technology field.
Focus on employability - all students, as well as carrying out a series of space-related projects, undertake maths, English and other courses, to give them a well-rounded overall education. We recognise that good literacy and numeracy skills underpin performance at work, as well as in life more generally. Other subjects studied include French, Spanish, Russian and geography, and electives in robotics, electronics and psychology. But equally importantly, by working in teams in a workplace-like environment, over a slightly longer school day, students will be learning every day how to behave in the workplace, how to interact with others appropriately, and the importance of delivering results.
Excellent teachers - we have an outstanding Principal and Head, and aim to employ inspirational staff from both the teaching profession and the space industry, for a variety of tutoring, mentoring and lecturing roles. We will always aim to have the very best teaching staff we can, ensuring that their skills and knowledge is first-class and up-to-date.
The space context - this adds not only an exciting new dimension to everyday learning for the students, but offers some very real opportunities for careers, weekly work placements and longer internships, visits to and from the school from high-profile members of the international space community and industry links which will enrich the lives and learning of the students. By working with the space industry to design the curriculum, deliver the project-based learning and add meaningful experiences for the students throughout their time at the Space Studio Banbury, we believe we will provide a world-class education for all our students, equipping them to progress successfully to the workplace or university and to continue to excel.
Where did the idea for the Space Studio come from?
A discussion about the sort of school that we would have loved to go to when we were teenagers!
Why should my child come to the Space Studio?
If your child is stimulated and excited by space, and loves science and maths, this is the only school of this type in the UK. Just imagine what every day would be like and how enjoyable and successful school could be. Your child's education would really be out of this world.

subset: commoncrawl


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Some options to try out:
- Brussels sprouts with chestnuts and cream
- Stuffing baked in muffin cups, like in this Rachael Ray recipe
- and another recipe for stuffing (I feel you can never have enough recipe for stuffing. Or enough stuffing, for that matter.)
- biscuits?
- all of Elise Bauer's collected Thanksgiving recipes, including Brandied Cranberries and Butternut Squash with Browned Butter and Thyme.
... and of course desserts. Martha Stewart has some nice ideas, for example:


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Who looks after the levees?
Senate committee gets confusing accounts from officials
From Mike M. Ahlers
Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina flow through a broken levee near downtown New Orleans.
Rebuilding: Vital signs
Gallery: Landmarks over time
Storm & Flood: Making history
I-Report: Share your photos
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Finger-pointing that began after Hurricane Katrina over who was responsible for maintaining the levees in New Orleans continued at a Senate hearing Thursday.
At one point immediately after Katrina hit, the confusion resulted in an angry confrontation near the broken 17th Street Canal levee.
The atmosphere at the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing was generally more collegial among the federal, state and local officials who oversee the levees.
But the officials still gave conflicting opinions about who is responsible for operating, inspecting, maintaining and making emergency repairs to the levees that protect the city.
Asked directly who was responsible for emergency repairs to New Orleans levees, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official and a Louisiana state official both said the Orleans Levee District -- at least in the early stages of an incident.
When the former president of the levee district -- a local body -- was asked, he said the responsibility "unequivocally" falls to the Corps of Engineers.
"I look at it from the standpoint, from my level as ... they are the head. They are the brains. They have the engineering, the design, the overall [expertise]," said James P. Huey, former president of the Orleans Levee District Board of Commissioners.
The confusion also was evident in the days immediately following Katrina, but with a different tilt, testified Col. Richard P. Wagenaar, district engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers.
When corps workers attempted to reach the site to help, a local contractor turned them away, Wagenaar said.
"He literally blocked our equipment from operating on the bridge," Wagenaar said.
Committee members said the confusion over responsibility still has not been resolved.
"My mom didn't raise dumb kids, and I'm a little confused as to who has ultimate responsibility," said Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota.
Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins asked Huey about whether the Orleans Levee Board was required to inspect its levees.
"Mr. Huey, is it accurate that the first time you became aware of the federal regulation requiring inspections of the levees at least once every 90 days was when our committee staff read that regulation to you?" asked Collins, a Maine Republican.
"Yes, ma'am," Huey responded.
Collins criticized the Orleans Levee Board, saying it devoted time to managing properties -- including two marinas and an airport -- and managing a license for a floating casino instead of focusing on its core mission.
Huey said the businesses helped him turn the board's $6 million deficit into a $21 million surplus. He was forced to operate the businesses because the state legislature cut the levee district's tax revenues in half, he said.
Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio said Congress deserves some of the blame.
"We haven't done the job ... that we should have been doing in terms of our funding of the Army Corps of Engineers in dealing with some of the problems that we have in this country," Voinovich said.
"We have been penny-wise and pound-foolish in terms of our human capital and our physical capital needs of this agency, and quite frankly a bunch of other agencies."
Thursday's hearing was the ninth in a series of Katrina-related hearings the committee has held since the August 29 disaster that left more than 1,300 dead in Louisiana and Mississippi.
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Huckabee attacks 'tax-funded abortion pills' in Newtown monologue
Fox News host Mike Huckabee on Saturday said he never claimed that the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut was linked to the lack of religion in schools.
When asked about the massacre of children, the former Arkansas governor on Friday lamented "we've systematically removed God from our schools." Huckabee suggested Americans shouldn't be surprised that "schools have become such a place of carnage" without God.
On Saturday, Huckabee complained that the "predictable left lit up the airwaves and blogosphere with a vile and vicious reaction, and jumped to the conclusion that I said if we had prayer in school the shooting wouldn't have happened." He insisted he had "said nothing of the sort" before appearing to double-down on linking violence to a lack of religion.
The Fox News host listed the examples of how God had been "escorted" out of American culture. Huckabee noted the legal battles over government-sponsored displays of the Christian faith. He claimed that churches and Christian businesses were forced to provide "tax-funded abortion pills." In an apparent swipe at LGBT individuals, he said society had stopped calling some things "sinful," instead calling them "disorders" or even normal.
"And somebody is going to suggest we pass a law to stop all this kind of thing," Huckabee concluded. "I might want to point out that we don't have to pass a new law, there is one that has been around awhile that works if we'd teach it and observe it: 'Thou shall not kill.'"
Watch video, courtesy of Fox News, below:


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Guest Commentary
For many people, the fight for a $15-an-hour minimum wage is a matter of life and death
Before the presidential debate this month in St. Louis, I didn't attend church as I normally do. I didn't prepare meals for the week ahead, or call into the Kansas City Popeyes where I work to see if there were extra shifts available.
Instead, I traveled four hours to join hundreds of other underpaid workers outside the presidential debate to deliver a message to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton: Our fight for $15 per hour and union rights isn't a matter of partisan divide between left and right. It's a matter of right and wrong — and for the 64 million workers like me who aren't paid $15 an hour or who don't have access to union rights, it's about life and death, too.
Never has our message felt more critical than it did this past month, when a Kansas City fast-food worker and leader in the Fight for $15, Myrna De Los Santos, died at age 49 because she didn't have health care and couldn't afford to treat her diabetes.
Since joining the Fight for $15 two years ago, Myrna had symbolized strength and resilience for me and many others. She was a night-shift manager at a McDonald's for nearly five years making just $9 per hour, until low pay and failing health forced her to quit four months ago. Myrna was barely able to pay for basic necessities — like heat and rent — much less treatment for her diabetes. Without a car, many people used to see her walking to and from work in the harshest weather.
Even though her life was full of struggle, she never wore it on her face. Myrna wasn't born an activist — in fact, she voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. But she went on strike, and it changed her life.
She became a leader in Stand Up KC and was always in the front of our strike lines. Sick as she was, she traveled from Kansas City to Richmond, Va., in mid-August to join thousands of underpaid workers at the Fight for $15 National Convention.
She was also a person of deep faith and went to church every Sunday. She held an associate degree and was passionate about American history, regularly volunteering at the Harry Truman museum.
Myrna's death was as heartbreaking as it was avoidable. She died too soon because McDonald's didn't pay her enough to treat her diabetes, and because Missouri's General Assembly denied her the wage hike and access to health care that might have saved her life. Myrna would have received Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, but Republican state lawmakers blocked a proposed Medicaid expansion in 2013. Last year, the legislature also prevented Kansas City from raising the minimum wage here to $13 per hour.
Myrna's death is proof that who we elect can make all the difference for people already living on the edge.
I'm devastated by the loss of my friend, but I'm also afraid for myself as a cashier at Popeyes who supports two children. Like Myrna, I have health troubles, including high blood pressure. But on $9.50 per hour, I can't begin to afford the medicine to treat it. I'm fighting for $15 and union rights not just for Myrna and her memory, but also so that I don't meet her fate and leave my children alone.
I dedicated my protest to Myrna that day in St. Louis. But dedicating a day isn't enough. We're going to dedicate ourselves to electing candidates who can lead Americans out of poverty and guarantee workplace rights to ensure that Myrna's story doesn't become our own.
Fran Marion is a single mother of two and a Kansas City Popeyes shift manager earning $9.50 per hour, leaving her family with financial difficulties. She's also a leader within Stand Up KC and a member of the Fannie Lou Hamer Women's Committee.


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Alex Jones talks to TV Times magazine about how dance has taken over her life…
Since reaching the semi-final of Strictly Come Dancing last year, you've now become synonymous with dance shows…
"I don't know how that's happened ,but it's a really nice! It's lovely to do Let's Dance… because I really miss the glitziness and old school showbiz that Strictly gives you. Matt Baker did it two years ago and he says there's still a big gap in his life, even now."
How do remember your Strictly experience?
"It was so fantastic! I made great friends and fulfilled a childhood dream of dancing in front of people, but the main reason I did it was because I'm invited into people's houses at 7pm every night, but I didn't feel they knew me. Strictly gave me an opportunity to show a different side of my personality. It's really paid off because it made me more confident on The One Show. Now I feel I can be myself and people know what I'm like."
You seem like a very confident person!
"I'm really shy. Lots of people who do this job are, but there's just a perception that everyone in the public eye must be very confident. I was petrified on Strictly. I loved the training, but on Saturday nights the nerves would be horrendous. I was a painfully shy child, so I never for a second imagined that I'd work in a performing environment. I found it very hard to speak in the presence of adults so my parents are still absolutely gobsmacked that I do this job!"
You must now know what everyone on Let's Dance… is going through!
"I've definitely got a lot more empathy for the contestants now. I think they're really brave – some of them only have seven hours to rehearse before coming out in front of a few million people, it's terrifying."
Do you give them pep-talks beforehand?
"I tell them all that it will be nerve-wracking ,but they will feel amazing afterwards because you really feel like you've achieved something, especially people who have no dance training like me. It's a real achievement to go out there and spend a couple of minutes on live Saturday night telly performing something you've put together during the week because you've done something that you were scared of."
Have you had any favourite celebrities dancing on the show so far this year?
"EastEnders' Tameka Empson and Laurie Brett were amazing. Those girls can really dance! It wasn't an easy routine and they had costume changes in it, but they did it seamlessly and the audience loved them."
*Let's Dance for Sport Relief screens on BBC1 on Saturday nights
Alex Jones: I'm really shy. Strictly petrified me!
Alex Jones talks to TV Times magazine about how dance has taken over her life…


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When R. Kikuo Johnson was a child walking home from Makawao Elementary School on Maui in the early 1990s, he sometimes spotted local painter Eddie Flotte along the sidewalk doing plein air watercolors. "I had never seen an artist work before, and as a young kid who liked to draw, watching Eddie turn dark green globs of watercolor into sunlit trees was pure magic," says Johnson.
Twenty-some years later, after establishing himself as a successful artist in his own right, Johnson reached out to Flotte. Meeting your childhood idols as an adult can be disappointing, but Johnson's meeting with Flotte went better than he imagined. "Not only did he invite me to his studio for a look at his latest work," Johnson says, "he sat me down for a three-hour impromptu painting lesson."
Johnson made a name for himself in 2005 with the hit graphic novel Night Fisher, and now his thought-provoking, cartoon-inspired illustrations regularly enliven publications such as the New Yorker and the New York Times. He's become a Brooklynite, but he returns to Makawao regularly. After Flotte taught him how to use watercolors, he went back to his parents' house and did a watercolor study of their wildly verdant Upcountry yard. It features a pair of soggy work boots, a centipede crawling along a leaking garden hose, and a kōlea (Pacific golden plover), the closest thing the family has to a pet. The painting hangs in his parents' dining room, a gift from a son who—like the kōlea—faithfully returns to Hawai'i each year.
With his artwork in galleries from New York to Los Angeles, a growing number of New Yorker covers to his credit and a job as an instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), his alma mater, Johnson has clearly found his place on the Mainland. Nonetheless, he still identifies strongly with Hawai'i. "I feel like I have one foot planted firmly on Maui and always will," he says.
At 18, Johnson was excited to leave home for college, but he found the gray-green East Coast unappealing. "I liked my classes and made friends, but winter was the worst," he says. "I one-hundred percent thought I'd be going right back to Maui after I graduated." And that might have been his path if in 2001 he hadn't gone to Rome to spend his junior year abroad, which proved to be life-changing in unexpected ways. "The day after I landed in Italy, it was September 11th and the towers fell," he says. Along with the shock of it came a wave of patriotic emotion. "I still had my identity of being from Hawai'i—I didn't lose that—but I had expanded to embrace being 'from America' as well."
Johnson also had an artistic awakening in Rome and began writing and sketching what would become his breakthrough work, the semi-autobiographical Night Fisher. "Art school is very competitive, so my first two years at RISD, I was proving I could paint like John Singer Sargent," he says. But in a more relaxed environment abroad, Johnson stopped trying to impress. "I remembered why I had always drawn and the thing that had always appealed to me about art—using my imagination and telling stories," he says.
Night Fisher puts a Maui spin on a classic story of teen disaffection. Two friends begin to drift apart when one of them starts running with a new crowd and experimenting with drugs, in this case, crystal methamphetamine. Johnson realized it might be controversial. "As a writer from Hawai'i, anything you write that doesn't fit the narrative of Hawai'i as a paradise is going to be a surprise to readers," he says.
Night Fisher, which won the 2006 Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award and the 2006 Harvey Award for Best New Talent, started as an account of an actual period in Johnson's life but then changed direction. "I began writing it as my story, but as I progressed, I started to fictionalize it to develop some narrative symmetry," he says. "I think that's why I adopted my middle name as my professional name, Kikuo, to give me some psychological space." Until then he had gone by Reid.
After graduation, Johnson and a classmate from Rome, Paolo Rivera, moved to an apartment in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. Rivera, now best known for his award-winning work on the Marvel comic Daredevil, says Johnson had and still has a significant influence on him. Before they met, Rivera's end goal was simply to become a master draftsman. But Johnson approached art differently and it rubbed off on Rivera. "He was looking at things through the lens of subtext," Rivera says. "Simply drawing things well wasn't quite enough for him, and it made me realize maybe it shouldn't be for me either."
Johnson had a chance to join Rivera in the professional world of comic book illustration—his childhood dream job—but he passed on the opportunity to finish Night Fisher. To support himself, he returned to the restaurant chain where he waited tables on Maui as a teenager, Ruth's Chris Steak House, which happens to also have a location in Times Square. He expected the book would take him a year to complete. Instead it took three.
In 2004, when Johnson's instincts told him that his lushly drawn, melancholy story was finally finished, he submitted Night Fisher to Fantagraphics Books, a publisher of comics and graphic novels. "When they accepted it, they said, 'Just change the cover,'" Johnson says. "It was pretty much exactly as I drew it, with a few typos and all." He went from being completely unknown to getting good reviews and winning awards. Calls and commissions from art directors at publishing houses, advertising agencies, magazines, newspapers and even a skateboard company soon followed.
In 2009 Johnson began teaching a class at RISD called Comics: The Grammar of the Graphic Novel. On the syllabus he states that we are currently in the "second golden age of comics." Comic books and the stories they tell were once considered to be just for kids and adults with arrested development; they were lowbrow and uncool. But over the past fifteen years or so, the illustration-driven medium has tackled subjects including from how to achieve world peace and how to attain enlightenment. It has also powered an explosion of blockbuster films and hit television series. Johnson explains that a graphic novel is like a comic book except it has enough pages (usually more than a hundred) to merit a spine. It's also like a comic book in that it is a visual story told with images, often hand drawn, although many artists, including Johnson, utilize digital brushes and software such as Cintiq and Photoshop. A graphic novel also has fewer words than a non-graphic novel, and the tension between the image and the words forces the reader to be active and involved in deciphering the story.
Aware that this interplay between image and words could help kids learning to read, Francoise Mouly, art editor at the New Yorker since 1993, founded Toon Books, a publishing company specializing in hardcover comic books for early readers. When Mouly approached Johnson about trying his hand at a children's book, he looked to the Hawaiian legends he loved while growing up. His second book, The Shark King, published in 2012, focuses on Kamohoali'i's half-mortal son, Nanaue. Johnson says he read every version of the story that he could get his hands on, deciding to focus on Nanaue's experience as a child given in W.D. Westervelt's 1916 book, Hawaiian Legends of Ghosts and Ghost-Gods. "I did not want to dumb it down for kids—I wanted to keep some of the horror and alienation in the story." And he did. The result is an almost psychedelic rendering of precontact Hawai'i and a portrait of a mischievous child longing for his absent father while discovering his own unique appetites and abilities.
"He did a magnificent job—he is such a great observer and researcher," says Mouly. "The plants look like some kind of fever dream, and the story is resonant with the longing and the heartbreak of the unknowable parent—a reality for many kids." The clean lines of his execution combined with the emotionally nuanced quality of his writing is what Mouly finds unique and impressive about Johnson's work. She points to the cover illustration Johnson did for a May 2016 issue of the New Yorker, titled "Commencement." It depicts a class of 2016, merrily dispersing after its graduation ceremony; meanwhile, a member of the class of 2015, now working as a groundskeeper, cleans up after the event. The image, Mouly says, is"at once a celebration of the New England landscape and a story triangulated between three figures—the 2015 graduate raking the caps out of the trees and the 2016 graduate, walking across the lawn with his companion. It is so rich. There is what you see first, what you see when you look again—a discoverable, ha-ha moment when the reader gets the joke and feels complicit. The reader is invested in making it come to life."
It's an example of how a single thoughtful drawing can cut through the hundreds of thousands of images we are barraged with each day, Mouly says. "It's been very gratifying to see how a single image can stay in people's mind with the New Yorker covers," she says. "People save them, some even put them on the wall and live with them."
Anyone under the age of 30 might find it hard to imagine what life was like in pre-internet Hawai'i, when growing up in a sleepy Pacific Island town meant not just limited access to news of the world, pop culture trends and the exploits of celebrities, but also limited interest in these things. Reflecting on his childhood, Johnson sees advantages to being at a distance from the mainstream. "I'm grateful that my parents didn't sign me up for soccer or piano lessons. They just brought me printer paper, and since it's always raining in Makawao, I'd just sit inside and draw," he says. John-son laughs about the stacks and stacks of comics he illustrated with his own made-up Maui superheroes, such as Wind Man. But it helped him develop his artistic skills and his imagination.
His advice to other artists: "You have to be able to create your own content. Waiting around for your dream job will never work. You have to find and express your voice explicitly for anyone else to notice it."
The problem for Johnson now is that his illustrating hand and artistic voice might be a little too popular. Or maybe the cost of living in New York City is a little too expensive. Either way he finds himself working even during his winter sojourns to Maui (thanks, internet), which leaves little time for his personal work: a new graphic novel he's kind of hush-hush about. He says we shouldn't be surprised that it's also set in Hawai'i. "Left to my own devices, all of my work would be about Hawai'i," he says.
He explains that it doesn't matter how long he's lived away or where else he travels. "I'm rational to a fault, so I don't want to use the word 'spiritual,' but I might have to—I feel a body-and-soul connection specifically to Maui. What else would I write about?" HH


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A large, fast actuator for linear movement.
The actuator has high precision positioning and runs with a speed of up to 40 mm/s.
A good alternative to minor air cylinders, with their noisy compressor and long hoses and valves.
How it works :
An actuator is used for linear movements and has a variety of uses in theater and stage production.
The actuator works like an air cylinder but is driven by a DC motor from which full motion control is achieved.
The speed is adjusted in a step-less manner.
The actuator has a built-in potentiometer, allowing for a controller to measure the position and stop at the exact desired location.
The actuator is easily connected to a DC Motor Controller and can then be controlled directly from the lighting desk.
Sophisticated movement can be programmed and integrated with the lighting and special effects of the show.
Possibilities of use:
Opens doors, opens umbrellas, releases gates, moves the light etc.
Portable with wireless DMX:
The actuator is run on 12 or 24 V, and with a battery and a wireless DMX, the programmed movements can be built into wireless, portable units.
Technical Details
|Item no.
|Power Consumption
8 Amp
|Torque Push-Pull
300 kg (600 lbs)
|Moving length
400 mm (15,7 Inch)
|Noise level at max. speed
38 dBA measured 1 meter from the motor
Pricing and purchase options
For info and quotations Drop us a line ➤


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Ozeri PiezoElectric Fire Starter is a really handy to have so you can easier start grills and gas stoves. This unique little hand held device uses no fuel, flint or batteries. Just squeeze the handle a couple of times and hold it up to the stove and it should light it right up.
The tip of the device is where you will see the flicker of the spark. Please do not place your finger near the tip, it could hurt you.
We have a portable cook stove we take camping and we always have to use matches and half the time they get blown out by the wind or down to the hot part before they light, but with this flameless lighter it some how lights usually within one click of the handle.
When not in use just stand it up on the flat end until next use. I highly recommend this product because it will always last without having to buy refills and it is inexpensive. Great product and easy to use! You can purchase this wherever Ozeri products are sold or from Amazon.com for only $19.00 and this includes free shipping.
*Thanks to Ozeri for allowing me to try their product for review.
*I received this product free of charge in exchange for a honest, written review.
*The opinions of this product are strictly my own.
*I was not monetarily compensated for this review.


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Sol Botindari | Graphic Designer
Graduate of Universidad de Buenos Aires, Sol began work as a graphic designer in 1998 at Point Design New York. She then went on to work for Idemark (now Futurebrand) and ABBS Point Design, both in Buenos Aires. In 2001, she opened her own design studio, developing projects for local and international companies such as Michelin, Swarovski, Electra and Unilever. Environmental graphics, packaging, web design and corporate image programs are among her areas of expertise.


text: Haha just kidding. My only hater is my sister. Anyway I've been extremely obsessed with this song for some reason. I always wondered how it was possible to like Korean rap when rap is so reliant on the power of the lyrics that I cannot understand. Ehhhh but I still like it. This was a really nice mush of a lot of the new YG artists plus Beenzino and Verbal Jint ^.^. I also loved how they filmed it with each one in their own little room. Yes it's still Monday… for me.


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Using computer skills he learned in a graphic design class at the private school in South Hamilton, Leahy sketched out new leg pads that blend into the goal netting behind him. He wanted pads, a trapper, and a blocker that are white with a raised double-stitched design, just like the goal. He applied for a design patent and had them custom-made by a Canada-based pad maker.Apparently they had trouble figuring out how effective the pads have really been, but even if it makes a difference only a small fraction of the time, that's still an advantage. Pretty good idea.
"When the shooter comes down and only has a split second to shoot the puck, they're looking for net," said Leahy, a senior from Hampton, N.H., who grew up in Byfield. "If you put the net on the pad, they'll shoot at the pad instead of the goal."


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Learning how to make mukuluks
It's a perfect sun-filled fall afternoon, but a group of students are already thinking about the cozy sartorial trappings of winter. They have come to Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum to learn how to make a pair of the fur-lined suede mukluks that are traditionally worn by Canada's Arctic indigenous communities and have become a symbol of both indigenous heritage and survival.
Against one wall of the room is a glass case filled with artisanal mukluks covered in intricate and colourful beadwork. Amid piles of suede, felt and synthetic fur, Ojibwa teacher Stephanie Pangowish, from Manitoulin Island, Ont., tells the group how her mother-in-law and aunt started teaching her beading and other traditional crafts after she had her first child. Waneek Horn-Miller, an indigenous advocate and Canadian Olympian (water polo), then talks about how this once-popular ancient craft (and highly practical winter footwear) is no longer being commonly passed down through generations of indigenous women. "If we don't actively keep it alive, it won't last," she warns.
Image by: Courtesy Treadright Foundation/Manitobah Mukluks
The Storyboot School, as this not-for-profit event is adorably named, was launched seven years ago by Sean McCormick, the Metis founder of Manitobah Mukluks, a 20-year-old company that makes moccasins and mukluks in partnership with indigenous Canadians. The goal of the project is to help encourage the traditional art of mukluk making – especially among Canada's indigenous youth – in weekly sessions taught by elders. And thanks to a recent US$20,000 grant from the TreadRight Foundation, an inter-national not-for-profit organization focused on sustainable tourism, the program is free for First Nations students.
Image by: Courtesy Treadright Foundation/Manitobah Mukluks
A diverse range of women – most with indigenous roots – break into pairs to measure their feet. "This is very intimate," says one, as she advises her partner to leave enough room for one extra-long toe. "But at least we're not making pants!" One of the two young men in attendance says he hunts with his family in the north and that mukluks are still the best, quietest way to track a moose. Cousins Tia Pettit and Melynda Kakepetum, both 22, say they grew up watching their grandmothers make mittens and newborn wraparounds in the fly-in community of Sandy Lake First Nations in northern Ontario. But Pettit and Kakepetum now live in Toronto – far from home in both distance and custom. Pettit, who watched her grandfather trap, skin and use every part of any animal he hunted, is hoping to one day teach her young daughter how to make mukluks. "It's really important to connect with who you are and your ancestors before you," says Kakepetum.
Image by: Vincent Tsang
In addition to the event at Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum, where six-class sessions are running quarterly until June 2017, there's a permanent Storyboot School in Winnipeg (at Manitobah Mukluks' head office). Manitobah Mukluks (manitobah.ca) also hosts pop-up schools at educational institutions across the country, most recently at Western University and McGill University.


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Try to use contractors which you know have used. This way, you can see work that have got previously done, and can get honest opinions of the contractor with his work, as an alternative to playing guessing games, and reading we read about ADS Yelp and their reviews reviews that you will find fraudulent and misleading.
We all need to be able to past our Preconceived conceived ideas concerning Eagle. Yes, its a dive. Yes, its a leather prevent. Yes, they possess a sex the game swing. All of that being said; The Eagle is often a great starting point hop in and get yourself a beer, a bear and play a very interesting game of pool. I highly recommend going to the Jock Strap Night or their monthly underwear entity. These nights look after be varied in clientele and genuinely good intro to how interesting and exciting this joint could be. The bartenders are nice there isn't an pressure to partake any kind of of the debauchery taking! (206) 621-7591. 314 E Pike St, 98122.
Whether are usually getting a permit for the job or not, nonetheless that you are, being to see the yelp reviews reaction, and if you are told it might only influence the price, it is often a good sign, but if he actually starts to say such things as "It's arriving for a landing job", "You don't need one", or "I've done this many jobs without permits", etc. should certainly be cautious. (In my opinion, sometimes it is okay to do the job with permit, in order to prolong the job.
The sushi here rrs extremely mediocre. Oahu is the atmosphere that pulls most website visitors to Cafe Asia and it is a popular area for happy hours. What appalled me within this restaurant was the work. They brought me two pieces of Nigiri we didn't intentionally order. I told the waitress yelp controversies which didn't order it, and would she please bring me my correct invest in? She insisted that I did so order that, and returned to the table is not crumbled up order sheet that were thrown the actual planet garbage. Really sanitary. Her point was that I have done mark over the fish eggs, so I would have fork out for the program. Whatever happened to "the customer is always right"? I made an innocent mistake with your order sheet, therefore were extremely unforgiving.
All of such allow a venture to submit their information into their local-business data store. So if your company is sufffering from a website, you wish to make sure each local listing service has details.
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text: I clean homes, apartments, condominiums and offices between the neighborhoods of Magnolia and Edmonds in Seattle, WA. This allows me to better adapt my working schedule to meet my clients needs, and that keeps my business running efficiently. I offer free in-person estimates to potential clients, so please call to set up an appointment. Here is a list of services that I provide on a regular basis for my clients:


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There is little financial incentive for women to work full-time due to steep bills for nursery places and nannies, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said.
The report, which rated 30 countries on their records for gender equality, urged the Coalition to act to create cheaper childcare places because "women pay a high price for motherhood".
Ministers are believed to be considering reforms to childcare including de-regulating the market and encouraging more private nurseries and childminders to set up business.
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, has promised he will prioritise childcare to cut the "nightmare" of high nursery costs, which typically reach £5,100 a year for a part-time place.
The OECD study said improvements to girls' education were being wasted because high fees for nurseries meant it was not worthwhile for mothers to return to work.
"Despite gains in education and employment among women in the UK over the past decade, the high costs of childcare continue to be a major constraint to many mothers working full-time," the report said.
"In the UK, before accounting for childcare, the cost of entering work for an average-wage family's second earner is lower than the OECD average.
But after taking childcare into account, more than two-thirds of a typical family's second wage, 68 per cent, is "effectively taxed away", a rate that is "well above" the OECD average of 52 per cent.
"The government should facilitate the increase of working hours among women, and especially mothers, starting with more affordable high-quality childcare services," the report said.
Increasing women's employment rates to the level of men's would deliver a 0.5 per cent increase in GDP over the next 20 years, the report said.
While 70 per cent of British women work, 40% of these are in part time jobs "as many women struggle to combine work and family commitments", the study said.
Men typically earn almost one fifth more than women, with even greater gaps in the most highly paid jobs as only 8 per cent of board directors are women.
Fewer than 2 per cent of women are entrepreneurs, a low rate compared to other countries in the OECD report.
The number of childminders in England fell by almost half in recent years, while bills for nurseries are now among the highest in the world, costing up to £15,000 a year.
According to research from the Daycare Trust, the average spent on childcare for 25 hours per week for a child under two is now £5,100 a year.
A Department for Education spokesman said: "Rising childcare costs are a critical issue for parents. Too many parents do not feel it is worth going back to work because the costs of childcare are too high. This report shows that helping more parents back to work could provide a real boost to the economy.
"The Prime Minister launched the childcare commission in June to look at how we can improve the availability and affordability of childcare and reduce burdens on childcare providers.
"We are listening very closely to the views of front-line professionals, parents and others on these issues. We are also looking at practice in other countries including France, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark. We will be setting out next steps in due course."


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Local San Diego News You Can Use
What's Christmas Without Model Trains – San Diego Model Train Museum
December 4th, 2012 categories: Local San Diego News You Can Use
What's Christmas Without Model Trains
This Photo was taken last year at the San Diego Model Train Museum in Balboa Park. The museum will be open with new displays during the December Nights Celebration Dec 7th and 8th for 5:00 to 9:00PM.
The displays are some of the most sophisticated train model cities I have ever seen with an entire room display of Lego Blocks model train city shown below.
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November 15th, 2012 categories: Local San Diego News You Can Use, San Diego Real Estate, San Diego Real Estate News
Five Star Professional
Research that Recognizes Outstanding Service Professionals
William Johnson
RE/MAX Associiates
We are pleased to inform you that you have been named a 2013 Five Star Real Estate Agent. Congratulations on reaching a level of excellence achieved by fewer than 7 percent of the real estate agents in your area.
Your selection is the result of a rigorous research process that included a regulatory and consumer complaint review, and an evaluation of objective criteria associated with real estate agents who provide quality services to their clients. In the end, you are being recognized by the largest and most widely published real estate agent award program in North America.
As a 2013 Five Star Real Estate Agent, you are receiving an honor that reflects your hard work and dedication. We look forward to working with you to share your good news.
Five Star Professional
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365 Days of Living In America's Finest City
January 2nd, 2012 categories: Buying San Diego Real Estate, History, Local San Diego News You Can Use, San Diego Beach Communities, San Diego Events, San Diego Real Estate, Selling San Diego Real Estate, Things to Do in San Diego, William's Life in San Diego Musings
Each day of this New Year 2012, I will bring you a photo of an event, person, animal or activity that you will enjoy here in San Diego. As the dominant On-Line REALTOR® in San Diego and amateur Photographer, I will show you San Diego like it has never been seen.
On this first day of the new year, I visited the Hotel Del Coronado to bring you a most unusual experience. Ice Skating on the shore of the Coronado Beach. It was 70 degrees in the shade and the activity was enjoyed continuously through the day and evening. As you can see, the warm weather created a wet but glassy image on the ice , reflecting the Grand Dame of Hotels, Hotel Del Coronado on the shore of one of San Diego's finest, deepest and cleanest beaches.
Discussion: 2 Comments »|
San Diego Real Estate August Market Report for Rancho Bernardo
September 20th, 2011 categories: Buying San Diego Real Estate, Investing in San Diego Real Estate, Local San Diego News You Can Use, Market and Forecast Updates For San Diego, San Diego Real Estate, San Diego Real Estate News, Selling San Diego Real Estate
San Diego Real Estate August Market Report for Rancho Bernardo
So How's Your Market?
There is good news and bad news , which would you like first?
Here is the Good News.
* During the month of August, there are 263 Active Listings in RB ( Rancho Bernardo). The Average Price is $899,718 and the Median Price is $668,880. There were 53 Listings Pending Close of Escrow and 46 Sold Listings during the month. The Average Sold Listing was $694,993 and the median sold was $564,450.
A Recap of the Year to Date Sales shows we had 246 sold homes so far with the high selling price of $4,000000 and the low of $324,900. As you can see, we have a wide variety of single family homes ranging in size from 1200 sq ft to over 9,000.
On the Attached Home side of the housing market we have the following activity that took place in August. There are 58 Active Attached Listings through the end of August. The Average List price was $272,370 and the Median List Price was $278,000. There were 10 Listing Pending Close of Escrow ranging in price from $132,500 to $383,000. The 4 Attached Properties that Sold ranged from $145,000 to $499,876.
A Recap of the Year to Date Sales shows we had 138 Attached Homes Sales with a High Selling Price of $689,000 and a Low Selling Price of $125,000 for 540 sq ft. The Average Selling price was 261,249 for 1,163 sq ft and the Median Sales Price year to date was 234,950 for 1092 sq ft.
That was the Good News! Ready for the Bad News? Home prices are tending up and there is strong evidence that interest rates will likely be going up as well. Sitting and waiting for a better deal in Rancho Bernardo is not likely to happen so if you are considering a new Home or Condo, now is time to get in the market.
*Data obtained from Sandicor MLS and believed to be correct but not gauranteed.
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Opening Day Of the Padres 2011 Baseball Season
April 5th, 2011 categories: Buying San Diego Real Estate, Local San Diego News You Can Use, Selling San Diego Real Estate, William's Life in San Diego Musings
Padres " OPENING DAY " at Petco Park
TONY Gwynn " Mr Padre"
All is in readieness as the Padres and Petco Park get set for Opening Day 2011.
While I was down taking photos of the new 550 foot Pedestrian Suspension Bridge ( Dedication Day) , one end of which connects to Petco park, I noticed the gates open for the "Park in the Park". I can't attend the homeopener game today against the 2010 World Series Champions, the San Francisco Giants but I wanted fresh new photos from just two days ago of our wonderful ballpark.
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TextWorkshop at the Garden Museum, London
Location: Garden Museum, Lambeth Palace Road
London SE1 7LB
Date: Wednesday 27th February 2019
Time: 10.30am – 4.30pm
Cost: £75-£165 including lunch and refreshments
Our unique TextWorkshop course brings together expertise from the worlds of museums and journalism to give you a thorough grounding in the fundamentals of good writing – and how to apply them to great text-writing. In a day packed with tips, examples and exercises, you'll feel challenged and motivated, and you'll take away lots of new and practical ideas.
To see more about what goes on at a TextWorkshop, have a look at the video on our homepage.
To book a place, please fill in the following form. Once we have confirmed your place, we will issue an invoice. Please enter the relevant amount depending upon your place of work, listed below.


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I'm running on the treadmill (no incline, may I add) and listening to Sigma's- "Nobody To Love". I think I'm gasping for air, for the most part, so I turn up the volume to save myself from having to hear my lack of breath tell me that my stamina needs some igniting.
I tell myself to suck it, and continue blasting my ears to drown out the sounds of my own making.
I'm getting the hang of it.
Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot.
Suddenly, it feels easier than it was 2 minutes ago.
Faster. Faster. Faster.
"Almost there. 10 minutes to go Ishika. You are invincible," I tell myself encouragingly.
Suddenly, to my dismay, Sam Smith makes an unexpected visit.
"Oh, won't you stayyyyyyhh with me? Cause you're aawllllllll I need."
Don't get me wrong I do like Sam Smith. I like his British accent, his acceptance speech at the Grammy's and his single-"Stay With Me." So yes, I like Sam Smith, just not while running.
In my esteemed musical opinion, he/his music belongs only in my shower. (Also welcomed when I'm dancing with my boyfriend the night before we have to go back to our long-distance reality)
I am disappointed with my shuffle. I expected more.
I get off the treadmill with 9.4 minutes on the clock.
"Tomorrow is a new day Ishika. Show em who's boss". I think by 'em', I meant 'myself'.
I have a three-egg-white omelet for dinner, hoping that the extra protein would compensate for the lack of exercise.
After a productive reflection session, that my omelet lay witness to, I came to the realization that if my iTunes' shuffle really wanted to shuffle, I should feed it a more apt playlist.
I stay up late devising the perfect 10-song workout playlist.
The next day, I put on my new Puma shoes and I run. I even sorta soar.
Let me just say that I showed em who's boss.
Note: On my cardio days I usually do some *fancy fitness word alert* HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and start with the effective Treadmill Blast: 30 seconds of sprinting, 30 seconds of recovery (walking) * 10 times * 2 sets.
I'm fairly normal and since you're reading this I assume you are too; so with that hypothesis in place, I conclude that since this playlist works for me, it will work for you too.
1. Queen Bee always takes the #1 spot! Warm up with Beyonce's, "711."
2. Warning: this one's addictive. Clean Bandit, "Rather Be."
3. Get cardio-ing with my favourite-favourite-favourite Sigma, "Nobody To Love."
4. You can play this 12 year old 'classic', R. Kelly, "Ignition (Remix)", everyday till the end of the world, and it still wouldn't get old.
"This is the Remix to Ignition, hot and fresh out the kitchen.." I know you want to sing along! Do it!
5. This 1986 jam, Salt-N-Pepa's, "Push It", was one of the first rap records to top the dance charts.
6. Take the 3 most popular mainstream female artists and put them together and *Bang Bang* is literally what you get. Straight up fun-energetic-pop-dance is what Jessie J, Ariana Grande & Nicki Minaj have created.
7. I was choosing between Mark Ronson's "Uptown Funk" & "Valerie", and then I thought this playlist absolutely had to have some Amy Winehouse. So, there it is Mark Ronson feat Amy Winehouse, "Valerie."
8. You can't not dance to this song! Turn up the music to Meghan Trainor's, "All About That Bass."
9. Can it get any better than Mr Probz, "Waves" (Robin Schulz Remix Radio Edit)?
10. At this point, you're probably cooling down with feel-good soul-stretches. The perfect end to your new workout playlist has to be Klingande's, "Jubel."
P.S: For your convenience, by clicking on the underlined terms, you will automatically be redirected to the webpage where you can learn more about them.
P.P.S: Do you know Beyonce's fitness secret? REVEALED- Click here now to read up on your dose of Beyonce and fitness.
2 Comments
March 4, 2015
Definitely downloading these songs for my next workout session.


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Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan...
The Kyoto Tower is a popular landmark. It is the first thing you see as you leave the central gate of the Kyoto train station.
The ceiling of the train station is really something else. For the new year, they had an awesome light display set up.
If you look carefully, you will see fish in the pool. This is a sushi restaurant.