Seltzer at Home

My sister Eleanor loves seltzer water.  She was buying 10-15 of these 1 liter bottles of seltzer every week, and it wouldn’t even last her the whole week.  And it was a huge waste of bottles.  I looked into making my own home carbonation system.  The two best information sources were  Carbonating at Home and of course, my favorite, Instructables.com.

I wasn’t in a big hurry to get all the equipment, so I waited until I found a good deal on craigslist.  A guy was selling a 20 lb CO2 tank with a regulator and a couple of gauges for $50.  It looked in pretty bad shape, and he couldn’t confirm whether it worked or not, so I talked him down to $40 and picked it up.

I liked how old and industrial it looked.  Antique crap.  The tank didn’t have any CO2, so I brought it down to the local South Philly Propane place, and instead of filling the tank, they just took my old one and gave me a new one that was filled.  $17.

Unfortunately, the regulator didn’t work, so $40 got me a steel CO2 tank, which is actually pretty great since they cost about $100 new.  Maybe I can part it out and sell the pressure gauges and fittings.

So I searched eBay and waited to get a deal on a CO2 regulator.  These usually cost about $50, but I was able to get a dual-guage Cornelius one for $35 with shipping included.

Then I went to Lowe’s to get some 1/4″ braided vinyl tubing (~$2 for 7 feet), a ball valve (~$6), some barbed 1/4″ fittings (3 at $2 each) that would connect the tubing to the regulator and to the ball valve.  I got some clamps to secure the ball valve onto a piece of board which I secured to the side of the cabinet next to the sink.  This is the on-off switch for the user, Eleanor.  The tank is under the sink — ugly and hidden away — and turned on, so it’s pumping CO2 to the ball-valve.  It’s important to check for leaks at the tubing attachment points between the tank and the ball valve.  You’ll either hear a hiss, or you can lather soapy water and see if it bubbles.

Peter got a presta adapter and we had some old presta bicycle tubes lying around.  I drilled a hole in a bottle cap and stuck the presta valve through it and tightened it down with a presta nut.  We can make a bunch of these presta caps so that if one gets gross, we can use another one interchangeably.  Just stick that presta adapter on it and let the CO2 pump through.

I put a hose clamp on everywhere where the tubing was making an attachment.  Four of those.

There it is under the sink.  Just leave the tank turned on so that you don’t have to reach under there and open the valve every time you want seltzer.  Just use the switch at the ball valve.

I adjusted the CO2 regulator to 60 psi.  You fill a plastic bottle with water up to where the bottle starts curving.  You want some headspace so that there’s some room for the CO2 to get pumped in.  You have to chill the water because CO2 dissolves better in cold water.  So when it’s cold, you screw on the bottle cap with the presta valve attached, “burp” out the air in the headspace (meaning you just squeeze the bottle until the water gets up to the cap), and then inject the CO2.  The bottle expands as the CO2 enters.  Keep the presta adapter attached to keep the CO2 flowing into the bottle, and start shaking it up.  Do this for maybe 10 seconds.  Then turn off the CO2 using the ball valve, and shake the bottle more.

When you unscrew the bottle cap, hopefully you’ll hear a big hiss and see the water fizz.  At 60 psi, we’re getting really sharp, super-saturated seltzer.

What we need to do is start discovering other drinks to carbonate.  I want to try milk and orange juice.  Recarbonating old, flat soda would probably work too.  It’ll be great to have a special carbonated drink for dinner parties.  Impress your friends!  What a blast!

Windows 7 Party Pack

Hey guys, great news, the Windows 7 Party Pack arrived!!  So let’s meet up on Friday evening as planned and I’ll run you through some of the tutorials.  I’m really excited to show you all the new bells and whistles.

Which theme should we go with?  PhotoPalooza, Media Mania, Setting up with Ease, or Family Friendly Fun.  I’m leaning towards PhotoPalooza.  I know all you Media Maniacs out there won’t be too happy.  Kyle, I’m looking at you.  HAHAhAH!!

Here’s what came with the Party Pack:

• One limited Signature Edition Windows 7 Ultimate
• One Deck of Playing Cards with Windows 7 Desktop Design
• One Puzzle with Windows 7 Desktop Design
• One Poster with Windows 7 Desktop Design
• Ten Tote Bags with Windows 7 Desktop Design for hosts and guests
• One package of streamers for decoration
• One package of balloons for decoration
• One table top centerpiece for decoration
• One package of Windows 7 napkins

I’ll put together a party favor pack for each of you guys and you can leave carrying a full Windows 7 tote bag.

Contents of the Party Pack:

See you Friday!!  Time to rock and roll.  Can you say “LAUNCH PARTY!”?

Windows: Bruce ServicePack and the Vista Street Band

I like this.  Bruce is a great storyteller.  Windows sales team rocks!

Windows 3.1 Photo Wizard

There’s another section of the Windows 3.1 Launch Party that will be released next week.  It’s a tutorial on the Photo Wizard included in Windows 3.1, a fairy-tale image enhancer where you can “vector” in to a photo without any quality loss.  It’s a simple interface with a smiley face tool which “does whatever I’m talking about, thinking about, or being told to do.”  Amazing usability.

Medical Bills, Bad Credit, and Urgent Care Clinics

I made a big mistake.  A $600 mistake.  When I got cut on my wrist by tile back in February, I went to the emergency room.  On the ride over there, I was wondering how much it would cost me, and I was considering if I could suture it myself (just clean it, and sew it, or just glue it).  When I got to the ER, the lady at registration looked at my insurance card — I have Aetna’s $5000 high-deductible insurance — and told me it would cost me $100.  I figured it was a great price, and it would be good to just get it done, and get it done right.  So I waited a couple of hours in the ER, and then got my eight sutures.  Easy procedure.

Then I went on my bike tour, and six months later, I returned to find a bunch of medical bills.  The ER visit cost almost $1300, and then there was a $400 physician’s fee.  I don’t even remember a physician taking care of me — a nurse did.  The hospital has some contract with Aetna, so my bill got reduced down to $669, and after that $100 I paid upfront, the balance was $569.  When I called up about the physician’s fee, somehow it got dropped, so that was lucky too.

But I still have this $569 bill to pay.  It actually got sent to a collections agency; that’s how I first heard about it.  I got a call and right off, the lady asked me for my social security number — odd.  I told them I was out of the country for six months, and so it got pulled out of collections (collections agencies usually report you to the credit bureaus and that dirty mark stays on your credit history for seven years).

Before talking to the hospital’s billing office, I called around to three urgent care clinics in the area.  I asked them how much it would cost to give me eight sutures.  It averaged around $150.  $150!!  Versus $1300 at the ER.

So, the ER experience sucked, but it was a learning experience for (and it still isn’t over — I’m disputing the bill), and I want everyone else to learn from my mistake.  NEVER GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM!!  The only reason to go is if you’re in such a bad accident that you don’t even have a choice — the ambulance is bringing you there — and you’re unconscious.  Go to an urgent care clinic instead.  They’ll fix you up for a reasonable price.

I found this list of reasons to go to an urgent care clinic on another website:

Reasons to use a Urgent Care facility:
You have an urgent non life-threatening medical condition or injury
Your primary care doctor’s office is closed
You are not able to schedule a convenient appointment with your primary care doctor
You are away from home

Most Urgent Care facilities offer:
Board Certified physicians
Urgent trauma equipment including cardiac monitors
X-Ray equipment
Minor procedure room (sterile/clean rooms)

Many Urgent Care facilities offer:
CT Scans
Ultrasounds

Other Benefits of Urgent Care facilities:
Shorter wait times to see a doctor
Doctor visit co-pay and not emergency room co-pay (that saved us $225 per visit)
Weekend and after hours availability

Jimmy McBride: MTV Cab Driver

Do you remember Jimmy McBride, the Boston cab driver in the MTV promos in 1994?  I loved these.  Jimmy’s a great character.  1994 was the year I entered into the world of music and MTV.  Danzig’s Mother, Salt n’ Pepa’s Whatta Man, Smashing Pumpkin’s Disarm, Green Day’s Basket Case, and Jimmy McBride.

Ironic

Cannonball

College Days: List of Things I Hate

Here’s a list I composed back during college of things I hated.  This was around 2005.

• Referring to eating or dining as “grabbing food” or “grabbing some dinner.” Very crude. Gross “dynamic” language.
• Describing things as “little” when they’re not small: “You’re LITTLE party,” “You’re LITTLE organization,” etc. It’s condescending.
• When someone calls you “big guy.” “Hey big guy” – that’s so demeaning. Way out of line.
• Talking about wanting more Cowbell, and laughing it up although it’s the most played out SNL skit ever! “Cowbell! Ha ha! Yeah, cowbell … I want more of it!”
• Brad Pitt. Annoying actor. Smug.
• Bright Eyes. Also really annoying.
• Collecting DVDs. Really wasteful and you’ll probably watch it once. Collections suck too.
• Interviewing for a job. It’s basically the worst situation you can be in. Selling yourself to a boring job; it’s painful. Answering all those stupid questions and keeping up a “positive energy” the whole time is grueling.
• Talking “intellectually” about some theoretical subject, and even having an “intellectual argument” to the point where it becomes a competition to see who’s smarter. It’s safer to keep intellectual topics out of conversation; no one wants to know how smart you are.
• Competition between majors, particularly engineering, to decide which is “better.” “My classes are harder so my major is better.” What the hell? Are we supposed to decide what we want to study based on how hard it is? This is retarded, and rampant at gatech.
• Popped collars on golf shirts. I hate this. Especially when it’s pink. And even worse when it’s a baby blue with a pink one on top. Two pastel layers of popped collar. Why are you wearing two polo shirts at one time? The attitude is gross! I imagine these people talk about how they got drunk and how it was so funny, or maybe how it was soooo crazy! It was the funniest thing EVER!
• Mullets. They’re not that funny. It’s kind of the same as the cowbell. Or Chuck Norris.
• The phrase “Rocks my balls off!” or “Rocks my face off!” and so on. It’s embarrassing.
• Fascination with Robots, Ninjas, Pirates, and Chuck Norris. I see this too much — Robots as a MySpace interest. You probably think this makes you sort of unique and funny because it’s sort of childish and immature.

College Days: Handcuffed at MARTA

After seeing a show on April 21, 2004 at the Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points, I walked back to the MARTA station at Inman Park with my friend, James. It was a dark and quiet night. Since it was late and so quiet, I had the idea that if we didn’t see anyone around, we would go through the handicapped gate as I saw plenty of other people do before.

As we approached the turnstiles, there was no one in sight, so I made the move to the handicapped gate and slipped through. But two MARTA cops came out of an unmarked door as we were approaching the Westbound stairs. One of them asked “Why didn’t you pay the fare?” I thought about making up a story, but I knew that they’d see right through it and be pissed that I thought I could fool them. All I could come up with was “I apologize.” Then I was told to “Turn ’round,” and I got ‘cuffed! James and I were brought inside their room and told to stand up against the wall. The officers searched through our pockets and got both of our IDs. As they were writing the citations, they told us that since we both had out-of-state IDs, we would have been put in jail for the night and brought to trial the next morning if we hadn’t been students. They also told us that usually they would have let us go, but since they were in training at the moment, they had to do it the official way.

They told us that the court date would be in two weeks. That was a problem because it was the end of the year, and I was going home to Florida in ten days. I explained my situation. One of the officers shrugged it off saying that I’d be able to go down to the courthouse before the court date and they would “work with me.”

The whole time as they were writing the citations and asking us questions, we stayed in our shackles. Once we were let go, I asked if we had to pay the MARTA fare for the ride we had intended to take about 40 minutes prior. The officer told us to just go on our way without paying.

The officer made out that the courthouse would be flexible with my situation and I would be able to take care of all of it before I left for home. Well, he lied. The courthouse told me that I HAD to show up on the court date, since it was my first appearance, and if I didn’t, there would be a warrant for my arrest. It was only because I befriended a woman at the courthouse who was sympathetic to my situation that I was able to get my case heard before I left Atlanta. She got me on the judge’s docket on Thursday (before I was to leave on Sunday) by talking to the court clerk. So, my case was heard, and I was given 20 hours of community service to complete through the pre-trial intervention program. It was even nicer how the community service could be completed outside of Atlanta. So, I did 20+ hours of work with Habitat for Humanity, which I enjoy anyhow.

I had been really nervous that this would show up on my permanent record, which would screw me for the rest of my life. I imagined how I’d never be able to get a job since this would show up on my background check. Who would employ a thief? But, when I got to court, I was told this was only a citation, so it wouldn’t stay on my record.

It was a relief to have all of that taken care of, but it taught me how easy it is to screw up, and how easy it is for things to change drastically.

What’s ironic is that earlier that evening, before the show (and before “the incident,”) I had attended the IMPACT scholarship dinner along with all of the other IMPACT scholarship recipients. We had received the scholarship because of our leadership and accomplishments on campus. We were told that we are the “leaders of the future,” “the best and the brightest,” and all that. So, six hours after I was being honored for being such an upstanding and honorable person, I was handcuffed for trying to skip on the MARTA fare.

Please don’t tell me how “It was only $1.75! Why didn’t you just pay?” I realize how stupid it was, and I even had enough money. It was a mix of being tempted and being “pumped up” at the time. I know it was a dumbass move.

So, next time you feel tempted to skip out on paying public transportation, remember my story, and weigh the $1.75 against the possible consequences.

College Days: Norfolk Southern Interview

Towards the end of Spring 2004, as I was searching out internships for the Summer, I was invited to attend a testing session for Norfolk Southern. Although Norfolk Southern is a big and prosperous company, it’s a railroad company. Railroads are boring. However, I was pretty desperate for an internship so I figured it was worth a shot.

The testing session was going to be on a Monday at 8:30 AM at the Holiday Inn up by the Perimeter. This was a problem for a few reasons. One is that I don’t like to miss class. The other, more important problem is that I don’t have a car, and the Holiday Inn is pretty far away from Georgia Tech. Being industrious, and with the help of Mapquest, I figured out a way to get to the Holiday Inn by way of MARTA and my bicycle. It was going to be a three mile journey from the closest MARTA train station.

My first adult bike that I got from the Salvation Army auction for $10

On the morning of the testing session, I woke up early and headed out on time. Although I had to wait 10 minutes for the northbound train, my major delay occurred in following mapquest’s directions too closely. Mapquest directed me to take a left. I took a left, but mapquest’s mistaken directions, along with my faulty estimation of distance, caused me to travel over a mile in the wrong direction, instead of the 0.3 miles listed for that section of the journey. As I returned to the MARTA station from where I came, I considered giving up and returning home since it was already 8:30 AM, the testing session had started. However, there was a fire inside me that prodded me to carry on. I have an iron will! I headed off with a new spirit and took the right direction this time, encountering many hills, broken sidewalk, and other obstacles along the way.

When I reached the Holiday Inn, it was 9:00 AM, 30 minutes after the testing session was scheduled to start. I had dressed for biking — jeans, t-shirt, and bookbag — and I wasn’t planning on changing since it was only a testing session. The humidity and the exertion from the trek, along with the bookbag had caused my back to become drenched in sweat. I found the room for Norfolk Southern. 30 minutes late, I walked into a room full of suits, severely under-dressed, and sweaty. The testing session had apparently not begun as the presenter was talking about the Norfolk Southern retirement plan to a group of possible summer interns! I sat down and poured myself many glasses of water from the complimentary pitcher.

I took the test, which was retarded — analogies, basic arithmetic, and over 300 behavioral questions — and I interviewed. I knew i had totally no chance at the internship, but I decided to go through with all the screening procedures anyway. I was totally right too; I didn’t get the job, or even a call, but I had made an impression. A big impressions. Two friends who attended the session properly dressed, got a second interview with a hiring manager at the company. They told me that the hiring manager started off the interview telling them about a certain applicant who appeared at the testing session late and under-dressed. The hiring manager was blown away by the lack of respect and etiquette. Unacceptable!

The important thing is that I created a memory for everyone involved.

Hey Will, More Cowbell

A friend tells a good story. You try to tell a good story. It all falls apart. Hey Will, more cowbell.

It’s a remake of The Great Candy Mix-Up from our first effort, The Hidden Creamery

Which do you like better?

My Dad’s Commando Car Rescue

My dad’s got a fleet of cars.  Junk cars.  His primary car is a 1990 Mercury Sable wagon that he inherited after his dad passed away, but he’s been keeping a 1985 Dodge Aries in storage for years.  Turning the ignition with a screwdriver is one of the many cosmetic and functional problems with that car.  He also had a 1980s Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera that my sister and I called “robocar” since it was basically down to scrap metal.  The insides were stripped, there were no rear seats, and weeds were growing through it.  Miraculously, someone stole robocar.  I don’t know how, or why, but it relieved my dad from his monthly payment for storing robocar.  He was disappointed because the car had sentimental value.

Low Lifes

My dad was working in a walk-in clinic in Fort Myers for a while.  Although he left to go to law school at the University of Florida in Gainesville, a few of his patients kept calling him to get my dad to write prescriptions for strong pain killers, like Roxicodone, for their back pain.  Two of these guys, Jason and Doug, who I would characterize as “low lifes,” have some criminal history, and the drug they wanted prescribed happened to have a high resale value on the street.  They both work with cars, so they setup a bartering agreement with my dad:  car service in exchange for prescriptions.

About a year ago, Jason told my dad that he would give him a $400 early 1990s Saturn station wagon.  Jason was on probation for a DUI, so he couldn’t drive anyway.  I went down to Fort Myers with my dad to pick it up, but it was a piece of junk.  I refused to drive it because it was unsafe.  My dad discovered problems with it, so he left it with Jason to fix.

Jason kept working on it, and delaying as he reported other mechanical problems.  Months and months.  But Jason kept getting prescriptions from my dad.  My dad gives these guys the benefit of the doubt.  Then, as my dad reported to me,

Jason was driving another car on his suspended license and his buddy was with him.  To avoid a charge, they switched identities but the officer who stopped him compared the license of the buddy to Jason’s appearance and the buddy’s appearance, detected the ruse and arrested them both for lying to a law-enforcement officer.  The officer searched the car Jason was driving and found considerable cash, so he suspected that Jason was selling the Roxicodone that I had prescribed him.  He has remained in custody ever since.

At that point, Doug, one of the other patients receiving the same prescriptions, took custody of the Saturn.  Doug expressed relief that my dad was finally through having to deal with Jason, and assumed responsibility for fixing the car.  After finishing a brake job, he reported problems with the transmission, and told my dad it would take two weeks.  The two weeks passed, and when my dad finally got a hold of him, he learned that

[Doug] was driving the Saturn when a policewoman stopped him for a traffic-violation.  She found my prescription for Roxicodone and that raised a red flag, even though he had the duly authorized labeling on the container, so she searched the car.  She found a baggie of heroine, which is contraband, so she arrested and incarcerated Peavey and had a towing company take the Saturn.  He later blamed Jason’s associates for leaving the heroine or planting it in the car … He also said that he’d lost his own car to the repo-man because he hadn’t kept up his payments, so he had to take public transport to work or depend on his brother to drive him … Because Peavey’s car had been repossessed, I assumed that he wanted to continue to retain the Saturn so he could serve his own convenience by commuting with it.

Commando Dad

So my dad drove down to Fort Myers in his Mercury Sable wagon and bailed the Saturn out for $500.

After I bailed the Saturn out, I leapfrogged the Mercury and the Saturn from the towing company northward to the what I learned was the hearest large parking lot, associated with TJ Maxx in Cape Coral.  It was a distance of about two miles.  That meant that I had to walk or run in the sweltering heat the entire two miles.  I left the car in the large parking lot.

Doug took possession of the car again because he promised to get a locksmith out to do some work.  “He also claimed that the transmission was having trouble again with slipping.  By that time, I’d driven it and had found no trouble with the transmission, so it seemed proof that he was BSing.”

On Sunday, my dad tried to get in contact with him to pickup the Saturn, but Doug wouldn’t answer.  So my dad decided he would have to take it by force!

I parked around the corner and returned, hoping to start it and seize it in a commando-operation.  It was still dead.  It was parked with cars around it in the driveway, boxed in on three sides.  The only escape-route was across the lawn.  I rang the doorbell, expecting I’d have to abandon my commando-raid but nobody answered, so I executed commando-plan B.  I pulled the Mercury onto the lawn to jump the Saturn.  I got it started, left it running and pulled away with the Mercury.  I returned to the Saturn and took it across the lawn and down the road a piece.  I leapfrogged the two cars about a mile in the sweltering heat, leaving the Saturn running the whole time, since I couldn’t start it again, if I’d turned it off.   A difficulty in Cape Coral, as in Fort Myers, is the absence of permissible parking at the sides of roads, so I parked on the grassy median as I leapfrogged the cars.  That was probably illegal, but I saw no signs against it.

Finally, I got a call from Peavey.  He was shouting.  “What am I gonna tell my brother?!!!  You tore up his lawn!!!”  I denied it.  I’d only disturbed a few blades of grass.  I told him not to exaggerate.

Most of Sunday afternoon, I was drenched in sweat from running and walking in the heat.  The guy who was about to check my battery at Advanced Auto asked if I’d been running in the rain.  I said in the heat; this is what Floridians all looked like before air conditioning came in.

Boxing Your Bike and Reassembling It

When I was in Panama City, I went to a bike shop to get a cardboard bike box and get my pedals taken off.  The bike shop had a box and told me that they’d box it for $5.  Since it’s a pain in the ass, and it’s an operation a bike shop in the US would probably charge at least $30 for, I let them do it.

When your bike isn’t being used to travel, lugging it around is a burden.  It’s big, awkward, and expensive when you need to take it on an airplane.  Flying on Aires airlines from Panama City to Cartagena, they charged me $4 per kg, which cost me $84.  I paid about $80 for my ticket.  The bike cost the same as a human passenger!

It was pretty easy to put the bike back together.  There were only two issues:

• Pedals: Hand-threading them back on the cranks is the safest thing to do, since by-hand, you’re less likely to thread it on at an angle, which would screw up the crank threading.  However, I only had a short-handled crescent wrench to tighten them down.  The good part is that pedaling tightens the pedals to the cranks.  But, I remember it happened to me before on another bike, a couple of days after putting on some pedals, my pedal started coming lose as I was riding — I hadn’t tightened it down enough, or it was threaded on at an angle — and it ended up destroying the threading in my crank arm.  Nightmare.  I really wanted a pedal wrench to tighten the pedal onto the crank, but I did my best, and I didn’t have any issues.

• Threadless Headset: Getting my steering column back to normal was the biggest challenge.  I tightened the top cap first, and then the pinch bolts, but when I rode, I felt like I was going to tip over.  The slightest thing wrong in the headset causes major steering upset.  I got a sense of the bike flexing from side to side, a strange feeling.  So I loosened the top cap and pinch bolts a little, and then changed the order of tightening, trying the pinch bolts first, then the top cap.  It was still bad, but slightly better.  So I kept loosening and tightening, and after many iterations, the steering column got back to normal.

Germans vs English

When you’re traveling, you’re not only exposed to the locals in the country you’re visiting, you’re also likely to meet travelers from other countries. You can get a feel for a country’s culture by meeting a sample of its citizens. After my travel in Eastern Europe and Central America, I got a definite feel for who I liked and disliked.

Best: Germans

Every German I’ve met has been free of personality defects. They’ve been mild-mannered, generous, charismatic, responsible, well-educated, unselfish, and generally socially adept. My personal experience stands in stark contrast to the stereotype of Nazi-style, harsh Germans. I have tended to feel a kinship with the Germans I’ve met, and once I start hosting CouchSurfers, I will be biased in accepting German requests.

Worst: English

The English people I’ve met have been a disaster, and it’s been a burden to be in their company. Their typical characteristics are to be smug, selfish, cocky, and boring. Their accents annoy me, and it makes it worse that they think that British English is “better” than American English. I have met a few English people who were pretty cool, but they were the exception.

Bike Baggage: Cut Your Bike in Half

Paying $100 for your bike to travel on an airplane sucks.  Actually, your bike becomes a an awkwardly large burden when you’re looking to take a bus, or hitchhike, or travel in any other way but biking.  For instance, today I looked at flights from Bogota back to the US.  JetBlue has amazingly cheap flights to Orlando — $82 some days, $104 others.  But then their luggage policy says that they don’t accept boxes on international flights.  That means, no bikes.  At least no bikes in their normal form …

Then I read about S and S Couplers.  These things basically allow your bike frame to be broken in half so that you can pack it into a small case that can be checked in as normal luggage.  The size limitation becomes the size of your wheel.

Check out these websites for more information:

Packing Procedure

Bicycle Touring Guide

Socially-Retarded Kids

Some kids who think they are really bright, are also really stupid socially.

This one kid I met recently was about 12-years-old and he seemed to emulate his father who was an engineer. He spoke in a staccato and was precise about things, including his pronunciation. I hadn’t spoken with him, and I wanted to be friendly, but the only interesting thing I had heard about him was that he and his family lived in Nicaragua for a while. So, I asked about that, saying, “So, you lived in Nicaragua for 5 years and then moved to Colorado?” He corrected me saying it was something like 6 years, and then in a weird precise staccato, “I think the term is ‘Close but No Cigar.’” I didn’t speak to him after that. Strange thing to say. Like I was trying to get a Cigar Prize out of precisely knowing some boring fact about his life.

It reminded me of an experience I had years ago with an equally socially retarded kid. This other academically-intelligent 10-year-old came over to my mom’s house, and I was trying to make him feel comfortable. I had heard that he had built a bunch of model cars that summer, so I created conversation by relating to him how I had tried building a model car some years before and thought it was difficult. Not understanding social grace, he replied, “I think it’s very easy.”

Shit in the Wild

On the road to Chinandega, Nicaragua, Antonio and I stopped in the shade for some water. I felt an urgent need for a toilet. I knew this was going to be a bad one.

I got the toilet paper out of my bag and hustled into the brush to find some cover. Without time to spare, as I was feeling it coming quickly, I pulled down my stinking padded shorts, braced myself against a chain-linked fence, and I let it fly. Liquid poo. Close to diarrhea, but without the spray effect, and less water. A light-brown sludge. Oh man, it was bad.

It’s difficult here though as there really aren’t any facilities en route where you can just stop and run in to use the toilet. Only at hotels and some restaurants.

Central American Entry Fees

Here is what I had to pay when I entered each of these countries (July 2009).

Guatemala: ~$1 (I forget exactly)
El Salvador: free (and they don’t even stamp your passport)
Honduras: $3
Nicaragua: $10 [$7 to enter with lots of paperwork, then $1 to enter the border area in Sapoa at Costa Rican border (weird), then $2 to exit the country, paid only in Cordobas or US Dollars (so don't change your money until you get to the other side – I made that mistake)]
Costa Rica: free (but long lines at Penas Blancas, coming from Nicaragua)
Panama: $1 (for a stupid passport sticker you buy from an unofficial-looking guy who hangs out by the immigration area, but apparently you need it)

You get 90 days of travel within the four countries of “centroamerica:” Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

Broken Helmet

I set my bike against the railing of a small bridge and wandered down to pee. Mid-stream, I heard a rattle on the road. My helmet, which I had set on the back of my bike, had been blown off and into the road from the rush of a passing semi-truck. I rushed to the road and saw another truck coming. I signaled for it to slow down. But it didn’t, and I saw my helmet go dancing underneath. The damage was bad. Two large cracks on both sides, and small ones in the front. I’ve had it for over three years now, and I didn’t want to lose it to something stupid like this. At least it was all in one piece. I’ve been wearing it anyway since it’s better than nothing.

Colombia, or End of the Road?

The time to make the big decision is drawing near. I will probably be in Panama in only a week or two. Unfortunately, the road ends in Panama, at the infamous Darien Gap, a rugged, lawless area of mountains, rivers, and rainforest that’s occupied by guerilla forces. This 100 km section is the only part of the Pan-American highway from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego that remains unbridged.

So getting from Panama to Colombia will be more difficult, or at least more expensive. I’ve heard there are sailboats that bring you on a 5-day cruise to Cartagena, Colombia for $300, or you can fly for $100 (not including whatever the bike would cost).

Since there is so much boat traffic in Panama, I am hoping to find a free ride – a boat hitchhike. But this might be difficult. And I’ll have to be open to a lot of possibilities. Colombia, the US, or maybe the Caribbean.

Since it is more difficult to continue the trip from Panama, I need to decide if I really want to keep going. The further I go South, the harder it will be to return to the US.

Just the other day, as I was riding through some dull areas, I was thinking, “Why am I doing this?” I also started thinking about my desire to have a job again. I reminisced about the good times I had at Home Depot, delivering deliverables and having fun in the office. It would be nice to start my life in Philadelphia, which I put on hold because I was planning for this trip. Getting a job, earning money, making friends, having a schedule.

However, once I return, this trip is over. When will I have this opportunity again? To be on a biking trip on the cusp of South America. And with no responsibilities: no job, no mortgage, no girlfriend, and no date I need to return.

I know this situation. It was the same at the end of my trip in Eastern Europe. I had a moment of weakness in Prague when I was losing steam. I bought a ticket home, but in the two weeks between my purchase and my flight, I started enjoying the trip again. But I had bought the ticket, and so I returned home. And then I was home. It was over.

Addition: Writing this helped me decide that I want to go to Colombia. 

I Hate Tortillas

I’m getting sick of eating tortillas with every meal. They’re the thick, home-made ones and they’re tasteless and boring. I usually have to get through three or four of them for each meal because I feel bad about just letting them sit (and they offer a cheap way to get full).

In Guatemala and El Salvador, they’re thick, but across the border in Honduras, they’re the thin kind. Nicaragua also. Still pretty boring though.