The Beginning
"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from." - Ts Eliot
And so it is from the ending of one phase of my life that I find the beginning to another adventure. For this phase, I've decided that the beginning should be as far removed from the ending as possible. So, I've decided to take a trip. A 30-day trip in fact. On a train -- or even numerous trains.
It's about 7 days from when I need to vacate the premises I'm in now. I'll be spending most of that time cleaning, organizing, organizing again, packing, repacking, until I get just what I need in the proper porportions, in the proper containers.
I still haven't bought the ticket yet -- a 30 day rail pass from Amtrak. Off-season price is $534. About the same price as if I flew straight home. The differences of course is that I could fly straight home and have no job/living quarters, or I could spend 30 days travelling North America, visit some friends, and arrive in Halifax with no job/living quarters.
I'm 90% sure I'm going. I have to make a decision by Tuesday, for reasons I won't disclose here. But last night I had a weird dream, of which I half remember. And if I interpret that dream correctly, my subconcious was telling me that the last thing I should be doing with a new beginning is depending on someone else. With what I've been through, it's important for me to find new independence, no matter the hardship. I'm reminded of the fork in the road...one fork is smooth and level, the other is rocky and uphill. I'll choose rocky and uphill for this new beginning; the smooth and level we'll work out later.
"Every man dies, not every man really lives." - William Wallace
I'm not a train buff. Maybe I will be by the end of the journey. I don't know if I'll bother to notice the engine #'s, or other details that I would find meaningless. This is about the message, not the medium. But maybe the medium IS the message -- to paraphrase a great Canadian.
If you want details, I suggest you visit this website: http://www.trainweb.com They have compiled a ton of train-related information. And reading the travel logs of people who have logged thousands upon thousands of miles over rails has been very helpful in preparing me for the trip. I want to personally thank Steve Grande who took the time to answer this noob's questions and get his advice and opinions on travel by Amtrak/Via Rail Canada.
I've chosen www.blogger.com to host my website because of how I can simply auto-resize photos and publish them with one click. I plan to take lots of photos, and my internet connection will be limited, most times, to dialup speeds. Ok for sending text, but I don't want to have to sit there and resize numerous photos to push across a dialup speed when I have a program that will do it automatically, AND make the blog entry.
I'll have my laptop, wifi-enabled, but probably with little wifi-access. Luckily I also have a T-mobile cellphone modem installed. THAT's the dialup speed I previously mentioned. I SHOULD be able to get a signal almost anywhere you can get a cellphone signal.
The problem with a 'blog'...and this goes for any online blog/journal, is that it's shows last post first. So, in order to read fluidly, you have to find the last place you left off and read from earliest to the latest. This can be a little frustrating if you've missed a couple of days. If you're really interested in keeping tabs on this journal, you can use it's RSS feed which I'll explain later. If you program the RSS link into something like your personalized Google homepage you'll be able to see updated posts anytime you open that homepage. I'll post a tutorial on how to setup your own Google personalized homepage for those with a Google account. There are many other ways to see RSS, including your Yahoo 360 page, and many aggregate RSS reading programs.
So, that's it for the beginning. And I haven't even bought the tickets.
"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your front door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."
- Bilbo Baggins
And so it is from the ending of one phase of my life that I find the beginning to another adventure. For this phase, I've decided that the beginning should be as far removed from the ending as possible. So, I've decided to take a trip. A 30-day trip in fact. On a train -- or even numerous trains.
It's about 7 days from when I need to vacate the premises I'm in now. I'll be spending most of that time cleaning, organizing, organizing again, packing, repacking, until I get just what I need in the proper porportions, in the proper containers.
I still haven't bought the ticket yet -- a 30 day rail pass from Amtrak. Off-season price is $534. About the same price as if I flew straight home. The differences of course is that I could fly straight home and have no job/living quarters, or I could spend 30 days travelling North America, visit some friends, and arrive in Halifax with no job/living quarters.
I'm 90% sure I'm going. I have to make a decision by Tuesday, for reasons I won't disclose here. But last night I had a weird dream, of which I half remember. And if I interpret that dream correctly, my subconcious was telling me that the last thing I should be doing with a new beginning is depending on someone else. With what I've been through, it's important for me to find new independence, no matter the hardship. I'm reminded of the fork in the road...one fork is smooth and level, the other is rocky and uphill. I'll choose rocky and uphill for this new beginning; the smooth and level we'll work out later.
"Every man dies, not every man really lives." - William Wallace
I'm not a train buff. Maybe I will be by the end of the journey. I don't know if I'll bother to notice the engine #'s, or other details that I would find meaningless. This is about the message, not the medium. But maybe the medium IS the message -- to paraphrase a great Canadian.
If you want details, I suggest you visit this website: http://www.trainweb.com They have compiled a ton of train-related information. And reading the travel logs of people who have logged thousands upon thousands of miles over rails has been very helpful in preparing me for the trip. I want to personally thank Steve Grande who took the time to answer this noob's questions and get his advice and opinions on travel by Amtrak/Via Rail Canada.
I've chosen www.blogger.com to host my website because of how I can simply auto-resize photos and publish them with one click. I plan to take lots of photos, and my internet connection will be limited, most times, to dialup speeds. Ok for sending text, but I don't want to have to sit there and resize numerous photos to push across a dialup speed when I have a program that will do it automatically, AND make the blog entry.
I'll have my laptop, wifi-enabled, but probably with little wifi-access. Luckily I also have a T-mobile cellphone modem installed. THAT's the dialup speed I previously mentioned. I SHOULD be able to get a signal almost anywhere you can get a cellphone signal.
The problem with a 'blog'...and this goes for any online blog/journal, is that it's shows last post first. So, in order to read fluidly, you have to find the last place you left off and read from earliest to the latest. This can be a little frustrating if you've missed a couple of days. If you're really interested in keeping tabs on this journal, you can use it's RSS feed which I'll explain later. If you program the RSS link into something like your personalized Google homepage you'll be able to see updated posts anytime you open that homepage. I'll post a tutorial on how to setup your own Google personalized homepage for those with a Google account. There are many other ways to see RSS, including your Yahoo 360 page, and many aggregate RSS reading programs.
So, that's it for the beginning. And I haven't even bought the tickets.
"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your front door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."
- Bilbo Baggins
posted by HotShot at 9:51 AM
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