defocus·blog

Take It Easy: Winslow, AZ

I freely admit that, when it comes to travel, the simplest of things can make me happy. Sometimes it's enough just to be somewhere cool. I have, for example, stood on that corner in Winslow, Arizona.

Ain't No High-Octane Gas in Texas

When traveling Interstate 40, if your car uses high-octane gasoline, you need to fill up in Oklahoma (westbound) or New Mexico (eastbound) close to the Texas border, because you can't get high-octane gasoline in Texas.

Fourteen Years

In Illinois, you'll see the signs near most work zones: “Hit a worker, $10,000 fine, 14 yrs jail.” 14 years? Are they serious? 14 years for an accident? Every time I see these signs I am struck by how astoundingly stupid this law is. In criminal justice there is the theory that penalties must be proportionate. If, for example, you sentence robbers to life in prison, it will encourage robbers to kill their victims to avoid capture. Here, we're talking about an accident. It's not “14 years if you're driving recklessly and you kill someone.” It's just hitting someone, with...

Vegas or Bust

A common conceit among road-trippers is disdain for the Interstate highways. Everyone loves to put them down, to present themselves as somehow above them. I am not one of these people: I love the Interstate. It's “home” to me.

The Verizon MiFi 2200

Verizon's MiFi 2200 gives you portable Internet access on the road, creating a WiFi hotspot for up to 5 simultaneous users. Here's the beginning of my review.

The Travel First-Aid Kit

Many places sell pre-made first-aid kits. In general these are best avoided; you can do better by assembling your own, avoiding useless cheap stuff and making sure you have everything you might need.

Shakedown Cruise

When getting ready for a long trip, sometimes it's a good idea to take a shorter one first to make sure everything is working okay. My shakedown cruise was a trip out to visit Dad in Pennsylvania. I hit the road Monday afternoon, westbound on I-80, and got a bit more than the proverbial “three hour tour.”

The Well-Stocked Travel Bag

I frequently hear that packing for a trip is one of the most stressful parts of travel. You have to try to remember everything, and not to forget any of the little things you need every day that you take for granted. My method of avoiding this stress is to keep a bag packed all the time.

Interstate Exit Guide Deathmatch!

When I'm on the road, one thing that I always keep handy is The Next Exit. This is a big book listing everything that is at every Interstate exit in the country. In case you were unaware that such a thing existed, yes, it is as useful as it sounds. If you're hungry, why settle for a lame Subway if there is an Applebee's a few miles down the road? There are few things you'll find more valuable on a trip. I still had the 2007 edition, so I went to Amazon to pick up the latest version, and made...

Preserving Old Pictures

I love looking at the Library of Congress Flickr page. All these wonderful old pictures, preserved, and shared freely with us anytime and anywhere we want to look at them. How cool is that? These pictures are a hundred years old, roughly, which got me thinking about the pictures of today and how fragile they have become with digital storage. I have gigabytes of images sitting on hard drives, and sure, I back them up, but really, they are one minor disaster away from being lost forever – and minor disasters with computers and hard drives happen all the time....