Category Archives: Series
Mystery Trip Update
See more posts in the Mystery Trip saga!
With only a week to go before take-off, I got a note from The Philadelphian, along with a small package. Here is the letter that I received.
One Week Before Your Trip – Reminders and Tips
You depart on Delta on Saturday September 19th in the late afternoon. Arrive at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport absolutely no later than 2:30pm!
Your destination will be made clear to you upon check-in. You will likely need to input your destination either into the kiosk. Your flight information is on a piece of paper attached below. Open only at the airport on your day of travel.
Note: You will be traveling via the international terminal.
Because you are traveling internationally and will have to go through immigration upon arrival you will need to state where you are staying. To avoid this problem, I have booked your first night of residence. I have booked ONLY your first night. Your biggest challenge, and I cannot understate this, will be finding accommodations beyond your first day. I wish you luck. Details will be provided in your travel day package.
Packing tips:
- Pack light. Be prepared to travel lightly and be comfortable with all your belongings on your back. Less is more. You need to be extremely mobile.
- Be prepared to have a lot of fun with lots of other people also having fun. You do not want to be hindered by your belongings.
- Do not pack any items that will create inhibitions in your actions. E.g. expensive cameras, video cameras or other items that could be stolen. I am not telling you not to bring such things. I am just telling you that the environment you will be placed in requires you to not care.
- I fully recommend 2 complete sets of clothes, but absolutely no more. Convertible shorts/pants would be ideal. It is likely some clothes will get very sloppy.
- Money. This trip by its nature will require you to spend some cash. I won’t say any more than that.
Your return flight is on Saturday October 10th around mid-day.
You will receive a full mission package with everything you will need from a navigation stand point. You have an incredible trip ahead of you. It starts off with a huge bang and then gets pretty serious pretty quick considering your mission.
Godspeed and Good Luck.
And on the package is written:
To: Beau Woods
From: The Handler
To be opened when the wheels leave the ground on 9/19/2009. Not a second before.
Contents: documents, book, pen, maps
Location Of The Mystery Trip (Part 3)
This is part 3 in the series, where I speculate on where I might be going and tell you where I’d send me. Here are some things that I’ve learned in trying to figure out where I’ll be heading:
- Did you know that the official language of Guyana is English and that it is more similar to the Caribbean than to South America?
- Did you know that the three least known countries in the world are Tuvalu, Nauru and Kiribati? Nauru has a very interesting story. Kiribati is the only country in the world that spans all four hemispheres.
- Did you know that this will be the 199th year of Oktoberfest in Munich? It will be held September 19 – October 4.
- Did you know that the second largest Oktoberfest celebration in the world is in Blumenau, Brazil? And that the third largest is in Cordoba, Argentina?
I think that the most obvious place to send me during those dates is Oktoberfest in Munich. So obvious, in fact, that I doubt this will be it – or there will be an added element of surprise thrown in. Like “You fly into Munich and out of Prague. You are not allowed to take any form of motorized transportation during the three weeks.”
So where do I think I’m going? I think I’ll be flying into Venice, then following the Eastern coast of the Agean down to Greece and out of Athens. None of those countries require a visa and it would be a really cool trip. I put my odds of being right at about 15%.
Location Of The Mystery Trip (Part 2)
This is the second part on where I might be going on my Mystery Trip, wherein I let you know where other folks have suggested to send me and stop just short of revealing where I think I’m headed and why.
My boss said he’d send me to one of the following locations:
Kerguelen Islands
Canary Islands
Tajikistan
A Finnish lake
I like the idea of Tajikistan. The mountainous region of Afghanistan and Pakistan – two of its neighbors – is someplace I’ve long wanted to go, and Tajikistan is 90% mountains. They also share a culture with Persia, another place I’d love to visit. The border with Afghanistan has been guarded by a modern army since at least 2001 and the country has ties with the World Trade Organization and NATO. I’d feel safe heading there, although I’d better get there quickly, according to Barnett.
A couple of my friends said they’d send me to Thailand. I like that idea, too. If nothing else I’m sure I could get some spectacular Tom Kha Gai soup. Though it will be the rainy season, that just means fewer tourists and cooler temperatures.
South America has been a popular suggestion. Specifically Peru and Argentina. I’d be alright with either of those. Machu Pichu looks incredibly beautiful and I’ve wanted to go to Buenos Aires for a long time.
Location Of The Mystery Trip (Part 1)
It’s now less than two weeks from my Mystery Trip and I have no more idea where I’m going than I did when I started this crazy idea. This is part one, in which I lay out what I know so far and stop just short of providing speculations on a location.
I’ve started working on the skills that I’ll use when I am wherever I am. I’m using an Asus eeepc 1005HA-B to type this up now. The screen glare is killing me. I’ve uploaded photos to Flickr and done some other basic tasks on here which will be required if I’m going to blog my trip.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s what I have been told so far:
I have been told that I have at least one mission planned.
The location will be North of the equator. (I suspect that this may be a red herring, since the real intent is so I don’t have to deal with Winter conditions where heavy clothing is essential to survival.)
I will be traveling Internationally.
I will not need to get a visa in advance.
I depart Saturday, September 19th and return Saturday October 10th.
I will be on a direct flight from Atlanta.
I need to travel light and carry boots.
I should have connectivity to the Internets available to me, though not at all times.
ASUS eeepc 1005HA-P Review
I went and grabbed the Asus eeepc 1005HA-P for my upcoming Mystery Trip. It is very light and is quite powerful for its size, though there are some down sides. I’m dual booting Windows XP with Linux Mint as my primary OS and it’s pretty impressive.
The 1005HA-PU1X-BK, as it is officially known, is small in size, lightweight and gets 10.5 hours of battery life! I considered the 1101HA, which has a larger screen and slightly longer (advertised) battery life. But all the reviews said the processor was anemic (1.33GHz) so I decided to stay away and I’m happy with my decision.
That said, this is a very solid and capable netbook. It is built and designed quite well – it looks nice and feels sturdy and refined. The screen tucks behind the keyboard the way Macs do and the body is sleek and comfortable to hold. The system is very responsive and quick compared to the eeepc 900 – the last netbook I used – especially after upgrading it to 2GB of RAM.
I run Linux Mint most of the time and it is pretty well tailored for the eeepc. The current version (Gloria, based on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope) installs fairly smoothly but, like with much new hardware, my network drivers weren’t loaded out of the box. That was easy enough to fix with these instructions, though, and the next version (based on Karmic Koala) seems to work with the hardware just fine. There is one issue I ran into with the eeepc tray software where the wireless network would drop out fairly often, but that was solved by adding the following line to my /etc/default/eeepc-acpi.local file:
WIFI_DRIVER=”ath9k”
Overall, I am very satisfied with the laptop and am sure it will make a great companion on my trip. I’ll keep you posted on how it works out – starting September 20th.
Here’s how the 1005HA stacks up against other netbooks:
Pros – powerful, long battery, sturdy and polished construction
Cons – hard-to-use trackpad
A note on netbooks
The size of all netbooks, however, has its disadvantages. The 1005HA is best-of-breed in many aspects, though there are inherent weaknesses in this breed. The screen size, though standard to large by netbook standards, is difficult to get used to. I can only see a few lines at a time and some interactive interfaces are too big to fit the 1024×600 screen. A higher resolution would have been MUCH appreciated. The keyboard and trackpad (again, standard to large by netbook standards) are also smaller than I prefer. I’ve got big hands and they are quite squished in the small space. It’s not very comfortable to type for long periods of time. And the processor, fastest available in its class at 1.66GHz, can be a bit sluggish. I can stream TED videos, for example, but sometimes it gets jumpy.
The Mission
“You will receive a package,” came across the phone thickly accented. The voice was too familiar to mistake. It was the Philadelphian. I knew what this was about.
“Inside the package there is an envelope. You will not open the envelope until you are on the plane.” And then the part I knew was coming. “It is your mission.” This was about my trip….
meanderingwoods 
