wassap?

More people in more places can now compete, connect and collaborate with equal power and equal tools than ever before.
~ Thomas Friedman

I'm learning a new language: Spanish shorthand. It's found mostly in texting. It's similar to Spanish, except that spelling doesn't matter, there's no time for adding in accents, and abbrevs. are all the norm. There's a steep learning curve. Or, as we say in Spanish text language, "x apre."

Here's a typical text message from a friend in Playa del Carmen

The same message in regular (aka longhand) Spanish would read 
"no te preocupes" or "don't worry"

My learning of shorthand comes mostly in the form of instant text messages sent to my iPhone through the wonderfully popular global app "WhatsApp?" The beauty of WhatsApp, aside from its surprising dependability, is that all messages are free. It doesn't matter where the messages are sent from or to whom they are sent. All you need is a smart phone, a WhatsApp account, and the phone number of all your friends and acquaintances. It really is that simple. Videos and photos are instantly sent and received via cellular service or an internet connection. I love the pictures I've been getting from Mexico.

Vero sent me a photo of her son Ian making pot holders!

She is great about sending out photos and videos from her phone.

I'd first heard about WhatsApp on the cusp of its impending sale to Facebook. What I've recently learned about WhatsApp is that it has existed for years. And, more impressively, so solidly has the product established itself, that it has become a part of everyday conversation around the world. Its global recognition is up there alongside Facebook. When I'd meet someone new in Mexico, something that happened several times a day, introductions were always followed by "tienes wassap?" I'd pull out my phone and enter in my new friend's contact information. I even got really adept at knowing which country codes to add. +1 in iPhone speak equals 011. Sneaky, huh?

With WhatsApp I am in constant communication with my friends over in Mexico. I love being able to practice my Spanish and learn Spanish texting shorthand. But I don't love the constant pinging of my phone. A ping means I have a new message. Although it's never just one ping. It's typically a steady stream of messages coming through. And the now all too familiar pinging sounds are definitely not restricted to occurrences solely during daylight hours. 

But this is not a shortcoming of WhatsApp. It's the price I pay for keeping my phone on, with the volume up, letting the pings come through and distract me. What can I say? I like being connected.

Want to try WhatsApp? https://www.whatsapp.com/download/

Look me up and send me a message. (Just try to make it during a reasonable hour). 
I'll get right back to you.

writing season

My first few weeks of unemployment didn't really feel like unemployment. Between travel, travel, and more travel, every day was filled with some sort of meeting, obligation, or deadline. For the past four weeks I have longed for a true unemployment day - nowhere to be, nowhere to go. A "holy shit, I'm unemployed" realization day. I took that day, and I'm bored already. Or rather, I'm ready to get back to work. 

I'm beginning to realize that unemployment = time. It is completely up to me how I spend my time. Right now, I spend it writing.

Because I have to write a business plan. Not just any business plan; the plan for my start-up company. There are a lot of firsts along with writing this plan. My first start-up. My first market testing. My first move into Venture Capital. My first investment. My first for profit company. But not my first partnership, not my first passion project, and not my first venture into the unknown. Just my first real business plan.

So, I sit at home and write. I sit in the coffee shop and write. I sit in the library and write. I sit outside (when my computer is charged) and write.

Writing something as long as a business plan requires stamina. There are no quick emails sent out, no quick feedback, and no quick phone calls. There is definitely no stopping by a co-worker's cubicle to ask her a quick question. 

Instead, I write and write. And then I look for something else to do. Most of my day is now spent alone, writing. And drinking coffee. And surfing the internet while thinking. And texting/sending instant messages to have some way to communicate with other people during the day.

Currently, business planning is enough for me. But I can tell that sometime soon I'll look forward to heading into a job, complete with meetings, deadlines, constant email communication, and even being judged by someone else's standards. But that's some day. 

For now, I've got to work on this all consuming business plan...

only the locals know

Get a bicycle. You will certainly not regret it, if you live. 
~ Mark Twain  Taming the Bicycle. 1884

I'm back in my city of San Francisco and I'm hitting the road again. In true San Franciscan style, I'll be cruising the Avenues on my bicycle. San Francisco weather makes bike riding a fun, yet chilly, activity. I always have to layer up, especially if I plan to bike home after sun down.

This winter/spring has been brutal for California farming, if not perfect for bike commuters such as my beau. It has rained once during the past three months. We Californians are in a drought. A serious, serious drought. So much so that I ask the skies for rain on a daily basis. But every morning, when I look out the window and see the shining sun, I can't help but think, "another sunny day? Oh well, I may as well take advantage of the weather."

So I hop on my bike. But before I can actually go anywhere new, I check the internet. For some suggested bike route options. I typically grab my handy smartphone, open Google Maps, and enter in where I want to go (this activity is reserved for distant locations outside my typical biking comfort zone). I hit bike route and voilà, I am given the suggested route. So, I head off. I love bike rides across town.

Except that I almost never follow the suggested bike route. I find that it is never the best/easiest/quickest/safest/flattest route. So why even look it up at all, if I'm going to learn to navigate the streets myself? Force of habit, I suppose. I do rely heavily on Google Maps for driving directions. But whatever bike route Google Maps does tell me to take is not the one I end up taking. 

When it comes to navigating the streets of San Francisco, regular bike riders know best. I can honestly say I know the best routes. I knew the wiggle long before I even had a smartphone. I am glad the city has taken to painting in green bike lanes and arrows to help novices learn the flat routes throughout the city, but even they don't always get it right.

Almost every time I ride my bike through San Francisco I notice the sharrows. Sharrows are exactly what they sound like; they are "share arrows" meant to let cars know that they must share the lane with bicycles. Sharrows also alert bikers that they can and should use this street (as opposed to the major thorough-way one block to the left or right of each particularly painted street). I feel safer on sharrow or bike lane marked streets. But more often than not, I don't choose to take these streets.

Cars are notified to share the road with bicyclists

Because sharrowed streets are not necessarily flat streets. Or through streets. There is simply always a better route or street to take. Thank you City of San Francisco for painting arrows on blacktop, but your arrows are useless. Or at least should and will be ignored by us locals. I rely on what I know about the city and its streets to get me from start to finish, every single time. I go where the locals know to go, and I choose every street I take based on experience on these streets; not by any map, painted arrows, or bike lane. I know where to go because I have been there before. 

Some day I hope our friends at Google think to ask us, "what is the bike route you'd take from ocean beach to the ballpark. Or from Pacific Heights to the Embarcadero" and then edit their mapping software to reflect these best routes. Until then, we bike riders already know the best way to go. So we hop on our bikes and head across town.

how to write an iBook - part 2

I went to the Yucatán with a mission; to write an iBook. Armed with Sue's secret iBook writing formula, I first needed to research the Maya. After I discovered the online history books were getting their facts wrong, I immersed myself in local Maya culture, people, and artifacts. After an in-depth trip to the Museum of the Mayan World, followed by a few trips to local Mayan ruins, I stopped by a few local villages to check facts with my new found Mayan friends. It was a lot of information. How was I ever going to remember it all?

A relic from the Mayan World Museum

A few years ago I discovered a helpful traveler's trick; to take photos of writing. Have you ever taken a photo of an amazing place, only to forget later what was in the photo? A quick helpful trick, thanks to the unlimited photo taking digital cameras allow, is to snap a quick photo of the item's description or marker. In the end, it's a very helpful way to remember. But in the meantime, it leaves me overwhelmed with the sheer number of photos I have to sort through.

The actual description of the relic pictured above!

Armed with photos, interviews, background and hard fact information, I was ready to sit down and write my iBook. But I was still missing one of the most important iBook parts; the community contributed artwork. This is an integral aspect of our interactive art iBooks. But my time in the Yucatán was running out.

I showed up at Dona Vero's Monday night Proyecto Itzaes group armed with an activity for the kids; draw your interpretation of the word "pyramid." Dona Vero repeated the assignment to anyone who arrived at the Proyecto, and I know she understood the gist of the assignment. We all have ideas of what pyramids look like. But instead of drawing a pyramid we've seen before, what would each person imagine? I thought this was a pretty simple assignment to start. And it would help me with my iBook.

I am thrilled to be able to add Chixculub Pueblo contributed artwork as I work on my final iBook product. But what you will see in the final product is not a crazy idea of a pyramid. Or even a different shaped pyramid. Every person (child and adult alike) who contributed artwork to the iBook all drew me the same pyramid: Chichen Itza. Some drew it from memory from books seen/read (no one had actually seen Chichen Itza up close), while others opened a Maya culture book and copied the pyramid exactly. I was astonished; where was the imagination?

Three versions of the same pyramid: Chichen Itza

The imagination was nowhere to be found. But this is not all that uncommon. The Mexican educational system is a very exacting one. Questions are asked, answers are written in black and white, and it's a very clear cut system. What I was asking for did not have a correct answer. But that was what I was given; a response that your interpretation of a pyramid must be Chichen Itza to be correct. And yes, their drawings were correct and I will use them in the iBook. But I was looking for anything but the ordinary. I was looking for a place where imagination took over and there are no wrong answers. Where was the inquiry? Where was the imagination? Where was the ability to let go of the belief in one right answer?

I guess I have my work cut out for me.

single ticket purchase

I can't even count the number of times I've been asked in the past few weeks if I'm worried about traveling alone. My answer is always no. But the truth is that I never gave it a second thought. I just looked online, bought a few single plane tickets, grabbed a few single bus tickets, booked a few single hotel rooms, and packed my bags. I'd like to think I'd act the same way, whether going to Mexico or Mali. But I'm sure that's not true.

I've been in plenty of danger. I've been mugged. I've been robbed. I've had thieves drop into my house in the middle of the night. I've lost almost everything I've ever had. But these days when I travel I am not scared. I wasn't even scared when I was nearly yanked out of a tuk tuk last year in Cambodia, because the motorcyclist alongside me grabbed for the purse wrapped around my leg. I was much sadder about what I had lost than scared. I was mad. But not scared.

I remember the last time I was scared while traveling. There are so many instances (most had to do with being afraid I wouldn't find a way back to my village in Honduras in time for nightfall), but the one that sticks out the most was back almost ten years ago. Becky and I were traveling via vanpool from Copán to Antigua, and had to stop in Guatemala City. It was VERY early in the morning; so early it was dark outside. We were stopped in Guatemala City - and I was scared. I don't remember why I was scared. I think it was because I was supposed to be scared - Guatemala City is a dangerous place. Or so I had been told. And that was why I was scared. I was so scared I was shaking.

But nothing scary happened. It was all in my head. We left Guatemala City with no problems and headed along to Antigua for a great rest of our trip (and a kick ass view of the ruins at Tikal). So then why was I so scared? And why don't I want to go to Mexico City? Or San Pedro Sula? Or even Tegucigalpa, which used to be my preferred get-away destination?

Because we are told these places aren't safe. We're fed statistics from the U.S State Department, such as, "theft, armed robbery, and carjacking are the most common problems encountered by American citizens. No area is immune to daytime assaults, including the upscale shopping, tourist, and residential areas in Guatemala City." No one is safe. That's very scary to see in print. But is Guatemala City any less safe than my home city of San Francisco? My intuition tells me it's not.

And that's what I really rely on when traveling; my intuition. That sense of direction, body language, intent and meaning that I pride myself on being able to decipher from all types of folks. In my family, we call this "common sense" and it is one of my dad's most highly prized attributes. He loves common sense people; we can figure out any riddle, read between the lines, and change our body language at the first hint of non-comfort with people.

 I asked a stranger to take my picture at Uxmal, Yucatán.

Thus when I travel alone, I am not really alone. I have my travel partner along with me; my common sense. This is my ability to travel. My ability to go it alone and figure it all out on my own. So perhaps the next time someone asks me if I'm scared to travel alone, I'll know the answer is "no". My common sense (and the kindness of strangers - this still exists) will pull me through.