Upright & Stowed

Blind (Drunk) Item from New Zealand

If I wasn't so fascinated by the goings-on of our global village, I might have skipped right over this piece of news from Dargaville, New Zealand, slipped into last week's paper of record. 

Photo credit

"Drunk-Mowing Charge" – NY Times, 1/16/08
Richard Gunn, 52, was driving a lawn mower down a street in Dargaville late Monday evening when the police stopped him and accused him of driving the mower while drunk, a police spokeswoman said. He had already lost his driver’s license and said he had since been using the lawn mower — top speed 5 miles an hour — to get around. The police impounded the mower for 28 days.

Where Next?

At any given time, I have a short list of places I want to visit and have never been before.  In 2007 I knocked Guatemala off the list.   So here are the top 5 places I'm dying to visit for the first time.  Getting to any of them this year will require a bit of effort, and a considerable increase in financial stability for Yours Truly.  But a boy's got to dream, right?

1. Turkey
2. Egypt
3. Argentina
4. United Arab Emirates
5. Scandinavia

That's my list.  What's on yours?    Photo Credit

16 Down, 37 To Go

Yesterday's New York Times Travel section featured The 53 Places to go in 2008.  Any list like this is bound to feel somewhat random, and this list in particular had no discernible curatorial vision.  The take-away from the piece, for me, was that I have only been to 16 of the 53 places on the list.  And Guatemala, where I'm headed on Wednesday, won't even elevate that number to 17.  So I choose to consider the remaining 37 Hot Spots as a challenge.  Onward and upward!

Derring-Do

Allen was the first to correctly guess the location of my hang-gliding in yesterday's "Where Am I?" post gliding:  It was Rio de Janeiro.  The prize for accuracy, however, goes to "Midtoad" for his precision guess of the Sao Corrado neighborhood in greater Rio.  Nevertheless, Midtoad lives in Canada, and I personally know, love and have physical access to Allen.  So I'm awarding Allen the prize of a free Long Island Iced Tea in the Pines over the 4th of July holiday.

Just so you know that derring-do runs in the family, this is may father and step-mother para-sailing off the coast of Mexico during a family trip celebrating my dad's 70th birthday!