great day

Massively successful day today! I managed to (in no order):
do laundry
wake up in time
make lunch
clean the house
play with Beyonce and Amy
work a solid 8 hours in the field diggin holes
buy essentials (and nothing else*)



and now it is time to relax and it is only 6:30.

How was your day?

and i wore the above shirt today!

*ok fine i bought some sweat pants i didn't need.

my trip to West Texas

i love going to West Texas to do archaeology. there isn't any dirt- so you don't have to dig!


pictures here!

Roofs

This is how we roll.

thanksgivings

this was two thanksgivings ago-
http://seanlb.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-woke-up-to.html


this was last year-
http://seanlb.blogspot.com/2009/11/i-win.html
http://seanlb.blogspot.com/2009/11/cricket-thanksgiving.html


and this is this year-
my mom is having a party and that means she's making pies! (fruit pies of course, sorry rest of the world that isn't america and doesn't understand fruit/nonmeat pies)

photoaday 15th

oh yeah! the Maxwell machine is coming back from Alaska/DC for a Texian visit. there will be much rejoicing of the non-rememberable variety.

today's photo was taken somewhere outside of Johannesburg, during the World Cup. Max and i were driving a rental car to Swaziland and back. in a day. for no reason. in a similar vein of righteous craziness, we decided to pick up the Justin Beiber CD and listen to it non-stop throughout the trip. we sang a lot.

oh yeah, driving across South Africa was cool too.


bonus picture! me in Alaska! i hope i get to go back to AK with mabeuf sometime. he loves it and who doesn't?

photoaday 10th

with so much traveling around texas this week and the last it seems fitting that today's picture should be my NZ car circa when i was sleeping in it. all that crap! i moved most everything to the front seats when it was sleepy time. wow! look at all that crap i had. when i left NZ i had next to nothing.
things to notice:
the clothes line/curtain line
the crate of returnable beer bottles
that really comfortable brown blanket

i loved sleeping in my car. it was free! so free! and like camping, it sets the tone of when you go to sleep, when you eat, when you do your leisure activities. reading. mostly reading.

photoaday- gotcha!

today isn't a picture, but a movie!! woot!

does anyone know if this is a real phenomenon? or was the $2.something "tip" i gave the guy for nothing?

photoaday 6th

when i was in New Zealand my best friend came to visit me! Katie Hart came too. they only had a few weeks in the country, but we made the most of it with yachts, hiking, good food and beer.

today's picture was taken on the Abel Tasman trail where we did some hiking.
i'm picking this picture, because i'm visiting Hart and Katie in arlington! we've had a great time and we are currently watching our mutual favorite show, arrested development, and enjoying a food coma courtesy of Hart's porkchops. tomorrow i'm going to visit Karl in dallas, and then back to austin where i have lots of friends to see there that i couldn't squeeze in before i went to visit friends in nacogdoches. being back is great for more reasons than just cheez-its.

yay for friends!

one of the most important things about my time in the world was that no one would ever be able to emulate me. well----- it turns out that that isn't true. sometimes you have to JUST brush your teeth. (in the words of bob dylan, "sometimes even the president of the united states of America just has to stand stand naked" that's a lot like REAL life. but not too much like REAL LIFE. sometimes things matter, and sometimes they do not.

it's been a while since i left the states, and like most people i often remember NZ as my first destination, but it wasn't. FIJI was!

the beaches weren't as nice as some in NZ or some places, but seriously, i'm not going to be talking bad about Fiji.

what i remember is the best about my time on the islands is opening a coconut that i saw fall down. it took a few hours, but hey- its not like i had anything else to do.

photoaday monday 1st!

today's picture might seem lame, but there is a story behind it. when i left NZ, i sent my laptop home and that meant that i couldn't transfer pictures from my camera to the laptop. that was a little scary because i had to get through Australia, Malaysia, the whole of Africa, Germany and Ireland without backups of all my awesome to be photos. luckily i avoided losing or deleting all my photos. it turns out that an 8 gig memory card and thousands of photos/videos is a lot for my camera to handle.

usually when i hit review it shows the last picture taken. at one point my camera couldn't handle the amount of pictures on the card and started showing the same photo no matter what. that was fine when i only had to scroll down 10 or 20 pictures to get to the relevant one, but when i hit review and was in the middle of thousands of photos, it would take a minute to scroll all the way to the current photo. luckily i found out that if i took a picture and immediately hit review, it would show the latest photo. that's what today's picture is, a quick snapshot taken to avoid having to scroll to the ones that i really wanted to see. sometimes i deleted the quick snapshots, because they were never pictures of anything, but sometimes i didn't. now they're as much a part of the story as the "real" pictures i took.

gripping storytelling again from the wide world of sean's trip.

photoaday

today's photo is simple. this 1 liter pot and i spent a lot of time together. from hostels in New Zealand to remote wildernesses in Africa, i've eaten out of this bad mama jama more times than i can recall. this photo was taken in Zimbabwe at the Great Zimbabwe Ruins. i think i made noodles with onions and carrots. maybe there was a sauce that went with it? i want to say it was an extravagant two course meal.
the secret is to keep super hot coals directly under the pot and to recycle them when they burn out.

photoaday

first- the greatest mustache in the world.
second- my sweet tanzanian visa.
third- the best jersey!

this photo was taken in arusha, tanzania. my friends and i were just driving through saying hi to a friend's friend who worked in the city. since where we were going was very remote, we decided to get some cash out of the ATM. there are not many ATMs around, so we waited in line for a 1/2 hour, and even then our host could only get a few dollars out of his new account, something about his card not being fully activated or something. anyway, once the 8 of us were finished at the bank, we headed back to our van. crossing the main street i noticed someone talk to my host, and didn't think much of it because people talk to us all the time "hey, give me money, give me your shirt", stuff like that. but he looks like a local so it was a little strange that this guy was hassling him instead of me. just as i thought that, the guy turned to me and said- "show me your passport".
"hahahaa" was my response. i mean- do i look like i fell off the hay wagon yesterday?
"no, really, show me your passport. i'm with immigration".
"ahhahaaha. show me your papers then dude."
but astonishingly he did have some papers. they were legit, but they were crappy looking. after my host talked to these guys, he said i should show them my passport. so i flipped it open to my visa, which you see above you, and put it so he could see it. he reached for it and pulled, but i didn't let go. i looked at him and said "no one has taken my passport from me, and one is taking my passport from me bro."
he got mad at that and started talking big. to make a long story short, he and his friend just wanted a bribe and while i told them that my visa was in order and that i had no business with him. he kept yelling at us and saying that we needed to "come down to the office and have a chat." i kept telling him flatly "NO!"

so that went on for a while and they wouldn't let up. everyone in the street was telling these two guys to leave us alone, which was really funny.
in the end, my host went with them to a police station. my friends and i felt terrible, and didn't want him to go, but he said it would work better if he did. i knew it was a mistake, but oh well. they threatened and pushed him into giving them the $40ish dollars that he had on him to pay some "fee" that they completely made up.

that day sucked. we got asked for a few more bribes which we laughed off successfully, and i think the same thing happened the next day too. white people are targets for bribery, but if you just laugh at them and tell them to move along, it usually works.

photoaday

today's picture was taken in Moshi, Tanzania. that's Mt. Kilimanjaro there in the middle. the tallest point in Africa is up there. i didn't climb it, because it costs $1,000+. but i will next time.
i liked Moshi a lot, i had some good times up there. it is very touristy, but at this point i had been in Tanzania for a month or more and i was getting pretty decent at Swahili, so i didn't get harassed by the "ticks" as much as your average white dude in Moshi.

pictures all the time!

don't forget to see all my facebook photos!

http://www.facebook.com/?tid=1645422816124&sk=messages#!/photos.php?id=38702517

Malaysia

I don't know what these fruits* are called, but they taste of cellary and delicious. And they are fun to eat. I've had such amazing food here. It has a hint of familiarity. As if my Indian curry, or my Malay rice have a little bit of Tex-Mex chilli in them. Maybe they do.

Little do you know, but I am actually writing pretty heavily on my doings and goings here in Malaysia and back in Australia. My journal is sated almost every night. I keep writing as if it were public, and perhaps one day I'll transcribe** the entries for your RSS pleasure. Until then, enjoy me enjoying these crazy fruits.


Oh, and did I mention that I'll be in Africa in less than two days? I don't even know what I'm going to do. But I promise you. I'm not going to do what everybody thinks I'm gonna do- and FREAK OUT!!




*i must be alone in thinking that fruit, like fish or sheep is both plural and singular, b/c no one here says anything but fruits.
**TIDES lackys anyone?

Top ten things I will miss about New Zealand - 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Ok, I' know I've been putting this off. But here are 5-1 on my list of top ten things I'll miss about New Zealand. I leave tomorrow and I have such mixed feelings. It feels like leaving America at this point.

Someone said to me the other day "we miss you, but you're doing your thing. come back when you're ready".
I hadn't really thought about it like that until then. Now, if I look at what I really want, then yeah I'm not ready. If my plane was going to LA tomorrow instead of Sydney, I would be really sad. But as it stands now, I'm excited. Another adventure awaits!

Top ten - 5
The accent. These kiwis really know how to screw up a word. No matter what they're doing. You can learn too!

Top ten - 4 ("sux" if you read number 5)
Food! Specifically meat pies. Not to mention my favorite meal in NZ, and one I've cooked hundreds of times at work.



Top ten 3 -
Mullets. I can't convey how popular the mullet is over here. You see one on every other person. Young, old, rich, poor. It doesn't matter. And don't get me started on the short shorts that men wear. Construction workers, rugby players, joggers, anyone. If you're a man and you're going out in public you are wearing shorts that are shorter than my boxers. Disgusting.

Top ten 2 -
Beer. Of which there is only one clear choice. I also had some amazing micro brews. The best micro brew in maybe the world is in a pub called the Sprig and Fern in Nelson. Tasman Lager. So good. Probably more on that subject later when I leave and can't find a Speights anywhere.

Top ten 1 -
This was my first big adventure. I don't think that is a small thing. I'll never leave the States for the first time again. I bet NZ will always be a second home. I've spent 409 days, or 58 weeks and 3 days, in this country. That is a long time. I'm ready to leave, but like I said, I'm glad I'm not going home. I'm not done.

Top ten things I will miss about New Zealand - 6

Top ten things I will miss about New Zealand - 6


Friends!

Tonight is my going away party in Dunedin New Zealand. I'm really excited, and a little sad. If you can't make it, then I hate you. Well, maybe just for tonight. It should be very epic. The party starts at 9pm and ends when I get arrested.
In all seriousness, I will miss all the friends I've made here.

Here are a bunch of pictures of awesome people that I'll miss. But the silver lining is that I'll always be friends with them, and plans are in the works, even as we speak, to reunite with many of them. Yay!

top friends

Friends- don't forget to check my blog for info on where I am and what I'm doing. Bookmark now!

Top ten things I will miss about New Zealand - 7

Continuing the top ten list of the century, here is number 7-

Making amazing food. Usually with friends. Sweet as.
I've become a better cook and general feeder of myself over this year, and I think that is the most tangible change I can see. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to make some noodles after I post this, but I don't have to.

Here are my top ten* meals.

Top ten meals

*there is a bonus picture too! there was also a glorious picture of a triple decker PB&J that didn't make the cut, but that is an old standby anyway.

Top ten things I will miss about New Zealand - 8

Top ten number 8-

Hiking/camping/tramping

I've been able to do some really great hikes in NZ. They call it "tramping" here. I don't know why. Going hiking all the time was one of my goals. I can't say that I did it enough, but I did do a lot compared to what I would have done back in the states. I've become a lot more efficient when it comes to what I need to carry on a trip. I think camping will always be a part of my life, especially going solo. The pictures below are mostly from trips when I've had the good fortune of having family and friends with me, but a few of them were trips I took on my own. Its funny how going camping over the last few months has seemed like a vacation from my vacation. On paper it seems like it should all roll into one big adventure, but instead these trips always seem like an extra-special occasion. In the next few weeks I'll be hitching around the North Island and I'm looking forward to some nights off in the bush by myself.

Here are ten great pictures from ten great tramps.

Hiking top ten