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Archive for January 2013

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image


A day without you is like a year without wifi.

 I'm in a serious relationship with my internet at sea. You can say we have a good...connection! No Strings Attached...

When you are in the middle of nowhere and the center of everything--that means one thing--a strong internet connection at Starbucks. Around the world, the best signals have been:


1. Coming Home To Starbucks In Catalonia

Haikus are easy/
But sometimes they don't make sense/Starbucks

Sure I am in Barcelona, romanticized as Cafe Life, where dudes smoke Havana cigars with a post-lunch carajillo (Coffee/Congnac).  I miss my Epiphany chair like @ SBUXS USA, where life changes in an instant, as I drank from a paper cup.

 It's not just about the coffee; it's about the lifestyle. The Urban Monk attitude, no strings attached, living in this world but not of this world, telecommuting at location neutral, Hotel @nyware from a wi fi hot spot. I am back to that place that I have never been before...

2.The Urban Monk On The Hong Kong Express



A giant escalator takes me "up" to get a cup of coffee from my favorite drug dealer, Starbucks. Coffee is the new tea in China. The Starbucks Effect--Everwhere and Forever has its gravitational pull even on the locals---exerting almost cosmic influence on their lives...







3. Kona Joe-It's Not A Drug. It's A Vitamin.

Kona has coffee; and where there is coffee there is caffeine, and where there is caffeine, there is (Starbucks) and the opportunity to do stupid things faster; and that's where the teachable moments are---because time doesn't exist in Hawaii but being stupid does (has its benefits). Ignorance is bliss.




4. CDG--Mind, Body And France-It's A Beautiful Day

I shrink therefore I am part of — and apart from American, European and Asian culture. and the countries I visit(ed) and live(d) in are as eclectic and restless as airports I "inhabit". Along with the displacement, and the associated jet lag, I am simply a fairly glib product of a movable feast, living and working in a world that is itself increasingly small and increasingly hybrid---a transit lounger, forever heading to the departure gate where, on a round planet, it is hard to take sides-still, I get the chance to vote for Starbucks today.

5. Bordeaux-More Cowbell


It has the longest password, but they are The French- Why be difficult when you can be impossible






6. Make Coffee Not War
I'm in my own world--
but it's ok--they know me here.


The best  SBUCXS in the Caribbean is right here on Rafael E. Melgar LB, Centro, San Miguel de Cozumel.

SBUX---America's favorite drug dealer is serving up, what Mexicans  call "Dirty Water".

They have persuaded millions of cruise ship passengers  to spend $4 for what had been a $1 product." That's an amazing-getting less for more value proposition. Drinking OK coffee and standing in line to buy it. The cult of the amateur, the army of one, patronizing the YOUniverse. Now that's EGOomics.


Honorable Mention

1. Bahamas-Coffee Is My Cup of Tea

Blake flies in from "on high" to Paradise Island for some Seagull Management; makes a lot of noise, $h1ts all over everything then flies away again.

Ed Reif, former NYU classmate of Alec, and Starter for Team Baldwin, votes for Starbucks today, where life changes instantly, as he drinks from a paper cup.
 Roll Video...
Midnight Espresso

2. Live from Kusadasi, Turkey SBUXS






 

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image


A day without you is like a year without wifi.

 I'm in a serious relationship with my internet at sea. You can say we have a good...connection! No Strings Attached...

When you are in the middle of nowhere and the center of everything--that means one thing--a strong internet connection at Starbucks. Around the world, the best signals have been:


1. Coming Home To Starbucks In Catalonia

Haikus are easy/
But sometimes they don't make sense/Starbucks

Sure I am in Barcelona, romanticized as Cafe Life, where dudes smoke Havana cigars with a post-lunch carajillo (Coffee/Congnac).  I miss my Epiphany chair like @ SBUXS USA, where life changes in an instant, as I drank from a paper cup.

 It's not just about the coffee; it's about the lifestyle. The Urban Monk attitude, no strings attached, living in this world but not of this world, telecommuting at location neutral, Hotel @nyware from a wi fi hot spot. I am back to that place that I have never been before...

2.The Urban Monk On The Hong Kong Express



A giant escalator takes me "up" to get a cup of coffee from my favorite drug dealer, Starbucks. Coffee is the new tea in China. The Starbucks Effect--Everwhere and Forever has its gravitational pull even on the locals---exerting almost cosmic influence on their lives...







3. Kona Joe-It's Not A Drug. It's A Vitamin.

Kona has coffee; and where there is coffee there is caffeine, and where there is caffeine, there is (Starbucks) and the opportunity to do stupid things faster; and that's where the teachable moments are---because time doesn't exist in Hawaii but being stupid does (has its benefits). Ignorance is bliss.




4. CDG--Mind, Body And France-It's A Beautiful Day

I shrink therefore I am part of — and apart from American, European and Asian culture. and the countries I visit(ed) and live(d) in are as eclectic and restless as airports I "inhabit". Along with the displacement, and the associated jet lag, I am simply a fairly glib product of a movable feast, living and working in a world that is itself increasingly small and increasingly hybrid---a transit lounger, forever heading to the departure gate where, on a round planet, it is hard to take sides-still, I get the chance to vote for Starbucks today.

5. Bordeaux-More Cowbell


It has the longest password, but they are The French- Why be difficult when you can be impossible






6. Make Coffee Not War
I'm in my own world--
but it's ok--they know me here.


The best  SBUCXS in the Caribbean is right here on Rafael E. Melgar LB, Centro, San Miguel de Cozumel.

SBUX---America's favorite drug dealer is serving up, what Mexicans  call "Dirty Water".

They have persuaded millions of cruise ship passengers  to spend $4 for what had been a $1 product." That's an amazing-getting less for more value proposition. Drinking OK coffee and standing in line to buy it. The cult of the amateur, the army of one, patronizing the YOUniverse. Now that's EGOomics.


Honorable Mention

1. Bahamas-Coffee Is My Cup of Tea

Blake flies in from "on high" to Paradise Island for some Seagull Management; makes a lot of noise, $h1ts all over everything then flies away again.

Ed Reif, former NYU classmate of Alec, and Starter for Team Baldwin, votes for Starbucks today, where life changes instantly, as he drinks from a paper cup.
 Roll Video...
Midnight Espresso

2. Live from Kusadasi, Turkey SBUXS






 

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image


Water Park(ing) 5 outside Georgetown this morning
The Ocean Waits, and even if you are just staring at it, you are already cruising a little. If you are thinking about   a voyage I would say go. The things you don’t like about cruise ships (buffets, crowds and noise) are not worth mentioning, it is like complaining about your wife to your mother in law. 
On a cruise ship, I learned how little a person needs, not how much.

When I go onboard, I always sail from Ft Lauderdale, because it is such a pleasant place to get away from. This is Wave Season—the three high-volume months when everybody books a cruise to get away from the winter. Just do it.



- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image


Water Park(ing) 5 outside Georgetown this morning
The Ocean Waits, and even if you are just staring at it, you are already cruising a little. If you are thinking about   a voyage I would say go. The things you don’t like about cruise ships (buffets, crowds and noise) are not worth mentioning, it is like complaining about your wife to your mother in law. 
On a cruise ship, I learned how little a person needs, not how much.

When I go onboard, I always sail from Ft Lauderdale, because it is such a pleasant place to get away from. This is Wave Season—the three high-volume months when everybody books a cruise to get away from the winter. Just do it.



- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image





One day my life will flash before my eyes. I am making sure it’s worth watching. My life hasn't   gotten better by chance; it’s gotten better by change. By changing nothing, nothing changes. When in doubt, I always have chosen change. All these changes, however, were preceded by chaos, and the bridges I burned, have lit the way.

There is no YES, in yesterday, and when you are sailing, you are what you are right there and then.  My  bizarre travel plans have been dancing lessons from God. As soon as anyone starts telling me to be realistic, I cross that person off my  invitation list. We are still friendly but no longer friends because they don’t get “it that if you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much space.

There is wise and other wise--When my left brain is too  good at telling my right brain what to do, I am a normal man, adapting  to the world; otherwise I am  trying to adapt the world to myself.  So all my   progress depends on being  a paranormal man.  After all, “normal” is the setting on a washing machine-you know the spin cycle-same old, been there done that.Para normal, on the other hand,is an art rather than a science and can't be easily explained or measured.

The test to find whether my Hero’s Journey on earth is finished is simple--If  I’m  alive, it isn't.  Remembering this is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking I have something to lose.. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image





One day my life will flash before my eyes. I am making sure it’s worth watching. My life hasn't   gotten better by chance; it’s gotten better by change. By changing nothing, nothing changes. When in doubt, I always have chosen change. All these changes, however, were preceded by chaos, and the bridges I burned, have lit the way.

There is no YES, in yesterday, and when you are sailing, you are what you are right there and then.  My  bizarre travel plans have been dancing lessons from God. As soon as anyone starts telling me to be realistic, I cross that person off my  invitation list. We are still friendly but no longer friends because they don’t get “it that if you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much space.

There is wise and other wise--When my left brain is too  good at telling my right brain what to do, I am a normal man, adapting  to the world; otherwise I am  trying to adapt the world to myself.  So all my   progress depends on being  a paranormal man.  After all, “normal” is the setting on a washing machine-you know the spin cycle-same old, been there done that.Para normal, on the other hand,is an art rather than a science and can't be easily explained or measured.

The test to find whether my Hero’s Journey on earth is finished is simple--If  I’m  alive, it isn't.  Remembering this is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking I have something to lose.. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image


By the way, Im wearing the smile you gave me
6 Night  Cruise from Galveston
Traveling is too important to be taken seriously. YOLO-You only live once, right? 1 universe. 9 planets. 204 countries. 809 islands. 7 seas. And I had the privilege to meet you. I haven't been everywhere, but it is still on my list.

I would have to say that these two ports of call-Grand Cayman and Cozumel are the nicest in the Western Caribbean. These little islands of prosperity, peace and happiness are so exceptionally awesome.


Life of PIe-The Road Of Excess Leads To The Palace Of Wisdom...for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough.

The best part of cruising is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time. It puts you  in the position in which almost nothing that is so called “normal and familiar” is taken for granted. It usually starts out with the food.  YOLO took on another meaning-Eating 3 times a week at Nobu Japanese Restaurant onboard the Serenity and Prego Italian, the other days in the week that end in Y led to me tipping the scale at over 200lbs-.


 I was  190 pounds of rock hard muscle, underneath 10 pounds of sturdy protective fat!

It's Official:Bald is a hair color.
Shave your head and join the Union. Be brave and shave.
I have  calmed down with deserts and am eating "clean" fresh fruits and vegetables- I wrote about my contempt for my default mode of  24/7 feedings, last December on a nautical/gastronomical hiatus  in Lahaina, Maui; after the 2011 World Cruise Grand Expedition.  I am back to normalcy.

Ï€he United States of Unconscious Eating




With Bob Reif- I was  190 pounds of rock hard muscle, 
underneath 10 pounds of sturdy protective fat!


Life After Luau 

A good-bye is never painful unless you're never going to say hello again.Aloha Maui. Aloha Oahu.

 I know travel zoos are no longer in my good graces.Neither is eating on a cruise ship.  Certain illusions about freedom plague them both. Life off the cruise ships ,however,isn't much of a culinary life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn't be more simple, nor the stakes higher. I have to pay for stuff...as  in food stuffs. This is certainly different from the  luaus and eat-what-you-kill safaris and big game fishing expeditions I took this year, where no matter where I was ,the stuffed animals on display all looked the same.

 Staged authenticity and First rule of cruise club-never miss a meal.Second rule-don't forget the first, and don't miss the 6pm all aboard. It has been predictable as an episode of Seinfeld. Yadi yada yada.

 No more choc-a-holic and midnight buffets. My favorite food on the ships had been Seconds! And the desserts. It was the life of pie. Playing the game of staged authenticity in the tourist themed spaces of Tahiti, Fiji et al.,while it was't the Mcdonald-ization of the South Pacific, it played more like a Disney animated feature film The Burger and The King featuring the fat Elvis belting out his own karaoke version of My Way like a good old hound dog with a few miles left.

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image


By the way, Im wearing the smile you gave me
6 Night  Cruise from Galveston
Traveling is too important to be taken seriously. YOLO-You only live once, right? 1 universe. 9 planets. 204 countries. 809 islands. 7 seas. And I had the privilege to meet you. I haven't been everywhere, but it is still on my list.

I would have to say that these two ports of call-Grand Cayman and Cozumel are the nicest in the Western Caribbean. These little islands of prosperity, peace and happiness are so exceptionally awesome.


Life of PIe-The Road Of Excess Leads To The Palace Of Wisdom...for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough.

The best part of cruising is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time. It puts you  in the position in which almost nothing that is so called “normal and familiar” is taken for granted. It usually starts out with the food.  YOLO took on another meaning-Eating 3 times a week at Nobu Japanese Restaurant onboard the Serenity and Prego Italian, the other days in the week that end in Y led to me tipping the scale at over 200lbs-.


 I was  190 pounds of rock hard muscle, underneath 10 pounds of sturdy protective fat!

It's Official:Bald is a hair color.
Shave your head and join the Union. Be brave and shave.
I have  calmed down with deserts and am eating "clean" fresh fruits and vegetables- I wrote about my contempt for my default mode of  24/7 feedings, last December on a nautical/gastronomical hiatus  in Lahaina, Maui; after the 2011 World Cruise Grand Expedition.  I am back to normalcy.

Ï€he United States of Unconscious Eating




With Bob Reif- I was  190 pounds of rock hard muscle, 
underneath 10 pounds of sturdy protective fat!


Life After Luau 

A good-bye is never painful unless you're never going to say hello again.Aloha Maui. Aloha Oahu.

 I know travel zoos are no longer in my good graces.Neither is eating on a cruise ship.  Certain illusions about freedom plague them both. Life off the cruise ships ,however,isn't much of a culinary life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn't be more simple, nor the stakes higher. I have to pay for stuff...as  in food stuffs. This is certainly different from the  luaus and eat-what-you-kill safaris and big game fishing expeditions I took this year, where no matter where I was ,the stuffed animals on display all looked the same.

 Staged authenticity and First rule of cruise club-never miss a meal.Second rule-don't forget the first, and don't miss the 6pm all aboard. It has been predictable as an episode of Seinfeld. Yadi yada yada.

 No more choc-a-holic and midnight buffets. My favorite food on the ships had been Seconds! And the desserts. It was the life of pie. Playing the game of staged authenticity in the tourist themed spaces of Tahiti, Fiji et al.,while it was't the Mcdonald-ization of the South Pacific, it played more like a Disney animated feature film The Burger and The King featuring the fat Elvis belting out his own karaoke version of My Way like a good old hound dog with a few miles left.

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image

The copy is better than the original


Around here you can live with the assumption that every day is good fishing
If it is you are right. If it isn't  you are still fortunate.

The  most photographed and stolen sign here





Last time I was here-2 years ago


Ernest Hemingway - "That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best - make it all up - but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way."
Roll Video...

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image

The copy is better than the original


Around here you can live with the assumption that every day is good fishing
If it is you are right. If it isn't  you are still fortunate.

The  most photographed and stolen sign here





Last time I was here-2 years ago


Ernest Hemingway - "That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best - make it all up - but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way."
Roll Video...

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image



Passing the sunshine state on the way to Key West, Ernest Hemingway’s port of call.



From the beginning I have had  a sense of destiny , as though my life has  been assigned to me by fate and has to be fulfilled and I have  a sense of security-but I can’t prove it to myself it proves  itself to me over and over again -I don’t have it, it has me.

The devil may be in the details but God is in the vagueness, and the human soul needs immensity, like an ocean to ponder, only then  can it be happy and feel free to breath.

The remains of the day can get you off your game-freedom, however, is what you do with what has been done to you. I always have the last word in shaping my life; even though the earth school kills all of its student. I have never let my schooling  interfere with  my education.

It only ends once---everything else is just progress. Waste your money and you’re only out of money, but waste your time and you’ve lost a part of your life.

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image



Passing the sunshine state on the way to Key West, Ernest Hemingway’s port of call.



From the beginning I have had  a sense of destiny , as though my life has  been assigned to me by fate and has to be fulfilled and I have  a sense of security-but I can’t prove it to myself it proves  itself to me over and over again -I don’t have it, it has me.

The devil may be in the details but God is in the vagueness, and the human soul needs immensity, like an ocean to ponder, only then  can it be happy and feel free to breath.

The remains of the day can get you off your game-freedom, however, is what you do with what has been done to you. I always have the last word in shaping my life; even though the earth school kills all of its student. I have never let my schooling  interfere with  my education.

It only ends once---everything else is just progress. Waste your money and you’re only out of money, but waste your time and you’ve lost a part of your life.

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image

Tranquility Base, The Ego Has Landed

Greetings from the user-friendly universe 
Cruise ship service is about downplaying the negatives and creating the illusion of perfection. The FOH (front of the house) is all things to all people. Now that I am finally traveling as a guest.  I  DO  like to be served, but invisibly.

Working on floating hotels. you are the United Nations Ambassador,and the whole passenger manifest  become non-persons and are granted an ethical equivalent of diplomatic immunity. Anything goes. No judgments. Still, I know I need a vacation from my vacation, when the little things, like elevator behavior, or grab and go at the buffet line start to irk me. It's actually, the tip of the iceberg.

Spending an overnight on land in Central Florida is the best way for me to compare these two mundane worlds. Its a kind of deliverance, a release from the stronghold of the sea, and its own kind of underbelly, wildness and danger, isolated from the gloss and safety of the USA. Gravity hurts.


Legend In My Own Mind

It’s easy come easy go with sailing  memories, as the older I get the better my past gets. Everyone lives with self  mythology.  I am no miraculous exception.  A  figment  of my  imagination, I a legend in my own mind. It's not brain surgery, it's rocket science, fooled by randomness, I have left everything up to chance, yet my "career" at sea  reads like a novel, page by page.
I am the hero of my own life. This self  mythology are the stories I tell about myself. The more  I tell these stories the less likely they are true. 

Going on land to get a more  accurate view of the world and myself can be shocking---Life on board a ship is like a carton of milk, with an expiration date stamped right on the carton.
Understanding the mythology of myself at sea  is far more important than watching the instant replay of what actually happened.
The more important a memory is to the story I tell myself  about myself, the more often I rehearse the memory. And the more often I relive those memories ,  the less likely it is that they are true.

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image

Tranquility Base, The Ego Has Landed

Greetings from the user-friendly universe 
Cruise ship service is about downplaying the negatives and creating the illusion of perfection. The FOH (front of the house) is all things to all people. Now that I am finally traveling as a guest.  I  DO  like to be served, but invisibly.

Working on floating hotels. you are the United Nations Ambassador,and the whole passenger manifest  become non-persons and are granted an ethical equivalent of diplomatic immunity. Anything goes. No judgments. Still, I know I need a vacation from my vacation, when the little things, like elevator behavior, or grab and go at the buffet line start to irk me. It's actually, the tip of the iceberg.

Spending an overnight on land in Central Florida is the best way for me to compare these two mundane worlds. Its a kind of deliverance, a release from the stronghold of the sea, and its own kind of underbelly, wildness and danger, isolated from the gloss and safety of the USA. Gravity hurts.


Legend In My Own Mind

It’s easy come easy go with sailing  memories, as the older I get the better my past gets. Everyone lives with self  mythology.  I am no miraculous exception.  A  figment  of my  imagination, I a legend in my own mind. It's not brain surgery, it's rocket science, fooled by randomness, I have left everything up to chance, yet my "career" at sea  reads like a novel, page by page.
I am the hero of my own life. This self  mythology are the stories I tell about myself. The more  I tell these stories the less likely they are true. 

Going on land to get a more  accurate view of the world and myself can be shocking---Life on board a ship is like a carton of milk, with an expiration date stamped right on the carton.
Understanding the mythology of myself at sea  is far more important than watching the instant replay of what actually happened.
The more important a memory is to the story I tell myself  about myself, the more often I rehearse the memory. And the more often I relive those memories ,  the less likely it is that they are true.

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image



I no longer live on Cloud 9. I leveled up

Airplanes are like diets, I don’t like being on them. Float planes however (you know flying boats) are the exception. This summer in Alaska, I got a business class ticket to cool, with complimentary mojo on takeoff.
This landing strip is the only thing   aviational besides the staged authenticity-wrecked prop planes on Disney’s Castaway Cay.

I used to live on Cloud Nine in the People’s Republic of Santa Monica, riding my carbon fiber bike 100 miles a day down the Venice Beach strand through  the boat yard of Marina Del Rey, and out towards Manhattan Beach.  It gave me an energy and enthusiasm and natural high that begged the question “What are you on?” I was simply on my bike.
Environments create mood, and  Starbucks, Yoga,  drinking fresh vegetable and fruit juices and good sunny weather  created fuel for thought. This   west coast life style suited me well. It gave me momentum towards a greater something.  

That something became a move to Cloud 10, sailing the seven seas on cruise ships.

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image



I no longer live on Cloud 9. I leveled up

Airplanes are like diets, I don’t like being on them. Float planes however (you know flying boats) are the exception. This summer in Alaska, I got a business class ticket to cool, with complimentary mojo on takeoff.
This landing strip is the only thing   aviational besides the staged authenticity-wrecked prop planes on Disney’s Castaway Cay.

I used to live on Cloud Nine in the People’s Republic of Santa Monica, riding my carbon fiber bike 100 miles a day down the Venice Beach strand through  the boat yard of Marina Del Rey, and out towards Manhattan Beach.  It gave me an energy and enthusiasm and natural high that begged the question “What are you on?” I was simply on my bike.
Environments create mood, and  Starbucks, Yoga,  drinking fresh vegetable and fruit juices and good sunny weather  created fuel for thought. This   west coast life style suited me well. It gave me momentum towards a greater something.  

That something became a move to Cloud 10, sailing the seven seas on cruise ships.

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image

That funny feeling that you have sailed past  here before...


When I think Texas, I think Cows and Cowboy, a mashup of the Deep South and The Wild West but in metropolitan Houston, it is impossible not reach the conclusion that this is the energy capital of the world. Evidence of the fossil fuels workforce is everywhere.

Down-to-earth, international, very friendly, Houston has that water-cooler vibe where everything is petroleum based. It's easy to think that Exon Mobile and Shell are "Big Oil" but in reality, having traveled around the globe, most of world oil reserves, and an even greater % of the remaining reserves of “easy oil” are held by national oil companies controlled by kings and governments like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Norway and Russia.

- - -- by Hotel @nyware»
A Post Without Image

That funny feeling that you have sailed past  here before...


When I think Texas, I think Cows and Cowboy, a mashup of the Deep South and The Wild West but in metropolitan Houston, it is impossible not reach the conclusion that this is the energy capital of the world. Evidence of the fossil fuels workforce is everywhere.

Down-to-earth, international, very friendly, Houston has that water-cooler vibe where everything is petroleum based. It's easy to think that Exon Mobile and Shell are "Big Oil" but in reality, having traveled around the globe, most of world oil reserves, and an even greater % of the remaining reserves of “easy oil” are held by national oil companies controlled by kings and governments like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Norway and Russia.

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