Some emails have come in asking where I am and noting that I’m posting a lot less (but also noting that I am not really missed since other TMV writers are doing such a superb job).
WHERE I AM: Since July 1 I have been on a van trip doing events in Wyoming, Montana and Iowa, often driving between the three states. My longest drive was 670 miles in a day. I will be back to home base San Diego on August 22.
ON MY POSTING: A lot of the motels I stay at say they have wireless Internet, which is great….except you can’t connect to it. Two hotels had wireless Internet that didn’t work and dial up was impossible since the phones were out. At two hotels the only way I could post was to string an extension cord from my room to outside where I would sit on a bench and blog on a very low signal. Add to that time when I’m doing the events and long drives and…there you have it. Normally I write at night or mornings but even that is difficult at some of these hotels on the road.
At this motel I can only do very very slow dial up. This means a)I can do fewer posts b)I can’t do posts with lots of links.
ONE CHANGE: On some days now you’ll see me post short links to posts from blogs on the left, right and center. These will say “here’s one view” or something such as that. Posting these links does not mean that I or TMV’s writers agree with the posts — just that these are posts that could spark some discussion, are unusual posts or just unusual posts. I normally do that in my Around The Sphere, which is difficult to do if the Internet is hideously slow or constantly disconnecting.
This will not be the situation on all days, since I’ll be staying at a batch of hotels (some with great internet) between now and August 22. And, yes, when I return I’ll do a special post on my observations culled from my nearly two month long trip.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.