Payton Place

Web-based travel planning service GoPlanit attempts to take the solo and tedious act of itinerary planning and inject it with a social element. Upon signing up for the service and selecting a destination city, GoPlanit can roll an itinerary for you. I told it I wanted to go to New York and I had no idea what I was doing. GoPlanit provided an instant travel itinerary I was able to tweak based on how active or low-key I wanted to be and how much money I had to blow. Have a few things planned you want to do, but a whole lot of downtime to go with it? GoPlanit has a “fill in the gaps” function on its planner which will suggest fun and interesting things to do in between other commitments. GoPlanit also offers support for mobile devices (including an iPhone-optimized mobile site) and a microblogging tool to journal your trip adventures.

Post Origination: LifeHacker

I cannot believe my back is still this sore after?four days! I worked most of the day last Saturday finishing a job I started two weeks ago. That job was to cut down a tree in my front yard that started dieing last spring but didn’t start looking mangy until late in the?autumn of 2007.

The “Beginning of The End”?happened soon after?a [Hard Freeze] wreaked havoc on plant life following many days of unseasonably warm weather in February 2007. Another tree in?our back yard died at the same time.

During?that time?of warm weather,?trees and shrubs?were beginning bud as if it were spring. Then ZAP! The freezing weather which lasted many days took its toll on them. In fact, I located an entry at Wikipedia discussing that particular storm which was very wide-ranging across North America!

Talk about adding insult to injury! The dead trees were two?that managed to survive the fateful Ice Storm of 2007. During that storm we were much more concerned about restoring the little things we’ve grown accustomed to like electricity and heat. I blogged about that traumatic series of events in this linked posting.

So as time went by, we watched the poor Sweet Gum tree begin to lose it’s leaves, then the bark began flaking. The tree?eventually withered to it’s minimum state and then I knew an extraction was emminent! I chronicled a portion of my extraction adventure in?the photo sequence linked above.

Goodbye, Sweet Gum Tree. Soon we’ll say hello to an alternate tree type to take your place . . .

~SP

“How the Other Half Lives” is a multi-faceted phrase. It appears in several song lyrics (the titles escape me), is a legendary work of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, and also an idiom used to describe the experiences of affluent or other such privileged individuals. It was a combination of both the first and last items that rolled around inside my head as I was showering this morning.

The morning cleansing ritual is my bridge between sleepy time and a better awareness. A time when the fog (in my head) begins to clear and I start putting the plan together for my day. During this short period of time, mental free association rules and I can easily be teleported from thoughts of hunting big cats to climbing mountains in Kathmandu. But this morning’s experience was a bit more tangible. I realized how much different today’s shower environment is to the one I experienced this week in Park City, Utah.

The home of the 2002 Winter Olympics was our destination this week for a mid-year business event gathering all field-based and internal employees of my organization.

At the phenomenal resort property (Hotel Park City) I certainly experienced how the other half lives! Every where I went, hotel staff was there to open my door, help with luggage, ready, willing, and able?to assist with directions or special luxurious treatment. I’d come back to my room in the evening to find slippers, a rope, and chocolates right next to my turned-down bed. I hardly knew how to act.

And even though I could easily get used to the large rough-hewn tile shower enclosure with three fancy shower heads, it was nice to be in my own shower this morning. I definitely prefer?the way?I live to “How the Other Half Lives.” To get an idea of woodsy luxury available at this property, follow this link to my photographs!

~SP