Panama Canal- In The Zone

It took over 30 years and cost a lot of money to dig that 50-miles 

The Canal Builders

No Computers or hard hats required

Two days to go before I embark on the  two-week expedition to Los Angry Cars (LA) through The Panama Canal.

 It still stands as one of the 20th Century's greatest feats of engineering, built on the blood, sweat and skin of  peoples from the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe, who remain anonymous and  capriciously perished with greatest of ease from landslides, dynamite explosions, steam shovels dredges and  cranes toppling over , falls from scaffolding , railroad accidents, diseases. I'll have my moments of silence and awe when I steam through there.

Welcome To Hoover. I'm Your Dam Guide

"The Lost Art of Numeracy (math, logic, numbers, charts, stats) was never actually found by me. My  LEFT brain never got  good at telling the RIGHT brain what to do"

Prior to 1972, no  feat of modern engineering was undertaken without a slide rule. The space shuttle, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover Dam,the atomic bomb, the Empire State Building, and The Panama Canal.

These dudes used slide rules to build stuff.  Back-in-the-day, the slide rule was more common than a telephone, yet I personally, have never seen one. I guess that would be the equivalent of kids today not seeing a vinyl record, eh?

Panama City in 2009

Read More: Panama Canal Crossing-Epic Grand Voyage

 

Gray Matters-The Travel Molecule

A Gift Horse

I used to think working on cruise ships was bad, but I stopped thinking- I guess I have ship for brains!

The need to break free and sail away is ancient, enduring and incessant. Voyages   trigger a concept called   psychological distance: Something about the experience of leaving your place  creates a shock and awe, a pathway  into a new perspective that floods the brain with ideas.

 For me, this shift in perspective starts as soon as I'm on  a cruise ship   Ships are weirdly the most lucid part of my life. Every cruise I take somehow changes my life in some way.

The actual cruise   might be four days or a week, the anticipation of   Norwegian Fjords cruise, for instance was months  and the memory will probably  last for years or forever. So, while I   focus  on the joy of the doing the cruise  there is  joy or anticipation and the joy of  THE memory of it all the time.

Travel is an art and a science-- proven to alter perception, personality and may even rewire your brain. That’s what I mean by Ship for brains. The novelty and unique one-of-a-kind experiences drives up levels of dopamine, a chemical in the brain that gives you optimism, energy, curiosity and creativity.  My brain made me travel...