Happy Last Year

2016 has been A Magic Carpet Ride. Happy New Year? Happy Last Year!

• ▼  September 2016 (8)

• Rome Sweet Rome-Up On The Roof

• Venice, Italy-Picturesque Floating City

• Vigo, Spain-Seas The Day

• Lisbon- Eat Pray And Fly

• Channel Islands-Guernsey

• Brooklyn, New York-Sail Away

• Mid Atlantic Ocean-At Sea

• Southampton, UK-QM2The English Channeler

• ▼  August 2016 (7)

• Arundel, UK -Greener Pastures

• Greece-Nafplio Palamidi Fortress

• Corinth-Ancient City

• Mykonos Steeplechase

• Cyprus-DIGGING it

• Crete-The Big Island

• Greece-An Instant Classic

• ▼  July 2016 (3)

• Dubai I Vote For -Emirates

• The U.K. England-Rainy Day

• Mid West Tour- The Heartland Of America-IN,OH,KY,I...

• ▼  June 2016 (4)

• Chesapeake Bay, MD-Sailing

• The Manhattan Project-Unique New York

• Annapolis, MD--- US NAVY-Tradition Never Graduates...

• The U.K.-Fields Of Gold

• ▼  April 2016 (1)

• Dubai,U.A.E.-The Best Ships Are Friendships

• ▼  March 2016 (2)

• Beachy Head,United Kingdom

• Khobar,Saudi Arabia

• ▼  February 2016 (5)

• Cape (Town)Penguins-Auntie Arctics

• Zambia-Giraffe "Necking"

• Victoria Falls-Putting The Awe In Awesome

• Livingston, Zambia-The Smoke That Thunders

• Capetown, South Africa-Aloha Spirit

• ▼  January 2016 (2)

• San Antonio, TX-The Alamo

• San Antonio, Texas-A Few Good Planes

• • • ▼  December 2016 (1)

    • Yachta.Yachta.Yachta-Q Is For Qatar

    • ▼  November 2016 (3)

    • Doha- The Pearl- Venice of Qatar

    • Lawton, Ok-Where the Buffalo Roam

    • Oklahoma City- EGAT

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Yachta.Yachta.Yachta-Q Is For Qatar

In  Doha, Qatar's capital, entire new neighborhoods have been built
 on land reclaimed from the sea. And the buildings have one thing in
common: Bling. We are lucky to be living HERE at The Pearl Quarter.

From A to Z

What a year it has been: -Annapolis, MD to Livingstone Zambia... We missed ONLY one letter Q, hence Qatar, a tiny, oil-rich country wedged between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Doha's skyline looks like it was designed by architects who didn't talk to each other, didn't like each other, and engaged in experiments they could never get away with at home. And a Qatari can live anywhere without ever leaving home. A virtual Venice is around the corner. Rodeo Drive is down the block. And there are world-class restaurants in the ancient Arab souk, which was rebuilt as well.
Qatar's 250,000 citizens are, quite literally, the richest people in the world and very content with their lives in this oil-and-gas-rich speck of a nation. It's a great place to be as we close out this one lap, 365 days  around the sun.

This year 2016 has been fasinating- Let's remember with these blog posts:

•  

• ▼  November 2016 (3)
• Doha- The Pearl- Venice of Qatar
• Lawton, Ok-Where the Buffalo Roam
• Oklahoma City- EGAT
• ▼  September 2016 (8)
  
• Rome Sweet Rome-Up On The Roof
• Venice, Italy-Picturesque Floating City
• Vigo, Spain-Seas The Day
• Lisbon- Eat Pray And Fly
• Channel Islands-Guernsey
• Brooklyn, New York-Sail Away
• Mid Atlantic Ocean-At Sea
• Southampton, UK-QM2The English Channeler
• ▼  August 2016 (7)

• Arundel, UK -Greener Pastures
• Greece-Nafplio Palamidi Fortress
• Corinth-Ancient City
• Mykonos Steeplechase
• Cyprus-DIGGING it
• Crete-The Big Island
• Greece-An Instant Classic
• ▼  July 2016 (3)
• Dubai I Vote For -Emirates
• The U.K. England-Rainy Day
• Mid West Tour- The Heartland Of America-IN,OH,KY,I...
• ▼  June 2016 (4)
  
• Chesapeake Bay, MD-Sailing
• The Manhattan Project-Unique New York
• Annapolis, MD--- US NAVY-Tradition Never Graduates...
• The U.K.-Fields Of Gold
• ▼  April 2016 (1)
• Dubai,U.A.E.-The Best Ships Are Friendships
• ▼  March 2016 (2)

• Beachy Head,United Kingdom
• Khobar,Saudi Arabia
• 
  
• ▼  February 2016 (5)
• Cape (Town)Penguins-Auntie Arctics
• Zambia-Giraffe "Necking"
• Victoria Falls-Putting The Awe In Awesome
• Livingston, Zambia-The Smoke That Thunders
• Capetown, South Africa-Aloha Spirit
• 
  

• ▼  January 2016 (2)
• San Antonio, TX-The Alamo
• San Antonio, Texas-A Few Good Planes

• ▼  15 (138)
• ▼  December 2015 (4)
• Stonehenge, UK-The Winter Solstice Rocks
• Salisbury Cathedral

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Doha- The Pearl- Venice of Qatar

The Pearl is an artifical island, creating over 32 kilometres of new coastline and  extensive canal system. It's Venice again.

 With the king of all birds, The Falcon

With 31 towers and over  42,000 apartments, villas, and townhouses, it's quite impressive.

Ferrari, Maserati and Rolls Royce have dealership but I'll take a Ducati bike anytime.

Talking Turkey At The Marriot for Thanksgiving 2016

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Lawton, Ok-Where the Buffalo Roam

Your mother said, "Bi-son".

Home on the range under an immaculate sky

An estimated 50-60 million buffalo freely roamed upon the Great Plains (PRE Civil War) American Indians hunted them for food and they were a sacred animal.

Their numbers dwindled when the wilderness was settled, and if not for the efforts of modern-day conservationists, the plight of the Bison would be one of extinction. It is nice to see them on private lands and in National Parks.The Buffalo is a symbol of life and love of this land.

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Oklahoma City- EGAT

In America's fiction--- Everyone gets a trophy, for just showing up. EGAT undermines the spirit of competition and breeds mediocrity.

That sense of just showing up for the longest time informed and infected my thinking- A thought virus or meme started by a Woody Allen quote " 80% of success in life is showing up.". I suppose I bought into making the world safe for hypocrisy. Now I am more cynical.

I am more interested in the other 20% these days-the difference between good and great, between winners and learners. Showing up isn't good enough. That's Trophy Communism. The wussifcation of America  and Generation Snowflake  makes us soft.  America has essentially got rid of losing and many are suffering for it, and that is: The Millennial truth.

"Hay look how fantastic I am. I'm here,
 at The US Olympic Rowing training facility. I participated.

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. And when you lose, you have something to strive for-first prize. For me, it is not an option- a socially acceptable self-deceit  designed to spare hurt feelings and puff up our self-esteem. In fact, when the truth finally shines through--that is the real downer.

How can you handle pressure, disappointment, or gain perspective in a world of manufactured triumphs?  Where is the resiliency?

I live and work with the British, so I don't inhabit a self-congratulatory society in which we constantly reassure each other how great we are doing. In fact, when I was standing at  a cross walk at a traffic light,  I got asked"Are you American?" and I said proudly "Yes, how did you know"..and The Englishman replied, "because you were smiling." It is still hard to shake off my malignant American optimism of just" being there" and "in it". Nevertheless, I don't deserve a trophy for doing something unconventional-living abroad.

To sum it up, trophies are best earned, not bestowed.

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Rome Sweet Rome-Up On The Roof

The cure for anything is salt-the sea, sweat or tears

Not many  folks realize it, but you can take the stairs to the top of the dome in St Peter's Basilica., which is exactly what I did.

It is the highlight of my trip so far in Italy. That is saying a lot since yesterday I was in  magical Venice.

Put this on your bucket list-ringing the bells in Vatican City

My last trip to Rome was seven years ago. Here is that trip report:

Reprinted from Sept 18, 2009
I'm thinking of starting a Christian rock band. I got the perfect name-Heritic. You guys know any base players?

Broken Arrow
I spent this morning at the epicenter of Roman Catholicism, Saint Peter's Basilica.

PPL were queing up for Kodak moments. The only place were there were no lines were the confessionals.

CNN verses The Alphabet

Religion is so pre September 11th.
Of course, 20th century psychology has replaced sin with guilt.

The fusion of cyberspace and spirituality is a happy accident. a magical realm where all is possible . First there was the Pope of Software, Bill Gates. "He" has created an electric gaia, or gobal brain, a collective unconscious that makes what is deeply personal universal, the uncensored, distributed self, and cyberspace--the location of the virtual self/community on the web. Sartre said, "Hell is other ppl" Gates might as well say, "We are god...or at least made in his image".

Deus Ex Machina vs. Electric Gaia

Home isn't where your heart is, it's where your Blackberry is. Landlines are place; cellphones, people. The fundamental 'human-friendliness' of the Machine-God...It starts with e mail, E-mail, as a metaphor for networked, global, uncensored communication and continues with FB, YouTube, Flickr,Twitter and yours truely, kid blogger.

Furthermore, The Dali Lhama of Integration, Steve Jobs, has created a celestial jukebox on tap- itunes absolution for 99 cents-The GGD's, Better Days for instance handing out blessings-"Cuz everyone is forgiven now.Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again".

The blogerati voices coming to us from the frontier of human experience is the largest uncensored form of communication in history. Although I am physically traveling, I get to swim in a new geography of existence on the net, shattering time and space. Thus the moniker Hotel @nyware. Does it really matter where we are--because this kind of existence is location neutral.

Welcome to Infinite Smile
Putting the sin back into sincere, I decided to step into the English speaking Confessional to receive 'penance,' the place where sins are forgiven. The basic requirement for a good confession is to have the intention of returning to God like the "prodigal son" and to acknowledge our sins with true sorrow before the priest. At the very moment, the Monsignor, came out , and hung a sign saying closed. LOL.

There wouldn't be a second chance to make a first impression. The power of intention, however, was enough to provide salvation. As Woody Allan, once told me in 1980 at Stromboli's Pizzaria, in Greenwhich Village,"Showing up is 99%".


I figured it was 11AM; just in time for an Italian mass. Let me tell you, SOMETIMES THE MOVIE (King of Kings(1961) w/Jeffery Hunter as Christ) is better than THE (good) BOOK. I started to cough, and thought I better let these pious PPL pray in peace, and headed out.

Voice Inside My Head

Did you say your prayers today in Rome?

Me

No but I ate my lunch

I'm A Nobody

It was a Zencrafters moment--Instant enlightenment in less than an hour. You see Nobody's perfect, and little me in that big church felt like a nobody.

You gotta be a somebody first before you can be a nobody-- What is sin, after all. It is an old archery term. It means missing the mark.

Cut to song "Who else is gonna bring you a Broken Arrow... We got mountains to climb"

Mother Mary Comes To Me

So I am standing on line, listening to my ipod, before I set off the Swiss Guards metal detectors with Euros, my Google Phone and mp3 player.

Let It Be is the soundtrack to the waiting. Yet I can't help but have John Lennon's "Imagine, there's no religion" lyric creep in.

Putting the odd back into God

I'm feeling a lot better now that I know God is a white man with a grey beard. That Sistine Chapel is , as we alter boys say, " off the chain", mos def.

Stay away from the light. The light is dangerous. Don't go near it. Don't even look at the light.
Check Please!

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Venice, Italy-Picturesque Floating City

It is like I am walking through a painting

Going, Going, Gondola Back in 2014 and Today-Where
the Earth revolves around The Sea

Venice is  a city built on the water, a working, living city, and everybody gets around in boats. NO CARS!

All the traffic is waterborne- All the emergency services--water ambulance , police boats, fireman; garage collection boats, Fidelity armored cash couriers. All the delivery-boats that deliver goods of every sort; and all the postal service delivering packages and  letters. What a cool place. Put it on your Bucket list.

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Vigo, Spain-Seas The Day

Onboard The Britannia 

Cruisers, talk to each other, and influences each other. So progress gets amplified through WOM, Word of Mouth.. The more people who have ocean cruised, the more who will tell others, the more who will want to take an ocean cruise too. I am doing my part by blogging about my travels, with over a million page views.

A View with a room- The Gym  with Lisbon as the backdrop

Atrium of Britannia is impressive

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Lisbon- Eat Pray And Fly

After  debarking The QM2  in SOTON, took a train to LGW and flew to Lisbon via Porto in this puddle jumper, to join the newest and biggest ship in the P& O Fleet-Britannia.

We sailed directly to Vigo, Spain. Here is our arrival at 7AM yesterday




 We had a nice sailaway, two days ago with "Rule Britannia. Britannia rules the waves" as the soundtrack. Roll Video:

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Channel Islands-Guernsey

Victor Hugo was exiled here for 15 years and I had the good fortune of taking a tour today of the writer's home. It's as if each room was a chapter and the home was actually another book. I'll let a few of the pictures speak for themselves.

He is certainly quotable but thus one resonates-

"Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket.'

It is here where the writer completed his masterpiece,  Les Miserables, using a stand up desk..Sitting was the new smoking back then too.

Hugo wrote Latin phrases into his furniture, honoring God and also his beloved writers Moliere and Shakespeare. HEReif@blueforceinc.com in his kitchen, the "H" in the wall tiles, we'll that stands for hisfamily's name obviously. 

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Brooklyn, New York-Sail Away

  Our smokestack just cleared the Verranzano Narrows Bridge by a few feet!

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Mid Atlantic Ocean-At Sea

Hat Trick- My 3rd time crossing The Atlantic SOTON to NYC onboard the world's greatest ocean liner-Cunard's QM 2

Around the world with @fernmallis---creator of Fashion Week (s) in NYC, LA, Miami,Berlin, Moscow, Sydney and Melbourne onboard The Queen Mary2

I love the wet look of the ship's teak deck with the morning light reflecting-it's cinematic.

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