Surviving Financial Disaster by Giving Something Away for Free

Sara Morgan
Life Lessons, Loss

by Sara Morgan

 

Last year I had the great fortune to receive not one, but three major personal and financial blows in my life. “Fortune”, you say?  “Are you nuts?” Nah, I just finally realized that it is the biggest challenges in life that give us the biggest opportunities.

Admittedly things have been a little rough. Most of my friends think I have gone mad. No one understands why I will not just give up this dream of mine and go get a “real job”. Some days I see their point, but the bottom line is that all I have left is my integrity. I have sold almost everything else, but my integrity is priceless.

Two months ago, when I realized that no one was buying my book about escaping Corporate America and no one was hiring me for contract jobs due to the Recession, I decided to take a chance and do something I have always wanted to do. You see, I love to help people help themselves. Empowering other people empowers me.

So, I decided to use my skills as a professional technical writer and my 15 years of experience as a software developer and create a do-it-yourself web design guide. The guide would be written in a very conversational style and would only include the bare minimum of what someone needed to know to get a professional web site up and running. I used every minute and every brain cell to pound out what I think is a pretty exceptional guide. My best work yet.

Initially, I planned on selling the guide for $25 each. Certainly a 137 page guide that was this thorough would be worth that. But last weekend, I had a burst of inspiration and decided to go a different route. In the spirit of the Internet and that information should be made free; I am giving the guide away to anyone that signs-up on my web site at www.custsolutions.net.

That’s right. I am giving it away. Most people that have downloaded it so far are amazed that I am doing this, but it makes sense to me. I know this is the only way I can truly reach the most people possible and empower them to reach for their dreams. True, I get no money and I still have no way to pay next month’s mortgage, but I got that integrity. And, that is what life is all about – at least for me it is.

Elephant Seal Love on the Beach

Charmaine Coimbra
Wildlife

by Charmaine Coimbra

February 14 is a day for love, and if you visit the Piedras Blancas bluffs near San Simeon, California on that day, you will see more love-making on the beach than ever before.

That’s right.  I’m talking northern elephant seals. As I write (January), the adult females are birthing pups, and the way the gulls are bounding about the beach cleaning up the birthing mess, it looks like popcorn gone mad with wings.  The 2010 female and pup count far exceeds the last two years, according to stats taken by Brian Hatfield, the marine biologist on site.

Thousands of visitors from around the world flock like the gulls for the unique opportunity to watch these migratory seals give birth on the beach.  Birthing takes place once a year during the winter months, after the females make a 2500-mile migration from open sea to the Piedras Blancas rookery.

How does this relate to Valentine’s Day?  First, let me explain that female northern elephant seals are pretty much bare-flippered and pregnant most of their lives.  So, after the female gives birth, she nurses her pup for about 28 days.  (The 70- pound pup will weigh in at over 300-pounds when it’s weaned.)  She’ll turn her back on the little guy and (OMIT) now contend with a two-ton love machine, because she is now in estrus. 

Most births occur around mid-January, consequently supplying harems of females-in-estrus on February 14.  The alpha bulls, many weighing in at two-tons and about 16-feet long, have waited all year for this.  And because any given northern elephant seal bull has less than a 10% chance of ever breeding in its lifetime, they take this seriously. 

Dreaming of Fresh Corn

Laura B Weiss
Culinary Travel

by Laura B. Weiss

 

“Go ahead, take a bite,” said farmer Joe Barsczewski, handing me an ear of just-picked corn.

“You mean eat it right now, without cooking it?” I asked Joe, who’s been farming 22 acres of land on the outskirts of the North Fork, Long Island town of Greenport for the last 14 years. I was dubious even though the perfectly aligned yellow kernels appeared sparklingly fresh.

But raw?

Joe, who also grows potatoes, eggplants, tomatoes and other summer crops, emptied a bushel of ears onto the stand, eying me as I took a tentative bite. Though I expected the kernels’ texture to be leathery and tough, the perky yellow globes were unexpectedly crunchy and moist—and so full of flavor they exploded in my mouth with a jolt of sugary bliss. Even that Hallowe’en perennial, candy corn, couldn’t compete with this bit of vegetable heaven.

It's January, and if you’re like me, you’re dreaming of fresh corn from the farm. On the North Fork of Long Island, an area that is two hours from New York City and dotted with farms and vineyards, Joe is just one of more than a dozen farmers who offer up impeccably fresh corn and other vegetables. 

Nightmare on Craig’s List

Judith Fein
Life Lessons, Travel Opinion, Uncensored Travel

by Judith Fein

 

I love Craig’s List. I really do. It has transformed the way we advertise, buy, sell and think about transactions. It’s beautiful. It’s free. I have used it so many times that I refer to the founder as Craigie. But, like the little girl with the curl, when the list is good, it is very very good, and when it is bad…well, you know.

My Craigie episode started a few months ago when my husband and I decided we desperately needed a vacation. Truth be told, I am not sure we’ve ever taken a vacation. As travel journalists and photographers, we’re always writing, shooting, taking notes and stumbling over stories, even when we don’t mean to.

But this time it was different. We were burned out from having our eyeballs glued to our computers l5 hours a day, meeting deadlines, emailing, researching. We looked at each other, and, in that silent way we sometimes communicate when we are not yakking or yukking, we knew we had to stop. For a full month.

I went to Craigie, of course, and typed in the name of a beach community in California.

There it was: the little bungalow that was waiting for us, half a block from the ocean.

It was, according to the owner, small, clean, with a spacious backyard where we could hang, escape the winter, and drink margaritas. For me, it was a done deal.

It took several weeks to get a contract. Turns out the dude who advertised with Craigie wasn’t the owner, but the renter, and this was a sublease. Fine. Also, he was doing some mysterious work or traveling in Asia and was hard to contact. Okay. His friend was handling the rental. Fine. When you have the prospect of being half a block from the ocean, you’re willing to put up with a lot. At least I am.

The Ski Report from 2025

Jules Older
Current Events, Environmental Commentary

by Jules Older

 

Though most Alaskans, Vermonters and Minnesotans are enjoying the unprecedented winter warmth, skiers are not. Except in freak years, like 2014 and the epic 2015, there's precious little snow falling on mountains. Rain, yes; snow — not with any consistency and not ‘when it’s supposed to.’ Sir Albert Gore, as everyone except the most recalcitrant deniers now concede, was right — climate change proved to be all-too real.

Here's where we stand in February, 2025.

Europe’s lower slopes have reverted to pasture; in the foothills of the Alps, goats have replaced skiers. New Zealand’s already short season is, most years, down to three weeks. There's no more skiing in Australia except for water skiing.

But snow skiing has almost saved Dubai. Even with its current tourism woes, winter sport is thriving there; they now have sixteen indoor hills open 24/7 and three more under construction.

American skiers look at Dubai with open envy. In New England, the only ski resorts left are Killington and Jay Peak in Vermont, Sugarloaf and the newly important Saddleback in Maine. All four have pretty much given up opening before New Years; all four are spending big bucks promoting spring skiing. Slogan: “April is way cool!”

Except for Jiminy Peak, which had the foresight to install plastic bristles in 2118, and Wachusett, which covered itself with a dome the following year, there is not a single outdoor ski area left in southern New England.

The entire mid-Atlantic ski business has been wiped out, along with most of the Midwest. In the West, New Mexico, southern Utah and with two exceptions, California, are ski-free zones.

In California, there's still lift-accessed snow on what was the top of Mammoth Mountain and, during relatively cold winters, on Kirkwood’s upper slopes. In Utah, Brian Head is now “the country’s biggest mountain-bike terrain park.” California’s Heavenly promotes “big-mountain living.” Colorado’s Vail is “Your mountain dream.” Everybody uses “mountain;” only the lucky few mention “snow.”

A STRANGE URBAN CANADA GOOSE STORY

Alan Fritzberg
Wildlife

words + photos by Alan Fritzberg

 

OMG.  There’s a goose sitting in a flowerpot on the neighbor’s dock!  There began a month plus of watching a goose nesting in what would seem like an odd, very visible and seemingly vulnerable location for the process on the shore of Lake Whatcom in Bellingham, Washington. 

My 1950s boyhood memories of Canada geese are of my father dreaming of seeing one close enough to have a shot at. Near our house between Bellingham and the Canadian border they were usually seen only high overhead.

Nowadays, as we all know, geese are seemingly everywhere there is water and, especially, freshly cut grass.

The geese we see in our area are nonmigratory residents, thanks to the U. S. Department of Fish and Wildlife. In response to declining goose populations in the first half of the 20th century, eggs were incubated separately from parents so the goslings could be raised without being taught to migrate. Success in this recovery endeavor was defined as improved hunting opportunities.

Being in the habit of shooing geese off the property, how should I react to a goose that has decided to nest in a large flowerpot on a neighbor’s dock? My first inclination was to move the goose along to the next grassy yard.

Our neighbor who put the flowerpot on the dock was excited to see a goose sitting in it. I realized it was not my role to call a halt or try to figure out how to oil the eggs or whatever one does to un-fertilize them in order to make a small impact in retarding the population growth of our western resident Branta Canadensis moffitti.

Questions Arose

Was the goose a young first timer and didn’t know any better? Could it actually nest in a 15-inch diameter flowerpot and incubate eggs to hatching status? Was it vulnerable in so conspicuous a spot?

Ask the Captain: Jamaica Airplane Crash

W.M. Wiggins
Ask The Captain, Current Events

Plane Talk: Got a question? Ask the Captain!

Do you have a question about airline safety, flight etiquette, jet lag, or air travel in general? Submit your question and look for answers in a future column.

by W. M. Wiggins

What did you see as the problem in the American Airlines Jamaica runway accident? 

 

First, I saw the problem, landing with a tailwind (possibly) out of limits. Then I see what appears to be some of the best publications relations in the realm of corporate aviation.

 The following is my opinion:

Basic airplane 101 says, point that little puppy (the jet or “de plane”, “de plane” ) into the wind for all takeoffs and landings.

The “Specs” or specifications for the Boeing 737-800 say max takeoff / landing tailwind component is 10 knots. Please note, it does NOT say About, Sorta’or Kinda’10 kts. It says 10 kts. This will be important later.

Then the  “Specs” goes on to say…There “May” be 15kts ( tailwind) as customer option. Hmmm? Seems just a tad contradictory, yes?

Uh, NO, not really.

What that means, basically, is that Boeing is “on the hook legally” for that 10 kt tailwind number.

Now, but, but, but what about that 15 kts?

Well, that’s “Show me the $$ money $$ time.

The Personality of Waves

Paul Ross
Nature, travel essay

words + slideshow by Paul Ross

I’ve seen most of the oceans of the world from boats big and small, craft commercial and military. I’ve been in a submarine, dove the wall of a 2-mile deep sea trench in the mid-Pacific, watched whales in the Arctic and sunsets on islands, atolls and from shores distant and domestic. But not until recently did I stand at the edge of the ocean and notice that waves have personalities. Some are feminine and lap at or teasingly tickle the beach while others impatiently charge the shore in an alpha male display. There are lofty and proud rollers, menacingly dark gatherers who build and build, creating discomforting uncertainty with their indefinable limit and unfathomable purpose. Some are mere sighs of the sea; indifferently swelling and quelling as if to shrug or just take a momentary look around. Sibling rivalry waves, born of the same mother roll, will playfully clash into each other and collapse into sparkling foam. Stolid workman waves dutifully pound away at rocks in destruction zones even more permanent than those of the streets of New York. Still others are real sports: faking one way, breaking another and nimbly dodging surfers as if they were opposing football players. And there are golf waves with their long impressive drives decelerating to a controlled stop. How ‘bout those NBA ones? Taking their time moving down court, coolly surveying and assessing the scene before exploding in a sudden move. 

Health-wise, there are asthmatic waves with long, labored and drawn- out aspirations. Neurotic waves indecisively fall apart in pieces, attempting a regroup even as other sections are curling inward. 

Egocentric waves applaud their own performance. 

Some are shy, don’t want to be noticed, and aren’t. 

Dental Tourism: Getting Drilled in Bangkok

Don Mankin
Dental Tourism

by Don Mankin

It’s Colts 13, Houston 0 as the half winds down. My wife and I are watching Peyton Manning lead the Colts to yet another NFL victory on a big flat screen TV. Nothing strange about this, except it's Wednesday afternoon and we are sitting in the lobby of the Dental Hospital in the heart of one of the poshest districts in Bangkok. Like many other cash-strapped seniors, we are dipping our toes into the wave of the future with our first adventure in medical/dental tourism.

This is not my first dental experience in Thailand. In the late 1990s, on a flight to Thailand for a business trip, I cracked a temporary bridge eating some nuts. It didn’t hurt and wasn’t much of a problem at first, but as I talked and chewed, the sharp edge of the broken bridge jabbed into my tongue. The easy solution – don’t eat or talk for two weeks -- was not an option, so the first thing I did upon landing in Chiang Mai was to ask my colleague who met me at the airport to recommend a dentist.

The dentist office did not look promising. It was dark and dingy with equipment I hadn’t seen in years. The possibility of pain was the least of my worries, though. It was at the height of concern about the spread of AIDS throughout SE Asia, and I wasn’t at all sure that I wouldn’t get the disease from this hapless dental adventure. My heart started pounding and I broke out into a sweat. “Should I leave and risk looking like a wimp and insulting my colleague,” I asked myself, “or should I stay and risk pain and death?” The risk of embarrassment won out over the risk of pain and death, as it usually does for me.

As the dentist lowered my chair to get a better look, I gulped, or at least the closest thing to a gulp given the wad of cotton in my mouth. I caught a glimpse of my colleague in the waiting room smiling and waving to me as if I had nothing to fear. In just a few seconds I realized that he was right.

Power Places

Elyn Aviva
Religion, Spirituality

words + photos by Elyn Aviva

Souls in the form of lizards and snakes slither their way to the seashore sanctuary of San Andrés de Teixido in northwestern Spain. At least that’s what local Galician folklore claims about this hard-to-reach pilgrimage shrine, perched on a cliff on the Costa da Morte. “If you don’t go there before you die, you’ll have to go there afterwards”—or so the legends assert. So why not go now, I thought to myself? It would certainly be simpler and more convenient. Besides, I was intrigued by these Celtic-tinged stories of transmigration of souls in what appears to be a deeply Catholic country.

Rather than slither, I went by car, wending my way up and around curvaceous roads shaded by huge eucalyptus trees that swayed in the strong Atlantic breeze. Their medicinal scent filled the air. I pulled over near a TV repeater tower to walk a short stretch of the original pilgrims’ path, careful not to kill any insects I encountered en route—after all, they might be souls on pilgrimage. Or so the legend goes.

At last I reached the tiny village of San Andrés and left the car in the large parking lot at the outskirts. I strolled down the narrow lane lined with souvenir stands selling wax ex-votos in the shape of body parts, brightly painted hard-baked bread-dough offerings, and tiny bundles of hierba de enamorar, a local pink flower that is supposed to be a love potion. Something for everyone, I thought. But was there anything here for me?

Around a bend I came to the white-washed sanctuary that guards the relics of the apostle San Andrés (Saint Andrew). The church was surprisingly small, given the size of the folklore that surrounds it. Legend says that San Andrés was distressed because so few pilgrims visited his isolated shrine, so he complained to Christ; Christ felt sorry for him and promised that nobody would enter heaven if they hadn’t gone first to San Andrés de Teixido. It was a great marketing ploy, judging by the popularity of the shrine over the last 400 years.

The Art of the Travel Journal

Rachel Dickinson
travel writing

words + photos by Rachel Dickinson
 
When I travel I always carry a little black moleskin journal that flips open like a reporter’s notebook. I also buy a new pen before a journey that I slip through the elasticized band that encircles the journal. This is my traveling kit – one in which I make notes in longhand and draw sketches to illustrate what I’m seeing. I imagine what I record is like a kindergarten version of what Mark Twain or Robert Louis Stevenson – two great 19th century diarists – might have recorded.

How to Survive a Family Visit

How to Survive a Family Visit

Judith Fein
Family Travel, Life Lessons, Personal essay, Travel Humor

by Judith Fein

If you are one of those lucky people whose family gets along superbly, who looks forward to flying or driving to visit family on holidays or special occasions, who can’t wait until the family gets together again, who slid out of the birth canal into a functional family, then stop reading--this article is definitely not for you.

If, on the other hand, you start popping Valium, drinking vodka or meditating obsessively two weeks before you have to go home (or wherever your family convenes), then, by all means, read on.

Chasing Fairy Tales In The Dordogne

Kimberley Lovato
Culinary Travel, cultural musings

words + pictures by Kimberley Lovato

Dreams are often born from the most unsuspecting places. Incredibly, mine happened to be delivered by an editor. The assignment that landed in my lap was to head to the Dordogne region of France and follow a chef and her new culinary tour company guests around for a week. No convincing needed, I immediately got in my car in Brussels and drove 10 hours south.   En route I stopped to fuel up and a postcard caught my eye. A picturesque village was enveloped in fog and huddled against a cliff at the edge of the Dordogne River, with a dilapidated rowboat tied to its shore. On the back of the card, in small black and white print, were the words, La-Roque-Gageac, Dordogne.  If fairy tales were depicted on postcards, they would look like this. I bought the card and tucked it behind the visor of my car.

I arrived in Biron, a village of 140 people, at an old priory that sits in the shadows of a 500-year -old castle.  I recall knocking on the weathered wooden doors of the Priory, and hearing the metal against metal slide of the bolt behind it, then a slow creek as the door opened.  Half expecting Frankenstein, I was greeted, instead, by the face of my host, Florida based Chef Laura Schmalhorst. Since then, Laura and I have met up in the Dordogne every year, bonded by our love of a good adventure, good food and wine, and seduced by the convivial people, their passion for the food and their willingness to share it and their stories with us.

While I prefer to travel by bus or local rickshaw, in the Dordogne, a car is essential.  The 2-lane roads are well marked but signs can be miniscule, especially the hand-painted ones directing you to local farms. Be warned: some signs, like those of a walnut farm I was seeking, lead you like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs only to completely disappear. I have learned not to get worked up over this loss of time. We as Americans are programmed for efficiency and if we don’t get where we are going in a reasonable time, our springs pop out and the brain shuts down, reducing us to cursing, yelling idiots.  In the Dordogne, time itself is on vacation. When you live in a fairytale there is no reason to rush, someone once told me. Sometimes it’s good to get off the time track, or be knocked off.

 

Ask the Captain: What about the Christmas Day Bomber?

W.M. Wiggins
Ask The Captain

Plane Talk: Got a question? Ask the Captain!

Do you have a question about airline safety, flight etiquette, jet lag, or air travel in general? Submit your question and look for answers in a future column.

by W. M. Wiggins

What's your take on the Christmas Day Bomber? What can be done? - Jim

 

Jim, it’s now a fact. We all find ourselves being exposed to the ever spreading “cracks” of the security breaches brought to light by that “Underwear Bomber”.

Why did it happen? Oh, Jeeez……please. Obviously, there were gross failures in almost every controlling agency…….the authorities charged for your safety.

The World of Imperfection

Sara Morgan
Personal essay

by Sara Morgan

I don’t mean to get too personal here, but I thought it was worth noting that I am not perfect and neither are you. Like I said, it is nothing personal. I am not trying to put either of us down. I am simply trying to travel through the world of imperfection, hoping to come out the other side.

You see, I spent the better part of my life thinking I was perfect, or at least trying to be. I am your typical highly educated and highly neurotic white woman who has recently become a single mother of three young children. At the age of forty, I have already gone through two marriages and more jobs than I care to admit. I have struggled with the idea of how to find happiness and read almost every self-hope book made. Notice I used the word almost, because no one could possibly read them all. There are simply too many out there.

For the past nine months or since the failure of my second marriage, I have been casually dating myself. Rather than curling up in a ball, which is what I want to do every day, I keep washing my hair and forcing myself to go outside. On the weekends, I sometimes go to nice restaurants and sit at the bar. This is usually followed by a movie and a long ride home to my house in the country.

This weekend I spent the better part of my Sunday sitting on an isolated beach reading, “How to sleep alone in a King-size bed”, and I realized something profound. I realized that I am far from perfect and even though I have made many positive changes which I think will ultimately lead me to happiness; I am still far from it.

Fear not, travel more

Eric Lucas
Air Travel, Travel Opinion

by Eric Lucas

We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

I was thinking about FDR’s famous axiom during my adventures on a particularly gruesome golf hole in Arizona over the New Year holiday. Afraid of slicing my drive right I hooked it left into the desert. Afraid of overshooting the hole, I hit a weak chip into a sand trap. Afraid of not reaching the green, I blasted out of the sand completely over the hole. Afraid of a knee-shaking downhill putt, I came up 3 feet short of the hole. Next putt—right by it, like a locomotive, afraid of coming up short again.

© Orlando Florin Rosu | Dreamstime.com

Despite those travails, it was a beautiful day in the Arizona sun.

I flew there from my home in Seattle. Not afraid.

That makes me different from the most important air travelers in our world today, the government officials who set transportation security policy. They are all scared to death—not of terrorism, so much, but of being blamed for it. FDR was right about fear when he prefaced his response to the Great Depression. We need to remember his thought before we wind up flying around the world buck naked, handcuffed and, as LA Times commentator David Steinberg puts it, wearing padded headgear so we can’t use our skulls to bash open a window to bring a plane down.

Wow—could a terrorist really do that?

 

Traveling through Grief

Patricia McGregor
Grief

by Patricia McGregor

Anthony’s dead.  These are the two words I hear as soon as I wake up.  Anthony’s dead.  If I’m not concentrating on something else, these two words creep into my mind.  Sometimes I play with them.  I mentally say them as a question, an exclamation, I shout them, whisper them, deny them but nothing changes, Anthony’s still dead.

Anthony McGregorMy mother had passed away at the end of March and I thought I’d be an old hand at this funeral business. My mother was 89 and in poor health. Anthony, my younger son was 33. An accident caused the loss of a productive life. As a gerontologist he was supposed to look after me in my old age. 

I was worried that looking for photos for the memorial would be painful.  Surprisingly it was not.  As a photographer I have six or seven albums of the children so my brain was kept busy as I relived the past. Together my family and I made the final cut.  We remembered and laughed. There was Anthony, in the red rubber boots he loved, sitting on the potty.

I hoped if I saw Anthony the words would go away. Regardless, I had to see him one last time.

Peace and union for all

Peace and union for all

Eric Lucas
Current Events, cultural musings

The afternoon sun was highlighting the vineyard rows next to us as I asked my Croatian guide the key question of the day, if not of all days. She stopped short, appraised me for a minute and smiled, but not an easy smile, one weighed against both pain and promise.

“Of course I visit Serbia. I have many Serbian friends. They are our neighbors. Each people, each country, there are bad persons and good. We do not hold to the bitterness of the past,” Biljana declared. “We must not.

“Do you understand?”

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