iamnotcultured-blog

[iamnotcultured-blog]

Reading the tea leaves, eating the tallow

[iamnotcultured-blog]

This dog cracks me up. Trying to tire lucky out before we start the next leg.

[iamnotcultured-blog]

Sometimes nature is cool and icky at the same time.

[iamnotcultured-blog]

Take heart.

[iamnotcultured-blog]

Parking lot Pistol squat. Deploy the pistol squat at short stops -- getting gas and using the restroom. It will jolt your leg muscles out of the apathy they develop over long periods of rest. Out here in the Wild West we have a saying, "fastest pistol wins the duel." When traveling x country, a faster pistol squat means more time on the road and a sooner arrival.

[iamnotcultured-blog]

Fresh Moves is the ultimate reset button on life. Want to move to a new coast, get in the best shape of your life, and nail habits to keep your banging bod long term?

That is all.

[iamnotcultured-blog]

I ain't sayin'... I'm just sayin'

[iamnotcultured-blog]

Panama's Trails of Progress: The Story of Panama and its Canal

My previous knowledge of the Panama Canal could be summed up by the famous palindrome, ¡A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama!

I knew little of the early atrocities committed in the region in the attempt to "divide the land to unite the world." First, and most brutally, it was Spain (Columbus), followed by the English (Drake), then the English Pirates (Henry Morgan), then the English *Privateers* (i.e., state-sanctioned pirates), the Spanish again, the Colombians, and finally the United States... There was, however, a notable trend towards civility, and technology was a huge helping force (hence "trails of progress").

I also did not know that France began the canal project, and spent nearly as much as the United States (which finished the job) digging less than 1/4 of the canal. The US bought out the French interests for dirt cheap, but it still took three project leads to turn things around (read: fixing the French screw ups and penetrating US red tape) before the project was complete under George Washington Goethals. The first two resigned in frustration, but not before laying a solid foundation for worker health & sanitation. 

I may be a philistine, but if I know anything it's that the foundation is important!

[iamnotcultured-blog]

"In New York the struggle for [status] was ubiquitous and ferocious. Everyone was on top of everyone else in an infinite skyscraper—you looked down and it went as far as you could see, you looked up and it went as far as you could see, you spent years climbing the stairs, all while wondering if you had moved up at all or if it was just an optical illusion."

–-George Packer, The Unwinding