A picture of mine gets used in an article

I don’t make any money from this but someone asked to use one of my travel photos for this article that they’re writing.  Of course I said yes because I love fame and glory.  The article is about how traveling is changing now with GPS phones and built-in cameras.  The picture they used is one where I took a picture of a map of Spain from a Lonely Planet book at the Madrid airport because I didn’t feel like buying the whole book.  Good thing I tagged the picture with the words ‘Lonely Planet’!    Here is the article.

That’s what I love about the internet is that random stuff like this happens.  There have been a couple of other times where someone has requested to use a photo, including one where I stood to make money from it as they wanted to use it in some advertising for NCAA basketball.  Unfortunately the copyrights imposed by the NCAA are so strict that we couldn’t work anything out.  Did you know that the NCAA prohibits any advertising that shows a collegiate athlete who is still in school?  If you watch on tv you’ll notice now that ads always show athletes who are now out of college.  And the picture they wanted to use was filled with underclassmen boxing out waiting for another underclassman to shoot a free throw.  That one was not gonna happen.

One picture that did get used was a picture I took of the Prague railway station.  I can’t seem to find the article where it got posted in but the picture is here.

The best rendition of the U.S. national anthem

I was watching the Olympics this morning and, surprise, a commercial appeared on my tv.  It was a Nike commercial that interspersed clips of the U.S. men’s basketball team and an old clip of Marvin Gaye singing the U.S. national anthem. The clips of the hoops team was forgettable but the national anthem was amazing.  He took a song that we usually just sit through patiently and made it his own, adding his unique Gospel style, wearing some way-too-cool aviators and getting the crowd clapping along behind him.

I Googled for it and sure enough there is a Youtube video of the original, which it turns out was during the 1983 NBA All-Star game.  The plethora of white NBA All-Stars seem not too inspired by the song but nonetheless you should check it out and decide for yourself.

Shazam!

This is somewhat a follow up to my earlier write up on Midomi.  Both Shazam and Midomi are free iPhone apps that exist to do one thing: help you identify a song that you’re listening to.  That’s where the similarities end.  You can read about Midomi on my other post but the gist of it is it doesn’t work.  Shazam on the other hand is AMAZING.  Yes.  It deserves the full CAPS LOCK key.  

Here’s why: I’m listening to a remixed version of “American Boy” on the radio in the car yesterday.  I started Shazam and just held it in the middle of the car, curious to see what it would say.  I really did not expect it to name that tune, especially not a remix of a song.  I mean, how many songs can it possibly index?  And for those of you who have never seen the word ‘index’ used as a verb, consider yourself lucky.

But sure enough, it came back and not only gave me the song name and artist but also the name of the remix!  Wow! 

Here is the song on iTunes if you want to check it out.

My first hitchhiking experience

I was taking a bus (cashuttlebus.com) today from LA to San Francisco, the same bus line that had brought me down to LA no problems a week ago.  Well, this time, different bus, different day, different results.  All of a sudden, as we’re driving in the east bay, the bus just dies.  Shuts off completely.  The driver tries turning the engine but nothing happens.  Great.  So close to the city yet so far, and we were stuck on the side of the highway.  I hear the driver call in to a mechanic and then she goes outside to look at the engine.

Everyone sat around on the bus just waiting but I figured I may as well find out what’s going on.  I step outside and talk to the driver who tells me that the mechanic will be there in half an hour.  So it’s anyone’s guess how long before the bus would be up and running again.  Then just on an impulse I stick my thumb out to cars driving up the entrance ramp.  I wasn’t expecting anyone to pull over but right away the second or third car to drive by pulls over.  I walk over and ask if they’re going to the city.  They say no.  I ask if they can take me to BART and they said ok, come on in.  So I run back to the bus and grab my bags, throw them in the trunk and get in the front seat.

They were a Guatemalan family, Miguel and Karen with two children, a 3 year old boy and a 2 year old girl who were sitting in the back with their mom.  She had moved to the back to make room for me in front seat.  We spoke most of the ride as I was trying to learn more about them.  Miguel works as a house painter and his hands and pants had the paint marks to prove it.  They said they were not having any more kids because diapers and food cost too much.  I laughed at that.  They moved here three years ago from Long Island because their kids were having asthma problems due to the cold weather, and they’re loving California.

I admit I was scared/nervous at the beginning.  You always hear horror stories about hitchhiking.  But they just seemed like truly honest, good-hearted people, which they turned out to be and more.  When I got out at BART I offered Miguel some money, and he adamantly refused to take it.  I was surprised.  The whole ride I was thinking that they were giving me a ride because they figured they could make some money from me.  Why didn’t I assume they were doing it because of the goodness of their heart?  That’s a topic for another post, another day.  I shook Miguel’s hand, told him he has the biggest heart and thanked him and Karen again for giving me a ride.

What’s ironic about the whole thing is that earlier during the bus ride I had been overhearing this young guy behind me recounting his travel stories to another passenger about traveling across country.  He said he usually hitchhiked whenever possible and said he’s never run into any problems with it.  You just have to be patient and accept that you may not get to your destination in the shortest amount of time.  That got me thinking that i’ve never hitchhiked before but maybe would be something i’d like to try.  My friends Dan and Natasha hitchhiked in Tahoe last year and I remember being shocked not just by the fact they hitchhiked but that they didn’t think it was a big deal at all.  They were both raised in Australia so it could be a cultural difference as well.  Or maybe they didn’t have The Hitchhiker tv show on the USA network to scare them.

I asked Miguel what he thinks of the Guatemalan football team, and if he thinks they’ll make the World Cup.  He was convinced they would, without a doubt.  I know I’ll be pulling for them to make it.

From the beach

Greetings from Hermosa Beach. Kevin told me about this iPhone app for wordpress and so I decided to check it out. I’m gonna try inserting a pic from the beach. And these people will not stop kicking sand over me and my phone as they walk by. Damn them.