I've got website up that I'll be posting to.
right now it's shitty as I try to figure it out, but it's where I'll be from now on.
www.DREWS REALITY CHECK.com
and... go
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Moments of Inspiration
Let's face it. Traveling is an awesome thing to do. You get to experience new things, meet new people, and for that brief moment, you're free of the obligations normal life.
But it's precisely for those reasons that it's also scary. It's not easy to leave everything and everyone you know. For Danielle, it's worth. I already left everything to come here, to Alberta. But it's still scary because even here, I'm on Facebook and on the phone and all that.
And to combat those feelings of fear, there's inspiration. Often, as Danielle and I plan and save, I lose sight of the end goal and get a little burned out. But inspiration keeps me going.
It's one of my (loftier) goals our trek to inspire others to do and try awesome things. Break the barriers, be who you want to be. As the Most Interesting Man in the World says: "It's never too early to start beefing up your obituary."
Anyway, many things have inspired us in our journey, the least of which is things like magazines, blogs, movies, books, etc.
So today's episode in inspirtion:
WHERE THE HELL IS MATT.
Between the music, the places, the sites, and of course, the dancing, I can't help but just feel awesome and hope for something even remotely as cool as this gentleman. So watch, and get inspired.
peace
But it's precisely for those reasons that it's also scary. It's not easy to leave everything and everyone you know. For Danielle, it's worth. I already left everything to come here, to Alberta. But it's still scary because even here, I'm on Facebook and on the phone and all that.
And to combat those feelings of fear, there's inspiration. Often, as Danielle and I plan and save, I lose sight of the end goal and get a little burned out. But inspiration keeps me going.
It's one of my (loftier) goals our trek to inspire others to do and try awesome things. Break the barriers, be who you want to be. As the Most Interesting Man in the World says: "It's never too early to start beefing up your obituary."
Anyway, many things have inspired us in our journey, the least of which is things like magazines, blogs, movies, books, etc.
So today's episode in inspirtion:
WHERE THE HELL IS MATT.
Between the music, the places, the sites, and of course, the dancing, I can't help but just feel awesome and hope for something even remotely as cool as this gentleman. So watch, and get inspired.
peace
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
adventures in being gas frugal
Recently I was trying to determine how much mileage I could squeeze out of a tank of gas by doing a few things. That included:
-Driving slow like a jack ass
-Driving below the speed limit on highways at what I'm under the impression is a more fuel-efficient speed
-Rolling down hills
-using the breaks as little as possible so as to not burn fuel speeding back up
Anyway, all in all I managed to get 625 kilometers to about 50 litres of gas, costing me about $50.
Using some standard math, that means I was driving at for every litre of gas I was getting 12.5 kilometers on average, or 8L/100km or 29.4 MPG.
I'm under the impression that in some ways that's not even that good. Hmmm...
Well I'll try to get better, if I don't ruin my car.
You see, in my efforts to see how much I could squeeze out of a tank, I actually ran out of gas and may have damaged my fuel injectors... oh well, it's all in the name of science right?
Anyway, the idea to do this came from the concept of HYPERMILING (google it). It's basically the process by which you find ways to get maximum fuel efficiency in your driving.
I just bought another tank of gas, so I'll see if I can do better.
Cheers
-Driving slow like a jack ass
-Driving below the speed limit on highways at what I'm under the impression is a more fuel-efficient speed
-Rolling down hills
-using the breaks as little as possible so as to not burn fuel speeding back up
Anyway, all in all I managed to get 625 kilometers to about 50 litres of gas, costing me about $50.
Using some standard math, that means I was driving at for every litre of gas I was getting 12.5 kilometers on average, or 8L/100km or 29.4 MPG.
I'm under the impression that in some ways that's not even that good. Hmmm...
Well I'll try to get better, if I don't ruin my car.
You see, in my efforts to see how much I could squeeze out of a tank, I actually ran out of gas and may have damaged my fuel injectors... oh well, it's all in the name of science right?
Anyway, the idea to do this came from the concept of HYPERMILING (google it). It's basically the process by which you find ways to get maximum fuel efficiency in your driving.
I just bought another tank of gas, so I'll see if I can do better.
Cheers
yee haw
For your viewing pleasure, here's two wicked photos I took the other day. It was at the Smith-Hondo Labour Day fair. I'm not too big a fan of rodeos, what with the borderline cruelty to animals thing, but it does make for some good pics.
I haven't updated in a while. My bad.
The reason is that I've been trying to keep very busy saving money, running last minute errands and getting everything ready that Danielle and I possibly can because time is ticking down before we pack up and leave.
We managed to just about finish everything we're going to buy for our trip including backpacks, shoes, clothes, and everything else you need to live out of what you carry on your back. As well, we've been immunized and are just about ready money-wise.
Now we just need to figure out the fine details.
That includes:
- getting travel insurance
- getting our passports and visas lined up
- figuring out semi-detailed itineraries
- finding cool planned stuff to do in the several locations we're thinking about
It's all getting pretty overwhelming but there's no way it won't be awesome as heck.
I keep wanting to update you guys on what we're doing as we get closer to the date but it ends up being harder and harder to make sensible posts that won't be boring. So I'll just cramp it all into this post.
ROUGH GAME PLAN
We've sort of come up with where we want to go and what we want to do and which airlines, trains, or other modes of transportation we want to take and their various costs. Or course all these are subject to change and there's nothing's set in stone yet, but here's what it looks like:
CLICK TO LOOK AT IT BETTER
Once again that's rough, since we haven't booked anything for sure.
But we've done a few other things that should allow us to be prepared for our journey.
1. We've joined HOSTEL INTERNATIONAL. Hopefully this will allow us to realize some decent savings when it comes to finding places to sleep that are affordable. Also it may give us an ear to the ground for cool things to do in various places.
2. We've decided on a particular bank account. Up until now, we've gone with the free, online bank accounts, but now that we're on a trip we've decided on a particular bank account, that isn't neccessarily free, but will be for us since we intend to keep the minimum monthly balance.
We selected the TD SELECT bank account. Why? because with the minimum balance, you get unlimited international debit transactions, get your credit card fees waived and other little things that are pretty sweet. Mainly, it's the fact that we'll be able to get a TRAVEL Visa, which, upon use, will give us rewards points that we can use later. The fact that it's essentially free makes it worth it.
So what else is there? not much. Just remember that we're almost ready to go since we've got all our equipment. It's just the final things we have to do.
I'm still trying on putting up an website where i'll attempt to get some advertising up so that maybe i can make some money while I'm travelling.
Anyway, my next mini-adventure is going to be NEIL'S WEDDING. So I'll be in Whitby around then.
PEACE
The reason is that I've been trying to keep very busy saving money, running last minute errands and getting everything ready that Danielle and I possibly can because time is ticking down before we pack up and leave.
We managed to just about finish everything we're going to buy for our trip including backpacks, shoes, clothes, and everything else you need to live out of what you carry on your back. As well, we've been immunized and are just about ready money-wise.
Now we just need to figure out the fine details.
That includes:
- getting travel insurance
- getting our passports and visas lined up
- figuring out semi-detailed itineraries
- finding cool planned stuff to do in the several locations we're thinking about
It's all getting pretty overwhelming but there's no way it won't be awesome as heck.
I keep wanting to update you guys on what we're doing as we get closer to the date but it ends up being harder and harder to make sensible posts that won't be boring. So I'll just cramp it all into this post.
ROUGH GAME PLAN
We've sort of come up with where we want to go and what we want to do and which airlines, trains, or other modes of transportation we want to take and their various costs. Or course all these are subject to change and there's nothing's set in stone yet, but here's what it looks like:
CLICK TO LOOK AT IT BETTER
Once again that's rough, since we haven't booked anything for sure.
But we've done a few other things that should allow us to be prepared for our journey.
1. We've joined HOSTEL INTERNATIONAL. Hopefully this will allow us to realize some decent savings when it comes to finding places to sleep that are affordable. Also it may give us an ear to the ground for cool things to do in various places.
2. We've decided on a particular bank account. Up until now, we've gone with the free, online bank accounts, but now that we're on a trip we've decided on a particular bank account, that isn't neccessarily free, but will be for us since we intend to keep the minimum monthly balance.
We selected the TD SELECT bank account. Why? because with the minimum balance, you get unlimited international debit transactions, get your credit card fees waived and other little things that are pretty sweet. Mainly, it's the fact that we'll be able to get a TRAVEL Visa, which, upon use, will give us rewards points that we can use later. The fact that it's essentially free makes it worth it.
So what else is there? not much. Just remember that we're almost ready to go since we've got all our equipment. It's just the final things we have to do.
I'm still trying on putting up an website where i'll attempt to get some advertising up so that maybe i can make some money while I'm travelling.
Anyway, my next mini-adventure is going to be NEIL'S WEDDING. So I'll be in Whitby around then.
PEACE
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