Greetings from CrowTown
One of the themes in these logs is navigation (broad brush stroke), starting with School of Tomorrow hypertrails through Cyberia, but also getting into literal cityscape navigation skills such as bus and subway riding. In rural areas, we might switch to ATVs (I got to operate one of those last week in fact, on a farm, gas powered, not electric (not an EATV)).
Those of you perusing these logs may be thinking: yeah but isn't wandering around on the bus and subway all day kind of a lonely old man occupation. So you have your bus binder reading, and camera, bag of goodies, so what? That's not an appealing lifestyle or even with reach for me.
Got it. But you may have a relative you think should get out more... but as to the solo operator feature, that's not the only mode. You have multi-operator wandering to reconnoiter, and I'll be practicing that today again, scheduling a bus ride such that I'll be joined by another Wanderer (yes, he's been to Pauling House for a gathering) at a different stop from where I get on.
I think I've yakked about this before, but it bears repeating: when the Brazilians would show up for a Portland OSCON (at one point the Portland part was taken for granted, before the OS Bridge chapter), they'd already be using telecoms to the max, rendezvousing with one another as if they'd been practicing for years, which they had been in many cases. Not surprising really; Brazilians with an opportunity to come to an OSCON tended to be "genius class" in their niche geekdom.
So yes, your skills might mean you get to use the same skills in a different city, maybe Madison or Boston or one of those other "ending in on" places (London...), or maybe we're doing more than just playing word games. Portland is in the midst of its treasure hunting season, so my mindset might be tinged by the "leaving breadcrumbs" aspect of our CrowTown festival.
Joining another party on the same bus woulda been a real challenge back in my more youthful days in Rome, Italy, where bus and subway riding was my lifestyle as a teen. I'd go solo and/or with friends. So yes, I'm reliving my teen years to a degree, but actually today it's all much easier to get fancy, because of smartphones and real time texting, not to mention TriMet Trip Tools, which I access through my phone-based HOP app, the same one that I pay with (it's hooked to my Visa -- but would that work in Brazil?).
