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Brian

Travel

Overseas Adventure Travel: Ultimate Africa 2015 Pre-Trip

2015 ULTIMATE AFRICA PRE-TRIP:

Roughly 2 years ago (March 2013) my partner, Aaron and I were back in the San Fransisco Bay Area for a friend’s wedding.  During our trip we stayed a few nights with an old college friend (and the maid of honor) Aryn.  I’ll never forget this moment that sparked the trip of a lifetime: “Ultimate Africa”  The three of us were seated in Aryn’s living room of her Concord, CA apartment when I noticed a photo book placed on her coffee table.  I picked it up and paged through it amazed by all the beautiful photos of African animals.  I asked where she bought the book and she said they were her photos she had submitted through Shutterfly.  I was completely blown away.   Not only were these photos magnificent but the proximity Aryn was to these wild and roaming animals I had only ever seen in cages at various zoos.  “Oh yeah,” Aryn said, “these game drive jeeps take you right up to the lions and rhinos.”  Wow!

Aryn had mentioned that her and her mom Judy were looking to take a second trip only to a different part of Africa.  She emailed me a link to OAT (Overseas Adventure Travel) and their “Ultimate Africa:  Botswana, Zambia & Zimbabwe Safari” including an overnight in Johannesburg, South Africa.  Without hardly a second  thought, I enthusiastically said”: “Sign me up” and on November 3, 2015 Aryn, her sister Katherine, mother Judy and myself were all on a plane from Atlanta to Johannesburg.

During this trip, I kept a daily journal and I thought it would be fun to post this (day by day) on my blog.  I will begin with the first post tomorrow proceeding for the next 17 days (taking a break for the Thanksgiving Holiday and maybe Black Friday).  I will be including photos and videos that correspond with the events and sitings of each specific day along with videos of the “tents” we stayed in at each location.

8 months prior to the trip I had to get in touch with Passport Health Dept to begin my vaccinations and 2 days prior to the trip I had to begin taking my daily malaria pill (I highly recommend taking this WITH food).  Packing was very involved, I had to get a specific type of mosquito spray (Sawyer brand) to apply to my clothing – which it’s recommended to do outside and away from many contact with pets and your skin).  I also purchased 3 cans of bug spray containing, at least, 30% DEET, that I sprayed on my check, ears, and any exposed skin each morning.  I ended up only using 2 cans of the DEET so I’m returning the 3rd to Dick’ Sporting Goods tomorrow.

I also recommend packing a back-up battery for your camera.  Our tented camps provided laundry service for everything except our “smalls” (underwear), so I only packed 2 pairs of shorts, a pair of gym shorts, swimming trunks, 5 pairs of socks, a hoodie, hat and 4 shirts.  I packed enough underwear for 10 days as I was able to wash them in the bathroom sink in our tent (powered soap was provided).  I also recommend buying a cheap pair of sunglasses (don’t bring your expensive name brand pair).  Other items are sunscreen, a flashlight, an extra bag to pack souveniers and whatever toiletries you need – including Advil, DayQuil, NightQuil, Tums, Vitamin C & Zinc, extra contacts if you wear them, lotion, aloe, and see if the pharmacy will prescribe you a pill for traveller’s diarrhea.  The flight from Atlanta was 15 hours, so I recommend bringing something to read (although there were dozens of good movies to choose from, plus the essential sleep – if you’re able to sleep on a plane).  Check with your cell phone provider too about a cheap international calling or FaceTime Plan.  🙂  Lastly, I highly recommend buying a pair of “zip off pants” that covert into shorts.  I bought mine online form Eddie Bauer for $40 plus shipping.  TOTALLY worth it!

OAT is great about helping you prepare for this trip and they do accept installments on your payment.  A couple weeks prior to the trip they sent me a small booklet called: Your Final Document Booklet.  This thing was incredibly informative and I was very glad I brought it with me.  It included our Day-by-Day Itinerary, Friendly Reminders and Emergency Contact Information of each place we were staying to copy & give to our loved ones at home.  I called and asked for an extra copy to leave at home with Aaron, which they gladly sent.

Hope you all enjoy my blog!

November 22, 2015 by
Publishing

The Writer’s Itch

With most of my creative attention devoted to either music (songwriting) or marketing my first full-length novel (Extra Innings: The Diamond Thieves), I’ve been getting the itch to write again.  Originally, my next project after the Extra Innings Trilogy was going to be a non-fiction story called “Sheldon’s Falls.”  The main character in this novel is named Sheldon Andrus who is a young, retired medevac pilot return from the Vietnam War to his home in Massachusetts and a alcoholic, pill-popping, complicated bi$%@h of a mother.  This unforgettable story that takes a surprising and dark turn gave me a great deal of excitement, however, I’ve decided to put it on hold to pursue a different writing direction in the meantime.

This new direction is to author a book based on my research in strengths based leadership.  The topic is Integrity and I’m excited to dive into what I believe this means in the professional world.  Notes for this book began last weekend and I’m excited to do some deep thinking while I’m traveling across the mountainous and grassland terrains of southern Africa.  I’m hoping that some time away in another land will give me some headroom & inspiration to discover a deeper understanding of integrity in terms of interpersonal relationships and exchanges.  The intent of this book is for my own observation and understanding of how I experience and conduct myself in the world (both professionally and personally).  I’m excited to see my own personal growth through the production of this book.   Writing has not yet begun, however, the book does have a title:  “The Integrity Pie.”

October 26, 2015 by
Publishing

Query Letter Contender Looks Promising

The diligent work for a compelling query letter continues.  I have created multiple drafts submitted to published friends for their feedback and I think I FINALLY have a strong contender.  I’m happy with it.  I just sent out my first query letter email to a literary agent who was referred to me by one of my friend who works for a PR company.  Fingers crossed everyone who’s rooting for me.  The Extra Innings Trilogy is about to make its mark not he world.  Thank you for all those who’ve sent me emails of how they enjoyed book 1 (The Diamond Thieves).  Hopefully I can find the right agent who believes in this trilogy and its characters as much as I do.

August 13, 2015 by
Publishing

The Engagement Diary

I would be remiss if I didn’t catch you all up on some of the conversations I’ve been having with fellow writers and poets.  The predominant topic of conversation has constellated around expressionism and the subjective aberration of emotions in order to spark moods and/or ideas.  I believe documenting these sparks in a journal is the key to engaging your mind with the creative writing process.  To render a subsequent cache of the current mind’s fleeting stream of thoughts, phrases and original ideas is worth its weight in gold.  There are certain excerpts from my Extra Innings books that were scribbled down in my journal long before they ever appeared on the pages of The Diamond Thieves, Race of the Gemini or A Hero Among Thieves.  Likewise, I’ll do the same with my next novel: Sheldon’s Falls.

Where I have found the most value in this practice of documenting original ideas is in my songwriting and poetry.  Thoughts, phrases and ideas may spark from conversations with friends, images seen throughout some of my travels, or perhaps while I’m on a  casual walk, etc.  In fact, I get most of my ideas while sitting on a plane or at an airport waiting for a plane – but that’s just me.

The concept of the “engagement diary” exists when you find a particular idea or emotion that truly captures your attention above the rest.  This is typically one involving a broader scope and, therefore, begs for more development.  Once documented in their journal, the writer and/or poet should then leave additional space so when they have time to revisit this particular idea they can continue writing more.  This is exactly the practice that fostered my initial developments of The Extra Innings Trilogy.  I began with concept of identical twins; including what they looked like, personality traits, hobbies, emotional struggles (considering they were facing puberty), etc and developed the story’s plot(s) from there.  In order to do so, I really needed to get engaged with concept of these characters, revisiting them day after day and, in the end, these journal notes made formulating the story much less governed and restricted by in the moment calculations and head-scratching writer’s block as many writers I’ve spoken with find to be their primary struggle.

As oxymoronic as this may sound, writing should feel like an engaged freedom.  The writer should feel comprehensively involved in the telling of the story while, at the same time, experiencing a sense of liberty with their prose.  Having this journaled inventory of thoughts, phrases and ideas has certainly helped to furnish this sense of liberty and engagement in my writing, for whenever I get stuck in a writer’s rut and don’t how how to proceed, I have a backlog of original ideas to revisit to help get things moving again.  Try it for yourself and let me know what you think.

 

May 20, 2015 by
Publishing

Discovering Your Creative Self

Over the past few years I’ve studied a handful of experienced writers:  Nicholas Sparks, John Grisham, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Washington Irving, Zora Neale Hurston and Laura Ingalls Wilder.  My area of focus was pros particularly their exceptionally creative prose.  To me, prose demonstrates the strength of the author to effectively bring forth their imagination into narrative. One of my favorites is Washington Irving’s way of describing the coming of autumn in New York State with the following from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:  “The small birds were taking their farewell banquets.”  This is beautifully and creatively written and you can actually picture it in your head. Here’s a great line from Wilder’s “The Long Winter” that really depicts what the families in that community endured during that historically severe winter of 1880-1881 in South Dakota: “The cold and the dark had come again.  The nails in the roof were white with frost, the windowpanes were gray.  Scraping a peephole only showed the blank, whirling whiteness against the other side of the glass.  The stout house quivered and shook; the wind roared and howled.” Nicholas Sparks produced a great imagery in this particular line from The Lucky One:  “A few magnolias were scattered here and there and made the sidewalks swell beneath their building roots.”   I can totally picture this sidewalk which helps me relate to better to the story being told via Sparks’s effective imagery. And last, my favorite first line of all:  “Marley was dead, to begin with.” – Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol.  What a striking way to begin a story!  I love it! These great authors have all inspired me to do one thing: Discover my Creative Self.  I’ll be blogging more about ways to find inspiration in your every day encounters and events and how to bring those inspirations to life in the form of prose.

March 12, 2015 by