The Travelers Network is website that integrates travel blogging, yelp-style reviewing of travel-spots, and a social network for travelers to meet and keep friends on the road.

Try it out! http://www.travelersnetwork.org/
Firefox is best– I only recently started supporting IE.

I want your feedback to know how to improve the site! Any comments you have are extremely useful to me. Give me suggestions, bug reports, impressions, whatever.

Please play around with the site. I don’t mean you should try to break it or hack it– you can if you want, but I’m already aware of a bunch of security holes. I mean, make an account, post a couple entries, upload some photos, add a restaurant you like to eat at.

Consider giving it a real test– you can use it to blog a trip you’re planning to take or already took, and feel free to pass the url around.

If you find something that’s broken, just tell me about it. The site is big and inter-connected, so it’s easy for something essential to be broken and for me not to know.

There’s plenty more to do. The fully-integrated map, blog, reviews vision is far from done; the permissions system is still in its infancy; and there’s huge potential for a smoother experience through more ajax.

But the site is hugely functional, and ready to be used!

There’s an About page, a FAQ, and a few tutorials integrated into the pages. But if you need any help, just ask!

Want updates as I make fixes and improvements?
Want to be an official alpha tester (there may be prizes involved)?
Want to help in other ways? Talk to me!

I curled up into a hole in my computer on Monday, when I decided to launch an alpha of my travelers site September 1, and I’ve been working non-stop since. Which is to say that I’ve only had beers at one social event most nights this week– I’m practically a hermit by Brazilian standards.

On Wednesday, I saw O Procurado (Wanted– Brief-Spoilers Alert, but you shouldn’t see it anyway). It’s the English movie, but they change the title screen. It’s about a group of assassins who induct a normal who then, with the help of the sole female in the group, kill them all. It’s horrible– do not watch it– all the moreso because storyline had some potential for punches, in around the bad magic that set it up. But it revved me up in a way that’s difficult to describe.

My body was pissed at me for not giving it free time or sunlight for a week. It accepted my motivations, but also extracted some rebalancing justice, one of which the realization that I can only improve my mind by improving my body.

We are our bodies. A body has just as much personality, intention, and intelligence, as a mind– and they’re the same personality, intention, and intelligence as the mind has, on a deep enough level. How my body gets sick, or feels tickles, or balances, mirrors how my mind resolves dissonance, and gets amused, and juggles tasks. And how it hears Portuguese is how I understand it.

My Portuguese is coming along, rather like a wino, making progress in stumbles and hiccups. But finally it’s within grasping distance of providing the ears and mouth of appropriate to my 26 years, and that’s what I need to make it. So my body asked me to live more like a Procurado– I was built to be a wolf, and I cannot treat my body like a sheep.

In many ways, I live like a child by choice. I never want to give up wonder and unplanned play-time, or transition from Amateur to Expert at the cost of my right to struggle and trip and make a fool of myself, or take responsibility that doesn’t allow for me to be erratic.

In particular, in Brazil, I’ve done little things to play-up my childishness. I can’t speak the language and I’m ignorant of the customs, so I want all the help I can get and don’t want people to expect too much. And in particular, I don’t want to inadvertently set up women to be disappointed by a person who can’t approach life in Brazil according to his years, although that’s another post.

A friend here asked if I wanted children. No way, said I, the world has too many people already. But yesterday I wasn’t so sure. What greater wolf-requiring project or world-changing gift can one give the world than another human being, capable of anything? Ultimately, I still don’t want children, and a 20+ year project is far outside my attention span… but maybe it’s time I started dating women with them.

I’m looking for people to join me in making a sustainable-living coop in Belém.

The house I’m renting in Belém’s Cidade Velha will have space for two to four more residents by the end of this month. I want to make it an experimental, cooperative home, based on sustainability, healthy living, and fair-trade! We would combine our rent to buy organic, fair-trade food to share, practice reuse and recycling, improve the house with sustainable technology, and more.

If you want to hear more, or know someone who might be interested, tell me!

Agora, em português…

Estou procurando pessoas para montar uma república de vida sustentável em Belém.

A casa que alugo está localizada no bairro da Cidade Velha e terá lugares para duas ou até mais quatro pessoas antes do fim do mês. Quero fazer uma casa experimental e cooperativa, fundamentada em idéias sustentáveis, vida saudável e equilíbrio econômico. Combinaremos o aluguel para comprar comida orgânica, comércio-justo, practicaremos reutilização e reciclagem, melhoraremos a casa com tecnologia sustentável e coisas do tipo.

Se quiser saber mais ou se você conhece alguém que esteja interessado na idéia, diga-me!

I found out yesterday that one of my grandparents (the one through my mother’s second marriage) was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer. He refuses to take medication. And his birthday is Thursday. What do you say to a terminally and painfully ill birthday boy?

Last night, I had dream that was told in a thoroughly narrative voice, and since I plan to be a writer some day (I haven’t decided which one, but one of them), here it is.
Cut for Length

Apparently, my whole extended family secretly reads this journal, and I’ve been told that I am now expected to write a “life update”-style post at least once a week. While it’s not what I made my blog for, I suppose it’s not such a bad goal. Little do they know that I’d be happy to have them as friends on LJ and then they wouldn’t have to keep checking this page to see if anything’s changed. Not to mention that they would also get to read the friends-only posts that are likely to become more frequent.

I’ve made five half-written posts in the intervening time, but it’s too much! So here’s the whirlwind tour. Mostly, I’ve been doing a lot of work. I love my new AI job, and I’m getting to build just-about whatever I want. But that leaves half a day, and I seem to end up using it.

I may stay in Belém longer and make my house into a green coop, if I can figure out how to do it. The whole two-story, 4 bedroom, 2 bath, plus side-cottage with b&bath, rents for $550 a month. The resources for sustainable/organic/local/fair living aren’t as well-organized as in the US, but I’ve been meeting lots of people who know where to go. For now, I have a new apartment-mate: a nice Californian who finishes her research on the Amazon in three weeks. I need to decide what to do afterwords, which probably all depends on getting my bag from the other side of the country.

Portuguese goes well. I’ve had my first classes with a real-live Portuguese teacher, where I learned for the twelfth time that I’m saying it all wrong. But people are understanding me evermore, and I them: I had my first real-live extended conversation in Portuguese at a bar (not without some help, but still). And by now, my sixth.

I’ve also had a few close-calls with sickness, but nothing that some water and extra rest didn’t solve. I get almost-sick here pretty frequently, but I haven’t had to take antibiotics yet.

Every time I think I’ve seen the best of Belém, it surprises me. I saw UFPA, the beautiful federal university, which Belém’s brightest struggle through Herculean tests to enter. I went to Mangal das Graças, a nature-preserve/museum, the perfect sunset, and spent a night dancing next door at the Marmaço reggae club for their 10th birthday, my second event you could imagine that everyone in Belém was at. Or third, to include recently Super Night Shot, a cinema/art-performance project briefly imported from Germany (you must see, next time you’re in Germany!).

Today, I went to Ilha de Carmapijó with a two-hour music-and-dance-filled boat ride the nicest Amazon river beaches I’ve experience so far. I wish I could show it to you! My camera charger, more than anything else, is making me want to go down south. And maybe my new-found sunburn.

Brief rave report

I was bummed recently. Love may be only the second-most-important thing to me, but that’s still pretty important. And so far, I seemed to have caught the attention of a sweet Brazilian guy, and a cool Californian girl– neither of which is quite what I was hoping for when I moved to Brazil.

But last night, I met a gorgeous Brazilian woman– a poet, my age, with enough spark in her to burn down a house. And I’m pretty sure she likes me. But she won’t put up with my language problems much longer…

I was almost the closest I’ve ever been, in time, relation, notoriety, to someone famous. Yesterday, my housemate was sorting through a tableful of women’s underwear. She told me that her sister lives in Fortaleza and makes the stuff, and she ocassionally helps sell it here to make some extra money.

Today, the New York Times has a glowing article on the growing economy of Brazil. It opens with the human interest story of a Ms. Souza, of Fortaleza, who built her business of making women’s underwear from two sewing machines to a 25 person factory.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/world/americas/31brazil.html

I asked. No relation.

I think people here think small in economic terms, and by virtue of that, more democratically. When I went with friends to play Karaoke, we picked up the karioke game from someone’s garage. There was a little sign outside: R$7,50 to rent it for a day, and we loaded it in our trunk while the owner’s baby girl banged against the bars of her door. Everywhere in the streets, people sit behind little tables of candy and goodies– all they needed to buy was a table and some goodies. In the US, no one would rent from some random person’s garage or buy from a table in the street.

I think it’s a result of their different history with capitalism. They didn’t have as long a period where capitalism was organized by wealthy monopolists. And the Brazilian Way is to do things yourself, in little ways (jeitinhos), because society at large, and particularly the government, is often more trouble than its worth.

I’ve begun to realize the class differences here.

The economic power I’m used to having– that is, the amount of money I have to spend and what it can buy– is roughly equivalent between the US and here. Money goes a little further here, especially in some areas (I can get a dozen Brazilian haircuts for one in the US!), but generally it doesn’t go much further.

However in the US, that economic standing characterizes me as upper-middle class, and here it’s distinctly upper class. And people treat themselves like the upper class, but they do it with the means I’m accustomed to. The basics of their lifestyle– work, after-work friends, the role of home– are the same as mine. They often struggle to make ends meet and quibble over their Real’s worth. But they have hired help, wear jewelry all the time, have art all around their homes, and discuss society from a privileged and empowered standpoint. Stores that I think of as middle class, like C&A, are the domain of the upper class here.

Of course, there’s a lot more upper class above us, particularly in other parts of Brazil. My friends don’t have helicopters, like the elite of Sao Paulo, but they or their parents have gorgeous beach-side houses and top-notch apartments, business-relations, and jobs in law, medicine, and university. There’s a sense, as my new friends introduce me around that I’m rubbing shoulders with the most important people to know in town.

The class lines here aren’t hard or consistent, but they are pervasive. The group I’m referring to often lives, works, shops, and eats in different places than most of society. They’re much whiter and more European looking. They went to private primary schools and public University, and didn’t do much work until afterwards. And they wouldn’t be caught dead in a uniform, as a store clerk, or being on of the hordes of people who sells on the street.

This may all just be part of the Brazilian imperative to always look good and talk big. Button-down shirts and slacks are very common in both work and play. The prototypical Brazilian is loud, uses big motions, and makes talk like a Harvard student.

The causes go very deep. Brazilians are always concerned about what other people think of them. Jokerman had me change out of a shirt because it wasn’t ironed. Jokerman’s girlfriend, Tesão, a ridiculously hot woman, was embarrassed to go to the movies without a change of clothes. They’re also always a little afraid. Jokerman got me a blackout curtain, and plans to get me a lock on the door to my room– but the house is already impervious. But he won’t drive away when he drops me off until he sees me padlock the outside gate.

My Brazilian friends are particularly confused about me. I’ve been dressing young, to look as not-ripe as I feel, and to go with my complete inability to hold a conversation. My uncombed hair looks crazy to them, and a bit low-class. But I found out that I make about as much as a doctor here. As I edge my way into Brazilian society, I’m discovering that it’s high society, and I need to act the part.

Brazil is incredible! An awful lot has happened in the past couple weeks, and then again in the past couple days. I’ve been making a whirlygig tour of this immense country. Briefly, that consisted of:

Sao Paulo, where the hostel I stayed at had a pile of musical instruments that came out every night as people sat around beers and sang Brazilian tunes. Brazilians love to sing, and they’ll use any excuse.

Rio, in which I wound up with a working girl wrapped around each arm, and a previously-unknown relative across a table littered in beers, whose indigenous-Brazilian girlfriend was telling me that all her 16 year old cousins were pregnant, but she had one 15 year old cousin who would be perfect for me.

Belo Horizonte, with its impeccable design, and the cobblestone-clad grandmother city Ouro Preto. The latter wasn’t on my schedule, but my bus was full by the time I got to the bus station. So I bought a ticket for the next day, and decided to spend the wait exploring.

Salvador, a haven of Afro-Brazilian everything. In Salvador, I attended a beer-filled birthday bash, with more singing and some of the prettiest women in Brazil. I missed my bus out, and it couldn’t have turned out better– I got a ticket on a better bus at no cost, followed by better pizza than I ordered, followed by a free seat to sleep on.

Recife and art-packed Olinda. The woman of my dreams probably lives in Olinda, where every color-framed window reveals another artist’s workshop. My Portuguese is getting better, but I was so confused by the buses in Recife and so inept at understanding the answers people gave that it took a bus-full of people to help me out. But Brazil is filled with such good-will.

And Belém, where I’m going to stay a while. Belém is about a degree south of the equator, on the mouth of the colossal Amazon River. It’s beautiful, busy, filled with fairs, and has an artsy underscene. Within day of posting about rooms for rent on the Belem couchsurfing group, I had a pile of new friends; a room almost secured with an gregarious, entrepreneurial pothead; and lunch, beach, exploring, and shopping plans. Now I’m staying in the lavish apartment of a fun, kind, and hot lawyer/traveler, a block from ground-zero of Belém’s biggest festival.

I sort of bused myself into a corner, with the south of Brazil still unseen. But I figure I can get a plane ticket in about a month from top to bottom and go from there.

All told, the past two weeks involved over 100 hours of long-distance busing, spending time in 4 hostels and 9 individuals’ houses, and uncountable new foods and musics. And I don’t have pictures from any of it. My camera has been without power since Boston, and I left my charger in the “moving bag” I have stashed away in Sao Paulo.

Can you help fill-in my photo gap? Do you have pictures from the past few weeks of Boston? I want to see my friends, and how you’re all getting along! And I haven’t read a word of LJ recently, but I’m crawling back out of my hole.

I’m in Brazil! I forgot how incredible it is to be on this continent. Different manners, different trees, different ways people clump together outside their juice bars.

My last days in Boston were a *wild* ride. If anyone could have convinced me that I had so much stuff, I would have started packing a lot earlier. But I’m now the proud owner of a 10x5x8 storage space, filled to bursting; my turtle has a new home; and U-Haul is a little richer.

The Brazilians have a word saudade, which is central to the Brazilian soul, and has no English translation. Saudade is the feeling when someone is away, lost, or unattainable, or when a event you tried to hold on to has slipped into the past, but mixed with the longing and melancholy is a kind of happiness and cherishing, because when you feel saudade, the people and moments are with you in memory.

It is with saudade that I write now. You’ve all had a huge impact on my life, and I’m carrying you all with me. Thank you– I hope to hear about your own adventures, and that our paths cross again. I know its not as good as getting a personal note, but I need to say it.

I’m going into radio silence now for a week or so. My last blogging projects were for the internet masses from the beginning, so this time I’m going to spend a while just writing for myself. But if you want to know how it’s going, just send me an email.