How 'bout this then?

Yay for comments on my last-but-one post!
I just had the thought that maybe "101 Places to Go with a Purple Pashmina" might be even better.
But I'm pretty sure I won't get around to doing anything until I've finished work here in about 3 weeks. Or after the travelling I'll be doing for the two (or more) weeks after that.
You can tell it's slightly quieter here already, though, as I have time to write this. Not much time though... And I should begin to spend any free time I have (ha) on planning the aforementioned travelling. We don't have flights or anything yet - just a vague plan about Ukraine and Istanbul. Sean? Are you doing anything about this? As a mere lowly teacher you must have more time than someone as important as moi...
Better get back to work...

Memoirs

I mentioned my "101 things to do with a purple pashmina" list to one of my teachers the other night, and he said "That sounds like the title of a book". Which made me think that maybe it should be. Perhaps if I ever write my memoirs, that should be the name. I think it says something about my lifestyle - everything I own must be multi-purpose so that I don't have to carry much and I make do with the things I have rather than owning more - and my purple pashmina has been with me since my first teaching job in China in 2002, which was the beginning of my current way of life. Also it doesn't come up at all on a google search, which means no one has used it yet, which is nice.
Maybe I should start by changing the name of this blog. I've been looking for a new name for a while. What do you think?

More published pics

A friend of mine writes a local Montreal blog called nouveau*queer, and has played with a bunch of my photos to make lovely collages to illustrate her latest blog post. It's also a lot more info about the film screening I went to after the Choeur Maha concert a few weeks ago. The post is here.

Statcounter Stats

So I just clicked on my Statcounter link for the first time in months, and discovered that my numbers have gone up in the last few months. While a lot of my hits seem to be dedicated readers (Hi Mum!), I also have a lot of people wandering in either from google searches, or from this Digihitch website, where I seem to have got myself listed as an interesting sort of blog. It's a pity it's not really relevant now that The Beast has bitten the dust (I miss my Beastie!) and I'm a leading a slightly more sedentary life for a few months. I'm still toying with the idea of buying another van when it gets warmer and spending another month or so travelling north and west. I was very happy living in my Beast-of-a-Van. And, of course, I've made it most of the way across canada - it would be nice to make it to New Brunswick or even Nova Scotia and be able to say I went coast to coast. And after that there's all that wonderful nothingness of northern Canada to explore...
But that's months off yet, or possibly years. I do have to stop travelling sometimes. And I have to earn money sometimes. And if I never did anything but travel, this blog would be entirely inappropriately named.
And just for those people who have come from the digihitch site and are looking for the living-in-a-campervan stories, start here - a few entries down the page - and work your way through the archives! Or try the 'campervan' label.

Blog Work

So I finally succumbed and transferred this blog to the new blogger template system thingy. I've been resisting because I knew I'd lose a lot of my personalising - everything I had spent hours html-ing for.
But I've been really wanting a 3rd column for a while, and all the how-to's I could find online dealt with New Blogger, and there were various things that suggested it was hard to add another column to blogger classic. So after spending an hour or two trying to avoid it, I gave in.
And then I spent another hour or so browsing templates, figuring that if I have to redo everything, I could change the whole look. But everything I found would have just got in the way of my own personal style. So 'minima' it is.
And now I've just spent yet another hour adding my old link lists and widgets to my sidebars. And fiddling to try to get the colours more or less the same as before. With maybe a few changes. Let me know what you think: I've added a poll - one of the things that is now much easier in New Blogger. I've also improved the 'Recent Comments' widget, thanks to this guy, and added the labels links on the left, which will actually make me use them properly. Over then next few weeks (months) I'll tidy the labels I've already got. I've found lots of other interesting things to add at some point too, but not tonight.

At least it's kept me occupied while waiting for the polls to close in Aus, and Roy & HG to turn up on triple J. I'm glad I've got a decent net connection tonight!

And here's something else I found in my blog-tip-surfing today. I've been meaning to add my NYC pics, so here they are - all of them - in an Even Better Slideshow than before.

1000 visitors

I was just my own 1000th visitor to this blog. I rarely look at the stat counter, but the round figure in the sidebar caught my eye just now. And, then, as I went away and then came back to the blog, I was my own 1001th visitor as well. Yes, that is pronounced "one thousand and oneth", in case you're wondering.

What a little net time can do...

I've started a flickr account. Finally. I've been meaning to for a while. You can see all the pics I've uploaded so far (Vancouver, UK, Singapore etc) here. I'll add a link to the sidebar too so you can always find it. If I'm really clever, I might also be able to add a slideshow of recent pics to the sidebar, but not today, I'm afraid. For now, I offer an embedded slideshow, instead. Which, when I think about it, would go quite well in the sidebar anyway. But I want one that automatically shows recently added pics, while this one is just the vancouver ones, at the moment. I'll sort it all out soon. Pretty though, isn't it!




You might also notice I've added Nathaniel's new blog, psychopompous, to the sidebar as well. He has promised to be extremely irregular in his updates, but it's nice to see him finally join the blogosphere.
I've also added a link to the Lines 07 blog I created for the UK summer school I just did. It's got a lot of useful 'how-to' pages on it, if you want to know how to do things with blogger or other programs we used. All written out in easy step-step guides designed for teenagers who aren't entirely fluent in English.
And in other news, I think I've found my campervan. I'll get it inspected tomorrow, just to check it's not going to be a complete lemon, and then hand over the cash and deal with the paperwork. And then leave. Possibly tomorrow afternoon. Heading south. In a car the same age as me. With a working fridge, stove, sink and TWO double beds. Just in case I want to have a slumber party...

My Brother's Blog

Rhys is in Europe, and has started a travelpost blog. (I should start getting commission from those guys for introducing new people) I'll add it to my sidebar here soon. Until then, if you want a running update of Europe's beer prices, click here.

Blog Personality

Your Blogging Type is Logical and Principled

You like to voice your well thought out opinions on your blog. And if someone doesn't read what you write, you really don't care! Serious and blunt, sometimes people take your blog the wrong way. But you're a true and loyal friend to those who truly get you.

What's Your Blogging Personality?

How on earth they decided all that on the strength of 4 questions, I have no idea!

I blog, therefore I am.

"Si vous ne bloguez pas, vous n'existez pas. Je crois qu'aujourd'hui l'identité en ligne est plus importante que la vie réelle."
(stolen from Loic Le Meur via Maitresse)

If you're nobody til you're a blogger, does that make me three somebodies?

EDIT: Just realised I should translate that: "If you don't blog, you don't exist. I think that today, online identity is more important than real life."

I'm Googleable!

I've just been browsing my statcounter (yes! I know Who is reading my blog When and from Where!) and have discovered that TWO people lately have found my blog through google! Try searching for "driving map sagamihara city hakone". I'm near the top on the first page! (no idea why, but the "driving" is important. Have I *ever* talked about driving here?) AND, if you search for "sagamihara hakone map" my travel blog is the first hit! At least, it's the sub-hit of the first hit! (click the link to see what I mean).
The other search terms that put me on the first page is "arabian rock shinjuku".
Why, I feel almost famous.

EDIT: and now, of course, I am *the* top of the list for these search terms. If anyone is actually looking for these things for real, I bet it pisses them off! (Sorry if that's how you arrived here!)

Change of Address!

Look a little different? Well, not much different, but this is definitely the best template design!
I have finally moved my Serious Blog to www.katsseriousblog.blogspot.com which leaves this website free for an actualy non-travel blog. Although I love my travel blog and its functions for travelling (like the maps!) its lack of html and other things just irritates me too often, so I've finally created this blog for all those times when I'm not actively travelling, and just living somewhere.
Yes I realise I am developing a ridiculous number of blogs, but they are all for different purposes!