another one...

come an' gone. Happy New Year. Hope you're all having the laziest of days. Let's just resolve to take more time to ourselves, whether in solitude or with loved ones. Life is too short to waste on meaningless quibbles; it cuts into our happy time.

nothing exciting last night. not even a champagne toast. we went out for dinner...without any reservations. of course, that means either waiting obscene times or settling for anything.

we did the latter. luckily, it wasn't 'just settling'...we were pleasantly surprised.

initially, we drove by a red lobster and olive garden. neither had a wait less than 55 minutes. so...we ended up at a little place called Applecreek (on Iliff and Havana). i think it used to be a Coco's or sumpin'. we had passed by it a few times, wondering how the food was.

pretty darn good. now, the offerings were diner-like, but with no wait...excellent service...and a pretty decent T-bone, we were outta there in an hour. about the time it would have taken to get a table somewhere else.

didn't go join the 180,000 people downtown. we did that once...froze our butts off...watched substandard fireworks...and almost walked into a pile of human poop as we shuffled our way back to the car. yeah, something i'd do againandagain.

nope. we went home and popped in a travel tape from the library. as you know, we had some documentaries that were made in the late 80's - 'The Burma Road' and 'The Pan-American Highway.' neither could have been more different in both locale and presentation.

these travelogues are two episodes of an 8-part british produced series for american public television in the 80's, called 'Great Journeys. each was narrated by a 'well-known' writer/poet/journalist.

well, the burma road was awesome. it chronicled the adventure of British journalist/broadcaster, Miles Kington, who traversed the 700 mile long corridor between Lashio, Burma and Kunming, China. the Road was hacked out by 200,000 chinese workers (some as young as five years old) between 1938 and 1939. it was originally used to supply China during the Sino-Japanese War and the first couple years of WWII. after the Japanese overran parts of it in early '42, the road was closed and supplies were flown over the Himalayas, which became to be known as 'The Hump,' for the remainder of the war.

this episode was made in 1987, before the Burmese military put the clamps on the people, ending basic freedoms of speech, and enforcing martial law. it was a much carefree time for the Burmese people and it shows.

Kington, was a phenomenal narrator. sure, he didn't speak the language well...and the travel conditions were rustic, even by third world standards, but he took everything in stride and interacted with many of the people he came into contact. he was the perfect traveler in every sense...or at least what they had on film ;)

the tape on the Pan-American Highway was almost a polar opposite. it was poorly narrated and condescendingly presented by some poet, Hugo Williams. having traveled much of the Pan-American Highway myself (in mexico, guatemala, costa rica, bolivia, and peru), i was offended in the way he made the route to be...a long sinuous path of filth, poverty, and shallow oddities. it was merely about his idiocy (without any self-deprecation) in traveling through lands in which he barely tried to speak the language, did very little research of each respective country, and catered to his sheer survival in a wild and dangerous place. BARF

at one point, we were appalled with one segment of him, talking to the herpetologist at the San Salvador Zoo. it wasn't the five minute conversation about snakes and politics that bothered us though. no...we were pissed that he chose a British ex-pat who had a skewed view of the politics. it just seemed less genuine and more self serving that he hadn't sought out an El Salvadoran.

i know it's rather subjective - the guy's point of view regarding the trip. i just feel the whole presentation did no justice whatsoever to the culture, history, and geography of Central America. when he could have showed and commented on the volcanic topography, tropical regions and occasional vast stretches of desolate land along this highway that crosses through 15 countries and gobs of diversity. we were disgusted by this video debacle to say the least...

ah well. it's not like we paid $8 to see it at the theaters. but hey, it gave me something to blog about, since the majority of my postings have been nothing short of innocuous.

we're off to lunch, a cheapie, and shopping now...maybe even in that order. have a great day!