Category Archives: travel

Pretextos Para Llevar…

While in Guerrero, Mexico a few months ago (October 2014), it was hot and we drank a lot of beer.  Mostly Victoria (I prefer it to Corona). At the time they were running a marketing campaign called ‘Pretextos para Llevar’ which means something like ‘Excuses To Go’.  Under each bottle cap was a  saying which was a sort of ‘excuse’ for something, I am not sure what.

I must say I did not fully understand the jokes, some were obvious, but others not so much.  Regardless, it was kind of a fun way to learn some more colloquial Spanish from Mexico, the kind of stuff you don’t learn in classes… I think the fact that I was raised 90% in English and learned most of my jokes/sayings/colloquialisms from Puerto-Rican culture has hindered my ability to get these sayings, but then again maybe they are just stupid!

I took some pictures of the bottle caps and they are below.  Tell me which one is your favorite and why?

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Appearance on National Geographic TV

In March, 2013 I traveled to Banda Aceh, Sumatra to film a segment for a National Geographic Television documentary entitled ‘Top Ten Natural Disasters’. The segment I was featured in focused on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. This was the first time I had been back to Banda Aceh since  immediately after the tsunami in 2004 and on a follow up survey in early 2005. I first posted about this trip in an earlier news item.

Well the program finally aired in the USA and I was able to get a copy of my segment.  I have cut my parts together in to a 4 minute segment below.  It is also accessible through the links on my media page. Working on this program was a great experience, it was produced by Pioneer Productions from the UK, a company that specializes in high end science and educational television. A lot of what you see on Discovery or National Geographic is produced by the folks at Pioneer. The show was directed by Jeremy Turner who is also very experienced in these sorts of productions. We shot a lot more than what ended up in the final cut (of course!!), but nevertheless, I am very happy with what they ultimately produced.

 

 

Arica, Chile

Last month (October 2013) I visited Arica, Chile to teach a course on sustainable coastal management for the city of Arica.  My host was Renato Aguirre and I had an excellent time.  It was a great experience in a beautiful place and something I will never forget!

I have a collection of images that i put in to a simple web page, you can see them here.