Monthly Archives: July 2018

AtW #80: Alison Price

Picture of Katie, Alison Price and Dan.

Katie and me with Alison Price.

Katie and I met Alison Price many years ago at the Twin Ports invasion, dubbed “The World's Coldest Couchsurfing Invasion”, a claim that I do no dispute. Alison is an amazing artist based in Minneapolis.

And now, here's our podcast:

Download this Episode (right-click and choose “save as”)


  • I talk about Couchsurfing often on this podcast, and this episode is no different. Couchsurfing is one of my favorite ways to connect with locals while I'm traveling, and it's also fun to host people in my home.
  • Katie and I talked about cycle touring in Japan on two separate podcasts, #64 and #66.
  • Emmy Lou the shar pei has her own Instagram account, EmmyLouPei.
  • There were mammoths in North America at the time the pyramids were built in Egypt. This article verifies this claim, and much more. Though #3 is no longer true.
  • Along the same lines, the blog Wait But Why did a great take on “horizontal history.”
  • Humans have spent several decades thinking about how to label nuclear waste so future civilizations will know to avoid it. The labels will have to stand the test of time: plutonium-239 will remain dangerous for around 240,000 years. For comparison, homo sapiens began to evolve around 200,000 years ago (according to the article).
  • NASA has a handy guide on how to read the Golden Record, aboard Voyager.
  • Here's how to find NEMAA.

During the podcast, I mentioned that I had checked out an abandoned school in New Orleans. It was frozen in time after hurricane Katrina struck. Here are some photos from that memorable experience:

Picture of abandoned school in New Orleans. Picture of peace sign in abandoned school. Picture of lockers. Picture of newspaper in abandoned school in New Orleans.

We found this newspaper in the principal's office, predicting that Katrina would hit the Florida panhandle instead of New Orleans.

Cycle Touring and Digital Nomadism with Ryan Sinn

Cycle touring: Picture of Ryan Sinn and his bicycle.

Ryan is ready to go cycle touring.

My guest today is Ryan Sinn. He's a digital nomad who's into travel and cycle touring, and he has a unique and interesting worldview. I had a great time chatting with him, and I hope you'll enjoy our conversation.

Information about Ryan's cycle touring can be found at ShareThisRoad.com.

Ryan also maintains RyanSinn.com, which contains a blog with technical information.

And now for today's podcast:

Download this Episode (right-click and choose “save as”)


Show Notes:

  • Ryan and I discussed the hospitality websites Warm Showers and Couch Surfing. I've never used the former, but the latter is a big part of my life.
  • Another website Ryan mentioned was Physical Address, which allows you to manage your mail from anywhere in the world.
  • You can bring your bicycle onto an Amtrak train. The company has an article with more details. The cost depends on the train and the type of bike you'd like to take aboard.
  • Due to the requirement for extensive human labor, grass lawns were originally the playgrounds of the wealthy, as you can read about here.
  • Ryan mentioned the book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs.
  • A few years back, our mutual friend Joe Waltz built an intentional community called Dreamland in south Minneapolis, but he was forced to disband the community by the local government because more than three unrelated adults were living together. This is an older article, but it still begs the question: Is it really the government's job to tell you who you're allowed to live with? How can you possibly claim to live in the “Land of the Free” when laws like this still exist in municipalities throughout the country?
  • The Laurentian Divide is where the direction of water flow from eastern and southern Canada is divided with that of the northern Midwestern United States.
  • We talked briefly about the bizarre technical glitch that resulted in the unleashing of angry mobs upon a poor farmer's house in Nebraska. Here's the full story.
  • Speaking of special geographical markers, one of the planet's four exact center points of latitude and longitude lies in Poniatowski, Wisconsin. There is a marker in the ground, and in nearby Wausau you can even get a coin to commemorate your visit.