Photo by Carolyn Coles

Bye-bye, 2009. Isn’t there something refreshing and relieving about seeing those numbers change on a calendar? Even if you’re in the middle of a mental meltdown, the new year promises a clean slate. A fresh start. New beginnings.

We asked some Matadorians for their 2010 resolutions. The overall theme? Dream big and aim high!

Michelle Schusterman wants to (finally) live comfortably off her writing and music in a way that gives her the freedom to travel.

Carlo Alcos is about to embark on the journey of a lifetime with his wife, and will be spending most of his time on the road. He writes:

I think we’ll be trying our best to put into practice some lessons we’ve learned from past travels, like going with the flow more and trying not to get angry at things (like overcharging). We will attempt to let things roll of our backs more and just behave in a more relaxed manner.

Photo by ahisgett

He’s also participating in a little project called No Complaints Mate, with the goal of going 21 straight days without a single complaint.

And, of course, Carlo wants to progress with his writing.

Christine Garvin would like to welcome in the new year by resolving to keep her heart open as much as possible, being more efficient in just about everything, and making more money.

JoAnna Haugen’s big plan? Learning how to speak Spanish!

Hal Amen is putting down roots and becoming a home-owner: him and his wife would like to own a house before 2011.

Mike Lynch wants to limit the focus on his writing and dedicate more time to his one and only true love, his camera.

Adam Roy will attempt to live without any fear whatsoever.

Matt Scott will spend less time reading about traveling and more time actually traveling.

Andy Hayes’ resolution is simple: travel more, pack less, travel slower, enjoy more.

Lola Akinmade has resolved to live each day with continued gratitude and contentment.

Last but not least, Daniel Nahabedian wants to improve the world by spreading a smile everywhere he goes, raising global warming in the hearts of people instead of the climate, and traveling the world as much as possible to learn from different cultures. He also hopes to become a travel blogger and to start earning a living with his photography.

But his most poignant aspiration? “Just love.”

As for me, I resolve not to make any resolutions. I’m holding onto 2009 for dear life, because it was an amazing year and I’m not sure 2010 can top it. Thank you, fellow Matadorians, for being the loving support group to my Internet life. Best wishes for 2010!

Community Connection

What is your New Year resolution?

Photo by comedy_nose

One evening, while flicking through television channels with eyes glazed and brain only partially functioning, my ears perked up when I came across an interview with Franke James.

Franke, an artist, photographer and writer whose mission is to do something green and document it, runs a blog out of Toronto using visual essays to portray her art. In the interview, she talks about how she received a random email one day from a stranger with a bold idea.

The premise

The original email is highlighted in her account of the event, a gorgeous visual essay complete with colorful graphics and photographs of the participants. The stranger turned out to be a man named Mark Shouldice who had stumbled upon her blog and was impressed with her work. He proposed to Franke that if she prepared a full meal for him and a guest, he would donate $200 to a charity of her choice.

The table is set

Naturally, Franke was skeptical. But just two hours after replying to Mark’s email, a donation had been made to the Yonge Street Mission’s Christmas dinner and a vegetarian dinner with a stranger had been arranged.

Of course, it also helped to Google his name and to pick up small pieces of information.

Photo by AMagill

The outcome

In an interview, Franke says things were not the least bit awkward between her, Mark and his guest, Hilary. Throughout the course of the evening, Franke learned about Mark’s teaching career, his art school project, and his documentary film nights, as well as Hilary’s career as a nurse and her time working in Rwanda on an AIDS/HIV project.

The whole idea got me thinking. If this project could work in such a major city like Toronto, how well would it work in other smaller cities? How amazing would it be to meet somebody new on a whim, whether you’re the donor or the host? This might be one case where talking to strangers is a fantastic idea.

As Franke says on her blog, she had started out having dinner with two strangers, but by the end of the evening, she was dining with two friends. As a result, 77 homeless people were fed from Mark’s generous donation.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

If you could dine with any stranger, who would it be? Why?

1. Built by Gabriel Amadeus, a Portland-area designer extraordinaire and fun-enthusiast. When not riding bikes or organizing bike events you can find him building and welding every sort of bike imaginable. And some that aren’t.
Photographer: ichad

2. “This is Sailor Neale, with another of his crazy creations. This particular bike is jointed in the middle, just behind the handlebars. It folds fully in half if you don’t pay attention. You steer by using your hips to swivel the central joint, and then using the handlebars to simultaneously steer the front wheel.”
Photographer: doviende

3. The Reverse Cowgirl, built by Mark Veno. “It was displayed at PDX Airport when they had the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Exhibit. I was the only non-professional builder exhibiting.”

4. “West Coast Chopper”
Photographer: tinou bao

5. The Ross Island Explorer, a fully amphibious human-powered tallbike-paddleboat.
Photographer: megulon5, member of C.H.U.N.K.

6. Burrito-recumbent, complete with suspension and sound system / Builder: Doc
Photographer: Mark Veno

7. For when you really don’t want to worry about getting a flat.
Photographer: RJL20

8. “A rock n’ roll/punk kid rode this to the Coffee Bean in Playa Vista the other day. Love that it has an old-fashioned horn on the handlebars.”
Photographer: pink_fish13

9. Good for carting around…whatever. / Builder: Chris Martin
Photographer: Mark Veno

10. Alan Sikiric’s Mutandem: “Only from the fields of muck and hazardous grime known as the Jerz could something so horrifying arise!”

11. The very definition of an art bike.
Photographer: anarchosyn

12. One of the craziest tall bikes out there, and pannier-ready to boot!
Photographer: doviende

13. A burrito built by Mark Veno: “When I moved to Portland I was inspired by the existing bike culture and built my first tallbike. I try to make my freakbikes as usable as “real” bikes. Soon I’ll be moving to San Diego to spread the freakbike love to SoCal.”

14. “No idea about who this is riding the chopper, just happened to snap it on Wells Street. I think he is part of the Chicago Critical Mass group.”
Photographer: swanksalot

15. Not quite training wheels…
Photographer: BruceTurner

16. Five bucks to anyone who can categorize this bike, being paraded by a member of Rat Patrol.
Photographer: JOE M500

17. When two wheels just aren’t enough, you need the Six Wheelie.
Photographer: bilbord99

18. There are choppers, and then there are these.
Photographer: tandemracer

19. Not exactly a freak bike, but there is something freaky about these kids and their penny farthings.
Photographer: Mild Mannered Photographer

20. Tank! / Builder: Sailor Neale of the East Vancouver PedalPlay metal studio.
Photographer: Foxtongue

Community Connection

Matador has published some of the best bike-related content on the web, covering topics such as The World’s 15 Most Bike Friendly Cities, 6 Reasons to Go By Bike, How to Be Good (Better) Drivers and Cyclists, and How to Choose a Touring Bicycle.

Many members of the Matador community are bike freaks themselves, including one of our newest arrivals, Doubleclutch. Browse the community profiles to discover more folks fired up on bicycles.

Photo by quiplash Feature photo by laughing squid

Released in 2008 , When Technology Fails has quickly become the definitive guide to surviving a long-term disaster.

And yet the author, Matthew Stein , a mechanical engineer and MIT grad, had no intention of ever writing such a handbook. The idea came to him in a vision, presented in the form of “a pictorial storyboard outline, from start to finish.” He would spend the next two years researching the earth’s most prominent threats, as well as ways to combat them.

Cover of When Technology Fails

You’ve said that this book originally came about because of a voice you heard while meditating?

I’ve had a practice of daily prayer and meditation. I’ve often used the prayer for help in seeking solutions for difficult engineering problems.

When I would get answers to these problems, pictures would snap into my head with solutions. In 1997 I made a generic request for inspiration and I got this bomb dropped into my lap.

My first thought was no way. I can’t possibly do this. But the little voice basically said that nobody knows all of this stuff. It assured me that I had the skills and talent, and that I would get the help that I needed to take this project to completion.

You probably learned much more than you wanted to know about the way the world was going.

Yes. The internal voice said that I had to focus on The Future Of the World chapter, and that these trends will all end in collapse of the natural systems on this planet, if we do not start doing things differently. If we continue with business as usual most of the people on the planet will die. But it can be shifted and changed.

The average American really doesn’t think that an event could have an impact on their life beyond one week. How wrong are they?

They’re totally wrong. History has shown huge events that have been civilization-busters, that have caused massive unrest. The thing is that America is soft because we haven’t had a war on our land since the Civil War. We’ve gotten used to everything working very well in our country. When things collapse here, we’ve got a lot further to fall.

Hopefully it won’t happen. Given the ecological trends, the chances are really high that we’re going to see some huge disruption in central services for a month, six months, a year. I’m hoping that all of the right things happen in this new government and that we make the shift to sustainability.

I’m hopeful that we can avoid out-and-out collapse. But if we don’t do the right things, in my mind, it’s a guaranteed recipe for collapse.

What happens to us after day five of a major emergency, when systems start breaking down and when water starts becoming a huge commodity?

Most of us can last at least a month without food. Without water, in a hot climate, in three days people are going to start dying. If the water stops flowing, then you’re going to be drinking out of the local ditch, if that’s all that is around.

If you’re prepared, you’ve got your little grab and run kit with a backcountry filter that removes bacteria and viruses from the water. If you’re really prepared you’ve also got a Steripen and fifteen seconds later it’s been zapped free of viruses.

The Four Horsemen Wikipedia.org

With all of our advanced medical science, why do you believe that the possibility of a severe pandemic is so large?

One reason is that some genius figured out that if we fed sub-clinical doses of antibiotics to our farm animals, the return on your investment would be better.

The animals grow fatter, quicker and got sick less often. By feeding these antibiotics to animals daily, we’re developing antibiotic resistant bugs within the farm animals.

The other thing is simply the over-use of antibiotics in this country. Bacteria are able to develop resistance to antibiotics at a faster rate than we’re able to develop antibiotics.

But how real of a threat is a pandemic?

This is a real, viable threat. It’s not just a pandemic. You can be one of the unlucky ones who picks up an antibiotic resistant bug, like Miss Brazil just did. They cut her hands and feet off trying to save her life and she died anyway.

If you’re not armed with some of the alternatives and if you believe that western medicine is the Only Way, then when one of these bugs hits you, you’re going to end up like Miss Brazil. This is where having a variety of super-viral resistant things on hand is so important.

Things like oregano oil, colloidal silver, olive leaf extract or having a blood electrifier. I believe in the shotgun effect – there’s no one right answer there but arming yourself with these alternatives is really important.

Photo by andronicusmax

Consult Mat’s website for his advice on what to include in a 72 Hour Survival Kit.

The following are his absolute musts for travelers:

• Colloidal Silver. “Kills all known pathonagenic material.”
• Grapefruit Seed Extract. “A broadband anti-bacterial and fungal material.”
• Tea Tree Oil “Can penetrate the skin to reach infections/Great for knuckles and toes.”
• Army Knife
• A Steripen
• Headlamp
• Small First Aid Kit
• 1” Cloth Medical Tape/ Stretchy Ace Bandage/Sewing Kit

“Hi Samantha how are you!” My voice cracks just a little and I speak entirely too quickly. As an avid Travel Channel viewer, I have been a Samantha Brown fan since I discovered her show one rainy day in Taiwan over three years ago.

Every season, Brown takes us vicariously all around the world with programs like Passport to Europe and Great Hotels. Through the lens, she introduces people from diverse backgrounds and captures breathtaking scenes.

Viewers can’t help but be drawn to the natural warmth of Brown’s personality. She seems so down to earth that you almost feel like you’ve met her before, standing in line at the local grocer’s or sitting down at a neighborhood dinner party.

And yet, spending over 200 days traveling each year, Brown can rarely be found in her home in Brooklyn.

“I honestly never thought this would be my job,” Brown said. “I grew up in New Hampshire and came from of background thinking other people got to travel, not me. I didn’t think I had that much to bring to the table.”

In university, Brown studied musical theater and after graduation found her passion in improvisation and sketch comedy. Up until her agent informed her of the Travel Channel audition, Brown had no interest in travel or travel hosting. Unbeknown to her at the time, her theatrical skills that would help her land the job of a lifetime.

“Because we are unscripted, [travel hosts] have to roll with the punches and talk about destinations while somehow forwarding the plot,” Brown explains. “We have to juggle spontaneity with purpose.”

Landing the Gig

Spontaneity and purpose were exactly what drove Brown to stand in front of a commercial airliner poised for take-off in order to make her audition with the Travel Channel. Having missed the plane for her first audition, Brown was given one last chance at a live audition to impress casting directors who were unmoved by her demo reel.

Running late that day, Brown missed final boarding, but doggedly sprinted out onto the tarmac and begged her way onto the plane.

“I was standing at the nose of the plane shouting ‘Please!’,” Brown recalls with laughter. “I wonder about that pilot today [who] saw a little girl standing in front of his plane waving her arms and crying. The moment they let me on [the plane], I knew I had the job.”

Now, 10 years later, it’s hard to imagine anyone but the affable Brown leading us across boundary lines on our televisions. But travel programs were strikingly different during Brown’s audition and it took not only her brave determination, but classic good timing for her to land the hosting job.

“I was lucky that Travel Channel wanted a change,” Brown admits. “Back then, travel hosts were poised, perfect people, like Stepford wives, and I thought ‘I’m nothing like that!’ Now, you see a diversity of hosts, but back then it was a pretty boring pot of soup to be in.”

Becoming a Travel Host Today

With the advantages of today’s new media and web 2.0 technologies, aspiring travel hosts don’t necessarily need agents or the cajones to stand in front of airplanes to grab network attention. For those who are interested in travel hosting, Brown recommends taking full advantage of the omnipresent internet and building a fan base from there.

“I think people have a lot more going for them than I did 10 years ago,” Brown said. “[Use] YouTube, Facebook, any of those programs to get your name out there. If you develop your own steady fan base and bring it to the Travel Channel or any other network, you can grassroots your own career. You just have to show your point of view is different and compelling.”

It’s encouraging advice, but Brown warns that the naive that travel hosting is not simply a vacation with the camera crew. Travel hosts are on their feet around 10 hours a day, shooting and re-shooting takes, dealing with hecklers that inevitably follow, and overcoming technological snags along the way.

“We were just in Key West filming aerobatics,” Brown said. “I get nauseous pretty easily and was glad when we finally [landed], but we found out none of it was caught on tape so we had to go up and do it all over again. Through the years, I’ve learned that you definitely have to roll with the punches.”

A Life on Camera

In addition to juggling complications at work, Brown struggles to not let her personal life get overwhelmed by her career, not an easy feat for someone who spends most of the year away from home. This past year has been especially trying since Brown spent 240 days traveling, 20 days over her annual average.

Recently married, Brown is determined to make her personal life the focus of 2009.

“It’s tough, very tough,” Brown admits. “My life is literally on camera. When I go home, I’m just catching up with bills, but this year my big project is my personal life.”

Don’t get her wrong, though, Brown absolutely loves her job. It has taught her not only gratitude in her everyday life, but also the immense importance of communication.

“My life has completely changed [due to my job],” Brown said. “When I started, I thought travel meant checking things off a list. But I’ve learned that it’s all about connecting with people, looking at their everyday life. It’s about unlocking that and celebrating the small everyday moments; that’s my passion.”

For more information on Samantha Brown, including her taping schedule, you can visit her page on the Travel Channel website.

Primal housemate Quinner, later at Point North. Another day in the office.

Editor’s Note:Please read part 1 of the story here.

Dec. 15, 1997 – Fly Fishing for Great Whites

Tal Fletcher bounced around in the back of a van with twelve other guys all wearing black gear, camouflage, and face paint.

“I looked around at the crew,” he says. “Jimbo was there, M.C., Miles D., Gambler, Dano, Senior, and Quinner, among others, and I wondered who in hell I was to be with them.”

It was Jimbo’s birthday, as well as the night that Joe Montana’s jersey was being retired in San Francisco. In classic Primal strategy, the crew figured most of the attention—police and otherwise—would be on Candlestick park. It was the ideal night for bungee jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Gambler at Auburn

The van dropped them off. They approached the bridge in the dark from the Marin side, then flung a rope up over a girder. Miles Daisher, with monkey-like gymnastic ability, ascended the rope then set up a rope ladder beneath the bridge for the rest to climb. As cars passed by 10 feet overhead, the group dropped into the understructure of the bridge, moving south toward San Francisco.

Some parts had catwalks for maintenance crews, but to get where they needed to go, the group had to cross several sections of thin I-beams with nothing below them but a 230-foot drop off into the Pacific Ocean. They moved slowly—most sitting down and inching along—except for Dano, who cruised around on the beams as if on a sidewalk.

To reach the center of the bridge, they had to climb ladders, slide down poles, and in some sections, climb hand over hand. At one point, their eyes were at tire-level. They peeped out across the road, ducking back down as cars passed by at 50 mph. In another place they encountered a video camera, and had to maneuver around it so as not to be seen.

The group made it out between the two towers, close to the center of the bridge, and set up for the jump. They called it “Fly-Fishing for Great Whites,” because the goal was to jump just far enough to get wet—a quick head-dunk in the Bay before getting snapped skyward on the bungee.

MC with bungee cords

When it was his turn to jump, Tal took a deep breath, then launched off the bridge. There were several seconds of wind and speed, the lights of San Francisco blurring into the darkness of the oncoming water. Then, six feet above the surface, he rocketed back, rebounding several times, gradually coming to a rest, dangling halfway between the bridge and the ocean.

The group lowered a static line through a pulley with a carabiner on the end. Tal clipped in, and the rest of the crew pulled him up, walking backwards on the catwalk tug-of-war style.

The others took their jumps, with M.C—who always used a bullet-like form—going the deepest, touching the water. There were a lot of high fives afterwards, and then the group went back to celebrate, drinking beers and watching videos of the jump that several people had shot via helmet cams.

“I wasn’t sure if it was ‘the ultimate,’” Tal says. “But if it wasn’t, then I don’t know what is.”

Photos courtesy of Tal Fletcher.