Yesterday was relatively low key, Christine had some errands to run and I was desperately crazing cheese and gross American foods so we split up. I wound up hanging out at Pizza Hut eating mediocre pizza and drinking unlimited free refills of Pepsi and Christine wound up meeting me there. Word of Saturday’s violence in Bangkok started to trickle in and people started to be a bit concerned. The prime minister was on TV issuing a statement but people’s opinions are mixed. The situation actually seems to get more tense by the day, both sides want something without a compromise, it would appear the only way it’s going to end is with further bloodshed. Thankfully in Nakhon Sawan it was of little local concern.

After pizza Christine took me out to the park on her motorcycle. We relaxed for a bit and she taught me how to drive it, I found it to be surprisingly simple and very fun. I’m definitely going to look into it further when I return to the states. After that we went and relaxed by the pond, we bought a bag of rice balls and fed the GIANT fish who live in the pond, watching and laughing as the jumped and splashed over each other for each piece.

After that we went to a small bar simply named “Cups” to meet her friends Jon and Tom. It was Jon’s last night in town for a while so we kicked back and had a few beers. A few locals that the group knew joined us and we discussed the political situation in more depth and the general consensus seemed to be that both sides of the argument have a ton of merit but are equally wrong in their actions. Unfortunately there isn’t a third active side, the average Thai citizen would rather just ignore it and live their lives. Jon and Christine pumped me for information about the recently passed American health care reform bill, they both are deeply concerned that they may be expected to purchase American health care while living abroad or face steep fines. I admitted that I honestly don’t know how it will affect them if at all.

After hearing about my first drive of a cycle Jon offered to let me try out his. While Christine has a cute little Honda Wave, Jon has something a little more akin to a Harley. Christine had a good laugh when Jon made me get off the cycle when I asked what a “clutch” was and he refused to let me try again. Apparently I’m a freak because I never learned to drive a manual transmission car. How was I to know?

Anyway from there we called it an early night so I could wake early in the morning for Bangkok to fly to Kuala Lumpur and then Tokyo.

We got up the next morning, I showered, packed up and Christine gave me directions to get back to Bangkok, what to say to Taxi drivers etc. News reports on BBC International seemed to convey even more tension in Bangkok, making me glad I was heading down to the city early for my 4pm flight.

We said our goodbyes and soon from there I caught a motorbike to a bus station, only problem… Wrong one. The language barrier soon became unsurmountable as I tried over and over to explain to my driver where we were supposed to go, eventually I was forced to give up and call for Christine’s assistance, she came and met me at the station as she also had to head south, we luckily found one bus that was going to hit both of our stops and caught it together. It was a 3 hour ride down to Rangsit and traffic was heavy, as we got closer to Bangkok you could see military road blocks where they were randomly pulling people out of cars for interrogation. Not a pleasant sight. Christine got out at Ahuttaya to pick up her Kindle which she had left in the hostel a few days before and I had another 30 min until I arrived at Rangsit. From there I caught a Taxi and head back to Bangkok airport completely avoiding the downtown area and boarding my flight out of the country.

I had a great stay in Thailand but now I’m on to my next adventure: 27 hours in Tokyo! Dear readers my agenda is pretty open. Ever been to Tokyo? Hit me up on Twitter and let me know what I should do.

Yet another full day.

After sleeping off the night before and waking up around 2 Christine and I head out yesterday and got a boat tour through the Ayutthaya river. The boat ride was excellent and it was a lot of fun to ride past people swimming in the river who then turned to wave at us. The boat made three stops, the first of which was to a Buddhist temple that houses the largest Buddha statue in Thailand. The thing was massive! There were also monks leading holy blessings and the whole thing kinda felt like a Buddhist version of an evangelist Church as a man walked around with a microphone and got people to shout in it, kinda bizarre, but the statue was pretty cool.

I’m not quite sure what the second stop was, there definitely were some monks wandering around as well as some interesting buildings and statues but I’m pretty sure I didn’t go to the spots I was supposed to. When I got back to the boat however everyone was there except Christine. I wandered around looking for her to no avail. Since I had no other way to find her I was forced to call her on my iPhone, for which did not purchase a calling plan for, so the call definitely cost around $6 for a grand total of 2 minutes… Awesome. After that I managed to somehow pocket dial Jenn at 4:30 am in her time zone which she was thrilled about and cost me at least another $6. Doubly awesome!

From there we went to our third stop, which seemed to be ruins of a Buddhist temple, however since everything was in Thai and no one spoke English I had no idea what exactly I was looking at, however I do feel like I’ve seen photos of this place before so once the pictures are online maybe someone can identify it.

After that we caught the bus to Nakhon Sawan where Christine has an apartment. We dropped off our stuff and grabbed her motor bike and then met two friends of hers for dinner, drinks and karaoke till 3:30 am. It was a pretty good time with laughs all around. Today is my last full day here, tomorrow I have to take a bus back to Bangkok and then a flight to Tokyo at 4pm. I’m really excited for Tokyo and I’ll be glad to get out of the sweltering heat but I’m definitely going to miss this place and Christine.

In a little bit we’re going to head out and she’s going to attempt to teach me to drive the motor bike and show me some of her favorite places around town. I’m hoping to make it an early night and a slower day so I’m rested for all the traveling tomorrow but we’ll see.

Cheers!

Yesterday we arrived in Ayutthaya and set up camp in a hostel called Tony’s Place. While there are some minor flaws (zero water pressure in the shower) this is hands down the coolest place I have ever stayed at while abroad. The whole front of the building is a giant deck / restaurant which is swarming with a mix of traveling folk and it’s directly across the street from Christine’s favorite bar, Chang House.

There is WiFi and decent food in the terrace as well as a tourist information desk, it very much blurs the line between hotel and hostel. Everyone here is super friendly and I’m typing this while eating a delicious BLT breakfast (I got a little tired of chicken and rice).

Our room has cable tv so we settled in and relaxed for a bit and flipped through stations before settling on MTV Africa (an odd thing to broadcast since Thailand is not in Africa). I haven’t watched MTV in years, in fact I’ve been pretty actively boycotting it since around 1997, so whenever I do catch it for a while I’m always blown away by what I see. 8 videos in a row and 7 of them (including Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus) clearly used and overused auto-tune. I’m sickened, is there any musical talent required anymore? Geez. Anyway this frightened me worse when I realized I was watching MTV Africa, not MTV US, these pop stars and the ads for Jersey Shore are representing America to a lot of people and they look up to it, that is really scary.

After that we went to Chang house and hung out with Christine’s friend Earth. Awesome guy, we split a bottle of “Blend” whiskey (Distilled by Red Bull, cheap and not half bad, considering) and attempted to overcome language barriers and had a good laugh doing so. From there we went to another bar where Earth’s band was playing and found some French guys and Christine’s coworker Dan from the UK. We had a really good time talking about cultural differences and I wound up telling the one gentleman from Paris my trick to getting a Parisian to speak English, he had a really good laugh and admitted he had no doubt it would work.

From there we went to a nightclub where there was a Thai rock band playing. I was exhausted but it was a lot of fun. It seems a lot of Thai rock is set on a reggae beat so it’s very, very similar to the ska punk I grew up with on Long Island which is very strange but very comforting. Eventually the band busted into a Thai Punk cover of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance which turned out to be surprisingly good.

Thai covers of American music are actually really huge over here in the touristy areas but they are quite amusing to those of us who natively speak English because most, not all, of the singers don’t understand the words to what they’re singing. The singers will butcher the lyrics but hit the notes, tones and timing near perfectly. It’s an amazing phenomenon and very entertaining nonetheless. From there it was time for bed, but as a whole the day turned out to be really enlightening and fun.

Today we’re catching a boat tour around the city and checking outcome old ruins, I can’t wait to take pictures and to share them with y’all. Cheers!

A few days ago Tim Jahn posed an interesting question on his blog.

In short Tim’s looking to discover why people work when they do, and do they draw lines between personal and business at certain hours?

I’m pretty sure I can relate to Tim on this question. Tim, like many others of our generation, leads more than one life, with two jobs (his web development business and his awesome video podcast Beyond The Pedway) and he’s about to be a father. With so much going on it can be hard to figure out where to draw the line… If anywhere. This is a question I’ve been posing to myself lately as well. I’m pretty damn busy these days – working for Apple, taking improv classes, working with Long Pork, blogging, assorted photo and video gigs and trying to stay active in the social networking scene of all these communities so I can live up to the “localcelebrity” moniker – it’s hard to keep it in control and to some degree my personal social life has taken a hit and let’s not even discuss my sleeping routine.

The thing is though, I’ve never been happier. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m doing the things I love, I’m “working”, being pretty successful at all of it and barely any of it feels like work. To me, there is no line, if you love what you’re doing, it won’t feel like a chore and you won’t need to take a break from it all that often.

I love what I’m doing. I love the people I’m meeting in these different communities, I love the skills I am learning and the things I’m creating. This to me is what life is about. Constant growth and enrichment. Yes there are some things I need to change and cut out, but I believe strongly that if I keep working at it and doing the things I love, not letting anything get in the way that it’ll all slowly fall into place.

I read once, not sure where, that Steve Jobs looks himself in the mirror every morning and asks if he wants to go to work, and the day he says no are the days he realizes he needs change something, and he does. That to me is me right mentality to have.

If you love what you do, there are no hours and you won’t mind.

But who am I to say that? I’m just some jerk blogging from a hostel in Thailand and “working” through the vacation of a lifetime.

(and I couldn’t be happier doing so).

We got up this morning, had breakfast and caught a motorbike taxi to the bus station. We were actually walking their ourselves when we stumbled onto an an old man who offered us a ride as we walked past his house. He was a funny little guy with a great big friendly smile so we couldn’t help but accept his offer.

As we walked up we saw his back was covered in a large tattoo written In the Thai alphabet, so while it was illegible to me it was very detailed and very beautiful. Christine informed me that she’d seen the same design before and that it was a spell of protection that the monks do. Sadly, I did not get a picture but the idea is fascinating to me.

Thailand is one of, if not the most, populous Buddhist countries in the world and it has greatly changed a lot of my outlook on Buddhist culture. I suspect and hope that I may be misinterpreting things but at first glance there seems to be a lot of materialism and superstition around it here, which was not at all what I had understood from the beliefs previously. I also, in general know very little about Thai Buddhism and how it varies from other forms, this is something I plant research further when I return to having a regular Internet connection.

I have noticed that meat is very popular over here but beef is almost nonexistent. This fascinates me because a spiritual buddhist is typically vegetarian so I’d suspect a lot less meat as a whole, but the no beef thing one would guess to be influenced by Hindu beliefs. One this is for sure, there is definitely a friendly, laid back culture of lovingkindness here, so that says something. I definitely need to read more before I go on talking about this as I’m sure to make myself sound ignorant to someone with a greater understanding and possibly offend someone.

We are headed now to Ayutthaya which used to be the capital of Thailand before Bangkok. We’ll be meeting up with some of Christine’s friends from her job over here (note: I forget if I mentioned this but Christine is over here teaching English as a foreign language). She tells me it’s among here favorite places here, I’m excited all around.

What a day.

We woke up this morning and had breakfast on the river before catching a ride to the elephant ranch. We sat in the back of a truck for the half hour ride through the countryside, the weather was beautiful, it was really nice to have the wind in our faces and to just enjoy the ride. When we got there we bought a bag of bananas and hopped onto an elephant and rode through the hills. The wrangler handed Christine an absurdly pink umbrella to block out the sun as we rode. He lead us down a path to the river where we dismounted and Christine begrudgingly returned the umbrella. We each got another elephant to ride in the river. The wrangler provided us with some dish soap and a scrub brush to bathe the elephants. They are such amazing creatures, we sat around their necks and as they dunked themselves under water. They pushed their ears back to hold your legs onto them. So considerate!

That whole adventure cost around $25, which was money well spent. From there we headed back to the hostel, showered and rested a bit. While hanging out we saw a giant monitor lizard swimming through the river right in front of our place that Christine will not stop going on about and demanded I fit into this entry. To be fair, he was pretty cool (editor’s note: that monitor lizard – aka dragon – is the embodiment of awesome!) (writer’s note: Christine is never going to be asked to edit my entires again).

After that we rented a motorbike and took off on the open road, eventually finding our way to the “Death Train” and the “Bridge Over the River Kwai”. I bought a much needed pair of sunglasses and we proceeded to get lost until we found a passage over the river we could take on the bike (the “bridge over the river Kwai” is train or foot only, no vehicles allowed).

We spent some time getting lost, asking directions and having a good laugh before we stumbled onto a bridge and eventually made our way to the Khao Pun Caves and the Buddhist temple built in and around them. It was quite possibly the most peaceful experience I’ve had here, which is saying a lot. The caverns went deep under ground and we stumbled onto a massive amount of bats lurking up above us and proceeded very carefully as to not disturb them. Despite our efforts, one or two still took flight here and there, giving us a mild spook.

The place was filled with a crazy amount of Buddha statues stashed throughout the caverns and many of the passages got absurdly tight and short causing my lanky self to have to duck often. We were both very thankful for not being much larger in size. It reminded me of the scenes from “In Bruges” where Colin Farrell’s character is heckling the fat American family, telling them they won’t be able to climb to the top of the bell-tower. Luckily we’re not that large.

The caverns were beautiful beyond what I can describe and it was nice to find some naturally cool air here (it’s been in the 90′s this week). As we were leaving, a monk set himself up in front of a massive Buddha statue and started to pray. It was an extremely moving thing for me to witness but I made a conscious effort not to disturb him. After that we biked back into town for some dinner at the “Tofu Bar Vegetarian Food” restaurant, which thankfully had free WiFi for customers. We watched the sun go down over a few beers, listened to some John Lennon and caught up on the news. I’ve very much enjoyed being cut off from just about everything aside from twitter but it’s good to know what’s going on as well.

Tomorrow we’re heading out to Ayutthaya which is the old capital of Thailand and from there to Nakhon Sawan, a small city where Christine is teaching. As much as I’ve enjoyed the tourist stuff I’m excited at the possibility of getting into a less touristy area and seeing things a little more like a local.

As for tonight, back to the bar we found last night to share a pint with a couple of Belgian girls while listening to our new Thai friend Juan (definitely spelled wrong) play music.

Until tomorrow friends, cheers!

We planned to get up at 8:30 today but wound up sleeping in till around 11. It was actually pretty nice in our hostel. Though it was not much more than a small white room with a bathroom / shower it was actually pretty comfortable. I spent the extra 50 baht so we could have a window ad although it wasn’t much of a view I really enjoyed listening to the noise outside. I woke up around 9 and just laid there taking in the sun and listening to the assorted city sounds that Bangkok has to offer it was a really soothing way to relax for me.

I wandered around the street markets for a bit and bought an awesome loaf of brown bread and a strawberry shake. Last night I had a chicken curry dish that was pretty good as well so, so far the local food has my approval.

We booked a van and headed to Kanchanaburi. We have a place on the River Kwai very close to the border of Burma where we’ll be spending the next two nights. The river is suprisingly clean and strikingly beautiful.

The food in Kanchanaburi is also very good, I had some Burmese curried pork that while amazing made my mouth feel like it was on fire and cleared my sinuses. Christine had a good laugh at me though as I struggled to eat it, all the while chugging apple juice and water.

We watched the sun set over the river and napped a bit before heading into town for a for a drink and some socializing.

We’ve done very little today but it’s been amazingly relaxing. I’ve been taking pictures and video like a fiend but without a proper computer there is little I can do to post them. I’m planning on cranking a lot of them out on the 14th when I return depending on my exhaustion level.

Tomorrow we are planning to go see some elephants as well as some of the historical WWII locations. The second half of our day is wide open however and we’re open to suggestions. Please hit me up on Twitter with any advice.

More soon!

So I managed to get some wifi in Hong Kong briefly which is how I was able to post the first entry. So far I haven’t been able to get any service on a Thai network with data using my iPhone. Turns out if I turn off 3G it works fine.

Anyway enough of the Internet woes. I landed around 10:30am and wandered around the airport for a while before finding Christine. We then caught a bus and went to Khao San in Bangkok to find a hostel for the day.

I’m extremely happy to not be on a plane. The travel here was a combined over 20 hours and 5 different airplane meals, I never want to eat something with a tin foil lid ever again.

I made pretty good use of the time though. I did a lot of reading, a lot of writing and rewatched most of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia season 1. It’s crazy but I have very, very quickly fallen head over heels in love with my iPad, the battery life is insane.

Anyway Christine suggested we check out the market but apparently it’s only open on the weekends so we took a Tuk Tuk (Thai go-kart / cab) to the skytrain in an attempt to check out a photo gallery. After a good hour of wondering we discovered that the gallery was also closed so we decided to settle down at a bar outside and throw back a couple of beers. I made a point to try all three of the major national beers; Singha, Cheng and Leo. All three are pretty basic lagers nothing especially great about any of them. I prefer Chang, Christine prefers Singha.

Our Tuk Tuk driver made us stop off at a tailor, he apparently gets a commission so we agreed to humor him and spend a few minutes in there. Well it turned out I got talked into buying some custom fitted shirts. The fact of the matter though it really was a steal I basically paid $200 for three fitted shirts of my own custom styling and fitting and a supurb pair of slacks. I really do need good dress clothes and the price and quality was beyond reasonable. They had them cut, fitted and delivered to our hostel in just a few hours. That’s pretty unbeatable service.

We are now hanging out in Khao San in a bar with an excellent cover band made up of Thai nationals that do frighteningly good versions of American and British pop songs. The place is swarming with Britons who go crazy at every Oasis song, but I can’t really blame them either, I totally nerded out for the Nirvana covers myself so who am I to judge?

I’ve had a few conversations recently around the topic of “personal brands.” Most recently last Monday with Daniel, Tim and Rebecca.

There has been a lot of buzz recently around the term “personal brand.” In our discussion last week I posed the question: In a few years do you think we’ll still have big PR agencies, or will personal brands replace those of the agencies? Perhaps we will have smaller teams organized and managed by one high profile individual to represent clients. Competing heavily against the established industry.

Daniel makes this point well when he talks about the companies Chris Brogan represents and he points out big agencies have taken notice. Edelman has by hiring people like David Armano.

But is there a risk involved in big agencies hiring these people? (I don’t mean to imply anything against David, he’s just the first name that came to mind.) These days there are some people with such high profile personal brands that they already eclipse their employers. Sure it’s great that a firm has a personal branding rockstar working for them and it brings them attention, but in the end are they working for the company, or are they working for themselves? When they leave will their clients follow?

I’d like to pose another perspective entirely however: This is nothing new.

Look at the names of some of the oldest most successful brands in marketing / advertising / PR. Names like Leo Burnett and Daniel J. Edelman come to mind.

Weren’t these men, in their respective fields the personal brands of their times? Is the role of a personal branding ‘superstar’ really anything different now than what we see Don Draper doing on Mad Men with his business moves (minus the drinking and sex)? Sure we didn’t have things like Twitter back then, but names were known throughout their industries anyway without “social media.”

If there is anything different these days it’s that social media has given us more control over our reputation than ever and a “personal brand” is little more than a modern day extrapolation of a good reputation. It’s really not the giant shift everyone makes it out to be, we’re just confronted by it more clearly now. The real topic is the accessibility of powerful technology in our daily lives.

Sure we’re dazzled by these individuals now, and they are doing remarkable things, but the role of superstar has always been there and always will be. Some people are destined to climb to the top of their industries, what we call “having a good personal brand” now is no different than being at the top of your game 60 years ago, we’ve just found a new label for it.

This got me thinking last night, especially when contrasted with this. Tesla’s letterhead is striking, artistic and thought provoking. Edison however goes for a more distinguished look that I think is boring, unoriginal and uncreative even for the time.

Those who know me will tell you, in additon to being a design nerd, that I’ve got a quirky sense of humor. This is often misinterpreted and rubs people the wrong way because I tend to appear like an opinionated jerk. In reality, I like to challenge people’s ways of thinking, I enjoy arguing strange or absurd points and do so with a passion. I don’t always agree with the point I’m making but I enjoy provoking someone sure of their beliefs out of their comfort zone.

I’ve been known to joke about the concept of death and I am fascinated by people’s seriousness around the topic. Wether you’re religious or not, (I’m not) death to me has always seemed like just another phase of life. I’ve lost people I love and in some pretty tragic ways, and I don’t make light of that. However, when I talk of my own death I want people to chuckle, I don’t want to be mourned, I’d much rather there be a big party in my honor than a grieving. I want my sense of humor to be reflected, normal is boring.

I’m very fortunate to have made some amazing friends who, thankfully, appreciate my antagonistic behavior and sense of humor. In the event of my death I’ve made two of them, Dan and Christine, responsible for certain things.  Dan, I’ve asked to eulogize me but only if he leads off with the following:

“John was not a great man, he wasn’t even a good man, but he did have a really sweet setup for his Sega Dreamcast“

Thing is, I’m not kidding, he thinks I am but I’m not. I’ve made him promise to say that under penalty of haunting. IE: If he doesn’t say it, and there is a way for me to do it, I will haunt him from the afterlife. And believe me, I will, he knows it too, and assuming he outlives me, Dan has reluctantly agreed.

The other ritual in the event if my death is my headstone inscription, for which Christine is responsible. To explain that, you need to understand something else.

I hate Thomas Edison.

Yeah, I know, pretty random. That statement has a tendency to piss off or confuse people. Especially coming from someone who works in technology, claims to be a Buddhist (it’s called “practicing” for a reason) and really tries not to use the word “hate” anymore.

But seriously, fuck Thomas Edison.

I’m not discounting his impact on the world at large, I just think the man was an asshole. We grow up being taught a lot of things in elementary school that we accept as truths that later in life we often learn the horrible reality about. Need an example? Christopher Columbus was a brutal murder who discovered nothing, Gandhi beat his wife and Sylvester Stallone is not that tall in person.

People tend not to know the truth about Edison. The more I learn about him, the more respect I have for him as a businessman and the less respect I have for him as an actual human being. It doesn’t take much research to learn that Edison is a thief who ripped off the bulk of the work he is credited for and employed thugs to do his dirty work.

However, when I tell this to people (especially those from New Jersey) they often don’t believe me, “How could you seriously speak ill of ‘The father of invention?!’”

Then I show them this:

They usually get it then.

Yes, Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant in an effort to show the superiority of his direct current vs. Nikola Tesla’s alternating current. Edison’s rivalry with Tesla is extremely well documented and the man went to outlandish lengths to prove himself right, to discredit Tesla and to destroy his life.

In the end, Edison was wrong but he managed to nearly erase Tesla from the popular vernacular. To this day most in our society while most have no clue who Tesla was and think of Edison when they think of electricity.

Learning of this made me rethink much of what I thought I knew. I love occurances like that, stuff that subvert and disrupt the status quo and evoke thought. That, to me, is what subism is about.

It’s because of my beliefs as a subist and these enlightening truths that I want my death to not be taken seriously, I’d rather make someone laugh at society or think than cry for me. This is why I’ve also made Christine responsible inscription on my headstone, which will read exactly as follows:

“Fuck Thomas Edison. Seriously.”

If that offends you, good. If it makes you smile, even better.