Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?

According to The Daily Telegraph, writer Thomas Kohnstamm admitted to faking large sections of The Lonely Planet guidebooks he wrote.

THE Lonely Planet guidebook empire is reeling from claims by one of its authors that he plagiarised and made up large sections of his books and dealt drugs to make up for poor pay.

Thomas Kohnstamm also claims in a new book that he accepted free travel, in contravention of the company's policy. His revelations have rocked the travel publisher, which sells more than six million guides a year.

Mr Kohnstamm, whose book is titled Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?, said yesterday that he had worked on more than a dozen books for Lonely Planet, including its titles on Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean, Venezuela, Chile and South America.

In one case, he said he had not even visited the country he wrote about.

"They didn't pay me enough to go Colombia,'' he said.

"I wrote the book in San Francisco. I got the information from a chick I was dating - an intern in the Colombian Consulate.

"They don't pay enough for what they expect the authors to do.''

If the pay was so bad, one has to wonder why Kohnstamm agreed to write the travel guides in the first place. If he was talented enough to fool The Lonely Planet’s editors, one would think he should have tried his hand at fiction.

But more striking is why a publishing company (in this case Three Rivers/Crown) would reward a writer who admits to defrauding another publisher with a publishing contract. With other non-fiction books having difficulty passing the truth test, I’d think that a publisher would be hesitant to publish a book from an admitted liar.

(Blog entry cross-posted here.)

Jury Duty V

I forgot that I was still on call for Federal Jury Duty until the end of April, until jury summons arrived in the mail yesterday.

My summons in February didn’t go through because they either rescheduled the case or reached some kind of settlement before the trial. I’m crossing my fingers it happens again.

If not, I’m sure I’ll have an entry that Jenn will enjoy.

The Broken Hearts of Widows and Widowers

HitCoffee posted a link to a news story about the affect of grief on one’s health. The article states:

Doctors have long understood the impact of grief on one's health. Now, a new study has revealed how fragile a broken heart can really be. Researchers in Britain have found that bereft people face the risk of death in the first year of being widowed.

In fact, men are six times more likely to die of a broken heart than women. According to lead researcher Dr Jaap Spreeuw of the Cass Business School in London, the study has confirmed the existence of 'broken heart syndrome.

"We all know that the death of a loved one will have massive impact on the life of the husband or wife left behind, but this shows it will have direct impact on their mortality. It statistically proves that people can die of a broken heart during the earliest stages of bereavement," he said.

"The effect is stronger for older people who have been married longer. The good news is that after the first years of mourning, the chance of dying goes down," Dr Spreeuw added.

My first thought was that I already knew this. In fact I remember reading about a similar studies of widows and widowers in college though I don’t recall that study specifically mentioning men as being more venerable than women of dying after the death of a spouse. But I do remember it mentioning that people who were married longer, say 20 or more years, did have increased odds of dying soon after their spouse than those who had been married five years.

That being said, I think anyone who has lost a spouse can understand how easy it could be to die of a broken heart. In Room for Two I wrote:

In a college communications class, I had read about couples who spent most of their lives together. After one died, it was common for the other to pass on soon after, even if he or she was in good health. At the time I couldn’t comprehend how someone could lose their will to live after their spouse was gone. But I began to, at least partially, understand how they felt. Krista had been a significant part of my life for seven years—four as my girlfriend and three as my wife. My life had become completely entwined with hers. Now that she was gone, I didn’t feel complete. I had to force myself to live.

Things I had done willingly before Krista died, like going to work, became a chore. Though my job hadn’t changed, without the prospect of supporting a family, work was boring. There was no incentive for me to put extra effort into my projects. I did just enough to get by. I didn’t care if there were any raises or bonuses in my future. I resisted the urge to walk into my supervisor’s office and quit only because I knew being unemployed and doing nothing would ultimately be worse.

The other thing that intrigued me about the study was how after the first year of a spouse passing the odds of dying from a “broken heart” decrease.

For my own experience, there was something psychologically helpful about making it through the first year. It wasn’t just because Marathon Girl was now a major part of my life (though that was part of it), but there was something about having gone through holidays and other special dates without the late wife once that helped me realize it was only going to get easier the second time around.

Where's Those Tigers At?

Has anyone seen those Tigers?Has anyone seen those cats? Here kitty, kitty, kitty Here kitty, kitty, kitty Where’s those Tigers at?

-- A mocking sports chant used when the opponent's mascot is a Tiger

***

$138 million doesn’t buy what it used to.

Just ask the Detroit Tigers.

In the old days it could buy enough stars to guarantee you a playoff spot, even if it didn’t come with a World Series title. The Yankees are proof of that.

Nowadays it can’t even buy you a victory.

The Tigers, who have the second highest payroll in baseball, are the only team without a win after being swept by the White Sox and lowly Royals in Detroit.

Their performance is utter disappointing and embarrassing even for Tigers fans who are generally accustomed to mediocrity.

And things don’t look much better for the struggling Tigers. Twelve of their next 14 games are on the road staring with a three games series against the Red Sox today. I can honestly see them coming back from the road swing and giving the 1988 Baltimore Orioles a run for their money. (The ’88 Orioles started the season 0-21.)

The only bright side of the Tiger's struggles is that there will probably be an abundance of available Tiger-Diamondback tickets when the family visits Phoenix next month.

~sighs~

Finally, A Vacation

The phone call came like an answer to a prayer.

For several days Marathon Girl and I had been discussing when to take some time off and where to go on vacation. The phone rings. On the other end is my friend Brent.

Brent calls just to see how things are going and then mentions that the Tigers will be in town soon to play the Diamondbacks.

The Tigers are coming to Phoenix? I’m stunned. I looked at their schedule back in March and didn’t remember seeing that. I get online and discover that the Tigers do have three game series in Phoenix in mid-May.

Suddenly family vacation plans materialize. A trip to Phoenix to enjoy the company of friends, see their two kids, and squeeze in a Tigers baseball game.

And our trip would coincide with a wonderful event for Brent and his wife. The adoption of their second child is scheduled to be finalized that week and they have some fun things planned in celebration.

We’re still working out the details but it looks like the family heading to Phoenix sometime in mid-May.

Suddenly, I'm not so tired anymore.

I Need a Vacation

I’m exhausted. I can barely keep my eyes open and its only 2:54 p.m. Writing my second book late into the night and waking up early is finally catching up with me. I ran four miles today during lunch and didn’t have the energy to run at my normal pace.

It’s not that the extra effort hasn’t been worth it. In the last 30 days I’ve completed 11 chapters – nearly half of the book. And if I keep it up, I’ll meet my personal goal of having the book done around the end of April.

Still, my non-stop life it taking its toll.

I think I need some time off from work and writing.

The best way to do this is with a fun-filled vacation with the family.

Marathon Girl, you reading this? Let’s plan something.

April Fools' Day!

I’ve always been a fan of well thought out and executed April Fool’s day jokes – especially when they involve creative writing. Hat’s off to Sports Illustrated for resurrecting this classic on their home page today.

Spring 2008

Spring officially begins at 11:05 a.m. local time (1:05 p.m. Eastern).

Update: Tigers lose in 11-innings to the lowly Royals. D'oh! I hope the rest of the season turns out better.

Houston: My Kind of City

This article makes me want to move to Houston. The article, I think, accurately portrays the city as one of opportunity and growth. And even though I was only in Houston for a few days, it impressed me much more than other "trendy" cities I've visited.

The article makes a similar point:

Ultimately, it’s a question of defining what makes a city great. Many city planners today focus largely on aesthetics, the arts, and the perception of being “cool.” Academics and many economic-development experts link urban success to cities’ appeal to the “creative class” of college-educated young people. In this calculus, the traditional practice of gauging a city’s success by studying patterns of population or employment growth, or noting the opportunities available for working-class or middle-class families to flourish, rarely registers as important. One prominent academic, Rutgers University’s Paul Gottlieb, has even offered an elegant formula for what he calls “growth without growth”—focusing on increasing per-capita incomes without expanding either population or employment. Indeed, Gottlieb suggests that successful post-industrial cities might well do best if they actually “minimize” the influx of new people and jobs.

Such an approach may work, at least superficially, in an attractive older city such as Chicago, New York, or Boston, but it’s an unlikely model for most cities in a country where the population is expected to reach 420 million by 2050. Growth-without-growth cities might be great to visit, and they might prove exciting homes for the restless young or the rich, but it is doubtful that they can create the jobs or the housing for more than a small portion of our future urban population. For these and other reasons, the Houston model of the opportunity city—welcoming new jobs and new families—may prove far more relevant to the American future.

Marathon Girl and I spent several days in the Houston area four years ago and loved it. In the next five years -- before our kids are too old -- we'd both like to move out of Utah and establish roots elsewhere. Ever since our trip to Houston, that city has always been in the forefront of our minds as a good area to move to. (Followed by Denver, Phoenix, and Seattle.)

No one knows what the future holds but I wouldn't mind becoming a Texan if the oppurtunity presented itself.

To Blog or not to Blog, That Is the Question

After reading my post on job satisfaction, Littlest Bird emailed and asked why I hadn’t blogged more about being unemployed, looking for work, and the entire job search process back in November.

Here’s why: Blogging under your own name is VERY different than blogging anonymously. Anyone who knows your name can find your website with a few clicks of the mouse. It’s made even easier when you have unique name like mine.

The day after parting ways with my old job I started sending out resumes and queering friends and family about any writing-related jobs they might know about. Within 48 hours I noticed an uptick in Google and Yahoo queries for my name – most of which could be traced back to potential employers. It was amazing to watch how many potential employers were spending anywhere from one minute to 20 minutes on my website.

This, in and of itself, wasn’t a bad thing. I haven’t posted anything that would make an employer think twice about hiring me or calling me into an interview. (At least I don’t think I have.) And where I was mostly applying for writing-related jobs the fact that this website generally highlights some of my more creative writing efforts tends to be a good thing. Additionally, there’s a hidden URL on this website that contains my professional writing portfolio. (Don’t bother searching for it. It’s password protected.)

Based on the number of interviews and job offers I had from employers who ended up on my website (both the public and password protected section), I’d say the website was by far more of a positive than a negative. I even had one employer bring up the password protected and public part of this website during an interview and we talked about some of the documents and blog entries I had written. (He made an attractive job offer the next day.)

Yet this website could have just as easily been a negative. For example, the last thing I wanted was potential employers to know how good or poorly the job search was going. I didn’t want someone to come to the site and see that I had multiple offers and decide not to even call and see if I was interested in working for them or, conversely, see that the job hunt was going bad use that as leverage to lowball any salary or benefit things if a job offer was extended.

I’m also under the opinion whether your blogging anonymously or under your real name, what you write about and say about others says a lot about you so I generally try to blog and post things that I wouldn’t have a problem with sharing with a stadium filled with people I don’t know. It’s not that I care what people think about me, rather, I believe that if you wouldn’t spread malicious gossip or say certain things when actual people are present, you should have the same decorum on your website or blog.

It’s not that I didn’t want to blog about it -- I just thought it wasn’t in my best interest to keep those thoughts and feelings private. And, yes, I did keep a detailed account of that time. However those are safely stored in my journal to which only Marathon Girl has access.

Everyone else can read about it after I’m dead. :-)