The Fading Art of Map Reading

What's your favorite way to figure out directions to a place? Maps app? Google Maps? Waze?

I'm all for using my smartphone apps now, but I remember how fantastic I thought the portable Garmin GPS Navigator System was when I first bought it many, many years ago. Just plug in my destination, and it gave me turn-by-turn instructions in real time. Miraculous! It was a pain, though, whenever the suction cup gave way, and the entire thing tumbled onto the floor just out of reach on the passenger side. Luckily, I could haul it over to me by grabbing onto the power cord.

Tibetan Monks Debate at Sera Monastery

In a heated debate

I blame the altitude sickness. I was finally in Tibet, that isolated kingdom on the roof of the world, and I couldn't muster up much enthusiasm to leave the hotel. When our guide asked if we wanted to watch the monks debate at Sera Monastery, I initially declined. I pictured a stage with two podiums and a crimson robe clad monk standing behind each one droning on and on in monotone about the finer points of their religion. I don't know a word of Tibetan, and I know nothing about Tibetan Buddhism. How could it possibly interest me?

Thoughts on America's Presidents

The White House as seen from the Washington Monument

What a difference four years makes. For the 2102 Presidential Election, I was voting from overseas, and there was a sense of separation between whatever the outcome may be and how it would affect American expats. With Malaysia being a half day time difference ahead, I dropped my kids off at school just as the polls in America were closing then headed to a friend's home for an election watch party. The guests were an amicable mix of Democrats and Republicans, Americans and citizens from other countries with an interest in world politics. We attempted to explain the Electoral College with limited success and carried on jovially eating, drinking and talking throughout the morning until Obama was declared the winner.