Rarely does anyone discuss travel budgets PRIOR to a trip to a far away place. I am so very fortunate to have the inimitable Mr. Mike as the best travel buddy in the universe. We have been all over the world with rarely a hiccup. He knows how to travel

Trip to Destin JuneJuly 2013Day 1 June 29thWe left the house at 0730 and drove a very LONG 12 hours to get there due to traffic. We went and checked out our condo which was really nice then did some grocery shopping. When we got back Rob and

Trip to Oregon on May 2013 Honeymoon tripDay 1 May 25thWe left Knoxville at 1240. We had a very long flight to Oregon that included long layovers. But had some awesome chocolates at the Charolotte Airport. We didn't get to the hotel in Medford

SOMETHING FOUNDOne of the best western movies ever made was called ltem stylemsobidifontstyle normalgtThe Searchers starring John Wayne. It was about a little girl named Cynthia Ann Parker who was abducted by the Comanche

Did you know that there was a connection between our large 7000 inhabitant village of Wingerworth Randolph Hearst and the a museum across the pond in St Louis No neither did I until I treated our village as if I were a visitor on a first visit . As a v

When the news came out that the pandemic had take over Europe I was still working on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Now almost two month later we are still stuck on the ship. I know that this is a very hard time for everyone and while I would have lik

KNOXVILLEThe Department of Energy got underway as a branch of the Tennessee Valley Authority beginning in about 1940. The Manhattan Project in which we developed the atomic bomb originated at the Oak Ridge Laboratory outside of Knoxville. Scie

Utah Trip Summer 2014Day 1 Aug 30thWe woke up at 4am for an early flight. We had a 2 hour delay in Atlanta but still made it to Salt Lake City by 1230pm. We picked up our rental car and Rob took us to see some of his old stomping grounds in SLC

Leaving Mostar was almost sad because we had enjoyed the compact city as a group and on our own. We headed into the hills where towns or villages lined the road for a considerable distance. Rain was falling for the whole drive. I noticed none of the unr

According to our Shiva Mahapurana one day Vishnu and Brahma had an argument over their superiority. Shiva appeared in front of them in the form of a raging fire and asked them to each find the tip of the fire. Whoever reaches the tip would be superior bet

Trip to Puerto Rico Me and RobDay 1 April 25thOur flight out of Knoxville was delayed so we had to run to catch our connecting flight in Charolotte. We barely made it. Luckily our luggage made it too. I was concerned about that. We got our re

COMMUNITY PRIDEWinnemuccca is a bustling five brothel railroad town in north central Nevada. When you next visit there and perhaps might grow weary of drinking and carousing make your way the northwest corner of Bridge Street and 4th

Surfacing this morning was difficult . It is a work day today . Last night we had a frost . Not a heavy one . Not the sort of frost you get in the Winter . Not the sort of frost that you have to scrape off the car windscreen. But a frost nevertheless . The

Nancy and I usually seek to break up the winter and travel somewhere in February. This year we decided to travel south. With the recent anniversaries of boycotts marches and actions organizations offer Civil Rights tours these days. We thought we could

I'm so excited to be planning a road trip to Pai this coming November My husband and I are planning a trip for his family when they visit from Australia and I'm so excited to show them around We'll be driving from here in Chiang Mai to

It is dark when I wake . It is Day 48 of the lockdown . The sun has not risen and the birds have not woken. It is Thursday . Sage are meeting today with our government . Sage used to be that herb that you stuffed up a chicken together with onion . Now it i

OLD HICKORYAndy By God Jackson was our fine countrys seventh President. He was a war hero too by virtue of defeating the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend and stealing their land and then by defeating the pesky Redcoats at the Battle of New Orleans.

I woke early again . The bedroom was still in darkness . Tossing about I found I could not get back to sleep. My mind was going round and round . Odd thoughts . Day 49 how many hours have we been locked down. 1176 hours or thereabouts. I could have begun

What makes something valuable This question is long debated by the economists and traders throughout the world.Marx would say my mothers rhubarb crumble should be valued at the sum of the ingredients plus the effort of the chef. And given that Mum

So during this shelter in place or quarantine period many friends have asked me this question. My short answer is I would go anywhere it is safe and happy. Narrowing it down I would say New Zealand Thailand and Cape Town. Why If things were s

Koh chang has been all about the relax and what a beautiful island to have picked. Its very laid back with lots of cute little towns to explore we defo needed a motorbike to do this as the taxi service is very expensive and seen no sign of a local bus ser

SPAl final hasta las 10 no he salido del hostal ya que habia desayuno incluido. De ahi por la carretera transcanadiense directamente hasta el puente. Un seor puente 13 km de largo hubiese sido divertido recorrerlo en bici pero esta prohibido y

alskdfjdsjiw bangs head on computer. Okay I was just about done with this entry when my hostels crappy internet failed and I lost everything I39d written so here we go again.So since classes have started I haven39t had much time to explore

Slow start again we started packing everyone was sharing photos etc. After lunch of rolls tomato prosciutto and cheese we headed into the Antonettiano Mole one of the symbols of Torino and home of the Museum of Cinema. The museum was very cool with a

Wayne had the FULL bathmassage experience at the Buckstaff Bathhouse this morning. He loved it I shopped around downtown while he was there. The nicest shop I found is called Girlie Girls. They design their own jewelry and it is beautiful. If you are th

We played a lot of cards today and just lazed around. We went out to eat lunch at Colton39s Steakhouse as there was a coupon in the paper for 2 lunch entrees for 12.99. It was a great deal as most of our entrees were over 9 originally. I made a Mock L

It has been an unfortunate eternity since I was last at an available computer to tap out our latest adventures. Right now I am currently in Berlin and I have yet to even write of Belgium or our time in Amsterdam. So let me get to that right away.Au

Friday 1st October KatherineLong drive today from Litchfield to Katherine via Pine Creek. Encountered loads of road trains Dave's heard that in some parts of the country they get up to quarter of a mile long. You would think by now we'd had enoug

Anyone who's dined at El Colibri in San Juan del Sur knows why I forgot what happened the rest of the day leading up to it. In truth we took it slow today sleeping in and tooling around the small town of San Juan so Robyn could get to know the place. We

After a few days alone in Vic falls me and craig wanted out of Zim but guess what happend we got stuck literally We tried the train fully booked we tried flights fully booked our only option was to get the chicken bus to Bullawayo and hope we co

30 September 2010 After another morning in Honfleur we drove through a succession of resorts along the Cote Fleurie the Northern Riviera and walked round the largest of them upper crust Victorian Deauville of race course fame.Then followed a jo

i left nesebar for Ruse bulgaria and it was a grand trip. i chatted up my seat mate a young coed who tried to help me navigate the streets of ruse. sadly she was a little off but the cute factor may have made me forget that i was toting my 12kg knapsack

ltstrong stylemsobidifontweight normalgtSYLVESTER MOWRY Sylvester was born in October of 1830 and graduated from West Point in 1852 near the top of the class. As a sparkling new second lieutenant he went west and took part in the su

Hi allWell we're home now safe and sound and seem to have adjusted to the different time zone after a few nights of broken sleep We're both enjoying looking back on on the blog and on what a brilliant time we had in Oz so thought we would wrap it all

Onward we go to the last known city on our itnerary ParisWe boarded a train from Nice to Marseille and then Marseille to Paris. I have to say having been a feast for mosquitos the last dew nights I was kinda glad to be out of Nice that morning.

Okay so I haven't yet skyrocketed to the top of the Chinese Alist and I don't think the foreignerdirected jeerscatcalls on the street invariably a snickering hoot Hellooo Yeah nihao to you too jackass these days are any different from

Hello from Sri LankaOur trip here has turned out quite well actually. After a fairly slow start at the beach town of Unawatuna we ended up climbing Adam's Peak or Sri Pada. It was the top of the mountain where Adam when thrown out of heaven landed a

This trip started out a bummer because they split me and Caitlin up. I headed to Mehoopany Pennsylvania and she headed to Iowa City. We are both at Proctor and Gamble sites but our plants make different products. Our goal for these locations was to learn

Hi AllWell with the weather being so beautiful at the minute we decided to go to the Yellow River yesterday. It's only 20 km north of the city. So we hopped onto a bus which was stuffed to the gills seriously the driver could only just shut the doors

Premier jour Taupo.. o il ne fait pas spcialement beau L'occasion pour moi de revisiter mes premiers jours en NouvelleZlande

The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers bill is the most tedious outrage ever, right down to the dreary acronym. But oh, the horrors it will bring …

David Cameron cares about your safety. It's all he ever thinks about. It's his passion. He's passionate about it. Every time David Cameron thinks about how safe he'd like to keep you, passion overcomes him and he has to have a lie down. With his eyes shut. A bit like he's having a nap and doesn't care about your safety at all.

Right now he's so committed to keeping you safe, he's rushing something called the Drip bill through the House of Commons. Drip stands for Data Retention and Investigatory Powers and critics are calling it yet another erosion of civil liberties and … see, I've lost you because it's just so bloody boring. Maybe it's just me, but whenever I hear about some fresh internet privacy outrage my brain enters screensaver mode and displays that looped news footage of mumblin' Edward Snowden and I automatically nod off only to be awoken shortly afterwards by the sound of my forehead colliding sharply with the table.

Ukip has made thousands from merchandise on its online store. What could the other parties learn from it?

It can't be easy trying to fund a political movement in the current climate, when politicians are about as popular as a wasp in a submarine. You'd have more luck organising a whip-round for President Assad. That's why politicians are forced to suck up to billionaire donors, who expect them to tailor their policies accordingly, thereby further widening the gulf between parties and the public.

But wait. Not all parties are alike. The Daily Telegraph has revealed that, last year, Ukip made a whopping £80,000 from flogging branded merchandise to the public from its online store.

I decided to introduce my son to video games. We soon found one he liked … and I mean really, really liked

So I decided to introduce my two-year-old son to the world of video games. Before you accuse me of hobbling my offspring's mind, I'd like to point out that a) television is 2,000 times worse, so shove that up your Night Garden and b) I also decided to counterbalance the gaming with exposure to high culture. For every 10 minutes of Fruit Ninja during daylight hours, he'd get 10 pages of a critically acclaimed novel at bedtime. We're currently halfway through The Magus by John Fowles, which he's enjoying immensely. He finds some passages so moving that his protracted sobs drown out my reading completely, and when I return to the beginning of the chapter to start again, he leaps up screaming, trying to snatch the book out of my hands with delight.

Like any self-respecting 2014 toddler, he can swipe, pat and jab at games on a smartphone or tablet, but smartphone games aren't real games. They're interactive dumbshows designed to sedate suicidal commuters. And they're not just basic but insulting, often introducing themselves as free-to-play simply so they can extort money from you later in exchange for more levels or less terrible gameplay. Either that or they fund themselves with pop-up adverts that defile the screen like streaks on a toilet bowl.

Russia v Ukraine, Isis, Boris Johnson, Cliff Richard and Ebola – there's not much to be cheerful about right now, though the ice bucket challenge is working overtime

Ah. Right. Looks like I picked a bad week to draw inspiration from current affairs for this knockabout comedy column. The news is rarely a warehouse of carefree chuckles but at the moment it's like an apocalyptic playlist on perpetual shuffle, with one harrowing crisis overlapping another. Palestine, Libya, Syria … it's all horrifying and upsetting. Not a single nice thing has happened all year, except the recent stealth launch of Cadbury's Wispa Biscuits, and even "stealth launch of Wispa Biscuits" sounds like a terrible euphemism for breaking wind.

The planet is currently playing host to countless alarming crises. There's the nail-biting tension of Russia v Ukraine, a depressing standoff overseen by facial-expression-avoider Vladimir Putin. I don't know if all the strings connecting Putin's face muscles to his brain were accidentally severed during a tragic smiling accident years ago, but I've seen brickwork convey more emotion.

Researchers have created a version of Mario that experiences basic emotions – now he needs a purpose that affects the real world

• It’s-a-me, Mario! And soon I’ll be playing my games without your help …

January is traditionally a fairly sleepy month, current affairs-wise, but a horrified gawp at the news confirms that 2015 has already had one heck of a morning. Clearly it takes a lot to knock a garish underage sex allegation involving Prince Andrew off the news agenda, but the Parisian terror attacks managed it, partly because the horror of it all warranted such blanket coverage, but also because the resulting conversation about freedom of speech is taking up so many column inches, there’s scarcely room to run anything else. There hasn’t been this much furious debate about the merits of a cartoon since the introduction of Scrappy Doo.

(Fun imaginary scenario: in a bid to revive their flagging ratings, ITV launch a live, feelgood Saturday night version of Celebrity Pictionary. But chaos ensues when Paddy McGuinness pulls the first card from the deck to discover it requires him to sketch the Prophet Muhammad.)

For somebody who did less for Britain than, say, Olly Murs, we’re making a dreadful fuss of our late monarch

Who’s your favourite dead king? For me it’s a toss-up between King Henry VIII (likes: Greensleeves, beheadings) and Nat King Cole (likes: chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose). Those are definitely my top two.

Below them, there’s King Kong, King George III, Good King Wenceslas, and about 500 other assorted types of king before you get to Richard III. Never warmed to him. Don’t know why. I’ve just never really been into Richard III. Maybe it’s his Savile-esque haircut, or the fact that his name is widely used as rhyming slang for fecal matter, or just the way he’s routinely depicted as a murderous, scheming cross between Mr Punch and Quasimodo; a panto villain with nephews’ blood on his hands.

What sort of person can’t decide who to vote for, but can rate how much they like whatever they’re hearing out of five, and wants to sit there tapping a button accordingly?

As the general election scuttles closer, the campaign grows more confusing by the moment, so it’s good that last week’s seven-way leaders’ debate brought some much-needed mayhem to the situation. Not so long ago we were bemoaning the lack of choice in a two-party system. Now we’ve got option paralysis.

It had its moments. Nigel Farage complained about foreigners with HIV who enter Britain and immediately start wolfing down expensive medicine: greedy as well as sick. You’d think Farage might welcome immigrants with grave illnesses on the basis that they’re less likely to hang around as long, but apparently not. Say what you like about him – say it, write it down, daub it in 3ft-high cherry-red letters up the side of a prominent overpass on his regular commute if you must – but it’s undeniably refreshing to see a politician determined to speak his mind, indifferent to the absurd constraints of spin or basic human empathy. Never mind HIV sufferers – how much is Britain spending on refugees with cancer? Maybe he could put that statistic on a sandwich board and patrol the country in it, perhaps while ringing a bell and loudly commanding passersby to picture a nation under his command.

We’ve had the bloodletting of the Ed Wedding. Now we’ve got the full-fat Tory government that virtually no one predicted

It was supposed to be more complicated. After the vote, they said we’d have to get out the constitutional slide rule to try to work out who’d won. The Wikipedia entry on “minority government” experienced a huge spike in traffic. There were more bitter arguments about legitimacy than five seasons of Jeremy Kyle. Everyone agreed the election would herald the gravest constitutional crisis since the abdication, or that time Jade Goody slagged off Shilpa Shetty on Big Brother. Many said Ed Miliband was certain to become prime minister.

Yep. That’s what they said.

As the anthology series Black Mirror returns, its creator explains what fuels the show’s twisted tales – and tells us where we’re going wrong with technology

A sadistic version of The X Factor where contestants perform for their own freedom. An immersive experience where criminals are subjected to the same terrors they inflicted on their victims, in front of a baying audience. A grotesque cartoon demagogue using TV and social media to obtain power. No, these aren’t scenes from the first term of a Donald Trump presidency, but something only marginally less traumatising, and infinitely more likely to happen: Charlie Brooker’s techy anthology series Black Mirror, a show its creator describes as made up of “deliciously horrible ‘what if’s”.

Related: Black Mirror review – Charlie Brooker's splashy new series is still a sinister marvel

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Er gehörte zu den einflussreichsten Musikern in der Frühphase des Rock 'n' Roll, inspirierte die Beatles und Elvis Presley. Nun ist der US-Sänger Little Richard mit 87 Jahren gestorben.