Mike's Archive

Category: Travel

  • Useful but Forgotten: Styptic Pencil

    For years I had been tearing little bits of teepee off and pasting them to my face to plug self-inflicted shaving cuts. Then, I go to my moms for dinner with one of these little white paper scabs and she asks me “why don’t you use a styptic pencil?” Styptic what? She explains that “in the old days, everyone used it for shaving cuts – I still use one for my legs.” So, I take a look at my local pharmacy and lo and behold, they still sell them!

    So I bought one and from that day onward I have never applied a tissue corner to my face. If I get a cut, I moisten the end of the styptic pencil with some water then apply it to the cut, which stops the bleeding almost immediately. Now, let there be no sugar-coating, the application of a styptic pencil to a cut is, shall we say, an ‘acquired taste’ sort of like how wasabi mustard and suicide wings are an acquired taste – it burns. But it only burns briefly and the closure of the cut is almost always permanent and invisible. I’ll take a quick burn over a fruity bit of tissue clinging to my face any day. Besides, if you’re shaving you ought to be tough enough to handle a little burn, girlie-man (&/or manlie-girl)!

    Wikipedia has an explanation of the chemistry of the styptic pencil here. Also, as far as I can tell, these things must last forever – nice when they cost about $1.50. Not to be confused with the Vicks Inhaler, an equally useful reliever of discomfort that no one except ravers seem to use.

  • Travel Tips

    After my recent trip to Montréal, I thought I’d share a few of my travel tips and my basis for them:

    • When travelling abroad, make 2, 2-sided copies of your Birth Certificate and Passport. Keep a copy on your person and one in your luggage. When I somehow misplaced my passport in a flight between England and Portugal in 1994, I had to wait for a relative (my mother, disgruntled as hell for being awakened at the crack of dawn) to fax copies of identity documents to the US Embassy for verification to gain entry into the country. That made for a fun 4 hours of airport-backroom waiting with customs agents. The embassy official I met later that week in Lisbon keyed me in to this tip and I’ve seen it verified numerous other places since. Having the documents handy will expedite the process should you lose or have your documents ripped off. In case you’re wondering, my passport turned up in a trash can in the airport a few days later, even though we carefully searched the plane. I still have no idea how it got there or how someone found it. (more…)

  • Hawaii: Lure of the Aloha State

    “Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you’re there but becomes beckoningly real after you have gone”.

    John Steinbeck famously wrote this about Positano, the jewel of Italy’s Amalfi Coast, in the 1950’s. I, however, having visited both Positano and Hawaii in the past 12 months, would venture to say that this comment is far better suited to the glorious archipelago that is our 50th state than the Italian cliffside village. Don’t get me wrong — Positano is a wonderful town, but quite frankly I don’t dream about going back there. I am glad that I took the time to visit it, but there are too many other places to see before I head back.

    Hawaii, on the other hand, beckons me hourly even though I’ve only been gone for a mere 5 days. The beauty and laid-back feeling of the islands is so infectious that it still permeates almost all of my thoughts.

    If you have the means, I highly suggest the trip. From the Eastern U.S. it is quite a hike (~12 hours on a plane), but so long as you spend at least a week (preferably more), it is well worthwhile. Hawaii truly may be the ultimate vacation destination, as it offers a wide variety of activities and adventures. If you just want to relax on the beach, obviously some of the very best in the world lie there. If you are more adventurous, hiking, biking, kayaking, surfing, etc. abounds. Looking for culture? The Hawaiian are a proud people with a diverse, interesting history that begs to be learned and studied.

    In sum, I have dreamed all my life of going to Hawaii. Now that I have finally been, my dreams will instead be filled with ideas of going back. Isn’t it time you went?

  • Montréal, Quebec

    Just returned from a 5-day trip to Montréal. The wife and I got a really great deal on air/hotel and stayed at the posh Fairmont Queen Elizabeth. Please enjoy these random observations and accept my recommendation of this city as a wonderful place to visit.

    • Local flavor was interesting. I like pistachios, and was pleased to see that Montréal also seems to like pistachios. At the many cremeries (ice-cream shops) I noticed that pistachio was almost always included, a rarity in my area. Of course, crêpes were also widely available both as fast-food and on the menus of more upscale places. While we were at La Ronde, we noticed a woman and her 2-year old eating some french fry concoction I had never seen before and she informed me that it was fries topped with cheese curd and brown gravy (perhaps a distant cousin to the incomprable chips, mushypeas and gravy I had experienced in Northwest England). She informed us enthusiastically “this is a Quebecois meal!” (more…)

  • Happy Patriot’s Day

    As a kid growing up in the Boston area, we always looked forward to Patriot’s Day, a New England-only holiday that occurs on the third Monday in April. Most importantly, this day represented the beginning of “April Vacation”, a week off from school. (In New England, schools have a week-long “February Vacation” and a week-long “April Vacation”. After moving out of the area and realizing that the rest of the country has one week off before or after Easter Sunday, I never did understand the N.E. rules, although perhaps it was to encourage parents not to take their children out of school to go skiing.)

    Patriot’s Day, however is much more than just the start of Spring Break in Boston… It’s also the day that they run the Boston Marathon and the day of the only Major League Baseball game that starts before Noon (first pitch at Fenway Park is always at 11:05). So, all over the city, people take the day off and, weather permitting, get drunk while watching sports. It’s no wonder this is such a popular holiday (and why I miss it so much now that I don’t live in the area).

    The hilarious thing about all this is that, although I grew up in the Boston area, to this day I had no idea what Patriot’s Day actually celebrated (no, it’s not the football team). So I did some research: It commemerates April 19, 1775 — the battle of Lexington and Concord, the beginning of the Revolutionary War, and Paul Revere’s legendary ride. In fact, re-enacting Revere’s ride is a far longer-standing tradition than the marathon or the Sox game.

    Perhaps we should all be celebrating Patriot’s Day after all… (nice spring day, off work… any takers?)