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   It has been a while since my last post and I need to fill you in on a few important things that have occurred since then. First let’s talk about the moving on part of the post. We sold our house! We placed it on the market during the first week of March, had multiple offers within 2 weeks, and had it sold within a month. They say there is a real estate market slump? Not for us, obviously. Thank God for that! Not only did it sell in record time, but we didn’t have to negotiate too much on price. That means that when we come home from this RTW trip, we won’t have to live on the streets for even a day. We officially closed on the house on April 10th and moved in with Craig’s parents on April 13th. It’s not as bad as it sounds. We are saving by not having the house, are spending time with the parents before we leave, and get to play with the dog and horse daily. What more could we ask for? Plus, we work so much that hopefully the parents won’t get sick of us and we won’t get sick of them before July. 

   Now to the moving on up part. The bank account is moving on up! We are getting closer and closer to our goal start amount for the trip. We only have another 70 or so days to save and scrounge up the $$$, but hopefully we will make it. Wish us luck (and/or pay us to do something….ha ha)!!!     

     Hello all! I have some exciting news for all our subscribers (thank you) and readers (merci beaucoup) today! Let me set up the big news by telling a little story. Jen and I have recently felt quite stuck in our same old routine here in Mississippi and have talked about moving away on many occasions. We have talked about living in South Africa, Switzerland, France, New Zealand, Fiji, and Australia. We even discussed the ups and downs of Thailand at one time but decided that Asia was just not for us. We love Mississippi and it will always be our home, but we have become more and more discontent with the way things occur here and in America in general. With the presidential election coming and no real significant hope for a (much) brighter immediate future for our country, we have decided to move to Singapore. Singapore (!?) you ask? Where did that come from? Well, we thought about it and talked about it and Singapore has it all: Laws against spitting or littering which are strictly enforced, a diverse food culture, an intelligent population, and good wages for our degrees. The best part of all is that most of the population will be shorter than me, so I will have a huge ego boost! We will take our RTW trip leaving in July and will look for housing when we travel through Singapore. At the end of our trip, we will stay with our family for a week, and then we will be gone again to Singapore and our new home sweet home! We will continue to update our rtw travel log to let you know how we are doing and what we are learning in Singapore after we move. By the way, everything in this post is part of an evil April Fool’s Day trick! Did I get you?

WARNING: The views and opinions stated here are necessarily the views and opinions of the host of this blog. If you have any problem listening to opinions concerning politics, religion, and racism in America, move to the next post. (I promise I won’t rant too often, so don’t leave us forever.)  

    I am currently unsure of a more productive way to release this frustration, so I will begin in this forum. This morning, as I was heading to work, I listened to a talk radio show.

Problem #1: Never listen to talk radio unless you need a little frustration in your life.

They were discussing the presedential campaign of Senator Barrack Obama and the recent recordings of his pastor.

Problems # 2 & 3: (2)Really (!!!) never listen to American politics if you wish to remain un-frustrated. (3) Did you hear the sermon (if you can call it that) yet? Frustration abounds!

Then there were the two pastors on the show that were supporting this blasphemy and anti-American sentiment.

Problems #4 & 5: (4) Two pastors were supporting that foul-mouthed blubber? Huh? (5) Though I have been known to criticize American government and its political inadequacies, I have never heard nor said anything as awful as what was said on that recording. America deserved 9-11? Are you kidding? A pastor (or anyone for that matter) using the Lord’s name in vain when speaking of America? What? Why? Huh?

And last, but certainly not least, there were the comments made by the pastors on the show concerning racism in America. One pastor said that “racism is worse now than it was during slavery”. He said that people are oppressed and have no opportunity for education, freedom of speech, or a better way of life. Did I mention that both pastors were 60-70 years old and had their Doctoral degrees? Yet they spoke of people not having opportunity? Ironic, don’t you think? Bill Cosby is also one who seemingly “had no opportunity” I guess. Yet he did well for himself and now “preaches” a whole new message to people to get up and work and make opportunity for themselves. One of the pastors also said that “the church was and still is the only place where ‘his people’ can come to have freedom of speech and the freedom to release frustrations and emotions”. Let me mention again that he said this on a radio program with thousands of people listening. See the irony?

Problems #6 & 7: (6) Racism is worse now than it was during slavery? Are people ripped from their homelands, sold off, beaten and sometimes killed, denied religion, refused a chance to work and make money for themselves, and denied any of the other rights set forth by our Constitution or present lawmakers? (7) The church is the only place where ‘his people’ can have freedom of speech and are able to release their frustrations? Let me start by saying that church is a very good place to come to worship God and have an emotional release. It is a great place to come to tell God what is worrying you or what difficulties you have. It is these things, but is it the place to come and insult another race, speak negatively about your country, and practice blasphemy? What is the definition of blasphemy? What does the Bible say about all this?

Webster’s New World Dictionary: Blasphemy- 1. Irreverent or profane or mocking speech, writing, or action concerning God or anything regarded as sacred. 2. Contempt for God. Any remark deliberately mocking or contemptuous of God or thing regarded as sacred. Syn. Profane or profanity, swearing or cursing-further extends the concept to irreverent remarks, both referring to the utterance of profane oaths or condemnations.

          And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the LORD, shall be put to death. (Leviticus 24:16)

        And one of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31)

       Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. (NAS, Romans 13:1)

   Let me say here that I do not believe that God would have us stone that pastor or kill him. The Bible teaches us to love our neighbor and even to love our enemy and also to forgive them. So here is the question: Does it say anywhere in the Bible that a pastor should give a sermon that includes blasphemous statements, name-calling and swearing against another race (his neighbors), and anarchist statements concerning his government? Not in my opinion. Did the pastor’s congregation stand up and figuratively ’stone him’ by leaving and attending another church or by finding a new pastor? Nope. Furthermore, many other pastors and congregations have supported his statements. If it is not mentioned in the Bible, should a preacher be preaching it in God’s church? Not in my opinion. So, is the church the appropriate place (or is anywhere, for that matter) for people to come any say these sorts of things? What is the church for then if not for spewing forth whatever degredations and foul -mouthed bile one wishes? I hope you sense the sarcasm in my previous sentence. It is not a  pulpit to press one’s beliefs or political affiliations on people. It is not a place to take advantage of a people searching for a leader and some stability among their own. It is not a place to accuse and degrade a people with whom we must learn to work in order to gain peace and understanding in the United States and in this world. The church is for worship. It is for coming and talking with God, for singing praises to God, and for learning about what He would have us learn. Nothing else. It is not freedom we should search for when we come to church, but submission. Submission to a God who promises to give us the freedom for which we seek. Freedom from the fear of all the world’s pitfalls if we come to Him and believe in His SON and ask for forgiveness. Freedom of speech is such a small thing when you consider the freedom that can be gained through Christ.

    Do I feel better now, you ask? I do actually. Much better.

   Confused by the title, anyone? Picture a mule walking up a mountain. What would he almost always have on his back? A pack, right? Not just any pack. A HEAVY pack! Well, that was the picture of Jen and I on Saturday when we packed our packs and put them on. Oh God! Our packs weigh 30-31 pounds each! Some of you may be saying “Thirty to thirty-one pounds is not that much for luggage for an 18-month long trip!” Try carrying around that much for 2 hours around Paris! On our honeymoon, we had a couple rolling bags and a couple smaller shoulder bags and man was it tough. In Mississippi, we don’t have subway steps to go up and down, turnstiles to walk through, or a lot of crowds of people to walk around in. In many of the places we are going to, they do have these things.

SOME POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: 1. Eliminate some items. 2. Get really buff before we go. 3. Hire a Sherpa (porter) to follow us around. 4. Buy and place luggage straps around packs to make them more compact and thus more easily carried. 5. Learn to “live off the land” and take nothing with us. 6. Buy our very own mule.

    Those of you who know us probably know which ones we will choose to do.   

1. Eliminating items should be easy enough. 2. There is little hope of us becoming buff before we go, so not that one. 3. Craig is too cheap to hire a Sherpa. 4. The luggage straps have already been “bought-en” (you would have to watch the movie Bring It On to understand). 5. We do plan to learn and attempt some survival techniques while in Fiji and other places, but living off the land may be a little much for 18 months. 6. Again, Craig is too cheap to buy a mule.

    Soon, I will load some pictures of our packs as they are now to the site. Before we leave, I will give a weighed update and add some pictures of how the packs look then.

 Au revoir! Chao! Adios! Um, bye bye!

    I hope that the uncertainty and hesitation is conveyed appropriately through the title of this post. Why the shaky voice, you ask? Well, we are 3 months away from leaving for one. The other reason is because we have decided to start asking for assistance to be able to provide for our expenses while helping others and allow us to provide for the needs of the people with whom we will be working. With the significnt downturn of the value of our good old American dollar, we are trying to be sure we can really do this. Maybe we are just crazy and we will find that our funds will last us and be plenty but the closer we get to that day, the more nervous we become.

    So what are we doing to ease our nervousness? Well, we have sent letters to a few churches requesting prayer and support as well as speaking with local businesses. We have placed PAYPAL buttons on this site to try to provide another way to support us. We have prayed. The only thing we haven’t done yet is ask people if they need any odd jobs done around the house…Well, do ya? We have also been telling people that they can sponsor us and get some advertisement at the same time. We will place a picture of you handing us a check on our supporters page if you would like. We will also list your name and level of support on that page. We’ll give a talk when we return or before we leave for you and your friends (church members, coworkers, etc).

    So anyway, back to the hesitation. As most of our close friends and family know, we are typically fairly independent. We hate to ask for help or to even admit that we need it. So I won’t do that anymore in this post. I will ask that you keep checking back on this site to see our “Help Them” page so that you can see where we are working, what they need, and how to get it to them.  Well, breaking down to ask for assistance is tiring, so I must go now. 

    Bet you thought we had left on our trip, huh? Nope. Not so lucky. We are still in Mississippi. We have had some exciting things going on over the past month or so though.  We booked our shuttle to the Grand Canyon from Flagstaff, Arizona. We bought our plane tickets from Christchurch, New Zealand to Cairns, Australia. The Grand Canyon National Park Service sent us back our approval to spend the night “below the rim” of the canyon and to hike in the park. We also found a way to travel in New Zealand without spending a fortune on trains and hostels: The campervan! We booked two campers to get us through all of our travel in the North and South island. The van has a bed, refrigerator, stove, table, everything we will need to save money on food, transportation, lodging, and probably entertainment (since neither of us have ever driven something so BIG). And last, but certainly not least, we were approved for our ETA’s (i.e. fancy name for visa basically) for Australia.

    Phew! That was one really long run-on sentence in my head! I hope it doesn’t read that way, else I’ll never get into Harvard (drat!). Did I mention we only have a few over 100 days left before we head out? Ahhhh!!!!! Just over 3 months left! We have so much to do. One thing (our house) is hopefully going to take care of itself soon. We put it up for sale during the first week of March and have received a couple offers so far. Nothing great enough to jump on yet though. It’ll happen. We are sure of it.

    We have also made some updates to the website. We have added a page to recognize our contributors/sponsors, have added a donations information page, and have changed a few things around here and there.

    We hope you enjoy!

Planning an around the world journey seems a daunting task to many people. Most people would never even consider this commitment because of the supposed difficulty in preparing for the journey. In this article, you will find some tips on how to prepare for and accomplish your goal of making an around the world journey a reality! Here are 10 steps to get you well on your way to fulfilling your own travel dreams:

1.)    Decide when you will leave. This may seem odd as the first step to fulfilling your journey, but taking this step first gives you a distinct psychological advantage. Most people who hope to travel “someday” never get around to making this dream a reality. By setting a specific date (down to at least the month, if not the actual day) you have set into motion the psychological state of arousal which you will need to plan and carry out your journey.

2.)    Look at your departure date and set small goals to accomplish each month until that date. Some examples may include: saving money (more on that later), buying gear, developing an itinerary, buying tickets for initial or full transportation, or even finding volunteer sites.

3.)    Carry out your monthly goals, no matter what. Sacrifices must be made to accomplish your goal of making an around the world journey. Think you need those shiny new tennis shoes? Are they worth not having the funds to buy the new pack that will carry all your worldly possessions for months or maybe even years or for spending the money that would feed you for weeks in India?

4.)    Decide which type of traveler you will be:

a.       The Free Spirit – This person is more of a wanderer, really. They seem to just float from place to place, relying upon pure instinct to tell them where to go, what to do, and how long to stay in a place.

b.      The Obsessive-Compulsive – This traveler makes plans for their planning. They know all of the when’s, where’s, how’s, and what’s, but the why’s may escape them if they are not careful. They may find themselves not “seeing the forest for the trees”, so to speak.

c.       The Conscientious Soul – This person may find that their reasons for going around the world always point them towards volunteerism. They may hop from place to place, seeking the truth about a people, a place, or a thing, searching out their strife, and attempting to alleviate that pain just a bit before moving on.

d.      The Road-kill Warrior – Just as road-kill implies something stuck in the middle of the road, this traveler finds him/herself stuck in the middle of a battle to find the specific type of traveler that he/she wants to be. This person is at one time spontaneous in their decision making concerning their journey, yet at another time meticulous, even calculating, in the specific ways in which they carry out the various aspects of their journey.

5.)    Do some research on the areas of the world that interest you most and develop a rough itinerary. Here are some helpful resources for completing this step: www.bootsnall.com, www.lonelyplanet.com, www.frommers.com

6.)    Save. Save. Save. Unless you are independently wealthy, hit the jackpot, or win the lottery, your around the world journey is probably going to require some saving. Make a budget and stick to it. Not enough money left over after your regular job? Work some overtime. Find a part-time job. Rake leaves, clean gutters, pressure-wash stuff, become a Pizza Delivery Technician, just do whatever you have to do (within reason, of course) to make your dream come true! It won’t kill you, promise.

7.)    Take the knowledge that you gained from researching the places to which you will travel and USE IT! You may discover vaccines that are needed to travel to certain places, passes or visas that must be bought before arriving at your destination, or even the etiquette that will help you to fit in better (or at least stay out of jail) in a destination.

8.)    Mentally and physically prepare yourself for the journey. Going to start your journey with an ascent of Mount Everest? Planning on leaving family and friends behind for the longest period of time ever? Taking intensive French lessons in Paris during your around the world journey? All of these things will call for physical, mental, or a combination of preparation. Take some time to yourself and imagine yourself accomplishing the things that you wish to accomplish on your journey. Imagine how you will feel, what you will think, and what effect it will have on your future. Join a gym or do some exercises at home. At the very least, just walking around new cities on your journey will likely involve a good amount of cardiovascular activity. Prepare yourself before you go so that you can eliminate some of the mental and physical fatigue that plagues many travelers.

9.)    Expect the best, but prepare for the worst. A traveler should always go into a trip expecting the best. This will allow you to truly embrace a location, to look for the positive aspects of it, and to push aside minor frustrations more easily. On the other hand, a traveler should also prepare for the worst. What happens if you are robbed, jailed, injured, or even killed during your journey? None of these things are very likely to happen to you, but wouldn’t it be easer to face these possibilities with the knowledge that you have taken steps to make them easier? Here are some possible steps to take:      

a.       Get some travel insurance

b.      Have a will drawn up

c.       Alert your local embassies as you travel to various locations

10.)  Just go! After you are done with all of the planning and preparing, the final thing to do is go. Get out there! Experience our beautiful amazing world in all of her glory. Embrace her distinct cultures, magnificent landscapes, and many wonders. Go where you dream of, where you hope to be, and where you have always put off visiting until now. Just go!

    You may be wondering why the ” crap!!!” in the title. Well, it’s because of a little something I call great news and things are happenin!!! What is happening? Oh, I thought you’d never ask!!! I got online and checked our Greyhound bus tickets on Monday morning and to my dismay, they had gone up to $372 for the first leg (Jackson, MS to Flagstaff, AZ) from the $142 that they were a month ago when I checked! So, I admit I flipped out a little! Then I checked the day before (July 5th) for tickets and realized that they were still at the $140-something mark and there was a bus leaving only 6 hours earlier than our original bus choice….So now we are leaving on July 5th at 6:30p.m. instead of July 6th at 1:30a.m. It’s amazing how things work out. This will allow our families and maybe some friends to come see us off much easier. Thank you God! Next item up for discussion: I sent in a article idea to an online journal and got a response that said: “Send it in and we will check it out.” YEAH!!! No, this will not make me famous and no, I will not get paid for it….And also, no, I did not get a guarantee of them posting it on their online magazine, but it’s a start! Well, wish me luck! I will get it posted on here soon anyway since the online magazine does not mind bloggers posting their stuff on their sites as well….Later!!!!!

    Hello! It’s been several days since I wrote anything, but that doesn’t mean nothing has been going on. First off, we got our new Rebel XTI!!! I’ve been doing nothing but taking pictures for the past week. We are loving it so far. We also got our 28-70mm lens, 50mm lens, and several lens filters. AWESOME!!!

    Sadly, Russia and Mongolia may have to disappear from our itinerary soon. We recently found out that Russia has increased the cost of visas for U.S. citizens ($131) and made it a rule that U.S. citizens must apply for and receive their visas in the United States. So, that adds a twist to our itinerary. We may take the days that we were planning for Russia and Mongolia (25 days) and travel some in Eastern Europe. Who knows where we’ll go there!!! Suggestions would be greatly appreciated…   

    In other news, it SNOWED in Mississippi yesterday! Yeah, that’s right. Snow. Like, the white kind. Snowball fights, cardboard box and garbage can lid sliding, tree shaking, and all other redneck Mississippi snow day sports were performed by all! It hasn’t snowed here (enough to stick anyway) in years, so it was a big deal.

P.S.- Less than 6 months until we leave!!!!!!!!!!

    Anyone else having hunger pangs now? Every year we spend time at each of our close relatives’ houses and eat enormous amounts of food at every one. The next day we feel full…Sick even. But what about 2 days later? For me, that is always when my belly says “Stop right there! I wanna know right now! Before we go any further do ya love me, will ya love me forever, do ya need me….” And my answer is always “Yes, but we can’t go on like this. Nothing good can come of this relationship we have built over the past few days…” Well, here I am at that point again. Wondering if it’s worth it, desperately searching for the courage to stand up to my tummy and say NO for a change. Other than that, I am happy, blessed even to have such a great Christmas. Wanna know what we got? Well, if you insist. 

Craig got: money, a silk sleep sheet for the RTW trip, an Alsupsworldtravels.com t-shirt (technically an anniversary present), 4 CF cards for my Rebel XTI, a wind-up monkey toy, candy, 3 books from my ultimate reading list on my Amazon wish list, drinking straws, a sketchbook, pencil set, journal, 3 lens filters, a rain jacket, a flashlight, lithium batteries, 20 questions game…All I can think of for now.       

Jen got: money, DVD-RW’S, a camera case, a waterproof housing for her digital camera, lithium batteries, a camera card holder, watch, earrings, necklace, silk sleep sheet, travel blow dryer, journal, cd’s for the camcorder, candy, a SD card, pearl necklace, trivia game, face cleanser…I think that’s it!

We got a lot of stuff that we needed for the trip and the money that we got will help buy the rest of it! Oh yeah, possibly the best Christmas present of all:   We found out that Jen’s ear surgery is gonna be FREE!!! That’s $2,000 we were planning on having to spend that will stay in the trip fund!!! Well, so long for now!!!