For those who stay, please allow me to explain why this blog happens to be called, "Colossal Waste." You see, years and years ago I took this name because it seemed to me that blogs were a colossal waste of time. After creating it I ignored this blog for a few years, as I felt that publishing my opinions or activities was a lame thing to do.
But then... my wife and I went on a 3 and a half week trip in 2008 that included Germany, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. When we got home, and I pondered the nine thousand photographs taken; I thought that maybe a blog was the right way to store and share that experience. I spent a little bit of time sorting through the pictures and looking at different blog platforms, but I ran out of steam.
Then came 2009. My wife decided that we would spend an extended amount of time travelling Europe. Fifty-nine days, in fact. On a whim, I revisited the idea of blogging for this trip. I rediscovered Colossal Waste in my Google account and ran some tests. It turned out that I could take a picture with my iPhone, email it to my blog with some commentary, and have an instant post. This was intriguing. (Said tests are still on here.) What I did not do was rename the blog or restart it under a, shall we say, less sardonic title. Colossal Waste survived.
On June 1, 2009, we boarded a Virgin Atlantic flight to London and I enacted the plan. On the first day of the trip, I starting liking so many of my pictures that I soon realized emailing them to the blog one-by-one was not the direction I wanted to go. No, I would upload several pictures and then add commentary to them, almost like a daily... log. Instead of a few pictures per day, I was suddenly sharing thirty, forty, fifty. It was enjoyable, and made the travel more rewarding. Friends and family started sending positive feedback, which created a bit of a snowball of enthusiasm. And it did not hurt that I was able to automate this blog with my Facebook account, sharing every post with everyone there.
The summer across Europe ended and I had successfully blogged 59 out of 59 days. Several benefits soon became apparent. First, it was very much like having an instant photo album we could look over for the trip. Second, friends and family felt like they had traveled with us. And thirdly, when my wife or I need to recall a restaurant or place in one of the European cities that we visited, there sits Colossal Waste with the restaurant name and pictures. The Waste is not a waste at all.
Since that trip, points of interest and meals of interest in Los Angeles have found their way onto The Waste. And my wife's wanderlust means that there is a never ending supply of travelling ahead, and all of those travels end up right here.
Enjoy!
