eyeintim

Category: Uncategorized

  • Undercover Angel

    My life is very, very different than it was a month ago. I’m really happy to be back in DC, and it does feel like home now (even though I’m still staying in a Hostel and don’t have a home yet). But that doesn’t mean I’m not at times taken aback by how drastically things…

  • Talk about a Walkabout, Part II

      First, thanks for all for the birthday wishes today. However, based upon some of them, it’s clear that I should have updated my blog earlier than this, as my situation as sorta changed… When I left on this walkabout, I did so with a completely open mind as to where I was going, how…

  • Tanjung Puting National Park

    This is why you travel – I’ll let two pics and two videos do most of my talking for me here. My transport & viewing platform for three days & two nights: It was also my restaurant & hostel: Cruising up the Sekonyer river: Cruising up the Sekonyer River from Tim Gillons on Vimeo. The…

  • The People’s Court: Bandarmasin, Kalimantan (Borneo)

    Judge: The defendant stands accused of violating his oath to “not eat any western food whilst in Indonesia”, to atone for his McDonald’s sins in Australia Defense: Your honor, while my client admits that the lunch he ate at a local establishment was fried chicken, it was not actually western food: There were no other…

  • I’m Not Lion: I was a tad nervous

    It was a little unnerving to be waiting at the gate at the Labuan Bajo airport watching the television coverage of the Lion Air plane crash that had happened at the Bali airport the day before (nobody died). Even more so because the flight I was waiting for was on Lion Air…going to Bali. And…

  • Haircut #2: Labuan Bajo

    When I got off the Flores boat in the town of Labuan Bajo and looked in a mirror for the first time in five days, I realized it was haircut time. The barber I found didn’t know any english, especially the fine-tuned adjectives of what I was looking for in a cut, so I just…

  • Dragon a guard to the toilet

    There are 17,000 islands in Indonesia, and they are spread out over a huge area. So the four day & night live-aboard boat trip I took from the island of Lombok to the island of Flores was ideal, as it allowed me to visit lots of different places while still moving myself east the whole…

  • Lord of the Rings

    I’ve been accused of being a tad too negative with my posts, so this one comes at just the right time. Gili Trawangan, an island off the west coast of the island of Lombak, is perfection. It’s tiny, so you can walk around the whole thing in about 90 minutes, and the walk is on…

  • Eat (street food), Pray (the touts leave you alone), Love (rice paddies)

    Traveling a lot has ruined the allure of seeing cathedrals, temples, buddhas (no matter what position he’s in) & cultural performances for me, and interesting rock formations are about to be added to the list. However, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing rice paddies, especially when marbled with jungle foliage. Ubud (the…

  • I Kuta Bali how much I’m lovin’ it

    Australia is a great place: warm climate; warm people; and lots of fun and varied stuff to see & do. However, it just wasn’t doing it for me this time. One reason is that it’s surprisingly expensive. The $1 menu at McDonald’s (not that I went there a lot) is actually $2, and the cheapest…

  • Darnwin

    Pro tip: Charge you phone’s battery the night before you leave from Darwin on a three day 4WD camping safari to Kakadu & Litchfield National Parks in the Northwest Territory of Australia. Otherwise, you might try to charge it the morning that you leave and then forget it at the hostel when the truck picks…

  • Kangapoos

    Kangaroos poop. A lot. I know this because I stayed in Halls Gap, a great country town in the Grampian Mountains of Victoria, and one that is inundated with kangaroos. Aussies think that Americans believe all Australian cities, towns, streets & yards have kangaroos hopping through them (like the polar bars that run through ALL…

  • Port Scary

    Port Fairy (“Voted Most Livable Village in the World, 2012!”) was my first real introduction to Aussie wildlife this trip. I was standing on a bird sanctuary viewing platform/deck attempting to see the nightly Mutton Birds return-to-nest event, where they leave their beach dens at dawn, feed the whole day out in the ocean, and…

  • Ahhhpollo Bay

    Apollo Bay is a little beach town about 3-4 hours from Melbourne, but a world apart from the big city. It’s exactly the type of place I was looking for to finally unwind & decompress from the real world and get in to the true traveler mindset. While a tad touristy, it’s a two-pub beach…

  • Melburn

    Melbourne is great. Truly. It was just voted the most livable city in the world, and after having spent a week there, I believe it. It’s got a beautiful location on the Yarra river, is full of parks, outdoor spaces (including lots of free wi-fi), bars, restaurants, sporting venues, events, and the beach is just…

  • Bar Dubai

    http://youtube.com/watch?feature=plcp&v=YJUtMEmhIPE Believe it or not, I actually recorded several takes of this (yes, I know, I need to work on the sound, the shakes, the acting, the actor…), and this one was done AFTER I got a haircut at this place because I felt like I had to – after several takes, the owner came…

  • Business Talk

    My dorm room in Dubai was my return to the beloved & efficient all-in-one bathroom: You are at the sink, but turn left and you’re in the shower! Turn right and you’re at the toilet! Brilliant! Speaking of, here’s a conversation I had with a Swedish guy at the hostel: Me: Hey, I thought you…

  • Dubai? Do not buy!

    After an awesome going-away weekend (A highlight: A costumed women’s arm wrestling competition/burlesque show taking over the bar we were at), hectic life deconstruction & apartment clean-up, and long 31-hour, four-airport journey, I arrived at my hotel in Abu Dhabi. I’d been told by several people on the flights that there wasn’t much to see…

  • Micropaid

    I’m selling all my furniture and really want to get rid of it quickly. So, I’ve just been leaving my apartment unlocked and telling people in my building to feel free to walk in anytime and take a look. I’m not really worried about people stealing stuff, but felt I needed to be a little…

  • Talk about a Walkabout

    I’m dusting off the backpack and heading out for some travel again. My last day at Service Alley is this Friday, Feb. 22nd, and I fly off to Abu Dhabi on Feb. 27th. I’ll be there for a week and then flying on to Melbourne, Australia. Once there my planning stops, but I’ll likely head…

  • It doesn’t look pretty, and I certainly don’t talk pretty about it behind its back (trunk?), but I have to give mad props to my car of 14 years. I expected it to give up on me when I drove it down to Florida & Key West over xmas, but it didn’t. It then also…

  • I’m not sure what’s more amazing – that you can easily see that this isn’t the Southernmost point, or that people are waiting in a 20 minute line to take a picture there.

  • A great day at the beach fishing with the cousins (though the fish took the day off)

  • Great Thanksgiving DC scene: Ten of my Latino neighbors playing football (American) in the nearby Square, speaking Spanish the whole time, but yelling the rush count as “One Mississippi, Two Mississippi…”. Also, the empty streets.

  • How many different accents are there in English-speaking countries?

    None. While used in such languages as French & Spanish, accents are not used in English.

  • civil war

    Oxymoron 

  • On a Nats/O’s night, this is the only place to find the USMNT game playing

  • I’ve been published again! Cheap Flights Travel Blog in the UK used my picture in their write-up of an Australian Outback pub crawl. I actually went to all of the pubs they talk about, and slept in a tent across the “street” from this one. It was great, but the # and aggressiveness of the…

  • Sarcasm

    The support offered by this article makes it harder to progress towards my goal of being friendlier Sarcasm

  • Today’s morning run inspiration was provided by…the three hookers in the middle of the street right outside my apartment building – if you can motivate yourselves in the rain today, ladies, so can I! Also, the energy shown by a john yelling at one of them from his minivan provided me the mental boost to start…

  • USMNT vs. Brazil. Finally real football @ FedEx Field

  • what makes grass green?

    Its color

  • If laughter is the best medicine, why do people say they ‘died laughing’?

    Because that saying is homeopathy-based

  • what is the best dive bar in DC?

    The Pug, on H St NE

  • How many strings have you had up your nose this morning?

  • A serving of Frank Deford with side of @nprinskeep tonight. A great meal for the mind.

  • Now I know: In DC, when you are parked in a street cleaning zone, the city provides an awesome valet service that moves your car to a spot that isn’t street cleaning that day AND they only charge $130 for it! Then when you go to get your car from where you parked it, and…

  • Bryce Harper’s first home at-bat

  • I’m pretty happy with my first year stats for @bikeshare, especially that none of my rides were > 30 minutes, so I was never charged extra.

  • Awkward = forced talking in the elevator. More awkward = forced talking in the elevator with the elevator repair man

  • I can’t stop watching this

    I can’t stop watching this

  • You gotta commit

  • On the ferry from Lewes to Cape May.

  • I call it the bloody Chaplin

  • Is the return of my sense of smell imminent?

  • Morning run highlights

    1. The first cherry blossom buds (on the White House grounds) 2. The dozens of flags flying over the downtown buildings, fully stretched out in the stiff breeze 3. Running up the Washington Monument hill and yelling “come on” at a Park Police bicycle cop when I passed him as he slowly rode up the…

  • http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/crime-scene/post/one-protester-tased-arrested-at-occupy-dc/2012/01/29/gIQAxqRKaQ_blog.html I was walking through the park when this happened yesterday, so got to see it all go down. My verdict:  (1) The guy was definitely a little crazy – screaming & yelling in his pajamas and no shoes (on a chilly day) and stomping around tearing off the the police warning messages on the…

  • I finally made it to the Grand Canyon, and it’s as amazing as all the hype tells you it will be. The only problem is I can’t stop thinking about when the Brady Bunch came here.

  • The DC Occupiers are acting up so I came down the check things out. I had to leave, though, to get a refill of my Starbucks & get a bunch of cash from the Wells Fargo nearby.

  • Movember 30th: Rise of the Pornstache

  • Movember 28th: Training Wheels

  • I’m thankful for the Mt. Vernon trail – what a gem.

  • Quite an interesting week for me: First it was a Jay-Z & Kanye West concert at the Verizon Center (trust me, that’s them); and then authors Gregory White Smith & Steven Naifeh (shown with Greame) discussing their new book about Vincent Van Gogh at Politics & Prose.

  • Despite what this commercial tells you, scooters are cool. I know this because of all the thumbs-ups that I get from teenage fellas when I’m riding mine.

  • This is why I came back East

  • The National Arboretum in DC is actually pretty nice. These are columns from the Capitol before it was expanded in 18blahblah.

  • Don’t: Drive in to a carport with your bike on the roof rack – it angers the bike and really pisses off the rack (and car) Do: Buy your bike @bikerackdc – they give you free lifetime adjustments, including those necessitated by driving in to a carport Ignore: A bike mechanic’s warning that the damage to the…

  • namelessted: The ultimate magic trick is the best thing I have ever seen.

  • Found a great spot on the water in DC – and about the only place in town that isn’t crawling with cops

  • The new one is a good one

  • I bought a new toy. It’s so much fun.

  • laughingsquid: Haters Gonna Hate by Christopher Monro Delorenzo

  • Inspiring: Seeing three G.I. Joes running with full packs on the Mall this morning Not inspiring: Seeing a shady John picking up a hooker right in front of my apartment building when beginning my run

  • Britney flies. I believe.

  • Now sure how this happened, but I’m at the Britney Spears concert.

  • 29 life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight | Fluent in 3 months

    Indeed saralouhicks: Awesome 29 life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight | Fluent in 3 months

  • At The Pug to watch @dcunited play; @daveschappell should be here

  • At Carpool for the USWNT vs. Japan in the World Cup Final

  • Beautiful day biking along the Potomac

  • Washington Kastles – that’s Martina Hingis serving on the left

  • Ten years ago today I was one of these idiots sitting on the ground in the bullring in Pamplona, covering my head and hoping the bull didn’t land on me. It didn’t, but it goes without saying that I had to dispose of my pants afterwards.

  • Golf Trip 2011

  • laughingsquid: Disturbing Photos of Parents Swapping Heads With Their Children Source: Laughing Squid

  • Great seats at Nats vs O’s. Thanks @griffimx!

  • @dcunited game with Darth Hooligan – quite a fine chap

  • Had an incredible meal at the awesome new @eatsauca restaurant in Arlington today. Actually, as you can see, it was more of a throw-down.

  • at Nationals Park. Waiting for lobster roll.

  • TeachStreet is a school of hard knocks gbb: Suntory Time with @daryn (Taken with Instagram at TeachStreet World HQ)

  • Just had a great 10k run around Seattle’s Lake Union on the Cheshihud loop. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to pause a run to wait for a drawbridge, and it happened on two separate bridges.

  • In Seattle @ Sounders vs. Timbers. The game hasn’t started yet and these are already the best home fans I’ve ever seen. Incredible.

  • I’m a big fan of both the term and the idea of a ‘session’ beer

    I’m a big fan of both the term and the idea of a ‘session’ beer

  • National Harbor in Maryland. It’s nice here, but it’s got no soul. I’m think I’m becoming a city snob.

  • I bought a new bike this weekend and took it out for the first time today, a quick trip to the National Zoo. I love the bike and had a great buying experience at a local shop, The Bike Rack (@bikerackdc) near Logan Circle – ask for Chuck; he’s great. 

  • I got April Fooled

  • Nats opening day!

  • Just finished my first run using @runkeeper on the iPhone it was awesome. Best GPS running device I’ve ever used. Thanks, @daveschappell

  • Two interesting things happened to me while running recently: (1) A bird flew directly in to my foot; flashback. (2) As I was running by a bar one evening around 9pm, a group of fancy girls in dresses and very high heels were gathered outside. One of them started running in place when she saw…

  • One of the reasons I like working for The Washington Post: Not only is there plenty of reading material always available in the bathrooms, there’s also a nice shelf to keep it on.

  • I can’t begin to tell you how much I enjoy this. You look old, Bernard, and thus make me feel old, but, yes, it is pretty. laughingsquid: Bernard Sumner Singing Acoustic Version of Bizarre Love Triangle

  • I feel like the eyes of @wilhelmstaele are looking at me no matter where I move  nosnivelling: Jib – Tim Gillons @eyeintim live on at @JibJab – @JibJabCEO (Taken with Instagram at JibJab)

  • It was a proud moment today when I saw the first ad for servicealley.com on the washingtonpost.com site. And then I saw the other ad on the page.

  • Hey, DC friends, have you heard about Service Alley? It’s the new, free website that helps you find local home service providers in the DC Metro Area. Plus, I hear they have awesome employees. http://servicealley.com

  • I missed

  • Skeet shooting in Mt. Crawford, VA

  • We had the most incredible backdrop for tennis today. The ball would totally get lost in the leaves, but it was so worth it.

  • The Rally was way too crowded, so we’re restoring our sanity in a pub

  • My shilling continues (but I promise this is the last time you’ll hear from me on this topic**):  So, if you live in the DC area and you didn’t show up the thecapitoldish.com launch party last night, no problem; you can make it up to me by going to the site now, checking out the deals this…

  • I started this blog back in November of 2007, mainly as a test site for my new job at JibJab. So it’s only fitting that I break my recent posting slumber with a post for my new job at The Washington Post. Although it’s not the site I’m working on, The Post has launched a DC metro area restaurant deals…