My Life - My Travels

It has been about a week or so since I have made any steps to becoming a minimalist. I have narrowed my clothes down 2 business outfits, 2 business casual outfits, 2 pairs of regular pants, 1 pair of shorts, swim shorts, and 4 pairs of underwear and 4 pairs of socks. Two of the pairs of socks are Smartwool. I also continue to sell of items on ebay and craigslist.

As I sell some things, I buy others. Some to get ready and some because I use them in the mean time. I recently bought a new backpack. An Osprey Atmos 50 backpack. (continue reading…)

I took a hike the other day up to some water falls I’ve never been to before. Let me tell you, they were awesome! Well…1 out of the 3 were. I went to Squaw Creek Falls outside of Sisters Oregon about 10 miles or so. The directions I have say…

The waterfalls of Whychus Creek are located just nside the Three Sisters Wilderness Area, located south of the town of Sisters. From Highway 242 in downtown Sisters, turn south on Forest Service Road 16, signed for Three Creek Lake (do not follow FR 15, signed for Whychus Creek, west of town). After 7 miles, turn right onto FR 1514, and proceed just under 5 miles to FR 1514-600, immediately before crossing Whychus Creek on a large concrete bridge, and turn left. Road 1514-600 is very rough, but passable for passenger cars with decent clearance. Follow this rough road for another 2 miles to a T-junction and bear left, reaching the trailhead in another ½ mile. From here, follow the Chush Falls trail for an easy mile to canyon-rim views of Chush Falls.Officially, the trail ends here, but it continues on as a plainly
obvious route. The Cascades are encountered ¼ mile further. (continue reading…)

The minimalist lifestyle sounds great doesn’t it? No debt, no house payment, being able to pick up and move at a moments notice, etc, etc. Some people call it downshifting, some call it being an urban minimalist, and some call it being anti-consumerist. I call it being smart and getting back in touch with what I personally think life should be about.

I got laid off from work about 6 months ago. I was in IT and that is one of the worst markets to be in at this moment. I’ve had a few odd jobs here and there but nothing of any real value. I poked and prodded at my savings to get me by so I can eat and pay the important bills. (continue reading…)

I plan to write a multi-part post about living as a minimalist. This will hopefully document my journey up to my current point and map out the rest of my path to living a minimalist lifestyle.

What exactly is a minimalist lifestyle you make ask. This answer will differ from one person to another but to me it is simple. And the answer can be summed up into one word. Simple.

I used to a bit of a pack rat. I learned that skill from my mother. I read that one of the reason people are pack rats is due to fear. We fear that we may need that item in the future. I might need that spare keyboard even though mine works great and has zero problems. We also grow an item we own and don’t want to get rid of said item because it has been with you for so long. We has a people have come to fear change. (continue reading…)

I ran across Zoto in quest to find a decent and cheap online backup for my all my photos. I love to take photos and a lot of my photos are in in RAW format, so they can take up a lot of room.

I started reading about Zoto and it seemed like it might fit the bill for all my JPGs and I was ok with that.

Turns out that Zoto wasn’t exactly what I was looking for but it turned out to be pretty cool never the less. Some say a Flickr wanna be but I say so what…who cares?

Zoto allows you to create folders and upload as many photos as you like. Share or make them private. They can handle photos up to 20mb in size and they offer a pretty cool interface. There is a lot of technology that you’ve seen before like a lightbox but they do it well and it looks good.

There is also a simple uploader you can put on you computer and all you have to do is drag and drop the individual photos or a whole folder. I would have liked to seen the folder structure be keep instead of just uploading into a “all photos” folder. It creates a lot of extra work in the name of organization.

All in all I think Zoto is a fair opponent to Flickr if you take into consideration the unlimited storage.

Zoto gets a thumbs up for me if I want to share photos with friends but as photo backup it just doesn’t cut it.

Then again, it’s not trying to be a backup service.