i've been reading all of these great articles and blogs on wandering educators and thinking to about how i would like to go to some of these great places myself...if only the $$$ situation were a little nicer for me (no annual bonus at work this year. stupid economy!)

then it occured to me that in my own way, i was experiencing new and exotic things on a regular basis...a sort of traveling by experience, if you will...

take my obsession with india for example; while i may have never been to india in person, i have learned much about it thru the cookbooks i read, the co-workers i interact with, the frequent trips to Spices of India (28th Street, Grand Rapids MI), which is my favorite little shop for our culinary expeditions into the unknown. We have several great indian restaruants we adore.  my wife Jewly has an uncanny ability to decode the ingredients of a dish and commit it to memory for later use before i have even made it half-way thru a new entree at Bombay Cuisine (Lake St, Grand Rapids MI).

while these things most definately pale in comparison to actually going to india in person, they do serve to form a conglomerate of impressions of what i can only imagine to be an insanely diverse and exciting culture that fuels my desire to learn more about all things india. i've also read the baghavad gita, a book about mahatma gandhi, and a boatload of books about shakyamuni guatama (buddha). i like the places my experiences have taken me, and i look forward to seeing where they continue to take me in the future.

this is just one example of what i mean by travelling without actually going anywhere. in my upcoming blogs i will also include some of the videos i have done in the past, as well as new ones i am working on currently. hopefully these will help convince you that i really am on to something with this whole concept of travelling without actually going anywhere... a kind of "untravel", so to speak.

my first video submission is entitled:the small show. its a little video i did of an art exhibit in my home town of Greenville MI... about 3 blocks from the house...can't travel much less than that! and yet i discovered a whole microcosm of art and music right in my own backyard...and i thought this town was dead!