In my constant search for comfortable travel shoes, I am amazed by the number of heinously ugly options out there. If these shoes were horses, they would be shot, immediately.

I once thought that I was immune to such ugliness. When searching for comfortable shoes online, there were so many options, I’d simply skip over the unappealing ones and straight to the cute. My brain has its own filter for this sort of thing. And yet, there are times when a shoe is so unsightly, it will not be ignored. It screams to be noticed. “LOOK AT ME!”, it shouts. “I WAS DESIGNED BY DRUNK KINDERGARTNERS!”

Some of these shoes are impractical. Others are baffling.

All of them are very, very ugly.

Here are the top twelve worst pairs I’ve encountered while digging through the bowels of Zappos. Enjoy.

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1. Arcopedico N42

Seriously? N42 is what you are going to call the shoe? Sweet Jesus. Put in a little effort. Give it a name. May I suggest “The Bertha”?

Also, they appear to melting.

Ugh. These look like what the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man would wear when he wants to get laid.

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San Francisco is a weird town. Sometimes, I forget this. You visit enough times, and you begin to lose site of just how bizarre a place is. And my frame of reference is pretty good: I travel enough to where the occasional jacked-up hobo in old-timey pajamas doesn’t phase me. But San Francisco is in another category all its own. Stranger than Seattle. More bizarre than Boston. And possibly more neurotic than New York (if such a thing is possible). Take a look at ten of the crazier things I saw last week …

1. Well, there’s goes the marketing budget for the year. What the hell is this ad for? I have no idea. But it’s awful. I mean, you want to be smart right? And balls-less? Or stupid and virile? I just DON’T UNDERSTAND.

Stupid is also the one approving the marketing campaign.

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While Rand was once again showing off his public speaking skills (and meting out crazy doses of charm) I decided to roam around the city a bit. The only problem? Everything in L.A. is miles from everything else, nothing is within walking distance, and I didn’t feel like driving. Los Angeles is a terribly walking city, but we were fortunately rather close to Venice Beach, which made for a semi-interesting walk.

1. Surf/Swim sign

I wanted to walk up to it and scream, "Don't tell me what to do!" But I wasn't with anyone I could embarrass.

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Dear residents of Seattle;

First off, a brief apology. I am sure that I have flipped off the vast majority of you in traffic. On more passive aggressive occasions, I may have intentionally picked my nose in the vicinity of your children, thereby affirming the belief that it’s not only okay and acceptable, but it’s fun! Enjoy trying to break them of that habit.

However, all of that is in the past (and by “past”, I mean, “foreseeable future”), because I’m here to give you a bit of HOLY-CATS-THAT’S-AWESOME advice. And it is as follows: Visit the Willamette Valley wineries in Oregon. Immediately.

Oh, hush: I do not CARE if you have other obligations to tend to in our fair city. The kids can drop themselves off at daycare for once (plus, you don’t want those little nose-pickers in your car anyway). And stop whining that you’re going to miss Great Uncle Lou’s last days: it’s called hospice for a reason. It’s because it’s hospitable. He’s not going to notice you’re gone: he thinks it’s 1943, anyway.

Besides: OREGON WINE COUNTRY IS AWESOME. Here are just a few reasons why.

1. It’s must closer to Seattle. I’m not going to lie: I suck at geography, and I don’t really know where Napa is. But I know that Oregon is, like, a MILLION times closer (no hyperbole).

Hee hee. It's on Uranus.

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2. There’s no sales tax in Oregon. None. For people in Washington state, that’s like a 10 percent discount on everything.* The only downside is that most things purchased in Oregon are made of hemp. (*Of course, this is only true if you cheat on your taxes, failing to retroactively pay sales tax on all tax-free Oregon purchases come April. And I would never endorse defrauding the U.S. government in any way.)

This entire building was made from hemp. If you licked the paint on the walls, you got high (though according to my buzzkill hubby, it was just "lead poisoning.")

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3. Matt and Kim live in Oregon. I know, I know – you probably don’t know who Matt and Kim are. But they’re awesome, and if you drove down to Oregon, your chances of meeting them increase by, like, a thousand percent.

Matt kind of looks like a hobbit in this photo, but they're still awesome.

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4. Everything will be far less expensive than its California counterpart. Accommodations, restaurants, wine tastings, and even the wine itself is going to be way cheaper in Oregon than California. A few wineries even have picnic tables and recreational areas, so you can bring your own awesome selection of food. This either qualifies you as a connoisseur, or a hobo.

What? Hoboes can be foodies.

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5. There are fewer crowds. My husband gets upset when I use the phrase, “It’s so crowded – it’s like the Black Hole of Calcutta at happy hour.” He’s says it’s offensive. So I’m not going to use that term. I’m simply going to say that attending a wine tasting in Napa will leave you more squished than an elevator ride at a Dom DeLuise look-alike convention.

RIP, Sweet Prince.

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6. It’s gives you way more (yuppie) street-cred. Now that Napa has become mainstream for the upper-middle class, you’ll need to do more to impress your foie-eating friends. One the “hot” list for young urban professionals: scented oxygen appetizers, straddle buses, and Oregon wines.Yay!

Also on the list: playing frisbee golf while channeling Don Draper.

7. You can hang out in Portland. Again, I have no idea about geography, but I assume that Napa is in the middle of nowhere, and consequently a no-man’s land overrun by cannibals and mutants. Instead of isolating yourself in the California countryside with your friends (which, HELLO? – so the makings of a horror movie), you can chill in Portland (a city that lacks any major structural landmarks, making it immune to alien attacks). Yay!

This would never happen in Portland.

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8. The weather is awesome. No, seriously. The Willamette Valley is not, like the rest of the Pacific northwest, reminiscent of swamp that was accidentally left in the universe’s refrigerator (what? I suck at analogies, too). During the summer, the days are sun-drenched and warm, and because we’re further north, they’re longer, too.

This was taken at 10pm.

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There. That’s it. Eight perfectly good reasons to (temporarily) abandon all your responsibilities and drive down to Oregon. Just be sure to properly say good-bye to Uncle Lou. I don’t want that on my conscience.

I’ve started this post about four times. I kept trying to find a way to tie the topic matter to travel, and frankly, I couldn’t. It has nothing to do with travel.

Instead, this post has everything to do with me. Or, more specifically, my mom.

See, she’s just discovered Facebook.

Since joining, she immediately friended one of my ex-boyfriends, posted half a dozen links about the existence of extra-terrestrial life, and called me every five minutes for days on end, asking me if I had seen her recent status updates and what I thought of her new profile picture.

The result is awkward, yet somehow endearing. To my mom, the internet is a new and strange place. She’s been an immigrant before, and now she’s a digital immigrant, to boot. She’s traveling in a strange new world, and only vaguely understands internet etiquette. She says things on Facebook that I wouldn’t in a million years consider posting.

And yet, there’s nothing wrong with that. Because when you explore new lands, there’s no right or wrong. It’s kind of like travel (HOLY CRAP, I AM MANAGING TO TIE THIS POST TO TRAVEL). You may not know all the customs. You may do things that other people find strange, or weird. But as long as you’re open-minded, willing to make friends, and your heart is in the right place?

Things will be just fine.

So, without further ado, some crazy/delightful ways my mom has used Facebook, and a few faux pas she’s committed.

1. Here are three posts from her in a row. Tell me if you see a pattern.

Did you find the pattern? That's right: each post starts with a consonant.

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Forgive me if this post isn’t funny.

I swear, it isn’t my fault. I’ve been trying to shed a couple pounds before being squeezing myself into cocktail dress after cocktail dress (for wedding season is among us) and the first casualty of my reduced caloric intake in my sense of humor. There’s a joke here, something about how that’s why all the girls on Friends were both skinny and unfunny, but I can’t pull it together. If I had a donut, I probably could.

Also, did you notice that Jennifer Aniston makes really bad movie choices? It’s like she’s trying to fail.

Did I mention I’m phoning it in today, too? I’m phoning it in today. Forgive me. Tonight I will eat two pints of gelato, ensuring that tomorrow’s post will be riotous, and also that I won’t fit into anything I own. This is the sacrifice I am willing to make for my blog.

For today, you’ll have to settle for 10 photos from our last trip to Portland (and surrounding wine country).

1. Clyde Common Restaurant, Portland.

They serve popcorn. POPCORN. At a restaurant. Never have I heard of anything so magical.

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Pride was a few weeks ago in Seattle, and while we really haven’t had much of a summer (as we’d been promised) it didn’t stop folks from stripping down, dancing in the streets, and being freely and gloriously exactly who they are. Rand and I popped down to see the parade and enjoy the festivities, and while I could spend hours trying to describe the inclusive, loving feeling that was hovering around Seattle Center on that day, I think photos probably do a better a job. Here are my top ten pictures from Seattle’s 2010 Gay Pride festival and parade.

1. A rainbow flag flies atop the Space Needle (for the first time, ever).

I love you, Seattle, like no other.

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2. The t-shirt my hubby wore to pride.

Respect, yo.

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My brother just joined Twitter. This is somewhat amusing to me, because he’s still in the “What the heck is the purpose of this?” phase (note: that doesn’t stop his Twitter feed from being raunchily hilarious). I’ve been using Twitter for a few years (though the account I use now was created more recently than my older, personal account) and as I focus more on travel and travel blogging, its purpose has become apparent.

Being active on Twitter is a must for any travel blogger. Not only does it give you a great network with which to connect to other travel bloggers and promote your own articles and links, but it actually makes your travels better, too. Check out my reasons for how Twitter can help you in all your travels … (more…)

Many, many years ago, when my brother first went to college, he made some friends via the internet. At the time, it was a foreign and strange place, full of child molesters and murderers and little else (now, I am pleased to say that while a criminal element still exists online, it is mostly populated by geeks and nerds and everyone else on the planet). My brother was in California at the time, and we were still living in Florida. My brother had casually mentioned to my mom that he’d been meeting some friends for dinner – and they happened to be people who he had originally met online.

My mother, true to her specific brand of crazy, freaked out. She went apeshit. And, long story short, the evening ended with my brother meeting some lovely friends for dinner, and then returning home to find several messages on his phone from the LAPD, who believed him to be dead or missing.

Sigh.

My brother turned out to be fine. My mother continues to be paranoid.

At the time, though, I think her crazy made a little more sense. It was 1994: the internet was new and scary. Now, meeting people from the online realm doesn’t seem to hold the same dangers it did (or at least, the dangers my mother thought it did). Recently, I hung out with Mike Perron of PerronBrothers.com. I am pleased to say that he was not at all creepy, and that no parties involved were skinned and turned into dresses, despite repeated jokes of that nature.

Also, it's weird that Mike's cousin and I are wearing the same outfit.

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I’ve noted before on the blog how strange my upbringing in Florida strikes me sometimes. Compared to Seattle, it is a radically different place: flatter, more conservative, and somehow weirder.

I remember being devastated when we moved away in the middle of my freshman year of high school (this will remain a sore spot in family history for decades, but that’s another story). And while I wish that certain things had played out differently (because walking into a cafeteria as a freshman in the middle of the school year and knowing no one is absolutely terrifying) I am very, very happy that I no longer live in Florida. Not because I don’t love it or the people, but because so much of the stuff I see when I travel down there is so ridiculously jacked up, that I have to take photos.

And that’s just time consuming.

Behold some of the crazier sh*t the hubby and I saw on our last trip.

1. Tea baggers, Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.

I wish we had photo-bombed them with a sign that says, "Honk if you're scared of black people."

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