Late last year I found a two solid weeks to travel in a country that I’ve never visited and I’m very happy to have chosen Belize. I LOVE traveling and I feel unfulfilled if I go a certain period of time without extensive travel, preferably internationally. This was my first such solo adventure since 2007-2008 when I used up my vacation days (thanks Warner/Chappell) to go to Argentina and Chile. I wanted to explore, and get in some adventure along with some quality relaxation and recharging after an exciting but jam-packed quarter running social for The X Factor (among other things).

Belize was an amazing country to visit and I had an incredible experience first near near San Pedro on Ambergris Caye and then in the jungle and at Tikal in Guatemala before rounding out my visit on the paradisical Placencia peninsula.

Read about my travels in the following photo essay (Click on a photo to view captions and scroll through as slideshow). Special thanks to Milio and Kirsten at Ak’Bol on Ambergris Caye and to Paradise Resort in Placencia.

Part One: San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Ak’Bol
[See image gallery at andysternberg.com]

View this gallery on a single page.

Part Two: San Isidro, Cha’a Creek, Tikal
[See image gallery at andysternberg.com]

View this gallery on a single page.

Part Three: Placencia
[See image gallery at andysternberg.com]

View this gallery on a single page.

Accomodations at Lazy R Cottages were ideal, one mile from the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park with nearly all imaginable amenities including a hot tub. No way to plug in and amplify music but our iPads and tablets managed to emit with passable fidelity and just enough decibels to be able to talk over the often ironic yet sentimental streaming tunes. We totalled ten adults, four kids and a baby but were missing at least another six adults and six kids to complete the reunion. Already looking forward to the next one!

At Alberta Falls, Rocky Mountain National Park

Double Rainbow on the drive from Boulder to Estes Park

Immediately after graduating from the University of Iowa I hopped a ride out to Seattle with friends who wanted a quick getaway before they began another semester of classes. I took a job for a few weeks with Aramark at one of the hotels in Denali National Park. It was an incredibly cool job — I was essentially the bellman, but all I did was sit in a little room reading Outside magazine all day, writing, and holding and distributing bags for hotel guests. Twice a day I’d walk over to the train station where the train from Anchorage came in and would collect or drop off bags marked for my hotel.

The greatest perk of working in the summer in Alaska is that — even after a 9-hour workday, there are countless hours of sunlight left to play outside, hike, explore, and photograph the natural beauty that surrounds. Which is what I did a good deal of with the Canon Rebel G SLR camera that I got for graduation. Once I took off on a solo hike to Horseshoe Lake after a shift at work — not a long hike, but i knew I had to find camp before it got too dark, which was around 11-midnight by late August. I had my tent, a flashlight, a journal, and some other essentials, including my Martin Backpacker guitar. I wrote a song inspired by what I had seen and experienced in Alaska right then and there – you can hear a version of it below.

After spending the previous Fall and Winter studying abroad in Australia and travelling for 6 weeks around Oz and New Zealand I couldn’t WAIT to get back out and continue exploring the world. Needless to say I was in paradise that August in Denali, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to get back home. Turns out another college buddy – Pete Balick had purchased an old school Land Rover — with two seats and a little jump seat in the back, and I had my ride back to the States sorted and another adventure in front of me.

I recently digitized my favorite photos from these adventures. Check ’em out here or on flickr.

[display_podcast]

I used ScanDigital and even though it took about 6 weeks, they did a great job — I sent over 200 photos separated into 6 categories (i.e. Alaska, Australia, etc) and they were digitized into six subfolders. My order was heavily subsidized by this Groupon. If you’d like to try them out you can click here and enter promo code ‘netzoo’ at checkout for 10% off.

Just a brief update for friends and family trying to keep up with my personal and professional pursuits and adventures. First I’ll address why my personal blogging has been lagging of late: I’ve begun blogging more regularly at LAist under a new title — Associate Editor. This is my first paid position at LAist and it really is thrilling to be compensated to work harder for a blog that I’ve been more than happy to write for as a volunteer for more than 3 years now. Last night I live-blogged the Grammy Awards from the tv/radio media room backstage. Read that post here. You can access an index of my posts at LAist here or by clicking the tab in the top nav bar of this blog. I’ve often reposted articles written for LAist on this blog but as my posting becomes more frequent at LAist I will continue this only on a very limited basis. Please follow LAist on twitter and join our Facebook page.

I continue working as an independent consultant and as an advisor to boutique marketing and communication agencies with a focus on social media for social good, events, and online marketing and social media in the music space. I am currently working on projects with Zoetica Media and the Force Agency. I still manage and maintain Live Earth’s online presence and am taking the lead on BarCamp LA’s web stuff for the upcoming BarCamp Los Angeles 8, set for April 30 – May 1. I have a couple other ventures and interests that I’ve signed onto in principle but have yet to be fully fleshed out. For the most part I am trying to keep my professional profile up-to-date on my about page and at my LinkedIn profile. The latest version of my resume is always available at andysternberg.com/cv.pdf.

I hope to travel quite a bit this year both for personal and professional growth. I look forward to visiting with friends and potential clients / collaborators later this month in New York City.

Please reach out to me at any time, text / phone / IM / email and as always, keep in touch!

Looking forward to hobnobbing with the Hollywood greenies at this Saturday’s RETHINK:GREEN charity event in Culver City.

The event benefits LA’s Environmental Charter Schools and includes an award presentation from the Environmental Charter High School‘s (in Lawndale) Green Ambassadors. Winners include Matt Petersen, President & CEO of Global Green USA; Mark Gold, President of Heal the Bay. ECHS is celebrating its tenth year and Environmental Charter Schools opened an accompanying middle school this fall.

Attendees will be privy to a an organic & sustainable wine, spirit and local food tasting and organic food truck cuisine. There will be a silent auction including works of art by Shepard Fairey and others as well as travel, spa, fashion and other lifestyle items from environmentally sustainable businesses.

Featured celebrity hosts include Ed Begley Jr., Rachelle Carson Begley, Lisa Ling, Anna Getty, James Kyson Lee, MTV’s Buried Life Crew.

RETHINK:GREEN Event — Saturday, Nov. 6th, Celebrity & VIP Arrival 6pm, general admission 7pm at 3121 S. La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90016. More info at Rethinkgreenevent.org. Tickets.

Originally posted at LAist.

UPDATE: Just got an email that my funds went through! After a whole month SOTRU hit its Kickstarter fundraising goal with just two minutes to spare! Congrats!

Having just heard that one of my recent Kickstarter investments, CicLAvia, has been funded, a new project has conveniently crossed my path and if you’re into it too, you’ve got a few days left to chip in a few bucks.

State of the Re:Union (SOTRU) is a public media show that seeks to unify its audience by telling the stories of real people through an innovative exploration of a city, detailing how things come together and what pulls them apart. Each radio episode, host Al Letson travels to a different American city or town and explores how community is created. Who are the people who help bring it together? What are the issues they face? How does the culture of an area shape the people and vice versa? Through a unique mix of storytelling, cultural excavation, music and multimedia, SOTRU brings community to life. — Read more | website | Facebook | Twitter.

Kickstarter is a groundbreaking concept in microdonations and in awesome website and community. You pledge to donate the amount you choose — with great incentive rewards for various dollar amounts — and the money is taken via your Amazon.com account only if the fundraising goal is met.

State of the Re:Union is closing in on 50% funded with only 4 days remaining (after a month on the site) so let’s give it a boost by August 21st!

Here’s a piece on First Avenue in Minneapolis from the State of the Re:Union YouTube channel:

Updates on other projects I’ve invested in: CicLAvia aims for a city-sanctioned bicycle takeover of the LA streets at least one day a year (inspired by ciclovía), and will take place this year along Wilshire Boulevard on October 10 (10.10.10). Another recent Kickstarter project I backed has been funded as well — however, the Invisible Children Take Away Shows in Uganda trip has been postponed following a terrorist attack on the final day of World Cup that killed Invisible Children volunteer Nate Henn (R.I.P.).

Thanks, Rekha, for pointing this out!

Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for good.

Social media has changed the world. It has revolutionized communications on a global scale, and the transformation continues with every status update, blog post, and video stream. The global citizenry has become a global network.

Since becoming widely adopted just a couple years ago, social media has supercharged social action, cause marketing, and social entrepreneurship. Indeed, the true value hasn’t been the technology itself but how we’ve used it. Today, a second wave of innovation is defining a new era and setting the stage for change over the coming decade.

Mobile technologies will extend the global online network to anyone with a mobile device while enabling countless local networks to form in the real world. We’ve decentralized media production and distribution. We’re doing the same for energy. And we’ll continue this trend for social networking, social action, and commerce.

The combined forces of smartphones, mobile broadband, and location-aware applications will connect us in more meaningful ways to the people, organizations, events, information, and companies that matter most to us—namely, those within a physical proximity of where we live and where we are. Can location-based services (LBS) change the world? Here are #10Ways:

1. Checking in for Good: If Gowalla and Foursquare have taught us anything, it’s that people respond to simple incentives. By offering badges, mayorships, and other intangible rewards, millions of people are checking in to the places they go. Apps like Whrrl take this a step further and enable like-minded “societies” to form on a local basis. The next step is for these apps to add greater purpose by encouraging more meaningful checkins and offering corresponding badges and stamps, thus mapping the cause universe. Or for a dedicated app to be developed that rewards conscious consumption, social responsibility, and civic engagement. Yes, the CauseWorld app features a cause element, but it’s not about cause-worthy places.

2. Eating Locally: Sustainability demands that we source our food as close to its point of production as possible. Many so-called locavores subscribe to the 100-mile diet, which requires that one “eat nothing—or almost nothing—but sustenance drawn from within 100 miles of their home.” Given the difficulty of accessing and verifying this information in order to live by this standard, there’s a geo-powered Locavore app. It gives you info on in-season foods, those coming in-season, farmer’s markets, and links to recipes. This rather simple app is clearly just the start. In time, location-aware apps will guide us not only to the grocery store or farmer’s market but through them. All the while identifying foods based on our particular diet or sensibility.

3. Political Organizing: In the next presidential election, politics will not only be local but location-enabled. We saw the power of social media in Obama’s 2008 landslide victory. In 2012, location-based apps and technologies will play a central role in how campaigns are organized, managed, and ultimately won. Much of this will be visible through mobile apps and location-aware browsers. Activists and volunteers will be more empowered. Voters will be more engaged in the moment, right down to casting their votes. Behind the scenes, though, we’ll see massive new sets of data available to campaigns for targeting, empowerment, and optimization. The party, candidate, and/or cause that has the best handle on geolocation will have a measurable advantage. (The Elections app will soon be updated for 2010.)

4. Finding Green Businesses: The web has effectively replaced the paper Yellow Pages as a way to find local businesses and services. However, this “stationary web” experience is quickly being supplanted by the mobile web and mobile applications, which give us access to this information when we most need it. The Yelp and Around Me apps are popular ways to find restaurants, coffee shops, or hotels wherever you are, but what about green-rated businesses? Greenopia has transformed its printed, local guides into a dynamic, nationwide mobile application that lets you find local, green-rated businesses in any category. No more paper and a much better experience. The Green Map app is another that facilitates discovery and connects us to local green environments.

5. Traveling More Efficiently: We’ve had access to GPS navigation systems and static traffic information for some time, but only now are we seeing the full potential of these technologies. With access to more detailed traffic information that is specific to your route and updated in real time, we can minimize congestion and maximize traffic flow (as much as physically possible). The new turn-by-turn MapQuest 4 Mobile app is a good start, as you can get traffic alerts specific to the route you program. However, user-generated information from apps like Trapster and Waze can crowdsource more specific details, such as whether to avoid an intersection due to a toxic chemical spill. Or, if you want to avoid automobiles altogether, Google Maps makes it easy to use public transportation and take a bike.

6. Scanning for Ethical Products: With online shopping, we’ve become accustomed to reading reviews and making comparisons before we buy. This can now be done in the physical world through games like MyTown and services like Stikybits. By scanning a product barcode using a smartphone camera, you can unlock a treasure of additional information (not to mention deals) that can help with your purchase. This might include where it was produced, how far it traveled, the reputation of the manufacturer, chemical contents, carbon footprint, or the full lifecycle analysis. Location-aware applications can also transform commerce itself by giving us better access to local inventories and locally-produced goods. Whether it’s fruits and vegetables or books and electronics, if something can be found within blocks of your current location, it makes no sense to ship it from afar.

7. Networking Neighborhoods: One of the hottest categories in geolocation is neighborhood networking. The vision for many of these apps is to strengthen the very fabric of our communities. With DeHood, you can keep track of what’s happening in your neighborhood, share your favorite places, and grease the wheels for actually meeting people. After all, if you’ve made contact through the app, it’s a lot easier to say “Hello” in the real world. Blasterous is another that lets you share information locally, whereas BlockChalk does this on an anonymous basis. Finally, NeighborGoods uses your street address to facilitate one-to-one borrowing and trading of useful stuff. In the end, making connections with your neighbors can lead to safer, more productive, and more sustainable communities.

8. Tracking Environmental Disasters: The size and scope of environmental disasters appears to be growing. In 2008, we had the Tennessee coal ash spill, which was billed as “the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States.” And that was before we realized it was three times bigger than originally estimated. More recently, the BP oil spill set daily records for “largest environmental disaster in the U.S. ever.” In each case, geolocation technologies can be used by engaged citizens to monitor and track the effects. They can be used by response teams to coordinate containment and cleanup efforts. Ultimately, these technologies can be used to accurately measure the size and impact of a disaster in order to better understand its damages and costs.

9. Viewing the World Through an Eco Lens: Augmented reality (AR) follows geolocation as one of the hot trends in mobile technology. It enables you to view the world through a smartphone camera (or similar device) and see layers of geo-specific content or information. One of the most popular apps is Layar, an augmented reality browser/platform that lets you choose specific data layers or experiences. The potential for green- and cause-related content is tremendous. You might view green-rated businesses, LEED-certified buildings, or virtual GHG emissions as they enter the atmosphere. Combined with smart meter technology, you could see the most efficient and inefficient homes around you in real time. And for the cynics among us, you could view our mountains, forests, rivers, and oceans as they once were…before the effects of climate change and so many environmental disasters.

10. Capturing the Moment: Better access to information about what’s happening around us—right now—can dramatically improve quality of life. This sense of “geospatial awareness” is possible through today’s smartphones, whereby a piece of content or information—a moment—is captured and preserved based on the unique time and place in which it occurred. It is essentially to document spacetime. Protests, natural disasters, sporting events, parties, political crises…real-time information about anything happening anywhere at any time, as well as the history of what happened. This will take several years and a number of different applications to realize. In the end, though, it will revolutionize how we access and consume content. It will complete the democratization and decentralization of news and information…based on time and location.

Cautionary note: Privacy is the single biggest issue in the LBS industry. It’s important to understand what information you are sharing with regard to your location and with whom.

Author’s note: We’ll be hosting geolocation events for Social Media Week in Los Angeles this September. This is the third in Max Gladwell‘s #10Ways series of distributed blog posts. It was published simultaneously on as many as 300 blogs.

I still have two devices (a Blackberry and a Sierra Wireless Laptop Connect 3G USB card) on AT&T that I would add up to about $200 in ETFs so it’s just not practical to switch. Not for the Evo. The Evo is less than perfect.

1) It is too big to function as a phone. I feel like I’m walking around with a mini-iPad and STILL

2) I can’t type as effectively with a virtual keyboard as I can with the Blackberry Bold’s physical QWERTY.

3) The battery life is unconscionable. Completely unacceptable and unheard of. This is simply not a portable device — it must always be plugged in or on its way to being plugged in. A two battery approach MIGHT get you through the entire day with minimal internet and app use. NOTE: The software update pushed out this week has improved battery life quite a bit (relatively speaking). I was lucky to download it OTA before it was halted.

4) 4G. I knew this was somewhat of a gimmick to begin with. Sprint’s data network is shifting over to WiMax — more powerful towers that blanked larger areas with higher data speeds. Sprint purchased the existing towers and networks built by Clearwire and others to get going on this. The 4G system is very limited in LA. I’ve experienced it in and near downtown as well as in parts of West Hollywood. It is nice to get download speeds of 4MB down (and up to 1MB up) from a cellular connection (in reality, this is a wireless connection transmitted to a WiMax receptor in the phone). But truth be told, I regularly get 2-3 Mbps down in the same areas with AT&T 3G (note: not tested with iPhone).

But… ANDROID FTW! I am in love with the Android platform and the variety of applications made available on it — mostly for FREE. Similar to the iPhone platform, it is very easy to download and upgrade (as well as uninstall) third-party applications. This is not the case on Blackberry.

Do I feel like I’m stuck on AT&T? Yes and no. I don’t want to blow $500 bucks to switch (and buy the new phone). I’d rather wait for AT&T to get a top notch Android phone (hopefully by the end of the year). The service isn’t THAT bad and truth be told… I make very few calls.

On the other hand, I have already used over 3.2Gb of data on the Evo over the course of this 3 week trial. While it is likely easier and cheaper to use tons of bandwidth on an Android phone than an iPhone, it’s still likely that I’d go over the 2Gb limit that AT&T is apparently enforcing (although I’m not certain if that is just for iPhone owners or for all data plans). I’m going to miss Android but it doesn’t pay for me to switch off of AT&T right now – perhaps I’ll pick up the Samsung “Captivate” Galaxy S when it is released (supposedly in July) – assuming it isn’t too overloaded with AT&T bloatware and allows third-party apps including Swype.

I’ve posted an update to this post, My Life with the HTC EVO.

That said, stay tuned for my review of the many Android apps I’ve tried (ALL FREE!) on the HTC Evo 4G

For a list of the final 101 apps that I ended up keeping on the phone (before wiping and returning it) for a grand total of FREE, see below:

netzoo’s Apps on the PC36100 (Sprint HTC Evo)

Phone: PC36100
101 total, 101 free (100%), 0 paid (0%), 98MB total size, $0 total price

• Waze: Community GPS navigation
• AndroZip File Manager
• TWiT.tv by Mediafly
• Spare Parts
• Kindle for Android
• GTasks
• Hollywood Bowl
• Chompin
• Camera 360
• FxCamera
• SwiFTP FTP Server
• HuffingtonPost.com
• Movies
• Bump
• Advanced Task Killer
• AppAware Market and Twitter
• NPR News
• TripIt – Travel Organizer
• Facebook for Android
• ESPN ScoreCenter
• RemoteDroid
• Google Maps
• PhoneFlicks-Netflix Android
• Scanner Radio
• AT&T Mark the Spot
• Robotic Guitarist Free
• Google Sky Map
• Aldiko Book Reader
• Listen
• Android Beer Guide
• Urbanspoon
• Google Translate
• Places Directory
• Live Scores
• Text-To-Speech Extended
• Seesmic for Twitter
• Finance
• Foursquare
• NewsRob (Google Reader / RSS)
• Vuvuzela
• HomePipe Free
• Congress
• fring – free video calls, IM
• 1CAST Video News
• AP Mobile
• BBC News
• AppBrain App Market
• Dropbox
• AndFTP
• DroidiIn Lite
• cab4me
• Brightkite
• Pandora Radio
• BeyondPod Podcast Manager
• Billboard100
• Layar Reality Browser
• Chicago’s WGN Radio 720
• Opera Mini 5 browser
• TechCrunch
• Audiobooks
• FCC Mobile Broadband Test
• TED Mobile
• Adobe® Reader®
• Thomson Reuters News Pro
• doubleTwist Player
• Site Shot
• Quake Alert!
• ASTRO File Manager
• Android Central Widget
• Live Earth
• Mobile GA for Android
• Analytics Widget
• EarthAlbum Photo Travel
• PicSay – Photo Editor
• Photoshop.com Mobile
• Barcode Scanner
• Kayak Flight and Hotel Search
• Ustream Viewer
• Ustream Broadcaster
• New Scientist (beta)
• NYTimes
• WeatherBug
• XkcdViewer
• Evernote
• Google Buzz widget
• ABC7 – Los Angeles News & More
• Google Goggles
• Amazon.com
• Discovery Channel
• TV.com
• MySpace Mobile
• Shazam
• ttTumblr
• WordPress
• Yelp
• Meebo IM
• Last.fm – Personal Radio
• Google Earth
• Mint.com Personal Finance
• Speedtest.net Speed Test
• Google Voice

View this app list on AppBrain

The Sprint Free Guarantee:

We love and believe in our products and services. We’re confident you will too. That’s why, as a new customer — or an existing customer adding a new line of service — we’ll give you 30 days to try us for free.

If for any reason you’re not happy and want to cancel service, just call us to deactivate your service, go to the original place of purchase to return your undamaged phone or mobile broadband card, and we’ll:

• Refund monthly charges incurred as part of your service plan*
• Refund the activation fee
• Refund the purchase price of your device
• Waive the Early Termination Fee
• Waive the restocking fee
• Refund taxes and Sprint surcharges associated with the above charges

*You’ll be responsible for extras like usage not included in your plan, premium content, 3rd-party billing, international charges, and any taxes and Sprint surcharges associated with such extras.

Just one more thing we give you that our competitors don’t. And one more reason why there’s never been a better time to give us a try.

Here in Los Angeles, we’d be happy to see our long-promised subway to the sea come to fruition (it’s still due this year). Check out the U.S. PIRG report below:

The Right Track: Building a 21st Century High-Speed Rail System for America –

I immediately fell in love with Avon Street when I first ventured to check out the house that I would eventually move into four years ago. The gradual ascent up Echo Park Avenue excited me — I knew I was heading deeper into an urban canyon, 3 miles from downtown, but surrounded by wildlife and Elysian Park. But once I took the right turn onto Ewing and inevitably downshifted to make it around the broken-up corner to Avon, where it keeps going up on a steep angle before arriving at my house, I knew I had found my shangri-la. You know, for a broke grad school student this was clearly paradise.

The surroundings reminded me of lush hillside villages I had visited in the foothills of the Andes Mountains of Peru and Ecuador. Houses and guesthouses were impossibly built into hillsides that — without a car, or at least a horse — seem more or less uninhabitable for any non-self-sustaining non-hermit.

Even the streets — not only are they broken up here, but these are exactly the kind of two-way roads you see in the third world. These are arguably two-lane roads WITHOUT one side being filled with parked cars, which it always is. And you just have to assume that everyone follows the unwritten rule of travelling South to North on the 2000 block of Avon because come hill or corkscrew turn at Baxter, you’re not going to see an oncoming car until it’s in your lap.

So is this hillside coming down? Compare the photo above to this one taken the morning after some rocks came down. Small trees are sticking out into the road mid-tumble. To compare, check out the Google Streetview image of this spot:

View Larger Map

Will the city need to shut down this block of Avon completely in order to do any construction or repairs should things get worse? And what of these rumors of a new landowner of the impossible strip of property on the steep hill wanting to build directly on top of this unstable mess? And a pool too?!?

Always keeping it interesting up here…