This week’s edition is about overcoming this admin’s lonesome summer. The bad news first: Unfortunately, the announced Scooby Doo interview has to be postponed due to an urgent surgery. Scoob is just getting a respiratory tract transplantation. Could this be a result of a long media carrier? I will ask him about that, when Mr. Doo is back on top. At least, he seems not to share a doctor with Michael Jackson.

What has happened so far? It’s summer time at the Less Rain office, everybody enjoys the summer outside. Execept me. While the upper floors are dark and empty, there’s still that gloomy well-known shining on the walls. While the telephones are softly covered with dust, my desk is covered with empty pizza boxes, RedBull tins and take away coffee cups, forming a strange yet interesting castle around the screens and keyboards.

So this is my state-of-mind while I am writing this post; the creepy conclusion in the back of mind, the shining screens in front. The only thing left to me is the chance to answer the fantastic question: “Where would I go if I could as I please?“

Pedagogic Preparation Procedure.

First of all, I need a map. As always, google is my dear friend of need. This time, its answers are quite cute but not what I had expected. It gave me these two internet world maps. Though both seem to show a digital reality, I long for a realer reality. Anyway, the maps are worth a try…

Luckily, this map just deals with virtuality, otherwise it would take me ages from the SourceForge island to Facebookistan via Wikipedia, the Blogipelago and Last.FM. By the way, this map is so 2007; nowaday’s Facebookistan has conquered big parts of Orkutistan and the Kingdoms of Xanga and LiveJournal.

The next one is more for geeks. However, I’ll shortly explain why - even though - it’s worth a look. The following map is an overview of the already taken IP adresses. IP addresses are these fancy numbers you get when you are connected to the internet like 192.168.0.89. Each computer, PDA, iPhone, Smartphone, Blackberry which has internet access got such an address. As you are reading a website, you definitely have one. There are 4.294.967.296 of these addresses which seemed to be enough in 1983. Now it’s 2009 and much of the green fields you will find below are taken as the map is dated 2006. You probably do not care much about all these numbers as you don’t use them,which is good. Every website is being resolved to one of these addresses. No one could ever remember four million addresses and to what they are assigned to. As even IT pioneers are lazy, they very soon invented the domain names to have something more memorable. And yes, there are already well-defined solutions to overcome this bottleneck in the next years.

An Amazing Awareness

I decide not to use a map as I have the world map in mind. So, where would I go to? A first station would be the United States. Just to hail the country of the inventors of the TCP/IP - the internet’s unbreakable backbone. And because it’s the oldest democracy on the planet, I know. Another one would be Africa which is exciting as well. They have cellular networks without roaming fees and mobiles which can be used like a Visa card. Asia is another must. They enthusiastically accept everything new. I would perfect the trip with a short visit of the Middle East. While the Occident ages, the Orient rejuvenates.

I suddenly realize that it’s actually possible for me to have my trip: virtually. Around the World in Eighty Sites! I could be Phileas Fogg 2.0! I quickly make excuses for the last statements to Jules Verne. And give myself compliments because of this fabulous idea. I can see the world, do not need to pack any stuff, don’t have to receive any newspaper I can’t read, nobody has to take care of my plants, I need neither Diesel tank nor WalMart bag for my laptop and the mobile satellite receiver. But the most important advantage to me is not having to leave my servers. Otherwise, these helpless little creatures would have to face the internet’s cruel and cold reality without my guarding hand; just because of my selfish itchy feet.

Perceptive Plot Painting

If somebody goes on a journey - just on his own and through the almost endless depth of the internet, then he should better have a clearly defined route. Mine in a few words: Go West!

Let’s get more into detail: I’ll start at the Less Rain Berlin headquarter and take the train to have a flying visit at Less Rain London. Then I do it like Nils Holgerson: I’ll get me a flock of birds let them take me to Africa. Having arrived there, I will get me a subsurface overview. When it’s enough, I take the next Jet Stream to North America. The interested and global-meteorologic advised reader might object here that these global winds just stream horizontally and from West to East for the Southern Hemisphere while I will head to North West. Well, this might be true - in reality. As this is my fantastic self-made world where my wish is everyone’s command, the winds will carry me wherever I want to go. And I want to go to the United States and therefore, my personal jet stream will safely carry me across the Atlantic ocean; from the very bottom to the upper left corner on the map. Being in the USA, I definitely will have to restrict myself - there’s simply too much to discover. Afterwards, I’ll be floating across the Pacific aboard a cuddly cutter. I think, I’ll gonna make a detour via Hawaii, who knows when I will be there again? I shortly take on supplies in Japan and sail on until I finally set anchor at the Kuril Islands. With that, I slightly touched my first latent inner-Asian conflicts herd, so I won’t get around another. Therefore, I try to visit North Korea without getting jailed. Afterwards, I’ll have a look at China and slip into Iran aboard an ancient Chinese merchantman. From here, I could easily take the train to Berlin. I don’t know. However, I’ll will stop at Budapest and Nice, too. Now I’m just a stone’s throw away from Berlin. I could return like that.

Okay. That’s my route. I think I have all I need.

As you might have realized by now, this voyage will be a serial publication. Stay tuned.

In the next episode of Admin’s Weekly: As I forgot to save the world this time, I will have to do it then. Afterwards I will visit Scooby-Doo and ask him what it feels like to be a retired cartoon star and how he ever got along with Freddie’s naive but strong ego.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Better things to do. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.