Travel Calendar

Get ready to dive into pigeon pie in Austin, barbeque some armadillo in Central Florida and eat lambs tongue at a one-night only pop-up restaurant in Los Angeles in season six of the BIZARRE FOODS series. Andrew Zimmern, the two-time James Beard Award-winning TV personality, chef, food writer and teacher, once again ditches his passport and explores the bizarre foods and cultures in our own backyard in the new season of “Bizarre Foods America” with Andrew Zimmern, premiering Monday, July 9 at 9:00 p.m., ET/PT. The sixth season, featuring eight one-hour episodes, premieres with Zimmern’s 100th episode of the “Bizarre Foods” series. To commemorate this milestone, a fun-filled one-hour retrospective special, “Bizarre Foods Celebrates 100,” will premiere on Monday, July 9 at 8:00 p.m., ET/PT.

In the 100th episode, Zimmern travels to Las Vegas to uncover why this city is all about extremes – biggest, best, most expensive and elaborate. From over-the-top-excess including $750 cupcakes, $1,000 sundaes, and a hamburger priced at $5,000, Zimmern goes behind the velvet curtain at some of “Sin City’s” top luxury hotels including the Bellagio and MGM Grand. At the Bellagio buffet – feeding 4,000 people a day, armies of people turn out handcrafted perfection in quantity (over 16,000 pastries per day) with a supply of top quality items including 4,000 homemade sausages, 400 pounds of prime rib and 2500 pounds of fish – delivered fresh six days a week. Over at MGM Grand, where special event parties happen year-round, Zimmern goes backstage at the celebrity-filled Muhammad Ali 70th Birthday Bash to see how they serve a world-class dinner to 1800 guests – each of whom needs to be treated like a star.

Since cooking and eating on such a huge scale creates a mountain of garbage (8,000 pounds per day at one resort), the overload of waste needs to be managed. Through an unlikely alliance between luxury resorts and a Las Vegas pig farm owned by R.C. Combs, Zimmern follows the trail of trash to see how it is being transformed into something edible. Through the ingenious custom-made conveyor Combs constructed over 20 years ago, heavily sorted food scraps empty into ten-ton cookers that eventually become a slop for pigs that in turn are sold back to local distributors for processing, and the animals wind up back on the dinner table. Once again, Zimmern proves that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure!

“Our show is all about exploring cultures through food,” said Zimmern, “and the new season reveals even more eternal truth about our food, our country and our relationship to the rest of the world. In a day and age like ours, it’s important to know what our neighbors are thinking and eating, and to propagate conversations that celebrate what we have in common, to better solve the problems that we all face.”

Throughout the season, Zimmern travels the United States stopping in cities including Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Mississippi and San Diego helping viewers relate to the traditional foods passed down by immigrants to modern dishes born and bred by American innovation. Along the way, he discovers the quirky subcultures, the enduring traditions and the ways we feed ourselves in America.

“Bizarre Foods America” with Andrew Zimmern is produced by Tremendous! Entertainment, Inc. for Travel Channel. For Tremendous!, the executive producers are Andrew Zimmern and Colleen Needles Steward. The executive producer for Travel Channel is David E. Gerber.

TRAVEL CHANNEL (http/::www.travelchannel.com) is a multiplatform travel lifestyle brand with the core mission of providing inspiring and compelling programming that takes viewers beyond their everyday destinations, making the unfamiliar familiar, whether it’s around the world or around the block. A dual feed network that is also available in HD, Travel Channel is the world’s leading travel media brand, and is available in over 94 million U.S. cable homes. Owned and operated by Scripps Networks Interactive (NYSE: SNI), Travel Channel has offices in Chevy Chase, MD, and New York, NY. Scripps Networks Interactive (NYSE: SNI) also owns and operates HGTV, DIY Network, Food Network, Cooking Channel and Great American Country.

RD Systems is proud to promote neuroscience discoveries through travel sponsorship.
-Richard Krzyzek PhD,
Chief Scientific Officer

Minneapolis, MN (PRWEB) May 14, 2012

RD Systems is pleased to announce that it will award travel grants for researchers to attend the Society for Neuroscience 42nd Annual Meeting (Neuroscience 2012). The biotech company invites neuroscience researchers to apply for funding by visiting their website at: http://www.RnDSystems.com/NeuroTravel.

Ten travel grants of $1,000 will be awarded. Neuroscience researchers planning to attend Neuroscience 2012 can apply for travel funding online between May 14 and July 31, 2012. The online application process is short and simple. Award recipients will be will be determined via a random drawing and announced August 31, 2012. Richard Krzyzek PhD, the Chief Scientific Officer at RD Systems said, “RD Systems is proud to promote neuroscience discoveries through travel sponsorship.”

This year’s Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, the premium conference for the neuroscience research community, will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA (October 13 – 17). RD Systems representatives will be attending the meeting and welcome enquiries on all neuroscience-related subjects.

The company offers a broad range of high quality reagents for studying all areas of neurobiology, from neural stem cells to neurodegenerative disease. These include over 12,000 high performance antibodies, and the most referenced collection of bioactive proteins and immunoassays in the industry. Primary rat and mouse cortical stem cells are also available, as well as specialized media supplements and kits for the expansion, differentiation, and identification of neural stem cells. In addition, RD Systems offers a wide selection of multiplex assays for the simultaneous detection of multiple analytes using different detection platforms.

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     (CN)- A Texas state judge in Austin ruled Thursday that the Texas Department of Public Safety does not have to release travel records of Governor Rick Perry’s security staff.
     ”It’s a sad, sad world where we have to do this… and it leads to less transparency,” state District Judge Scott Jenkins said.
     According to the Austin American-Statesman, Jenkins’ ruling reverses a decision he made in 2008 when he held the information can be made public under Texas Public Information Act requests by the Statesman, Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News.
     On Thursday, Jenkins concluded that releasing travel voucher and receipt information could compromise the governor’s safety.
     The suit was filed in 2007 after the newspapers requested the information to see how taxpayer money was spent on bodyguards while Perry or his wife, Anita, traveled to Europe, Mexico, Japan, and Turkey, among other places, from 2001 to 2007.
     The 3rd Court of Appeals of Texas in Austin later agreed with Jenkins’
     initial ruling, but the Texas Supreme Court reversed in July 2011, reasoning that, “the public’s right to ‘complete information’ must yield when disclosure of that information would substantially threaten physical harm.”
     On Thursday, Jenkins said he has little choice but to grant the state’s motion for summary judgment in light of the Supreme Court’s direction that he consider “prospective” harm.
     Jenkins also denied a request by the newspapers to require the release at least one travel voucher per trip so that taxpayers could be assured that money was not misspent, the Statesman reported.
     Jenkins said that someone with a “devious mind” could exploit patterns in the security details actions that he saw while reviewing 8,000 pages of travel records.
     ”It’s a sad day when every requestor is being treated like Osama bin Laden,”
     plaintiffs’ attorney William Christian told the judge, according to the American-Statesman report.
     In response to he filing of the case, the Texas Legislature approved a measure that would make security detail travel vouchers public after 18 months and would be subject to the Supreme Court’s prospective harm standard, the Statesman reported.

Brown + Hudson in South Africa

What does bespoke mean to you…anything you want from room service? A suit made to order?

To Philippe Brown of Brown + Hudson it means retaining a brigade of local Bedouins to keep a cold-averse client’s tent warm during a chilly night camping in the Egyptian desert.

Brown, founder of Brown + Hudson, is ferociously busy. His passion for travel and intense focus on even the most miniscule details leave him with little time for anything other than planning and executing amazing trips. Indeed, his fastidious, arguably compulsive, attention to detail is his guiding light.

I recently had the pleasure of joining Brown for tea in London, where the company is based. Naturally he’d just arrived in town, fresh off the plane from an exploratory jaunt to Iraq. Flushed with post-adventure excitement, he lamented the fearsome reputation Iraq now has, “It’s beautiful in Northern Iraq, just a marvelous place to visit.” Fluent in French, Italian and Spanish and competent in Vietnamese, Arabic and Mandarin, Brown has the language skills to properly open doors wherever he journeys. And behind these doors he finds the keys to truly specialized travel experiences, giving him leverage to deliver luxury travel in the world’s most far-flung places; places you wouldn’t imagine: Bhutan, Borneo, Java, Botswana, Namibia, to name a few.

“We believe everything is possible, you just have to talk to the right people.” Brown and his team have crafted helicopter tours of East Africa, cycling experiences around Jerusalem, culinary journeys through Vietnam, even visits to Sudan (made popular because of George Clooney’s interest). And back to that heated tent…how did he do it? “Our client did not want to suffer the cold nights in the desert, so we hired several local Bedouins to construct a platform for our client’s tent. While she was at dinner they shoveled hot coals underneath the platform. When she returned all was nice and cozy, and she was able to fulfill her wish of camping in the desert without enduring the cold.”

Managing special concerns such as medical issues, training regimens or food allergies, is also part of the focus on detail. Making the right local connections in any destination is critical to Brown’s success in building trips. However, he notes, “We send a guide on most of our trips because issues do crop up.”

Philippe Brown

During a typical pre-trip interview with clients Brown gathers all the information needed to cultivate the trip you want. Recently he worked with a marathon runner wanting to maintain his training regimen during a vacation to South Africa.  Brown’s team retained the service of a professor of sports medicine in Cape Town who outlined five unique runs. “We actually arranged a meeting between the professor and my client so they could discuss nutrition and strategy for the training routes. Apparently snakes are an issue at dusk, running at the proper time of day is critical.” Many of Brown’s clients ask that nothing be different while they travel. “They want to visit exotic places but want their day-to-day to remain the same.”  One client insisted that no meal on the trip last longer than one hour, some just want their particular brand of tea. For Brown and his team these challenges are part of the fun, part of the addiction to making the seemingly impossible, possible

Brown + Hudson in Patagonia

CONCORD jmarusak@charlotteobserver.com

Lindsay Spiegel has a secret for race fans hoping to avoid long traffic backups during Race Weeks at Charlotte Motor Speedway May 18-27.

Her insider tip: Use N.C. 49, one of the secondary roads that she and other speedway officials urge fans to use heading to and from the races.

“49 is usually free” of the traffic jams that plague other routes, Spiegel, the speedway’s director of guest services and logistics, said after a media conference on Monday where officials laid out the most headache-free routes for fans and other motorists.

Starting May 16, meanwhile, the N.C. Department of Transportation will stop work on the Interstate 485 interchange at I-85 and the widening of I-85 from south of Bruton Smith Boulevard to north of N.C. 73. Work on both projects will resume on May 30, DOT resident engineer Davis Diggs said.

Speedway and DOT officials offered these best routes to access the speedway for the May races :

– Motorists traveling from South Carolina should take I-77 North to the I-485 outer loop (Exit 1B) to U.S. 29 North (Exit 32) or N.C. 49 North (Exit 33).

– Motorists traveling from west of Charlotte should take I-85 North to I-485 (Exit 48) to U.S. 29 North (Exit 32) or N.C. 49 (Exit 33).

An alternate route from west of Charlotte is I-85 North to Poplar Tent Road (Exit 52) to Pitt School Road to U.S. 29 South. Through-traffic should remain in the left two lanes of I-85 North to avoid delays near Exit 49.

– Motorists traveling from east of Charlotte should take the I-485 outer loop to U.S. 29 North (Exit 32) or N.C. 49 North (Exit 33).

– Motorists driving from north of Charlotte should take I-85 South to Poplar Tent Road (Exit 52) to Pitt School Road to U.S. 29 South.

Officials recommend motorists take the I-485 outer loop to N.C. 49 North, which is usually less congested than other suggested routes.

Commuters using I-85 can expect delays the afternoon of May 25 and should adjust their driving time or use an alternate route.

On May 27, the night of the Coca-Cola 600, officials will limit access from I-85 to Exit 49 at about 10 p.m.

To avoid commuter traffic, fans should arrive before 5 p.m. for the N.C. Education Lottery 200 on May 18 and LiftMaster Pole Day on May 24.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup All-Star Race on May 19 and Coca-Cola 600 on May 27 are evening races, but fans are encouraged to arrive early to avoid Concord Mills mall congestion. Parking is free, and lots open at 7 a.m.

The History 300 starts at 3 p.m. May 26, but officials urge fans to arrive early for that race as well. Parking lots likewise open at 7 a.m.

N.C. DOT will use counter-flow traffic patterns after the All-Star Race and Coca-Cola 600, meaning all lanes of traffic will flow outward from the speedway:

– Traffic exiting Entrance P onto Morehead Road will counter-flow with three eastbound lanes being used until Highway 49 in Harrisburg.

– Motorists leaving Entrance O onto Morehead Road will counter -flow four lanes westbound out until Highway 29. All lanes will be directed to turn left toward Charlotte.

– Bruton Smith Boulevard will counter-flow using three lanes from Entrance Y until I-85.

– Highway 29 will counter-flow using three lanes until Pitt School Road in Concord.

– West Morehead Road/Mallard Creek Church Road will counter-flow until Salem Church Road.

N.C. DOT will use counter-flow patterns for the History 300 only if needed. Traffic leaving Concord Mills mall about 5 p.m. won’t be able to connect to hotels, restaurants and businesses to the east of the I-85 bridge.

N.C. DOT will use overhead message boards and portable message signs to alert motorists to problem areas and suggested alternate routes around wrecks and congestion. Check real-time traffic information by calling 511 or signing up for updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ncdot_charlotte.

Traffic maps are posted at www.charlottemotorspeedway.com/fans/maps .

ARLINGTON, TX. (Sports Network) – It was a week to remember for Rangers’ outfielder Josh Hamilton.

Baseball’s hottest slugger next takes his swings at the Royals and starter Bruce Chen as Texas and Kansas City open a two-game series in Arlington.

Hamilton hit .467 in seven games last week with nine homers and 18 runs batted in, a span that included a four-homer, eight-RBI game on Tuesday. The former MVP has hit in 13 straight games overall and leads the majors with a .402 average, 18 homers and 44 RBI.

Hamilton drove in another three runs in Sunday night’s 13-6 statement victory over the Angels, with Nelson Cruz adding a grand slam as part of a four-hit night. Cruz finished a triple shy of the cycle, while Adrian Beltre also drove in two runs.

“Every night someone steps up … or a lot of us (do), which is a good thing to be able to say as a team,” said Hamilton.

Neftali Feliz allowed two runs on four hits over six innings to earn the win, Texas’ fifth in seven games.

Hamilton is a career .221 hitter with three homers and 18 RBI in 24 games versus the Royals and has just one career at-bat against Chen, who is looking to build off his first victory of the season.

The 34-year-old lefty had lost four straight starts, giving up 12 runs in his previous two outings, before beating Boston on Wednesday. He pitched 6 2/3 innings, allowing three runs on seven hits without a walk. Chen also struck out five in the 4-3 win.

“You could tell from the first inning on that he was on his game,” said Kansas City manager Ned Yost. “He was executing, his stuff was good, you could tell it was gonna be a good game.”

Chen is 1-4 with a 4.83 earned run average in seven starts, with the Royals going just 1-6 in his outings.

Chen is just 1-2 with a 10.58 ERA in eight career games against the Rangers, including four starts, and hasn’t beaten them since 2005 while with the Orioles.

Kansas City hopes Chen can find the win column again tonight, which would give the club its third straight win after taking the final two meetings over the weekend with the White Sox.

The Royals bounced back from Friday’s shutout loss with a 5-0 victory on Saturday, then won the following day by a 9-1 margin. Johnny Giavotella hit a go-ahead, two-run double in the seventh inning and Jeff Francoeur homered in Kansas City’s fourth win in five games.

Billy Butler, Eric Hosmer, Irving Falu and Alcides Escobar picked up an RBI each in a six-run ninth for the Royals, who got 5 2/3 innings of one-run relief from Luis Mendoza after starter Danny Duffy left after recording two outs due to elbow tightness.

“I just went out there and threw … I have to build that confidence,” said Mendoza. “My last three appearances were good and helped built it up.”

Third baseman Mike Moustakas did not play for a second straight game because of a sore left hamstring, but is expected to be in the lineup for this game against Rangers’ spot starter Scott Feldman.

Texas is giving the right-hander his second start of the season, and first since April 25, due to last Thursday’s doubleheader. Feldman faced the Yankees in his only other start this season, giving up two runs on six hits over 3 1/3 frames.

Feldman, 29, has posted a 4.35 ERA in six total appearances this year without a decision and is 2-1 with a 3.63 ERA in 11 meetings (4 starts) with the Royals.

The Rangers have won 13 of their past 17 versus the Royals, going 9-1 at home in that span.

Tags: billy butler, bruce chen, featured, kansas city royals, mlb, texas rangers

Category: Headlines, KC Royals, Missouri Pro Teams, MLB, Top Stories

Q: Can I be a greener hotel guest?

A: You can and you should. But, as Kermit the Frog noted, it’s not easy being green.

Last week’s “On the Spot” column focused on behaviors of hotel guests that are wasteful and harmful to the environment. But, we should note, it’s also up to the hotel to practice what the green gods preach. The question for those of us who are environmental novices – and I am one – is what is a best practice? I’d love to know if housekeeping is using environmentally sound products, but I don’t have the expertise to assess that. Instead, experts made these suggestions.

Does the hotel landscaping reflect the area’s climate? “The key is to look around,” Starr Vartan, author of “The Eco Chick Guide to Life,” wrote in an email. “Are lush trees and grasses growing in profusion in natural areas at your destination? Well, then, for the most part, the ecosystem can support similar types of plantings in the hotel grounds too. Usually if a property is using local and native plants for their landscaping, they will tout it on their site. As a side bonus, these kinds of plants really give a visitor a sense of place and a further grounding in the local environment.”

Is the hotel designed to adapt to the local climate? This can be especially important at beach destinations, said Emma Stewart, head of sustainability solutions for Autodesk, a company that creates 3-D design software. A smart hotel, Stewart said, will take advantage of prevailing winds and design accordingly, eliminating the need for refrigerator-like rooms. Such a place might have “open lobbies that allow the wind to carry through,” she said. “And they are aesthetically pleasing as well.”

Does the hotel save water and energy with various devices and practices? Has it replaced its old light bulbs with more energy-efficient models? Ask whether it uses low-flow shower heads and water arresters in the taps (water gushes from those without and bubbles from those with, Stewart said). And some hotels – not so much in the U.S. but more in Latin America, Europe and Asia – discourage wasting energy with key-card light systems that turn things off when you leave your room. Genius.

Is the hotel on or near public transportation? You can leave the car behind. Some lodgings also rent bikes, offer shuttles and provide free tickets for transportation, Stewart noted.

Is its food locally sourced? Like many such issues, this one is not without controversy. In his recent book “The Conundrum,” author David Owen calls locavorism “the increasingly popular but misguided idea that it is environmentally irresponsible to eat food that was produced more than a short distance from your dining table. The number of miles that any food item travels from its origins to your plate is far less ecologically meaningful than how it was grown, what was sprayed on it while it was growing, how it traveled to market and what else was traveling with it.”

Ron Loch, the managing director of the sustainability consulting practices at Gibbs Soell, a business communications agency, doesn’t disagree but notes that fuel costs are saved by locally sourcing food.

Indeed, if you read Owen’s book, you may be tempted never to travel again. In writing about high-speed trains for instance, he notes that “one consequence of making long-distance travel cheaper and more convenient is that it causes people to want to do more of it” – and that goes for gasoline prices that make us want to drive, “discount airlines and frequent-flier miles.”

Hard to disagree with that. Yet as humans, travel is key to our mental and physical health. What we are doing to preserve the environment, Owen noted, is flawed. But Loch said: “It’s progress. Denying that these issues exist is a real problem. But feeling like unless it’s 100% it’s no good is a problem. We must celebrate progress.”

But in an environmentally responsible way. For more tips, go to latimes.com/greentraveltips.

Have a travel dilemma? Write to travel@latimes.com. We regret we cannot answer every query.

It was mere happenstance that the year I was chosen to represent the United States as our Ambassador for Variety The Children’s Charity, we had voted upon Dublin, Ireland as our location for International Convention. Our organization is global; with most of our representation residing throughout the United States and Australia. It seems that overseas locations are voted upon every third year — 2012, as it may.

I hemmed and hawed about attending our Convention. I am truly honored to represent the USA as our ambassador, but given my limited budget and already jammed schedule, I was not sure that this venture would be accountable or feasible.

Due to the good fortune of my over-savings in my ING “Weddings of 2011″ savings account, I was able to financially succumb the expense of the trip. I have heard from all too many friends that their largest regret is not taking the opportunity to travel when given the chance.

Some of my most revealing personal moments also happen when I travel alone.

Our Convention brought me to Ireland, but I made the decision to spend several days on solo excursions throughout the island. As I hiked through the Wicklow Mountain Range, spent moments of solitude peering over the Monastic Ruins and listened intently to local farmers in a Pub in Kilkenny, I realized why this trek to the Emerald Isle was worthwhile.

Certainly, the exposure I shared earlier in the trip through Convention led me to meet and commingle with several hundred International businesspeople and philanthropists, but it was during the moments of solitude and cultural soaking when I felt the most self-reflection.

Many folks on my tour over the Irish countryside were in couples — paired perfectly to fit our seating arrangement on a loaded tour bus. As our guide came upon me in our count, his words were; “Okay Miss… are you single today?” It took everything inside of me not to respond with; “No… I’m single, everyday.” I had restraint, as I had not dabbled in the Guinness, Jameson or wine yet at 9 o’clock in the morning.

I was amazed reviewing the couples on my adventure, as at least 70 percent of the couples rarely spoke or acknowledged one another throughout the day. One couple from Israel; coincidentally colleagues of mine through our charitable work, were one of the few couples who actually talked on our bus, held hands while hiking through the mountains or waited for one another while ordering cappuccinos on a misty corner coffee-stand.

I, meanwhile, was at my leisure to walk where I pleased, dine where I savored, sip where my indulgence prevailed and to take in moments of revelation as they approached.

What I learn about myself while traveling as a single doesn’t always come to me while on the excursion. Oftentimes it takes removing myself from the travel to realize what I’ve learned. My Irish rendition proved to be the case. It wasn’t until traveling home a week after my departure, and on the last of three flights home (there are zero direct flights to Iowa if traveling internationally), where I recognized a few poignant points that I shall take along on my life journey.

1. Other than thinking of my father, I did not spend any time wallowing in the opposite sex — broken relationships, worrying about unreturned text messages or cringing at the thought of sending my wedding RSVP with a guest count of “one.” I enjoyed my time, basked in the scenery, and reveled in the mystique of meeting new and charming people.

2. Realization that the hardships which many of us face are nothing compared to that of the hardship of those in historic past. As we rolled through the hills of the Irish countryside and peered over crumbling stone walls which barricaded soldiers hundreds of years ago, I was chilled at the thought of some of these guardians passing as my ancestors.

3. My body reacts kindly to a “clean” diet. For those who have traveled to outside of the United States, you’ll understand that we heavily rely on processed foods and garbage — whereas locations outside of the U.S. are much more clearly focused on eating at the base of a food group; from the ground, animal or vegetation source. Of course; barley being a key ingredient in Guinness (part of the Irish food pyramid).

4. I am more impatient than once thought.

5. Service to others is a gift to the giver.

Outside of what I learned about myself through personal journey, I had the remarkable privilege of listening to Derek O’Neill, Founder and CEO of Spiritual Quotient Wellness, while in Ireland as he was honored with our Variety The Children’s Charity Humanitarian Award for 2012. Derek’s mission in life and in helping others is: “To re-awaken all beings in the World to their innate goodness by re-introducing unconditional love to them through our willingness to change and learn through service to others, not just ourselves.”

Whether on a seven-day excursion… or the grand promenade through life’s passport, Derek’s mission rings true for all. It is through serving others where we gain the most reflection, understanding and personal growth. I woke up in the middle of the night on the first night of my return with this thought; “There are never unanswered questions — but rather, a unique perception by each individual given their life journey.”

It was through service that I was allowed the opportunity to explore myself in Ireland, and it is with continued service that I will bring what I’ve learned to my homeland.

Follow Susan R. Hatten on Twitter:

www.twitter.com/@srhatten