Killing Batteries

I’ve noticed a disconcerting trend lately. And by ‘disconcerting’, I mean annoying. To me. Honestly, this isn’t normally a difficult thing to accomplish, but this particular situation has gotten so out of control in the past year that it warrants both comment and mocking.

Lately, when it comes time for one to write one’s bio, say, on their Twitter profile, or break down their ‘experience’ on their blog’s ‘About Me’ page, people are increasingly turning to ridiculous superlatives and unverifiable labels to jazz things up. Now inserting a little hyperbole into one’s resume has been going on since Pope Pius II put out his 13 volume autobiography, but this new wave of blatant, dizzying exaggeration and unaccountability is starting to reach ridiculous heights. What’s more demoralizing, this transparent embellishing appears to be somewhat effective.

Probably my biggest pet peeve is when people bestow the title ‘guru’ upon themselves, meaning, by definition, “a leader in a particular field”. Really? Are you a leader in your field? And if so, does that mean the other 10,000 people claiming to be gurus in your field are also leaders? Well, that’s simply not possible. ‘Guru’ is just a nebulous, evocative designation that anyone can claim at any time without having to complete any study, training or testing. I could call myself a break dancing guru and no one could (or has the inclination to) prove me wrong. Hell, while I’m at it, let’s tack on ‘brunch guru’ too.

Another rage trigger is when people crown themselves with three or four improbable job titles simultaneously, like social media advisor, financial consultant, interior designer and sommelier. All by the age of 26. Firstly, in the unlikely event that someone is really being paid to perform all of the jobs they’re claiming, there’s no way they could be humanly doing any of them well. Secondly, when did people start getting the delusions of grandeur that allow them to believe they’re experts at anything after so little genuine experience? Albert Einstein, though he made several remarkable breakthroughs in his 20s, didn’t really hit his stride until his 40s. That was Albert “Greatest Fucking Mind of the 20th Century” Einstein. So, I can’t help but be skeptical when someone three years out of college announces that they’re writing a book about how to get rich, orchestrate the perfect marriage or find everlasting happiness.

Unfortunately, much like the heart-breaking popularity of lists, I can’t help but acknowledge that this is probably how things are going to be from here on out and if I want to continue to compete in this arena, I’d better adapt. As such, I’ve started to retool my resume, which I present now for public indulgence, demonstrating how extraordinarily talented I am without citing any supporting evidence.

Leif “It Boy” Pettersen

________________________________________

HIGHLIGHTS OF QUALIFICATIONS

* Super-genius-level communication skills (except when dealing with idiots).
* Internationally acclaimed writer, with expertise in a broad spectrum of topics, including travel, tech, wine, relationships, food, germs, bros, hos, basketball, TV, radio, juggling, acting, walking, talking, peeing standing up, skim-reading, long division, your mom, parallel parking, annoying things, omelets and boobs.
* Life-long travel badass – visited 428 countries on 11 continents and can drink the water anywhere he damn well feels like it.
* Pointing and grunting fluency in 83 languages.
* Web page design authority/guru/innovator/collaborator/masticator.
* Inventor of blogging.
* World renowned photographer, with over 100 photos posted on the “internet”.
* Adapts quickly to change and new experiences (in bed).
* Highly dependable, punctual, and efficient judge of stupid stuff.

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE

- Best-selling author of guidebooks on more than two European countries.
- Work has appeared in dozens of high profile, internationally renowned, award-winning, religion-changing magazines, anthologies, books, web sites and retweets.
- Countless stirring, swoon-inducing appearances on radio, TV and online videos.
- Domestic and international electronic payments wizard, who, if he really wanted to, could have caused a global financial crisis with a touch of a button during his years working for the Federal Reserve System. But he didn’t, because he’s infallibly awesome and loves puppies.
- Consumed over 500 bottles of wine and 2,000 pints of cider, and has never puked up any of it, making him both a consummate journalist and an ideal house guest.

It’s still a work in progress, but you get the idea. If I play my cards right, 2010 will be the year I achieve previously unthinkable riches and fame while performing the bare minimum of actual skilled work, kinda like Megan Fox, except with manners.

Agonizing over travel insurance? Maybe I can help…

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Hi! Remember me? I used to blog here during the Clinton Administration. I’ve been a little busy hiding out in a yurt in the steppes of South Dakota, changing locations every third day under the cover of night for the past eight years, but I’m back now!

Actually, I’m not quite back yet. Tuscany prep and a short paying gig have totally derailed my life. I’d like nothing more than to blog about my booty and post pictures of starlets in see-through dresses, but in these times of economic uncertainty I gotta give the paying work priority.

However, I’ve managed to find some text to lazily paste here in place of original writing. Actually, this is all original writing as far as you guys know, so disregard that last sentence. A new Twitter follower asked me today if there was a “life story synopsis” on my blog, explaining how I got into travel writing and I realized to my horror that there was not! How did this happen? How can I have a blog about me, written by me, in order to shamelessly promote me, and not have a life story synopsis? It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in the entire course of my existence! Well, that and when Michelle Bachmann got re-elected.

So, I’m tackling that scandalous omission now. Without asking permission from my agent (She’s on a slow boat to India right now, what’s she gonna do, email me to death?), I’m posting a excerpt from my latest book proposal (is 835 words still technically a ‘synopsis’?), a heartbreaking work of travel memoir-y genius, which briefly explains why I’m a travel writer and not the guy that monitors national and international electronic payments networks for the US Federal Reserve System.

The selection picks up on my life story at age 24, after returning from two post-university backpacking tours of Europe in 18 months, during which time I took a particular liking to the lifestyle in Spain, to face the real world and submit to a career. It ends abruptly, so as to avoid getting into a meatier section of the book and giving away its super-awesome, career-making hook. Enjoy.

…………………………………………..

When I returned to the US to reluctantly begin my career, in my youthful naivety, I decided that I would live as the Spanish lived. I would place priority on my personal life no matter the cost, and if that meant eliminating any trace of professional ambition and languishing in eternal mediocrity, well then that’s simply how my life would have to be.

Conveniently, with my Theatre Arts degree and the dire state of the entry-level job market in 1994, I didn’t have any choice but to embrace a low-income, Euro-slacker lifestyle. Indeed, I immediately landed one of those jobs specially reserved for people such as myself: switchboard operator at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

This was a job that I’d performed handily during university. I could work a phone with the same technique and élan as a concert pianist, answering and transferring calls for hours without ever looking up from my book.

Having, I felt, ingeniously found a job that only required 5% of my brain processing capacity there was little stopping me from staggering into work on two hours of sleep in the throes of a raging Rum-and-Cokeurism. Staying true to my inner-Spaniard, I would skulk off and nap during lunch. Since time and distance prevented me from returning home for my siesta, I had to sidle into one of the ‘resting rooms’ at the Bank, meant for sick people and lactating mothers.

This went on for two of the most carefree years of my adult life, before things like TV commercial brainwashing, peer pressure and envy finally got the better of me. Actually, more than anything, I’d finally had enough of watching people earning twice what I was earning who couldn’t even print out envelopes without assistance. I slowly let go of my pursuit of leisure, hobbies and rum and clawed my way up the ranks of the Federal Reserve, jockeying and leaping up the pay scale through five jobs in six years until I hit the big time. I was getting a comfortable check, I had my very own high-walled cubicle, and I was the proud owner of all the essential Bank-issued status symbols: a laptop, pager and cell phone.

At about the same time that I achieved what I’d coveted for years, I suddenly realized that my career had taken control of my life and I was the least content that I’d ever been. Out of the blue, I was 32, divorced, overburdened with crap I didn’t need, working an insane on-call schedule, dangerously dependent on caffeine and muttering darkly about life. I’d succeeded in duplicating the Pettersen family career blueprint.

A series of hangover driven moments-of-clarity occurred, making me realize that I had to act fast or I would lose 40 of the most important years of my life to the Federal Reserve. And act fast I did. In a frenzied six-week period, I implemented a critical mass of rash and irreversible decisions: I quit my job, sold my house, car and all earthly possessions, bought a laptop and flew to Europe with the intention of breaking and entering into the travel writing industry.

With no applicable writing experience, no connections and no clue, the first two years of my travel writing career were reminiscent of the pandemonium and accidental success of an Inspector Clouseau investigation.  But I toured nearly 40 countries on four continents and wrote about every escapade.

After months of manic and hilariously misguided pitching to newspapers in the US, my first true paying gig came when a magazine editor in need of a short article on Lisbon found my travelogue during desperate Googling. After considerable editing, I managed to turn in something that wasn’t too bad and proudly earned my first byline. When she learned that I was traveling overland from Romania to Greece a few weeks later she asked if I might like to stop in Istanbul and write a feature for her. The travel writing snowball had finally started rolling downhill.

By the end of my second year on the road, though I had managed to fortuitously snare a few more juicy magazine assignments, the real break finally arrived. I landed a gig updating Lonely Planet guidebooks for both Romania and Moldova. With the exposure that my Lonely Planet work provided, combined with an increasingly large pile of glossy magazine clippings, I was quite suddenly loaded with more travel writing assignments than I could handle and, more importantly, getting paid a living wage.

Apart from the amazed satisfaction of having orchestrated my very own dream job, all that long-term, homeless travel and living entirely out of two modest-sized bags triggered multiple defining lifestyle epiphanies. I realized that even some of the most dirt-poor people on Earth were generally happier than pretty much everyone I knew at home. I realized that a simple life was the best – and possibly only – technique for reducing stress. Finally, I realized that I needed surprisingly little money, possessions and living space to have a rewarding life.

Agonizing over travel insurance? Maybe I can help…

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The good people at BootsnAll, this blog’s host, took pity on the dull and generic appearance of ‘Every Notable Patch of Grass in Romania’ and offered to spruce it up for me on the condition that I dismantle my shrine to Chris and stop pestering his mother about his shoe size and blood type.

That done, please allow me to re-introduce this blog: Killing Batteries (dot com). 

Check this out; I got a new banner courtesy of the Bootz Graphic Design Team, a domain name (my first) and sooner or later I’m gonna get my hands on some wicked blog publishing software that I intend to play with obnoxiously as soon as I finish cutting 6,000 words from a disastrously over-length guidebook manuscript, which shall remain nameless, but rhymes with ‘Bonley Janet’.

I’m more than a little excited about this and I’m sure there’s palpable relief on the BnA side of things as well.  I mean really, the old blog was more homely than a 16 year old Dacia.  I was too lazy and artistically incompetent to beautify it myself and besides, I was too busy to think about it while duly annihilating the word count on the aforementioned manuscript.

In fact, this is the second time the charitable Bootz Boyz (and Girl) have offered this service to me.  The first time I was pretty sure my blogging days were numbered and I didn’t want all the fuss over a blog I intended to abandon after only four months.  But this is just too fun to give up.  And I have nine die hard readers, three of which are actually outside of my immediate family, who might be heart-broken if I quit now. 

Thus, my current calling on this earth is clear; write about being a homeless, nascent travel writer, lugging a debilitating sack of battery-driven tech around the world, without which I’d be biblically screwed and instead be one of those eccentric weirdos street performing on the Ramblas in Barcelona.  Or something more succinct.  Editors?

Thank you for visiting and/or your continued readership.  I will do my best to not suck and provide insight into this low paying, exhausting, yet bizarrely fulfilling journey.

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Some of you may have noticed that my spelling (and when I remember, my vocab) is not in God Blessed American English, but the Queen’s English.  This is not because I have privately decided to affect an English writing style (and accent, a la Madonna).  Indeed, I am under contract to write this way for LP, as are all authors for European countries.  Accordingly, I have switched my MS Word language setting to “U.K. English” and for the purposes of practise and continuity, I am trying to stay in character, as it were, in this blog.  Rest assured I am not one of those people that spends a few weeks in a foreign country and comes home talking like a native. I cling to my Minnesota accent with all due pride and don’t care what people think (except during this passing moment of self-awareness).

Mock me if you must, but I live and breathe the job people.  It’s dedication like this that will have my bringing in a whooping five-figure freelance writing income some day, living in a studio apartment in Romania to make ends meet.

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This was the ‘About Me’ post for the former incarnation of this blog ‘Every Notable Patch of Grass in Romania’, which was retired when my Lonely Planet assignment wound down and I prepared to abandon my post in Romania for travel and the culinary delights of Italy

Well, in truth, I’m not traveling through and writing about all of Romania.  I have a co-author – actually a “coordinating author,” kind of like a senior author – who is in on the plot.  His name is Robert and he is doing that hell-hole Bucharest and all of Transylvania.  I’m doing everything else, that being the regions of Moldavia, Northern Dobrogea, Wallachia, Crisana, Banat, Maramures and the entire country of Moldova. 

Geographically, I’m doing the doughnut and he’s doing the hole.  But it’s quite a hole, as Transylvania is tourism ground-zero in Romania and every little grouping of houses has parlayed their resources to appeal to tourists in some fashion and all of that needs to be visited and written about.  So, even though my physical territory is much, much larger, in terms of word count, I am writing just under half the book.  Got that?

My work will go into three different LP books; “Europe on a Shoestring” (just a paltry few pages there), “Eastern Europe” (slightly more) and “Romania and Moldova” (the entire book, obviously).  The work on Shoestring and Eastern Europe are due at the beginning of June, the Rom and Moldova book, in September, though I hope to be done long before then.  The books will hit stores in January and June of 2007.

As this is my first time out for LP, I’ve got a massive learning curve to plod through.  I’ve only ever had to do one city at a time before this for magazine articles, able to lollygag around the area for five days, often staying gratis in five-star hotels, to leisurely gather my research and absorb the atmosphere.  Now I’m racing through several cities a day (visiting every notable patch of grass, per the title of this blog) and getting sparing sleep at whatever broken down hostel is nearest my location when it gets dark. 

LP has already flown me to a very productive new author seminar in London and between that and my limited experience, I’ll just have to wing it.  My sole advantage is that I am already a resident of Romania, meaning I can retreat to my apartment in Iasi to rest or break up the trip whenever I need to.  Usually, authors just bulldoze through their assigned countries, taking notes, thousands of digital photos and collecting a suitcase full brochures, maps and business cards, then sort it all out after they return home.  Sounds like a blast, eh?  Well, the upshot is the experience is invaluable and the pay is reasonably good.  I’d have to pitch my ass off to dozens of magazines and travel to three or four different cities each month to earn the same wage freelancing.  Both approaches have their pluses and minuses.  I already know I like magazine work.  I’ll let you know about this guidebook stuff in June, if I live to coherently tell the tale.

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Here’s a bullet point list with random facts about me for you busy, information-byte-inclined people with precious little time to read about how neat I am:

• My full name is Leif Even Pettersen. ‘Leif’ sounds like the word ‘life’. ‘Even’ sounds like the name ‘Evan’. ‘Pettersen’ is with the ‘pet’ sound, not the ‘peet’ sound. It should go without saying that no one has ever spelled or pronounced my name correctly on the first try.

• Even though my family came over from Norway like six generations ago, I’ve been blessed with a just-off-the-boat, Norwegian name. Every time I meet someone new, I have to explain that ‘Leif’ is a traditional name that means ‘beloved son’ and that, no, my parents were not hippies. Well, actually they were big-time hippies, but that’s not why I’m named ‘Leif’. This speech is very well rehearsed now, with exquisitely timed throw-away jokes and pauses for the laughter to die down. During this speech, so that it doesn’t run too long (like this explanation), I have a tendency to just say ‘I’m Norwegian’, much to the exasperation of people actually born in Norway.

• I’m 40 years old.

• I look 30-32 depending on how hungover I am.

• I am originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

• I have been a struggling travel writer since June 2003.

• I’ve recently finished my fourth and fifth assignments for Lonely Planet, updating  the next editions of Tuscany & Umbria and Romania. My LP work also appears in Italy 9 (uncredited for reasons too tedious to go into) and the Romania and Moldova chapters in the current editions of Europe on a Shoestring and Eastern Europe.

• In late 2007 I re-settled in my native Minneapolis after over four years of homelessness, during which time I lived in temporary residences in Cadiz, Spain; Iasi, Romania; Torregrande (Oristano), Italy and Torricella, Italy (between extended periods of traveling like a bastard).

• I retired from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis at age 33, after nine years of semi-dedicated, fickle service in a variety of positions, eventually focusing on electronic payments systems.

• I have been a juggler of varying degrees of dedication since age 12, making me the most coordinated and dexterous person you’ll ever meet (unless you meet a better juggler).

• I have what I refer to as a Selective Photographic Memory. Examples:
o I can’t remember the name of my hostel, but I can repeat, verbatim, a conversation I had 15 years ago.
o I am terrible with names, but I never forget a face.
o I can’t remember the brand names of wines that I drink three times a week, but I can memorize lists of foreign words and phrases with very little effort.

• I like chocolate.

• I type with exactly four fingers: thumb, index and middle on the right hand, middle on the left.

• I can escape from a straitjacket in less than a minute.

• Yes, really.

• Don’t ask why I can escape from a straitjacket in less than a minute.

• On a related note, I can never go back to Singapore.

• I am a bit of a language nut. I have studied German, Norwegian, sign language, Romanian, Italian and Spanish, only the latter three of which I can utilize with any effectiveness. Next on my list is French. Or possibly grammatically correct English, but I doubt it.

• I have never taken a writing class.

• I’m long-winded and I don’t care. Just between you and me, when this threatens my word count limit, I employ-creative-hyphenation to confuse editors.

• I smell really good. My sweat has aphrodisiac properties so strong that it could make giant pandas mate.

• I’ve worked as a juggler, actor, college radio DJ, wedding DJ, switchboard operator (twice), home office sales guy at a lamentable electronics store that rhymes with ‘Test Tie’, ESL teacher, administrative assistant, electronic payments helpdesk agent, electronic payments application specialist, electronic payments business analyst, electronic payments high speed network analyst and bumbling, yet adorable travel writer.

• Still reading? Well, it only gets more obscure from here.

• I am the best parallel parker I have ever seen.

• I was born with a tracheal-esophageal fistula (my esophagus was damaged and I couldn’t eat). It was repaired that same day and now I have a gnarly scar on my back that I tell people is from a machete injury.

• Innie

• Will rap for food.

• An informal poll taken in Malaysia and Thailand revealed that nine out of 10 people think I look like David Beckham, which is good enough for me.

• If you’re still reading, you may be searching for my email address, so here you go:

Emails from groupies and people offering (paying!) work are given all due priority.

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