The Most Dangerous City I visited this year

For those of us from the United States there seems to be an endless amount of information on how to stay safe when we travel "abroad".  Yet we seem to forget about all the dangers we have created and failed to address domestically.  Which gets to in my opinion the least safe place I have traveled to all year: Houston, Texas.

Why do I say this about Houston?  Well lets start with the traffic fatality rate of 11.87 deaths each year per 100,000 residents in Texas.  In comparison Ireland sits at 3.5, Hungary at 7.7, and the United States as a whole at 11.6 percent.  Then add in the lack of interest in creating safe spaces for people to walk or bike to work and the lack of acceptance of these ways as forms of commuting (although I know people who do commute these ways in Houston).  This lack of creating safe places for walking and cycling are not a problem unique to Texas either in the United States.

Then add on the way people drive and treat each other on the roads in Houston.  It seems like way to many people in Houston buy oversized SUVs and pick-up trucks and use them to bully others on the road or to drive recklessly while assuming they will just kill someone else (bad assumption by the way).  What ends up happening is a large number of road fatalities.  

Then add in guns which by the way kill far more people by accident than they do in any type of self defense.

Houston isn't exactly a crime free city either, but none the less I'd rather be in a high crime place with few reckless SUV drivers who don't care if they run over a cyclist or pedestrian, than in a low crime place where people are indifferent to running over pedestrians and cyclists.  Additionally, when people spend all their time isolated in their person vehicles it is to easy to lose a sense of community and as a result see crime develop as a result of this indifference.

Yet those in Houston seem to highly fear crime, but not driving somewhere.  Which I find rather odd.

So this is why I call Houston the least safe city I've been to this year.
  
In fact of the cities I've been to this year (and I'm probably omitting quite a few I've forgotten and I'm excluding airport connections) this is how I would rank them:

From Safest to Most Dangerous:
1. Trim Ireland
2. Drogehda Ireland
3. Dublin Ireland
4. Budapest Hungary
5. Arlington, Virginia
6. Washington DC
7. Bloomington Minnesota
8. Minneapolis Minnesota
9.Alexandria, Virginia
10. Fairfax (and other nearby cities) Virginia
11. Las Vegas, Nevada
12.  Houston, Texas

                                                   

Best of 2014

So here is my best of list for 2014.  Keep in mind I'm basing it on what I did this year.  For example, a book might be 100 years old but if I read it this year I would still include it.  I'll exclude myself and my own books from the rankings too!

Airport: Dublin
Book (Non-fiction): High and Mighty by Keith Bradsher
Book (fiction): Mockingjay
Husband: Noah (something tells me he will win next year too)
Movie: Cloud Atlas
Police Department: Fort Lee New Jersey
Public Transit System: Budapest, Hungary
Radio Station: None
Reality TV show: Again none
Restaurant I went to: Edeni Vegan in Budapest (this is a tough one though)
Sport: Does yoga count?
Sports team: The one I don't have to hear about.
Trip: Dublin, Ireland
TV show: Celebrity Name Game (sorry this is one category that is rapidly spirally downhill)
Tweeter: Vegan Revolution

                                  

We're front page for Central United States on Amazon!

Well they said it couldn't be done with a eco-friendly public transit and vegetarian/vegan food based travel book, but the Kaufman Green Guide: Bloomington is currently sitting on the top 20 best seller page for Central United States on Amazon!

                                             

Looking for charities to team up with in 2015!

Do you have a group that protects the environment, animals, or works for pedestrian/cyclist rights?  Or perhaps some other type of charity?

I'm look for charities that would like to team up with the Kaufman Green Guide in 2015.  Here is my vision:

For each month in 2015 I hope to pick one charity whom I will team up with for that month and I will donate 10 percent of my net profits from my book sales, kindle direct downloads, and amazon affiliates program.

If you are interested please include a one sentence to one paragraph answer to each of these questions either in the comment section below, send your responses to one of my social media accounts, or you can email me your responses in the body of the email (please no attachments) at kaufmangreenbooksandguides@gmail.com.

1.  Why do you want to team up with the Kaufman Green Guides?
2.  Where/how will you promote your one month team up with Kaufman Green Guides?

Hope to hear from you!

                                                      

Quick Vegan Travel Guide Dublin Ireland

I've decided to start a travel series on finding vegan foods in different places I've traveled to.  My first place is going to be Dublin, Ireland.

People tend to stereotype Ireland as serving up meat and potato, but Dublin has much more to offer than this and a flair for international cuisine.

So is it hard to be vegan in Dublin.  Its not a utopia, but its not too bad particularly if you don't have a tight budget.

First: Dublin is full of numerous small grocery stores.  Almost all of these sell packaged nuts, fresh fruits/vegetables and other items that are vegan.  Some also sell hummus.  Also, since Ireland is an English speaking country its easy to check packages to see if the ingredients are vegan or not.

Second: Dublin is home to a few vegan restaurants including Blazing Salads, Home, and Seomra Spraoi.  Unfortunately though the last two have somewhat limited hours.

Third: Dublin has several vegetarian restaurants that offer vegan choices.  These include 2 locations of Godvina's which are both centrally located.  Cornucopia is also a vegetarian restaurant with vegan options and is also centrally located.  Cornucopia also offers sugar free and raw options.

Now for one bummer: Guinness is not vegan.  A fish product is used in making Guinness and small amounts of the fish product remain in it.  Update: Guinness is in the process of going vegan and plans to be vegan by the end of 2016!  Still see crossed out stuff for this year.

For more detailed information on this topic check out my Kaufman Green Guide Dublin. .


                               

Avenir Place is Pedestrian Friendly???

Update: So after a reprieve from this for several months, the situation is back and worse than ever.  It is so bad I ended up taking a bus from less than one mile away.  Fairfax County truly treats pedestrians like 2nd class citizens-no make that about 20th class citizens.   

See the redish/brown line.  That is the route pedestrians have been forced to take for nearly 2 months from the Dunn Lorring Metro to get two blocks away in the supposedly pedestrian friendly Avenir Place construction project near the Dunn Lorring Metro.  Meanwhile the yellow line represents both the ideal route and the route that cars are allowed to take.  

Not only is this route around the construction ridiculous and treating pedestrians like 3rd class citizens the route also involves:

• Multiple Slow Crossings
• One Crossing where there currently is not a walk/don't walk sign   
• While the police seem to sometimes hang around to enforce rules for pedestrians, vehicles are pretty much allowed to do whatever they want.  
• I've rolled my ankle on one of their so called pedestrian friendly detours.  
• Either nobody directing or employees who seem to be more interested in personal conversations and texting on their phones than directing.  
• Confusing signs  

Now I'd probably balk at this less if Avenir wasn't using the word "pedestrian-friendly" right on their web page to market the apartments.

According to Avenir's website "It's hard to imagine a better location, seriously".  Seriously?  At 1,700 for a one bedroom apartment how about Arlington or Washington DC which actually are pedestrian friendly.  

An attempt to contact Avenir was made, but no response has been received.  

                                        

The Anti-Climactic (and Climatic) End to the Amazing Race

Luckily I decided to go to a party on the night of the Amazing Race Finale despite wanting to see the finale. The party was fun and I stayed much later than I planned to. When I went to watch the Amazing Race Finale the next day it was not fun and I left much earlier than planned. As in about 40+ minutes early.

 It seemed like throughout the season the Amazing Race was going to try to be more eco-friendly or at least pretend to be. Granted it would be more eco-friendly, not to mention safer, to have the contestants use public transit, walking, or cycling instead of encouraging taxis to speed to their destinations and having contestants driving in a sleep deprived state. Not to mention watching teams try to navigate public transit systems would be a lot more exciting and interesting.

 But the finale just proved completely stupid. The teams had a non-exciting flight with all teams on the flight from Manila to Los Angeles. Okay not exciting, but then the whole show just went downhill when in LA the teams picked up a stupid useless SUV to drive around in for the final leg.

 Now I'm not sure if the Amazing Race just picks people who are dumb or if the contestants are scripted to say certain things but listening to them say how great the cheaply made clunk oversized Ford SUV was, was just stupid and annoying. Before I knew it I wasn't watching a fun show, I was watching an ad for a stupid useless, not to mention dangerous vehicle. And Maya and the female dentist saying it just proves an education doesn't make you smart (which I hate to admit because I have a Masters degree).

 Not to mention it is completely reckless to have sleep deprived racers, racing around in dangerous SUVs with no regards to the safety of those the racers are sharing the roads with.

 I'm not bidding a fond farewell to this season of the Amazing Race, I'm just bidding a fond farewell to the Amazing Race being a decent show and probably one which I won't watch the next season of.                                                  
                                          

Back from Budapest

We had a fabulous time Budapest.  I have to say Budapest was the best value (quality compared with price) of any trip I have taken.  And you really can't understand just from a book how amazing the thermal baths are in Budapest.  Speaking of books I'm now working on the Kaufman Green Guide: Budapest and hope to have it for sale sometime soon!