Mt Pelee Observatory

In a bit less than a month, we'll be in Martinique for a conference. Before the conference, we will be spending a few days in Le Carbet and will visit the observatory (http://www.ipgp.fr/pages/030303.php). Apparently there has been some activity or seismic noise. See http://geoscope.ipgp.fr/scripts/stations/fiche.php?sta=FDF&id=64 for details. I'll post some photos and video upon my return.

But in the meantime, I am working on the paper titled "Sea, sun, sand and …. Selecting Surgery, an exploration of Medical Tourist Travel Behavior". In it we explore repeat or diversified travel behavior on medical tourists.

Tracking Santa with NORAD

As I write this Santa is in Islamabad, Pakistan. And those folks really need him.

Again I want to wish EVERYONE a joyous holiday, no matter who you are, we MUST all stand for peace and social justice.

While I highlight Islamabad, let me put a plug in for my friends at the Hot Spot Online
(http://www.thehotspotonline.com/). I bought a VCD from them a few years ago and wish they still offered these classic films. The film was called (in English) Cat Beast Terror. I mean, the world needs this kind of entertainment!

Check out a preview at this link:
http://www.thehotspotonline.com/miniflicks/flicks/movies/46b.WMV

Where is the North Pole on Google Earth?

Well, this time of year, many folks are thinking about Santa. I decided to look for the North Pole on Google Earth and was unsuccessful.

I mean, I tried "north pole" and "90 degrees north latitude" and even zoomed into where I expected to see an icon noting the location.

I guess it is a secret location so good Old St. Nick can finish his job.

Whatever the reason, I want to say happy holidays to all. And my sincere wish for a SAFE and Healthy New Year!

new books on Medical Tourism posted on Medical Mobilities

Dr. Ormond has updated her blog with a listing of current and anticipated books on Medical Tourism. A human geography, Dr. Ormond recently defended her dissertation at the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom.

A Call for Papers is also posted on the blog:

CFP Mobilities and Health - 2011 International Medical Geography Symposium.

Looks like a good conference!

wow, the Lunar Eclipse on the Winter Solstice

Just got back inside after watching the moon disappear in the shadow of the Earth. Yep, a total lunar eclipse. We have some clouds out right now, and earlier there was a halo around the moon when I left Springfield Massachusetts about 9 pm.

We got up, I tried to video tape the beginning of the action and then retreated to the hot tub to enjoy the show. Fortunately the trees are without leaves so we had a great view of the event.

Well, now I am waterlogged and all "pruney".

This video is purely amateurish, but it is at least an attempt to record this event. Remember, I was half asleep.

Lunar Eclipse 21 Dec 2010

Lots of traffic on the web to get to NASA's website for the Lunar Eclipse tomorrow night. Should be a great show for us on the East Coast. See this website for a virtual showing just in case it is cloudy where you are:

http://www.mreclipse.com/LEdata/TLE2010Dec21/TLE2010Dec21.html

A double whammy for the winter solstice!

Medical Tourism Bibliography Updated

I now have nearly 230 references on the subject of medical tourism. Many are easily retrieved from web sources.

I got an email this weekend from a doctoral student in India requesting one of these papers. Since I have most of the papers in digital form on my computer, I was able to help the student out. But this is precisely the region that I have tried to post url's for as many papers or presentations that I can get.

Free access to medical tourism research. See the latest update at:
http://www.wsc.ma.edu/medicaltourism/medtourbib.htm

Also stay tuned for a 2011 volume on medical tourism in Tourism Review.

Abstracts available for Changing World of Coastal, Island and Tropical Tourism

We now have the abstracts posted for the Changing World of Coastal, Island and Tropical Tourism conference to be held in Martinique, French West Indies on 27-29 January 2011. The main website for the conference is found at:
http://www.geog.nau.edu/igust/fwi/index.html and from there you can find the abstracts. Our paper is titled:
"Sea, sun, sand and ... Selecting Surgery, an exploration of Medical Tourist Travel Behavior".

While the call for papers has passed, I can't think of a better place to be in January, this statement written as I look out my home office window at the freezing rain.

ISSRM Malaysia venue to move 7km

According to the Facebook page for the International Symposium of Society and Resource Management - Malaysia 2011 may move a bit south along the coast to 1Borneao (http://www.1borneo.net/public/1borneohypermall/main_page.htm).

I am saving for this conference since it competes with the meeting in Madison. I attended the ISSRM at Madison back in 1992 I believe.

Here is the paper I delivered:

"Travel Diversification as a Measure of Recreation Activity Packages", The Fourth North American Symposium on Society and Resource Management. Madison, WI. May 1992.

Journals for Tourism

While not all geography journals, this list is pretty comprehensive:
http://www.gdrc.org/uem/eco-tour/journals.html

When I did a survey on folks teaching recreation or tourism geography with Barbara Carmichael a decade ago, we found a significant loss of recreation geography courses. You need to remember that geographers were the leader in recreation research back in the 1960's and the shift to more tourism geography related teaching started in Nineties.

We also saw the birth of Tourism Geographies:
http://www.geog.nau.edu/tg/contents/index.html

Will geographers continue to lead in tourism?

Hiking Research at NCSU

Found at HikingResearch.COM and redirected to http://hikingresearch.wordpress.com/ this is an interesting site for some research being conducted by a doctoral student at North Carolina State University. I know his supervisor is Dr. Roger Moore, but unfortunately the student doesn't post his name on the blog.

Check it out, since it seems to have some promise.

Mexican Horror Films

Ok,

I am getting slammed at the end of the semester, so I have left this page to get a tad old. But many of you realize I am into old (bad) horror and sci fi films so I wanted to highlight some of the research on Mexican films. Seems you can't deny that the Santos films fall into the realm of cult horror films. With titles like "Santo contra las mujeres vampiros" you can't go wrong. See this page for the details on this classic: http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~dwilt/review2.htm#vampiras.

So when you are burned out from reading all the geography papers, slip one of these films into your DVD player for some mindless entertainment.

Try "Santo en el museo de cera" or "SANTO EL ENMASCARADO DE PLATA VS. LA INVASION DE LOS MARCIANOS"