My blog, soulbird ( www.soulbird.typepad.com ), is about my elaborate escape from the corporate world. It features beautiful images, and reality that's stranger than reality tv -- My helium filled ideas about life, travel, shopping, and decor.

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Click the bird and visit my blog

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Just one person trying to escape the rat-race to become a freelance writer. Why? ---- Because writers are rockstars, and because photojournalism is the stuff drugs are made of.....

Last March, I had a rare encounter with Thai Sea Gypsies on a trip with a 12 year photojournalistic freelancer. The trip allowed me a peek through the bizarre shadows and unobscured windows of this journalist's daily existence --- a fascinating world of deadlines and back rooms but no cubicles, where the angle is pursued to the very heights…and depths of humanity.

Sound like the stuff drugs are made of? Well, you are on the right track. The trip spared no doubt on why travel journalism is the dimly lit, highly competitive jungle that it is. Thankfully though, the trip showed that the sun also shines in the Amazon.

That was the trip, but this is the beginning of the journey...

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