Jeremy Michael Cohen is a film writer and director with an MFA from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and an entrepreneur. Originally from New Castle, Pennsylvania, he earned his undergraduate degree in Political Theory from the University of Maryland, where he was a member of the Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. Since arriving in Los Angeles, Jeremy has won several awards for his film writing and directing, and he has produced over $100,000 in short content. He currently resides in the lovely Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles.
After finishing his MFA coursework in spring 2010, Jeremy fundraised almost $40,000 for his USC thesis film, The Legend of Eddie Puzynski. Principal photography took place in January 2011, and the film is expected to be released in fall 2011.
Recently Jeremy co-founded an online retail business, Tortuga Backpacks, with childhood best-friend Fred Perrotta. They were inspired to create the world’s greatest travel backpack after being grossly disappointed with the ones they brought along on a trip to Europe in summer 2009. The first pack will be available in summer 2011.
When he’s not busy performing filmmaking skulduggery, Jeremy enjoys reading great books, traveling, and playing sports. He is a passionate, lifelong Pittsburgh Steelers fan.
You can follow Jeremy on Twitter or Google+.
Fred’s at Coachella right now, so odds are he’s very thirsty. That got me thinking about hydration and water bottles, in general, and how most of the solutions to one of the most basic human problems of quenching thirst suck.
Most water bottles are about as elegant as a concrete block. They’re hard, they take up a lot of space, they start to stink after a while and make water taste bad, thereby inherently making them bad at doing their sole job. I imagine most cavemen had the exact same problems with their water-carrying devices.
Can’t we find a better solution?
The Problem With Hard Water Bottles
I’ve tried to use Nalgene-style water bottles a few times in my life, but I’ve always been excessively disappointed from a utility standpoint alone. Let’s be honest: they’re less than ideal to drink from. The size of the opening is simply too big for a bottle that large. Unless I’m enjoying the great outdoors on a hot day, I have zero interest in pouring water all over my chest.
Hard water bottles take up a fixed amount of space. When they’re empty, they don’t become any smaller. Should we take it for granted that a water bottle should take up a fixed amount of volume in our precious luggage space?
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Ask (for stickers), and you shall receive!
We’ve become big fans of stickers here at Tortuga.
A little while back, we got some awesome stickers made by StickerMule that feature our turtle shell logo. StickerMule’s tagline is, “Custom stickers that kick ass.” The stickers they made for us do indeed kick ass. And we want to share them with you.
If you want some stickers, drop me a line at jeremy (at) tortugabackpacks.com. Send us your street address, and we’ll stick them in the mail. Please share your Tortuga stickers with friends, put them up at travel destinations around the globe (but please don’t vandalize!), or use them however else you might please.
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I’m an adherent of the slow-carb diet advocated by Tim Ferriss. I’ve done a pretty good job of sticking to it for a year straight. In the past, I’ve been on it for long chunks of months, too. The diet is pretty straightforward. I can eat vegetables, meat, beans/lentils, and I get one “cheat day” per week to eat whatever I like.
But sticking to it while traveling can be tough.
Traveling presents some serious obstacles to staying on a diet. Strange places have strange foods that might not lend themselves to a particular diet. Breaking your normal routine seems to make it easier to break your diet. And, something about travel is indulgent. We feel like we should indulge ourselves with food when we do travel.
Read on for some suggestions how to maintain your diet (which can be any diet you so choose) while you’re on the road.
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A few months back, I hit the road to take care of some writing. As in, I needed to get the hell away from civilization to pump out some pages, or else I was in some big trouble. And then…
My beloved MacBook Pro’s hard drive died. I was miles away from any computer repair shop, let alone an Apple Store, and had just invested plenty of hours in a drive to get away from it all. Seemingly, I had no access to my work files. Was I screwed? Was I doomed to miss my deadline?
No. I had an awesome cloud computing backup system in place where all my files and research were stored. I drove to the closest Kinko’s, had them print out the necessary files from Dropbox, and then got to work on pen and paper. In fact, it probably worked out better this way.
Traveling can cause significant and much-warranted stress for those of us who depend upon their computers for their livelihood. And likewise it can cause plenty of stress for almost all of us who are simply addicted to modern technology and communication.
Cloud computing offers a legitimate, affordable, and convenient solution for travelers who need to access their personal information and productivity software on the road.
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A friend of a friend recently emailed me asking for advice about how to pack for a long trip through multiple climates. She’d be traveling through both rural and urban Chile, Peru, Argentina – including Patagonia – Brazil, and Colombia for seven weeks while visiting arctic, desert, and tropical climates.
Her goal was to travel with only one backpack (as we recommend), but she had no idea how to do it or if it were even possible. I gave her the most thorough response I could and realized that if she was in need of such information, then surely many others were, too. Below is an expanded, more thought-out version of my advice to her. My focus isn’t solely utilitarian; I believe we can look and feel great on the road while packing everything in one bag!
For the quick and dirty version of this post, skip straight to the around the world packing list.
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