It's the holiday season, which means lots of traveling and sleeping at the homes of friends and family. Inevitably, many of you will end up sleeping on couches, air mattresses, beds made for children or floors. Well, for you weary houseguests who end up sleeping in uncomfortable and contorted positions, SkyMall Monday is pleased to profile the Slumber Sleeve pillow.

Some products address such small, niche issues that you wonder why anyone would purchase them. But the Slumber Sleeve works for a much broader audience. Because if you're a person who has a complete dearth of pillows and likes to wedge your bicep underneath your head then the Slumber Sleeve is perfect for you. It's so effective that you'll be able to sleep with your eyes wide open like the totally-not-creepy model featured above. And that will allow you to keep an eye on your surroundings while staying at your uncle's house. Just because you're crashing on his couch doesn't mean he gets to sneak into the guestroom and brush your hair while you're sleeping.

The product description describes several of the myriad uses of the Slumber Sleeve. Here are a few of the most logical:

• The Slumber Sleeve is popular with college students or office workers taking a quick nap on a desk between classes or during a break
• As an ankle pillow, worn on the lower leg when the upper leg is crossed over on top - like when watching TV
• As a sunbathing aid, worn high on an arm and under your head, allowing for a comfortable side tanning orientation
  

I know that my boss has no problem with me taking a nap at my desk so long as my arm doesn't fall asleep. That's her only concern. The appearance of professionalism and maturity are secondary to me not getting pins and needles in my hand while drooling on the Johnson report.

And I never would have considered using the Slumber Sleeve at the beach. But what a fantastic idea! I mean, I love awkward tan lines and having something clinging to my skin in the hot summer sun!

I know that I'm ordering one right away. Now my arm won't fall asleep when I finally hire an artist to paint me in the nude while in a state of repose.

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.

Walking or cycling are the best cardio exercises while you are on vacation. That's the first exercise tip on this video I came across while I was looking for the video on the Push-up Bandit in Santa Monica. The recommendation is to put your car keys away. As the narrator states, bicycling and walking on vacation offer a close-up experience of your surroundings. Considering that this is the time of year where packing on pounds can come easily, this video has a certain timeliness quality.

Despite the tropic theme, as noted by the palm trees and sand, and the incredibly built hard-body of the narrator that sort of distracted me at first, the exercises are doable if one has the notion to exercise while on the road. As the guy who makes these videos points out, you don't need a gym to stay fit. He also give effective explanations on how to achieve success even if you are a beginner. Perhaps I was distracted by the biceps because in Columbus, one doesn't see such a scene all that often, if ever.

Yesterday, while wandering through Westside Market in Cleveland, I passed by several stalls laden with baked goods, some sporting poppy seed. The poppy seed strudel was mighty tempting. This brought to mind the sidebar I saw that was attached to the article about Michelle Palmer's and Vince Acors escape from jail time in Dubai after they allegedly had sex on the beach.

Before Palmer and Acor's legal woes in Dubai, there was an earlier account about how people who bring poppy seeds into the UAE can also meet serious trouble. There could be trouble even if there are only a few seeds dribbled on a coat after eating a bagel before heading off to Dubai. Iva posted on that very situation back in February. There was one Swiss person who had eaten a bagel with poppy seeds and was arrested.

The internet is abuzz with news from abroad right now. Thailand's Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok remains closed; India is reeling from a devastating terrorist attack aimed at British and American tourists in Mumbai; Raúl Castro is open to ending Cuba's 40-year feud with Washington, thereby allowing Americans to travel there more "freely." The last thing most Americans want to do right now is travel to a place where they are not welcome. We no longer want to travel because there is a greater fear of it. The state of things as we knew them is suddenly turning on its head.

Fear exists even in the most intrepid travelers. As a solo, female traveler stepping off the plane in Vanuatu, Myanmar and Colombia last year, I had little knowledge of exactly what I was walking into. However, the one thing I have going for me every time I travel to some less-trodden destination is that, although I carry a U.S. passport, I don't look American and I'm from a state that sits in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from the mainland.

The unnatural trio of turkey, duck, and chicken might initially make your stomach curl, but the supposed supernatural taste of the turducken might just appease the staunchest of food critics. This chicken in a duck in a turkey has become a nationwide phenomenon in the past decade - so much so that NFL commentator John Madden awards a turducken to the winning team of the Thanksgiving Day game (usually the Detroit Lions versus the Dallas Cowboys). Just this year, though, Madden announced he would be returning to the traditional turkey for Thanksgivings henceforth.

The unlikely combination of birds actually makes for a nice blend of dark and white, dry and juicy meats. Preparing and cooking the perfect turducken takes at least ten hours. Start by deboning all the birds and preparing a cornbread and sausage stuffing. Basically, the turkey is laid flat and spread with a layer of stuffing. The duck is placed on top of the turkey (add another layer of stuffing), and the chicken (with leftover stuffing inside) is placed on top of the duck. Carefully wrap the turkey as you normally would and cook as usual.

I knew about tofurkey about seven years ago, when Sam, my hippie next door neighbor in Boulder, needed a vegetarian alternative to turkey and went so far as to prepare our friends a tofurkey feast for Thanksgiving. Aside from the smooth slices this mock-turkey has opposed to the sometimes dry and stringy quality some Thanksgiving birds have possessed, my rather bland taste buds were not able to tell the difference at all. I never bothered to ask where Sam purchased this honking piece of pseudo-bird. It really did look, smell, and taste like a turkey fresh from the oven.

Since then, I discovered a brand of manufactured tofurkey in stores called "Tofurky" (trademarked without the "e"), which is owned by Turtle Island Foods and can be found at essentially every Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and Trader Joe's. The Tofurky brand carries all kinds of vegan delights, but specializes in its Tofurky Jurky, Franks, and Holiday Products.

Two days ago, Winona Ryder's British Airways flight to Heathrow airport was granted priority landing status after Ryder became sick on the plane. Jaunted's blurb doesn't say how she got ill. One wonders was it the food? Is this normal for her? What about me or you? Could we get special treatment? Could we get a plane to land before all the others?

I was on a flight once when the plane turned around before it took off because a woman was complaining of being sick. She did keep hitting herself in the face as she was being led to the ambulance that whisked her away. As much as going back to the gate wasn't a fun picnic, it was a good thing that she was let off the plane. Better that she was hitting herself in the face as she was getting off the plane than miles up in the air.

A quick Google search found these two articles about other diverted flights.

At what point did Dorothy's saying, "There's no place like home," turn into the motto for staycationers across America? Very, very recently. With soaring gas prices and airfares, a bottomed-out economy, and little time to take off from your job lest you lose it to one of the 10% of Americans who are unemployed and eager to step in for you, it's easy to see why staying home is the safest, cheapest, and best option for families across the nation. The problem with staycationing has little to do with relaxation. That should and can happen anywhere as long as you let it. The real problem with staycationing has more to do with psychological welfare and distance from the familiar.

There really is no place like home if you're like me and live in Hawaii, a paradise in its own right. It gets a little trickier, however, if you are one of the millions of people who are right now freezing your tooshy off in the Midwest and Northeast.

I just moved out of my parents' house and into a one-bedroom apartment about fifteen minutes away by car. While this does not sound like a daunting "trip," there is more to living alone than meets the eye. In fact, as I type this with no other sound but the whir of my bedroom fan, I am reminded of the pangs of loneliness that I occasionally feel when traveling solo on the far reaches of this planet.

Loneliness is a very tricky matter. I feel loneliness now, despite being just ten miles from where I spent my adolescence. I feel loneliness all the time when I'm traveling, too. Yet there is a distinct difference between the two. The loneliness of travel is surprisingly easier.

Let me explain.

Today Gadling welcomed our newest blogger, Brenda Yun. Yun, who is tapped into the thrill of world travel without guidebooks, has looked for surf in a remote spot in Vanuatu and has traveled to where many haven't tread.

Keeping with a theme of thrills in mind, here's Gadling's Take FIVE for this week:

• Meg's post on Devil's Pool at the top of Victoria Falls is one way to test your fear of heights mettle
• Head to Dubai's mall at the base of Dubai Burj, and you may be a witness to a shark eat shark world. Literally. Josh described what happened when the mall opened, showcasing its 10 million-liter aquarium. Let's just say, several sharks didn't make it until closing time.
• Josh, possibly on a thrill seeker kick, also posted on swimming with crocodiles in Australia.
• Jeffrey recommends reading Britain's Peter Biddlecombe's writing, particularly his accounts of business travel in Iraq. A corkscrew landing does have a certain thrill sounding ring to the name.
• For thrill on Thanksgiving and Christmas, Mike's post about Universal Studio's plan to be open on the holidays offers an option. Although, you won't find Mike there. He's less than thrilled with the idea of the crowds.

This week also marks the end of our series, Catching the Travel Bug. The series offers personal accounts of various parts of the world where the kindness of strangers and newly made friends have resonated over the miles and years.