Since my March trip to Southeast Asia wasn’t enough travel, in May I spent a week in Tuscany, just outside Florence, Italy.

Long before Inna accepted a six-month work assignment in Malaysia, her not-too-far-flung immediate family held a small reunion in Washington DC. They enjoyed that gathering so much that they decided the only way to improve ( Read more... )

Visiting Southeast Asia has always been on my bucket list. Fanatsizing about going maybe someday was easy; but I’ve never had the courage and initiative to start making it happen. So when Inna agreed to a (minimum) six-month work assignment in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), I had to make the most of the opportunity and visit her there. And so the trip ( Read more... )

Prologue

There are times in life when you get the lightest taste of something, and you know it's important. You see a person and you know your fates are intertwined. You see a place from afar and you know that someday you'll be there.

This particular story begins nearly six years ago. In January of 2008, my employer sent a handful of us to the ( Read more... )

Sunday my buddy Jay dragged a bunch of us out to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome for their 50th anniversary airshow. They’ve got a collection of a couple dozen antique flying machines, plus a few automobiles and miscellanea from the early 20th century.

I’m not going to launch into a huge writeup; instead, I’ll just point you at my Old Rhinebeck photo ( Read more... )

I told you about the Death Flight from Hell, right? Well, wash, rinse, repeat.

Actually, it wasn’t that bad. Yesterday’s American Eagle ATR 72 flight from San Juan to St. Thomas boarded about half an hour late because allegedly (a) they were late getting in from their previous flight, and (b) they had to go through customs.

Eventually we get to ( Read more... )

Wow. I’m alive. I would have put money against that not too long ago.

It’s really funny how most flights are fine, and then some flights are just cursed.

Case in point: Tuesday’s American Eagle 5162 from San Juan to St. Thomas.

The boarding process went pretty normally. Once everyone was seated and ( Read more... )

Sorry. I just had to share these two images of Provincetown, Mass, at the tip of Cape Cod.

( Read more... )

Well, that was a flight. Probably second only to the Josh-cursed flight to Dallas back in 2006 that I wrote about here.

Let's start with getting out of bed at 4am. In a word, I'm too old for this shit. Verify that my 6:20 flight is still "on time"; the later 9am flight was cancelled last night in anticipation of a big Noreasterheaded up the coast ( Read more... )

In December I spent a couple weeks in Columbus Ohio, scoping out a new project for work. But things got kind of quiet after that, so the holidays made for a nice little break.

However, you knew that would end. The consulting business usually picks right up again in January, and I was quickly staffed to another projectsince the Columbus gig didn’t ( Read more... )

Last week, I took a bike ride down to Castle Island. There was a very strong, steady 30 mph wind blowing up from the southwest, and as I sat on the granite seawall, I watched a dozen or so seagulls hovering nearby, riding the air current.

Now, you can keep your preoccupation with raptors; I’ve always been fascinated by gulls. The clean white-and- ( Read more... )