I spent Easter in Orlando as a guest of Marce and her family, who were generous enough to host me and show me around. I also made a return trip to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, my first visit since 1993, when I came here with my dad. Some things hadn’t changed at all — Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, Muppets 3D, even parts of the Star Wars area, though it’s obviously been updated. It was cool seeing the same attractions three decades later, and the only regret I have is that Disney does not sell those giant turkey drumsticks at Hollywood Studios. So, instead, I compensated by eating three ice cream sandwiches. I’ll have to right that wrong on my next pass through Orlando.
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After cruising through Canada (Edmonton, Yellowknife, and Calgary), I returned to KC for Christmas. I had the privilege of visiting my brother and his family for both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Double holidays, double family, double pumpkin pie. This might become a yearly tradition! I was well-hosted on both occasions, and the opportunities to spend time with my nieces, Caroline and Olivia, and nephew William were very appreciated, along with my mother and step-father. My mother’s birthday is on Christmas, and Olivia helped me find a good birthday present for her, a Stanley mug. Apparently, they are very trendy amongst middle school girls, so I was assured my septuagenarian mother would love it. My mother, in turn, gifted me a funny little man made of felt (see photo, below), which might be an artistic representation of yours truly in a few more years. I would be so happy to have a sweater like he has — it looks very comfortable and warm. Thanks, everyone (especially my brother John), for having me and for your patience in enduring the sprawl of my belongings across the living room, dining room, and stairway as I integrated Amazon deliveries and new gear into […]
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My 79-year-old father fell off a horse in October while riding a horse in Wyoming. He broke his neck and had a severe concussion. The path to recovery was a difficult one over the course of the following months. As my brother and sister were stateside, they took on the majority of the support operations along with my father’s wife, while he was nursed back to health by hospital medical staff. It was a grueling and arduous path to recovery for everyone involved. To show support and help orient and align the family to the next steps in his continuing recovery, my siblings and I visited my father in early December. At that time, it was a difficult process to confront the changes in our father and his life since the accident. A lot of good did come from our visit, though I believe most of it was the time my siblings and I were able to spend with each other. Our parents were divorced when I was very young, and my siblings and I mostly grew up apart from each other. My brother and sister have happy, loving spouses and families of their own now, which is a credit […]
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I spent Thanksgiving in Kansas City, Missouri, visiting my brother, his family, and my mother and stepfather. It’s my favorite holiday of the year—partly because it features dishes I rarely eat outside this one meal. I went in with high expectations for pumpkin pie, and, as always, my brother delivered. He also organized a game of Dungeons & Dragons so I could join him and his friends. (For the record, I play a level 3 satyr bard named Lyrican Shadowstrum—a wandering urchin with trust issues and a staff that magically grows flowers.) I’m not great at the quick arithmetic of ability scores, but I love the storytelling, and Lyrican’s floral staff is hard not to like. After Thanksgiving, I hosted Marce for a few days. She’s vegetarian, so she skipped the turkey dinner, but she enjoyed exploring Kansas City—a place most visitors to the U.S. tend to overlook. Autumn made it even cozier, and it was a treat to share it with her and the family. Sadly, my beloved Fujifilm X100T camera—my constant travel companion since 2015—died just before I arrived. I’ve taken over 50,000 photos with it, many of which are on this site. That camera fit my right […]
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After Taiwan, I spent some time visiting my sister and her family in California. The easiest and most comfortable entry point into the USA, ever! Thank you, sister for the delicious food and hospitality, comfortable workspace, and cozy family time.
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I returned to spend Thanksgiving with my family in Kansas City. I stayed at my brother’s house and spent time with my nieces and nephew, Mom and step father. The food was great and so was having the opportunity to see everyone for my favorite holiday. I didn’t get quite enough pumpkin pie despite my attempts to relay expectations, but other than that it was an immensely fun time. Some highlights include my brother arranged two Dungeons and Dragons games for us to play along with some of his friends, me eating my favorite Kansas City foods (Winsteads Hamburgers and Minsky’s pizza), visiting Top Golf, and learning to use my Meta Ray Ban Sunglasses. These sunglasses can record videos and take photos while you wear them in addition to playing music just like headphones. I also loved going to the gym with my nephew William to workout and introduce my niece Caroline to Virtual Reality dance video games. I even accompanied my niece Olivia to school lunch where I met some of her friends and even ate for free. I should eat lunch with Olivia every day. I dropped by my close friends the Martins for a cup of afternoon […]
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People from New York might object, but my vote for America’s coolest city goes to New Orleans. It was my first time visiting, and it was only for four days, but I loved everything I saw, heard, ate, and felt while I was walking around doing stuff. The city doesn’t feel like the rest of the United States, which is a bonus—it feels like an alternative reality, a post-apocalyptic jambalaya with a French twist, in my opinion, even better than France. Now every city, especially New Orleans, has problems. But I’m going to completely ignore them here because I was a tourist and it is completely within my right to just enjoy the things I like about a place I visit and leave the rest to an NPR think piece (‘did Katrina really end?’). The little donut beignets are delightful. The chicory coffee was likewise cute (even though I couldn’t tell a difference compared to normal coffee; maybe it’s just my broken sense of taste). Cajun and Creole food — so special. There is a difference between Cajun and Creole, and I already forgot what it is — let me see if I can save you a Google search while […]
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My Brazilian friend, Valquiria, was going to speak at a conference in Austin, Texas in early November and it would be her first time in the United States so I wanted to be there to welcome her as an ambassador to the USA like she has been an ambassador to me for Brazil. I have never been to Austin before but living in Denver as an adult I met a lot of people who either love Austin, previously lived there or were hoping to return again. The city gets a huge amount of hype within the USA owing to a vibrant music, party and food scene. What once was kind of an edgy, unique and cool alternative city has blown up in the past twenty years to become a mainstream tech hub. During the pandemic people from both coasts moved to Texas to work remotely and save on paying federal income taxes and in the process engineered a sort of cultural revitalization or at least transitioning, at least from my perspective as an outsider who just heard lots of people telling me their opinions about Austin. My post-college roommate Nick back in Allston, Massachusetts and his girlfriend both went to […]
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I stopped in Denver for the first time in a long time — sometime in 2022 I think? Anyway it was time to repack my bag again after so long on the road and I wanted to visit my friends and family. I crashed in the basement of my friend Eric’s house for a few nights and then I headed north to southern Wyoming to visit my dad and his wife on our family’s property in Carbon County. Since my days in the USA are limited for tax purposes (< 35 a year) I always jam pack a lot of obligatory ToDos into a short period of time (re-registering the license plate of my car, Amazon.com orders, catching up with friends etc). This time in Denver I was really fun. I celebrated the University of Colorado’s big first-week win at a watch party in downtown Denver with a big group of alumni, and met up with four different former coworkers. By the time I arrived in Wyoming I was ready to spend time with my dad and go to sleep early. I worked from the kitchen table and had coffee with him and then we rode ATVs around the property […]
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When I was in the Maldives in 2021, I began a year-long program through the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business for Chief Executive Officers (CTOs). As previously related in a previous blog post, I had dedicated the year to upskilling and learning — the CTO program was a part of that initiative. Initially, the program had been designed for extensive in-person learning; however, Covid necessitated a pivot to an online format which was lucky for me — I would not have been able to attend classes from my over-water bungalow on the other side of the world otherwise. As I am increasingly aware — Covid enacted needed changes for remote productivity. Organizations implemented creative, remote-first solutions and opened the door for more ubiquitous location independence I have been living by example since 2015. So I suppose I should say that while Covid initiated negative changes in my life, it also gifted me some blessings as well — attending my CTO program from an island resort in the Maldives was one of them. The eleven-month program was completed with a week of in-person, on-campus lectures, activities, and commencement during the first week of April 2022 in Berkeley, California. […]
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