One on the aspects of vacation that I always enjoy is getting time to reflect on things without the noise of the real world interfering. A couple of times I sat by the pool, staring through my book and thinking about things back home, about the last year, about my life, about the future. It's really hard to believe that it's been nearly a year since I packed up my things in Vancouver and headed back to Chilliwack. I spent eight out of the last fourteen years in university. While I had some really great times back in ...

Today is day #13 down here in the Caribbean, and I noticed that the date was December 1st this morning. I gotta say, it's pretty hard to take December seriously when the humidex is 40C and there's not a cloud in the sky. This is probably the first December where I've ever been away on vacation, and it's a bit surreal to be honest. After two weeks here, my clothes are starting to smell a bit like ass. I was hoping to use the laundry service here (where they pick stuff up in your room and bring it ...

Quick update. Right now Rebecca and John are in the air, or about to land. This is officially day 8 here for me, which means there are fewer days ahead than there are behind. We're all having a great time here, and have spent most of our days reading and swimming by the pool. The other night I ventured off the resort and ended up at the Hard Rock cafe in Punta Cana. I met up with a few Vancouverites and we all went to a dance club until about 5am or so in the ...

Walking around WordCamp Portland today it was completely evident not only how much work has gone into it, but just how big the WordPress community is here in Portland. I knew this would be a good event, and have been pleasantly surprised with the number of people randomly coming up to me and saying hi, or just passively making WordPress conversation. I commented during my talk today that other web events have tickets with prices that can range up to $700 or so. Most WordCamps, due largely in part to help from sponsors, have prices that average around ...

It's official - vacation is booked. I'll be leaving Vancouver on the 19th of November, and heading to the Dominican Republic for two weeks. I've never really been anywhere on vacation for two weeks, so it'll be an interesting experience. I'm heading to the Bahia Principe Punta Cana with Dale and Sara for a few weeks. I've been told that the beaches in Punta Cana are fairly amazing, so I'm looking forward to that. Plus, we're staying in the Golden Club section which means we should hopefully be near the beach. Anyways, should be ...

I'm heading to a friend's wedding in Seattle in November. I'm actually pretty excited about the trip because it'll be my first real weekend there since 2007. Seattle's one of those cities I always expected to fall in love with, but for whatever reason, just haven't managed to yet. I suspect it's because I don't really know where to go when I'm in the city, but I'll do a bit more research this time around. The last time I was there I stayed at the relatively trendy Hotel Max, which was fairly central and had a ...

The tendency for a body at rest to stay at rest, and for a body in motion to stay in motion. Two important states, to be sure. For me, I find myself bouncing between those two states from time to time, often as a result of some cycle I'm trying to break. Most of the time, that cycle for me starts with lack of sleep, and progresses into this weird state of limbo where I'm constantly feeling unhealthy. The last time I felt I totally got away from it was back in May, back when I ...

I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately with regards to travel destinations. First and foremost are a few travel books I picked up last year, namely one on Montenegro. But I also have books on Eastern Europe and various city destinations such as New York City. Reading them though one can't help but feel that a lot of what made these destinations unique has slowly eroded over time. For example, you'll find english speaking people in almost every city nowadays. I always like traveling to a remote destination and trying to speak in their language, ...

I wrote a blog entry a few weeks ago where I toyed with the idea of maybe doing some traveling in the next year or so. While sitting on the couch here today watching movies, I started thinking about that idea more and more. The reality is that I can work from anywhere. All I need is a backpack with some clothes in it and my trusty MacBook Pro, and there's really no reason why I couldn't work from any little coffee shop I encounter. Now that my car and student loans are mostly paid off, ...

Whenever you travel somewhere new, there are invariably a bunch of local customs or behaviors that you encounter that are completely opposite to those back home. I try to keep a mental list in my head such that I can try to seem less out of place when I return to a location a second time. Here's a partial list of things that I've encountered on my travels that are different in various locations: In the United States, soft drinks are called "Soda", not "Pop". Most people will either giggle when you say the latter, or not ...