Personal

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!” This year alone I have been in 12 countries and accumulated over 500k miles of travel and want to share my tips and tricks to make us better citizens of the globe. I want to provide some tips from my many days on the road. It is my hope this transforms you from clueless tourist to world citizen. **Learn the basic language – **The quickest and easiest way to make connections with people is to approach them with their native tongue. You will be surprised after being a few places how easy it is to pickup “Hello and Goodbye” and “Please and Thank You” ...

I always have thought personality tests were somewhat goofy and inaccurate. I took one this morning and it was scary right: ENTJ – Commandant The single word to describe your type is fieldmarshal or commandant. You also belong to the larger group called rationals. You love to organize others in matters of logic. Even as a child, you likely naturally assumed the role of leader in groups. You share your personality type with 2% of the population. When you lead, you are more concerned with policy and goals than rules and regulations. You have a tendency to become a workaholic. You are impatient with repetition of error. You are friendly and outgoing, though. You don’t mince words and willingly share your many strong opinions. ...

The LoveSac or Oscars Bed As a single bachelor living alone, I thought it prudent to purchase a 6′ LoveSac. Craigslist revealed a seller in the local area and using my buddy’s Blazer I headed out to get the thing. I am not sure people understand just how BIG a lovesac is. It took Bruce and I the better part of 30 minutes to get the thing from the Blazer into the house. All the while he is cracking jokes about touching my lovesac and how big it is. He is the older one for the record. ...

The amount of banter on the topic is extensive, but there really are good reasons to leave Facebook. When I started dabbling in Social Networking back on the BBS days there was always a desire and reason for anonymity. It could have been for the illegal activities going on or for the fact people just didn’t want to over expose themselves. It was around the time AOL picked up some steam that sharing really became trendy. There were extensive pushes to kick AOL off the grid for the amount of anonymous data leaked from their pipes, but that was not enough to place controls on the system. As I joined sites like Friendster, Jaiku, etc. there were always controls in place for the amount of information I could share and what people could share about me. That layer of control allowed me to keep tabs on my personal identity and persona. I left MySpace and Hi5 since everyone told me “Facebook is way more secure,” but at the time I was unable to join due to no college affiliation. That changed and I joined… ...

I love Parks and Recreation. What started as Office knockoff has really grown into its own. A clip on last week’s episode made me stop and go hmmmm…. What struck me is I hear some of those same things from my beloved friends and family. Deep down I know the missed holidays and dinners must make it appear that I am just leisurely exploring their lives. I am hoping that with the change in jobs that I will have the opportunity to be a part of this world and not simply a tourist.