Busy life, update, can not!

Obviously things slipped another month and I am sure any "followers" of this blog are peeling off one at a time for various reasons, but certainly not helped by my update activity (or lack thereof).

Since coming back from Bonnaroo and Brittany arriving in Singapore it has been a pretty good mix of activity - travel, partying, good food, work, meeting friends and getting comfortable/situated. Had a trip to Hong Kong and I carried on to Shanghai for work (couple photos below). Hong Kong is a pretty cool city to see and we happened to be there during their equivalent to "Independence Day". The biggest difference being the fact that theirs just happened in 1997 and is therefore celebrated/demonstrated/experienced in a much more contentious and less joyous fashion. We got to see a lot of the march that goes on for the better part of 12 hours.

Also, we visited a site they call "Big Buddha" (Tian Tan Buddha) which was pretty cool and impressive in the both pure physical scale and its sense of engineering accomplishment. Plus we took a pretty long cable car to get there which provided some pretty awesome views of the surrounding mountains and hills.

Heading to Perth next week for work and then a few days of relaxation, wineries/breweries, countryside, and winter weather!!!  Should be a great trip and Brittany's first visit to Australia. More to come on that soon...

Bonnaroo

Pretty amazing trip back home. Spent some time with the family and finally got to meet Harper! So funny how kids get to like people on their own terms...I wish things were more like that for adults.

Then headed to Bonnaroo for some awesome music and hot weather. Tough to say what was the best stuff at the festival, but if I had to build a list of notables it would look like this:
Old Crow Medicine Show
The Black Keys
Primus
Scissor Sisters
Greg Allman
Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Gogol (although not their best effort)

Greg Allman was pretty amazing and we decided to bail before the end of the "Superjam" which is dissapointing b/c it was shaping up to be pretty amazing.
Brittany arrives in Singapore TOMORROW which is crazy b/c we just spent so much time together so the past few weeks are very counter to our overall experience for the past 8 months or so...
Excited for all the interesting and fun stuff we have to get into over the next year or two!

I said good day!

Confidence and air travel

Another hop back to Singapore. I find myself going through huge swings of comfort, thoughtfulness, anxiety, anger, happiness and clarity at different stages of travel. I think coming "in and out" of so many people's lives so quickly and chaotically causes the brief moments of clarity. Something about persistently new faces disappearing with as much, or little, consequence as with which they appeared creates a more clearly defined image of "myself" - as something distinctly "different" than all the "others". That is a strange way to be clear...it makes the brain stand out as a more independent entity than it/he/she would be on most other occasions of an otherwise routine Nature.

Then...all that can be stopped like fixed gear messenger bike by one set of annoying teenagers who don't have volume control or a mom that may or may not be directing her kids to bear down on this open seat next to me...oh, thank god, I'm fre....waiiiiit, that guy's got more belly than he needs..."oh...hey, how's it going?"...

G'day, again...

Another jump south across the Indian Ocean for a week in Perth (all work)....last week was the start of a big stretch of travel again....Vietnam for 5 days, Perth for 5, Kuala Lumpur for 2.5, back to Cincinnati and Tennessee for 11 days, back to Singapore for 4 days to greet Britt (!), then to Penang (Malaysia) for a fun weekend, then off to Hong Kong/Shanghai/Taipei for a (2) week work trip!!!!!!! Then it will be July 9th or so....so all of that in about 45 days, give or take! Typing that just gave me an anxiety attack!!!!

Might not be too much time to blog in that mix but will do my best to drop updates!

Thoughts from the 18th floor

busy times here in Singapore of late and trying to do a lot of planning for some big upcoming travel stretches. Heading to Indonesia for a day then straight to Vietnam for the long weekend and to Perth the following week.  A quick stop in Kuala Lumpur and I'm off to Cincinnati!!!

This blog is a pointless place to announce it, but Britt is officially making the move to Singapore in late June! She will be here for 5-6 weeks before going back to Ohio for Matt's wedding and some time with the family. I will be back in Bellingham for a long stretch in October and Alissa/Jason's wedding - then Britt heads back to Singapore for the long stretch!

Also spending time with the camera again of late and got me ready and excited for some travel opportunities. Now I just need to book them so they are locked in and I make them happen....

re-commit

OK - I am back onto this to make a final attempt to be more "routine" with my blogging. If you read through all of my posts over the past 3 years you will see I have said that about every 6 months or so, and usually eimmediately following a 2-3 month dry spell! So what's one more time, eh?

Things are good on this end. Been a bit of the same here in Singapore, busy with work and some trips here and there over the past couple of  months. Visited Melbourne for the first time but work was so non-stop I barely got to experience the city in any significant way - plus I was staying out in the burbs, so even less exposure to the food/nightlife/scene.

Back here in Singapore its pretty easy to slip into a routine of hanging out, going for dinner, having a few drinks, staying out later than you realize or plan for, lounging around, repeat. So trying to plan a weekend or two to get away to mainland Malaysia or Borneo for either a photo hunt or a golf trip. On that note, went to Indonesia (close island called Batam) with a group of friends - an aussie, a brit and a german. It was a pretty cheap and amazing weekend of golf. Plus, I'm heading to Phuket, Thailand with work folk this coming Thursday for a golf trip/networking weekend. Should be interesting.

Feel like I'm missing the photography aspect of things lately. Haven't made enough opportunity to get the camera out and formally go out looking to shoot photos. Because of that I have sort of lost touch with that. That is frustrating and ironic b/c I just bought all new equipment and am ready to go with it! So, just need to make it happen.

OK, token photos until next time (which I will make sooner rather than later)

 View from the course at Batam

An amazing dessert I had last week

Sid Knee

Well well well - once again, months (not days) go by and I'm due for another update! Been pretty chaotic since my trip back from the US last month. Spent a week back in Singapore getting situated and since then jumped to Perth for a week, back to Singapore for a day, Kuala Lumpur for a day, back to Singapore for a day then back to Sydney, where I sit now. Been all good work trips, but very busy and my body is officially saying "hey, how's about a bit of a rest, eh?". Have meetings back in Singapore Mon-Wed next week with our management team and then will have a couple weeks to get my head on straight again and catch up with the crew in Singapore. All is swell. I continue to like Sydney a bit more every time I come here but next trip will probably be to Melbourne so I will have a better measuring stick! A couple token photos to paint the picture. We stayed out in "Rooty Hill" for meetins but got back to downtown with plenty of day left and it was a perfect day for walking around town....so we did!

Heading home from home...

Strange feeling leaving multiple "homes" in the same week to go "home" to a place so far away!

Had a great time with everyone I was able to see and hang out with, even if only for a short time. Only minor disappointment was the bad weather and bad back keeping me from snowboarding...

Too much airplane food now and I'm trying to turn down all the offers of cheesecakes, ice cream, brownies etc so I don't feel like a bloated mess when I get back at 1am!

See all you Americans sometime this summer I think....unless of course you can make it to Singapore before then...

Functional...non-optimal, but functional

Haha found this draft blog on my phone from when i first moved....

So I've got dishes and silverware coming next Friday but knives and forks are expensive in the shopping centers Here and I haven't made my way back down to chinatown to get cheaper stuff... For some reason

Update - What happened to January?

Life in Singapore is pretty real now. Been spending all month in a mix of heavy workload (2011 business planning, sales stuff, preparing for Q1 travel, etc) and staying up too late getting into the nonsense that is Singapore's nightlife...

I've realized that you really have to be aware of your daily routine when you work from home and I think its especially important when you are living in an environment that is so new and depending on means of transportation and socializing that are so drastically different than you are used to. Teaches you a little bit about "how you do things" and your ability to keep things fresh and exciting.

Work days here in Singapore consist of either running around town in a frantic pace to meet somewhere, or long thoughtful days in which I barely leave my apartment or talk to another person...interesting balance!

Having said all that....all told, I've been able to balance these things out pretty well. Now I am settled in enough to start trying to plan my vacation travels (the list can be long and daunting!). I know Cambodia, Vietnam and New Zealand are pretty high on the list, but a trip to Tibet is realllly hard to stop thinking about and trying to figure out who would be most likely to come visit and enjoy some of those sites with me is an added complication! Ahhh the headaches!
Anyway, as is usually the case, spent plenty of time frustrated with the taxi and service industries in Singapore, but all in all life is good. Here are some other random photos for the sake of photos....