Pretty much everything that doesn’t fit into one of the other categories goes here. Get a glimpse into my life!
I travel a lot and I used to live abroad. For posts about the joys and sorrows of both, as well as advice, look here.
One of my passions is helping people to lead better, more fulfilling lives. This section holds my advice on taking control of your life.
I’m just starting out as a freelance photographer. These posts have shots I’ve taken, or are about the industry.
I’ve noticed a trend lately within the travel blogger/lifestyle blogger arena: everyone seems to be heading towards an increasingly single vision.
It seems that just about every travel blogger and lifestyle blogger out there started out in the corporate world and then “came to their senses” and shifted over to their current, non-traditional lifestyle. They use the money they had from their previous job, plus money they make selling the stuff they have, in order to fund the beginning of their new life.
That’s all well and good, and very admirable, but …
Dear readers: I need some advice and input.
Some of you may know that I have another blog, currently dormant, called Kick In The Breeches. It’s set up as a lifestyle design/advice blog. I originally wanted to move my more “professional” content over there, but I had a lot of difficulty figuring out where to draw the line between “professional” and “personal” in my blogging. Plus, with the built-in audience over here, it was demoralizing to post over there and see my writing get a mere fraction of the …
A few days ago I wrote up a review of Travel Blog Success. Since I wrote that review, I have had even more of a chance to utilize the site, and the forums there in particular, and I have to say – it really is a great resource.
I’ve been considering trying to earn some money through this blog, but I previously didn’t really have any idea how to. Well, thanks to information I have learned in ONE DAY from belonging to Travel Blog Success, I have already made double the …
On Sunday I was driving back from having breakfast at my favourite local diner and I noticed that several folks had their dogs out at the dog park near our apartment, despite the snow. I figured it might make for some interesting photo ops, so I went home, got my camera, and then headed back to the dog park. I got some really fun shots, and though I’m not done processing them all, here are a few:
After a few months in Korea, I decided to start a travel blog about my experiences there. Initially it was made in iWeb, but it was rarely updated due to the hassle of working with that program (mainly uploading the large files it produced). After a few months, I switched to Wordpress, and then eventually to self-hosted Wordpress. My blog instantly took off, climbing to 1200 views/day within 6 weeks of starting. I had a niche within the Korea-Blogger (k-blog) sub-genre of expat/travel blogs because I was living on a …
Today marks the beginning of my attempt to go one full month without eating any kind of sugar-based sweets. As I mentioned in the post where I originally planned this, I have a bit of an addiction to sugar-sweetened foods, and I feel that they have more of a hold over me than I am comfortable with. Thus, in order to help loosen that grip, I have decided to go one full month without eating sugar-based sweets of any kind. No gummi bears, no cupcakes, no cookies, no ice cream, …
Girl messenger arriving at the Foreign Office with an Admiralty dispatch. Source: Britons at War
One of the side effects of being reenactors is that this is sometimes what our balcony is used for:
Yep, cleaning AK-47s.
As I mentioned in my post yesterday, after attending the DC Travel TweetUp, I felt that it would be really cool if folks attending other TweetUps around the country and the globe could have business cards done in the style of Twitter. Here is what I came up with:
One of the problem with using standard business cards at a TweetUp is that unless the person lists their twitter info on the card, there’s no way to later remember the Twitter connection, short of writing down the name on the back …
On Thursday night I attended the DC Travel TweetUp, at Cafe Asia. Hosted by Dave of GoBackpacking.com, the meeting is an informal monthly gathering of folks in the DC area who are interested in the intersection of travel and the internet.
I was the first to arrive, and due to the fact that nobody had made a reservation, the restaurant had no idea what I was talking about when I asked about the “Travel Group”. Amusingly, they accidentally sent me upstairs to a Gay Professionals Happy Hour that was occurring at …
So… After attending last night’s DC Travel Bloggers TweetUp, I was inspired to make some twitter-style business cards. I figure that there are probably tons of TweetUps that go on all over the country, even all over the world, and while a standard business card is just as suitable, wouldn’t it be neat if people had cards that are in the style of Twitter?
This is what I came up with:
I have made the whole thing as a highly editable PSD file, and tomorrow morning, it will be going on sale …
Tonight I’m headed out to a meetup/happy hour with various DC travel writers and travel bloggers. Should be a good time. I’ll be sure to do a write-up when I return.
For those of you who have been keeping up, Marc and I attended an SCA event on Saturday, the Interbaronial Twelfth Night, hosted by the barony of Tir Y Don, down in Newport News. It was Marc’s first event in 4.5 years, and my first event ever. Marc prepped me pretty well in terms of what to expect, and I really had a good time. The event was hosted by Marc’s old barony, and I chose this event to be my first one because neither of us know folks in …
During our drive to the SCA event that Marc and I attended yesterday, we spent a considerable amount of time talking about how disorganized the company I work for is, how it is inefficient, treats neither its employees nor its customers well, etc. We also talked about the fact that it’s pretty clear that the company (which I will call Unnamed Petcare) doesn’t seem to have a clear business plan. We’re both pretty sure that the company started off as one woman walking dogs, then she added a few people …
I apologize in advance: this will be a rant. I don’t often post rants, but I just couldn’t keep this one in.
I really don’t understand why it is that when a company interviews/hires/trains you, they say
“Always go above and beyond when you can.”
“Be the best you can be.”
“Make every client/customer feel special.”
“We like our employees to be exceptional.”
and then when an employee does go above and beyond, is exceptional, and makes a client/customer feel special, they get upset at the employee. I’m not just speaking from my own experience …
Life: Life has been pretty average lately. I did a series of overnights for a client last weekend/this week and while they were annoying to do (mainly because the client lives 20 minutes away and we only have one vehicle), it should bring in some good money. Marc and I did a thorough cleaning of the apartment yesterday and it is now nice and organized. We try to do a full cleaning once every other week or so, in order to keep things from ever getting …
Note: This was originally published over at Travels with Smutka, the blog for our sidecar motorcycle.
So, Marc and I finally threw in the towel and sent Smutyanka off to the mechanic’s. We found out that the other Ural owners in this area use a very small shop called Brooks Cycles. It’s only a two man outfit, but they’re really nice, they offer free towing, they have experience working on Urals, and they don’t charge for diagnostics if you end up using their shop for your repairs.
It was a hard decision …
I apologize for any disconnected-ness you may have noticed over the last few days. I haven’t been on IM at all, my tweeting has been limited, and I haven’t really been able to respond to blog comments that well. There’s a reason for this: I haven’t really had significant internet access since Friday morning.
The pet care company I work for offers an “overnight” service in which a petsitter will stay overnight in a client’s house to take care of the client’s animals while they’re out of town. …
After reading a post over at Ridiculously Extraordinary about not drinking alcohol for 30 days, I’m strongly considering my own self-imposed ban, starting on February 1st. Mine would not be of alcohol (seeing as how I don’t really drink in the first place), but of sugar-based sweets.
You see, my sweet tooth is something fierce. I inherited from my father a weird need to have something sweet at the end of every meal. If I don’t, the meal won’t feel finished and I won’t feel satisfied (which can …
