Tag: Travel

Still Alive

Still alive, still kicking. Sorry for the radio silence, gomen.

So, what happened in the two months? I’ve been feeling tired/fatigued lately, and not in a “oh, you’re just out of shape” sort of way, so I went to the doctor, who was a little alarmed at how loud my heart murmur had gotten since my physical last fall, so I got sent off to get an echocardiogram. That came back with a few things that necessitated a second echocardiogram, only this time more invasive, a transesophageal echocardiogram (where they sedate you, then shove the sensor down your throat so they can get the scan from immediately next to the heart, for higher resolution/fidelity). Long story short: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The murmur is loud because it’s loud, I now have regurgitation on two valves, but neither severe enough to do anything about. And I’m not (really) any closer to knowing why I’ve been so wiped lately.

So, y’know, could be worse, but it did end up eating a bunch of time and mental headspace, and writing anything here ended up falling off the priority list. (I do find it a little amusing that this escapade dovetailed into my first colonoscopy a few weeks later, so a second round of sedation, and a second time getting a camera put inside my body — you could say they got me coming AND going.)

In other news, I took an extra few days off around Labor Day and had a nice wander around northern New Hampshire and the interior of Maine. Even ended up wandering up Mt Washington, something I don’t recall having ever done before, despite growing up in the general region. It’s beautiful out in that neck of the woods, and even with it being Labor Day Weekend, the roads were pretty quiet and pleasant to drive.

For some personal projects, I’ve been fiddling with a few things. I’m taking a stab at building a family tree/genealogy site that uses json-ld and the Person schema from schema.org to create the map of people. The data side is going pretty well, the visualization is where I keep bogging down, dealing with edge cases like where someone might’ve been married, divorced, and widowed, with kids from different partners, and how do you visually represent that in a tree without it turning into a mess. It’s still been a good pastime – if I manage to get it to a more usable state, maybe I’ll toss it online somewhere so others can use it. I’ve also been experimenting with seeing how hard it’d be to set up AsciiDoc support in Astro.js. Doing a full integration seemed like way too much work for my needs, but I’m getting pretty far as a content loader, using Asciidoctor.js to process the files into embeddable content that Astro can work with.

It’s getting to be my favorite time of the year. A friend of mine joked that I was “Basic” for loving autumn, but hey, I’ll own it. I’ve always loved the transitional seasons (fall and spring) most. They come and go fast in New England, and you can feel the change. That scratches an itch for me, probably the same one that leaves me restless when I stay put for too long.

Winter is Fading

I’ve been remiss about keeping up with this blog – mea culpa. No real excuses other than being tired a lot, between the traveling and working.

The traveling does continue to be fun, though. We’ve basically done the perimeter of the continental United States – we started in Oregon, then went through Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, up into Ontario and Quebec in Canada, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and we’ll be getting back to Oregon later today.

Obviously we stayed in some of those locations longer than others, and a few were effectively drive-bys just long enough to be able to count them. Still, not a bad range to do over 7 months – 29 states and 2 provinces. And we’re not done – we’re going to spend a few weeks in Portland to see friends and do some preparations, and then we’re heading east again, this time cutting more through the center of the country. (At this point I just need to visit Alaska to have done all 50 states – Simone has more to visit, but is rapidly catching up with this trip.)

Doing the perimeter of the country worked well for us – it meant that as the weather started to get cold in the northeast, we were able to cut south and enjoy far more temperate climes for the winter (though we did still bump into the cold spell here and there, and even snow in both New Mexico and Arizona – you don’t think of the southwest as being snowy, but the northern parts of both states are high enough in elevation that they do actually get a fair bit of snow).

California is quite a bit greener than it has been in past visits – even LA was looking pretty lush. This is in large part due to the heavier rain and snow the state has received the past two winters. I’d love to believe that the shift will continue and maybe they’ll finally get out of perpetual drought conditions, but the cynic in me sees it more as building up more tinder for when the wildfires come again. Regardless, I appreciate seeing it right now.

I’ll try to update my gallery soon, but in the meantime, you can sort of see the ongoing travelogue on my Instagram.

October in New England

Here we are, halfway through October. It’s been a bit over a month since my last post. In that time, we spent more time in Peterborough, New York City, Newport (Vermont), and Holderness. We socialized, we saw friends, saw family, had a good time. It’s starting to get cooler out, and we’re currently far enough north that the leaves have begun dropping in earnest.

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On the Road Again

The short version is that Simone and I (and Cecil!) have put most of our belongings in storage, and have begun a grand sojourn around the country, with plans to stop at various destinations for anywhere from a few weeks to a few months at a time. Our first destination is Vermont, and we plan to be there for most of the fall (at least September and October, we’ll see beyond that). (Doesn’t mean the whole time will be Vermont – we’re definitely planning some day trips to other parts of New England, and a weekend in New York City to see a few friends. But it is where we plan to have our base of operations for the fall!)

The how is actually pretty straightforward: my job is very remote friendly, so barring the occasional travel day, I can do my job anywhere with a semi-decent internet connection. And Simone is in a remote-friendly graduate program, so again, nothing to hold us in one spot. So if you have that freedom, why not make use of it? I’m still working through all of this, which is also an interesting experiment, to see how I do keeping up with work while traveling. (And yes, they’re aware that I’m doing this and have my boss’s blessing.) Continuing to get paychecks certainly makes the traveling a lot easier!

Looking down an embankment to a gently flowing river. The water is clear with a slightly blue tint to it. Pines run up the embankment on the other side, with a blue sky behind.
Continue reading “On the Road Again”

And Just Like That, It Was October

Rabbit Rabbit, y’all.

The usual apologies for not posting more frequently – it was certainly something I thought about, but just wasn’t in the mental headspace to do it. Some days the fields are a harvest, and some days they’re fallow. Both are important, though I feel better when it’s the former.

Vermont foliage, in the hills near Starksboro
Continue reading “And Just Like That, It Was October”

Maui

This week in Portland, there is finally a cold snap and some snow, and related posts about snowpocalypse. However, I’m not there. I’m in Hawaii, on the island of Maui, listening to the sounds of the waves crashing on the shore. I’m okay with this.

How, why, what? Well, the short version is that my brother’s girlfriend ended up getting hooked up with a week in Maui, and the place was big enough that they decided to invite me along. So it’s me, my brother, his girlfriend, and her kids.

While I recognize that it’s, y’know, during a pandemic, and I do feel a bit guilty about being “part of the problem” (so to speak), we’ve been doing our due diligence. Hawaii requires negative COVID tests, documented and certified by trusted testing partners, in order to not be quarantined and checking in daily for 10 days, which we did. One of us is even vaccinated (both doses). And at a certain point of stress and depression (and frankly the pure temptation of free lodging in Hawaii), you decide to take the calculated risk and do the damn thing.

Beach in Maui

The water has been warm, and ranging between 70 and 80 each day, with a nice ocean breeze. We’ve already seen whales breaching and playing, hung out on the beach, and just generally taken things easy. We have a list of things we want to do while here, but none should be particularly stressful. I was a little nervous about going (because pandemic, and related guilt about traveling during one), but being here has really driven home how much I needed this. I’m not actually unwound yet, but it’s kind of like when some background noise you’ve been trying to tune out finally stops — it’s only when you’re removed from the stress that you realize how much you’ve been storing in your body. I’ll get there (knock wood).

It’s been 18 years since I was last in Hawaii (last time was January, 2003). The last time I was here, I was 21 and engaged. It feels like a lifetime ago. I’m a different person now, for better or worse; it’s interesting how, while my experience is different, the place itself doesn’t feel that different to me. The timelessness of paradise, I suppose.

Something that has struck me (maybe because I’ve been thinking about such things lately) is how many people here are effectively acting like expats despite Hawaii being part of the same country — here as digital nomads, working remotely and riding out the pandemic. Between the cost of everything being notably different than the mainland, and the place really sort of having its own culture (both literally, as in the native Hawaiians, and more figuratively), it’s sort of the “lite” version of living in a different country. That’s just my outsider’s take, though — maybe the people actually living it would feel differently.

Olympic National Park

It’s been stupidly hot in Portland for the past week, so I opted to flee to the coast on Sunday, ending up wandering through Port Angeles, Washington, and Olympic National Park. It continues to be one of my favorite regions and parks that I’ve visited. I could totally see myself ending up out there, if I’m not careful.

Photos from the trip are in the gallery.

From Kyoto with Love

I’ve been in Japan for a few days now, and have managed to not die, starve, or even get lost (I’ve always had a good sense of direction, and while the addressing here is a little different, a quick glance at Maps to see how the streets are laid out has thus far been enough). It’s been fun! A few days in the Shibuya/Harajuku area of Tokyo, then took a Shinkansen down to Kyoto, where I spent today exploring the Fushimi Inari-taisha and surrounding area – not a bad way to spend your birthday. Tomorrow, I head to Nara. While there’s plenty to still see and do in Kyoto, it’ll have to wait for another trip.

I’ll admit, I feel a little torn. While I’ve been enjoying my solo adventure (always have, always will), I can’t help but feel it would’ve been great if I’d been able to line up a travel partner as well. Something to bear in mind for next time, I suppose.

One thing that sort of struck me when I got here: It’s easy to get drawn into the spectacle of a place, pseudo-mythologizing something because of the differences or wonder of the thing, but it’s so much nicer when you get there and are struck by the reality. People live here. The beauty of the mundane.