Wow things really change fast sometimes. Especially when you’re on one side of the planet, people you care about are on the other side, and the shit decides this would be the best time to hit the fan.
So without elaborating too much, I abruptly changed my plans on the 12th of June by moving back […]

1) Get a job at a club like Bang in Cincinnati. Make sure it has owners as egotistical as Josh Heuser (formerly of Club Clau) and Nick Grammas (formerly of The Exchange). You’ll know this when they’re both visibly annoyed that you have the audacity to actually introduce yourself to them. And it must be […]

It’s been a while since I’ve recapped the big stuff in my life, so here’s what went down in 2007.
At the risk of seeming like a complete nerd, I thought I’d share five goals I set in August 2006 before leaving Arizona to complete my last year at The University of Auckland. I’ll share what […]

So I’m just browsing the Web, minding my own business, and then I happen to check the feed of my friends’ status updates on Facebook. I see some rather distressing updates like “… is in disbelief” and “… is predicting national depression.” Obviously something really bad is happening, and because all the doom and gloom […]

Just as my stars are starting to align for the future, I got some bad news this week. My good friend Ellie unfortunately has to move back to Singapore on extremely short notice. What a bummer. I met Ellie back in 2004 when we lived in O’Rorke. I didn’t really hang with her much then, […]

Last December I was on a major road trip up the west coast of the US with my friend Paul from Arizona when my engine burnt to a crisp outside of Olympia, Washington. I was forced to get rid of just about all of my possessions that couldn’t fit on an airplane, which was not […]

ATTENTION ALL ASIAN RESTAURATEURS: You’re Missing A Huge Opportunity!

So I was having dinner with my friend Priscilla at a Japanese restaurant last night, and realised that Asian restaurants are missing out on a huge opportunity. As with almost any non-Asians, both of us had pretty much no idea what all of the options were on […]

Okay, for for the none of you that read my blog on a regular basis, you’d know that back in November of 2007 I wrote my first blog post in over 2 years recapping the previous couple years of my life. In the post I promised a series of 9 following posts to give a […]

During my time in Phoenix, I�ve been able to take some pretty cool trips. First was when my friends Sean and Tim, and my brother Rob came out to visit over New Years ‘06 and we all went up to Las Vegas. And yeah, the place lives up to its reputation. I also went out […]

So after Europe, a brief trip home, and a cross-country drive, I got to work full time at the Phoenix offices of the software firm I had been working for remotely in New Zealand.
(Just in case you’re wondering, I have intentionally concealed information about the company to prevent the competition from finding my blog.)
Looking back […]

After returning to New Zealand in January 2005 things were pretty cool for a while, but after a few months something started to feel not quite right. The warts of New Zealand were starting to show and the place just didn’t have the same spark I felt in ‘04. Whether is was the sometimes striking […]

One of the coolest people I met in Auckland was my very good friend Kai (rhymes with “sky”) who was also one of my O’Rorke podmates a.k.a. neighbors. Anyone who’s ever met her can totally appreciate her coolness, but for the unlucky ones who haven’t, the best way to describe her is to borrow a […]

Honestly, I can’t remember too many of the details from April 2004 until finishing my first year at The University of Auckland in November of 2004. In a broad sense, I mostly think most about the friends I met in Auckland including Albo, Camilla, Graham, Jack, Jesse, Jo, Kai, Lara, Lucy, Matt, Onur, Rook, Sam, […]

I like to think of myself as a pretty open-minded person, but recently after interacting with a great number of people here in Auckland that represent a very wide range of global cultures, I’ve been thinking that I could only live someplace in the world that generally has a culture pretty close to mine. I […]

I’m sitting in my room and it’s very quiet here in the hall. The reason is that it’s the Easter break and everyone jetted out of the hostel late last week. I actually went up to a little town north of Auckland named Kerikeri where I spent two nights at my friend Jesse’s farm, but […]

I must say that signage is severely lacking here in New Zealand. Everywhere I go, I have no idea where I am. Street signs are terrible. At most intersections, even major ones, you only see one street sign for the street that you’re turning onto. If you are lucky enough to see a sign for […]

I’m sitting in the Chicago airport waiting for my connecting flight to LA and pondering what the hell I’m doing. I’m on my way to New Zealand by way of Phoenix, as you probably know, and I have to say that over the past few days reality has really sunk in about this whole thing. […]

It snowed AGAIN here in Cincy today. The only thing nice about that is that all of the ice is now covered with snow so I don’t slip on my ass when trying to go down the steps at Jason’s house. I could shovel the snow considering I am the Couch Guy but that will […]

Two weeks and five days until I begin a new part of my life. Whenever you are leaving your house to run some errands, do you ever have that sense that you’re forgetting something that you know you will remember as soon as you get on the road? I have that times a thousand right […]

i was driving today and thinking about this business card that i want to create for myself, and i continue to grapple with the dilema of having nothing to put on the card since i don’t do, well, anything really. this is something sean continues to berate me about, but i still feel that it […]

I thought i would share an email with you that I recently wrote to my friend Andrew in New Zealand:
Hi Andrew
How are things going with the Oman promotion? In the off chance it does happen, I decided that it wouldn’t be a smart thing for me to participate in. I have a lot of paperwork […]

ok i decided to keep this journal because i’m going to be moving to the other side of the planet and i want to document this experience so i can better understand myself and mainly so i can share my experiences with the people in my life, many of whom I will be leaving in […]