Will Travel

On Monday I’m heading back “home”. A month in Europe before hopefully moving over here.

It will give me time to get a new passport, arrange a visit to the US embassy, spend time with friends I haven’t seen in a while, and take a trip to Brussels for the JCI World Congress.

At the same time, I enjoy being where I am at the moment, and while I look forward to all the fun I’m going to have in Europe, I would be perfectly happy just staying. It’s interesting to plan for fun stuff somewhere else, when I don’t really want to go.

I want to stay, but since I have to go I’m going to make sure that I have a great time. An attitude that I think is great to have in all areas of life. No matter what you do, make sure that you have a great time.

I plan on having a great life. What do you plan?

Cheers,

Daniel

I just finished reading The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. A story about the journeyman torturer Severian, and his ascent to power.

Great book in general, while at the same time making me realize that my English might not be as good as I think it is. When reading this book I had to reach for the dictionary almost every five sentences. At least in the beginning; the frequency slowly going down the further I read.

Luckily I’m reading on the Kindle, where a dictionary lookup literally at my fingertips. Move the cursor to the word, and you’re done.

Humbling experience.

Recommended.

Cheers,

Daniel

I think I’m going to like living here in Florida.

Yesterday I took a bike ride in some of the best weather there is; mostly sunny, with partial cloud cover. And now, only an hour after arriving at my residence, I stand here with an open front door watching rain and lightning tear down the skies.

Awesome.

With me not being big on exercise for the sake of exercise, you may wonder why I took a forty minute one way bicycle ride.

I went shopping. I have finally found a store that carries Vibram five fingers. They have been on my wishlist for a long time and I’ve never – until now – had the opportunity to put a pair on.

No buy. They only had Bikila, and they felt too warm for this south Florida weather. At least I got to feel them on my feet.

Mission of the day accomplished.

Later I rode 45 minutes to go to the pub with friends. Do I need a car? Don’t know.

Cheers,

Daniel

So maybe I haven’t been that good at writing for the blog lately. I’ve had a lot on my mind; which when I think about it is a reason to write more rather than less.

And then I stumbled across Seth Godin writing about writer’s block. He basically gives the cure for writer’s block: Just write poorly. Continue to write poorly, in public, until you can write better. It’s that easy.

Game on.

Cheers,

Daniel

You may have been wondering what I’ve been up to. Now you know.

More updates are forthcoming.

Cheers,

Daniel

I did some research last week and today I finally had the opportunity to go to a “Handgun Intro” course. Something I was not aware of is that this four hour course also leads to a concealed weapons permit; even if you’ve never held a gun before. Unfortunately you have to have live in the US for this to be true, and not just be here on a tourist visa. So no permit for me.

Maybe next time.

You can do a lot without a concealed weapons permit though. Having a gun that is “securely encased” is perfectly legal for everyone. And apparently a glove compartment – locked or not – is enough. Or a snapped holster. As long as it’s hidden, not on your person, and at a place with a lock or a latch, you’re good to go. This place is so hugely different from Swedish gun law.

The course was a four hour course with the first two hours together with people who already knew how to shoot and only wanted the permit. So mostly a talk about legal stuff and help with filling out forms and such. This was followed by about an hour of showing us guns, how they work, and how to handle them. The teacher showed us a few different types of revolvers and semi automatics. Explaining their good sides and bad.

It boiled down to this: if you don’t plan on practicing, get a small revolver for carrying, and a big revolver for your home. If you are going to practice regularly, get the same revolver for your home, and get a semi automatic to carry. And preferably they should all come with a laser sight. Yeah, maybe this is a good place to say that this course is solely focused on using guns on people; if you want to learn how to do target shooting, that would be a different course.

Stand steady, lean a bit forward to handle the recoil, grip the gun just so, point at the target (don’t bother using the sight, because you are not going to do that in a live situation anyway), and pull the trigger. That’s about it. And then we headed for the firing range. Getting the chance to shoot all those guns was the best part of the day. We each had a hundred bullets, but since we pooled them and some people chose to shoot less, I got the opportunity to shoot a few extra. I’ve used a rifle before – and shot maybe ten shots over the course of my life – but never even held a hand gun. It rocks. A bit expensive to pick up as a regular hobby maybe, but really fun.

The holes in the picture are made by my first 14 revolver shots ever; two full rounds of seven. Made just after my first 48 shots ever with semi automatics. Click at the picture to see more (yes, that means you, Simon).

Recommended!

Cheers,

Daniel

Yesterday had some sort of thing going on on Atlantic Avenue, which is the main street of Delray Beach. Closed for traffic and there were more people than usual walking around. They even had police watching the train crossing.

There was also the possibility to donate blood. Something which I think all of you should do. It helps people in need, and it’s really easy.

Donating blood takes maybe half an hour, and is next to painless.

It doesn’t really hurt, but personally I can’t look while they put the needle in the vein. I have to look away and talk about something mundane. I’ve said some really silly things while getting that needle fixated. Really takes about ten seconds, but I after more than five years of donating regularly, I still can’t look while it happens.

After that you have maybe fifteen minutes of plain boring. Bring a book.

And you have an excuse to avoid heavy physical exercise the same day. I only ever had a problem once and had to sit down for a while, but normally it’s perfectly fine to go out, hop on my bicycle, and ride wherever I was heading.

Mission failed for me this time unfortunately. I’ve lived in Europe for more than five years after 1980, and that puts me on the blacklist. Mad cow disease apparently.

Hmpf.

Hopefully you can do it in your country to compensate for my failure.

Did you know that if everyone who is eligible to donate blood actually did it, they would each only have to do it three times during a lifetime.

At least aim for once per decade. You’d do your share, and more.

Oh, and the train. 107 wagons; I counted.

Cheers,

Daniel

Note: This was written two weeks ago.

It is only noon, but I’m tired to the bones. Started walking up to Machu Picchu at half past five. Half an hour on flat ground and one hour upwards. Tired even before the guided tour started at seven.

I have to go back to a habit of exercise again. Life was so much easier when I lived an hour bike ride outside of the city.

The only comment I have about Machu Picchu itself is Amazing. I feel like Indiana Jones finding a hidden temple in the jungle. Less all the tourists, of course.

Managed to steal some reading time up there as well. Hard to concentrate with such an aweinspiring view though.

Greatly recommended.

Cheers,

Daniel

After a day with great people in Delray Beach, Florida, it’s been decided that I’ll be around for a while. Work permit application will hopefully be fixed tomorrow, and October is the time for allocation. With some luck I’ll return to the US after the JCI world congress to work.

Definitely not what I was aiming for when I started out traveling around the world.

Does it feel like the right thing? Yeah, you bet.

Was it planned? Oh, no!

I’ll give it between a couple of months to a lifetime, and then move on to somewhere else. As long as I have a great time, this is the place to be.

The offer to visit me on the “road” is still open. Just give me some time to find a place and I’ll accommodate you.

The hotel I’m staying at right now is quite nice though. Even has a small kitchen, and, as you can see, an ocean view.

Cheers,

Daniel

If I time this posting right it will show up just as I’m boarding a plane for Florida. Well there I’ll be stationary for a while.

There are people there who want me to work with them, and I’ve tentatively said yes. Only details are still to be decided, something which I’m certain will turn out fine. From our initial conversations via phone and email, they seem to be great people, which is the most important issue when it comes to working with someone.

I mean, they’ve read the blog and all, and how much nicer than that can you get.

If it doesn’t work out I guess I just get a week in Florida, which is not too shabby either.

Or maybe I’ll follow up further on that opportunity in California. No replies for three days now though, which is always a bad sign.

Oh, maybe they don’t work on weekends. Strange people.

I’ll keep writing the blog no matter what. Seeing that this hasn’t really turned into your average travel blog anyway, I don’t see the topics changing that much either.

The biggest risk is that I might start writing in American English. Oh, the horror!

Cheers,

Daniel