Home, Soon.

On June 8, 2015June 8, 2015 By StevenIn International Travel - Japan1 Comment

I’m in my fifth week in Tokyo, my final week. This week will be fun.

Fun thing #1: I get to see some old friends from Germany. Tuesday is dinner with Tuuli and Henri, friends from Regensburg, who moved to Japan a while before I left Germany. Wednesday is probably dinner with Charlotte and some of her friends. Charlotte lived in Frankfurt, moved back to the UK a while back, but she’s traveling through Japan for two weeks on vacation with a friend.

Fun thing #2: My supervisor from Mr. Company is replacing me here, and she arrives on Wednesday night. We overlap for two days, which means I get to show her around. I like playing tour guide, and I forgot how much fun that can be.

Fun thing #3: In five days, I’ll be back in the air, headed home. I’ve missed home so much. I’ve missed my girlfriend Amelie a ton, and I’m looking forward to having proper snuggles. The most human contact I’ve had since my arrival in Japan has been the occasional handshake.

I fly out of Narita on Saturday, and I’ll land in Detroit an hour before I left. International flight time travel for the win! Here are some of the things I’m looking forward to:

I mentioned Amelie up there- I’m super stoked that I get to go see movies with her again- movies and dinner are one of our favorite dates. I missed out on Pitch Perfect 2 and Tomorrowland. Ant Man is coming up though, and that’s excellent.
I’m looking forward to catching up with my family in real time. I missed a lot of things while I was here- my oldest niece had a birthday dinner at Melting Pot with almost all of my family, and I hate that I missed it. My youngest niece had a recital, and I hate that I missed that too.
I get to go back to Tijuana Flats! After five weeks, I’ve got Taco Lust like you would not believe.
I miss driving my car. I kinda forgot what it feels like. Last week, I remembered very suddenly that I have satellite radio in my car. I’d forgotten.

In a week or two, I’ll start to post more about my time in Japan. I saw a great deal here, and I have a lot to share. Until then, I’ll leave you with this picture of me at the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) in Kamakura, just outside of Yokohama:

Away from keyboard…

On May 25, 2015 By StevenIn International Travel - Japan4 Comments

I’m sorry that I’ve been away again. I have a bunch of posts from my short trip to Minneapolis that I need to finish up.

There’s also this:

Yup, I’m in Japan! I’ve been here for two weeks, and I have another three to go. I’m here for work, but that still gives me the weekends to explore. The picture above was taken at Osaka Castle.

Once I have some down time to sort my photos, I’ll talk a lot about what I’ve seen while I’m here. Be seeing you!

Have you ever been to Japan? (Charlotte, you skip this question.) How about Minneapolis?

A rare post about my job.

On March 27, 2015March 27, 2015 By StevenIn Life At Home10 Comments

I don’t usually talk about my job online for a bunch of different reasons. For one thing, I deal with confidential data. For another, I think that “what do you do?” is the least interesting question anyone can ask me when they first meet me. For the two or three of you who don’t actually know what I do, I’m a Systems Administrator for a hosting company. When most people ask me what I do for a living, I usually just say, “computers.”

Despite the low frequency of my work-related posts, my job is an incredibly large part of my life. I’ve worked at Mr. Company¹ for almost thirteen years, starting in the summer of 2002. I was 29 when I started working for the company. When I started working there, my cell phone was new and large and awkward, and I still had a pager for emergencies. (Remember pagers?)

The company sent me to Hong Kong for two weeks in 2008. This was my first trip outside of the United States other than Canada and the Bahamas. My employment there is the very reason that I lived in Germany for three years, working for our European office in Germany. Working for Mr. Company is what allowed me to travel all over Europe for the last few years.

In a week’s time, however, the company won’t exist. Not in its current form, anyway. We’re being merged into our sister company, and we’re taking their name. My health benefits are switching companies. We’ll have a new CEO. I’ll be given a new e-mail address.

On the first of April, the name of my employer will cease to exist in North America. That’s a hell of a thing.

I’m excited though. So far, the changes coming down from on high have been good ones- they’ve separated our different offices into separate product lines, which means that our Utah office gets my least favorite platform, while I still get to play with my favorite products every day. My department has also gone from a 24/7 schedule to a 24/5 schedule, with nobody in the office on Saturday or Sunday.

Since my return from Germany, my responsibilities and workload at my job have increased a great deal. The company keeps me very, very busy, and that’s going to continue. Some time in the next few months, the newly merged and re-named Mr. Company will be sending me to Tokyo for about a month. In theory, I’ll go in May or June- the schedule isn’t fixed yet, so it could be later. Alas, it will likely be far too late to see the famous cherry blossoms. It will be my first trip to Japan. It will also be my first trip to another country for the new-and-improved Mr. Company, and I think that’s going to be pretty nifty.

In just five more days, it will be time to say goodbye to the company that I’ve always known, and hello to more or less the same company in a newer, shinier form. More or less.

Mr. Company is dead. Long live Mr. Company.

¹I always refer to my current employer as Mr. Company online. Always.

Auf Wiedersehen, 2014.

On December 30, 2014December 30, 2014 By StevenIn Florida, International Travel - Europe8 Comments

2014 was a hell of a year. It was the last third of my time in Germany before my contract ended there.

In 2014, I visited old favorite cities and the friends that resided in each- Munich, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin. I visited new cities in Germany that I had not yet seen- Dresden, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Rothenberg ob der Tauber, Heidelberg.

In 2014, I visited cities in other countries that I had never seen before- Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Egypt.

In 2014, I saw concerts by Ellie Goulding, Gary Numan, Baskery, Hayseed Dixie, Air Supply, Eels, the Alan Parsons Live Project, and Lewis Black. I saw stage productions of The Little Shop of Horrors (auf Deutsch) and the Book of Mormon.

In 2014, I saw America play Germany in the World Cup. I saw Germany lose its collective mind with joy when they were victorious in the final game. I attended beer festivals and blogger meetups.

In 2014, I went hot air ballooning over Bavaria. I rode a camel through one tiny corner of the Sahara desert. I rode Segways twice, and found them to be much smoother than a camel. I saw the Great Pyramid at Giza.

In 2014, I saw two dear friends wed to their beloved, one in July and one in October. I saw my Aunt Florence laid to rest over a funeral home’s live Internet video stream from my apartment in Germany.

In the last three months of 2014, I came home and began to reset my life here. My books and movies have been boxed up for four years. and I feel like I have been too. I’ve been stuck for a long while.

2015 is going to be a grand adventure, I think. I’m starting the year off by taking my girlfriend with me to California in late January to see one of my all time favorite bands. There’s other stuff on the calendar, but I won’t list it all out here.

I’m just glad to see 2014 on its way out. I’m ready to be unstuck.

What are you looking forward to about 2015?

Repatriation Day

On October 1, 2014May 30, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Europe, Life In Germany, The U.S.24 Comments

Today is the day that I leave Germany. I’m not leaving forever, because I have friends here. After today, though, I won’t be a resident of Deutschland. I’m heading back to Florida. My plane out of Frankfurt is actually scheduled to depart at the exact minute this post is scheduled to go up.

While this is a travel day for me, I thought it might be fun to give my friends an idea of what my Floridian life will be like, geographically speaking, courtesty of http://overlapmaps.com/. I’ve noticed that Europeans who have never been to the United States seldom have any real idea of just how expansive the US really is. Americans who haven’t traveled here are similarly bereft of clue when it comes to scale, which is part of what makes these maps so much fun.

Here’s an example to illustrate that point. This conversation actually happened between me and a colleague back in the US:

Colleague: Hey, can you go to the data center to look at this server?
Me: The data center is in Frankfurt. That’s three hours away. I might be able to get there by tomorrow, if I leave now, go home, pack a bag, and manage to catch the next train out.
Colleague: …so that’s a no, then?

First up in our map fun: South Florida, overlayed onto the region of Bavaria I currently live in. While these distances are not exact, I can say that Munich roughly overlays where Miami is, and Regensburg roughly overlays where I will be living.

These next two are just fun: Germany overlaid onto Florida, and Florida overlaid onto Germany.

…and just for giggles, the United States overlayed across all of Europe. The US is a big place. I lived in the US for my entire life before 2011, and I still haven’t seen nearly as much of it as I have seen of Europe. I’ve gotta get on that.