Last year was all about the roots and this year was about continued growth. We got some great harvests from the greenhouse in terms of food (tomatoes, peppers, limes, lettuce, microgreens) and data about environmental controls. I’m excited to iterate on that and do even better next year. On the home improvement front our yard is now fully fenced in, and we installed AC just in time for summer. I’ve also been busy with indoor gardening. Our main room is slowly transforming into a palace of houseplants.
Artistically I haven’t come as far as I had hoped. I had all the tools I needed to be productive and creative, but I was too tired to pour myself into personal projects on evenings and weekends. The energy I spent at work was more valuable than the money I made, so I quit my job. Since then I’ve enjoyed making music and developing a video game. The music is harder than I expected. I like everything that I’ve written but it’s hard to bring it to life at production quality. The game is easier than I expected. I’m confident that my imagination is the limit and I’m excited to see where it takes me.
placeholder art for the prototype
Travel
Last summer we went to Iceland, which is the furthest north we’ve been. Over the holidays this year we went to New Zealand, which is the furthest south we’ve been. It’s a long way away, but we can’t wait to go back and do more great walks. From the time I quit working in April up until my birthday in August, I’ve been on a long victory lap for my 20s. I visited Arizona twice, California twice, a couple places in Mexico, the Galapagos Islands, Texas, Idaho, and Nevada. Every year I promise myself that I’ll stay in the northwest all summer (the summers are great, winters are for travel) and every year I break that promise worse than the year before.
Birthday
I spent the week before my birthday boating and golfing around Coeur d’Alene. I went 2-for-2 landing t-shots onto the floating green! Then I spent one night partying in Las Vegas to celebrate a friend’s 30th bday. I was pumped to get back in town just in time for the softball championship game being played on my birthday. All the golf didn’t help my swing and we lost a close game to a team of jerks, so I guess I stumbled just before the finish line of my victory lap. Maybe the doctor was right, everything starts going downhill when you turn 30. At least I can still pretend to be young! Next week I’m hosting a super smash bros tournament that will last a few hours until a champion is crowned. I think the last time I went to a birthday party like that I was 11 :)
Next Year
“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for... That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”
-Robin Williams as John Keating, Dead Poet’s Society
I’m blessed because my wife is cool with my lifestyle right now. We’re striking a balance that I think is difficult for young Americans to achieve. The last few months were a fun whirlwind but I’m burnt out from travelling, and that’s not what I quit my job to do. I wanted to gain ownership of my time, and I’m finally getting it. I’m excited to keep working on my game, music, and greenhouse, and to get some other folks involved with those projects. I’m also getting on a more serious athletic regimen. Finally, and most importantly, I’m looking forward to keeping Felicia happy and continuing to build our life together!
It’s been a busy few weeks. We celebrated matrimonies and feasted with our families. We climbed mountains and swam with a mermaid. We traveled back in time to teenage years. We spoke Spanish for the first time in a while. We drank cold beer in a hot tub, and tequila poured from clowns. We danced with a robot. We lit the sky on fire and slept by the ocean. We roamed a castle and saw life beyond death. We witnessed a golden angel wrestle victoriously against evil. We ascended the Pyramid of the Sun and survived Montezuma’s Revenge. Then after all that we took the best vacation of our lives!
There’s no time to break down everything we did in Arizona and Mexico, so use your imagination. I really only exaggerated a little bit. The coolest leg of our journey was a cruise around the Galápagos Islands, so I’ll focus on that. Shout outs to Ryan & Victoria and Nick & Marlene for your awesome weddings.
I really wanted to go on a cruise when I was a kid but it never happened. Then I realized people on cruises just drink for a week straight and norovirus breaks out and the plumbing stops working and everything is expensive, so I figured not going on a cruise was cool too. The Galápagos is different though because boats are small and the clientele aren’t there just to party. Our boat had 15 passengers, 7 crew members, and a rich itinerary. It’s an immersive escape from modern life because there’s no cell data out there. For a week your only contact is with exotic animals.
Cruising
Shout outs to Renata, Jutta, Gerald, Pia, Stewart, Lauren, Jen, Ian, Arlene, Bryce, Leah, Harry, and Linda! Our shipmates were from England, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland, and USA, and the crew was all from Ecuador. On the boat we ate three course meals together and enjoyed each other's company despite some small language barriers. Off the boat we mostly spent our time snorkeling and hiking the different islands with our Naturalist guide Felipe. Every day was like playing Pokemon Snap in real life. A typical schedule was like this:
We also did some kayaking, dinghy rides, beach lounging, bird watching, and Felicia even taught us all synchronized swimming in the ocean! Our last day was spent in civilization around Puerto Ayora. We toured some research and conservation projects, and learned about the impact that humans have on the islands.
When the skies were clear we spent evenings stargazing from the top deck. We crossed the equator like five times so it was pretty neat watching the sky flip upside down. We were in bed early every night because the days were so long. Sleeping while navigating was great. It felt like mama ocean was rocking the crib just right. There was only one night when she was in a bad mood and our small boat felt like a roller coaster.
Marine Life
We swam with penguins, sharks, turtles, sea lions, flightless cormorants, iguanas, sting rays, octopus, lobsters, forests of starfish, puffer fish (the kind they make fugu out of), and various schools of fish by the thousands. We also spotted whales and manta rays from the boat, and raced with pods of dolphins. The sea lions are super playful and curious. You try not to get too close but they swim right at you and then do cool spinny moves at the last minute to dodge before circling back around. Galápagos is also the only place in the northern hemisphere where penguins live. They’re pretty silly on land but It’s amazing how fast they are in the water.
Diversity
The islands are located a major intersection of trade winds and ocean currents, which means lots of animal migration traffic. Each of the islands rose from volcanoes at different times, and the lava flows on each island establish boundaries between isolated ecosystems. The result is an abundance of micro-habitats within close proximity, each of which was seeded at a different period in history and has evolved independently of the others. Some flora and fauna are capable of island hopping, so their species have homogenized across the islands. Other plants and animals have adapted differently to their specific environments. For example there are 12 known species of giant tortoise and 15 known species of finches! I was excited by some first generation “pioneer plants” that we saw on a remote lava flow. These plants are the first generation of an adaptation process that will lead to new habitats and development of new subspecies.
The diversity of the animals follows from the dynamic landscapes. Some islands are predominantly red sand because of the rich iron content. Other islands have white sand beaches, others black. Some beaches are organic, which means they’re composed entirely of little shell flakes. One island reminded me of Mars because of its desolate terrain. Another was even more otherworldly - a lush swampland with an abundance of cacti. In some places mangroves dominate the coast; in others lava flows clash with the sea to form inter-tidal grottoes. We walked through a massive lava tunnel and saw the giant pit craters that fed it with magma before they collapsed. One of my most visceral memories was watching penguins swim against a backdrop of lava rocks, red sand, and candelabra cactus.
Fernandina
It’s not fair to pick a favorite island - one of the things that makes them so cool is how they contrast with each other. But my favorite day was spent on Fernandina. That’s where they filmed the epic iguanas vs snakes scene in Planet Earth 2. It was the first time we saw marine iguanas, and there were piles of them. We also saw one of the racer snakes (although it wasn’t hatching season), some sea lions, various large birds, and tons of crabs. The iguanas have no concept of personal space. One iguana was just minding its own business when another one crawled on top of him and took a big dump, then crawled off and scurried away. The first iguana just sat there and took it.
The snorkeling that day was incredible. Our swim began with iguanas diving down to feed on algae. We followed them until some big webbed feet caught my eye on the sand about 30 feet below. It was a flightless cormorant, so we watched it dive and feed for a while until Felicia spotted an octopus, so we checked that out until some schools of fish were startled, which looked awesome because of the way the light reflected off of them all moving at the same time. A moment later a group of penguins zoomed through, changing direction on a dime, catching as many of the fish as they could get their beaks on. We tried to keep up but they were too fast. When we lost them we were surrounded by more sea turtles than we could count, so we just mellowed out until it was time to get back in the boat.
Boobies
Blue-Footed Boobies are large white birds with huge blue webbed feet. “Boobie” comes from the Spanish “bobo” which means clown, because of the way they lift their feet when they walk. The blue pigmentation comes from the nutrients of the fish that they eat. More fish means bluer feet, and deep blue feet is a sign that a mate will be a good provider for their chicks. Sexy blue feet is a good start, but it’s not enough to get the green light for reproduction. Once a male has attracted the attention of a female, he charms her with a silly courtship dance. If she accepts the proposal then she will join his dance, and eventually they start a home together and get down to business. They don’t build traditional nests out of twigs, but they find a sandy area between some rocks and poop together in a circle around it to establish their territory. Sometime later the female will lay her first egg, then about five days later she will lay a second egg. The male will help incubate the eggs (another important function of those feet) and he will also guard the chicks underneath him after they’ve hatched. As whimsical as nature can be, it is equally as savage. The second egg that the female lays is a sort of insurance policy, and they don’t often need it. If the older chick is healthy and strong then the parents will favor it. If food is scarce then the younger chick will starve to death. The older sibling sometimes murders the younger one by pecking it or dragging it out of the nest while the parents watch idly. I love the bright side of nature. Respect the dark side.
Recommendation
Don’t spend too much time trying to pick the “perfect” Galápagos vacation. There’s no way you can do it all in one trip. Pick a couple animals that you want to see and research the best months to see them. Many animal mating/hatching habits depend on the climate. They have a cool/dry season, and a warm/wet season. The other variable is itinerary. Most boats have a 15 day itinerary to tour the islands, and they generally break it apart into two week-long cruises. We did the 8 days west tour on Tip Top II. It’s not cheap, but you get what you pay for. I had a lot of uncertainty arranging this trip but we absolutely loved how everything turned out, so I cannot recommend Rolf Wittmer highly enough. We booked our tour through Happy Gringo. If we go again, we’ll pick a month that best fits the animals of the Eastern itinerary.
Fun Facts
* Galápagos Tortoises can live up to 180 years, and weigh up to 770 pounds
* A group of iguanas is called a mess
* As a result of global warming, tortoise/turtle eggs are hatching dramatically more females than males
* 21 of the 23 reptile species (including all 3 snakes) found in the Galápagos are endemic to the islands
* 41 of 400+ known species of fish in the Galápagos are endemic to the islands
* The islands have 837 miles of coastline - more than mainland Ecuador
* Galápagos tortoises can live up to a year without food or water, so sailors used to keep them alive on their ships as a food supply
* Marine iguanas use their nostrils like a blowhole to expel salt. Over time the salt residue calcifies on their heads like a crown
“My right hand,” Harmony said, “is freedom. You can feel it, I think.” And he could. Soaring, released from all bonds, riding upon lines of blue light. Adventure into the unknown, seeking only the fulfillment of his own curiosity. It was glorious. It was what he’d always wanted, and its lure thrummed through him. Freedom. Wax gasped. “What … what is the other one?”
“That hand is duty, isn’t it?” “No, Waxillium,” Harmony said gently. “Although that is how you’ve seen it. Duty or freedom. Burden or adventure. You were always the one who made the right choice, when others played. And so you resent it.” “No I don’t,” Wax said. Harmony smiled. The understanding in His face was infuriating. “This hand,” Harmony said, “is not duty. It is but a different adventure.”
Wax reached toward the left hand, and Harmony—shockingly—pulled it away. “Are you certain?” “I have to.” “Do you?” “I have to. It’s who I am.” “Then perhaps,” Harmony said, “you should stop hating that, my son.” He extended the hand.
Do you try to minimize your unhappiness, or maximize happiness? I’m a maximizer. I was surprised when Felicia told me not everyone thinks that way, but I notice differences all the time now that I’m aware. It also explains why I feel pressured by opportunities, and why I decided to quit two good jobs in the last year and a half.
I left Amazon with a sense of urgency to make the world a better place. That’s what led me to a company called Clean Power Research. I wanted to give my best effort to protect the environment and save innocent life on earth. I still do.
CPR was a comfortable place to work. I liked my team, the mission, the technical problems, and the work/life balance. Unfortunately, even though the intentions are good, it’s hard to understand the impact of the projects. I also felt like there was a limit on how much individual growth I could achieve. In the long run I think I can be more effective investing my time elsewhere, so I decided to move on.
I’m not sure what my next job will be. I’m taking some time off now because I want to clear my head before making committing to it. I need to reflect on everything I’ve learned about myself over the past 14 years of planning my life around my occupation.
That’s where I’m at right now. On one hand I want to give back the world that’s given me so much. On the other hand I want to live each day to the fullest because being alive is a miracle that shouldn’t be taken for granted. Maybe I’ll have a revelation like Wax did, or maybe I’ll find peace some other way. Maybe things go in an entirely different direction.
The American dream is to work until you’re like 70 and then retire for whatever time you have left. You trade a lot of time during the prime of your life in exchange for a little time at the end. That’s wack, so I’m giving pretirement a try. This is uncharted territory for me, but it’s also an opportunity that most people don’t get while they’re young, healthy, and unencumbered.
I don’t know how long funemployment will last. Set the over/under at six months. When I tell people I’m taking that much time off the reaction is usually “Wow aren’t you going to get bored? What are you going to do with yourself?” Fair questions, but I laugh because that’s not how I feel at all. I’m already overwhelmed by my to-do list, and I haven’t even had the time to think creatively about it. Here are some of my summer plans:
-Training like an athlete
-Dropping the hottest mixtape of 2019
-Home improvement projects and Indoor Gardening
-Homesteading
-Spending time with my family
-Travelling the world
-Open sourcing my greenhouse software project
-Balling like a champion
-Writing the next great American novel erotica
-Developing Games
-Networking
-Building robots, art installations, and robotic art installations
-Being the best husband that I can be
I’ll make a new post if I discover something cool, or if I have a breakdown because I realize that I’ve made a terrible mistake. Either way it should be entertaining ;)
New Zealand had been on our short list of vacation spots for a long time, but we didn’t want to travel that far unless we could stay a while. PTO & 2018 midweek holidays added up to 16 days away from work, which we decided was just long enough. Holiday season is also summertime in the southern hemisphere, which is a welcome retreat from Seattle’s soggy winters.
We started planning logistics in early 2018, which was fortunate for us because it turns out that New Zealand’s Great Walks need to be booked months ahead of time. I made reservations for the Routeburn Track as soon as the system came online at 8:00 AM, and the peak season was sold out by 8:04. We scheduled the rest of our trip around those dates. A little research revealed an overwhelming number of other tourist destinations. We decided to narrow our trip to just the west coast of the south island - and even within that slice we had to make compromises because of time.
We wound up with a dense itinerary; 40 hours of flying, 1100 miles of driving, 7 places to stay, and lots of activities in between. It was also the first time that Felicia and I would spend the holidays away from family. Our friends Kyle and Morgan were included in the original plans, but they canceled because Kyle got hit by a car and has to wear a poop bag, so it was just the two of us.
Just getting to the south island was it’s own adventure. We booked separate round trips between Seattle/Honolulu and Honolulu/Auckland on different airlines. We saved $1600 this way by using the Alaska companion fare on a super expensive trip. We pack light, so we didn’t have to worry about checking any bags and potentially losing them.
We landed in Auckland around 10:00 PM and our flight to the south island was in the morning, so we spent our first night at the airport hotel. Thankfully the 21 hour time difference only feels like 3 hours to the body clock, so jet lag wasn’t bad and we were able to get a solid night of sleep and a great breakfast brekkie.
We arrived in Nelson midday, picked up our rental car, and got introduced to driving on the left side of the road. For a little while I felt like Clark Griswold navigating roundabouts while figuring out where all of my instruments were. It became second nature after a while, but throughout the whole trip I never made a right turn without glancing over my shoulder to see if a biker was coming.
Our first destination was Kaiteriteri - the gateway into Abel Tasman National Park. We stayed in a little airbnb with a great view of the bay, and a short walk to the tiny town’s sandy beach. We spent a few days there hiking and kayaking around the park, and celebrated Christmas with a home cooked ravioli dinner. Some warm sunny weather there was exactly what we needed to kick off our vacation.
Christmas dinner
From there we started our journey south. New Zealand highways make for different trips than their US counterparts. The scenery is so diverse and dramatic. For anyone who’s driven i-10 between Arizona and California, imagine the exact opposite of that. The roads are all also narrow and winding, with lots of one-lane bridges. Beautiful drive time was a nice bonus throughout the trip.
Our next destination was Franz Josef Glacier, about seven hours drive from Kaiteriteri. We broke up the drive by stopping at Punakaiki to check out the pancake rocks and blowholes. Franz Josef is a pretty rad little town. In a couple days there we heli-hiked on the glacier, lounged in some hot pools, walked around Lake Matheson AKA “mirror lake,” learned about kiwi birds and tuataras at the wildlife center, and bought ice cream from a funny eight year old kid.
My favorite meal of the trip was at a Chinese-Indian restaurant in Franz Josef called King Tiger. I ordered an Indian dish, Felicia had noodles, and we split a decadent order of naan. None of the restaurants we ate at in NZ blew me away, but I was impressed by the quality and abundance of fresh local produce everywhere we went.
From Franz Josef we headed to Wanaka, another few hours south. We hoped to see some penguins along the way by Lake Moeraki, but the birds all went fishing for the season. Instead, we were awed driving through the Gates of Haast and had a fun afternoon at the Blue Pools. Younger me would have jumped off the bridge for sure, but as I round the corner on 30 a new sense of self-preservation is guiding me otherwise.
Wanaka is a bustling little lake town that shows up in a lot of nature photos because of #thatwanakatree. We had a good time there riding bikes between the two lakes and navigating the maze at Puzzling World. Felicia also discovered Patagonia Chocolates, which we went to about a dozen times before we left the country. It’s a pretty good time eating ice cream and watching skaters at the skate park or people doing water sports on the lake.
After Wanaka we drove a few hours further south through sheep country to Te Anau. Te Anau is another lake town, and it’s the gateway to Fiordland National Park. We slept a couple nights on an old bus parked on a little farm outside of town there, which was my favorite place we stayed in New Zealand. It was charming, cozy, and quiet, and we got to visit with the animals and eat our neighbor chickens’ eggs for brekkie.
a little breezy
We spent new year’s eve we ate a fancy dinner and explored the local glow worm caves. Glow worms are crazy! They cling to cave ceilings above underground rivers and emulate the night sky, so that waterborne insects are tricked into flying upwards. The unsuspecting insects get trapped by the worms fishing lines (like spider webs) and the worm gets a meal. The worms save up energy like this over a nine month period so that they can metamorphose into a form with wings and spend three days flying around and mating before they die. Photography wasn't allowed in the caves so I found this photo online.
On new year’s day we took a cruise around Milford Sound. It’s a couple hours drive between Te Anau and the sound, but we made it longer because there were so many side excursions that we couldn’t pass up. At one stop we saw a pair of tricksy kea birds use their classic distract-and-steal routine to work over a family of tourists.
The next day we started on the Routeburn Track from The Divide heading toward Glenorchy. The Great Walks of New Zealand are great because you get to sleep in huts provided by the Department of Conservation. In peak season, these huts are equipped with potable tap water, flushing toilets, and gas stoves. There are four huts along the Routeburn, each with 20-50 bunks. We stayed the first night at Lake Mackenzie and the second night at the Routeburn Flats, so we spent about 5, 7, and 2 hours walking over our three days, respectively.
The Routeburn is a really magnificent display of nature. There’s a great mix of dense forests and alpine terrain with views for days. The walk from Harris Saddle to the exit at Routeburn Shelter was probably my favorite part of our entire trip. Glamping at the huts was pretty fun too. I packed an iPad and kept busy with creative apps - I even made a crossword puzzle for Felicia to solve when she ran out of her own stash. We ate some freeze-dried Himalayan Rice and Lentils for dinner one night and it was low-key one of the best meals we had in NZ. I did get a little cold sleeping because we only packed sleeping bag liners instead of actual sleeping bags, and we underestimated the altitude, but a few more layers the next night remedied that.
Most folks complete the track in three days, some do two, and the most ambitious do it all in one go (the summer days are really long that far south). If you were looking to skim off the top of the Routeburn, I would recommend booking just one night at the Routeburn Falls hut and starting from the Routeburn Shelter. After your night at the falls, leave your pack at the hut and hike up to the Saddle for lunch, then hike back down to the falls, retrieve your gear, and head back out to your car. IMO you could experience the best-of-the-best this way, in two pretty easy days, with no logistical overhead.
When we got off the track we headed to Wayne and Mary’s house in Queenstown, which was a lovely place to wash off the grime and catch up on rest. In a couple days there we did some shopping, ate the legendary Fergburger, played disc golf, and spent an afternoon at the Kiwi Birdlife Park. We didn’t have the guts to bungee jump or swing across the canyon (self preservation) but we did get some thrills whitewater rafting on the Shotover River. Our inexperienced crew members got dumped a couple of times by the class IV rapids, but Felicia and I managed to stay in the boat. GoPro wasn't allowed on the river so I made an artistic recreation of the trip. I was starting to feel invincible after two weeks of adventures with a perfect bill of health, but on the last morning I bumped my head in the shower and a souvenir black eye brought me down to earth.
We weren’t ready to go, but it was finally time to head home. We left Queenstown at 7:00 PM on Sunday, spent 22 hours in planes/airports, and arrived in Seattle at 8:00 PM the same day. I slept most of the way between Auckland and Honolulu, which was the first time in my life I had ever been able to sleep on a plane, and it was one of the best things that's ever happened to me. During the waking hours on our flights I played Firewatch in one sitting and dabbled in the new Super Smash Bros on my Switch, watched Crazy Rich Asians, and drew concept art for a game I want to make.
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We came home to dying houseplants, dirty dishes, a downed tree, and a broken fence caused by windstorms. Home sweet home :) We held it together just long enough to get dinner and some groceries at Whole Foods and decided to let vacation last one more night.
Whenever I visit a new place I always ask myself “Would I enjoy living here?” Even when I’m having a great vacation, the answer is usually no. The verdict is still out on New Zealand because we barely scratched the surface exploring it. To do ourselves justice we would need an entire summer. We met travelers from around the world there, and they all lamented that vacations for Americans are relatively short. Two weeks is a rare opportunity for me, but one woman from Israel couldn’t believe we would come so far for such a quick turnaround. She had already been in New Zealand for six weeks, and wasn’t sure where her next stop would be.
Two weeks was enough time to observe the active, stress-free lifestyle that people live there, and everyone seemed really healthy and friendly as a result. They also care deeply about the environment, and with so much natural beauty it’s easy to see why. Maybe someday we’ll decide that kiwis make the ultimate snowbirds and we’ll fly run south for a season :)
