Home

Places I've Been

I've been to my fair share of places. Each place was different and reinforced my understanding that many of the aspects of our day to day lives is an arbitrary cultural difference. I've tried to keep each description down to a couple sentences, though I could go on for pages in many cases.

  1. Australia, Sydney - The country may be large but Sydney seemed smaller than I expected. One of the things that impressed me was just how nice everyone was
  2. Bahrain - On my first day here I rode a rickshaw through the city with my now ex-wife. The guy was about 200 years old, had a nasty beard. He was all muscle though and could have kicked my ass in a heartbeat. One of the stores took me to a back room and tried to sell me christmas decorations in June!
  3. Brazil - Over and above the best coffee and food in the whole world!
    1. Sao Carlos - Rather nice place. Vaguely reminiscent of San Ysidro, California
    2. Sao Paulo - They have a nice inner city. Many of the buildings in the city were black from polution. Many of the people between Sao Paulo and Sao Carlos live in either tiny houses or straight out wood shacks.
  4. Canada
    1. Montreal - I spent most of my time in chinatown. The city is clean and there are plenty of American food around. Street signs are in french and the getting directions is difficult because the pronounciation isn't the same as Americans are accustomed to.
    2. Vancouver - This time it was the red light district. The part of the city that I stayed at never slept. There were also a large number of homeless. I suppose this is because its one of the warmer cities in Canada because the gulf stream doesn't drop below it.
  5. England
    1. London - Its about as you would imagine. Large busy city. Odd street signs. The food _sucks_
    2. Oxford - Amazing. The main city is fun to wander around with gobs of old history. I got a kick out of visiting the villages.
  6. Malaysia - The people here are nice enough but you really do have to keep your hands on your personal belongings. Little children will try and steal the watch off of your hand.
  7. Spain
    1. Barcelona
    2. Mataro
  8. Saudi Arabi - Spent a couple weeks here after the captain ran our ship aground. The gold souks there are unbelievable! Somebody tried to buy my now ex-wife off of me.
  9. Thailand, Phuket - Nobody in this country owns a watch.
  10. United Arab Emerites - The treets had trenches along the sides of the road. The food smelled awful! Sand. Sand. Sand. People on the side of the roads in coveralls that looked unhappy.
  11. USA
    1. California

      1. Los Angeles - There is downtown of course. You could easily drive for half an hour in any given direction and still feel like you're still in the same place, because of its sprawl
      2. Ramona - Smaller down about 45 miles north of San Diego. Has one main drag and is proud to sport a Burger King.
      3. San Diego - I lived here for about six years. The people here are fake and _much_ too involved in the lives of others.
      4. San Ysidro - Anyone that says that the wild west was tamed never visited San Ysidro. Its the sort of town where if you'll never be found (or looked for) if you get buried in a shallow grave.
    2. Florida, Orlando - I spent the first few years of my life here and visited a couple times as a child. The plants down there seem prehistoric
    3. Guam - The clearest, bluest, water in the world. Lots of party bars. I saw more than one retired navy person there
    4. Illinois, Chicago - Spent about a year here on the Naval Base just after the first gulf war. I went into Chicago frequently to drink at a bar that didn't care how old sailors were. The bar was white by day and black by night.
    5. Hawaii, Honolulu - Back in 1992 I paid $6.00 for an ice cream cone. :) At the time I was surprised by just how hilly Honolulu was. Parking sucked horribly.
    6. Massachussetts, Boston - I went up here for the GPLv3 draft conference. The town is loaded down with statues and other neat things. Downtown is one of the scariest places I've ever driven in life. I could best describe the highways as a snake orgy. You'll shoot down into a tunnel, take an exit into another street. Then, you'll pop up into daylight for just a moment only to drop into another tunnel.
    7. Michigan, Detroit - I still have nightmares of this place. Lots with buildings half torn down filled with broken washing machines and mattresses. The whole city seemed like a dump.
    8. New York, New York - I usually have to go into Manhattan two or three times a year. Driving there requires a unique sense of driving. Expect to pay $20 a day to park.
    9. Pennsylvania, Wilkes-Barre - Where I currently live. Its big enough to sport places like Best Buy and a variety of restaurants. Has a 2nd tier stadium that manages to draw names like B.B. King
    10. Minnesota, St. Paul - My ex-wife is from here. Its roughly townsized and requires a car to get anywhere
    11. Virginia, Annandale - Where I grew up
    12. Washington DC - I never, ever, ever drive here if I can avoid it.
    13. Washington, Seattle - I was only in Seattle for a week so I didn't get to see much because it rained most of the time I was there. I stayed on the ship, which was tied up next to a lumber yard of sorts.
    14. Winsconson - The home of my first girlfriend