Thank you! (One year later)

Friends and family,

As most of you know, Sasha and I were married last June in a small ceremony in Taos, New Mexico.  Its been a great first year and I'm finally getting around to writing thank you notes for my friends and family.

Since my hand-writing has devolved to a point where its barely legible, I thought I'd supplement my physical thank you cards with this blog post and some picture highlights from the big day and our subsequent honeymoon.

Thank you again to all of you who were able to join us in Taos and others who have supported us in our journey as a couple.   Your presence in our lives is invaluable. 

We look forward to seeing all of you in the coming months and years as we continue this wild ride that is life!

Vows in Taos with brother Britton officiating.

Walking down the aisle.

The Pavlic family (including Duke the Destroyer).

The entire family in attendance.

Post wedding casual pic at the Pavlic Taos home.

After the wedding we flew to Greece for a ten day honeymoon on the islands of Santorini & Mykonos followed up with two days in Athens.  A few picture highlights from the ten days below.

Sasha on our hotel room balcony overlooking Santorini.

Another balcony shot; this time with the caldera view.

View of Santorini from our hotel.

We rented this "hog" to get around the island of Santorini.

Sunset view at dinner one night at La Maison in Santorini.

Sunset cruise with a view of Oia.

Sasha with a cocktail at a beach in Mykonos.

A shot of another beach in Mykonos.

View of Athens from the top of the Acropolis.

Here's us (with a few hundred of our closest friends) checking out the Acropolis.

Sasha on a hotel rooftop in Athens one night with the Acropolis in the background.

Did Franklin's Open a Branch in Taipei?

So I'm on the way home from work tonight, getting rained on pretty good because I failed to grab my umbrella in the morning. (It wasn't raining this morning in Taipei; unlike Austin, just because its not raining in the morning doesn't mean it won't rain all afternoon.) As I approach the corner of Heping and Dun Hua near my apartment, I see an even more obnoxious crush of people at the intersection.

Turns out Burger King has a crazy cheap one-day coupon special today: 50NT (about $1.67) for a burger, fries, and drink.

My first reaction? Damn, that's a lot of people in line for Burger King.

My second reaction? I should take a picture and post something on my blog. (Because I have a streak on the line: capturing every promotion/advertisement of the local Taipei Burger King on my blog....)

After dropping off my laptop, grabbing my umbrella and my new Canon EOS 60D (yes, my trusty old point and shoot camera is somewhere in Mexico, along with my former truck, passport, garage door opener, and left running sock), I head out for some stalking of my favorite fast food establishment.

I ended up with three shots....

The "Stalker" shot taken from a safe distance across the street....

A view from the back of the line....

And, finally, a view from the front head-on....

Something tells me the 20-30 minute wait won't end in the kind of happiness that Franklin BBQ customers in Austin experience.... If you have no idea what I'm talking about in regard to Franklin's, and you live in Texas, that should change.

Game 7

Probably not how most of you Ranger and Cardinal fans are watching the game back home. This is my laptop propped up on a pillow in my bed. There's something awfully painful about playoff baseball at 8am....

For those of you watching the game in the States, have a beer for me....

What are the Odds?

I return home from Taiwan, fly into Houston, hang out in Diboll for the weekend, and drive to Austin on a Sunday. The following Monday I go to work at the Dell campus in Austin.

For those of you not familiar (and I'm assuming that's a large majority of the readership), Dell has multiple buildings in Austin and Round Rock, and they are all within close proximity of US Interstate 35, which runs north/south from the US border with Mexico to Canada.

Monday I had multiple meetings in different buildings and I drove to and from those meetings, changing parking spots each time. My last meeting of the day was at 3pm, and I parked about 150 feet from the entrance to the building.

At 5pm, I head out to the parking lot..... And there's no truck. Knowing that the Dell parking lots have a less than stellar record with vehicle security (multiple truck thefts in the past few years, including one of my colleagues), I immediately assumed my truck was stolen. But, since I was still feeling the effects of jet lag, I scratched my head a few times, walked in a couple of 20 foot circles and tried to remember if maybe I parked somewhere else in the lot.

One hour later, after the police arrived, and the parking lot was clearing out, it sunk in that my trusty Sierra was well on its way to Mexico. Good times!

Here's an amateur sketch of the general estimated whereabouts of my truck....

Followed by the official Austin Police Department incident report. I've chosen to only share the more pertinent part of the report (ie, the part where the detective hypothesizes on the nature of the crime....)

It would have been so much more entertaining if the officer chose to use the word "loot".... Oh well; here's hoping I don't have reason to see another police report involving the theft of my truck anytime soon.

Anyone got an opinion on the best crew cab truck on the market nowadays? The GMC was a no-brainer back in 2004, but Dodge and Ford both have some strong models out there these days. Let the research begin!

Extortion

So, I'm checking in to Continental.com for my flight back to Houston tomorrow. When I view my seat for the flight from Tokyo to Houston, there's an available business class seat upgrade. Given my curious nature, I click on the seat to at least see what they want for this upgrade.

Before I reveal the ask, allow me to provide some context. My round trip flight from Taipei to Houston is $1,200 American dollars.

These cats want 30,000 miles (the equivalent of ~4 Taipei to Houston round trip flights) AND $600 bucks.

Seriously? Man; I'll settle for row 42 in the aisle......

Greetings from "The Future"

Family, friends, and general consumers of the inter webs, I have been woefully inadequate in the blogging department during the month of September. In an attempt to curry favor with those of you who find my musings entertaining, I will take the easy way out and do so via pictures of my adventures the past two months....

Thailand (mid to late August)

Before we get to the pictures, let me just say that Thailand should be at the top of anyone's vacation list if they are in the SE Asia region. Scenic beaches and mountains, great food, and friendly people are just general overarching themes that were on display throughout my 7 days there.....

Kari and I spent 7 days in Thailand, beginning with the Phi Phi Islands. Pretty phenomenal trip, as these pictures will illustrate.

This is the view of our resort at high tide heading in from the ocean.

That's pineapple fried rice in a pineapple. As most of my immediate family members can attest, I've never been a big pineapple fan, but then again, I've never tried pineapple this good!

And the view from the pool. This alone was worth the price of admission...

One of about 49 rocks I took pictures of in the Indian Ocean. For reference, that is a boat in the lower right-hand corner. This picture was taken on the way to Maya Bay, where "The Beach" was filmed...
Coconut tree grove at the resort on Ko Phi Phi. Highly recommend Phi Phi Island Village Resort for anyone interested in a Thailand trip.

Not much of a transition here, but the second half of our Thailand trip was spent in Chiang Mai, the source of my last post on "trunk riding". The picture above is Wat Chedi Luang, a very impressive structure that was built back in the 14th century (that's 600+ years ago for you math majors...)

Patara Elephant farm is a gorgeous place, and the day we spent with the elephants was awesome.
My elephant, Maecome, could not have cared less about any of my voice commands or where I was interested in going. She had a one track mind, and that mind was focused on bamboo, and eating every last scrap she could get her trunk on.
Yeah, I'm 32, but that doesn't preclude me from behaving like a 14 year old. Sue me...

Speaking of childish behavior, this little guy was hell on wheels. I can't exactly remember how old he was (maybe 4-6 months), but he was the highlight of the day. Always getting into trouble and making mischief. Highly entertaining!

China

I spent two weeks in China in September for work, and was able to check out a few sites and little known places in and around Beijing and Shanghai.

This is the Oriental Pearl TV tower on The Bund in Shanghai. Really cool at night...

The above dish is jelly fish prepared in some form or fashion. I tried it; I won't be trying it again...
No trip to Beijing would be complete without a hike on the Great Wall. Several of my Dell friends and I hiked the Great Wall. We started out in a remote village outside Beijing.
You can see the Great Wall in the background. (Yes, my camera is not an SLR.)

A little bit better picture of the Wall from a higher vantage point on the hike up the mountain.

After hiking for an hour, we came to the first watch tower in an un-restored section of the wall. The name of this section is Jiankou.

After about 1.5 hours of hiking, it was time for a beer. Luckily, some locals just happened to have some cold Tsing Tao's in the second watchtower on the wall!

Cool little stairwell into a watchtower. Obviously still part of the un-restored section.

Here's a shot of the section that has been restored in just the last couple of years. Big difference, and at this point in our 5 mile hike, my legs were ready for a break.

Lunch after the hike was at a joint that had some Red Bull, Chinese edition.

The day after the hike, we explored some of the sites in Beijing. This is the Temple of Heaven.

Tienanmen Square.

Entrance to the Forbidden City. Yes, I have a big head. Completely unintentional that I covered up Chairman Mao's portrait.

Meanwhile, back in Shanghai... I took this picture at 7:30am on the way to work. The "Donut King"is closed. Seriously?!?

We had a chance to do some community service in Shanghai, and this is a picture of a 5th grade classroom at an elementary school on the outskirts of Shanghai. Very cool experience.
The day before I was to leave Shanghai, I ran into a grad school friend from Virginia, at my hotel in Shanghai! How cool/crazy/unbelievable is that? Pete and I proceeded to have quite the adventure that night. Probably blog worthy on another post....

Taiwan

The last couple weeks in Taipei have been fairly uneventful, but I did manage to hit up an incredible sushi joint with my buddy Matt.

Seared salmon belly; without a doubt the best sushi I've ever put in my mouth. Incredible...

And finally, I had the pleasure of doing some community service last week at a local orphanage and children's home.

Yes, I actually did something other than ride the seahorse at the school. The white concrete wall in the background wasn't so white before we showed up and painted it....

******************************************************************

Its obviously been a pretty eventful couple of months over here in Asia for me, and I've enjoyed every minute of my experience thus far.

I'll do my best to avoid month long stints between blog posts in the future, but sometimes creating the memories takes priority over documenting said memories.

Tomorrow I hop on a plane for my first trip back to Texas since I arrived in Taipei in May. For those of you in Austin, I'll be there Oct 3rd - 14th. Hit me up on email, the blog, or FB, and let's hang out.

Hook 'em!