New blog host

If you've been here before you'll notice the blog has changed, well it has but more than you know. I've actually decided that paying for hosting wasn't worth it anymore, not when Google's Blogger network will do it for free! My previous web host was Dreamhost.com and I still highly recommend them for anyone wanting a web hosting company.

Home again

It’s good to be home again. After traveling for about 6 weeks I’ve finally made it back home to Gainesville Georgia. (I actually got back last Monday night but have been draggin my feet getting the blog updated.)The trip to Australia, the cruise and conferences on the west coast were great but towards the end I was getting tired of all the moving around and was ready to get home.

The VMWorld conference in San Francisco had some really interesting new technologies that I hope to use wherever I end up working. I spent most of the time during the 4 days at sessions but stole half a day to tour San Francisco and take some pictures along the way. Check out the gallery:

San Francisco 2010

Thursday the 2nd I hopped on a plane to Seattle so I could make it to the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) that started on Friday. PAX is a conference that is for gamers of all types. It is mostly video games but they have everything including card games and D&D. I had a great time seeing the new games and the ones that are soon to be released. They also had sessions and a concert that was great. The concert was Paul and Storm and Jonathan Coulton for those who are into this stuff. I didn’t take many pictures while running around, I wish I had now, but by that time I was really sick of carrying that camera around! Anyway, check out the few pictures that I did get here:

PAX 2010

That’s all the travel I have planned for now, not sure if I’ll be heading out again. I’m a little tired of all the moving around and being home again is a relief (I’ve also used up a good bit of those savings during the last 6 weeks!). I’m thinking it might be time to start working with some new IT stuff I’ve been meaning to learn and beginning the job search. So the blog might be quiet for a while unless I get an itch to run off for some more travel or find something interesting I think everyone would like to read.

Thank you everyone for reading and following me as I went all over, it’s been fun to share the trip with everyone.

Australia Cruise

So the cruise is over and I’m back in Sydney. The cruise was a great week long break from staying hostels that was well worth it. The bonus of the trip was the few stops at some islands of New Caledonia and Vanuatu. I had not planned on going to any other countries other than Australia so I’m happy to have made the cruise.

The cruise was with P&O Cruises on a ship called the Pacific Dawn. It was a 7 day cruise that stopped at 3 different places, 2 in New Caledonia called Noumea and Lifou and another called Port Vila in Vanuatu.

New Caledonia is a collection of islands governed by France so they speak French and use a version of the franc for currency. It wasn’t easy to buy something there since I have no idea how to speak any french at all. Noumea was the most populated by far of all the stops and Lifou was the least populated. I took a bus tour on each of these and both were interesting to see but I couldn’t imagine living at these places. I would be lost there without a big computer store nearby.

The third stop, The Republic of Vanuatu, is an island nation that broke away from a joint government between the French and English in 1980. It had to be tough to get anything done with 2 countries trying to run the island at the same time, probably couldn’t agree on anything. I took a helicopter flight around the island at this stop. It was the first time I got to fly in a helicopter so it was great but was over way too quick. I spent some time downtown after the flight but it really wasn’t all that built up and being alone there didn’t feel right with the locals, so I just headed back to the ship for the last half of the day.

The last 2 days of the cruise were at sea the whole time as we cruised back to Brisbane. Not much to talk about really, just took it easy, got to read a good bit, ate when I got hungry and had a relaxing few days. Check out all of the pictures here:

Australia Cruise

Tonight I’m in Sydney and plan to check out the largest IMAX theater before catching the flight to LA tomorrow morning. I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before but it’s crazy that the flight is leaving Sydney at 9:50am on the 29th and landing in Los Angeles at 6:40am the SAME DAY! So the flight will land before it takes off, ha!

Once in LA I’ll be getting on another flight to San Francisco where the VMWorld conference is going on from Monday to Thursday. I don’t believe I’ll post anything once in SF because I’ll be busy at the conference most of the time but if anything good happens I’ll let everyone know here on the blog.

Heading out to sea

Made it on the cruise ship, just about to leave the port. So until I get back to the mainland in a week, I'll leave you with a shot of my room on board the Pacific Dawn:

Byron Bay

We got to Byron Bay on the 17th towards the end of the day, so once we got settled in to the new hostel it was dinner time. Luckily the hostel had their own pizza kitchen where we could order a homemade pizza without having to leave. The next day we went downtown for a while and eventually walked up to the lighthouse nearby. It was a hike climbing up the mountain to get there but I continued walking along the 2 mile path around the ridge that had some great views of the coast. Check out the photo gallery:

Byron Bay

On the 19th I worked on getting my plans in order for the last week of Australia. After traveling for 3 weeks staying at hostels I needed a change (I don’t know how some people can go months and years traveling this way. It reminds me of when you stay on the couch at a friends house, it gets old after a while). The change that I found was a cruise leaving from Brisbane on the 21st. It lasts for 7 days and would be my “vacation from the vacation”. The cruise is stopping at 3 different islands off the coast of Brisbane that all seem to have some fun stuff to do, check out the info about the cruise here. Derek decided to stay at the hostel since he had some things he still wanted to do in Byron Bay. So on the 20th I caught a bus back to Brisbane on my own and will be going solo from this point. Tomorrow I’ll be boarding the ship and will be back in Brisbane on the 28th. I’ll then fly to Sydney, stay there for one night and finally fly back to the states on the 29th.

With me being out in the ocean and running around the islands, I doubt I’ll have any internet access. This means I won’t be posting any new updates until I get back to the mainland. If it’s silent here for a while don’t worry, there should be new updates towards the end of the month. I’ll be sure to take photos and write down anything interesting that happens along the way.

Brisbane

We spent 3 nights in Brisbane. The first day I was able to get some much needed laundry done, washed just about everything I brought with me. The second day I wasn’t feeling well, I had picked up a cold somewhere so I just sat around most of the day. That night we walked around the town and saw the major market area and some of the bridges. The last day I ran off on my own for most of the day walking all over taking the pictures in the gallery below. The city looked really great at night when it was all lit up.

Brisbane

On the 17th we caught a bus heading out to Byron Bay. This ride was only 4 hours, not another marathon like the last one we had. I’ll leave it here for now until I can get the pictures from Byron Bay all ready for everyone. Should have those done in a day or two.

End of Adelaide and trip to Brisbane

It’s been a while since an update so I just wanted to get everyone caught up a little until I can finish with all the photos from Brisbane.

Our last day in Adelaide, Wed 11th, was spent waiting for our bus going to Melbourne. We passed most of that time in a gaming cafe near the station. I enjoyed it because I got to play the new Starcraft 2 game that was released right after we arrived. Everyone back at home had been telling me it was great so I had to give it a try. They were right, it is a really fun game. We caught the bus at 8:15pm to start the 10.5 hour ride to Melbourne.

In Melbourne we stayed at the Melbourne Connection Travellers Hostel again. We had stayed here before and only needed the one night to rest before the next bus ride. We killed time in Melbourne going to McDonalds for internet access and some more time the next day at another gaming cafe. We caught the bus to Brisbane on Friday the 13th at 7:15pm. Yes, I did realize that the date was a little ominous but the drive wasn’t too bad, however I would not like to do it ever again. This trip was our longest ride yet at 24 hours (a whole day!). The biggest issue I have is that the roads here are very bumpy, it amazes me how lucky we are to have smooth flat roads in the US. I noticed they were bumpy on the Great Ocean Road but I assumed that it was just that particular road, well it’s that way everywhere! The best part of the 24 hour ride was that we had plenty of room so each person on the bus had two seats to themselves. With plenty of room I was able to get a little sleep along the way (I think Derek got some too) and a ton of reading done. (I’ve got some info on what I’m reading at the end of this post)

Our hostel in Brisbane was a quick 5 minute walk up the road from the bus station so we got settled in at about 7pm on Saturday the 18th at Brisbane City Backpackers hostel. That’s it for now, I’ll continue from here on my next post once I get all the photos from Brisbane ready and uploaded. Hopefully the next post will be within 24 hours but don’t hold me to that.

For now you can take a look at some random shots from around Adelaide:

Adelaide

So what am I reading?

I am currently reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It’s a fictional book about the US turning into a Socialist country and how it all falls apart (I haven’t reached the end yet, I’m hoping for a good outcome). Since I watch way too much about politics, it’s right up my alley (now that I think about it, I’ve not seen too much US news over here and haven’t really missed it). Warning to those who might try this book, it’s about 1400 pages but if your really into this kind of fiction it’s good.

The book I finished before this was all about the housing bubble and how it happened called The Big Short by Michael Lewis. I realized that this can be very boring for some people but I was very interested in the details of the financial issues that caused all the trouble. The book doesn’t talk about politics, which is all just finger pointing anyway, instead it tells a story of a small number of people that saw the issues early, tried to figure them out and made fortunes in the process. Basically they were allowed to bet against sub prime mortgages by buying insurance at a horribly flawed low rate. If your interested in that stuff it’s a great read.