Category Archives: Travel

Waking up to the Sound of Roosters

Puerto Rico has nice nights.  Last night Cassie and I sat on the porch and listened to the night sounds of the coqui and the smells of the tree blossoms.  Oh and the water was back on, it was out all last night.  We ended up driving to the beach to use the outdoor shower that you use to wash off the sand at the beach!  It was kind of cool to watch the stars shining as we shampooed our hair to the sound of the waves crashing.

This morning we could hear the roosters and they actually haven’t stopped all day.  Our chickens would be jealous, the chickens here get to walk around in the streets.


I wish you could smell this!

We’ve setup a few showings for houses tomorrow in Aguada.  They are places we have been looking into for a while now on the internet.  It will be nice to see them in person.  I’ve uploaded a few pictures in a gallery from today.

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Arrived in Puerto Rico!

We left Denver last night at 1am and arrived in Puerto Rico at 11am.  I’ve never taken a red eye before and it actually worked out pretty well I think.  This is the first time I have been able to navigate San Juan during the day.  It is SOOO much better than at night. 


Sunrise over an airplane in Charlotte

On our way to Rincon we stopped at a little taco / burrito place and had lunch in Hatillo.  It was a really cool, clean and friendly place.  Good food and a Jamacia soda. 

 We then came to Rincon where we will be staying.  Its a much different place than the eastern side of the island.  A bit more laid back.   Today is a day to just get settled in.  I am writing this from the place we are staying at.  It is a house in the hills of Rincon. 

We are currently resting, surfing the web and we went for a brief walk around the neighborhood. We are going to start calling people and setting some things up to look at (properties) during the week.

 
Short walk vista

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Leaving for Puerto Rico!

The time has come to take another step in our journey.  Should be a good time.

We are still ‘up in the air’ so to speak about what direction to take in our journey to move to Puerto Rico.  It seems that we can take a safe path, a challenging path or somewhere in the middle.  Its tough to make such decisions but it is a lot of fun too.  Feeling alive.

Over the next week check back often for updates!


The view from the “house on the cliff

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From Busboy to Software Engineer

I started out my professional career working at Village Inn when I was 16 years old as a busboy. I learned how to clean the tables pick out which cleaners to use and was responsible and timely with all aspects of the job. It paid off. They moved me up to Dishwasher. Eventually I did so well they moved me up to waiter!


From This (not actually me, Im way hotter)

Its much the same as I did for the company I work at now. Just proving oneself can get you places. I started doing some CD production and distribution and now I am working on software engineering projects for 911 and doing software quality testing with no formal education.

For me its all about setting goals and being persistent. I came here not knowing what the vi editor was in unix. Now I can make advanced shell scripts that run at an enterprise level site (have several hundreds servers and several datacenters). Learning new programming languages, learning about system administration, data cabling, fail over philosophy and many many other attributes of computing that I didn’t even know existed a few years ago.


To This (not actually our data center, our cabling is much cleaner)

When I look at where I started it gives me a good sense of pride to know where I am at now. I don’t exactly know what I will do once I get to PR but if the past is any indication I will do whatever it is I set out to do. I’ve never really failed at anything I’ve tried (rentals, carpentry, flying, computers, sports, jobs, etc)

The saying is true. You can do whatever you put your mind to. The part they don’t tell you is that it takes hard work, perseverance and dedication. Most important of all is that you can’t give up. Ever. The best skill that I’ve gained thru all my hard work is that I will do ‘whatever it takes’ to accomplish something.

I feel the same way about our Puerto Rico goal. I’ll do whatever it takes. Sometimes its discouraging to not have already completed this. Cassie and I were talking about it and as it happens to be; we could complete our goal to move to PR today. We could do this pretty easily.

The issue comes from knowing ourselves fairly well. We have realized that we want a challenge out of this. That is what we do, seek out and accomplish challenging goals. We aren’t ready to retire, we want to get to PR and make a difference or a substanial positive impact and have an adventure.

Who knows. I could start out there doing whatever it takes to get by and end up somewhere I never imagined or thought possible asking myself, “How did I get here?”. I ask myself that pretty much daily already, I don’t expect it to change! lol.


To This?

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