Ted's year end early new year update, Pt. 1

Hey guys.  Apologies for starting a post and then not finishing it until several weeks later rendering it obselete—and ancient by internet standards—on arrival.  I've done this a few times, and I still have some stuff that I need to update from this summer.

First a digression: when I started this post, I'm was cruising above central Florida at around 39,000 feet and 445 knots, using free holiday wifi.  I continue to be impressed by how our lives keep progressing towards total, constant connection.  This would have been unheard of a few years ago.

Anyway the point of this post is to give an update on what I've been up to the past few days, weeks, and months.  Why was I on an airplane over Florida?  Well I was on my way to Minnesota from the Dominican Republic where my sister just had her wedding ceremony.  I've told some of you about this but this is probably news to some of you that I haven't talked to very recently, which is a sign that we need to catch up.

Before They Were Big Shots...

400 & 300!

400 & 300. What do these numbers MEAN?

Well. Let's start with the number 400. It's our 400th post! Pretty crazy stuff. We've come along way and I am really proud of us keeping it up for so long!

And then there is the number 300. I'm less excited about this one. Can anyone guess why the number 300 is significant today? Could it be the name of my favorite movie? Could it be the number of times I checked my email in the last week? Or is it the number of calories in the meal I just had?

Caribbean Winter

For those of you whom I haven't updated, I live in St. Thomas, USVI now. Sort of.

For the next 4+ months, I will be spending the majority of my time in the U.S. Virgin Islands, shuttling between my house, my office, and the beach in a rental car driving on the left side of the road. I will likely return stateside for a week or so every three weeks, but this could vary significantly based on workload, etc. While I still pay rent and have a car in Minneapolis, I now have a permanent place while I am down here (i.e. not a hotel).

This entire experience is cool for a number of reasons:

1) It's currently winter. In Minneapolis, this means it is likely a negative temperature with windchill. In St. Thomas, it means that it's 75-80 degrees and the swells are a bit better for surfing.

2) I'm meeting lots of people I would never have otherwise met. Everybody who lives down here has a cool story (bro), and a lot of people are down here living their dreams instead of slogging away in a job stateside that they'd rather not do. This means they are interesting.

3) I get the snorkel/surf/scuba dive. I just bought a surfboard!! Let's go surfing now!

4) The work I'm doing is really cool, I'm learning a ton, and making myself more valuable. You know when you're in a situation where you feel like you're just bettering yourself? Getting good experience that you know will make you more useful in a specific role in the future? That's how I feel about the work that I'm doing right now, and that feels good. I like self-improvement.

5) I can haz visitors. The place I'm living is a guesthouse of a larger house, with no kitchen, but there's plenty of floor space and a queen size bed, so I can fit in one or two bros who make the trek down. Plus, the double doors open to steps that lead directly down to a patio complete with infinity pool (see here - same bay/view, different pool).

So, even though we may continue to push off Brocation 1.0 (Cuzco, Peru, anyone?), a Long Caribbean Weekend is beckoning.

UPDATE: JibJab Video!

As I referenced in my last post, the 2011 JibJab Year in Review wasn't up. BUT! Now it is. Enjoy!

Home for the Holidays

There's no place like home. I'm allowed to say that because I'm from Kansas (or is it the other way around?).  But it really is true. And it's not even just being back in your hometown, it's about being back in your own country. Where people grew up watching Sesame Street and The Rugrats. Where I can have a conversation with a customs official or store clerk and not have to worry about language or cultural faux pas. Where I can drive and know that 1st street is after 2nd street (except in DC). And especially where I know exactly where to go to find food.
That being said, I'd like to elaborate on the meaning of vacation. For me, vacation is still associated with summer and freedom from school. During the summer, I would relax at home, see friends, and swim way too much. When I got older, I began to work during vacation. On Wikipedia, vacation is pretty much defined as taking a trip somewhere. I was actually really surprised by how short the article is, considering how many various definitions of vacation I have floating around in my mind. So, disregarding everything Wikipedia has to say, which I know is heresy to this blog, I posit that vacation is merely an escape from the normal. For your average American family, that means taking a three hour drive and sitting in a hotel in a tourist trap. For school kids, it means time off of school. And for your average adventurer in Russia, it means going home.
I have to say that I by far prefer my vacation. Whenever you leave your comfort zone, a level of chaos enters the equation. Now, of course, this level of chaos stays very low in places like Branson or Breckenridge. But think of the number of Hollywood comedies about disaster vacations. Those comedies are so funny because we can always relate. Once you leave the comfort of home, Chaos gets stronger and stronger. Of course, there are comedies about coming home for the holidays as well, but don't those always end with the family getting closer?
When you live in Siberia, Chaos reigns supreme. The equivalent of a State Capital Building in Buryatia caught fire 2 days before I left. Think about that. Last winter, they wanted to put an ice skating rink on Soviet Square in the center of town. No one thought to hire an engineer to make sure the rink was flat. No one noticed that the water was gather along one edge of the rink until it was too late and the wooden gates broke, letting loose a flood of water that led to the entire center of the city being covered in several inches of ice. My friends who work in a kiosk on Soviet Square were entirely unable to open the door of their store. That's where I live.
The United States is ruled by institution and order. You may disagree, but often times our frustrations are the result of too much double-checking and oversight. I think our rules of the road are an excellent example of this. Our roads are well-constructed and orderly. Very few people run red lights. But people hate seeing cops because of speeding tickets. In Russia, when a cop pulls you over, they want a bribe. We in America hate getting caught. In Russia, there's very little you can even do about it. If you follow the rules in America, there's little that can happen to you. And our roads are not the nightmare that Russian ones are.
So coming home to familiarity and order led to some of the most relaxing two weeks of my life. I drove around. I lay around. I played Skyward Sword like there was no tomorrow (cuz I can't play it again for 6 months, dammit). And I basked in the utter lack of concentration that speaking English requires.
But when I landed back in Moscow, my heart began to pound and I felt a rush of adrenaline. It was similar to the feeling that I would get before a really great 200 Free. I knew I was back in my element. I understood every word of Russian, I knew every bureaucratic procedure, I knew how to travel on the subway. While I was in the States, I spent most of my time playing a game. In Russia, getting from point A to point B is a lot like solving a puzzle in Zelda. You have to study the map, but when you get to a key intersection, you find that it's closed off. So you go through your bag of items and pull out the ones you need to get around this roadblock (Russian language, knowing when to wait or when to find another way, etc.). And when the puzzle is solved, it's way more satisfying that anything that could be found in a videogame (much like getting through Skyward Sword is way better than anything in any other videogame).
Being home was perhaps the best vacation I've ever taken. But living in Russia is the best step I've ever taken in real life. And realizing that yesterday may have been the best part of the vacation that I took.

The Year In Review

Maybe it's because I'm a history major, maybe it's because I live in the past, or maybe it's just part of my personality to embrace nostalgia... BUT I LOVE RECAPPING THINGS. Hell, one of my favorite part of the party-scene in college was eating brunch the morning after and retelling the stories that had become ancient history over the night.

This time of year it's all about recapping the 365 days that most recently came before us. While I haven't been drooling over this stuff like I did in 2009, I've been eating the 2011-Recap stuff right up. I've compiled some of the notable articles/lists for you to enjoy!

Best idea ever?

I think possibly so.  Props to these guys.

Happy Winter Solstice!

As of 11:30pm last night, it is officially the start of winter (May it be a short one...).

In Chicago, we'll only see 9 hours, 7 minutes and 43 seconds of daylight today.

So... Happy First Day of Winter! Perhaps you'll celebrate Korochun, Wren Day, Santa Lucia, Soyal, or Yuletime! Or maybe you'll just play around with this fun interactive animation. Enjoy.

Best of the Net!

Hey All,
It's back! Best of the Net! My own opinions on stuff that is cool on the internet!
Here we go:

GOOGLE STREETVIEW: A pretty interesting article about how something as simple as a Google Streetview snapshot can actually show so much more.

HEALTH SUPPLEMENTS: Fact or crap? Check out this cool interactive infographic to find out what the science says!

DOLPHIN JETPACKS:


CREEPY VINTAGE ADS: no explanation needed.

DRINKS ON FIRE: I have a friend who I worked with a few summers in a row who would go into a bar and the first question he'd ask would be "What drinks do you have that we can light on fire?"


That's it for now! Real post soon.
MOLSON out.