Browsing all posts in "Mirth & Misery".
Surviving 32…
I’ve been 32 years old for about a month now and I have to admit to being a bit disappointed. I expected that somehow being 32 would have imparted a bit more maturity into my life; a little more temperance. And yet having spent the better part of 6 hours the other week hiking a [...]
Togs to Undies
After years of beaches with European Speedos I just can’t resist… UPDATE: I always wondered at the slang term in the video “budgie smuggler”. On a recent trip to Africa I figured out what a budgie is… a friend of mine introduced me to his pet Australian parakeet, also known as a budgie. You do [...]
How am I busy, let me count the ways…
I’ve always valued variety in life, never being one who does well with the monotony of repetitive tasks. But there is threshold where eclectic multi-tasking transforms into an insanity that one can only feel when frantically trying to grasp a thousand loose ends, only to realize their mind has wandered off in the process… As [...]
Rubbing Off
Spring is here again and Araella does what all children seem to do – keeps growing. Last year she was two on the verge of three and now she’s on the verge of turning four. You always wonder as a father if you’re doing anything right; if they’re actually learning the values and principles you’re [...]
Solo Travels
Asia is the only place on earth where you can go to a McDonalds and order a McRice Burger. It’s also the only place where, while waiting in line for your McRice Burger, you might stand behind a Caucasian man with a shaved head wearing Birkenstocks and a British wool cardigan pulled over top a [...]
Bokor Mountain
Ad*ven*ture [noun]: an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity; [verb] engage in hazardous and exciting activity especially the exploration of unknown territory. Ah Webster. Technically accurate… predictably sterile. How does one give justice to an event taking place on a 3,000 foot mountain over 37km of road that hasn’t been maintenanced since the [...]
Role Reversal
Araella’ a trip these days. An ornery trip at times to be sure. But a trip nonetheless. Bedtime, despite it’s inevitability, is a mini epic every night. We’ve established a fairly standard routine which helps, though we are not usually sure how much she catches on to our routines until she start acting them out [...]
Lust For Life
I turned 30 last month. I say this only in passing b/c it precedes a great story which is made even better by the knowledge of my receding youth; though any compulsion to bestow cash donations, property, gold bullion, and/or other contributions of a monetary nature may be directed to my parents in New Mexico [...]
Police Brutality
Nothing incites the western mind more than images of police brutality; those entrusted with upholding the highest standards of the law who break faith with those to whom they are mandated to protect and serve. Images of riots, beatings, bigotry, and racism flood the mind like TV news reels from humanity’s darker moments in history. [...]
“Soup with wide noodle, cow meat, and hold the guts…”
“Aht kruin knong tee” is a key phrase for any foreigner trying to save a few dollars by eating at the local hole-in-the-wall. Roughly translated it means “hold the guts” which, as in any poverty stricken country, is a standard ‘waste-not-want-not’ filler for any meal. However, not being entirely poverty stricken, I prefer to hold [...]
