Wow…I have to write something about MYSELF? What a waste of good blog space!
My name is Paul and I’m an independent business consultant in San Diego, California. I started this blog to give me some way to write down my random thoughts and, since they are likely to be true nuggets of golden insight, share them with the world. Well, ok, they may not be “golden” but I’m sure they are nuggets of something and by “world” I really mean the small group of friends and family that actually know this blog exists.
But as I started writing I realized that I’d started doing things just for the benefit of that unknown reader (I say ‘unknown’ because it has become clear that no-one is actually reading these pages) My adventures on behalf of this reader have been much more interesting then what they would have been had she not been pressing me to write my next entry. It also amuses me that I am writing for a predominantly female audience and since that audience is mostly in my imagination anyway, I figure I can go with it.
Background on me
A California native, I’ve lived most of my life in San Diego. I learned to love travel when my father started taking the family on trips to Hawaii. In high school I took a class trip to Europe just before my senior year. We went to 5 countries in 20 days and I had a great time. I fell in love with a beautiful French girl in a Moscow disco and travel has been romantic ever since.
The last hurrah with the family was a trip to Bali, Indonesia. By this time my sister and I were away at university and enjoying the growth of our independence. I really think the reason the family trips stopped was my inability to stop harassing my little brother, who was only about 10 at the time. I’m certain that this caused was a huge headaches to my father and step-mother. I’m so certain of this because I could pick-up on the subtle hints they gave us like “I refuse to travel with the kids anymore!” However, this last trip was the birthplace of “The invisible line of great pain” which has stuck with the family ever since and still probably makes my brother die a little inside whenever it comes up. Sorry, Jesse. 🙂
So, at that point my travels became my own. Backpacking trips through Europe and trips to Paris became fairly regular until I graduated from university. I’ve been fortunate that most of my jobs since have involved international travel. At this point I’ve been to more countries then most people I know and have built up tons of stories to tell but the thing about travel is that you never seem to be “done” with it. My travel queue seems to grow longer with each trip and my list of must-see places never gets shorter.
To date I’ve been to 40 countries and 6 continents. I mention that because it sounds impressive and, since I took the time to count, I may as well document it. However, I never bring it up in conversation. In fact, my travels have made me more nterested in the stories of others then my own. There is only one person I actually compete with and that, of course, is my father. He doesn’t know it and since he would never read this, probably never will. Whether known or not, it is there. Sadly, he has been to Antarctica which always seems to trump me no matter where I go…how frustrating is that?
