Living

August 2003

I grew up in a small town. I did what the other kids did, for the most part. I breezed through school without much of an effort. I had no idea what lay ahead of me.

Indecisiveness has always been a trait with which I’ve struggled. While others knew what they wanted to do and where they wanted to go to college, I wasn’t sure. Almost by default I went to Oregon State University. My best friend was always a Duck fan (U of O) so I became a Beaver fan (OSU). I think I just liked their orange and black colors better. It was the only school I applied to and was easily accepted. The next decision was deciding a major. I figured that Business Administration was the right choice because that would give me a basic knowledge of Corporate America and after college I would just enter into the workforce and begin counting down the years until my gold watch retirement. What did I know back then?

My parents gave me a plane ticket to Europe for my high school graduation and I met my sister in England where she had been studying. My sister, her two friends, and I spent the next couple of weeks going to nine countries. We traveled at a grueling pace not spending much time anywhere, adhering to the creed, “We must see as much as we can while we are here because we may never return.” Fortunately I did go back, but that’s later on in the story. I liked being over there, yet I still didn’t quite have the insatiable “travel bug.”

The next two years I was an average business student trying to improve my GPA from a couple of classes I didn’t fair so well in my freshman year. Live and learn. I thought it was more important (and still do) to watch the Star Wars Trilogy on a school night with some new friends rather than studying Calculus for Management and Social Sciences. It wasn't that I didn't think math was important, (though honestly, how often does the average person use derivatives?) it was that I thought meeting and interacting with new people was more beneficial. "You can always re-take a class, but you can never re-live a weekend" was a motto that I heard my freshman year and subsequently lived by, not necessarily intending to fail any classes, but realizing the consequences.

Becoming a junior and an upperclassman meant that business students must declare an “option” or primary subject on which to focus. There were marketing, finance, management, information systems, and accounting, which is what I chose. I had already taken a few classes and had enjoyed them.

My roommate and I got an apartment with another person on a month to month lease not knowing how valuable that would come in later. The first term began and I was enrolled in my core accounting class, BA 317. This was the standard “weed out” class. Only the strong survive, while the others were weeded out. Within the first week an enormous project was assigned. It took awhile for me to adjust from a summer of manual labor to a fall of mentally strenuous studying. This transition was happening too rapidly for me.

At the same time I was turning into a “weed” in BA 317, my roommate made the suggestion that we take winter term off to travel to the South Pacific. Instead of manual labor during his summer, he had been a counselor at a Salvation Army camp for troubled youth. At the camp there had been several people from Australia and they said he should come to visit and while he was in the area, he should volunteer at another Salvation Army camp in New Zealand. He proposed this idea to me and of course I was all for it, but realistically I knew I couldn’t come up with the money to pay for such a trip. I spoke with my mother, who had traveled at my age, and she said she would help me out. Not many parents would encourage their son or daughter to quit college to take a trip to Australia and offer to help pay for part of it. Mine did, with my promise that I would re-enroll in the fall. Knowing that this trip was going to become a reality, I did two things: I applied for my first credit card and I dropped BA 317.

Thankful that we didn’t have a yearlong contract at our apartment, my roommate and I moved out and left for the South Pacific the first week in January of 1999. Briefly stopping in Sydney, we continued to Christchurch, New Zealand where we volunteered at a camp called Glentui for two weeks. One of the other counselors agreed to take us on a road trip throughout the South Island. The road led through Dunedin, Milford Sound, a few days in the high-adventure city of Queenstown, then back to Christchurch a week later.

A week was spent in Fiji perfecting our tans, gazing at the amazing sunsets, and meeting wonderful people.

From Nadi, Fiji, we flew to Cairns, Australia where we would spend the next six weeks traveling south to Sydney. Along the way we got caught in a cyclone in a rainforest in Cape Tribulation, we snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef, we took a yacht tour of the Whit Sundays, we had some crazy adventures in Surfer’s Paradise, we took an alternative tour in Nimbin, we met people along the way in Brisbane, Airlie Beach, Byron Bay, and finally ended in Sydney nearly three months after our layover there.

I stayed out of school and worked during spring term to pay off my adventures. The construction business wasn’t steady due to the rainy, unpredictable weather in Oregon. Needless to say the credit card didn’t get paid off. And in all honesty, it still isn’t. This is the part of the story where I justify my debt at such a young age. The justification is that had I not gotten the credit card and had not gotten into debt, then I would not have gotten to go to Australia. For me, the interest is a small price to pay for seeing the world, being enlightened, and having my eyes opened. I would do it all again if I was in the same situation.

In the fall I returned to Oregon State University with a little more direction. I declared my option: finance. It was similar to accounting, but I found it more interesting. That year (commonly known as my second junior year) I took a class on international business, BA 347, for those Beaver business people. The professor had such a passion for international politics, markets, and travel. It seemed as though he had lived everywhere. During one of his classes there was an announcement that applications for a study abroad program in either Norway or Denmark were being accepted. This seemed like more of the path I should be taking. I got the application, filled it out, and submitted it. The next few weeks I did some hard thinking about the logistics of the trip and I began thinking it wasn’t the best time for it. I would eventually rescind my application until further notice.

Fall and winter term went by and I came to a crossroad. I wanted to take all my finance classes sequentially, but in order to do that I had to begin in the fall. Softball season was approaching, so I took the spring term off and moved back home to do construction and play softball.

Finally it was my senior year and I was almost on track to graduate in the spring. I would be a few credits short, though. Again I heard the pitch about the study abroad program and again I turned in my application. Denmark was the country I chose to study in if I were accepted. The competition sounded like it was going to be pretty fierce. I knew several people who were also applying for it and we’d often discuss the rumors we heard about who was and who wasn't going to be accepted. The faculty who were making the decisions made us wait through winter break. I actually found out while I was down in San Diego visiting my sister that I had made the cut and would be spending a semester in Århus, Denmark.

Over the years my roommate and I had discussed going to Europe to celebrate our graduations. With my being accepted to Denmark, it just made sense that we should go a few weeks early and travel the continent together and then I would just go up to Denmark when we were done.

With all the other people who got accepted to the study abroad in Europe leaving in early or mid-August, I left towards the end of June. Accompanied by our other roommate, we started out in England, then took the Chunnel to Paris, France, then a train to Barcelona, Spain, then a flight to the island of Ibiza, back to Barcelona, then off to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls, then on to Nice in the French Riviera, Cinque Terre, Italy then Rome and Brindisi, then a ferry to Corfu, Greece and the legendary Pink Palace, busses and ferries took us to Athens where we sailed off to the islands of Eos and Santorini, back in Athens we flew up to Budapest, Hungary then Krakow, Poland, and Prague, Czech Republic where I said goodbye to them and flew home for a wedding.

Two weeks later I boarded a plane and flew into Germany and made my way north to Denmark. A semester, four months, were spent going to school and traveling Europe. It was the most amazing experience. I met people from all over the world and learned so much. On the weekends I found the time to go to Norway, Sweden, Germany, Holland, France, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Austria, and Slovakia. Even with that extensive traveling I managed to get all A’s and one B in my classes.

Saying goodbye to Denmark and that portion of my life was very hard. I had made friends with my Danish roommates, my American friends, and others from around the world. I still do my best to keep in touch with those I’ve met and I am determined to visit them once again.

Back in the States, I was at another crossroad in my life. I was now officially done with college. The New Years ball dropped and it was 2002. I could stay home and live with my parents and try to find a job there. Or I could accept my sister and her husband’s offer to come down to San Diego to live with them for free. I weighed the options and packed my car and headed to the sunny state.

I knew that taking a permanent job would put the kibosh on any travel ideas that I may have had, so I decided to look into temporary work. The temp agency didn’t keep me very busy the first few months so I took a spontaneous road trip home which turned out to be a working two month vacation. I made some good money doing construction with my former boss and that allowed me to buy a ticket to Ecuador to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousins for two weeks. We were based in Quito, but made trips to Papallacta, Otavalo, Atacames, and a few other places.

Not long after my return from South America I landed a temp job that lasted almost seven months and that allowed me to pay off some bills and gain experience in Corporate America. What it really did was make me not want to work in a cube for the rest of my working days.

Since that job ended in February of 2003, I have worked off and on while taking trips to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Oregon, Arizona, Minnesota, and Illinois. Temp work allows for the flexibility. Now I am seeking a job that will allow me to take time off to travel.

I've wanted a website site for some time now, one that encompassed the things that I am passionate about. Those things are traveling, writing, and writing about traveling. I wasn't a computer science major and didn't know how to go about making one. My brother-in-law, who was a computer science major, had a book on web design so I opened it up to page one and from that day on this website has been a work in progress. It has taken me eight months working countless hours to teach myself to read and write code and to arrange everything just the way I want it to be. But it is always evolving because I learn new things, have new ideas, new pictures, and new writings for people to read.

In the last year I have written about six or seven lengthy lists of "things to see and do" for people traveling to foreign countries. My friends know that I am well-traveled and ask me for advice. Through my many temp jobs, people have found out that I am a traveler and have asked for my advice and suggestions. I gladly offer what I know and what I have learned. It's my hobby for now, but someday I would like to make it a profession.

As I am traveling around the world, people back home ask me to write to them so that they may live vicariously through me and my adventures. So I travel with friends, or alone, and write to them. I tell them where I am, what I see, how I feel. My shallow roots lend to a lifestyle of impermanence as I travel like a nomad, a wanderer, a vagabond. As a result of the combination of these attributes, vicariousvagabond.com came into being.

September 2004

I worked for over a year in the human resources department of a publishing company. The work was a little mundane, but the people were great and I learned loads of things. I put in my notice that I was going to leave because I was planning a trip to Asia. My roommate from college and I planned yet another trip together scheduled for the summer of '04. Months of planning could not prepare us for what we encountered. Again, it was an incredible trip. In seven weeks we traveled in and around Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, China, and Japan.

Within days of my return to San Diego, I was faced with the harsh reality of finding a job right away to pay off the travels I had just returned from. The temporary staffing company that has been so reliable for me in the past came through again and hooked me up with a job that really suits my personality. I work in the marketing department of a real estate company designing and creating marketing materials and advertisements. It's something that I never pictured myself doing because I didn't study graphic design in college, but I'm learning and going to classes and couldn't be happier with my situation. I just got hired on permanently, which means my international liaisons are going to be set aside for awhile. That's okay, though. It's time to do something else. But I still think about my next trip. Will it be Africa, or South America or Russia? Wait and see, I guess.

January 2008

I had that marketing job at the real estate company for nearly two years. In that time I did manage one international trip: I went to Europe to see friends in Czech Republic and Germany.

In the spring of 2006, I began to feel the tug of my heart to return to Oregon. I left in late June and moved back to Salem. My best friend and his wife let me crash with them for a few months until I found a job in Portland. In August, I thought I had secured a position at a commercial real estate company, but that fell through. I had already moved in with another buddy in NW Portland. I lived there a few weeks until his lease was up then moved to Beaverton where I had just been hired temporarily at another commercial real estate company. Unfortunately, the market for real estate was poor and I was laid off. I was upset at the time, but in retrospect it was the best thing that could have happened to me. The day I was laid off, I got a call to fill in for someone at a construction company in their marketing department. Through that job I heard of a society that caters directly to marketing in the architecture / engineering / construction fields: smpsoregon.org. I found my current Marketing Coordinator position at civil engineering firm through that site and it’ll be a year in March since I’ve worked there.

My last international trip was in 2005. This year I’m hoping to travel to several states to which I haven’t been yet. Maybe 2009 I’ll get out of this country again.