Far?

I know that it has been a while since I have posted something on our blog...(that's right Bekah, it is OUR blog, just like it is OUR camera), but I have been busy traversing the globe.
Some background -
Growing up, I thought that there were only two places that existed, where I lived and Tennessee. You see, every year, our family vacation was spent in Johnson City, TN visiting both sets of grandparents. Disney World was this magical place that really didn't exist except in dreams, and the rest of the world, that was something that you just read about in history books! I also grew up with parents that gave me a skewed idea of what "close" and "far" were. My earliest memories in life were of living in Cottage Grove Minnesota. There was a Target and a Kmart in our town. To this day, I still like Target over Kmart, but at that time, my family was a dedicated Kmart customer - why? Because it was "close"! As a kid, I really did not challenge my parents on that, but as an adult, I had the opportunity to re-visit Cottage Grove. What I found (much to my disappointment) was that Target was 2 blocks away, whereas Kmart was 1 block away. So to re-set the stage, Tennessee was the only other place besides where I lived and 1 block = "close", 2 blocks = "far".
Why am I giving you all of this background? Because after July, I will have traveled over 70,000 miles this year alone. For those of you keeping track, that is 70,000 trips to and from Target or 140,000 trips to and from Kmart - depending on your shopping preference and not one of those miles has been to Tennessee.
This year, I have been to New York, Chicago, Tampa, Shanghai, Beijing, Bentonville, Nevis (Caribbean) and last week, I got to go to Australia!!! I spent 5 days in Sydney and another 4 days in Melbourne and the surrounding cities of Ballarat and Bendigo. I highly recommend Sydney and Australia for that matter. Interesting side note - did you know that there are more kangaroos in Australia than people and there are more people in the city of Shanghai than the entire continent/country of Australia! The main reason for my visit to Australia was to visit some of our clients that we do work for out of our China office, but I did get a weekend for sight seeing in Sydney. On Saturday we walked all along the harbor and around the opera house. While walking around, we stopped (with about 500 other people) to watch a street performer apply his trade. He was a bicycling juggler, but not your standard run-of-the-mill bicycling juggler. For the grand finale, he climbs to the top of a 20ft pole that he has affixed his bike to and balances at the top while juggling an apple, a machete and a flaming torch. The pole is quite an elaborate contraption. For the finale, the performer also calls on members of the audience to participate. At one point he asks for help from the biggest guy in the crowd. As soon as he said it, I knew it would be me! As I am drawn out of the crowd and into the performance area, the performer begins to ask me the same series of questions that he has gone through with the other "volunteers". Side note: for those of you that play golf with me , you know that I have this amazing knack for what is known as "the early call". It is when I think that a putt is made or a shot is good, to find out that it is pretty much the opposite. So while I am being interviewed by the performer, I "early call" one of his questions when he asks me what state I am from...Dallas I said (as he had asked the previous volunteers the more generic - where are you from?) - the audience erupts in laughter - stupid American, he thinks that Dallas is a state.
I also went jet-boating in Sydney harbor, which happens to be a really cool way to see the city and surrounding area. Here is a picture of me ready to get wet. If you have ever been jet-boating before, you understand that the point is to go really fast and then stop, turn or dive the boat to essentially drench the people sitting in the front two seats. Notice where I am sitting! At one point I am laughing so hard and then the boat submerges and I pretty much drown.
This year has not only been the year of travel for me, but I also have had many close encounters with animals. While scuba diving in Caribbean, I was close to a shark (I think that it was either a 20ft great white, or a 7ft nurse shark, I'll let you decide), all sorts of fish and a sea turtle. I hung out with cows and monkeys while playing golf in Nevis and on this trip, I got to pet wallabies, kangaroos, wombats and koalas. I am like a real life Beast Master. I am going to start wearing only a loin cloth and walking around with a bow staff and sword! Also, Bekah is going to have to grab my leg and wear skimpy clothes all of the time. It's going to be awesome. Look for pictures of that in our upcoming blogs.



Even with all of the fun places that I have been, I would still rather be at home with my wife and kids and a Target close ("far") by.