Quality Peoples

August 23rd marks a full year that I’ve been down here in Vallarta. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about this blog and what it accomplishes, the parts of my life that i choose to leave out for one reason or another, looking back on a full year of living outside of the United States, completely changing careers, meeting and falling in love with an amazing girl, etc…

It’s been a long strange trip. an extremely fun one but also very stressful and testing along the way. The first 4 months or so were almost a perpetual vacation, as I adjusted to the tropical lifestyle of an ex-pat living in Mexico. New experiences were happening every few seconds, this country was new and foreign and it still is to a certain extent. February marked a left-turn towards work as the vacation ended and I learned to balance the work with the play. And now as we move into September and work continues to dominate my daily experience, I’ve been thinking about putting more of my work thoughts into this blog thing. Not necessarily the daily grind or the office drama, but more the kind of things I’m learning as I continue to forge a new career for myself, graphic/web designer turned house developer/designer. The idea is to open this new focus of mine up to a two-way forum like this one, I have so many questions and things to share. Going forward, I don’t think this site will change much, maybe a few nips and tucks here and there and a new header graphic when i get some free time, but mostly I just hope to start talking about some of the things, that up to this point, I’ve kinda felt were off-limits. Not necessarily off-limits but more breaking down the myth that I’ve consciously or unconsciously portrayed that I’ve been on a year long vacation/adventure. This isn’t to say that the experiences that i’ve written here are any less authentic, but more like when at the six month mark I started to balance out the play and work lives, I hope to do the same thing here to create a clearer picture of my daily life.

So that’s about it. Here’s to one miraculous, wonderful, insane year. Thank you, Mexico. I also wanna send a big, special hug to my girl, Marcia, September 1st is our nine month anniversary and I can’t even imagine my life without her.