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Everything But Computers:
Everybody loves to travel. Putting vacationing ahead of everything else in your life and blowing a house down payment on a world tour, that's a different story for most people. Read about my current world tour and find out where I am right now.I have visited 95 countries on all continents according to TCC/DXCC standards; I continue to embark on adventures beyond the ordinary.
I am a United States FAA-certified Private Pilot (ASEL). I learned to fly in the amazingly beautiful yet challenging airspace of the San Francisco Bay Area. Starting this fall I will work on my instrument and commercial ratings and will upgrade beyond Cessna C-152 and C-172 aircraft types. I love chartering a plane for the weekend to go camping - beats the traffic any day!
I am a PADI International-certified Advanced Open Water and Rescue Diver. I have to admit that I am not a fanatic - I only go diving when the location is spectacular, the weather hot and sunny, and the water at least 28 degrees Celsius. Fortunately, that's almost always the case wherever I go! My favorite dive areas are the Somosomo Straight (between the Fiji islands of Vanua Levu and Taveuni) and the Mnemba Atoll (off Zanzibar).
I really love to go sailing! I am not terribly good yet but I did get my Coastal Skipper certification from Australian Yachting. I have fun working a 40-foot mono-hull in the San Francisco Bay but nothing beats a chartered cruising catamaran in the Caribbean or the Mediterranean. Again, it's all about the weather...
No matter how big or how small a car is, how fast or how sluggish, how cheap or how expensive - it's gotta be a topless one! It's just my version of freedom to cruise along curvy coastal highways on a sunny weekend day, the wind blowing around your head and knowing how all those other people keep dialing on the a/c controls.
Luckily, I am quite talented at this and catch on rather quickly when staying in a new country. I am pretty fluent in English, German and Spanish. I've had more classroom instruction in French and Russian than in any other language; I just got to get myself into it again. I can get along just fine in Portuguese and Italian-speaking countries, I can read most Latin, Greek and Cyrillic character-based languages.
Probably the only remnant from childhood days, I am still fascinated by railroads - real as well as model ones. I am a total InterRail junkie and have criss-crossed through most parts of Europe on trains. I fondly remember my model railroad designs and will have a go at building an N or TT-gauge circuit again, one day.
Digital cameras really have awoken the latest passion in me - taking photos is a great tool for people like myself, who are too lazy to write a diary on long trips. Moreover, taking lots of photos (and deleting almost as many) is the best school one can have. Enjoy the Top 50 Top 10 photo galleries of my current world tour!
You are right (and you may talk about it) - no tan lines on this body. Well, everybody who knows me knows about the one exception... my wrist watch indicator line. There are many beautiful nudist beaches even in the prude United States, one of my favorites being the Bonny Doon cove just north of Santa Cruz, California. Some people prefer "shorts" that cover their ankles, I prefer this form of freedom over the right to carry guns - live and let live.
Interestingly, I haven't learned how to snowboard until I started living in California, who would have thought! The great thing about the San Francisco Bay Area is its proximity to fantastic winter sport areas around Lake Tahoe, while still offering beaches and California lifestyle. Now I really love my snow weekends every once in a while, and I travel half-way around the world to be in the Swiss-Italian Alps of Livigno for a week during winter time.
Carpentry and woodworking have always been some of my favorite occupations. Already as a child, I designed and built many presents using plywood. To this day, construction framing and furniture making are great outlets for creative ideas and, being manual labor, fantastic relaxation from intellectual work. As soon as I have purchased a house one day I'll probably need a second garage that can be transformed into a workshop. If I was independently wealthy I'd probably go into yacht building...
Culinary experiments are tons of fun, especially when appreciated by a bunch of friends coming over for dinner. I am not into artsy creations or textbook-style Martha Stewart meals; my forté are fun and easy meals with a touch of ethnic authenticity. Obviously, my German cuisine is pretty damn good, which I have to thank my mom for; my Feuerzangenbowle season dinners have become almost legendary. I also enjoy preparing all sorts of Pacific Rim-influenced dishes, Italian and Greek stuff a-la-Mediterranae, and everything that reminds me of either Spain or Argentina. Most things go best with $2.99-bottles of wine, by the way, even though nothing beats a good bottle or two of real champagne!
