It’s hard to believe that it is already June and I have some major trips planned. I will be returning to Colorado for the weekend in a few days and I am looking forward to meeting old friends and climbing and hiking in the warm sunny weather. I think the 5.10d that I struggled up recently will help me for the Colorado altitude.

In 2 weeks (!) I will be in Germany and as you can imagine, I am completely thrilled for this and excited as can be. I still have to work out a few plans but 75% of the trip is pretty much set.

Das Warten hatte eine zu lange Periode aber hat sich auch gelohnt. Ich freue mich darauf, wieder in Europa zu sein und alle meine Freunde und Verwandte in Deutschland zu sehen. Ich bin auch froh, nach Tschechien zu reisen. Die Vorfreude steigt!

Everyone who knows me, knows how much I love basketball despite not having a single fiber of talent whatsoever to even make a layup. And yesterday there was quite a bit of news that got me thinking “with the NBA, hell, you don’t even need reality TV.” (just do a quick search on Dirk retiring, Magic quitting, and DWade retiring, and you’ll have a bunch of cool things to read AND watch for a good 4-5 hours.)

But I digress, the Atlanta Hawks proved EVERYONE (including me) wrong in drafting Trae Young, who will certainly develop into a really great player with all the strides he has made this season. Plus, John Collins has come along great, and ATL will most likely have two top 10 picks in this year’s NBA draft.

A part of me wishes I could be in Atlanta for tonight’s final season game and I do regret that I was not able to attend any Hawks games this year (both away and at home). Simply put, moving from Colorado to the Pacific Northwest and all the various travels and changing jobs etc. etc. etc. couldn’t enable me to attend any NBA games this past season. I plan on changing that come next fall, now that I have settled in well here in Washington state.

And oh yes, I will splurge the money and be sitting courtside. As frugal as I am (when you get rid of $238K in med school debt in 2 years, you know no other lifestyle) this is one of the few things I go all in on with my money. A buddy of mine from my residency days and I usually attend 2 or 3 games a season just to hang out, and plus NBA basketball is, simply put, REALLY AWESOME. Imagine being one of the 450 best people on the planet at a particular skill or talent. That is what the NBA is in terms of all the billions of basketball players on the planet. Truly humbling.

So yeah, watch out! The Atlanta Hawks will be for real as long as they pick well in this year’s draft and continue their development as a team and as a franchise. Tony Ressler and Jami Gertz have been wonderful owners to have, and plus having Travis Schlenk as the general manager and Lloyd Pierce as the head coach puts this Atlanta Hawks team in a great position to continue to develop individual young players into a viable team for years to come.

It has been a LOOOOONG time for this, but I am finally going back to Germany and Czech Republic to visit some wonderful family members and friends who I have missed tremendously these past three years. Normally I like to trek over to Europe once a year, but since 2016 too many things like work stuff seemed to get in the way.

Fast forward to 2019 which is a bit calmer for me now and, hence, I will be able to make this trip come June. My trip will commence on 17. June and end on 7. July.

I am really looking forward to coming to Germany which will include stops near Düsseldorf and Frankfurt. Hopefully, I will be heading over to Stuttgart and Berlin as well before I conclude my trip in the beginning of July in Prague.

As always I know that I am an extremely fortunate person to be able to have lived abroad and still have to opportunity to travel worldwide as well. It is something for which I am grateful.

And just like that, we are already done with January of 2019. I’ve settled in well here in Washington and have even gone up to Canada to do some skiing. I’m going back this weekend so that should be pretty fun. I also am officially in the last year of my thirties so let’s see what lies ahead as I get older and wiser.

I hope later this year to return to Europe as it has been a while since I have visited friends and family in Germany. In the meantime I’ll do some exploring out here in the Pacific Northwest and have fun at it as well.

 

Well,  just shortly after my arrival in the Pacific Northwest, I am heading out on one final trip abroad to South America to round out the year. Before my flight to Chile, I will spend one day in my second home in Athens, Georgia visiting friends.

 

Chile will be country number 28 on my list of countries I have visited. The quest to 50 countries goes on.  I will have to brush up on my Espanol a bit.

After a few days in Santiago de Chile I will fly over the Andes mountains to visit Mendoza Argentina and see my friends there while Die Toten Hosen kick off their Argentina tour.  My stay in Argentina will of course end in Buenos Aires where I have many dear friends.  It will be fun to be traveling around a little bit in South America for about ten days.

Life is about journeys and friendships.  Time to go fly up in the sky.

I took this picture in 2013 in one of the many colorful neighborhoods of Seattle, Washington

I am very happy to say that I will be moving to Washington state in approximately 4-6 weeks.  When I was living in Georgia five years ago, it was always my ultimate goal to live in the pacific northwest, specifically to live close to Seattle.  And now after my three year stay in Colorado, that tiny part of my life that involves me doing doctor things will be taking me to the land of Pearl Jam and the resting ground for the Seattle Supersonics.

Even though I will move to just 30 miles north of Seattle in a few weeks, I won’t start my work there until the end of this year.  This will give me some time to settle in and do (even more!) traveling to visit family and friends.  I am indeed looking forward to this next chapter and hope that this will be the ultimate place for me to settle down.

With happy occasions like this, there are of course going to be a few letdowns, and I would be lying if I said this decision was easy and that I would not miss my life here in Colorado.  When I first came to Colorado Springs three and half years ago, I did not know a soul here. Moreover, I had never gone rock climbing or skiing before ever in my life.  And all this time later, I have a really big group of friends through my outdoor excursions, and I cannot imagine my life without skiing or rock climbing or hiking.

When I arrived in Colorado in 2015 I was not in the best state of mind.  Taking up activities like skiing and climbing and, moreover, forming life time bonds with the friends doing these activities with me made me discover a part of myself which I had no idea even existed.  This was almost like the time when I was 19 and I stuffed the German language in my head in a two year time span.  This was a very enriching experience I had here in Colorado

For all the reasons I listed above I can easily say that this was a very successful and enriching time of my life here in Colorado. With all of the things I have done here, there are still some places I have not yet seen.  I would love to visit Aspen and see the sand dunes of San Luis Valley.  It might be a bit difficult to squeeze that in with my packing and planning, but we’ll see.  I’m at least glad that I made it out to Telluride this past weekend to see Robert Plant and Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite play music in the background of Telluride’s beautiful fall colors.

And with that said, there is still a little bit of music for me to see here in Colorado as I will attend both Nine Inch Nails shows at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in the coming days.  Now, that is a music venue authentic to Colorado that I could talk about for days on end.

The most important thing for me during my time here in Colorado are the friends I made for a lifetime. Some of you even saved my life after a rock climbing fall I had, which makes the bonds I formed here even more special. This blog post would go on forever if I mentioned each and every one of you who impacted my life in such a meaningful way these past three years.  In the coming weeks I am sure we will all meet and hang out and do some outdoor excursion one last time before I set off to the pacific northwest.

My time in Colorado has me excited that new wonderful adventures await me in Washington state which will also enrich my life with great long lasting friendships.

Over the past weeks of having some quality time at home and traveling through airports and long car rides, I had the chance to FINALLY read Richard Blade’s autobiography to the very end.  Blade’s accounts are not only a first hand account of a historical period in music and culture but also an assurance that life needs to be lived to the fullest no matter how difficult one’s current circumstances are.

It is rather difficult to talk about how impactful reading this book was without going into spoilers, so I would certainly encourage anyone out there to get this book and please read it.  You don’t have to be a fan of 80s music or new wave alternative music to enjoy this book.  What makes this book unique to the average everyday reader is that a certain story(s) can be related to almost any experience anyone has every gone through.  Love.  Loss.  Sin.  Risk.  Travel.  Dreams. Hopes. Depression. Happiness.  This book encompasses any feeling or experience the average person has gone through.  And the fact that this is an authentic autobiography and not a fictional novel is astonishing.

I was born in 1980 so I obviously was oblivious to many of the musical backstage happenings of that era, but as I enjoyed playing with my Nintendo and Gobots and Transformers I have fond memories of hearing Michael Jackson, Wham!, Duran Duran and many others on the radio and on cassette, and Richard Blade’s accounts including the aforementioned artists and many, many more add a new perspective which is uplifting and, moreover, completes my recollection of a time that will never be recreated.

I must say that no one person is perfect, and Richard Blade certainly is not as he openly confesses of his sins including his various love affairs in his autobiography. In this day and age of social media where everyone is protected by virtual anonymity as judgements and condemnations can easily be laid down with a simple click on any mobile device without any fear of repercussion, it certainly takes a lot of courage to openly discuss one’s very sensitive personal issues while admitting a wrong doing and hurting others in the process. Richard Blade shows this courage, and he does it in a very sincere manner.  I think each and every one of us has sinned at one point in life which has left someone hurt and alone. This is a stark reminder that none of us have to right to judge anyone else until we look deep within ourselves.

As I am an avid listener of Sirius XM and First Wave, it is always fun to hear Richard Blade’s voice as I drive on the highway looking at Colorado’s mountains.  What I never knew about Richard Blade was that he is an accomplished traveler, and I am certain that we could both share many stories with each other as I myself have been to 27 different countries.  I have fond memories of hitchhiking in Peru and Czech Republic and sleeping in ferry boats and trains during my travels through Italy and Greece.  That really is just the tip of the iceberg.

I have lived in Germany and Czech Republic, but the one thing (had to put in an INXS reference there) that really struck me is that Richard Blade lived in Sint Maarten just like I did.  We were there at different times, so our paths had no way of crossing, but, nevertheless, his account of living on this Caribbean island was a reminder to me of just how small this world really is and how much one’s experience on that island can be so eerily similar to my own.  Sint Maarten was the place where I saw my mother for the final time before she passed away more than 11 years ago.  This island holds a special place in my heart, and I am certain Richard Blade feels the same way as well.  It is unfortunate that Sint Maarten was totally decimated in Hurricane Irma of last year. I still hope to return in some capacity to help out with the medical and relief efforts.

As I said before, Richard Blade’s “World In My Eyes” is really a book about life.  One of the most important things I will take away after reading this is to always strive and accomplish something and find joy in whatever I am doing in the face of extraordinary difficulty including loneliness and sadness. When my mother passed away during my medical studies, I took a week off for her funeral ceremony but was back at the books studying and working hard after that, persistently pushing forward in order to finish a mother’s dream.  I may never meet Richard Blade, and he may never read this review, but I must say that Richard has no idea how much he and I have in common with each other.  Well, I do have to admit he was better with the ladies that I could ever be, but all joking aside, Richard Blade’s recollections of his life and experiences in the music world show strong similarity to any one of our own individual life experiences.

Richard, thank you for sharing your story with me.  Now, it’s time for me to finish my own.

I had a very wonderful time traveling to India for the tenth time in my life but for the first time by myself.  I reconnected with family members I had not seen in ages and even in the process discovered a new independence in traveling across the country on my own volition.

Also, I must say it is humbling and inspiring to see so many people live life to the fullest with so few means.  Although I must say I am not going to miss the ever crowded roads full of rick shaws, pedestrians, cows, and various other vehicles.  I’m glad that I did not even come close to falling sick and am ready to tackle on some new challenges here stateside.  I just have to completely get over the jet lag thing which will probably take me another 1-2 days (I think.) .

Well, it has been long (and I mean LONG) overdue, but at long last I will indeed be traveling to India.  The picture above was taken of a temple in India when I visited in 2008.  My last visit was in 2010, and I am glad that my relatives abroad were very accomodating given that this trip was very spontaneously planned over the span of last week.

I will be away in various spots in India over the next few weeks.  I plan to be back in Colorado by middle of August to attend to my usual adventures and even see some cool shows at Red Rocks Amphitheatre and in Telluride.

I am looking forward to flying out to India this weekend.  I must say I have a new found admiration for my parents since they have always planned my trips in the past. This is the first time I am going to India by myself and arranging everything all by myself.  It was not too daunting given that I have been to India nine times, but when it comes to going over to Asia, I am just another dumb American traveler.

Should be a nice relaxing change from the pace of my life over these last few months.  I think it will be nice.

April may already be coming to a close but we have actually had some snow and winds providing a bit of a chill here in Colorado.  An injury to my right hand recently put my skiing season to an end 4 weeks ago but I expect a full recovery in about 2-3 more weeks before I spring into rock climbing mode.

For the doctor side of my life, I am doing independent contractor work through my own company and will be in Arizona through May and June of this year. I am looking to fill in work throughout the rest of the year and look forward to where this adventure of life will take me next. I already have a trip planned to Las Vegas to take in a couple of Nine Inch Nails concerts, and I hope to see the Grand Canyon as well.

In the meantime I am sure Spring will be in full effect, and Summer will come to Colorado as well and hope to get some camping and hiking and climbing in.  The first set of Red Rocks Amphitheatre concerts will start soon, and I am already looking forward to seeing Primus and Mastodon next month.

In the words of the great philospher Denzel Washington, “You gotta’ do what ya gotta’ do, so that you can do what ya wanna’ do.” Let’s do this.