Without a doubt, ACbert and I have the perpetual travel bug. I suspect she has the bug more than me because she enjoys all the planning leading up to the actual trip. Much of the fun for her is in discovering the perfect location at the perfect price. I just like the trip.

Our trips, however, aren’t how most people travel. Instead of a vacation, we call it a relocation. Instead of seven to ten days of solid vacation where we say goodbye, unplug, and turn on our email vacation auto-responders, we bring our laptops, only rent places that include internet, stay much longer, and continue to do work as usual, except our “office” view is much different and breaks/evenings/weekends are filled with adventure. Even little things like buying cereal are new and exciting if you are in a different country. You’d be surprised how remote you can get and still get internet. While in the past we’ve done an eight month relocation, the last two trips were a month each and that feels about right.

One of our life themes (kinda like goals but more a way of living verses an end point) is what we call The 3-2-1 Traveling Plan. What it means is that every year we do three extended weekend trips, two week trips, and one month relocation.

We’ve already started 2012 off strong with our January relocation to Utila, Honduras and an extended weekend trip to Vermont to ski with friends and another extended weekend trip with friends in the works.

So now back to Utila. It’s a tiny island off the coast of Honduras. Roatan is its bigger brother and where most people who come to the area go. We went one step further by riding on Captain Vern’s catamaran to and from Utila. The island is only seven miles long but has some of the world’s best diving and snorkeling. We spent the majority of our time about two miles outside of “town” in a tiny 250 square foot hut with 280 degree ocean views, and sounds, waking us up and putting us to sleep. We had more adventures than I have time to write about, so instead, below is a list of our highlights. If one sticks out to you, next time we see each other, ask and I’ll share.

• Taca Airlines Breakfast Service
• Seat Upgrades?
• 2 Hour Wait for Captain Vern
• Expat Robert Johnson (sand flies, cocaine, and toothless)
• Captain Vern’s ‘Front Row’ Seat
• A Whale!
• NYC Cable TV?!?
• Bogart The Cat
• R.J.’s Bar & Grill
• Booze Hound R.J.
• Another Rumanade Please
• The Locals
• Kid Golf Cart Drivers
• Caskets And A Dental Check Up
• Doh! Forgot the Kindle Cable
• Cheap Beer is Cheap Beer
• Imperial Wins Best In Show
• The Island Costco Run
• Country Music Shopping
• The Wednesday’s Boat
• Avocado Everything
• The Bootleg Library
• Island Mas
• Island Annie
• Mary Lee’s Tuk Tuk
• Morning Sunrise
• Bed By 9, Up By 6
• The Bug Infestation (Chuckie)
• “Are we over 500 Lemperia?”
• Eastwood the Eagle Ray
• Paloopa The Dog
• “Paloopa, Don’t Eat My Throw Up!”
• Paloopa Walking To Town
• Sally? Her Name Is Sally?
• $150,000 For All Tradewinds
• Plastic Washed-up Everywhere
• Cocktails On The Palapa
• Icabad, Ebob, Half-Tail, and Petey The Iguanas
• Jingle –> “Annie Colbert Expert Iguana Spotters”
• Tom’s Wealth Of Iguana Knowledge
• Land Crabs
• The Broken Sandal Walk
• Our Electronic Hiding Places
• The Moving Ghost Chairs
• Random Power Outages
• Joshua’s Camera
• Island Time
• Gill the Gecko
• Gecko Poop
• La Hucho Gang
• Bat Swram
• Instagram it!
• The Electrical Shower Handle
• Hopeful Hitchhikers
• Me Casa, Su Casa (Private Property)
• Too Many Drinks At El Picante (John)
• NPR Is Sponsored By The New School and Porgy and Bess
• Toasted Tortilla Shells
• Finally Natural Peanut Butter!
• The Biggest Chip Bag Ever
• Sh*t Mas Says
• Sh*t Annie Says
• Millie The Macaw
• “Is The Water Calm Today?”
• Butterball Turkeys
• Baby Crabs On The Curb Scramble
• The Water Shortage
• Where The Heck Is Coral View!
• The Secret of Coral View
• Societal Division At The Public Beach
• Hammock Work Day
• Oatmeal Mask
• “I Just Got Stung 3 Times, One In The Lip.”
• Roundtrip Private Island Snorkel #Fail
• The Pelicans Are Taunting You
• “Banana Spiders Are Harmless.”
• Jellyfish Killed My Wife
• Haircut On The Palapa
• Plata, The Local Rum ($2 Liters)
• Our Prisoner Passenger
• Let’s Play, Where’s The Shotgun?
• Stained White Diving Shirt
• “Can Glen Adopt Me?”
• “Now That We’re Heading Home…”(Cockroach & Spider)
• Bu-Bye Utila, Hu-Low 200 Student Leaders (Pace University)

Relationships are built on the number of emotionally charged shared experiences between individuals. 9/11 was a huge emotionally charged shared experience for America. The experience started on 9/11/01 and lasted for weeks and months afterwards. It seemed like all of America opted to put down their differences and pause to love their neighbor. It was unreal and amazing, but I missed it all.

I was studying at the Goethe Institute in Berlin, Germany during the Fall of 2001. Berlin is six hours ahead of New York City. When the first plane hit the North Tower at 8:45 a.m. EST, it was 2:45 p.m. in Berlin. I just got home from school and sat down to watch the BBC. I didn’t have a computer then, so the BBC was my only source of information. A few moments later, my parents in Chicago called. We cried on the phone together. Then I hung up and I sat alone in my apartment. My girlfriend, now my wife, called and we talked. We cried. Then I hung up and watched the BBC for the next 12 hours. I didn’t sleep because I couldn’t sleep. My parents called a few more times and we talked and cried. Then I was alone again. I wanted to so desperately talk to someone, a fellow American face-to-face. But I sat in my apartment and watched BBC. Too shocked to move.

The next day I went to class and everyone’s face was ingrained with hours of crying from the night before. We broke our “German Only” rule to vent with one another even though most of the class weren’t native English speakers. It helped. It made me feel like I was home. We cried some more. It was sad. The next day, one of the other Americans in the class decided to end her trip early and fly back home to Texas to be with her family. I stayed.

The next couple weeks I read, heard, and watched more and more stories of massive vigils and gatherings happening around the U.S. It was as if America was one big family and though we had our differences, it didn’t matter. Every house flew an American flag. The pictures were amazing. The videos were amazing. The stories were amazing. I spent hours at the internet cafe absorbing as much as I could.

I stayed in Berlin through the New Year for my class. By the time I flew back to Chicago, the emotionally charged shared experience of 9/11 was mostly faded. People were getting back to their routine. There were no more group vigils and the number of flying American flags went down.

My wife does her best to try and explain what it was like the days, weeks and months after 9/11, but explaining it is secondary to actually being there. It’s as if I went to the bathroom during the critical part of a movie and have to keep asking people what happened. But unlike a movie, I can’t rewind 9/11. I forever have to experience it through the lens of other people.

I have my story, but it’s not the same emotionally charged shared story as the rest of the country, so I still cling to every new story I hear as if somehow it’ll help me piece together what it was really like to be here, in America, with fellow Americans.

Since I was only three years old when my younger brother Michael was born, I can’t say I remember anything about his actual birth except for family photos like the one above. But the next 17 years of growing up together were filled with plenty of great stories, so I figured it would be fun to share one of those stories on his birthday…

Story Title: Duct-Tape Parental Surprise!

Our family took a lot of family vacation road trips. It started with packing all seven of us, plus equipment, into a VW Van, but eventually, as we all got older and bigger, we upgraded to an RV.

During one trip to the SouthEastern part of the U.S., my parents left us kids alone in the RV for a couple hours while they went for a walk. Michael, being the youngest, tended to never fair well when our parents would leave him alone with his four older brothers. This time was no exception.

We decided to take all the extra duct-tape that was sitting around the RV and completely wrap Michael in it from head to toe. By the end, his hands, feet, and arms were bound tougher by tape. We then taped him to one of the seats in the RV and put a sock in his mouth.

Let me pause for a moment and acknowledge how horrible this sounds, but Michael did play along, and considering I grew up with all brothers and no sisters, it could’ve been a lot worse.

Before our parents came back, we hid in various spots throughout the RV so all that was left was Michael bound to a seat with duct-tape covering his whole body and a sock in his month. We even attached a little note that said, “help!”

You can only imagine my parent’s reaction…

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Up until I was about 14 years old, we took family road trips around the US every summer. Our trips involved my two parents, four bothers, and me packing into a VW Van stacked full of food and camping supplies. As we got older we upgraded to an RV with built in kitchen, bathroom, and shower. One of our first trips in our new RV was to visit family along the East Coast with a swing through NYC.

Having never visited NYC, I only knew this larger than life, big shot city through its portrayal in movies and T.V. As a farm boy, actually visiting there made nervous.

With our RV, my dad rolled across the Brooklyn Bridge, through Chinatown, and found a place to park downtown on Wall Street. To me, Wall Street was the pinnacle of New York and all the power it held. I remember feeling so small and out of place as my dad parked our RV next to two black town cars that I’m sure were there to pick up some multimillionaire CEOs. Something inside me wished he’d parked outside the city and we walked in so not to disturb the power flow of the city.

Instead, my dad got out of the driver’s seat with an ear-to-ear smile on his face and proclaimed he was going to take a shower on Wall Street. At the time I remember wanting to hide under a blanket to avoid the embarrassment from the CEOs seeing my dad shower on their street as they walked by. But he showered, no one saw, and we went on with the rest of the day.

His shower on Wall Street became an epic story to tell among our family and friends. In fact, my dad’s whole life is filled with similar adventures that didn’t happen by accident, he made them happen.

I saw Wall Street like everyone else saw Wall Street, and in doing so, my experience of Wall Street was just like everyone else. On the other hand, my dad saw Wall Street in a totally different way, and in doing so, had an amazing experience that I’m retelling 18 years later.

If you know me, you know I am always fresh off of some new adventure that most people don’t believe actually happened. What you are really seeing is my dad’s approach to life living on through me.

Since moving to NYC a year ago, I don’t get to see my dad as much as I did when we were in Chicago, but no matter where I’m geographically at, I take with me many of his life lessons. His lessons, however, don’t come as lectures or rules, but rather in the way he lives his life. He won’t tell you what the lesson is, but rather patiently wait for you to discover it knowing that the teacher doesn’t show up until the student is ready. Sometimes I’d understand the lesson within a couple hours and other times it wouldn’t click till years later. It took me until college to understand what he taught me on Wall Street and I’m forever thankful.

While heading back to the ATL airport today, I struck up a conversation with two of the other passengers in the airport shuttle who were in town for a totally different education conference (CCCC) about composition skills. We found commonality around the topic of social media and composition skills. After chatting for a few moments, another lady in the shuttle turned around and said, “Wait, are you Tom Krieglstein?”

Her awareness of me wasn’t from anything in particular, but rather that she just “knows about me and my wife” and has even talked with my wife. She pronounced my last name correctly which took me off guard too.

We both got off the shuttle at the same airport terminal, but she hurried off without giving me a chance to probe more about how she knows us, nor did she show any interest to engage more.

My life story is fairly public and some people are lurkers who watch and learn from my mistakes from the sidelines, but this is the first time I’ve had someone totally random, in a public area, recognize me without being able to pinpoint to a specific thing.

Andrew Schwartz is a soon to be highschool graduate going to Carnegie Mellon who I’ve talked about before. Next week I’m doing a training at a school in NY and figured it might be interesting for him to come with and see what the day is like. The problem is it’s on a Friday. I emailed him anyways and asked if he’d be interested. Here’s his response…

When I got your email, I walked into my parents office and said…

“Guys, I would never ask you this before I got into college. Next friday I’m skipping school to watch Tom give a presentation on social media. Im not asking”

And they said…

“You are going to make up everything you miss. We’re not asking”

end of conversation.

Thanks and can’t wait to see you

They don’t teach that in school.

Over the weekend I went skiing with a group of friends in Killington, VT. Prior to this weekend, the last time I went skiing was eight years ago in Whistler, Canada.

Starting on the bunny hill and then working my way up to a “real” mountain, I was impressed at how quickly skiing came back to me. It felt very natural. Each time I went up the mountain I pushed myself a little more. Without polls, faster, through moguls, over hills, etc.

On one ride up in the Gondola, I chatted with an older lady who sat next to me. She’s been skiing all her life. I told her my background and she offered to watch and coach me as I went down. I excitedly excepted and off we went.

When we got to the bottom she said my form was great and said I needed to try a different hill as our current hill was too easy for me. Then she said,

“In skiing if you don’t fall down, you’re not pushing yourself hard enough. You’re not learning anything new.”

Moving away from skiing, the older lady, and the mountain, this philosophy rings so true with my current work at Red Rover.

Over the past two months, I felt like I kept failing over and over again. It’s frustrating, annoying, and wears me down. But it’s not impossible. And the next time I take on the project, I’m better at it.

In my work I want to kick ass and be amazing, and many times I am, but I also want to keep falling down because that means I’m trying something new and pushing myself forward.

In skiing when you fall down and your equipment gets scattered across the snow, they call it a yard sale. Here’s to a life filled with many more yard sales.

Duke Fightmaster (husband and father of two) hated his job so in 2007 he quit and set out to replace Conan O’Brian by starting his own talk show. Two and a half years later he retired the dream after his car had been repossessed, his house foreclosed on, his credit cards were all maxed out, he endured daily panic attacks, and his family went bankrupt. For better or worse, I could replace Duke’s name and idea with a lot of entrepreneurs I know who went through, or who are going through a similar situation.

In the end, what lessons did Duke learn?

• If you have some big huge dream, you have to be somewhat in denial to actually try it long enough to know if you can…or can’t do it.
• You can’t keep your head down for two and a half years without looking up, because at some point if you look up and you see your wife, best fan, and friends are no longer in the audience, it’s time to change course. 
• It’s pretty damn hard to be Conan O’Brian

The full story, posted below, was covered by This American Life and worth listening to in full (Start: 11min End: 35min).

“Stories only happen to people who can tell them.” – Lou Willett Stanek