I was looking for a theme for my blog when my wife suggested “My Second Life”. Her meaning was my work life, which is totally separate from my family life. That will definitely be a part of this blog. There are several reasons for this segregation of family and work, the biggest being business travel.
In the summer of 1988, my manager at Sun Microsystems, Inc. asked me to teach C programming and UNIX administration at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. Not counting Canada and Mexico, this was my first trip out of the US. I worked for 5 weeks in Hong Kong and Shanghai, then toured Beijing, Hong Kong and Thailand for 3 more weeks.
Over the next 20 years I have traveled a fair amount and had the good fortune of two long-term foreign assignments in Europe. The experience of living and working abroad for 7 years has given me a lot of rich experiences. I continue to travel for work throughout the Western US and Canada that is interesting in its own way.
The first meaning of “My Second Life” is my travels for work, leisure and living abroad. My TravelMap will give you a good snapshot of the places I have traveled to. This blog and the pictures I have taken will hopefully give you a appreciation for those places. I also plan to discuss things I do to cope with being gone from home, the flight delays, and stress of travel.
My Second Life doesn’t stop there, for me the theme has a handful of meanings. Before you ask, I don’t have a multiple personality disorder and this has nothing to do with the metaverse Second Life.
Come back and I will explain the other meanings which all will lead to the theme of this blog. They are inter-related, tied together by the thread of the Internet.
Never forget, my first life is my family.
