Italy in August

Posted on 08/15/2008 at 08:27PM

The story starts in the summer of 1991 when I moved with my family to Naples, Italy for the sake of my father's job. We spent three years there and in the process I made a lot of great friends, most of whom I unfortunately lost contact with after moving back to the States. Only in the past few years with the help of MySpace and Facebook have I been able to reconnect with these folks. One of those I reconnected with was Veronica, a beautiful Italian girl who had moved to Alexa ... More

San Diego, New York and back to DC

Posted on 03/27/2008 at 12:39PM

Originally planned as a week long trip between Washington, D.C. and San Diego to see friends and family, my vacation was unexpectedly extended when my friend Adam from Melbourne informed me that he'd be in New York for a week. At first I was hesitant to give up what was essentially a free ticket bought with miles but after figuring that I would probably revisit San Diego later in the year anyways, I canceled my reservations and booked two one-way flights on different carriers ... More

The Best SciFi on Television

Posted on 02/29/2008 at 01:58PM

Having spent my formative years during a time when Star Trek had multiple shows running, my view of scifi was significantly influenced by it. For me, the future was supposed to be filled with humans and aliens working side by side while computers would take care of all the mundane paperwork. In fact, I can't recall seeing a single sheet of paper in any of the post Star Trek: TNG shows.Standing in stark contrast is the future painted by the television show . The Cylons, a race ... More

A trip to New York with the Brazilians

Posted on 01/25/2008 at 02:09PM

Early last week I received an urgent message from my Brazilian buddy Tony imploring me to come to New York for the weekend to hang out with him and his brother Beto who had been working there for the previous six months and wanted to spend his remaining weekend there partying. At first I protested but by Wednesday I'd gone ahead and purchased a ticket for myself on the very convenient .As 2 o'clock on Friday afternoon approached, I quickly gathered my belongings for the short ... More