In December of 2005 I visited Chicago, Illinois, for a business trip that extended into a personal trip. The original purpose of the trip was to demonstrate a product to the government of Chicago. Due to the bureaucracy that is inherent in large cities like this, our demonstration was pushed back from the day after my arrival in Chicago to the end of the same week. This gave me and my co-workers 4 days of free time in the city.

In June of 2005 I visited Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California. This was a "practice trip" before heading out to Lake Powell a few weeks later. In June, the snowmelt is at its highest, and the King River was rushing. There was significant water flowing down the main river, and many small streams contributing to it. Every few hundred yards along the road there was a waterfall flowing down the rocks.

For Christmas of 2009 the whole family went up to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National parks. There was tons of snow on the ground, and it was cold, but it was still a great trip. We stayed in the John Muir Lodge which is in the Grant Grove area of Kings Canyon National Park.

In February of 2009 I visited the Monterey Peninsula with my awesome girlfriend, Alex. We stayed in the city of Salinas, CA for the entire visit, and visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Steinbeck Center in Salinas, and drove up to the Santa Cruz boardwalk. It was a great long-weekend trip over Presidents Day.

In November of 2009 I went on a weekend trip with my awesome girlfriend. We visited two of the area's most notable attractions, Sea World and the San Diego Zoo. It was a good trip.

In January of 2009 I went on a weekend trip with friends to San Francisco, CA. We stayed at the Nob Hill Motor Inn which had tons of broken items in the hotel rooms, but they were clean. We visited places like Fisherman's Wharf and the Crookedest Street in the World. We also went on a crazy long walk from our hotel across the Golden Gate Bridge and back, without eating.

In February of 2010 we made a trip up to the Owens Valley in CA. We visited the town of Lone Pine and the area around it, including Owens Lake and Whitney Portal. The weather was clear and warm, perfect considering the back drop of the Sierra Nevada mountains covered in snow.

In February, 2011, Alex and I decided to go on a weekend trip to Zion National Park in Utah. The trip started out with a long drive from our home in the San Gabriel valley all the way to St. George, UT, with a "quick" stop over in North Las Vegas.

In 2012, our yearly February trip took us to Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. I decided that we are going to visit enough national parks this year to warrant the purchase of the America the Beautiful pass. It is a pass that allows you access to pretty much every National Park in the United States, as well as most of the recreation areas managed by the National Park Service.

In April we went to Yosemite National Park. I forgot my camera, and ended up taking pictures with my new cell phone. They don't look that great. It was a good trip. We stayed at the Mariposa Lodge, which, oddly enough, is in Mariposa. We visited the park twice, once on Sunday, and once again on Monday before heading home.

We decided to do a big road trip of various state and national parks including quite a few canyons. The whole trip would consist of the following stops: Joshua Tree NP, California; Amboy Crater, California; Grand Canyon NP, Arizona; Glen Canyon NRA, Arizona; Coral Pink Sand Dunes SP, Utah; Bryce Canyon NP, Utah; Grand Staircase-Escalante NM, Utah; Capitol Reef NP, Utah; Otter Creek SP, Utah; Zion NP, Utah; and finally, Lake Mead NRA, Nevada. In total, the trip was 1777 road miles, and included over 20 miles of hiking and biking.

For our long summer vacation, we made our way up to Lake Powell in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. This is probably my most favorite place in the world. This year, instead of trying to find a comfortable hotel for myself and Alex, along with my parents, I decided to rent a house called the Red Rock Retreat in Page. It was probably one of the best vacation decisions I've ever made.

The first lake trip of the summer! Now that we are proud parents of both a Waverunner and Sea-Doo, we like to take at least one trip per summer month out to the Colorado River, and more specifically, Laughin and Lake Mohave.

In March of 2015, Alex and I celebrated our one-year anniversary by visiting Monterey and the surrounding area. This is one of our favorite spots to vacation, we've been many times before. Our trip was just a stretched out weekend, leaving our home on Saturday morning and returning Tuesday evening. On Saturday, we left the SGV early Saturday morning. The plan was to get to Pinnacles National Park in the early afternoon...

In January of 2015 we visited Sequoia National Park in California for a quick weekend getaway. Since it's fairly close to us in southern California, we drove up Friday after work and stayed until Sunday morning. Since it was a winter trip...

As an early anniversary trip, we headed back to some of our favorite places in the world, Bryce and Zion National Parks.

Having not been to Hawaii since 2012, it was time to go back. This time, it was just me and Alex for a nice, relaxed vacation with no schedules to keep or other people to please. Knowing that September was going to be a stressful month dealing with things like birthdays and weddings, I planned a vacation to Maui...

Recently, it has come to our attention that Alex and I need to lose some weight. Well, mostly it was Alex's doctor who suggested it for her, but in the spirit of solidarity, I have been joining her on this journey. One thing that Alex has been consuming a lot more of lately is produce.

In March 2016 I headed to the Phoenix, AZ metro area to partake in a little springtime baseball. It was an annual tradition to go to a Dodgers/Mariners game at least once each spring. Due to various small life events, like getting married and such, for the past two years we were unable to attend. Alex and I (Dodgers fans) went with our good friend Ryan (Mariners) to see them play at Peoria Sports Complex.

At the end of 2016, to cap off what has been a somewhat disappointing year, we decided to take a trip to the national parks of Utah. Due to the holidays, we only had about 5 days to visit, so it was somewhat of a whirlwind tour. Caution: This post is very media rich!

We went up to Lone Pine and Death Valley in March of 2017 to celebrate our three-year anniversary. It had been about 7 years since we last visited, so it was time. We were hoping that since we got a lot of rain this winter there would be an excessive amount of flowers and/or water in the valleys. Sadly, neither was the case.

For our anniversary in 2018 we decided to head up to the Sierra Nevada mountains for a week of fun hiking and enjoying nature, capped off with a snow mobile ride at Lake Tahoe.

In August 2021 we finally went on our long awaited Alaska cruise. While in Alaska, we visited Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay National Park, and Ketchikan.

I bought a Polestar 2 electric vehicle. These are my honest opinions about the car itself and the process to acquire it.

I was looking for an entry point into the e-Bike scene and decided to go with the ProdecoTech Phantom 400. It is a basic, sturdy, no nonsense bike with a motor, and it gets the job done.