Sean’s Blog

Jess and I have some vacation time coming up in June. Since we are getting married in August we really are pretty strapped for cash and can’t afford a big vacation. We are thinking about taking a couple days and driving up to Cleveland.

I’ve seen a couple posts and articles about vacationing where you live and it always sounded intersting to me. I grew up in Cleveland, but recently we watched a No Reservations w/ Anthony Bourdain about Cleveland and there was a ton of stuff that I’ve never seen. I think that they were on the east side alot and I was always a westside boy.

But what I’ve decided to try is to research it like I’ve never been there. Hit the travel sites, do the research, just like I would when we go to a foreign country. I have no idea how it will work out, but I’ll write it up when we come back. It should be either really interesting or really boring.

Mark Bittman has a post on his blog and a column in the New York Times about visiting Merida, on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Jess and I visited Merida in the fall of 2006 and it was one of the best trips of my life. Merida is an old colonial city in Mayan Mexico and the capital of the State of Yucatan. The streets are narrow and paved with brick. The architecture is exactly what I though of for a colonial Mexican city. The people are friendly and life revolves around the main square (or zocalo).

Although not a huge tourist destination, there are a ton of things to do there. A couple of my favourites:

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Last weekend, Jess and I went down to Southern Ohio in the Hocking Hills region. Unlike most of Ohio, the glaciers from the last ice age didn’t cover the area so it is hilly and cut through by steep gorges. After a good rain it has waterfalls all over the place as well.

Here is a link to the pictures.

Jess and I are heading down to Hocking Hills State Park in Southern Ohio for the weekend. Hocking Hills is a great pace top get away and being only an hour or so outside of Columbus makes it really convenient.

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I’m still slowly getting my pictures put together from my last trip to Puerto Rico. This week I have put up underwater pictures I took during that trip. All were taken off the beach behind Mimi’s Guesthouse in Guarnica, PR.

This is the first time I used my underwater housing for the Canon Powershot SD900. It worked great, but the viewscreen was almost impossible to see if the sun was reflecting off of it since the housing isn’t anti-glare like the actual camera view screen.

Here is the link to the gallery

Continuing on with photographs from my (not so) recent trip to Puerto Rico.  These are photographs of Guanica, a small town on the southern Caribbean coast.  It’s a beautiful area that is much different then the rest of the country, being home to a tropical dry forest (with cactuses and all). All the pictures were taken either from the guest house or the hidden beach behind it.

If you are heading to that part of Puerto Rico, check out Mimi’s Guesthouse.  The location is nice and secluded, it is a short walk to an almost always private beach and the owners are friendly and knowledgeable about the area.

Here are the pictures.

Here is the first part of our trip to Puerto Rico in Sept of 2007. We spent several days in San Juan which is a beautiful city with lots of stuff to see and do. My one caveat would be if you are staying in Old San Juan, don’t rent a car until you need to. The driving is hilly, the streets are narrow and confusing (for someone who doesn’t know them). Walk or take a cab until you are leaving the old city.

Link to the photo galleries: San Juan

I’m out visiting the fiancee’s family for the next couple of days.

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Monday we are heading to Puerto Rico for some well deserved vacation. I thought that this would be a great time to try out the new embeddable Google Maps. You used to need to use the Google Maps API to put maps on your webpages or blogs. As of last week, Google released the ability to embed maps directly.

The first couple of days we will spend in Old San Juan:

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From there we are heading to Guarnica for some relaxation:

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You can find instructions from Google here. I’ll let you know when I get back.

*UPDATE* : One thing I have noticed is when you post the links into the code section, it seems like the iframe tag plays havoc with the the Wordpress editor. Everything looks fine when you post, so I’ll need to see if I can find out more. So if you use this with Wordpress, make sure you get the post all squared away before you add the links. I’ll post when i find out more.

Since I’ve come back from India, several people have asked me how I got to travel for business. I thought I’d share some tips that I’ve picked up.

I’ve done some traveling for every job I’ve had.  Most of the places have not been paradises, but I’ve managed to see a good bit of the country and now even places outside the country.  Here, IMHO, is how to position your self to travel:

• Be good at what you do - Nobody is going to send the person who does the bare minimum to represent the company.  Learn your core functions well.  If you can become an expert at something you do (even if it just a subset of your responsibilities), even better.
• Make it known that you LIKE to travel - I’m pretty sure this was a big factor in my getting picked for this trip.
• Not every trip is to Club Med - Most businesses aren’t in great vacation spots.  Plano, TX and Wilmington, DE come to mind. Even these spots have their charm though.  Try to find at least one interesting thing about each place you go.
• When you get there, work your a$$ off - You were sent there for a job, so do it and do it well.  You are almost guaranteed other travel opportunities if you knock the current assignment out of the park.  On the flip side, forget about traveling if you blow the assignment through laziness.
• Take some time for yourself - during your time off, see some of the local attractions.  One of my favorite things to do is to take a walk through Millennium Park in Chicago after work when I used to go there for business.  Just because the company is paying for a hotel room does not mean you have to spend every off duty minute in it.
• Work well with the locals - If you can get along with people there, they are much more likely to ask for you to come back.  Insult them or belittle them (”I’m from corporate headquarters, do as I say”) and don’t be shocked if they don’t want you back (let alone show you the cool hidden little places of there town).

Most of this is common sense, but hopefully it can help a little.