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Showing posts from June, 2015

Trip Report: Amazon Jungle 2012

I've generally made a tradition of spending Thanksgiving out of the country and 2012 wasn't any different. I wanted to get away from it all and do something adventurous. I had my eye on traipsing around the Amazon rainforest but was hesitant to go by myself. I managed to talk a few friends into going with me and so after a couple of months researching the various jungle lodges in Peru, I settled on Muyuna Lodge . I was looking for a place that had plenty of scheduled activities and good food but was ensconced in the jungle and offered rustic accommodations (ie no tv or phone or internet). There's a handful of lodges that match those specifications but Muyuna was the only affordable option.  We had two full-day layovers on the way to the lodge and we made the most of them by signing up for some tours.  Our first layover was in Mexico City. We met up with Carlos , a local guide I'd found on Viator and he led us through the city, pointing out the highlights and history

Peer to Peer (P2P) Financing

I've been carefully researching Peer to Peer (P2P) financing as an investment vehicle for my portfolio. While P2P financing has always been with us in one form or another (think of no-bank-needed owner financed home sales) the mass market availability of P2P funding emerged as a disruptive force in the lending marketplace about 8 years ago. Someone in the UK wondered out loud if buyers and sellers could come together easily on eBAY, with eBAY taking a cut of every sale, why couldn't investors and borrowers come together on a similar platform with the platform owners taking a cut of every loan?  That way, borrowers could borrow at rates lower than the "evil faceless" banks charge and investors could earn a much bigger return than banks offer. Win-win all around, neighbor helping neighbor, kumbaya, and all of those fuzzy sentiments. Venture capital was secured, the concept was launched into production, and the money began rolling in. Nearly a decade later and the idea

Trip Report: Singapore 2012

So, it's been quite awhile since I've written a trip report. Not to worry, I've got my pics and itinerary notes for all the trips I've taken since the 2012 Guyana trip (that was the subject of my last travel entry). I just haven't been very disciplined about getting the reports on the web for everyone (I'm looking at you Suzanne!) to read until now. A few months after the Guyana trip, I gathered up a group of friends and headed for Singapore for the weekend on a sale fare Delta Airlines was offering. We were to meet up in Singapore to check into our hotel and then we'd spend the rest of our weekend together, following the itinerary I'd written (I love to play tour guide!). Only problem was that I got confused while making the hotel reservations and noting that we arrived on Oct 27th, I made the hotel reservation beginning on the 27th. But...we arrived just after midnight  on the 27th, which meant I should have made the reservation for the 26th. Oops! T

Book Review: The ADHD Advantage

Recently, I was asked to review Dale Archer's new book, The ADHD Advantage . This is Archer's second self-help book on mental health and takes a novel approach in guiding those who have received or those who care for one who has received an ADHD diagnosis. Archer's credentials include a background and career in psychiatry and first-hand experience as an ADHD patient. I wanted to read and review this book because I've come to realize there is a clear pattern of ADD (ie ADHD without the hyperactive component) behavior over my life so far. Frequent notations from teachers on reports cards about talking less and listening more? Check. Trouble following through with tasks that don't excite me and constantly procrastinating? Check. Hyperfocused for hours on tasks that do excite me to the exclusion of eating or getting out of my chair? Check. Easily bored? Check. Problems with remembering things? Check. Check. Check. So I settled in to read  The ADHD Advantage  and pre

Book Review: Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

Shades of grey was a bit more difficult to be pulled into than Fforde's other novels I've enjoyed (I've read both the Thursday Next series and the Nursery Crimes books). The dry wit and "clever" conversation between father and son in much of the beginning of the book was tiring. I also had trouble following some of the basic plot points FForde was trying to lay out for readers as his characters discussed the finer points of a caste system determined by the colors one can perceive. Things picked up midway through the novel though, and once they got interesting, they never fell back down. As soon as I was invested in the characters I wanted answers. Why can people only see part of the color spectrum? What happened to take society from pre color caste to post? Fforde takes readers to a cliffhanger ending and now I sit, waiting impatiently for the next novel in what I hope is a long series.