In honor of my parents current vacation in Belgium and The Netherlands, I am posting three journal entries from my time in Amsterdam. The following entries were written July 14-17, 1998.
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Blog Design Updates
It was a veritable orgy of Wordpress plugin updates this week. I went hog wild! Hopefully, regular readers have found value in them already. The list below excludes the ones tied to behind-the-scenes performance.

Added plugin to allow as-you-type previews of comments being left
Added plugin to automatically end each post with [...]

Since reading The Lost Girls’ post on their trials and tribulations in northern Vietnam (especially the part about the cab ride from hell), I started to reflect on my own experiences, and the few times I felt threatened abroad (at least that I can remember). The experience that stands out the most in my [...]

I recently commented on nomad4ever’s post about reasons why he, and others, blog. I realized if I’m sharing those thoughts with his readers, I certainly should share them with my own.
1. An outlet to share my travel experiences and advice, partly as a way to encourage others to travel independently.
Soon after I returned [...]

“I love habanero hot sauce” was a proclamation entirely out of character for me before my trip to Belize in May 2006.
My family wasn’t much for hot sauce when I was growing up. We were a typical ketchup-loving American family (think The Wonder Years). Actually, most of the food we ate on a [...]

Passport Renewal
Yesterday, I had a new passport photo taken at my local FedEx Kinko’s. The cost was $5 per set, where a set equaled two photos. I ordered a total of three sets for starters. Two photos were sent along with my passport renewal application, and I’m keeping the other four for [...]

The following journal entry was written Saturday, May 14, 2005 in Costa Rica:
6:42 am
I’m awaiting the pick-up by Exploradores Outdoors to go rafting for the day on the Pacuare River. I’m trying not to be anxious that it’s past 6:30 am, though if the tour company knows they have a person to pick up at [...]

Raise!
It’s the first Friday of Spring in the States and…pay day! This is my first paycheck to include my merit increase for 2006. It’s a nice monthly boost which will just barely cover my rather large rent increase for the next 7 months. Time is really flying now. It’s hard [...]

It came as a surprise to my whole family – my younger brother Jonathan had joined the Marine Reserves. He told us after spoiling my parents and I with nice gifts for Christmas ‘04. Two years later, he is being called up for his first overseas deployment. All signs point to Iraq [...]

I continued to read “On the Road” while everyone returned to the room. Above me was a beautiful brunette from NYC. To my right was a beautiful blonde from New Zealand, and there was a girl from Australia. The other four beds were filled by two couples. I slept by the window, periodically [...]