Travel Blog

I'm realizing that I blog a lot when I travel and I never blog when I'm at home. It's not really the life of Brandon but more like the travels of Brandon or something like that. Anyway, I'm fine with that. Feel free to check in periodically...if there are new entries, then I'm traveling somewhere cool. If not, I'm enjoying myself at home so stop harassing me for mundane entries about walking my dog.

I actually do want to write about something other than travel for a second. On Saturday, the Seahawks won the best game I've ever seen live and I've seen a lot of great sporting events. It helps that I had a decent amount of money riding on the game but it would have been phenomenal without any financial gain. After about a month of getting torn up by the media, we fans were fed up and Qwest Field was absolutely electric. It's always really loud and fun but Saturday was something else. I'll never forget the chills up and down my spine and the tears in my eyes when Marshawn scored that TD.

Someone asked on Facebook if Lynch's run is the equivalent of Edgar's double. A walk-off double is so hard to top in football but I actually think the analogy could work. Bear with me.

I think that the Edgar double helped kick off the "golden era" in Seattle sports where the Sonics, Mariners and Seahawks were all competitive for a lot of years. However, to me the double helps define the golden era as an era of underachieving. With all of the superstars and great teams that we had across those three sports, one of them should have won a Championship. Instead, the Mariners era is defined by Edgar's double...in the ALDS...and David Justice's homer against Arthur Rhodes in the ALCS a few years later. The Seahawks are defined by a poorly played Super Bowl XL, aided by some poor reffing. The Sonics era is defined by Mutumbo's finger-waggle. Tons of talent, no championships.

I'm hoping that the Marshawn Lynch run, and this overachieving Seahawks team, helps kick off a new era of Seattle sports. The Seahawks have no business being in the NFL's Elite Eight, yet here they are. I'm thrilled with the job that Pete Carroll has done and I can't wait to see what he can do with more talent on his roster. The Mariners have nowhere to go but up and it was just last Spring that people were calling Jack Z a genius. Did he get really dumb all of a sudden or were the Mariners victims of a lot of bad luck? We still have Felix in his prime, we still have Ichiro, we still have Guti. If the role players can play decent baseball, this team definitely has a chance to "overachieve". I think that only time will tell if the Lynch run will be as important as the Edgar double in defining Seattle sports but let's hope that it is.

OK, now that that's off my chest, I'm ready to blog about traveling again. On Monday, I'm heading to Singapore and I'll be spending 3 weeks traveling through SE Asia. Here's a link to my itinerary, in case you want to stalk me.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DahJ5SO-wQTHinCmpkUwZZZH9IFukWyd9qpaayOu5Ho/edit?authkey=CKSg9NsE&hl=en#

I'm really excited to see Kento in Singapore. He moved there 2 years ago and I promised that I'd visit him someday. It'll feel good to make good on that promise. I've also wanted to see Malaysia for a long time now and it'll be fun to lay on those beaches. Thailand is the land of smiles and I'm excited to return. My friends Will and Kat are Peace Corps volunteers in Thailand and we're going to spend a week with them as well. It's going to be awesome, stay tuned for pics and stories.

I've been learning French, using Rosetta Stone, and I really like it. I'm done with Level 1 and I'm on part 1 of Level 2. It's an awesome little hobby and I can't wait until I finish all 5 levels.

The other hobby that I just picked up is running, believe it or not. I've been getting faster and running longer but my foot has been hurting for the past week so I'm going to rest up for a while. I'm pretty sure that I increased my speed and distances too rapidly, considering I hadn't run in about 5 or 6 years. Here's my Garmin Connect page. Cliff bought me a GPS watch for Christmas and it's pretty sweet to look at the maps:

http://connect.garmin.com/explore?owner=bkschaefer#owner=bkschaefer&sortField=relevance¤tPage=1

That's all for now, please pray for my foot to heal.

xoxo