Monday, January 26, 2015

Retooling and refocusing

Back in October of 2013 I stopped putting up new posts on this page. Between a new job and a major death in the family I had other things in my life that were taking precedence. Mouth shut, eyes and ears open, that was the rule for the year that followed...

...and the year that followed  has been a pretty amazing one.

In particular, I've had the opportunity to travel to places I've always wanted to go, and places it never even occurred to me to want to go. Ironically enough, given my prior focus on the greater Middle East, almost none of the work or travel that I've done has been in any way connected to that region.

Instead, I have spent the past year working on projects that apply GIS and geospatial data to thorny but mundane problems of day-to-day life. I alternate between an intimately close village-level perspective of far-flung places around the world, and (almost literally) the broader view from space.

Although my interests still lie within the greater Middle East, my work no longer does, so although I intend to restart my posting activities, my attention will be broadening to a wider range of topics.

What topics? Well, pretty much whatever appeals to me at the moment, but with upcoming trips to Central America, the Levant, South Asia, and East Africa, I'll definitely be able to throw some pictures up for your edification, along with whatever meanderings and monologues I see fit to transcribe for your entertainment and interest. Maybe some travel tips, music reviews, cooking experiments, literary musings, artistic exploits, and straight up rants as well.

Let's do this!

  
“Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak Arabic, love music and never forget you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers and warriors.” 
 -Hunter S. Thompson