Hi,

Thanks for checking in.  This is my first ever blogging experience and I am currently wrestling with thoughts of both narcissism and self-loathing, but hey, I thought I'd give it a try.  Normally while traveling I send out periodic mass e-mails describing my adventures, but this time I will spare your inboxes and let you come to me, that way I won't be a nuisance to any of you.

Anyway, here I sit on Christmas day in Lagunitas, and blogging feels absurd, but only too soon will I be over 5,000 miles away from here, travel weary, drinking cafe con crema on a sidewalk in Buenos Aires, the smell of diesel exhaust in my nose, and having no idea what anyone is talking about, and then I will have things to say to you all, and hopefully you will find them interesting enough to read.

Bear with me, for the first few months of my travels I will be almost exclusively in the wilds of Patagonia, so this blog will be sparse, but I will write when I have the chance.  I suppose this would be a good time to explain what it is I am doing down there, so here's the skinny: I am spending ten weeks as a Teaching Assistant on a backpacking course in Argentina and Chile with ten college students from a variety of schools, and one professor.  The course is titled: The Natural History Of The Patagonian Cordillera, and it is run through a program called the Sierra Institute.  I had this same gig two years ago and it was incredible.  Once the trip ends in mid-March I plan on staying down there for a few months, practicing my spanish and gringoing from place to place.  Maybe I'll even travel by land all the way home?  We'll see what happens to me out there in the dusty world, when I throw off my comforts, quit my job and take to the trail...Send me all of your prayers and jealousy, and I'll try to get myself into enough strange situations to make this blog worth checking.

Until then, I am still in California, and my life does not yet feel interesting enough to warrant blogging over, so I'll shut it down for now, and write more once I am missing exactly what surrounds me in this moment...

Enjoy!