Greetings from Gili Air, Indonesia!

     Gili Air is the right place to do...nothing. There are no cars and no motor bikes, excepting the odd electric one. They do have ponies drawing carts and bicycles. The ponies sound like one imagines Santa's reindeer coming up behind you with their little sleigh bells jingling.

    Despite all the pony carts walking still seems to be the prevalent mode of transport here but this afternoon we rented some fat-tire bikes and rode around the circumference of the island in less than 45 minutes. Man those things are fun on soft sand! Whoohoo!

     There are copious amounts of bars, restaurants and resorts catering to a variety of tastes and budgets, most with wifi. I'm sitting in one such as I type this. I have observed two primary levels of service here. High-level hovering, bordering on obsequiousness and non-existent. Where we are staying I have to interrupt a card game, jam session or wake someone to get service.

     At another hostel I had to have a manager awakened from his nap, at 3:00 in the afternoon, because we just wanted a price on a room, and the kid filling in basically was just the bartender. I find this amusing more than irritating because, hey, it's island time baby. Soon come.

     There are quite a few diving centers with diving, snorkeling, paddle boarding and free diving classes and trips available. We went on a snorkeling trip and saw a great many fish, including my beloved flying fish, many huge sea turtles and coral in every shape, size and color.

     I should mention from the look of the pictures that the weather throughout Indonesia, since we arrived here at the tail end of the rainy season, has been pretty much the same everyday. Super clear, sunny and nice in the mornings, clouding up in the afternoons and lightly raining in the evenings. All in all pretty fine; not too hot, not too anything.

     Otherwise we've mostly been relaxing, bicycling or walking around, eating, reading, writing and painting or playing guitar, respectively. The big deal here was the Mayweather-Pacquiero fight. The Kentucky Derby didn't make a wave and we missed it, though admittedly it happened in the middle of the night for us. The news from the US barely reaches us, unless we are actively looking for it, and for that I'm grateful. It's nice not to have Faux News blaring from every TV. Instead we watch this:

     As we approach our six-months-on-the-road date we've been spending some time trying to figure out where to go next and what to do...after. Other than small bits of income from art and music we really haven't been trying to earn money or look for "real" jobs, as such. In general we've been too busy traveling and seeing all the things there are to see in the world.
   
     I started working on that a little bit while I'm here, updating my LinkedIn profile, especially the "where I'm looking" part, in cities like Charleston SC, New Orleans LA, Austin TX, and San Diego CA. Trying to explain in a resume that yes, I quit a great, safe, secure, high-end job in the Northeast, sold all my stuff and traveled internationally for a year is challenging. It doesn't fit neatly into a bullet point. Saying I'm a "travel blogger", while true, doesn't do much for my "career track" but I'm working on it at least. I'm open to suggestions so please drop a line if you have any! I'm open to doing almost any kind of work as long as I can do it remotely, or wherever I am, so let me know if you have anything? Thanks!

     One thing that came up is the ridiculous feeling that, if I decide to come back to the US and work for a while, I am somehow failing. Isn't that silly? I don't have to live up to anyone else's expectations. It's true that I don't really want to go back to "cubicle life" but I hope I'll be able to parlay my various skills into a gig that works for my future employer, my wife, and myself.

     Anyway, theres always the possibility that something else will present itself in the interim but at least I'm thinking about it in a way that's not all "No, please no!" LOL