Arif’s Adventure

For almost a year, my friend and ex-Liquidnetter Arif Huque has been traveling through Asia snapping photos, blogging, tweeting, and journaling his journey in wondrous detail. I met Arif in 2009 when we went to Rwanda together (some links). To date, Arif has traveled through Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Hong Kong, and now China. He’s posted over 800 journal entries and taken thousands of photos. He’s met with many people on the way, and travels sometimes alone and sometimes in a group. I keep asking him when this trip will come to a close and he keeps telling me, I don’t know. This is simply amazing. I’m terribly jealous, but have resigned to live vicariously through my friend.

You can check out his main blog or subscribe to him on twitter. Below is a sampling of some of his recent images:

Omph1

Mural2Namwu14

 

 

Valley2

Moas1Namwu26

 

Tagongpf2Tibetan4

Cham6Cham24

 

 

Snow4

Burnghat

Begin

Sadhu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July is landing fast

July came quickly and is ending quickly. This past weekend I hosted a BBQ for an old college friend who I haven’t seen in over 16 years. I was able to get together all of my local friends who went to Buffalo, too, and we had a nice time catching up.

My son Giovanni is growing up fast. His birthday is in January so he’s never had a pool party for his birthday. We changed that this weekend when we hosted his friends for a 1/2 Birthday Party (today is his actual half-birthday). Giovanni and his friends had a grand time in the pool, throwing water balloons at each other, and watching tasteless adolescent videos on YouTube. Yesterday, he was at the beach all day with his friends. I was hoping to see Captain America with him Sunday night, but I found out he made plans with his friends :-). My boy is growing up.

As for Captain America, great flick. I was  eager to see it and wasn’t disappointed.

This week, Antonio and Marco are in Broncos football camp and next week the football season officially begins. I can’t wait. I love the sport and love watching my kids practice and play.

Finally, I started taking Judo and Brazillian Jiu Jitsu. I went to the Joe Moreira clinic hosted by the school on Sunday. I’m hoping Marco takes Judo as it is a good compliment to his wrestling. The BJJ classes work better for my schedule, but I hope to take both Judo and BJJ. BJJ is a lot different than Tae Kwon Do, as you can imagine. Instead of stepping back and forth, getting kicked, and jumping around, I was on my back and knees and being choked for 3 hours. I’m still practicing Tae Kwon Do at home and still hope to get my master degree from my school one day, but the new studies are really interesting and I’m looking forward to the change of pace.