Last week marked the end of my employment at Stanford University. It’s been a great 4 years (wow, 4 years?!). The project I’ve been working on has reached a point where I can comfortably step away. This is completely voluntary, and I’m leaving on good terms with everyone at Stanford.

So as of this moment I’m unemployed. I highly recommend it. I’m not looking for new work for a while. For the next 4 months or so I’ll be traveling and doing a little Flex contracting work. I’m going to try to focus on blogging a bit more, so hopefully I can start posting more frequently. My travel plans are still taking shape, but include some combination of the following:

1. Sailing along the coast of Central America to Panama. For a few weeks in April I’ll be sailing with my dad, who is currently sailing alone from California to England via the Panama Canal (yes, he is amazingly badass). I’m going to meet up with him somewhere along the way, maybe El Salvador, and sail for a few weeks to Panama.
2. A few east coast trips. I’ve got friends on the east coast I haven’t visited enough, so I’ll be making a few trips. I’ll be vacationing with my girlfriend in Cape Cod, and I also might make separate trips to DC or NY.
3. Sasquatch music festival at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington state.
4. An as-yet-undecided European-ish destination. Maybe Turkey, Greece, eastern Europe… this is pretty up in the air, we’ll see if it actually happens.
5. Denmark for the best rock festival ever, Roskilde.

During and between traveling I’ll be playing with Flex stuff and blogging. I’ll be back home and doing contracting work for most of May. I’ll get back to real life around mid July or August, at which point I’ll be figuring out my employment situation. I am not looking for a job until then.

For now it’s time to enjoy life without worrying about paychecks and early-morning commuting. To celebrate I gave myself this sweet mohawk: