Around the world in 20 years! From East, West, North and South and places in between.

Hello, here's the beginning of my story and the adventures, trials, tribulations, successes and failures I will share with you all here.

I'm 50 years old, a GenXer but think I have a foot in the Baby Boomers and in the Millennials camp. I say this for a variety of reasons. One of my jobs after retiring from the Navy was in Life & Health Insurance and dealt primarily with Baby Boomers and I am married to a Millennial and we have a beautiful almost 2 year old daughter together.

Yes, I am a late bloomer and seem to have done quite a few things backwards.

I came out of high school not exactly sure what I wanted to do other than not waste time or money at college and I didn't want to go retail or flip burgers. The military seemed a good route to go.

I joined the Navy, shipped out two weeks later and spent the next 20 years seeing the world.

I lived in Wales for 3 years and visited every country in Europe that wasn't part of the Iron Curtain at that time. From there I went to Hawaii, lived there for 3 years and quickly got island fever. In fact within my first three months there I had joined a team where I worked to do the Oahu Perimeter Run. It was a 119 mile run and covered, well you guessed it, the perimeter of the island. Wasn't much else to see after that.

After I left Hawaii I spent the next 5 years in Colorado, more specifically 3 years in Aurora and 2 years in Littleton. Colorado is a great place to live. Plenty to do, an awesome 4 seasons and if you have any interest in outdoor activities they have you covered every which way.

When I left Colorado I ended up in Naples, Italy for the next two years. I was a one-person recruiting station and my area of responsibility was Italy. I spent about 2 weeks each month traveling from Aviano, way up north down to Sicily in the south and stopping at a majority of the Department of Defense bases along the way. That 2 years was an amazing time.

I lived in a 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment home that had balconies and a rooftop terrace over looking the Mediterranean Sea. My home was just above the Cuma caves and some days ended up taking a route home that took me over a cobblestone road made in the Roman times. Remarkable, history, food and people. I recommend it as a vacation spot to anyone.

When my time was up in Italy I went to Reno, Nevada. This is another beautiful part of the country, between Mount Rose, Truckee Meadows and Lake Tahoe there was not shortage of scenery. After Reno I went across the mountains to Grass Valley, California. What I will say about this place other than it also having beautiful countryside was the best sushi I have ever had in my life was in the city next door, Nevada City.

If you ever found yourself in Grass Valley or Nevada City and have a hunkering for sushi I would suggest satisfying the craving there.

I ended up in Las Vegas after retiring from the US Navy. I worked security for a couple casinos on the strip while I attended UNLV. I started my college education in Psychology and then added Philosophy as a dual major. I realized that I didn't want to spend 300 hours of clinical work to become employable and went into Computer Science. I've always been a techie at heart. The CS program there left something to be desired so went in Business Management. East transition from my 20 years with Uncle Sam and the US Navy. The best thing that happened to me in college was that I met my wife in Anthropology 101.

It was a Wednesday night late class with a break in the middle of the 3 hour block. She's gorgeous and was always on the phone speaking a language I have never heard spoken, this is after living in Europe for 5 years too.

I walked up one evening and asked her if she was ever going to get off the phone and she just looked at me, smiled and went back to talking to whoever it was on the phone. I later learned that she had just moved from LA and all her friends were still there.

Well the short version is that we are married for 3 years after being together for 7 and have an amazing 21 month old daughter together. My stories from now on will be a mix of what I am doing to be a stay at home dad and the adventures we have as a family.

Hope you found this entertaining, albeit a bit longer that a lot I have seen and will take the time to cast a vote. Feedback is appreciated also.

All the best,
Brad