Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

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Vail Spring Melt

Vail’s gone.

I live out of a Tortuga backpack now.

I’m typing to you from one of the innumerable coffee shops of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Imagine your coolest local coffee shop. Now multiply its best qualities– its charm, its atmosphere– by ten, and then duplicate the result a thousand times, each clone with a unique twist. Now scatter those coffee shops five to a block, with another six down the alleys. This is Chiang Mai. The coffee never stops.

Risetto Ristr8o Instagram Latte Art

This is my first major travel outside of the United States, my home. Once the plane landed and the stomach-clenching anxiety cleared, it turned out to have been easier than I had imagined.

As it turns out, every travel blogger ever was right. It’s not that hard.

So why am I here?

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Living in a Ski Town as a Digital Nomad

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Fresh groomers Vail Chair 4

When I graduated college, I was already employed in my field. I was working remote, freelancing for a news startup called Inside.com. I was being paid peanuts: a contract rate that effectively worked out to well below minimum wage. I told the hordes of well-wishers at my graduation party that it wasn’t really a “real job,” just something to pay the bills and build the resume. I was looking. Fifteen months, several raises and rounds of layoffs later, I still work for Inside. At the time, I definitely didn’t realize how lucky I was. Although Inside has never paid me too much, they do allow me unlimited flexibility, a perk which absolutely cannot be overvalued.

So, with a remote job in my pocket, I uprooted and moved to Vail, Colorado.

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Moments in Time

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Vail International Dance Festival 2015

Vail International Dance Festival 2015

A year is a long time, when looking to the future; in retrospect, a year is almost unbearably short.

My life, one year ago.

One year ago.

I have now lived in Vail for one full year of my life. My 22nd year on Earth, I spent in Vail. My 23rd, I will spend in Asia. I hope it will be better.

Although on August 1, I knew a year had passed, the length of time somehow didn’t hit me until I attended the 2015 Vail International Dance Festival.

Watching the 2014 VIDF was one of the very first things my girlfriend and I did after moving to Vail. To return to the same spot, for the same activity, with a year between, really forced me to reflect on my year in a ski town.

Inside Vail Gondola One

The Vail International Dance Festival is an annual, two-week long celebration of classical and modern dance. Programming showcases everything from traditional ballet to YouTube sensations to newer, more urban styles of dance. There’s dancing in the streets, in the air; during these two weeks you might even catch some better-than-usual dancing in Vail’s limited number of bars. Where else can you take shots with world-famous ballerinas and dancers and not even know it?

Only Vail.

That’s the thing— you might be able to brush elbows with those sorts of people in certain neighborhoods of New York City, or LA, or London, but you would know it. People who live in the hip neighborhoods know why they are there, and they know the pedigree that surrounds them.

Young people in Vail are almost completely ignorant of this pedigree.

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Book Review: “Elon Musk” by Ashlee Vance

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Elon Musk: Tesla SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

(just realized I forgot to mention, this is the book under discussion)

Elon Musk is the single most influential figure alive today.

I don’t hesitate to say that, not one bit.

In only 44 years on this planet, Elon Musk has been involved with five consistently cutting-edge companies: Zip2 (early Internet mapping), PayPal (Early Internet banking), Tesla (modern electric cars), SpaceX (cheap, reusable rockets), and SolarCity (solar power).

Every single one of those sectors has changed the world, or will change the world. Musk is a man who has changed the world in five COMPLETELY DIFFERENT sectors. His efforts will eventually lead towards an emissions-free world, and eventually, a new world altogether.

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How “Trainwreck” Tricks Men Into Laughing

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Amy Schumer’s “Trainwreck” is the funniest movie I have seen in a long time. And I’m not alone; from mom & pop blogs to the big critics, the film is earning accolades left and right. I’m sure it will be a contender for the big end-of-the-year awards.

The big story here, of course, is Schumer.

In the social justice era, people take notice of a comedian like Schumer, and her brand of brave, no-hold barred, body-conscious humor. The edge she honed on her TV show, “Inside Amy Schumer” is cutting sharper than ever in “Trainwreck. Schumer has no problem being totally frank about the problems faced by the ambitious young woman in today’s world.

Schumer’s character sleeps around, drinks, smokes and absolutely hates the idea of family, as represented by her sister’s dopey husband and child (the pair of which show up from time to time, constantly smiling and basically as cartoons).

This is how Schumer, and by extension, the film as a whole, earns the trust of the female millennial audience. Schumer’s character also hates sports, which is ironic, since the movie uses sports as a clever way to appeal to male audiences.

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