Christmas Letter 2018

Dear beloved friends and family,
I can't believe the year is already winding down! For Jaiman, Carly and I, this has been another year of big changes and big blessings, through another fantastic international vacation, a big move, new jobs, a hundred-year hurricane, and the outpouring of support to recover. 
We started the year off still living in Stamford, CT where Henkel had moved us to in June 2017.  From our nearby train station, we were able to get into Manhattan in about 50 minutes on the express train.  We took full advantage of our proximity to the Big Apple, from seeing Broadway shows including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Dear Evan Hansen (not to mention off-Broadway shows like Spamilton), to taking in the sites (and eats!!) of New York City.  We also used our location in the Northeast as a launching point for some fantastic road trips, including a very cold Ice Wine Festival in Canada in January! In April, we road tripped up to Bethlehem, New Hampshire for a maple sugaring experience that was truly magical, swinging through Vermont on the way back to stop by a favorite brewery of mine (Magic Hat) and a little ice cream maker called Ben & Jerry's.

We weathered the cold for maybe a bit too late into what should have been spring, but enjoyed walking around downtown Stamford, and we made some good friends through our Pokemon Go community. We had a great time when both my sisters and all three kids came to visit, treating them to the amazingness that is hot oil pizza (a CT special), doing Tim Tam Slams, visiting Stew Leonard's and a daytrip to NYC for off-Broadway shows and other touristy adventures. We also hosted my parents and took them to both Yale and NYC, although I think my Dad's favorite two things were the Black Raspberry Ice Water ("It's the perfect drink!") and hot oil pizza ("This is the pizza I always dreamed of but didn't know existed,") we introduced him to. We definitely made the most of our time in CT, and dearly miss a few aspects of it (like said hot oil pizza), but we knew long ago that we'd be moving back to warmer climates as soon as the right opportunity came. 

In May, I had two such great opportunities presented to me.  I first flew to Dallas to interview with a dairy processing company for a job very similar to what I was already doing (Demand Management).  I got to have dinner with Jaiman's sister, ReAnne, and we talked about the possibility of us moving to Dallas.  I already had a flight booked to Florida when the offer came, but I was able to put making a decision off at least long enough to see what the aerospace company in Florida was all about.  I flew to Panama City, Florida and interviewed with a VP whom I had enjoyed working with 10 years ago at Honeywell, and a GM who also had come from Honeywell.  The job would be a HUGE challenge - building and managing the entire end-to-end supply chain for a greenfield site (basically, there was nothing in place yet).  Panama City was not exactly the location we had in mind when we considered moving to Florida, but it had some beautiful beaches that won me over. On my way home, I sat next to a local on the plane, and asked him about hurricanes. His words assured me, "That devastation you see on the news, that only happens to that area once every hundred years. So unless you plan to be here for a hundred years, chances are you'll never see that."  Without a second offer yet, I turned down the offer in Dallas. My risk was rewarded, I got the offer from GKN Aerospace Florida, and the gears started turning. 

The timing of the move was a bit awkward, because we had planned a European cruise and vacation with my sister and nephew. So Jaiman flew to Panama City Beach to look for our new home while I wrapped things up at work, and I ended up leaving my job prior to the vacation. The realtor loved the worksheets I sent Jaiman with based on my initial search online, but ultimately, it was Jaiman who did a great job finding a beautiful new construction house for us in a private beach community very near where all the action is.

Jaiman and I met up with Matthew and Christy in Venice, Italy.  I think Venice was my favorite European city; it just seemed like every direction you can look is a fresh, picturesque view.  We took a train from Venice to Rome where we stayed a night before checking into our cruise.  The cruise took us to a number of other Italian cities before heading to France and finishing in Barcelona, Spain.The highlight for me in Spain was La Sagrada Familia, it was absolutely breathtaking! From there, we flew to Paris and really nailed the tourist thing as well as visiting Disneyland. We checked a number of things off my Life List during our trip, including a gondola ride, walking the ruins of Pompeii, going to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and visiting the Coliseum. It was my and Jaiman's first time in Europe, and Jaiman's first time on a cruise.
Back in CT, we made our final preparations to move and had a few goodbye meals with our friends from Henkel and the Pokemon Go community, before making our way down south. I started my new job at GKN as Supply Chain Manager on July 16, and was already flying for work the following Monday. In fact, because I was traveling when our new house was ready, Jaiman got a great hand workout as he signed the closing documents for our house!

Since being in Florida, we've enjoyed not only swimming at the beach, often accompanied by the friendly fish, but also having dinner regularly at the many beachside restaurants, watching the sunset over the crystal clear water and clean, white "sugar" sand. Most places have some kind of a sunset celebration, either a sunset cannon or sunset bell, etc., and I like that they find a reason to celebrate something as regular as a sunset. It feels worlds away from the chaotic, maddening traffic and honking and screaming from downtown Stamford, and while work is hard, I can come home to a beautiful home and a beautiful beach.

Of course, you already know that our beautiful home and beautiful beach were threatened by what started as a tropical storm that was vaguely on my radar as I prepared to travel again. It became a hurricane with mandatory evacuation for our area while I was on the plane in Atlanta waiting to take off towards Kansas for work, and I was frantically trying to figure out what to do to help. It was terrifying and crazy stressful, but I did what I could to get organized so Jaiman could evacuate efficiently. I felt awful that I wasn't there to help him put up the hurricane shutters and secure our things, but he managed it and got out in plenty of time. He ended up evacuating to Mississippi, and my plant in Florida was shut down while I continued working in Kansas and bracing to see what would happen to our area. I was mentally preparing myself to have lost everything other than our lives, as our family and the whole country seemed to be anxiously watching the news of Hurricane Michael. When I was done in Kansas, I couldn't fly back to Panama City because the airport was closed, so I flew to Mississippi and joined Jaiman and Carly. The devastation was terrible in some parts, but within about four days I was getting info from our beach community about our neighborhood specifically, and it seemed as though we were very fortunate. The power provider map showed that our neighborhood had electricity!

So, we loaded up with supplies in Mississippi, and made our way back, ensuring we kept our tank pretty well topped off with gas. We took the route recommended by my neighbors, and after checking our IDs at the checkpoint, the police let us through to get home. We got home with plenty of sunlight to inspect things, and were relieved to see virtually no damage. We took the hurricane shutters down, and called it a night. We had power, but no cell service, internet or TV, and the water was about half-on and non-potable. When our Publix grocery store re-opened, they had trucks in the parking lot loaded with bottles of water and ice and were encouraging people to take as much as they wanted for free. Things started recovering slowly in the following days, but we continued under curfew and boil water notice for weeks.

We re-opened my plant, and most people returned to work, the remaining few were dealing with more severe personal situations. Many of our colleagues were displaced or living with no running water, and we offered hot showers, our guest rooms, food and bottled water and gas. FEMA set up near my work with camp sites, and the school across the street from our house became a shelter with mobile laundry and mobile shower units. In November, things started to get back to normal, but here I am a couple days into December, and I feel like it's still October because we lost so much time recovering. What continues to impress me, though, is the absolute outpouring of support from our global GKN family, from local businesses, from visitors, you name it. We were well prepared when we came back, and we didn't need anything, but we could have gotten whatever we needed. We were blessed, indeed!
One of the major reasons we wanted to move to Florida was for all the theme parks, especially Disney, in Orlando. So not too long after the hurricane, we decided to get out of town for the weekend and visit Disney World for the first time - for both of us - since we each had been in high school. We got to go to EPCOT's Food and Wine Festival, ride Space Mountain and get a lift on the monorail. It was a short but productive first trip, and we're looking forward to many more!

Well, that about wraps up our year to date! We are looking forward to having Christy and Matthew come to Florida for Christmas, hitting the parks again soon, and starting another year of adventures in 2019. We hope you have a very Merry Christmas and wish you the best in the New Year!

Melbourne - Aussie Adventure Part 3

We arrived in Melbourne on September 21st, with minimal plans for this leg of the trip.  I had several restaurant recommendations from my new co-worker who had just moved to New York from Melbourne, so we thought we'd try one of those.  Many of them looked a bit pretentious and I was in the travel-tired mode and didn't really want to gussy up so much.  We identified one that was more on the casual side and relatively close to the hotel, so we wandered over there.  Unfortunately, it had over an hour wait to get in, and I was hungry and not really keen on waiting.  So we continued wandering around the downtown area and stumbled upon a place that was probably more our speed anyways: a video-game themed burger joint called 8bit.  We munched on delicious burgers and smothered fries, washing it all down with Nutella shakes.  Our first taste of Melbourne made a great first impression, to say the least! 

We wandered around a bit more, finding lots of graffiti which the locals seemed to appreciate, calling it "art" and taking pictures of it.  One particularly disturbing work featured America's new Idiot-in-Chief Donald Trump in an awkward position with a dumbfounded look on his face. 

We went to a mall in search of a KitKat Chocolatory - we had learned on our trip to Japan that Asia has some amazing KitKat flavors, and we had been finding Japanese KitKats in conveniences stores in Australia, and also some really good Australia KitKats.  Much like the KitKat Chocolatory we had found in Tokyo, the one in Melbourne featured really fancy KitKats and didn't really have the "normal" packs we were looking for.  I bought a couple small packs of fun flavors, and we got to sample a normal Australian KitKat (which is notably much thicker than an American KitKat).  We also played with the KitKat computer that allowed you to customize your KitKats, but didn't actually purchase anything through it. 
Back at the hotel, we decided on booking the brewery tour I had had in mind for our Melbourne excursion - it was a tour of the Carlton & United Brewery which makes Fosters, several local favorites (similar to America's Budweiser).  Then we called it a night, and got some much-needed rest. 

The next morning, we satisfied Jaiman's quest for great donuts at Shortstop Coffee & Donuts.  They had a number of unique flavors, many mimicking tea flavors like Early Grey and Green Tea. 

We were to meet for the brewery tour at 12:30 at Federation Square, a neat little area with museums and foodie places.  So until then, we did a lot more walking around town, first finding a street fair selling all sorts of Australian souvenirs and various other goods.  We found some neat Australian jerserys for cheap, and bought those.  As we walked around, I was struck by a lot of juxtapositions: the flashy, modern new buildings next to old world English-looking pubs and hotels; business-types in suits walking through graffiti-covered streets; and fancy English names for things alongside sillier-sounding Australia slang.  I even took this great picture of a business-type getting his shoes shined in one of the most decorated graffiti alley we saw - it was an alley in which, based on the behavior of the dozens of people walking through it, you'd think we were in the Guggenheim.  People were stopping and pausing in front of every four-foot expanse of graffiti as if pondering and appreciating the artist work, and taking pictures of just about every angle possible.  I honestly wasn't sure what to make of it.  For lunch, we found a seriously legit Japanese ramen place - greeted with the traditional Japanese greeting as we entered.  The bowls were ginormous and delicious, and we were full and happy by the end of our stay at Shujinko Russel.

We made our way to the Federation Square area with plenty of time still before the tour pickup.  Seeing an interesting-looking exhibition, we wandered into the little museum.  It was all about swimming pools, talking about the symbolism of bringing the community together and learning how to share.  My favorite quote in the exhibition was from Paul Kelly: "As you move through life, it seems to be like a series of steps into deeper and deeper water.  What comes along in life are the things that we don't know.  The things that everyone goes through but are not known until you do it yourself.  The loss of a parent, the birth of a child, the beginning of love, or the end of love.  All those things.  You don't know them until they happen to you.  It's all deep water when you get there."  After going through the exhibit, we perused the book store and I found a lot of interesting-looking books. 

Finally, it was time to load onto the Carlton Brewhouse bus and head over to the brewery.  It was incredibly interesting to see how a massive brewery like this one operates; before this trip I had only toured small craft breweries.  I think it's neat when tours include a chance to taste the raw ingredients, and I've tasted the grains and burnt grains before.  A first-time for me was being encouraged to try the hops - not the raw hops of course, I knew that wasn't a good thing to do.  Instead, they passed around the raw hops to smell, and then passed around the pelletized hops and encouraged us to take the tiniest of bites of a pellet.  Skeptical, I wanted to give it a try, and sure enough, the bitter hop flavor enveloped my mouth instantly.  It was definitely too much, but hey, they had water to wash out the awful flavor, and beer would soon follow.  And follow it did - after we checked out the mesmerizing bottling operations, we were guided back to the main tasting room where we were treated to several samples of the freshly-made local beer.  We learned that this brewery also was responsible for making the local version of import beers such as Stella Artois, so naturally, I had to try it to see if it tasted the same.  We got some wings to go with our beer samples, and the wings were pretty darn good too.  My favorite beer was the Wild Yak, and I would later try other Yak beers because of my experience at the brewery, but Wild Yak remained my favorite.  All in all, a great tour experience I would highly recommend to beer lovers!  We had a few minutes in the gift shop before the shuttle left, and Jaiman found an awesome Yak shirt there. 

It was admittedly a bit early for dinner, but we did want to try Taxi Kitchen on my colleague's recommendation, so we dilly-dallied around Federation Square for a bit, finding a strange little room tucked away in a corner of an otherwise open public area - it was meant to be like a little family room, and was decorated with slightly retro furniture and homely décor, with a small book case and various places to sit and read or recharge.  We took a break here, charging up our phones and enjoying the little piece of serenity in the middle of a bustling city.  Then we made our way over to Taxi Kitchen.  I guess it was still far too fancy for us - we immediately felt judged by the host, who asked if we had seen the menu online, implying that this wasn't our kind of place.  Whatever dude, just seat us.  We got high-top seats overlooking a busy part of the city and just ordered one plate to share between us.  While watching the city, we saw a few people with Free Hugs shirts hugging willing passersby, and other similarly entertaining people watching.  The food was, as predicted, weird, and also not very filling, so we moved on quickly. 

Jaiman had been eyeing some sushi places that had the sushi already made and sitting in the window, visible from the street - and the rolls were HUGE!  He opted to get some of those for dinner, and I opted to try some wings from the place near our hotel.  I had noticed that the "footy" championship was this weekend, so we got our eats to go and unwound in the hotel room watching "footy" and eating our respective dinners.  As a foodie's haven, Melbourne did not disappoint! 

The following day, we went to another mall and toured around the city a bit more before catching a taxi to the airport and heading on to our next destination - Cairns!