Inaugural Post

Alright, before I get started, I need to issue a warning: I am new to the realm of blogging. Although I have read plenty of blogs in the past, I have no experience writing them. So my posts might suck at first, but things will get better. Then again, they might continue to suck. Stay tuned to find out!

First of all, who am I? My name is Nate, I am 24 years old, and I live in Kansas City, Missouri. I work as a software engineer for Cerner Corporation, a medium-sized software vendor for the healthcare industry. Although I have been living in Missouri for most of the past five years (the first four as a computer science student at Washington University in St. Louis), I consider myself a Minnesota native at heart. I grew up in the halcyon Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie.

So, now that you know who I am, you are probably wondering what this blog is all about. Well, there is a story to that, but I will try to give you the executive summary. After I graduated from Wash U, I transitioned immediately into my current job as a software engineer. That was the plan all along, and I never really considered any alternatives. After a while, though, I started to wonder if this was really how I wanted to kick off my post-college life. I was searching for a sense of adventure and independence, and I wasn't finding it at my desk job. I had thought about traveling before, but I always figured that it would be something I did after I retired and could live off my nest egg. Eventually, I decided:

Screw that. I'm going now.

So, basically, I will be spending the first half of 2005 (maybe longer) backpacking through New Zealand, Europe, and other strange and exotic locales. I will be living day-to-day with minimal extended planning. Exactly where I'll be at any given moment is a mystery, and I expect the trip to evolve, literally, right before my eyes.

This blog will be a written record of my journey. It will also be a tool to stay in touch with friends, family, and people I might meet along the way. I hope to keep it regularly updated with fresh thoughts, feelings, observations, and images from my travels.

I won't actually depart for New Zealand (the first stop on my trip) until January 2005, so you can expect things to be pretty quiet for a while. In the weeks and months leading up to that day, I'll start posting more as I complete my preparations. And once I actually embark, it will be a veritable post-o-rama (hopefully).

So sit back, relax, and strap on your seat belt. You've never been on a ride like this before.