A View from The Other Side
Well, it’s been a minute, as they say.
I would say that my family’s current epoch started about a year ago, around the time I purchased the Apple Vision Pro visual computing device (VR goggles…). I was recounting the last year in an email, and it was a real feature length movie of activities. The center wasn’t necessarily around technology, but there sure was a lot of it.
Back in Feb. of 2024, I purchased my AVP. Once summer hit, we ended up heading to Denver Colorado to meet up with Stewart Tucker Lundy. Stewart is an irascible quadriplegic who was doing quite fine in the world before I ever met him. We put the AVP on his head, and in his view, it’s as if a who new world opened up for him. I mean, VR goggles are great for watching movies on a giant screen 1 inch from your eyes, but when you have a tool such as this, that’s really great at eye tracking, has low latency, and gives your hours of comfort, it can actually change your view of the world, and how you can interact in it.
Well, we went on from there, visiting family in California, and Arizona over the rest of the summer. Not a lot of tech, but a lot of beaches, sun, and more sun.
Come October, it was time to head to Saudi Arabia to have a religious experience, then on to India to meet up with family we hadn’t seen since before the pandemic (about 5 years). By December, we had returned to the US, and decided it was worth establishing a home on the other side of the world, so that a visits could be more frequent, and more comfortable. I’ve already documented the lead up to that departure, so here I want to talk about what’s happened since.
If you’ve never had the experience of setting up a home half way around the world, I can tell you, it’s quite a bit of work. First of all, we did not bring any of our stuff (as yes), just suitcases and backpacks. Our first landing was in a hotel room for 10 days, while we tried to figure out a good living situation. Well, it takes more than 10 days to find a house or apartment that you can buy or rent. So, our next move was into a serviced apartment for 28 days. Of course we need some transportation of our own, because using taxis and relatives is inconvenient and expensive over time. So, a ‘scooty’ was purchased as our first vehicle.