I'm Jake and I'm Here!

What the heck is going on? There I was minding my own business, scratching my nose with my big toe (quite a feat - you should try it sometime), I was warm & happy; suspended in my own little cocoon, supplied with all the food I could possible need. Alright, maybe it was just a wee bit cramped, but I was managing. Then BAM-O, all of a sudden my world explodes. Hands reach in and yank me from my cozy environment into bright, blaring lights. All these masked faces stare down at me; poking, rubbing, sticking things up my nose. I do the only thing I can think of - start wailing, I'm hoping that they will just put me back. But it was quite obvious at this point that I was stuck here - there was no going back. I might as well make the best of it. Really I should have known it was coming. Mom & Dad had been talking about the "big day" for weeks now. More than once I'd overheard them saying how excited they were that they were finally going to meet me. And Mom, she just kept going on and on about how happy she was going to be to finally have me out ... I believe her exact words were "I'm done with this pregnancy". Mom & Dad were both convinced that I'd come early, but they just don't know how good I had it, nope I was in for the long haul. Of course it was a bit annoying when they would keep pushing and tapping my head - apparently trying to direct me into an upside down position. I tried to turn for them, but my goodness look at the size of my head (38cm to be exact)! Every time I attempted to flip, my gigantic head got stuck ... it's not my fault - have you seen their heads??? It's not like I asked to be in the +90-percentile head range! Plus I had to show them who was boss - come on if I had just turned easy as pie, then what kind of child would I be - it is my duty to push back and do things my way ... I needed to start my parental training ASAP! I am a bit bummed for Mom since she had to have a cesarean section, but she keeps telling me that it's okay as long as I'm healthy. Anyway, I'll fill you in on all the details in my next post (gotta keep this one short after all the trauma I've been through).

At least now I have a real name. I was really starting to get worried when they wouldn't stop calling me Zephyr Raul, or Zeph for short. Apparently they decided they needed a name for me in the interim. Raul came from my six year old cousin, Preston. No idea where he got that name - he doesn't even know any Raul's, but he was so adorable when he asked Mom if she would name me Raul that Mom couldn't help calling me that. Dad liked Zephyr though - he wanted a 'joke' name handy when people asked ... he figured that then, no matter what they named me in the end, everyone would be pleased because it just had to be better then Zeph. I must say that I was quite worried for awhile. It wasn't until just a few days before my birth that they finally got around to picking a name. I was sure I would be born nameless. So, let me formally introduce myself, I am Jake Dylan Myles. Mom & Dad have been practicing my name - especially yelling out JAKE! in somewhat disciplinary tones (hmmm what kind of child do they think I will be?). While Jake is a pretty simple name and they picked it only because they like the sound of it, Dylan was chosen for two reasons ... first its origin (Welsh/Celtic) means "born of the ocean; son of the sea" ... how appropriate for two sailors! Secondly my Mom was so pleased to learn that her great-great grandfather was Charles Dillon ... she really wanted my middle name to be connected with her side of the family (since my lastname, Myles, comes from Dad's side). Now, I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but apparently the Dillon's are circus people, still touring (with the Barnum & Bailey circus) ... maybe I'm looking at my future career!

I suppose that overall things "outside" aren't so bad. I must say that I am definitely not starved for love or attention. And it is nice to finally meet Mom & Dad, although I can tell I've got a lot of work to do training them on this parenting thing! Mom & Dad have also been talking all about my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and so many friends that they are excited for me to meet when we all move back to the States.

Mom tells me everyone will want to know my "stats", so here you go:

• Birthday: June 27, 2009 (I share my birthday with my Uncle Jason)
• Length: 53 cm (20.87 inches for you non-metric folks)
• Weight: 4550 grams (10 lbs) ... no jokes please, yes I'm a big one

You can find out more in the "world passport" Mom & Dad made for me.

View more photos from Picasa

View Larger Image of Birth Announcement

Continue reading "I'm Jake and I'm Here!"...

Facebook relationships = modern love notes?

Remember those days when you could have entire relationships just by using a friend to pass notes to your love interest during class or in the hall?

The question can be adjusted as necessary:

• older generation (you know who you are)
  replace friend with carrier pigeon
• What's a note? (i.e. younger generation)
  replace notes with text messages (or IM)
  .. IM (that's instant messaging in case you old farts can't keep up)

Everything from "do you want to go out with me?" to the dreaded "Dear John (or Jane)" letter could occur without the two parties talking or even being in the same room together.

Facebook Basics

First, all you non-Facebook users need to understand the basics. You have a group of registered friends that get updated when you update information about yourself or your interests. It is a great way to share information with friends without broadcasting it to the world (like on a blog) .

You can change your relationship status:


and even link to another Facebook member (via the to...). When you change your status it gets published as an update to all of your friends, and appears like this:



Our Facebook Initiation

When we first signed up we didn't really understand how it works, so we signed up as our boat! We wanted one place to share our content and the setup worked just like all the other sites. We entered Sail as the first name and Billabong as the last name and voila, we were social networking our buns off.

Later, after we realized the social nature of "find a friend", we added our individual accounts. KT started first but I couldn't be bothered, so I added her in my relationship status on the SailBillabong account. Her long lost high school friends must have wondered, who dates a guy named Sail?

The Love Triangle

It all started after I signed up and KT changed her relationship to point to me (the human.. not the boat). I got this request via email:

"KT said on Facebook that you two are in a relationship. We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, in a relationship with KT.".

At first I was a little miffed.. "in a relationship", I thought we were involved in something just a little more than that. After all, we were on our 5+ year sailing adventure. We never separated from each other by more 40 feet.. 24/7/365.. *5. Then I saw the options..



and was actually relieved that she didn't pick one of the others: like Single, It's Complicated or In an Open Relationship.

Dumped

Everything was fine; we were enjoying our connected status in the public forum of our friends. It got really funny when our boat email received a message similar to:

"KT on Facebook has ended your relationship."

The boat got dumped and it didn't even have an option to accept it. It was Facebook's version of the Dear John note.

Public Facebook Relationships - Issues and Questions

This all got me thinking about the complexity of modern relationships in an instantly connected world. I have so many basic questions. Do friends get to watch their friends have fights on facebook.. oohhh they're together, now they're not, together.. not. With instant messaging this could all happen within the span of five minutes. Is it a race to see who dumps who first? What if you hit traffic on the way to your computer and she changes her status first? Is it proper etiquette to add a special status just to prove you really dumped her?

Note: the following does not apply directly to my relationship style. Anyone who knows me (i.e. in the "real world"), knows that I'm a one woman kind of guy.

Courtship

Say you meet someone in a bar and they invite you to Facebook. Do you quickly check to see what status they have posted? Do you check to see if they have a "history"; i.e. their status bounces around like a rubber ball? If it does; have you just joined a social networked filled with X-partners? I wonder if anyone has written a relationship status tracker that plots the frequency of changes (sorry geek thought). This might even raise another question: At what point do you invite your love interest to join your network?

Only One?

They only give you one entry to fill out on the to: entry. Hmm.. I've got friends that like to juggle two, three, maybe even four relationships (sorry Phil.. name changed to protect the guilty), all at once. Personally that sounds like a nightmare. What should you put for your status? Single, nope! In a relationship, you're walking a fine line with the truth. At least In an Open Relationship would be honest. I can see the argument now: "But honey I told you about our Open relationship on Facebook".. when they get busted. Additional Note: any of my "real" friend's girlfriends that might be reading this should realize friends is a term I use loosely; I'm not talking about your boyfriend.

When do you go public?

Forget about the standard questions: "when should I call her?", "is it too soon?", "when do I say I love you?".. this is a true modern day public display of affection. If you change your status too soon and it fizzles, you have to change it back and you'll look like a relationship-jumper. If you wait too long you'll appear lame like us; KT just updated her profile to say she is married to me. A few important side notes: our son is being born this week and we've been married for quite some time.

I just got this request via email.

"KT said on Facebook that you two are married. We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, married to KT." and it provides a link to accept the request.

What do you think.. Should I accept?

You can tell when family doesn't read your own blogs, nobody has even said yes.. you dumb @$#!

Continue reading "Facebook relationships = modern love notes?"...

Welcome to the Myles Crew

Alright, so do we really need another blog? Well I guess so - or maybe we are just addicted to this blogging thing. I don't know, but one thing is for sure - we've got some BIG changes coming and what better way to capture them than a blog? How else can we tell the story of how two nearly middle-aged folks end their 5-1/2 cruise around* the world to return to land, jobs, and kids? (*For all you sticklers for details, no we did not actually go all the way around).

Really though, there are a number of good reasons for this blog ...

- With family & friends on both coasts (or as my Dad likes to put it, with us living in "that foreign country of MA/RI") and scattered throughout the world, we need an easy way to keep in touch and share our lives, especially with a new crew member just a week away from arriving.

- Someday my son (or other children) may ask for a scrapbook - I doubt he will be impressed with a hard drive full of random, unorganized photos, so maybe, just maybe, this blog will keep us on top of things. And, as an added bonus, when our children start dating (God forbid) we can give out the blog address to potential love interests, with all the embarrassing naked photos and videos included!!!

- Other sailors, cruisers, and/or adventurers out there (even those armchair travelers) who have been following our cruise over the last 5-1/2 years may be interested in just how we adjust back in "the real world". How will we survive with jobs (especially only two-weeks vacation) ? Can two travelers really be happy land-locked?

- How about a fresh perspective? Think about it, we have been "out of touch" for nearly six years, imagine what surprises (and difficulties) we are about to discover! During our trip most of our communication was accomplished via email; no cell phones or instant contact. We didn't even have an internet connection 99% of the time (heaven forbid)!! While our generation struggles with the imponderable question "do I take the $$ hit and upgrade to the latest and greatest iphone", we struggle to adjust to the basics like..

• Not jumping when any phone rings (especially the one in our pocket!)
• Which button do I press to answer it? (yeah we know .. the green one)
• Even our parents have cell phones!! (how embarrassing to be less savvy then them)
• And the ever so popular text messages (it takes us ten minutes just to write one sentence)

Re-integration begins.

Anyway, that's our justification for this blog.
If you've stumbled upon this blog by accident and are now wondering, "what is this cruise they are talking about", may we recommend you check out our sailing blog and/or website.

You can also read a bit more about us on the Meet the Crew post.
Continue reading "Welcome to the Myles Crew"...

Meet the Crew

About the Myles Crew ...

Chris & KT met many, many years ago, and after being friends for nearly 11 years finally started dating, which led to the crazy plan of quitting their jobs and sailing about the world (see how it began). It was probably mostly luck that allowed things to align and timing to work out such that they could set off cruising in December 2003. Five and a-half years and over 28,000 miles later they landed in Turkey and decided it was time to return to the "real world".

As of June 22, 2009 they will be officially homeless, having sold their trusty yacht, Billabong, to some good folks from Australia. Their first son (Jake) is expected to arrive by June 27th, and their planned return to the States (Massachusetts) is September 23, 2009. No doubt that between living back in the working world and their newborn crew .. they are in for a wild ride!

Quick bios & photos of Chris, KT, Jake, and Billabong coming soon.
Continue reading "Meet the Crew"...