My Story

Life is an adventure. I've seen two faces of Everest up close. I've roamed the back alleys of bazaars in Cairo. I've slept on a remote island beach in the Red Sea.

Before all that, and other adventures, I spent my youth growing up right here in Central Florida, calling Cocoa, Merritt Island and Orlando my home at various times before getting my degree in Journalism at the University of Florida in Gainesville. I worked for the DeLand Sun News, and later the Daytona Beach News-Journal, before heading off to Eritrea, a small country in North Africa, to teach English as a volunteer with the Peace Corps. One afternoon, sitting in my home on the edge of the desert, I read a letter from a friend who said she was offered a chance to go to Singapore, but she preferred to go to London. I decided then that Singapore could be my next adventure and it was. I came back to the U.S., joined Dow Jones Newswires in New York and eventually moved to Singapore, where I lived for six years -- in my spare time taking up diving, sign language and Aikido while failing miserably at my stabs at the piano and the guitar. After a short time back in New York, I decided the Philippines was calling and moved there for about a year with the Asian Development Bank. I loved Manila but decided to return to New York for another few years with Dow Jones before finally finding my way back home to Central Florida.

Now, I live in Port St. John with Jack, a black Lab from the Philippines who knows Tigrinya (that's the language in Eritrea), but not Tagalog; a tabby named Duma, which means "cat" in Tigrinya; another tabby name Nyima, which is "sun" in Tibetan; and the most recent addition Stella, a very lovable but also very large Great Dane-Leopard Catahoula mix I inherited from my brother.

My adventure continues.......