'Gusto' Manifesto

"I want to lead an interesting life."

So began one entry in a journal I began in 1995, the year I left the United States to begin working in Europe.

The sentiment was sincere, even if the words were banal.

So far, I think I'm succeeding.

I live and work in a foreign country that always surprises me.

I travel a lot.

I share my life with a gorgeous woman, Daisy, and her bright and beautiful daughter, Emma.

I like to eat and drink and write and take photographs. I'm an amateur bartender.

I play squash and cycle and am eager, if a little nervous, to get back on the golf course again after a year or two hiatus.

To put it simply, I find life interesting. I've always said how much fun it is to be an adult. You can do whatever you feel like doing. No one can tell you no. And I feel like I'm in a race to experience it all before something happens.

As I wrote rather melodramatically in my journal in 1995, "When are the bad things coming?"

I'm a passionate man, and I am passionate about many things. I can talk for hours about one of my literary heroes, Ernest Hemingway, appreciating the flinty prose in his early work while dismissing the mushy self-parody of his later novels. I can also talk at length about Froot Loops, and why it's the best breakfast cereal ever created.

I love listening to Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, and Stravinsky, but also The Doors, AC/DC, Steve Reich, Maximo Park and Lucinda Williams.

You can even find the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls on my iPod.

I've gone hot-air ballooning, scuba diving, whitewater rafting, and bunjee-jumping. I once drove a BMW 850i at 150 mph (240 kph) on the autobahn. I spent four weeks reporting from Afghanistan in 2002, and once performed my own jokes onstage at a comedy club. (Guess which one was scarier.)

In short, I like to think that I approach life with a certain, well, gusto, while also trying not to take myself too seriously.

It's always fun to hang out with others who share the same interests you do. That's why I created this blog. And I hope that's why you've stopped by.

As Papa himself said, "My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way."

That's a worthy goal, truly.

Let's get started.