Indelible Adventures: 2016

Friday, December 30, 2016

Naples - overlooked and underrated...

Come check out my latest blog on my new website:

http://indelibleadventures.com/2016/12/30/naples-overlooked-and-underrated/ ‎

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Rome - the eternal city!

Come visit my new website and home for my blog. This weeks blog is about my current adventure in Rome - the eternal city.

Enjoy!

TW

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Welcome to the new Indelible Adventures!

I'm so excited to introduce you to the new Indelible Adventures website. I've been working on this for about a month now and want to thank my team - Deepi, Olivia and Daniel and his team at NOW Creative, as you'll see they have done an magnificent job in making me look really good! Lol

This site is a one-stop shop for all things "Indelible" or "adventure", depending on how you feel on any given day. It incorporates a host of features and functions that used to reside in various links and sites not integrated into my old site.

Please feel free to explore my site at your leisure, and you'll notice for those who read my weekly blog it's integrated into my site (select Blog on the header navigation bar) to enjoy my weekly story.

Thank you for continuing to show your support for me and my journey with Indelible Adventures. I would love your thought, comments and feedback about my new site.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

p.s. My blog will now reside on my website

Friday, December 9, 2016

340

Welcome to Indelible Adventures! If you enjoy what you read here please subscribe to my weekly distribution list via the Indelible Adventures website or browse my latest photos and upcoming adventures and travel tips. In addition, if you'd like to follow me on all my social media - see the links below.

Facebook - Google+ - Twitter - Instagram - LinkedIn - ImageBrief - National Geographic

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some might say that 340 is enough, others may argue that it’s merely a start and, then there are others who may not care… I’ve always been interested in statistics and analytics of any given situation so today as I began thinking about this weeks blog I pondered my writing journey and career so far.

On average my weekly blogs are about 1,000 words give or take a couple of words…some weeks more, other weeks less but if we averaged it out its somewhere in that vicinity. So let’s see we have 340 blog posts, from four blog series:

· Kokoda Preparation (17)

· Disheveled Musings (41)

· Hanoi Posting – The serial (58) - current

· Indelible Adventures (224) - current

Which brings us to a tidy 340,000 words written in my weekly format, and doesn’t include the business and travel articles that I’ve also written and published over the past five years. Most books have between 250 – 300 words per page, which would bring me to 1,360 pages if they were all in one book.

However, what’s most scary is that when you hold up against a monumental piece of work like “War and Peace” just as an example, not that I’m in anyway considering myself a literary giant in the realms of Leo Tolstoy or anything but to give you some perspective in terms of sheer scale of what we’re analyzing here, his masterpiece was 1,225 pages (English version). Although to be fair the original Russian version was 1,440 pages.

Yes, I had one of those holy shit moments!

Now this got me thinking, cos whenever I think of “big books” my mind automatically rushes to War and Peace. However, after a little digging I found that the longest single story was entitled “Men of Goodwill” written by Jules Romain and published between 1932 and 1946 with a whopping 2,070,000 words which to be fair leaves my paltry 340,000 miserably wanting...

I know what you’re thinking, how on earth could you make a book with 8,280 pages? Well, you don’t actually, because as Jules would find out they couldn’t bind his chef-d'oeuvre (great masterpiece) with so many pages, so to make it more manageable the publishers turned it into a 27 books over 14 volumes, which is still a 307 page book if you do the average words per page.

Staggering is right! Although to be fair to Jules it was its life’s work so you have to admire his stick-to-it-iv-ness over 14 solid years to plough through his story of French life from 1908 to 1933.

Again, if you do the math (cos you know I did) its only about 405 words per day, although it is everyday for 14 straight years… Apparently the one downfall of Jules work is that there is no central figure, protagonist or family in this rambling story but rather a huge cast of characters with each volume’s stories delving into a segment of French society during that period - riveting stuff!

Interestingly, Jules was not just a one-book wonder…no, far from it! In fact he was a prolific writer and poet and published many works over his lifetime.

Aren’t analytics great? For starters without me getting under the covers of my short literary (okay, maybe not exactly literary but you know what I mean) :-) career you wouldn’t have learned about the longest book ever published, nor the interesting facts behind War and Peace. Ha!

The thing that strikes me most about writing is that I can sit and write for hours and never have a problem coming up with things to write about. I suppose its one of the thing that Jules and I do share is a love of the written word, you might also throw in there the cast of characters and topics I've covered.

Seriously the words just flow like water from a tap when I sit down to write – but you already knew that. :-)

The most difficult thing about writing is capturing your audience’s attention week in and week out, especially given the gazillion other bloggers, storytellers and writers who ply their trade on the Internet…

Certainly there is no shortage of great writers out there covering every topic known to man and to be honest I’m not sure if helps me or hurts my chances of getting repeat readers given the range of topics I’ve covered over the years - life with Zach and Sami, my travel adventures peppered with stories of growing up in Australia.

As I move to my new website in the coming weeks, I’ll also be transitioning to hosting my blogs rather than using this site. The tricky part is to work out what to do with all of my work created to date – I already have a plan to capture it and store it and perhaps even republish some of the most popular stories from over the past five years. It’s important to ensure that I continue to engage my existing readers and engage new ones, especially considering the 250,000 that have read them so far.

Makes you wonder if Leo or Jules ever had to worry about building their “brand” like we do today? I’m sure in their day they had their literary reputations to consider so had a different type of pressure to withstand. What I’ve come to realize is that the underlying human experience hasn’t really changed much over the centuries.

Greater knowledge and enabling technologies have provided us a faster paced world in which we can arguably do anything and everything our hearts desire – including me become a writer...

Yes, I’m sure they’d be turning in their graves if they only knew!

Until next week....

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Hanoi Posting” A series of fictional micro-stories by Terence Wallis

Come visit "Hanoi Posting" at its new home!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Down to the last few days of this years 30 for 30 photo essay from my unpublished archives, I hope you've been enjoying these as much as I have curating them for you.

Enjoy!

TW

Stresa - ferry times on Lago Maggiore

Bells Beach - one of the most famous surf beaches
in the world and host to last years World Championship on
Australia's south coast

Ernest Hemingway's house in Key West, Florida - cool sculpture

Good old Aussie magpie!

You never know what you're going to find by the beach
Point Lonsdale, Australia

A beautiful rose bouquet at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colorado

The Speak easy's mirror

Inner city laundromat

Toronto's Flatiron building - iconic to say the least

Honest Ed's last days....set to be demolished in Jan/Feb 2017. It's been such a landmark
in Toronto for more than 70 years. So sad to see it go

Tis' the season on the Danforth - in Toronto's east end
my neighborhood!

Friday, December 2, 2016

Redefined...

Facebook - Google+ - Twitter - Instagram - LinkedIn - ImageBrief - National Geographic

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For those who don’t know me they may look at my lifestyle, and all that I have before me and dismiss it as luck, or as I’ve been called a few times “a trust fund baby”. Ouch! That one gets me every time I have to tell you because if they only knew the real story…

Yeah, the exterior can be deceiving.

I suppose for the most part you only see what I want you to see – the part that is successful and has the world at his feet. However, what you don’t see are the countless hours each day and night, with the extremely early mornings where I need to fit in a ton of tasks and activities before my day gets going. Clearly boundless energy and a deep desire to be successful are essential.

Trust me I couldn’t be more content! These aren’t meant as complaints but the reality of every business owner who strives to be the best at what they do.

As a single parent I know I’m fortunate, as not only do I have two fabulous kids who are bright, well mannered and easy to get along with, whom some might say is a bit of an anomaly considering they’re teens, but along with that I’ve have created a lifestyle that you could only dream about.

Do I have lots of money…no, do I live in a large fancy house or mansion…no, or have lots of toys (okay to be honest I have a really nice car – yes, my guilty pleasure) but other than that not so much.

Creating a business model where I can do this has been fun and now I'm getting to live the life I've always wanted - full of travel and doing the things I'm passionate about...sounds like contentment. Isn't that all what we strive for?

I guess my priorities since the end of my marriage have been shaped by my deep desire and yearning to create life where I can travel, with or without my kids a few times per year. The second part is to have flexibility in my life so that I can do this seemingly whenever I choose – yes, on my terms.

A great example of this is the numerous trips I’ve taken this year. When you add them up it comes to 12 weeks of travel this year alone if you include my upcoming trip to Italy over Christmas, and already have a slew of trips planned for 2017. Some of these are fully baked and paid for, others semi planned but in the coming months they will get finalized. A pick list:

· January – Italy

· February – New York City (with Sami to make up for not being able to come to Boston)

· March - Iceland (March break with the kids)

· May - California

· July – Israel (with Zach to watch Sami compete at the International Maccabiah Games)

· August – Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary (2 weeks backpacking with Zach)

· September – Western Canada / North East US (depending on Craig & Audrey's visit)

· October – Morocco

My annual business planning goes hand in hand with my travel and so when I’m thinking about what I want my business to achieve next year I’m also thinking about the places I want to go and explore.

The focus is to continue to capture via the lens and the pen the essence of my travel, primarily so that I can continue to build out my portfolio of photography but also capture these adventures in future stories, blogs and articles that I want to write and publish.

What I’m really excited about is my new website. Firstly, I want to create a one-stop shop for all my photography, blogs including a store where you’ll be able to buy with the click of a button some of my hi-res photos, books etc. Perhaps over time expand my offerings to provide other essential travel items and fun stuff. Time will tell I guess :-)

In addition, it will be a place for me to share my new travel videos that I plan to pilot while I’m in Italy and also give you options in terms of booking me for speaking engagements, executive coaching and consulting.

Yes, its going to be awesome! Even if my web design company says so, no seriously I've been working with the team on the wire frames and developing content and getting closer with each week.

As well, I've even engaged a couple of part timers who will be focusing on developing and managing my social media campaigns and online presence via other channels, so all in all its going to be a fantastic start to 2017.

Stay tuned for more tidbits as we get closer to launch.

Ciao ciao!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Hanoi Posting” A series of fictional micro-stories by Terence Wallis

Come visit "Hanoi Posting" at its new home!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you're enjoying this years 30 for 30 photo essay running Nov 15 to Dec 15th, these are photos from my archive that will not quite make it into the top 30 but are close.

Enjoy!

TW

The Atrium on Bay - from the ground up...cool view

Hong Kong Island from Victoria Peak

Toronto streetcar or tram on the Queen Street route

Toronto's abandoned waterfront in the east end, soon to be redeveloped

The chalet at the top of the Grouse Grind in Vancouver, BC

San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts in all its splendor -
cool night shot!

Soldiers & Sailors monument with christmas lights in Indianapolis

The Ponte Vecchio in Firenze spanning the Arno river, as it has for centuries

Friday, November 25, 2016

Rituals and traditions

Facebook - Google+ - Twitter - Instagram - LinkedIn - ImageBrief - National Geographic

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you ever wonder where your family rituals and traditions come from? To be honest we didn’t have a lot of rituals or traditions growing up but the one that sticks in my mind is when we would all gather to spend either Christmas day or Boxing day together. Yes, we celebrate Boxing Day in Australia, and love nothing better than taking it easy, perhaps BBQ'ing and oh, definitely a game of backyard cricket. :-) So for at least one day each year we'd all try and get together an be in one place at one time. It was a wonderfully comforting experience to see everyone at once.

Certainly, tougher than it sounds with five kids, often spread all over the continent or world (oh, that would just be me), then on top of that balancing spouses and kids in addition to siblings. As you’d imagine it always took a bit of organizing to coordinate. However, for the most part we tried to make it home and celebrate this one time of the year, mostly for mum.

The last one I remember attending was my final in Australia, way back in 1987. It was a bittersweet Christmas, and the first since mum had died in April that year and so a little somber and not quite the same as before. I think we were all missing mum, who had been the larger than life matriarch of the family, and although in ailing health for many years still commanded the attention of us all, but that was then…

So it was interesting when I spoke to my sister recently and asked her what they were doing for Christmas she replied that they would have lunch with the kids that could make it (she has three grown kids, with six grandchildren) and then spend time with Max’s family later in the day. Of course, I then enquired if the family was going to gather…sadly no and that they hadn’t gathered for many years.

Huh, did I miss the memo on that one???

The closest I came to being home for Christmas was back in 2010 when dad was sick and in the last months of his life, but even then I was back in North America (Canada and Florida) for Christmas and New Year and wasn’t a party to family activities, in fact I can't even remember if everyone got together...

I have to admit it’s sad to imagine that that tradition is no more. I suppose given that I’ve lived in Canada for so long (almost half of my life…yikes!) then layer in the fact that for the past 20 plus years I’ve been too engaged with my family here to get beyond much more than a phone call to wish everyone ‘our best’ for Christmas and New Year.

Interestingly, both Zach and Sami said that the best part about our trip to Australia in March was the family get together’s where everyone would congregate in one place, much like our Christmas/Boxing days of yore and for at least a few hours got a taste of the complete and utter bedlam of my side of the family (yes, we're a boisterous bunch - no surprise there I suppose?).

It’s a shame that they don’t have more interaction with their first and second cousins on an ongoing basis, but that’s what happens when you live half way around the world I suppose.

As you know for the past four years I’ve been working on creating our own little family rituals for just the three of us.

Not all of them are travel based, although we love a good road trip and generally hit the road a couple of times per year. For the past few years we’ve driven to Florida from Toronto around Christmas using a few different routes, which is just over a 5,000km round trip. I may be the crazy one here (hey, that’s your outside voice!) but I personally love taking long slow road trips with Zach & Sami.

We have our own rituals when we’re on the road, whether its in North America or internationally.

Namely Sami is our resident foodie and so arranges all of our meals, including booking restaurants and finding cool and off the beaten track places to eat while Zach is chief navigator and neighborhood DJ - each nicely complimenting the other.

I guess the other traditions are the weekend brunches with them each individually. Zach has a firm favorite downtown where her can get the breakfast Poutine; I mean to say who doesn’t love Poutine? Whereas, Sam is more eclectic in her choices and enjoys trying new places on for our brunch outings.

All great rituals and traditions, but probably not your average everyday family ones. If I think about the traditions that most families have in North America they're mostly centered around the big days - Thanksgiving and Hanukkah/Christmas.

Let me see - growing up in Australia there is no concept of Thanksgiving, especially given that our first settlers were mostly convicts and not so happy to be downunder in the first place. Maybe a non-Thanksgiving is more appropriate in Australia?

The second is around the Jewish holidays (yes, my ex was Jewish and therefore so are Zach and Sami). Even at my place we still observe Hanukkah with the lighting of the Menorah and singing of the blessing each year - it's a nice reminder and connection to their early childhoods and a firm family favourite.

This year I'm heading to Italy for Christmas instead of our usual road trip, as I had the kids and took them to Australia for March break so traded the week at March for the week I would normally have them in December.

It won't be the same without them but hopefully being in Italy will soften the blow...hey, that's a personal tradition - being in Italy as much as I can that is. :-)

Here's to family rituals and traditions and may we all create many more!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hanoi Posting” A series of fictional micro-stories by Terence Wallis

Come visit "Hanoi Posting" at its new home!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you'r enjoying this years 30 for 30 photo essay running Nov 15 to Dec 15, this is an additional selection of photos that are from my archives that will not make the top 30.

Enjoy!