A new friend, a new laptop, and more

In mid-December, as I was riding home from ViLa's shop, I came up on a backpacker sitting at the side of the street hunched over either a phone or a map (I approached from behind, so I couldn't tell).

I stopped to ask, "Can I help you find something?" and was greeting with a HUGE smile!

Say hello! to Vicky

Vicky had just hit town and was trying to find her hostel. Yes, you can get there from here, but it's going to take a bit of doing... and I'm unsure I can explain it, even with a map.

I offered to guide her, and she said, "Yes, please!" Although I wasn't sure of the exact location, I knew I could get her close... and we ended up finding it on the first try. We talked for a bit and Vicky told me that she wanted to find some warm clothes (a common request by newcomers who are used to the year-round tropical weather of Saigon and much of SE Asia) and a mechanic to look at her bike. We agreed to meet again after she had a chance to shower and change so that I could take her to ViLa's second-hand clothing shop and to a mechanic Gee and I found a few months ago who's since done quite a few quality repairs for me.

Vicky and I talked quite a bit over the next few days and I'm very proud to say that in her blog she calls me her guardian angel in Vietnam.

Beyond that, her blog gives her very interesting insights into a solo trip throughout SE Asia. She's currently in Laos, her blog is called I Travel, I Become, and I highly recommend it. I'll let her tell you more about the time we got to share...

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At this point in my life, I've been to 1/4 of the 52 Places to go in 2016... and I live in one of them (#30). Going to be a busy year if I hope to get to the rest of them ;-)

I was a bit surprised that Son Doong Cave is NOT on the list. Maybe because it's very limited access and all spots for 2016 are sold out?

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A little over a month ago, I wrote about the instantaneous death of my laptop's hard drive. While waiting everything to download from the cloud into my backup laptop, I purchased a MacBook Pro. I then put it in the safe and went to Thailand for a motorcycle adventure — to be covered here later and subsequently in my book, ideas for which are currently fermenting somewhere in my subconscious.

Now that I'm back, I'm slowly climbing the learning curve and occasionally back-sliding. I've learned that a two-finger tap on the touchpad is equivalent to the PC's right-click; that "Delete" is the same as "Backspace" on the PC; that there is no key similar to the "Delete" key on a PC; "PageDown" and "PageUp" are now Option-DownArrow and Option-UpArrow; that a three-finger swipe on the touchpad will take me through each of the open windows one at a time; and that my head will most likely not explode, at least not because of the PC-to-Mac switch. I'm still looking for the equivalent to the PC's keys for "Home" and "End". There are also a number of things I've not yet thought to look for (just wanted the "End" key again) and I'm sure that at least one will make itself known soon.

I like the F3 key that shows me all open windows.

Carbonate can't download files to a Mac that were uploaded from a PC (just needed "End" two more times), so I had to make sure EVERYTHING was on the backup PC before I could start backing up the Mac because they delete all your files when you switch within an account. That was a little scary.

Now it will take a couple weeks to put everything back into Carbonite's cloud... awaiting the next big crash.

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So far, I'm liking the Mac and LOVING the Retina display — it's the same as on the newer iPads and amazingly bright and clear. Every image can now look like the old Cibachrome prints.

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Old technology that I'd never heard of... I want one!
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