Living in Grand Cayman

This post is quite off topic with regards to the Cayman Islands. I feel many of my readers (from the emails I get and stats, there are quite a few of you) may be interested by what I will say here.

A very good friend of mine, Peter Schwarz, just wrote a book. The title of the book is, as you may have guessed, “Staying young for life”. A picture of the book can be seen here.

Peter gave me a copy a copy of his book when I was in Montreal a month or so ago. I read the book in only a few sittings and found it to be an entertaining and exceptionally refreshing book. Peter writes about all kinds of strange experiences and funny situations he has been in and how he has stayed “young” all of these years. I have known Peter for almost 13 years now and I must say, I have never met anyone like him.

Ok, so whats the big deal you may be saying! Who is this Peter guy and why would he be writing about how to stay young? Here is the punch : Peter is 89 years old! He is legally blind yet typed the book 100% on his own on his personal computer, got it published and is now selling it on his website and on Amazon.com very soon. He also still travels extensively, works 6-7 days a week at his travel business and is 100% “all there”. He always gets the newest gadgets and uses the Internet extensively. He even created his own Facebook profile! How many 89 year olds do you know who do that? Peter is in many ways “younger” than many people who are 30 years younger than he is. If you ever struck up a conversation with Peter, you would never know he is almost 90 years old.

In his book, Peter talks about when he met the Dalai Lama, bought a Harley-Davidson at the age of 75, met Lyndon Johnson, Audrey Hepburn & Huphrey Bogart, owned a nightclub and many other amazing situations. If the name “Forrest Gump” comes to mind, you would be right on. I know for a fact those events happened, since over the years, Peter has showed me some of the pictures of those celebrity meetings. This book is not at all theoretical! Its all life experiences and how staying young is all attitude and has nothing to do with the date written on your drivers license.

I highly recommend this book for people of all ages, as it will give you a new perspective on life and make some of your problems look quite small compared to the trouble Peter has ran into in his life and how he deal with it, something he discusses in his book.

For more information and to get a copy of this book, simply visit

http://www.stayingyoungforlife.com

For the record : Peter is not paying me any commissions on sales. He can be reached by email at peter@schwarz.ca

Also, for those who are not familiar with buying stuff via the Internet, Peter is using “Paypal” for payment, which is one of the most secure ways to purchase stuff online.

Julie & I took a 3-week vacation to Quebec.   What better place to be in September.  Its still quite warm, the scenery changes daily as the leafs change color, the air is crisp in the morning, etc.

We stayed at a lakeside cabin about 1h15m drive from Montreal.  It was just close enough to be able to go to town 1-2 times a week and also to invite people for a BBQ on week-ends.  All in all, we had a great time.  We were able to see our families & friends. I even had lunch with my former co-workers.  I also had time to quench Big-Mac, Marathon Souvlaki & Tim Horton’ cravings.

Below are a few pictures of the vacation.

A picture with my niece and nephew!  We visited a few farms on a “farm open house day” that is organized each year where you can visit hundreds of farms province wide. Its great fun … seriously!

The view from our cabin at sunset.  Its not 7-mile beach but quite nice also 🙂

A flock of Geese stopped by for a rest during their southbound migration

The fishing did not go too well!  That was one very small Bass.

Typical Quebec countryside picture.  Gorgeous!

Last week I was in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada for the annual BlackHat and Defcon hacker conferences. I say in my title that I was in “HOT Las Vegas” thats because it was extremenly hot outside.  On sunday, it was 110 degrees outside.  The best way to describe the heat is when you are making something in the oven and open the door to check if your food is ready ; it was that hot!  My high school buddy, Mathieu, who now lives in Toronto, joined me in Las Vegas for 3 days; we had a great time visiting the hotels, walking around “The Strip”, seeing the sights and taking a drive to Hoover dam on the last day.

Here is the hotel I stayed at ; the Treasure Island. It is right on Las Vegas Boulevard in the thick of things.

My two KPMG-Montreal hacker buddies Benoit-Luc and Jean-Sébastien assisted the conferences. It was great to see them.  We had a great time!

At the Defcon there is a public wireless network people can use to check their email, surf the web, etc.  However, it is dubbed “the most hostile network in the world”.  If you happen to check your email without any encryption (security), they will capture your password and put you to shame on this board for everyone to see that you dont practice good security. Considering that everyone who assists are security professionnals, it does not look very good.

One evening, Mathieu & I went up the Stratosphere tower.  I was really happy to see Mathieu and spend some quality time with him ; both us us are really busy guys and of course we live 3000km away …

The view from Hoover Dam is great.  However, you can see the water level has dropped a lot.  It is down 30 meters in the last few years.  Considering that Las Vegas and other cities depend on lake Mead for drinking water, it is unfortunately not very good news.

Of course, Las Vegas being what it is, we actually got to see an arrest Live!  These guys were driving around with beer cans in their hands and got stopped by cops on bicycle for what I assume will be a DUI (Driving under influence) charge.  Getting arrested on the Las Vegas strip is probably the worst place to get arrested since you have masses of tourists looking, filming and taking pictures.

As many of you know, I seem to be going often to Miami.  Miami has become a sort of “Toronto” compared to when I was in Montreal.  Last week I was again in Miami.  Great place!  My client has an amazing view from their penthouse offices in one of the tallest buildings in the city.

One thing great about Miami is the shopping.  Not that I go to get anything fancy, but its amazing the things we take for granted in North-America.  Mundane items such as computer parts, lipsyl, soap or plant seeds are either unavailable in Cayman or are 2-3 or even 4 times more expensive.  I was in Miami only one nigth last week but took our largest suitcase. When I came back, it was completely full as was my laptop carry-on bag.  The Cayman government allows up to bring back duty free 400$ US worth of merchandise for personnal use.  So every time I go to Miami, we make a list of stuff and I  got at Walmart or Target. Everytime I come home Julie says its like Santa Claus visiting 🙂

Here is the view I had from the office I was using in Miami.

Here is a better picture of the CRV in Nagoya Japan.  Notice the mention “Grand Cayman” in the windshield.  It will hopefully be there early June.  Sure takes a long time

Since last saturday, I am in Los Angeles for a client. This place is so huge ; its difficult to get a grip on the city.  You can drive for a really long time and always be in the city.

On sunday, Liam (an Irish guy from work.  Great guy!) & I went to Disney for the day.  We had a great time and went on most of the rides. It felt like being a kid again.  Along with the rides, we did something only kids do ; I can already see you all rolling your eyes … In the main rollor coaster, near the end, there are a series of flashes for pictures that are taken of passengers and you can see them after the ride.  I am sure you have all had this before.  Well, on the second time on the ride, we decided to “participate” in the picture by “giving the bird” to the camera 🙂  Liam & I chuckled and figured it would be funny to see that in the screen after the ride.  So we do our thing and run the screens as soon as the ride was over … it was  filtered.  So that means that someone actually looks at EVERY picture before they are put on the screen to make sure jokers like us dont get seen. lol

Here is a picture of our “unavailable” picture.

The rest of the week I was at the client and in the evenings shopping.  Since stuff is so expensive in Cayman, Julie gave me a list of stuff to get while I am over here; chinese noodles, sone clothes, scotch tape, etc.  Basically random stuff that we take for granted in North America but that are either not available in Cayman or at a ridiculous price.

Breaking news.  This week we got news that two of our friends will be coming to visit us & stay at our place.  On the 5th of March, Gen, Julie’s highschool friend will come for one week.  In early April, Michel, a former work colleague of mine (now working for a competitor …) will come for a little over a week.  The lucky guy will spend almost 100% of his time on the island doing an advanced diving certification and doing 2 dives a day.