I’ll start with the obvious, I was 30 when I last posted and now I am 33, going on 34 in a few months. My wife had an amazingly healthy pregnancy and we now have a beautiful 3 year old daughter named Juliette who just celebrated her birthday last week. Our application for my wife’s permanent residents went through without a hitch and she has had her PR card for several years now. We’ve been living in our beautiful downtown apartment now for over 3 years and it’s been a great place that our daughter has called home her whole life. We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary earlier this year and we are still madly in love and as close as ever. I maintained my contract job for nearly 4 years with a hefty rate increase a few years in as I took on much more responsibility. I think that sums up a look at the last 3 years from 30,000 feet. Now to come back down to Earth and look a little deeper into what all these changes have meant and where they have taken me so far.

First my work situation, I had several very fun years working as a contractor with a small company called Spintech IT which unfortunately came to an end in early 2019 when their main client which I was handling decided that they didn’t need anymore work from us. The writing had been on the wall for that relationship for a while and I had actually been looking for new opportunities for over a year prior, but nothing motivates more than necessity and when things started going down hill I kicked it into high gear and was able to find a new opportunity in under a month. That opportunity has been at a company called Voxter whose parent company is Ooma. They have treated me extremely well and I now have a salary that is comparable to what I was making with my contract work. They also gave me full medical benefits, a brand new MacBook Pro, unlimited vacation time, complete control of my schedule and most of the other things that you would expect to see at the top players such as Google & Amazon. They have already sent me to San Francisco, San Diego & Chicago for conventions which have been awesome. My role in the company is a Full Stack Software Developer and I believe I have done a very good job so far, especially seeing as I am the only developer in the company without a formal education.

Next I’d like to discuss our apartment. It’s been great and we have really enjoyed living the downtown lifestyle. That being said, we have been seriously considering moving over this past year. The amount of noise downtown is becoming unbearable, at least where we live. Nearly every block of downtown has some kind of construction going on, including right outside our window where they are making a new building. And the fire station outside our building has also turned out to be as loud as you’d expect something like that to be, with alarms seeming to happen 2-3 times a day or more. Currently we are waiting to see how my job situation looks at the 1 year mark before we get serious about moving, but we are basically decided that we need to find somewhere more relaxed for a family to live. The plan is somewhere slightly outside downtown in a suburb where we can rent a home with a backyard. Currently my commute is only a 10 minute walk and that is one of our main considerations when we do finally decide to move.

Where to begin with my daughter and fatherhood? It’s as challenging as they say if not more, but the rewards are of equal greatness. Coming home from work each day to be greeted with a little girl who is very excited to see her Daddy, it feels fantastic. Watching her grow and learn has been amazing and we are very proud of her progress. Being a role model has been hard and as she gets older and more aware of everything I have been feeling more responsibility to be a good example in her life. There have been many trying moments as well and there is a reason why people say “Stop acting like a child”. Patience is something I have been trying to get better at, which has been a challenge because anyone who knows me would not describe me as patient, in fact they would probably describe me as impatient. But I am filled with endless hope when I see how quickly she has been learning things these past few years. She is great around others and everyone is always saying what a beautiful and well tempered little girl she is, which reaffirms our feeling that we are very lucky parents.

Marriage has been a journey that I am very happy to be on with my wife. We have had our ups and downs but I believe through it all we were always loving and we have always worked things out. Having a child stresses relationships, I have no doubt of that anymore. There are just so many opportunities for differing opinions and for stressful moments, but there are also moments that bring us all together as a family and closer as a couple. Embracing the struggle and finding ways to work through it together is something that I have been trying to focus on over the past few years. My wife has stayed home with our daughter while I have been working full time, this has been great for our daughter and we both believe it’s the right thing to do. I am eternally grateful for my wife’s sacrifices and we have managed to make it work so far. But it also means we have very different focuses in life, I am trying to build a career while she sees things from a very family oriented perspective. I personally feel like this aspect of parenthood can be tricky because I don’t feel her struggles and she doesn’t feel mine, not that we have had many issues with this, I just think it’s a fact of having a stay at home parent that I didn’t consider as much when we took this path. Finding time for a career and a family is hard and I struggle to know when to turn off my work mind and turn on the family one.

Since moving into our apartment and having our daughter we have managed to take several vacations. Last September we took a trip with Juliette to Chile so she could meet my wife’s side of the family. Earlier that year in February we spent 3 weeks in Europe while my wife’s parents stayed at our apartment to watch our daughter. They have been great trips and I appreciate that my in-laws have been able to help us during these times. We don’t have any more trips planned in the near future but I will hopefully take some time off in October so that we can take a small family trip within BC. I hope to take my family for a trip to Japan in the next few years but I want to wait until I feel that my daughter will get the most out of it.

Now I’d like to discuss where my life is as of today and what finally motivated me to sit down and write this blog post. It hasn’t been any single event that has made me feel like it’s time for change, but I have felt a little like I’ve been on autopilot for the past few years. I finally want to take the wheel again and get back to being the successful person I know I can be. Not to say that I haven’t been successful during this period, but I have felt like I’ve been going through the motions and don’t have a clear direction towards the future. One change that I have recently undertaken is to buzz cut my hair and finally try and live the bald life. I haven’t been happy with my hairline for over a decade and I’ve always felt like when the time was right I would do this, but it took me longer than I expected to take the dive. Another important reason for doing this is because I am tired of telling myself I will change and then essentially forgetting to stick to it. I wanted a reminder of change that I could see in the mirror every day, to show myself that I am capable of transformation. Some people may be surprised to think I have an aversion to change, seeing as how I left my life behind and traveled the world solo for over 3 years. But changing my environment has always been easier for me then changing myself. It’s not going to be easy and I will need a lot more reminders and hard work to get where I want to be, but I feel like I am on the right path now and this blog post is helping me reflect on that.

I think I’ve done a decent job by this point of discussing where things are with me and my family. Now I’d like to look into the future and take an opportunity myself to try and imagine the next steps in our life. This is the hard part because I have almost everything I have ever posted about on this blog. I’ve found throughout the years that what I write here isn’t just dreams and wishes, they are blueprints for my future. That can be empowering but also very scary. I will try to focus on who I want to be and what I want for my family. I want to be someone my daughter and wife are proud of, someone who is stable, smart, available, fun & much more. I’ve lived most of my life focused on myself, and I don’t want to be that way anymore. I want to be more giving with my time. I’d also like to continue advancing my career as a software developer, I am not sure if that means starting my own business, working for one of the big companies or becoming a leader within my current company. I’d like to provide more for my family and to make sure they have everything they need to be successful in life. Teaching my daughter my perspective on life is also important to me, a chance to pass on what I’ve learned through my journey thus far.

I could likely go on with this post forever but I think it’s time to stop and leave something for the next one. I’m making a promise to myself here in writing that I will post again before the year is over. I’ve known for a while now that I need these opportunities for self reflection and I would be doing myself a disservice to wait another 3 years to step back and look at what I’ve become. Thank you to whoever finds the time to read this, I’ve tried to be honest and open as I want others to know my struggles and to be part of my journey, in whatever small way it may be. I appreciate you taking the time to read how my life has been going.

The reason that I can now apply for MSP for my wife and I is because she has also got her Open Work Permit from CIC! With this she can now work and live in Canada until mid-2017 which is plenty of time for CIC to finish processing her Permanent Resident application. And because of new rules that the liberal government has brought in she will be able to apply for Citizenship 2 years earlier than we originally expected. In other news we started looking at apartments last month and we had ran into some stiff competition in this Vancouver downtown apartment market but we are happy to announce that as of today we have signed the papers on a 964 square foot 2 bedroom apartment in downtown Vancouver! We will start moving in on the 23rd and will be fully moved over by April 30th. We have some things to buy for the babies room and some other furniture that we need for this larger space.

My wife and I also celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary 2 weeks ago and it was fantastic. We went to a nice restaurant at Grouse Mountain and they had a great view of the city and we had a nice meal together and it was in general a very nice evening. For a different kind of news, dustinbrett.com is now running on a new web-server, hosted by StableHost. They have already proven themselves to be better than JustHost and they are also cheaper. I have also done a lot of tweaking recently to the blog to make it run faster and it should now load/feel a lot more responsive.

Well that is it for now. Our daughter is due in early August and my wives parents are coming to stay with us for 4-6 weeks to help us and to visit Maca and see Vancouver. Lots going on right now and lots happening in the future. As always thanks for reading and I will do another post in the near future.

I hope in the next 6-12 months to improve my working situation as I am currently a contract worker with no benefits. The pay is good and I enjoy my work and have a good boss, but I don’t think it’s a sustainable job under my current contract. I need the ability to take a few weeks off without knowing it means no pay. I want medical coverage so that I don’t have to pay BC MSP $130/month. I have seen many jobs online that I think I would be a good fit for, including one at Amazon that is just a dream at the moment. My job now is perfect and it allows me to get more experience in programming which is always valuable for a resume. I currently work mostly with C#, ASP.NET and T-SQL but I also do lots of Java/jQuery, XSLT, XML, HTML, CSS, etc. I “plan” to work on some open source Python projects also to get some practical knowledge with that programming language as it’s also quite popular.

Our lease for our apartment is up in May 2016 and I think we plan to move into a 2 bedroom apartment so that we have room for any future little ones ;-). We haven’t looked much yet though and I dread the idea of moving all of our things, such as our 65″ TV. I think with my future job prospects and Maca joining the work force in the near future that we will have more than enough funds to pursue our dreams and work on an amazing future together. As for the little ones I spoke of, well that’s one of those all in good time things at the moment, but when things move forward on that I will be sure to notify everyone on my Facebook and post on my blog as well. We are both loving Vancouver and there are many fun things to do here. Tonight for my birthday we are going to my favorite sushi place and then for a walk in Stanley Park where they today setup a very nice Christmas light display. Next week the free ice rink opens near the art gallery so we will likely start skating more often, assuming it’s not too busy. We have a fireworks show this New Years that should be amazing but likely won’t top the last years fireworks in Valparaiso where I proposed to Maca.

My mom came to visit a few months ago for a week which was nice. We walked around Vancouver and she spent time with Maca. They talked a lot and my mom showed Maca some of the recipes for the food my Mom cooks that I like. My cousin Branden also visited for a day on his way through BC. In other news we had a fun Halloween although I got a bit too drunk early on because my boss had a office party at a bar and bought us some very strong drinks. I didn’t drink that much actually but it all hit me at once which made getting into my costume a real chore. I went as a killer clown which was slightly inspired by the clown from American Horror Story and my wife also went as a clown inspired by Harley Quinn. My next post probably won’t be for a few months but if something happens before then I will make sure to update everyone. Thanks for reading my blog as always.

I lived in Santiago for a total of 194 days and I really enjoyed my time there. I did quit my job as an English teacher so I could focus on all these things I had planned, but I enjoyed the work and the people I got to speak with. Hopefully Maca’s parents can visit us in Canada near the end of 2015 but it is a bit expensive and nothing is for sure yet. We have been dragging our feet on finishing the immigration documentation which will mean a longer wait time for my wife to get her visa, but it also has some positives because it gives even greater proof of our relationship as we have begun our life together here in Canada.

We are really enjoying living in Vancouver and I think it’s a very nice city. I have been to a lot of cities in the world, as this blog shows, but I think Vancouver is one of my favorites. Also it helps that I am Canadian so I have no legal restrictions on my status here. Our apartment is beautiful with an amazing view and we have had a few small get-togethers with friends already and they have enjoyed it also. I finally have a computer again after 4 years of not having a desktop, it’s nice to get to build a PC again and a fast user experience. I also moved to the Galaxy S6 for my phone which is extremely fast for a phone and I am very happy with it.

I am enjoying married life and all that comes with it, good or bad. We are getting stronger as a couple everyday I feel and slowly working through any new things that come up. I am happy that the life I thought we could have in Canada has become a reality. I feel very fortunate for having the skills, knowledge and experience required to build a life like this. My time traveling has been invaluable in teaching me social and life skills that have helped me greatly here in Vancouver. Travel will always be part of my life and my history but now that I am married it will be different, and I am fine with that. I feel like these past 4 years I have got to live the dream of travel that I and many others have had. It was fun and exciting and different and stimulating. I think my future travels will be with my family for shorter periods of time to different places for different reasons. I still want to see so much, but I am content to slow down my pace of adventure and to work on growing my family and my life as it is now.

I am also going to Argentina this weekend because I need to renew my tourist visa again if it’s going to last until early April when we fly to Canada. I had a chance to get a work visa because my current employer gave me a contract but I found out the fee is over $150 USD and I would have to wait 3+ months for it to be processed. I would also have to wait for a $15 USD temporary visa if I applied for a spouse which doesn’t work either. It’s best that I get my tourist visa renewed and in the future if I will be in Chile for at least 3-4 months I will apply as a spouse, which requires waiting and registering with the Police once accepted. Speaking of my job I have sent in my 4 week notice to quit because I need time to focus on my future and I currently only have 2 students that barely gets me $300 CAD per month.

I realised today that my first post on the blog was on Feb 15th, 2011 in which I talked about my plans to travel the world. Now I post today, nearly 4 years later about my plans to get married in Chile. It’s been an amazing 4 years that have shaped my life and future more then I could have imagined. My next post will hopefully include pictures of my civil marriage and possibly the wedding as well. If I don’t post for a while then I may be in Canada and if that is the case I hope to have a nice apartment with Maca and will have much things to post.

In other, much bigger news, I am now engaged to be married! I proposed to my Chilean girlfriend on New Years Eve in front of her family and fireworks in the city of Valparaiso. She said yes and we are very happy and in love. We have only known each other for 6 months but it feels very right and we have a very honest and open relationship. Our plan is to move to Vancouver, Canada after the wedding here in Chile. I hope we can move in late May or early June we plan to find a place near Stanley Park in the West End for $1,200-1,350/month. Our finances will be a challenge for the first year or 2 I believe but I hope very much to find a job in IT that can have me making $40,000+/year, which isn’t unreasonable in Vancouver.

Once we are married I hope to sponsor my wife to become a permanent resident of Canada, a process which takes 16-24 months currently. Luckily some laws have recently changed that will make things much easier for her immigration. The first law change in November 2014 was Chile being given visa-exempt status for Canada, an honor that only Chile has in all of Latin America. This means she can come to Canada without applying for a visa and stay for 6 months as a visitor. The second law change is a 1 year pilot program the government is trying which started December 2014 that will fast track her application for an open work visa without her having to wait for processing of her permanent resident application. This rule is just for people apply for permanent resident visas via spousal sponsorship and will make it so she can get an open work visa in 1-4 months instead of having to wait 12-16 months as it has been in the past. So these changes have been great and with time, money, luck and a lot of paperwork I hope to have her as a permanent resident within 2 years of entering Canada.

2 Days ago I had a job interview for English teaching freelance work and I did well and got the job. I have already been scheduled for 2 classes, each will be 12 hours a month for 1.5 hours each. These will be with KPMG and I get to wear my suit that I bought recently which I like. More good news is that this job will help me get my Work visa which will allow me to legally work and live in Santiago for 1 year. I hope to have 6-8 students at 8,000 CLP ($16 CAD) an hour, 7,200 CLP after taxes. I have some debt ($10,500 CAD) from my previous year of travels that my parents are graciously helping me with which I really appreciate, although I intend to help a lot with the money I make here. During all my travels thus far I have paid for everything myself but my parents really wanted to help me with this and I decided to accept their offer. This year of travels from San Francisco and through South/Central America cost me roughly $16,500 CAD total. If I added up everything over 32 months of travel since March 2011 I have spent roughly $45,000 CAD on travel.

I have been practicing my Spanish slowly and not speaking Spanish as much as I should be but hopefully this will change in time. I’ve organized some contacts through CouchSurfing of people who want to practice Spanish with me but I have been going at a relaxed pace this month so haven’t setup actual meetings yet. My girlfriend and I have tickets for a Halloween party and decided to dress as fancy modern gothic style vampires which should be fun. I have lunch with her almost everyday during her lunch break and walk home with her after work. I plan to be living in Santiago till at least the end of 2015 and if things go really well I would like to move to Vancouver with my girlfriend who could be my wife by this time. Wish me luck and thanks for reading.

After leaving Havana I landed in Montreal and had a great 6 days with my CS host. He showed me around on the weekend and even took me to an electronic music festival that happens in Montreal in the summer. I also went to a fashion show and comic book convention which were very fun to take a peek at. Montreal is a beautiful city and if it wasn’t for all the French I would consider living there. Also had some amazing food like a smoked meat sandwich and poutine. After that I took a bus to Ottawa where I spent an additional 6 days, this time with 2 different hosts. I actually was set to stay with another person for my first few days but this host wasn’t home and although he said I could stay in his bed while he was gone I didn’t really like the state of his house so posted an emergency CS request and had a new host within a few hours. My hosts in Ottawa were cool and we had some nice conversations and they were very helpful. Ottawa a very pretty city and a nice capitol for my home country. I don’t think I needed 6 days there to see everything but it was a nice visit.

Thanks for following my travels throughout this year and I guess in some ways it isn’t over yet because I will be going back to South America for at least another year. I will post updates whenever I have news.