All the places I went in 2018
It’s a new year which means it’s time to show off all the places I went in the last year. In 2018, I didn’t travel outside of North America at all. In fact, the only international destination I went to was Mexico (several times actually!). It was my first time in Utah, first time in Careyes, Mexico, and by some odd chance, my 2nd time in Chicago due to bad weather layover (it’s my favorite city outside of NYC).
Not pictured here is the great state of Hawaii which I was once again able to visit, but this time to an island that I’ve never been before — Kauai (it’s where Jurassic Park was filmed). If I’m remembering correctly, I think that’s 3 or 4 times to Hawaii in the last 3 years.
This year was also the first year in probably over a decade (I think?) that I visited Florida. Shooting here was interesting because it was the first time in a long time that I had to worry about humidity ruining equipment. Also, West Palm Beach is a nice but very weird and posh place.
Another highlight of my travels this year was getting to go to Bethlehem, PA! Although many years too late, coming here with Charlene allowed me to check off one of my bucket list exploration items — Bethlehem Steel. The facility was mostly rehabilitated and turned into a park, but seeing this massive complex in person was a real treat. Can’t wait to go back!
As you can see, much of the middle and Mid-West of the United States is pretty empty on this map. In 2019, I’d love to go more to the “middle of nowhere”. I’ve got my flight trackers set! READY TO GO!
I'm on Gothamist (sorta)
Photos: Historic Doyers Street Is Getting A Giant Mural Painted Over It: Gothamist
I'm on Gothamist and they didn't even link me. :(
I can't win them all I guess.
In case of emergency
Here's a grim little fact about Doobybrain: Did you know that almost every time I've taken a major trip, I schedule a post with my final thoughts ahead of my flight to be published on the day after my original return date? Yeah, morbid, huh.
I started this practice a few years ago after hearing about all the untimely deaths making the news. I've always thought how it was unfortunate that these people left the earth with no way to communicate to the people they loved. Obviously, I know death comes at any moment, and not just on airplane crashes, but I guess airplanes are one of those places where I feel like my fate is really out of my control (I'm not the pilot, I'm strapped to my seat, I have no view of what's ahead of the plane, etc.).
Anyway, writing these posts is always both soothing and really sad. Thankfully, I will never have to post these to the public because hopefully I will never be involved in a fatal plane crash.
In search of people with your name
So weird. I was just talking about this idea with a friend the other day and here I come across an article about this exact thing. In an article for The Atlantic, writer Julie Beck describes her quest to seek out as many people as possible with her same name.
Using the website How Many of Me, you can do a quick and dirty search of how many people share your name according to US Census data. For me, that's 3 other Herman Yung's living in the United States. That's news to me since the only person I've come across so far -- at least online -- with my name is a young man living in Hong Kong.
The only reason I know this, and Julie describes this a bit in her article, is because the internet has sort of become this "land grab" of identity plates, and the one I am currently not in possession of is the Instagram handle "hermanyung". It doesn't matter too much to me I guess (although I still would like that Instagram handle) because if anybody searches for me, they will undoubtedly find me as the first search result on Google.
This brings to light something I've considered to be increasingly important to me as I get older and as the digital age wraps itself ever more tightly into everyone's daily life. The idea is, essentially, how I would name my children in the future. Granted, the last name Yung isn't that common, but giving my children common first names will certainly increase the odds that some other Yung out there (unrelated to me) will also give their child that name. No Marks, Jessicas, Graces, Davids, or Johns I guess...
