I've taken several MBTI sort of tests recently, and I've been scoring consistently as an INFP, whereas previously I used to firmly be an INFJ.

But the thing is.. I still assert that I'm an INFJ, and operate from a J space. I'm quick to make judgements. I want an overarching plan with goals and milestones. I'm more at ease when decisions are made.

But what's changed particularly in my pursual of nomadism, I have come to appreciate the power of being open to possibilities, and not setting out with a daily plan that must be followed. I find delight in discovering what comes our way, and I appreciate waking up in the morning and basing what we do more off how I feel and less on what we had planned. That's not to say plans don't come into play for me anymore, I've just really come to learn that the details along the way aren't as important.

And by and large the questions on these test are dealing with daily and project based schedules.. and on those levels, yeah, I've come much more comfortable with unknowns and setting out without an outlined plan, and being at ease with the ever changing landscape of my life. It's a boundary I intentionally pushed when I set off, it's a change I wanted in my life. And by golly, I've achieved it.

But I'm still a J. I still sometimes have the initial gut reaction of 'But what is the plan?!?'. Chris' very strong naturally inclined P will grate on me. I want decisions made, especially on the more mundane things in life. Life is just too short to obsess over 'what's for dinner', 'what camera to buy', and the like. Present me with options, weigh the pro's and cons and make a decision already! And more importantly.. do it! And definitely, if I feel I've made any sort of commitment to someone else, I feel a sense a obligation to revert to J-mode and make sure plans are executed and schedule kept (which has actually become a bit more stressful for me than in the past.)

--

Another change is that my previous 'strongly' I has become a 'moderate' I. I think the nature of my nomadism and just coming more into my own has me enjoying and being less drained from social interactions. I definitely don't need nearly as much recharge time as I once did.

In our travels, we try out a lot of tech. We're also always refreshing our tech, and we end up with great tech that we need to dispose of. Of course we can sell it on Amazon or eBay - but we'd much rather sell to friends and followers. It virtually eliminates the chances of a fraudulent transaction, assures buyers that they're getting what is advertised - and saves on ridiculous selling fees.

All prices below include payment via PayPal and US Priority shipping. If you need non-US shipping, please contact me.

Canon G9 - $425
Canon Powershot SX110IS - $100 (won't turn on, has water damage)
Pentax Optio S12 - $130
FujiFilm FinePix F50sd - $90
Casio Exilim EXZ750 - $30


For full details of each camera, click through to our full blog post.

For those interested in keeping up with me, here are some recent posts that you might be interested in checking out:


Our travelogue for our trip to Hohenwald, TN from St. Louis and back to get trailer maintenance

A story we did about how Oliver Travel Trailers is adapting in this down economy

Chris' gives me tech lust by getting an iPhone 3GS

Our Summer 2009 Travel Plans - including a stop in Philadelphia and Washington, DC before a cross country adventure back to California and Burning Man. Invites for visits always welcomed :)


In other news, we've had the great fortune recently to be getting lots of time with dear friends. nasu_dengaku joined us in St. Louis and we took him on couple day road trip to Chicago, ending his 4.5 world tour. And then we arrived in Northern Indiana to stay with destabee, and took a day trip into Chicago to catch up with Sterling & Melissa. And in the coming weeks, we'll also go visit with silvergoldberry in Philly.

I think that's one of the greatest benefits of being nomadic - being able to keep in touch with such a wide variety of folks who have scattered in various directions over the years.


We also attended a Burning Man regional event near St. Louis that was awesome, and this morning we take destabee to her first Burning Man anything in Western Michigan. So much fun!

And oh yeah, I henna'd my hair this week.. it's now really red.

After 7 years of being a paid LiveJournal member, I have just disabled automatic renewal on my account. My paid membership will end in 2 days. It turns out, nothing much about my account will really change however.

I'm very grateful for the joy and quality that LJ has brought to my life over the years. I love the social blogging aspect of LJ. I love that I met the man I intend to spend the rest of my life with via LJ (that alone is worth the $140 I spent on memberships, eh?) I love the friendships that have been deepened via LJ.

But I'm just not using LJ anywhere near as much as I used to. WordPress, Twitter and Facebook are overtaking that mental bandwidth for me. I'll still use LJ, mostly to cross post major travel updates from our adventure blog at www.technomadia.com, and the occasional personal musings. And I will continue to check in on folks from time to time.

But mostly LJ has become less socially interactive for me. With each post I seem to get less interaction, which either tells me I've become a bore.. or more and more folks just aren't using LJ either. I tend to go with the second theory.

If you care to follow me more in real time, please add me:

http://twitter.com/serolynne
http://www.facebook.com/cherie.veard

Or better yet.. keep in touch and drop me an e-mail at cherie@serolynne.com or chat me up on IM as Serolynne.

A recent posting I made explaining some of the differences between a full time traveling lifestyle.. and a vacation. It seems to have gone over well too...

Check it out:

It's Not an Extended Vacation

For those of you reading along because you're also working in location independent ways (nomads, work online from anywhere, etc.) .. or because you want to pursue this sort of lifestyle for yourself.. here's some recent stuff we're involved with that you might be interested in:

Our descriptions of Digital Location Independent Lifestyle Designing NuNomads.

and... if any of the above descriptions strike a chord with you.. then you might want to participate in:

A new survey for Digital Nomads & Location Independent Professionals (and those who want to be).

After weeks of no firm plans and trusting in nomadic serendipity to guide our journey through Arizona and New Mexico, after Carlsbad Caverns we were back on route to our next planned destination - Austin, Texas.

Austin is where Cherie grew up, and her brother now lives - so it’s a frequent stop over point for us as we criss cross the country visiting friends and family.

Our specific timing for being in the area was to rendezvous with Cherie’s parents in nearby San Antonio for her father’s USS Robert E Lee SSBN-601 Submarine Reunion, which he organizes - and was finally stepping down as president.

Click to follow the adventure!

I had an interesting response to my Views on being Childfree by Choice awaiting me in my inbox this morning:

Quoted from my article: "I think we'd all have a much better society and future generation if all children were truly wanted and planned for, and that their health and happiness was part of their parent's own equation for their own happiness."

It's unfortunate that so many are unplanned/unwanted and yet our species would have died off before ever reaching this point if it didn't happen.

Beyond all that, isn't this something to be explained to a potential mate as opposed to the entire internet? I mean...who really cares if you're childfree other than someone wanting to have or not have children with you. And there's really got to be a better way to explain it to your mother.

Frankly, I fully support people's right to be childfree. I'm just not sure why they feel the need to project it to everyone. It's not like it's some sort of special award.

( My point by point response )

Latest installment to my growing series with answers to the common excuses we hear as to why folks who want to travel full time aren't ...

Environmental Impact

An ever increasing number of people are growing concerned about the impact of their daily lives upon the environment, and many are taking proactive steps to minimize their impact and to be more conscious about consumption.

One excuse we’ll often hear from more eco-aware folks is that traveling full time would inevitably have too high of an environmental impact for them to consider leaving home without a heavy burden of eco-guilt.

This guilt is understandable - a life in motion consumes resources, and we certainly do not dispute the environmental impact of travel.

But we have discovered that “being green” while traveling is actually very achievable. And indeed, it is often possible to have less of an environmental impact living nomadically than by living a more typical lifestyle.

.. click to read the full article

I haven't been cross posting these individually.. cuz, well, that'd be annoying. However radven and I have been shooting short video clips at a lot of the places we've visited since leaving San Francisco back in March. Some of them are locals we've found to talk about thing they like, and others are us talking about what we see.

I've been producing and posting them, and so far I'm only up to New Mexico (mid-April). I've got a lot of producing to do, as we're now in St. Louis.

If you've got yourself some time to spare and would like to follow along, check them out at:
http://www.technomadia.com/category/video/


The project has been a lot of fun, and has given us a bit more purpose in our travels. We find ourselves spotting interesting looking things and stopping to take a look and film. We're producing these with other projects in mind.. to be announced soon. But for now, it's our Video Edition of Tales from Technomadia.

Two years ago today - May 10, 2007 - I sold the majority of my stuff, left my house in Florida and joined radven on the road full time for an extended trial of technomadism. The trial obviously worked, because we're still at it, have an ideal home for us and see no end in sight!


It's been an amazing two years on the road together and I can hardly believe it's already been that long already.

Here's a post we made on http://www.technomadia.com with a fuller reflection of our two years being digital vagabonds together:
http://www.technomadia.com/2009/05/two-year-nomadiversary/

I came across this last night as I was doing some research into various travel bloggers.. The Digital Vagabond is putting up a 'Road Scholarship' to fund someone to learn first hand about road tripping across the US this summer. The winner will actually get paid to do what we do! And get this.. the scholarship has the winner ending their trip at Burning Man!

How awesome is that?!?

So.. if you've been envious of my technomadic life and wondering what you're doing this summer, why don't you apply?

http://www.digitalvagabonding.com/road-scholarship/

I just posted a summary of our travels in the last month through Arizona and New Mexico on our travel blog site.

It was an amazing experience, and I'm so glad we gave ourselves several weeks to experience it. We saw amazing things and got to visit with friends old and new along the way. That's one of the things I love best about our life is that we get to visit with so many people that have moved or we meet at various events. It's a different kind of community than I was used to with living in one place, but I am loving and adapting to the more transient nature of it.

Anyway.. click away if you want to follow along, lots of pictures too! I'll be back adding in links to more video segments we shot as we traveled as I have time to produce them.

http://www.technomadia.com/2009/05/travelogue-arizona-and-new-mexico/


We're now in New Braunfels, Texas after spending the weekend in San Antonio at my father's submarine veterans reunion. Tomorrow we start heading northward towards St. Louis with the goal of making it there by the end of the week for Mother's Day. After that.. we have no plans until Burning Man.

Life in motion for the past 5+ weeks has left me little energy for keeping up on LiveJournal. Most of my blogging energy these days has been attempting to keep up with our travel blogging at http://www.technomadia.com and building up our readership there. And there, we're weeks behind on the adventure since leaving California. Which feels like eons ago - wow, what a fabulous and exciting few weeks it has been traversing through Arizona and New Mexico. Look for upcoming posts and pictures and video. I'll keep cross posting teasers as we post significant new content for those who don't keep up with us there directly.

I do still skim my friend's list here, even if I'm not commenting as regularly. However for those wishing to keep up with my life, it's best to redirect your attention to Technomadia, or interact with me on Twitter and Facebook. Or better yet, catch me online on IM as Serolynne on various services.

Damn, we live in an amazing world. So much to see. So many wonderful people. So little time.

Life is really really good.

As we travel, we have the pleasure of meeting wonderful people. And oftentimes when folks hear what we’re up to - we get the response of ‘You’re living my dream!’. To which we of course reply ‘Then why aren’t you doing it too?’.

Over the coming weeks, we are going to post about the various excuses we’ve heard for why people aren’t out doing whatever is they want to be doing, but in particular, traveling full time as a lifestyle.

Excuse # 4: Family

Family, biological or intentional, are a mighty important part of life - whether you are focused on staying connected to them, or sometimes trying to stay as far from them as possible. And we often hear that placing a focus on family is a reason that people don’t travel as much as they would otherwise like.

We personally think that family connections are hugely important, so we’d like to offer up some alternative ways to think about incorporating travel in with family.

... click to read rest of post

As we travel, we have the pleasure of meeting wonderful people. And oftentimes when folks hear what we’re up to - we get the response of ‘You’re living my dream!’. To which we of course reply ‘Then why aren’t you doing it too?’.

Over the coming weeks, we are going to post about the various excuses we’ve heard for why people aren’t out doing whatever is they want to be doing, but in particular, traveling full time as a lifestyle.

Excuse #3: Stuff

We're conditioned in our society to acquire stuff. Our culture and economy often seems to revolve around this quest. And no matter how large a space we have, we can easily fill that space with stuff. It seems to be a universal law - the amount of "stuff" you have expands to fill all available space.

The acquisition of stuff can easily end up consuming our space and our lives, cluttering our homes, our budgets and our minds.

We pay to acquire it, pay to house it, pay to store it when we run out of room, and pay to move it when we seemingly inevitably "upgrade" to a larger place. Repeat this cycle a few times, until the day comes when your next of kin get stuck with paying once again to dispose of it all.

For those wanting to travel full time for an extended amount of time, breaking the acquisition cycle is pretty important as to scale way back on the space you allow for stuff in your life.




.. Click to read full article

During our visit to Hemet, California we had a nomadic rendezvous with fellow technomad Ben Willmore. Ben, like us, gave up his physical home and has been traveling around full time for over 3 years now in a customized 40ft motor coach. He's an expert photographer and Photoshop wizard, and he funds his nomadic lifestyle by giving seminars, writing books, and conducting training expeditions.

We thought it's be interesting to talk with him about his approach to technomadism and compare notes:


.. click to read more, and see awesome cool photo art he made of us!

On the morning of March 22, 2009 we pulled up the jacks in South San Francisco, hitched up and made a mad dash out of California. Well, mad dash in a nomadic sense. We didn’t actually cross the border into Arizona for another 2 weeks. What follows is a condensed version of our amazing journey during that time.

.. Click to read the full story

The last week has been an amazing journey of awesome experience followed by awesome experience. I just haven't had time to keep up with writing it all down.

Long story short, we ended up staying on a ranch near Hemet, CA with awesome folks for several days and rendezvousing with fellow technomad and photographer/Photoshop master, Ben Willmore, who is currently fascinated with light painting.

So, I spent a couple of our evenings there spinning LED and fire poi for three very talented photographers (Chris, Sean and Ben), and we had lots of fun!

Here's some of the poi spinning pics that we captured:

From Ben:


From Sean:


From Chris:


I love that last one.. of Ben and I looking at each other as he works with his fish eye lens to capture my flames, and Sean on the ground behind next to him capturing from his angle. And off in the distance, you can see the lights of our trailer.


It was so completely awesome to spin again so much, and to see such fantastic images from three very different view points and artistic compositions. It was just the push I needed to get re-ignited around poi spinning. I already taught myself three new tricks to add to my routines!

As we travel, we have the pleasure of meeting wonderful people. And oftentimes when folks hear what we’re up to - we get the response of ‘You’re living my dream!’. To which we of course reply ‘Then why aren’t you doing it too?’.

Over the coming weeks, we are going to post about the various excuses we’ve heard for why people aren’t out doing whatever is they want to be doing, but in particular, traveling full time as a lifestyle.

Excuse #2: Affording It

People often associate a high price tag with traveling. I think they often take the typical cost of a weeklong vacation and use that as a basis as what it might cost to travel full time. When you add in airfare, hotel costs, parking, car rental, dining out, going to attractions, pet sitters and more - yes, indeed, a typical American 1 week vacation adds up and would be quite unaffordable for most on a long term basis. Even if you shop for sales and bargains, many folks save up for months, or even years, to manage a single memorable week-long trip.

Things get especially expensive when you consider that you still need to keep paying your normal living costs as well - your rent/mortgage, utilities, debt payments, etc.

Traveling full time as a lifestyle however isn’t the same as going on a typical vacation full time. It’s a lifestyle change.

... Click for the rest of the post.