[...] is the theme of our next Blogger Happy Hour, named such to honor the departure, or “exodus”, to South America of my favorite DC-area-based, minimalist-themed, pump-and-dumping blogger, [...]

[...] to Roosh for the heads up on this one. Good luck on your trip to South America, [...]

i still haven’t made it down there yet, but any place that produces an anarchist-leaning film like Slacker is a-ok with me.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102943/

and i suppose that sxsw thing is pretty cool, even if too many sf nerds show up there to try and spoil the fun.

Have fun on your trip. Austin is amazing as well. I go there every year. I’m also Texan and a bit partial!

Since I’m Brazilian, if you want any tips once you make your way down there, feel free to shoot me an email. A lot of gorgeous places to see!

Anyway, go where your heart takes you, but just don’t expect to find happiness when you get there.

Boofu, your argument is crap. People starting 2nd careers late in life generally didn’t just start their first ones. What allows them to do that is that they got so far in their first career that they can safely coast for a good while.

The real response to Roissy is that it doesn’t matter when you start the rat race if your intent is to never start at all. There are plenty out there, especially in places like Austin or Cocoa Beach, who have no real job, maybe they bartend, maybe they clean rentals in between tenants, whatever. They make enough to be beach bums or bar flies, which is all they want anyway. It’s not a life for everyone but it is a life enough for few. I had a bunch of drinks with a guy in Fla who (supposedly) wrote for Rolling Stone. From what I could tell his job was keeping the barstool from flying away. Happy enough.

Good luck, man.

Tampa isn’t so far from Miami, but I’ve only been there a couple times. I hate Miami. It’s somewhat “international,” (which in this case just means “Latino”) more so than Austin, anyway. But Miami is a lot more status-obsessed, money-obsessed, beauty-obsessed, and self-conscious. Austin is a lot more carefree.

I have no reason to believe you and I would love the same things in cities, but this has been my experience.

Congrats DCB for having the fucking balls to take a risk and go do something different for yourself and not pretending that your existence is forever. The only thing I wanna add is be safe dude because the cool thing to do is kidnap Americans and hold them hostage especially in Brazil, Columbia, and Venezuela.

Your best bet for a new city would be the west coast dude. People are open minded and have all kinds of interesting perspectives on life. I’m sorry but outside of Miami and Atlanta city limits, the south pretty much sucks, stuck in its racist, conservative, closed minded ways and I wouldn’t recommend it for anybody. Austin is only moving up because the tech companies and all the people who can’t afford to live in Cali are moving out. Its a good city but its still fucking texas…

i sensed a general callousness from some of your posts (just speakin the truth – frank speech, that’s all) that you were still in the comfy confines of ‘home’. i used to be the same way. Even though i left my hometown at 18, i never _really_ left home until after college, when i started venturing to and living in cities all over the place, by myself. i think you need to get your ass kicked around a bit when you’re on your own to gain compassion for other people. lots of girls seem to have a compassion gene built-in – I did not, and I think many/most other guys suffer from the same affliction.

good luck!

p.s. i should invest in a straight-to-Flickr camera if i were you. that way, no transferring and having to have a laptop handy and all that nonsense. maybe you’ll work up to it. also, forums would be super-cool. i’d also like a non-NYT report from trendy Buenos Aires. :)