Well, mah Bruvahs, Mrs. Samurai finally convinced me that we needed to take a vacation. It's been decades since we've taken a true vacation that wasn't a business trip in disguise.

The past couple of years have been especially intense and transformative ones for Team Samurai (me, Mrs. Samurai, and our two sons Stephen and Sam) with the creation and development of the Samurai Tech Academy. I know I make all this look easy and it seems like one day I just whipped out MasterSamuraiTech.com like, "Oh, look what I just pulled outta my ass."

But designing the Academy and creating all the content for it was probably the toughest project I've ever undertaken. The comprehensive, preeminent training courses at the Samurai Tech Academy and the website itself represents tens of thousands of hours of intense focus by the whole team. The only other thing I've ever done that comes close in terms of sustained project focus was getting my Master's degree in Environmental Engineering and writing my Master's thesis-- and I was a lot younger, smarter, and better looking then.

These past few years have been so intense that it changed my whole lifestyle for the worse. That's okay-- you have to do that sometimes to get shit done. Short term sacrifice, long term gain and all that. Plus, I'm extremely proud of the Academy and all of the effort from Team Samurai. But sustaining that kind of lifestyle is also a great way to die early. I'm 55 years old. According to insurance company death statistics, the 50's are death alley for men. If a man is going to drop dead, he'll generally do it in his 50's. That's exactly where I was headed if I kept up the lifestyle of the past few years.

So, I'm going to use this trip to make a lifestyle change, too. For example, I haven't been hiking in the White Mountains in years and certainly not as a lifestyle anymore. That, my friends, will change. When I get back, there's gonna be less work, a more balanced life, and many, many sweaty, blissful hours spent bagging peaks with the Oz Man in New Hampshire's White Mountains.

So with the release of two new courses at the Samurai Tech Academy, the timing is perfect for Team Samurai to fly off to Ireland-- the "Old Country" as the referred to by the Irish diaspora-- for a ten day vacation. I'll do the obligatory beer drinking and pub diving thing but hopefully get in some hiking, too. Wifi is ubiquitous in Ireland so I'll still be checking in here at Appliantology and checking/replying to email.

Well, mah bruvahs, I leave you with a non-traditional Irish blessing from the inimitable and iconoclastic Ween:

Aye aye aye, sharpen your boot, and bludgeon your eye

Aye aye aye, the blarney stone brings a tear to me eye