Mike Raffety, DTM, PID

Personal

This is just a place to put some random personal stuff, so you can learn more about me and what I do outside of Toastmasters.

Recreation

• Friends (of course!)
• Good food and wine
• TV and movies (mostly via Tivo and Netflix)
• Reading (particularly Stephen King)
• Travel (28 countries and 25 states, and counting)
• Photography (used to be a professional newspaper photographer)
• Technology of all kinds (obviously)
• Bicycling (just around the city)

Countries I've been to

• Canada (Montreal several times, Toronto twice, Vancouver once)
• Mexico (Tijuana and Puerto Vallarta)
• Jamaica
• Bahamas (Nassau)
• U.S. Virgin Islands (not a country?)
• Sint Maarten/Saint-Martin
• Brazil (Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo)
• Argentina (Buenos Aires twice)
• Chile (once, Santiago)
• United Kingdom (many times for work)
• Sweden (Stockholm twice)
• Netherlands (Amsterdam twice)
• Belgium (driving through, does that count?)
• Luxembourg
• Germany (several times, mostly Frankfurt, also Berlin, Munich, Dusseldorf)
• France (twice, mainly Paris)
• Spain (once, Barcelona)
• Switzerland (many times for work)
• Italy (Milan and Rome)
• Austria (Vienna)
• Czech (Prague)
• Slovakia (Bratislava)
• Hungary (Budapest)
• Greece (Athens and Mykonos -- in January!)
• Japan (Tokyo and Osaka)
• Hong Kong
• Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City)
• Cambodia (Siem Reap, to see Angkor Wat)
• Thailand (twice, Bangkok and Phuket)
• Singapore (several times, for work)
• Australia (several times, Sydney, Port Douglas and the Great Barrier Reef, the Outback and Alice Springs, Melbourne)
• New Zealand (Auckland and Rotorua)

A few of the places I'd like to see

• Maldives
• Taiwan and the Philippines
• Russia and Mongolia (the trans-Siberian railroad, Moscow to the Pacific)
• Mainland China (Beijing, Shanghai, the Great Wall)
• Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco
• South Africa, Madagascar, Tanzania (a safari, of course!)
• India, Kashmir, Nepal
• More of the Caribbean, perhaps Cuba!
• Antarctica
• Dozens more!

What's on my Tivo Season Pass?

• Burn Notice
• David Letterman
• Drop Dead Diva
• Eureka
• Extreme Engineering
• Mythbusters
• Numb3rs
• Smallville
• Stargate: Universe
• Survivor
• The Office