Now that I have been a member of the "1,000 post club" for a while, I might as well write a few sentences to finally introduce myself...apologies for the delay and for starting a new thread - the other one was already very old and five pages long .

My name is Daniel, I am in my early thirties, from Germany (with my mother originally being from Korea ), and, as my handle indicates, I am a lawyer by training. Why have it in the Flyertalk user name? Because lawyers are notorious for their lack of creativity and I had no better idea when I signed up ...I used this name once when I had to register at some other website at the age of 28 while I was still working in the legal department of a large media company...and kind of stuck with it. Now that I have noticed that this user name seems to irritate some people who have an aversion to lawyers and that I have seen some better ideas like OverpaidSlacker and many more, I would like to change my name, especially since I don't even work as a lawyer anymore (even though I am admitted to the bar in New York and in Germany). But, if I changed my name on Flyertalk...then it would take sooo long to get back into the aforementioned 1,000 post club!

After studying in Germany, I went to the United States (Houston/Texas, not my chosen place, a scholarship sent me there) for a year to study American law. During this year, I traveled all across the US on a United standby pass (wish they were back!) with some friends from Germany. I very much enjoyed the time and I think back then, in the 90s, it was about the first time I signed up for a frequent flyer program. It was Continental Onepass - somehow, having status on them seemed to get me operational upgrades all the time when flying back to Houston to meet my girlfriend at the time, so I got a little more interested in the subject (miles, I was already interested in girls anyway). I discovered Flyertalk a few years ago, but only started posting last year, when I was pondering quitting my last job at a large media company and embarking on a trip around the world. As I am 6'6/200 pounds, flying around the world in economy class did not seem like the most desirable option to me, so all the great advice I got here on Flyertalk from helpful people around the world helped me a lot to find some tricks to make travel more enjoyable (thanks ). I ended up starting my RTW trip from Egypt after having bought a CRWSTAR3 (39,000 miles) Star Alliance RTW ticket from a travel agency in Canada - all this would have been unthinkable without Flyertalk! During the trip, not only did I get to see many amazing cities and countries and met many interesting people, but I also reached the highest status in one of the big hotel chains as part of a "fast-track promotion" and learned to appreciate these benefits. All this would have never been possible without the help from fellow Flyertalkers!

Besides traveling, I also love sports - I have been playing tennis for many years and still suck at it, and at golf I am even worse, but it is still fun - this year, I also went diving near the Maldives and in Fernando de Noronha/Brazil and got a PADI Open Water Diver license - and I learned how to sail a catamaran, after I went on my first rappeling trip in the South of France last year as part of a corporate training course (I learned that letting yourself fall backwards when you know the ground is 75 meters below you is not that easy, even if you are on a rope!). Finally, I tried my luck at kite surfing near Fortaleza/Brazil, but have not mastered it yet! I am also an avid sports fan as a follower, with soccer, basketball and track and field being my favorite sports to watch - my favorite teams are Bayern Munich (German soccer team) and the Houston Rockets (NBA team). Finally, I am also an Internet addict - and the existence of Flyertalk is not helping me get rid of this addiction!

While I have exchanged e-mails with many of you, so far, I have only met one Flyertalker in real life (in Singapore), but that was great as I got to sample some original Singaporean food and it encourages me to say that I would really like to meet more of y'all (Texas reference ). I hope it will be possible, as I will soon have less time. After getting an MBA degree (which in my case does not mean "Married But Available - I am still single ), I have decided to follow the one career path outside of being a politician or tax collector in which people might be even more unpopular than lawyers...I will start working in one of the two well-known strategy consulting firms...well, why that choice? I heard consultants travel a lot!

Looking forward to learning more from you guys here on the board, to sharing a laugh, to helping each other out while chasing points and miles, to helping each other make travel more comfortable and even more fun, and to meeting more interesting Flyertalkers from all over the world.

Safe travels to everyone .