My name is Jordan and I'm a frequent flyaholic.

I was born 32-ish years ago in Nottingham, England. I've been a traveler since I was 10 months old, my first airplane experience was on a trip back to the States to visit my grandparents near Pittsburgh. My parents decided to stay and we lived on the family farm until I was 6 before moving to Charlotte, NC.

I've certainly had the travel bug from an early age, although most of my early trips were to England to visit my dad's relatives. The bug must run deep in my family, my (mothers side) great grandparents, grandparents, and mother had traveled all over the world, to Europe, Africa, Japan and China. I had been across the pond 4 by the time I was 16, the 4th trip was the first time I flew by myself. My future as a travel junkie was sealed when I opened my first Frequent Flyer account at age 17 (USAir). I was heading off to college at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh and decided flying back home to Charlotte was better than a 9-hour drive. I had developed an interest with computers in my early teens and by the time I entered university (1989) I had learned to navigate and book flights on Easy Saabre. It didn't take me long to figure out the rudiments of mileage runs, instead of flying directly PIT-CLT, I would do PIT-PHL-CLT, etc.

After graduating from CMU in 1993 with a BS in Math/Computer Science, I was hired by Dell in Austin, where I've now been for the past 11 years. My job duties at Dell include developing custom software configurations for enterprise customers, with a focus on systems management. I've occasionally been sent to such exotic locales as Provo, UT or Lexington, KY. I am now up to 5 weeks vacation a year which only encourages my dromomania.

In 1995 I came across the travelogue of a couple who had taken 12 months out of their lives to do a RTW trip. I was hooked and started the lengthly planning process to do my own trip. I was going to go everywhere: 8 months visiting Easter Island, Rio de Janeiro (Carnival), South Africa, Egypt, Europe, India, Nepal, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Cook Islands before returning home. Unfortunately at the time my father was ill with colon cancer and I postponed the trip for several years. After he passed away in 1997 at the far too young age of 52 I took off two weeks to visit San Francisco and Hawaii and I haven't looked back since. In December 1997 I started my RTW, visiting New York for NYE, then headed down to Peru and Chile. Unfortunately there my trip came to a quick halt, only two weeks into the journey I ended up in the hospital in Santiago, Chile with Guillain-Barre Syndrome. GBS is a rare disease and particularly nasty, the immune system attacks the insulation on nerve cells, causing a loss of strength. I was bedridden for 10 days and couldn't walk or even squeeze toothpaste. Needless to say this brought a quick end to the trip and had to head back to the USA to recuperate. After undergoing physical therapy for several months I felt the need to get back on the road, and resumed my trip even though I still wasn't 100% back to normal (I still couldn't run or jump very far). I decided to only do half the trip, visiting South America and Africa and spent four wonderful months there. I made separate lengthy trips to New Zealand/Brazil and Australia in 1999 and early 2000.

My mileage running didn't really take off until mid 2000, when I flew from Austin to Paris, via Los Angeles for a quick weekend. I had made Platinum on AA the previous few years but didn't think to go for EXP until a coworker was bragging about his new card. I came across Flyertalk in early 2001 where I found my true calling. I made EXP and 1MM on AA in Oct 2001, BA Silver in 2002, EXP again in 2003, and just recently hit QF Platinum. I've done maybe 5-6 mileage runs a year to keep or renew status since 2001. When I'm not traveling I'm busy planning the next trip! 9/11 didn't affect my flying habits, if anything it strengthened them. My first time to meet other FlyerTalkers was on the famed AA Taipei run the week after 9/11.

I met my future wife at a party in 2000, and quickly gave her the travel bug as well. She had only been to Hawaii but since we met we have visited Italy, England, Paris, Africa, Chile, Thailand, Australia, Japan, Egypt, and many other places. I proposed to her on a sailboat in St. Thomas in July 2001 and we were married in April 2002 in Austin. Our honeymoon was a monthlong safari in Africa, using first class tickets on British Airways (thanks to Diners Club!). She tolerates my mileage addiction and she definitely enjoys the benefits! She recently finished culinary school and was working at the Lake Austin Spa until last month.