This web site is dedicated to sharing information about great things, beautiful places, and interesting people; in short, things that "don't suck". The content comes from experiences we've had over the years, places we've visited and especially the people we've met. It's full of our photos and stories covering about 20 years of traveling around the country and around the world. No matter how hard we try, we can't get to everyplace and everything in the world that doesn't suck in the course of a lifetime, so we accept photos, comments and conversation from others who have positive information to share. None of the great places in our stories or in our photos pay us to advertise for them. We make the decisions on what we want to share, based on the great experiences we accumulate.

Our inspiration to build the site came primarily because we truly enjoy documenting and sharing information about our experiences, but also because we wanted to create a site that chronicled good things, and shied away from being negative. If we have something negative to say, we don't say anything at all - probably something your parents taught you when you were about 4. And keeping the information up to date gives us the chance to relive all those wonderful memories as well as share them with you. Now that the site has been around for quite a while, we really enjoy all the great comments and emails we receive, most of the time from people we've never met who have happened upon ThisDoesntSuck.com! Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and please, keep them coming!

In July of 2000, we resigned from our positions, and began the year-long process of taking a break. For fun during our hiatus, we wanted to give something positive back to the many things we have encountered over the years that have given us such great memories. Often, we found ourselves looking at some incredible scenery, or meeting a really great person with a story to tell, and saying to each other "this doesn't suck". It's our way of saying that whatever it is we're encountering is a part of what we think life should be about; learning, creating, and experience. Because any good site needs a lot of information easily accessible, we took a year to do nothing but recharge through travel; we certainly fulfilled our goal to gather interesting information about people, places, adventures and general "things that don't suck". Now it's been over eight years since we changed our lives, we think for the better. We've traveled, made a living in between, and recently began a new phase that will hopefully keep us encountering those things we love. We hope you enjoy our stories, our suggestions on things to see and places to go, and the great photos from our adventures.

Our site is organized primarily by trip, so the best place to start is in "Travel and Adventure". Here, you can select any of our trips and view the stories and photos, as well as check out what the weather is like right now in that part of the world. You can add your own comments to our stories. We'd love to hear your experiences and thoughts on the places we've visited, or suggestions on where you think we should head next. We also have a Photo Journal if you'd really just rather look at the pictures. Several of those photos were submitted by friends and photographers we've met during our adventures. We provide guest photo credit so you always know who's work you're looking at. We also have a whole section about the Baja 2000 race, highlighting the "Still Willing" motorcycle team (which Jim raced with). As always, we appreciate your feedback, so let us have it! In addition to adding your comments to each story or photo, you can email us directly from the site. And be sure to subscribe, so we can let you know when we've added new photos and stories to the site. We hope to hear from you soon. Enjoy.