Readers, meet Eric Auckerman, and his fiancee, Julie Ackerman (seriously, Auckerman and Ackerman!). We recently had a great day with them on their boat in Newport Beach, CA. If you’re a regular here, Eric’s name might ring a bell . . .
Eric tends to write some thought-provoking essay comments(see #11), especially when it comes to our search for our perfect spot to live and work (see #5). And if anyone knows something about that topic, it’s him.
Jim and Eric used to work together in the Silicon Valley, back in the ’90s. Eric was a high-flying international salesman who led a hectic life bringing in the big bucks. Then one day, he’d had enough (along with what he thought was a heart attack).
He quit his job, flew to Hawaii for a sabbatical, and ended up staying. He bought a local screenprinting business and turned it into a worldwide enterprise. All while maintaining that classic laid-back island lifestyle.
After a few years, he met Julie, a successful business broker from Newport Beach. Eric sold the business, returned to the mainland, and Auckerman and Ackerman now enjoy the best of both worlds; they have a home-office from their beautiful home in Newport and run a successful business brokerage together; all while getting to enjoy a fabulously stylish, laid-back way of life on the Pacific.
It was great to see Eric looking happier with life than he ever has. For if anyone understands the search for the ultimate LiveWorkDream scenario, he does. Congratulations Eric and Julie, we are so glad you found it!
Well..I just happened onto your blog through a Google search…and so far I am impressed! My husband and I are full timers traveling with our jobs. I am often looking for new ideas on ways to live life on the road!
Hey Melissa, it’s great to hear from you, thanks for finding us! Email me offline, we’d love to chat some more!
I’m so glad to finally “meet” you Eric. After reading his comments on this blog for the last year or so, I have to admit that I was a bit curious as to who this person was. It’s good to meet another person with the right idea on how to live.
Let me guess Rhodester: Some eat steak, others Spam, and the rest just hear the sizzle?
I almost forgot to mention that I have a boat too.. I was going to bring it out and play with it in the hot tub while you all were soaking, but I didn’t want to distract from our metaphysical conversation.
HAHA, must have been quite the culture shock to have visited them and then US shortly afterward. I used to hang out in the Newport area.. in my cab, in the parking lot of that Circle K at the entrance to the peninsula, which I’m sure Eric knows quite well.
Culture shock? No way. We actually felt like we were back in our element again. After so many weeks of hanging with family and friends who have homes that could fit our entire rig inside of them, it was nice to hang with you and Coffeesister. We felt right at home, not to mention having the most excellent metaphysical conversations, EVER!
Wait, wrong order, read the “Wow”! first.
Sorry.
Eric
Wait, I wasn’t done just hit the dang return key by accident…
A town so wet you would find fish in your shoes if you left them outside overnight. A town so wet the most popular name newborns was gill (oh so bad but oh so good). Yes, they announced they had found their domain of choice and was there a good amount of envy to go around, yes, and yes, yes, yes.
I would visit team agreda as time allowed. Taking the fish out of my shoes in the morning, we would then walk in among the fog with it’s curling smoke of dampness. We’d wave good bye to the children on their way to Mexico. We’d eat like farmhands at one of the local diners. We’d visit Arcadia and leave our nuclear materials by the side of road in observance of muni code 25.3.3347. Those were good times.
I sort of remember the tequila, the many toasts on art-walk night when we’d amble to the many open exhibits within Eureka’s shopping district. But it was with healthy encouragement from both Jim and Rene that I took those first courageous and outrageous first steps toward moving to Kauai whereupon I started a fulfillment T-shirt business for the New Yorker magazine – put that in your entreprenurial bong and take a deep draft says this slap happy pappy who got his surf groove on, how sweeeet it was.
I can never thank Jim and Rene enough for living by example and besides were it not for my taking those fateful steps I would have never met my sweet and ever so loveable Juli (she’s got the most beautiful eyes, like sapphires, you probably know them chemically as aluminium oxide). We wed this year as I am a very fortunate man to have made the re-aquaintanceship (I used to work for Juli) of this warm and very loving woman, this I do know.
I leave you all with a joke: This buddhist walks up to the hot dog vendor and says, “could you make me one with everything.”
Over and out, Eric (and Juli)!
Eric, I’m peeing my pants reading your comments. You are SO funny! Thanks for the kind words and giving us props. We really don’t deserve them though, we didn’t do nuthin. You and Jules rock! xoxo
Wow! I was so thrilled to be honored by occupying a full date in your blog that I almost pee’d in not only my pants but on a passing Pomeranian as well (it is Newport Beach people). So from both Juli and I – we thank you both ever so much for including us in your travels and for serving as exemplars for both reader, traveler, and dreamer alike.
Some times you have stick your head where Sun does shine but at the time when I met Jim and Rene they had yet to wed and move to Eureka cause we were all chasing 90s money and partying like Vegas showgirls.
Feisty, creative, and independent people seem to find each other some how and the more I got to know Jim with his focused but cool under pressure demeanor and his veggie animal-rights-activist save-the-receding glaciers of Greenland and don’t drink coffee picked by those forced to labor under the sting of the lash wife, I knew I had met kindred spirits. Truth be told I would have never moved to Kauai, HI, to open a T-shirt fulfillment business and world electronica DJ at KKCR had it not been for the encouragement of both Jim and Rene! There, I said it and I’m feeling healed and cleansed at the same time.
I speak now for my prospective bride and myself when I say we take our cues from people who have the courage and wherewithal to pursue their ever lovin’ bliss no matter what form it may come in. For some it’s sailing ’round the world and living as if each breath might be the last, and for others, it’s about pushing the Dodge up hill and dale in search of pastoral lands of good climes and easy times. I’ve met Americans in Tahiti who visited once, came back for their books, went back, and have yet to set foot on US soil in 30 years plus.
Turns out we’re less Americans these days than lost tribespeople who on occasion and by chance can find home in some odd but colorful places, there’s a quote from the 13th Century Persian poet ‘o love Rumi who said, “Sell your cleverness for bewilderment…” Isn’t that what we do when we travel? That is unless our cleverness needs a break job, then we sell whatever we have to, but that aside, those that fear the invisible will never experience the unknown, so when the time is right everyone should take a secret journey.
So back to meeting Jim and Rene: One day we might have been exchanging emails or calls or possibly the last-to-be extinct carrier squirrel (they lived in San Francisco at the time), they announced their intention to move to Eureka! A town so wet the children are bussed to Mexico for two weeks each year so the spores under their arms dry out.