Hello. This is a site about Dan Woods.

Hey, I’m Dan and I love travel, new experiences, and that first sip of coffee in the morning that comes close to convincing you all is right with the world.

When I find the time, I write about the shiny, sparkly things that catch my eye on my blog at tinear.net. You might enjoy reading about lake leschenaultia, trees and rocket-ships, or mobile love.

I’m regularly seduced by the travel bug, and become fixated with journeying to the ends of the earth, stumbling around a place I’ve never been, and massacring whatever local language I’ve tried (and failed) to learn in two weeks.

I was born in Perth, Western Australia. Perth is often referred to as the most isolated capital city in the world and if you look at a map of Australia, you’ll see why. Sandgropers live closer to Jakarta than they do to Sydney, and both of these cities lie some three thousand kilometres distant. I feel this isolation contributes to Perth’s laid-back vibe, sheds light on its explosively talented local music scene, and goes a long way toward explaining residents’ ability to travel to a sandy beach 15 minutes from the city centre and still be the only person on it. These are all things that make Perth great, so I made a website about it.

As much as I love the West, it can be suffocating to be that far from, well, everything. I escape when I can, and am currently living and working in Bangkok, Thailand. The rising star of South-East Asia isn’t all about smothering heat, exhaust-choked air, and plates piled with wilted vegetables, red chilli heaped on top, and the ever present fish sauce glistening like the rain-slick streets outside, it’s a city that’s pulling itself rapidly forward, and an exciting place to live.

For three years, I lived in a tiny mountain-side closet of an apartment in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, and in winter the pipes froze and neighbourhood kids threw snowballs at me as I wobbled down the hill on my bike. During my time there, I rode on so many trains I can remember most of the station jingles off by heart.

My favourite type of sushi is Engawa, my favourite sake style Nigori, and my favourite onsen town, Kinosaki. I revel in new tastes and will eat anything once, and have been known to go out of my way to do so. While this is usually a good policy, I’ll admit that the crab brains in raw egg did, initially, cause me some consternation.

I run a company called amoeba design and we create websites, illustration, and other beautiful things. I think that accessibility, usability and user-centred design are way more important than people think. I hate poor CSS support in browsers, am a huge typography nerd, wish that people would pay more attention to kerning, and think hot pink is awesome, even if I won’t admit to this in public. I’m an active member of the Australian Web Industry Association, an advocate for open-standards, and wish that we would all be nicer to each other on the internet.

I’d love to hear from you, so drop me an email or chase me on twitter.