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the new york times travel section published an article today on grand marais and the local cross country ski touring scene. check it out here. they also have an eight-image slide show that you can see here. north house, sivertson’s gallery, and scenery are all featured. the article is pretty good and doesn’t seem to have (m)any mistakes, the opposite often being true when you read a newspaper article covering something you know a lot about. but why start it all off with a photo of arguably the ugliest part of the town for the past five years? i mean, anything would be better than harbor park.

ultimate, pregnancy, frostbite, cats. all inside!

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in december i was feeling some weirdness in my lower abdomen and it had gotten to the point that i was ready to talk to a doctor about it. paige had some abdominal interests of her own, so we decided to take a field trip over to international hospital kampala (ihk) to investigate.

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people ask me if i have a hard time adjusting to driving on the other side of the road. other than the first few times, the short answer is no. now that it’s been a while, both here and in the states it just seems natural. i always screw up the turn signal and the windshield wiper, though. here and there it is opposite the hand you shift with. turning on the windshield wipers when i meant to signal a turn is especially annoying when i’ve just cleaned the windshield at the gas station, hit the wrong lever, and then get streaks all over.

a headline in today’s online nytimes - “power failures outrage south africa.”

this may make international news for south africa - the “europe of africa” - but it’s commonplace in uganda. load-shedding? we don’t have it for just a few hours in the afternoon, that would be luxury. no, load-shedding in uganda tends to be on a 24-hour-on-24-off cycle. yes, that means for 24 hours you have electricity, then for the next 24 you don’t. there’s some elaborate schedule for knowing when load-shedding’s going to hit your part of town; sometimes the schedule gets printed in the paper and (almost) always it isn’t followed.

the upside to uganda’s situation as compared to what’s happening in s. africa right now is akin to why i’d rather drive in snow in minneapolis than d.c. [Read more →]

there’s been lots o’ news coverage (local ugandan, and local minnesotan) of what i do in uganda lately. i’ve been remiss in giving a good picture on the ab.com/blog of what it is i do actually do, so sorry ’bout that…but i’m making up for it by pointing you to these links…

“it takes two to plan a family” - new vision, 23 sept 2007

“a banana tree with a few stalks is stronger” - southwest journal, oct 2007

“new project gives hope to malaria victims in northern uganda” - new vision, 11 nov 2007

“the odd couple: rochester native finds a home in uganda” - rochester post-bulletin, 25 jan 2008

“helping others help themselves: area native works in uganda” - rochester post-bulletin, 25 jan 2008

today was a first. first time flying a domestic ugandan airline. uganda recently launched its national airline, air uganda. it got cleared just before chogm for flights in/out of nairboi and had its first commercial flight sometime close to that. i considered air uganda for our tickets to zanzibar for christmas ‘cos i heard they were uber-cheap, but i said nuh-uh when i thought about it for oh, 2 seconds. how was i going to make that call to my mom?

uh, hi mom. i’m flying this great ugandan airline. yep, it’s safe. they have a clean safety record, no accidents. well, of course, this is the first flight they’ve ever flown, but still. no accidents. [Read more →]

i’m heading to north america tonight. i’ll be in canmore, alberta shooting xc skiing world cup races for a week, then home in grand marais for two weeks. 60+ inches of snowfall already this winter!? sweet.

i got the cheapest ticket home that we’ve seen yet. $1650. yeah, cheap is relative when it comes to travel to/from africa. but in this case you get what you pay for. i have a 12-hour layover in amsterdam and a 12-hour layover in jfk. making wheels-up in entebbe to wheels down at msp 44 hours. yummy.

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just because i didn’t post for six+ months doesn’t mean nothing was going on. it was actually a pretty eventful (in a good way) year. i’ll see if i can work on the backlog and fill in some of the blanks. here’s a car story from sep/oct. check the photos here after you read the story.

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the cats have taught me something that i never knew about lizards.

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