Myette.org

Our friends Kristel (Pesta) and Nicholas (St. Ores) got married this weekend.  Kristel is Jacob’s godmother and both Kristel and Nicholas were volunteers with us in Honduras.  It was a great fiesta of a wedding with about 15 former Finca volunteers in attendance. 

We also had a chance to spend some time with Erika’s cousin Bill and his wife Andrea and son Oliver, her cousin Matt who is working on Al Franken’s senate campaign and our friend Emily from college.  A jam packed weekend but a fun one indeed.  Photo are in the Minnesota Gallery. 

We dared to do it.  We took Michael, Jacob and Maggie to Disney World.  Erika has been dying to take the kids and it turns out my sisters godfather was able to get us in for practically free so I consented to put on my good attitude and trek up to Orlando. 

It turned out to be a great day.  My parents came along and we stayed at one of the Disney hotels, swam in the pool and met up with one of my childhood friends.  The next morning we headed to Animal Kingdom where we spent half the day before heading to Epcot.  We got to the first park at 9am and kept saying we would leave as soon as the kids were “done.”  Little did we know how great they would do and how long they would last.  After a great day of both Disney fun and time with my parents, we got in the car to drive home at 10:15pm.  A long, but wonderful day.

The quote of the day came from Michael who had initially complained when we said we were only staying for one day.  As we were walking back to the car around 10pm Michael said in the very wise voice of a 5 year old, “One day really is enough.  I didn’t think it would be, but it is.”

Photos can be found in the Disney Gallery.

Turns out the MS 150 is actually the MS 158.  An extra few miles on each day made it that much more of an accomplishment for our hard core team.  We ended up with 10 riders and had a great time.  We had two dads on tandem bikes with their teenage daughters leading the way and the rest of us followed in line.  Great weather aside from some brutal headwinds made the event really great.  6 of our team even rode the century ride on the first day (100 miles) so they clocked 183 miles for both days.  Here are a few smattering of photos but the rest of the gallery can be found here at the MS 150 Gallery.

It’s time for the MS Tour de Farms!  For the fourth time I’ll be riding in the MS 150 mile bike ride to end the devastating effects of Multiple Sclerosis.  Since being diagnosed when I was in high school my dad has benefited in so many ways from the programs and research sponsored by the MS Society and this is the least I can do to support him and the Society. 

We’ll ride 150 miles in two days across the farm land outside of Chicago.  We’re hoping for good weather and tailwinds and we need your support.   

I’ll be doing the riding (and I turned 30 this year so it could get ugly), but I need all the encouragement I can get.  I also hope you’ll consider donating to support me, my dad, and the MS Society. 

Click here to donate.

If you want to check out some photos from the past years ride you can find them at: Boston 2007, Chicago 2004, and Chicago 2003.

Thanks for your support!

They just posted this so I thought I would post it here.

We’ve landed here in Michiana (the border land of Michigan and Indiana) after a bit of travel that involved Erika flying by herself with all three kids and me driving a 16 foot Penske truck (towing our Camry) by myself for 18 hours straight.  We will be here until June 27th or so while I take a class at Valparaiso University to finish up the last of my graduation requirements and we spend quality time with Erika’s family before heading off to Honduras. 

Now that we’ve had a few days of downtime I was able to get photos organized from graduation.  Looking at them now, I think we got the best family photos we’ve ever taken.  There are some really great ones of my parents with Michael-John and Maggie.  Here are the links and a few highlights.

• Video of me walking stage with the boys. 
• Photos of graduation, our last month in Medford and the move. 

I’m leaving in 5 minutes to pick up the U-Haul truck and the computer is being packed up after this one last quick post.  So not enough time for a full post, but here are two quick photos.  I also posted the video of my actually graduating, escorted by my trusty bodyguards.  More photos to follow, but click here for the video.

Graduation weekend kicked off last night with a classic New England clam bake.  We got all dressed up and civilized then made a royal mess as we ripped apart whole Maine lobster, tried to keep sleeves from dragging in melted butter and made liberal use of the provided lobster bibs.  While the all you can eat lobster was certainly a highlight of the evening, I loved the lobster for another reason.  Actually eating a whole lobster is quite a process and not particularly easy for the uninitiated.  The ridiculous and messy challenge of cracking into the lobster set a great tone for the evening.  There was just something about walking around and seeing everyone with this little friendly looking lobster on their plate and then watching your classmates and their parents try and somehow eat the thing.  Plus my lobster was delicious.  Both of them. 

I’m not quite organized enough to have my photos up yet, but fortunately Michele is.  Click here to link to her photos.  Today is our class day.  We have a guest speaker and a luncheon followed by a barbecue with friends this evening.  It should be a great day, though it looks to be in the 60’s and rainy all day so it may be a bit of a mudpit under the tent where our graduation is.   

[A few years ago I wrote a post about a very different Lobster Day in Honduras - you can read the post here.]

A few years ago CRS started a volunteer program to place volunteers with local partners to do grassroots work, along the lines of Peace Corps, JVC or the Farm of the Child where Erika and I volunteered.  At a conference a few weeks ago I met a woman in her early twenties who had just finished a stint volunteering with CRS in Kenya.   I mentioned I was going to be a Fellow with CRS in July we talked a bit about fellows she had known and worked with, all very positive and she was very excited for me.  At one point she said something to the effect of, “Yeah, I’m glad I was a volunteer and not a fellow.  The fellows are just basically development professionals.”   

I like thinking about that conversation because it is a touchstone for a series of reflections I have been having as we prepare to move to Honduras in July.  What does it mean to be a “development professional”?  [Read more →]

Thought I would share a few interesting maps.  The first is a normal map and then the others are distorted by various characteristics.

“Normal” Map

 Here is the same map that takes each country and sizes it for population size intead of land mass size.

And now a map with countries represented according to child mortality rates.

These maps come from a project at the University of Michigan.  More maps with AIDS rates, GDP, health care spending etc. can be found at their website or the Worldmapper Project.