The Original Risk Taker

It’s 11:00 in New Hampshire, which means it’s 10:00 in Minneapolis, which means my grandmother’s funeral has just begun. I’m not there. I’m here. I wrote her obituary and it ran in today’s Star and Tribune. It wasn’t the whole story. Actually, I’m wrong—it was. It gave a complete picture of my grandma. But I need my picture. The night … Read More

Imagine Ethiopia 2011: You Can “Go” From Home

As one of the leaders of Imagine Ethiopia 2011, I wanted to share a progress update to inspire and potentially involve you in our next steps. Read on for more. Earlier this year, Vancouver-based charitable organization, imagine1day, launched their second annual Imagine Ethiopia trip: a two-week adventure that takes participants on a daily exploration of the best that Ethiopia has to offer. imagine1day … Read More

Coffee Story: Ethiopia Available Now, Needed Now

  Signed Copies Available Above* You may also purchase at     It’s a big day for me today. It’s the day Coffee Story Ethiopia comes out, and moreover it is the day I get to thank everyone who has helped support and create this amazing project. We’ve done it. This morning a friend asked me to write her a note about … Read More

Waypoint Namibia: Big Walls, Desert Mirages, and Perseverance in the Darmaland and Beyond. *

On June 1st, Peter Doucette, Kate Rutherford and I completed Southern Crossing: a 1300-foot 5.11+, grade 5 rock climbing first ascent on the Brandberg, Namibia’s highest peak. But that’s only part of the story. There’s also a 2,000+ year-old painted giraffe, 108-degree temperatures, eight days at 15km/hour over washboard roads, scorpions, laser sharp granite cracks, crumbling granite faces, and 1.7 … Read More

Deceleration

It’s snowing in Boulder, Colorado today. I just came from the desert. Before that I was ice climbing. Three nights ago, I had a dream that my van would not slow down on a New Jersey off-ramp. Even inside of my dream I recognized the symbolism. Determinedly, I brought in the “decelerator” to my mechanic and asked him to fix … Read More

An Inbox President

I’m three months behind on my reading. I catch up in random coffee shops and doctors offices along the path of my current road trip. This is why it took me until last week to realize that I stand to risk being like George Bush. I know. A January issue of the New Yorker told me so. Maybe if I … Read More

Styling Your Life

I’m living in North Conway, NH this winter. It freaks my mother out. She thinks I am going to move here, permanently. She looks at the numbers: 47th in funding schools. I point out it is the #1 most “livable” state, according to CQ press. No matter that neither of us know where either of these ratings comes from. Or … Read More

Holiday Break for the Unbreakables

It has been over three years since I spend more than three days without doing something productive or additive. These days, if I climb for more than two days in a row without checking my email I start to grind my teeth. Or rather, with current technology, it is more like 6 hours without a quick run through my phone. … Read More

What I Wanted

Two weeks ago I was in New Hampshire. Again. I’d never been to the state until this February, and now I’ve gone on three trips to the North Country. It pulled at me the first time, and I knew it had something to do with the dreams of my younger self. Blanketed evergreens and hidden lakes. Winding roads and maple … Read More

Nobody told me when I would need the Marshmallow Shooter

When I was in sixth grade, I thought being an adult meant you were done. Done with anything tough or complex in friendship, life, love—any of it. My best friend had recently been stolen by an evil girl, the boy I had been going with moved to another school and seemed to have lost my number, and I suddenly sucked … Read More