I'm Baaaack...
To say I have been remiss is to enter in the Understatement of the Year contest... I have written nothing since I was in Taiwan in February. Not only that, I never completed stories from my trips in October and November of last year. Add to that the fact that since Taiwan I hopped off to Miami for a story-and that was a disaster of a trip. I brought my girlfriend who came down with the flu-from-hell as soon as we landed in Miami, and I ended up sick as well. We didn't make to the beach or do anything remotely fun. Basically I worked, and she convalesced in the hotel.
That trip meant I didn't have to travel in March, so I traveled to Boston to catch up with friends and family, while of curse doing some work every day.
In April I visited the calm, peaceful, and crime-free country of Colombia. I need to spend some time writing about that, but highlights include visiting the Choco region--one of the most violent and plagued by drug trafficking, guerilla activities, and massive numbers of displaced people--seeing the Ciudad Bolivar region of Bogota (poor and displaced people), and traveling up the Atrato River in what was effectively a canoe with a 40hp motor that would not have passed a single safety inspection, through guerilla and drug trafficking territory, to interview people in a little town who had been victims of murder and kidnappings.
I survived the trip, although I did bring home some extra organic material that spent a week doing rather nasty things to my digestive tract, but you don't need to know about that.
After returning home, I took a road trip to State College, PA, and I have to say my GPS took me on the most backwater, shall we say, "Deliverance" route I've ever driven, so I could visit family--in particular my new second cousin. Last december my first cousin made me the only one in my generation of my family to not have a kid. Not sure what to make of that...
Anyhow, I'm currently in Chicago after several days in Boston looking at the Muslim community for a story we are doing on Muslim integration in the US versus Europe. Interesting topic, and many thoughts in the Muslim communities in the US. While in Boston I managed to catch up with a bunch of people, although I have to say the WBUR crowd was a complete letdown--usually it's hard to keep them out of a bar, but this trip, I couldn't trick them into one. I did manage to be part of the Stanley Colander winning team in street hockey though. That makes my fourth Colander in six appearances. I missed a few years because of being on the disabled list, but this year I exercised the "Veteran Clause" and showed up for the colander after only two regular season appearances...
Well, that's all for now. At some point I'll catch up on the travel stories. I need to publish the details of a few moments in Colombia that would make my grandparents faint. Fortunately, they don't have internet access, so no worries there...
