Thomas is an orphan from a village west of Kisumu, Kenya. He was born a few hours from where my adopted Kenyan brothers were orphaned. From an early age, he saw education as his ticket to a better life. He studied hard and in college he was awarded a scholarship to study in Iceland. When…
The data is in and the verdict is obvious: I am the worst and I suck at life. Don’t even try to argue with me and or convince me that maybe I am only the second worst. I am the worst. Consider the evidence: My flight from Iceland to Paris? I booked that the wrong…
Yikes! in Amsterdam, means Bikes! So, so many bikes. Their take over is utter and they outnumber people three to one. At any time, a bike might strike you and in a worst case scenario, paralyze you. But after 18 hours without a bike hitting me, I’ve already begun to believe that the bikes cannot hit you…
What makes even the devil? What tastes like a lonely death? What is the animal that is eaten almost a year after its funeral? I know how, in this subjective world of political correctness, most of you feel about the word “most.” You can’t just drop a “most” lightly. And I am not. I have…
It is difficult to believe that I first met Maria and Carmen four years ago. It was my second year as director of a development project in Guatemala and though I had seen a lot, I had not been prepared for the realities a visit to a garbage dump near the foot of the volcano…
The people in Iceland are as beautiful as the vistas. So that friend of yours in college who always wore the corduroys introduced you to some Sigur Rós and you dig? Of Monsters and Men is music that both you and your seventeen-year-old sister can agree upon and you totally thought they were from England…
It’s the biggest sausage fest on the planet. There is no penury of penis in The Icelandic Phallogogical Musuem. It’s the biggest sausage fest on the planet, the only museum of its kind in the world and there are more penises than you ever planned/hoped/wanted to see. The blog post, like the dick jokes, write…
Last night at a bar in Halifax, I proposed a question: Do you think that Americans would be more outraged and more united in their resolve to demand of their government to govern if instead of the closing of the federal government being shut down the NFL was suspended? Please weigh in: Later today, I…
Growing up, my mother repeated a stirring lesson that remains wildly relevant in life today: sometimes, you have to accept realities that you don’t like. Be it having to make my bed or being barred from bringing a 6-foot long bull snake into the house, I’ve learned that sometimes in the Texas Holdem game of…
Happiness is an end to which many roads lead. From the air it seems like New York’s skyscrapers reach towards you, each a unique, wizened individual with stoic stories to share. The mirror of The Hudson is pretending to be a sunset—saturated rose hues that rise to the occasion as if they knew the wringing…
