I have a co-worker who describes where he grew up by saying this, “I’m from Washington…” oh, yeah?! cool…I’ve been there…. “No, it’s Washington State - The Big One…You know? Not the capitol…The state, you know?” oh….hmmm….

We don’t have nearly enough opportunities to see the beauty of North America. I’ve been on roadtrips through the midwest, cross-country, up to Montreal, and even along the coast in California (by myself!). Now, I’m flying to Vancouver and along with my friend M*, heading down to San Francisco. We intend to see the mountains in Washington State, the great Pacific Coast, Portland Oregon and even hit up Sonoma Valley. Our final destination is a wedding for a friend in Oakland. We have yet to make one hotel reservation!

Stay tuned for updates!

By the way - have you noticed our new logo? It comes to us from Eric Strenger. Eric is an artist and designer and is living the good life in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He’s designed for Oxygen, Def Jam, and many others. If you’d like something designed by Eric - head to his website for contact information or to just stare at his artwork - www.ericstrenger.com. I particularly like wittle piggly. 

On Saturday, a man by the last name of Couch traveled 235 miles by chair. Well, by a chair that had some balloons attached to it.

On this, Kent Couch’s third attempt he needed only 150 balloons and nine hours (presumably it was nine hours without the use of a bathroom) to float from Oregon to Idaho. Onboard he packed some eggs and chocolate along with his GPS equipment. One hopes that the eggs were not raw and were not used for malicious purposes.

Apparently the flying contraption only cost about $6000, still a little above what the airline industry charges, but his chair’s carbon footprint is significantly smaller - so it could be the way of the future.

That’s good news in the category of people fulfilling their dreams.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7491841.stm

Good news for the publicity departments of scuba foundations around the world – two divers were rescued after a night off the Great Barrier Reef.

They got lost when they re-surfaced 200 yards from the dive boat. Eventually they were picked up 9 miles from their original location.

In order to stay alive they strapped themselves together with their weight belts, conserved energy and probably hoped that there would be a happy ending. Which there was, because only ending up with mild hypothermia is definitely considered okay.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7418279.stm