There are a number of times in my life in which I am told by many, many people that what I am going to do is dangerous. Ok. There have been a lot of times. Many of these have ended up well, and I have had some pretty awesome adventures. Many times they are not…

Downhill skiing more than anything has been trial by fire for me. We had learned to cross country ski as children, back in the haze of memory where I can’t honestly tell you if it was hard or easy for me, if I took to it naturally, or not. Regardless, during my first experience downhill…

In the course of my master’s degree, I had to do research observations in the mountains of Taiwan every two weeks. Oh, darn. I HAVE to go spend time in a beautiful national park? How will I ever manage? This usually ended up being some cobbled together collection of six random days clustered close to…

Near the end of my stay in Rome, my mom decided to come and visit me. This was truly a wonderful thing to look forward to as I had only been able to talk to her through the phone that either had charge or minutes, not both. It had also been quite the run of…