Adventures In ... Life

New RSS Feed and Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:18:00 +0000

For those that are tied into our blog via RSS, we've migrated to wordpress and our RSS feed has changed to the following:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AdventuresInLife

Come by and check out the posts you've missed!

Mark

Five Borough Bike Ride

noreply@blogger.com (Bebeth) — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:20:00 +0000

Mark and I are spending the month of May living with my parents in New York City and I chose my arrival date so that I could ride in the five borough bike ride. Its a 42 mile ride put on by Bike New York that goes through each of the five boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Staten Island). They cap the participation at 30,000 which isn't a very high percentage of the population, but it still quite a lot of people. There aren't many events in NYC that give quite as good a sense of community. The last time I did this was in 2001 and its gotten quite organized and very popular (spaces filled up fast). My dad and I enjoyed the beautiful weather and the mostly flat terrain. There were lots of rest areas with food and music, plenty of new sights to see, and even a ferry ride at the end!

Unfortunately I didn't have a good camera with me (our small one was in a lake with Mark in Eastern Washington), but I took a few with my cell phone.

The first one is of the longest bike I've ever seen. Its a little hard to tell, but the yellow baby carrier at the back (sans baby) is at the end of 4 attached bikes. The front is the father's full-sized bike and behind him are each of his three daughters' bikes. Its not exactly a tandem, but they're attached with some bar (I'm sure all you parents know exactly what it is). It seemed a little unwieldy in length, but it was pretty cool.
This shot is of one of the rest areas with lots of people!

A great day for a ride...

noreply@blogger.com (Bebeth) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 02:43:00 +0000

Today was sunny and beautiful....just the right temperature for a bike ride (well, when isn't it the right time for a bike ride?!) Mark, Jessica and I headed out to Whidbey Island for a day of fishing (Mark) and riding (Jessica and Bebeth). Jessica and I plotted our route on the ferry with food stops guiding our way. Neither of us had ever ridden on Whidbey Island, so it was a bit of the blind leading the blind....but we had a great day. We travelled from Freeland north along the west coast to Greenbank, back down the East side to Freeland where we had lunch at Gerrys (yummy food). Then we headed up the other side of Honeymoon bay and over to Langley for some ice cream. It was only 30 miles in the end. But early in the season and with lots of hills, it still managed to kick our butts.

Our route:

View Larger Map

Geochaching fun ...

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 04:40:00 +0000

For the last week, everyone in Seattle has been talking about, "that day" ... aka a day full of glorious sunshine. Supposedly up in the high sixties. Some of our friends went paddling, some went cycling ... we went geocaching up in Deception Pass Park.

Don't know what geocaching is? It's basically a high tech treasure hunt utilizing a GPS. People hide a little "cache" around the world and then publish the GPS coordinates of the cache on a web site. We will often pick a hike, and then look up and see if there are any cache's in the area. You then go and look for the cache with your gps. Often it's a rubbermaid container filled with various items (it can be anything from gift certificates to dollar store items.)

Here's a picture of our GPS.

Here we are logging our name in the "guest book" of the cache. You can see other people leave comments or just their name or even stamps.
Here's a picture of a small little rubber army guy that was in this cache.

Here's a funny Monsters Inc. character that was in this cache. Plus a picture of the lid of the cache.

Lastly the tulips are (if they haven't already) about to pop. On our way out from deception pass park we passed through the tulip fields.

... and of course with sunshine and flowers you get traffic ...

Our little girl is all grown up....

noreply@blogger.com (Bebeth) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:51:00 +0000

Ok, so Mark and I don't have a little girl, but today it felt like we did. We're down in Santa Cruz visiting Sam and Miranda for a long weekend (and er....work). Tomorrow morning Miranda starts her 6 month Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture at UC Santa Cruz's Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (http://casfs.ucsc.edu/training/index.html). Five days a week Miranda will be knee and elbow deep in dirt, plants and all things horticulture. Miranda only lives about 15 minutes away, but most people live on the campus in tents for the six months.

Today was "moving in" day....setting up tents, getting to know each other, etc. Sam, Mark and I took Miranda to school, helped her set up her tent (for the nights she's too exhausted to drag herself home), and waved goodbye as she joined the other "kids". It was sad to see our little girl leaving us :)

Assuming she's not too tired at the end of the day Miranda will be writing about her experience there...if you're interested you can read more at http://miranda.ujeni.net/blog/
Sam and Mark in front of Tent #29 (aka Miranda Robert's Home)

Perks of being self employed

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:42:00 +0000

Being self-employed is one of those double edge swords. Sure I get to stay in my pajamas till 4 in the afternoon but ... well I'm still in my pajamas at 4 in the afternoon! I haven't woken up to an alarm clock in over 2 years (except for the early airport run or fishing trip), but I don't get paid "sick" leave either.

Well one of the perks that I like best is being able to go do things during off times. So last Thursday I headed out with my fishing buddy and banjo player extrordinaire Greg Lawless and Jack Mitchell, one of the best fly fishing guides in this region (meaning planet earth). We saw two boats the whole day and we caught over 20 - 30 fish with almost 90% caught on dry flies.
Winter and spring here in the Northwest can be a bit dreary with all the rain/hail/snow we've been having lately, so when the sun comes acalling you better go out and be in it ... oh wait you have a job. You only get to look at it through conference room windows ... well our conference room today was 11 miles around mercer island ... I'll trade you your Aeron chair for a bicycle any day ...

Layovers...

noreply@blogger.com (Bebeth) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:30:00 +0000

On Tuesday we got back from our trip to visit Courtney and Arthur in Tanzania with my mom and dad. We had a great time....but we'll post on that later. Our trip home took about 36 hours because we had a couple of really long layovers. The first one was in Nairobi and it was long by design. We were able to get a full 12 hours and made the most of it. We were picked up at the airport by Jonathan Campaigne (our old boss at Pride Africa) and went to the office to visit old co-workers and get an update on the status of DrumNet. After that we headed back to Jonathan's house and had a wonderful dinner with some close friends: Tanja and Jarat (our next door neighbors while living in Nairobi) and Marco and Tessa (Marco, among other things, was our guide for our Schenk family trip in Kenya). It was great to see everyone, but made us wish, once again, that Kenya wasn't so far away.

During dinner we mentioned that we had an 8 hour layover in Amsterdam. Marco and Tessa are both Dutch and told us that the train station was just below the airport and we could be in downtown in 15 minutes. Only mildly concerned about our ability to function normally after such a long flight, we agreed to visit Amsterdam. It turns out they were right about the ease of getting into town and at 7:30 am(!) Mark and I found ourselves at Central Station in the heart of Amsterdam. We spend the next few hours wandering the streets, walking up and down canals, and enjoying the chaos of thousands of bicycles that is Amsterdam rush hour. All in all it was a very fun, if unexpected, part of our vacation. Below are a few images from the morning.

Funky Fish....

noreply@blogger.com (Bebeth) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:27:00 +0000

Corduroy

noreply@blogger.com (Bebeth) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:05:00 +0000

There's nothing like skiing on freshly groomed snow when you're the first person to make a mark. And if you're skating then corduroy is the ultimate....

skate skiing...take 2

noreply@blogger.com (Bebeth) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 03:41:00 +0000

Last week I went skiing by myself at Bohart Ski Ranch outside Bozeman. I had grand plans of skiing every morning while we were here. Unfortunately I forgot that skiing at sea level (or close to it) in Seattle is very different than skiing at 6,000 ft in Montana. Unfortunately I had to stop every minute or so and my lungs were hating me. Never the less, it was a lot of fun.

After such a rough first trip it wasn't till today that I made it back. Today Mark came with me and we were treated to beautiful weather, empty trails, and fresh snow. Here are a few shots from the day.

Shadows

noreply@blogger.com (Bebeth) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:02:00 +0000

Sometimes the beauty of things is not in the objects themselves....

Winter Fishing

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:05:00 +0000

Montana is one of the Trout meccas of the world. People come to Montana all over the world to fish it's famous waters. Most people come here to fish during summer and fall, it's sunny, it's beautiful and you don't need several layers of long underwear to fish. But winter fishing is great. Less people on the river, the snow is fun, and you get to see lots of animals ... including trout.

Montana Day 1....Country Fair

noreply@blogger.com (Bebeth) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:22:00 +0000

Our first day in Bozeman found us at the local fair. Fairs are always fun for seeing new sights...how often do you get to watch stallion service auctions (yes....auctioning off the right to have your mare "serviced" by a stallion), dog agility events, and more! Beyond the usual events, this fair is a mixing of Montana cultures. Bozeman has become quite the preppy town. Sitting in one of the many, many restaurants on main street, you would never guess that you were in Montana. But the fair brings in many of the traditional coyboys to buy and sell horses and so walking through the barns you see quite a diverse selection of cultures.

Below are some of the shots we took that day.

Coffee, Laptop, Modem, and Wide Open Roads

noreply@blogger.com (Bebeth) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:01:00 +0000

The Seattle branch of Mindful Interactive is picking up and moving shop for a couple of weeks...we're headed to Bozeman, Montana. What's involved in the move?

1) Pack the car full of all the outdoor great that you can find/reach in storage.
2) Pack up coffee and snacks for the 12 hour drive
3) Pack laptops and modems

As I write this we are somewhere in the middle of Washington State on I-90. Mark is driving and I'm working (er...blogging). Things are a lot different than when we left...or maybe they're the same and we just didn't know you could be connected to the internet while driving a car in the middle of nowhere. We're curious to find out if there's anywhere between Seattle and Bozeman where I can't be online.

Stay tuned for pictures and stories of our adventures in Bozeman!

Peace Corps Kenya closure on NPR

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:54:00 +0000

A friend of ours, Joanne Sprague (in the above picture), was recently interviewed on NPR. They were doing a piece on Peace Corps Kenya closure. Check out the piece:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18770524

What we do to our world (Mark)

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:33:00 +0000

These were some pictures off of a beach that we hiked to while we were living in cape town. The beach was just cluttered with trash. Here are some photo's ...

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Penguins - Mark

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:40:00 +0000

I think one of our favorite parts about Cape Town were the Penguins. They are such personable little characters. These shots and video were taken at Boulder Beach. Most of the time the little guys would hide under rocks staying out of your way. But if you sat down and didn't move, the adventuresome ones would come out and play around. We got to see a few guys playing around in the surf at very close range. If you can't see the video in your RSS reader try logging onto the actual site.

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Field trip ... to school

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:59:00 +0000

Now that we run our own business, we therotically set our own schedule. One of the benefits of being able to set your own schedule is that you get take odd times out of your day to go do things. Today I took a field trip down to Sumner. Why you ask? To fill in for Teddy and hang out with Terese during "Donuts for Dads" day at her school. We had a fun time reading Wind in the Willows together drinking hot chocolate and eating cinnamon squares ... well Terese didn't like the cinnamon squares so I ate both. Thanks to Lisa here's a picture:

Sticker Shock!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:11:00 +0000

Well my hair was getting pretty long so I figured it was time to get the ol' noggin shaved. I headed down to a hair salon close by. I walked in the door and was greeted by 4 guys sitting around not doing anything. I asked, how much would it cost to shave my head. The guy looks up at my hair like he's analyzing how hard it would be to cut my hair, looks back down at my face and says, "$22 dollars". What?! I asked him if he was serious, I mean it doesn't take any skill to shave a head or anything. "Are you sure, it's just a head shave?", I ask. Nope they're sure, $22 smackers! While I'm mulling over the highway robbery, some guy in the back pipes up, "Oh honey, you can do it!" What? Does he think this is my first time?

Well I wasn't paying anyone 22 dollars to shave my head, I proceeded to storm out of the salon drive across the street to RiteAID and buy myself 19.99 hair clippers. In kenya I paid maybe 50 cents to get my head shaved, of course I also risked getting wierd diseases. In Cape Town I paid five bucks. In America ... I do it myself! See below for the results.

Snow!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:47:00 +0000

Yesterday we got our first chance to see some REAL snow. Scott and his friend Kristen picked us up on Mercer Island and we all drove up to Snoqualmie Pass to do some skate skiing. Dorothy and Troy joined us a bit later and we all got to play in the snow.
It was great to be out, though I was woefully out of shape for this.

That's all for now!

We're finally back...

noreply@blogger.com (Bebeth) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:55:00 +0000

So, we are back in Seattle and have finally managed to figure out how to get ourselves cell phones...the true mark of being settled! :)

We figure we'll keep up our blog to record all our adventures stateside, but we're going to take down the email list. If there are any non-techies out there that don't know how to check a blog, let us know. We'd be happy to send info or, if you'd rather, make sure that it still gets emailed to you. Just let us know.

So...as a reminder, our blog is at: http://www.steudel.org/blog

We're not sure where exactly we'll be for the next few months, but we're using Mercer Island, WA as home base. Our address is:

7633 SE 41st St
Mercer Island, WA 98040

and our numbers are:
Bebeth: 206.377.9309
Mark: 206.375.7244

Many thanks to all our friends and family who kept in such good contact with us while we were gone....it made us feel much closer to home!

love,
Bebeth and Mark

News From Kenya ...

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:20:00 +0000

Hi All,

As you all probably know the elections in Kenya have turned ugly, accusations of rigging, tribal violence have turned what was the largest voter turnout into a saddening, sickening situation. I've been reading the New York Times every morning and they generally have one article on what is happening. I am also reading some blogs written by Kenyans in Kenya that give you a much better idea/view of what is going than the newspapers, especially with the Kenyan government censoring the news. This site has collected a bunch of different Kenyan blogs that give more perspective of what is happening:

http://whiteafrican.com/?p=841

It's strange to look at some of the pictures and know that 5 months ago we were in some of those places. There are many Peace Corps volunteers out of the country for holiday and have been contacted by the Peace Corps director and told to stay where they are. Other volunteers have been congregated into safe houses (probably hotels) to ride out the violence, while others are far and safe enough at their villages but told not to move. It's sad and scary to think that some of our Kenyan friends back home could be targeted by this senseless violence just for being from a different tribe.

Mark
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Holiday Greetings from Zanzibar

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 10:57:00 +0000

We hope you have as many wonderful surprises as coconut leaf accessories and bus-seat furniture this holiday season.

Merry Christmas!

Love,
Arthur ~ Bebeth ~ Courtney ~ Mark

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Good news...and then some

noreply@blogger.com (Bebeth) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:31:00 +0000

As the saying goes..."do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

Good news you say? Then good news it is....we're returning home and will be in NYC on December 30th and Seattle on January 4th!

The bad news....the impetus for the change in plans. Our friends, colleagues, and partners in crime, Sam and Miranda, had a string of bad luck recently. Apparently we were targeted as having good stuff because they were robbed twice in 72 hours. The first time occurred at 1 in the morning and the thief got away with a lot of stuff (computers, ipods, passports, etc). Fortunately no one was hurt, but it was very scary for them to wake up and find someone in the apartment (the thief ran out as they woke up so there was, thankfully, no confrontation!) The second time occurred 2 days later in the middle of the day with all 4 of us in the apartment working. Somehow they got in and out without noticing.

After all of this, Sam and Miranda decided it was really time to go home. The financial hit they took with all the stuff being stolen meant that going home was the smart move. Now, I know there are many people reading this who are thinking "I knew that Africa was unsafe!" Part of us didn't want to post anything for fear of fueling those sorts of thoughts. The truth is that a) Africa is a large continent (not a country :) and you can't generalize that easily, b) Cape Town is a big city like any other city in the world (NYC, LA, Washington DC, etc) where crime is a reality and c) this is just one group's experience. Anyway, we'll throw away the soap box for now, but we don't want people to turn this into something its not.

As for us, with Sam and Miranda leaving, it was an easy decision for us. As many of you know, Mark and I have been itching to get home and see family and friends. Although we think Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities we've ever been to, we love home even more! And unlimited internet and phone access won't hurt too!

As for work, Mindful Interactive, will just be closing their Cape Town field office and opening back up in Seattle (Mark and Bebeth) and Santa Cruz (Sam and Miranda).

So...that's our news.

Love,
Mark and Bebeth

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Africa doesn't need your junk (Mark)

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:40:00 +0000

Courtney posted a very poignant post on their blog about how misguided and often inappropriate our efforts are to "help" Africa are. I'm not talking about huge governmental organizations but I'm talking about us as individuals. Let's see if this scenario sound at all familiar:

Someone at your church, work, or just someone who knocks on your doors says, "Hi we're collecting things for poor people in Africa, do you have anything that you'd be willing to give away?" You sit there for a couple of seconds and you start thinking about all the things you've been meaning to get rid of: a box of books, some old clothes, some toys that the kids don't play with anymore, some old computer parts, those weird Christmas presents that you got from some distance relative. After rummaging around your house you produce a couple grocery bags worth of stuff and you are now quite pleased with the results of your "purge".

So now you're wondering, ok so what's your point? Let's take a closer look at these imaginary items and frame them within the following question, How will these things help someone in Africa?

Books - Are your books appropriate for the people and culture you are giving them to? What type of books did you give away: fiction, cooking, gardening, religious, self help books? Do you know if the people that are receiving these books are even literate in English? Are the books appropriate for the climate, culture, predominant religions?

Clothes - Unless you know your organization is giving your old clothes directly to someone, your give-away clothes are being sorted and bundled into big bales and then sold at the local markets. BUT what sort of clothes did you give away? Skirts above the knee, tank tops, low cut shirts, women trousers, in Kenya all of those things would be inappropriate to wear in the village.

Computers - Technology changes at a very rapid pace. Hardware and software become outdated so quickly. In Kenya almost all of the computers we found were running XP. If you give away software that runs on Windows 95 or 98 will it a) even run and b) actually help them develop the skills they need?

So what's my point, leaving out the whole issue of creating dependencies on donors, poor people in countries all over the world don't just need our random things we don't want anymore. Kids have very specific needs, paper, pencils, educational material appropriate to their age, culture, and language. Mothers need food, clothes that can withstand the harsh and highly "manual" lifestyle they lead. I don't have a solution for you, but we can be more mindful about how we help, and I think that we should be holding organizations that we are giving to to a higher degree of responsibility, why should they waste our money shipping useless items overseas? I think organizations like http://www.kiva.org/ are steps in the right directions, highly targeted giving.

Anyway if you made it this for, or just skimmed past my rants, read this post, you'll understand what I mean:

http://courtneyandarthur.blogspot.com/2007/12/container.html

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