Michael Glawogger’s film “Ghosts” on AlJazeera is a fascinating portrait of the sulfur miners at Kawah Ijen – an active volcano in East Java, Indonesia. It’s a quiet film with authentic voices and eerie, haunting images of men scraping sulfur from the smoking mouth of the volcano and carrying their heavy baskets out of the [...]

Yesterday I went on a bit  about how I think how cool Durham is. Little did I know that Durham is in fact Apple-cool. World-series level. Two fine Durham business establishments make a cameo appearance in the World-series Apple ad for the new jesus-phone. The ad features a new voice assistant called Siri and the [...]

This afternoon was one of those Durham-is-cool moments. When I got off work and I was waiting for Julia, I saw that they were unloading a truckload of vintage Porsches from a truck parked across the street. One of the cars was an original 1950s Type 550 Porsche Spyder – worth about $1 Million! DSA was just [...]

Ah … the Irish. What can I say – they know how to party. Dain Phelan and Zack Wheeler yesterday at Dain’s Place in Durham: I don’t much care for catholic saints, but David Plotz’ story about Ireland’s patron saint is pretty interesting: According to Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, Paddy’s [...]

This is beautiful mystery of nature: on a dry lake bed in Death Valley in California, rocks are moving around and no one knows exactly how or why. The rocks leave tracks in the dirt and they appear to move sometimes at speeds faster than a human walking. Yet, no one has ever seen one [...]

Last Saturday I participated in the second edition of the Doughman – but not in the competition this time around. Instead I helped document the World’s premier Quadrathlon  as one of four volunteer videographers. Due to our trip to Togo I was a bit late with the registration, and by the time I got serous [...]

Right now I am in Atlantic Beach, on the North Carolina coast. I am sitting on the deck of a friend’s beach house with a drink, waiting for the last load of laundry and the dish washer to get done, so I can pack our stuff and head back to Durham. I can hear the [...]

FOR SALE: SECLUDED COUNTRY HOME WITH BIKETRAIL Two-bedroom secluded brick ranch with biketrail/walking path and large basement in Bahama (20 minutes North of Duke Campus). The single-track trail is a .33 mile figure eight on the 2.5 acres wooded lot. The trail runs through the forest, crosses the creek and climbs a nice hill.  The [...]

Here are some more pictures from our weekend at the beach January 14/15! Sunday morning was gloriously warm and sunny; in the afternoon clouds rolled in, which made the light for our trip to Cape Lookout quite interesting.

No -this is not Southern Florida or South Africa – this is Atlantic Beach, NC in January! Looking at the weather report for the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, our friend Susan decided to head out to her beach house for the weekend. When she asked if we wanted to come along … well, we [...]

Piedmont Biofuels in Moncure, North Carolina, has openings for interns next year (see flyer). If I were 20, I’d jump on this one myself! This is a great opportunity for a “total immersion” experience in the biofuels-powered, sustainability-focused lifestyle on a small biodiesel refinery/produce farm in rural North Carolina. Contact Matt if you’re interested (see [...]

Many years ago, I spent several intense, fun summers in Morocco. Besides biking through the Atlas and hanging out at various beaches, I spent weeks roaming the Médina of Fès with my Fassi friends Mammoun and Mohammed. Samir at A View from Fès posted some great accounts – and wonderful pictures by Suzanna Clarke – [...]

Pretty spring day today – so we decided to head out to Little River park instead of doing chores. First Laura got to run on the trails for an hour, while I helped Jacob practice riding his “thunderbike.” I also showed Julia a safe, easy part of the bike trail she could practice on. When [...]

This morning I went right back to Tsali to ride another trail. Over night the clouds had disappeared and just a low morning fog hovered in the valleys. The sky was clear, the air was crisp and chilly, just slightly above freezing. Last night, the higher peaks in the distance had received their first dusting [...]

A little on-the-road blogging from the mountains. I am in western NC for a couple of days, to install some new equipment at our lab in Sylva. When I come up here I always bring my bike along. This afternoon, after I finally got it all working, I strapped the bike to the car and [...]