For almost two weeks Laura and I and the kids have been back to Yikpa – the village in Togo where Laura and I met all these years ago. Our visit is going very well. Our reception was just amazing! We had almost two days of celebration, including a formal welcome with a sacrifice of […]

We made it! We arrived in Accra, Ghana, yesterday at 8AM. Uncle E.K. picked us up and drove us to the house we’re staying in while we’re in Accra. It’s HOT – no rains yet (that’s a problem for the farmers!) but the house does have A/C. We use the cooling sparingly because we need to […]

Yovo is going back to the village! In a week from now, we will be on our most exciting, most anticipated family trip yet, back to Yikpa – the village where Laura and I met all these years ago. Next weekend, we’ll fly directly from New York to Accra. In Accra we’ll be staying at […]

A close presidential election in Ghana has put the West African nation’s electoral system to the test, but in the end the opposition candidate John Atta Mills, 64, won by a very narrow margin. There were allegations of fraud on several sides, and the runoff election in the Tain region had to be re-done due […]

2008 was a pretty good year for us. We stayed healthy, sane (more or less) and employed. Jacob and Julia grew a lot. We had a great family vacation in the mountains of North Carolina and we did a couple of short trips to the beach. Both kids changed schools. Jacob and I started learning […]

What a year 2007 was. For us, it had some tough decisions, some crises, some major changes and some really positive accomplishments. In January we backed out of contract to buy a house because of serious structural problems with that house, and because of our lack of faith in the engineer and the contractor dealing […]

Laura’s grandmother Peg was born on December 6, 1908 in Trevor, Wisconsin – the same year Bette Davis was born (April 5) and Henry Ford produced his first Model T automobile. She was the daughter of Wayne and Lillian (Frank) Bush. Peg died on December 17, 2007 peacefully in her sleep at a retirement home in […]

Meet Joey – he’s a 18-hands Clydesdale and a member of the Express Clydesdales Team. When the team visited Durham last weekend, we were lucky enough to know where they were staying. so we got a special, personal encounter with these amazing hoses. (see below)

Looks like I’ll be retiring my trusted Simonelli bike sooner rather than later. Last week I was preparing the bike for a ride to work, when I noticed that the frame is damaged. Those fat off-road tires I like, wore a hole in the frame! The side of the tire was rubbing slightly against the […]

October was quite a ride. My Benz was in the shop for most of the month, which was inconvenient, but at least all the repairs so far were under the seller’s warranty (new alternator, fuel pump, fuel injector, new turbo) and he also gave me a loaner to drive while he was working on the […]

My new ride – a black 1991 Mercedes Benz 300D. She’s at 244,000 miles, and going strong. Well, right now she’s actually short a turbo, but that’ll get fixed next week. Even without the turbo she’s a mighty nice ride, especially now that she’s no longer on that stinky diesel, and running on homemade juice.

We brought this plumeria back from Hawai’i in 2004 and planted the stem in a pot. For a while nothing happened. Then it started growing leaves. This spring Laura transferred the plant to a larger pot and it started growing more leaves. When we moved, we gave the plumeria a nice, sunny spot on the […]

YES!

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 […]

We did it! Two weeks ago we closed on our new house, moved our stuff to the new house and then spent about a week cleaning and fixing up our old place to get it ready to sell it. Today we fiished up, and our agent will list it tomorrow. The new place is just […]

We had a rather dry spring, and so only last weekend we finally found an opportunity to engage in our annual post-solstice ritual of burning our yuletide tree. After getting two inches (52mm) of rain on Saturday last weekend, Sunday evening was calm and cool and it was pretty safe to torch the bone-dry Frasier […]

Yesterday, like every day, my daughter on the way home from afterschool told me about her day at school. She was upset because one of her teachers had told her to throw away one of her favorite books, “The Marvelous Land of Oz” because it contains “witchcraft and superstition.” Julia said she felt humiliated and […]

The Story is a syndicated radio show produced at WUNC in Chapel Hill. The show is hosted by Dick Gordon, who interviews people who have an interesting story to tell. Today, they aired the segment where Laura and Agbessi get to tell the story of the library in Yikpa, and the impact it had on […]

Between the news of the horrible tragedy at Virginia Tech (we’re all Hokies this week!), a slightly hectic, double trip to the beach and another offer on a new house, we’ve had a busy, weird time lately. Last week the kids were off from school, so on Thursday we drove to Atlantic Beach, to join […]

Over the years, in conversations about sports, I have always identified myself as a biker – a mountain biker. Not a particularly competitive specimen, I lack the colorful outfit and fancy bike, but I do enjoy very much taking my 17-year-old Simonelli bike on a challenging single-track out in the woods. We’re just a 10-Minute […]