We did it! Yesterday, the 11foot8 team @Overheight When Flashing@ participated in the Doughman – “the world’s premier Team Relay Quadrathlon” – and we finished in a very satifying 8th place (out of 75 teams). The race has 5 legs. Each leg starts with an eating challenge before the athlete goes on to run or […]

[DEUTSCH weiter unten … ] Saturday, we took Wally and Cleo out on a road-trip for the first time. We borrowed the truck and trailer from friends of ours. We wanted to check out the truck’s towing prowess as we were planning to buy it. We had done a test-run the previous weekend and loaded […]

Boy – what a surprise that year had in store for us! Perhaps the greatest change in lifestyle for Laura an me since we had children … and a much bigger surprise than the children! Of course I am talking about our horses, Waldo and Cleo. While building our horsefarm and figuring out the ins […]

Tonight, inspired by a recent post on BoingBoing, we braved the chilly 27F/-3C night and I handed the kids my trusty old binoculars and told them to take a look at Jupiter. As cold as it was, the sky was really clear and visibility was great. None of us had trouble spotting the four biggest  […]

Yeah! We did it! In April this year we set out on our horse-farm adventure and today I call it complete. We bought the pasture, built the fence, built the run-in shelter, cleaned up the weeds and brush in and around the pasture … and, most importantly, we got the horses. Today, we finished the […]

Although Memorial Day is a a bit of a somber holiday, to most Americans the long weekend at the end of May is less about death and patriotism and more about celebrating the beginning of summer; about cookouts, parties, fishing trips and other family fun. For us, last weekend was all bout bonding with our […]

… took a lot of energy. This was not a bad year for me, but it did wear me out a bit. The first half was dominated by our trip to Togo and Ghana. It took a lot of preparation to get ready. The trip itself was great, but quite exhausting. Work turned a bit […]

We’re back at home. After 3 weeks in Ghana and Togo, we undertook the last leg of our trip on Friday – from Accra via New York back home to Durham. The guy who’d rented us his Bimmer came to pick us up at 6 AM and took us to Kotoka Int’l Airport. Like so […]

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 […]

So, as I said earlier, the camera I set up at Brightleaf caught several trucks crashing into the railroad trestle across the street. A couple of weeks ago I got an email from TV producer who was interested in my videos. First I was suspicious – but after a few Google searches he looked legit. […]

Once a year, the good people at Foothills Brewery brew their Sexual Chocolate Stout, and this weekend they began making the ’09 edition available at the brew pub in Winston Salem. To their loyal customers, known as “Footheads”, this is special day, indeed. Foothills brewery does not usually bottle any beer – so its beers […]

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 […]

… apparently is now the Hydroptère – and again, right after breaking the speed record, they broke the boat. Alain Thébault now claims to have reached 61 knots (70 MPH/113KMH) with his 6-ton sailing hydrofoil yacht before it flipped upside down! No one on the team was seriously injured, but the boat looks like it’s […]

Looks like the Australian Paul Larsen broke the 50-knots-per-hour speed sailing record, and then he broke his boat. So far only a couple of kite surfers broke 50 knots. Larsen claims that in his latest attempt at setting a new speed record his sailboat reached a peak speed of 52.22 knots (60.09 MpH – 96.71KMpH) […]

This is an amazing new sailing record: At 23:35 GMT 51 year old sailor Francis Joyon sailed across the start finish line near Brest in France aboard his his 30 metre trimaran IDEC to set a new solo round the world of 57 days, 13 hours, 34 minutes and 6 seconds. That takes 14 days, […]

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 […]

The Moon from inside the eye of Hurricane Felix, shot by Randy Bynon during a hurricane hunter mission. Amazing photo – click on the thumbnail to see the large version on the Wunderground site.

Out of 538 vehicles at the start (264 bikes, 189 cars, 85 trucks ) 300 made it to the finish line today. Stephane Peterhansel won the cars category in his Mitsubishi, Cyril Despres won the bikes on a KTM, and Hans Stacey won the trucks category with his MAN. Tragically, this rally also cost the […]