SUMMER!

Hi all,

I'm down in Costa Rica for the summer teaching a course on Sea Turtles biology and tropical systems. I'm not really supposed to be writing about our experiences here, but if you want to keep tabs on me until the end of July, visit the group's blog here:

http://www.academictreks.com/whatsup/update.asp?sg=735

Pete is in Africa!

My brother, Pete, is coaching a roller hockey team and working on some hockey development projects in Namibia, Africa.

Read about his adventures here:
http://petekamman.blogspot.com

Guatemala!

Sorry for the long post:

I spent the month of January in Guatemala travelling around and spending a good chunk of time at Eco-Escuela de Español. I managed to convince three friends to join me for the trip: Josh (SJU/Bemidji), Shane & Kayla (Bemidji). I should really make a point of putting thoughts down immediately after returning, but I’ll to my best to give a brief synopsis of our trip:

We landed in Guatemala City from our respective flights and, on the advice of Shane’s sister and former Guatemala peace corper, we immediately hopped a cab to Antigua. We spent the first few days wandering Antigua, a cute town but pretty touristy. We went on a day-long excursion to climb a volcano and ended up just feet from flowing lava. Amazing! After having our fill of Antigua, we grabbed a night bus to the town of Flores in the northern province of Peten. After a full day in Flores we caught our boat across lake Peten Itza to the smaller town of San Andres, where our school was located.



Our time spent in San Andres was great. We each lived with host families and met with private Spanish instructors for four hours per day. I lived with Nidia and her family (see picture) and studied with a great instructor named Elga. Neither of them spoke English, so it was great opportunity to work on developing speaking skills. During the afternoons, we usually had some activities planned with the school: meeting a local witch doctor (of sorts), fishing (and catching our bait), drinking at the director’s “cantina”, swimming in the lake. San Andres was, as Shane called it, “a very pleasant sh**hole”. It was an endearing town, with steep-hill roads, pigs, chickens, “chicken busses” and feral dogs everywhere. The people were friendly and everything was ridiculously inexpensive. Good times. I’d like to go back.





One of the most memorable places we visited during a weekend break from school was Tikal, the largest of the mayan city ruins. It’s an amazing place. We just happened to visit on day preceding a full moon. A guard sparked a conversation with us and, through awkward broken Spanish, we managed to bribe him enough to allow us to stay past 6pm park closing. We stayed until about 9pm and had the entire Mayan city to ourselves and watch the moon rise from one of the famous giant towers. It was amazing.


After a few weeks at the eco-escuela we headed out for a week or so of travelling. Our first stop was the town of Lanquin, or at least it was supposed to be. We ran into some trouble with our chartered bus driver refusing to go farther than Coban (about 2 hours shy of our destination). While it was pretty frustrating, it was, retrospectively, pretty cool to see all of us arguing and comprehending responses in Spanish. I’ve got a long way to go, but it was a nice way to start.

After finally arriving in Lanquin we found a great place to stay under thatch roof in the mountains on a river with amazing food… $5 a night. We stayed there for a number of days. It was a crazy series of 2 or 3 days that lends itself to a list explanation more than a narrative:
-Traveled into the rainforest in the back of a cattle-hauling pickup
-Giant rope swing into murky tropical river
-tubed down said river
-jumped off a 30-40 foot bridge into said river
-explored a cave by candlelight in waste to neck-deep water
-jumped off a cliff in the dark of the cave
-hiked up a mountain to overlook Semuc Champey (see picture)
-Went swimming in Semuc Champey, one of the most gorgeous places I’ve ever seen
-wood-fired sauna
-Watched Obama’s inauguration speech under a thatched roof building, overdubbed in Spanish
-Stayed late in a cave to be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of bats flying out.
-ate way too much.

After Lanquinn, Josh and I returned to Antigua a few days prior to our return flight. We spent the last two days wandering around, visiting a coffee plantation and an organic macadamia nut farm.

Great month.

Happy (1/2)Octo, Novem, Decembeard

The Guatemala crew (excluding Kayla) is going until we return, the end of Jan. Take that, UST dress code.

DNR rule changes

Below is a letter written to some aquatic biologist friends regarding a DNR rule change open for public comment. If anyone out there is willing to send a letter to the judge in favor of these rule changes, it could greatly affect the outcome of the judicial hearing. Minnesota needs this rule change. I watched the opposition to these rulings (largely Lake Minnetonka property owners at this particular meeting), NOT a pretty site.

For more on this, take a look at a friend’s summary of the issues:
http://beltramiswcd.blogspot.com/search?q=Minnesotan's

Hi Science/Water-nerds,

I've spoken with some of you regarding the pending DNR rule changes for aquatic plant management. During an internship this past summer, I had a chance to closely follow the politics and science of the proposed changes. The short version of the story: The DNR would like to decrease the amount of submerged vegetation that can be mechanically and/or chemically removed by lake shore landowners. The opposition, Minnesotans For Healthy Lakes http://www.mnhealthylakes.org/(ironic, I know), is well-organized, vocal, angry and willfully uninformed. Go here for more on the proposed rule changes: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/input/rules/apm/index.html

I'd very much like to see this rule pass. If any of you are willing to utilize whatever scientific and/or political sway you can muster, it would be appreciated.

The rule has been opened for public comment and the judge is accepting written comments until 4:30pm on Dec. 1st.

Send comments to:
Administrative Law Judge Richard C. Luis
Office of Administrative Hearings
600 North Robert Street
P.O. Box 64620
St. Paul, Minnesota 55164-0620

Thanks, I hope all is well!
John Kamman

A brief update:

Sorry to those of you who still check in on this periodically.
Update:

1. I’m in S. Minneapolis and going to school at the University of St. Thomas. I’m working towards my MBA with an emphasis in Nonprofit Management. Music has, unfortunately, taken a back seat to school work. I’m trying to change that soon. Life here is good.

2. In about a month and a half I’ll be heading to Guatemala for the month January at this school: http://www.ecoescuelaespanol.org/ Should be great!

3. Over the summer I’ll be guiding two biology courses through Costa Rica with this program: http://www.academictreks.com/programs/gl/sts_gl.asp I’ll be rafting, canopy-touring, turtleing…etc Should be a great summer job.

SUNDAY!

My submission to Minnesota Public Radio's "Songs from Scratch" project that I mentioned in the previous post will be aired on MPR's "Local Show" (89.3 The Current) this Sunday between 5 & 6pm. I got a little email today about it and don't know any other details. Exciting nonetheless. If you're bored, tune in at 89.3 or online here.



Also on Sunday, the same song will be featured on the front page of Redfizz, an independent music feedback forum.




It's worth having a listen to Jeremy Messersmith's version. He's great.

A Song from Scratch

I know this makes me a crappy songwriter, but my least favorite part of making a song is writing lyrics. Just not my thing. I haven't written or recorded since moving to the cities primarily due to a permanent writers block. A combination of loads of free time and a fun project by MPR pushed me to start recording again. MPR announced their 2nd annual "songs from scratch" project, in which musicians create songs around the words of a reputable lyricist, Adam Levy. I thought it might be fun... so, here it is. Not my favorite ever and hasn't been propperly mixed, but its fun to record again:

Songsfromscratch.mp3 (for PCers, to save: right click and select "save link/target as")

The Low-fi streaming version

Overdue Update

1. Done with School! I graduated from Bemidji State University with an MS in Biology. I will be defending my thesis sometime this summer. It turned out nicely.

2. Not Done with School! I’ll be attending the full-time MBA program at University of St. Thomas (Minneapolis) to focus on nonprofit management. Biology + Nonprofit management should set me up well to work in the environmental conservation world.

3. On a similar note, I’ve moved to the twin cities and will be living near lake Hiawatha

4. New Music: I released a little ep. There are a few good songs and a few crappy songs, but if you’re looking for album cohesion, you’ve found the wrong album. Its free…don’t complain. You can download it at http://www.jckamman.com/

5. I just got back from a week-long trip to the Boundary Waters…it was great.

6. I started a fight up in good ol' conservative Bemidji, before I left, that got attention from some local newspapers and a nationally top-ranked science blog and is still going on, kind of:

-http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/kbsu_peddling_nonsense.php
-http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/kbsu_respondsunsatisfactorily.php
-http://www.northernstudent.com/content/view/1096/36/
-http://seekingaponia.blogspot.com/2008/04/kbsu-church-sponsored-station.html
-http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/articles/index.cfm?id=16316&section=Opinion
-http://seekingaponia.blogspot.com/2008/05/kbsu-response-more-professional-still.html
-http://seekingaponia.blogspot.com/2008/05/kbsu-grand-finale.html
-http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/articles/index.cfm?id=17072

4 months ago I went to India. I usually write a quaint little post summarizing a trip that I went on, or some portion of a trip. I show some photos, share a funny story….etc. I haven’t done this yet for India in part because I don’t feel like I could do the breadth of the experience justice, in part because I’m having difficulty digesting it and in part because I don’t know where to begin.

I was in India for a month, far too short of a time to get even a sliver of the depth of the country, but Brian did a wonderful job cramming a wide range of sites and experiences into such a short time. I couldn’t have had a better guide. He’s fluent in Bengali and knows enough Hindi to give the rickshaw drivers and creepy hotel men a good laugh. He had wonderful perspective on how cultures, languages, economic landscapes and religions fit together. I could go on and on. For those of you that don’t know Brian Heilman he’s on his second year in India, this time working for AIF (American India Foundation). Thanks Brian. I’ll start by stealing a quote straight from his site explaining one reason why Brian chooses to return to India:

The experiment that has taken place on the Indian subcontinent for millenia is exactly the planetary experiment that is only now beginning to pick up speed. India's past and present is the planet's future: people of myriad ethnicities, languages, religious beliefs and economic blessings cooperating under a single banner for the good of all. This is certainly the "glass-half-full" approach to India's history and lessons for the future, but I am not alone in ascribing to it. And I am very excited to be returning to a culture where I can fruitfully participate with people of such vastly and fascinatingly different cultural experiences.

This was a trend that ran through the majority of our trip. How do people of such different economic, social, cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds coexist? And are they doing so successfully?

I met up with Brian in Mumbai and took a taxi to a nice suburb where I could read, relax, explore and recover from jetlag while Brian finished his mid-year meeting with other AIF volunteers. The last few days in Mumbai we stayed in a ritzy flat in the center of Juhu, where the Bollywood stars, including Brian-love Rani Mukherjee, live and hang out. Here was one economic extreme. I have only a blurry memory of the first few days. I was exhausted and overwhelmed by the movement of the city.

We took a train to Delhi where we were to celebrate Christmas. In coming to India over the holidays, I thought that I was sacrificing the holiday season for the sake of this trip/experience. A sacrifice I was more than willing to make. Christmas, however, turned out to be one of my favorites. Though Christianity is a tiny minority in Dehli, the exploding population means that even tiny minorities are represented by millions of people. Christmas eve at the Dehli church was a riot. Remixed X-mas classics were met with santahat-toting dancers. It was far more energetic than masses that I grew up with.

On Christmas morning we met with some of Brian’s friends to visit, decorate and entertain at an HIV orphanage. A heartbreaking, but terribly fun experience. It was fun to supply even a small amount of attention to these kids that seem to desperately crave it.

While in Delhi we met up with our two travel companions, Grace & Brian’s mom. We spent a number of days buzzing around Delhi in Rickshaws between touristy sites, religious temples (of at least 4 or 5 different religious) and intimate little restaurants and city corners. Between Delhi and neighboring cities, we visited several ancient and prominent mosques, the Taj Mahal, a Sikh Gurdwara, a the Baha’i Lotus temple, sacred Hindu sites, ancient Mogul cities/forts/temples (where we randomly stumbled upon a few long lost SJU friends).

More memorable than nearly anything we explicitly visited was the overall vibe of the city. The city is just alive with buzzing rickshaws (both motor and cycle), cows meandering through the streets, disorganization and millions of people seeing potential to make money from tourists. While I expected to see adverse poverty, nothing prepares you for and intimate interaction with the countless homeless, diseased and impoverished people. It is difficult to digest these conditions and not feel a degree of guilt. I’d like to say something deeper and more meaningful, but I think that interactions of this sort can only be processed on a personal level.

We finished up the trip with a visit to Brian’s tiny village of Katna (Murshidabad) and to Calcutta. In Calcutta, a city very close to Brian’s heart, we visited an orphanage for street children (where Brian began his India volunteer experience) several of the cultural centers and saw our first Bollywood film. Brian’s school in Katna is a wonderful place and he is adored by students and teachers alike. My brief visit to the village itself reminded me of the Indian counter-part of Ann’s village in Panama. It was was a great change of pace from the hectic and slightly uncomfortable city streets of Delhi. That is… until I got deathly Ill. I was the sickest I have ever been in Brian’s village. I’m not sure what I ate, but I spent 3-4 days on Brian’s floor saying, “Oh god…. Oh shit….this sucks” in between my countless trips to the bathroom. The trip out of Calcutta was another adventure entirely. Several random occurances worked against our favor and Calcutta was in mass chaos the one day we needed to travel across it. But I’ll leave that story to Brian’s Blog.

I could go on and on, but I’ll stop here. India isn’t a place that can be summarized. I think you should go.

If you want to read more, Brian and Grace posted some on their respective blogs:

The End of the World

Brian Heilma
Grace Brogan

THESIS!

The thesis is almost done. I've finished all of the research, and most of the writing. I hope to have a completed first draft on my advisor's desk Monday morning. Everything came out very cleanly...maybe publishable someday...we'll see. Another prof. of mine decided to submit an unrelated paper I've been working on to the Journal of Evolution (slim chances...but exciting nonetheless). For those interested, I'll post the abstract for my thesis below:

The extent to which hydraulic limitation of tree height can be applied as a general constraint to growth is incompletely understood. To test the hydraulic limitation theory’s regional applicability, four mature White Pine trees (Pinus strobus) in Northern Minnesota, approaching the regional species-specific height maximum, were analyzed for the presence of two water stress signatures with height: water potential gradients and carbon isotope discrimination (13C). Midday water potentials decreased with height, reaching pressures approaching -2.0 MPa at the top of each canopy. The water potentials measured may be sufficiently negative to induce stomatal closure and inhibit photosynthesis in the upper fraction of the canopies. Carbon isotope analysis results showed decreasing 13C discrimination with height, indicative of stress-induced stomatal closure over longer time scales. The results are consistent with the hydraulic limitation hypothesis and suggest that the regional asymptotic maximum height of Pinus strobus may be strongly constrained by water relations.


HOOOWAAA!!!

Chenopodium

On January 4th of 2008, on a train ride from Calcutta, a heilman-esque list was formulated and a promise made to my dear friend Brian, that a new John Kamman album would come to fruition by May, 2008. I'm sorry to say that I have failed, though not entirely. I have managed to recorded several (mostly non-album-worthy) songs that I will "release" on a cute little unofficial EP: Chenopodium ep.

I say that these are "non-album-worthy" not entirely because I dislike how they turned out, but there's just no cohesion and I want them off my back, to begin again freshly. I'd like to say it will be an "eclectic" mix, but frankly, with songs ranging from sincere and organic bluegrass to meaningless uber-produced pop, it's border-line schizophrenic. And even more frankly, I know I can do better.

It will be released for free online in May of 2008 and I'll try to get a handful of hard copies available as well. A real album to come someday soon! Thanks!!!!!!!