John Kamman

Trashy Old Ladies & Gradual Students

2009-11-03T00:23:00.003+01:00

Over the past few months, I've been working on a few websites for myself, friends & a few nonprofits. After learning about about the relatively new field of S.E.O. (search engine optimization), I thought I'd check to see which search terms were sending people to my website. Here's are the top 2:

1. "trashy old ladies" ranked #5
2. "gradual student" ranked #2

I'm not really sure why these pop out in Google's brain, but I'm sure that this post will only strengthen those rankings.

New North House Website!

2009-10-20T18:08:00.007+02:00

After a few months of sporadic work with Grace and the NHFS staff, the new North House Folk School Website is up and running (mostly) glitch-free. We're all really proud of the design, online-registration capabilities and ease of navigation. Explore the new website, let us know what you think and go enroll for a class!

http://www.northhouse.org/

We are (or soon will be) working on a few other sites for nonprofits in the area, so keep your eyes peeled for more updates.

It Starts With a Seed

2009-10-07T18:23:00.005+02:00

Over the coming January, I'll be working in Mali, Africa on a sustainable development project through the USDA and UST. Below is an article written by one of the students who worked on the project last year:

It Starts With a Seed
St.Thomas helps a Mali village prepare for a ripe future
by Nathaniel Minor : Photo by Anthony Caruso
BORKO, MALI - In the small village of Borko, Mali, you can spot a visitor from a mile away.

Even when they don’t carry cameras, tourists stand out because of ever-present crowds of children swarming them. The kids, poor and excited to see new faces, usually ask for a water bottle or a pen – something small and easy to give away. And the tourists are happy to oblige.

I experienced this firsthand in January, when I went to Borko as part of a project meant to give residents of this tiny village a new way to move beyond poverty.

The children of Borko were certainly persuasive, but we had been instructed not to give them any of our things; what we were trying to give them required more work and dedication than surrendering a water bottle.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture grant teamed St. Thomas with the Mali Agribusiness Centre. Multiple projects have been funded by the grant, which has brought a number of St. Thomas students and faculty from different disciplines to Mali.

UST students and faculty brought their skills to work on specific projects here, but we receive as much as we give.

The grant made it possible for Mali Agribusiness Centre members to visit St. Thomas and other U.S. colleges to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to fulfill their organization’s mission: to give Malians the tools they need to lift themselves from and stay out of poverty.

Centre member Madame Aissata Thera is working on a seed potato project in Borko.

“Borko is like most of the villages in Mali,” she said. “The people are poor; they have a lot of health and nutrition problems, and organizational problems. So, it’s always good to try and help them get out from that poverty cycle.”

The potato was once a big export for Mali, but a bacterial wilt disease not only wiped out potato plants across most of the country but also scarred the soil and made it unusable for future potato growth.

Most potatoes in Mali are now grown in the far south of the country, and all the seed potatoes are imported from Europe. Prices for these European seed potatoes, which often do not arrive at the correct time of year, are high.

Fortunately, farmers in Borko stopped planting potatoes before the bacterial wilt spread through the country. Its untainted soil also is very rich because of the abundance of water in the area, making it an ideal location to pilot a seed potato project.

The Malian seed potatoes would cost less, be more immune to disease in the soil, and be more certain to arrive at the correct planting time.

As a member of the sociology team, I spent five days in Borko with Thera, Dr. Susan Smith-Cunnien of the UST Sociology and Criminal Justice Department, and two other students. Serving as French translators were Dr. Ashley Shams of the St. Thomas Modern and Classical Languages Department and two of her students. We interviewed village leaders and farmers to gauge the village’s ability to grow the seed potatoes and report the status of the project.

The farmers of Borko grow a variety of crops; they store and eat some of them themselves, but they sell most of them. Garlic is a big cash crop in the village, but selling prices have dropped as the vegetable has become more available.

Still, it makes more economic sense to use money from these sales to buy food throughout the year, rather than to farm only for food.

The main subsistence foods are cereals: rice, millet and sorghum, none of which provide enough necessary nutrients when eaten alone. These crops all grow well, but the village is missing a crop that can be both sold for profit and eaten for its nutritional
value.

The centre hopes the seed potato (and in time, the ‘real’ potato) can fill the nutritional and financial needs of the village and provide a better seed potato for the rest of the country.

The seed potatoes are still in an incubator just outside of Bamako, Mali’s capital. The villagers in Borko often asked us why the project was taking so long. It’s easy to understand why they are so impatient: Most villagers are malnourished and extremely poor. It was hard to explain to those who can’t afford food for their children that you can’t help them in a more immediate and direct way.

As my classmates and I discussed this dilemma, we talked about all the projects that have come through Borko in the past. Earlier this year, a truckload of baby food was delivered to provide nutrition to children. It helped, but it didn’t last long.

Material aid definitely has a time and place, but in a place like Borko that has all the right tools to be independent, it seems more like pity.

Still, it is difficult to explain the long-term benefits of our project to people who have such immediate needs.

Souleymane Kassambara, the deputy mayor of Borko, told us the villagers will have a hard time waiting for seed potatoes. “It’s difficult for them, because they are used to having cash back right away. They are not rich and need the money for life expenses,” Kassambara said.

I asked Thera why she is so dedicated to something that can seem so full of empty promises to the people of Borko: “[Their doubt is] normal,” she said. “I think that because I’m educated, I can see things differently … to help them see what I’m seeing. And if you have a good way to convince them, a good way to show them… I think they will [be patient].”

Of course, we didn’t just drive into Borko and start telling people what to do. Doing that would have been disrespectful of their culture and abilities; it would have been cultural imperialism. So, it is important for us to spend sufficient time and effort on this project, to cultivate trusting relationships with both the residents of Borko and our colleagues at the centre.

Keeping up relationships with people 5,000 miles away is never easy, but it is even harder to navigate the cultural differences. The most immediate obstacle is the language barrier. Most of the centre members spoke fluent English but that was not the case in Borko, where no one spoke English and only a handful spoke French. Our interviews involved two layers of translation, from English to French, and then to the native Dogon and back again. The French students gained fantastic experience, but it was a tedious system at best.

To complicate matters, the Malian concept of time is very different from ours. Danielle LeCorps, one of the French students, summed up the difference: “Where we in the United States see time as money, the [Malians] see time as something you have to enjoy. They make every second count for them, but not for everyone else.”

Because our hosts in Borko were so generous in every other way, we knew they weren’t being selfish with their time; it was just the way they do things.

Still, time spent waiting often put us further and further behind with our work. “We had expectations when we came to Borko that we would probably interview two or three times the number of people we actually did,” Smith-Cunnien said.

When you consider the impoverished state of Mali – and this could be true for other areas with similar economic circumstances – the reason that time is treated in such a seemingly casual way becomes obvious.

“It’s the most valuable thing they have,” LeCorps said. “They don’t have a lot of money, they don’t have a lot of basic necessities. … [Time] is the only thing they can hold on to, and the only thing they can say they have, so they try to cherish it as much as possible.”

Once we understood this cultural difference, our work goals didn’t seem as important as they once were. Our method of communication was slow, but it worked. The amount of surveys completed wasn’t as vital as the time we spent getting to know the people around us. We no longer saw the people of Borko as a list of names on one of our surveys but, rather, as people we knew and trusted.

The overall goal of our project was not to give the residents of Borko a truckload of nutritional vegetables to feed their families; it was to share our expertise, skills and ideas.

Although the material things we provided will one day run out, the ideas we shared with them will last much longer. Families can eat for a week on a truckload of potatoes, but to feed their children, and their children’s children, they will need more.

“To me, development is not ‘Give food, give things,’” Thera said. “It is to teach them, to be able to have, to create [for] themselves their own income. They need to learn something with which they could produce, make a profit, get income and take care of themselves.”

About the Author:
Nathaniel Minor is a junior majoring in sociology and communication and journalism.

SUMMER!

2009-06-23T16:49:00.005+02:00

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!

2009-03-07T23:22:00.004+01:00

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!

2009-03-07T22:51:00.008+01:00

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

2008-12-10T05:34:00.003+01:00

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

DNR rule changes

2008-11-17T01:27:00.002+01:00

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:

2008-11-17T01:09:00.000+01:00

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!

2008-07-25T22:23:00.004+02:00

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

2008-07-20T00:54:00.008+02:00

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:

It's All Within You

Overdue Update

2008-06-07T01:00:00.006+02:00

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

2008-04-27T22:40:00.006+02:00

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!

2008-04-12T01:23:00.004+02:00

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

2008-03-13T17:48:00.002+01:00

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!!!!!!!

A stolen post

2007-12-26T18:13:00.000+01:00

Brian just crafted a post for his website: http://bharoterdinratri.blogspot.com/ I'm just going to steal it. India has been amazing so far, but I think I'll need some decompression/processing time before I make a solid attempt of my own:

In perfect brian form, it is a list of 7 days, 7 things we've done:

1. Found Rani Mukherjee's house in Mumbai and delivered a letter to her (via her guards). See Brian's website

2. Made 16 color back-and-front laminated photocopies of the eighth grade graduation picture of Tom Steingraeber that I carry in my wallet. This is slightly ruining the surprise, I suppose, but some of you readers may expect one of these as your India souvenir gift from John. We did this nearly a week ago, but it has yet ceased to be an source of explosive laughter. The photo and note on the back - which I will let be a secret - are hilarious. Sorry Tommy.

3. Attended Christmas Eve midnight mass at Delhi's cathedral, where we sang along to club beat-ified Christmas songs and hung with a sari-clad Santa Claus. This annual party is so popular that everyone can't fit inside the Cathedral itself; there was a huge tent on the school grounds next door. Everyone was overflowing with cheer, and many people even came to the decidedly un-solemn proceedings wearing Santa hats. Nice.

4. Hung out all Christmas Day with 35 HIV-positive children in the Nav Foundation orphanage. We decorated their bedrooms, sang Christmas songs, danced, drew photos, and gave these sweet kids a surplus of physical attention and goofballness.
5. Spent Christmas night visiting the two oldest mosques in India (unknowingly and in succession). The oldest is at the Qutb Minar complex, and the second oldest is the incredible Nizamuddin Mosque (slash mausoleum of Nizamuddin, the Sufi saint), where I met a Bengali mullah who sat me down for a Bangla conversation just long enough to surmise that I didn't make enough money volunteering here to be able to offer him any baksheesh. He was a sweet (dyed-bearded) dude though, and he told me that all of my work was a gift to Allah.

6. Went to a swank dinner party in Juhu. Of course, it was just us and the rest of the AIF fellowship people, but still. That's what Bollywood stars do with their free nights in Mumbai. Go to swank dinner parties in Juhu. Yes us. Swank.

7. Prepared thoroughly for Mama Heilman's imminent arrival in India. We booked a kickin' room at the "Hotel Relax," which has tons of kitschy Christmas clutter and a couple gorgeous balconies. We bought a marigold garland to toss over her head upon arrival. John even brought a Christmas tree from the U.S. which, with any luck, we'll smuggle into the airport in about an hour's time. And we already have a car booked for the morning, when we'll hit the town Linda style, rocking the Lodi Gardens and Purana Qila and any other south-ish Delhi spots Mama feels like seeing.

Free Stuff

2007-10-06T22:21:00.001+02:00

FREE DOWNLOAD!!!!
Seeing as online sales of the album have started to peter off, I've decided to post the whole album for free download. Thanks to anyone who purchased it... it helped defer the cost of production a lot. If anyone still wants a hard copy, there are plenty left (Darn you minimum order quantity!!!)

To download go to my website (www.jckamman.com) and click on the left hand side, or just go here

On a side note, some people have mentioned that they miss the "links" section to various friend's website. Its still there, just down at the bottom, or here

I have a stuffy nose.

Gradual Student

2007-09-24T23:22:00.000+02:00

Well, After a year of gradual work, I've finally finished the final draft of my thesis proposal (despite the fact that I'm almost done with the actual research). Its only 5 pages, which seems ridiculously short for the time it took to prepare. But, after months of slowly learning about what I was going to research, figuring out the best ways to pin down the moving parts, several road blocks and many many revisions, I got my 3 signatures.

If any of you are interessted, curious or bored enough to read it, I posted it here:

Physiological Analysis of Hydraulic Constraints on Tree Height in Pinus strobus

I'll be finished with course-work in December, but will most likely be in Bemidji finishing the actual Thesis, my written exams and my defense until May '08. Next semester will be (Hopefully!) extremely flexible to travel, have fun and visit people.

The overdue post on Costa Rica:

2007-09-03T19:02:00.000+02:00

Earlier in the year, I was bumped from a flight to Panama, receiving a big travel voucher. Several weeks prior, Devereaux was bumped from a flight to Switzerland. Despite our mutual lack of funds to be spent upon arrival, we decided to blow the vouchers on a flight to Central America
After the first portion of white pine research in MN finished, I left for a small town, Rio Piro, on the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica. Through extreme luck, certainly not qualifications, Devereaux and I both received positions as resident biologists to help oversee a sea turtle conservation program. Steve and I met up in San Jose and caught a flight about the size of a minivan to a landing strip in the run-down little city of Puerto Jimenez. Jimenez was endearing in its own way, but we were glad to escape to our site.
Our site was about an hour and a half drive via the “collectivo”. The Collectivo is an old pickup truck with steel bars welded over the bed of the truck and benches attached. We paid the equivalent of 3 dollars and got hopped in the back. The road was mud/clay and extended into the rainforest, pausing several times to switch in to 4X drive to ford a river. Other than a few farms, the stretch from Jimenez to Piro is completely uninhabited. It is gorgeous.
Our job, once we arrived in Rio Piro was, primarily, to patrol our section of completely undeveloped beach front for three hours at night, tagging and measuring giant sea turtles when they came up to nest. We had days virtually free to hang out on the beach, hike through the rainforest, go swimming, read…etc. It’s a rough life.
Living in that part of the world, still so undeveloped, was an incredible experience. Among the seemingly infinite rainforest landscape, we saw a lot of wildlife: a jaguaroundi killing a sloth, four species of monkeys, countless scarlet macaws (at one point 36 all in one place), crocodiles, several huge snakes (steve almost stepped on one…I saved his life…right steve?), puma eyes at night, not to mention sea turtles…among a lot of other wildlife.
There were countless other stories, but I’ll leave the details to Dev’s story telling abilities: Steve’s B-day in Jemenez (several sub-stories in there), a soccer game we stumbled across, finding a raft washed up on the beach and testing it out, hitching a ride with a drunk American family down the road to Jemenez (he measured distance in beer), climbing a waterfall, hiking at night (very freaky), fishing…etc
It has been an amazing summer!

our beach

our home

Grandma's Marathon

2007-06-17T23:56:00.000+02:00

Well... its over. For the past several months, I've been "training" for Grandma's marathon in Duluth, Minnesota. Before "training" began, the furthest I'd ever run, to my recollection, was 3 mile "fun run" at SJU over two years ago... nowhere close to 26.2 . I put training in quotations because I skipped somewhere around half of my scheduled runs, including several of the oh-so-important long runs. I did however complete the longest of the scheduled runs (well...almost) which was 20 miles (I did 19ish): from my house all the way around lake bemidji and back.

My overall results were:

Total Time: 4:57:10 (only slightly ahead of my 75 year old uncle...WOW)
10k split: 56:53
Half split: 2:10:0

As you can see, for the first half of the race, I was more than on track for my overly ambitious (considering my "training") target of 4:30, but hit several walls during the second half. I did, however make my secondary and more realistic goal of 5 hours. With about four miles to go, the 5 hour pace setter carrying balloons passed me, so the last 45 minutes was an excruciating pace, considering my condition, trying to catch and overtake the balloons. Luckily, I made it... barely.

The next 45minutes to an hour were spent in a semi-conscious state eating ice cream, drinking water and laying on the grass next to complete strangers while my body went through various stages of shock. I have literally never felt physically worse in my entire life. About 6 hours later I had fully recovered with the exception of inability to walk without limping. I'm still hobbling around today, but am finally able to appreciate everything in retrospect. Much respect is due to all of you who have ever run a marathon, particularly those who have done multiple. I don't plan on doing another any time soon.... a second race would, perhaps, make for a good mid-life crisis.

Summer Plans

2007-05-15T02:39:00.000+02:00

May 14th - May 31st:
I have absolutely nothing planned. I built a garden. I bought some tools... i think that, along with nice weather and residual thesis work will keep me fairly occupied. Come visit!

June 1st - June 30th:
Thesis. Thesis. Thesis. For those of you who aren't familiar with my thesis work, here's a a quick and dirty summary: We testing the validity of the "Hydraulic Limit to Tree Height" hypothesis. Basically, No one is sure why trees stop growing up. It could be limited by a number of variables, but one recent hypothesis is that height growth is limited by the ability of water to move to the tops of tall trees. In order to test this, the entire month of June will be spent climbing some of the tallest trees in Minnesota (mostly at night).

July 1st- August 15th:
I was recently offered a position as a resident biologist with a sea turtle conservation group in Costa Rica. The program takes place on the Osa peninsula in southern Costa Rica (right near Panama). For more info: http://www.osaconservation.org. Steve Devereaux might be coming too.

August 15th -....:
More thesis work.

Jamie

2007-05-06T07:14:00.000+02:00

After a 5 month hiatus, I've started recording again. I've been pretty busy finishing up "Short Side of the Wishbone", playing a few shows around Minnesota and being a graduate student. It's nice to be recording again. Anyway... without further adieu, here is the new song:

John Kamman - Jamie

Its a little rough around the edges still. I think I'll redo the bass eventually and it needs to be mastered, but overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

rraaaarrrrrr

2007-04-02T01:27:00.000+02:00

Anyone who knows Ann Mailander well enough to visit her but doesn’t is committing a crime. The 10 days that I spent with Ann and Katie Finnegan were among the best 10 of my life. Ann lives in a tiny remote village tucked in the mountains of central Panama in the heart of the rainforest. She is surrounded by the most beautiful waterfalls and swimming holes I’ve ever seen. Her village is bordered by primary-growth rainforest and home to some of the most diverse and abundant life on earth. As Katie and I rested in our respective hammocks under Ann’s thatched roof Panamanian gazebo, we would occasionally hear the thuds of oranges and other fruits falling around us. The economy of Barrigón survives on the sale of these fruits. One American cent per orange.

The people in Barrigón don’t often see “gringos”, other than Ann, of course. A good portion of them live without electricity or running water in little more than thatched-rooved mud huts. Katie and I were given the opportunity to visit with many of Ann’s neighbors (neighbor is a strange word to use for sporadic houses scattered through the mountains). We received very warm welcomes from everyone we encountered instead of the pointed fingers that we easily could have (and perhaps should have) recieved. It seems strange that such a strong Anti-American sentiment can exist in places like western europe while those receiving the blunt end of western capitalism happily welcome us. Afterall, as Ann pointed out, even the men and women working in the orange groves with no more than a 2nd grade education know what the word explotación means: One American cent per orange.

One family that we met with often lives about an hour hike through the mountains from Ann’s house. The father was a very talented artist who sold his work for $1 per painting (We paid 3). He was also an extremely efficient machete operator. One day, Katie, Ann and I were led into the mountains through the rainforest with no path. When Ann asked “who owns this land”, the two machete-toting men gave her a weird look and said, “no one”. Not privately owned, not owned by Panama… no one. Strange. The family lives in the mud-huts pictured below. They, like many, have none of the modern luxuries that are easily taken for granted. Being so close to the equator, the sun sets regularly around 6:00pm. Without even a lightbulb, the two small children can’t do their homework and the father can’t paint after sunset. Ann will be giving a solar panel and electric lantern to this family. Even small gifts can make giant changes in quality of life.

On top of visiting Ann’s village, Katie and I played tourist at a gorgeous beach, drinking Panamanian beer and Piña Coladas and visited the old parts of Panama City as well as the Panama Canal.
An Amazing week, all in all. Lots more stories, but this is too long as it is. Thanks Ann and Katie.

More pictures at Ann's website:

http://www.barrigonpanamaimages.blogspot.com/

New Website

2007-02-13T02:26:00.000+01:00

Welp... the CD is done, the website is remodelled and I'm gearing up for a release party in the coming month or two. This blog is accessable from http://jckamman.blogspot.com . For the new and improved website, and a sample of the album, go to www.jckamman.com

THANKS!
John

To(m)k(ain)yo

2007-01-17T14:00:00.000+01:00

Tom and I have been exploring the streets of Tokyo with occasional stops in shops and restaurants. We stopped yesterday in a giant record store in the heart of Tokyo and just as we were leaving a song by the band Quietdrive came on over the loud speaker on all floors and on the street outside. For those of you who don’t know, Quietdrive is a band with two Johnnie graduates that have had recent success on the national, and apparently international, level. It was strange to hear with Tom in Tokyo.

Today we explored the streets again. Tom showed me the “Love Hotel” section of Tokyo in which countless hotels offer 1 and 2 hour rates for rooms. Gross. Also, we went through an amazing park to a Shinto temple.