John Kamman

Another Blog to Follow: Field Science & Cultural Exchange!

2010-07-19T22:46:00.004+02:00

For those of you who just can't get enough, I've been working on the website for our organization - a field science and cultural exchange nonprofit - and writing a few blog posts: Becoming a Marine Biologist and one on the oil spill's effect on sea turtles.

Crosstown! The best band in town.

2010-07-14T03:28:00.005+02:00

My dad's band, Crosstown, has a few shows coming up. You should get out the custom shirts, temporary tattoos, glitter paint & cardboard signs and and go to them all:

Santorini's, July 16 $ 17
Eden Prairie, Mn
9 pm to 12:30

Marketfest, July 22
White Bear Lake, Mn
6 pm to 9 pm

"Crosstown is a high energy, five-piece band playing favorites from the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and today.

The band includes drums, keys, guitar, bass and a female lead singer who also plays guitar and a mean harmonica. All have played in different Twin City bands over the years and came together over 3 years ago to form Crosstown. The name Crosstown came from the fact that they practiced in a garage just off the Crosstown Hwy in Minneapolis - it just stuck afterwards.

They play danceable rock - classic to current, from the Beatles, CCR, 70's funk to Pink and the Black Eyed Peas."

Yes... my dad is in a band that plays Black Eyed Peas. You?

Mabel

2010-06-26T04:42:00.003+02:00

We'd like to introduce you our newest roommate and family member: Mabel!

We adopted Mabel from the Missoula Humane Society 3 days ago and she's already come a long way. Mabel is a 1.5 years old mutt of some sort(our guess is Golden Retriever, Black Lab & something shaggy like a Schnauzer). She has warmed up to us immensely, but is still terrified of the rest of the world. The humane society found Mabel living under a trailer with her pups a few months ago. We have a long way to go, but she has already made a lot of progress!

Missoula Update!

2010-06-02T02:31:00.004+02:00

I was about to write an update about settling into our new home, but Grace did such a great job that I'll just link to her post:

Grace's Missoula Post

Your High School Biology Teacher

2010-05-24T20:02:00.003+02:00

We’ve settled into our new home in Missoula, MT! More to come!

Grace is working on a small farm just north of town and gearing up for grad school beginning the Fall semester at University of MT. Exciting!

I’ve started my new job with Ecology Project International, a great nonprofit that engages students in conservation education (locally and internationally). Much of my job will consist of inviting biology teachers to get involved in our programs – Sea Turtles in Costa Rica, Whale & Island ecology in Baja, the Yellowstone ecosystem, Galapagos! - Tough sell! :)

If you have any former biology teachers, friends or family that you think might be interested, pass along their contact info! It’s a great opportunity for the teachers/students and it would be fun to invite people with personal connections to get involved!: jckamman@gmail.com

Dann Siems

2010-05-12T00:23:00.004+02:00

Dann Siems, a friend from Bemidji and one of my favorite professors of all time, was recently diagnosed with terminal glioblastoma. Some other friends have put together a concert and fundraiser to help cover medical expenses and to help support his family. If you can’t make it to the concert up in Bemidji, go online here and donate! Even PZ Myers of Pharyngula (the top-ranked science blog in the world) has taken note. Donate now! @ www.dannsiemsbenefit.org

House of Talents

2010-04-22T23:41:00.006+02:00

A friend that I met through school and traveled with to Mali, Kate Herzog, has a great story and a great new company that you should support.

After graduating with her MBA from St. Thomas - an unlikely feat for a woman from a small village in Ghana - Kate started selling artisan crafts from her home country supporting the economic base from the villages she came from...providing student tuitions, living wages and much-needed financial resources....paying herself last (if at all!)

Go to her new website and buy something!

"I spent my early years living in someone’s garage with my parents and three other siblings in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. When I was 7, my dad secured a job as the headmaster of a secondary school in a village close to our hometown; this is where I spent most of my childhood and teenage years. In this village we had a house and wide spaces; we grew our food and raised our own chickens, turkeys and rabbits.

I learned to read at the age of 10 or 11 through the generous gift of books given to us by an American I only know as “Davis.” Davis was an Anthropology student from California pursuing his Masters degree in Ghana. He didn’t seem to have much; he stayed with us for a short time, took pictures of my family, and left.

Later in the mail we received from him the first colored pictures ever seen in the village and our first series books, the Adventures of Tintin. It is during this stage that I recall bringing a bigger brush and more colors to the canvas of my dreams and aspirations by traveling with Tintin and his dog Snowy to the wider world that existed beyond that village. I have traveled far with the gift of Davis’ books and I thank him and the many Davis’ who do the best they can and are not deterred by doubts that their gift perhaps might be too small to make a difference.

Along the way, some of my dreams transitioned to aspirations and have become realities. One such dream featured predominantly in my childhood playtime, and has preoccupied me ever since. That dream has now been realized with the founding of House of Talents."

Honey & Hops

2010-04-21T16:51:00.005+02:00

After being really happy with the last batch, we decided to move forward by bottling our second batch (a honey wheat) and starting our third (an English IPA). We're still using the basic kits but hope to get more involved in the process as we slowly progress along the learning curve.

Mint & Worms

2010-04-15T21:53:00.008+02:00

When we were young, my brothers and I earned our summer money selling fresh mint lemonade to golfers as they passed. While most first-time buyers found floating green flecks in lemonade coming from an 8 year old somewhat disconcerting, Mom's mint lemonade eventually became renowned throughout town. With the house up for sale and without Mom's supervision, we were all worried about what would become of this inimitable strain. After several failed attempts, there are now at least 3 or 4 healthy crops scattered around the country. Our mint is coming up especially healthy for the 3rd year.

Also, over the past year or so we've cultured a healthy population of red composting worms on our food scraps. If anyone is in need of a strong starter population, just let me know! It's easy, odorless, practical and we've got more worms than we can possibly take with us out to Montana (More to come!).

Strange-looking, and awesome, B-day gifts

2010-04-05T21:05:00.004+02:00

From Grace, a ridiculous and awesome trumpet harmonica that I've been eyeing:

From Dad & Elizabeth, a wort chiller for brewing better/faster:

This is great!

BREAD!

2010-03-13T22:57:00.003+01:00

We've been making loaves several times a month with Mom's old bread machine. The belt finally gave out today (a new one is on its way), so we decided to make our first machine-less loaf!

You ain't goin' nowhere..

2010-03-12T05:46:00.006+01:00

Rabi, a friend from Bemidji, is in town for the week. He came by and we decided to play some music and ended up hitting record while we were playing with an old Bob Dylan song. Good fun:

Rabi & John - You ain't goin' nowhere

Rabi: Vocals & Guitar
John: Harmonica, Guitar & Harmony

Enjoy

PS. I also sped it up, chipmunk-style, as a joke for Rabi, but we ended up liking the sound of it: Rabi & John - You ain't goin' nowhere (chipmunks)

Bottled!

2010-03-09T04:41:00.002+01:00

Our first batch isn't quite ready, but tastes great thusfar. Two more weeks in the bottles and they're ready to drink!

200,000 Miles!

2010-03-08T03:29:00.002+01:00

On the way back from Bemidji today, Grace and I witnessed the 104-157th ton of CO2 emissions produced by Jeepy. Hooray?!

When I was 15 years old, my Dad pulled into a hospital parking lot to let me drive in circles as we approached 100,000 miles on the same car. Chris took over the car for a few years, but I was lucky enough to get it back a few years ago with plenty of time for this anniversary. Here is looking toward 300,000.

PS. Grace was taking the picture from the passenger seat. I wasn't driving 65 with a camera.

Homebrew!

2010-02-23T15:53:00.002+01:00

We just finished our first batch of beer, a nut brown ale. Check back in 4 weeks!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-02-18T21:00:00.000+01:00

Mali!

2010-02-10T18:57:00.006+01:00

I returned a few weeks ago from our project in Mali. We were working with an agricultural center based out of the capital, working on two main projects: Shea butter export options and Seed Potato storage in a rural village. We spent some time in the cities and en route to Borko, the village. Borko is very remote oasis mud-hut village just south of the Sahara and a few hour drive from Timbuktu and Mopti. Below are some pictures that should provide some taste of the places we went, people we met and fields we worked in. Enjoy!

A CAUTION: The last photo is somewhat graphic. I took the picture at the lion's den in the capital zoo... a very different experience from what see in U.S. zoos. Yikes!

a young seed potato plant

Borko's elders, farmers and officials visit one of the potato fields

...workin' hard

a common sight on the road

We had a few drum, guitar and dance party with 100+ borko residents. Good times.

One of the potato fields with a Baobob tree and some heavy loads in the background

Mud brick drying by a Baobob

The Niger River in Mopti

A random spot it Bamako

The great Mosque of Djenne, largest mud building in the world

Visiting the center of Borko

Showing the kids a photo!

Donkey pieces at the Bamako zoo, where live donkeys are fed to the lions and discarded (by the lions) in plain view.

St Stephen's

2010-01-26T17:48:00.004+01:00

Grace successfully launched the new St. Stephen's website that we built over the past few months. Have a look!

http://www.ststephensmpls.org

On a side note, I'm back safe and sound from a great trip to Mali. I'll post some photos soon.

New Year Surprise!

2010-01-01T00:24:00.005+01:00

We were already excited this week about the publication of two of Grace's photos in the environmental journal CAMAS: http://www.umt.edu/camas/

Then, today, a surprise came when we received one of our favorite journals/magazines, the Minnesota Conservation Volunteer, and found my name in an article by my former advisor. Read up:

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/volunteer/janfeb10/tree_growth.html

Now I'm the famous one.

2009-12-28T00:24:00.004+01:00

I mentioned in the last post that Chris is working for the marketing department at the resort. He wrote a nice little piece on the Big Sky Resort website making fun of how absurdly I dressed for skiing on Christmas eve. Big Sky doesn't see too many one-piece carhartt suits these days.

http://www.bigskyresort.com/blog/post/Holidays-in-Big-Sky.aspx

The most fashionable one on the slopes.

My famous brother

2009-12-27T17:45:00.003+01:00

Chris is working for the marketing department at Big Sky Resort. Along with reporting snow depths and other various jobs, he's been tasked with making the ski/snowboard videos for the homepage. As long as I can remember he's been making videos of his friends skiing and skateboarding...now he gets paid to do it. They are looking great:

http://www.bigskyresort.com
http://www.gnarpow.com

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-27T17:37:00.003+01:00

Our recession-friendly version of a Christmas card. Happy Holidays! Enjoy:

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.

Cup-O-Dan Dooher

2007-01-15T13:45:00.000+01:00

On Saturday, Dan and I woke up, shook of Friday night’s poor decisions and sprinted to catch our train to Akita city. In Akita we met up with several of Dan’s friends. The seven or eight of us went to a place in Akita called “Round 1”. Round 1 is an elaborate version of chucky cheese. They offer everything from video games to curling, basketball, roller-skating, gambling, karaoke and archery. A bit overwhelming but I was told it encompassed the bright lights, noise and kitsch of Japan very well. Fun, but I don’t recommend it as a remedy for a hangover.

The past two days, have been some of the best. Ever.

On Sunday several of the other JET teachers and I went skiing at a local ski resort. The resort was gorgeous and a fantastic place to ski. Several of the Americans explained the Japanese cultural phenomenon of Group thought. It is taught here, from childhood, that breaking the norm is frowned upon; individuals tend to follow the group. What this means for skiing in Japan is that 90% of people stay solely on the groomed paths leaving the rest of the mountain virtually untouched. Runs that would have been eaten up quickly by powder-hungry skiers and snowboarders in Big Sky remained immaculate for those of us willing to stray from the group. It was the best skiing of my life.

After we tore our sore bodies from the slopes we drove to a traditional Japanese Onsen, or thermal bath. There, we indulged in an indoor/outdoor hot bath, a sauna, shower and electric massage chair (and a weird foot pressure point machine). The night ended with a meal of Okonomiyaki, or as Dan called, “meat pancakes of goodness”. The best meal in Japan thusfar. During dinner, one small girl (maybe 3 or 4 years old), eagerly pulled her parents around the corner just to point at us excitedly. We were, in all likelihood, the first foreigners she’d ever seen. Strange.

Today I visited one of Dan’s more remote middle schools. The children there have rarely seen foreigners, especially foreigners with blue eyes and a weak excuse for a beard. They reacted as if I were a rockstar-alien hybrid… pointing, giggling, and staring with mouths agape. Both classes that we taught went extremely well. One class asked what my hobbies were and I mentioned, among other things, that I played music. The teacher asked if I would play a song on piano for them. I played “Let it Be”, by the Beatles. The children, recent winners of a choir competition, sang an AMAZING Japanese song full of complex flying harmonies. It was an impressive feat for a group of 15 year old children. The teacher then asked if I would play for some students later in the day.

I sat down with Dan and three other Japanese students for lunch. The students began arguing in Japanese about whether I was wearing blue contacts or these were my real eyes. As the rest of the students filed in, the teacher unveiled a piano. She wanted me to play for the whole school. It wasn’t exactly what I had bargained for, but it was a great time and they seemed to enjoy it. In the middle of the song Dan’s teacher awkwardly extended, with her arm, a microphone in front of my face. I was a bit surprised and burst out laughing, mid-song, but was able to recover.

Tonight we ate Ramen. Tomorrow I leave for Tokyo and Tom Kain.

Tastes like chicken.

2007-01-12T09:41:00.000+01:00

After a night on the floor of the Atlanta airport, my name was finally called to board. My ticket read: 2J. This was good news. I’m guessing that I was the only first class passenger to have slept on the airport floor the previous night. As I plopped into my leather seat/bed I was immediately offered my choice of orange juice or champagne. It was only 9:45am; I had another 15-hour plane ride to take advantage of the all you can drink special.

This was the first flight that I had ever taken in which I wasn’t sure if going east or west after departing would be more efficient. We went west. Mid-flight, I changed channels on my personal television to the map with the miniature airplane representing our current location and a small dot representing our destination. We had flown much farther north than I anticipated and as I glanced down, I realized that we were directly over the Bering Strait. The first humans to enter this continent did so 30,000 feet below me.

It was hard to tell just how large the cracks and crevasses in the enormous sheets of ice were. From this far away they looked small and fairly unimpressive, but just a few hours earlier I had seen towns that appeared far smaller than these cracks in the ice.

Several hours (and about 10 courses of some of the best food I’ve ever had) later I landed in Tokyo. The next few hours are, more or less, a blur. I somehow managed to train-hop my way, semiconscious due to exhaustion from Tokyo to a small rural prefecture five hours north of Tokyo. Dan Dooher lives in the small town of Yuzawa tucked in the mountains around in Akita. He met me at the train station. We grabbed a beer and a snack and I zonked out for the night.

The past two days have been spent wandering the town of Yuzawa and eating unknown foods while Dan worked. Its far more difficult than I imagined. In Europe, I could at least identify restaurants from laundromats and sex shops from grocery stores. And, if all else failed 9 out of 10 people would speak enough English to answer the question “is this a sex shop or a grocery store”. Here, I don’t know any languages or customs that will be of much use and can’t make any inferences from the characters strewn on signs. The occasional English words don’t help much either, eg. “Dream Factory!” with the picture of a gnome. I’m guessing sex shop, but who’s to say?

Today, upon Dan’s suggestions, I tried to find some Shinto shrines in the mountains just outside of town. I got to what seemed to be the trailhead Dan was describing, but there was not a footprint to be found in the 2 feet of freshly fallen snow. I spent most of the afternoon trudging up the “trail” to several beautiful shrines and hiking around the woods with a great overlook of the whole city.

It’s been an interesting and jetlag-free two days and its now time to wake Dan from his nap.

Thank You Namibia, Come on Antarctica

2006-12-05T05:38:00.000+01:00

For the past several months, I have unintentionally ignored the small map in the lower right corner of this website. The map monitors where in the world my website has been loaded. When I clicked on it today, for the first time in quite some time, I almost peed my pants with joy. Namibia (I think), was added to my list of viewers, fulfilling a goal that I should have created long before this point, but didn't: My page has now been loaded on every continent with one exception:

Antarctica.

New Life Goal: Have www.jckamman.com loaded in Antactica.

To Dad:
Yeah (sarcastically), I know. Thanks Dad. I already have a job, I do go to class. No, I’m not going to cut my hair, Dad. No, Dad… I’m the one with the short hair. remember? You mean Pat, I think.

First Song.

2006-12-01T03:42:00.000+01:00

Here's a new song that I've been working on for the past day or two. So far so good. I'm thinking track #1 of the John Kamman solo debut. Maybe? If I can scrape up enough funds it would be fun. Anyone want to start their own record label and pay for its production?

John Kamman - Memory

Good times, tryptophan and squash..... broken windows, stew, stoves and cider

2006-11-27T16:34:00.000+01:00

Last weekend (no... I mean a week from yesterday. yeah... that one, the 18th), I paid my first visit to two log cabins owned by BSU. After deciding that the smaller of the two cabins would be easier to heat and had a better overall vibe, we setup camp. We found, however, that two of the 4 windows were actually fully exposed to the elements with no glass to keep out the cold. We improvised two windows using the following ingredients:

a bed sheet
packaging tape
twine
rocks
a tiny piece of Plexiglas
a sleeping pad
wood pallet things

Overall it worked reasonably well. As long as we kept a fire in the wood-burning stove we stayed pretty warm. Thank God for spaceships. What?

On Tuesday, Dad, Elizabeth and Pat came up to Bemidji to pick me up for our RV trip to Big Sky. We spent Thanksgiving with the Ryans, at their place. After thoroughly gorging ourselves we retired back to our place. Unfortunately, there was a record low snow level and the resort was closed. It was a lazy, but much needed week. The RV trip was fun, dad playing bass via radio and me playing mandolin. Sleeping. Movies. Mongolian Stir Fry. The works.

A great week, overall.

Redfizz

2006-11-23T05:16:00.000+01:00

Hey,

A cool site: http://www.redfizz.com

I submitted a few songs and one of them, "Two Moons Road" was featured as a 2nd place song for the day. Check it by clicking below:

New Song

2006-11-07T21:12:00.000+01:00

Another new one. Untitled as of yet. I'm open to suggestions.

John Kamman - newuntitled song

Other news:
School is going really well. Classes seem to be less demanding than SJU, but I think I'm learning more. Go figure. The house is great. One roommate is moving out in December, but a new and improved roommate might be moving in in January (cough cough, Josh, wink, nudge).

I got my Wilderness First Responder recertification several weeks ago (it involved full submersion in the mississippi river during 30-40 degree weather... YEAHH!!!). On a possibly unrelated note, I got sick, but am better now.

On Friday evening, two friends and I went to a coffee house for open mic and played some bluegrassy/folksy stuff. It was mostly older folks, but a lot of fun. And the end, all musicians present (30-something) grabbed their instruments and joined together for several songs. Harmonies were flying. The sound of Guitars, banjos, mandolins, basses, pianos,...etc was overwhelming, reminiscent of Spector's "wall of sound", I suppose. Fun times.

On Saturday, I played hockey for the first time in over a year and am still sore.

Operation Live in Bemidji postponed.

2006-10-09T17:03:00.000+02:00

Over the past few weekends (with the exception of one or two) I have managed to find not-all-together-ridiculous reasons to commute down to the St. John’s area and/or the twin cities. B-day parties, Homecoming, Dad’s wedding, Concerts…etc. Mostly the commute has been the mandatory duty of any loyal friend, alum, son, and concert-goer, but several people have started to take notice.

Brian Heilman and Steve Devereaux, have taken it upon themselves to make life goals for themselves as well as several friends. My goal: Operation live in Bemidji.

I’ve decided to delay any futile attempts at deluding myself (or others) into believing that I jumped head first into the Bemidji community. I haven’t and won’t for at least two more weeks. But I will, eventually.

This weekend is my “long weekend”, one of those arbitrary holidays that allows a “much-needed” break from school half-way through the semester (I don’t need it and don’t feel that I’ve earned it…oh well). Anyway, It would be lame to stay in Bemidji…especially when Mason Jennings is playing at my Alma matter. Yeah, I know, Shut up.

The following weekend is a recertification course for my Wilderness First Responder located, conveniently enough, in St. Cloud, MN. Fantastic. Maybe “Operation: Live in Bemidji” will ensue shortly thereafter.

Brief Recap:
Dad’s wedding was last weekend. I shaved and wore a suit (a much rarer occasion than a family member getting married). It was a nice ceremony and fun to see the relatives. He and Elizabeth are going to Disney World for their honeymoon. FOR TEN DAYS! Yeah. No joke. When asked if that wasn’t a bit ridiculous Dad responded, “John, Magic Kingdom alone takes at least two days.” Priceless.

The Kamman Family Album made it’s debut on Saturday. It will change the world.

One More

2006-09-28T16:16:00.000+02:00

I just rewrote/rerecorded a song that I wrote about 5 years ago.

John Kamman - Marla Taylor

Get Lost with Me

2006-09-26T11:00:00.000+02:00

I recorded a new one:

John Kamman - Long Way Back

I really need to just pick a genre.

Great weekend

2006-09-11T19:30:00.000+02:00

Friday evening I went to a great concert in the cities. One of the few things in life that stresses me out is city driving. I am awful at it. I never know what to do so I start sweating. I was at a stoplight in downtown Minneapolis when a guy started sprinting towards my car. I noticed that he was being chased by a police officer. He (thankfully) ran behind my car and into the next lane. In the slow-motion process of turning my head, I heard a car crash. Turns out, it was not a car crash at all. It was his "hip exploding" (in the words of passenger seat sitter Grace Brogan) as he was smoked by a fire truck driving full-speed. He survived to stand up with legs bent in very unnatural ways only be tackled to the ground and cuffed by the policeman.

The light turned green and I was drenched with sweat.

The rest of the weekend was less eventful, but equally as memorable.

News Briefs

2006-08-31T02:22:00.000+02:00

Well.. Bemidji is treating me well. I'm super-happy with the house. I have a new roommate (and possibly a second). I'll put photos of the house up eventually but I can't seem to find my camera cable.

-All of my professors seem great and I'm looking forward to my Bio project. It involves lots of tree climbing. :)

The debut Kamman Family album comes out in a few weeks. Get ready :)

-I recorded another song in the past few days that I'm pretty satisfied with.

John Kamman - Loose Connections

Just another cameo

2006-07-31T07:55:00.000+02:00

The past few days have been spent recording in the new "band room". I recorded a new song, "cameo". I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Dad played bass and sang the "ooohs" in the bridge. My brother Pat played drums. Skoglund helped write it. Anyway... have a listen:

John Kamman - Cameo
(right click.... "save target as")

In other news...I'm back in Montana after a year or so. Its strange enough coming home, but the house has been completely remodeled and redecorated too. It looks great though. I'm working at the resort for a few weeks before moving to Bemidji full-time...scary.

Pat and I went kayaking the other day... good times. There's also an unofficial family reunion on both sides of the family happening this week and next. Its great to see everyone again.

I'm back

2006-07-20T20:34:00.000+02:00

Well,

After canyoning in Interlaken, Steve and I decided to head for Pamplona to run with the bulls in the San Fermin festival. Unfortunately, our plans were foiled when there were no more available seat reservations on the train. We went to Luxembourg instead. I was pretty disappointed that we didn't get to Spain, but Luxembourg was nice too. Afterwards we headed west towards Frankfurt, our final destination

We had one full day and night before we needed to be in Frankfurt so we decided to jump off the train at a completely random station along the way. We ended up in a tiny German town on a river. It was a gorgeous little village on a river with a castle towering above the main part of town. We had fun wandering around. That night we went to several bars. The last of which was most eventful

We ended up talking to some native English speakers and were having a good time. Then, Klaus, a drunk, gay, German man started hitting on Phil (our newly made english speaking friend). Phil was a bit weirded out. When Klaus went to the bathroom I snuck over and sat in his chair, partially to relieve Phil of the akwardness and partially to see what would happen.

Klaus casually walked over, kneed me in the side really hard and said (in German), "I'm only going to ask you politely once". I moved. The rest of the night gets a little blurry. Klaus left and was locked out by the bartender. Steve sang an old childhood German song to a bunch of college-aged German kids. "Mein Hut er hat drei Ecke". Way to go Steve, Way to go.

We made it to Frankfurt with the hopes of flying out the following morning. Frankfurt-->Atlanta--->Minneapolis. Instead it went like this: Another 24 hours in the Frankfurt Airport playing chess and wandering around. Taking a flight to New York First Class!! What an experience. New York Flight to Cinncinnati, Cinncinnati to Des Moines. An RV ride with dad from Des Moines to Minneapolis (along with a woman and child we offered a ride to).

The past week has been spent hanging out with college friends and visiting my new home: Bemidji, MN. I'll be going to Graduate School for Biology/Ecology in a few months.

Dad and I visited the town and campus. Both were surprisingly nice. I bought a house just off campus. Its pretty nice. A little bit scary to have so much responsibility. Anyway.... here's a photo. I was in Europe a week ago. Now I own a house in Bemidji, MN. Wish me luck.

Canyoning in Interlaken

2006-07-04T20:18:00.000+02:00

Woah... possibly the coolest day of my life. Steve and I went "canyoning" in Interlaken, Switzerland today. Canyoning is a weird sport that involves working your way down a canyon by jumping off of cliffs into water, sliding down natural water slides, repelling and swimming. Its insane, scary and a little dangerous, but a lot of fun. I'll post pictures when I get back.

Steve and I just entered a 4th of July competition at the hostel here. It was a drinking/soccor/running/spinning race. Steve fell over. I got second place and won a shirt and a beer (first was a rafting trip...shoot).

We're heading towards spain tomorrow. I'll be home in a few days. WOO!

Happy 4th!

Ukranian Vodka, Paris and pantless old ladies.

2006-07-02T14:47:00.000+02:00

We arrived in Burssels and decided to move on to Brugge. We had an hour layover and grabbed a beer at a trashy old-person singles club. All of the old ladies were making eyes at us. Steve danced with the best of them.

We stopped in Brugge, Belgium for a while and Steve found a 1930s "Rolly-bowley" poster (some stupid belgium game that he's infatuated with). On the way to Zurich we stopped in Paris for a brief visit. We drank some Ukrainian vodka on the train and arrived at about midnight. We wandered around town at night to find the Eifel tower. Right when we arrived they shut the lights off so we decided to sleep on the streets until it was light again.

In the morning we walked around the tower, took pictures...etc. I locked my bag to a park bench for about 5 minutes. When we came back there was a group of 5 guys about my age rummaging through the contents. When they saw that it was mine they started back towards us. I thought that trouble was in order. Instead, they apologized, gave everything back and were really friendly. It may sound weird, but we hung out with them for around 2 hours, playing guitar..etc.

An older German guy approached the group of us. He didn't speak English or French so I was left to translate for him. Turns out, he had slept on the grass near the tower with a few German friends. One of the 50 year old women drank too much vodka and disappeard, pantless, with a group of young guys. I relayed the info to the frenchies and they talked to the police. Mrs. Pantless was returned to her Euro-trash husband safe and sound.

The first train to Zurich was 6 the following day so we had time to explore the town and visit the Louvre. Not too shabby.

We're now in Zurich, staying at Dev's sister's place. Its a great apartment and a great place to unwind for a bit. Off to Interlaken tomorrow!

Amsterdam with Dev

2006-06-30T11:06:00.000+02:00

Well... dev was delayed a few days on the way to Europe, but he finally arrived. I hung out with Mary for a while and then Dev and I wandered the streets of Amsterdam. This town is too weird for me. I'll be glad to leave. We're off to Belgium and then Switzerland now. Dev's luggage never showed up so we're in the process of figuring out how to get it. He's got one small backpack but there is no room left because he bought a giant pair of wooden shoes. Dev.

out of Ukraine

2006-06-22T15:54:00.000+02:00

hello.

I've left Ukraine and am back in Krakow. It was fun hanging out with Casey and it was certainly an experience seeing where and how he lives. Ukraine has a very different feel from the rest of the countries I've visited thusfar.

Today I took a bus to the border and walked acrosst he border on foot (it was much cheaper than a direct train). At the border there was a 10 hour (or so) line of people trying to get acrosst he border with the legal 1 bottle of vodka and 1 case of cigs. A polosh/ukrainian girl that I met helped me sweettalk the border guards into letting us jump to the front of the line. I was harassed by quite a few that we left in the dust. It's amazing to think that these people wait all day to cross the border and make their $4-5 by selling 1 bottle of vodka on the other side. $4 per day!!! I suppose Casey is living off of not much more than that. Anyway, I'm glad I went. Thank Casey!!!

I leave tomorrow morning for Dusseldorf, Germany. I'll be meeting up with one Steve Devereaux not long from now. Look out Europe.

Welcome to Ukraine.

2006-06-18T15:50:00.000+02:00

Well, My wallet was stolen after apprx. 10 seconds in Ukraine. I got off the bus, got on the next and it was gone. What a warm welcome.

The past week was spent in Cinque Terre Italy. It certainly ranks among my favorite places in the world. I met Mary Cox in Florence, slept in (and outside of) the trainstation and caught an early bus to Cinque terre. It's five towns along the western coast...a bit touristy, but I can see why. I'll post pictures later.

Right now I am in Ukraine. I travelled from Cinque Terre to Rome, Flew from Rome to Krakow, Krakow to Lviv and met casey in the train station. The train that I was planning on was completely full so I ended up taking a cramped bus for 8 hours (3 of which spent at the border). Some really nice guy in Krakow helped me find the right bus at the right time...etc. He spent about 4 hours running around town with me (despite the fact that he didn't really speak English or German) and then bought me a few beers, a cheeseburger and an OJ for the road. He refused to accept my money, but I slipped him 5 euro when he wasn't looking. Good guy.

When I arrived at the L'viv bus station I made a switch to get to the train station (where I was to meet Casey). The bus was waiting. As I stepped onto the next bus, got out my wallet and paid then put the wallet back into my pocket. A guy getting off blocked my entrance, a guy from behind sandwhiched me in and both started yelling at me (I'm assuming it was "get out of the way...blah blah blah"). I finally snuck past them and then realized that they had stolen my wallet. I yelled at all 3 of them, made me show them their pockets...etc. To no avail. Oh well... I'll survive.

Bye from Ukraine. Casey says Hi.

Croatia

2006-06-09T18:32:00.000+02:00

Croatia is an amazing country! The name always brings images of a poor, war-torn country with cold dilapidated buildings, but it couldn't be further from the truth. Tropical paradise! Here's the brief synopsis

6-4,5
I left Dubrovnik for the island of Mjlet. On the ship I was approached by a woman saying, in perfect english, "do you need a room on the island of Mjlet". Yup, yup, I do. Turns out, that was the only sentence that she knew in english. We went back and forth on price by drawing numbers in the air. I ended up staying with her for the equivalent of about 10 dollars. Nice room. It turns out, however, that she lives 15 miles from all of the other towns on the island. So, I was in a tiny tiny town called Sobra. about 15 buldings, 1 street, but gorgeous nonetheless. Its on a small bay surrounded by turquoise water and fish that Ive only seen in aquariums. Very cool.

6-6
I took a boat back to Dubrovnik and a bus to Šibenik for a layover before heading to Krka national park (famous for its waterfalls). I bought my bus ticket to Krka and was wandering around town waiting for the next one to come. A man approached me and offered me a really cheap room. I must have the "I need a place to stay" look. I had great luck with the other two ladies so I thought about taking it, but declined since I had already purchased my ticket. Then the conversation took an unexpected turn. It went something like this:
"Ok, no problem, you come from America, huh? Do you know which country your grandparents came from?"

"Germany and Ireland"
Switching into German

"Oh, so than you can speak german, huh?"

"yup, some"

"well...then I have another small question for you. I'm looking for a few hot men who would be interested in having sex with me" (a few??)

"No, thanks"

"Well... if you're looking to earn some money and have a little bit of time until your bus"

"NO!"

Im so glad that I didn't take the room!!!

6-7,8
I spent the days at this tiny campground outside of skrabin, near Krka. I got off at the wrong stop and the closest place was a run-down auto camp ground. They were very excited to find out that I was Americand ran to tell the kids. Also, they don't get many tenters so they didn't know what to charge. They decided about $4 per night was adequate. Sweet. The owners were super friendly. They serve dinner to their guests made from home-raised chicken, veggies and home-brewed schnopps and olive oil. Cool place. Krka is Gorgeous!!

6-9
I was offered a ride to Zadar by a nice German couple that I met at the campgrounds. They said that I speak fluently and with hardly any accent. Not true on either count, but flattering nonetheless. So... here I sit in Zadar, waiting for my ship in the morning to Ancona, Italy. I'll be meeting Mary Cox in Rome tomorrow evening.

pfewwwwwww.

MY DAD IS GETTING MARRIED. WOAH!

Hello from Croatia

2006-06-03T16:02:00.000+02:00

Well, I finished teaching in Austria on tuesday. After a great going-away party I slept (a few hours), packed up and caught a bus (on Wednesday) to Zagreb, Croatia. A friend from the Studentenheim, offered up her keys to an apartment in the heart of the city. I spent two nights there, exploring the town and then caught an early morning flight to Dubrovnik, a small town int he south of Croatia. The town itself is amazing. It is a 17th century town on the ocean surrounded by a giant city wall.

I wasn't going to get a hostel, but a woman approached me after getting off of the bus with a great offer. She has an extra room in the center of town, within the city walls, and offered it up for the equivalent of 35 euros. I bargained her down to around 10. Not too shabby. I had a great day yesterday swimming and sleeping on the seaside. The weather today is a bit rainy so I've been just hanging out and reading. Off to Krka or Mljek tomorrow (depending on the weather).

Brother John (for the weekend, anyway)

2006-05-21T21:23:00.000+02:00

My home for the weekend.

Well this weekend was another one of the best weekends of my stay here in Austria.

Friday night was one of the Weintage (wine days) in Kleinhöflein, a small sub-village of Eisenstadt. I met up with the other English T.A.s in the area and we cruised over to Kleinhöflein. After forking over 10 euros, we got access to basically every wine cellar, and heuriger in town (13 in total). It was amazing. We visited almost ten different wine cellars and tasted all of the locally produced zweigelt and blaufrankisch (the typical Burgenland wines). I am no connoisseur, but I certainly enjoyed pretending.

Wine Cellars in Kleinhöflein

(I apologize in advance that this part might get a little long, but that’s only because it was so cool)

Saturday morning I woke up and caught a train to a town called Melk. Melk is a small town on the Danube renowned in Austria for its enormous Benedictine monastery up on the hill overlooking the river. It is an enormous castle/palace that was handed down to the Benedictines almost 1000 years ago. It’s a huge tourist attraction. Fr. Mark Thamert OSB, from St. John’s, has spent a lot of time at Melk and put me in touch with the Gastmeister (Guest Master?).

After arriving at the giant monastery I was escorted into the part of the complex that is off limits to tourists and showed to my room for the evening, free of charge. That evening I was invited to prayer with the monks. I was expecting a fairly large group to congregate in the church, but that wasn’t the case. It was me, and three other monks in a tiny chapel decorated in amazing frescos. It was, at times, a bit awkward because it was really difficult for me to follow the prayers in German and the constant utterances of “all rises” and “you may be seated” that accompany any catholic service. Despite feeling out of place, it was a very cool experience.

After prayer I was invited to a BBQ/ birthday party at a monastery near by. One of the monks took me on an after-hours, tourist-free tour of the famous part of the complex. Some of the younger monks (age 24-30ish) took me out to the monastic car. The driver asked me in German “do you have a problem with fast driving?” I said no. We sped onto the infamous autobahn that connects Salzburg and Vienna at somewhere around 90-100mph. We met with some other monks from another monastery down the way. This one was an Augustine (?) monastery, as opposed to Benedictine. The two groups kept fighting about who among them was going to hell and why. It was fun. It sure tested German abilities, though, mixing dialects from all over Austria and Bavaria. I was lost. By the end of the night it was clear that monks are indeed people like the rest of us, particularly when drunk.

Today I woke up in my luxurious room – I can’t believe I was sleeping on the streets of Slovenia last weekend and this weekend I’m a private guest in a palace, more or less. I toured the rest of the complex and the adjacent gardens/park. Afterwards, I was invited to midday mass. The church itself is like Baroque on steriods. Gold Angels and shiny things everywhere. It would be an ADD kids dream come true. The mass was attended by a whole lot of tourists. I was unexpectadly escorted beyond the red “no-tourists-allowed” rope to sit in the front row with the other 5 monks present. After mass the monks and I walked up to the alter and turned off into their private dining hall adjacent to the church. It was fit for a king (probably literally). I ate an AMAZING 4 course meal. It was like the Austrian equivalent of a Thanksgiving meal. Delicious.

After lunch I had to run to catch my ride back to Vienna. I took a ship down the famous portion of the Danube known as Wachau. The river was surrounded by high green hills covered with small towns and ruins of castles. A beautiful way to travel!

What a weekend!

I was sitting front row center in this picture - best seats in the house.

Culture Shock

2006-05-19T09:12:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I still get surprised by the differences in culture:

I just had my last class with one of my 16 year old groups. We had a farewell celebration in class and exchanged typically Austrian or typically American foods (I brought PB& J for everyone.. they thought it was weird).

We ended class with the entire class including myself and the regular teacher TAKING SHOTS OF SCHNAPS! IN CLASS! AT 8:30am!!! I was given the rest of the bottle as a farewell gift, along with two other bottles of wine and some great sweets from my students. Strange...... but great!

Slovenia: Ljubljana & Piran

2006-05-14T19:08:00.000+02:00

Piran

This weekend was one of the most amazing in my stay here in Europe. A friend from the Studentenheim, Aylin, and I went to Slovenia for a few days. Aylin is a Turkish girl from Denmark who speaks 4 languages fluently. Smart girl. Anyway, we took a train to Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia, on early Friday afternoon. After about 8 hours on the train we arrived at the capital city and found a hostel. We wandered around town, which was gorgeous, up to the castle drank some wine and headed back to our hostel. Our bus to Piran left the following day at 6:30am so we only got about 4 hours of sleep. We arrived early that morning.

Piran is one of the few towns in Slovenia on the coast of the Mediterranean. Slovenia is really incredible because the Northern portion is almost identical, in landscape and architecture, to western Austria whereas the same can be said about the south and northern Italy. Piran once belonged to the Venetian empire and it certainly looks the part. We wandered around the town and caught up on our sleep on the shoreline. The town is small enough to explore on foot. We eventually made it up to some old town walls, climbed to the top and snapped some amazing photos. We came back to the walls twice to catch a glimpse of the city both at sunset and at night. Our bus/train back to Eisenstadt left Piran at 4:30 the following morning so, again, we didn’t sleep much. We decided to opt out of the hostel and ended up just sleeping for four of five hours on a side street that runs by the ocean side. The bed sheets that we “borrowed” from the hostel in Ljubljana sure came in handy!

Overall, it was an amazing experience. I didn’t know what to expect from Slovenia but I’m definitely impressed. Check out the photos.

Ljubljana

Piran

Aylin and our 5-Star hotel for the evening

Nothing like sleeping on the streets...again

Tiff's Visit

2006-05-10T11:16:00.000+02:00

Well... my time here in Austria is winding down. Under 3 weeks left in Eisenstadt and then there will be a crazy month of travel through Europe before heading home to the States. I made the decision to enroll in Bemidji State University to get my masters in Biology/Ecology. I better buy a snowmobile and some camo.

I'm worried that all of the German that I've learned in my time hear will vanish when I return home. So... I've started a second journal, this time in German. For all of you German speakers, feel free to visit. Just click on "Tagebuch" one the left or go to http://kammantagebuch.blogspot.com

Tiff, a friend from St. Cloud, came to visit me in Eisenstadt this weekend. It was strange, to say the least. On late Friday night we went for a walk around Eisenstadt and into St. Georgian, a neighboring town. As we were walking we heard some the far-off sound of loud music. Following it with our ears we were lead to the edge of the vineyards. I was pretty confused because the vineyards go on for several miles with hardly a building in sight. We continued walking through vineyards in the middle of nowhere for about half an hour until we saw bright flashing lights in the distance. Slowly, the reverberated sound of a distant "Down on the Corner" by CCR became audible. We arrived at was a giant carnival. The oddest part was that it was full of drunk teenagers. I don't know why I still find this odd, but I do. It was a really surreal experience. On the way home (at about 3am) we had several other adventures including -but not limited to- climbing a wall, running through a factory, fording a "river", and rolling around in poisonous bushes.

The following evening we decided to go camping on at moerbisch am See. I didn't have a tent with, so when it started to downpour we took shelter in a random Gazebo at a random Marina. We ended up rolling out our pads and staying the whole night there. The next morning we walked to the Hungarian border to see what kind of stamp they would give us for crossing on foot (it had a car symbol..weird). We crossed the border, had a "quick pinkle" and then walked back into Austria 2 minutes later. The border patrols were pretty entertained.

walking through the vineyards at midnight

We also introduced the traditional American "Beer Bong" to some Croatian friends who hadn't ever seen one. I may be the all-time-best ambassador to Europe. :)

Salzkammergut, Eisenstadt, Rust & Sopron

2006-04-27T16:38:00.000+02:00

First, I've posted some photos from Ireland, click on photos.

After a long night in the airport Theresa and I arrived in Bratislava and caught the train to Vienna to meet Whitney, a friend of Petes. The three of us wandered Vienna to see the sites and toured the Kunsthistoriches art museum. Theresa and I crashed in Eisenstadt after a long trek and met Whitney the following afternoon. The three of us headed to Grünau, a random small town in the Salzkammergut in western Austria. We stayed at a hostel that was completely empty except for three wild alcoholic Australians. We did a 20k bike ride through Grünau to an amazing alpine lake. The weather was amazing so all three of us jumped into the frigid water.

That night we drank a lot to celebrate with our newly-found Australian friends. They were absurdly drunk. One of them, Nathan, decided to show us a trick with fire despite the fact that he could hardly stand. He swung balls of fire around his head and in every which direction. Eventually, his head started on fire but was immediately smoldered by Gus, the other drunk Australian. Good times.

The following day we woke up early, headache and all, to head to Hallstatt. I had been once before, but that certainly took nothing away from the gorgeous lake. Halstatt is, by far, my favorite place in Europe yet. We rented a paddle boat and wandered around the town/lake.

We spent the last two days drinking wine and swimming in Rust, a town on Neusiedlesee, followed by a brief day trip to Hungary. It was a great way to return to Austria. The weather is amazing now and I’m thinking I’ll miss this place.

Ireland....etc

2006-04-19T13:42:00.000+02:00

4/8/05 Travel all day from Bratislava to Galway. Almost miss
flight, Arrive at Kate's around 7:00pm. Have a Guinness and crash.

4/9/05 Went to the amazing ruins of a castle. Everything in Ireland
is as if there is a constant war between civilization and ivy. The
ivy certainly won the battle of Menlow castle. We fed a horse and
actually used it as our tripod for one photo. Angie showed up later
that day and we met up with my dad and Elizabeth. Kate took us around
town and back out to the castle for Angie, Dad and Elizabeth to see.
We had a few drinks and a great dinner. Back at Kate's we had yet a
few more drinks. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. One of
the most memorable moments which I won't elaborate on involves
disgraceful historical references, pointing and vomiting all at the
same time.

4/10 We woke up slowly, bid Dad and Elizabeth adieu and eventually
biked out to Beara woods. It was really incredible. It looked like something straight out of Tolken. Evan has made a pact to drink at least one Guinness per day. Obviously it won't be that difficult, but noble nonetheless. Kate messaged a friend of hers that lives on the Aran Islands. She volunteers on an
organic farm and offered to put us up for the night. We caught an
hour long ship out to the Island and met up at the farm.

The farm is really amazing. It would be difficult to live there given
the people, the island and the living quarters, but the way in
which they live was absolutely incredible. It was a tiny homemade
cabin built amidst gardens, green houses and chicken coops. The house
was heated by a wood burning stove in the middle and everything from
baking bread, washing clothes, chopping wood to the actual farming is
done as a community. In the attic the volunteers live in one giant
room separated only by curtains. We snacked on their homemade bread
wrapped in wild garlic leaves (which are found through out this area).

In the morning after chopping the wood for the stove, I started
reading Aldo Leopold's "Land Ethic" and came across the perfectly
fitting passage:
"There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the
danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the
other that heat comes from the furnace. To avoid the first danger, one
should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse
the issue. To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on
the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm
his shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one
has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own good oak, and let his mind
work the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from,
and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the week end in
town astride a radiator."

4/11 Today, we left the farm and hiked all the way around the island.
We hiked roughly 20km along cliffs and over stone walls. It was
amazing at first but climbing the walls got to be a bit much for all
of us. That night we played guitar and drank Guinness, to keep with
the pact.

4/12 We rented a car and wandered north through Connemara. Jess, Kate's roommate accompanied us. It's an absolutely gorgeous area! We visited a national park and a famous Benedictine monetary.

4/13 We drove to the base of Croach Patrick and climbed to the top. Legend has it that St. Patrick climbed it barefoot and stayed at the top for 40 days and 40 nights without food. Amazing views from the top. Angie hated it....wuss.

4/14 We left Kate… I’m sure that house was glad to see us go. Evan, Angie and I caught a bus to Derry in Northern Ireland, where we found a hostel and a few beers.

4/15 We took a series of trains up to the northern coast and one of Irelands "Natural Wonders", the Giants Causeway. It is a bunch of octagon shaped rocks on the shore. Really strange. We walked around 7 miles to a famous bridge on the coast as well. The walk itself was more impressive than either destination (though they, too were impressive). It was exactly what I imagined Ireland to be like: enormous green cliffs with the waves crashing on the left and sheep feeding on the right. Amazing!

4/16 Easter! We took a sobering walk around Derry, a fairly well-known town where "bloody sunday" happened and several murals and monuments are still present to represent the conflicts over the years. We caught a bus to Dublin to meet Theresa and Matt. Checked into the hotel and drank 7 Guinesses so that we were fully belligerent by the time Matt and T arrived. Mission Accomplished.

4/17 Matt was once a bonafide tour guide through Ireland. He gave us a great tour of Dublin: Trinity College, the Guinness brewery, the Jameson whiskey distillery...etc. At the distillery, I was selected from our group of about 30 to be one of the official "testers". I was given 5 shots of different kinds of whiskey along with a glass of my favorite and had to test and comment on each kind. Apparently I missed the instructions that I wasn't supposed to finish the entire shot. oops. (keep in mind that this was after a few beers at the brewery...ouch) Really fun! They even gave me a diploma as a certified tester! :)

4/18 We were slow getting out of bed. Angie and Evan had to catch planes out of Ireland. Matt, T & I wandered around Ireland, bought some gifts and I found a really cheap violin that I'll hopefully learn to play (it’s tuned the same as a mandolin). Last night we met up with two of Matt’s friends from Ireland, Ian and Sinead. They took us out for a night on the town. We all drank way to much Guinness.

4/19 We just checked out of the hotel and are going to wander around, take a tour or two and then head to the airport where we'll sleep until our early morning flight back to Austria!

GREAT TRIP!!!!! I'll post photos soon.

Spicy Vodka, Drunk English folk, Street performing and the Bratislava Police

2006-04-09T09:41:00.000+02:00

I’m sitting in Galway in Kate Thompson’s house with Evan Goyke (two great friends from CSB/SJU). I’m on Spring break and Evan is on a whirlwind tour of the world.. I’ll spare you the travel details, but I will share one story with you for now.

Evan and I met up in Bratislava at about 3:00pm yesterday in order to catch a flight to Dublin the following morning. We hung around, ate a bit and relaxed until about 8:00pm. At 8:00pm we started drinking Ukrainian honey pepper vodka courtesy of Casey Peterson (another SJUer living doing Peace Corps in Ukraine). I hoped to accomplish one life goal for the evening: be a street performer for one day. I grabbed my guitar and we went to a bar to get one drink before heading out to “perform”. We met up with some drunk Englanders who were in Bratislava for a bachelor's party. They were happy to hear a tune, bought us some drinks and claimed that we “made their weekend”.

After a few drinks and a few songs with the English folks, we decided to play and sing drunken songs on a stoop in the center of Bratislava. We played for about an hour and earned about 6 Euro. Suddenly, the Bratislava police pulled up and started giving commands in Slovakian. Neither of them spoke English, but one could speak broken German. We spoke in German for a bit and I found out that street performing is illegal in Bratislava. They asked for our passports. “sorry… passports in hotel” (though they were in our pockets). They asked us to pay a substantial fine. “sorry… we don’t have that much money” (though we did). They asked for my name and B-day. I was drunk. I didn’t know what to do. They gave me a pad of paper and pen. As if by reflex I wrote:

Joe Sery
5/8/83

(Joe Sery is my good friend from college)

We discussed and debated for a while. They decided that we should be hauled off to the Bratislava police station. But just then, the one police officer who didn’t speak either German or English asked to look inside my guitar case, presumably to see how much money we had made performing. After forking over bit by bit both were satisfied with a bribe of around the equivalent of 3 American dollars and left us in peace. We went back to the Hotel and passed out.

Thanks Joe, hope you don't ever plan to go to Bratislava.

Crowd Panics in Ireland Flood!

2006-04-06T14:27:00.000+02:00

Oh yeah, and I'm leaving on Friday to Ireland (via Bratislava). WOO!

Crowd Panics in Ireland Flood!

Geburtstag und Fremdsprachenassistenten Ausflug

2006-04-06T14:02:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was a little excursion arranged by the pedagogical institute for Burgenland. All of the foreign languages in the state were invited. Only 6 showed up. There were a two Croatian and four English speakers. The purpose of the day was to give us a more in-depth look at Burgenland’s unique culture. It was a good language immersion exercise too.

Burgenland is a strange part of Austria. Before World War I it belonged to Hungary and is close enough to other eastern European countries to be heavily influenced. Hungarian and Croatian are spoken pretty often in the area. As one of our tour guides explained, this part of the country never knew whether to consider it part of “the East” or “the West” and ended up fighting for both sides over the past few centuries.

We visited a very cool medieval castle called Lockenhaus, then a cultural center for the Croatian communities in the area. They still exist and are no longer completely Croatian, nor completely Austrian… pretty interesting. We moved on to a museum dedicated to composer Franz Liszt which was actually located in his birth house. After a traditional meal of Blutwurst (blood sausage), Sauerkraut, Strudel, potatoes, and other traditional side items, we headed off to an art museum. The museum itself was in a 15th century palace and our tour guide was the artist himself. His last name is Lehmden and he is a talented, but eccentric old man. By this point in the day I felt like my head was going to explode from too much information, too much German and finally this crazy old man. The next stop was a bit more relaxing. We stopped into a wine cellar for a little wine tasting. We drank primarily Blaufänkish and Zweigelt, two of the red wines produced in the area. Anyway… fun day.

The B-day night was uneventful. A good B-day all around.

Gmunden & Hallstatt

2006-04-04T14:07:00.000+02:00

I spent the last four days in state of Oberösterreich, the gorgeous mountainous northwestern part of Austria. After traveling for a few hours I met up with Tiff, a friend from Minnesota. We spent the days wandering around her town, Gmunden, and even ventured off to another popular mountain-lake town: Hallstatt. Both are quaint gemütlich mountain villages and indescribably picturesque. Memorable events include drinking with her students until 5:30am, Drinking on the deck of a mountainside café overlooking the lake, being stopped by and subsequently running from the police for no apparent good reason, watching a marathon of friends episodes, and unsuccessfully trying to find a place to rent a canoe, motorboat or paddleboat. All in all, it was a lot of fun and I am certainly jealous of Tiff’s location. Here are some pictures from Hallstatt (I showed pictures of Gmunden in a previous post). You can expect another post within the next day or two. There is a cultural excursion for all of Burgenland's Fremdspracheassitenten (it's also my B-day). Then I leave for Bratislava and Ireland on Friday. It's a tough life.

Tiff & I in Hallstatt

Hallstatt from the ferry dock.

My Avenue

2006-03-30T18:52:00.000+02:00

I woke up today to get to my one and only class just to find out that it was cancelled. Obviously I was heartbroken. Luckily I have been planning an “Ausflug” for several days to a city nearby. The city is called Wiener Neustadt. From what I could gather there is nothing really special enough about the city to warrant anyone taking the 45 minute train ride from Eisenstadt (most of it was destroyed in WWII). But, for me, there was something very special, indeed.

After missing my first train by about 2 seconds, I waited around for another hour. I took the uneventful 45 minute ride and arrived in Wiener Neustadt. It wasn’t as bland as I had expected. Anyway… sightseeing could wait. I was there for one small street, my street: Kammangasse. “Gasse” basically means avenue. It was supposed to be right next to the courthouse. I wandered around town for about an hour asking random people where the courthouse was and getting strange looks in response. Finally I found the street! It couldn’t have been more anticlimactic. First, it was spelled differently: Kammanngasse (2 n’s…which I suppose was to be expected, though I had heard otherwise). Second, I was hoping for something photogenic like Kammangasse Bäckerei, Kammangasse Restaurant, or Kammangasse Sex Shop (almost every other street in Europe has it’s own sex shop). As you can see from the picture below it was hardly and exciting place. My teacher said that Kammanngasse is “nothing extraordinary…in fact, rather boring”. She was right. Anyway…I took the train back to Eisenstadt… my day was gone. At least I know that someone who was likely related to my European ancestors did something worthwhile enough to have a mediocre street named after them in “Wiener Neustadt”.

The most beautiful sight in Austria: Kammanngasse (Yes, those are giant dirt mounds on the left)

Warming up.

2006-03-23T14:24:00.000+01:00

Time in Austria is starting to wind down. It seems weird that I will only be here for another 2 months. I'm excited for a change of scene, but I think I'll miss Eisenstadt. This semester has been a lot of fun and my German is to the point that I can carry conversations pretty well (which makes life a lot easier). I will certainly miss days like yesterday (was it yesterday? I don't remember). I slept in really late (too late, in fact). I didn't have any classes or tutoring. It's starting to get warm so I went for a walk around town. After returning I just went to the Sauna for about 2 hours. Sauna for 10 minutes, read for 20, repeat. Took a short nap. Woke up and went out with some friends to a pub in town for a glass of wine. Went to bed. Its a rough life. I'm leaving for Ireland in about 2 weeks. I can't wait! Here are some pictures from the pub last night.

"Ausländer raus!"

2006-03-17T10:02:00.000+01:00

Two nights ago was Milan’s B-day party. He’s the Czech guy across the hall that Dad and I visited in Brno. I was feeling sick so I went to bed at around midnight (rather than stay up until 5 or 6am, as is the custom). I slept for an hour or two and was awoken by Veronica, another girl from Czech, that stopped by. We were just watching TV and all of a sudden an Austrian soldier in full military fatigue ran into my room without knocking. He started yelling in a thick Austrian dialect and I could hardly understand what he was saying. The parts that I did understand roughly translate to: “Fu** foreigners, get out of my country….. Fu** me in the a**, stay calm, don’t move.” He fell over on the floor, got up, opened my window, closed it and ran out of the room. Obviously we were both confused. She was terrified. 30 seconds later he ran back in and did basically the same thing. I locked the door behind him. Another minute passed and he tried to get back in. He continued for about 20 minutes to kick my door, jiggle the handle and yell obscenities. He would repeatedly yell in German, “Austrian border control… open up, NOW! Eins, Zwei, Drei, BANG!(kick the door)” Repeat…

Eventually it stopped. I found out later that he was sent to jail, though I haven’t found out the details yet. Anyway, it was an interesting night and offered a glimpse into the extant prejudice and the darker side of Austria. The viewpoint isn’t a popular one, but it's strong enough to have its own political party: the FPO. They want to break away from the EU and basically kick all foreigners out. So much for learning from history…

2006-03-14T16:21:00.000+01:00

The past week or so have been fairly uneventful. The new “incomings” are out of control. I feel like I am back at college. There is a party nearly every single day. There have been several birthday parties, including one for Arthur (the other American in town). It’s still pretty cold here. We got a few inches of snow today. I’m ready for summer.

In less than a month I’ll be heading to Ireland for Easter break. I’m meeting up with Kate Thompson in Galway and later with Theresa Guentzel and Matt Reichert (former CSB|SJUers). I’ve never been to Ireland and being that I am mostly “Irish” – the Europeans find it very funny that we still refer to ourselves by our heritage - I’m looking forward to my homecoming! It will be nice having Kate, Matt and T there.

I’m also trying to develop my plans for Summer. Mary Cox (another former Bennie) is coming in Late-May, early June and we’ll most likely meet up. Steve Devereaux is also coming for a while at the end of June. It should be quite the adventure!

I’ve posted some pictures from travels with Dad, Jim Durfey, and some general shots from Eisenstadt. Click on "photos".

Also... Last week this website passed the 20,000 visitors mark. Keep up the good work. I suppose this is grounds for yet another party.

Fashingdienstag and other stuff

2006-03-04T18:34:00.000+01:00

This Tuesday was Fashingdienstag. My understanding of it is that it is something similar to Mardi Gras and is basically an excuse to become belligerent one last time before lent begins. I walked into the main part of town to explore and stumbled across a giant festival. Everyone was dressed in crazy costumes and extremely drunk….it was noon. I ran into several friends, students and teachers in ridiculous outfits. Later on, back at the Studentenheim everyone was, well…. drunk. It was an unexpectedly crazy day.

Fashingdienstag: Renee (Australia), Bridget (Scottland), Ingrid (One of my teachers) and Ingrid's husband

The new international students came in and are a lot of fun. The combination of the remaining “incomings” plus the new ones really makes for a fun atmosphere. There are several from Croatia, Czech, Poland, Finland, Hungary….and others. I’m really lucky to have all of these international students. The Austrian dialect can be absolutely impossible so I’m extremely grateful to have other people struggling with it. We are all able to communicate in clear, somewhat simple “High German” at a reasonable pace. There are also several Germans and Austrians that hang out with us and do their best to stay away from the dialect around us. My German has improved dramatically in the past few months.

School is going well and I’m tutoring a bit on the side for some extra money. I’m trying to figure out what my plans are for the summer and for the coming year. I’ve applied to a few graduate schools and will apply to a few jobs soon as well. I plan on traveling the month of June with some friends from CSB/SJU. Should be fun… want to come with?

I tutor Elisabeth (and her sister Maria and brother Leopold)once a week. They are from Canada originally but have been living here for about two years.

Kamman Europe adventure round 2

2006-02-20T16:27:00.000+01:00

A photo from the city walls of Rothenburg:

Well, Dad is back in the states and I’m back in Eisenstadt. We had a great trip!

I forgot to mention that we also spent a while in Nürnburg before heading to Rothenburg. Afterwards, however, we ended up in Baden Baden. It’s a nice typical European town, but it was certainly not meant for sightseeing. The tourist draw comes from the two thermal baths (dating back to Roman times) and an extravagant casino.

On the first day, we visited the newer thermal bath. It was very modern looking and had everything available from saunas and outdoor swimming pools to aroma therapy rooms and an artificial river to swim in…etc.

On the second day we went to the older bath. It was incredible! This place was much more systematic and entirely nude (German, in other words). It was a 3.5 hour long process including 16 well defined steps and time periods for each. Though I’m sure you’re not interested, the process was:

1. Soap shower (5 min)
2. warm dry air bath (15 min)
3. hot dry air bath (5 min)
4. rinsing shower (1 min)
5. massage (10 min)
6. rinsing shower (1 min)
7. warm thermal steam bath (10 min)
8. hot thermal steam bath (5 min)
9. warm thermal mineral water bath (10 min)
10. jet – spray thermal mineral bath (15 min)
11. cool thermal bath (5 minute)
12. hot shower (8 min)
13. cold water immersion
14. dry off with warm towels
15. moisturizer lotion station
16. rest and relaxation period

Though it might not sound like it, the last step was the most amazing. We were escorted half in a daze into a completely dark and still circular room and wrapped up into a cocoon with warm sheets and a heavy blanket. Amazing!

Click on the picture to see the details

That morning we took a tour of the casino only to learn that a coat and tie were necessary to enter during gambling hours. So… being the cheap classless Americans not willing to fork over 22 € for rentals, we decided to stop by the local second hand store. We both found incredibly ugly sport coats for 2 € a piece. We then found equally ugly and equally cheap ties to match….sort of. All in all we looked like poorly dressed used car salesmen. Not exactly the high-roller look that the casino was going for, but they let us in. I won some money, dad lost some.

We ended the trip in Munich with a beer tour of our own. The next morning, Saturday, dad took off back to America. I wandered around the town, went to a science museum and bought a new instrument called a melodiker (a blowing powered keyboard) and eventually crashed at about 9:00pm in a youth hostel. Thinking….wow… great trip…the end.

Nope.

I woke up to go to the bathroom at about 2:00am and was invited to a table by some drunk kids at the bar (in the hostel). I thought…ok, fine… one beer to knock me out for the evening. There was one other English speaking guy from Australia at the table. We were having a nice conversation and then were suddenly surrounded by 6 or 7 gorgeous Bavarian girls dying to practice speaking English…..ok, fine…two beers. The bar closed and I went to go to sleep but was dragged by this mob all saying “come, come, we take you to shitty bar” in a thick accent.

…ok, fine… I like shitty bars.

It was, more or less, the Munich version of the midi (for you csb/sjuers). We all drank far too much dark beer, but it was a good time. When I opened the door to leave I was blinded by daylight….ughh… it was 8:00am. What! My train leaves at 9:30. I hustled back to the hostel, checked out and caught a train back. I made it back to my place 9 hours later (lots of delays) and slept until this morning. The End.

Sorry for the long post. Congrats to those of you that made it this far.

My favorite picture from the trip:

nothing commands authority like the Czech police!

From Rothenburg

2006-02-15T09:50:00.000+01:00

Hello! I am currently sitting in an internet cafe in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. My dad landed safely in Munich on Thursday morning and then took the 6 hour train to Eisenstadt where we met at my apartment (29 total hours of travel!).

I took my dad into school with me on Friday. During the first two classes we gave them a brief introduction to my dad. He continued on with an in depth explanation of the history and production mechanisms of the infamous Fruit Roll Up! The kids loved it and loved having some candy from America. After the Fruit Roll Up explanation dried up, we continued on talking about the assigned topic: COWBOYS! We listened to "Tumbling Tumble Weed" and "Back in the Saddle again" and analyzed the lyrics...etc. It was a great lesson.

After these two lessons we hustled over to my second school where we were going to be the judges for a language competition. As we walked in through the double doors the entire (fairly large) audience turned around to stare at us (apparently they had been waiting). At that point I was introduced along with my "special guest right off of the plane from America... Dr. James Kamman"!! The contest went well and it was, all in all, a fairly surreal day in Eisenstadt with Dad.

We hopped a train to Prague with a three hour layover in Brno (Czech Republic). At a tiny border town called Breclev, I randomly met an American girl named Jill Feidinger (I think). She is from St. Cloud Minnesota and is great friends with a lot of my best friends (A Cathedralite and a red-stringer guide!). Mo, Strack, Tom... you know her? Its a small world! After that we met up with Milan and Marcela, the Czech couple that live across the hall but are from Brno. They treated us to an AMAZING traditional Czech meal and a tour of Brno. It was great!

We went on to Prague and wandered the town. On the second night we did a Prague "pub crawl" tour. After getting fairly drunk, the tour ended. For some reason or another the tour guide pulled my dad and I aside and told us he'd show us his favorite bar (not on the tour). The three of us went to another cool bar down the street where he joined us for a beer and enlightened us on the history of Czech, the velvet revolution, the fall of communism in the area, the split of Czechoslovakia...etc. It was another great night.

Right now we're packed up and ready to leave Rothenburg. Rothenburg is a really quaint medieval town in the black forest, Germany. We walked around the wall surrounding the town, explored the narrow streets and drank some beer. We're off now to Baden Baden, Germany. It is famous for it's hot baths... etc. I expect the next two days will be a daze.

and.....we're off.

Ich bin der Apfel, du mein Stamm

2006-02-08T18:49:00.000+01:00

I thought that I would liven up the website with a little music. Click below to listen to a song that one of my teachers called the "Sweet Home Alabama" of Austria.

Right click and select "save target as"
Reinhard Fendrich - I am from Austria

It is a song by Reinhard Fendrich - a national hero from what I gather - and is entitled "I am from Austria" the one English line in the song. It is in pretty thick Austrian dialect. I can catch words here and there, but the overall song is lost on me. One of the few complete sentences I can extract (besides "I am from Austria) is "Ich bin der Apfel, du mein Stamm": "I am the apple, you're my stem". I've dubbed this genre "Austrian ski music" because songs like it (and far cheesier) blare from the ski resorts and around anything else ski related.

I am the apple, you are all my stem... especially you Brian Heilman. Thanks in advance for the Hindi Street Dance volume 2 CD.

Dad comes tomorrow! WOOO!

Ticket Purchased!

2006-01-28T15:22:00.000+01:00

I just bought a ticket to Ireland for April 8th-20th and might be visiting some friends over there. I only paid 100 euro round trip! Come with!

Budapest, Durfey and sleeping with homeless people

2006-01-26T17:22:00.000+01:00

The elusive Jim Durfey stumbled into my room on Saturday night after wandering around Europe for just over a week. On Sunday we went to Sopron, the Hungarian sister city to Eisenstadt and had some Gluhwein and Goulash in an old wine-cellar-like place. It was a nice escape from the frigid temperatures that are sweeping through Europe right now.

Unfortunately, I had to teach Monday and Tuesday so Jim was left to fend for himself. He explored Vienna and Eisenstadt. On Tuesday afternoon we hopped a train to Budapest (since I have Wednesdays off). It was fun to be back there, despite the cold that was not there last time. We saw all of the major sites and enjoyed about two hours in the Gellert thermal baths. Warm bath, hot bath, Sauna cold bath, repeat (four times). The coolest part of Budapest this time around, at least for me, was the Danube. I’m not sure what the scientific explanation would be, but there were GIANT chunks of ice floating down and colliding with each other, boats and bridges. It’s hard to put into words, but it was really strange. I’ve seen frozen rivers, but this was still flowing at a good pace. It was like a giant moving river of ice. Of course, that Jim Durfey’s presence was cool enough without the giant moving river of ice… but it was a nice addition.

Travel Mishap #2: After the travel disaster of New Years in the Milan airport, I thought that I would see my fair share of mishap-free traveling. Unfortunately this is not the case. Last Night (I think it was last night… I can’t even remember), I caught a train back from Budapest to Eisenstadt (via Vienna) so that I could be back, get some sleep and wake up to teach this morning. I left Budapest around 6:00pm. After a few hours we crossed the Austrian border and came to a stop called Bruck an der Leitha. This is fairly close to Eisenstadt so I considered getting off to save some time, but wasn’t sure that I could find an Eisenstadt connection so late (I found out later that I could have). I continued on to Vienna only to find that I had missed the last train by several minutes and the last bus by half an hour. UGHHH.

The next was supposed to leave at 2:00am so I thought that I would just wait it out in the unheated airport. Well, at Midnight I found out that this train had been cancelled, making the next possible commute by bus at about 6:00am. In retrospect I should have buckled down and found a youth hostel. Unfortunately there weren’t any very close, I didn’t know where any were and the weather was in the low teens so I didn’t feel like wandering. I ended up staying in the waiting room all night. The heat was shut off sometime around midnight and the near-freezing temperature crept into the waiting room as well. I didn’t sleep a wink, partially due to the 15 snoring homeless people (with whom I can now certainly sympathize) and partially because of the cold. I read two books and sat around for a long time. Eventually 6:00am rolled around and I caught the bus to Eisenstadt. Arrived at 7:30am and had to teach 3 hours later. I walked from the bus stop to my apartment (half an hour) in the cold. Slept for an hour and a half and woke up to go to school… YUCK!

All is well now. I’m finished with school, have napped and have showered. Now it’s finally time to eat. Thank God the sauna is open today!

View of the Hugarian Parliment from the castle

The Danube flowing with ice

View of the castle across the frozen Danube. Notice the path that the ferry plowed through the ice.

Der Abschlussball

2006-01-15T17:56:00.000+01:00

Friday night was the Graduation ball for one of my schools. There were about 500-600 people there and everyone was dressed up (including myself). Most of the teachers and parents of the graduating class were there as well. The ball began with a really traditional dance and continued with a live band. The band played everything from traditional Austrian songs to "It's raining men". Since the drinking age in Austria is 16 (and most begin around 13) everyone was drunk. There were drunk teachers, drunk students, drunk parents and drunk me. It was a lot of fun, but also very strange. Some students bought me shots of Jagermeister... Weird. Lots-o-fun though.

Jim Durfey is coming in less than a week. I'm getting my shower and hair razor prepared for his arrival!

Thanks to everyone that has called me in the last week. I'm glad that I got that phone number! Keep it up. I miss speaking English.

New Phone Number

2006-01-13T14:34:00.000+01:00

Hello Everyone!

I have a new St. Cloud Minnesota phone number that will forward calls to me in Austria at no extra expense to you!

(320) 310-0909

call me.
John

2006-01-08T15:40:00.000+01:00

Some of you may have seen the photo of my Grandpa (Mom's Dad) taken in the 1930's side by side with a picture of me taken outside of the refectory at St. John's. I posted it below in case you haven't. Here's a new one:

This is a picture of Dad and Grandma Kamman in St. Marks square in Venice (early 1960s I would guess)side by side with a picture of me from several weeks ago.

Here's the picture of me with Grandpa Ryan outside of the Reef. Interesting story... his name was Simon Ryan. If you look closely at my picture, the shadow behind me was added in digitally. The reason that there is no shadow in the original picture is because a building has been constructed since the taking of Grandpa's picture that blocks the sun during this time of day. The name of the building: Simons Hall. No connection, but funny nonetheless

Also, just behind Simons hall is the "old gym". If you look on the CSB|SJU website there is a page about the construction of the "Old Gym". Click Here Grandpa is quoted: "Simon Ryan ’34 remembers. He and his wife, Florrie, were back at St. John’s for a football game and were passing the gym. Seeing a student near the almost completed facilities, Ryan asked, 'Is there a woman’s toilet nearby?' 'No,' said the student, 'but when this building is completed there will be one inside.' 'I don’t think we can wait that long,' Ryan replied."

Europe, Pisa, Shit (read title aloud to a friend near you)

2006-01-03T16:10:00.000+01:00

Hello! I'm back in Eisenstadt after the Italy adventure with Anna (She's back in Miami now). Since Anna's post last week was endless, I'll try to keep it to a brief summary to compensate:

We took a night train to Venice (relatively painless considering all of the aforementioned bottles of wine). After a quick boatbus tour of the town we went to St. Mark's square and Basillica, toured the Doges palace and explored the town on foot. I forced Anna, with good reason, to be covered in pigeons as an act of revenge [sorry anna... but you had it coming :)].

After Venice we headed to Rome for about four days. We saw all of the typical touristy things: the Coliseum, Pantheon, Vatican...etc. We randomly ran into Jeff Morency (a friend from SJU) inside the Pantheon. Then, the small world got even smaller when we ran into Dan Royer (another SJU friend) at the Christmas Mass at St. Peter's square. The day after Christmas we went to the Pope's blessing which was a pretty amazing experience. Unfortunately the Vatican Museum (Sistine Chapel..etc) was closed most of our trip and the line was too long the one day that it was open.

After we felt satisfied with Rome we attempted to get to Pompeii. Unfortunately we arrived to late to actually enter and instead walked around Naples and visited the Archeology museum there (to at least see some artifacts from Pompeii). Naples is a gross city.

We left Rome and Naples to go to Florence. Florence was an amazing city. We saw David and the Duomo...etc. Anna snatched an illegal photo of me next to David. We also made a quick day trip to Pisa and judging from the photo below fit in with the locals perfectly. I don’t think we looked like tourists at all. :)

Anna had to fly out of Bologna on the 31st so we spent part of the day of the 30th walking through Bologna before I left for Milan. I was supposed to fly out of Milan to Montana to visit the family in Big Sky. Unfortunately I had awful luck and ended up staying in the airport 3 days straight including sleeping on the floor over new years (not fun!). More delays, bumps, embargos, overbookings…etc. I decided that I wasn’t going to get home anytime soon. I took the 16hour train back to Eisenstadt where I sit now. Wheeeeeeeeeewwww.. The end. Anna: if there's anything important I missed add a comment!

Here are some pictures (I’ll post more under Photos later):

A post from Anna

2005-12-20T14:47:00.000+01:00

While John eats bread, brie and nutella, I am overtaking his computer to make his blog a little more interesting.
On Friday, about 12:30 am, I arrived home and began packing for my europe voyage. I finished about 1:30 am, headed to bed and woke up about 6 am. I spent Friday teaching, finishing my grades, and escaping during lunch to check into the airport because I didn't have permission to leave early from school. I got to the plane just as it was boarding, and I made it just in time to fly to Paris, then Austria. As always, the airline demons were out to get me, and as it turned out, 4 people had checked into the miami airport but never arrived onboard the plane. For security reasons, they had to remove their luggage. After about 15 minutes, they announced they had found the luggage, but it was in the back of all the luggage. Great, delay, approximately 1/2 hour. BUT THEN, in come the 4 MIA's, and we have to put everything back on the plane. We left the miami airport about an hour late, arrived in Paris about 40 minutes late. That caused me to miss my connection flight to Vienna, and I was waitlisted for the following flights during the day. As I sat in the Paris airport for 7 hours, John was waiting for me at the airport in Vienna. I didn't arrive. He spent the day running back and forth between our two meeting places and sending me threatening emails about my whereabouts. Meanwhile back at Paris, I was unable to contact him and did not know when I could go to Vienna. I finally got on a flight at 4:15, which brought me into Vienna about 6:30 pm. Thankfully, John was there, waiting and escorted me through Vienna, its Christmas Market, onto the bus, and off to Eisenstadt.
Surprisingly, I arrived to a clean room and there were people in the kitchen that are friends with John not only because his dad invented fruit roll-ups. We spent Saturday night walking around town and eating some weinerschnitzel. On Sunday, we walked around town, ate some food, and we went ice skating.
Yesterday and today, I have joined John on his hectic trips to school. He is definitely a novelty and the kids love him. We have talked about everything from Christmas to school to Cuba to Bush. The school system here is so refreshing compared to my school and it was a nice change to see kids that are intrinsically motivated to learn.
People here are very nice, even though I can't speak too much with them. They have showered us with gifts (we have six bottles of wine and 3 boxes of cookies), and have made the trip bearable so far :-)
We are packing up for Italy as I type this. John says I'm writing too much, but you must know we are going to the infamous Buschenshank tonight before we take a night train to Venice. I'll let you know if it is really as sweet as John says it is, or if it is only sweet because John's having an illicite affair with the old ladies inside.
Merry Christmas to all and to all, a bon voyage. ich habe hunger

Salzburg..etc

2005-12-12T12:59:00.000+01:00

The past week was another 5 day weekend celebrating the conception of Mary. I spent the week in Salzburg with the study abroad crew from CSB/SJU. They're about to head back to Minnesota to finish the second semester...lucky. Salzburg was a nice break from teaching in Eisenstadt (as if I deserve a break from 12 hours per week!). We went ice skating in the old part of town then went skiing at a great resort about an hour outside of Salzburg. On the ungroomed runs we had powder up to our knees/thighs. Luckily one other girl on the trip could ski so we broke off from the rest of the group. I'm still sore. The last two nights we toured the Stiegl brewery and spent a night drinking liters at the Augustiner.

Anna is coming in about 5 days and my Christmas break begins a week from tomorrow. I'm excited for both. I only have 18 hours of work from Dec 1st - Jan 7th... life is rough. Anna and I are leaving on the 21st for Venice and going to try to make it to Rome for Christmas - See the pope on Christmas eve mass...all that stuff. Pretty exciting! I'm still trying to figure out my new years plans.

On a side note, I started tutoring some kids (ages 4,6 & 8). They were born in Canada and moved to Austria about 2 years ago. They're slowly losing the ability to speak English so my job is to refresh their memory. Also, they can't read or write in English (or German...for the most part) so I will have to work on that as well. It's a challenge and takes a lot of patience, but it's certainly worth the 20 euros per hour :).

The language is coming along nicely. I have a long way to go, but it was nice to know that my German was almost as good as some of the CSB/SJU students who are majoring or minoring in it. I wish I paid more attention in high school. Sorry Frau Maiben.

Here are some pictures from Salzburg:

Stiegl Brewery

Thanksgiving round 2

2005-12-04T20:56:00.000+01:00

This past weekend I went to a small mountain town called Gmunden to visit a few friends. There was another huge thanksgiving meal for about 15 people. The following day (today) we walked around the town for a while before I had to catch my train back to Eisenstadt. It was, all in all, a good time. Next week I have another 5 day weekend and I think I'll go back to see my friends in Salzburg and go skiing with them. Anna comes in just under two weeks! Also, I received an email from Jim Durfey (a friend who graduated several years ago from SJU). He'll be visiting in January. Here are two pictures from Gmunden:

Thanksgiving in Austria

2005-11-27T13:50:00.000+01:00

Hello... I'm trying out a new way of posting these entries. This way comments can be left. We'll see if it works out. You can click on the pictures to enlarge them. Here's the most recent post that I made on the old one:

I hope that everyone had a great thanksgiving. Despite the fact that I'm in Austria, Thanksgiving turned out quite well. I met up with two other Americans in the area along with a British friend and the Czech couple. We managed to put together a pretty good meals: Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy (thanks dad), cranberry sauce, wild rice and even pumpkin pie. All in all, a good thanksgiving. Other than that, not too much else is new. The main street of Eisenstadt is now setup for christmas which is quite nice.