Dog Days of Spring

It was a bright and sunny day today, so I decided to take another drive through the park. Animals were out in full force today. I literally had to TRY not to hit suicidal prairie dogs running across the road. It was hard - like wack-a-mole in reverse.

There were also an abundance of horses by the road. I looked at this horse for a really long time before noticing the colt at its feet. Normally I just assume horses that are lying down are dead, but I saw this one move.


Bison were prevalent too. There was a baby that walked right by my car. I was too scared to roll down my window and take a picture, since mom was within arm's length of my car, but that's ok because when the calf saw me take out my camera, it got scared and hid behind its mom anyway, so I didn't get the sweet shot that I wanted.

North Dakota Spring

There are finally some signs of spring here in North Dakota even though it did this overnight:


As you can see, there are a few green things starting to show up. We took a ride into the park on Monday and saw a couple of amazing things. First, there were four brand new prescribed burn areas. These areas were burned only one week before I took this picture:


Those little blades of grass poking through the freshly-scortched earth are the greenest things North of the Twin Cities. After seeing that and the beautiful mosaic formed by the Red Eagle Fire in Glacier National Park (2006), I've become a pretty big fan of natural fires.


However, the real reason we were driving Monday was because Nathan was tipped off that the bison were having their calves. We expected to see a few like this that were born a few days before:


But we weren't ready to see this:


A brand new calf, born minutes before. How do I know? Well, we noticed the mother eating something weird and stringy. My Park Ranger guide informed me nonchalantly that that was the afterbirth and eating it is the first thing bison do after their calf is born. Isn't nature...precious?

Tanzania Research Starting

A little bit more information about the Corporate Services Corps program is trickling in. We have an official team made up of nine people from across the globe (Canada, Germany, Costa Rica, New Zealand, U.S., Japan, and Italy) I've chatted with a few of them and all are very nice, interesting people, so I look forward to meeting them in person and doing some "teaming" pre-work.

It turns out there is a small, but vibrant community of people that have ties to Tanzania in Rochester, MN. One of the local churches (Bethel Lutheran Church) sends missionaries to the country every year and there is an IBMer who grew up in Moshi, which is a town right at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Everyone that I've met who has been to Tanzania looks at me the same way people who have studied abroad do when they tell you they'd do it again in a heartbeat. It seems that Tanzania has a way of touching people's hearts, even if they're only there for two weeks.

Here are some of the more interesting things I've learned from talking to people who have been to the country:
1) A "wedding cake" in Tanzanian culture is really a roasted goat (mbuzi).
2) Tanzanian electricity is largely powered hydro-electrically, which means that there are somewhat frequent outages during the dry season (when I'll be there).
3) Bananas (ndizi) from Tanzania are a bit different from the ones we get in the US (usually from South America). They are normally cooked with meat and I'm told they taste like potatoes.
4) Some of the rural roads (njia) aren't so good. It can take 8 hours to drive 200-300 kilometers in some areas.

I can't wait to go try some of this stuff for myself!

I'm also starting to learn Swahili using the Teach Yourself method. The few words I know are in parentheses above. For the most part, I'm a big fan of the language. The pronunciation of letters is very similar to English, so it's easy to read a word and then say it, save a few combinations like ng', which sounds like the gn in the Italian word "gnocchi". A few phrases I know are "Habari za asubuhi" (How is/was your morning?), "Hujambo?" (How are you (singular)?), and "halafu pinda kushoto" (then, turn left). Very practical, and I find it sad that one of the first words they taught us was mbu (mosquito), which, coincidentally is pretty useful here in Minnesota as well.

Petrified Forest Loop

Last Friday Nathan and I hiked the Petrified Forest Loop in Teddy Roosevelt's Wilderness area located on the West side of the Little Missouri River. The hike was fairly easy since the majority of the time we were hiking in the prairie grasslands on the top of a large plateau.


The hike was pretty amazing in terms of wildlife and scenery. We saw plenty of birds, the most exciting of which were the ~300 migrating Sandhill Cranes. Two horses met us at the entrance to the park.


The only annoying thing was that there were bison EVERYWHERE! Yes, I can't believe it's gotten to the point where I was irritated from seeing too MANY of them. They use the trails just as much as we do and, of course, they have the right of way, so we ended up hiking off-trail through the Wilderness Area for a chunk of our trek.


My favorite part of the hike was the actual petrified stumps. I really have no idea how something gets turned from organic matter to stone, so I felt like I was in the middle of an enchanted forest in a Harry Potter novel.




As always, the rock formations were pretty spectacular as well. If you're heading to Teddy Roosevelt and looking for a great dayhike to do, this one would be it!

In The News...Again

I drove home from Medora on Sunday, despite the ominous-looking snowstorm swinging through Northern Minnesota. Everything was great until I hit West Fargo, ND. Between there and the 45th Street exit where I eat lunch, there were a total of seven cars/RVs in the ditch and I almost managed to land there several times too.

Once I was able to stop, I called Nathan, who told me that I better just get a hotel room for the night. I picked the closest one: The Best Western Kelly Inn & Suites on 44th street and I have to say, for being forced to stay there, it was one of my best hotel stays ever!! I highly recommend it. I really wished I had a swimming suit and was about 15 years younger because the pool looked like a lot of fun.

Anyway, I was able to make it home ok Monday afternoon, but did pass two mangled semis on their sides, whose cargo areas had been ripped open at the seams with boxes strewn everywhere!

I was at work for only three hours when I was contacted by the IBM PR rep I'd been working with over the past few weeks. KAAL (Channel 6) wanted to do an interview that afternoon.

Even though I had no time to prepare, I think it turned out ok, check it out: Article + Newscast.

In The News

The Post Bulletin in Rochester, MN published an article about me and the Corporate Services Corp:

http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=7&a=334996

One Great Adventure

How is it that I'm the luckiest person on the planet?

A couple of months ago I found out about an incredible program that IBM was starting called the Corporate Services Corps. The media outlets are dubbing it the "Corporate Peace Corps" and with good reason. If you are accepted into the program, IBM sends you to a developing country in either Africa, Eastern Europe, or Asia to work with local government and non-governmental organizations on real-world humanitarian issues for one month. The program has a lot of benefits for everyone involved. IBM gets to send some of its promising leaders over to gain global knowledge and skills first-hand. The non-profits get some of IBM's business and technological expertise, which should help them help more people who really deserve the help! The employees who go not only get an incredible opportunity to make a real difference in the world, but they get to travel, be immersed in a new culture, and get some great leadership experience to boot. Here's a recent article in the New York Times about it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/technology/26blue.html?ref=worldbusiness

For me, it was a no-brainer to apply as this program brings together every single one of my passions (the enthusiasm and belief that I can make the world a better place, travel, new languages, cultures, technology, and leadership - nice job to the team that invented and pitched this idea - it's incredible).

The problem with the program is the application part. You had to have had good yearly ratings for the last two years, volunteer experience, leadership experience, and a stellar personal statement. Oh, and by the way, this was only open to IBM employees. Even with those criteria, the program became EXTREMELY competitive. They ended up getting 5500 applications from around the world, 3200 of which were eligible. Of those only 110 people - 110! were chosen. When I heard about the shear numbers of applicants a couple weeks ago, I pretty much lost all hope of being accepted. I've only been with the company for 3 years...there's no way they would pick me.

Then the most surreal thing happened. I got a phone call from the director of the program and he said, "Congratulations, you've been accepted into the program". Words can't really express how I felt at that moment. Shock, excitement, relief, wonder, extreme happiness - those all sound good, but don't do the moment any justice. That moment was only surpassed by the one in which I found out where I was going: Arusha, Tanzania.

Arusha, as it turns out is on the border of Tanzania and Kenya, about 30 miles from the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Also not far from Lake Victoria, the second-largest lake in the world. My program runs from August 23rd - September 20th. (The only problem with that being that the trip I had planned with my parents to Glacier National Park had to be canceled. Luckily my wonderful parents are pretty understanding about why I needed to ditch them!) I'll be working with two non-governmental organizations: FINCA International (which distributes microloans of about $50-$300 to small entrepreneurs, many of them women, to help them lift themselves out of poverty) and KickStart (which designs and sells technologies like their "Super MoneyMaker Pump", which is an irrigation system that allows small farmers to produce enough to feed their families and afford health care and education costs).

Are you in shock? Because I'm pretty sure I still am! There is a downside. I won't be living in Glacier this summer because the cost of internet and the hassle for only two months just isn't going to be worth it. Also, I need a slew of shots ranging from Yellow Fever to a Polio booster and even Rabies if I intend to be outside (which I will be if I'm lucky enough to stay a couple extra weeks to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and go on a photo safari).

Anyway, again, I am incredibly honored and excited to be in this program. I'm proud to work for a company that has given this opportunity both to its employees and the world (I know that sounds like I'm sucking up, but I really mean it)! I'm incredibly thankful to all of the people in my life and career that have gotten me to this point (too numerous to list for sure). Stay tuned, you will be hearing every juicy detail as the program moves forward!