"Let's drink a toast to your non-idiocy"

In the "yay for me" category:

I was offered the opportunity to write a column of my upcoming travels for our local Street Roots newspaper. Joanne Zuhl, the managing editor of the paper asked if I would like to contribute a bi-monthly column devoted to my journey on The Longest Walk II. I was honored and heartily agreed.

Street Roots has primarily been a paper that has focused on homeless issues and is sold by vendors who either are or have experience with homelessness. Since Joanne took over the editorship, she has been working to make the paper more about social justice and civil rights issues and has done a really nice job turning it into a good, progressive newspaper. They will be going from a monthly run to a bi-monthly starting next year which means I will get to post 12 columns over the span of my five month journey.

I can write about pretty much anything I want; from my spiritual journey to whatever subjects and issues I will learn about on the road. It's a wonderful opportunity to file stories quickly (I will have two weeks in between issues), as well as build up a nice portfolio of work. I am so grateful for the opportunity.

For those of you who live outside of the Portland area and can afford a subscription to the paper ($35) and want to check out my ramblings somewhere other than this blog - my column will begin running with the February 1st edition and run until mid-July. You can check them out at www.streetroots.org

In other news:

Gwen tried to get me to buy a "Turducken" today at her store. I flatly refused.