Jim's Little Corner of the Internet

What's Up Lately?

Wednesday, February 1... could it be? Two and a half months since my last update! Once the ski season starts, it seems like the months just fly by. The skiing has been great... we have the best snow in the state. But that's not saying a lot; this is an La Nina winter, and we just aren't getting any snow north of New Mexico. We have some of the best conditions in Colorado, while the northern ski areas are really hurting.

My fund raising for the Mitrata Foundation in Nepal had to put on hold for a while. Nanda is having some staffing difficulties and is down sizing the home and moving to a new location (with the younger children only). I'm waiting for the dust to settle before carrying on. While I'm waiting, I have been doing a little, like taking a grant writing workshop at DU a couple of weeks ago. Grant proposals are not a whole lot different than the proposals I used to write in my past working life in contract research. The main difference is identifying grant sources that correspond to your project. But now I hope to be able to be more effective in the fund raising department. Meanwhile, my friend Steve Mannshardt's World Wide Education Partnerships for Nepal (WWEP) is the place to go to support individual children or education projects in Nepal. Karen and I will continue with our sponsorship of the 3 children we have been sponsoring the last few years.

Our Sierra Club hut trip had to be cancelled. We only had 2 people signed up. Very disappointing! I need to think about new trips, maybe a summer trip. But we have to figure out why the winter trips haven't been working. Economy? Too expensive? Too difficult? Small audience? Whatever... I'll figure it out.

I'm working on another Nepal trip. Getting to Kanchenjunga from Sikkim last year didn't work, so I'm going to try it from the Nepal side this year. It's still an expensive trip because it's long (about 25 days) and involves transportation issues (have to fly to the trail head from Kathmandu to eastern Nepal on the border with Sikkim, and then a long bus ride north). The plus in going from Nepal, though, is that we don't have all the permit issues we had in Sikkim. It's not a restricted area in Nepal as it was in Sikkim, so the restrictions on time, and the deadline for getting the permit application in aren't there. I'm looking at going around October 8 and returning around November 4 or 5. Once I have the itinerary and price, I'll be updating with more information.

I never seem to have enough time to get everything onto these pages that I plan, but read on, check back here from time to time, and I will add pictures from some of my travels as I have time. Also as I have time, and whim moves me, I will be adding to and updating these pages. Feedback is always appreciated!!!