Eli and I went up to Michigan for a short kayaking and camping and gear testing trip. Eli’s headed west to visit a few national parks and wanted to see if he liked his gear and possibly would want to buy similar gear to mine for the things he hadn’t purchased yet. The MSR stove definitely won Eli over. It was bought the next day at REI in Ann Arbor.

Here are some pics of the camping side of things. It was too hot and I was too tired to lug the camera around while kayaking on the lake. It was very nice though.

And here’s a map (click it for a larger size):

Jason and I headed down the rapids on the Maumee between Waterville and Perrysburg. The video above is from the beginning of the trip where things were chill and slow. Later, I did not film cause I was too busy to not drown.

This weird skeleton was under about 2 feet of soil. Looks like it was a big animal though. No human.

These are the rapids we went down on. Jason and I had struggled two days ago, but this time we came from upriver. And the water level in the river had increased to a point when the rapids weren’t nearly as fast as they had been on Sunday.

Natalie and Kimberly are looking at the ‘rapids’ from upstream.

I kind of like this picture.

. . . and this one too.

Kimberly and Natalie are flying down the rapids.

Success!

Jason, Mr. Man

That would be me . . .

Here’s a clickable map of the area:

View Larger Map

Jason and I went kayaking yesterday. We made our way around Ewing Island and paddled between Ewing and Grape Islands in a little creek when we encountered some nice Class 1 rapids. Some other kayakers just came down the rapids and it was a good lesson in observation. They reported 3 ft. + depths in one part of the rapids and Jason and I decided to try to make it through the rapids and continue on upstream. My first attempt was a massive failure. My kayak spun around almost immediately. The second try, I made it. Then I tried to show Jason and made it a third and fourth time. However, Jason’s kayak handles poorly upriver anyway and there was no luck for him.

It was fun anyway. Here are some pics:

Jason got his kayak yesterday. It’s an Advanced Elements Firefly model. Easy to setup (even easier than mine and Natalie’s and Ron’s) and lightweight (12 pounds). It doesn’t seem to want to track very well. We’ll see.

Here’s a set-up video for the Firefly from Advanced Elements:

Natalie, Ron and I went on a nice day trip which was cut short by what caused this. In any case, we had a blast. The total trip length was 8.36 miles, and it was Natalie’s first day in a kayak. I had spent the previous night in a tent on one of the islands in the Maumee and we left shortly after meeting up at 9:00 am. It took us about 3.5 hours of actual paddling, and 1.5 hours of chill drifting. We met up with Torey for lunch at The Docks / Navy Bistro in downtown Toledo.

Originally we had planned on continuing on to Maumee Bay State Park, but decided to not be caught in the massive thunderstorm that had been forecast. Wise decision, it turns out.

Here’s our route:

Naturally, I have a video and some more pictures below:

Torey met up with us and took the kayak out for a spin:

Success!

I recently got this new kayak, it’s inflatable. While people usually have some smart comment about these kinds of kayaks, I want to point out that the kayak folds into a bag, can be taken anywhere, and does not require a garage at home to store it.

Here are some specs:

• Length: 13’
• Width: 32”
• Weight: 42 lbs (19 kg)
• MaxWt.: 450 lbs (204 kg)
• Color: Yellow/Gray

Here’s a short video I took:

Some more pics (taken on GoPro HD):

It’s the happening place. Mishal arrived on Friday, so now we’re complete.
Wow!

Oh, and Younis went tubing. He asked me about 10 times to make a video so he can woo the ladies. Here you go:

To view these commercials in full screen mode (do it, it’s worth it), click on this symbol in the video window:

Just as a recap: This is a re-edited version of the English version of the commercial. DennisH (thanks again, dude!) pointed out that the beginning was a bit slow. Agreed! I hope this version is better:

The next version of the commercial is in formal Arabic. Thanks to Ali, Abdalraoof, and Walid for their help.

On to the next version: Mandarin Chinese. Thanks to Ye Chi for his translation and narration.

Jay helped with the Korean version of the commercial.

Roberto from Puerto Rico narrated the Spanish version of the commercial.

Finally, Lesedi from Botswana translated and narrated the Setswana version of the commercial. The amazing thing here is that Lesedi, who is visually impaired, memorized the entire English text, translated it in his head, and then recorded the Setswana version in one session. Awesome, Lesedi!

Other versions in the works are German (guess who’s doing that one), Japanese, and Russian. I am also looking for speakers of Hindi, Gujarati, Thai, Cambodian, and Portuguese. If you are a native (or near-native) speaker of any of these languages, please contact me through Facebook or leave a comment on the blog here.

The students and I are looking forward to your feedback, please go to alexwrege.com to leave a comment about what you saw. Thanks for all of your help. It is greatly appreciated!