Home Again

I’m home. In fact, I’ve been home for a week, but it took a week for my life to get settled down enough for me to sit down and time to write for pleasure. My trip to Peru was amazing; I can’t wait to go back, and I can’t wait to tell everyone about it. I’ve been talking about it nonstop ever since my flight touched down in Boston, and everyone I talk to wants to see pictures (or at least they say they do…).

I want more than to look at pictures; I want to relive the moments: summiting 17,782 foot Urus East with my wife; climbing to the top of Ishinca (18,143 feet) and sitting on the knife-edge ridge with my climbing partner Scott; bailing of Ranrapalca (20,216 feet) after watching three major rock fall/avalanche events and reaching the Southwest Ridge way later than planned. Those are memories I’ll never forget, but it’s back to work now. And I don’t believe I’ve had a busier month.

We did have challenges. For one thing, don’t ever fly Spirit Air, unless you’re taking a very short trip. We rode Peruvian buses with more amenities. And one member of the expedition got sick for almost the entire trip. She went from pharmacy to doctor to hospital but was never able to figure out what was wrong. She was a trooper, however, and never really slowed down, despite being at 15,000 feet and not having eaten in a week.

I missed a lot while I was gone. I knew I would. Summer is ending, September is starting, and I’m still trying to find my bearings. In Berlin, political season has been ramping up and it’s getting down to the wire on the biomass projects. Lots going on. But I’m still catching up.

I’ve got a couple extracurricular North Country projects lined up, one for the New Hampshire Charitable Fund and one for the New Hampshire Grand Initiative. I’m also enrolled in WMCC’s Leadership North program, and taking a couple classes at Plymouth State University. Plus I’ve got a city to cover…

I’m still waiting to hear from United States Forces—Iraq about embedding with troops there. We’ll see how that goes. Lots going on, almost more than I can handle. But that’s what keeps life interesting.

OK, I’m back, I posted a few photos, and now it’s time to get to work. It’s a short week this week, with the Labor Day holiday, and because of my disorientation I’ll need all the time I can get to fill the paper. It’s time to get to it!

Down South

Well, today I went to 14,000 feet to get used to the altitude, and for my trouble I got a splitting headache. Tomorrow we are headed to a nearby rock climbing are to test our climbing skills at altitude, and then we’ll head east to begin our adventure in earnest.
I have to admit, walking around here, climbing seems like a frivolous thing to be writing about. I’m happy to do it, but the poverty, the inequity and the ecological degradation seem more pertinent.
But the market for such stories is limited. Stories about leisure and travel sell, stories about poor people in developing countries don’t.
I’m really interested in this opportunity in Iraq, and I am hoping to maybe leverage that experience into more of that type of work–international reporting of consequence. I get to do that kind of work at the Reporter, from time to time breaking truly important stories. I’d like to do that more places.
Regardless, I’ve got an interesting story here, and it’s great experience. I’ve been able to get a few of the photos I need, but as we are just getting into the mountains I’ve got a lot more to get. Mostly I’ve just got to have a great time so I have something positive and upbeat to write about. That shouldn’t be too hard, as long as I don’t ascend 14,000 feet in two days again.

Packed…

My two bags are packed to the limit, and I still don’t have a place for my cameras. I’ve got ice tools, crampons, a tent and sleeping bag, ropes, a harness, and all sorts of other gear.  I’ve still got to add socks and flip-flops to the mix, but mostly I’m there.

This is a project that might make me a couple thousand dollars, in addition to providing me with a great vacation. Working at the paper is a good job, but it isn’t lucrative enough to convince me to give up other opportunities. I’ve got to chase them just to make it all come together.

In many ways I’m like Berlin: I’ve got to diversify. My staple industry just doesn’t pay the bills the way I’d like it to, so now I’ve got to figure out how to spread myself around to make that work.

I just finished a video project for a nonprofit client, making three short videos aimed at their various demographics. (These are the rough cuts. I just burned the final DVD today, but I’m not going upload updated clips to YouTube before we leave tomorrow.)

These are another example of what working in the modern media landscape means. It pays to have multiple skills, because as newspapers change they are edging out the promise of a secure profession. Having a bit of photo, video and audio skills, plus some design experience and website development, really helps. It makes it possible to live in the most seemingly impossible places, like northern New Hampshire.

I’ll be chasing after another branch of my diversification in the coming weeks, and then again when I head to Iraq (hopefully) this fall. And piecing it all together, if I can make it happen, should be quite rewarding.

It’s like reviving your economy with a prison or two, a biomass plant, a resurgent paper mill and some tourism dollars—not the same as the old model, but it can work if it’s the right combination.

So while my packs are almost packed, in some ways it’s my schedule that’s even more packed. At least every piece is baggage I’m excited to carry.

More Projects…

I am in the process of finishing up everything I need to do before I travel to Peru for three weeks of alpine climbing and work. In reality, those two are one and the same—I’m trying to put together the materials for a feature length article for an outdoor magazine about climbing on the east side of the Cordillera Blanca, the main climbing destination in Peru. Traditionally everyone climbs there from the west, based in Huaraz, but my climbing partner and I will be visiting the other side of the range, which is supposedly remote and untracked.

I’m taking my cameras in addition to my ice tools and crampons, and hopefully I’ll come back with enough material to pull the article together. I’m not much of a travel writer, choosing instead to focus on hard news, but I have a feeling if I can pull together the photos I can make this happen. It is a little disconcerting, however, to be going to South America with $4,000 in camera equipment when I’ll be spending most of my time in a tent.

It been interesting in the lead up to this, because as I’ve been getting ready to leave it seems more and more keeps happening around Berlin. Developments with the biomass projects and the Fraser mill are rapidly changing, and I’ve been trying to keep on top of them while preparing to leave.

I spoke to the woman who will be filling in for me for about an hour this morning to catch her up to speed on all of this. She will working in my stead for the three weeks I’m gone, so hopefully she got enough information to move forward.

I have to say, however, it is tough in an organization like the Reporter, where contacts and institutional memory are limited to individuals. I only have a year and a few months experience, but that has been invaluable recently in making connections that break stories. What the community needs is a reserve of those types of connections, not a shallowing of the well.

But I’ll only be gone a few weeks, which, in reality, isn’t that long. A lot will undoubtedly happen, but at the same time much will stay the same. That last part is unfortunate for the region, which needs so much to change.

More Energy, as Always

Again, as is usual, this week I wrote about energy in Berlin. I found something interesting when looking over the power purchase agreement between PSNH and Laidlaw. If you’re following the discussion be sure to check out the Reporter on Wednesday. If you can’t wait until then get a copy of the PPA and look on page 11. I don’t think anyone will be surprised, but it is confirmation of lots of people’s speculation.

Aside from that, there was good news on the Cascade mill gas pipeline project this week. We shift from biomass to methane and natural gas. If that mill goes down it’ll be pretty dark for a number of families around the Androscoggin Valley. It seems AVRRDD might have averted that fate. Quite a task for a refuse district. I’m not sure how that fits with their mission, but it certainly is something they’ve been working hard on for several months. Again, to learn more check out Wednesday’s Berlin Reporter. I’m headed to Berlin shortly for my last day before flying to Peru tomorrow, so I better get on my way.

More, but Lighter

Here is another look at informing the public, this time from the New York Times:

It’s an interesting model, and they urge people to become involved in local government. They are supporting democracy, using marksmanship as “a hook.”
I don’t have much to add, but this fit with the early post about involving people in democracy and connecting them to the realities of the larger world. Is it a conservative movement? The video implies it but doesn’t explicitly state it. But the program encourages civic participation, even if it has partisan leanings. It’s hard to criticize that.

The Real Thing

Someone posted this as an example of excellent coverage of the Afghanistan war. A brief warning: it’s not for the feint of heart.

This is more combat than I have any real desire to be in, but it illustrates a point I made earlier—more information is better. It’s a hard look at the reality the United States and its partners face around Afghanistan, where today the New York Times reported three U.S. soldiers were killed.

It’s interesting the limited capacity for war the American people have, particularly with two simultaneous conflicts going on. When Iraq was melting into sectarian violence no one asked about Afghanistan. Now it’s Afghanistan, formerly America’s “Forgotten War,” that is erupting into violence. The techniques—improvised explosive devices and suicide bombs—have been imported from Iraq, as have the casualties, which just climbed above 2,000.

This type of reporting is invaluable. It connects the viewer at home with the soldier on the field. U.S. and British citizens (the Guardian is a U.K. paper) can begin to understand what the war in Afghanistan looks like, and they can decide what level of importance they should place on foreign policy when they go to the voting booth.

Will it hurt or help the war effort? I’m not sure. No one wants to see young American soldiers die, but it’s more a matter of your view of the threats posed by a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. Would it lead to more terrorist attacks, and is the current strategy affecting it? Those questions aren’t answered by the reporter in the field. They are hopefully addressed by reporters back home consulting with specialists and experts. But the reporter in the field gives context. They make it clear just what those decisions mean, on the ground, for one soldier and one family. They aren’t policies in a vacuum, and it takes people broadcasting or filing from the field to make the true impacts clear.

I’m still waiting to find out if that’s something I’ll be doing, but regardless I think it’s important when someone does it well, from a perspective rarely seen, to share it. This video is intimidating, but it brings reality home.

The Trouble for Candidates

I tagged along with U.S. Senate hopeful Kelly Ayotte today as she toured Isaacson Structural Steel, Inc., with Berlin native Steve Griffin. She shook hands all around and introduced herself to as many people as she could. I asked her if she felt this sort of thing really improves her chances in this fall’s election. “It’s the New Hampshire way,” she said, every connection she makes today will hopefully influence the votes of family members, friends, neighbors.

Mr. Griffin acknowledged Berlin traditionally votes Democratic. He attributed it to the city’s union influence. (ISSI is a non-union shop, he said.) But as Mrs. Ayotte toured she heard criticism, even from registered Republicans. One man held her up for several minutes to criticize how every politician gets to Washington D.C., regardless of party, and gets consumed by the political dance. What makes you any different? he asked.

Honestly, he was facing me and she was facing away, so I heard his questions but not her response. But I did snap one photo that illustrates the rift between Berlin and Washington:

The crisp pink of Mrs. Ayotte’s blazer contrasts the tee shirt and jean, dirty hands approach of a ISSI worker. She never shied away from shaking a single man’s dirty hand on the floor (the were all men), and she said her hands were used to the dirt from her husband’s landscaping business. Still, there are few Democrats or Republicans that can match Berlin’s blue collar ethic. I thought this picture portrayed that nicely. I’m interested to she how she fares in the primary, and if she makes it, the general election in November.

If you want to know where she stands on the issues, check out next week’s Reporter.

Time to Wait

So on Monday night, after council and typing up my story, I pulled together the last parts of my application to the international coalition that oversees reporter embeds in Iraq, and I sent it in.

I sent an application in, along with samples of my work, a copy of my passport, a head shot, and a letter from NHPR saying they were sponsoring me. Now I wait to hear back.

It’s a crazy idea, right? Going to a war zone is something of a tradition for reporters, but it doesn’t make it smart. If I go I’ve got to get body armor, so I’ve been shopping around for armor piercing plates and accessories to keep me safe. It’s a little disconcerting to see how many places you can still get shot, but some other reporters assured me things were settled in Iraq.

I’m hoping to embed with the 94th Military Police Company, a reserve unit out of Londonderry. I’m no soldier, and I have no real desire to see war, but the impact media can have on foreign policy and conflict is huge, and I think it’s important people hear what is happening.

Mostly I want to tell New Hampshire residents what their soldiers are doing in Iraq. The war has been winding down there for some time, and most media are focused on Afghanistan. But New Hampshire has a company of soldiers in Iraq, and their service shouldn’t be forgotten.

It’s a little difficult to wrap my head around, what it’ll be like, but it’ll certainly be an adventure. I spoke to a friend who spent 15 months in Iraq as an officer in the army, and he told me he could write a book about his experiences. As a New Hampshire resident and a non-military household, I don’t have frequent reminders about the conflict, or that people are still filling books with bad experiences. As members of a democratic nation, that’s a luxury I shouldn’t be allowed. Our votes affect these decisions and policies, and we shouldn’t make them uninformed.

Granted, my little excursion, should it happen, won’t likely shift voters in one direction or another. Nor should it. But it may add to their knowledge about what their fellow citizens are doing, and when joined with the rest of the reporting from the region create a little bit more complete picture. No reporter is “the media,” but hopefully collectively we can pull together enough vignettes to help people make informed decisions about governance. That’s why the press is protected by they first amendment.

And I get to do it in Berlin, on one scale. Reporting for NHPR is doing the same thing, on another scale. It gets interesting, however, when it’s national and international issues you’re talking about.

So I got an email back from the USF–I (U.S. Forces – Iraq) today, saying they received my application and will get back to me soon. I’m heading to Peru in less than a week to climb mountains, so hopefully they’ll let me know before I go. Then I’ve got to secure a flak jacket and helmet and figure out to fly to Kuwait. It’s an interesting proposition, being a reporter, but I can’t complain it ever gets boring.

Planning and Development

Zoning has been big news in Berlin recently, with the council working to amend the zoning ordinance to deal with non-conforming lots. The council screwed up by rushing the effort. They had to redo it the other night, which pushes the time-line of at least one project back another couple weeks, but they are moving forward still, with the goal to make it easier to start and run a business in Berlin.

There are members of the planning board, however, who don’t favor relaxing the standards. The city should get rid of non-conforming lots over time, they argue, and the way to do that is by restricting their use.

I’m no urban planner, but both sides of the debate have merits. Berlin needs development. The city is in no position to turn away people looking to invest. But the city needs investors willing to do things right, on the other hand. All the slumlords in the world don’t help revive the housing market, for example.

I watched this talk recently about redevelopment of suburban areas that had been abandoned, and parts of it echoed the challenges in Berlin.

Planning and zoning are such interesting tools for development, and at the same time complex. The city needs to consider carefully how to implement them. What does it mean to make this change? Hopefully it creates real opportunity in the city, like jobs, taxes and growth in the near future. In the end, two weeks doesn’t matter.