Believe it or not: A hitchhiker in Indiana

My hitchhiker’s karma is drastically unbalanced. I’ve received somewhere between 80-100 rides and I’ve given three, counting the one I gave yesterday.

Normally the hitchhikers we get in these parts of the world look like they’ve been thumbing rides since Vietnam. This fella didn’t. He had a laptop bag, wheeled-luggage, and was wearing an aircast.

I drove by amazed that there was someone standing beside the road to Farmland. That’s right – the city is named Farmland. You might catch a friendly farmer on the way to look at his crops, but chances are you’re not going to get a ride of any distance. It’s a doldrums for hitchin’.

I thought about all of the times I stood alongside a road – mostly in New Zealand,…

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Kelsay scores touchdown for Bills

If you are watching Monday Night Football on ESPN, you saw the Bills defensive lineman Kelsay intercept a pass and score a touchdown. Annie and I saw the Bills’ throwback jersey he is wearing being made during our factory visit in Perry.

During the tour I was secretly hoping they would give me a Kelsay jersey because it was manly and almost had my name on it. See, most of the things that have, or almost have, my name on them are usually pink. In fact, sometimes I even get registered for conferences as Countess Kelsey.

Go Bills! I’m sure the citizens of Perry are rooting for you. And if you could please double up Terrell Owens because if he scores over 19 fantasy points “The…

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In the Perry Herald

At ACO 1Travelin’ Light Writer Tours ACO
By Lorraine Sturm (Perry Herald)

Travel writer Kelsey Timmerman of Ohio will feature American Classic Outfitters in his upcoming book, “Where Am I Wearing?” and related articles. ACO was the last stop on a world round tour Timmerman made in search of the people who made some of his favorite articles of clothing. The story idea came to Timmerman, 28, when he looked at a pile of his laundry. He considers himself an All-American boy yet his clothes are made far away.

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Chinese Labor Protests

In 2005 there were over 87,000 labor protests in China.

I always thought the basic unit of communism was the laborer. It seems to me that if you are a communist country and you aren’t treating your laborers right – to the tune of 87,000 protests – you might be missing the point….

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Can I get some assistants?

John Bowe author of Nobodies mentions having a few writing assistants.

This morning on the Bob Edwards show Naomi Klein, most well-known for her book No Logo, mentions having seven writing assistants and four lawyers helping her with her latest book, The Shock Doctrine.

What the heck does a writing assistant do? Do they come up with ideas and themes in the book only to have their hard work yield them the obscurity of a one-sentence mention in the acknowledgements? It would be nice to have someone scouring archives and libraries for works and stories relevant to my own, but I just can’t imagine having to manage a team of seven assistants and four lawyers. I guess I’m naïve in thinking that a writer…

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An investment?

I’ve spent the better part of my morning adding up my expenses from three months in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and China. It’s not pretty. Between flights, buses, translators, food, and accommodation, I tallied nearly $8,000 in expenses.

I had about $6,000 saved and allotted for the trip. I figured it would cost more than that, but hey, isn’t that what credit cards and second mortgages are for?

Through various writing and radio assignments, I’ve recouped half of the trip’s expense. I’m happy with that. I’ve only been home for three months and I still have a lot of stories ready to be written, sold, and recycled, and the possibility of a book deal. I don’t think I’m going to have trouble earning the expenses back,…

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Interview with Bibi Russell

This video will only be up for a few hours. I’m sending it to the World Vision Report as part of a story pitch. Alone, it’s not really a complete story. I have other audio to add to it and would probably write a script to link all of the audio together. For now, here it isL

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