Jim Ellinger's Austin Airwaves TravelBlog

On June 10th, I, along with the World’s Most Dangerous Blonde, leave for Seattle to visit fam & friends, then will drive up to Van-sterdam, uh, Vancouver, BC, home of legendary Co-op Radio, http://www.coopradio.org/ for the big National Community/Campus Radio Conference http://www.citr.ca/conference/. As I now sit on the int’l board of the Canadian NGO AMARC, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, http://www.amarc.org/ I will be talking up international models of CR…including the recent assassination of the head of Radio Sada-e-Sulh (Peace Radio) in Jabalussaraj, in the northern province of Parwan. Zakia Zaki was gunned her down in front of her two-year-old son, on June 6th (more on that…).

After returning to Seattle, I will fly to MOSCOW! In Moscow I will visit friends, see some sights, and get beaten by a bunch of enormous, drunken naked men with Birch branches (more on that…) Next I will fly do south for four hours to Pyatigorsk near the Chechnya and Georgia borders, in the North Caucasus. I will be there for a couple of weeks, at a resort town near the Black Sea, IN SEASON, for a couple of weeks. Why, you ask? To help promote and develop the Russian Dairy industry, of course! As many of you may have previously read on my TravelBlogs, this is the same American NGO that sent me to Tomsk, Siberia...in freezin’ frigid February!

Upon completing my assignment, I will return to Moscow, and then fly directly to San Francisco…27+ hours in the air! Yow! There I will be reunited with the WMDB, we will see many more fam and friends, and, finally head up to Co-op Camp Sierra! http://www.coopcamp.com/docs.html. Co-op Camp is a wonderful, beautiful place about an hour south of the south entrance of YO!semite NP. (more on that…) It has what is arguably the world’s best swimming hole; The Potholes. (more on that…)

Stay tuned! Jim Ellinger & WMDB Austin 6/10/07