Epic Mikey

  • Day 8 in Rio

    Mike has told me that views and visitors are both up since I began blogging on his site. I’m so glad that this experience is having a positive impact on others. Tonight, I’m blogging from the lobby of my hotel. Sorting photos, reviewing notes and writing takes at least an hour or two each night,…

  • Monday May 26 – 7th day in Rio

    A long and excellent day. I was out before sunrise and got these photos on Ipanema beach. The lights that you see creeping up the hill in the background are the lights of a favela on the hillside there (a few miles from here). After the storms of the past 2 days, the surf is…

  • Sunday Mass – Day 6 in Rio

    I’ve made friends here with a professor from another private university in Florida, where he teaches philosophy and religion, and is also an ordained Lutheran priest. He is currently in the process of “crossing the Tiber” – converting to the Roman Catholic church, where he will be ordained again, and will probably be active in…

  • Day 5 in Rio

    Today’s activities were washed out. It began raining hard around midnight, and it is expected to continue for days. All our existing plans were cancelled and we met in the lobby this am to discuss what to do. Along with several others, I decided to take the morning off and hit the museums in the…

  • Day 4 in Rio

    Today has been a long and exhausting day, so the blog will be short. Sunrise is about 6:20 here, and I was on the sidewalk alongside Copacabana to enjoy it this morning. Here is a photo of one of the sand sculptures you see along the way. Also, the huge, two-level temporary Broadcast Center for…

  • Day 3 in Rio

    We got an early start this morning, riding a city bus to the oldest part of town where CIEE has their study center. We had a lesson in basic Portuguese – it is really hard! I learned I’ve been pronouncing all my words wrong. For example, the currency here is the Real, which throughout my…

  • Day 2 in Rio

    [Editor’s note:  Second in a series of posts from my brother Marcus as he visits Rio de Janeiro — Mike] Greetings from Marcus in Rio! Tonight is the last major soccer match before the World Cup begins in 3 weeks. We had an opportunity to go to the game at the huge modern soccer stadium…

  • Tuesday, Rio de Janeiro

    NOTE: I am on a 10-day, university faculty seminar conducted by the Council on International Exchange Education (ciee.org). I will be joined by about a dozen US-based faculty tomorrow. Ola! I arrived Rio airport (GIG) about 0845 today (Tuesday); immigration, customs very quick, taxi queue very long and slow traffic. I had to find my…

  • Dumbo Double Dare 2013: The Half-Marathon

    Back-to-back runs is something new for me, so I wasn’t sure how Saturday’s 10K run was going to affect my run in the half on Sunday.    Even during training, there were no back-to-back runs.   I was following Jeff Galloway’s training plan for the Dumbo, and in that training plan he has you do long walks,…

  • Dumbo Double Dare 2013: The 10K

    This morning I was up before 4 a.m. to get ready for the first leg of the Dumbo Double Dare, the inaugural Disneyland 10K.    I tend to be a morning person anyway so this didn’t throw me off much — I think I prefer this to night races, at least that’s been my experience so…