Look Ma, Mount Everest is right there!

At dawn this morning, Bryan Berry, Tony Anderson and I climbed aboard Buddha Air Flight 102 from Kathmandu (KTM) to Mt. Everest. It was a little twin-engine turbo prop with just one seat on each side of the aircraft, so everyone had a window and isle seat.

And here’s why that mattered: we flew along the Himalayan range from Borile Lakpa to Makalu, including Mount Everest herself.

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Kathmandu Traffic Jam Taxicab Driving

Nepalese learn how to drive on small country roads that have no defined lanes, shoulders, or rules. And when they get to Kathmandu’s mix of narrow side roads and few four-lane boulevards, they continue their lawless driving with great flair.

Here’s a video of my taxi ride from Patan to Kathmandu, through one of the many epic Maoist-inspired traffic snarls:

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How to Mix and Pour Concrete Floors by Hand in Nepal

How do you pour concrete to build a new second floor on a house in Kathmandu, Nepal? By hand. Yes, every single ounce of cement is mixed, moved, and set by hand.

First, the concrete ingredients are put into the mixing hopper. Gravel, sand, water and cement mix are all shoveled in with hand labour – not even wheelbarrows are used! Gravel is shoveled by two people (one working the shovel, the other using rope to help) into a basket strapped to the body of a third laborer who walks it to the hopper.

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Qatar Airways Review: Business Class and Economy Seats

With the Eyjafjallajokull volcano ash covering Europe and canceling my Lufthansa Business Class flight to New Delhi, India via Munich, I had to switch to Qatar Airlines to make the Educational Technology Debate.

I’d never flown the airline before and there were few trip descriptions to guide me – but others gave Qatar Airways good reviews, so I decided to give them a shot. With the closure of most European airports, I didn’t have much choice.

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Petworth Poop Patrol Featured in Washington Post

Some Washingtonians take the matter into their own hands in a more productive way. Wayan Vota lives in Petworth. He enjoys walking his dog, Taxi (a “Muttus Americanus,” Wayan said), in Grant Circle. He was alarmed by how much orphan poo they encountered.

“I started picking up other dogs’ poo, too,” Wayan said. “Finally, I got very annoyed, and on a very cold morning last year decided to pick up as much as I could and see how much it weighed.” He told his friends it weighed five to six pounds.

“No one believed me,” Wayan said. And since it was only an estimate, he had no absolute proof. So a month or two later, he went on another poop roundup. This time he videotaped the weigh-in. The bulging Safeway bag weighed a staggering 13 pounds.

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