Welcome to the 2009/2010 edition of Muckraking for Pennies. I had this long piece of dramatic rhetoric (it'd put Marc Anthony in Julius Caesar to shame, believe me) planned for this occasion but I figured that that would be a bit pretentious and boring right now. Instead, let's focus on Afghanistan.

The days of simply traveling to another country are gone. With ever-growing surveillance, suspicion of wrongdoing is no longer a requirement for invasive searching. When traveling to other countries, including Canada, be prepared to have your laptop searched. This is now common practice for border security officials.

Dilemma. Its 3 am. It’s the Monday of orientation week. And I’m writing a blog, hoping the clicks of my keyboard don’t wake up the passed out man-candy in my bed (finally have a queen for the first time in my life!). Unfortunately, that’s not the problem; the dilemma is the awkward morning to come when he sleeps through me vacuuming my room, in hopes he’ll wake up and leave immediately. I mean, I don’t usually kick out guests (I normally just sneak out).

“Now if everyone would please, put their Nalgene as high as they can … Man, I love hiking, ay! I love camping, ay! I love hiking, ay! I love Odyssey, ay!”

WHAM! I touch back down to the rocky trail front tire first, correcting my balance just in time to avoid going over my handlebars head-over-heals.

“Any questions?” Keith returns the cap to the Dry Erase marker, looking up from the large notepad for the first time in minutes.

Rock climbing has historically had one golden rule: The leader must not fall. EVER.

It was pitch black out, even though the sun had barely set beyond the distant mountains. Dense cloud cover and even denser evergreens obscured the weak light of the quarter moon, making it nearly impossible to find secure footing on the slick rocks that studded the muddy trail.