I know at least a half dozen people that have made trips to Haiti since the quake. A lot of college student groups and church groups have made trips.

A group of students in my department are looking at building bag houses in Haiti. A bag house is constructed of "bags" filled with aggregate. In the case of Haiti, they are going to look at busting up the rubble left over from the earthquake. That way they don't have to import any gravel, which would be very expensive.

We went to Spain. Took off from Chicago. Stayed in a private home in part because the cost of hotels is astronomical.

I go once a year, its very nice.

I was seriously thinking about it myself this year, but decided to head back to Belize, perhaps next year?

Not that it has anything to do with anything, but traveling to Canada for work is a bitch. Everytime I've had to cross the border, I get interrogated as to the reasons I'm there. Most other countries wave you across without usually even asking you what your business is. I always found it kind of ironic, because who the hell would want to be in Canada that didn't have to be?

Mexico and Great Britain both quiz you too.

That's a good idea.

I saw some show about purifying water in these countries, and it turns out that if you take the uncleaned water and set it on the roof of your hovel in the normal plastic water bottles, something about the heat and UV rays or whatever kills all the bad stuff in the water. I suspect you know far more about that than I'm conveying, but I thought it was a bizarrely simple solution.

So are you a logger, or do you work in the hockey field?

(Sorry, Canadians. I couldn't resist.)

I wasn't aware of this when you posted it and figured you were talking about some kind of solar still or something. I'm more familiar with the large scale processes used in developed countries. These might include filtration systems with gravel under drains. This solar disinfection is pretty interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection

Why the hell are you idiots talking about skateboards? Gtfo.

$13 prostitutes, or so I'm told...

My next major dest-O-nation, Beijing...

Not nearly to the extent of Canada (at least for the UK, I can't speak to the extent of Mexico).

That's about all there is there, other than Tim Horton's.