Zeeland represent

In addition to being a swell guy and my cousin, Keith Reimink is going to go down as one of history's great vagabonds.

He splits his life between Alaska and Antarctica working as a cook/chef/dining manager. Each summer, he runs a kitchen for a lodge in Denali National Park, a stone's throw from the place Into The Wild was filmed.

Each fall, he travels down to the world's least-populated continent and hunkers down on an iceberg for the winter, plying his culinary trade for a bunch of scientists. Occasionally, he graces us with his presence in his home state of Michigan.

This winter, Keith is upping the ante.

He's spending the entire year at the South Pole. He's one of 44 people in the entire world who are staying the winter in Antarctica at the Amundsen-Scott research facility.

In order to do this, he had to pass a battery of psychological tests that prove he's up to this task, which in my opinion, is silly. Anyone who wants to do this must be completely insane.

I'm writing this not only to give my cuz some kudos, but also because two days ago he started a blog to chronicle his many months of darkness. You don't have to be related to Keith to find that it's fascinating reading.

Here's the link -- it's also added to my list on the right -- and I look forward to reading tales of drunken shenanigans from the bottom of the world.

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Keith's brother, Troy, is also due some belated kudos.

Troy is not only also my cousin, but a fellow Boothie. He works at the Grand Rapids Press as an entertainment reporter, and writes a pretty funny blog, Medium Fidelity, on our shared statewide Web site.

A column that he wrote while still in college on why Gov. Jennifer Granholm is hot may have been the funniest thing I've ever read -- he wrote it at a time I didn't even live in The Mitt and I still fell out of my chair laughing.

So I'm linking to Troy's blog here, and adding it to the right as well.

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A couple people have asked when Squawking VFR will break down the recent crash of Colgan Air flight 3407. Rest assured, a post is in the works. It's a more complicated accident than some others, so more care is required in the re-construction of this awful accident.

Also, keep an eye out for an upcoming post on the arrival of Baby VFR and the general greatness of fatherhood.

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If you've noticed some stylistic changes here at Squawking VFR lately, they're not intentional.

I'm really annoyed with whatever recent software update that www.blogger.com has implemented. I can no longer fiddle with the point size of my text, bold the first letter of each entry or center my asterisks.

I used to have all sorts of options for centering, bolding and point-sizing in the toolbar above this little text box. Alas, they have all vanished. It's really irksome.