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How does one even begin to speak about the tragedy in Japan? It seems like I was just writing about a tsunami hitting the Philippines yesterday.

The devastation that was broadcast to the world was breathtaking. A simple wave removed entire towns in the matter of seconds. Some of the footage shows people running from the wave no more than 25 feet in front of it. Have you by chance seen the new technology where they show a satellite photo of a town and then do a wipe with a current photo? You see hundreds, even thousands of homes in the first picture. Then when they swipe it you see what looks like a bumpy field, with no structures anywhere.

As if losing thousands of citizens wouldn't be enough to send a country into utter chaos, couple that with a nuclear power plant that has seven reactors, two of which have exploded. Monday, I saw footage of a cloud of radiation that had leaked from one of the reactors. Emergency workers who have been on site trying to quell a potential worldly disaster have now been exposed to very high levels of radiation. Thoughts of Chernobyl have been racing through everyone's minds as they watch this unfurl. From all that I have read, this is in no way as serious as Chernobyl. This plant has been built with standards that used Chernobyl as a baseline for building better, stronger power plants.

I really feel for the people of Japan. Here they are devastated by one of the worst tsunami's of all time and yet rescue and aid is being hampered if not halted by the nuclear potential meltdown.

If you would like to help the people of Japan, there are a few ways you can. You may log onto www.unicefusa.org/japan and make a donation there, or www.redcross.org and make a donation. For those of you who love to text, you can text the word redcross to 90999 and $10 will be charged to your phone bill.

The County Press has finally chose the winner of a year's subscription. While at the Home Show, we asked people to register to win a subscription for the upcoming year, we got hundreds and hundreds of registrations. This year's lucky winner is Ms. Debbie Marier of Center City. Debbie will get the Chisago County Press delivered to her mailbox for the next year. If you would like a subscription to the Press, please give us a call at 651-257-5115, we would be glad to help you.

Keeping on the subject of the County Press, I can't believe I am writing this, but it is early renewal time once again. On page two (look left) you will find our coupon that will save you $1.50 off an already lower than retail price. All we ask is you fill out the form and send it in with your payment. This year you will notice we have added a line on the coupon. We are asking for our reader's email addresses. We are trying to build a database of our readers with the intention of starting something very innovative and beneficial to our readers. If you could please include your email as legibly as possible we would greatly appreciate it. Thank you for reading.

As luck would have it, we once again did not win the Mega Millions Lottery. So this year's Spring Break to Florida or somewhere exotic had to be cancelled. While trying to figure something close and inexpensive, we decided on a ski trip. It was decided that we would give a resort in Biwabik (located in the iron range) a try. They had an amazing offer like 50 percent off and free lift tickets. Before I could give a vote, the plans were already finalized.

When we got there, I expected utter chaos, you know how spring breaks are, kids running everywhere, people partying till all hours. This place was the extreme opposite, barely a soul there and quite as a church.

The next day we hit the slopes. There were four families in all that went on the mini trip with us and none of them had a child my daughters age. My son had five other boys that were close to his age, so I had visions of having to entertain my daughter the entire trip. Don't get me wrong, I love my daughter to death, but there are times where I like to ski the hard hills and goof around a little. So I got up early and headed out on the slopes before the kids even woke up. I decided that if I was going to ski with my daughter all day, I might as well get the hard hills out of the way.

When I came in to get the kids, I made a mental decision. I would let my daughter choose what to do the entire day. If she chose an easy hill, I would be just as enthusiastic as I would be if she chose a hard hill. While it couldn't possibly be a great day of skiing for me, it wasn't about me, so off we skied.

I have to tell you, skiing those two days with my daughter were two of the best days of my life. To spend that much time with her on the hills and the chair lifts, we really connected. Ironically, she ended up skiing every hill including the black diamond hills that she previously wouldn't even look at. If you were to ask her if she had fun skiing she would tell you yes it was fun. If you ask me if skiing was fun, I would tell you it was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

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