(via Briefly Noted)

I have never done the swim yet, but I have heard about it’s legend for years. My brother Paul, his best friend Chris, Chris’s siblings and several other nutty kids love to jump into the Bushkill Creek at Jacobsburg State Park in my high school hometown every Christmas. This is the 8th 9th year they’ve done it! I love this kind of good old fashioned funtimes. I’m going to try my best to be there for the 10-year anniversary. Check these great photos by Chris’s sister Schuyler:

One of my new almost heros (almost, since I have not yet, in fact, read his famous book The 4-Hour Work Week), Tim Ferris just posted an interview to his blog with Slovenian marathon swimmer Martin Strel who became the first man to swim the entire length of the Amazon river. Yeah, that’s 3,274 miles, folks.

Choice scary quote:

Q: What were the biggest challenges you faced on the Amazon swim?

A: …Piranhas, snakes, spiders, candirú, bull shark or other animals which make unpredictable attack; you have to be ready all the time if any piranha attack you. We had some buckets of blood ready in case of emergency, to distract the piranha and get them away from me if necessary…

…Peeing; I didn’t pee into the water straight as this attracts a very dangerous fish called the candirú, which lodges up human orifices with a razor-like spike and then sucks your blood. I was peeing all the time through the wetsuit…

Choice awesome quoted quote (from a book about the adventure):

An expedition is 95 percent misery and 5 percent ecstasy. After three weeks of constant motion in a land far way from home, something strange occurs in the sould of a man. He gets broken. The first symptom is a tired or sick feeling, maybe even some fear and a little helplessness. Loneliness. Then something slowly changes within. The old attachments start to fade and he becomes completely present. He forgets about all the crap that keeps him up at night back home. None of it matters anymore.