Journey

What people go through to live their lives - war and terror, disease and pain, poverty and hunger, long journeys across continents and oceans, loss and heartbreak - always leaves me awed and humbled. You hear a story, like the one I'm offering this Christmas, and you want to raise a glass to that thing we call human spirit. Milla Dawt Hniang, who travels with crutches and guitar, has it in bunches. It has taken her 20 years past the age when her parents thought she would die. She's a Burmese-born singer-songwriter about to release her first CD and send more music of the American country-pop variety - think Taylor Swift - into the world.

Amy Schumer can tell a story. Knowing how to craft a short narrative and make it pay off with a laugh has, after all, helped make her one of the hottest comedians on TV and the concert circuit these days. So, let the star of Comedy Central's “Inside Amy Schumer” explain how it came to be that she finished her work for a bachelor's degree in theater at Towson University in 2003 but didn't receive her diploma until 2007 - in the lobby of Baltimore's Lyric Opera House. “I say I graduated in 2003 from Towson, but that's not actually true,” the 31-year-old New-York-born performer says in a recent interview.

Robert Vigorito knew he had changed some lives over the years since he helped start the Columbia Triathlon in 1984. He transformed an inaugural event that attracted fewer than 100 competitors into one of the top triathlons in the country with as many as 2,500 coming to Centennial Park each spring since 1988. It wasn't surprising, considering that Vigorito knew how competing in triathlons had changed his own life. Vigorito, whose friends growing up in East Haven, Conn., called him "Pig Iron" because he was usually among the slowest in whatever sport they were playing, went from not knowing what a triathlon was to competing in the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii six times.

Robert Vigorito knew he had changed some lives over the years since he helped start the Columbia Triathlon in 1984. He transformed an inaugural event that attracted fewer than 100 competitors into one of the top triathlons in the country with as many as 2,500 coming to Centennial Park each spring since 1988. It wasn't surprising, considering that Vigorito knew how competing in triathlons had changed his own life. Vigorito, whose friends growing up in East Haven, Conn., called him "Pig Iron" because he was usually among the slowest in whatever sport they were playing, went from not knowing what a triathlon was to competing in the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii six times.

You made me cry. Of course I made myself cry, too. Knife wounds, insect attacks and tandoori-hot temperatures aside, my favorite story involved me and you and the outdoors. In July, during one of the hottest stretches in a summer of hot stretches, I compressed a season's worth of state park visits into one week. Twenty four parks, seven days, from Deep Creek Lake to the Atlantic Ocean. The stunt was to promote the Maryland Park Service's "Park Quest" family challenge, the best idea to come out of Annapolis since the coining of the state motto: "Manly deeds, womanly words.

The boy was 11, already well along in his process of discovering music, when he found himself alone at home one day, listening to a piece by one of history's great romantics. He couldn't explain it, but something in the sounds of Frederic Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Opus 23 — as played by Polish musician Witold Malcuzynsky — struck Brian Ganz like a bolt from stormy skies. "It was mysterious, sort of soulful, and I actually, literally, doubled over in pain," says Ganz, an internationally celebrated concert pianist who lives in Annapolis.

More than 300 days had passed since Matt Rutherford pushed out on his 27-foot boat from Annapolis after a quiet send-off. More than 27,000 miles had been navigated to help Rutherford become the first sailor in history to go solo and nonstop around North and South America. As much time as Rutherford had to think about what kind of welcome he would receive, the 31-year-old, who overcame a childhood fear of the water, did not give it much thought. "I didn't know what to expect," Rutherford said, standing on the dock about an hour after coming ashore.

It's big, it's bold and it's already being called the most lobbied bill in history.Bill Clinton put his presidency on the line last night with a health care reform proposal comparable in its reach to Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty. That war ended in stalemate, and plenty of critics are hoping for an even worse fate for the Clinton health care reform. Considering the vested interests threatened by the plan and the sheer size of the health care industry, the chances that any final plan will closely resemble the initial proposal are slim.

A Memorable Place On a freighter plying the South Pacific By Cecil Kuhne SPECIAL TO THE SUN Jumping on a cargo freighter in Tahiti for the Marquesas Islands -- the archipelago some 800 miles to the northeast -- isn't exactly the Love Boat. But it is a classic South Seas journey through a turquoise-blue sea to some of the most remote and unspoiled islands on earth. The Aranui plies this French Polynesia route monthly, taking freight to the islands and returning with its cargo holds full of copra, the dried coconut meat from which soaps, oils and lotions are made.

Talk about a great story just falling into your lap. Baltimore filmmaker Ramona Diaz can't help but chuckle while recounting how she first heard about Arnel Pineda, the unlikely successor to Steve Perry as lead singer for Journey and the subject of her latest documentary, "Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey," which is showing Tuesday at the Charles Theatre. "I heard about Arnel getting the gig through an unsolicited email," she says, "that connected me with a link that was sort of going viral among the Filipino community.

The mourners followed the coffin of 15-year-old Grace McComas out of the church and into the morning sunlight of a beautiful Easter season. Christine McComas carried her child's stuffed toy in the crook of her arm. Grief made her look almost wistful. As Grace's parents and her three sisters left the crowded St. Michael's Catholic Church in Mount Airy a year ago, they weren't thinking that their journey of grief would take them to Annapolis. But the determination of that grief-stricken mother to tell her daughter's story - powered by a Ravens player, Maryland's first lady and a state legislator - resulted in "Grace's Law," which Gov. Martin O'Malley is scheduled to sign Thursday.

- A lazy Sunday morning. Arising later than usual. A long week of work in the books, a promising week ahead. Now living in Armenia, I correspond regularly with colleagues, friends and family back home in the States. Birds chirp as I check some emails and enter the social media labyrinth. And there I found them: farewell messages written to my friend, Anne Smedinghoff, 25, praising her brilliance, grace and kindness. She was delivering a truck full of books to schoolchildren when it happened.

Halfway through Baltimore's long-term plan to end homelessness, advocates complain that the strategy is in disarray and worry that the number of men, women and children without permanent homes has grown - despite millions of dollars being pumped into local services. The 10-year Journey Home strategy, the advocates say, has fallen short of its objective, floundering without a direct line of leadership or accountability and frustrating the social services community that is pushing for solutions to a primary cause of homelessness: the lack of affordable housing.

Hat's off to The Sun editorial board for bringing to light the critical need to end homelessness in Baltimore ("The long journey home," Mar. 11). However, anyone looking at Baltimore's revised 10-year plan to meet that goal would be hard-pressed to call it an "action plan. " Indeed, the revised plan does contain specific statements about creating permanent supportive housing. But it provides no explanation of how those housing units will be funded or developed - or which city agencies will be responsible for their creation.

“Hey, remember that time we took an RV to watch the Ravens win the Super Bowl … and didn't go IN to the Super Bowl?” As a young girl from Baltimore, I've always dreamt of saying those words, some might say destined to utter them. Orrrrr maybe that wish really began two weeks ago, with four minutes left in the AFC Championship Game. Either way, by the time the game ended, and before I found myself screaming victory for 10 straight minutes, my buddy Steve had already booked a seven-passenger RV from the fleet at Cruise America in Towson, and, in the coming days, reserved us two different spaces at trailer parks around the French Quarter.

He was a mighty presence when the Baltimore Ravens won Super Bowl XXXV, a warrior who busted a wedge to make the first tackle that day and went on to make four more. If current coach John Harbaugh is to be believed, even then he was the toughest man in football. Today O.J. Brigance has limbs that hang limp, his muscles withered. He can move only his lips and eyes and must use a computer to speak. The team's director of player engagement is in his fifth year of battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a lethal and incurable illness.

What people go through to live their lives — war and terror, disease and pain, poverty and hunger, long journeys across continents and oceans, loss and heartbreak — always leaves me awed and humbled. You hear a story, like the one I'm offering this Christmas, and you want to raise a glass to that thing we call human spirit. Milla Dawt Hniang, who travels with crutches and guitar, has it in bunches. It has taken her 20 years past the age when her parents thought she would die. She's a Burmese-born singer-songwriter about to release her first CD and send more music of the American country-pop variety — think Taylor Swift — into the world.