I visited the Animal Humane Society in St. Paul, Minn. today. Above, Bria Gaines, 4, is petting a guinea pig. The group I was profiling is from The Family Place, a day shelter for families without permanent homes.

Here’s a link to the article: http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/124523613.html

In other news, I need to get used to the roads here a lot quicker since my GPS failed today and I drove from St. Paul to Hudson, Wisconsin ... and not back to the Star Tribune office. I eventually made it back, many wrong exits later.

Instead of writing a blog post for every article I write, here's a link to a place all my future articles should show up: http://search.startribune.com/search?stq=shamma&q=shamma. If there's a particularly adventurous story behind a reporting assignment, I'll definitely post about that here.

"Cedar Lake Regional Trail is completed at last" (Metro Section, B2): http://www.startribune.com/local/west/123166158.html

UPDATE: An addition/follow-up to this article was written for the June 15th issue of The Star Tribune to include the CLPA's critical role in the process: "Bike Path Connects St. Louis Park to the Mississippi River" (Metro Section, B3): http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/123875924.html

Flying to Minneapolis was quite the journey, but I'm glad I made it in one piece. Today was day two at The Star Tribune. I love being in a newsroom again.