Linda Beilharz in the Arctic on a North Pole Training Trip

Linda Beilharz, an avid adventurist and mother of two from Australia, was born on April 15th, 1960. Currently living in Bendigo, a regional town of about 100,000 people in Central Victoria, south east Victoria, Australia, Linda was gracious enough to grant Girls Can’t WHAT? a few moments of her time for an interview.

GCW: Hi Linda! So glad you can join us. As I look over all of your plans and your upcoming trip to the North Pole, I am thinking you must be pretty young to have so much energy but you’re actually older than me. May we ask your age?

Linda: I’m aiming to turn 50 on my way to the North Pole. I can’t think of a better thing to be doing as I greet that particular milestone.

GCW: That really is a sweet way to look at milestone birthdays.  I’m going to keep that in mind.  What is your main passion and describe when you first became interested in it.

Read more

Meet Lux, age 24, from Orange County, California.  She’s been playing drums for half of her lifetime now and her skills are in high demand.  Currently on tour with the Nekromantix and Rob Zombie, Lux is no slouch behind the kit.

Girls Can’t WHAT? recently touched base with Lux and through a series of emails, I’ve been able to piece together this sweet little interview.  Lux was also gracious enough to provide us with photos from a recent promotional video shoot.

GCW: What is your main passion and describe when you first became interested in it.

Lux: I started playing drums when I was 12 and it was by chance. It was because my parents had put me and my two sisters in a music school and picked drums for me so that we could start a band together. They put my eldest sister on vocals and guitar and my other sister on keyboard. The moment I knew I really wanted to play drums was when I had to give it up and switch over to keyboard. We had brought in another member to take over on drums and I remember being so jealous of him playing drums I used to play and missing it so bad. I knew from that point on that drums is what I wanted to play.

Read more

While on vacation in California this summer, we happened to be browsing shops on Pier 39 when we rounded a corner to see the Merrie Mary show had started.  Looking for a break from our shopping, we plopped down on a bench to catch some entertainment.

Mary Evanoff from San Francisco, CA is not your typical street performer.  The 57-year-old wife and mother is an incredible juggler and master of acrobatic feats.  Mary got her start as a young girl by shimmying up flag poles at school and entertaining her friends with dare-devilish balancing acts.

Hoping to catch an interview with this very talented lady, I dropped a few bills into her hat along with my business card requesting an interview.  Summer is a very busy time for street performers, but Mary graciously took the time to email me.  I hope you enjoy the interview and visit her site to watch the video.  Mary is one of the inspirations for my juggler design. Read more

Meet Tammy from Fort Worth, TX, who took her her passion of creating an anti-bug world and turned it into a full-time career.  Tammy jumped straight into the pest control industry right out of high school and currently, at age 34, owns her own exterminator company.  Yup, she puts on a craw suit (coveralls) and gets under houses to kill creepy crawly things. And she loves it:

I am a girl who can. I’m not afraid of bugs. I just don’t like ‘em.

Read more

Meet Lori Olson White, age 46, an American expat originally from Minnesota and Texas. Most recently she lived in Saudi Arabia for five years and is currently residing in Australia. She is mother, a writer and an adventure seeker who has a passion for empowering young women. I met Lori through the Linked-In social network and knew she would be a fantastic person to interview for Girls Can’t WHAT?

GCW: Lori, what is your main passion and describe when you first became interested in it.

Lori: My passion is telling the seemingly little stories which have surprisingly big implications. I think I have always had this passion. I knew from an early age I would be a writer and story teller. As for my love of the little stories – hehe who knows! I do know, however, I wrote my first book at 11. My parents brought it to an author friend of theirs who graciously had it “published” at a local print shop. I still have that book as well as the first check I ever earned for writing – $2.18 USD! Read more

Meet Caroline Clift, a 21 years old Boston resident who is in the process of becoming a firefighter. Dreaming of fighting fires since she was little, Caroline is determined to suit up and come to the rescue. Caroline recently took time to tell Girls Can’t WHAT? about her ambitions and the challenges she has faced while chasing her dream.

GCW: What is your main passion and describe when you first became interested in it?

Caroline: Fire and firefighting have interested me all my life, but I never seriously considered becoming a firefighter until this past year. When I was little I had toy fire trucks that I would rush, siren noises and all, to my doll houses to rescue whatever poor stuffed animal was trapped in the burning building. In elementary school I told people that I wanted to be an arsonist when I grew up. When I found out that that was not a career and was, in fact, illegal, I decided to be a pyrotechnician. Finally, this past year, I moved to Boston where I’ve had the opportunity to see firefighters in action. My apartment is right on a busy intersection that has more than its fair share of car accidents. Each time something happened, all I could do was watch the fire department arrive along with police and ambulances. I wanted desperately to be down there helping. I started to seriously consider applying to the fire department after I talked to some recruiters who came to my college campus. I’m only 5′1″ so I thought I was being completely unrealistic, but after the recruiters told me that there were actually firefighters shorter than me, I decided to go for it.

Read more