Hiking, Personal, Politics & Culture, Reading, Religion, Writing, Editing & Journalism

An Update, 18 Months Overdue

No Comments

I used to maintain this blog with one to six posts per month, but my last post was September 2020 and I’d been flaky since late spring. There’s a reason for that, albeit not a super-compelling one. The pandemic and its associated drama affected me as much as anyone, and it’s only been in the last few months that I’ve been comfortable closing the door on one chapter of my life — running mid-2016 until late-2021 — and moving definitively into the next one. 

Oh, and a blessed Christmas to you and your family. I write this post on Christmas Day, with coffee at hand, classical Christmas music softly playing, the cats docile, and some myrrh incense burning near the window. My family routines were “mostly normal” this year and I hope they’re “fully normal” next year. May you each find some measure of joy this holiday season.

This’ll be a massive update, so buckle up and grab the extra-large-sized beverage of your choice. As usual, subjects aren’t presented in any particular order.

Health and Well-Being. After re-reading my recent posts, I think I was a bit inconsistent with how I characterized my run-in with the coronavirus — mostly to avoid in-the-moment questions or swoop-ins from readers. Here’s how it all ended up going down. First, I contracted Covid-19 (we think; tests weren’t available at the time) in early March 2020. I had come back from the lovely Bonaire diving trip with my friends Jen and Dave and then a few days later: wham. Much of March and April were pretty much lost; I was able to basically sit at my desk and do my contract editing job, but not much else. Exhaustion was pervasive and I had an entire week where my nights were interrupted by high nocturnal fevers and shortness of breath. I never experienced the loss of smell or taste, but virtually every other box was checked. From the beginning of May, when the worst of it has passed, until probably mid-to-late January 2021, I wasn’t quite right. Whether you call it Long Covid or just some lingering malaise, it came and went in fortnightly spurts. I’d enjoy roughly two weeks where everything was right as rain followed by a fortnight of exhaustion and mental fog. During this period, my weight yo-yoed like a sixth grader on the playground. But by late winter, I have consistently felt fine. I’ve been symptom-free since February, and now I sit comfortably in the “double vaxxed and boosted” category.

Ironically, despite the excellent “no sickness” theme of 2021, I’m writing this while battling a mid-grade sinus infection (thanks, dry winter!). I also had a bout of norovirus that first manifested itself on my return flight from Las Vegas this past summer. I am still apologetic to Delta Air Lines for not anticipating that gross liquid sludge would spew from my body from both ends simultaneously a mere 20 minutes out from landing. At least I managed to close the lav door one millisecond before the eruption.

Gillikin & Associates. Contract work over the last two years has been — well, inconsistent. I started 2020 with a full-time contract-but-W2 assignment performing content renovation for Dotdash. That contract expired in July. In that peak-of-pandemic period, the employment outlook was double-plus ungood. I acquired another contract gig, for blog-article writing in the tech sector, but it didn’t come within a country mile of paying all the bills. The enhanced unemployment benefits of that period saved me from an ignoble return to the metaphorical “mom’s basement.” By Memorial Day 2021, I landed an analytics-consulting contract thanks to my friend Patrick, and then a curriculum-development contract with a university thanks to my friend Andrew. What had been famine turned into feast, and the second half of 2021 has been one of the most financially well-performing periods of my entire life, with no signs of impending abatement. When you bring in enough revenue that you have to actually put yourself on payroll and provide yourself benefits, you know something is going well. May it persist!

Lakeshore Literary. When we shut down Caffeinated Press in December 2019, it was with some degree of both relief and disappointment. Relief, insofar as a business that didn’t grow quite right was finally allowed to slip gently into the night. Disappointment, insofar as part of the hope and promise of local literary excellence suffered because of the well-intended peculiarities of our business model. I launched a business structure for Lakeshore Literary — a successor company, but without the complexity of business partners — in early 2020 but apart from publishing my friend Lisa’s college-success textbook, it didn’t do anything. That is now changing. My colleague Garrett and I are co-editing a new triennial literary journal, The Lakeshore Review, and I’m re-doing the small press thing, as a part-time one-man shop. Significantly, it’s going to include retail: I’m planning for roughly 250 linear feet of shelf space to play with, to open a hyper niche bookstore focused on literary journals, small-press titles, and strictly curated self-published works. No general-catalog stuff. Plus, cafe seating, coffee and tea, and packaged snacks. Things get moving as of January 3. More about that in the next paragraph.

The L&G Center. The biggest news of Q4 is The L&G Center. It’s a 2,800-square-foot office space located near the intersection of 44th Street and Burlingame Avenue in Wyoming, Mich. My business partner Allison and I co-lease the building through an LLC formed solely to address our real-estate arrangement. I run G&A and Lakeshore Literary out of it; she runs her own business, Fourth Form Martial Arts Studio, out of it as well. The 1,200-square-foot front space is a mix of literary retail and cafe (15′ x 30′), plus an open studio that serves as the karate dojo or for special events (like poetry readings). We make the space available for rent if the situation feels right. The “dojo side” (which is roughly 25′ x 30′) when used as an events space can hold, we think, roughly 80 people auditorium-style or 48 people seated four to a six-foot table. With three generous storage rooms, funky cantilevered cabinetry, two ensuite restrooms, a kitchen, a skylight, a large conference room, and private offices for me and Allison, it’s a comfortable location that we rented for a steal. But it was a steal because we needed to replace the 30-year-old carpet, repaint everything, and perform non-trivial interior maintenance on our dime. We leased the space in mid-September and will enjoy our grand opening on January 3. It’s got a bit of an industrial/rustic feel to it, yet it’s a great multipurpose space with plenty of parking and easy access to US-131, M-6, and I-196.

Karate. So why, pray tell, did we start The L&G Center? Blame karate. 🙂 In November 2020, in the throes of National Novel Writing Month, I connected with a writer named Allison who, as fate would have it, I had met before — in karate class, ca. 2007-2008. She was a shy wisp of a blonde teenager at the time, but she ended up becoming a fierce, whipcrack-smart woman whose favorite word directed at me is a poorly considered “Veto.” When I studied karate in those days, it was at East West Karate Center. It turns out, East West persisted until the pandemic killed it off. One of the sixth-degree black belts rented space at a gym in Dorr, Mich., for twice-weekly informal karate and weapons classes. Allison encouraged me to go to those classes, and I did. I reconnected with so many folks I remembered from those long-ago days. In July, Allison and Muhamet tested for higher-degree black belts. Then in August we had a karate pool-slash-whiskey-sampling party and the subject of moving out of that tiny rented gym arose. I mentioned I was looking for office space, the group had convinced Allison to start a dojo again to replace East West — and six weeks later, we took possession of The L&G Center and she founded Fourth Form. I am the dojo’s most senior kyu student, anticipating black belt testing in the summer of 2022. We’ve welcomed back some of the old East West students and even a few new ones. It’s an exciting time, and my Kent County-based peeps should strongly consider coming to the dojo’s hard launch and karate demonstration at 6p on Monday, January 3. (We’re at 1590 44th St SW, Wyoming MI, 49509.)

Writing. I’ve made minor progress across several projects, but nothing to speak of. I’m focusing next week on my project list, to see if a bit of sorting and prioritizing will make things easier to execute. I think I’m leaning toward spending the entire year drafting The Bear of Rosebriar Creek, which is a literary novel featuring four broken main characters who each find a measure of healing during a community’s panic over a man-killing bear. I’ve been noodling over this story for years but haven’t had the cojones to tackle it. Until now, I guess. No promises.

Top: Round Lake, and the flooding of our campsite. Bottom: Clear skies along the Manistee River.

The Great Outdoors. I haven’t done any scuba diving since Bonaire, nor have I yet resumed flying lessons, but I have done some hiking. Twice this year — once with my brother, and once with my friend Scott — I trekked to the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula for overnight hiking adventures. Scott and I did a section of the North Country Trail between the Fife Lake Loop and Hodenpyl Dam; Brian and I did two nights at Round Lake State Forest Campground. Both trips were “car camping” with day hikes. Scott made delicious food near our campsite overlooking the Manistee River while Brian made delicious food while we hammocked in a hurricane. I also went on a few night walks at Millennium Park. Just me, my headlamp, the critters, and a few meth addicts scurrying through the underbrush.

Faith Formation. I’ve been more active at church lately. I’m a member of the Communications Apostolate, which is a fancy way of saying that I’m part of the volunteer team that prepared our parish’s annual report and helped pull off our “renewal of fidelity” annual commitment program. Sacred Heart is a parish where stewardship is a four-letter word — an approach I find most refreshing. We had a pastor transition this summer; the Rev. Robert Sirico was granted senior priest (i.e., retired) status and the Rev. Ron Floyd was appointed as canonical administrator. I moved to Sacred Heart for Sirico but I’m staying for Floyd. It’s a vibrant, intellectual, humble community with rich worship and a spirit of service. I miss my old friends at St. Anthony but spiritually, the trade was worth it. 

Intellectual Formation. This topic could be a blog post in its own right, but I’ll keep it brief-ish. I started 2020 working full-time as a contract editor for Dotdash, and all the while, I spent countless hundreds of hours background-watching lectures and podcasts on YouTube while I worked. I mostly stopped reading books and flipped to consuming videos over much of 2020. I absorbed such treasures as Jordan B. Peterson’s extended series about the book of Genesis, Joe Rogan’s shows, the Dark Horse Podcast livestreams with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, and countless other bits of content from the center-right and the non-woke left. Early on, I became enamored with the “Intellectual Dark Web,” but eventually the luster dimmed. Stuff like Weinstein getting on the Ivermectin train and Peterson’s extended illness changed the nature of the beast. Toward the end of 2020 I eventually stopped watching YouTube videos and moved back to a beefier podcast roster, augmented by much more reading.

On the podcast front, I’ve found that tend to not miss many episodes of Sway, Pivot, and Your Undivided Attention (tech-focused); Blocked & Reported and Useful Idiots (media criticism); Left Right & Center, Checks and Balances, and The Argument (bipartisan/centrist issues-focused); Action Unwind, New Discourses, Three Martini Lunch, The Editors, and Mad Dogs & Englishmen (conservative-leaning politics); and FiveThirtyEight Politics, Slate Political Gabfest, The Ezra Klein Show, and The Weeds (left-leaning politics). Fitting imperfectly into the mix are The Glenn Show, Conversations with Coleman, and Honestly with Bari Weiss, each of which comes from an anti-woke center-left perspective. Atop that listening, I subscribe to National Review and have been working through a slush pile of books. Currently on the table: The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect by Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie, The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die by Niall Ferguson, and Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals by Tyler Cowen.

I’ve always positioned myself as something of a center-right thinker, although the Hidden Tribes report doesn’t really capture me very well. A lot of the strident, populist, more authoritarian streams of conservatism strike me as both silly and sinister, but the progressive left seems morally bankrupt and incapable of engaging the world outside its bubble. One of the take-aways from my podcasts is that when I disagree with the content of a particular episode, when the podcast hails from the right I tend to disagree on specifics of policy, whereas when I disagree with the content from a left-leaning episode, my frustration sources from the content presenting a caricature of the world. Too many straw men, too little understanding of countervailing arguments. I think that’s why I could never actually be a “man of the left” even if I’m sympathetic to some of the arguments and positions from that worldview.

If you ask where my head’s at and how it’s changed in the last 24 months, I’d distil it to this: I have less confidence in the integrity of the media and less confidence in political leaders to successfully navigate complex problems sourced from several unrelated input streams. I think the fringes of the left and the right are increasingly indistinguishable in their lunacy and their nihilism and that social platforms make this problem several orders of magnitude worse. Enlightenment liberalism (aka “David Frenchism“) is a noble framework worth protecting from integralists, socialists, and all the ne’er-do-wells in between. I’m paying more attention to disciplines like evolutionary biology and econometrics than I used to, and I appreciate how those disciplines help to undermine the superstructure of Critical Theory. And I see that in the absence of a real God to worship, people build destructive religion-like cults out of squishy nonsense like Q-Anon or antiracism. 

Political Engagement. I ran for office again in 2020, for county commission. For the second time, I was persuaded to run in this D+1,000,000 district in the heart of south-central Kent County. The upside was that I returned as a statutory member to the Kent County Republican Executive Committee.

For the 2020 election, I was the sole GOP challenger for the Absentee Voter Counting Board for the City of Kentwood, Mich. I spent 20 hours on-site at Kentwood City Hall, watching the opening and tabulation of countless thousands of absentee ballots. Kentwood even used Dominion machines! And you know what? I saw zero evidence of voter fraud. The loudest voices proclaiming The Big Lie come from people with literally no understanding of how votes are counted and audited — a fact that the shitshow of a “forensic audit” in Arizona proved beyond all reasonable doubt. As I look to candidates for state and local government in Michigan, the first thing I look for are two disqualifiers. Are they invoking the “America First” dog whistle? Are they in favor of a “full forensic audit?” If yes to either, they’re automatically disqualified as far as I’m concerned. As the debacle of the Senate elections in Georgia and the success of the Virigina gubernatorial elections attest, competent-and-sane Republicans will win while voices undermining the legitimacy of the election process will not.

Frankly, I’d rather win than fraternize with the liars and grifters who can’t get past their loss in 2020.

Social Media. Those of you with eyes to see and ears to hear will likely know that I’ve been off social media for most of the last two years. That’s not an accident, and it’s probably not going to be meaningfully changed. I am now convinced that Facebook is a force for evil in the world, and that Twitter has done more to pollute the body politic than any single other factor. I am not in a “delete my accounts” mode because I have businesses to run; I will probably occasionally throw things out there, but also never bother to check feeds or notifications. Increasingly, I’m turning to tools like blogs and Discord for communication and community. 

Winnie_Bot. I’m one of three “core” members of a project team for an open-source Discord bot called Winnie. Winnie_Bot tracks word sprints, goals, and related activities. In addition to serving as the project PM, I was also the translator of Winnie_Bot into Latin and I helped shape the core model for the bot’s database. Our product owner — Dawn, from Melbourne — and lead developer — Katie, from Ohio — have been a delight, and the community has been a big part of our success. That said, our go-live goal of October was sorely missed, at first by a little, and then by a lot. We’re making a lot of changes to the bot to conform to some Discord-specific changes that will take effect in April. We suspect that come 4/1, we might be the only bot left standing in this space. So we’re taking the time to get it right. It’s been a fair amount of work, especially in October and November, but it’s been fun.

National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo 2021 came and went. I spent it as a Municipal Liaison for the OCGR region (Ottawa County-Grand Rapids). I was co-ML with my friend Mel. It was a virtual-only year again, and it showed. Participation and interest were significantly lower. I wrote hardly anything, but then again, I was focused more on Winnie than writing. 

GRWT. The Grand River Writing Tribe diversified at the beginning of 2020. We split into three groups. One, the oh-so-cleverly named “OG Tribe,” contains most of the original cast of characters. The new in-person group, informally named “Bob’s Bitch Lasagna” for Reasons, is also doing well. Then “Group V” — the virtual group — consists of folks from across eastern North America. It’s great to be part of these groups; I’ve learned a lot.

Committee on Professional Ethics. I’m beginning my third year as a member of the Committee on Professional Ethics of the American Statistical Association. Over 2021, CoPE engaged what amounted to a 10-full-month exercise in rewriting our ethical guidelines for the practice of statistics. The process required weekly two-hour Zoom meetings, interspersed with periods of more intense work on a person-by-person basis. I was a member of the Working Group for the revision and was accountable for leading discussion around the revisions of two of the existing principles. We collectively wrapped that work by Halloween, and we’ve since learned that the ASA Board of Directors was satisfied with the work with very little requests for subsequent revision. I have been tasked with leading a similar workgroup in 2022 related to a framework for the application of these guidelines on an institutional basis. It’s gratifying to put my ethics degree to practical use.

Relationships. I think I’ve done mostly OK in maintaining relationships during the pandemic. In some ways, my immediate family got a bit closer, even as the extended family became more — well, extended. I saw my grandmother for the first time in 20 months on Thursday. I see Tony and Jen occasionally and we did enjoy an overnight karaoke party at Dimondale Manor with PPQ and The Good Doctor over the summer. I don’t feel as if I’ve lost friends, although I do think that I’ve lost a degree of connection to the folks from the extended podcasting community.

Roux and I, fleeing the Mounties.

Travel. Since the beginning of the pandemic I’ve traveled twice and received an out-of-town visitor once. In late June 2021, I attended the 360 Vegas Vacation in Las Vegas, in that sweet spot between lockdown periods: Apart from the airports, you’d have forgotten that it was a pandemic, in those pre-Delta days when all the infection lines were crashing and vaccination rates were shooting up. Then this autumn, Roux from Denton flew to Michigan. He and I spent one night at an Airbnb in Windsor, Ontario, then he spent two nights in Grand Rapids. It was good to see Roux as well as the ol’ standbys from the podcast community.

Podcasting. All my grand plans for Vice Lounge and Diction Dude were skewered by the hell that was 2020. I had a great talk with some folks in Las Vegas about VLO, including Tim of The Bettor Life, and I am planning on bringing VLO back in 2022. The format will be a bit different and I’m making changes to a bunch of stuff (no Patreon, less social media, but more stuff like livestreams and community on Discord). It’s on the docket for January, although I reserve the right to bump it as things settle down at The L&G Center after our grand opening.

Kali d’Cat, looking up at me, wondering why I’m taking her photo.

Cats. Murphy and Fiona d’Cat are both doing well. As is Kali d’Cat, the outdoors-dwelling sweetie. I have since discovered that Kali was a TNR kitty (trap, neuter, release). She is super affectionate, a bit skittish, and clever as hell. She also picks-and-chooses when she gets violent with the other larger mammals that approach her food dish. Most of the time, she lets the raccoons and opossums eat away, but every now and then holds her ground. She doesn’t like being picked up, but she does enjoy belly rubs — right up until the second she doesn’t. (He says, with a scratched right hand.) She lives on my back porch and has no real interest in coming inside. I have given her a cardboard box with a heating pad that’s on all winter long. The pad quickly heats to something like 95F when pressure is applied to it. She figured out the box/pad thing in a hurry and spends most of her time there when it’s cold.

OK, all for now. I’ll work on getting back on a regular schedule for 2022. Until then, I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy nude new year.

Hiking

The Fife Lake Loop Hike

No Comments

Last Friday and Saturday, my brother and I engaged upon a heroic trek to conquer the Fife Lake Loop trail. This excursion consists of a 21.4-mile trail, half of which follows the North Country National Scenic Trail and the other half follows a state loop trail joining sections of the NCT. This weekend getaway crosses the Wexford/Grand Traverse county lines and, for the most part, falls within the Pere Marquette State Forest.

Our journey began on Friday morning. I picked up my brother at 8 a.m., then we grabbed a quick BK breakfast while we drove two hours to the Old US-131 State Forest Campground. Michigan’s state forest campgrounds are rustic affairs; basically, they’re just level-ish ground with an old picnic table and an iron fire ring, in sites widely dispersed within a heavily wooded area. They’re available first-come, first-served on a self-registration model. Each campground enjoys a pair of vault toilets and one hand-pump station for potable water. Otherwise, no power, septic, concrete, anything. Very scenic, very quiet.

We carefully “strategerized” our route. We opted to start south, tackling the FLL trail first. Other people reported that the FLL trail was the less-scenic version with “road miles,” and it’s our preference to do the hard-slogs and less-enjoyable sections first to get them out of the way. Although we agreed that compared to the NCT portion, which abuts the Big Manistee River, the FLL side was less scenic, it was still beautiful. And the “roads” are two-tracks in the forest. Apart from crossing US-131 and M-113, we never saw pavement. Just dirt.

The first day was delightful. The FLL trail is gorgeous enough on its own. For the most part, elevations were normal, although toward the end we encountered a few major steep gains. The land offered a mix of deciduous forest, some scrubland, and occasional conifer copses. We hiked 10.6 miles to the Spring Lake State Forest Campground. We took our time, so we walked from roughly 10a to 4p, breaking for a leisurely lunch and a few water-and-snack breaks. At camp, we set up our tents, refilled our water, collected leftover firewood for the fire ring, and made dinner.

When night approached, we lit a roaring fire in the ring — helpful, given that temperatures fell to 31 degrees that night, brr! — and enjoyed a few drams of Woodford Reserve while puffing Liga Privada No. 9 cigars and a snacking on a bag of trail mix. The night proved clear, so the stars sparkled triumphantly, and the mix of whiskey, cigars, and conversation made for a great evening.

Morning and evening, the first day. Now, a photographic interlude:

Fife Lake Loop (September 2020)

My brother and I did the 21.4-mile Fife Lake Loop hike (with a night at a state forest campground) over a chilly September weekend.

The second day dawned bright and crisp. We arose and made breakfast and coffee, then packed. Despite the chill, the combination of a hot breakfast, hot coffee, and breaking camp got the blood flowing in no time. I had a perfect-ish night despite the freeze whereas my brother’s tent, being smaller and without ventilation, left him a bit damp from condensation.

We struck out southbound from the campground. Much of the NCT portion of the loop follows Fife Lake Creek and then the Big Manistee River. The trail winds a bit more, but it follows the high ridge along the creek and the river, so there aren’t too many elevation changes. This part of the loop is much more scenic, however. More water, more variation in vegetation, more lushness to the trail. Plus, the sawyers proved clever, offering occasional benches to look at the river and sometimes cutting table-and-chairs “furniture” out of fallen logs. We actually ate lunch at one of those contraptions.

Our path back was, again, measured at a stately pace. We weren’t in any hurry, and we took advantage of the opportunity to enjoy the scenery. By the time we arrived at the US-131 Roadside Park, though, we were about ready to be done. We spent some time at the park, recharging our Apple watches (gotta log the steps!) and refilling water, before tackling the segment between the park and the state forest campground whence we started.

That last segment proved deceptive. On the map, it’s 1.4 miles, but by GPS, it’s closer to 2 miles (which explains some of the delta between GPS and map segments not arriving at the same number). This final stretch crosses beneath US-131 along the bank of the Big Manistee, then gains some swift elevation through a series of switchbacks before plodding through the forest to dump you at the campground.

We left at 8a that morning and arrived at the car sometime around 2p, accumulating another 10.6 or so miles. Once buckled into my trusty Chevy Cruze, we headed home, stopping for a celebratory burger along the way. I arrived home around 5:30p, after dropping my brother off, and took a long, hot shower after petting the cats.

In all: The journey was delightful. It was great to see parts of the trail in northern Michigan — I don’t normally hike that far north — and the time with my brother was quite well spent. The coolness of that two-day window kept the bug-counts low (I saw maybe one fly in 48 hours?) and comfort levels high. Although the leaves hadn’t started to change, apart from occasional hints of color, the mid-September window meant that we had the trails to ourselves. On Day One, we saw a man and his dog. On Day Two, we were passed by a small group while we ate lunch. Otherwise, it was just us and the birds and the chipmunks. And despite people online whining about road noise, given that the loop encircles US-131, the traffic was muted and, for the most part, indistinguishable. 

A good capstone to the summer, methinks.

Hiking, The Great Outdoors

Home from Quebec: A Reflection on Life, Love & Wilderness Medicine

4 Comments

In the middle of a deep Canadian forest, a ferocious mid-afternoon windstorm knocked down a tree, beneath which five very cold and unprepared people tried to ride out the unexpected weather. The tree’s collapse crushed the group’s not-really-competent tour guide; the blunt-force trauma to his chest killed him immediately. For the people whom the guide had been leading—four novice trainees for an upcoming wilderness adventure race—the windstorm was the last straw in a series of disasters spanning the last 24 hours. The group’s equipment had floated away during a botched water rescue the night before and therefore the entire group hadn’t eaten in more than a day. When the tree uprooted, “Monster,” a 41-year-old habitual drug user just 30 days sober, went running for help, slipped, and had a finger shorn off in the crook of a tree branch, in addition to lacerating his upper arm and dislocating his shoulder. Bobby, the eldest of the group, had suffered an open fracture of the lower left leg and an arterial puncture on his upper left thigh when the tree fell across his leg. His nephew, Hugh, was in severe hypothermia, never having warmed up after having fallen in the river the night before. Eric, Bobby’s friend, had aspirated water while assisting with Hugh’s rescue the previous night and had sprained his ankle besides. After the tree comes crashing down, Eric puts his “bad” foot on Bobby’s arterial bleed while jabbing Hugh with an EpiPen and waving one of Hugh’s free arms to keep circulation moving, in a desperate attempt to do something to help. The shouts from Eric and Monster alert a passing group of hikers, all of whom are trained responders.

Yesterday, this scenario was the final simulation we ran to wrap up our five-day Wilderness First Responder course sponsored by Boreal River Rescue at The Barn just 30 minutes north of Ottawa, in the lovely Gatineau Hills of Quebec.

Lots to cover here. I’ll start by reviewing the WFR course, then reflecting on the “life, love and wilderness medicine” points referenced in the post title before wrapping up with final thoughts.

Wilderness First Responder

The best definition for the WFR role comes from Wilderness Medical Associates, the organization that bestowed my certification:

Wilderness First Responder is the definitive course in medical training for outdoor educators, guides, SAR team members and others who work or play in remote areas. The curriculum is comprehensive and practical, including all of the essential principles and skills required to assess and manage medical problems in isolated and extreme environments.

It’s an 80-hour training that includes basic life support, healthcare provider CPR certification and additional training for specialty subjects including field reduction of some joint dislocations, special CPR protocols, and the injection of epinephrine to treat anaphylaxis or asthma.

The setting—springtime in Quebec!—proved ideal, the 10-to-11-hour drive notwithstanding. Days fluctuated between sunny and 70s F and rainy and 40s F. Our group consisted of 10 WFR students plus four additional WFR recertification candidates who joined us on Day 3. They were a fascinating, beautiful group of humans:

  • Danny, the director at Boreal River and our instructor for the course
  • Caleb, Evan and Alex are all (very) younger guys who will work this summer as professional guides
  • Andrew, Joey and Julien are experienced guides and outdoors enthusiasts
  • Mike and Tom—older fellows—took the course for personal enrichment
  • Jessy, Ben and Chris—also younger guys—took the course for fun in the context of their existing interests
  • Alex and Colin, a couple who live near the training facility and sometimes work with Danny; they’re about to take their teenaged son on a year-long adventure trip, so they recertified early
  • Plus sweet, loveable moi

I parked at The Barn around 9p on Tuesday, May 1. Arrival consisted in picking a bed, sheeting it and getting ready for the next morning. The next few days all ran between 10 and 12 hours long. The first several sessions consisted of basic drills (spine-stable rolls, positive pressure ventilation, using masks, assessing lung sounds, taking blood pressures with cuffs and stethoscopes, splinting, etc.) and mastering the “three triangles” of the Patient Assessment System: Scene size-up, primary assessment, secondary assessment. The course was structured to build on skills iteratively. The drills started first in identifying “emergency or not-emergency” for the circulatory, nervous and respiratory systems. Then we layered in assessing changes in vitals or mental status over time, then performing rapid full-body exams and spine/neuro assessments, then asking the “right” questions for a SAMPLE history—after which the drills added identification of anticipated secondary problems, then treatments, then the administration of treatment via simulation. All the while, we had to keep reasonably good SOAP notes for PAS drills and our simulations so that when Danny brought the video camera into our faces and asked, “What’s your problem list?” we could tick off a few actionable problems or body-system red flags in two or three seconds without pondering or mumbling or speculating about treatments.

The sims became quite complex. In the final sim, I played the role of Eric. Danny (the instructor) gave me instructions as well as makeup for my bruises and a series of if-this-then-that branches while the simulation unfolded. For example, after the rescuers moved me away from my friends, I had to complain of being very, very hungry because I also had mild hypothermia and low blood sugar. Whatever they first fed me, I was allergic to; if they asked in advance about allergies, then I could eat something else, otherwise, I had to develop anaphylaxis after eating the food. My breathing was labored, and I did have to feign anaphylaxis, so ultimately the rescuer had to distinguish anaphylaxis from the fact that I was in respiratory distress (bordering on respiratory failure) from pulmonary edema secondary to submersion—while I was very obviously in acute stress reaction from watching my friends screaming in pain before my very eyes. That information surfaced from asking good questions during the SAMPLE history and then bothering to listen for crackles in my alveoli. And as for “Bobby” (played by Tom)? We actually rigged up a turkey baster and tubing with stage blood, as well as bone fragments applied with surgical wax to his shin. And the hapless guide, played by Colin, chomped a blood capsule as soon as the first responder arrived. Hugh (Evan) had blue makeup on his face and lips. Best of all was Monster’s amputation; Ben (the actor) had full-on wax and blood as well as a mannequin finger still stuck in the tree with blood and bone sticking out of it. Delightfully gross but very realistic looking.

We got to mix things up a lot, too. On Day 4, I was in charge of the scene with a rescuer who had a stroke on a steep hill while we were already trying to rescue a person who evidenced hives and mental status changes. So two rescuers and two patients at first, later joined by several more rescuers. The hives guy resolved with epinephrine administration and a bit of rest; the stroke guy we had to apply good airway management while packaging in an improvised litter and team-carrying him to the “helicopter.” And in our first sim, on Day 3, I was primary medical for a guy with an unstable wrist injury from an ATV crash, who crashed because he was significantly hypoglycemic. So I got to cover the main roles (victim, primary medical, secondary support, scene leader) across all the sims, which was totally freaking awesome because you get a really different view of things depending on your vantage point.

The bottom line is that this was an excellent course, taught well by Danny, with a supportive and focused group of student-colleagues. I am not afraid to tackle a medical emergency in the backcountry. I am also quite happy to recommend Boreal River for any of their programs and education, based on my interactions with Danny and those members of his team whom I was privileged to meet.

(My only real regret is not whipping out my camera at some point. I managed to take an iPhone photo of some of the hills of Quebec on my drive south to Ottawa, which is the cover photo for this post. Otherwise, nada.)

Life

I left The Barn at 6:15 p.m. on Sunday, May 6, and drove non-stop back to Grand Rapids, arriving at 4:25 a.m. So, quite a hoof. Turns out, Toronto is the half-way point, time-wise. Both directions, I routed through Port Huron/Sarnia (I-96 to I-69) and took the southern route across Ontario (highways 402/401/416) and Autoroute A-5 in Quebec. Didn’t get tired the whole way back. Three stops in Ontario to pee and visit Tim Hortons at ONroute facilities significantly helped, as well as a late-night food stop at a McD’s just past Flint. But I didn’t get drowsy or even yawn all that much, because my brain was firing at a mile a minute as the kilometers ticked by.
So, lots of time to reflect on my way home. Three things pop out—just like the buds did in my absence. When I left, no green on the trees and the wind was chilly. When I got home just before dawn, the birds were chirping and it was warm and I saw leaves. Everywhere. In just a week. It felt like a triumphant welcome home. But I digress.

First, fitness. Holy hell. I did okay, but during the first simulation, Danny recorded the three different scenes. I saw my report-out about my patient’s problem list and expected evacuation requirements during our debrief the following morning. After seeing that video I said to myself, “Self, you have additional opportunity to augment your cardiopulmonary fitness.” Although in my head I might have used more colorful language.

For me, weight and fitness have always been directly correlated with stress. A big stressor lately (the day job) has been taken off the table. Today, I’m just so remarkably serene about everything that I’m looking forward to getting into a new set of habits now that my life has been completely shaken up. I sit here typing this blog post with the windows in my home office open, birds chirping, a gentle breeze passing through and sun passing obliquely over the shelves, bathing both the room and the cats with a warm pale glow. I did a fair amount of heavy breathing over the last week. So now, I sit here, and I feel good. Good. And I went grocery shopping this morning. Bought fish and veggies. No carbs. No junk food. Turns out, I actually like cooking, and the foods I really like are tasty and nutritious. What a shame it took me 41 years to figure this out.

Second, experiences. I loved hearing the stories from the folks in the group about the things they’ve done or hope to do. Many of the guys were really quite funny and remarkably accomplished for their ages. Everyone was so chill about everything. There wasn’t a sense of one-upmanship at the table. If someone said, “I did this cool thing in this remote place” then other people would be like, “OK, I’d love to try that some day myself, so can you give me any tips?” The stories were so respectful, honest and non-competitive that you could (and I did!) just immerse joyfully in the stories.

I bring this up because I’m so accustomed to dealing with people angling for advantage that spending a week with people who just wanted to share was rejuvenating. It’s a good reminder to reflect how I approach conversations as well as to think about the level of venom I’m willing to tolerate in my dealings with others.

Third, May 2. That’s the day the WFR course started. It was also the official last day of my employment with Priority Health (slash Spectrum Health System) after nearly 18 years of service. It’s the day I started working for myself instead of for someone else. That evening, after the first-day classes had concluded, I sat down with a book. But I wasn’t really reading that much. Instead, I was just reliving highlights of my career. Lots of stuff went right, over the last 18 years. Lots of failures, too, most of which were self-inflicted. I sat for hours, tracing the steps from my middle-school days at St. Anthony to my trajectory at West Catholic High School to my choice to attend Western Michigan University and the ways that my life shaped from the choices I made in those years. In the working world, I think I did okay, despite this occasionally half-hearted dual pathway in health care as well as freelance editing and publishing. I don’t think I would have picked this life when I walked out of the door of St. Anthony in 1990, or W.C. in 1994, or even WMU in 2003. But I’m happy with how it turned out to this point. They key take-away is that the next time I’m at a pivot point like this, that the subject of my reflection should not be me being okay or not-okay with “how it turned out” but rather assessing results given that it’s the outcome that I planned for and executed instead of merely allowing to occur.

Seizing the reins of one’s own destiny, as it were. Which, as a self-employed consultant as of today, I must do without a safety net. But I think the chance to decompress in Quebec was one of the best possible ways to make this transition. Not only was WFR certification on my bucket list for several years, but the experience of achieving it kicks off my consulting work on the right emotional foot. (And believe me—the last few weeks have been an emotional roller coaster.)

Love

Love is a funny thing, and it can be evidenced in funny ways. My landlord, who very kindly looked upon my feline overlords in my absence to ensure they didn’t lock themselves in cabinets or otherwise get themselves into trouble, told me this morning that they got “pissed” when they heard rustling at the back door, ran into the kitchen then found that it was him instead of me. So that was sweet. But love evidences itself in other—human—ways, too. During our first big simulation, I eventually moved to a different scene and served in a supporting medical role. I helped Alex (the female one, who was a patient at the time) with head stability given a traumatic brain injury and obviously rising intracranial pressure. So I kept reassuring her: “You’re in good hands.” “I know it hurts, we’re doing our best to help you.” And so on. In our post-scenario debrief, she specifically called out that gentle attention as a big deal to her. And when I was “Eric,” I made a point of getting despondent and almost crying about my friends—and it was that expression of grief that prompted my primary rescuer (Caleb) to really just stop and go into full reassurance mode instead of just ticking off the boxes on his SOAP note. Bedside manner matters. A lot. And not just in a wilderness rescue situation. I know it sounds trite, but it’s true: Being a decent human being is hard, rare and worth it. Empathy is a skill significantly stressed by the ubiquity of smartphones.

While dining and conversing with my fellow students, I heard some really wonderful stories about their adventure travel over the years. Colin and Alex had gone to Kilimanjaro in January; Andrew is going in August. Julien came to Quebec from Patagonia—a four-day journey. Most of the non-teen group had stories about South America, or Africa, or Asia. Wonderful, engaging stories. And you know why? Because it’s their passion. It’s what they love. Do what you love, and happiness and success will follow. Do what you love, and your heart will fill with love.

In WFR training we learned about toxins and venoms and such. I believe that comfort is a toxin. So is fear of the unknown. Aversion to loss and resistance to habit disruption are such powerful instincts that they affect us even when we’ve got nothing to lose and a ton of stuff to win. I’m not ashamed to admit that on the first night I was in Quebec, before we even started the course, I sat in the common room at The Barn and was thiiiiiiis close to packing up and leaving. On the spot. A dozen rationalizations passed through my mind: The cats would be lonely. I’m not the “type” to be a rescuer. I wouldn’t fit in with the others. I might fail. You know: A noxious blend of Jonah Complex and Imposter Syndrome distilled and bottled at cask strength.

I stayed. I got through it. I’m a better person for it. But even with all that preparation and anticipation, it was different enough to be scary. And think of all the times that we confront this kind of “scary” on a daily basis. When we think it’s better to keep quiet than to stand up to a bully. When we think it’s easier to do what pays the bills instead of what fills the heart. When we find an excuse to avoid a necessary lifestyle change because we can do it “tomorrow.”

Before you can do what you love, you must love yourself enough to believe you’re worthy of the investment. For a lot of people, that’s a difficult proposition.

Wilderness Medicine

The WFR course reminded me of a few life lessons, as applicable in the backcountry as they are in the boardroom:

  • Never let the perfect become the enemy of the good. You don’t need to arrive at a differential diagnosis of cerebral hemorrhage of the left hemisphere to know that you’ve got increasing intracranial pressure (or, ahem, whether someone was bitten by a Black Widow). The rising ICP is the emergent problem, regardless of its source. To wait to treat (e.g., to evacuate to a hospital) while fine-tuning a diagnosis means you’ll likely kill your patient. Similarly, waiting for all the stars to align—when enough stars have already aligned—is an invitation to inertia. Sweet, comfortable, toxic inertia.
  • Assess the situation, not the problem. Then treat the problem in its context. A rescuer who sees a person with a head injury can leap into action to conduct a spinal exam and check for a traumatic brain injury, without realizing that the source of the injury is the very, very unstable pile of huge rocks on the ledge above them both. Similarly, identifying some area of self-improvement (e.g., weight loss) that’s undertaken as if “weight gain” were a problem severable from its environmental, emotional and psychological context, is futility. Almost no problems worth solving occur in isolation without any mix of direct and indirect causes or downstream consequences. To fix the problem, you must understand its causes and effects and only then can you develop a solution designed to succeed.
  • Lead when you can. Follow when you should. Protect your command when you must. In the scenario were I served as scene leader, I radioed the RCMP (i.e., talked to Danny’s video camera) to arrange a specific evacuation plan. Then, I had to assemble the troops, tell them the plan, assign roles and oversee execution. So far, so good. Then we had new responders arrive who started barking orders. That was bad form, but understandable given the adrenaline and the training exercise. To keep control of the scene and to minimize harm to my patient, I had to assert leadership so that the existing plan wouldn’t be threatened by delays or miscommunication. Similarly, you must master Gillikinism #28: “Master the sword—when to wield it, when to sheathe it and when to fall upon it.” When leadership is necessary, supply it. When it’s not, don’t horn in. When you’re in charge and someone tries to knock you off the hill, kick him in the nuts and continue your benevolent leadership. Because sometimes, lives really are at stake.

What’s Next?

I’m doing some assorted catch-up this week as well as fine-tuning the official launch of Gillikin & Associates. Very exciting. I have some editorial work to do with Caffeinated Press and just a lot of “what am I going to knock off my major-goals list in May?” planning to complete. I no longer have a Mon-Fri, 9-5 kind of job, but I obviously still have to work. The question of how I integrate work and enrichment and whatnot still requires forethought.

From the WFR perspective, my goal is a bit broader. I’m increasingly drawn to outdoors activity. I’m not really interested in a full-time career change into the outdoors industry, but here’s the thing. In addition to being a WFR and a reasonably experienced backcountry hiker (at least, in hemiboreal climates), I’m decent on my kayak and I’m a scuba diver. I want to blow that out a bit—more dive training, more (and more complex) kayak trips, more deliberate backcountry hikes. Maybe do some whitewater rafting training. Go places. I might not visit every cool hotspot between Banff and the Amazon or between Iceland and the Outback, but I can do a major guided activity every year or two. I’m thinking about it.

Otherwise, I look at the trip to Quebec as a door. On one side of May 2, I had one life. On the other side, I have a new one. My first life was mostly accidental. My next life? Not so much.