"7. You're pretty hard on the activists, aren't you? Well, I'm tired of people projecting their fantasies onto me. If you want to be wise and benevolent, that's fine, providing that you do it for real and not as an exercise in self-delusion. Go make the world a better place in your immediate vicinity, with your own hands, so you can tell whether it's really helping or not. Anything else is just make-believe. You don't really know anything unless you've done it with your own hands. I wish people would stop giving money to big Scam-O-Rama organizations and would get their hands dirty instead. You can't save the world by writing a check or by believing what you're told. You have to see and do things for yourself. And when it doesn't work, you should clean up your own mess before moving on. You can't do that when you're not involved in the day-to-day reality of the problem. " R Plamondon

"The other thing that bugs me about the welfare groups is that they think that keeping livestock can be reduced to geometry. They like to write rules that hens need a certain amount of perch space, some number of square feet of floor space, and so on. (It reminds me of the incredibly lame propaganda coming over Radio Moscow and Radio Peking in the Seventies, which couldn't tell the difference between steel production and quality of life.) But in reality, rules are largely just a distraction from the serious business of paying attention to what's going on, and changing what you do accordingly. It's the difference between managing the process and managing the outcome. You can often get the same outcome using wildly differing techniques, depending on how you balance different trade-offs. Actual skill is involved. " -R. Plamondon My kind of guy.  Down to earth, out there doing the good work, getting after it.  Reminds me of Steve Solomon. Dig it.  http://www.plamondon.com/faq_welfare.html NFH

Gents, Sir Albert Howard is the father of the organic gardening movement.  The Soil and Health is worth the read if you ever get into gardening.  Simple and in-depth, this is a man who delved deeply into many subjects to understand the unified concept of growth and life on earth.  Awesome. "The main characteristic of Nature's farming can...be summed up in a few words. Mother earth never attempts to farm without livestock; she always raises mixed crops; great pains are taken to preserve the soil and to prevent erosion; the mixed vegetable and animal wastes are converted in humus; there is no waste; the processes of growth and the processes of decay balance one another; ample provision is made to maintain large reserves of fertility; the greatest care is taken to store the rainfall; both plants and animals are left to protect themselves against disease." -Sir Albert Howard, An Agricultural Testament The same can be said with few substitutions about a good man.  That last phrase, "...both plants and animals are left to protect themselves against disease" really resonates with me.  It's not as if he advocates throwing "plants and animals" out on their own, but instead that he has total faith that if the basics are taken care of then there is no need for band-aid care. This is one of those works that reaffirms to me the many beliefs we share in common, whether you are a soldier, a fire-fighter, or simply living a clean life.  The idea that with enough practice you don't need "tricks" is sublime wisdom.  Drive on! NFH

Feeling the first surge of energy run through me after a meal, I sit down to write.  This is a gift not to be squandered, this deafening smashing beat that flows through me, the writing coming off my fingers, sparks in my mind, swinging on vines through lush forests, kicking over clanging trash cans, rolling up in fast cars, jumping off a highway overpass from a full speed car, knowing you've gotta die, certain you'll live.  Where does this come from? Sugar, the rush of corn tortillas dancing in my veins, the pulse of blood in my arms, the feel of music in my head, the weird and wild and muse feeling of being possessed by the gods of writing, flashing black and white lights, screaming Yeah, here comes the story, knowing that all along. The idea of telling the truth no matter what, always being rewarded for doing the right thing, whether people are looking or not.  What do you want?  Tell me the truth.  Always tell the truth, why is that so important?  White marble  The swelling curve of a knife blade, the dark and grey swirls in metal, a thousand folds, crafted through ten thousand years of working metal in fire, combining basic elements into a utilitarian tool of beauty not only in the use, but simply the looking.  True form and function. I can barely take it, that heavy ripping rough sounds.  The story she tells, the way each of us can feel that same story in our own history.  You know the name of the bar, you remember the look of the jukebox, the smell of the place, the way the door in the bathroom creaked, the cheap plastic flags, the glasses you used to steal, even the beer you used to order.  It's all there, in your mind and Joan Jett's.  I love Joan for the writing, for the passion and feeling and fight in her voice.  That's a mouth that spits the truth, she does rock and roll, as much as I do along with Willie Nelson and a few others. Pure and clean, just your voice, that's all I want to hear.  Add some drums, give it a beat, then slide those deep bass notes up and down the neck of the guitar, choking it and at the the same time grinding out the beauty of vibrations on metal strings. Then there's the simple sound of a Spanish guitar.  Del Castillo covering Willie, the ting of a metal triangle, the left ear starts to feel the beat, to get it, to sync up with the song just in time for the voice to come through, that nasally voice that is always in my dreams when I think of cowboys and fishing trips and my Dad in an old car, McDonald's on a Saturday morning, the smell of a lumberyard, the sawdust, projects in the workshop, dissecting a frog, the smell of the formaldehyde. The rush of water over gravel, I use a spin rod, Dad fly fishes.  I  remember every Willie song I've ever heard, even this one I haven't heard before.  Every time I hear that voice, I feel all that history come back up again.  I can feel the cold dark morning of West Hartford, I can feel the chilly windows as the sun comes up over the horizon.  That's where my love of getting up early comes from, from the wayward dance of guitar notes, from the love of my Dad, from those moments we shared out there on the Connecticut river, when it was just us, and the world was simple and clean and pure.  I don't remember the rest of the day  I don't remember the nights, I don't care, just the the mornings where we drove and listened to music together, when life was so clean and pure, and the aching and pulling of heart strings wasn't yet part of my conscious experience, where I only felt the emotion in this music and asked those simple question that encompassed so much more than the words.  I just enjoy the glimmering trill of the music, the voice of Willie, and a simple guitar riff. You know, hard hittin'.

White knuckled Paleo Treats for the tree climbing cliff jumping vine swinging hirsute and horrible ancient Homo Paleolithus and his beautiful, wiser and better half, Fem-Paleolithas.  Known for incessantly lifting tremendous weight, feared the world over for the worthy war cry springing from the depths of dark and dangerous gyms where (gasp) free weights are thrown around, where boxes and stumps are jumped upon, where bags are smashed, pig iron flies, and the only humidity control is the sweat floating in the air.  This is Paleo town. How many times will you see those monsters growling and bending, ripping away with rugged fingers and grasping hands at the heaviest piece of 1970's weight room furniture they can tear free from it's moorings?  Men and women alike, ripped and hard, tatters of clothes, who cares about fashion when you can move?  When anything that needs to be lifted is at the mercy of your group, your clan, your tribe.  When unstoppable is your life, when never-ending is your quest, when twisted cables are your arms, when clear and bright far-seeing lights are your eyes, then you begin to realize the true power that has always been yours. HEY!  YOU!  How long can you watch before you join in the ancient dance of work, pure and clean and hard and simple.  Will you watch with wide eyes, scared at the dancing of the flames deep in the eyes of a being totally and completely dedicated to performance through utter dedication to an unpolluted goal; work in its most physical sense.  Or will you join? This is YOU calling, this is your human spirit screaming to be let free, this is your battered and primitive age worn soul, pulsing backwards through countless eons, begging and blustering and beating it's hairy and heavy chest, yawping with a fearful wildness to be let free, to let you see just how strong you can be, to see how much weight you can throw, to embrace totally the full potential of power you have.  We're not talking "open yourself up Lance," we're talking heart-bursting power, capable at a moments notice of running down any 4 legged creature on the planet over unending savannah miles, capable of dropping onto an elk's back from 20 feet up, dropping through the air and mingling with gravity, landing with a heavy thud and ripping through the tough and protected neck skin with obsidian-sharp rock to get at the bright red arterial iron rich blood deep beneath, to feed directly from the circle of life, to get the hell away from all plastic and processing, to never again set foot in a grocery store where eating is too easy. This is you calling, your old caveman self, your old fire-burning stone-smashing true love, the wild and primal side that you feel on those early cold mornings when the sun has yet to rise and the sense of warmth is only within you.  This is your life.  When will you see with you own eyes the meaning of being fully responsible for what you eat? Hunt it.  Kill it.  Eat it.  Don't ever look in a mirror, you already know what you are.  More human than human. Uncontaminated with the trappings of a modern gym, using only iron sticks and steel stones, rough ropes and thick logs and ancient heavy weights and crackling red-blue lighting burning bright in every heart. Blended with technique honed over many moons of the same movement practiced over and over.  The quick twist of the hands, the graceful and deadly curve of an throwing arm, the twisted and compressed and deadly accurate power of a panther's leap, all coiled up in a thigh muscle. The lithe movements of the strong and flexible, the cunning and wisdom and experience rolled into that 3 pounds of grey fatty tissue a-top a machine built to live self-reliantly.  This is you.  This is the gift you've been given, this body, this mind. How will you treat it?  Will you learn the best ways to use it, to move, to run, to jump, to lift?  Will you memorize your owners manual, will you try new movements, will you jump that log, sail off that cliff to the far side tree, will you grasp and windmill and grab and keep gripping and grasping until you come to a heart pounding stop? Will you eat clean and pure, feeding this holy machine of yours the best ingredients you can find?  Will you shoot straight, tell the hard truth over the easy lie, will you run when you can walk, will you stand when you can sit, will you climb when could crawl?  What will you do? You want pristine food, pure and unmingled with the everyday additives, undefiled by artificial sweeteners, immaculate in its Paleosity, virtuous in its total embracement of whole food, nothing more, nothing less.  When you're ready, you'll find us.

Just stumbled on this, wish I'd kept writing more.  Some funny stuff, all of it still pretty much true.  Like you guys, I'm a little older and wiser now.  Enjoy. NFH There are three things that let you know you are truly alive.  The opening shock of a parachute, the sound of a sixty firing, and that primal thrill of cold water immersion.  Those are short, sharp experiences.  It is known only to you whether you enjoy each, or any, of those.  For those of us that have, this book was written. I left those experiences on September 13th of 2000.  On that day I walked off the SEAL Team 5 quarterdeck and into the unknown of the civilian world.  I had served as a peacetime SEAL, aping the behavior of more experienced frogmen; fighting in bars, pulling the dumb stunts, ripping dares out of mouths and shredding them with the laughter that comes from ignorant cockiness.  When I walked off that quarterdeck there was no doubt in my mind that I would be a success at anything and everything I tried.  Ten years later, I have learned new meanings of success, I have plumbed depths of despair I didn't know existed, and realized that there is no limit to the things that let you know you are truly alive. Indianapolis, October 2001. I stared down the barrel of my .45.  Safety off.  Finger on the trigger.  I had hit my low point, and it had only taken fourteen months.  I didn't know what I wanted to do.  I thought I had hit the high point of life as a 23 year old SEAL.  I had taken the toughest the U.S. military could dish out, and I had laughed.  I had out run, out swam, out shot, and out thought almost every person I had come up against.  I had competed on a world stage and roared in exhilaration while passing competitors.  I had thought that the hardest boundaries where those of the physical world, and I had conquered them.  I had so much to learn. I started out like most ex-military and took a vacation; Australia for two months.  Living in hostels, spending my savings, as carefree and unattached as it is possible to get.  Moving from place to place, shaking off a schedule that had been with me for 5 years.  Dramatic changes were seen in those first few months, breaking old rules that no longer applied, flaunting the freedom that civilian society takes for granted, answering to no pay grade above my own.  10 years later I'm still an early riser, still working out every day, still scanning the streets, still checking rear security.  10 years later I am more deeply changed than I or any of my closest friends would have thought possible. I returned from Australia ready for the next great adventure.  For me, it was a sailing trip.  Five and a half months, a 22 foot boat, 6,000 miles of open ocean.  I sailed naked, reveling in my freedom.  I sat with port captains, ate fish with locals, drank in foreign bars, surfed empty spots, and swam with dolphins.  I thought I was as far away from the Navy as I could be, and I was, for that time.  I still woke up early, still stood watches, still adventured in the physical realm.  I felt alive during the knockdowns, when the spreaders kissed the wave tops and we scrambled to the high side to right the boat.  When the cold water blasted across my face on the night watch with the wind up and the spinnaker billowing in front, dragging us to the outside edge of control over the crest of a wave and into the next trough, I remembered the three things that let you know you're truly alive, and I laughed to be living. Not realizing yet that there are no goals that give ever-lasting satisfaction, and trained to believe that there were, I raced from one goal to the next.  From port to port, from record day distance to record time away from land, I pushed myself towards goals, each one a painting of life.  I thought I could live in those paintings.  I thought at that point that I knew what I was doing, that I knew where I was going, that I had it planned out.  I was going to Stanford, I was going to swim on their team, then on to the Olympics.  I would find a wife, find enough money to pay for everything and anything I wanted, start a family, and travel around the world.  I would look like a vagabond and be rich as a king.  I would travel rough for months, then lounge in luxury recuperating.  I would work for the CIA on the side, and tell no one.  Then I would go back to my wife and family and perfect house and perfect life and no one would know what I had done but me, and it would be enough.  But it never happened. I sold the boat in Jamaica, and after 10 days of partaking of all the pleasures that country offers, I was back to the U.S. to meet my future wife.  I still had the SEAL persona, it was still how I defined myself.  I realize now, at almost 30, that being a SEAL will always have a place in my definition of self that is out of proportion to the amount of time I spent doing it.  Perhaps that is because I was impressionable.  Perhaps it was because the experiences were so intense.  Maybe it is because I haven't found a core definition I like more.  It was late summer 2001, and when I moved into a house my father owned in Indianapolis, I had my life plotted out.  Almost completely wrong, but that's what life, and exploration, and new experiences are all about. I started with a map in my head of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do.  By the time I stopped to check where I was 5 minutes down the trail, I was irrevocably off course.  It happened in both little and big steps.  The first few are little; I got out and smoked a joint; hey, look at me, I'm not in the Navy anymore, I can do anything.  Being high was fun, there's a reason so many people like it.  But I couldn't keep it up.  Every time I got high I'd get about an hour into it and start thinking about all the productive things I should have been doing.  So I ping-ponged to the ultra-healthy side, and tried a raw food diet because, hell, it's something that most people can't do, and I knew I could do anything.  I was still defining who I was by what I could do that others couldn't, a classic SEAL trait.  After a week of raw food, carrot and garlic juice, and shots of wheatgrass I realized that living on raw food is unusual for a reason, but I can do it if I have to.  Still, there was something to it, so I kept exploring.  By now I was so far off my original map that I couldn't even begin to get a bearing on where I had been, so I started drawing a new map for myself. I didn't know it, but drawing and redrawing your own maps is a disorienting process.  After I let go of the old one, I thought it would be easy and fun to write a new one.  Bits of it are, but there are some parts that give you real insight on just how easy the "hard" training was.  I had so many more choices the second time that they occasionally overwhelmed me.  I looked for new friends and they constantly let me down as I held them to a standard they couldn't, wouldn't, and didn't want to understand.  I reached out to old friends, and they helped, but I was exploring territory that was years ahead of them, and I couldn't make them understand what the hell I was going through.  What I was doing was what we'd all talked about doing, and how could it be anything but fun?  This isn't to say that my buddies from the Teams weren't helpful, they saved my life.  Of course, they didn't know they'd done it, and they didn't know how, and they probably didn't mean to. Searching for a new identity was not only not on their map, it wasn't on their radar.  Once a SEAL always a SEAL.  Except when I was working for minimum wage teaching little kids how to swim.  Then you're just that weird guy with a bunch of tattoos and more foul language than most mothers want to hear.  Let me give you a hot tip; no mother likes to hear their kid being told to "put the fuck out" as

Gents, Some on-again off-again writing for a book.  Thought you'd dig it so far.  Comments or edits always welcome. NFH The story starts long before the early morning landfall smell of smoke rises off the Jamaican coast line.  Inky black nights, alone in God's creation, feeling that the world is something more than just bits and bones, that there's a hell-spark in all of us that roars into wild blaze every so often, experiencing Nature in all her naked glory, when raw lust for that pure and hard and clean spirit rushes through the heart, and belief in immortality leads down devilish roads. There's canyoneering, campfires, a mountain stream, fresh meat, drifting and moving and wondering and loving.  Long road trips across the west, tires singing, windows radiating the heat of a place unwelcome to each of us bags of water.  A circle of friends and heroes, cool headed, hard working, laughing, confident. There's that spirit that grabs hold when it shouldn't, when the world is right but it ought to be wrong, when the world isn't delivering enough pain to remind you that life is too rich for misery and scrabbling after the values of a dirty humanity. Maybe it's a good enough reason to forget all the rules we struggle to abide by.  When that little piece of metal and rubber takes off and the world falls away in the roar of a thousand factories brought through 180 horses ripping away at a single prop dragging the whole contraption up past the smog to a clean and windy blue.  Flying off the coast, instant flatness, development stops, and the vastness of a loving and bountiful and pitiless mother begins.  Blue water, two whales, largest creatures ever to have lived, nostrils huge and smooth and clamping shut before the water rushes over, smooth movement, timeless and unstoppable.  The blue white of flesh underwater, the incommunicability across species.  Why do you swim?  Why do we fly?  Why do I go back to work when I should just jump out of this plane and return to what we evolved away from.  Can a mistake be fixed in a short free fall that took 400 million years of evolution to fuck up? Dropping back into another reality, purple curtains, Joan Jett, that rolling ripping heavy music in my own head drowning out the easy hippie music from tinny speakers, the deep blue bruising streaks of heavy pressure from a thick and low bass riff, all the toxins coming up out of the skin, a hard massage, roll me off the table limp and weak. The unfolding of my lungs through repeated runs, overexertion, through the jerking of heavy weights, the cold stink of an early morning gym, the clean scent of morning mist, the cracked and grey sidewalks and the black shadows of night running up the sides of buildings. This is a story about running into overdrive too early in a race, of recovering only through sheer willpower, of crying and broken hearts and crooked noses, of the stink of piss under a bar, the satisfying crack of slate as you flip a pool table.  This life is equal parts warm puppies and heavy fists, love, and life, the juxtaposition of a modern warrior and an old soul. This story is poetry and fresh baked bread made with my own hands, of old trucks and long unmowed grass, dogs rescued from a cold winter and cats shot dead in the street.  My story is of life and growing and all varied and weird and wonderful mistakes that go along with doing the right thing, even too late. Here I stand, alone and in the best of company at 32 years old.  146 pounds, ripped and hard, running faster, lifting heavier, loving more with more anger and angst and understanding and compassion than ever before.  This place here, filled with friends and foes, with sudden bursts of understanding blended with the goddamn blind incomprehension of hate and emotional release is where I am.  The story begins. I grew up a lost Indian in a suburban white body.  Always reaching for something different, always feeling a long and ancient connection with nature and natural things.  That connection fought with some kind of inherent evil, a knowledge of lack of consequences, killing cats and lizards  and squirrels through wanton abuse of all the gifts given. Squirming and squirelling, wriggling through that tunnel that is too tight, of love and doing the right thing even when no one is looking, or trying too hard for too long with no reward only to see it open up before up before you big and bright and scary as your wife sliding down a rock water fall.  The whole world out there, full of no safety nets, of black holes of the wrong thing, of occasional flashes of brilliance and love when the heart explodes into its own case, held together solely by the power of right and good and pure rushing energy.  That is my life. When, through countless tries and errors and victories, I come on serendipity in one moment, on the edge of a cliff, the urge to jump off, to see what's on that other side, breathing too hard.  Stopped on gravel, hands and knees, red digging craters in my hands, pebbles and dirt and grass and stains that don't come out. Every one of my pants is stained.  I don't have a t-shirt that I'm proud to wear that is unsulllied.  This life I'm living is one of experience, of hard won victories, of easy defeats, of the constant realization, over and over again, that I am the sole power in my world, the only creator, completely and terribly responsible for all I experience.  The warring souls in me, the rushing thoughts of blood and violence, the deep love for humans and animals and clouds and every single soul on the highway crash together daily, churning out actions incomprehensible in their singularity, only understood through a wide lens. Driving on the highway I feel the sudden heavy and unstoppable guilt that comes from killing, without warning or reason other than curiosity or the mild excitable rush that comes with meaningless power.  This mixes and blends with those moments of remorse acted out, of saving a lost dog, helping a stranded lady,  changing irrevocably the lives of hundreds of young men through faith in self acted out in a myriad of blessed and holy ways.

Topics for discussion during proctorship: This is about me putting my values & ideas out there (as mine, clearly stated) in an attempt to mold students into someone better (define that, bitches) than me by example of what has worked, i.e. I made it with these values, you can make it with yours. *What/who can be respected?  Nazis?  Mother Teresa quote (in every man is goodness if only you look hard enough--paraphrased) *The Trades-metal, wood, energy (elec), water (plumbing), medical, what is necessary, learn one, why?  Self-reliance, contribution, passing on learning, apprenticeship.  What is a lathe?  How does electricity work?  What are the basics of plumbing?  Nails vs screws.  What it means (and indicates) to be a master.  Quit being so fucking helpless! *The environment & war (oil, water, resources, use of tactically), how are they linked?  What impact do your actions have?  Gas guzzler, water waster, your sons planet, 7th generation *Animal care-feeding, care, treatment, behaviour mods (positive reinforcement, limited power of negative & punishment), applications to humans, prisoner handling, turning sources, treating family *PLJ peaceLoveJoy-for what do we fight?  Solzenhitzyen quote (line through every heart and through the human race denoting good and evil), balance in emotions, clear goals, treatment of self, self dialogue, trust and self reliance *Thought clarity and speed, one sentence to turn in every day (show me clarity of thought and ability to create/write) *Travel and reinvention (every new place you go you can re-invent, what qualities will you focus on?) *Creation and art: visit a museum (Tara Donovan, MOCA) open your fucking mind beyond being a stone-cold warrior. *No notes.  Write it later, participate NOW! *Cool / Not Cool, (from the class, with discussion.  Start topics examples: skydiving, killing, money, rape, driving, friends, sharing, etc) derive values from these, place some topics in "depends" or "neither" or "neutral" category.  Build their ethos for them, in front of them, and hold them to it for the rest of phase.

The AI (Art Intensity) building: 1. Paleo cafe serving breakfast, lunch, dinner, and betweens. 2,000 sq ft 2. Guest artist studio (Spencer, Banksy, etc) 1,000 sq ft 3. Working craftsman: hand made bikes, welders, blacksmith, electrician, custom doors, 6,000 sq ft 4. Full metal, wood, and machinery shop sunlight, heavy wood beams, metal window frames, nooks and spaces, human sized, bike racks, easy parking.  All artisan work, from doorknobs to floors to name plates.

CR, Hmmm, I'll get to the car when I'm 50 and have some good experience to draw on. Friends of mine who I'd met sailing just came through town.  Cool couple, Charlie is 50, Stephanie in her mid 40's.  Two kids, boy & girl somewhere around 13 & 15.  I met the kids when they were 3 and 5. Charlie is English and grew up on an apple orchard.  Working at a junkyard, racing cars, and fixing stuff were his hobbies.  He's had all kinds of jobs, from digging a hole in a backyard that couldn't be dug with a Bobcat (think about that:  Couldn't Be Dug with a Bobcat.  Yes, he's a do-er) to teaching skiing, and on a 3 year whim (yep, he sticks shit out) he went to law school.  Graduated and decided he actually didn't want to be a lawyer, but the training he got makes him bloody difficult to argue with and win.  At some point he got into paragliding and ended up doing some ballooning in a one man balloon in France. Stephanie is one of those rad and beautiful women (like Lee) who has a constant happy and bright outlook on life, can find the best in everything, is a model for self-reliance, and is willing constantly to get her hands dirty to do whatever it is she needs to do, whether teaching her kids how to carve up rubber stamps for Christmas cards or running the landscaping and plumbing at their new homestead.  She taught skiing for a while, and if she's anywhere near as competent as she is at everything else I've watched her do, she's pretty damn good at that.  She's also unstoppable once she gets started on a project; an unusual trait that many think they have but very few people actually follow through on.  Tenacious and bright, a great human. Both of them, along with their kids are so well read it's almost obnoxious, and they're boat is stuffed to the brim with books.  It seems like on the whole they've decided to spend their time on earth doing the things that make them joyful and competent instead of miserable and greedy.  It seems so easy when put that way, but from my observations of lots of people it's a difficult thing to do... Anyway, they have a home up in BC which they rented out 10 years ago to start their sailing journey, which was about when I met them. When we parted ways in Ft. Lauderdale in 2000, they sailed up to Annapolis where they sold the boat and (while working on renovating some million dollar house for a guy he met on the dock) Charlie bought an old Mercedes 300D for $1 from an investment banker who was amazed to watch Charlie get it running right in front of his eyes.  Charlie fixed it up and drove his family across America and back to BC, where he sold the car. From BC they moved to the side of a mountain near a ski town in France where they bought a ruin of a house.  I visited them there in the winter of '03 (I think) and the view, location, and work to be done on the house can safely be described as stunning. Steph taught English and Charlie worked translating stuff for the IOC.  He ended up getting a job working on software for the Olympic timing systems, which he still holds today.  Working from an Iridium connection on his boat, he keeps the family financially afloat to live a pretty kick ass life, but that's skipping ahead. Over the course of 6 years in France they fixed up the ruin.  The kids learned to speak French fluently as well as learned how to ski.  Well. Charlie, with Steph's help, remodeled the house.  With 50 years of experience in fixing stuff and making shit work he is PHENOMENALLY crafty.  While he was visiting me just now I watched him build some brackets out of aluminum with a vice, hammer and drill that I would have paid good money for.   He's one of those guys that figures out how to do stuff and in the process is a joy to watch.  Anyway, they fixed it up mega-rad, sold the house at the top of the market and moved back to BC. There they bought a house on a little island called Taxada, and they got to work again, building a kick ass workshop and remodeling the house. While doing this, they bought another, slightly larger boat and kitted it out for another long sailing voyage, then took off. I saw them when they came through SD on their way to parts unknown (to them, they're just not sure where they're going.) While here Charlie built a platform for the substantial Iridium antenna on his boat, helped me work on my car (by help me I mean I got the hell out of the way while he tore my engine apart and put it back together with no need for directions), showed me how to sweat a joint, helped me re-wire a light and outlet in my garage workshop, advised me on installing my greywater system and did the thousand and one things that need to get done on a boat every time you pull into a port. Lee hung out with Stephanie during their stay and gave Stephanie the rare appellation of "a strong woman" which may sound pretty tame, but Lee has the highest standards for her friends and in the 10 years I've known her has only called 3 or 4 other (mega-ultra-kickass) women "strong." Anyway, they took off after 4 glorious weeks of Lee and I basking in the company of competent, self-reliant people who have a positive outlook on life and are doing their damnedest to make their time on the planet a good one. Inspirational. Would really like to have you meet them at some point, they're almost always open to kick-ass folks helping them sail.  Anyway, it was great being around them and I wanted to pass their awesome story on.  Keep charging and hope you get half as lucky as these guys have made their life.  It ain't luck, and thank sweet Jeebus we all know it. I've cc'd them in so they can correct any errors I've made in the telling and in the hopes that you guys go direct with each other and figure out a way to meet up.  I think you'd all enjoy the company. NFH