Heading up to the mountains...

for a little snow shoeing, snowcamping, snow pack analysis, and avalanche recovery practice... Can't wait! Planning on staying in Castle Valley tomorrow night near Donner Summit. The big question is "snowcave or open trench" which roughly translates to a trade off between "warmth and starry view"... hmmm?

I hate it when good points get lost in bad facts...

Friends of mine in Montana forwarded me an e-mail that tried to put the word "billion" in perspective. This was in the context of billions and trillions of dollars being spent. Although the point of the e-mail was good, the facts were all wrong.

A billion seconds ago it was 1978 not 1959...

A Billion minutes ago Jesus was not alive, he had been deceased for 108 years.

And although there are only 336, 644 people in New Orleans proper, there are over 1M in the metro area, so it is not .5M$ per person, it is more like .2M$ per person that Mary Landreau secured for rebuilding that corrupt city.

I love facts, I especially love it when facts support enlightenment or edification. But facts are unchangeable and by definition are accurate. In my opinion, the true facts still support the conclusion that there is little the government can more effectively or or efficiently than we can.

Government to take a hard look inside itself and needs to remember its place in the grand order of things before we the people decide we need to remind them...

At least thats my 2cents.

Say what???

So the city plants a tree in the parking strip of a home owned by an elderly man without his permission. The city has also created a law saying the homeowner is responsible for trees in front of his house, even on public land, and that if the tree kills someone, its the homeowners fault. Now that a child has died due to a neglected tree, the city wants to tax us all so that they can create a program to maintain those trees? Here's an idea. expand our property lines and let us cut down the trees or better yet get out of our yards to begin with. I realize this is too simple for the bureaucrats to come up with, but???

Snow and Ice and Ropes, Oh My!

This Saturday I will be, hopefully, at Squaw Valley Ski Resort for our teams recertification in Snow and Ice Rescue by the MRA. We should be there with all the teams from California. I say hopefully because, earlier this week a ski patroller for Squaw Valley was killed in an avalanche (http://www.sacbee.com/latest/story/1669456.html?mi_rss=Latest%20News), and with avalanche danger being as high as it is, they may decide to not put us in harm’s way just to recertify. 

Either way, it’s been a busy winter as I co-led the January training and taught Avalanche Safety and Rescue, and then in February led the training teaching Winter Technical Systems, basically rope systems and team operations to protect the patient and attendants during evacuation from the back country. This was quite an eye opening weekend for me from a command standpoint, especially when we start looking at team briefings, continuity of care, team communication, control hand-offs, and individual comfort levels in different environments. 

My First Blog Entry

Well, here goes nothing. My First Blog Entry...Ever! I was recently thinking that I wished I had a mechanisim to capture all those random thoughts that make up my mind. Lately, those thoughts have centered around a few subjects near and dear to my heart; my family, my church, my work, my unit, and my team.  Who knows, perhaps a pattern will emerge.

My family... My lovely wife whom I never thought I would find and who has been such an amazing supporter of, and blessing to, me and our dog Sophie, a 9yo Portie, or portuguese water dog. We live in the Silicon Valley (San Jose), although my wife grew up outside Dayton Ohio and I grew up (although some would argue whether I actually grew up) over the hill in Santa Cruz. We both love the outdoors and are both project managers. 

I feel like I could write alot more, but we'll start there.