Where I've been...

The likelihood of someone unacquainted with me taking vital life-minutes to read this pompous screed is minimal, but I feel it's appropriate to introduce myself. Convention of this medium.

I am a young man, Oklahoman by blood and brood. I grew beneath the increasingly erratic weather of the red dirt state, by a rambunctious family of giant public employees. Witnessing the aftermath of various explosions of natural and artificial origins taught me early that life is to never be taken for granted. A strong passion for the earth and life sciences and mildly useful time spent in scouting established my love for that which we as domesticated humanoids deign "Nature." Blessed with unearned privilege, I was fortunate to experience some degree of travel as a larva, most notably to the Rocky Mountains.

As the lesser of perceived evils, volunteered two years hard time in the State-Sponsored Nerd Jail for Academic Masochists(TM), graduated by the skin of my teeth having learned three truths:

There is an amazing, fascinating, terrifying planet out there, and I want to smell it.

Trustworthy comrades are worth more than any gold-embossed certificate.

Wizardry is over-rated.


With a completely unjustified sense of superiority, I unfortunately maladjusted my priorities in university. When the consequences of codependency manifested following a string of unnecessary medical boon-dangles, I fastened myself with a blue-ish collar. Shortly found myself as a security guard in the state mental hospital. Grim and gooey as it was, as a Wal-Mart deserter, still comparatively life-affirming. However, wrestling desperate, depressed men grows stale in short order. Much as my charges, I had to escape the malfunctioning, neglected state mental health care system, or I would lose the little sanity I had retained. I dreamed an old dream, of mountains and waters, fire and ice.

My desires to live simpler and in support of a harmony between people and their environment afforded me an opportunity with AmeriCorps, in their federal travelling program. For a year, I lived in a team of twelve, building houses on the Mexican border, tutoring at Arkansas Children's Hospital, building trails in Arizona with European miscreants, and maintaining bison enclosures for the city of Denver. Most notably, our team was selected for immediate disaster relief following the May 2011 Joplin tornado. Following NCCC, I participated an an amazing autumn season with the Maine Conservation Corps, and served through 2012 as a Team Leader with the Southeast Alaska Guidance Association, where I truly tasted the edge of human dominion in an honest, unforgiving bioregion.

That's me in Yukon Territory. May 2012

After bumming about in Colorado and Utah for a bit, I spent this last half-year in gorgeous Vermont, as a resident adviser and forestry crew leader with a therapy farm. Inspiring, rewarding, but exhausting work.

And now I'm back in Oklahoma, plotting and planning still.

Next time: Where I'm going... Yes, there is a point to all of this.