I Am Really Proud of Alayna

Mistwalker

Mistwalker

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Dec 22, 2007
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I don't know if any of you guys are into the survival related stuff, but I thought I would share this here. After talking to one of my old editors on the phone for a while one night a couple of months ago, he asked if I would be interested in doing some pieces on the skills training I have been doing with Alayna. I am always for passing on knowledge to the younger generations. I've done some beginner land-nav demonstrations at her school in the past, and some situational awareness in the woods talks. An old friend, our local police Capt., asked me to do some classes on a few things here at the Mountain Arts Center. So I get into that sort of thing when I have time.

This is the first publication I've done where Alayna was involved in helping me with my work, and that is cool...but it's not the really cool part of it. I have wanted to share some of these photos and talk about how well she did, but the photos are no longer my personal intellectual property, so I wasn't at liberty to share them. The series of photos of the tinder being ignited in the tinderZIP side bar we did is what is really cool to me, though they left out one or two. That series of shots was taken at 6FPS. I caught in numerically uninterrupted sequence Alayna going from sitting still, to sparking the rod, to the molten ferrocerium traveling through the fuzz of the tinder and igniting it, to her still again and the tinder in flames. It happened in 5/6 of one second, and I have it captured in images. I even made it my desk top for a while afterward :)

By the way just to throw it out there...the "seconds flat" is only if you understand that there may be a few multiples of 60 :rolleyes: ...that part I didn't write...

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That's very cool Brian. Not only is Alayna learning new skills, she is building self confidence and self esteem by actually doing the work and seeing the results. I am very happy for both of you!

Phil
 
Odaon said:
Totally cool. Congrats man!
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Thanks Orion!


Comprehensivist said:
That's very cool Brian. Not only is Alayna learning new skills, she is building self confidence and self esteem by actually doing the work and seeing the results. I am very happy for both of you!

Phil
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Thank you Phil, the self reliance, self confidence, and a strong sense of self esteem are all major reasons for the training in the first place.
 
Awesome and congrats. I hope they send me this issue with my subscription if it ever starts.
 
That is too cool Brian! Way to go Alayana!

I haven't seen that magazine around Santa Cruz but I will keep a look out for it.
 
That's what it's all about
A moment frozen in time
Where all the reasons begin to rhyme
Where love's a little bigger
And you've figured some of it out
That's what it's all about

or something like that...thanks Brooks and Dunn
 
Awesome Mist. You will always have that memory of getting the photos captured. 5/6 of a second and you succeeded - and it was your daughter. Sit back, take a deep breath, enjoy that moment sir, well deserved. Congrats to you and Alayna.

Now get back in the woods and take some more great photos for everyone to enjoy!!!
 
Really neat. It's nice she's interested. My kids like camping.... car camping. But at least I have that.
 
Bmurray said:
Awesome and congrats. I hope they send me this issue with my subscription if it ever starts.
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Thanks Bob, I hope they do too. I subscribed a while back when I started work on their field manuals, but with this one I had to get multiples anyway so she could have one, and grandma wanted one too :)


gusbuster said:
That's great! congrats Brian
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Thank you Gus :)


hasco said:
That is too cool Brian! Way to go Alayana!

I haven't seen that magazine around Santa Cruz but I will keep a look out for it.
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Thanks Todd! I think so too. I used to work with my father a lot as a kid, both at the pretty company he was operations manager of, and in the commercial fishing and trapping he did. Those are my favorite memories of my childhood. I am really glad to be able to share part of my work life with her, so we can spend more time together.


Scotcha said:
Awesome!! Congratulations to you and Alayna [emoji106]
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Thanks Abe, I'm really proud of how well she has done. The skills training has been really therapeutic for her hand dexterity since the accident. The grip she uses on the ferro rod put a lot of pressure on the injured are, so it was a little difficult for a while. They didn't print this picture from the series so I am going to use it to show what I am talking about.

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Tekton said:
That is cool! Congrats!
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Thanks man, I think so too!


Gevonovich said:
That's what it's all about
A moment frozen in time
Where all the reasons begin to rhyme
Where love's a little bigger
And you've figured some of it out
That's what it's all about

or something like that...thanks Brooks and Dunn
Click to expand...

The one thing I learned most poignantly with my oldest was just how fast the time flies by. So with Alayna, and me being a photographer, I have a lot of our moments captured in time to look back on when I am older. I need to print more of them off for the photo album.


Uncle_P said:
Awesome Mist. You will always have that memory of getting the photos captured. 5/6 of a second and you succeeded - and it was your daughter. Sit back, take a deep breath, enjoy that moment sir, well deserved. Congrats to you and Alayna.

Now get back in the woods and take some more great photos for everyone to enjoy!!!
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Yeah, as we sat and ate afterward she asked me why I was smiling more than usual, but I don't think she grasped what that moment was for me, but that's ok. I know what it means to me :)

I never go out for work without taking some photos to share here, even if it is only a few at a time until I can put enough together to make a post of it :)


Fiddleback said:
Really neat. It's nice she's interested. My kids like camping.... car camping. But at least I have that.
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Thanks Andy. Alayna wants to go do some camping again, and we are planning on it this autumn. But I always run into a major issue when it is just the two of us out there. Because of how things went down in my sleep several times in my youth, I just cannot relax and go to sleep when we are out like that. I end up staying up all night on guard duty making sure she stays safe, and by the next evening I am exhausted. It is something I am having to work on, something I am trying to overcome. I have made a lot of progress with my PTS over the years, but there are some obstacles I am having difficulty in overcoming.
 
That's really cool Brian! I bet she's pretty pleased seeing herself in the magazine.
 
This is great. I understand why you are proud! I'm going to be looking for that magazine.

I remember when my boy got his first fire going with a rod and striker. He had struggled with it, and I had left him to do so - I'm a big believer in letting a bit of frustration work as a teacher. Finally he hit it, and now there's not stopping him. He was so proud of himself.

Congrats to you and your daughter. This is what fatherhood is about!
 
Luca917 said:
This is great. I understand why you are proud! I'm going to be looking for that magazine.

I remember when my boy got his first fire going with a rod and striker. He had struggled with it, and I had left him to do so - I'm a big believer in letting a bit of frustration work as a teacher. Finally he hit it, and now there's not stopping him. He was so proud of himself.

Congrats to you and your daughter. This is what fatherhood is about!
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Thanks man! She has worked really hard, and is doing really well. She is also going into it with the benefit of me knowing that the carbide striker is far superior to most supplied ferro rod strikers. She was really excited to first time she got it to work on natural tinder. I did sort of the same thing. Showed her the right techniques and placement, and that it could be done, and then just let her play with it till she had flames :)
 
Congrats on another publication Brian and being able to get Alayna involved has to make it all the more gratifying. Looking forward to picking up one of these and I'll also keep an eye out for your articles in Survivor's Edge later this year.
 
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