..and now it's $300

Many thanks to Bolt, who added another $100 to my PayPal funds. I'm floored. Funds now stand at $290.40 (PayPal shaves off a small percentage of every transaction; this is how they make money), putting me only $510 away from my initial goal of $800. I may be filing that IRS exemption paperwork sooner than expected.

Again, if you're within driving distance of DC and would like to engage me as a speaker on GBM-related patient advocacy, you can do so. Email me first to find out about available dates, then click over to the eBay ad and purchase an "event." Thanks in advance!


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a second contributor!

Many and humble thanks to friend and reader Brat for her $100 contribution to the cause! Man... I haven't even launched the speaking circuit yet, and I'm already getting donations. That's amazing.


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lessons learned #5: hotels and motels as a last resort

I had to stop my 2008 walk for three major reasons, all of which converged like a perfect storm. First, there was my injury, a stupid and preventable fall that occurred early in my walk, and which worsened over the next 300 or 400 miles. Second, as I tracked my own progress, I began to realize that I was going to hit the Rockies at exactly the worst time of year: my timing had been poor. Third, there was the money problem. It's not as though I was pissing away my funds on gambling and frippery; I was simply doing what any normal human being does: eating, resupplying, and sleeping. Unfortunately, when you're out on the road, these three activities cost a bit of money.

One of the ways in which I tried to stem the financial drainage was by using a service called CouchSurfing. The website, couchsurfing.com, is modeled after a dating website in that it tries to match a traveler with people who would be willing to host him for a time-- all for free. A traveler builds a profile on the site, talks about his interests and some of his travel experiences, notes his itinerary, then connects with people along his travel path who are also members of the site-- people with an empty couch on which a tired rover can spend a night or two before moving on. The subtext of all this is-- again, like a dating site-- social networking. You're crafting a web of friends and acquaintances, sharing experiences, seeing new sights and eating new meals.

CouchSurfing wasn't my own discovery; it was suggested to me by a number of people, and overall, it turned out to be a very good way to save money while traveling. The problem, though, is that most of the available couches are located in larger towns and cities. Once you're out in the boonies, CouchSurfing isn't nearly as easy.

What, then, are the alternatives?

One would be camping. I camped in quite a few state parks, especially while moving down the western spine of Washington State. None of these places was free, however, although they were all cheap alternatives to paid lodging, i.e., hotels and motels. I was afraid to camp on people's property: I saw signs that said "PRIVATE PROPERTY! KEEP OUT!" and even "PUBLIC PROPERTY! KEEP OUT!" We live in an era where just about every square inch of ground is spoken for, and unlike other America-crossers, I wasn't willing to risk arrest by plopping down just anywhere.

Well, that's not entirely true. I did spend two or three days camping out at Exit 151 along I-84 in Oregon. I'm pretty sure it was PUBLIC PROPERTY, but it was also obviously a campground for fishermen, and there was no management office to which to pay a camp fee. I simply plunked my tent down there and rested my knee in the heat (see here). I didn't feel so guilty about potentially illegal camping when I was out in the boonies.

The problem with using hotels and motels is that you're nickeled and dimed to death over the long haul: thirty dollars here, fifty dollars there... it quickly adds up, and without any donations rolling in on a regular basis, the whole enterprise quickly becomes unworkable.

My feeling now is that I'll need to change a few things about my walking strategy-- and my personal outlook-- if I plan to use only a minimum of money during this walk. First, I have to be more willing to knock on random doors, if need be, to ask for a place to set up my tent or bivy sac. In 2008, I walked right through most suburbs (and past many farms) without ever trying that approach, despite its having been suggested by several blog commenters. Second, I may need to rethink my absolutism when it comes to setting up camp in a potentially illegal area. I'm not talking about the boonies, here: I'm talking about PRIVATE PROPERTY and PUBLIC PROPERTY in urban or suburban areas. Third, I need to continue with the CouchSurfing (CS). That was one of the absolute best ways of moving across the country. CS opportunities may be few and far between should I decide to hike the American Discovery trail, but (1) I'll at least be able to camp along much of the trail, and (2) the ADT does, in fact, run through many towns and cities, which means CS won't be irrelevant.

Even with the above shift in thinking, parks remain something of an anomaly. There are, for example, some national parks that charge visitors who arrive by car, but leave hikers alone, whereas other parks charge a "hiker/biker fee" to human-powered travelers. I may not have much choice as to whether I have to pay.

When I step back and take a larger view of this enterprise, I don't see that I'll be able to design a walk in which I pay for nothing. That's not a realistic strategy. Even if I minimize costs, I'm going to have to buy crucial items for my survival-- food, season-appropriate outdoor clothing and equipment, etc. So I suppose we should add a fourth change to the other three: an income stream. Asking for donations can only work if one markets well and aggressively; I hope to do a better job of that this time. But along with donations, I'd like to be able to earn income of my own-- and that's where the speaking engagements come in. Right now, I've got them pegged to eBay/PayPal, where the funds can be transferred either to my bank account or to the future 501(c)(3) account. I have a feeling that, if the lecture circuit idea catches on, it's something I could pursue even after the walk is done.

As for those hotels and motels-- well, they're still a possibility, but only as an absolute last resort. I need to exhaust all non-paying and minimal-paying possibilities first.

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many thanks! $100 closer!

Many thanks to A Reader Who Shall Remain Nameless for plunking down $100 in my PayPal account, putting me that much closer to my goal of $800 to fill out the IRS exemption status paperwork. This means a lot.

(In case anyone is wondering where I'm getting this $800 figure from, see Wikipedia here, the section titled "Obtaining Status." Strangely, the IRS.gov site has a PowerPoint presentation on the subject, but it's a few years out of date and shows a figure of $700-something.)


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now offering a GBM seminar in the DC-Metro area

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. Sorry about that; it was a busy weekend.

One of my projects this past weekend was to create an eBay ad for a lecture circuit as part of my effort to (1) raise money for my trans-American walk, and (2) raise money for GBM research. First things first, though: I need $800 just to be able to file the paperwork for the 501(c)(3) nonprofit. This situation puts the cart before the horse-- I need to raise funds before I can raise funds-- but as they say, it takes money to make money.

So: if you're in driving distance of the DC area, have $300 on hand for a lecture fee (this can be collected), and you've got the facilities for a lecture, please visit this eBay entry, read it, and consider helping me out. The first three lectures will defray the cost of the IRS procedure; after that, the money will go into the 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

This, folks, is one of the reasons why I asked my bosses at my current job to give me three-day weekends. I have Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays available for just this sort of work. If I could do three lectures in a single weekend, I'd leap the IRS obstacle right away, and whatever money I make after that could go straight into that fund.


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imagine

Imagine being able to detect brain cancer early.


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coming soon

More in the "lessons learned" series:

5. hotels/motels only as a last resort
6. clothing (and the whole notion of traveling light)
7. tents versus bivy sacks (and how not to lose your damn tent)
8. traffic, narrow road shoulders, and me
9. weight, conditioning, and knees
10. shoes, blisters, and weather
11. food, drink, peeing, and pooping while on the road
12. protection from the sun, wind, rain, and cold
13. whether REI is just for elites/snobs with money

and another one:

14. on money


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not this week, but maybe next week

Now that I know about the looming, $800 obstacle in my path to obtaining exemption status (itself a hurdle I need to jump to establish a 501(c)(3) nonprofit), I need to think about immediate ways to raise funds. To that end, I'm going to talk with some high school students at my places of work (I work at two different branches of a tutoring center) about fundraising ideas. I also hope to use the kids as resources for route-planning; as Stephanie at PNC Bank wisely noted, many kids need to fulfill community-service requirements. Alas, this week is spring break for many local counties, so it's the wrong time to go trolling for teen help. I'll try next week.


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hiccup

So I went to the IRS.gov website and sat through the little PowerPoint training program for people trying to establish a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Guess what: I'm still going to have to shell out filing fees plus $800! I don't have that kind of money.

Looks as if I'll need to do a fundraiser before the fundraiser. To that end, I'm going to be slapping up an ad on eBay for speaking engagements at $300 a pop. I'll talk for an hour and have a 30-minute Q&A period. As I've noted elsewhere, lecturing isn't really teaching, but it's an efficient way to disseminate information. The topic of these talks will be primarily about how one's own family is the best patient advocate.


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two years ago

On this blog, I've never told the full story of what happened on the day my mother first showed signs of her brain cancer. This is that story, known to my brothers and my closest friends.

Two years ago, on April 16, 2009, almost to the very minute of this post's time stamp, I woke up and smelled something burning. I went upstairs to find a spotless kitchen, and my mother sitting quietly in her favorite corner of her new couch, watching Korean TV. My father was nowhere in sight.

I went to the kitchen sink and found the pot in which someone had tried and failed to cook breakfast. The pot was partly filled with water; its bottom was covered in the black char that can only happen when someone starts heating something on the stove, then turns away and forgets about it.

I called over to Mom to ask her what had happened. She got up from the couch and approached the kitchen with an open, childlike expression on her face. I asked her whether she had tried to cook breakfast, and she nodded, wide-eyed. The look on her face alarmed me: she wasn't herself at all. When I asked her what she had tried to cook, she said, "I tried to make some... some... some... chicken!" It had obviously been oatmeal, and my mind screamed aphasia. I asked Mom a series of questions—the sort that a doctor might ask a patient with neurological difficulties: what day is it? Where are you? Who's the president of the United States? Mom's answers, and her continued demeanor, weren't reassuring.

I sat Mom back down on her couch and went to find Dad. He was in his den/computer room, typing away on his computer, seemingly oblivious to what was happening to his wife.

"Something's wrong with Mom," I said. Dad stopped typing.

"She was acting funny this morning," he observed quietly.

"She's aphasic and is acting almost as if she's having..." I couldn't say it.

"Could be a T.I.A.," Dad said. I asked what that was, even though I was pretty sure I knew the answer. "Transient ischemic attack. A mini-stroke," Dad whispered. And then he did something I'll never forget, because it was emblematic of how he handled the entire nine-month crisis: he leaned slightly toward his computer, bowed his head, and squeezed his eyes shut. I was witnessing denial. My father was blotting out reality.

"Shouldn't we do something?" I asked, feeling the urgency building. "Shouldn't we take her to the ER?"

My father—a man with paramedical training—said, "Nah, the ER won't take her. I'm going to set up an appointment with Dr. Reyff [not his real name]. His office isn't open yet. I have to wait two hours before I can call him."

"Why won't the ER take her if she's having a stroke?" I asked, incredulous.

"The ER won't take her," Dad said again, shaking his head. I was dumbfounded, and didn't know what to say to this. My father's shutdown was complete.

I went back downstairs and quickly emailed my brothers about the situation, including the fact that Dad wanted to wait for Dr. Reyff. My brother Sean called as he was rushing over to the parents' house; he and I agreed that waiting two hours for the doctor defied common sense: Mom needed to go to the ER now. My brother David came over as well, and it was the three of us—with no help from Dad—who persuaded Mom to stand up, slip on some slippers, and head out to the van so we could go to the ER. Yet Dad drove.

We got Mom to Mount Vernon Hospital, discovered she had a mass on her frontal lobe, had her transferred from Mount Vernon to Fairfax Hospital, and left her there for her MRI. Some of these events are chronicled on this blog. What I didn't blog about, however, is what happened that night, after Dad and I got back home sometime after 1AM. I was furious at my father for his conduct throughout the day, and I let him have it.

"How could you insist on not taking her to the ER?" I demanded. It was the question that was foremost on my mind. "She could have been dying right there in front of you, and all you did was clean up the mess in the kitchen and go back to your computer! What the hell kind of paramedic can't tell when a patient needs urgent care? She never burns a meal! That didn't alert you that something was seriously wrong? You couldn't even recognize a cognitive problem like aphasia? All I ever had was a couple psych courses, and even I know what aphasia looks like!"

Dad's response was unbelievably lame: "I never took any psych courses, so how could I know that?" Was my father simply dodging responsibility, or was he genuinely that stupid?

My mother had often called Dad a "phony-baloney doctor." She may have meant it tenderly, as the sort of gibe a wife might use against her husband, but with her instinct for understanding people, she doubtless knew, even years earlier, that my father wasn't a competent EMT: he merely thought he was. On April 16, 2009, that incompetence could have gotten my mother killed.

Sean told me much later that, if I hadn't been home, Mom would have died on the couch. Maybe; maybe not. As it turned out, she hadn't had a stroke: her cognitive symptoms were the result of the edema arising from her brain tumor. Still, it's likely that my father—who had revealed a shocking inability to step up and take care of his wife when she needed him most—would have left my mother on that couch until she quietly slumped over. Had I not been there. Had I not been there to provide a sense of urgency.

My father's response to my furious questions wasn't I'm sorry, son; I fucked up. That, at least, would have been a man's response. Instead, all he did was deflect: "It's good that you can express yourself this way." Spoken with clinical detachment. The remark was so utterly irrelevant that all I could do was laugh bitterly.

"That's all you have to say? You think you're my therapist, now?" I was breathing hard, filled with a mixture of incredulity and fury. In a single day, I had lost almost all respect for my father, who had proved himself to be a coward in a crisis. The man who loved to brag about his EMT training, who so proudly wore a military uniform, had shown himself unable to rise to the occasion of his own wife's need. His role throughout the day had been little more than to fill out paperwork and to sit by Mom's side—something the rest of us were already doing. He had shown not a single spark of initiative.

Our family had no idea what glioblastoma multiforme was when the day began, and if I recall correctly, we didn't even learn that term until a day or so later. But as the weeks rolled on, I was the one who did the research about the cancer; I was the one who guided the decision-making process as the cancer progressed; I was the one who cleaned up after my father's repeated mistakes in his care of my mother. What I saw on April 16 was that I was losing two parents, not one: my father had effectively left the building, passing off responsibility to his sons because of his own unwillingness to make important decisions or take decisive action.

What happened that day, and over the ensuing months, has had major repercussions for our family. And I haven't blogged about any of that until now.

Oh, yes: I was ignorant about strokes on the morning of April 16, 2009, but I researched them a day later, so now I can tell you this: if you think someone's having a stroke, then you've got about one hour to get that person to an ER. My father should have known that. All I had to do was use Google to find this out. Jesus Christ.

In case you're wondering: yes, many things went un-blogged during my mother's illness—the truth about my father being the most conspicuous of those things. Friends advised me not to write about this at the time, but given all that's happened since my mother's death, I see no reason to keep this information to myself any longer.


ADDENDUM: So much credit goes to my brothers for keeping their wits that day. David was, ultimately, the one who got Mom to her feet: she had been resisting our efforts to persuade her to get in the car.

The tableau would have looked bizarre to an outsider: there was Mom, stubbornly curled up on her couch in the living room, with her three large sons standing over her. Every time one of us said, "Come on, Mom! We need to get to the hospital to check you out," she responded with an iron "No!" Her expression was a frightening combination of stony and desperate. When we shot back with a "Why?", Mom couldn't answer us—more proof that something was dreadfully wrong. Mom wasn't the type to be at a loss for words, but that morning, all she could do was glare at us.

I remember briefly wondering whether she would struggle violently should we try to get her on her feet. David, who had more common sense than I did, didn't wait: once he saw that talking would be fruitless, he bent over Mom, slid his arms around her, and lifted her into a standing position. She didn't resist at all.


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thanks, Stephanie!

I met with Business Banking staffer Stephanie today, at my local PNC branch, and she did a great job of giving me the lowdown on how to proceed with the creation of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The first thing I need to do is file with the IRS for an "exception status," and once the IRS sends back its approval, I'll be meeting with Stephanie again to discuss the next steps in the process.

I also learned that my idea of involving kids in my project is a good one: Stephanie noted that many kids, especially high schoolers, often need to meet community service requirements of some sort or other (due to involvement in a service-oriented club, for example).

So for the moment, it's going to be a matter of downloading forms, filling them out, and waiting on tenterhooks for a response from the IRS. Wish me luck as we get the ball rolling.


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501(c)(3) and subletting update

It's taken some doing, but on Monday at 11:30AM, I'm going to be speaking with a business banker at the local branch of my bank, PNC, about the creation of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The consultation itself may not be free; this wasn't made clear when I arranged the appointment.

In other news, a perusal of my rental contract shows that it may in fact be possible for me to sublet my apartment. The language in the contract stipulates that there can be no more than one occupant, and that if, at any time, the occupant is not a family member, occupancy can only occur with permission from the rental office.

So I'll be talking to my local bank and to my rental office about how this all might be arranged. I want everything to be aboveboard-- no surprises, no sneakiness. I'm hopeful that we can work all this out.

(Meanwhile, my thanks to the Parks family for suggesting that I talk with my bank.)


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what the ADP FAQ reveals

I'm tempted to file this under "lessons learned." As it turns out, the American Discovery Trail is not bike-able along its entire length, as I found out while reading the FAQ for the ADT. Bikers must instead follow detours, and even then, there are portions of the ADT that are impassable by bike.

I also found out that the ADT is not clearly marked as the ADT along its entire length; each segment is managed by a different state, and not all states are on the same page. Complicating matters is the fact that the trail's routes occasionally shift due to maintenance or construction, and maps that were valid last year are no longer valid this year.

Most of these problems are minor annoyances, not major obstacles. The idea that a trail might not be clearly marked is, well, par for the course with most trails all over the world (unless you're in Switzerland, where all the trails are scrupulously marked). Still, it complicates matters now that I know that the ADT, despite having a "society" devoted to it, is actually a rather disjointed path.

That "society" bugs me, too. Far from disseminating free information about the ADT online, the ADT Society has taken the most current information about the trail and rendered it in paper map and book form. I wonder just how many maps and books I'll have to carry with me at any given time. I'd much rather use Google Maps (which employs satellite/GPS) to guide me than to carry around a few ounces (or pounds) of paper. (Of course, paper doesn't run out of battery power, but it can wear out, crumple, fall apart in rain, and do a bunch of other nifty disappearing acts.)

I checked to see whether the trail was marked on Google Earth. It's not, as far as I can tell. There may be random photos pegged to the maps on Google Earth, but they aren't readily searchable as part of the ADT. That's frustrating, to say the least, and the upshot is this: the only way for me to get detailed information about the ADT is to buy it from the ADT Society. Shucking fit. Doesn't seem fair. Then again, that's capitalism, right?

Speaking of capitalism, I think it may be possible for me to couple the ADT with the notion of paid speaking engagements. I'm thinking that I can tie this in with eBay, where people are allowed to sell services (no, you pervs, not those services): I can set my fee at, say, $300-$500 to speak at a local venue; the money I collect can go to mostly the 501(c)(3) nonprofit, with the remainder being used to help keep me on my journey.

Gears are turning.


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subletting?

My brother David thinks I should consider subletting my apartment, instead of raising money to cover the rent, as a way to lower the costs of the upcoming walk. I'm going to check into the legality of doing that, but I'm not hopeful.


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on blisters

I didn't include blisters in my "lessons learned" agenda because my feeling is that there isn't much to learn about them. The literature on blisters tends to be over-cautious, in my opinion; some authors act as if it's of utmost importance to treat them right away, to slap on that moleskin and save yourself from miles and hours of pain.

My conclusion, which I reached very early in my walk, is that blisters inevitably form in the early stages, especially if you're a big guy with a heavy pack, and all you really need to do is walk through them. Sure, they can hurt, but they don't really hurt that badly, and when you're sweating from carrying a 50- to 60-pound pack on your back, they aren't at the top of your list of worries. Pop them with something sterile and move on. Mother Nature, in the form of physics and repetitive movement, will take care of the rest.

This isn't to say that blisters are easy to ignore; when conditions are cold and rainy, blisters form readily, even on feet that have traveled hundreds of miles; they can become as annoying as the constant, subtle buzz of your next-door neighbor's alarm clock. But "not easy to ignore" isn't the same as "impossible to ignore," and the fact of the matter is that blisters will never hurt you enough to make you roll around in agony.

So when it comes to blisters, I say, "Man up!" Or "woman up!" --as the case may be. Trust me: you can walk right through them, and your feet will be the tougher for it.


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interesting CNN link

My brother David sent me a link to a CNN article about headaches and brain cancer. In the linked article are two videos, the second of which covers new vaccine treatment for GBM patients. This news isn't exactly new anymore, but it remains a promising development, and the video illustrates very clearly how the vaccine works.


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stay tuned

Coming soon: a post, lessons learned #5, about using hotels and motels only as a last resort.


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lessons learned #4: the importance of water

If you're out in the desert and you're a big guy who sweats a lot, water is no laughing matter. My 2008 walk started off easy: it took me from the US/Canada border down the cool, rainy, western spine of Washington State, where water was never an issue. My path then broke eastward from Portland, Oregon along the south side of the Columbia River to Umatilla and Irrigon, then hopped back up into Washington to end at Walla Walla. Right about the time I hit The Dalles, Oregon, the greenery abandoned me and the world became brown. I had left the Cascades behind and had entered the high desert, land of rocks and mountaintop windmill farms. Even from a slowpoke walker's perspective, the change was rather sudden.

Many of those days in the high desert saw temperatures over 90 degrees. On one particularly bad day, it was nearly 110 degrees out and I almost ran out of water about eight miles before Arlington, the town in which I had planned to stop. The sun's constant glare was withering, and I could feel myself slowing down. Rest breaks came more and more frequently, especially as my water supply dwindled (I used just about three gallons' worth), and in the end, a state policeman rolled up, told me I looked "bad," and gave me an eight-mile ride the rest of the way to Arlington. My knee was killing me; my mouth was dry by the time Officer O'Neill pulled up alongside me, and while I was still far from collapsing, I must have looked as if I were shambling like a zombie. My voice was husky, and I had begun to make bets with myself as to how many more miles I could do before needing to stop again. I ended up staying in Arlington for a week. That was probably the closest I had ever come to dying of thirst. Nature is an ass-kicker.

You've heard countless times that we humans beings are composed mostly of water. Evolutionarily speaking, our salty blood attests to the fact that we each carry a measure of the warm ocean, that cradle of life, inside us. This ocean needs to be maintained: lose too much water and salt through your sweat, and you may find yourself staring into the maw of heat exhaustion. On the day that Officer O'Neill showed up, I was edging dangerously close to that state. I still think I could have made the final eight miles on my own, but it would have been evening by the time I'd arrived, and my leg would have been useless.

So the lesson is obvious: in the desert, you've got no choice but to carry plenty of water, which means you've got no choice but to carry a lot of extra weight. I had a large CamelBak system with me, plus two large Nalgene bottles; my total capacity was close to three gallons. This turned out not to be enough for the twenty miles I walked in nearly 110-degree heat. Now imagine the same situation, but with no police officer pulling up, and no Columbia River close by if things got desperate.

The three primary practical issues related to water are carriage, storage, and potability. Carriage and storage are obviously related, but aren't exactly the same thing. Carriage is more a question of where you place your water physically on your person: do you hang it off your backpack? Do you hold a small bottle in your hands for those quick sips? Are you dragging your water behind you somehow? Basically: where are you putting all that water? Storage refers specifically to the containers used: will you be storing your water in milk jugs, camp canteens, Nalgene bottles, CamelBak drinking systems, or something else? These questions are more important than they may seem at first blush. When you're tired after ten or fifteen miles, regularly removing your 50- or 60-pound backpack to get at your water becomes a real logistical problem. Easy access while walking is important.

Potability, as a survival issue, subdivides into filtration and purification. As with carriage and storage, filtration and purification are related concepts, but not exactly the same. You always want to drink water that's been purified; it's not as important that water be completely filtered. A little grit won't harm you the way bacteria can. A good filter can take out a lot of that grit and can even work a little purification magic, but it won't necessarily kill every beastie that's in the water.

Which brings us back to storage. I made a discovery while walking along the high desert: if you filter some river water and put it in your translucent Nalgene bottles, you're creating a bacteria factory. The greenhouse effect ensures that the bacteria have plenty of light and warmth to go with their water, and in the space of an hour, the water in your bottles will be pretty much undrinkable. For me, this discovery took on a humorous cast: normally, when you're in a food-poisoning situation, one of the things you want to do is poop. On the day I realized that I was being attacked by my own water, I hadn't eaten for two or three days, so there was nothing for me to poop out. The consumption of some water didn't change that fact. It was a strange feeling, wanting to poop and yet having nothing to offer Mother Earth. I was, in fact, thankful that events went that way: I was able to recover from my queasiness once I had realized what was going on, all without suffering the consequences of diarrhea while on the road. That, friends, could have been disastrous.

The Katadyn filtration system that I had bought in Portland, Oregon served me well, as far as filtration goes. But as the above anecdote shows, purification is a whole different animal. It's probably not as much of an issue in the winter, when even the microorganisms are less active, but in situations of abundant light and warmth, something more than just filtration needs to be done. Two of the suggestions I received during that walk were (1) get a SteriPEN, and (2) buy purification tablets.

I'm going to avoid SteriPENs for reasons cited in a previous post: for your own safety, stay far away from any product about which no clearly positive opinion has emerged. SteriPENs are good in theory-- they emit UV rays that blast the genetic structure of microorganisms-- but customer and professional reviews note a few problems with them. First, there's the fact that the SteriPEN's effectiveness is limited if the water is even remotely cloudy. This has been a common complaint among hikers. Another is that the pen's battery isn't always the most reliable, which can mean flickering-- another crimp on effectiveness. Then, of course, there's the fact that the SteriPEN uses batteries at all, which brings us back to the power issue discussed in a previous post. Just how many different types of power source should I be lugging along with me?

Purification tablets (iodine and chlorine are the most popular) are probably the way I'll go. As Jason suggested in this long-ago comment, it's better to mix some Kool-Aid into the water (although this presents its own set of problems!) to blunt the foul taste of the purification process. I'll probably have some powdered flavoring on me for just that purpose. Purification tablets have been around forever; I used them when hiking in Switzerland years ago. They're cheap, they're light, and they don't need batteries. Coupled with good filtration, such tablets will get me through the walk.

On a somewhat sillier note, I'm also thinking of pinning a flag to my backpack that says something like, "NO RIDE NEEDED, BUT WATER WELCOME." Roadside charity would certainly save me from dipping too deeply into my own water supply. I'm also hoping that, if I build up enough of a following on Twitter, there'll be plenty of folks along the way who might zip out to my location and offer me an ice-cold bottle. God knows that, by Mile 15, water is something you think about constantly, desert conditions or no.


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Monday weight check #1

295.7 pounds.

I was over 300 pounds when I started my new job. The loss of less than 10 pounds really signifies nothing, and when you're as large as I am, even losing 20-30 pounds does little to change your appearance. But if I can manage to lose 60 or so pounds by September, that'll be great, and my knees will thank me. To that end, God help me, I'm considering taking up the dreaded Atkins diet, which worked wonders for my brother Sean. I tried Atkins once, long ago, for about a week, and was left miserable, but part of the problem was my ignorance of the bigger picture, i.e., the full palette of foods available to me despite the draconian restrictions. Considering my current carb intake, though, I think Atkins would do much to steer me away from adult onset diabetes.

More on this as we go.


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portable food: a comprehensive review

(reprinted from November 6, 2010)

As promised, here are my reviews of a whole slew of food products I purchased through my REI store credit in an effort to feed myself on a shoestring budget over the past two weeks.

All of these packets of freeze-dried food require one to pour in either boiling or cold water. Stir, let sit for a certain amount of time-- usually somewhere in the 9- to 13-minute range-- then pour out (more like scrape out) and eat. As you might imagine, given the sameness of the preparation process, all the food looks like mush. In other words, when you're evaluating these packets, throw out texture and presentation as judging criteria.

It should be noted, though, that some of the packets contain dry elements that are meant both to enhance flavor and to circumvent the texture problem; you pull these packets of dry ingredients out before you pour the hot water into the primary prep bag. While the presence of these extra packets is a thoughtful addition, what you usually end up with, once you pour the hot food into a bowl, is mush with powder on top. If you fail to eat the mush fast enough, you end up having mush with mush on top. Please keep that in mind as you read these reviews and ponder your purchases: in every case involving dried, pour-on-top ingredients, time is a factor, and slow eaters will be punished for their slowness.

Now... we begin.


Richmoor Natural High Three Berry Cobbler
REI Item# 6525850019
$5.00

Natural High Three Berry Cobbler rated a "so-so" when I tried it. The berry mush was a rich, dark red, and wasn't too bad, gustatorily speaking, but the visual experience of scraping the mush out of the zip-top bag evoked something primal, like the evisceration-by-spoon of a squirrel. Unfortunately, the addition of the chocolate crumble pretty much ruined the berries/viscera for me. I don't know who manufactures the chocolate for Natural High, but I suspect they're hunched, eyeless cave-dwelling beings bereft of taste buds and olfactory nerves, whose language consists of little more than sibilants and farting noises. The crumble does add a bit of crunch to the experience, but the gritty, near-flavorless chocolate is a true turn-off. My advice: if you have to buy this particular preparation, just consume the chocolate separately by stirring it into a mug of hot cocoa.

Richmoor Natural High Chocolate Fudge Mousse
REI Item# 5160010012
$4.25

The same angry cave dwellers that created the aforementioned chocolate crumble undoubtedly had a hand (or claw) in making this awful, mephitic goop. Have you ever watched Bear Grylls, on "Man versus Wild," squeezing a huge lump of elephant dung to get at the water inside it? Just as you'd never reach for dung unless you absolutely had to, you shouldn't reach for this chocolate mousse unless you're truly desperate. It comes with almond sprinkles, but the almonds are little more than cardboard. While not quite vomitous, I'd rate this packet "barely tolerable."

Richmoor Natural High Fudge Brownies
REI Item# 6888350011
$4.25

If I'm not mistaken, I wrote about these brownies before. The batter reacted well to the microwave, transmogrifying into a recognizable brownie in a bit less than 90 seconds. However, since we're dealing with Natural High's unnatural chocolate, the flavor was rather disappointing. I have no idea how the brownie mix would behave if cooked in a camp skillet or pot, per the packet's instructions; one can only hope that the heat of the campfire might induce some caramelization and work some alchemical magic on the brownie's taste. What I found bothersome about the instructions, though, was the assumption that a camper might be toting oil around with him. Or maybe my mistake is that I'm conflating camping and hiking. Plenty of campers bring all manner of weird items into the bush with them. My own mother, bless her, liked bringing along a hair dryer.

Of course, it's possible to tote oil safely, even as a hiker: anyone who's eaten ramen knows that some noodle packages come with tiny packets of oil inside them. I imagine that such packets, or similar ones, are available in bulk at outdoor recreation stores.

Mountain House Neapolitan Ice Cream
REI Item# 6368970015
$2.20

Ah, childhood memories. This stuff is freeze-dried ambrosia to me, but goddammit, it never lasts long enough. The Mountain House version tastes exactly like the astronaut ice cream I remember eating at the National Air and Space Museum. You could buy packets of ice cream at the museum's overpriced gift shop, and my folks often did.

Perhaps Mountain House offers a range of flavors, but all I saw was Neapolitan. I have nothing negative to say about this ice cream; each packet is 110 calories of pure, evanescent goodness. It's a great way to ponder impermanence; and with enough imagination, I'm sure you could incorporate this ice cream into some creative lovemaking. The way it reacts to moist body surfaces suggests a host of possibilities.

Backpacker's Pantry Cheesecake
REI Item# 6113800012
$4.90

Although it initially looks like a bowlful of elephant semen, the BP Cheesecake congeals within minutes (xanthan gum? agar agar? I need to look at the thickening agent) to an almost recognizably cheesecake-y consistency. A separate packet of graham cracker crumble is there for you to pour onto the dessert. I didn't mind the taste at first, but toward the end, the cheesecake began to taste cloyingly sweet. Like angels' brains.

Richmoor Natural High Honey Mustard Chicken
REI Item# 5100300010
$6.75

While not exactly awful, the Natural High Honey Mustard Chicken didn't have an obvious honey-mustard taste. The chicken was doubtless offended to be associated with this packet, which was edible, but uninspiring.

A word about dried meat reconstituted with boiling water: the simple fact is that, once the meat has been freeze-dried to the brink of mummification, there's no bringing it back. So don't expect your meat to have quite the same hearty, rib-sticking mouth feel that it used to have back when the muscle cells still contained water. Those cells have been raped and pillaged by the freeze-drying process; the addition of boiling water can, at best, produce a parody of the meat's original meatiness. I suspect that the makers of camp food are banking on the camper's being tired, hungry, and ready for a novel experience, since camp food isn't something you're supposed to eat every day (which is what I did, for almost two weeks, thanks to my REI store credits). For the rest of us, though, freeze-dried meat will always be a disappointment. Keep your expectations low, or stick with something more traditional, like beef jerky. We'll talk more about beef jerky later.

Mountain House Beef Stew - 4 Serving
REI Item# 7686880019
$10.80

Having just complained about the lameness of freeze-dried meat, I now turn around and praise Mountain House's Beef Stew. The packet says it serves four (i.e., two Kevins); it did indeed contain a lot of food, once the boiling water was added. I ate this packet over two or three days, and can confirm that the stew reheats well. What's more, the stew tastes like a stew, although in my opinion it lacked some oomph. I supplied some extra heat by ejaculating sriracha all over it.

Mountain House Raspberry Crumble
REI Item# 6101860010
$6.40

The Mountain House Raspberry Crumble-- essentially, Mountain House's version of the Natural High Three Berry Cobbler-- turned out to be excellent. As with the Natural High packet, there was a separate packet of Oreo crumble, but get this: it actually tasted like Oreos! Originally cringing at the thought of eating this dessert after the Natural High debacle, I was shocked to discover that this dessert was not merely edible-- it was tasty. Although dessert prep evoked the same squirrel-evisceration imagery as before, the smell and taste of the raspberry crumble more than made up for any aesthetic shortcomings. Highly recommended; very much worth your while.

Mountain House Spaghetti with Meat Sauce For Two
REI Item# 5101440013
$5.90

Despite its place on this list, the packet of Mountain House Spaghetti with Meat Sauce was the very last main meal I ate before I ran out of camp food. The freeze-dried beef was what you might expect, but in this case, the texture worked well with the rest of the sauce. The noodles were laughably stubby-- imagine spaghetti with an Irish curse-- but by the time the packet was ready to eat, I didn't care. My overall impression was that this was great camp spaghetti. The sauce was properly tomato-y; the meat's crumbly texture successfully simulated bits of ground beef; and the noodles themselves were decent by the standards of camp pasta. In all, an excellent meal. Highly recommended.

Richmoor Natural High Strawberry Granola with Milk
REI Item# 5101120011
$4.40

Did you ever see a B-grade Dolph Lundgren action movie called "I Come in Peace"? The movie was about Earth's encounter with a humanoid race of aliens; one alien was a cop, and the other was a murderer hooked on human brain chemicals. This dude spent a good part of the film grunting "I come in peace," then shooting flexible tubes into Earthlings' heads and sucking out their cerebrospinal fluid. Or something. My memory is fuzzy. Anyway, when the alien cop is shot in the gut by the bad guy, we see that his insides are composed of something milky-white and chunky, but of indeterminate texture. We never get a close look at those guts; it seems that these aliens vaporize when they die.

Natural High's Strawberry Granola with Milk reminded me of that alien's guts. The look of the food was white, chunky, and somehow wrong, and although the dried strawberries tasted fine when reconstituted, the granola itself tasted synthetic, as if it too had come from an alien world. In all, I found the meal just tolerable: edible, but not much more than that. I wouldn't eat it again if better options were available.

Richmoor Natural High Three Cheese Chicken Pasta
REI Item# 7952670011
$6.75

As you can see, I've taken a rather dim view of anything that comes from the Richmoor Natural High brand, especially when it comes to chocolate. Their Three Cheese Chicken Pasta, however, wasn't that bad. It wasn't great, either, but with the addition of some salt the meal was perfectly passable. I'd eat it again with no complaints. Recommended.

Mountain House Beef Stroganoff - 4 Serving
REI Item# 7686890018
$10.80

This was my only real disappointment from the Mountain House brand, but the reason for my disappointment was that, when I opened the package, I saw that it contained nothing but pasta: the stroganoff was completely missing. I'll charitably assume that this was some sort of assembly-line error, and not a deeper problem with the way Mountain House runs its operations.

I suppose I'll have to get back to you once I get hold of a proper package.

Backpacker's Pantry Pad See You with Chicken
REI Item# 7872520015
$9.50

I was curious to see whether this dish would taste anything close to Thai... and it didn't. If anything, the overall effect was rather off-putting. One problem with dried vegetables is that they all start to look the same. The itty-bitty chunks of broccoli were recognizable, but they forced me to question the food's Thai pedigree. The sauce that was supposed to bind everything together merely added to my gustatory confusion, and I ended up feeling a bit like Geena Davis in "The Fly," eating that first revolting bite of teleported steak, and not quite understanding what made it so cellularly perverse. Say "see you" to Backpacker's Pantry's Pad See You. It was a weird, salty mess.

Backpacker's Pantry Shepherd's Pie with Beef
REI Item# 8012290014
$9.50

Earlier, I said that we'd be talking a bit more about beef jerky. Well, this was the meal where the jerky came into play. Shepherd's pie is normally a layered dish-- kind of a bland version of moussaka. The camp version was-- as I noted at the very beginning of this blog post regarding all such food-- essentially mush. In this case, however, it was mush with chunks of beef jerky in it. Normally, I'd call the use of beef jerky a good thing, but the inclusion of jerky in the Backpacker's Pantry version of shepherd's pie made a salty preparation even saltier. I might even go as far as to question how safe such a dish would be to eat after a day of sweating and salt-depletion. The sudden spike in salt levels might kill a tired camper, for all I know.

The potatoes in the mix felt like standard, military-issue powdered potatoes. The vegetables-- whatever they were-- were forgettable at best. All in all, I wouldn't recommend this meal unless you're that salt-sucking vampire from "Star Trek."

Backpacker's Pantry Fettuccini Alfredo with Chicken
REI Item# 8012270016
$9.90

This meal didn't cause any love-sparks or powerful erections; it was pretty much unmemorable. By that, I mean it wasn't memorably bad or memorably good. It was mediocre-- the Salieri of camp food. Recommended only as filler or routine-breaker.

Mountain House Beef Teriyaki and Rice For Two
REI Item# 5101300019
$7.50

Mountain House did it again: this meal wowed me. While I can't say that it tasted much like a typical teriyaki preparation, it was quite delicious on its own terms. I took notes after every meal I ate, and for this one I simply wrote, "FANTASTIC!" It's true: it was one of the best examples of camp food I'd eaten, and I'd gladly eat it again.

Mountain House Chicken a la King Noodles For Two
REI Item# 5101350014
$7.50

Although this wasn't the last camp meal I ate, I'm glad it's last on the list, because it gets the highest praise. I don't know what chemicals they laced this food with, but the effect was positively addictive, and I'd gladly gorge myself on this meal until I exploded, Mr. Creosote-style. Your mileage may vary, of course, but for me, the Chicken à la King was a more-than-pleasant surprise. Egg noodles were used for the pasta, and that turned out to be a wise move, because they cooked quickly when boiling water was poured into the sealable pouch. The cream sauce's flavor was superb, and worked well with the texture of the reconstituted chicken. The vegetables made their presence known-- subtly, so as not to make you feel too self-conscious about eating something nutritious.

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As you can tell from the above reviews, I now lean strongly toward the Mountain House brand, whether we're talking main meals or desserts. Both Natural High and Backpacker's Pantry were disappointments overall; given the choice, I'd avoid them in favor of buying nothing but Mountain House.

REI sells a wide range of food products from all three brands, so these reviews aren't the final word. It could be that I just happened to pick a bunch of duds from NH and BP; then again, since I was picking blind, without knowing anything about any of the brands, one could argue that my sampling was pretty random. So take these reviews for what they're worth, but since Mountain House's price ranges are exactly the same as the other two brands, I'd recommend MH as having the best value in terms of taste and unit cost.


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