Sending my brother off to Africa with a blaze

View this post on Hive: Sending my brother off to Africa with a blaze

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In March 2020, many Steem users, including @dhimmel, migrated to the Hive blockchain in response to the hostile takeover of Steem. Please use the Hive link when sharing this post and comment on the Hive version to get in touch.

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Last weekend, I traveled to Hanover, New Hampshire — where my brother Josh and I grew up — to say goodbye before he departed for Africa. Josh is now in Liberia where he will be for 27 months, volunteering as a science teacher in the Peace Corps. To send Josh off in Steemian Boss Style, we constructed a healthy bonfire for all to enjoy:

I spent most of the day of his going away party felling trees and constructing the stuffed log-cabin design. Also helping to craft the structure were Jules, Jiaqi, and Josh:

Around 40 people came to the party to celebrate my brother's departure and witness the conflagration:

The fire clawed its way up to the heavens in a blistering inferno:

Other attractions at the party included bottled Switchback beer and a three-spoke hammock wheel:

My brother and I are five years apart in age. We played a lot growing up, building forts, competing in homemade olympics, and tormenting each other. I'm glad I moved back to the East Coast in 2016, which allowed us to see each other more often:

Here's the whole immediate family:

@jhimmel awakens on Steem

My brother created a WordPress Blog to document his journey. When he showed me the blog, I told him he oughta switch to Steem, since then there's at least some chance he will return from Africa having generated some wealth. Thanks @yabapmatt for advice on how to create an account for Josh using the Vessel Desktop Wallet. I created the account and handed over the keys to Josh, while he was waiting at the airport, using end-to-end encryption.

Josh decided to go with the handle @jhimmel. I was delighted to see his first post is live, tiled Here it begins… Peace Corps Liberia. I am sure @jhimmel's blog will be much better than mine, so if you're reading this, give him a follow.

Bonus

While traveling to New Hampshire, I slept a night on the Appalachian / Long Trail, hiking uphill from its intersection with Vermont Route 9. I was able to try out my complete hammock tarp setup for the first time:

Thanks Frozen from Outdoor Adventures for the great advice on how to rig the Hammock Gear Dyneema Fiber Tarp with doors.

The previous night, I was staying at a campground on the Upper Delaware River, which had no trees, so I had to resort to sleeping on the ground, with the following tarp setup:

Steemian Boss Series

This is the eleventh post in the popular Steemian Boss Series. Previous posts include:

1. Ultralight travel to Key West
2. Sights aboard a twinjet, Philly to Boston style
3. How to hammock like a Steemian Boss in Cambridge
4. Glory aboard American Airlines flight 501
5. The Centurion PHL Challenge: 8 specialty crafted cocktails
6. The Delta Sky Club ATL Challenge: all 2 specialty cocktails
7. Mississippi's best hiking: backpacking in Noxubee Hills
8. Epic 80-mile bike ride to Limerick's Nuclear Reactors
9. The Centurion SFO Challenge: revealing 8 exclusive cocktails
10. A saga of 14 friends: returning to California

License

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