Business and Firewood Analysis

At work yesterday I led a group fine-tuning a business process flowchart and document and included quality gateways to achieve several objectives:

1. to create intellectual property for the department so that we can mitigate against hit-by-the-bus syndrome.
2. to mitigate against unanticipated issues busting up the process (risk analysis).
3. to engage the group in a deep, thoughtful analysis of the actual goals of the particular business process.
4. to perform a resource analysis so we can display the value of our efforts to senior management.

At the camp a couple of weeks ago, I tromped off into the woods to locate a dead-standing birch to achieve several objectives:

1. to locate a good source of firewood, since dead-standing wood does not tend to rot, as it has not been in contact with the ground.
2. to collect an excellent source of tinder - birch bark, to stoke the fire over the coming days, and to start it up again from a single smoking ember buried in the wet ash following a stormy night.
3. to engage in a spirited exploration of the land around the site, and to possibly locate what appeared to be railroad tracks, according to a satellite image I had printed out in advance of the trip. I enjoyed the trek, but didn't locate the tracks.
4. to experience a little bit of solitude, and to see if I could sight another camp that had not been provided and maintained by the park authorities, deeper into Algonquin Park, for a future solo trip.

In another universe I am operating a successful back country outfitter, keeping it profitable and having fun.

What have you been up to?

Mungo