Fajitas for breakfast and I'm on my way from the Snow Bay campsite. It's warm but the wind is behind me for the most part as I turn from heading north as I did the day before to heading east. I take a couple short cuts and am now off the map but I only need to keep the shoreline on my starboard side and I'll be all right. After a couple hours of this I jump a couple of old guys (like my age) in a bay fly fishing for bass. They are as surprised to see me as I am to see them. As I move on I come across a family of otters in a small bay. I love the way they get their bodies half out of the water as they try to stand up to get a better look at me. I soon turn on my GPS and find that I am much closer to the Gun Lake portage than expected. I've been lucky with the wind on this huge lake but it’s getting stronger and I decide to pull out and take the portage. The whole portage is a gradual uphill rise and it takes a lot out of me. The good campsite is taken on Gun Lake by what appears to be a couple young kids in their twenties, so I have to settle for the only other site. It is strictly a solo site as far as I'm concerned as my two person tent only fits if I don't set up the vestibules-hope it doesn't rain. I don't think this site gets much use because the vault latrine is half full of clean, clear water and nothing else. There is also a good size mushroom right where you would naturally put your feet. I try to avoid kicking it over but by the end of my stay here I do. When I finally do leave the water in there isn't what it used to be-I also get this eerie feeling that I forgot to flush.

Leadership: As much as it pains me to use a military man as an example of great leadership I find Alexander the Great too compelling not to. He not only ate his meals with his troops, he also ate the same food as his troops, he did his physical training with his troops and fought alongside his troops-he was one of them. As a boy, as all boys of his time I imagine, his boyhood hero was Homer's Achilles’ of “The Iliad". I believe Alexander wanted to be Achilles or as much like him as possible-to die a glorious death in battle. At one point, to the admiration or horror of his men depending on which history professor you listen to, he was the first one over the wall in the siege of a city. He took an arrow to the chest that nearly killed him. What finally did kill him was disease. All his years of battle couldn't kill him but the tiniest of creatures could. I sometimes wonder if H.G. Wells got the idea for "War of the Worlds" from the history of Alexander. He was the son of Phillip of Macedon (a.k.a. Phillip the one eye) a great king and warrior in his own right. I can imagine Alexander as a young boy listening to his father and his commanders trading war stories while they were partaking in gluttony and getting drunk; he unwittingly likely picked up a great deal of military tactics that way. Being the son of a king he was educated to be a king learning from the great scholars of his day not the least of which was a fellow named Aristotle. He was 19, if I remember correctly, when he became a general and commanded his first battle. The part of his army that he showed the enemy, the warriors of Thebes, fled the battle before it even began and the Theban army gave chase. It was just a ploy though to get his opponent out from his defenses. He had laid a trap. This kind of strategic thinking would serve him well throughout his military campaigns and history will look at him as one of the greatest military strategists ever. I believe it is more complicated than that though. One, he was a soldier first and a king second and he could make tactical decisions in the midst of battle rapidly for he need not an okay from higher authority or make decisions based on what political second guessers would say. Two, the common foot soldier of the Persian Empire likely knew that their own personal life would be better under the rule of the Greeks rather than the Persians after all they were old enemies and knew each other well. When Alexander’s army got to India it was a different story and although they still were winning the battles the fighting got much tougher because this enemy knew nothing of the Greeks and their culture. All they knew was a marauding foe had come to conquer them. Alexander’s army would revolt and rather than lead an unwilling force into battle he would turn his legions around and head for home. He would never make it-died at 33. After his death his empire was broken up among his generals and disintegrated. One general in his frustration with the corruption of his own governance actually willed his domain to the Roman's rather than turn it over to his minions. I think empires spring up through the best of intentions then disintegrate because of the maddening need most people seem to have for oneself to hold power over another. The hierarchy will always want the benefits of the heard, which by nature works as a team, while keeping the power of the hierarchy, which by nature pits people against each other. As Abraham Lincoln said of the hierarchy system, “There are just too many pigs for the tits.” People will often say that this is how it should be and quote Darwin’s “Survival of the fittest” but this is a poor interpretation of Darwin. He actually meant it more in line of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle than a lion taking down an antelope. If ever you find yourself in a position of choosing leaders choose them on the basis of who is to be led. If they are highly qualified in their field than you want an introverted administrator if they are in need of training than an extroverted expert is what to look for. Of course, no group is totally one of these or the other so someone who is conscience enough to know how to behave based on each individual is best-easy to say but nearly impossible to be. Persuasion is best if you go at it subtly from different directions rather than bluntly from one. Set the circumstances so that the desired conclusion is reached by the person who needs to act in a particular way or perform a certain task.