Freedom 55 plus in 2010

January- Leah’s new Job

Leah did a maternity leave contract as part of an integrated services team…speech pathology and general learning environment with cases requiring other community service workers to support the kids and moms

After summer she would take a contract with Regina Catholic Schools

January- Picker/Crane SchoolA weekend a month at the Travelodge in Saskatoon for the in-class portion of the Boom Truck Mobile Crane operator Apprenticeship upgrade towards journeyman course. I would go on to test out with the highest mark in Sask. For 2009-2010

January-mid winter getaway

Sun, Scuba diving, zip-lining, hang-gliding, food, fauna, new friends and everything Jamaica has to offer tourists wanting to escape the minus 30 of Saskatchewan… Leah and Greggie’s mid winter vacation

February-Public policyWinter is a good time for political events such as this one with Dwain and Rubiela Lingenfelter in Estevan…wrote resolutions and many published op-eds to demonstrate how to deal with public policy in a proactive fashion…My approach to politics is to focus on innovation in health and education and technology driven economic activity … When you get that right it is amazing how much easier it is to find solutions to fix the 10,001 individual problems that request public administered cash/ personnel/ resources/services

February-Scientific Research

The long cold winter is the ideal time to hit the research journals and digest all the data which I can apply to keep myself healthier longer.

I have been doing this for 35 years and am ever hopeful the “longevity dividend” will verify and validate my investment of time and money.

Hemp, Caragana, buffaloberry, hops and numerous foods and supplements are to me tools to re-program my biology.

February- Product Development

Putting together a complete picture of what was and was not in our hemp requires all sorts of research as well as outside lab work.

You never know what questions you will have to answer so you have to know your product inside out.

Building a company requires a lot of grunt work, time and money.

March-Agroforestry

As winter backs off the buffaloberry hedges emerged.

Before the year was out I would sell a Conservation Easement to the Sask Wildlife Federation to ensure my 50 miles of buffaloberry hedges are preserved in perpetuity

March-exercising the brain

I felt so good after “aceing” my Picker Apprenticeship Upgrader course exams that I sat down and worked all nite to create some designs to rebrand our hemp as a new health food ingredient

March- Disruptive technology

Filing a trademark for this logo completed a long process of thought about how to solve what I think is an otherwise insoluble marketing challenge with hemp

April-Sianara to Keiwit

After Keiwit failed to get the Saskatoon Expressway bid the office wound down , Greg went back to army tasking and reassessed his future education and job plans….bye bye to the extremes of 18 hour office work with only sporadic days off offset somewhat by jettsetting to company events.

April-product development

After a lot of searching we found a mill to grind our hemp and a manufacturer who would test mill some so we could be sure it did the job….now just to buck up and buy one.

April- balancing responsibilities

I was already forewarned that 2010 was going to be cold and wet…so I made plans to summerfallow the farm and head back to the oilpatch….this was a really fortunate decision

April- unexpected opportunity

A conversation with Alex Lightman on facebook turned into an invitation to present at a conference alongside a number of scientists , futurists and businessmen some of whom I have known online for several years but had never met in person…of course now I had to live up to the hype going to the prospective attendees……and deliver a truly original and innovative dissertation

May-Thinking “Big”Near and dear to my heart is the challenge of taking all personal; medical data and make it part of a global open-source accessible database which both individuals and “Artificial General Intelligence” super computers can explore to learn how to design life-long personalized healthspan extension programs and implement regenerative and enhancement “medicine 2.0”

May- playing in the dirt

Back home, the oilpatch held many surprises like running this puppy for a couple of excavation projects

June- feeling guilty

Scooter really got lonely with me only coming home evenings and weekends and sometimes not even that often

June- meeting suppliers

Silas and I toured the Urshel Manufacturing plant at Valparaiso, Indiana on our way to Boston.

June- Pitching an IdeaThere is just nothing like having that Harvard logo on the podium and being live on the net.

For me it was a chance to set in stone the intellectual property which I could write up as a patent and direct the commercialization of

Sorta like “Facebook X Google X Personalized medicine

Someone had to do this and I won’t deny that I absolutely enjoyed being that “someone”.

June- meeting associates

Having beers with 2 leading pioneers of the lifespan extension/ antiaging movement Aubrey Degrey (cambridge, UK) and Maria Konovalenko (Moscow, Russia) at a houseparty in Boston after the conference ….there is a fun side to science too.

July- 9 months makes a baby

Erin Johnson Brodsky, Leah Johnson, Tristan Nathan Brodsky, Greg Johnson, Morris Folke Johnson … Tristan was born July 01 so he gets free fireworks and a national holiday for every birthday

July- new parents

Mommy, daddy and the little goober

July-holidaying in “the patch”

Delivering oilfield equipment was a great way to tour all through Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba this summer…a “bumper-crop” for some and rain-soaked ruination for others

August-Centennial farm event

Representing 3 generations lineage from Axel and Clara and 100 years of Johnson farming history are Ken, Del, Helen Kostuik, Morris and Josie.

August-“gettin’ out of dodge”

5AM and ready to roll for Alberta…I didn’t say it was all a big holiday….but when it was raining at home and nobody was able to seed, spray, swath or combine, this was a good way to get away from it all.

August- on the road again

Lots of nice scenery, crops and cattle and sights to check out..if you don’t do it repeatedly it can be fun

August- visiting the partners

Rod Fisher at Dauphin, Manitoba managed to raise a respectable hemp crop despite seeding up to 3 times and packing away the seeder with 160 acres left to unseeded on July 01…when I was there in August there was water in the chemfallow sprayer tracks….

August- Saskatchewan scenery

Weather fit only for tourists and ducks made for absolutely splendid scenery. Moose Mountain park/ Kenosee area for example would never be this green at this time of year ordinarily

September- more of that rain

Rain , rain everywhere meant being towed on sloppy leases and roads with loaders and cats..still beats sitting home watching the crops loose value in the field

September- and blistering heat

When it was sunny for a while things like setting a pumpjack became a nice way to spend an afternoon. Observed a couple of heatstroke cases on the hottest days

September- change of employer

At Lafrentz’s they rent the big iron, everything a drilling rig needs to operate…a lot of winching on and off of things like this shale tank

October- new toys

Tanks like these are used for fluids while drilling and after when a well is producing oil, before it gets a pipeline built to link it to a collection battery…you skid ‘em off, flip ‘em up and vice versa

October- it can be done!

Tiny dyke-walled, sloppy sites be they clay or quicksand you still have to set that load exactly where the rig needs it.

October-sobering farm facts

When farmland is still flooded like this in October, you know the 2010 crop went unseeded and the 2011 crop will absolutely need a change in weather to get seeded.

October- politics

Time out for a provincial council meeting and some help for a by-election candidate in Saskatoon….and time for visit with Erin/Jarrod/Tristan and the the U of Sask.

October- way too much fun

When I had this picture taken I could have sworn it said, ”you can’t get 500 million dollars without making a few enemies”..lol

October- “going rogue”

Leah’s Halloween themed birthday party was an absolutely smashing…greggie as oversexed elmo, me as some crazed pumpkinheaded killer dude and leah as naughty and nice.

November- Them riders!

Greggie and me after the riders win the western finals game in the sixth quarter- “second overtime”, I swear I only had 2 beers..lol

November-Hemptrade-Winnipeg

Rod Fisher, Dr Terry Grossman, Silas Kanning, Greg Johnson , Morris Johnson @ CHTA breakfast

We all tried out our Canterpene in Terry’s shake mix…and observed the reaction of hemp industry players to what we are doing

November- clinical trialsTouring the Asper Clinical Trials Research facility adjacent to the St Boniface Hospital; Canada’s second largest clinical trials facility

I agree with Terry that nutri-factors if properly used can be powerful health management tools…http://hplusmagazine.com/editors-blog/rethinking-promise-genomics

December- doing the right thingBarmaids services were auctioned off for part of $40,000 raised for Jeff Lukye cancer expenses ..centre barmaid sold for 1250.00….I spent about 300.00 between things I bought and msc. tickets

December- making sure it works

Trial processing of 300 pounds hemp at the Food Centre on the University of Saskatchewan Campus @ Saskatoon using and Urshel Comitrol mill.

December- family time

They grow up so fast…December 10..5 ½ months old.

December-healthspan+4U

Put Simply, on this skid is the embodiment of good food for good health that is profitable for the farmer, processor and marketer and decreases public liability to fund health crisis and palliation

New-Year-MessageAs I continue to juggle 5 different careers similtaneously I have to reflect on how each one adds something to make life meaningful and productive.

Spock from Star Trek coined the phrase “live long and prosper”. Dinner out with fellow H+’ers @ Harvard shows, science, business and public policy all mesh better with good company and good food. The best for 2011 to you all.