Impetus and the Follow-through

Many years ago, I was close to a path that could lead to the practice of medicine and my friend was on a path to working day-to-day in industry. Those paths were launched when we were young adults. No longer are we young adults. We aren't elderly, either. That means that we're just plain adults. What a bore.
At some point while we were traveling down those paths, we switched. I am an Industrialist, so to speak, working five days a week on first shift, and my friend works countless hours at ungodly times in a hospital, keeping people breathing as long as possible.
As we traveled down our paths toward adulthood, my friend did a much more effective job at raising a family than I. He has a beautiful child and an incredibly patient and forgiving wife. That last part is important to this story.
Something that comes with being an adult is that partying, as we used to call it, is no longer a thrill. My friend and I have never really been all that into things like skiing, skydiving, or any other sort of traditional weekend-warrior nonsense either. Speaking only for myself, I have become a bore entirely. Weekends are housework or gardening, as all of my faithful readers are aware. And then…
During one unholy pre-dawn hour in the hospital, following, I'm sure, a long day of caring for a baby, my friend wrote me an email. That email laid out the groundwork for the next year of our lives. It said something to the effect of:
"Want to do a primitive flintlock hunt in the mountains of Pennsylvania during the coldest period of 2012?" Not owning a flintlock and having never hunted, I naturally answered, "yes."
The difference between a good idea and a revolution is commitment. Within two weeks of that email, we had, in hand, a new camp stove and a 10' x 12' wall tent on order. With that $700 spent and no legal or ethical way to retrieve it, we have started the clock on the one-year countdown to the most money we've ever spent on an activity that is doomed to failure. Am I being pessimistic or are we truly this misguided?
Today, we fired off a flintlock for the first time in our lives. We're jumpy, often confused, and laughed for three hours with wide-eyed, childlike glee that usually is reserved for the opening scenes of horror movies. If we are to have designs on walking – or at least limping – out of the frozen forest alive, our only hope is practice. The clock is running…