Field Notes are stories from the field that show doctrine colliding with reality. Field notes are how I document what actually happened when systems, people, and missions intersected under pressure. Some went well. Some went sideways. All of them taught me something about how resilient systems really work.
These aren’t case studies cleaned up for a conference. They’re honest accounts from disaster deployments, federal systems work, wildfire operations, and coalition environments where the stakes were real and the playbook didn’t always apply.
Field Reports are deep dive applications of the doctrine to concrete problems. Where Field Notes tell short stories from the field, Field Reports walk through the full analysis, the numbers, the trade-offs, and the recommended moves. Most reports began as work I did for myself or a colleague, then cleaned up so others can reuse the thinking without repeating all the research and analysis.
New Here? Start With These:
Field Guides
The Mobile Mapping Unit That Changed Everything – How a self-funded 26-foot truck taught me (mostly) everything I know about forward-deployed systems
What The Katrina Book Was Really For – Why I wrote a book for Rhode Island USAR (narrative infrastructure, not vanity publishing)
Systems Built On Heroics Are Brittle – What Hurricane Florence cost me, and why “can-do culture” eventually breaks people
(Publication dates reflect when documentation was published, not when the work occurred).
These field notes draw from 20+ years of work (2005-2025). Some were written immediately after the events. Others were written years later when I finally had the distance to see the patterns clearly.
Publication dates reflect when I made the work public, not when the experience happened. You may notice evolution in voice and clarity across pieces. That’s because they were written at different points in my career, then published when I finally had the platform and capacity to share them.
Why Field Notes Matter
Doctrine guides explain principles. -> Field notes show what happens when those principles meet reality.
Doctrine is prescriptive. -> Field notes are descriptive (including when I got it wrong).
Doctrine is timeless. -> Field notes are time-stamped and context-specific.
If you want to understand the doctrine, read the guides. If you want to see where it came from (including the mistakes that led to it), read the field notes.
Field Note: “I already know that” and “I disagree” are learning kill switches
Field Note: The Lab and the Line
Why This Site Has Four Navigation Systems
Field Note: Defining “Operator”
Pattern-Matching as Operational Knowledge: Why Expertise Requires Documentation
Field Note: Integration Debt vs Temporal Arbitrage
Session Hijacking in 1999: What A URL Bug Taught Me About Trust Models
Documentation as Credibility Infrastructure
Field Note: Snake or Stick?!
Field Note: The Symbol Is Not the Signal
The Scalpel vs. The Swiss Army Knife: When Solo Integration Beats Federation
Field Guide: Disconnected Editing Is Not a GIS Feature. It Is a Survival Pattern.
Why I Kept Quiet: A Field Note on the Stewardship of Operational Knowledge
Field Note: When You Call a Committee a Team
How Field Notes Connect to Doctrine
Field notes don’t just tell stories. They anchor the doctrine guides with concrete examples.
For instance:
- The Mobile Mapping Unit story explains why federation works where integration fails
- The Katrina Book story shows narrative infrastructure in action
- Systems Built On Heroics explains why capacity matters more than can-do spirit
If a doctrine guide references a field note, it’s because that story proves (or complicates) the principle.