Randy | October 2, 2018
My first year Physics Professor, the Esteemed Dr, Ernest Guptill who died tragically in a boating accident on 20 March 1976, used to say that you only had to know two things to earn a PhD in Physics: That Force equals Mass times Acceleration; and You can’t push on a string. I’m constantly astonished at […]
Randy | July 28, 2018
When last we spoke, it was on the subject of Masculinity and Rites of Passage through the personal experience of soloing an airplane. In case the point eluded some of you, the instrument of transformation — the airplane — didn’t actually need to be what it was. It didn’t hurt in teaching a young Man […]
Randy | July 21, 2018
One fulsome morning in the late autumn of my 16th year, I was a student pilot at the controls of a Piper PA-28 “Cherokee” in the afterglow of the rollout from what had to be the best landing I’d ever accomplished. That took an epiphanous turn when I heard my Flight Instructor telling me to […]
Randy | May 27, 2018
“In 1866, a book was published titled Readings for Young Men, Merchants, and Men of Business. Fortunately for the world, this tome has been unearthed and scanned by Google bringing it back just in time to prove my point. “This is a world of excuses where everybody needs to have one foot over the safety […]
Randy | May 20, 2018
“A dragon lives forever but not so little boys. Painted wings and giant’s rings make way for other toys. One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more, And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar. “His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain. Puff no longer […]
Randy | April 15, 2018
I first met Katherine (Kat) Finck back before the turn of the century in my capacity as an épée coach with the South Shore Duellists Fencing Club where I had the great pleasure both of fencing her, and contributing in my own small way to cultivation of her innate killer instincts. Of all the firsts […]
Randy | March 23, 2018
When last we convened in the matter of musketry, I closed with reference to how, “The care and feeding, proper shooting, and maintenance of a wooden stocked rifle, particularly one of this vintage, requires dedication to what it means to be a Marksman.” As you will know from having read the first installment in this […]
Randy | February 4, 2018
The most fulfilling moments in my so far 37 year career as a security consultant have involved engineering nasty surprises for miscreants, mostly human but occasionally from other tribes, who thought they were smarter than everyone else but weren’t. Oh, sure, along the way we’ve saved a few lives, but that was just collateral un-damage […]
Randy | January 21, 2018
The year I got my first coveted pair of snowshoes for Christmas, we had over half a meter of snow on the ground before school closed for the holidays. I was stoked! Then the rain and springlike temperatures came, starting Christmas Eve and persisting until all the snow had melted. I recall watching it vanish […]
Randy | December 26, 2017
Culturally, the hospitality aspects of festivities prevailing at this time of year exist in a maelstrom of ill considered and contradictory drives. Year after year, many will attempt to answer seasonal motivations to visit people who sometimes live at a great remove and may be reached at no small peril to life and limb, even […]