I’ve previously pointed out that in Scouting, as in life, things don’t always go the way you expect them to – and that, in fact, Scouting is designed to be a safe place to fail. Plus, Scouting is best done outdoors, where the vagaries of the weather also come into play. As a result, Scouts […]

A few weeks ago my older son John and I spent the better part of a week aboard the 52 foot sailing ketch Retriever, as part of the Scouts BSA Great Lakes Sailing Adventure. We had two experienced crew leading the way, Captain Steph and First Mate Jonathan. The actual crewing of the boat was done […]

If you see me at Webelos or Boy Scout camp at Gerber Scout Reservation this summer, or at any of our Troop 292 monthly campouts, or maybe even just out hiking around my neighborhood, I’ll probably be hauling a big black backpack with MOLLE attachments (Modular Lightweight Load-Carrying Equipment, a military-designed system for attaching pouches […]

Three years ago, LinkedIn invited articles featuring the author’s best advice (hence the hashtag). I was just re-reading the one I published there (on 2/15/15), and decided to re-publish it here on my blog, with an update, because it’s even better advice today in my opinion. Here’s my #BestAdvice: Several years ago I had the […]

Caroline Fairchild, Senior News Editor at LinkedIn, shared this article by her friend Dan Lyons about the burgeoning culture of overwork in Silicon Valley, with her own questions for her readers about workplace expectations and hours worked. It struck me as cognitive dissonance that in the nerve center of technology, which should be liberating us […]

To those who poo-poo the notion of a manufacturing renaissance in the USA, I give you Bob Jacquart and the Stormy Kromer. Bob’s dad ran the tiny little local fabric and sewing shop in my hometown of Ironwood, Michigan. Bob took it over many years ago and steadily expanded it into a full-fledged sewing factory. […]

That headline is a quote from Ken Chlouber, Colorado miner and creator of the Leadville Trail 100 ultramarathon. You don’t need to run an ultramarathon. You don’t even really need to make pain your friend. Almost all of us, though, could stand to become a bit (or perhaps a lot) more comfortable with discomfort. I […]

I’m not sure why this story from four years ago is still rattling loudly around in my mind. It’s probably because I have two sons about the same ages as the boys in this tragedy, and we spend a fair amount of time in the woods ourselves. It’s an awful story. There are lots of things out there that can […]

A couple weekends back in Brown County, Indiana — perfect camping weather!

I got into a stretch this summer of reading about African big game hunting from back in the days of the colonial safari.  One of the several books I read was President Theodore Roosevelt’s African Game Trails. For the longest time I’ve had a dislike of our 26th president, since I’d read amply about his role […]