Photos
Cogito, Ergo Sum (I Think, Therefore I Am)
“There’s a reacting side of the brain and a thinking side of the brain,” insists Clinton Anderson in his training DVDs. Anderson is a “horse whisperer” who demonstrates his Downunder Horsemanship on the RFD cable channel and in his series of DVDs. I’ve been using Anderson’s training techniques to work with Miss Biscuit, my three-year-old […]
What Are You Going to Do When You Grow Up?
Now that I’ve officially become a senior citizen it’s probably long past time for me to decide what I want to do with my life. I could have used some help deciding when I was younger. For 21 years, Columbia-Greene Community College has been helping students consider their options by hosting a “career day” for […]
Objects at Rest
In retrospect, I don’t know why it took Sir Isaac Newton so long to figure it out. Long before Newton published his groundbreaking first law of motion in 1687, I have to believe that cottage-wives and at least a few Middle Age parents had learned full well – through firsthand experimentation and experience – that […]
Cleaning up Melmoth
I have been flying my homebuilt for more than four years now, and have been recording performance points on almost every flight while looking for ways to reduce drag. The homebuilding community is full of stories about huge successes in drag reduction, but I think those guys must be starting with Wilgas. It turns out […]
New Power to the Commander
We were headed back toward Austin’s Class Charlie airspace from our demo flight out to the west in a Commander 115, though it wasn’t just any Commander 115. At the time it was the only one like it in the world. The frequency was pretty quiet. We were at 5,500 feet, about 25 miles out […]
The Challenging Math of Risk
At 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, October 12, 2006, I steered my parents’ Subaru Outback into the parking garage beneath the Belaire building on 71st Street in New York City, right by the East River. The traffic was bad, with police blockades still in effect and looky-loos and camera crews still clogging the sidewalks. But we […]
Earning a Good Conduct Medal
I recently signed up for Social Security and had to dig out my DD214, the military service record that summed up my two years in uniform. Reading through the form, I was reminded that I’d actually earned the Good Conduct Medal. No big deal, really, it just meant that I’d toed the line and curbed […]