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DIY: Why My Toolbox Now Includes a First Aid Kit
People are obsessed with DIY these days. Why? I am not sure but I’ve some idea on why they do it. For some, it’s a fun hobby. For others, it’s therapy, their way of unwinding, and relaxing. But for the rest of us? It’s a fast track to the ER and a drawer full of…
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Georgie the Conqueror (or How 20 Pounds Can Run Your Whole Day)
It’s 6:03 in the morning. Not 6:00. Not 6:05. Six. Oh. Three. This is not a time any sane human should be alive, let alone functioning. And yet, like clockwork, a small, fuzzy assassin—codename: Georgie—initiates his first strike. A gentle tap on the arm. Soft. Innocent. Like a well-mannered English butler waking you with a…
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The Hunters Return: A Memorial Day Reflection
America is having a bit of trouble with her image these days. Like a teenager whose going through some changes — hormones swirling, emotions swinging wild like a kite on a particularly windy day. She’s not bad, mind you, in a phase. Just confused, maybe. Awkward. Kicking out at the world, not because she’s cruel…
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Where Everybody Knows Your Name and a Cheers to Norm, One Last Round
You ever get one of those moments—like when the wind shifts just right and brings in a smell you haven’t smelled in years? Cut grass and diesel fuel, maybe. Or cinnamon from your grandmother’s kitchen. Well, that happened to me this morning. Not with wind. With email. Yeah, I know. Not very poetic. But sometimes…
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People: Strange, Delightful, and Occasionally Completely Useless
By your slightly jet-lagged, accidentally diplomatic, frequently lost narrator—me. Let me be clear: I don’t travel because I love airports. I don’t wander the globe because I enjoy being frisked by someone called “Doug” while trying to explain that, no, that’s not a weapon, it’s just an electric toothbrush. I travel because the world is…
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Houston, I Have a Flyover (and Some Eggs)
One Man’s Journey Through Delayed Flights, Concrete Madness, and Culinary Salvation. I arrived in Houston at about 2 a.m., which is, of course, precisely not what the airline promised. According to the booking, I was supposed to arrive at something resembling a human hour—dinner time, maybe, or at worst, the awkward mid-evening dead zone when…
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A Jubilee, a Corr, and a Cold Goodbye
February 2017, London. Cold, damp, and everything was wrapped in that stubborn, bone-chilling English gray. It was the sort of chill that could freeze tea right in the kettle. So naturally, I thought, “What better time for a nostalgia walk?” There I was, hoofing it down the Mall, past Buckingham Palace, when I realized the…
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Signals, Screams, and a Bulb That Just Wouldn’t Go In
Back in my days working for the famed British Railways—now rebranded as Network Rail, presumably to make it sound more modern and efficient, which, let’s be honest, is a bit like renaming a donkey “Lightning” and expecting it to win the Kentucky Derby—I had what can only be described as a classic railway experience. It…
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Morning Habits (or How I Became Marginally Less Useless Before 8 AM)
A masterclass in doing the bare minimum before breakfast. Waking up earlier — right, here’s the thing: it’s miserable. At first, I didn’t so much get up as lurk in bed, lying there like a wounded seal for 5 or 10 minutes, mentally preparing myself for the Herculean task of standing up. It was a…
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On My Way to Houston
By A Guy Who Just Wanted a Quiet Flight and Maybe a Hug It’s been a month since I saw my girlfriend. We live apart—she’s in Houston, that vast, sprawling circus of freeways, mad drivers, and more concrete bridges than sense. I live in Richmond, Virginia, which, if you read my last bit of rambling,…
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The Wild, the Weird, and the Wonderfully West Virginian
January 2013. I rolled into Lewisburg, West Virginia, at precisely 8 PM after a long but admittedly beautiful drive from Pennsylvania. It was the kind of drive that makes you feel like you’re in an advert for winter tires—curving roads, mountains, light snow, and just enough loneliness to feel dramatic but not suicidal. First impressions?…
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The Modern World is Bonkers, and I’ve Had Enough
By a thoroughly fed-up citizen with a decent grasp of reality… Sort of. Our neighborhood is the kind of place where you’d half expect to see a watercolor painter on every corner. It’s peaceful, leafy, and delightfully boring in the best way—until, that is, some cretin in a beat up car comes barreling down the…
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Indiana: Trucks, Snow Blowers, and Union Brawlers
Indiana. The Crossroads of America. A place where colossal semi-trucks roar in from the north, south, east, west, and every conceivable direction in between, like a great migration of diesel-belching wildebeests on their way to deliver vital supplies. If you’ve ever been on an American cross country trip, chances are you’ve passed through Indiana, possibly…
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Flying: The Sky’s the Limit, Sanity Optional
Flying used to be glamorous. I’m talking about the golden age—suits, silk ties, champagne served by flight attendants with teeth so perfect they could light up a runway. It was the Concorde, it was Pan Am, it was James Bond having a Vodka Martini “shaken, not stirred”. Now? It’s not travel. It’s airborne livestock logistics.…
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The Thin Blue Line
The police. Yes, I know. They’ve had a bit of a PR disaster lately, haven’t they? A few bad apples, and suddenly the whole force is treated like they’ve been plucked straight out of a gangster movie. The whole institution’s been shoved into the same moral trash can. And of course, as if summoned by…
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The Weight of Silence, Echoes of a Broken Heart
July 2012. I flew back to California with a broken heart, not like a girlfriend bad breakup kind, nor the one that stings when life simply doesn’t go your way. No, this was something deeper, something that reached into my very core and shattered everything I thought I knew about love, trust, and the life…
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The Entitlement Epidemic
Entitlement. It’s like that weird bit of mold that appears in the corner of your fridge. One minute, everything’s fine, and the next, it’s taken over the cheese, the yogurt, and possibly the entire kitchen. Somewhere along the line, society decided that rules were just “suggestions,” and that the universe owes everyone a favor. And…
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Waiting to Be Heard: Breaking the Silence in a Digital World
I was sitting in the airport terminal, waiting for a flight to absolutely nowhere of any consequence, when it hit me like a misplaced luggage trolley to the shins: no one talks anymore. Look around any departure lounge today, and it’s like staring into a digital graveyard. Heads bowed, faces lit by the cold glow…
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When the World Was Young (And Then It Wasn’t)
I remember yesterday, when the world was younger—when everything smelled faintly of vinyl records and cigarettes, and no one had yet decided that being permanently offended was a lifestyle choice. The 1970s—at least the bits I can recall—were a curious time. Women’s hair were a towering work of architectural ambition, and the men? Well, they…
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Nature, Noise, and Nostalgia: A Walk Through Deep Run Park
You ever take a walk just for the sake of walking? No destination, no ticking clock, just you and the great wide somewhere? That’s how my mornings usually start at Deep Run Park, with my little four-legged philosopher buddy. He’s got this whole meditation thing down—sniffing at every tree like he’s deciphering ancient scrolls, leaving…
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Officer, I Swear This All Makes Sense
Years ago, back when I was working for one of the big railroads – and let me tell you, it’s exactly as glamorous as it sounds – I found myself piloting a big, lumbering SUV down I-85 South. I was leaving Virginia for North Carolina, a state with barbecue so good it could make a…
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Heat, Sand, and Handcuffs: My Saudi Misadventures
The late 1990s. Gosh, that makes me sound like I should be sitting in a rocking chair, reminiscing about the good old days when mobile phones were the size of house bricks and people still thought email was a passing fad. But back then, I was 24, fresh out of engineering school, and eager to…
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My Neighborhood: A Love-Hate Relationship
My neighborhood. On a good day, it’s a slice of suburban perfection. The kind of place where the trees stand tall, the birds sing cheerful little tunes, and the air smells vaguely of fresh grass and somebody’s weekend barbecue. The neighbors? Mostly delightful. Some will even go out of their way to say hello, instead…
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The Richmond Locomotive Works: How Virginia Built the Iron Beasts of the Rails.
Richmond, Virginia. Once a city where the air was thick with the smell of coal smoke, metal shavings, and raw industrial ambition. Nestled within its Three Corners District was a factory that wasn’t just about trains. No, it was about steam-powered thunder, an era when locomotives weren’t just modes of transport but symbols of unrelenting…
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