Recent Posts
- The True Value of a Milestone and the Devil You Know
- A Civilization Poisoned by Progress: From Lead Pipes to Microplastics
- These Aren’t the Aliens You’re Looking For
- How We Forgot the True Meaning of Decoration Day (and Found a Great Deal on Mattresses)
- Take the Extra Minute: Search and Rescue as a Tourist Recovery Service
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Author Archives: The Narrator
The True Value of a Milestone and the Devil You Know
My manager retired this week. Twenty-eight years with the same company. Let that number sink in for a moment. She was a tough woman, a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, an absolute hard-ass when the mission demanded it, but a … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Leadership, Philosophy
Tagged career, celebration, experience, fine dining, leadership, life events, luxury, mom and pop, restaurants, retirement, things that matter
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A Civilization Poisoned by Progress: From Lead Pipes to Microplastics
History rarely repeats itself perfectly, but it often rhymes in chilling ways. We often look back at the giants of the past and wonder how a civilization so advanced, so structured and so dominant could simply dissolve. No collapse comes … Continue reading
Posted in Science, Society
Tagged dystopia, economy, extinction, future, history, Imperial Rome, lead, microplastics, nanoplastics, plastic, pollution, public health, science, technology
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These Aren’t the Aliens You’re Looking For
On a recent visit, my mother asked me what my thoughts were on those declassified UFO videos the United States government released. You know the ones, grainy, green-tinted, dramatic and supposedly the definitive proof that E.T. is playing tag with … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged Air Force, alien life, aliens, Area 51, aviation, conspiracy, extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrials, JANET, Lockheed, mythology, Nevada, Paradise Ranch, Roswell, science, UFO, ufologists
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How We Forgot the True Meaning of Decoration Day (and Found a Great Deal on Mattresses)
There was a time when Americans looked at a field full of graves and thought, “We should bring flowers.” Now we look at a three-day weekend and think, “Forty percent off patio furniture!” Progress is a mysterious thing. Mostly, it … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Holidays, Retail
Tagged Civil War, Decoration Day, history, marketing, mattress sale, Memorial Day, remembrance, sacrifice
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Take the Extra Minute: Search and Rescue as a Tourist Recovery Service
Every Memorial Day the mountains fill with hikers, campers and road-trippers eager to escape the city and start summer outside. And every Memorial Day search and rescue teams quietly brace for impact, because the patterns of who gets into trouble … Continue reading
The Beautiful Risk of Chasing a Difficult Dream
Sometimes the “rockstar” jobs pay surprisingly little. Not the literal rockstars, mind you. The ones who make it to stadium tours on private jets usually do just fine. I mean the professions that people grow up romanticizing. The careers where … Continue reading
Posted in Education
Tagged art, career, education, excellence, fame, motivation, music, success
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The Airlock Bank: When Security Becomes the Customer Experience
My wife and I are currently on a hunt. Not for a house or a car. We are in the market for a new bank. Our regional bank was recently absorbed by a much larger national institution and with that … Continue reading
Posted in Money, Society
Tagged banking, credibility, fees, fortress paradox, hostile architecture, mantrap, security, security vestibule, trust
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Take the Extra Minute: An Imperial Safety Briefing for the TK-Trooper
As search and rescue volunteers, we live by the creed of preparedness, planning and visibility. We preach the gospel of readiness, the wisdom of planning and the essential need for high-visibility gear. The Empire, on the other hand, apparently skipped … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Humor, Search and Rescue
Tagged armor, Dark Side, Galactic Empire, May the 4th, New Order, Rebel Alliance, safety, search and rescue, Star Wars, stormtroopers, TakeTheExtraMinute
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When Winter Doesn’t Come: A Look at Wildfire Risk
When it comes to search and rescue messaging, I usually talk about twisted ankles and lost hikers, but in a year where winter simply didn’t show up, search and rescue has a different battlefield: the wildfire. Members of search and … Continue reading
Posted in Search and Rescue
Tagged draught, fire safety, rural living, search and rescue, snow drought, TakeTheExtraMinute, wildfire, winter
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One Last Ride from Timbuktu, a Story for the Five of You
As National Poetry Month comes to an end, I’d like to wrap up the tale of Tim and Buck and Belle and Mae and Sue. This can be a Hollywood trilogy like no other, with an amicable ending, to boot. … Continue reading
Posted in Language, Poetry
Tagged Academy of American Poets, Edgar Allan Poe, humor, poetry, redneck, rhyme, Robert Frost, Tim n' Buck, Timbuktu
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