"Sometimes the hardest part of writing is just sitting still long enough to begin."—Stephen McConnell, 2009.
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ABOUT THIS SECTION
This section is a collection of fragments—reflections, notes, and observations written as they come to me. Some are tied to trips or photographs, others are personal or speculative. They appear in the order they were written, which means there’s no plan, no theme, and no attempt to make them connect. That’s intentional. Each piece stands alone, with no links to the ones before or after it. The result is irregular, sometimes abrupt, and exactly how I want it. Think of them as loose threads: moments and ideas left here for anyone who’s curious—and easy to pass over if you’re not.
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Mountain Man Country
August 10, 2025 | 16:40
I took a trip out to Shell Canyon to photograph the falls. The canyon is stark and breathtaking, offering a desolate vision of the frontier. Mountain men like Jeremiah Johnson and John Colter moved through this country—tracking game, steering clear of conflict, and living by their own terms. They were hard men—quiet, resourceful, and shaped by solitude. The kind of stillness they knew still lingers here. The descent comes quickly—one moment you’re in high country, the next you’re following sharp turns cut into the canyon wall. The rock is bare and weathered. The canyon walls rise high above, the creek runs far below—scale that humbles the observer. A reminder of how limited our place is in the universe. The sound of the falls hits first—loud, constant, and impossible to ignore. Shell Falls crashes down fast, carving through exposed layers laid down over millions of years. The path has no signs—rocky, steep, and twisting alongside the creek. This is nature’s ruggedness, plain and unfiltered.
Circling Back: Montana and Wyoming
August 7, 2025 | 17:50
The Montana and Wyoming trip is finally here, and I’m looking forward to ten days of photography with Chris Parris in the land of big sky. I’m sitting at the gate—coffee in hand—waiting for a Delta flight out of Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, bound for Billings, Montana, with a layover in Minneapolis–St. Paul. It’s been almost ten years since I first came through this part of the country, back in 2016. That was my first walk across the Little Bighorn battlefield. I didn’t know then how much that place would stay with me.
As for Chris, I reconnected with him in 2022, in Nashville, Tennessee—at a military reunion held at the Johnny Cash Bar on Third Avenue South—after nearly 30 years. Back in the Army, I didn’t know him well—just the occasional nod of recognition in passing. But that weekend I learned he’d always had a quiet interest in photography. It had taken a back seat during his post-military career, but hearing about some of my recent trips must’ve stirred something. A few weeks later, he picked up a new Nikon, and the idea for this trip started to take shape. We didn’t have a destination in mind back then, but now here we are, setting off for Billings—and ten days of history, landscape, and photography.
This trip returns to familiar ground for me, but with new purpose. We’re starting in Cody, circling back through Yellowstone country, then heading up for the Crow Fair and another long look at the battlefield—this time to follow the story from the Crow perspective and see what still remains. I’m planning to take Chris to the Buffalo Block Prime Steakhouse in Billings—housed in the old Rex Hotel on Montana Avenue, a 1910 landmark I first visited in 2016. I was drawn by the history of the building, but the steaks didn’t disappoint. I’m going to take him there—to let him experience an authentic Montana steakhouse.
Broadsword Calling Danny Boy
August 6, 2025 | 07:40
Back in 2013, I was deployed to Rhoka, northeastern Afghanistan, in the Hindu Kush mountains—with a comms setup so advanced it couldn’t reach the next building. Naturally, Richard Burton sprang to mind. These days, the more advanced the technology, the more precise the setup. Everything has to be exact—alignment, configuration, digital tuning. Get one input wrong, even by a decimal point, and the whole system falls apart. You might as well go back to semaphore. Not much use for those of us with fat fingers.
At the time, getting solid technical support felt impossible—so I fired off a sarcastic email to the tech-support team, those so-called “DISH wizards” living it up in the land of flip-flops at Bagram Air Force Base, while we were up in the mountains sweating through broken comms—resetting, realigning, and getting nowhere. I wrote:
“Now, for some of you technical experts down there in ‘Slipper City,’ this might need clarification—so let me start educating you on a three-foot vertical ground wave antenna operating on the VHF (Very High Frequency) wavelength. By now you’re probably wondering, what the hell is he talking about? Bear with me—it’ll make sense, I promise.
Ground wave VHF signals operate on a direct line-of-sight principle. They radiate outward in straight lines from the antenna and are blocked or weakened by anything in their path—mountains, buildings, forests, weather. Add to that the need for a transmitter, where size equals strength and strength defines range. Basic stuff—even for a ‘DISH wizard.’ I was using VHF signals back in 1975, when most of you were still sperm. So let’s put those few facts into perspective. In 1934, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) built the Droitwich transmitting station—a large facility for medium and long wave broadcasts—near Worcestershire, England. According to the BBC, the two masts stand 700 feet tall (210 meters) and operate on a 500-kilowatt Marconi transmitter. They transmit AM medium-wave and LW long-wave radio programs covering most of England and Wales—a range of roughly 200 to 250 miles, depending on terrain and conditions.
Yes! That’s right. Translated into English, the BBC uses a 700-foot mast and a 500-kilowatt transmitter—the size of a small house—to broadcast a radio signal that covers most of England and Wales. (Emphasis on most.)
Why am I ranting about outdated VHF signals—completely irrelevant to the modern equipment I have here? Picture this: it’s 1970, I’m a small boy at the movies watching Where Eagles Dare (1968)—a World War II action drama set in the Austrian Alps. Through the customary haze of cigarette smoke, I watch Major Smith (Richard Burton) call the War Office in London from a man-portable vacuum tube transmitter. After extending the aerial and a short burst of high- and low-pitched tuning slides, he utters the famous line: “Broadsword calling Danny Boy, Broadsword calling Danny Boy!” Believe it or not, he connects—first attempt—direct to London. Strength 5. That’s 640 miles on a 3-foot antenna, surrounded by mountains, in winter. Better than I could call my wife from the living room to the kitchen on our matching Apple iPhones.
The point is simple. If Burton can establish a VHF radio connection from deep in the Austrian Alps using a backpack radio with a flimsy antenna no bigger than a donkey’s dick, then why can’t I hit our admin office—just 250 meters away—with a state-of-the-art Triax 60cm heavy-duty fiberglass dish? It’s fitted with a 0.1dB Quattro Titanium LNB, pushing a direct-line signal through a 5 GHz NanoStation. It throws out a 10.7–12.75 GHz signal on two polarizations—horizontal and vertical. The low band runs from 10.7 to 11.7; the high from 11.7 to 12.75—both with a full 1 GHz bandwidth. Is that too much to ask for—in 2013?
Bottom line: if you can’t get this shit to work—just get me a WWII British Wireless Set No. 19 radio transceiver, preferably the Mk. II.
End of email.
Subject: Triax Comms Issues – FOB Lion
Thank you for the detailed technical overview. I’ve added an engineer to the next available helicopter manifest; he should be with you tomorrow. In future, please keep correspondence professional. These emails are monitored and shared across departments, and the tone and language in your message were not appropriate for official communication. Sarcasm doesn’t speed up support.
The Day the Shade Moved
August 5, 2025 | 10:18
After a recent conversation with an old friend about school days, the subject of dyslexia came up. It followed a few comments he’d made about the depth of my research and some of my historical posts. That’s when we started talking about my struggle to read as a child.
Dyslexia is a neurologically based learning disorder that affects the brain’s ability to process written language. It doesn’t reflect a person’s intelligence or effort, but instead disrupts the way the brain decodes and organizes symbols—especially under pressure. Though the condition was first documented in the late 19th century, recognition in classrooms remained limited well into the 20th. In schools like mine in 1970s Belfast, it was misunderstood at best—and at worst, ignored altogether. Struggling to read meant one thing: you simply weren’t trying.
For myself, dyslexia came to the point of humiliation in 1972—I was 12 years old. I started Ulsterville Primary School in Belfast, around February of that year. And it was there, for the first time, that I met Ms. Wallace.
She stood about five foot seven, in her early fifties, with dark grey hair and a stern composure that never seemed to shift. She wore plain high-necked blouses under heavy cardigans, paired with dull, pleated wool skirts—always the same style, day after day. Her nylons sagged slightly at the ankles, and her pointed-toe shoes clicked sharply across the wooden floors. A pair of tortoiseshell glasses framed her face, rigid as the voice behind them—an upper-class, BBC-style Belfast accent, each sentence pronounced with deliberate clarity. Nothing escaped her notice. She was methodical. Precise. Watching.
In the classroom, her punishment tool of choice was a bamboo cane. It had a curved umbrella-style handle, wrapped in electrical tape for grip, and stood in an old umbrella stand to the right of the blackboard—always in view, always within reach. When you were called to the front, she didn’t go for it right away. That was part of her method. First, the pause. The silence. The hope. Maybe it would just be a warning. But then she turned, slow and deliberate, and reached for the cane. That’s when you knew. The strikes were precise—across the back of the hand or straight to the knuckles. Never rushed. Never angry. Just the belief that pain corrected failure. And failure, to her, looked like hesitation. The minimum was always three.
Monday mornings started with double English literature. It ruined the weekend. The first book was Moby Dick. My parents warned Ms. Wallace about my reading. Too many school moves, no steady curriculum. She nodded: leave that with me—I’ll fix it. They believed her. I got stuck on “Call me Ishmael,” and never recovered. I spent the rest of that year hiding behind a paperback. The more I tried to disappear, the more she singled me out. Silence didn’t work, so I became disruptive. If she couldn’t cane it out of me, she couldn’t fix me. I wouldn’t cry. No matter how many times she struck my knuckles, I stared her down. No flinch. No show. So she gave up and sent me to the headmaster. Six with the leather strap. Still nothing. Eventually, they just sent me home.
I became a bully—not because I was tough, but because it was easier to be feared than humiliated. I’ve often thought back on those days through a Johnny Cash lyric: “Some gal would giggle, I’d get red. Some guy’d laugh, I’d bust his head.” That’s how it was. Girls might giggle and I’d blush. But if a boy said anything, I’d break his skull. Being seen as a bully—by teachers and classmates—shifted attention away from the fact I couldn’t read. I wasn’t a great fighter. I took more than a few beatings. But I could take a punch better than anyone. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t back down. Even boys who’d beaten me before started to hesitate. The strategy was simple: keep punching. Even if I lost, make them hurt. Make them think twice. If someone laughed in class, I didn’t give them time to think. As soon as the bell rang, I’d walk straight up to them in the playground. No warnings. No posturing. No schoolboy dancing—just violence.
Finally, a meeting was called—my mother, the headmaster, and Ms. Wallace. They talked about me like I wasn’t in the room. She gave her rehearsed line in her usual condescending tone: after forty years of teaching, she’d never met a student so unwilling to try. And I sat there, screaming inside my head: do you really think I’d choose this? That I’d rather sit here, day after day, being shamed—if trying harder was all it took?
That was the day the shade moved—when I stepped into the light. It wasn’t my failure as a student. It was her failure as a teacher. From then on, there was a mutual understanding between Wallace, the class, and me. She’d call on me to read. I’d stumble through the pages. The class remained silent. She’d cane me for not trying. And then we’d move on with our day.
The Distance Between Then and Now
August 4, 2025 | 15:14
Last Saturday night, my wife and I were at dinner with friends when I tried to describe a restaurant we should visit. I couldn’t remember its name, so I instinctively reached for my phone to search it on Apple Maps. Surrounded by a 5G network but sitting in a corner with no data connection, I found myself momentarily frustrated—as if the world had tilted because I didn’t have a global library of instant information at hand. Then I stopped and checked myself. What was I thinking? I’ve become so accustomed to the convenience of modern technology that, for a moment, I forgot where I came from.
I remember a time before the Internet, the mobile phone, the personal computer, the VCR, and color television. Young people today have no sense of the pace of technological advancement. The achievements they take for granted are simply the world they were born into. They haven’t watched it unfold over decades. This moment in time, this technological world, this infrastructure—this is all they know. The advantage of being 66 is having lived through six decades of change.
I first got into personal computing and communications in 1988. I bought an Amstrad PC2086, paired with a Hayes 2400-baud modem, and used it to dial into bulletin boards. At the time, the World Wide Web didn’t exist—no browsers, no HTML, no websites. The Internet was a scholarly and institutional network, closed to the public. It’s hard to picture today’s Internet with so little content, especially when, as of January 2025, the best aggregated estimates put the total number of websites at between 1.09 and 1.11 billion.
As computing moved from desktops to laptops and eventually into pockets, the mobile phone became the most visible sign of that shift. I have watched it evolve from a mobile phone built entirely into a black briefcase—the whole unit, battery, and handset mounted inside—which I first saw demonstrated on Tomorrow’s World, the long-running BBC television program (1965–2003) that showcased new inventions, scientific breakthroughs, and emerging technologies. Who in 1973 could have imagined that the first mobile phone would become more powerful than anyone thought possible?
I bought my first mobile phone in 1996—the Nokia 1610, handheld but still the size and weight of a brick. It had a small monochrome screen and a rubberized keypad, and its only real function was to make and receive calls. Battery life was measured in hours, not days, and carrying it felt more like transporting a piece of equipment than a personal accessory. There was no text messaging, no camera, no Internet—just a voice connection tethered to the nearest cell tower. Today, that same function is just one of thousands built into a device that fits in a pocket, takes photographs, streams live video, and has far more computing power than NASA had when they sent Apollo astronauts to the Moon.
The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), which ran at about 1.024 MHz with roughly 4 KB of RAM and 72 KB of ROM, famously triggered the 1202 program alarms during Apollo 11’s final approach when incoming radar data overwhelmed its available memory, forcing it to shed non-essential tasks to keep the landing software running. To put that into perspective, if the AGC’s computing power were the size of a pencil eraser placed beside a 12-inch ruler, the smartphone in your pocket would stretch that line for 124,000 miles—about halfway to the Moon.
From the pencil eraser to the Moon, from brick-sized handsets to pocket-sized supercomputers, the baseline for “normal” has shifted so quickly it’s easy to forget the ground we’ve covered. That moment at the restaurant reminded me that the gap between “then” and “now” isn’t just a measure of technology—it’s a measure of how easily we lose sight of what it took to get here.
Box of Cigars
August 3, 2025 | 17:20
About a year ago, I went to the doctor with a persistent discomfort in my lower bowel. It wasn’t painful—just something that had lingered for months. I’d avoided getting it checked, mostly out of denial, partly because I feared what they’d find. My father had bowel cancer in the early ’80s and underwent what was then a relatively new procedure. They removed a large section of his lower intestine, left him with a colostomy bag, and he was incontinent for the rest of his life. He soiled himself daily. He lived to 84, but those final years were difficult. Even before any diagnosis—I’d already made my decision: if this turned out to be cancer, I wasn’t going to blow through my life’s savings chasing a few extra months. I told my wife that if that day came, I’d throw caution to the wind—buy a good box of cigars (I quit smoking them in 2006), a bottle of single malt, and leave it at that.
They never did discover what that discomfort was—after a multitude of tests: probing, prodding, sticking, stabbing, blood tests, CAT scans, urine samples, stool samples—the best they could offer was “trapped gas.” I still don’t understand the idea of a stuck fart, or how it could linger for six months.
Since that scare, I’ve stripped back. I kept my camera gear and a computer and cleared out the rest. I sold all my firearms—kept two small handguns—and emptied the man cave: military photos, framed certificates, and awards went straight into the dumpster. I cleared the bookshelves and threw out decades of possessions, including my Civil War collection and the usual bric-a-brac gathered over a lifetime. Everything—and I mean everything—went in the dumpster. After all, keep enough souvenirs and they begin keeping you.
I don’t believe there’s anything waiting after this, so the time we have is all there is. My father spent his last years trapped in his own head, replaying the days when he was young, fit, capable—while living a miserable existence. I won’t do that. I’ve had good years, and I’ll take whatever’s left without dragging the past behind me. Death doesn’t scare me—I just hope it gives me time to enjoy that final box of “Cohiba Riviera” cigars and a bottle of “The Balvenie 18 Year Old – Pedro Ximenez Cask.” When it’s time, it’s time—no treatments, no slow fade, no pretending it’s anything other than the end.
Two Defeats, One Crossing
August 2, 2025 | 07:50
In 2023, I crossed the Pyrenees on foot from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Pamplona—France into Spain, following the route over the mountains known as Route Napoléon—although Napoleon never crossed it himself. The name refers instead to a failed military campaign late in the Peninsular War. In July 1813, Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult led three French corps through the Roncesvalles Pass in an attempt to relieve Pamplona and lift the Allied siege of San Sebastián. The goal was ambitious: to regroup shattered forces after the Battle of Vitoria—a decisive defeat that forced French withdrawal from most of Spain—and mount a counteroffensive through the high passes of the western Pyrenees. This crossing, one of the few viable military routes between France and northern Spain, had long been recognized for its strategic value.
But the offensive faltered almost immediately. Heavy rains turned the tracks to mud, bogging down artillery and cutting supply lines. Soult’s troops faced stiff resistance from Spanish irregulars and Allied pickets—mainly British, Portuguese, and Spanish troops under the command of Wellington—and by the time they reached the outskirts of Pamplona, they were exhausted and exposed. Wellington counterattacked, forcing the French to retreat back through the same defiles they’d struggled to cross. The campaign—hastily planned and poorly supported—ended in failure. What survives now is the name, Route Napoléon—a misleading reference to a retreat through hostile terrain.
Long before the French retreat of 1813, the route over the Pyrenees was already tied to another defeat. In 778, Charlemagne’s rear guard was ambushed in the narrow pass near Roncesvalles. The campaign was part of Charlemagne’s wider effort to expand Christian rule into Muslim-controlled territory on the Iberian Peninsula. But the threat that struck his column came not from the south, but from behind. Basque fighters—local Christian tribes resisting Frankish occupation—attacked from the heights, using the terrain to their advantage, and overwhelmed the rear elements of the Frankish army as they withdrew northward. Among the dead was Roland, a senior commander and reputed nephew of Charlemagne, who died with his men. The ambush—tactically minor but symbolically potent—was later recast in The Song of Roland, a medieval epic that bore little resemblance to the event but helped define the ideals of chivalry for centuries to come. Loyalty, sacrifice, Christian virtue—these ideals found lasting form in the legend.
Though separated by a thousand years, both crossings carried weight—one remembered in myth, the other in military dispatches. The geography remains unchanged: steep slopes, limited visibility, and no easy escape. Two failed invasions, centuries apart, bound to the same crossing.
Today, the same route—quiet now, and well-marked—is part of the Camino de Santiago. Known as the French Way, it begins in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and follows the old route over the Pyrenees to Roncesvalles, then westward across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. The path climbs steadily through open range, where cattle graze freely and cowbells carry through the morning mist. Grass-covered slopes rise on either side, narrowing into a winding ribbon that disappears into the hills. Wooden markers guide the way, but the terrain still commands attention—exposed, steep in places, and shaped by weather. In this quiet landscape, it’s hard to imagine tight ranks of infantry, horses straining at limbers and guns, the smell of sweat, the squeal of wheels, the creak of supply wagons—men cracking whips and shouting to keep the column moving. What was once a line of retreat is now a route of passage, walked by thousands each year for reasons as varied as the landscape itself.
History has a way of reusing ground. What served once as a battlefield or a border becomes, in time, a place of reflection. The mountains have not changed. Only the purpose of crossing them has.
Twelve Shots
August 1, 2025 | 12:10
I was finalizing packing this morning for the trip to Montana—charging batteries, formatting SD cards—when I started thinking about film. It happens almost every time I take on a photo trip—my father pops into mind. He was old school—strictly Ilford HP5 or FP4, developed in ID-11, dried in the darkroom, judged under a loupe. He admired Cartier-Bresson and wouldn’t touch Photoshop. Dodging and burning had to be done under the enlarger, not on a screen. I tried to explain it’s the same technique—just applied differently—but he saw digital as a shortcut. I once told him digital lets you shoot hundreds of frames to catch one perfect moment. His reply: “Even a blind squirrel can find a nut.” For him, photography was chemical, physical, earned. And if you couldn’t get it in 12 shots, you didn’t get the shot.
I remember the thrill too—pulling a clean strip of 36 exposures from the wash, still wet, still smelling of fixer. There was satisfaction in the process, and discipline in the limitations. Digital makes everything easier: instant review, no dust, no chemicals, no waiting. But that ease also invites carelessness—too many frames, not enough thought. He wouldn’t have accepted it. Even the best digital image, to him, carried the quiet sting of being… not film.
From Hide to Hype
July 29, 2025 | 13:09
I last drove through Cody in 2016. A Walmart Supercenter had already taken hold on Yellowstone Avenue, extending retail beyond Sheridan Avenue, where Forbes Trading Post had stood since 1896 as a local anchor. Forbes was more than a store—it was a lifeline for ranchers, hunters, and families scattered across the Bighorn Basin. You could buy gear, trade hides, or pick up a license before heading out into the backcountry. Now it’s gone. What Walmart did wasn’t gently replace—it displaced. The aisles are wider, the prices lower, and the shelves packed with cheap Chinese imports. One by one, the small shops thinned out, absorbed or shuttered. A landscape once shaped by function and memory gave way to sameness. That shift is a marker—of how much can be erased in a generation.
That context matters when thinking about the buffalo. Their disappearance wasn’t just about the animal itself. It marked the removal of a foundation. For the Plains tribes, the buffalo provided nearly everything—food, clothing, shelter, tools, weapons. The herds were not just hunted; they were lived with. And their loss wasn’t gradual. It was targeted, industrial, and final. Today, most Americans know the story only in fragments—postcard imagery, souvenir skulls, the occasional fenced herd. But the consequences run deeper, embedded in diet, displacement, and disconnection.
The irony is that some of the last wild buffalo were killed not far from Cody. And now, area restaurants portray their image on menus, while gift shops sell stuffed toys and tourist posters. The icon survived. The reality didn’t.
A 6-Pint Dream on a 4-Pint Foot
July 29, 2025 | 06:50
In 2023, I walked the Camino de Santiago. I made it from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Burgos before I had to pull off with bad blisters and tendinitis. I still consider that a failure—and it’s niggled at me ever since. So I planned to tackle it again in 2025, setting out from the same place and time as my first attempt—Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France, on June 1.
But my right foot’s not cooperating. It started after a hike around Lake Hancock in central Florida back in January and settled into what felt like plantar fasciitis. I’m eight months into it now, and the pain’s still there—sharpest in the morning, easing off after the first hour. What began across the sole seems to have narrowed to one persistent spot in the heel. I fear it could be a combination of arthritis and plantar fasciitis. I booked a doctor’s appointment for when I get back from Montana—x-rays, scans, whatever they need to do. I’m hoping they can suggest some kind of healing plan. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that it’s not healing. I’ve given myself until December 1 to decide. That gives it time to heal before the real spending begins—flights, gear, and the rest. But there comes a point when you have to weigh what’s still possible against what quietly slips away. It makes me wonder if my ambition has outpaced my ability. Was 2023 my one and only shot? There’s an old UK saying about overreach—you’ve got a six-pint appetite and a four-pint limit.
Smart Enough
July 24, 2025 | 10:08
Because what I really needed in life was a fridge with a television.
The old one died during COVID. Options were limited, and the only model available came with a screen in the door—as if food storage required home entertainment. Now I can watch YouTube while grabbing mustard. Or check the humidity in Bogotá while reaching for a beer. Not connected to Wi-Fi? The screen won’t shut up about it. Connect to Wi-Fi. Update required. Features unavailable. Every time you walk past, its motion sensor picks up movement and lights up with a cheerful chime, flashing messages like it’s issuing warnings from mission control—Houston, we have a problem. It’s relentless—tugging at your sleeve like an aggravating car sales assistant. And there’s no way to disable it. No option to mute, dim, or turn the thing off. Apparently, keeping food cold isn’t enough—it has to demand attention, push updates, and remind you about traffic on the I-405 (San Diego Freeway) in Los Angeles—even though I live in Clayton, North Carolina.
You can’t even pump gas in peace anymore—PumpTop TV. The moment you lift the nozzle, some cracked-out news anchor starts yelling at you from a tiny screen built into the pump—blasting headlines, traffic, weather, and of course, ads. Always ads. Hot dogs spinning on rollers. Breakfast burritos with more calories than a half-pound lard sandwich. Drink sizes more suited to an animal trough than a cup, which requires two hands to lift it. You’re a captive audience—you can’t walk away, you can’t mute it, and you’re stuck there until the tank is topped off. Meanwhile, just as it nears full—like it has you under surveillance—the screen pivots from shouting headlines to pushing you inside for a bowl of synthetic nachos smothered in a thick, bright yellow liquid—labeled cheese, and a 128-ounce Team Gulp. As if your next logical move is to chase premium fuel with an artificial cheese substance and liquid diabetes.
You can’t even buy six eggs without giving up your phone number. Publix wants it. Food Lion wants it. Harris Teeter wants it. Grocery stores now act like government checkpoints—every purchase tied to a profile, every discount gated behind an ID.
Then there’s the ID check for alcohol. I’m 66 years old. I draw Social Security. I have grey hair—what’s left of it—and more wrinkles than I care to count. I joined the Army in 1975—when most checkout assistants asking for my ID were still just an egg. I remember when a 45 was a vinyl record, not a sidearm. I remember black-and-white TV with three channels, no remote. I remember Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon. I remember when calling someone meant they had to be home to answer. And now you’re telling me this aging man—whose knees pop like bubble wrap every time he climbs the stairs—needs to prove he’s over 21 to buy a bottle of wine?
Then there’s the smoker—an impressive piece of engineering from Recteq. But to use all its features, I had to set up an account, download the app, and log in with a biometric facial scan. Once properly documented, it walks me through the cook, sends temperatures via Bluetooth back to my smartphone, and reminds me when to wrap the ribs. But first, just to use the app and create an account, it wants my name, date of birth, income level, location history, browsing habits, sexual orientation, and preferred barbecue sauce—just to tell me when to spritz the brisket. It’s like a digital polygraph. It was easier getting vetted for secret clearance in Army intelligence. I’m half surprised it hasn’t asked if I watch internet porn.
As if it couldn’t get any more ridiculous. I was checking the TSA website, researching the new 2025 prohibited list for an upcoming flight—that list prompted this post. One of the items that stood out was a smart water bottle (Hidrate Spark). The base glows—cycling through rainbow colors to remind you to hydrate—syncing data through Bluetooth and a phone app. Flat-out nonsense. When I’m thirsty, I drink—because my mouth is dry. I don’t need a flashing rainbow to tell me.
I was born in the 1950s. I’ve seen the rise of personal computing, the internet, smartphones, and now—artificial intelligence that wants to help me organize my sock drawer. Somewhere along the way, we decided nothing should function without a companion app, a Bluetooth connection, and a 14-page Terms of Service agreement. We traded simplicity for features no one needs.
The Three State Intersection
July 23, 2025 | 08:55
“In the time it takes an able man to load a rifle, we marched from Alabama to Georgia; and then into Tennessee.” ~ Elisha, November 1863.
Some time ago, I was surfing eBay for Civil War memorabilia when I came across a single-page letter—clearly part of a longer correspondence, but the last page was all that remained of the document. The seller wanted too much for a single page—especially with full letters listed for less. I read the one-page transcript, and the above-mentioned two-line quotation had a profound impact on me. So much so, I spent some considerable time thinking about it.
The last page was dated November 1863, the time that Union forces moved from Bridgeport, Alabama, towards Lookout Mountain. The Battle of Lookout Mountain was fought November 24, 1863, as part of the Chattanooga Campaign. The author of the letter was unknown; the closing salutation was simply, “I remain your affectionate brother, Elisha.”
I wrote the quotation down and set out to find the only place I believe he could have been describing.
I stood at the intersection of three states—Georgia over my right shoulder, Alabama to my left, Tennessee straight ahead. The spot lies just south of Nickajack Cove, a hundred yards east of Huckabee Lane on the Tennessee River. My GPS read: 34.984667, -85.605167. I believe Elisha crossed this exact ground 152 years ago—there’s no other place on the map where you could pass from Alabama into Georgia, then into Tennessee, in the time it would take to load a Model 1861 Springfield rifle.
It’s a strange feeling, knowing this young man walked the same ground. Not noble or grand—just unsettling. He was likely on the approach to Lookout Mountain, facing some horrific encounter, trying to suppress that stomach-wrenching knot of fear. I knew that feeling. I’d marched the same kind of ground—from Mount Estancia to Mount Longdon with 3 Para during the Falklands War.
Having survived my own ordeals back in 1982, I realize how fortunate I am to have lived, in the wake of so many good men falling. I can sympathize with Elisha, his fears and apprehensions, as I’m reminded of the same fear—tight in the gut, heavy on the shoulders—as I walked my own uncertain path.
The Barbecue
July 22, 2025 | 23:43
Like most film sequels—it’s the same movie with a slightly different storyline: retelling the same drama, just louder, more expensive, and with fewer redeeming scenes. Nothing new—just recycled conflict and a bigger effects budget.
Liam Neeson in Taken is the perfect example. Two family members kidnapped in separate events, then he’s framed for murder in the third. How much chaos can one man realistically endure? It’s the same storyline recycled: high-stakes, gun-blazing mayhem on repeat. Most people don’t live through that kind of drama once, let alone three times. It’s not suspense—it’s manufactured nonsense posing as tension.
Mona was my sequel—to Sue. And like Taken 2, it was the same story retold, just with higher volume, more damage, and a fire at the end.
I remember coming home—it was Friday, July 13, 2001, ironically Friday the 13th—after a shift cutting grass at Bloomingdale Golf Course for $7.25 an hour. As I turned into the neighborhood, I spotted black smoke rising from my front yard. A small crowd of neighbors stood in a loose circle, watching. For a moment, I thought the house was on fire—but there was no fire truck, no urgency, just curiosity.
As I got closer, I saw the source. In the center of my neatly pruned Saint Augustine grass was a bonfire. And the fuel—was my belongings. On top of the pile sat my vinyl record collection. I parked, got out, and joined the spectators. We stood in silence as my first-edition Johnny Cash at San Quentin album shifted from blue to brown, then caught and curled into flame. Several neighbors kept glancing between the fire and my face—like a tennis crowd watching the ball—unsure whether to focus on the destruction or the man taking it in.
A photo of my mother as a young girl. My dad during the Aden Emergency. And the only wartime image I had of my grandfather—taken during the Battle of Britain, sitting on the wing of his Hurricane at RAF Hendon. All of it floated upward in black curls, glowing orange before vanishing into the sky. One moment of rage, and a lifetime’s worth of history went up in smoke. These weren’t just keepsakes—they were visual memories. Once gone, they couldn’t be found again.
Mona stepped outside carrying another armful: shirts, jeans, a pair of running shoes. She tossed the bundle onto the fire, causing a dull whoosh—a flat thud as fabric and vinyl collided. I caught glimpses of photos from the Falklands, regimental lanyards, unit badges, and a few small military keepsakes—items small in size but heavy with history. The pile shifted, the flames surged, and a wave of heat and smoke rolled outward. The crowd stepped back. Bits of ash and scorched paper lifted and drifted overhead like slow-moving snow—white from the burning clothes, black from the melting vinyl—rising through a haze of greasy smoke.
She stepped back, looked up, and caught my eye.
“Hey honey, I didn’t make dinner tonight.” She turned, went back inside, slamming the door behind her.
On that note, I turned, got back to my car, took one last look over my shoulder, and drove out of the neighborhood. I wasn’t sure where I was going—until, impulsively, I decided to drive the 594 miles back to Fort Bragg to stay with friends.
When Todd opened the door, he looked at me and said, “What the hell are you doing here?”
I said, “I just left a barbecue.”
The Other Man’s Dog
July 22, 2025 | 06:54
For as long as I can remember, I wanted a dog. I grew up around them—mostly boxers—but never had one that truly felt like mine. My parents were dog people in spirit, but not always in practice. The dogs came and went. They were often bought on impulse, then returned to the shelter a few years later—not out of neglect or unkindness, but because the reality was harder than the idea. My father was in the Army, often away, and my mother was raising three children on her own. A dog was a comfort—until it became one thing too many.
I joined the Army too, and as a young adult, never had the lifestyle for a dog—always moving, living in barrack-room accommodation—until I married Sue in 1981. Somewhere in the early ’90s, Sue’s brother gave her an American Pit Bull puppy. I named her Tanith, after a character in Dennis Wheatley’s book The Devil Rides Out. She wasn’t my dog, but she became my shadow. I fed her, trained her. We walked in all weathers. Sue and I divorced in 1996—and Tanith became the other man’s dog—along with my television, my books, and a good portion of my savings account.
When I was preparing to retire from the Middle East in 2014, I told Cheri I wanted a dog. I had it pictured: a chocolate Labrador named Barney Rubble. In 2015, she surprised me with a Labrador puppy for my birthday. Barney Rubble has just turned ten. He’s a good companion—stubborn, difficult, and entirely his own creature. He’s developed a mischievous streak and has Cheri and me firmly under the paw. We’ve tried setting limits. He’s not interested. He’s spoiled, eats the best food money can buy, and has premium medical insurance—my open checkbook. Every time he sneezes, he’s off to the vet.
He has an elegant bloodline, descending from such champions as Silver Hills White Buffalo, Shiloh’s Starlight Sadie, Harrison’s Carolina Nellie Girl, and Harrison’s Chocolate Clyde. And then, at the very tip of the pedigree: Barney Rubble—from the Slate Rock and Gravel Company (The Flintstones, 1960–1966).
Now I have a dog I can keep—for the dog’s life. He’s running a quiet two-person operation. He plays us both, gets what he wants, and acts like it’s all perfectly reasonable. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
I Just Live in My Skull
July 21, 2025 | 21:54
I had a glass of wine tonight, sitting in the dark, listening to John Prine.
I was introduced to Prine’s music in 1994 by Barry Johnson—a friend I worked with in Northern Ireland. He’s not central to this post, but he changed how I listen to music. He was Irish. He was a storyteller. Give him a guitar, and you could lose yourself in his voice for hours. From then on, songs weren’t just background or melody—but story, memory, weight.
Some of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard—not in any particular order: Delia by David Bromberg, Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, The 6 O’Clock News by John Prine, Pass in Time by Beth Orton, Astral Weeks by Van Morrison—and there are many more. Not because they’re the greatest songs of all time—but because they open something. A door. A room. A memory. A place, a time, a group of people. Many who don’t exist anymore. Places that are gone.
The older I get, the more I find myself going back to these anchors. You hold on tighter to what keeps you rooted. And when I think about growing old, my greatest fear is losing the ability to read—or to listen to music.
I spent years thinking life was unfair—that I’d drawn the short straw. I grew up with dyslexia, and as a child, the humiliation was hard to bear. But long before I watched my father decline, I’d begun to see that my own struggles—my own limitations—were small compared to what others carry. Still, there’s a fear I can’t shake. I came late to books—late to the classics—because I couldn’t read them when I was young. And now that I can, I worry that age will take them from me again. That I haven’t had the time others were given. That I might lose the very things I’ve only just learned to love.
In his final years, my father suffered an indignity I still struggle to comprehend. He was diagnosed with bowel cancer in the 1980s—can’t recall exactly when—and underwent surgery that removed much of his lower bowel. It left him on a colostomy bag and incontinent for the rest of his life. Over time, his eyesight failed. His hearing went. He couldn’t paint, couldn’t watch football, couldn’t take photographs, couldn’t even follow the television.
One afternoon, he said to me: “I just live in my skull. I remember the days when I was young and fit—when I was in the Army, when I served in Aden, lived in Malta and Berlin, when I used to run, when I played football, when I fished the riverbanks in Belfast as a child—during the war—to put food on the table. I relive those moments as if they were yesterday. I’m living in a shell—and I don’t want to.”
So why am I mentioning all this?
I don’t know—maybe it was just the music.
Blank Page: Flashing Cursor
July 21, 2025 | 10:14
I sat down this morning to write—whatever came into my head, something off the cuff—but nothing came. I spent 25 minutes watching the cursor blink like it had something to say. So I checked the fridge, made a coffee, let Barney out, came back—and still nothing. Blank.
I’ve often wondered how the great writers of our time sit down with a blank page and somehow turn it into something lasting. Endless words pouring from their fingers, striking typewriter keys or digital keyboards like it’s nothing. In Auritz‑Burguete, Spain, Ernest Hemingway stayed at Hostal Burguete when he drafted scenes for The Sun Also Rises. The room was small—just a single bed, a sink, and a narrow table near the window. He wrote on a Corona No. 3 portable typewriter, with light coming in off the Carr. de Francia. It wasn’t much, but it provided the kind of atmosphere needed to shape what became one of his defining works. That hostel was on my bucket list during my first attempt at the Camino in 2023. I wanted the Hemingway room—just to see the surroundings that helped shape the novel. But the place was booked out. I didn’t get to stay.
On the surface, The Sun Also Rises is about bullfighting, heavy drinking, and men behaving badly. But Hemingway wove something deeper into the structure—quietly, without calling attention to it. It’s a layered book. Everyone walks away having read something different. For some, it’s a love story. For others, a travelogue, a portrait of disillusioned youth, or a study in wounded pride. For me, it’s a war novel. Jake Barnes was wounded in combat—badly enough that physical love is no longer possible. The details are left unsaid, but the consequences shape every page. His injury isolates him from Brett, and from the life he might have had. It leaves him watching from the margins, steady but altered, carrying what he lost without complaint. That kind of quiet endurance—without self-pity, without spectacle—felt familiar. Jake isn’t the loudest man in the room, but he’s the one I’d trust. I like him enough that I use his name for restaurant reservations—mine’s too much trouble for most hostesses to spell.
Other writers—John Steinbeck with his moral clarity, or Bill Bryson in his humorous travelogues—seem to write freely, like the words are just waiting to be let out. I’ve never found it that easy. I seem to struggle to express what they hand over without effort. At school, I had dyslexia. I was well spoken and had a strong vocabulary, but I used to write around words I couldn’t spell, which often made my work appear somewhat elementary. It wasn’t until I joined the Army that I taught myself to read and write, in my own time—without the pressure of a classroom where everyone else seemed to be way ahead. It was then I had my lightbulb moment—when this mess of printed words finally made sense.
BOAC to Boarding Group C
July 19, 2025 | 09:31
According to my Delta SkyMiles account, my lifetime flight total sits at 376,601 miles—part of their Million Miler tracking system. It’s not elite status, but it’s enough time in the air to ponder what’s changed. My first flight was in 1964: BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) from London to Valletta, Malta, where my father had been posted with the Army. The aircraft was a de Havilland Comet 4—sleek, pressurized, and still new enough to feel like the future. People dressed like it mattered. Suits, polished shoes, dresses with hems. Today, passengers fly in whatever they woke up in—gym shorts and gnarly toes shoved into flip-flops. Sleeveless T-shirts and hairy armpits. I once watched someone board a flight from New York to Paris—an international flight—wearing pink pajama bottoms covered in balloons and teddy bears. Even in more recent years, certainly since I started flying as an adult, it wasn’t always like this. It wasn’t about showing off—it was about taking pride in your appearance. Now it’s compression tights and loungewear, as if the whole cabin got scooped straight out of a Greyhound bus station.
It has been said: “The golden age of aviation… was a time when air travel was a rare and exciting privilege.” I’m not arguing for a return to paper hats and boarding passes the size of postcards. But we’ve lost the thread. Somewhere between BOAC and Boarding Group C, air travel stopped being a public ritual and became something else—casual, impatient, forgettable. The planes are bigger, but the seats are smaller. Rows are tighter. Legroom is a rumor. Flying has become a cattle cart for profit. Add to that the new social dynamic: someone’s always drunk, arguing with the crew, demanding a new seat, or accusing the airline of something. And before the crew can even respond, half the cabin is already filming it for YouTube. Flying used to mean going somewhere. Now it just means getting through it.
Children of the Large Beaked Bird
July 19, 2025 | 08:11
In 18 days, I’ll be back in Montana—this time for the Crow Fair and to spend time learning more about the Crow as a people. They call themselves Apsáalooke, meaning “Children of the Large Beaked Bird.” The name Crow came later, a misinterpretation by early white settlers. Their identity is shaped by land and kinship. Oral tradition describes a migration west from the Ohio Valley, likely under pressure from neighboring tribes. By the time they reached the Yellowstone River region, they had adapted to the plains—hunting buffalo, raising horses, and moving with the seasons.
The Apsáalooke once ranged widely across what is now Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. They were organized into bands—Mountain Crow, River Crow, and others—each with its own territory and seasonal rhythm. As U.S. expansion accelerated, the Crow aligned with the Army, serving as scouts and guides. Treaties such as Fort Laramie recognized their land claims, at least on paper. But over time, those agreements were undermined. Today, the Crow Reservation in south-central Montana, just above the Wyoming line, spans over two million acres—the largest in the state, though a fraction of what was once theirs.
Crow culture remains intact—resilient, adaptive, and closely tied to the land. Family identity is passed through the mother, with extended clans shaping daily life and community structure. Traditional beliefs see the natural world as alive and interconnected. Sacred places like the Pryor Mountains remain central to that worldview. Artistic practices—beadwork, feathers, ceremonial dress—carry more than visual meaning. They hold memory, passed from one generation to the next.
The Crow language, part of the Siouan family, is still actively spoken, especially by younger generations. Its survival reflects a deliberate commitment to cultural identity. Each August, that identity becomes visible during the Crow Fair in Crow Agency. One of the largest Native gatherings in the country, the event draws families from across the region. Parades, powwows, and rodeo events fill the schedule, but the deeper purpose is steady: to affirm who they are, and to pass it on.
This trip isn’t about what was lost. It’s about seeking what endures.
Point of No Return
July 14, 2025 | 07:26
Today, visiting a national park seems to be the only real way we can see the landscape as it once was. These are carefully managed exhibits of natural history. In essence: a tree museum. You get a glimpse, as long as you stay on the trail and don’t overstay your parking pass. Meanwhile, everything outside the park boundaries keeps getting absorbed—lot by lot, view by view. What used to be open is now paved, fenced, and renamed. You still see traces, but only if you know where to look. And with each generation growing up accustomed to their surroundings, the erosion barely registers. But if you were born in the ’50s and you’re looking at the landscape now, the change isn’t subtle. We’re well past the point of no return. The only thing left to debate is the price of admission.
In 1999, I moved from Buies Creek, North Carolina, to Brandon, Florida. It was still a small town then. Orange groves in the morning, no skyline—just flat stretches and the smell of citrus. That changed when they built the Brandon Expressway (the Crosstown). We traded the smell of citrus for diesel. Suddenly, Tampa was right there. The sprawl didn’t creep—it arrived fully confident. I think about that every time I pass a new development—first in Florida, and now in North Carolina. I moved back to the country to get away from all that. But the sprawl caught up. Apartment blocks rising in cow fields. Paved loops with names like Whispering Oaks, even when the oaks are long gone. I moved here because I wanted to feel like I was on the edge of something—now the edges are filling in, and there’s nowhere left to go.
It wasn’t until recently that the lyrics of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi finally made sense.
“They took all the trees,
Put ’em in a tree museum.
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ’em.”
~ Lyrics from “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell, © 1970 Siquomb Publishing Corp.
Still No Track
11 July 2025 | 08:52
Back in the days of film, geotagging meant pulling out an ordnance survey map, marking a six-figure grid reference, and writing it in a notebook next to the film number, frame number, and contact sheet. If the location mattered, that was good enough. Today, digital photography offers GPS built into some cameras, Bluetooth sync with a phone app, or external GPS units that generate GPX files. Software like Lightroom can match those tracks to your image timestamps and embed the location in the metadata. In theory, it’s seamless. In reality, it’s a labyrinth of apps, cables, and file formats—and somehow, I’ve gone from occasionally scribbling a grid reference to needing GPS coordinates in every image.
All I really wanted was a clean GPX file. Not a spreadsheet, not a proprietary sync, not a device handshake that fails in silence—just a simple breadcrumb trail from one of the two Garmin devices I apparently own: a Tactix 7 Pro watch, a GPSMAP 66sr handheld, and a hiking app that all claim to log tracks. None of them can export one. Or they can, but only if the phase of the moon is right and the Bluetooth doesn’t drop halfway through.
Garmin advertises its gear as military-grade. My watch has Jumpmaster mode for parachute ops, a night-vision setting, and a kill switch to wipe all data—which is impressive, though less useful when I’m just walking upstairs. The handheld is built to survive a war zone, but neither device can export a clean GPX file. Somewhere along the way, Garmin adopted a one-size-fits-all approach, bloating the software with fitness features I don’t need. If I’m buying a tactical watch, I don’t care that it tracks REM cycles or charts an ECG—I just want a GPS log I can drop into Lightroom without unpacking 40 lines of biometrics.
I’ve tried the Garmin Connect app, Explore app, BaseCamp, Express, and a web portal that hasn’t been updated since the Reagan administration. One file came out labeled as a course, another as an activity, and neither could be read by Lightroom or opened without a tech support ticket. I watched a YouTube video where someone extracted a GPX using a browser plugin and three accounts. That person is now a systems engineer at NASA.
And then there’s Nikon. Other camera brands build GPS into entry-level models, but somehow—despite shelling out for a camera in Nikon’s so-called professional lineup—geotagging still requires an accessory, a workaround, or a prayer. You’d think by the time they got to the Z models they’d have figured it out. But no. The camera knows what time it is. It just has no idea where it’s been.
Garmin isn’t much better. It is possible, technically, to extract a FIT file—their proprietary fitness format—convert it online, export it as a GPX, and then import it into Lightroom. A process that feels less like file management and more like clearing airport security. You’d think that for a $1,500 watch, I could just pull a clean GPX file and drop it straight into Lightroom. But no—apparently, that’s too much to ask from a device with a kill switch.
Lipstick on a Pig
July 10, 2025 | 08:45
There’s a growing belief that ordinary photographs—the kind made without presets, without shortcuts, without the pressure to perform—no longer have a place. I’m not talking about bad pictures. I’m talking about real ones. A moment, noticed and recorded. We used to see value in that. Now, with AI edits and endless online content, we’ve confused decoration with depth. A couple I once knew skipped the wedding photographer. Everyone had phones, so why pay someone? Technically, they got what they wanted: a folder of images from the day. But as the years passed, so did the satisfaction. The pictures weren’t the problem—it was the polish. What they ended up with was lipstick on a pig: images dressed up in filters and presets to look like enough, but missing the consistency, restraint, and perspective a photographer brings.
In this new culture, the illusion of skill has replaced the process of earning it. A casual user can tap through a filter pack or type a prompt into AI and walk away with something that looks polished. But looking good isn’t the same as being good. Photographs used to be shaped by restraint and patience. You had to know what you were looking at. Now the default is enhancement—brighten the eyes, blur the sky, stretch the colors, fix it later. That’s not photography. That’s decoration. And the more we reward it, the less space there is for work that doesn’t need a gloss to carry weight.
In today’s social media world—Instagram, Facebook, Flickr—it can feel like you’re not a photographer unless your work is widely seen. And even then, it’s judged by metrics: likes, reposts, follower counts. These platforms reward attention, not intention—and that alters how people take pictures, and why. The value of a photograph is now often measured by reaction, not by what it says or how it was made. A good image might go unnoticed, while an AI-tweaked composite earns a thousand likes. The algorithm doesn’t care what you saw—it only rewards what performs.
When I say “photographer,” I don’t mean professionals with contracts or portfolios. I mean anyone with a camera—whether it’s a phone, a point-and-shoot, or a DSLR—who goes out into the world and tries to see it clearly. Someone who works to improve their skill, who records what’s there without staging it. Photography is about attention.
There’s nothing wrong with picking up a phone or camera and taking pictures without formal training. That’s how most of us start—recording daily life, seeing what turns out. What’s changed is the pressure. Social media has made people afraid to share unless the image is perfect—processed, filtered, inflated. The joy of photography gets buried under fear of judgment. I’ve seen people stop posting entirely because they didn’t get the approval they hoped for. Others compensate—turning every sunset into something so dramatic it looks like God himself staged it. That’s not expression. That’s survival, in a space where quiet, flawed, meaningful work has no place.
Years ago, I submitted a small set of Falklands War images to the editor of the Military Picture Library International. I had 56 frames but sent only 15. I explained that the others were damaged—some had watermarks, others were soft or misframed. He asked to see them all. To my surprise, he chose four I’d written off. His reasoning was simple: “In your opinion, it may be a bad photograph. But if it’s the only photograph of a particular subject or event, then by definition, it’s the best.” That stayed with me. Not everything has to be technically perfect to be valuable. Sometimes, being there—and recording what happened—is enough.
With that in mind, I once ran a workshop in New York where someone asked how to get more likes and views on social media. It was an honest question, but it revealed something deeper—as if the worth of an image depended on strangers clicking a thumbs-up icon. We ended up talking about what it means to be judged by people you don’t know, who may not even understand the craft. I asked: why does their approval matter? Who are these people, and why give them that power? It felt like submitting your work to a basement society—anonymous users handing out digital acceptance clicks to feed an algorithm. I said that when I started in 1974, none of this existed. If you wanted your work seen, you sent it to a newspaper or magazine. But did that make us any less real as photographers? Did the absence of online validation make the image less meaningful?
In today’s basement society—where a generation lives online—we’re handing people the tools to create images without ever stepping outside. The question remains: is that still photography? If a picture is generated from a prompt, assembled by software, and tuned to please an algorithm, does it still count? Or is it just something that looks like photography, detached from the act of seeing and responding to the world through a lens? Maybe the real question isn’t whether AI images qualify—but whether we still care how something was made. There’s still value in the unfiltered, the imperfect, the personal. Not everything needs to be polished to matter. Sometimes, it’s enough that you were there. That you saw something. And chose to bring it home.
The Green Light
July 5, 2025 | 12:54
I just ran the alternative—the backup plan—by Cheri and got the green light. It’s not that I needed permission—it’s the dog, and making sure he’s looked after while I travel.
The initial plan is to make a second attempt at the Camino de Santiago, setting off June 1, 2026. The first attempt ended in Burgos, after 189 miles—when I hiked a hole in my foot that caused permanent nerve damage. Mostly my own fault: I rushed on a tight schedule to meet another commitment in Normandy. Enough excuses. This time I’ll make a fitness call on December 1, 2025. Why December? I’ve just had an ablation to correct an irregular heartbeat, and the doctors say recovery takes about three months. So December feels like the right moment to assess: do I feel ready to put that much stress on my heart? Do I have what it takes to walk 500 miles? Will my knees and ankles hold out? Can I realistically complete it? These are questions I need to answer before I drop a ton of cash on airfare and gear.
Like any good strategist, I’ve been working on a fallback. Plan B is a solo drive from Clayton, North Carolina, to Fairbanks, Alaska. The route heads west through South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, then across Texas with a stop in Dallas to visit Dealey Plaza—a Bucket List item. From there, it continues through New Mexico and Arizona, up through Utah (Zion National Park), into Idaho, then Wyoming (the Tetons, Yellowstone), and on to Bozeman. From there, west to Glacier National Park and across the Canadian border. At Dawson Creek, British Columbia, I’ll pick up the Alaska Highway and follow it north to its end point in Delta Junction. The final stretch takes me to Fairbanks, ending at the International Airport for the flight home. Mile Zero—my driveway—to the finish. Google Maps puts it at roughly 5,840 miles.
If I’m fit for the Camino, this road trip stays in reserve—for the following year.
Before the Dumpster
July 3, 2025 | 10:58
They say there comes a moment when you realize how much of what you carry is needless. For me, it came suddenly—in 2019, clearing out my father’s house after he died. Watching the contents of his life—decades of objects, papers, and tools—hauled off in black bags and dumped in a dumpster was harder than I expected. I knew then I didn’t want to leave the same burden behind. So I buried a sealed time capsule in the Sonoran Desert—family artifacts that mattered to me but no one else. After that, the rule was simple: if it didn’t serve a purpose or still carry weight, it went in the trash.
Not long after, I sold every firearm I owned. My Civil War collection, gone. Artifacts I’d picked up at auction. Army photographs. Certificates. Service qualifications. Everything I’d gathered over the years—memories tied to places I’d been, people I’d known. I didn’t box them up or set them aside for later. I carried them out and dumped them in the trash. And when I did, I felt strangely free.
Letting go hasn’t just meant clearing shelves. It’s meant cutting loose emotional clutter too—especially the kind that shows up as people. I’ve started deleting names from my address book. Some haven’t spoken to me in years. Others check in just often enough to reassure themselves I’m still where I was—no better off than them. By the time I’m done, only the ones who matter will remain.
I recently wrote to a close friend who’d been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. In that letter, I shared a quote that’s stayed with me—something from Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist and writer. He wrote:
“If you’ve made it to 70, you’ve already outlived millions of people who never got the chance to experience what you have. You’ve seen the world shift in ways younger generations cannot even begin to understand. You’ve lived through wars, political changes, revolutions in technology, economic crashes, and personal transformations. You’ve walked through pain, lost love, success, and failure—and yet you are still here. And that means something.”
The line “Still being here” stuck with me. Still sorting through what matters and what doesn’t. It landed hard because, for me, that sorting had already begun. Quietly. No big turning point, no announcement—just a slow recognition that most of what we carry, physically or emotionally, can be let go. It started with the time capsule in the desert. No ceremony. Just a sense that it needed to be done. Looking back, it wasn’t just a burial. It was a pivot. Something shifted after that.
This isn’t about minimalism. I’ve never cared much for lifestyle trends. What began in the desert in 2022 set something in motion I didn’t fully understand at the time. Since then, I’ve been paring back—possessions, obligations, and the emotional weight that comes with both. I’ve given away more than I’ve kept. And the more I let go, the more I feel like I’m not losing anything at all.
I didn’t write this as advice or reflection. I wrote it because I needed to set it down. To make sense of what I’ve let go and why. I’m not chasing clarity or closure—just putting things in order while I still can. If there’s a thread here, it’s this: I’m not interested in leaving behind possessions that hold no meaning for anyone else and would just end up in a dumpster. I’d rather throw it out myself. My aim is to arrive at 70 with nothing I don’t use—clothes, toothbrush, camera, computer. Nothing I need beyond temporary comfort. Nothing I wouldn’t walk away from.
Where the Fireplace Once Stood
July 3, 2025 | 08:52
American travel writer Bill Bryson once said there are three things in life you just can’t do: you can’t beat the phone company, you can’t make a waitress see you until she’s ready, and you can’t go home again. It’s that last part I’ve been contemplating lately.
Years ago, I wrote about what it meant to go home—to walk back through a city that raised me, a family that’s mostly gone. That piece is lost now, and I’m not sure it can be rewritten. Some things aren’t meant to be recaptured. But I remember what it felt like to write it, and maybe that’s enough. What brought all this back was thinking about 2019, when I returned to Belfast to bury my dad. He was the last link in the chain—the last adult from my childhood—and now that link was gone.
Growing up in Belfast in the 1960s felt magical. The narrow cobblestone streets off the Donegal Road were almost claustrophobic. Terraced houses pressed together, their red-brick facades lining rows that reeked of coal smoke and factory fumes. Linen mill chimneys pumped out grey smog that hung low, like industrial mist. The air tasted of soot, peat, and damp stone. Hearths burned low in every home, the chill of unsealed windows pushing back against the warmth from old fireplaces. The scent of soda bread and boiled tea drifted from my grandmother’s kitchen, while dogs barked, children skipped, and hopscotch games played out to the rhythm of familiar street rhymes. Everybody knew each other. Every secret got told. Every argument echoed two doors down. The houses leaned in, sharing stories through the walls. I can still see Lynn Gordon playing two-ball against the entry wall—bouncing one tennis ball while throwing the other in a seamless rhythm. I was smitten, maybe with a kind of childhood admiration I didn’t yet understand—too shy to speak to her.
I spent a lot of time in those backstreets, living with my grandparents. But when I returned in 2019, I stood in a pile of rubble that was once the foundations of 92 Broadway Parade. Looking at where the fireplace had stood, a flood of memories came rushing back—the tin bath, being washed as a child in front of the fire, the old black-and-white television. I could still picture my grandmother watching Ironside, puffing her way through a pack of unfiltered Park Drive. It was here, in this very room, on July 20, 1969, that I watched the moon landing. Sitting alongside my grandparents, we shared the awe of that moment when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and spoke his immortal words. My mother cried. My grandmother lit a cigarette.
My brother and sister don’t remember any of it—not the sound of coal being delivered, not the smell of Park Drive cigarettes or my grandfather’s pipe tobacco, not the squeak of the wrought iron gate. They don’t remember Bruno and Sheila, the dogs; my uncle Brian’s pigeon shed; or Jason the cat. They were too young. Too young to remember my dad’s parents—my favorites. And their memories of my mom’s side are faint and secondhand.
I didn’t like my grandmother on my mother’s side. She was a stern, wicked woman—always ready and willing to deal out excessive punishment with whatever inanimate object she could put her hand to. In the years after she died, I tried to understand her. She raised ten children more or less on her own—out in the country, with no electricity, no inside plumbing, just gaslight. It was a hard life, and she was a hard woman. But that understanding always collapsed against the memory of her cruelty. There’s still no forgiveness in my heart for some of the things she did.
My father spent the war years as a child in that house on Broadway. He and my grandmother slept under the stairs during air raids while the German Luftwaffe bombed the docks and rail yards. He scavenged coal from the railway at Windsor Park just to keep the fire going. The war marked him. That house, that street, and those memories—all of it ran straight through his life. And now, they run only through me.
After scattering my father’s ashes, I took a trip down memory lane—my dad was gone, and I had no reason to ever return. When I walked those streets, nothing fit. The rebuilt houses were too clean, the roads too wide, the faces unfamiliar. It’s not that I wanted it back the way it was—I just felt like I was trespassing in my own memory. As I went to leave, I paused briefly in the space where the alleyway had once stood, where I used to stand silently watching Lynn Gordon—completely taken with her, never daring to speak. For a second, it was as if sight, sound, and smell had shifted—everything returned. Looking back, that silence became regret.
Opposite Ends: The $25 Room
June 30, 2025 | 11:29
I’ve spent most of my life traveling—more so now that I’m retired, probably trying to squeeze in as much as I can before I get to the point where I can’t travel anymore. And it’s funny, because I’ve noticed a trend at opposite ends of the scale has developed over several years—which may have started when I left the Army in 1998. I decided to drive from Carolina Beach, North Carolina, to Santa Monica Beach, California, on a rented Harley-Davidson. I set a number of parameters: use the interstate as little as possible, only stay in mom-and-pop roadside motels, and eat in local diners. The idea was to avoid tourist routes, hotels, and chain eateries.
When I talk about opposite ends of the scale, I mean it literally. I once worked in Basra, Iraq, where the temperature in August hit 122°F in the shade. To even things out, I later went to Barrow, Alaska, in February and experienced –29°F. That about sums it up—one end of the thermometer to the other.
In a recent post, I mentioned that I usually fly Delta Airlines. But once—just once—I ended up on an American Airlines flight out of London. It redefined the lower end of the travel spectrum. As we boarded, the pilot stood beside the purser, greeting passengers. He looked like he’d trained alongside Amelia Earhart, and none of the flight attendants looked under 60. I couldn’t help but wonder how they’d manage to clear the aircraft in an emergency. During the meal service, they leaned on the trolleys like walking frames. I ordered the garlic chicken Parmesan with bow tie pasta—it arrived frozen. Apparently, Lilly, the flight attendant, thought it was a salad. By the time she reached row nine, the call buttons lit up like a Christmas tree. The kicker? Airline policy wouldn’t allow meals to be reheated once served, so the first nine rows—including mine—were left chiseling away at a block of frozen poultry. As if that wasn’t enough, we were on an aging aircraft with a single screen suspended from the bulkhead. One movie: Dirty Dancing. Take it or leave it. I’ve never flown American Airlines again.
I’ve been fortunate enough to experience the luxury of the Clock Tower Suite at the Culloden Estate and Spa in Belfast—and the quiet, enduring elegance of the Willard InterContinental in Washington, D.C. The Willard is all polished marble, gleaming brass, and hushed conversation. Its corridors echo with history—Lincoln stayed here, as did nearly every president since. The lobby blends chandeliers and coffered ceilings with velvet-upholstered armchairs positioned just so. Bellmen glide across mosaic floors, and the scent of fresh-cut lilies drifts in from the Peacock Alley. Even the doormen look like they stepped out of a well-lit documentary on American power. The room itself was quiet luxury—crisp linen, deep carpets, and mahogany furniture that didn’t creak when you touched it. A decanter and two cut-glass tumblers waited under soft lighting near the window. Downstairs, the Round Robin Bar served bourbon in heavy crystal, with leather-backed stools arranged in a perfect curve beneath oil portraits and paneled walls. Senators and lobbyists whispered over cocktails. If only these walls could talk. The balance of American power has been negotiated under those portraits since 1860.
And—just to keep things balanced—I once spent the night at America’s Best Value Inn in Charles Town, West Virginia.
When I checked in, the first thing that hit me was the smell of weed in what they loosely called the reception area. A middle-aged woman sat behind thick glass—grilled over like a bank teller’s window—with a small slit to slide cash through. She wore thick horn-rimmed glasses, a cheetah-print T-shirt, bright pink nails and red lipstick, and heavy false eyelashes—everything clashed, especially the pink nails and red lips. She only took cash, didn’t ask for ID, and asked how many hours I wanted the room. Sitting by a gas heater was an elderly man (an Eddie Grant look-alike) with greying dreadlocks, casually rolling a six-inch cheroot thick enough to be used as firewood.
I’ve stayed in some questionable places—from Malaya to Hong Kong, Belize to Brunei—but nothing prepared me for this. This $25 room hit the gold standard of bad rooms—a petri dish of undiscovered diseases. The odor was foul—an indescribable mix of stale sewage and mildew. In the bathroom, a used tampon sat in the waste basket, and brown rings circled the toilet like tree rings. Using the tree ring theory, I estimated this toilet was roughly 17 years old. The shower fittings were loose, and the hot tap just spun—no hot water. Behind the bathroom door was a pair of dusty old socks. One drawer held a large pair of tighty-whiteys—used, their age marked by a fading skidmark. An extension cord ran from behind the open wardrobe, stretched tight between the only outlet and two appliances—suspended at waist height like a trip wire. It powered a microwave I didn’t dare open and a fridge that didn’t work. The bed had a rock-hard mattress, a single sheet, and a thin summer blanket. The sheets and pillows were an earth-tone gray—not by design, but by years of use—and didn’t inspire much confidence in the microbes living between the fibers.
However, given my recent habit of chasing extremes, I did stay the night. I’d originally booked for two—but one was enough to earn the experience, and the tetanus risk.
The Popularity Tax: Delta’s Reward for Flying Solo
June 29, 2025 | 08:09
Is my loyalty to Delta coming to an end? Has Delta quietly joined the ranks of airlines charging more simply because they can?
Since 1994, I’ve flown Delta almost exclusively—except for one unavoidable American Airlines flight out of Dubai—and have logged 475,000 miles with them along the way. While air travel has gradually devolved from a luxury in the skies to a Greyhound trip with turbulence, Delta, to its credit, has maintained an experience generally seen as a cut above the rest.
That’s what made their latest move so irritating. At some point recently, Delta decided that flying alone should cost more. Not everywhere, and not all the time—just enough to make you question your life choices while trying to book a one-way seat from Minneapolis to somewhere equally regrettable. On certain domestic routes, solo travelers were quietly being charged up to 70% more than couples. Same plane, same row, same screaming kids two rows back—but if you dared to fly without a companion, congratulations: you were now a luxury item. The fine print made it clear. The lowest fare? Only available if you were traveling with another adult “in the same compartment.” That’s airline-speak for: bring a friend or pay the loneliness tax. This wasn’t a glitch. This was the plan.
Naturally, it went down like a tray of lukewarm chicken marsala. Solo flyers, widowed retirees, and anyone bold enough to book a seat without adult supervision took notice. A few travel sites lit the fuse, The Washington Post poured fuel on it, and next thing you know, Delta and United quietly backed away like it never happened. No apology, no announcement—just a silent reversal and a shared hope that no one had screenshots. (They did.)
For now, things seem back to normal, if that word still applies to modern air travel. But it’s worth remembering: if your one-way ticket seems steep, try pretending you have a friend. The airlines certainly are.
Out of Hiding
June 28, 2025 | 08:12
Finally, after 45 months and 28 days, my dear friend Hezbullah—along with his wife and four daughters—has received a path to freedom. Their Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) was approved this morning. They’re coming to the United States.
I employed Hezbullah in April 2010 while working as a security contractor at FOB Lion, a remote U.S. base in the Panjshir Valley, in the Hindu Kush mountains of Northeast Afghanistan. My job was to build and train a local Afghan guard force, manage base and regional security, and keep lines open with police, army, and intelligence officials in the valley. None of it would have been possible without him. He translated not just language, but culture—opening doors, easing tension, and keeping information moving in a place where nuance could mean survival. He had family ties to the regional army commander, which gave us access when it mattered most. We leaned on that trust more times than I can count. And when the war ended and everything collapsed, he became a target. What followed was nearly four years of hiding, appeals, dead ends, and risk. But he never gave up—and neither did we.
The first visa application was filed in August 2021. The documentation was solid—certificates, affidavits, years of service spelled out in black and white. But by October, Hezbullah was in real danger. Someone in his village had given his name to the Taliban. He went underground, and we started looking at other options. At the time, his eldest daughter was eight. In Afghan culture, twelve is often considered marrying age for girls—especially in rural areas, often to older men. That timeline stayed with me. The longer they remained in hiding, the closer she moved toward a future none of them chose. Getting them out before that became a possibility felt urgent. I encouraged him to find a smuggler, someone who could move the family across the border into Pakistan. He did, and a route opened up—fifteen thousand dollars for the crossing. I told him I’d pay it. Then the border shut down. Too much risk, too many checkpoints. I eventually managed to get funds to him through a relief group, and he was able to purchase passports. But even that came with its own dangers. The Taliban had access to biometric data. Just showing up at the airport could have gotten him arrested. Eventually, the application was denied. We filed an appeal, rewrote everything, and sent it back in. And then we waited.
Now, nearly four years later, the waiting is over. The visa was approved. After everything—the hiding, the dead ends, the failed plans—they’re coming. Hezbullah, his wife, and their daughters will start again in a place where they no longer have to look over their shoulders.
A Personal Vision Quest
June 26, 2025 | 09:40
I didn’t go back to the desert this year. I felt I needed a break—time to see something different, do something else. But now there’s this uneasy feeling, like I’ve missed something. Not a place, exactly—but a sense that something was left undone, or forgotten. As we get older, we become more set in our ways—I’ve noticed this in myself. Maybe it’s just the pull of established rhythms. For roughly a decade, I’ve gone to the desert twice a year. Breaking that pattern this year has left me with a quiet sense that something’s missing. Or maybe I just have a strange attachment to standing in 115° heat. Either way, stepping into the wilderness, even briefly, still feels like a kind of soul-level reset.
The naturalist John Muir once said, “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” I’ve found that to be true in the desert, no matter how many times I return to the same terrain. This year, I chose Montana and Wyoming instead—wide open spaces with their own unique blend of natural beauty. But there’s something about hiking in the desert, three hours from civilization, with no cell coverage. That edge of risk adds something the Great Plains can’t quite match.
It’s easy to imagine ancient life in a desert landscape—sitting alone, seeing what others saw thousands of years ago. The petroglyphs remind you—they belonged to a time long before this one. And with that comes a quiet realization: a single lifespan is just a blink of an eye, set against a timescale that places those markings deeper than all recorded human history. It’s not hard to see why the desert held spiritual meaning. Just the memory of sitting out there under the Milky Way brings it back—the scale, the silence, the humbling sense that you’re just passing through. It’s not ceremony. It’s perspective.
For several days now, I’ve been pondering Google Maps, linking familiar places in the desert into an imaginary road trip. The next trip out west is going to be gritty, uncomfortable—truck bed accommodation, a blowup mattress, dehydrated meals. Sleeping under the Milky Way in the land of Wile E. Coyote—I miss it.
Yeti Cups, and the Illusion of Control
June 24, 2025 | 08:40
It holds the same contents as any other cup, but cost four times more and has the heft of a small dumbbell. I bought it because apparently nothing says stability like powder-coated, vacuum-insulated steel.
Yeti built its name on durability—overbuilt, over-insulated, and overpriced. It’s the kind of brand that turns a simple cup into a minor investment. But I didn’t buy it for performance specs or temperature retention. I bought it for the name—and because I liked the matte blue color. Yeti. Bold letters, rugged marketing, the illusion of preparedness. I’ve drunk Moët & Chandon Nectar Impérial out of that cup—not because it improved the taste, but because it was there.
Most nights on the road end the same way: sink Chardonnay—grocery store wine chilled in the bathroom sink over a few buckets of motel ice, sipped from a cup of military-grade overkill. Not exactly wine culture, but it adds a certain quality when poured into vacuum-insulated steel.
It’s nothing to do with hydration. It’s a lifestyle choice. A cool cup with a branded name. A little too heavy for hiking, a little too self-important for wine, but just right for whatever comes out of the sink at the next motel. I’m definitely packing it for Montana.
Small Talk with a Tripod
June 23, 2025 | 09:16
Undoubtedly, YouTube has become a lifesaver for many subjects—from changing out a toilet to cleaning a lawnmower carburetor. There are all kinds of presentation styles among YouTube creators. And just to be clear, I’m not being critical—I don’t have a channel, I can’t speak in front of a camera, and plenty of young people out there are making serious money through monetization. Many have become successful doing it, while I’m just on the sidelines—watching, paying bills, and counting nickels and dimes. That said—
I’ve followed a number of content creators over the years on the topic of photography. I’ve seen many start out as humble photographers, simply trying to share what they’d learned—only to become YouTube personalities whose tone gradually shifted from sharing to performing.
Somewhere along the way, the goal shifted from helping people to holding attention. Titles promise one tool, one fix, one feature—but the videos stretch to cover everything from catalog structure to how to hold a camera. I clicked on a video about the new masking tools in Lightroom, and got a seven-minute detour on importing files. One recent review of the Nisi JetMag system opened with five minutes on storm damage to the creator’s roof, explaining why he hadn’t uploaded in a while. That could’ve been handled with one sentence. Instead, it turned into a weather report. Eleven-minute video. Five minutes of roofing. The tools might be sharper, but the videos are starting to feel like small talk with a tripod.
The Illusion of Downsizing
June 23, 2025 | 07:28
After weeks of rethinking my camera gear—downsizing, setting aside lenses and gadgets I never use, and trying to stick with a lightweight bag of equipment I’ll actually carry and shoot with—I came across my Lee 100mm filter system. It cost a small fortune at the time—close to $600 once the holders, adapters, ND filters, and numerous sunset filters were all added up—but I barely used it. Too fiddly in the field. Stiff to slide the filters in and out, which knocked the composition. The whole setup was bulky, awkward, and slow. It was considered one of the best systems out there when I bought it—respected, expensive. But I shelved it.
If I hadn’t come across the Lee filter system, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But then I started thinking about Yellowstone—waterfalls, wide skies—and the idea of heading there without an ND system. The irony is, if I hadn’t seen the old kit again, I probably wouldn’t have gone looking for a replacement. And yet, here I am—downsizing—and I’ve just dropped a shit load of cash on the Nisi JetMag filter system. As usual, I’ve justified the expense by telling myself this magnetic setup will be easier to handle—and that, unlike the last one, I’ll actually use it in the field. In two years, I’ll probably find it again while downsizing—used once—and start researching whatever filter system everyone’s raving about.
This is what downsizing looks like—trading old gear for new, and pretending it’s restraint.
Yellowstone
June 22, 2025 | 18:04
I’m planning a return to Yellowstone National Park for a two-day photography project, part of the Montana and Wyoming photography trip in August—this will be my second visit.
Yellowstone stretches across the remote corner of northwest Wyoming, spilling into Montana and Idaho. Set aside in 1872, it became the first national park anywhere—declared before there was much of a system to protect it. Today, over four million people pass through each year. The land covers more than two million acres: long prairie valleys, lodgepole forests, broken ridges, and high volcanic plateaus. Fire, water, time—they’ve all had their turn. The park is held together by a loop road that touches five entry points and keeps most travelers close to the edge.
The Yellowstone Caldera—what’s left of a supervolcano that last erupted over 60,000 years ago—sits quiet but unsettled. Its presence rises through geysers, steam vents, and thermal pools. Grand Prismatic Spring rests west of center, ringed in vivid bacterial color. South of that, Old Faithful still throws its steam on schedule. The place has always drawn a mix of awe and misunderstanding.
The geothermal features are just part of it. The park holds thick woods, fast rivers, deep lakes, and long stretches of open range. Wildlife moves freely—elk, bear, coyote, wolves, and especially bison. Yellowstone holds the last wild herd of its kind, a recovery effort decades in the making. The Yellowstone River runs north, fed by the lake, before cutting deep through rhyolite and falling hard into the canyon. Some of the oldest exposed rock in the park can be seen from its rim.
North of the river, the Lamar Valley opens up. The tree line thins, and the land folds back into grassland. To the west, terraces form and dissolve at Mammoth Hot Springs, driven by whatever the earth decides to release next. Norris Basin sits further on, where steam and mud still find their way up through fragile crust. The trail at Artists’ Paintpots crosses an uneasy surface—thin in places, buckling in others. Yellowstone holds its shape for now, but it’s a geothermal time bomb waiting to explode.
Countertop Ceremony
June 2, 2025 | 06:38
Having been born in the late ’50s, I have managed to accumulate a fair number of unhealthy habits along the way. Over the past fifteen years, I’ve let most of them go. I quit smoking in 2006, including cigars. I don’t drink anything like I used to. I’ve cut way back on fried food—greasy fried eggs, bacon, and sausages—and I absolutely will not eat McDonald’s. But there are two things I will not give up—even if it were to mean an early grave: a good single malt and morning coffee.
When I say coffee, I don’t mean flipping on a machine. I start with water—run through a charcoal filter—and bring it to a boil, then let it rest just long enough to drop below scalding so it won’t burn the grounds. The porcelain mug is placed with the handle precisely at 9 o’clock. The matching pour-over goes on top, and I wet the inside to seal the paper filter to the sidewalls so it doesn’t fold in on itself. Only then is the filter inserted. My hand grinder comes out of its little felt bag like a precision tool. I measure the beans for one cup at a time, grind them slowly and evenly, then brush the mechanism clean with the tiny brush it came with. Everything is lined up carefully. I pour the water in a steady, clockwise spiral—just enough at first to let the coffee bloom, then return in stages until the pour is complete.
This morning, apparently, I was getting in Cheri’s way as she was getting ready for work. She looked over and said, “You know, this is starting to turn into a Japanese tea ceremony.” Chanoyu—The Way of Tea—is a centuries-old tradition rooted in Zen, centered on harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility. Every step of the ritual is deliberate: from how the utensils are handled to the way the tea is whisked and served. It’s less about the drink itself and more about the practice—quiet attention to the moment, to motion, to presence. I’ve just swapped the matcha for dark roast and the tatami mat for a kitchen counter. But I get it. Some rituals are worth keeping.
Buffalo
May 28, 2025 | 09:00
There’s a certain gravity to seeing buffalo on the open plains.
On the Montana–Wyoming trip in August, I’m planning a buffalo hunt—photographic, not literal. I’ll be driving Highway 14 from Cody into Yellowstone, where I’ve seen buffalo before. They’re often spotted crossing the road—or just beyond the shoulder. I want to spend some time with them—to take in their presence, even if the herds are small now.
The collapse of the buffalo wasn’t accidental. In the late 1800s, U.S. policy made clear that removing the herds was a deliberate way to break the resistance of the Plains tribes. For the Crow, as with others, the buffalo was everything—food, clothing, shelter, tools, ceremony. A single animal could provide over two hundred pounds of meat, along with sinew for bowstrings, hides for lodges and robes, bones for tools. They were hunted with skill and reverence, and each part was used. In the early 1800s, tens of millions roamed the central plains. By the 1880s, fewer than a thousand remained. No buffalo meant no food, no trade, no mobility—and no chance of independence. Today, most wild herds are protected and managed, but they remain only a fragment of what once was.
The closest many modern viewers have come to imagining the scale of a historic buffalo hunt is the 1990 film Dances with Wolves, directed by Kevin Costner. The production used a mix of live animals and early CGI to recreate the motion and density of the herd. Costner and his team went to great lengths to frame the action across sweeping prairie vistas, emphasizing both the physical expanse and the sheer force of movement. It remains one of the most ambitious cinematic efforts to visualize the urgency, coordination, and immensity of what such a hunt might have looked like. Just as powerful is a later scene that shows the aftermath of a white hunters’ kill—hundreds of buffalo left to rot, their hides taken but their meat and bones wasted. It’s a moment that underscores not just the scale of the slaughter, but the deliberate disregard for how Native communities used every part of the animal. That kind of waste wasn’t just greed. It was strategy.
The Crow once followed those herds through this region—across river valleys, foothills, and open plains. Their movements were timed to the rhythms of the buffalo: winter camps in sheltered basins, summer hunts on the high plains, migration routes traced over generations. These were not random wanderings but deliberate returns—paths worn into the land long before any map. Trails led through what is now parkland and pasture, long before fences divided the land. Today, it’s managed, fenced, and patrolled—regulated by grazing permits, park rules, and posted boundaries. But the shape of the old hunting grounds is there if you know what to look for. The terrain rises and opens in ways that suggest movement: long slopes, river crossings, sheltering stands of trees. You can still see where people once lived by following where the buffalo went.
Out here, the herds are smaller, the rules tighter, but the echoes remain. If the light is right and the land quiet enough, you might catch a sense of what was lost—and what endures.
Under Research: No Last Stand
May 16, 2025 | 09:17
I’m currently researching a project which I intend to publish late August—titled No Last Stand.
There’s something to be said for standing in the exact same place where historic events took place—especially when the landscape has changed very little between then and now. It creates a sense of connection. To look out across a landscape and see a vista almost exactly as the people in the story once saw it—that kind of clarity does something. For me, nothing draws the past closer than standing on the Little Bighorn Battlefield. Unlike many other historic sites, there’s been very little modern development here. The land still speaks.
The idea for No Last Stand began much like Following Billy: Then and Now—just follow the trail, see where it leads. But the two projects have unfolded differently. With Billy the Kid, the story came slowly. It took six months of research, often deep into the night, burning through long hours and more than a few pots of coffee. That story had been pulled in all directions over the years—shaped to fit different agendas, clouded by legend, and riddled with conflicting testimony. It took time just to unpack it and find a line that felt solid. This one has moved more cleanly. The Native side of Little Bighorn has always been there—told through family tradition, oral history, and tribal memory—but rarely centered. What’s striking is how clearly it reveals what Custer got wrong: the arrogance, the misreading of terrain, the tactical missteps that led not to glory, but to the annihilation of his entire command.
This August, I’ll be heading back to Montana and Wyoming to walk the ground, attend the Crow Fair and Powwow, and spend time talking with descendants of those who fought in the battle. Not just the Crow, but the Cheyenne and Lakota as well. I’ll have a camera with me, as always, trying to capture the feel of the land as much as the facts. There’s a weight to it, knowing these stories weren’t lost—they were just ignored. The story is already there. It just takes someone to listen.
Tomatoes and Time
May 2, 2025 | 11:26
I was in the garden this morning—watering tomatoes, pulling weeds, trying to stay on top of things—when I realized I’ve become what I used to see in others: an old man tinkering in the garden. Then it hit me—today is May 2. On this day, Friday, May 2, 1975, I was on my way to Malta Barracks in Aldershot for a pre-selection weekend for the Parachute Regiment. I was accepted for the September 9 intake at Browning Barracks. I was sixteen and leaving school that July, with no real idea what I was getting into. That summer felt like pure freedom—nothing tying me down, just the prospect of a clean slate. I couldn’t imagine being 66 back then—time didn’t make much sense when you were that young. One minute you’re standing in line with a fresh haircut and a kit bag, the next you’re bending over tomato plants wondering where it all went. I left the Army on July 1, 1999, after 23 years and 364 days, which means I’ve now been out longer than I was in. That feels strange.
As I remember, Britain wasn’t in great shape then, though I didn’t notice it much before I left home. Like many kids, I’d lived under the umbrella of my parents. They didn’t have much, but I never really had to worry about money—until I left that September. I don’t remember the difficulties firsthand, but I looked into it now to remind myself what the cost of living was like. Inflation had topped 24%, wages were low, and the average gross annual income in the UK was about £3,448. Prices were rising, and people were just getting by. A house cost around £13,000, a gallon of four-star fuel was 73 pence, a new car went for £1,840, a pack of Benson & Hedges was 39p, and a pint of Double Diamond was 32 pence.
In February, Margaret Thatcher became the first woman to lead a major UK political party, replacing Edward Heath as head of the Conservatives. No one could’ve guessed then how much she’d go on to reshape the country. The Cod Wars with Iceland were escalating—sounded silly until ships started ramming each other. That same month, the Moorgate tube crash killed 43 people when a train failed to stop at the end of the line.
North Sea oil started flowing that year, with the Forties pipeline opening up—people said it would change everything. In June, the UK voted to stay in the European Community, our first national referendum. Meanwhile, the world stage was full of names that now feel like history: Gerald Ford, Harold Wilson, Pierre Trudeau, Indira Gandhi, Leonid Brezhnev. The Cold War was in the air, and even at sixteen, you could feel it.
The Vietnam War ended in April, and I remember it vividly. Although it was half a world away, it didn’t feel distant—Walter Cronkite brought it into our living rooms each night. I remember the Marines pushing into the citadel during the Tet Offensive, but what stayed with me most was that rooftop in Saigon. The staircase packed, people climbing toward the last helicopter—it lodged itself deep in my mind. Decades later, when helicopters hovered over the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, lifting people out as the city fell, it was impossible not to see the parallel. Having served in Kabul and knowing the Embassy compound firsthand, the images hit even harder.
It was also a year of bold moments and unforgettable hits in popular culture. The top films defined the time—Jaws scared us out of our seats, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest made us reflect on life and power, and Tommy offered a wild blend of rock and theater. Music had its own impact, with David Essex topping the charts with “Hold Me Close” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” pushing boundaries as it climbed to the top toward the end of the year. These were the sounds and sights of 1975, the cultural markers that added a new layer to a shifting world.
As the year came to a close, I was preparing to go home for two weeks’ Christmas leave—my first since joining the Army. I had many more months of training ahead, stretching well into 1976—but that in itself felt like a lifetime away. The demands of training as a Parachute Regiment recruit had already taught me to take one day at a time. Thinking that far ahead into 1976 was beyond comprehension. For now, I felt grown up, I had money in my pocket, and two weeks to spend it. When I returned to Aldershot in early January, it was cold, dark, and back to routine. Whatever 1976 would bring, the shift had already happened—there was no going back. I was striving toward a goal: pre-parachute selection (P Company) and earning my red beret. The next moment I was 66 and watering tomatoes.
Reckless by Design
May 1, 2025 | 14:04
As I get older and my long-distance desert hikes get shorter, I was asked why I hadn’t considered renting a bicycle for a desert photography trip. It would extend my range and be less stressful.
Funny enough, I had thought about it—but a bike adds a layer of logistical complexity that doesn’t fit my minimalist setup. There’s the hassle of renting it, figuring out transport, and returning it afterward. It also cuts into the time I’d rather spend on foot, keeping things simple and direct.
Carrying gear into the desert isn’t the issue. My Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) after landing usually includes two stops: picking up a 4×4 from the rental company, then heading to Walmart for two propane canisters for my Jetboil cooking system, a cheap sleeping bag, and an air mattress—both of which I donate to Goodwill the day before I leave (since my last night is usually spent in a luxury hotel, where I can steam the grime out of my pores using the sauna and hot tub). Once I arrive at my base location, I’m on foot from there in. My range depends entirely on the heat and how much water I’m carrying. On days when temperatures top 115°F, I’m only covering about five miles before heading back to base.
To stretch that range, I’ve occasionally dropped off water by vehicle to create makeshift caches I can hike to later. A handheld GPS (I use a Garmin Map 66sr) makes all the difference—I can stash water in undulating terrain riddled with wadis, scrub, and cactus, and still navigate back to within six feet of it.
As I get older, I’ve come to value the comforts of an air-conditioned vehicle and the ability to cook and sleep under the stars—all from one location, a kind of patrol base built around the vehicle. I travel light: sleeping bag, air mattress, no fancy tent or anything like that. It lets me drop off the grid—usually about three hours from any roads or civilization. I’ll stay out there five days without human contact, then it’s back to a hotel for a shower, laundry, a steak, several single malts, and on to the next location to do it all again. It gives me the solitude I need now and then.
My wife’s written instructions for every trip include the locations I expect to be, with date and time ranges, plus GPS coordinates for my base area. I always leave a note on the vehicle’s dashboard: which direction I’m heading, how far I plan to hike, how much water and food I’m carrying, the date and time I left, when I plan to return, and the GPS coordinates of my turnaround point. Each time I get back to the hotel before moving on, I call to check in. If she doesn’t hear from me within the agreed timeframe, she contacts the authorities.
My wife often warns that by heading so far off the grid, I’ll one day take a tumble, get stranded, and probably die in the desert. I’ve earned my reputation for scrambling over rocks in pursuit of photo locations and falling more than once, limping back to the vehicle with skinned knees and elbows. My reply? At least I’m doing what I love. I may not pick the time, but I get to choose the place. I’m told that’s a selfish attitude—so be it!
Although I’ve seriously considered using a bike, the logistics—finding a rental close to the airport in a major city isn’t always convenient—make it impractical. Then there’s the hassle of picking it up, dropping it off, and coordinating all that with returning the vehicle. It’s just too much of a logistical headache. From a safety standpoint, given my reputation for taking a fall on two feet—usually while chasing a better panoramic view—adding a bicycle just increases the chance of a more serious injury. Speeds are higher, terrain is unpredictable, and I’m no seasoned cross-country rider.
And if I’m being honest, I’ve often given solid advice to others about heading off-grid—practical stuff grounded in military training and survival skills. But I don’t always follow it myself. I’ve taken real risks—edging out on loose rock to set up a tripod in some ridiculous spot. It’s not advice I’d give anyone else, and truthfully, I’ve had a few moments that felt one slip away from a Darwin Award. So, if truth be told, I consider myself too reckless to take a bicycle three hours from the nearest highway, with no cell phone service beyond an emergency text via satellite. As I get older, walking shorter distances—especially in 115° heat—has become a natural progression.
"Live fully while you can—once you’re gone, regret won’t have a chance to find you."
~ Stephen McConnell (May 1, 2025)
Downsized
April 30, 2025 | 10:00
I’m downsizing. I’m sick and tired of humping photography gear around I don’t use. My Nikon Z7 II is fitted with an NB-11 battery pack—which basically increases weight to that of a normal DSLR—It feels like I’m carrying around a D-850 again. I primarily shoot landscape photography—I don’t need that extra burst capability that the power pack provides.
I have humped up the Peralta Trail in Gold Canyon, Arizona, with a backpack containing a selection of equipment for every possibility, for fear of getting to the top and realizing I’ve left something in the car. And! Every time I do it, I don’t use the majority of it and I always question myself—why did I carry it up here?
So for Montana, I am having a complete declutter. I bought myself a Billingham Hadley bag, large enough to hold my Z7 II with a Nikkor Z 28-70mm f/2.8 S. It also carries a Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.8 S prime, three batteries, an SD card case, and the Garmin MAP66sr for geotagging in Lightroom. Because of the potential for portraits at the Crow Powwow, I’m bringing the Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 S VR.
That’s it—I’m downsized. No more Lee graduated filters, neutral density filters, Nikkor Z 14mm f/4 S wide angle lens, Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S, battery packs, second travel tripod, digital cable release, and all the other crap I buy on B&H Photo just to carry in my backpack and never use.
The Crow, Revisited
April 30, 2025 | 09:02
I’m finalizing the itinerary for the trip back to Montana and Wyoming, set for August 7–18, 2025, during the period of the Crow Fair (Powwow). Flights, accommodation, and transportation are booked—just working on photo locations now to get the most out of the ten days there.
I first ventured into Crow Country in August 2016 with a plan: walk the Little Bighorn Battlefield, photograph the monuments, and maybe capture a few portraits at the Crow Fair. Back then, it felt like an obvious choice for a historic photo shoot. I had followed the career of George Armstrong Custer through the Civil War and studied his campaigns—from the Battle of Aldie (June 17, 1863), the Battle of Hanover (June 30, 1863), and the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), to name a few. But the story I found wasn’t the one I came for. I arrived with a soldier’s narrative in mind, but what I encountered was deeper, more controversial—a history buried beneath history. I had planned only three days in the area, staying in Hardin, Montana, roughly 20 miles from the battlefield, but it wasn’t nearly enough time to grasp the full scope of what happened there. By the time the powwow began, I was out of time and out of my depth. I left with photos, but no deeper understanding of the Crow’s complex history.
The story of the Little Bighorn Battlefield has been told many times in books and films. Heroic tales, such as They Died with Their Boots On (1941), starring Errol Flynn as Custer, are classic Hollywood portrayals that present a romanticized view of the general. These films crafted a narrative in which the army is seen as helplessly massacred. Only in recent years has a fuller version of the story begun to surface—one that reveals not just the tragedy of Custer’s defeat, but also the brutal and often barbaric actions of the Seventh Cavalry. One such incident, the Washita Massacre, took place in 1868 when Lt. Colonel Custer led the Seventh Cavalry in an attack on a Cheyenne village along the Washita River. The assault resulted in the slaughter of women, children, and the elderly—an atrocity that casts a dark shadow over the cavalry’s glorified reputation. In hindsight, events like these reshape the narrative we’ve been fed about the army’s moral high ground at the Little Bighorn.
In 2016, I traveled to Montana with the intention of tracing the legacy of an American icon at the Little Bighorn Battlefield. Custer had long been celebrated as a national figure, his reputation solidified by his role at Gettysburg, where his leadership was considered integral to the Union victory. That image of Custer as a gallant warrior was reinforced by a symbolic gesture from General Philip Sheridan, who, after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, presented Custer’s wife, Elizabeth, with the table on which Lee had signed the terms of surrender. Sheridan’s accompanying remark read, “There is scarcely an individual in our service who contributed more to bring this about than your very gallant husband.” This portrait of Custer endured for decades, perpetuated by books and films that shaped the popular image of the battlefield. I, too, had viewed him through this lens—his legacy largely untarnished by the events at Little Bighorn. But at the battlefield, I encountered a very different story—one that dismantled the image I had long carried. The reality of Custer’s actions revealed a far more complex and troubling legacy, prompting a reevaluation of the narratives surrounding his life and death.
It’s a common misconception—one I’ve encountered repeatedly—that the Crow stood alongside other Plains nations in opposition to Custer. But the truth, as history often reveals, is more nuanced. The Crow were not enemies of the U.S. Army that day; they served as scouts—its eyes and ears on a land they knew intimately. Their role at the Little Bighorn, long obscured by myth and oversimplification, underscores how Native alliances during the Indian Wars were rarely straightforward. The Crow rode with Custer not out of loyalty to the U.S. cause, but as a strategic choice against long-standing tribal enemies. In the years that followed, they paid a quiet price for that decision—alienation from other Native nations and a kind of erasure from the national narrative, which still tends to favor simpler stories. Standing on the battlefield today, it’s impossible not to feel the tension between these two histories: the one we’ve been taught and the one that lies beneath the surface, waiting to be uncovered and understood.
This time, I’m going back with the aim of spending more time on the ground, walking the terrain, and trying to understand what really happened that day—beyond the myths. I’ll be working on a photo essay that brings together images of the battlefield and surrounding landscape with a more balanced account of the events and the people involved.
The Real Cold Mountain
April 29, 2025 | 06:14
After watching a recent HBO screening of the movie Cold Mountain, I decided on a whim to get up at some ridiculous hour and drive the 340 miles to the Appalachians. Cold Mountain is both a real peak in western North Carolina and the namesake of a 2003 war drama based on Charles Frazier’s bestselling novel. The film, a fictional love story set during the final years of the Civil War, was adapted for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella. It starred Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, and Renée Zellweger.
The plot follows Inman, a wounded Confederate soldier, as he makes his way home from Raleigh to Cold Mountain and to Ada Monroe (Kidman), the woman he loves. Because the story is fictional, many people don’t realize the landscape behind the romance is real—Cold Mountain lies southwest of Asheville, a small city in the western reaches of the Appalachian Mountains. Once known as the Land of the Sky, Asheville grew into a booming cattle town during the war. Today, it’s a major tourist destination, drawing thousands of visitors who come to explore and drive through the mountain region.
Cold Mountain itself is part of the Shining Rock Wilderness in Pisgah National Forest. It’s the tallest peak in the area, standing at 6,030 feet. This land originally belonged to the Cherokee Nation, but beginning in 1796, white settlers with land grants from the state moved into the region, forcing the Cherokee onto reservations.
The mountain has changed very little since the Civil War. It still carries the feeling of stepping back in time. The region and its people—those who live in the rural, mountainous parts of southwest Asheville and across Appalachia and the Ozarks—are often lumped into the stereotype of the Hillbilly. The image usually evoked is of a backward, violent people: isolated, stubborn, resistant to outside influence. But that’s far from the truth.
The derogatory image of the Hillbilly, as shaped by popular culture, took hold through films like Deliverance, the 1972 drama directed by John Boorman and set in the backwoods of northern Georgia. The film’s use of “Dueling Banjos” helped reinforce the association between mountain folk and rural isolation. Although it ran for nine seasons from 1962 to 1971, the CBS television show The Beverly Hillbillies did just as much to cement stereotypes of mountain communities as backward and uneducated. Later, the History Channel’s 2012 miniseries Hatfields & McCoys, starring Bill Paxton and Kevin Costner, dramatized the violent feud between two mountain families on the West Virginia–Kentucky border in the post–Civil War years.
The region had been settled in the 18th century by immigrants, mostly from Ulster in Northern Ireland. These communities carried over the Irish-Scotch traditions of independence and self-reliance, forming a culture that grew largely apart from the mainstream. As the population spread through the mountains, a distinctive musical tradition also emerged. Influenced by bluegrass, gospel, and country-western, Appalachian folk music—or “Hillbilly Music”—relied on portable instruments like the fiddle, banjo, and guitar. The songs reflected worship, love, hardship, and loss, often telling family and neighborhood stories through lyrics and rhyme. Cold Mountain drew heavily from this tradition in its soundtrack, with contributions from Jack White, T Bone Burnett, and Gabriel Yared.
I thoroughly enjoyed the story told in Cold Mountain—it’s what inspired me to visit the area. Still, like many films based on history, it has its share of inaccuracies. I’m not interested in tearing the script apart—I liked the film—but I do want to point out a few things from a historical perspective, and add a few facts alongside the fiction. I’d start with the opening scene, which takes place on the morning of July 30, 1864, in the Confederate entrenchments outside Petersburg.
The scene portrays the Battle of the Crater. In a daring move, Union commanders relied on the 48th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment—many of whose soldiers had been miners before the war—to dig a tunnel beneath the Confederate defenses and pack it with explosives. After weeks of preparation, Union engineers attached to the regiment detonated the mine at 4:44 AM. The explosion sent up a massive shower of earth, men, and weapons, killing approximately 360 and destroying the fortifications in the immediate area. The blast occurred in total darkness, as Union commanders hoped this would add to the confusion. In the movie version, however, the mine detonates in broad daylight. The famous crater—also dramatized in the film—is shown as much wider and deeper than the historical record. Period accounts measured the cavity at 170 feet (52 meters) long, 80 feet (24 meters) wide, and 30 feet (9 meters) deep. Though now reduced to a depression in the earth, the site is still visible today.
As Union troops charge into the crater in the film’s opening battle scenes, they carry 50-star American flags—an anachronism, as that version of the flag didn’t exist until Hawaii joined the Union on August 21, 1959. During the Civil War (1861–1865), four official U.S. flags were used, featuring 33, 34, 35, and 36 stars. At the war’s outbreak on April 12, 1861, the 33-star flag was in use, despite Kansas having just been admitted in January of that year; its star wouldn’t be officially added until July. Notably, the stars representing the Confederate states were never removed—Lincoln insisted those states remained in the Union, though in rebellion. The correct flag for the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864, would have been the 35-star flag, which included West Virginia, added on June 20, 1863, after it broke from Virginia. Nevada would later become the 36th state on October 31, 1864, producing the final wartime flag under Lincoln’s presidency.
At the start of the story, before the war even begins, Ada asks Inman if he has a tintype—a photograph. The term tintype didn’t come into use until 1864. Before the war, such images were known as ambrotypes or ferrotypes. The ambrotype, introduced in the 1850s, was the first use of the wet-plate collodion process to produce a positive image—essentially a photograph on a sheet of glass, lacquered and then mounted on a black background to bring out the image. By the 1860s, the ferrotype had largely replaced the ambrotype. It used the same process but produced an image on thin, black-lacquered iron, and was often difficult to distinguish from an ambrotype when placed under glass.
The term ferrotype was common in the early 1860s, and as the war progressed, so did their popularity. They were not only inexpensive but also relatively easy and quick to produce. Many soldiers had ferrotypes made and sent home. By 1864, the less formal term tintype had taken hold, likely reflecting the cheap, tinny feel of the material. While I could go on about period weapons, references to actual events, or even the geography of Inman’s journey back to Cold Mountain, I won’t in this short piece. I’ve decided not to quibble any further with a good tearjerker.
Shaconage
April 27, 2025 | 20:48
Tucked into North Carolina’s westernmost corner lie the legendary Great Smoky Mountains, a range that stretches along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They’re a subrange of the Appalachians and part of the Blue Ridge region. Long before European settlers arrived in the late 1600s, the Cherokee people lived throughout these mountains—and their presence is still felt today. The Cherokee called this place ‘Shaconage’ (Sha-Kon-O-Hey), meaning ‘land of blue smoke’—a reference to the soft bluish mist-like haze that rises from the valleys after rainfall.
Loose Ends
April 25, 2025 | 19:05
Loose Ends is a space for the in-between—fragments of thought, bits of research, half-formed ideas, and observations that don’t quite fit into a photo essay but still feel worth keeping. It’s where I gather the leftovers: things that might lead somewhere, or maybe just sit here for now, holding their own quiet shape. Whether it’s photography, travel, history, or something else entirely, this is where I leave the thread hanging, just in case I want to pick it up again.
Some of these entries might be disjointed—just things I needed to put down before they slipped away. They may stay raw and unedited, or eventually grow into something more. Either way, this is where they land first. Sometimes it’s just an idea for a trip, a place I’d like to explore with a camera, or a thread I might follow later. Think of it as a kind of preview—if anything here starts to take shape, it may show up somewhere else down the line.