The compass has been around for over 2,000 years and is a simple device. If you put a sliver of magnetized metal on a small piece of wood and float it in a bowl of water, it will always point north/south. While the compass itself has gotten much more sophisticated over the years, the concept ...

What’s learned on the mountain shouldn’t stay on the mountain Every year, 10 or so NCCC veterans of the college’s 33-day fall expedition would plan and then go on a two-week winter expedition. It was one of my favorite classes. The students had spent the previous eight weeks planning ...

Recently, I heard from my college friend Jim Glover, a regular reader of my column and who drops me an email every once in a while. He let me know that he was blogging and asked for some tips to help spread the word. I told him I didn’t know how much help I could be. It’s not like I have ...

When I woke up Sunday morning hoarse, and with a sore throat, I knew why: on Saturday Phyliss and I had gone to the Syracuse University football game against the Miami Hurricanes and I was hoarse from cheering at the top of my lungs for two hours. I think I know why I enjoy college ...

I spent my early years in rural Locust Valley, Nassau County, which though only 30 miles from Manhattan, seemed like a hundred. Our house was set in the middle of six acres surrounded by a chain link fence and had been the caretaker’s property for one of the old Gilded Age Estates. It was ...

As I cruised Facebook the other day I saw a post about Lower Saranac Lake and the efforts by environmental groups to determine the lake’s carrying capacity. No one seemed to like the idea. The comments ranged from conspiracy theories, “They want to make the lake private access only for ...