I’ve built a number of raised beds over the years, but so far this design is my favorite, the sides are two by tens, and the top is capped off with a 2×4 shelf, which not only helps keep the two by tens from bowing out from the weight of the soil but also makes […] Read more

It was long after midnight. The flickering torches around the castle yard, already replaced once, had begun to burn low again. Will had watched patiently for hours, waiting for this moment – when the light was uncertain and the guards were yawning, in the last hour of their shift. The day had been one of […] Read more

The tension of competitive rivalries is often a key ingredient for creating art. A young renaissance painter named Leonardo Da Vinci engaged in a battle of words with a great master Michelangelo. Brach and Picasso were so similar in their cubist style it was difficult to tell who painted what. The traditionalist Brahms and the […] Read more

St. Petersburg, for over 200 years, the capitol of imperial Russia. In 1916, with the empire locked in a disastrous war and on the verge of a shattering revolution, St. Petersburg teemed with rumors about a man they called “Temnyi” – “The Dark One.” Grigori Rasputin. They said he was a lustful, mad monk. A […] Read more

It is 1959: in this remote corner of India, freshly dug graves, too numerous to count, speak of an unfathomable horror. In the forests, men desperately search for food, as famine stalks the countryside. Mothers dig up roots to fill bellies. Some hike hundreds of miles to find rice for their starving children. But it […] Read more

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in […] Read more

Students often ask us how to tell the difference between a crow and a raven. Although the two birds are closely related, there are a few ways to tell them apart. Ravens differ from crows in appearance by their larger bill, tail shape, flight pattern and by their large size. Ravens are as big as […] Read more

The first step toward developing a big-picture outlook in reading tablature is to recognize chord shapes. This starts with open-position chords, as shown in Example 2. Now, it’s one thing to be able to recognize a chord when it’s all nicely lined up, but guitar music, especially acoustic guitar music, often uses arpeggios and different […] Read more

Only the top four percent of Boy Scouts become Eagle Scouts. To get to that level, you can’t just go through the motions. It requires a state of being: of a commitment to values. As an Eagle Scout, Grayson Powell won awards for his community service. For nearly thirty years as a commercial real estate […] Read more