Any guesses how much of that is true? When you buy a used vehicle you’re buying someone else’s problems. The gambler knows,...

Grinder and paint makes me the welder I ain’t, goes the rueful old saw uttered by just about everybody who hasn’t practiced enough to...

A hot, humid midwest afternoon. The highway patrol cruiser, LED lights lasering red and blue, is parked off the left shoulder of I-80...

Somehow, I expected the first concert back to feel more . . . different. Like my first rehearsal with the Pittsburgh Symphony in 1996,...

One of the reasons for this blog to exist is to offer a bit of my perspective on the pipe maker's craft, to expand on some detail or...

New Zealand is an amazing, unforgettable place. It is peculiarly habitable in many respects; unlike its larger and hotter neighbor down...

The 2004 Chicago pipe show seems worlds away. There was a time when the adjustments needed to comply with antismoking regulations seemed...

Every so often someone asks about the Zippo in my pipe photos. Most photos of pipes for sale include something to give an idea of scale....

For anyone interested in writing, I recommend Stephen King’s On Writing, and The Deer on a Bicycle by Patrick McManus as an interesting...

Yes, I’m on break from blogging. But there is a new pipe, and I don't know how many people subscribed to the blog in order to be notified...

Mark Twain wrote, “We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat...

Casinos have never held any attraction for me, but I do play golf. And make pipes. I don’t know how many of you remember Psych 100 and...

This is something I wrote months ago when someone in management asked me to “write something about music” for a newsletter. "Maybe write...

Interesting, how the US has so many pickup trucks while the rest of the world is largely able to manage without them. That thought occurs...

Another firewood, score, and just in time. Too little firewood, too much maple, that was the issue. While I’ve got nothing against maple,...

Perhaps I had forgotten how this felt. Last spring wasn’t much of a spring, what with the world coming to an end and all, and I can’t...

Somewhere, I read that half the value of an artisan pipe lies in the hand cut stem. Even if that’s off by some substantial percent, it...

The anniversary will be slightly different for each of us, as the pandemic spread and shut things down. For me, it’s March 13. There, I...

Perhaps you’d be interested in seeing more pipes I’ve made on commission in the past few months. Maybe even in reading a little...

My dad used to say, “Life is full of choices.” This may be a slender premise for a blog post, but it can’t be any more slender than the...