San Gabriel Mountains

Phineas Taylor Barnum, or better known as "P. T." Barnum, described as a “jack of all trades” is an understatement. As a self-made businessman (or scammer), showman (or humbug), newspaper editor (or libeler), he lived a life of exhausted passion and success. He tells his own story in his autobiography, The Life of P.T. Barnum of living in 19th century America. P.T. Barnum’s optimistic and exuberant charisma certainly helped him make a profit, yet that alone did not gain him the title of a…

What is Ideal? Imagine the ideal American childhood. Now, consider my story. My childhood home, settled at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, was equipped with a basketball hoop in the backyard and a minivan in the driveway. I grew up in a two-parent middle-class home with evenings spent at the dinner table waiting for Jeopardy to start; then, I would read my older brother’s comics or The Magic Tree House series until I couldn’t hold my eyes open. I was a tomboy for lack of a better word; a…

The New Zealand Army!? What the heck is that? That was my initial thought when I was told that I would be deploying to Afghanistan to manage a property book of equipment that was being utilized by the New Zealand Army. Let me take you back on the events that transpired that led me to this deployment. 25 July 2011, I signed into Ft Riley, Kansas. HHC Company, Combat Aviation Brigade, First Infantry Division. I was in the S2 shop as the Terrain NCOIC. I was enjoying my time there in my position…

Introduction. Forests are changing dramatically in the face of climate change and human activities. Since the 1800s, fire exclusion, animal grazing, timber harvest, and climate cycles have contributed to these changes (Graham and Jain 2005). In 2016, we are seeing unprecedented tree mortality—more than 62 million have died this year alone (USDA 2016). California experienced a fourth consecutive year of below-average precipitation in 2015 with mean monthly temperatures reaching record or near…

Bowl in Albuquerque, N.M. • And in the fifth and final game of the bowl season so far, the San José State Spartans took down the Georgia State Panthers 27-16 in the AutoNation Cure Bowl. Saturday was an exciting first day for the bowl season, and the same should be true for the games that will take place in the weeks ahead. • On Dec. 23, the Northern Illinois Huskies meet the Boise State Broncos in the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl. The Broncos didn’t have the season they…

Water shortages and droughts have been huge social, economic, and political issues in Australia. As the world’s driest habitable continent, Australia’s water use and management has and will continue to be among the most contentious issues facing the federal and state governments, as well as the public. Research indicates that Australians are, per capita, the biggest consumers of water in the world. When discussing water usage in Australia, one also has to consider the related issue of water…

Pete Evans has started a new paleo diet, which he claims can reverse or help manage medical conditions like diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis and can also prevent autism in children. The editorial ‘Pete Evans can test paleo diet claims when he gets sick’ written by Sam de Brito, was published in The Age on august 30th 2015. In this article De Brito uses critical and mocking tone to get across to the readers his main contention, which is that Pete Evans shouldn’t promote his…

Growing up in Thurmont, MD near the Catoctin Mountain National Parks, I was always considered an outdoor kid. My parents got me interested in hunting & fishing and hunting became my true passion since my first hunting experience at the age of 9. I started to trap shoot at the age of 13 and have grown to be a nationally-ranked competitive trap shooter and a shooting ambassador. I have begun to work with my shooting club to understand the working of a sporting clay and trap club, how competitions…

The first study examined the Jackson Whites of the Ramapo Mountains, which Speck detailed in a 1911 study published in the Southern Workman. Speck suggested that the Ramapo were descendants of eastern Algonquians and Tuscarora Indians who probably traveled through the Ramapo Mountains on their way to the Carolinas during the eighteenth century. In terms of physical appearances, Speck reported to have found “representatives…of…

by the time that Curley's wife hurried back home from the barn, where she had a secret rendezvous with Slim, the sun was fading over the horizon, painting the windows of the big old house and the clouds above it, in ominously fierce crimson colors. At the moment, there was hardly any movement in the air, but bright-red low clouds in the darkening sky foretold the upcoming day’s wind and calamity as clearly, as if they were announcing the weather out loud. Despite the evening hours, the…