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To Go Only

April 15, 2020

After our efforts to support all the local businesses and craftspeople we cherish; before, during, and after the busting of the housing bubble in 2008, and doing our best to help some survive the economically stagnated environment that was the 8 years that followed, we find ourselves once again in a similar situation. Now, in order to slow the spread of a new iteration of SARS, the new SARS CoV-2, all of our local stores and eateries have been forced to close or embrace a policy of to-go or take-out only during this crisis. So, now what do we do?

Get a Grip - Pro Tips on How to Shape a Knife Handle

April 14, 2020

Early on I had a few vague ideas of what would make a good handle. I have always believed that knives need feminine looking curves to be sexy. To this day I still don’t like bumpy, humpy looking shapes, with jutty, manish looking features.

I also knew that the hand likes to grip a knife handle that is fatter at the spine side and tapers toward the edge side. This gives the cross-section profile – on a good handle – a kind of egg shape. In addition to comfort, this egg shape properly indexes the handle in the hand. A user should be able to feel where the sharp parts are without having to check visually.

Why Fillet?

March 18, 2020

One cold day in February, my daughter came in from school while I was filleting some Branzini for our dinner. As per her habit, she just quietly watched me work for a few minutes to take in what I was doing, but there soon came the usual questions. Staring with, “why do you do that sometimes, and take out the bones like that, but then not at other times?”

Kits for the Gram

March 11, 2020

#Flatlay is a popular hashtag on instagram. If you’ve spent any time on social media you’ve seen them even if you weren’t aware of their name. A flatlay is a stylized layout of contents tailored to a particular audience. There are flatlays for the gadget crowd that include fidget spinners, multi-tools, and minimalist multi-function items. Other flatlays focus on the gear carried to defend life such as pistols, spare magazines, tourniquets, and flashlights. A good flatlay can garner hundreds of likes. If a surgically-enhanced instagram “influencer” posts it, the picture could be liked thousands of times mainly by poor saps duped into believing liking a pretty girl’s photo will win them points for the day they’ll meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after. No matter how you cut it, flatlays are popular and as ridiculous and obsessive compulsive as they seem, they do serve a good purpose. A proper flatlay can educate the viewer and help them improve their level of readiness. I’ve assembled some of my favorite kits and presented them in the flatlay format.

Finish Strong

March 04, 2020

When I was in high school (as a student, not my current job as a teacher), I remember my psychology teacher presenting a lesson on the primacy and recency effect and how it relates to our memory. The primacy effect is the bias we have to remember what we hear or see first and the recency effect explains why we remember what we hear last or most recently. To illustrate this, here is a string of numbers, 39, 87, 3, 18, 41, 26, 52. Chances are, if I were to ask you what numbers you can recall, you would have 39 or 52 in your lineup. We also have a tendency to remember what we hear frequently, what we can rehearse in our heads, and what we can associate with other cues. The mind is a powerful tool and ever since I sat in Mr. Baril’s classroom for this psychology class, I’ve been intrigued by the study of the mind and how it relates to our daily routine, habits, and capabilities. The recency effect is something I haven’t forgotten about and I relate it to the act of finishing strong in all I do. Finishing strong, you’ll find out, can set into motion the right mindset to be successful from that point forward.

More Urban Awareness

February 26, 2020

The hustle and bustle of our lives can keep us in what feels like a state perpetual motion. And our endless running to make the ends meet, the sense of always being in a race with time, can create a sort of mental tunnel vision. It can narrow our focus to such a small point that all we see are the goals we've set and how quickly the time is ticking away. The rest of the world around us can become just a blur in our periphery, as we go through our day on autopilot.

Victuals & Libations

February 05, 2020

The history of some of the foods we eat, and they're sometimes curious origins, can be an interesting and entertaining study to engage in. For the most part we seem to just happily consume them, while perhaps having some vague idea of the beginnings of our favorites, but only because they are our favorites. And as a general rule the origin pales by far in comparison to how well they are prepared, which is almost always our only real concern at the moment.

Heat Loss Mechanisms

January 29, 2020

As I write this right now, New England is getting ready for a wintry mix of snow, sleet and rain. Precipitation will sprinkle drivers with a concoction of winter weather rendering some of their common sense and driving ability useless. Winter is here but knowledge of cold should be considered year round. Even in the desert, nightly cold temperatures can kill. Understanding how the body loses heat helps the outdoorsman preserve it and prolong life.

The Fine Art of Wiping your Butt with Snow

January 22, 2020

Admit it, you feel a little strange for clicking on this story. You may even feel like you are in need of a shower or maybe a confession. Who the hell wipes their butt with snow? Well, quite literally the answer to that is “no one” because there is not a snowball’s chance of being in hell. Snowballs, well more snow cones, make great toilet paper. Practically, the answer to that same question is many guys and gals who forget their TP and don’t want to offer up a sacrificial sock. Wiping your butt with snow is not strange and you don’t have to worry about being seen as a weirdo. Well, maybe some people will make faces when you tell them you are among the brave who do but remember, you don’t have to tell anyone.

In With The New

January 01, 2020

The holiday season is a wonderful example of saving the best for last. This is because even though there are other holidays throughout the year, it is the ones at the end of the year that celebrate the bountiful harvests, the spirit of giving, and the renewal of life. For me the week between Christmas and New Year's Day is a time of reflection. I look back on where I was when the year began so I can determine which areas of my life I am happiest with and which areas still need more work. Not so much to make some sort of grand New Years resolution I may or may not keep, as to just make a game plan that should afford me a better chance of improving in the areas I'm less than pleased with.

Jingle All The Way

December 18, 2019

The Yuletide season is upon us once more. The temperatures are dropping and the snow flakes are falling as we wind our way through December into winter. The colorful lights are twinkling and the carols are playing, making spirits bright and making children laugh and sing and smile.

Waynearing

December 11, 2019

Sometime in fifteenth-century England a new word came to be. It was a new term for travelers who went abroad through the countrysides, especially those who traveled longer distances on foot. It has gone through a couple of spelling changes since then, but the modern version we use today is Wayfarer.

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Fiddleback Forge
5405 Buford Hwy Ste 480
District Leather Bldg
Norcross, GA 30071