My Portfolio

  On the road …again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   On Being Frugal, or Practical, or Just Plain Cheap Many households contain things that are old.  The older the residents, it seems; the greater the chances that there are more old things on display...

On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   L is for Lesotho Three days on horseback is just enough time to get the point that not everywhere in Lesotho can be reached by road. Miles of green pastures and not a few shrubby patches of thin soil was...

STABLE OF ABLES You know that you are capable and reliable, but how many other people know that? How well do you transmit that information?  Part of communicating information about yourself entails a willingness to assess your full Stable of Ables. Being capable is only one item in an able stable.  To...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   C for Comoros So little of past journeys to obscure places fits into neat packages that makes for interesting reading. Much about the Comoros is all bits and pieces of a grander tale, but not one...

On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   You Are What You Eat Of all the expressions, clichés, maxims and apparent truisms, " you are what you eat" is one that the Footloose Forester never took seriously.  In Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force mess halls, all...

  On the road…. again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Caving in California   When he was a young, restless Recreation Patrolman on the El Dorado National Forest in California, the Footloose Forester had a friend his age that was as restless as he was.  He and...

 On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Analysis of a Post-It Note   On some occasions, the desire to write things down turns into exercises in analysis.  Some critics would point to his frequent efforts as one example of why Pellek, the Footloose Forester, is weird...

On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Personal Observations On Plant Propagation One recurring lament about his travels into other countries was often about the lack of variety of local fruits and vegetables that should have been suited to the climates and soils of that region. ...

  On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   C is for Cambodia Cambodia was on the list of places to see before the Footloose Forester had to decide whether his sojourn out of Pakistan would turn south toward Australia, or continue east into...

  On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Ambush At An Khe Pass   Most of the sagas about the Viet Nam War are about military operations and men in uniform, but civilian contractors in Viet Nam were not always safe.  This short chronicle is a...

On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Santa Cruz, California It was just another day in the woods.  Ed Tunheim, the senior forester for Cal-Pacific Forest Consultants, was in charge of several small contracts to inventory the timber on the properties of local landowners. Most of...

  On the road again….Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek  Maple Trees   This timely chronicle belongs in either the “you just can’t make this stuff up” folder, or the “truth is stranger than fiction” folder.  To a bridge player, you might call it a cheap trick.  It...

On the road…again!!! Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek U is for Uganda The first sight he ever had of a dik-dik was up close, real close.  His old E-Mail nickname “DikDik” comes as no coincidence.  It was a hint of Africa and a reminder...

  On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Golfing Where and When You Can Living and working overseas does not mean that you have to give up the pleasures that you enjoyed back home.  Playing golf was a pleasure that was not available everywhere,...

  On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek  I is for India   A hundred people in a banyan tree? The banyan tree in India is many times larger than this one While watching a sci-fi movie in which three young adventurers were filmed sitting in...

On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   W is for Wales Wales has a special place in the dreams of the Footloose Forester.  It’s mostly about flying.  Ever since the first time he left the ground in a flying machine, the Footloose Forester has had hundreds of...

  On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   To Russia, With Gloves When we think of Siberia, we imagine a cold and desolate place, but nothing shocked him as much as seeing frozen streambeds in the middle of October.  Flying over Siberia was as close as...

  On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek    H is Honduras    After getting a small grant to research a few selected teak plantations in Central America, compliments of the Organization for Tropical Studies, the Footloose Forester chose Costa Rica, Panama, and Honduras.  The decision was...

On the road… again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   H for Hungary   Most people wonder about where they came from, or where their grandparents came from. The Footloose Forester was no different in that regard. In the case of his grandparents on his father’s side, the...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek       M is for Mali Going to Timbuktu was perhaps the first reference that the Footloose Forester ever heard about an African city, when he was still in knee pants. That is because his mother kept repeating the name...