Editor’s note: This post was written by Chris Hutcheson and originally ran on The Art of Manliness.
Unfortunately, most 4 wheel drive vehicles on the road today spend their entire lives…on the road. For the average driver, a 4×4 option is only a way to retain resale value in their vehicle and possibly be able to still get groceries when the snow starts falling. It is time to get that off road machine of yours off the beaten trail. Men, let’s get a little mud on the tires.
Off road driving can take several forms. From the weekend trail rider to the die hard rock crawler, off roaders the world over know that there are few better ways to get your jollies than taking total control of your vehicle as you take it places most people never knew they could go.
Let’s take a brief look at some of the places you might find yourself when you decide to leave the pavement behind, keeping in mind that this is just an introduction and is by no means all you need to know when hitting the trail. Remember, the most important elements of a successful off road adventure are safety and preparation.
Editor-in-Chief’s note: This post was written by Brett and Kate McKay and originally ran on The Art of Manliness.
The idea of carrying around a pocket notebook has become quite popular these last few years, revived by the introduction of the current incarnation of the “Moleskine” into the market. It’s become so popular that I’m afraid it has come to be seen as trendy or faddish, and this is putting some men off to starting this important habit themselves. Some find the Cult of the Moleskine and its faux history understandably distasteful. The company shills their pricey Made in China notebooks as the notebook of Hemingway, Van Gogh, and Matisse, when the company that currently makes them only got into the business in 1997.
But don’t let the pocket notebook’s current image dissuade you from carrying one around. The truth is that you don’t need to use a Moleskine (unless you really like them)-even some note cards clipped together will do. And far from being a modern fad, the pocket notebook has a long, important, and manly history. Pocket notebooks were part of the arsenal of a long list of great men from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Edison (we’re working on an in-depth post of how these men used their notebooks for the future). The repositories of eminent men’s personal effects nearly always includes a pocket notebook full of their ideas and musings.
ITS Tactical Editor-in-Chief’s note: This post was written by Brett McKay and originally ran on The Art of Manliness.
In the quest to streamline your camping trips, foil packet meals can be one of your greatest allies. It’s cooking at its simple best; you take some ingredients, wrap them up in a foil parcel, and place the pouch in a campfire’s coals to cook. You can prepare these foil packets before you head out into Mother Nature, and they require no pots and pans, no plates, and no clean up. All you need is a fork and some fire. And, if you know what you’re doing, they can be incredibly tasty and satisfying. So today we’re going to cover the basics of foil packet cooking and provide you with some delicious recipes to try the next time you venture into the great outdoors.
Editor-in-Chief’s Note: This was originally posted in our forum by ITS Tactical Crew Leader Firewalker. Many found it to be inspirational and we wanted to share it with you. There’s a bit of language, but sometimes you have to tell it like it is.
I’ve had a pretty easy life for the past little while. I went to work, came home, watched TV, played video games, went to bed, got fat, got lazy, got useless. I would generally only get off my ass at work. Now, I did this for quite a few years and got used to the easy life. It’s hard not to. However, in the past year or so, I’ve gone through a bit of a change and decided my shitty job in Security wasn’t going to pay bills for my family (well, soon to be. It’s just me, the wife and a cat for now.) I decided I needed something new, so I went into welding.
Changing from the easy life of doing nothing all day, to one where I’m working hard for the day, meant that I had to get back into shape. I had developed a nice beer gut and some formerly tougher parts had grown weak. This had to change, so I figured out 5 simple ways of making my life easier by living harder.
Editor-in-Chief’s note: This post was written by former Air Force Pararescue Jumper Nathanael Morrison of Morrison Industries.
14 October 2012 will be a day that lives inside me for the rest of my life. I have been a skydiver for 18 years. I have been a military parachutist for the same 18 years. I am a military freefall instructor and I have taught nearly every type of jumping the military does. I stopped counting my jumps at 5,000 and that was 6 years ago. I worked in the research, design, test and evaluation field off and on for many years and today I am an RDT&E consultant. I have also been an enlisted aircrew member for my entire military career. It has been my job to know human flight, high altitude parachuting, aerospace rescue and anything connected to it. On 14 Oct 2012 my world was blown sky high!
ITS Tactical Editor-in-Chief’s note: This post was written by Brett McKay and originally ran on The Art of Manliness.
Last week, my family and I went on a much needed vacation to our adopted home of Montpelier, Vermont. Kate and I have been going there about once a year since we’ve been married, and we even lived there for six months after I graduated law school. Vermont’s natural beauty really renews my man spirit. I try to get out and enjoy the Green Mountains as much as I can during my short visits. One of my favorite places in Montpelier is Hubbard Park — it’s 134 acres of nothing but beautiful Vermont woods and perfect little trails for rambling.
While Montpelier has a small, not-so-great gym, most Vermonters stay in shape like Kate’s uncle, the famous Uncle Buzz, does — by doing household chores and walking their ubiquitous canine companions. While I don’t own a VT homestead that needs tending, I was able to stay in shape using only things I found in the woods of Hubbard Park (and a trusty maul). Exercising outside with simply the equipment found in Mother Nature’s Gym pushes your body, boosts your manly vigor, and, as you can clearly see in the pictures below, aids you in growing a really sweet mustache.
Below I share my Vermont exercise routine. So wolf down your flapjacks, put on your flannel shirt and boots, grab your axe, and head outside. It’s time to do the Woodsman Workout.
ITS Tactical Editor-in-Chief’s note: This post was written by Brett & Kate McKay and originally ran on The Art of Manliness.
Art of Manliness Editor’s Note: In response to my call for suggestions for manly crafts (and in response to a couple of reader emails-by crafts I wasn’t referring to stuff like carpentry and blacksmithing, which are of course quite manly-but to specific DIY projects that men could take on), Tom Pehrson wrote me a great article about building your own fitness equipment. Tom lives in Alaska, reads AoM, and works out with fitness equipment he built himself. Now there’s a man.
There’s nothing manlier that working out in your garage. In fact, many men have relinquished their useless globo gym’s memberships and used that money to buy equipment for their own personal garage gyms. This saves time, and instead of paying some jerk’s expensive car payment, you keep the equipment.
Get a good weight set, a bench, and hopefully a squat rack, and you’re halfway there. There are several other components to the home gym that make it even more functional and can help you take your fitness to the next level. Below are 8 pieces of equipment that will increase your manly strength and save you money in the long term.
Editor-in-Chief’s Note: This post was written by Brett and Kate McKay and originally ran onThe Art of Manliness. Have men these days “gone soft?” Is our generation less manly than past generations? Are we less tough than our grandfathers?
I see guys debate these kinds of questions all the time. Of course it’s hard to quantify “toughness,” but there is one area where we can definitively say we’ve slipped–the Army fitness test isn’t as hard as it used to be.
The Army first introduced a formal fitness test to the troops in 1942. Millions of men were being called up to fight in World War II and not all of them were prepared for the rigors of combat. To get the men in fighting shape, the Army implemented a systematic physical development program as part of the Combat Basic Training course. The Army Ground Forces Test was designed to assess whether the program was having its desired effect. The test included squat jumps, sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, and a 300-yard run. The emphasis was on functional fitness and giving American GI’s the strength, mobility, and endurance they would need to tackle real tasks on the battlefield.
In 1946, a Physical Training School was created at Fort Bragg with the mission of exploring how to take the goal of functional fitness farther. The training program developed at the school and the fitness test were codified in the 1946 edition of FM 21-20, the Army’s physical training manual.
Basically, Grandpa was doing Cross-Fit before it was cool. [Read More…]
Editor-in-Chief’s Note: This post was written by Brett and Kate McKay and originally ran on The Art of Manliness.
In a previous edition of the Man Knowledge series on Art of Manliness, we discussed the fascinating history of invisible ink. In doing the research for that post, we came across an equally interesting tool in the spy’s bag of tricks: the concealment device.
Invisible ink was handy for sending secret messages, but sometimes spies and soldiers needed to hide other kinds of objects, or simply wanted a double-layer of protection for their coded missives.
Concealment devices or CD’s looked like normal, everyday objects but actually contained a secret compartment or cavity, inside which could be placed film, notes, eavesdropping equipment, and various other types of contraband. They were used to smuggle escape aids to prisoners of war, exchange information with friendlies, monitor the enemy, store secrets for safe keeping, and transport items without arousing suspicion. [Read More…]
Editor-in-Chief’s note: This post was written by Schaefer and originally ran on The Art of Manliness.
“The essential thing “in heaven and earth” is…that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.” – Friedrich Nietzche, Beyond Good and Evil
In 1989, Wyoming-native Mark Jenkins set out with three Americans and four Russians to become the first to bicycle all the way across Siberia, starting at the Pacific port town of Vladivostok and ending 7,500 miles later in Leningrad. Battling mud, wind, injuries, and sub-zero temperatures, the 5-month journey took them through hundreds of villages, an 800-mile swamp, the Ural mountains, and a culture permanently hardened by the savage taskmaster of communism.
The trip planted the team in the Guinness Book of World Records, but what made it remarkable was not that it was long, but that it was hard – brutally, numbingly, painfully… hard. [Read More…]
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