Portfolio

"Are you trying to win an argument, or are you trying to win a customer?"

A profile of two CEAE professors for the Civil, Environmental, & Architectural Engineering magazine at the University of Kansas, Fall 2022.

An alumni profile of Gerardo Prado for the Civil, Environmental, & Architectural Engineering magazine at the University of Kansas, Fall 2022.

A student spotlight on Emma Russin for the Civil, Environmental, & Architectural Engineering magazine at the University of Kansas, Fall 2022.

"If all this is new to you, give your phone to your kids and let them walk you through it. They'll also tell you you're doing it wrong. Just nod and smile."

Apple has made their most dedicated fans into brand ambassadors. Try telling a Mac user to switch to a PC; they’ll block you on social media and pretend they don’t know you at parties.

Here are several ways to successfully take rose cuttings and grow your own bit of history.

I wrote the copy on this webpage, as well as the program guide and press release for it.

Working with the environment and the natural world can yield huge benefits by generating greater sustainability and more resilient communities.

Many of us have made missteps in a job search. Here are some common mistakes and how to avoid them.

I copyedited and proofread this catalog for Ball Horticulture, as well as others, and wrote several pages of copy for it as well.

I wrote the text about the Colombia perennials farm in the 2023 Darwin Perennials catalog.

Rising Up at KUEC: How an anti-racist scholar’s workshop is helping professors and instructors – and, more importantly, their students.

I might've had a little experience in choosing a major - I only changed my major and minor 2,382,282 times

Web copy I wrote for a feedlot with Angus Media.

Here's a sample webpage I wrote for Ecolage about loblolly pines. Check out the story about President Eisenhower and the loblolly pine at the Augusta National.

I wish I'd saved more of these pages on my LJ website. I was researching Southern plants that I had no experience with, which was wild, and really had a lot of fun doing freelance work with this business.

In Japanese, word “sazanka” is written with three Kanji characters meaning “mountain”, “tea” and “flower”.

"Naked ladies are also called surprise lilies, because when your church-going grandma says the word “naked” in front of you, you are sure as hell going to be surprised."

An article about Glenn Brendle, a self-described piker who set up a tidy little system for heating his greenhouses and home with used vegetable oil from Philadelphia restaurants.

"It's still nomenclature soup to this day!"

Antique roses are lush, tough beauties in the garden, and they didn't survive all these generations because they're wimps. Here's how to grow them.

The roses that are tops in my book are vigorous, disease-resistant, and sport plenty of scented blossoms.

The newspaper mulch will not only keep the weeds down, it will also fertilize the soil, cool the roots of the plants in the summer heat, add organic material to the soil, and save water.

Not even the best of gardeners can look at the soil and say, “Whoa, we have a problem with low potassium here.” And malnourished plants can’t pull up their roots and move to a more fertile patch. That is why testing the soil every three to five years is so important.

In which I am quoted as an expert gardener.

Did you know you can use newspapers to choke out weeds in your garden? Did you know that this is a real lifesaver if you hate weeding with the heat of a thousand suns?

Brendle is able to heat 4,200 square feet of greenhouse space all year long for free. His fuel? Used vegetable oil from restaurants.

A short story about a girl who coexists peacefully with wasps. This was based on the semester I had Entomology in college whilst enjoying a similar wasp's nest.

Using alfalfa in the small garden is a way to supercharge your soil.

Worms have made the soil of many nations fertile, and they will do the same for your soil. Having thousands of earthworms in your garden is like having a thousand tiny tillers running day and night, and each tiller is pulling a compost spreader behind it.

The neat thing is, not only do I sell a book, but I get to talk to an old friend I haven’t seen for a while. That’s definitely worth the price of admission.

Wrote the copy for this website. This is actually an old pic of me at the proofreading desk.

An ad I wrote for the Angus Journal for our Special Services department. That's me at the "proofreading desk".

A little copy I wrote for an Angus website.

One of the Historic Herd press releases I wrote at Angus Media.

I have an Alphasmart Neo and it is the best writing implement known to man. Fight me.

How do scientists teach winter athletes to develop their skills – speed, balance, jumping, turning – on snow and ice? Originally published in Front Vision

Being a reporter at school is a lot of fun. Every time I pull out my camera to take a pic, all the kids come running to get in on the action.

An article about the Atchison Coffee Clubs. I loved writing slice-of-life articles, especially if there were a bunch of wise-crackers to quote. AtchisonLife, 1998.

This was a little tricky to write because Mr. Wagner was somewhat taciturn. But I managed to get enough quotes from the old gent to make it work. AtchisonLife, 1998

If there's any way on earth I can stick a poem into my news stories, by God I'm going to do it.