Bufnagle: the Podcast

Ep 282: Happy Pi(e) Day! — Pi, Pies, Math, and An Alternative Circle Constant

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 03:00:00 -0500

Pi Day is March 14, due to its 3.14 notation. This week on the Buf, we discuss all things pi-related, including interesting pie words, the history of the precision of estimates of pi, how to think about radians, and why thinking about a different circle constant (namely tau := 2*pi) might help get your head around some of these ideas.

#pi #pie #piday #tauday #3.14 #6.28 #shepherdspie #magpie #rupee #pious #piety #pilot #prirate #piracy #pioneer #pythagoras #pylon #pyre #pyrotechnics #pyrite #foolsgold #matheducation #rationalnumbers #irrationalnumbers #transcendentalnumbers #kingsolomon #ZuChongzhi #unitcircle #circle #hexagon #cauchysintegralformula #gaussiandensity #fourierseries #stirlingsapproximation #maxwellsequation #plancksconstant #rootsofunity #piiswrong #BobPalais #taumanifesto #michaelhartl #march14 #june28 #seekthegood #bufnagle

*****

As always, you can reach the Buf at bufnagle@bufnagle.com

*****

As you know, this is an independent podcast so your hosts also carry all the expenses of running this podcast. As such, some of you have asked how you can help out. Well, here's the answer: support us on Buy Me a Coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/bufnagle

On this page, you can do a really nice thing like send us a couple dollars to help cover the cost of recording and hosting and microphones and research and all that. Any little bit really helps! Thank you in advance!!!

Ep 281: We're Doing Sports Wrong — Competition, Latin Prefixes, and Grace

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 03:00:00 -0600

Rafe discusses the 1969 Ryder Cup and Jack Nicklaus' concession of Tony Jacklin's final putt. A discussion of the Ryder Cup competition and some Latin-based words starting with com- or col- or con- or cor- or just co- reveals that this event is a grand example of the real meaning of "competition", not the "conflict" into which so many sports, on all levels from little kids through professionals, have fallen.

#competition #compete #latinprefixes #conflict #youthsports #war #battle #golf #rydercup #jacknicklaus #tonyjacklin #1969 #grace #impudence #temptation #virtue #lent #passion #victory #strive #striving #sports #purpose #concession #rivalry

Ep 280: Artemis II and Starliner Updates — Why Is This So Difficult?

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 03:00:00 -0600

America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™ and Big Brain Smart Head™ Bob Luzenski joins Rafe for the second time this month to update the Buf on some interesting activities with Artemis II and Starliner.

While Episode 277 was on the Buf pad still waiting to drop, NASA attempted a wet dress rehearsal of the Artemis II mission but was unable to overcome pesky hydrogen problems and now the next set of launch windows that are open will be in April. Meanwhile, the vehicle will need to be rolled back into the assembly building for more checking and testing and adjusting.

Recent NASA press meetings also presented new information concerning 2024's Starliner issues with the potential for astronauts to be "stranded on the space station"; Bob addresses these as well.

All in all, Bob gets us up to date on NASA trying to get back to the moon and lays out, again, why this whole rocket science thing is so difficult.

NASA's starliner report

#nasa #artemis #starliner #strandedinspace #hydrogenfuel #hydrogenleak #refueling #rollback #afrs #bbsm #bufnagle #rocketscience #gettingitright #spacestation #engineering #seektheGood

Ep 279: Mardi Gras, Mob Football, Pancakes, and Shriving (A Buf Lenten Classic Re-drop)

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 03:00:00 -0600

Springtime brings Lent and with it come all the wonderful and wacky ways people prep for 40 days of preparation. In this fan favorite from 2023, Harry and Rafe discuss Shrove Tuesday traditions and how they bring us to understanding the balance between feasting and fasting and staying in the the middle of the highway of virtue.

#shrovetuesday #shrove #shrive #shriven #shriving #lent #pancakeday #mobfootball #royalshrovetidefootball #liberalkansas #olneyengland #ashwednesday #goodfriday #holyweek #easter #nameddays #fishfries #fattuesday #sugaronpancakes #neworleanslouisiana #riodejaneiro #virtue #thelottery #yellowwallpaper #prayer #fasting #almsgiving #chesterton #feastingandfasting #balance #bothextremes

Ep 278: Romans, Valentines, Eros, Agape, Aquinas, and St. Paul

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 03:00:00 -0600

Rafe looks forward to (St.) Valentine's Day and what it means from the Romans' Lupercalia, to multiple Saints (and a pope) Valentine, to shoeboxes with pink construction paper, to candy hearts, to philia, eros, and agape, to feelings and choices, to others as others, to St. Paul and the Corinthians (not those who made the famed Corinthian leather), to patience, kindness, bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring, to agape leading to eros, and to our ultimate desire to return to God.

Happy St. Valentine's Day on February 14th!

Ep 277: NASA Remembrances and New Hopes — AFRS™ BBSH™ Bob Luzenski on the Impending Artemis II Launch

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 03:00:00 -0600

America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™ and Big Brain Smart Head™ Bob Luzenski joins Rafe to discuss NASA's official remembrances during this time of year and hopes and aspirations for the upcoming Artemis II launch.

After some solemn discussions of the fallen astronauts from the Apollo 1 fire of 1967, the Challenger accident of 1986, and the Columbia accident of 2003, discussion turns to the Artemis project to return people to the moon. Artemis II has half-a-dozen open launch windows over the next several months and NASA is planning some aggressive space flight tests with this next launch to set the stage for a human footprints again on the lunar surface in the next couple of years. Bob details the plans for the mission while providing needed context to what happened in the late 1960s with the Apollo flights.

Post-production note: Bob mentions in this episode a previous Buf episode in which we discussed his witnessing the Challenger disaster of 1986. That episode is Episode 19, "Slipping the Surly Bonds of Earth", originally released January 26, 2021; it can be found in the list of previous episodes of the Buf.

Ep 276: Candlemas, Groundhogs, Springtime, and Finding Pearls

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 03:00:00 -0600

Rafe discusses the Feast of Candlemas, the use of animals in the prediction in the timing of Spring, and the underlying themes of the movie Groundhog Day.

Ep 275: The Science of Foam — BBSH™ Derek Hales Joins the Buf to Discuss Mattresses and Sleep

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 03:00:00 -0600

The Buf welcomes Big Brain Smart Head™ Derek Hales, founder of naplab.com, to discuss the nature of mattresses, what they are made of, how they are tested, what they should cost, how they impact your sleep, and much much more.

How much should you pay for your next mattress? Learn how to get that answer for a man at the forefront of mattress testing!

To find out how your mattress tested out, go to Derek's company's website at https://naplab.com

Ep 274: Ellipses, Rotations, and the Equation of Time

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 03:00:00 -0600

Rafe discusses the impact of (1) the earth's elliptical orbit and (2) the tilt of the axis of the earth's axis of rotation on setting clocks. It turns out that even though the earth is spinning at the same rate, the length of a day varys considerably over the course of a year and failure to account for that can lead to errors as big as 15 minutes.

Rafe explains why the days are different length due to these two issues and how the Equation of Time allows you to reconcile your shadow-based sundial and the clock on your phone, and encourages you to use permanent marker on your flows when taking astronomical observations, especially if you have carpet.

#ellipticalorbit #meansolartime #equationoftime #analemma

Ep 273: Stones of Flesh and Blood — The Buf Reviews "The Stones of the Abbey"

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 03:00:00 -0600

Rafe got a great Christmas gift: the book "The Stones of the Abbey", by Fernand Pouillon. He's reviewing it for you this week on the Buf.

This historical fiction account tells the story of a master building an abbey in Provence in France in the late 1100s. Through dated journal entries, he tells the story of the beginning of the construction of the Abbey of Le Thoronet in southeastern France.

Lessons about concerning masonry and framing and quarrying and smithing and all sorts of things associated with building in the middle ages but most of all, this book is a philosophy text, examining Man's role as a creator in his manifestation as Imago Dei.

Ep 272: Bleak Midwinter, Rabbit Holes, and Christmas Carols (A Buf Christmas Classic Re-drop)

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 03:00:00 -0600

Redropping one of our favorite episodes from December 2024, Harry and Rafe start with the idea of a bleak midwinter, dart down some rabbit holes and tell some stories of old shenanigans, and end up on Christmas carols, in particular Sleigh Ride, O Holy Night, Cradle in Bethlehem, Still, Still, Still, and Joseph's Song. Particular attention is paid to Paul Cardall's splendid instrumental version of Still, Still, Still, which serves as the intro and outro tunes for the episode.

In the end, they come to the conclusion that Christmas should be done very intentionally to be done well, and that means starting with Advent and then fully embracing the thrill of Hope that Christmas gives to a weary world.

Ep 271: "You're touring a saw mill? COUNT ME IN!" — The Buf Tours Frank Miller Lumber

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 04:00:00 -0600

Rafe recounts a recent tour of the sawmill at Frank Miller Lumber in Union City, IN, one of the world's largest producers of quarter sawn white oak lumber.

A high-tech sawmill with state-of-the-art, computer-controlled, laser-assisted saws and dozens of people doing the hard work, Frank Miller Lumber pumps out nearly 1.5 million board feet of quarter sawn white oak every month. Come along as Rafe describes what was seen and what exactly quarter sawing does for a log.

https://frankmiller.com

Ep 270: "A Piece of a Grander Story" — Bufnagle 2025 France Trip Report, Part 3

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 04:00:00 -0600

Rafe tells the tale of a the third (and final) part of a recent trip to France, with stops Orléans and Paris.

Along the way, we'll hear about Joan of Arc, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, Sainte-Chapelle, and Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre and a host of other things.

Ep 269: "Death is a clean line." — Bufnagle 2025 France Trip Report, Part 2

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 03:00:00 -0600

Rafe tells the tale of a the second part of a recent trip to France, with stops at the Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette and the Basilica of Our Lady of Fourvière (and other places!).

The sun shines brighter, the birds sing sweeter, the food tastes better, when one is surrounded by beautiful things.

Ep 268: Avignon, a Luthier, and Cloistered Nuns — Bufnagle 2025 France Trip Report, Part 1

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 03:00:00 -0600

Rafe tells the tale of a the first part of a recent trip to France to visit the cloistered nuns at ABBAYE NOTRE-DAME DE L'ANNONCIATION, along the way discussing a brief stop in Avignon to see ancient papal dwellings and a meeting with a delightful luthier.

Ep 267: Firewood and Other Manifestations of Earth's Greatest Natural Resource

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 03:00:00 -0600

Rafe and Harry discuss the general wonders, and the specifics of the combustion, of wood, one of the great (if not the greatest!) natural resources on planet earth.

Again, more proof that this planet was made for us.

Ep 266: A Great Explore — Lewis and Clark and Louisiana (A Buf Classic Re-drop)

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 03:00:00 -0600

Re-dropping a classic episode from the early, early days of the Buf: Rafe and Zach discuss Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery and their exploration of Louisiana, a gigantic chuck of land purchased by President Thomas Jefferson for the fledgling United States in 1803.

It is a tale full of adventure, miracles, and divine providence and a must for anyone wanting to understand the modern Americans' understanding of their place in history. Stephen E. Ambrose's book Undaunted Courage is a wonderful text for the complete tale.

Ep 265: Fathers in DadMode and a Rocket Update with America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™ and Big Brain Smart Head™ Bob Luzenski

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Bob joins Rafe to discuss happenings in the world of flower gardens, fatherhood, home repair, model trains, and, of course, ROCKETS!

Ep 264: Cinnamon Rolls, Saints, And The Prodigal Son — Who Are The Examples For Your Kids? (A Buf Classic Re-drop)

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 03:00:00 -0500

Re-dropping a classic episode from Allhallowtide 2023: Harry and Rafe discuss role models (not ROLL models) and the examples we put in front of our kids and in front of ourselves.

If our wish for our children is for them to get to heaven, who should their role models be?

Ep 263: Halloween Special: Frankenstein — Who Really Is the Monster? (A Buf Classic Re-drop)

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 03:00:00 -0500

Re-dropping a classic episode from October 2023: Rafe is joined this week by Big Brain Smart Head™ Angela Nash to discuss Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. As Rafe recounts the story, Angela provides a rich commentary on the understanding of the tale.

If you haven't read the book but know anything of "Frankenstein", chances are that everything you know about the story is wrong.

Set in Geneva in the early 1800s, the novel tells a cautionary tale of a Victor Frankenstein, a truly mad scientist, and a monster that he creates by trying to understand how life animates the material world. The story touches on a wonderfully rich number of broad themes (Good and Evil, Truth, Virtue, Beauty, Justice, Mercy, and the usual Bufnaglely topics) but the primary theme is an investigation into loneliness and the need for human companionship.

Ep 262: "Little bits of beauty are pathways to God" — A Conversation with Big Brain Smart Head™ Peregrine North

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 02:00:00 -0500

After reading an article in Hearth and Field, Rafe goes in search of the author and today's guest, Big Brain Smart Head™ Peregrine North, a.k.a. Rachel Shrader. Rafe discovers that she is a writer, musician, and artist and has written oodles of things related to Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.

The conversation covers all sorts of topics, from praying with birds, to understanding the costs one pays for convenience, to grandchildren and honey, and all sorts of things in between.

Peregrine North's online writing, music, and art content can be found at https://peregrinenorth.com

Her article Praying with the Birds can be found at https://hearthandfield.com/praying-with-the-birds

Ep 261: Autumn Leaves — Autumn, Chlorophyll, Les Feullies Mortes, and a Warning

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe has noticed that it is currently autumn and that means changing leaves and all that. The discussion takes us through the miracle of changing seasons, chlorophyll and photosynthesis, French songs and English versions, life changes, loss, Momento Mori, and hope for Spring.

(This show's bumper music is excerpts from Eva Cassidy's near-perfect rendition of Autumn Leaves from her CD Songbird. This album is a must for any serious collector of standards of the American song book sung with unparalleled warmth and emotion.)

Ep 260: "The Only Winning Move is Not to Play" — A Story of Understanding A Lottery Glitch

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe shares the tale of a lottery "glitch" — a simple human error that wasn't caught, that ended up costing the company about a million dollars.

In the end, it is experience that counts, not a sharp suit or a brainiac coder or an AI; keep the old people around so you can learn from their mistakes instead of paying oodles of dollars to repeat them.

Ep 259: Monarch Butterfly Caterpillars Doing Their Thing — A Conversation with Big Brain Smart Head™ Maura Donahue

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe invites his sister, Big Brain Smart Head™ Maura Donahue, to discuss her recent adventures with shepherding a flock of monarch butterfly caterpillars from hatching to chrysalis stage. The discussion is one filled with wonder and awe, a conversation edged with the understanding that everyday processes that take place mostly unseen in Nature are nothing short of miraculous.

Ep 258: Bufnagle Classic Re-drop: "Living in the Stupidest Time Ever" — The Buf Takes On Some Listener Questions

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Re-dropping a classic episode from 2023: Harry and Rafe address some listener questions surrounding great saints, why so much focus on Imago Dei, and all the great stuff we have learned doing the Buf for all these years.

Ep 257: Train Collisions, Insects, Algebra, and Infinity

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe tackles a classic high-school algebra problem and discusses that, when teaching, there is a real need to actually show students the tricks and procedures for getting to answers; the idea that students should be encouraged to try to reinvent the wheel, when the solution has been developed and is shared amongst the educated, is just silly. Be deliberate in your instruction; don't hide the secrets of academic success. Share what you know.

Ep 256: Sewing Machines and Listening to God

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe tells the story of the repair of a sewing machine and somehow ends up with the idea of God giving us (or him) puzzles to solve so as to give us Great Joy.

Ep 255: Aviation History: Lift, Thrust, And An Unknown Brush With Greatness (part 2 of 2)

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Harry joins Rafe to discuss the principle of lift, problems the Wright brothers needed to solve before their airplane could be complete, how jet engines work, and an unknown brush with greatness that Rafe had years ago.

This is Part 2 of two episodes.

Ep 254: Aviation History: Lift, Thrust, And An Unknown Brush With Greatness (part 1 of 2)

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 02:00:00 -0500

This is Part 1 of two episodes.

Ep 253: "What should be done for the man whom the king wishes to reward?" — The Book of Esther (part 2 of 2)

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 02:00:00 -0500

In this second of two episodes, Rafe discusses the second half of the Book of Esther, a tale of political intrigue, cleverness, faith, and duty.

Ep 252: "Perhaps it was for a time like this that you were made queen?" — The Book of Esther (part 1 of 2)

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 02:00:00 -0500

In this first of two episodes, Rafe discusses the first half of the Book of Esther, a tale of political intrigue, cleverness, faith, and duty.

Ep 251: Respect the Boundaries: Virtue, Art, Cities and Societies, and Cancer

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe takes on the topic of boundaries and freedoms and how the restrictions we put on ourselves in all endeavors bring us the freedom that we seek.

Ep 250: Makers Leave Their Image and Likeness Imprinted on Their Creations

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe recalls stories of his father crafting things and tells stories about crafting things himself, all while watching professionals using industrial techniques that fail to allow the story of the maker to be imprinted into the craftwork.

In the end we learn that the image and likeness of a creator gets imprinted into his work, just like your Maker's Image and Likeness have been imprinted onto you.

Ep 249: Leftovers, Dinosaurs, Swimming Pools, Secret Pals, and Gratitude

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe relates a number of stories that link together and reveal again the infinitude of the variety of the Good.

Ep 248: Bufnagle Classic Re-drop: Pledging Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honors

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 03:00:00 -0500

Re-dropping a classic episode from Independence Day 2022: From fireworks to sparklers to lawn darts, America's Independence Day provides an opportunity to look back to build understanding of how and why the American colonies broke away from the British mother country.

After centuries of colony-building and decades of disagreement with the behaviour of King George, the Second Continental Congress declared in July of 1776 that the thirteen colonies "are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States", breaking free and establishing a new nation, conceived in Liberty.

Harry and Rafe break down the Declaration of Independence, translating the rich and flowery language of the past to a lexicon more suited to our time, helping us to understand what the document says and what it means for our time.

Enjoy your Independence Day!!!

Ep 247: Let's Talk About The Buf at 250 — Big Brain Smart Head™ Bob Luzenski interviews Rafe

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 03:00:00 -0500

As the Buf approaches 250 episodes (all in season 1!!), the Buf's most frequent guest, Big Brain Smart Head™ and America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™, Bob Luzenski, takes over the host chair and peppers questions at Rafe.

In typical Buf fashion, the answers cover more topics than they were intended to cover and the topics drift all over the map, from Guys Who Talk About Stuff, to Buf history, to topic strategy, to gracious guests, to rockets, and antiques, and wireless telegraph, and advertising, and legacies, the nutritional value of Mt Dew, the joy of meeting all sorts of people, why the Buf is only on Season 1, listenership, the honor one feels being told nice things, Teddy Roosevelt, college football, and much, much more.

Ep 246: When and Where Does the Sun Stand Still? — Winning the Global Solstical Lottery

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe looks into the upcoming June solstice and which lucky locations will get to see the sun at its absolutely highest point.

Of course, to get there one must discuss time zones and UTC offsets and silly daylight time and all such things.

Ep 245: What Does it Mean? — Statistics, Carl Jung, Shakespeare, and Humanity

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe looks at what means mean and why they are not all they might be cracked up to be. Along the way we hear stories about Zach's youth, about Amazon's call centers, about support sets and mass functions, about Carl Jung, and Hamlet and Horatio, and we come to the conclusion that indeed there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in philosophy. As such, be wary of systems that ignore the fundamental components of humanity.

Ep 244: Old is New Again — Lessons Learned Restoring an Antique Phonograph

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe discusses restoring a 100-year old Edison Amberola 30 phonograph, how he did it, and the surprising lessons that he learned.

Ep 243: Let's Talk About Beauty — A Thought-provoking Conversation with Master Carver and Big Brain Smart Head™ Patrick Webb

Tue, 27 May 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe has the honor of hosting master carver and Big Brain Smart Head™ Patrick Webb on the Buf to discuss beauty, carving, architecture, education, the difference between economy and ecology, and the sacredness of human hand craft, among other things.

Patrick can be reached through the Preservation Works, Ltd. website or on Linkedin or other places on the interwebs.

Ep 242: There Will Come Soft Rains — A Line in a Poem in a Story in a Novel on a Podcast

Tue, 20 May 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe talks about catch-phrases, punchlines, Fig Newtons, soft rains, Martians, talking dogs, and caring, but not necessarily in that order.

Ep 241: Horses, Frogs, and Stagecoaches — A Wonderful Conversation with Big Brain Smart Head™ Maura Donahue

Tue, 13 May 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe entertains (or is entertained by?) his sister, Big Brain Smart Head™ Maura Donahue. Together they discuss horses and frogs, stagecoaches and getting to where you want to go, the forthcoming hurdles awaiting higher education, the joys of learning new things in new ways, trusting your gut, hitting a curveball, and much, much more.

Maura can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/maura-donahue

Ep 240: Punishment, Temptation, Testing, or Consequence — What is Actually the Cause of Your Suffering?

Tue, 06 May 2025 02:00:00 -0500

In a follow-up to Episode 239's discussion of Sin, Suffering, and Death, Rafe pursues the question of the source of your suffering. Is this certainty of life due to punishment? Temptation? Testing? or simple Consequence?

Rafe looks at each one of these and comes to the conclusion that it's not divine punishment; it's probably a combination of simple consequence of living here in this broken world magnified by Satan's temptation but then tempered by God not giving you more than you can handle. Suffering will come; Death will come; just don't let them turn you to Sin.

Ep 239: "A Rose by Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet" — What's In a Name?

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe does a solo discussion of the concept of naming, a uniquely human thing to do and a necessary component of our status as Imago Dei. Along the way we'll learn the reason for Rafe's four names, discuss naming conventions, investigate Adam's assignment to name the animals (and Eve!), and the nature of God's name and why it should be hallowed.

Ep 238: "Preparation for the Antagonist World" — A Most Pleasant Conversation with Big Brain Smart Head™ Annie Holmquist

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe is joined by author and Big Brain Smart Head™ Annie Holmquist to discuss her learnings from Russell Kirk about four principles for childhood success: happy family, extended family interactions, regular reading exposure, and the freedom to explore.

In classic Buf style, the conversation drifts on and off the topic and wanders into other realms like playing games with toddlers, Dostoevsky, baseball, and jumping on and off of moving trains...

Check out Annie's substack at https://annieholmquist.substack.com to read more about how she is "countering the 'great cataract of nonsense' in our world with good ol' fashioned common sense."

Ep 237: Bufnagle Classic Re-drop: Lessons From the Passion; Power, Corruption, Truth, and Progress

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Re-dropping a classic episode from Lent 2023, Rafe takes a short solo episode to discuss the Passion and how it is the oldest and most common story in history: power is threatened by Truth so Truth gets killed. But Truth has that odd little habit of coming back, which gives us Easter.

Technology may advance but Man stays the same: driven by power and thus corrupt. There are no new problems; all the problems are old. The solutions are old too: practice the virtues.

"We live in enemy-occupied territory, fighting a war of sabotage."

*****

As always, you can reach the Buf at bufnagle@bufnagle.com

Ep 236: Suffering, Death, Sin, and Falling Rocks — How Ought We Think About Avoiding These?

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe discuss three things that people seek to avoid: suffering, death, and sin and where we ought to put our priorities. And along the way, we come to understand the nature of sinning and why it is the worst of these three things, as the other two simply cannot be avoided except at great peril to one's soul, and also to see ourselves as rocks that, for some inexplicable reason, think it might be a good idea to actually roll uphill, against their own fundamental nature...

Ep 235: Time Zones, Daylight Time, and Busybodies — What Time It Is Where and When

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe goes after time zones and daylight time and how things are so complicated and goofy that it defies belief.

We start with understanding Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), address the sun moving at 15 degrees per hour, and then drop in a dash of summer time adjustments and we get the wacky time settings in place today.

Ep 234: Snowflake Bentley — The Breathtaking 100-year-old Snowflake Photographs Done by W.H. Bentley

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe discusses Wilson Bentley and how he developed a method to take photomicrographs of snowflakes and make snow, one of the grand beauties of our universe, even more beautiful.

Ep 233: Spinning Goat Hair and Seeking the Garden of Eden

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe talks about his daughter Olivia's substack and a post from a different blog about seeking the Garden of Eden in things that are simple, beautiful, soft, and comfortable.

Olivia's substack can be found at https://spinningthegoatshair.substack.com

Ep 232: Backyard Radio — The Story of Radio Station WEPB-LP FM with Big Brain Smart Head™ Mickey Guffey

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 02:00:00 -0500

After the release of Episode 229 in which the Buf discusses a unique low-power radio station in Noblesville, Indiana, Rafe goes on the hunt to make contact, somehow, with the people at the station.

Following some internet leads, he eventually reaches the creator, owner, and operator of 106.3 FM WEPB-LP radio, this week's Big Brain Smart Head™ guest Mickey Guffey.

Mickey joins the Buf this week to discuss all things related to low-power radio and the joys and sorrows related to literally running a radio station out of your backyard.

Ep 231: "Gravity is Lumpy and Athena Has Better Legs" — A Rocket Update with Big Brain Smart Head™ Bob Luzenski, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 02:00:00 -0600

Rafe is joined by the Buf's most frequent guest, Big Brain Smart Head™ Bob Luzenski, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™, to discuss what is happening in the world of Bob and the world of rockets: winter, flowers and bulbs of Spring, model train shows, big rocket launches, lunar landers, and much more.

*****

Ep 230: Bufnagle Classic Re-drop: Shrove Tuesday — How Pancakes and Mob Football Lead You to Fasting and Lent

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 06:00:00 -0600

Re-dropping a classic episode from Lent 2023, Harry and Rafe discuss wild, wonderful, and wacky Shrove Tuesday traditions and how they bring us to understanding the balance between feasting and fasting and staying in the the middle of the highway of virtue.

Ep 229: Interesting Connections — Serendipity, Rediscovering Old Things, and Proof By Contradiction

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 02:00:00 -0600

A chance encounter on a 100-watt radio station leads to learning all sorts of new things and discovering some things that Rafe never could have imagined.

Ep 228: Aphrodite and Meaning — How the True Nature of Meaning is Missing from AI

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 02:00:00 -0600

Rafe starts with a Shelley poem about the Birth of Aphrodite and wanders into backgammon, Christmas, AI images, mimesis, regression, aviation, and then emerges with the understanding that AI might be a fun toy but it's not possessing understanding the way a human being does — it has no concept of meaning the way we do.

Ep 227: "A Robot Can't Do That" — Nicholas Cage, Plato, Steampunk, and AI

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 02:00:00 -0600

Rafe discusses Nicholas Cage's lament over the coming of AI to film-making and along with it traces a history of Man's model for viewing Man as the hot technology of the times. Along the way we learn that Man is not a chariot, nor a wind-up clock, nor a steam engine, nor electric circuit, nor race car, nor rocket or a computer or an AI model; Man is a material body infused with a soul.

Be aware of the model that you use to think about yourself and others, as it impacts how you think, how you reason, and how you act. Make sure your model helps you seek the Good, live virtuously, and flourish.

Ep 226: Cancel Buttons, Electronic Timers, and Wattage — Why This Ain't Your Grandfather's Toaster

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 02:00:00 -0600

Rafe finally gets an answer to why his toast takes so much longer to cook than it did when he was a kid, and it's not just an issue of nostalgia.

Ep 225: Times and Seasons — Free Yourself By Conceding to the Inherent Cycles of Nature

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 02:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe discuss the Nature of Time and how one conforms one's life to it. Do we live in harmony with seasons and cycles and rhythms of life or do we fight against them to control the world around us? Is what you are doing bringing you Joy?

Ep 224: "Happiness is a drawer full of warm socks." — Shoveling Snow, Leisure, Work, and Efficiency

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 02:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe discuss shoveling snow as a lead-in to a discussion of work, leisure, and riding both sides of the road, as Chesterton would suggest, and doing both the working and playing very well.

Along the way they discuss all manners of Bufnagley things, including one of the Great Song by Dan Fogelberg, one that, in particular, mentions the snow turning into rain...

Ep 223: Age and Wisdom — Reflecting on the Close of the Sixth Decade

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 02:00:00 -0600

Rafe discusses turning 60 (!) and a lifetime pursuit of Wisdom. Job's Poem on Wisdom provides some insight.

Ep 222: Books, Books, Books

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 02:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe discuss books from 2024 and ones they hope to consume in 2025.

Ep 221: Bufnagle Classic Re-drop: Luke's Christmas Story — "Be Not Afraid"

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 02:00:00 -0600

Redropping an episode from Advent 2022, Rafe goes solo to discuss the first two chapters of Luke's gospel, the backstory and the story of the Nativity.

Along the way we cover the concept of quarter-year days and their bank holidays and the fundament of the Rosary, but in the end we learn to embrace the Hope promised through the patience of Advent, to trust in those things we don't understand, and to behave like the shepherds in searching for the savior and glorifying and praising God.

Ep 220: "A Thrill of Hope / A Weary World Rejoices" — Bleak Midwinter, Rabbit Holes, and Christmas Carols

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 02:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe start with the idea of a bleak midwinter, dart down some rabbit holes and tell some stories of old shenanigans, and end up on Christmas carols, in particular Sleigh Ride, O Holy Night, Cradle in Bethlehem, Still, Still, Still, and Joseph's Song. Particular attention is paid to Paul Cardall's splendid instrumental version of Still, Still, Still, which serves as the intro and outro tunes for the episode.

In the end, they come to the conclusion that Christmas should be done very intentionally to be done well, and that means starting with Advent and then fully embracing the thrill of Hope that Christmas gives to a weary world.

Ep 219: Bufnagle Classic Re-drop: Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe Change the World

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 02:00:00 -0600

In an episode originally dropped in December 2023, Harry and Rafe discuss the appearance of the Virgin Mary to Juan Diego in 1531. A decade after the fall of the Aztec empire, Diego, a peasant convert in present-day Mexico, is visited four times by the appearance of the Virgin Mary, who tells him to ask the bishop to build a church on Tepeyac Hill in her honor. When pressed for evidence, Our Lady arranges non-native roses in Diego's tilma on the winter solstice and, upon presentation to the bishop, a miraculous image is imposed onto and into the very fabric of his cloak: an image of a woman, clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, carried by angel, and carrying a child.

The image spans two cultures, the natives of central American and the Spanish Christians, in its iconography and presentation and speaks to both groups about the nature of the mother of the one True God.

Diego's cloak still hangs in Mexico City today, four hundred and ninety-two years later, having survived all manners of mistreatment and harassment, a testament to the Christian faith of the Mexican people and Catholics around the globe. Our Lady of Guadalupe is essentially the American continents' first true superhero.

Ep 218: Heroic Virtue, Rat Poison, and Wrestling with God — Big Brain Smart Head™ Fr. Elliot Zak Answers Hard-hitting Questions from the Buf

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 02:00:00 -0600

Rafe and Harry welcome back Fr. Zak to again answer the questions that you have always had but have been afraid to ask!

Ep 217: Vanilla, Garlic, St. Nicholas, and Irish Bars — A Conversation with Big Brain Smart Heads™ Sarah Schutte and Zach Donahue

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 02:00:00 -0600

Rafe welcomes BBSHs Sarah and Zach back on the show to discuss holiday traditions related to Thanksgiving, Christmas, Advent, and a whole bunch of other things.

Ep 216: It's Always All About Children

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 02:00:00 -0600

Rafe recounts a collection of recent interweb findings that spur him to think of the Joys that are children — in fact, they are really the only reason for doing anything. So, get going: get married and have some kids.

Ep 215: "An Episode That Triggers a New Way of Seeing" — A Conversation with Big Brain Smart Head™ Italian architect Ricardo Buratti

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 02:00:00 -0600

Rafe welcomes Big Brain Smart Head™ Italian architect Ricardo Buratti to discuss the nature of doing difficult things, being digestible to other people, being unforecastable, destiny, and putting yourself in positions to learn new ways of seeing.

Ricardo's contact information: https://www.rb-arc.be/contact/
Ricardo's web page: https://www.rb-arc.be

Ep 214: Benchy the Tugboat — A Discussion About 3D Printing

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 02:00:00 -0600

It turns out Harry got a 3d printer some time ago so Rafe decided to ask him to tell us all about it so you can probably guess how this is going to go...

Ep 213: Risk, Trust, Freedom, and Community — A Conversation with Noé Morin from La Table Ronde de l’Architecture

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe welcomes Big Brain Smart Head™ Noé Morin, Vice President of La Table Ronde de l’Architecture (TRA), the organization that oversaw the summer schools Rafe attended in July and August of 2024.

Noé describes the history and goals of TRA and he and Rafe discuss some of the grander learnings from the summer and come to the conclusion at the end at we need to get to know the people with whom we build communities if we are to embark on trusting ourselves and others to take on risk. This is the only way to advance, as living our lives in freedom comes at the cost of risk.

The TRA website, mentioned in this episode can be reached at:
https://www.latablerondearchitecture.com

*****

Ep 212: Catching Rockets; How Hard Could It Be?

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe is joined by Big Brain Smart Head™ Bob Luzenski, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™, to discuss the recent engineering masterpiece by the engineers at SpaceX: catching a 71m long rocket that is falling to earth.

Join us to find out why this feat was so spectacular.

*****

Ep 211: "Create Beautiful Good Things in Love" — Final Part (part 5) of Summer School 2024 Recap

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe describes the fifth and final part of his 8-week summer school: final project work, a parade for the Assumption, final presentations, craft week, a trip home, and some final take-aways:

Try something new.
Good people make all the difference.
Seek Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.
Create beautiful good things in Love.

Link to La Table Ronde de l'Architecture website: here.

Link to French newspaper article discussing the visit of the summer school to Barr: here.

*****

Ep 210: Starliner, Space Rescues, and Software

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 01:00:00 -0500

Rafe is joined by Big Brain Smart Head™ Bob Luzenski, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™, to discuss issues surrounding Starliner and the complexities of space flight, engineering, and software. Recorded in mid-September, let's see how prescient they are...

*****

Ep 209: Infinitely Precious Human Fabergé Eggs — Part 4 of Summer School 2024 Recap

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 02:00:00 -0500

With Harry still on hiatus, Rafe describes the fourth part of his 8-week summer school: the city of Bruges, nuns at the boarding school, philosophy and metaphysics, a shrubbery maze, enchantment and delight, the infinitude of the variety of the Good, and much more...

Link to La Table Ronde de l'Architecture website: here.

Link to French newspaper article discussing the visit of the summer school to Barr: here.

Ep 208: "Beauty. Magic. A fairy tale." — Part 3 of Summer School 2024 Recap

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 03:00:00 -0500

With Harry on hiatus, Rafe describes the third part of his 8-week summer school: an old castle, more crafts, wonderful desserts, pink sandstone, store fronts, parking lots, a Disney ending to 16 days in Barr, and a foreshadowing of more Joy coming in Belgium in Part 4...

Link to La Table Ronde de l'Architecture website: here.

Link to French newspaper article discussing the visit of the summer school to Barr: here.

Ep 207: Blood, Shakespeare, and Johnny Mathis

Tue, 17 Sep 2024 02:00:00 -0500

Taking a break from the summer school recaps, Rafe goes solo and recounts a recent adventure he had while giving blood, tying in revenge and mercy from Shakespeare and one of the great love songs of all time, and getting a t-shirt and cookies for his efforts.

Ep 206: "I am at peace" — Part 2 of Summer School 2024 Recap

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 03:00:00 -0500

Rafe describes to Harry the second part of his 8-week summer school, in particular, a trip to the Strasburg cathedral and meeting craftsmen in Alsace. Discussion of church literacy, coffee shops and pubs, odd temperature scales, limestone, stone carving, woodworking, clay tiles, and much more follows as the Buf continues in telling the summer school tale.

Link to La Table Ronde de l'Architecture website: here.

Link to French newspaper article discussing the visit of the summer school to Barr: here.

Ep 205: "I fell in love with Barr" — Part 1 of Summer School 2024 Recap

Tue, 03 Sep 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Rafe describes to Harry the first part of his 8-week summer school, in particular, the first part of the course in Barr, Alsace, France. Discussion of vernacular architecture, storks, arches, Barr's "Golden Book", the metric system, and much more follows as the Buf begins to make a dent in telling the summer school tale.

Link to La Table Ronde de l'Architecture website: here.

Link to French newspaper article discussing the visit of the summer school to Barr: here.

Ep 204: Covid-24, Fiber Optics, and Summer School — A Rambling Conversation About Upcoming Topics

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe get back together to discuss how things have been for the last eight weeks. What follows is a typical Buf conversation about where the show will be headed for the next couple of weeks. Shenanigans abound, of course.

Ep 203: "Be the Creed" — A Conversation with Catholic Manhood's Nick Sledge

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Harry hosts Nick Sledge, founder of the Catholic Manhood social media site. Think of it as two young redneck fathers discussing Aristotle, Aquinas, architecture, and working to help get their families to heaven.

Nick Sledge can be found at:
https://x.com/bethecreed
https://www.instagram.com/catholic.manhood/
https://catholicmanhood.substack.com

Ep 202: Great Cathedrals — What Are Their Bells Calling Us To Do?

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Rafe goes solo from a secret remote location (and apologizes for the sound quality) and discusses the grand cathedral in Strasbourg, its square, its facade, its masses, and its restaurants.

Are we building things today that will cause generations a thousand years from now to gather and bask in their glory?

Ep 201: Two Hundred Episodes — A Look Back on Another Century Mark

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 04:00:00 -0500

With at least 200 episodes now produced, the Buf team looks back on their favorite episodes of the last 100, what they each have learned, and how it has helped shape their understanding of a consistent world view.

Ep 200: Light Part 5 — Consequences of Special Relativity

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe conclude the discussion around coming to understand the nature of light. In this episode they discuss some of the consequences of Einstein's Special Relativity and, in particular, how it implies that a clock moving very very fast appears, to a stationary observer, to be running slow.

Ep 199: Bringing Enchantment and Delight Into Your Everyday Life

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 03:00:00 -0500

Rafe quotes a recent twitter post about how to re-enchant the world, starting with simple things like elegant dinner parties. Harry joins in to discuss ways to bring about more Truth, Beauty, and Goodness to what you do on a daily basis by fully embracing enchantment and delight.

Ep 198: On Light, Part 4 — Einstein's Special Relativity

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe continue the discussion around coming to understand the nature of light. In this episode they discuss the concepts of Einstein's Special Relativity, the basic concept that ALL laws of physics must be consistent in any inertial reference frame.

The outcome of this statement is that the measurement of the speed of light (c=3x10^8 m/s) is the same for ANY observer, at any time in ANY inertial reference frame. And the concept of "sitting still" has no meaning, since ALL motion is relative; there is no reference frame for the universe --- unless, of course, you are above time and space...

Ep 197: Independence Day — Are Sparklers Really That Hot???

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 03:00:00 -0500

Rafe surprises Harry with an ad lib topic: let's talk about Independence Day.

While the conversation could have been a scripted lesson in the history of the holiday and the American founding, instead the hosts meander through a broad range of topics, all inspired by the July 4th Independence Day holiday in the USA.

Along the way, the Bufnaglers discuss other countries' independences, variety being the spice of life, creativity and boundaries, fireworks and sparklers, and anything that comes to mind. This is the Bufnagle equivalent to the lazy river at the amusement park — cool, relaxing, and immensely varied where one topic rolls seamlessly into the next. Grab a favorite cold beverage on a hot day in the first week of July and float along with the Buf!

Ep 196: Sin, Expiation, Theodicy, and Much, Much More — A Conversation with Fr. Elliot Zak

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe roll out a warm welcome to Fr. Elliot Zak, Associate Pastor at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Carmel, IN.

Displaying remarkable poise under the intensely complicated theological questions posed by our hosts, Fr. Zak walks them through a classic Bufnaglian wandering of topics, from sacraments in the age of telecommunication, to the perfection of Christ's sacrifice, to the problem of Evil, understanding Mary's Immaculate Conception, and a host of other items.

Ep 195: On Light, Part 3 — Waves, Interference, Maxwell's Equations, and Maxwell's Donuts

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe continue the discussion around coming to understand the nature of light. In this episode they discuss the properties of waves (interferences and such) and how the nature of light is like the nature of sound except for the fact that light waves seem to be able to travel without any medium to support them. In the end, our friend Albert Michelson will again show up to finally put the ether to rest setting the stage another Albert to come to the front with Special Relativity.

In true Buf fashion, the conversation drifts to things like the teaching of mathematics in high schools and to donuts; the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Ep 194: Two Days of Big Rockets — America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™ Talks About Two Notable Launches Last Week

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Rafe is joined by Big Brain Smart Head™ Bob Luzenski, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™, to discuss recent launches of SpaceX' Starship Superheavy and Boeing's Starliner, just one day apart.

A review of the flights and what went wrong and what went right ensues; the team is joined late by Harry who dropped by unexpectedly; Rafe goes off on a tangent about helium; and a question arises about whether or not "mega" is a legitimate SI unit prefix. So, yeah, this was just your typical Buf episode.

Ep 193: A Very Special Guest Returns to Discuss Men's Mental Health Awareness Month

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Big Brain Smart Head™ and past co-host Zach Donahue returns to the show (he was never really gone) to discuss the state of men's mental health and strategies to help you get to where you need to go.

More Zach can be found at his substack at https://zachdonahue.substack.com or you can reach him by email at zach@zachdonahue.com.

Ep 192: On Light, Part 2 — Toothed Wheels, Spinning Mirrors, and Meeting the President

Tue, 28 May 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe continue the discussion around coming to understand the nature of light. In this episode they discuss Fizeau, Foucault, and Michelson and how they used the technologies of the 18th and 19th centuries to zero in on the universal speed limit.

Along the way we run into some characters we have seen before and stumble across some serendipity that is just too good not to mention.

Ep 191: On Light, Part 1: Measuring Light Speed — How Do They Actually Do That?

Tue, 21 May 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe present the first part of a series on the the speed of light and special relativity.

In this episode, they discuss basic Galilean relativity and discuss how the speed of light was actually measured prior to the year 1700 using eclipses of the moons of Jupiter.

Ep 190: Bees, Bees, Bees!

Tue, 14 May 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe welcome Big Brain Smart Head™ Matthew Donahue, a current PhD student studying one of the Buf's favorite insect friends: bees!

Matthew holds up supremely well under the heat of unrelenting questioning at the Buf and educates our hosts on all sorts of bee things.

Remember to buy local honey!!!

Ep 189: Acronyms, Army, and Architecture — The Buf Takes Listener Questions

Tue, 07 May 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe respond to some listener questions about the Buf in general, about Harry's time in the army, and about why Rafe is going to Europe this summer.

As usual it probably turns out exactly as you might imagine, which means it's not going to be what you think.

Ep 188: The Rocket Equation and CubeSats — A Lesson in Putting Things Into Orbit (and not trusting the interwebs, AI, and other such things...)

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 04:00:00 -0500

A simple observation from a photo on the interwebs leads to a question, and then lots of Bufnagely discussion, about space and orbits and rockets and garage projects, marketing, and much, much more!

Harry and Rafe are joined by not one but TWO (!) Big Brain Smart Heads™: Bob Luzenski, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™, and Dr Brian Donahue, America's Favorite Time-Traveling Ham Radio Anesthesiologist™, as they try to figure out how to get the Buf into orbit (and other similarly important things). Along the way, we will all learn not to trust (a) what's on the interwebs, (b) Rafe's ability to look things up on the interwebs, (c) AI, and (d) products without sufficient technical oversight. (Oh, and we will also be reminded to commit only to projects that require the purchase of new tools.)

Ep 187: The Joy of Summer School — And a Big Announcement!

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe discuss summer school and other summer activities and finish with a big announcement from Rafe about this coming summer and what it means to the Buf!

Ep 186: Bounded and Right-sized — Doing Your Job to Save the World

Tue, 16 Apr 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Rafe tackles the question of how to save the world using a little help from from a four-year-old with a wagon full of rocks.

Ep 185: Eclipse 2024 Retrospective

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Rafe talks to Bob Luzenski, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™, and Dr Brian Donahue, a Time Traveling Ham Radio Anesthesiologist™, about the total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 as viewed from Bufnagle Global Headquarters in Westfield, IN.

Ep 184: Bufnagle Unscripted — Working Out Ways to Fulfill Duties to Others and Yourself

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 03:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe work through a rare unscripted episode based loosely around the question of "How do you do what you need to do for yourself while also doing what you need to do for others?"

What results is a random walk through a plethora of topics including, but not limited to, eclipses, celestial transits, the transitivity of transitivity, show prep processes, changing one's clock for summer, the glories of Nepal, the worries of indoor plumbing, the theory of learning curves, parenting trials and tribulations and rewards, and much much more!

Ep 183: Springtime Shenanigans— All Sorts of Ways that Cultures Celebrate Spring

Tue, 26 Mar 2024 04:00:00 -0500

Rafe does a solo episode that ties together all sorts of Springtime shenanigans from colored dust to "seven sins" to evading the Angel of Death to announcing the arrival of Truth Incarnate and lots in-between. Join us to celebrate Spring!

Ep 182: Big Rockets, Loose Screwdrivers, Pez Dispensers, and Mice — A Discussion of SpaceX' Starship Third Launch Test

Tue, 19 Mar 2024 03:00:00 -0500

The Buf is honored to again be joined by Bob Luzenski, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™, to discuss all the fun things that happened surrounding the March 14th test launch of SpaceX' Starship.

Bob leads Rafe through all the interesting things that happened last week surrounding Starship and occasionally entertains with interesting side notes around Pez candy, loose objects in spacecraft, mice, and hypergolic (!) fuel, all while Harry desperately tries to maintain the episode's attitude control.

Join us for a great discussion of rockets and much, much more!

Ep 181: Wind and Water and Springtime — God Makes All Things New

Tue, 12 Mar 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Rafe and Harry look at wind and water and how these fundamental elements are used by God to make new things. Take a deeper look at the Genesis creation story, Noah's ark (How many animals did he take onto the ark?), Moses, and other stories to see the roles of water and wind, and learn how to see that He who "makes all things new" does this for you everyday and in all manner of things.

Ep 180: "The 2024 Paris Olympic Farmers’ Market and Craft Show!" — Bufnagle European Trip Report, Part 3

Tue, 05 Mar 2024 04:00:00 -0600

Harry hosts Rafe's discussion of a trip to Paris.

Along the way, we learn about Haussman's Paris, Notre Dame, Eglise St Etienne du Mont (and Owen Wilson!), Eiffel's Tower, US monuments in Paris, the Arc de Triomphe, the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, the Louvre, and much much more!

Like the entire trip to Europe, the best part was the warm and hospitable people that were met along the way!

Ep 179: Bufnagle European Trip Report, Part 2 — A Weekend Train Trip to Assisi

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 04:00:00 -0600

Harry hosts Rafe's discussion of a weekend train trip to the town of Assisi, birthplace and final resting place of St. Francis of Assisi.

Rafe tells stories of train travel, the life and times of St. Francis and the circuitous route to his final resting place, the quaint and cozy town of Assisi in January, a castle on the hill above the town protecting it from invaders, and plenty of other tidbits.

Most of all, the visits to Assisi and Florence were wonderfully pleasant, mostly due to the warm, generous, and gracious people of Italy that were met along the way.

Ep 178: Fairy Tale Princesses, Christmas Ghosts, Jane Eyre, and Stepping Outside the Narrative — A Most Delightful Conversation with Author and Podcaster Faith Moore

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 04:00:00 -0600

The Buf team welcomes Big Brain Smart Head™ author, editor, podcaster, commentator, wife, and stay-at-home mom Faith Moore to the show to discuss her books and podcast.

Faith discusses her book "Saving Cinderella — What Feminists Get Wrong About Disney Princesses And How To Set It Right", a scholarly look into a consistent and helpful way to understand the Disney Princess fairy tails, her recent novel "Christmas Karol", a retelling of Dickens' Christmas classic, and her podcast "Storytime for Grownups", a semiweekly show which is part audio book, part insightful commentary, and part Q&A of listener questions.

Faith treats the Buf team to strategies for understanding fairy tales, hints for writing well, and permission to crush on high-virtue literary characters, along with a wealth of understanding into all things literary and a suggestion to "step outside the narrative" — a call to find Joy by staying true to what is Right and Moral but allowing yourself to take the path of your own calling, regardless of what the culture might be telling you.

Faith's contact information:
faithkmoore.com

Storytime for Grownups
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storytime-for-grownups/id1723225253

Ep 177: More Rockets and Eclipse Updates with America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 04:00:00 -0600

The Buf team is joined by Big Brain Smart Head™ and America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™ Bob Luzenski to discuss, of course, big rockets and the upcoming April 8th total solar eclipse.

Bob and the team discuss new information surrounding the Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly of Starship on November 18, 2023 and upcoming plans, hurdles, and whatnot for the return of Man to the moon.

"Make sure your thrust to weight ratio is properly accounted for the amount of payload that you have."

Additionally, Bob brings up the importance of being prepared for the eclipse on April 8th and provides some links to great weather websites for the eclipse and to places where one can get suitable eye protection for looking at the sun. These links are below.

Eclipse glasses:
* https://thousandoaksoptical.com/products/eclipse/
* https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/viewers-filters

Eclipse information:
* https://eclipsophile.com/2024tse/
* https://www.eclipsewise.com/2024/2024.html
* https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/future-eclipses/eclipse-2024/

Ep 176: Bufnagle European Trip Report, Part 1 — Florence's Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 04:00:00 -0600

Harry hosts Rafe's discussion of a visit to Florence, Italy and a tour of the First Church of the Renaissance, Florence's Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.

Rafe tells the story of his tour of the Cathedral's massive dome and all the fun things found there inside, including spiraling secret passageways, Dante's Inferno, a wonderful ancient clock with only one hand, and an obscure reference to the Smothers Brothers and pumas!

Ep 175: Hope and Despair — What Exactly Goes Into Models for Predicting Sports Outcomes?

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 04:00:00 -0600

Rafe goes solo, discussing wagering on sports situations, namely the NCAA tournament and going for 2 and going for it on fourth down in football.

After some considerations he concludes that the things we really need in sports betting models are Hope and Despair, two of the many things that the we cannot measure and that the materialists refuse to entertain.

Ep 174: "A Small Plot for a Free Man" — Reprising Some Ideas About Artificial Intelligence and Samwise Gamgee (and some other things!)

Tue, 23 Jan 2024 04:00:00 -0600

The Buf team takes a little time to reprise some of the AI and Lord of the Rings topics from the last couple of weeks.

Ep 173: Dumb and Dumber — A Story About the Current Status of Artificial Intelligence

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 04:00:00 -0600

Rafe and Harry relate a story of a conversation with an AI bot and come to the general conclusion that we've got some time before artificial intelligence takes over the world.

Ep 172: Boromir's Death — Confession, Death, Last Rites and Such Things in Lord of the Rings

Tue, 09 Jan 2024 04:00:00 -0600

Harry leads a discussion of Boromir's death in Lord of the Rings and notes the allegory it provides to understand sin and reconciliation and last rites.

Boromir becomes enticed by the power of The Ring and his focus away from his Good leads to Sin. He recognizes his straying from the path, shows remorse, confesses and does penance and is reconciled with Aragorn, the one true king.

Ep 171: Bufnagle Classic Re-drop: Christmas Special 2020 — Christmas Movies and Change of Perspective with No Change in Circumstance

Mon, 25 Dec 2023 04:00:00 -0600

In this re-drop of a classic episode from Christmas 2020, Zach and Rafe, joined by Big Brain Smart Head™ guests Olivia and Chris DeCleene, discuss Christmas movies and what makes them unique.

Discussion of some of the classics (and some you might not have thought of!) follows as we come to see that Christmas is about the ultimate change in perspective; Christmas (along with Easter!) changes everything!

Ep 170: Butter Curling, Beauty, and Joy — A Christmas Conversation with Big Brain Smart Head™ Ginny Horan

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 04:00:00 -0600

Rafe is joined by a returning Big Brain Smart Head™ guest, the always-delightful Ginny Horan. What follows is a meandering conversation centered on Christmas, sprinkled generously with Joy, Goodness, Beauty, and Hope.

Always live excellently, as your actions will ripple through time and impact people in ways you never could imagine.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout.

Ep 169: "A nobody, a small rope, a tiny ladder" — Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe Change the World

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 04:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe discuss the appearance of the Virgin Mary to Juan Diego in 1531. A decade after the fall of the Aztec empire, Diego, a peasant convert in present-day Mexico, is visited four times by the appearance of the Virgin Mary, who tells him to ask the bishop to build a church on Tepeyac Hill in her honor. When pressed for evidence, Our Lady arranges non-native roses in Diego tilma on the winter solstice and, upon presentation to the bishop, a miraculous image is imposed onto and into the very fabric of his cloak, an image of a woman, clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, carried by angel, and carrying a child.

The image spans two cultures, the natives of central American and the Spanish Christians, in its iconography and presentation and speaks to both groups about the nature of the mother of the one True God.

Diego's cloak still hangs in Mexico City today, four hundred and ninety-two years later, having survived all manners of mistreatment and harassment, a testament to the Christian faith of the Mexican people and Catholics around the globe. Our Lady of Guadalupe is essentially the American continents' first true superhero.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 168: "Peering Out of Tiny Eyes" — New Baby Siblings, Cousins, Parenting, and Virtue (of course!)

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 04:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe discuss the arrival of siblings and their impact on older children, songs by Elton John, parenting, role modeling, poems by Cecil B. Alexander, virtue, and other such things.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 167: Columbus, Part 4 — The Final Voyages and the International Race to See What's Really Out There

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 04:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe finish the story of Columbus and his travels to the New World.

Columbus struggles to keep control of the colony in the (West) Indies and also struggles to keep control of his reputation and name.

The New World is becoming bigger and bigger and looking less and less like The East with every voyage someone, be it Columbus or the Portuguese or the British or anyone, makes west from the Europe-Africa-Asia super continent.

In the end, Columbus dies a man trying to defend his name while the nations of world come to grips with the fact that there are things out there they never expected to find, namely two (2!) new continents and an ocean so big that it covers half the planet.

But Columbus lives on in a namesake country and in cities and towns and streets and companies and all sorts of other things all over the New World. A bold and daring risk based on bad data and funded by Spain completely changed the understanding of the world.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 166: Bufnagle Classic Re-drop: The Pilgrims, Part 3 — Alliance, Divine Providence, and Thanksgiving

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 05:00:00 -0600

In this re-drop of a classic episode from late 2022, Harry and Rafe discuss this final third part of our series on the Pilgrims, covering interactions with the Native Americans, an alliance with Massasoit and the Pokanokets and the consequences of that treaty.

Nathaniel Philbrick's book Mayflower is the basis for these episodes and provides generous insight and keen analysis to understanding the state of the world where the English Pilgrims encountered the Pokanokets and the other native New Englanders.

Ep 165: Bufnagle Classic Re-drop: The Pilgrims, Part 2 — Massasoit and the Situation in New England on Arrival

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 04:00:00 -0600

In this re-drop of a classic episode from late 2022, Harry and Rafe take up where they left off in Episode 164: the Pilgrims have arrived at Cape Cod, but what awaited them?

The North American landscape was anything but a blank slate. Countless local tribes were living on the continent and with them were their cultures, their customs, and their politics. Throw in more than a century of Europeans interacting with the natives and a very recent epidemic that had completely wiped out some communities, and the Pilgrims were stepping into a world completely different, yet in some ways very similar, to the one they had left.

Enter Massasoit and his tribe, the Pokanokets, who had been ravaged by disease and were under the thumb of neighboring sachems; they sought to regain their glory and alliance with the English might be just the thing that they needed. Toss in Epenow and Squanto, and some misunderstandings and happenstance, and what comes out is a true story as intricate and complicated as any fiction.

Ep 164: Bufnagle Classic Re-drop: The Pilgrims, Part 1 — An Incredible Journey Toward Building a New World

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 03:00:00 -0600

In this re-drop of a classic episode from late 2022, Rafe is joined by Harry to discuss the first part of Nathaniel Philbrick's book Mayflower and the story of the Pilgrims and how they came to America.

Starting as English puritans in Holland, the Pilgrims decide to pick up and move to America. This episode tracks the incredible travel from Leiden to the Pilgrims landing at the tip of Cade Cod before even eventually making a settlement at Plymouth. Along the way the Pilgrims are faced with hardship beyond measure: people taking advantage of their naivete, charlatans backing out of deals, and weather and the Atlantic Ocean making the travel to America a life-threatening affair. But fortitude, bravery, and a never-ending trust in Divine Providence eventually sees the Pilgrims to a safe landfall in November on Cape Cod and an eventual December landing at Plymouth Rock.

When Spring 1621 finally sprung, half of the settlers were dead. But half were still alive and what followed sent shockwaves through the local native populations, through the societies of Britain, and eventually around the world.

Ep 163: Starship — What Did We Learn During November 18's Flight of SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy?

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 04:00:00 -0600

Rafe is joined by Big Brain Smart Head™ and America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™ Bob Luzenski to discuss the November 18 launch of SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy.

Bob walks us through the launch and short flight of both the booster Super Heavy (the first stage) and the spacecraft Starship (the second stage) during their less-than-ten-minutes flight.

Along the way, we learn about operational vs test flights, how to think about measuring success and failure, hot staging, and how a very precise flight trajectory allows SpaceX to launch from Texas and not Florida.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 162: Cinnamon Rolls, Saints, And The Prodigal Son — Who Are The Examples For Your Kids?

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 04:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe discuss role models (not ROLL models) and the examples we put in front of our kids and in front of ourselves.

If our wish for our children is for them to get to heaven, who should their role models be?

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 161: Columbus, Part 3 — Finding the Garden of Eden

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 04:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe continue the story of Columbus and his travels to the New World.

Columbus returns to the New World with 17 ships and 1,200 and in late 1493 and finds that the colony he established is completely wiped out. Further attempts to establish a foothold in this land aremet with all sorts of problems and also fail to result in gold or spices or anything else of note; and beyond that, additional exploration of the neighboring islands fails to reveal Japan or China or anything that was supposed to be there based on the knowledge of the time.

In the meantime, the English are finding a large coastline high in the western north Atlantic (which will turn out to be the eastern portions of modern day Canada) and the Portuguese are progressing to establish a reproducible route around the southern tip of Africa.

So, after things go south in the new colony, Columbus gets called back to Spain to report on things and in 1498 starts a third voyage, this time further south, starting in the eastern Atlantic at the Cape Verde island. Upon arriving in the new world at this latitude closer to the equator, the third voyage seems to have arrived at the very start of history itself...

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 160: Halloween Special: Frankenstein — Who Really Is the Monster?

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Rafe is joined this week by Big Brain Smart Head™ Angela Nash to discuss Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. As Rafe recounts the story, Angela provides a rich commentary on the understanding of the tale.

If you haven't read the book but know anything of "Frankenstein", chances are that everything you know about the story is wrong.

Set in Geneva in the early 1800s, the novel tells a cautionary tale of a Victor Frankenstein, a truly mad scientist, and a monster that he creates by trying to understand how life animates the material world. The story touches on a wonderfully rich number of broad themes (Good and Evil, Truth, Virtue, Beauty, Justice, Mercy, and the usual Bufnaglely topics) but the primary theme is an investigation into loneliness and the need for human companionship.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 159: Columbus, Part 2 — A Meeting of Cultures, Searching for Gold, and Lots of Confusion

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe continue the story of Columbus and his travels to the New World.

The three ships under Columbus' command find land on Oct 12, 1492, and Columbus and all his men believe they have arrived in the far eastern islands of Asia. Following interactions with the natives, several months of local explorations, and the Christmas grounding of the Santa Maria, 39 men are left behind to man a hastily-built fort, look for gold, and play nice with the natives while the Columbus boards the Nina and heads back to Spain with the Pinta to report progress to Ferdinand and Isabella.

The royals are impressed and commission 17 ships and 1,200 men to return to the New World under Columbus' command in the Autumn of 1493...

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 158: "I will take his place." — St. Maximillian Kolbe Demonstrates the Christian Ideal

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 04:00:00 -0500

The Buf welcomes Big Brain Smart Head™ Luke Donahue to discuss the story of St. Fr. Maximillian Kolbe, a Polish Catholic priest who sparked the ire of the Nazis in WWII, got sent to Auschwitz, and then literally gave his life so that another might live.

Luke walks us through St. Max's story from his birth in 1894 to his canonization in 1982 and unveils how the Christian life is expresses Joy even in the midst of the most repugnant evil.

Along the way we discuss martyrdom and sainthood and miracles and knowledge that Truth will set you free.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 157: Rockets, Annular Eclipses, and Just a Touch of Artificial Intelligence

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 04:00:00 -0500

The Buf welcomes back Bob Luzenski, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist, to discuss the status of the big rockets underdevelopment and the impending annular eclipse scheduled for October 14, 2023.

A little bit of spoiler commentary about the current state of AI fills out the show at the end.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 156: Columbus, Part 1 — Dogged Determination to Head West to the Indies

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe start tackling the story of Columbus and his travels to the New World.

A Genoese sailor, Columbus, while operating out of Portugal, becomes intrigued with the idea of sailing west to reach the spices of the Far East. At a time when a route to Asia had just been determined to be possible (but also impractical) around the Cape of Good Hope at the Southern tip of Africa, Columbus is a man with a flawed idea that simply needs to be tried. Stubborn determination, some bad calculations, and a little good fortune lands Columbus in 1492 with three ships and a blessing from Spanish royalty. In September of 1492, Columbus and his men sail into an unknown sea and into the greatest discovery in the history of the West...

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 155: Hamlet, Madness, Good, and Bad — Does "Thinking Make It So"?

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Rafe discusses Hamlet's statement that "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so" from Act 2, Scene 2 of the Shakespeare tragedy.

Examining the text and the Nature of the statement in the dialogue, we find that Hamlet asserts this statement while feigning madness; as such, we should consider this statement to be inconsistent with sanity and reality and it should only be correct if one is insane.

There are Truths that are universal and they exist whether or not your thinking makes it so. Only a madman would think otherwise.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 154: Promises to Keep and Miles To Go Before I Sleep — Robert Frost, Snow, Horses, Conscience, and Duty

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe tackle Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening, a simple four-stanza poem in iambic tetrameter.

The Bufnaglers walk through the poem and discuss the meanings, both revealed and hidden, and what they say to us today.

Spoiler, if you haven't guessed: the horse is your conscience, telling you to stay true to your duty and responsibilities, no matter how lovely are the snow-filled woods.

Ep 153: "Living in the Stupidest Time Ever" — The Buf Takes On Some Listener Questions

Mon, 11 Sep 2023 21:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe address some listener questions surrounding great saints, why so much focus on Imago Dei, and all the great stuff we have learned doing the Buf for all these years.

Ep 152: Work Hard and Do It Well Because It's Your Duty as Imago Dei

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe discuss the nature of work, why we do it, what that means, and how we should view it in a fair and balanced perspective. God worked and then rested; as Imago Dei, it is your duty to work and to rest. It is in your Nature.

Ep 151: Reunion Weekend — Old Friends, Small Towns, Grand Basilicas, and Joy

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Rafe recounts his weekend road trip to his 40th high school reunion. The Dairy State proves up to the task and presents a wonderful trip full of memories and new discoveries, renewed friendships and peaceful contemplations, grand vistas and ordinary food made spectacular due to the company surrounding it.

Ep 150: From Good to Very Good — How Weddings Help You Fulfill Your Duties As Imago Dei

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Heroically fighting a cold, Rafe talks of a wedding he recently attended and the lessons that were learned, most importantly how children and grandchildren are the greatest blessings one can receive and how they fulfill our duty as Imago Dei.

Ep 149: Lessons from Gawain and the Green Knight — It Really is All About Duty and Honor

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Rafe goes solo and reviews and discusses the 2021 movie The Green Knight, a retelling of the 14th century chivalric tale of Sir Gawain, the Green Knight, and the famous Christmas challenge.

The review and discussion points out a number of deviations from the poem but the movie is not much worse for the modifications; such is artistic license.

A truthful telling of the tale reveals that knights must act knightly, being living examples of the Knightly virtues of Generosity, Courtesy, Chastity, Chivalry, and Piety. Gawain shows these (earlier in the poem and much later in the movie) and as such is shown to be a knight but you can start toward knightship today by practicing those virtues.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 148: Down the Rabbit Hole of Badgers

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Who knew there was so much to know about badgers and that so much of if was so awesome?

Join Harry and Rafe for a lively and humorous discussion of all the things that one can find out about badgers:
* They are fast.
* You can eat them but you need to be careful.
* They might eat you but they won't be careful.
* People used to think that they had really strange ways of mining.
* They are all over literature, especially books and stories for children.
* And much, much more!

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet (but they probably regret it).

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 147: Humbly and Gratefully Standing on the Shoulders of 1000 Years of Giants — Math History, Part 2

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Picking up where we left off from the last episode, Harry joins Rafe to discuss further the Mathematics Genealogy Project and how one can show, for example, that Rafe is related to Nicolas Copernicus. Along the way, Euler and the number e are discussed further, we pick up tips on tessellations, and we wonder how things would have been different had Liebniz's father had not married his third wife or if Steinhaus had not successfully hidden from the Nazis in Poland during WWII.

Learning your history is a most humbling experience but it provides you with an opportunity to contemplate what might have been, to make the most of how things actually are, to show eternal gratitude for those who blazed trails before us, and to show similar Grace to those who follow us.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 146: Math History and Why It Should Matter to You, Part 1

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Starting in the late 1600s and ending (at least for now!) in 1868, Rafe traces two branches of a mathematical genealogy. This list of some of the great minds of the history of mathematics includes two Bernoullis, Euler, Poisson, Gauss, and many others, people who developed tools that today we take for granted.

All this work, of course, was done before computers or calculators, using arcane notation, quill pens, and a desire to pull back the curtain and look inside the magic world of math.

Part 2 will take up where we left off with one Felix Klein, who did some really wacky stuff...

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 145: Sawdust and Mistakes — The Art, Trials, and Joys of Working with Wood

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe discuss Rafe's lifelong love of working with wood and what makes wood a great medium for construction and why it generally produces sawdust and mistakes.

They discuss some biology, chemistry, engineering, and other things that one must learn to successfully tackle working with wood.

In the end, then conclude that one should either buy or build heirloom furniture and that one of the best things that one learns working with wood is the virtue of humility.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 144: Standards, Gas Pipe, Tyrants, and Saints

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe discuss standards: systems and methods that allows boundaries that result in flourishing, flexibility, and diversity.

After a long discussion on everything from iron gas pipes to computer software to measurement systems to Lego, we learn that the right restrictions can actually improve flexibility and allow everyone to flourish and that Virtue provides a standard that allows all of us to become Saints.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 143: Gratitude For the Independence that a Career Has Given

Tue, 04 Jul 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Rafe goes solo and tells a 40-year tale of computers, serendipity, generosity, and gratitude that starts with a Christmas present in 1980 and continues to today with a very welcome unofficial retirement.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 142: New Helicopters and Old Navigational Tools — Another Discussion with America's Favorite Naval Aviator

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Brock "Cinder" Friedman, America's Favorite Naval Aviator, joins the Buf again to catch us up on his life and to discuss the nuances of celestial navigation. We'll learn how to take delivery of a new helicopter, how to use a sextant, and why you need need to keep your chronometer in good working order!

Ep 141: Listener Questions; Pancakes to Cruises and Everything Inbetween

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe entertain 7 (or 8, depending on how you count) fan questions and get to the bottom of important issues like breakfast foods, quarterbacks, vacation cruises, biographies of great people, and a lot more!

"Everyone has failures; who cares about those? Tell me about greatness!"

This episode is kindly sponsored by Nom Nom. Try Nom Nom today, go to https://zen.ai/bufnaglethepod2 and use the offer code "bufnagle" and get 50% off your first order plus free shipping.

Ep 140: Technology and Automation — When Is It Too Much?

Tue, 13 Jun 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Rafe does a solo show and discusses the plethora of home automation technology available today. When is it Good? When is it Bad? Is it just a gimmick or does it solve a real problem?

Like all technology, it is only a tool and is neither Good nor Evil. If it helps you seek the Good, then keep it; if it causes you to falter, jettison it!

This episode is kindly sponsored by Nom Nom. Try Nom Nom today, go to https://zen.ai/bufnaglethepod2 and use the offer code "bufnagle" and get 50% off your first order plus free shipping.

Ep 139: Shackleton, Part 6, The Finale — Six Men Conquer the Drake Passage; Three of Them Conquer South Georgia Island; Human Endurance Prevails

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe conclude Bufnagle: the Podcast, Book Club Edition and the discussion of Alfred Lansing's book Endurance, the tale of Earnest Shackleton's ill-fated adventure to the South Pole during 1914, 1915, and 1916.

After two weeks fighting the Drake Passage, the James Caird and its six voyagers are out of potable water, South Georgia Island is within striking distance, but reefs and storms block the path. Two more days of master seamanship and just enough good fortune brings the Caird to a beachhead necessitating a crossing of the South Georgia Island, a mountainous hellhole that also possesses the Stromness Bay whaling station, a pinprick of civilization that just might finally be the end of this Successful Failure.

This episode is kindly sponsored by Nom Nom. Try Nom Nom today, go to https://zen.ai/bufnaglethepod2 and use the offer code "bufnagle" and get 50% off your first order plus free shipping.

Ep 138: Shackleton, Part 5 — One Group Goes for Help; One Groups Sits and Waits and Wonders and Worries

Tue, 30 May 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe continue with Bufnagle: the Podcast, Book Club Edition and the discussion of Alfred Lansing's book Endurance, the tail of Earnest Shackleton's ill-fated adventure to the South Pole during 1914, 1915, and 1916.

Within days of arriving at Elephant Island, Shackleton and five others depart in a modified James Caird in a last-ditch, do-or-die, Hail Mary attempt to reach civilization at South Georgia Island over 800 miles away. The party of 22 left behind sits through a painful 4 months on a lonely beach covered in penguin dung, wondering about the fortunes of their fellow journeymen, hoping against hope that they can beat the deadly Drake Passage.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 137: Shackleton, Part 4 — Six Days on the Boats, Unrelenting Obstacles, Impossible Conditions, But Finally Land!

Tue, 23 May 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe continue with Bufnagle: the Podcast, Book Club Edition and the discussion of Alfred Lansing's book Endurance, the tail of Earnest Shackleton's ill-fated adventure to the South Pole during 1914, 1915, and 1916.

The men finally make a run for land after escaping from the ice but things go from bad to worse as the crew is met by one obstacle after another: constantly changing winds, mind-boggling currents, 30-foot waves, icebergs, killer whales, williwaws, and dehydration all test Shackleton's leadership, the sturdiness of the boats, and the unwavering survival-driven determination of the men.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 136: Shackleton, Part 3 — Changing Plans, Soggy Marches, Deadly Leopard Seals, and Finally Boats

Tue, 16 May 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe continue with Bufnagle: the Podcast, Book Club Edition and the discussion of Alfred Lansing's book Endurance, the tail of Earnest Shackleton's ill-fated adventure to the South Pole during 1914, 1915, and 1916.

Following the destruction of the Endurance, Shackleton's men are forced to face changing plans amongst the slowly drifting ice floes of the Weddell sea. Hoping for open water in which they can sail, they attempt marches to take them to the edge of the ice, only to be stopped time and again, as their plans must be continually adjusted and their options for escape dwindle. Following nearly-fatal interactions half-ton leopard seals on ever-shrinking ice floes, the three lifeboats are finally launched and the men row franticly away from the ice but toward the open ocean and an unknown and even more treacherous future.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 135: Shackleton, Part 2 — Winter Camping on the Ice Within the Antarctic Circle

Tue, 09 May 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe continue with Bufnagle: the Podcast, Book Club Edition and the discussion of Alfred Lansing's book Endurance, the tail of Earnest Shackleton's ill-fated adventure to the South Pole during 1914, 1915, and 1916.

We take up with Shackleton and his intrepid band of merry men stuck in the ice of the Weddell Sea in February of 1915 and follow their exploits through the Antarctic winter of 1915: training the dogs, dealing with mind-numbing darkness, and suffering the never-ending pressure from the moving ice. As Spring rolls in in late 1915, the Endurance finally concedes to the ice and the men must move out of the protection of the ship and onto the ice to either camp or hike or die.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 134: Shackleton, Part 1 — Sailing to Antarctica and Getting Stuck in the Ice

Tue, 02 May 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe present Bufnagle: the Podcast, Book Club Edition with discussion of Alfred Lansing's book Endurance, the tail of Earnest Shackleton's ill-fated adventure to the South Pole during 1914, 1915, and 1916.

Leaving England on the August day that England declared war on Germany in WWI, Shackleton led the ship Endurance to Buenos Aires and then on to South Georgia and then into the Weddell Sea. By the end of February, the Endurance is stuck solid in the gigantic ice flow that is the Weddell Sea, slowly rotating clockwise, bringing Shackleton tantalizingly close to his goal but never letting him and his 27 companions free. As Winter 1915 sets in, the band of 28 adventurers are prepping to spend the long, dark lonely Antarctic winter camping near their ice-locked vessel, trying to stay alive, and hoping for favorable winds to slowly break up the ice and let them seek a return to civilization.

This episode is kindly sponsored by BlendJet.

Use our special link ("bufnagle") to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Ep 133: Building Wonders — Working For Outcomes You Will Never See

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry joins Rafe to discuss a Twitter post that ponders the idea of wonders — societal constructions that neither the architect nor the benefactor nor the labors will ever see completed — and how we never seem to do that anymore.

We may do things like age wine or whiskey in barrels for a couple of decades, but our inability to think about how our efforts should be directed toward the Good of those generations into the future is a cultural stumbling block.

The best we seem to be doing is trying to renew the American Chestnut tree, a grand hardwood stalwart of the American forest that may only be saved from chestnut blight through multigenerational thinking and some clever crossbreeding.

In the end, we find that we are called to do things for those who will come after us, just as those who came before us did for us. Build good long-lasting culture directed toward Truth, Beauty, and Goodness and be content knowing that it will benefit people you will likely never meet.

Ep 132: What Rocky Balboa Can Teach Us About Virtue

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Every 12-year-old boy (and most everyone else too) should watch Rocky for what it teaches us about Virtue.

Join Rafe this week as he discusses the 1976 Academy Award Winning Movie Rocky and how it shows that to fulfill your calling to become what you were made to become, you must discipline yourself to practice virtue.

Rocky is a story of a good man who could be Great, if he would only practice discipline and virtue. In it we learn to see that we must work to fulfill the nature of our design and that a man must fight his dragon, even if he knows that he will lose.

The consequence of taking on this yoke is the fulfillment of the person and the growth of those around you; Love is the result.

Ep 131: "Sorry, sweetheart; the only way out is through." — Fighting Back From Very Serious Mistakes

Tue, 11 Apr 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry walks the Buf through a parachute-jumping accident that could have been gravely serious had a calm head not controlled the situation. But following such a mishap, how does one get back on the horse to jump another day?

Ep 130: Lessons From the Passion; Power, Corruption, Truth, and Progress

Tue, 04 Apr 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Rafe takes a short solo episode to discuss the Passion and how it is the oldest and most common story in history: power is threatened by Truth so Truth gets killed. But Truth has that odd little habit of coming back, which gives us Easter.

Technology may advance but Man stays the same: driven by power and thus corrupt. There are no new problems; all the problems are old. The solutions are old too: practice the virtues.

"We live in enemy-occupied territory, fighting a war of sabotage."

Ep 129: Art as Model for Behavior — Millet's Angelus and Other Good Things

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe discuss Millet's 1859 painting The Angelus, a copy of which fortuitously once hung in Rafe's elementary school library.

Of course, this podcast being what it is, the conversation wends its way through all sorts of topics (other paintings, Daylight Saving Time, drone delivery vehicles, Calvin and Hobbes, etc) but generally addresses the subject of placing art in locations where it can provide opportunities for learning and models for behavior, especially for children.

Ep 128: Flowers, Space Travel, and Solar Eclipses — Wonders of the World with America's Favorite Rocket Scientist

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 04:00:00 -0500

America's Favorite Rocket Scientist, Bob Luzenski, joins the Buf to update us on Spring flowers, the US space program, and the wonders of total solar eclipses.

Today's big lesson: if you are anywhere near the area of totality for the total solar eclipse that will pass over North America on Monday afternoon, April 8, 2024, do everything you can to ensure that you are actually in totality. 99.9% does not count; you will not get the whole show. Rafe and Bob describe the indescribable events that happen only during a total solar eclipse on this episode to encourage you to start making your plans now for April 8, 2024.

Ep 127: Good Food and Good Literature — Sarah Schutte Returns to the Buf to Discuss How Good Stories Reveal Truths About the Nature of Food

Tue, 14 Mar 2023 04:00:00 -0500

Big Brain Smart Head Sarah Schutte graciously returns to the Buf to join Harry and Rafe with a discussion of food and literature.

After some necessary preambles concerning aviation, the three discuss how preparing meals for others is Love manifest, how the Redwall series excels at depicting food, and how the kitchen is very often the center of a home.

Join us for a conversation of airplanes, fasts, feasts, and food.

Ep 126: A Million Dollars or Unlimited Wealth — What Exactly Would You Do If Money Were No Object?

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 03:00:00 -0600

After an unexpectedly drawn-out introduction, Harry and Rafe get to the question at hand: what would you do with an obscene amount of money?

This hypothetical question can help you steer your current limited amount of money toward those things that really matter, those things that reflect Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.

(And remember, it cannot buy happiness, but it can buy you a boat or, in Harry's case, a plane.)

Ep 125: Avoid the Comparisons — You Are In Competition Only With The You You Were Designed To Be

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 03:00:00 -0600

Rafe presents a solo episode discussing the difficulty that results from our fully-connected internet world. It's really hard to win when there are over 7 billion people on the planet all playing the same game.

So, what to do? Don't play.

Play the game where you are challenged to become the full realization of Imago Dei that you were designed to be. You are in competition only with the you you made to become. So, go climb the mountain; you will fall but you can get back up. It's a long game; don't despair.

Ep 124: Shrove Tuesday — How Pancakes and Mob Football Lead You to Fasting and Lent

Tue, 21 Feb 2023 03:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe discuss wild, wonderful, and wacky Shrove Tuesday traditions and how they bring us to understanding the balance between feasting and fasting and staying in the the middle of the highway of virtue.

Ep 123: Cardinal Virtues — How Prudence, Justice, and Temperance (and Courage!) Help You Control Your Head, Heart, and Tummy

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 03:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe discuss the Cardinal Virtues, how they apply to different areas of your soul, and how Courage helps us apply all of them. Along the way, you'll find some more discussion of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, a sprinkling of Aquinas, donuts (of course, as this is the Buf), Christmas movies, a smattering of sin, Faith, Despair, Presumption, Hope, and Love.

Ep 122: "Are you taking your vitamins regularly?" — Working Through the Worry That Comes from Distance

Tue, 07 Feb 2023 03:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe tackle the questions of how to deal with being apart from those you love.

Spurred by the song Yonder Blue by Christine Lavin (youtube video here ), the Bufnaglers discuss long distance communication and the pluses and minuses of text messages, (video) phone calls, and good old fashioned letters.

In the end, they agree that staying in touch is absolutely necessary and that more frequent and instantaneous are more fun in the short run, but for posterity's sake, they come back to the old adage to write letters, for both yourself and for others.

Ep 121: Seeking Truth Through Fiction

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 03:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe explore two pieces of literature, The Storm (1898) by Kate Chopin and Lyin' Eyes (1975) by Glenn Frey and Don Henley and recorded by the Eagles. Both short stories are tales of marital infidelity — certainly not a topic associated with virtue! — but one story gets it wrong (by pretending there are no repercussions) and one story gets it right (by showing the way that self-centeredness and deceit weave an oppressive wet blanket of remorse and despair).

Good fiction reveals truths about the world, a world based in reality. A good story does not have to be technically true, or even have characters doing good things, but it needs to be consistent and true to the Nature of the Human Condition so as to teach us how to live with virtue, to live excellently.

Ep 120: Dressing Up, Technology, The Nature of Man, and a Divine View of Humanity

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 03:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe entertain listener questions relating to formal attire, computer screens vs paper, the component of humanity that requires contact with Nature, and lessons from grandparenting.

Through the discussion, we learn that we need to dress appropriately to show respect for others and the institutions of which we are a part, that screens can be awesome but they can never replace paper, that we understand the non-material components of our humanity by immersive comparisons with the natural world, and that grandparenting provides a divine glimpse of the third-person view of the relationship between God and Man.

(Oh, and we learn that Harry has run out of chocolate chip cookies so please be so kind as to give a us a five-star review.)

Ep 119: "Make Sense of the World" — A Conversation with an Egg-collecting Big Brain Smart Head

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 03:00:00 -0600

Rafe is joined this week by Big Brain Smart Head Mike Round, actuary, egg-collector, and generalist researcher. As is typical at the Buf, the conversation covers all sorts of topics, from collectable eggs, to the 1958 NFL Championship Game, to "somebody do something!", to research, to otters, and a terrible helicopter accident. Along the way, a number of lessons come out: take the time to be curious and look for great stories and make an attempt to "make sense of the world; it's an amazing world."

Ep 118: Why Isn't October the Eighth Month?, and The Ten O'Clock Line

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 04:00:00 -0600

Why isn't October month #8 and December month #10? And what is the Ten O'Clock Line?

Rafe digs back into tracking time with days, months, and years and finds the source of the wackiness that is month names. Furthermore, a chance encounter in central Indiana reveals an interesting surveying trick using a spear, a clock, and the sun.

April showers bring May flowers, and Mayflowers bring Pilgrims.

Ep 117: Small Town Wonders — Finding History in Your Backyard

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 03:00:00 -0600

Harry joins Rafe to discuss all the wonderful history to be found around us. In particular, Rafe discusses the history of his childhood hometown and the history of the place he currently calls home.

Along the way we discuss, among other things, Kissel Kars, African violets, beets, offset screwdrivers, Martha Doan, the Quakers, the Underground Railroad, the Sycamore Dairy, and so much more.

In the end, we come to realize that we all are parts of the fabric of history whether our lives become well-known or if we simply live good lives of principle. History is all around you; go find out what has happened where you live and how you can change your own little bit of the world.

Ep 116: The Pilgrims, Part 3 — Alliance, Divine Providence, and Thanksgiving

Tue, 27 Dec 2022 03:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe discuss this final third part of our series on the Pilgrims, covering interactions with the Native Americans, an alliance with Massasoit and the Pokanokets and the consequences of that treaty.

Nathaniel Philbrick's book Mayflower is the basis for these episodes and provides generous insight and keen analysis to understanding the state of the world where the English Pilgrims encountered the Pokanokets and the other native New Englanders.

This final installment discusses the building of treaty, increasingly friendly interactions between the people, some accidents of fate, and the eventual Fall Harvest festival which has become the basis for our Thanksgiving ritual.

Ep 115: Luke's Christmas Story — "Be Not Afraid"

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 03:00:00 -0600

During this last show in Advent, Rafe goes solo to discuss the first two chapters of Luke's gospel, the backstory and the story of the Nativity.

Along the way we cover the concept of quarter-year days and their bank holidays and the fundament of the Rosary, but in the end we learn to embrace the Hope promised through the patience of Advent, to trust in those things we don't understand, and to behave like the shepherds in searching for the savior and glorifying and praising God.

Ep 114: The Pilgrims, Part 2 — Massasoit and the Situation in New England on Arrival

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 03:00:00 -0600

Harry and Rafe take up where they left off in Episode 111: the Pilgrims have arrived at Cape Cod, but what awaited them?

The North American landscape was anything but a blank slate. Countless local tribes were living on the continent and with them were their cultures, their customs, and their politics. Throw in more than a century of Europeans interacting with the natives and a very recent epidemic that had completely wiped out some communities, and the Pilgrims were stepping into a world completely different, yet in some ways very similar, to the one they had left.

Enter Massasoit and his tribe, the Pokanokets, who had been ravaged by disease and were under the thumb of neighboring sachems; they sought to regain their glory and alliance with the English might be just the thing that they needed. Toss in Epenow and Squanto, and some misunderstandings and happenstance, and what comes out is a true story as intricate and complicated as any fiction.

Ep 113: Big Rockets — Progress on the Missions to Return to the Moon

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 03:00:00 -0600

Bob Luzenski, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist, joins the Buf again this week to discuss big rockets, the vehicles necessary to return us to the moon.

After a brief reprise of the Time Zones episode (Episode 110, November 18, 2022) to address a pair of residual issues, Bob takes us on a walk to discuss the Artemis missions, how they are to be sequenced, how they relate to the Apollo missions of old (spoiler: Artemis and Apollo were twin siblings in Greek mythology!), and how they are tied to the SpaceX' Starship project.

Ep 112: Rainbows and Thank You's — Necessities for Gratitude

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 03:00:00 -0600

A post-Thanksgiving drive highlighted by a double rainbow leads to wondering about the necessities of gratitude. "Please" and "Thank you" are fundamental in recognizing our obligations to each other, literally ties ("ligare") that bind us together. Giving thanks requires recognition that the giver is participating in an act of the will; as such, "being thankful" requires that we be thankful to somebody, someone who freely chose to do the act for which we are thankful.

Ep 111: The Pilgrims, Part 1 — An Incredible Journey Toward Building a New World

Mon, 21 Nov 2022 19:00:00 -0600

Rafe is joined by Harry to discuss the first part of Nathaniel Philbrick's book Mayflower and the story of the Pilgrims and how they came to America.

Starting as English puritans in Holland, the Pilgrims decide to pick up and move to America. This episode tracks the incredible travel from Leiden to the Pilgrims landing at the tip of Cade Cod before even eventually making a settlement at Plymouth. Along the way the Pilgrims are faced with hardship beyond measure: people taking advantage of their naivete, charlatans backing out of deals, and weather and the Atlantic Ocean making the travel to America a life-threatening affair. But fortitude, bravery, and a never-ending trust in Divine Providence eventually sees the Pilgrims to a safe landfall in November on Cape Cod and an eventual December landing at Plymouth Rock.

When Spring 1621 finally sprung, half of the settlers were dead. But half were still alive and what followed sent shockwaves through the local native populations, through the societies of Britain, and eventually around the world.

Ep 110: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

Fri, 18 Nov 2022 03:00:00 -0600

Rafe welcomes back America's Favorite Rocket Scientist, Bob Luzenski, to discuss time zones and rockets. Of course, the Buf being what it is, the conversation gets stalled discussing time zones and Daylight Saving Time and all things related to the the sun moving east to west, and never gets back to discussing some imminent big rocket launches.

So join us this week to discuss the prime meridian and times zones, the sun moving across the sky, and how to set your clock to your liking. Keep in mind: the only reason to agree to a certain set of time rules to coordinate with people you care about.

Ep 109: "Enjoy the Small Things" — Aerobatics, Baking, and Singing with Sarah Schutte

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 03:00:00 -0600

The internet can be good or bad, but in this case it is very good: an internet book review has led to a special Big Brain Smart Head appearance by Sarah Schutte, a writer, singer, pilot-in-training, and lover and maker of fine baked goods.

As you can imagine, this conversation shines with typical Bufness: stories of airplanes and flying, brownies, glee clubs and the Von Trapp family, children's choirs, and all-around joyful wholesomeness. Along the way we learn that "Dayton's a weird place", there is no real reverse in a plane, and Sarah needs a better brownie recipe, but, more importantly, we learn to pray, to seek and build a sense of humor for God is full of Joy, to take the time to enjoy small things like the sunrise and candy bars and favorite songs, and to smile as much as you can.

Ep 108: Living Virtuous Lives — A Story of Two Very Different Ladies, Both Very Much the Same

Tue, 01 Nov 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Rafe goes solo and discusses the two ladies, one Queen Elizabeth II and one his mother-in-law, both of the same generation who lived lives rich in virtue: duty, fortitude, honor, sacrifice.

The parallel stories show that the ways to live excellent lives are the same regardless of one's station. You are who your are because of how you relate to others. Giving to these others, through shared virtue, excellence, duty, grace, and Christian service, produces great Joy, whether you are a monarch or a mother, a head of state or the head of a household.

Ep 107: Practice, Get Good, Experiment, Get Even Better, Be Gracious: Lessons from Brownies

Tue, 25 Oct 2022 03:00:00 -0500

A jaunty and frolicking discussion of brownies and things to learn from them, Zach shares his learnings on becoming the "best brownie baker in the family".

Along the way, we learn that: if you want frosting on your brownies, then go eat cake; if you put too much stuff in the brownies, you might as well just eat a kitchen sink cookie; make sure you give time to the stuff you care about.

In general, the lessons are:
1. Learn how to do something so you can get a success;
2. Experiment with that and be willing to fail;
3. Figure out why your experiment produces failure;
4. Surround yourself with people who are better at the thing that you do so you can get better at that thing and thus bring you Joy.

And always remember that you were a rookie once too.

Ep 106: Fulfill Your Whole Selves — Addressing Both Physical and Spiritual Needs

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 03:00:00 -0500

A rambling conversation of how to be community to others: be a superhero to others by employing the super power that we all have, by showing kindness, generosity, and authenticity in the furtherance of the Good.

Man is a social animal; we need others in our lives to fulfill the most basic of our needs: acceptance, community, belonging, and love. These spiritual needs are beyond the physical needs (food, water, shelter) but they can be obtained through the physical realm.

Fulfill the needs of all the realms of which you are a part: you are an embodied soul. Be sure to address all your needs.

Ep 105: Stonehenge and Ancient Astronomy

Tue, 27 Sep 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Zach hits Rafe with another spontaneous topic, this week it is Stonehenge and other megaliths.

Ancient peoples spent more time with the stars than we do and through that they came to understand more deeply the natural calendar that the stars demonstrate. The connection between the location of the rising and setting of the sun and the stars that sit behind it gave ancient Man the capacity to deduce the periodicity of the seasons and the natural cycle of the world. Monuments to this calendar of the world dot the planet and reveal the advanced nature of our ancestors.

Ep 104: Digital Art: Is It "Art" Or Just "art"? How Does Art Express The Essential You?

Tue, 20 Sep 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Zach takes a sharp turn off the rails and proposes a question to Rafe, who had agreed to address it without prep: Is digital art too easy? And is it really an expression of anything?

Does the ability to "undo" and avoid the risk of screwing up make digital art a lesser medium than other media? Does great art require risk?

What follows is a grand discussion of digital art and its pros and cons, of creating something greater than the sum of its parts, and of the nature of art as an expression of the essential nature of the artist.

Ep: 103 Shopping Carts, Duty, Virtue, and Living Excellently

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 08:00:00 -0500

Starting with the issue of putting your shopping cart into the shopping cart holder thingy, Zach and Rafe discuss that if you cannot do simple tasks such as these, then you probably aren't capable of self-governance. The conversation drifts to other similar topics, like common courtesy and civil duty, touching on the Queen for a bit, and stresses that we can make things better if we start with ourselves, living a lives focused on virtue.

Do your duty: put your shopping cart in the corral. It's the start of living excellently.

Ep 102: Labor Day: Hercules, Summer, Working, Leadership, and Working from Home

Tue, 06 Sep 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Zach and Rafe dig into the Labor Day holiday and all that it brings to mind. In classic Buf fashion, the conversation waxes and wanes over all sorts of topics, from calendar computations, to Greek myths, to ideas around leadership, to work-life balance, and the modern concept of working from home.

Join us for a Bufnagley tribute to the end of traditional summer!

Ep 101: Three Stories of the Good

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 03:00:00 -0500

In (slightly belated) honor of reaching a triple digit number of episodes, Harry, Rafe, and Zach share personal stories of some of the Good things they have found.

From returning from months abroad, to a life that reflects the words of the poet Robert Browning, to simply taking the effort to share with others what they mean to you, the Buf teams shares some of their Good with you.

Ep 100: On Eagles' Wings: The Wonders of Suburban Wildlife

Tue, 23 Aug 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Rafe tells stories about the wonderful suburban wildlife that can be found if you just go outside and go for a walk. From eagles to foxes to otters, there is more out there than you may realize. Put down the phone and go find the Good in the wild that is right around the corner.

Ep 99: Relax, Renew, and Recharge — The Value of Resting

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 04:00:00 -0500

Harry, Zach, and Rafe (yes, all three!) sit down together to discuss the needs and benefits of rest, physically and mentally.

To stay on top of your game, you need to rest, and that doesn't just mean sleeping. It involves taking time off from the "have-tos" and stressors and reconnecting with things that refresh you. From observing the weekly day of rest, to napping, to just doing something that you don't otherwise get to do, resting is what brings your back to being your best self.

Ep 98: Gratitude, Joy, and Living to Fulfill Your Telos

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Rafe shares some stories about the the miracles of modern medicine and how grateful we should be to be living in the present age.

What a wonderful age! What we take for granted is astounding.

What this means is that we should be infinitely grateful for what have. Gratitude has benefits in its expression, namely that it promotes humility, it is honest, it is attractive, and it inspires.

But what provides the basis for these astounding advancements and their tremendous impact on human flourishing? Strong faith can move mountains, but it does so by encouraging us to seek the rational God in the wonders of the universe, not by just wishing and hoping.

But stay balanced and don't allow yourself to fall into a trap that technological solutions will bring you great Joy. Stay attuned to your true nature as caretaker of the walled garden, connect with your fellow man, and fulfill your purpose, your telos, with gratitude.

Ep 97: Is the Metric System Really All It's Cracked Up To Be?

Tue, 02 Aug 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Rafe and Harry tackle the question of "Why is the US so reluctant to embrace the metric system?"

To answer this question, they go back to the basics of where the metric system comes from ("There were five definitions of the meter???"), where Imperial units come from ("The Romans did what???"), and how things got to be how they are in the US ("So this is a history class???").

Join the fun to find out why the US struggles so much to fully implement metric and why that answer turns out to be the Land Ordinance of 1785.

Ep 96: Riding the Rails of History

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Harry and Rafe discuss the joy that can be found on the nation's rail trails.

Abandoned rail lines have been converted over the last 6 decades to produce a network of remarkable hike/bike trails across the country. The Buf discusses three in detail: the Elroy-Sparta Trail in Wisconsin, the Erie Canal Trail in New York, and the Monon Trail in Indianapolis. Along the way their stories connect Harry's grandmother in Wisconsin to Pizza Jesus in New York to Larry Bird and Oscar Robertson in Indiana.

The Good abounds when you get outside and go exploring on your bike.

Ep 95: Telescopes, Rocks, and the Foundations of the World

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Rafe goes solo, tying together a discussion of high-powered telescopes, wood-working, spaghetti, and igneous rocks.

At the end, he comes to the conclusion that all the wonders around us, all the Incredible findings on the planet, out in space, and deep deep deep underground, all the miracles of the universe as it exists, are things that were created for Man to flourish and enjoy.

Ep 94: A Martian Story — Resilience, Persistence, and Working the Problem, and Why It Is Worth It

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Harry joins Rafe this week to discuss Andy Weir's The Martian, a book (and movie!) that tells the story of a NASA astronaut inadvertently abandoned on Mars and the struggle by him and essentially all humanity to return him to Earth.

Harry recounts the plot (spoiler alert!) and its lessons, namely that each individual life is of infinite value and thus worth trying to move heaven and earth to bring back home.

Ep 93: Pledging Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honors

Mon, 04 Jul 2022 16:00:00 -0500

From fireworks to sparklers to lawn darts, America's Independence Day provides an opportunity to look back to build understanding of how and why the American colonies broke away from the British mother country.

After centuries of colony-building and decades of disagreement with the behaviour of King George, the Second Continental Congress declared in July of 1776 that the thirteen colonies "are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States", breaking free and establishing a new nation, conceived in Liberty.

Harry and Rafe break down the Declaration of Independence, translating the rich and flowery language of the past to a lexicon more suited to our time, helping us to understand what the document says and what it means for our time.

Enjoy your Independence Day!!!

Ep 92: Train Yourself Up

Tue, 28 Jun 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Proverbs 22:6 says to train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. We are asking more from our children, and from ourselves, than ever before. We are teaching them technical and physical lessons for hitting the curveball and playing Mozart and solving differential equations, but we are failing to provide them with the mental and spiritual lessons needed to deal with the stressors and emotional challenges that they will face.

Zach and Rafe discuss rising mental health crises and some simple techniques to help keep yourself and your children from the mental stumbling that can happen when dealing with today's stressors.

Surround yourself with good people; get back to Nature; rediscover childlike joys and keep things light; and be passionate about something Good and share it.

Seek, Be, and Spread the Good.

Ep 91: Truth, Beauty, Grecian Urns, and Dead Poets

Tue, 21 Jun 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Rafe goes solo this week to discuss John Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn. In it we learn that all we know, and all we need to know, is that Beauty is Truth. The discussion takes a trip through the symbols in the poem and how the Things of Old are passed down through time to us and how those things help align our souls to seek the ultimate Good.

Along the way, we bump into our old friends Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and discuss their influence on Augustine and Aquinas.

We wrap up with the Carpe Diem admonition from the 1980's movie Dead Poet's Society and discover that Keats' Grecian Urn and the old photos in DPS both speak to the present from the past, encouraging us to align ourselves with the Good and seize the day.

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may."

Ep 90: Reinventing Yourself Through Opportunities Presented by New Beginnings

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Growth and change require commitment and resiliency; new beginnings, be they a new day, a new season, a new semester, or a move to a new job in a new city, allow us an opportunity to start fresh and redefine who we are.

Wholesome change maintains the foundation of who you are at your core by growing those things that are Good and in line with your goals and by attenuating those things that are not good or are not in line with your goals.

So, make today a fresh start, a new beginning, and then send us a note about how you were able to stick to your goals and become a better reflection of who you were created to be.

Ep 89: It's All in the Cards

Tue, 31 May 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Zach and Rafe discuss the modern card games, in particular Flesh and Blood, and how their in-person manifestations foster the most important of human endeavors: building community. As complicated or bizarre or esoteric as these or other card games may be, at their heart they are opportunities to build and strengthen communities.

Today's conversation wends through all the interesting particulars of belonging to a card playing community, from rare cards to low-stress tournaments to crazy rules to Calvinball to Cheetos and Cheerwine, probability and statistics, and everything in between.

Ep 88: Pursuing the Virtue of Excellence at 240 Miles per Hour

Tue, 24 May 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Rafe shares with Zach experiences at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the last day of practice and qualifying for the 2022 Indy 500. The discussion zips through topics around engineering and perfection, teamwork and triumph, and cultural events and pursuing the virtue of excellence in all sorts of endeavors.

“You will know when you go.”

"You can get a lot of stuff done if you don't care who gets the credit."

Ep 87: The Only Game You Have to Win is the Game Against Yourself

Tue, 17 May 2022 05:00:00 -0500

The Buf tackles the question of what should be the intent of youth activities: sports, theatre, music, arts.

Starting with the mindset that the purpose of youth sports is to provide a safe place for children to learn to deal with failure, Zach and Rafe discuss how to direct childhood passions into lifetime virtues instead of just a collection of participation trophies that eventually get stashed in the attic.

All these activities should be focused on growth and improvement and winning the day at hand. The rare few who will become professional athletes or actors or musicians or artists will benefit from being around those who will not make it that far if all the participants recognize the value of developing themselves within the dignity of Imago Dei. Parents, teachers, coaches all must be role models: modeling what that dignified role looks like.

Ep 86: Sharing What You Know: Methods for Worthwhile Communication

Tue, 10 May 2022 03:00:00 -0500

The Buf team turns its attention to communication and, in particular, thoughts and tips regarding good presentations. The team stresses humility and graciousness and presents some tips for assisting in sharing your insights with others. Using good teaching techniques like particular-general-particular, providing written handouts, and finishing early are all discussed.

Of course, this is Bufnagle: The Podcast, so tangents are taken for things like rugby broadcasts and bike rides, but everyone is sure to take away some nuggets for putting your best foot forward when sharing your story with others.

(And Zach's rugby broadcasts are currently slated to begin the weekend of May 14-15 online at https://www.twitch.tv/illiteratelawyer )

Ep 85: Challenge Yourself; Seek Excellence; Grow; Don't Be Afraid to Suck at Something

Tue, 03 May 2022 04:00:00 -0500

The Buf Team takes on the topic of challenging yourself and achieving the growth you were created to achieve. Take the risk, seek excellence. Keep trying. Don't let early failures stunt your growth.

Setting goals that are a stretch but within reach is essential. Challenges too high produce unjustified failure; challenges too low are easily obtained don't create growth. Stretch and grow. Parenting, coaches, and mentors take heed: your job to create growth in the human person in your charge.

Take dance lessons. Try your hand at drawing. Take the chance to become the most excellent version of yourself that you can be. Don't ever stop reaching.

Don't be afraid to suck at something.

Ep 84: Easter Perspective Changes Everything and Brings Hope

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Zach is on break so Rafe goes solo and discusses how the passage of time, and its subsequent change in perspective, changes our understanding of the story of our past and our outlook for the story of our future.

Our perspective of where we are now can change dramatically when future events bring us understanding. For the small band of followers of Jesus, the Saturday after the crucifixion meant only sadness, fear, and despair. Easter Sunday morning brought confusion, as the body was missing. By Sunday evening, their understanding of their pasts had been completely rewritten as Christ revealed to them a new understanding of what they had experienced. And now, 2000 years later, we carry that Hope forward; Easter has changed everything.

“All shall be well.”

Ep 83: Rockets and Retirement with America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™

Tue, 19 Apr 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Zach is on break and that means Rafe invites America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™ and Big Brain SmartHead™ Bob Luzenski to join the show.

Recently retired, Bob shares his Four Phases of Retirement and the Joy it has brought him. Along the way, Bob and Rafe discuss periodicity of the academic life and 2022's late Spring. In general, concerning retirement, Bob concludes that "I absolutely would wish this for everybody."

The second half of the conversation centers on the current status of commercial space flight and the successes of SpaceX. From Falcons and Dragons to the secrets of reusing space equipment, wise R&D, and Dream Chasers, Bob fills us in on the present wonders of commercial space flight.

(And apparently Zach has infiltrated the editing booth and paid off the editor to modify the show's outgoing trailer...)

Ep 82: Bufnagle Finally Gets Around to Time Travel

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 03:00:00 -0500

After talking about talking about time travel in way too many previous episodes, the Buf team finally addresses the topic head on.

Many of your favorites are presented, everything from Sisyphus, to Jules Verne, to Back to the Future, to Groundhog Day and Live, Die, Repeat, to Primer, and Terminator, and everything in between.

Zach leads us in the end to the conclusion that time travel in fiction is just another literary device as a tension to induce a character to change, grow, adapt, and improve.

Ep 81: "A Magnificent Encounter" — A Priest's Lifetime Journey to God

Tue, 05 Apr 2022 03:00:00 -0500

The Buf is honored to welcome Big Brain SmartHead™ Fr. James L. Heft, S.M., to the show to discuss his lifelong effort to practice what Christ teaches: to love God, to love yourself, and to love other people.

Fr. Jim recounts stories of his Adventure of Life, from growing up in a farming family in Ohio in the 1940s, to joining the Marianists, to all sorts of schooling in Dayton, Washington, DC, and Toronto, to being ordained without attending seminary (!), and to preaching, teaching, and witnessing at the University of Dayton and the University of Southern California.

Along the way, Zach and Rafe elicit from Fr. Jim pearls of wisdom regarding salvation and the Church, listening to Truth no matter who speaks it, being a light, recognizing your brokenness, the power of humility, rocket science (!), the power of using your talents for others first, and the value of community.

He also tackles the issue of the sacrament of Penance and reveals how it is "a magnificent encounter" since "both the confessor and the penitent are broken sinners on a journey toward Christ" and how to Seek the Good by leading with what Jesus teaches: love your God, love yourself, love your neighbor.

Ep 80: Adventures of a Time Traveling Ham Radio Anesthesiologist

Tue, 29 Mar 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Zach and Rafe welcome back a former Big Brain SmartHead™ guest to the show: Dr. Brian Donahue, MD, PhD joins the Buf to pick up on some ham radio topics that we didn't get to way, way, way back in Episode 7, and also shares insights into the joys and travails of pediatric cardiac anesthesia and fixing the hearts of some itty-bitty little babies!

Along the way we learn something about culture of amateur radio, some things about anesthesiology, and even some things about time travel!

Ep 79: All About Tournaments — History, Math, Chaos, and Memories

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 03:00:00 -0500

The Bufnagle Team takes on the topic of tournaments and all the fun and zany stuff inside them. Join us for a discussion of some history of the NCAA college basketball tournament, combinatorics and victory probabilities, the importance and consequence of seedings, single- and dounle-elimination tournaments, and how all the drama and excitement in tournaments give us the memories that make us rich.

(Oh, and Bob, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist, gets a call-out for a special historical astronomical event!)

Ep 78: Art, Storytelling, Music, Adventure — Exploring the Human Experience Through the Medium of Video Games

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 03:00:00 -0500

Amidst the chronic barking of a dog and an interrupting baby in the studio, the Bufnagle team explores the modern art medium of video games. When well done, they can teach us ethnic tolerance and sibling synergy; they are teaching tools and rich graphic art; they allow us to grow and discover as individuals or in co-ops.

But, like all art, they need to help us to be more connected as human beings without manipulating what it means to be human. While it may be tempting to descend into a world of pure fantasy (ie, "metavese"), only the real world that might be revealed through metaphor in video games is where you chase real things in order to experience being human. You are called to live in your Now, in the real world, in your real time, and not through a headset and handheld controller.

Enjoy what the games offer but know that you can only Seek, Be, and Spread the real Good in the real world.

Ep 77: Finding Your Flow — How to Reach Peak Performance in All You Do

Tue, 08 Mar 2022 03:00:00 -0600

How do you make the most of the work you are doing, be it athletics or music or business or whatever you do?

Zach walks us through the four phases of a flow cycle — struggle, release, flow, and recovery — and how to improve our level of well-being and thus perform at peak levels for the longest time possible. Along the way we learn to embrace the struggle, to take time to release, to avoid distraction when in flow, and to cherish the recovery so you can do it again!

Ep 76: Visualization Skills — Unlocking the Power of the Mind

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 03:00:00 -0600

How do you make the most out of your practice? How do you get yourself ready for the big game, the big concert, the big speech, the big presentation at work? Can you provide your mind with scenarios that allow you to feel comfortable in situations, even if your only experience is in your imagination?

Your mind is a fascinating and powerful tool to help you accomplish any endeavor. You can train yourself through direct bodily experience, such as practice and repetition, but additionally you can use visualization to train yourself through the power of imagination.

Zach takes the lead this week and talks about how to leverage your mind to get the most out of any situation through three types of visualization — Situational, Meditated, and Guided — and discusses how they work and what they can do for you.

When accompanied by dedicated practice and study, visualization can be an effective tool to help you see and achieve your goals in sports, music, school, business, and in life in general.

Ep 75: To Infinity and Beyond — What's at the End of the Number Line?

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 03:00:00 -0600

One week after getting stalled talking about the number line and infinity, Zach and Rafe are back on track and finally get to what infinity really means. The concept of one-to-one can be applied to the Natural Numbers to reveal the first level of infinity and Cantor's diagonalization argument is used to show that there are levels of infinity beyond the aleph-null, the cardinality of the natural numbers.

As is typical, this foray into some pretty heady mathematics is punctuated by spontaneous sidebars, including discussions of cave paintings, wrapping paper, Lemonheads candy, and much more. Come for the math and stay for the fun, or do it the other way around; it's a fun romp up the number line literally to infinity and beyond.

Ep 74: Off the Number Line — Simple Counting and a Detour on the Way to Infinity, Part 1

Tue, 15 Feb 2022 02:00:00 -0600

A conversation that starts about numbers goes off the rails and morphs into an important discussion on expanding your horizons to improve your skills, life, and well being.

Zach and Rafe start with a simple enough concept: counting, the Natural Numbers, and 1-to-1 correspondence using rocks and tallies and fingers. But somewhere between 1, 2, 3, and infinity the talk veers to dinosaurs and Godzilla and King Kong and Mothra, the necessity of math for the advent of civilization, being well-rounded and understanding the nature of the human experience and further to working to grow and appreciate all the skills of others around you. The Olympic games are discussed and a great fundraising idea comes up.

Finally, the idea of growing and improving yourself is the basis for making the world a better place: start with yourself and make yourself better; share that growth and watch the goodness grow.

And Zach and Rafe will be back in Part 2 with some actual fascinating things about the nature of infinity!

Ep 73: Colors of Life — Some Things You Know and Some You Might Not

Tue, 08 Feb 2022 04:00:00 -0600

Join Zach and Rafe for a discussion of everything related to (and some things NOT related to) color. Starting at the electromagnetic spectrum, the conversation meanders through marine biology, to Ray Charles and Ray Bradbury, to the metric system, to Wayne Gretzky, to candles, to Roy G Biv (and the desire to rename it for Ray Charles!), to the Doppler effect and getting chased by the police, to the redshift in astronomy, to colorblindness and frisbees, to evolutionary biology, to dirt, to bees and butterflies, to Bufnagle-branded honey, to watercolor paints and Play-doh, to Isaac Newton, to subtractive and additive models of color, to refraction, to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, to the plague and gravity and calculus, to donuts, to the color wheel(s), to oranges and the produce section at the grocery store, to hexidecimals, to 24-bit colors on computers, to pointilism, and finally to Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and Lego.

It's a wonderful and whimsical and colorful discussion, albeit a little chaotic and distracted. But if it weren't it wouldn't be Bufnagle: the Podcast.

Ep 72: Saving West Point From The British — Washington's Culper Spy Ring and Benedict Arnold, Part 2

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 03:00:00 -0600

In part 2 of the Benedict Arnold story, after Rafe butchers the intro and drives the show off the rails, we pick up with Benedict Arnold taking command of West Point and making plans to put it, and himself, into British hands. Quick thinking, fast horses, Alexander Hamilton, and plenty of derring-do stop the turn-over of West Point but are too late to prevent the escape of Arnold. It's a zany story but central to the fledgling nation holding off the British long enough to cobble together a victory at Yorktown a year later.

In the end, Benedict Arnold becomes synonymous with the term traitor, commands some British troops during the war, and eventually moves to England, and then Canada, and then back to England where he died in 1801.

Washington, of course, went on to be the man who defined the idea of what the US President should be.

Of course, you should read Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger's 2013 book George Washington's Secret Six; The Spy Ring That Saved The American Revolution.

Ep 71: Spies In Wartime — Washington's Culper Spy Ring and Benedict Arnold, Part 1

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 03:00:00 -0600

During America's Revolutionary War, General Washington built a spy ring that helped produce the outcome we have come to know. Clandestine intelligence gathering, sneaky correspondence, and heroic feats of daring were daily occurrences for the Culper Spy Ring.

Zach and Rafe discuss elements of the ring and their accomplishments, as they are told in Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger's 2013 book George Washington's Secret Six; The Spy Ring That Saved The American Revolution.

The first part of a two-part series, this episode takes us from the start of the war up to the temptations of Benedict Arnold, a master strategist but a man hounded by one of Mankind's most basic flaws: the desire for prestige.

A typical Bufnagle: the Podcast episode, Rafe talks too much while Zach derails the education with stories from A Knights Tale and American Treasure and with comparisons to Tolkien. Listeners should find this a quintessential Buf episode: serious educational but with just enough shenanigans to make you want to go look things up for yourself!

Ep 70: Pudding and Mathematics — Yes, They Go Together!

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 03:00:00 -0600

Join the Buf as Zach and Rafe discuss pudding! Of course, the discussion rambles around and wanders into creme brulee, tall poles, frequent flyer miles, free stuff from bottle caps, Don Quixote, math theorems, Pythagoras, the irrationality of the square root of 2, Gauss, and prime numbers.

We know that all road lead to Rome, and that all roads in Rome lead to Greece, but when you start at pudding, you can pretty much go anywhere!

Ep 69: Midnight In Paris and Living In The Present — You Can't Go Home Again

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 03:00:00 -0600

The 2011 film Midnight in Paris presents Gil, a young screenwriter smitten with the Paris of the roaring 1920s. A magical time warp sends him back to the world he longs for where he meets a woman of the 1920s who longs for the glories of La Belle Époque, the European golden age at the end of the 19th century.

Gil learns that we all long for times long ago that allure us with hopes of a glorious past but that instead we must live in the present, in the Now.

Zach and Rafe discuss Midnight in Paris and the nostalgia it represents and the lessons it leaves with us. Along the way, we learn to neither scorn the past nor hold it up as an unattainable ideal; rather, we must understand the past and her people by measuring them in their time and take the Good that they send us through history. Peace comes not through the pain of nostalgia but rather in living fully in the Age we were given. We are here, right now, in our time, for a reason.

"This is your time; now go out and take it."

Ep 68: 2021 Reflection

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 02:00:00 -0600

Zach and Rafe take time to reflect on 2021 and what they learned and accomplished. Both reflect on changes and lessons learned that they are taking with them into the new year. As could be expected, the ideas of community and gratitude are high on their lists!

Ep 67: Questions from the Fans

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 02:00:00 -0600

Rafe and Zach gather questions from throughout the year and answer them as they get ready for 2022. What follows is, well, pretty much what you would expect.

Topics range from food to travel to show prep and all things in between. It's an interesting and entertaining romp through all things Bufnagley.

Christmas Special 2021

Sat, 25 Dec 2021 04:00:00 -0600

The Bufnagle Christmas party, featuring FOUR Big Brain Smart Head guests:
* America's Favorite Rocket Scientist, Bob Luzenski,
* America's Favorite Craft Queen, Angela Nash,
* America's Favorite Naval Aviator, Brock "Cinder" Friedman, and
* America's Favorite Planner and Teacher and Communicator, Ginny Horan!

The four guests steal the show from Zach and Rafe, telling tales of baking and crafting and dancing, traveling and torque and tessellations, shopping and singing and sharing.

Come for the community but stay for the connection and good vibes.

"God bless us, everyone!"

Ep 66: Gifts from Magi — Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh, Hair Combs, Watch Chains, and Pork Chops

Tue, 21 Dec 2021 02:00:00 -0600

Zach and Rafe recount O'Henry's Gift of the Magi and discuss the joys of gift-giving.

Della and Jim sacrifice all they have for the good of the other, as other, and in doing so provide the classic ironic twist for which O'Henry is so well known. Their gifts show us Wisdom working through them, in that Love for another is more valuable than any object you may own.

As we prepare for Christmas, remember Della and Jim and their joint sacrifices and also the Magi from the East in Luke's Gospel, as they foreshadow the life of the Christ child.

Ep 65: First, Do No Harm; Second, Do More Good.

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 02:00:00 -0600

Big Brain Smart Head Dr. Mark Deis joins The Buf to tell his story of the Good in his life and share life lessons great people have shared with him.

A chance interaction in high school at a swimming pool while trying to catch a hooligan led Mark eventually to a career in working with children with developmental disabilities, teaching us all that serendipity unlocks doors and that we need to be willing to turn the knob and push it open.

Mark shares life lessons learned along the way, like secrets for cleaning windows and carpet, understanding that working for the Good of others will bring Good to you, and that instead of working to prepare the path for your child, you need to prepare your child for the path.

But above all, be kind, work to love, and help others find Hope.

Ep 64: I Is For Eisenhower — The Wonders (and a few detriments) of the Interstate Highway System

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 02:00:00 -0600

Another classic Bufnagle episode: Zach and Rafe set off on a discussion of a grand and glorious engineering project but manage to derail the conversation into all sorts of tangents along the way.

The US Interstate Highway system is approximately one-tenth of one percent of the nation's roads but it carries 25 percent of the vehicle miles driven. A grand federal plan, the Interstate system is a testament to good engineering, a good plan, a lot of money, and a lot of hard work.

Join the team as Zach makes his single favorite joke, the boys discuss idiosyncrasies of US roads, they develop more ideas for Bufnagle Fantasy Camp, and the hosts share stories from drivers ed training. Along the way, beet trucks make not one but TWO appearances.

It's just another day on Bufnagle: the Podcast.

Ep 63: High Stakes Sailing — Go Where the Wind Leads You

Tue, 30 Nov 2021 02:00:00 -0600

Zach and Rafe welcome Big Brain Smart Head, former Navy sailor, and Master and Commander Craig Depies to the show to discuss the wonders of sailing.

Craig leads the Buf into the world of sailboats and discusses catamarans and trimarans, waterskiing and parachuting, and racing in the oldest continuously-held regatta in the world. Along the way the team develops an ideas for a Bufnagle Fantasy Weekend, learns how warm Lake Michigan is in June (spoiler alert: not very!), and gets a lesson on what is needed (and available!) for an around-the-world sail cruise in the 21st century.

Craig reminds us all to enjoy the fruits of what God has created for you; sailing, with its connection to the natural world of wind and water, is a perfect way to marvel in the Creation and to share that with people around you.

Ep 62: Joan of Arc — "Hold the cross high so I may see it through the flames!"

Tue, 23 Nov 2021 02:00:00 -0600

In the early 1400s, late in the Hundred Years' War between France and England, an illiterate French teenage girl is visited by visions of Michael the Archangel and two young female martyrs and is told to support the French not-yet-anointed king Charles VII and help drive the English out of France.

What follows is an extraordinary tale of miracles, military victories, misfortune, a politically-motivated show-trial, and a gruesome execution, followed by posthumous exoneration and eventual sainthood for the young woman we know as Joan of Arc.

The documents surrounding her trials are still in existence and it is said that there are few people from the middle ages whose existence are more well-chronicled. Joan has become a symbol of rock-steady faith changing the direction of history through devotion and courage.

"If I am not [in God's grace], may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me. I should be the saddest creature in the world if I knew I were not in His grace."

Ep 61: Building Community; Building Loyalty; Building Love

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 02:00:00 -0600

Zach and Rafe explore communities and the questions around them. What drives their creation? What holds them together? Are on-line communities an oxymoron? Is in-person necessary for community?

The Bufnaglers discover that Love drives community. Your community should will the Good of its members, encourage them to grow, and strengthen their virtue. Along the way, they discuss St Paul and the Corinthians, Shakespeare, and even Adam Sandler.

And in the long run, communities help us Seek the Good, Be the Good, and Spread the Good. They are a core component of the Adventure of Life.

Ep 60: If Team Bufnagle Held a Dinner, Who Would Be There? Would You Like to Join Us?

Tue, 09 Nov 2021 02:00:00 -0600

The Bufnagle Team tackles the question of Who Would You Invite to Dinner? But they take time to clarify the rules and expand on why these people would make great guests. From military leaders (yes, you can guess at least one of them!) to patriots to astronauts to sports heroes to politicians and authors and explorers, the guest list for the Bufnagle Feast would certainly have something for everyone. Just like the guests on the show, all potential guests to the feast are Imago Dei and thus worth meeting on this week's show.

Ep 59: Six Degrees of Impact — Your Physical Positive Impact with Others Leads to the Great Good Place

Tue, 02 Nov 2021 02:00:00 -0500

The internet has changed everything and it seems as if we are now more connected than ever. But these connections can be thin; you still have the most impact — good, bad, or otherwise — when you physically connect with the people you know.

The internet is multiplier, it makes your actions have a further reach. But this goes for the good that you do and also the bad, so be careful with what you do.

Our positive impact on others can lead to what Henry James calls The Great Good Place: your best life, one where you fully thrive as the best version of yourself, a place that is revealed to us typically only in glimpses, the song that touches your heart, the conversation with an old friend, the perfect dinner with all your family, friends, and compatriots attending, the time when the fears and worries and sorrows drift away, where we are left awash in the Good, in those people and things that bring us Joy.

We need to live the Good as humans in a real and physical way. This allows us to fulfill our Nature: to seek God, who is Love, and to do so in the real physical community of others.

Ep 58: Love Your Home Places — "They're all wonderful; I wish I had three heads!"

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Where have you lived? Where have you visited? What have your travels taught you?

The Bufnaglers (Rafe, Zach, AND Big Brain Smart Head Older Brother Harry) relate tales of moving about and living in different areas of the USA and traveling around the world.

From pizza to language to sports to aviation to pho to hot chicken, we learn that people all over are the same in their differences. You can decide to find those differences off-putting and make your stays away from home miserable OR you can decide to find those differences interesting and educational and make your stays away from home enlightening and rewarding.

The choice is yours. The decisions you make about how you approach differences create ripples that have infinite impact.

Ep 57: Sewing the Fabric of the Adventure of Life

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Zach and Rafe sit down with special guest and Big Brain Smart Head Angela Nash who shares her adventure stories woven into fabric based hobbies. Angela expresses why she was drawn to certain adventures and paths, the importance of trying new things, and being ok with things not being perfect the first time. Angela also explains how a sewing machine works, so that is pretty awesome, too!

Ep 56: The Joy of Hobbies

Tue, 12 Oct 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Hobbies allow us to be creative and reveal components of who we are. Through them, we reveal ourselves individually as unique and glorious reflections of Imago Dei and thus collectively enrich the depth and breadth of the human experience.

Zach and Rafe are joined again by Big Brain Smart Head (and America's Favorite Rocket Scientist!) Bob and together they share stories and journeys around Lego and model trains and art and all sorts of other creative pastimes.

Throughout the conversation, the themes of taking risk, improving yourself, sharing of yourself, and risk-producing-reward recur regularly, and all these components of hobbies eventually result in Joy, both for you and for those around you.

So, give a listen, then go take some risk, learn a skill, and humble yourself --- because you never know when you will be the best part of somebody's day.

Ep 55: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the Wonders of the World of Seven

Tue, 05 Oct 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Pyramids, monuments, statues, and temples! Built between 2500 BC and 280 BC, the seven wonders of the ancient world display some of the finest achievements of the builders of antiquity. Ancient civilizations built incredible pyramids, monuments, and statues, all ginormous in scale and extravagant in detail, in an age of simple hand tools and raw human power.

Understanding these wonders of antiquity helps us to understand that we are heirs of a great civilization or at least barbarians living in the ruins of a glorious past.

And, as an added bonus, the Bufnaglers reveal some secrets of the number seven (7) that you just might not know!

Ep 54: Marco Polo Records the Glory of Pax Mongolica

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Between the glories that were the Roman and British Empires, the Mongols ruled the largest empire to date. And Marco Polo, a 20-something kid from Italy was on hand, in the court of the great Kublai Khan, to record what things were really like.

The records that Marco Polo left behind reveal not an impoverished, back-water, uncivilized nation of blood-thirsty warriors but rather a very rich, very powerful, very sophisticated civilization, one full of economic and cultural bounty.

Mongol chic fashion made its way all the way to England and Marco Polo was instrumental in introducing Western ideas to the East and exposing Eastern grandeur to the West.

Polo's writing shaped Western thinking for generations, revealing the reality of East, proving the existence of the disputed Antipodes, and describing a manner of ruling that became the model for Christian Kingship in the West.

Read more about Marco Polo and other adventurers in "The Fourth Part of the World; An Astonishing Epic of Global Discovery, Imperial Ambition, and the Birth of America" by Toby Lester.

Ep 53: Zachism VII — Be Kind

Tue, 21 Sep 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Zach and Rafe discuss the 7th and last Zachism: Be kind.

We are surrounded by a culture full of teasing and pranks, of ridicule and hazing, of yelling and condescension. This leads to all sorts of problems for individuals and teams.

Instead, we need to be kind, show grace, and spread joy.

Tell people you love them and care about them. Show them grace. Balance toughness with a safe space to fail. Make people feel bigger, better, and more comfortable. Celebrate the light and gifts of others.

Pranks are stupid because they make people the butt of jokes. Teasing is dangerous because it makes people feel small. Yelling doesn't help because it creates fear; and learning and growing are hampered by fear.

Love speaks the language of Truth.

"Compliment people behind their backs and say nice things to their faces."

Ep 52: Silly, Enjoyable, Profound: A Year of the Buf

Tue, 14 Sep 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Zach and Rafe discuss a year of podcasting and all the things they learned. The Bufnaglers point out that sometimes you just have to get started and adjust on the fly. Hats are tipped the faithful listeners and to all the awesome guests who have graced the show.

Stories make us rich. Remember that your story matters and your story deserves to be told. We want to hear your story. If you've got one to tell, we want to help you tell it.

Ep 51: Lessons of Youth Sports

Tue, 07 Sep 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Harry fills in for Rafe as he reminisces with Zach about their experiences playing sports growing up.

The pair discuss how youth sports provide children the opportunity to learn about adversity and hardships in a controlled, safe space. The importance in applying those experiences later in life and what they can teach us about life in general. Zach and Harry remind us that sports can help us grow as a society and mold and educate the whole individual through proper coaching and mentorship.

Ep 50: Nutrition and Lifestyle — Produce More and Consume Less

Tue, 31 Aug 2021 02:00:00 -0500

"The benefit of a bigger pizza is you can share it with more friends."

Zach and Rafe carry on a grand and free-wheeling romp through all sorts of topics related in general to nutrition and lifestyle.

Starting out with simple descriptions of food diets and how to eat healthier, the Bufnaglers roll into discussions of grocery store strategies, how to stay balanced in the middle of the road, and how one can justify drinking Diet Mtn Dew, to more general discussions of being mindful of all that you consume, be it food or entertainment or simply attitudes and opinions.

At the end, they wind up encouraging you to produce more and consume less, to become an expert at something, to avoid unhelpful and unnecessary comparisons to others, and to get your mind right, your spirit right, and your body right, and you'll be alright.

Ep 49: Legacy - Honoring Those Who Have Left Us

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Zach finally does the solo episode Rafe has been taunting him about. Zach shares stories about a former friend, teammate, and family member who was always positive, kind, and full of grace. Zach mentions the importance of carrying on how they did to preserve their memory and being kind to those around us, showing our friends we care and love for them and why we love and grieve deeply at loss and death.

Ep 48: How Genghis Khan and the Mongols Re-paved the Silk Road for Marco Polo

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 02:00:00 -0500

In the early 1200s Genghis Khan's armies rose out of the eastern steppe and built the world's largest empire, stretching from China in the East almost all the way to Vienna. The West made repeated forays into the East to seek out the Khan and his successors.

Meanwhile, the Mongolian Empire was growing and bringing everyone within reach into their grasp. The conquered civilizations were therefore pouring oodles and oodles of tribute into the coffers of the Khan and the Mongolian Empire. Decades of tribute created a rich empire with a hearty appetite for luxury goods.

Enter, then, merchants who sought to satiate this hunger, namely, Niccolo and Maffeo Polo and Niccolo's son Marco Polo...

Ep 47: Superheroes — Are They Simply Comic Book Characters or Can They Teach Us Truths About Life?

Tue, 10 Aug 2021 02:00:00 -0500

With so much talk in pop culture today around superheroes, Zach and Rafe dig into what the phenomenon is all about.

From The Batman Question (Is he hero or vigilante?), to the metaphor of Ironman's Heart, to Nietzsche's Ubermensch, to Spider Pig, Apollo, Bo Jackson, LeBron, Thor, Loki, Logan, and Shane, the Buf touches on all the aspects of heroes, both regular and super, to get to bigger questions they help us answer like "can there be a virtue of courage when there is nothing to fear?" and "how does one deal with breaking the law when the law is wrong?"

What do these modern day heroes tell us about fundamental questions about dealing with the human condition?

Ep 46: Wild Blue Yonder — How the Bufnagle Team Learned to Fly Real Airplanes

Tue, 03 Aug 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Rafe and Harry discuss learning to fly and becoming an FAA licensed pilot. They cover lessons learned, both the easy way and the hard way, when getting a private pilot's license
from getting started,
to communicating with the tower,
to understanding different airspaces,
to understanding what those numbers on the runway mean,
to the perils of trying to land on the wrong runway,
to midair close encounters with large commercial aircraft,
to performing a Mariner Transition over SeaTac,
to picking a flight instructor that fits your style,
to dealing with engine failure during flight,
to flying upside down,
to pursuing instrument and instructor certifications,
and much, much more!

Ep 45: Laundry on Mars — How Life in Minnesota in 1950 Can Help Us Survive a Trip to Mars

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Starting with understanding the lessons from Episode 44 ("Wisdom From the Prarie"), guest co-host Bob Luzenski (aka, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist) joins Rafe to discuss how those lessons apply to some of the human problems with a Mars mission.

Along the way, the Buf hosts discuss the Earth's unique protective ionosphere and magnetosphere, the aurora borealis, Apollo barbeque, laundry in space, and the idea that the problems we will encounter on a Mars mission are solvable if the desire to go is great enough.

Ep 44: Be the Person You Want Your Kids to Become — Wisdom From the Prairie

Tue, 20 Jul 2021 08:00:00 -0500

From sharing a rural no-plumbing and no-central-heat farmhouse with eight siblings and his parents, Dr. Parnell Donahue made his way to college and medical school and then on to a successful career in medicine. Along the way he has written numerous articles and books and today he publishes a blog and regular column on parenting and shares his eight-plus decades of wisdom with listeners of his radio show and podcast.

Harry fills in for Zach again and he and Rafe walk along with their respective grandfather and father as Dr. Par shares stories of the farm, life in middle America in the 1950s and 1960s, and all the Good he has found during his Adventure of Life.

"Be the person you want your kids to become" is his final nugget of wisdom, following an admonition to take chances in your life to make significant changes, and a reminder that Christian forgiveness frees the forgiver.

Links to Dr. Par's audio blog, his Epoch Times columns, his books, and podcast links can be found at https://parenting-matters.com/

His radio show can be heard each Tuesday and Thursday at 11:30AM CT on WBOU 100.5 FM in Nashville.

Ep 43: New Fatherhood — A Baby Transforms a Man Into a Father

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Harry joins The Buf as co-host, filling in for a vacationing Zach, and he and Rafe discuss the physical, emotional, and spiritual transformations wrought by a new baby.

The first chapter of Genesis reveals God to be a creator and also to be Good. We also learn that Man is made in God's image and likeness, Imago Dei; thus, Man is made to be Good and to create. Parenthood gives us that honor, that privilege, that responsibility.

Harry and Rafe discuss how the new baby is a "filament of God's imagination", how watching the child grow requires remembering the past, cherishing the present, and looking forward to the future, and how being a grandparent is like being called in to be a DH in baseball.

Join us as we discuss the wonder and appreciation of fatherhood.

Ep 42: All Roads Lead to Greece; It's All Greek to Me

Tue, 06 Jul 2021 02:00:00 -0500

We think of the greatness of the Greek civilization and then the greatness of Rome. But almost everything that Rome did was an attempted copy of Greece. All roads may lead to Rome, but in Rome, all roads lead to Greece.

The free peoples of Greece, in their small, geographically-isolated, independent city-states, were incubators of the fundamentals of Western thought. While Rome first conquered Greece, Greece then conquered Rome culturally. The Romans loved Greek culture: the theatre, the music, the language, the government, the science, the technology. Rome just took what Greece wrought and carried it further West. The glory of Rome is only the glory of Greece writ large.

The development of the West started with the Greeks but their advancements were put on hold by the heavy hand of Rome. The Western growth started by Greece was stilted by Rome, only to flourish once again when Rome fell and the innovative power of free people was unleased again.

Zach and Rafe discuss the greatness of Greece and the influence it had on future civilizations.

Ep 41: Mars Ain't The Kind of Place to Raise Your Kids; In Fact, It's Cold as Hell

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 02:00:00 -0500

And there's no one there to raise them, if you did.

Zach and Rafe welcome back Bob Luzenski, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist, to continue the discussion of missions to Mars. They tackle the details of making fuel from water and any carbon dioxide that might be lying around, the timing of such a trip, and the insane brutality of Mars' harsh climate and how Venus is even worse.

In the end, if Humanity is going to be multi-planetary, we've got The Moon and The Mars and that's about it, so the question becomes a more philosophical Why Should We Go?

Ep 40: Zachism VI - Talent is Overrated

Tue, 22 Jun 2021 02:00:00 -0500

"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone." This quote from Herb Brooks in the 2004 movie Miracle is used as a motivator to encourage the 1980 US Olympic Men's Hockey Team to play more as a team, as the other teams they were going to face were certainly more talented than they were.

But this is also a lesson for all of us: talent is never going to be enough to produce a consistently winning team; it is necessary but not sufficient. All winning teams need talent but they also need Teamwork, Game Strategy, Leadership, Selflessness, and a knack for Putting Themselves in the Right Place.

The Bufnagle team this week looks at this sixth of the seven Zachisms and how it fits into producing a winning team in sports, business, music, or anywhere in life.

Ep 39: Technology as a Tool for Teaching, Learning, and Presenting — Make It Work For You

Tue, 15 Jun 2021 02:00:00 -0500

We are facing new ways of doing things: new business meetings, new school environments, new newspapers, new entertainment, new reference materials. And the "new" is almost always centered on the computer or smartphone. But new isn't always better.

Our new technology enables us to create the appearance of polish and sophistication but our content suffers. We need to work harder to ensure that the technology makes things better as technology can easily make things worse.

The technology is only a tool ; it does not replace the teacher.

Zach and Rafe discuss the pluses and minuses of PowerPoint, the value of rich narrative sentences over thin and empty catchphrases, and how to focus on supplementing your knowledge with images instead of creating a disharmony of competing audio and visual inputs.

"[People] deserve to have better interfaces [in computer programs]. Our students deserve to have better textbooks. Your audience ... deserves to have better content and better presentation. You owe it to them because they are giving you their time."

Ep 38: Leadership and Humility

Tue, 08 Jun 2021 02:00:00 -0500

US Army Tank Commander CPT Peary Cox talks about being a leader and the lessons he's learned by insisting on getting the smartest people into the room.

From West Point to Fort Hood to Germany to Iraq and then back again, humility rises again and again as one of the most valuable traits of a leader. Recognizing that you do not know is essential to team cohesion and effectiveness, whether your team is a collection of tank personnel or a project team in the office. CPT Cox shares stories of building and leading diverse teams during training and while taking Iraq back from ISIS.

Ep 37: Teenage Mutant Renaissance Artists

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Modern comic books and cartoon shows take their characters from famous Italian renaissance artists? Yes; it's true!

Zach and Rafe this week discuss the four famous artists who are namesakes to the slightly less famous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Donatello. Join them as they discuss the accomplishments of these great men and how their works inspire us today in art, architecture, and even comic books!

Along the way, pick up tips for understanding how the human body relates to the cosmos, how to square a circle, how to make a modern day frescos with drywall mud, how Archimedes invented bowling, why the statue of David is so impressive, why Michelangelo's name is on his La Pieta, and that Donatello's bronze statue of David beats Michelangelo's marble version by over 60 years. As usual, our hosts provide interesting historical tidbits along with their usual occasional creative stretches of the truth.

Ep 36: Adventures Across the Pond — the Buf on a tour of Europe

Tue, 25 May 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Big Brain Smart Head, world traveler, and self-proclaimed sociologist Julianna Greene joins Bufnagle: the Podcast to discuss her adventures in the UK and other places in Europe.

From Memphis, TN to Birmingham, AL to London and Paris and Lisbon and all sorts of places in between, Juju brings a joyful energy and infectious enthusiasm with her as she recounts tales of her exploits across the pond. Stories of the pub scene in London, a scary situation on the Eiffel Tower, and pursuing a Portuguese purse snatcher come to life as Julianna reminds us to "Go for it" when the opportunities arise and to spread joy and be a light wherever you are.

Ep 35: Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast — More Conversation With "Cinder", America's Favorite Naval Aviator

Tue, 18 May 2021 02:00:00 -0500

The Bufnaglers are joined once again by Big Brain Smart Head and United States Naval Aviator LT Brock “Cinder” Friedman to further discuss his story of being a Naval Aviator.

Cinder discusses leadership, teaching helicopter pilots, staying a step ahead of the students and the aircraft, seeking the Good in brotherhood, trust, and teamwork, our old friend Ferdinand Magellan, practice making perfect, finding victories in progress when seeking perfection, being flexible with planning, the history of podcast, and surrounding yourself with positive people.

Ep 34: Ego Destroys Our Progress; Be Open to Being Wrong

Tue, 11 May 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Life's path for us is rarely the path we would have chosen looking forward but looking back few of us would change the path that got us to where we are.

Virginia Horan joins the Bufnaglers this week to shares her Adventure of Life from Long Island to Dayton to Manhattan to the classroom via tea, potato skins, job interviews, babies, and all the serendipities that life throws at us.

Ginny, an old friend of Rafe, shares her Adventure from college graduation, through the corporate world, to the classroom, and into being an entrepreneur. As developer of The Centered Student Planner, Ginny provides students with tools and tips to tackle organization and time management while also doling out lessons to navigate the world and make the most of the opportunities they have. Passionate, smart, and humble, Ginny tells a story of following your dreams along whatever path life throws at you.

More information on The Centered Student Planner is available at
https://thecenteredstudentplanner.com/

Ep 33: Zachism V - Manage Your Energy

Tue, 04 May 2021 02:00:00 -0500

"Energy makes it go." By managing our own energy we can go further and accomplish more.

Zach and Rafe return to Zach's Bet on Yourself Series to discuss personal energy. Energy allows you to do everything you do. But you only have a finite amount of it at any given time. Thus, be careful with it. Spend it wisely. Don't waste it on tasks or people that don't help you get to where you are going. If you use it in the pursuits that are important to you, you can actually create more energy.

It's all about being disciplined to focus on the things that are important to you.

Ep 32: How Do We Actually Do a Mission to Mars? What Will It Take?

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 01:00:00 -0500

We are joined again by Big Brain Smart Head Bob, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist, and we discuss the very hard problem of getting to Mars. Along the way, Zach and Rafe learn about lunar resources and gravity wells, develop a plan for a new energy drink (Lunar electric water!), and discover a whole new respect for the field of Botany.

Remember, if you have a question for Bob about going to Mars, send us a note at bufnagle@bufnagle.com and we'll make sure that Bob provides an answer!

Ep 31: Friday Night Helicopter Cruising at 120 Knots

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 01:00:00 -0500

Notre Dame. Submarines. Flight school. Swim week. Helicopters in swimming pools. Magic fairy flight dust. Vectors, rotor pitch, collectives, and flight forces. Torpedoes. Chasing foreign subs. Night vision and cinder blocks. This episode has it all!

Zach and Rafe are joined by Big Brain Smart Head and United States Naval Aviator LT Brock “Cinder” Friedman to discuss his story of becoming a Naval Aviator.

Ep 30: What's in an Esport? Do people really pay to watch people play video games? (Yes, and there is A LOT of money at stake!)

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 02:00:00 -0500

People watch sports all the time — they watch on TV, they watch in person, they watch highlights on the internet. People have watched spectator sports for entertainment for millennia. Any time people compete at the highest levels, other people have wanted to watch.

Video games, it turns out, are no different. Esports are not the grand Pac-man tournaments you may have heard about in the 1980s; rather, esports are a multi-billion dollar industry with recruiting and gambling and training and high salaries and groupies and everything else that comes with people doing competitive things at the highest level.

Zach and Rafe are joined this week by a Eli, a Big Brain Smart Head who knows all sorts of things about esports. Join us for a enlightening and entertaining look at a world that some of us had no idea even existed.

Ep 29: Poetry and Engineering — Expressions of Truth

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Zach and Rafe welcome this week's Big Brain Smart Head, Georgia Tech Senior Biomedical Engineer and Published Poetry Author Brady Bove, to the show to discuss how Poetry and Engineering are related as they are both expressions of Truth. We'll discuss Brady's book, A Day of Humanity, her biomedical engineering training, and how they all fit together in an integrated and holistic view of the human experience.

Brady's book A Day of Humanity is available at http://www.amazon.com/Day-Humanity-Brady-Bove/dp/1641379154/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Ep 28: Blooming into Spring in an Alternative Universe

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 02:00:00 -0500

April Fools Day has hit The Buf! In this special April 1st episode, Zach and Rafe have been replaced by Olivia and Bob (America's Favorite Rocket Scientist) --- join in the conversation as they meander through the wonderous world of flowers and bulbs and learn why we plant flowers in the first place. "Something you started out doing just for yourself ends up being a gift to others."

Ep 27: Adventure Series, Magellan, Part 2 - Through the Strait, Across the Pacific, and The End.

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 02:00:00 -0500

After spending the Winter at Port St Julian, the Armada continues south to the Strait. After the loss of (another!) ship within the Strait itself, the Armada travels 7,000 miles to cross the Pacific, fighting starvation and scurvy along the way. Interactions with various peoples in the islands of the Pacific and hostile interactions with the pursuing Portuguese results in only one ship returning to Spain in the Fall of 1522. How much would you pay for cloves? Magellan and hundreds of other men paid with their lives.

Ep 26: Zachism IV - Know Your Role

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 02:00:00 -0500

Zach and Rafe are back to discuss more details of Zach's Bet on Yourself Series. This week the pair discusses the importance of knowing what your role is on a team or group and using that to better yourself and those around you. From discussing how leaders and coaches can use this concept to Zach's own personal stories with embracing a role, learning the role, and understanding the role for the benefit of those around him, this episode promises to help you be comfortable in understanding that, by knowing your role, you are helping the team succeed.

Ep 25: Adventure Series, Magellan, Part 1 - Across the Atlantic.

Mon, 08 Mar 2021 02:00:00 -0600

In 1519, Magellan left Spain sailing west 5 ships and 260 men in search of the Spice Islands. What followed was an adventure that can only be compared to a trip to the moon but without radio assistance from Houston. Adventure, mistrust, mutiny, death, and disease lurked around every corner. Zach and Rafe discuss the first part of this journey, from summertime Spain to the perilous winter of 1520 at Port St Julian in present day southern Argentina, and the lessons learned along the way.

Ep 24: Zachism III - It's Not the Critic Who Counts

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 02:00:00 -0600

Zach and Rafe discuss the famous Teddy Roosevelt quote and the importance of showing up and supporting those who are actually in the fight. This is the third episode in the Bet on Yourself series, a collection of themes related to growth and better understanding of self.

Ep 23: Lego, Bees, and Entrepreneurship

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 02:00:00 -0600

Big Brain Smart Head™ Kyle Peterson joins the Buf to discuss his business career. Kyle ties together his experiences from three different realms to build a foundation for future successes.

Ep 22: The Art of the Flower

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 02:00:00 -0600

Big Brain Smart Head™ Olivia DeCleene joins the Buf to discuss art and flowers, how the two intersect, and how to see art and beauty in everyday life.

Ep 21: Adventure Series - The Earth was Never Flat

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 02:00:00 -0600

Zach and Rafe discuss the origins of the Earth being Flat myth and look back historically on earlier human adventures and their quest to map the world. This is the first in a two part miniseries where the Bufnaglers discuss exploration of Earth and bringing the world closer together.

Ep 20: Zachism II - Strength in Vulnerability

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 03:00:00 -0600

Zach opens up about his struggle with depression and anxiety and how he learned that admitting he had this struggle has given him strength beyond imagine. Zach shares the other lessons he learned in finding strength in moments of vulnerability.

Ep 19: Slipping the Surly Bonds of Earth

Tue, 26 Jan 2021 01:00:00 -0600

America's Favorite Rocket Scientist returns to the Podcast to discuss the Challenger Accident of 1986.

Ep 18: Zachism I - Lessons from Failure

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0600

Zach discusses what we can learn from failure and how we can use it to positively impact our future.

Ep 17: 2020 Reflection

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0600

Zach and Rafe reflect back on 2020 and find that good even in a year with a lot of bad. They discuss finding ways to continue to see the good and how to make 2021 the best year yet.

Today's sponsor Buck & Bull Boutique can be found on Facebook and Etsy
facebook.com/BuckandBullBoutique/

Ep 16: Big Brain Smarthead Physical Therapy

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 01:00:00 -0600

Zach and Rafe discuss the role of physical therapy in exercise and important of movement with a budding PT!

Christmas Special 2020

Fri, 25 Dec 2020 14:00:00 -0600

Rafe and Zach discuss Christmas movies and the criteria that makes a movie a Christmas movie along with the lessons they can teach us on this journey of life.

Ep 15: Santa the Elf

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 01:00:00 -0600

Zach and Rafe discuss the size of Santa and the best ways to spread holiday cheer.

Today's sponsor Buck & Bull Bontique. Tell them about the Buf to receive 15% off your order!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/buckandbullboutique
https://www.facebook.com/pg/BuckandBullBoutique

Ep 14: A Great Explore

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 01:00:00 -0600

Rafe and Zach explore the expedition of Lewis and Clark and the heroics of these men into the great unknown.

Ep 13: Bet on Yourself

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 00:00:00 -0600

Rafe and Zach discuss life lessons and leadership skills developed from sports, business, and academics to help progress in life and continuing to fight and get back up.

Ep 12: COVID Shenanigans

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 08:00:00 -0600

Rafe and Zach discuss where we are in the world and how COVID has impacted the sports landscape. Everything is different but the same.

Thanksgiving Special 2020

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 11:00:00 -0600

Zach and Rafe talk about what they are thankful for and why gratitude matters in difficult and good times.

Ep 11: It's not like it's Rocket Science

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 00:00:00 -0600

Rafe and Zach bring on a Rocket Scientist and discuss important things in space like cereal.

Today's Sponsors:
https://www.ebay.com/usr/risingcreekcompany
https://anywhere.alchemy365.com - use Code: Donahue

Ep 10: There's a Hole in my Calendar

Tue, 17 Nov 2020 00:00:00 -0600

Rafe and Zach discuss the historical creation of the modern calendar, all done without the aid of technology.

Today's Sponsors:
https://www.ebay.com/usr/risingcreekcompany
https://anywhere.alchemy365.com - use Code: Donahue

Ep 9: Fitness Donut in my Mouth

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 11:00:00 -0600

Zach and Rafe discuss healthy eating and habits on how to live a better life. Rafe wants to eat funnel cakes and makes a new food pyramid to help with his goals.

Ep 8: PiEconomics

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 09:00:00 -0600

Special Guest Will Walker discussing Economic principles. Zach somehow makes everything about pie.

Ep 7: Spirit of the Radio

Tue, 27 Oct 2020 12:00:00 -0500

Figuring out how radio works and why it will continue to be a mainstay in society

Ep 6: Cleopatra the Greek

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 12:00:00 -0500

Rafe and Zach discuss the myths and misconceptions around ancient civilizations. Both make numerous references to movies that people forgot existed.

Ep 5: Science behind GPS

Fri, 09 Oct 2020 12:00:00 -0500

Discussing the interesting science and math that makes GPS make our lives easier. Zach complains about baseball

Ep 4: The Fall in Broadcast Sports

Tue, 29 Sep 2020 16:00:00 -0500

Rafe and Zach discuss hockey strategy and the difficulties in today's world pertaining to broadcasting sporting events

Ep 3: Lessons from Sports

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 12:00:00 -0500

Rafe and Zach talk about life lessons learned from sports and what it means to be a fan and an athlete.

Ep 2: Is Cheesecake a cake or a pie

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 13:00:00 -0500

Time zones and finally answering the important questions about cheesecake and hotdogs

Ep 1: Episode 1

Tue, 08 Sep 2020 10:00:00 -0500

Talking about new NFL playoff structure, New Zealand rugby, and how to always make time travel a fun time.