From the Editor's Desk | #3
10 Things from the Desk of the Editor-in-Chief
CADET is a bi-annual, self-published, independent magazine and online publication about West Point.
created by 2 USMA grads @chrisWpestel @carolinepestel
For Your Eyeballs
EYE CANDY This lovely video, In a Nut Shell, is pretty brilliant and mesmerizing and a tremendous use of sound effects
For Your Eardrums
RADIO GA GA On Monday, as we ventured back from our Winter 2019 Ski Expedition, I was reminded how much I enjoy intentional radio shows with even the slightest of themes (this one was a two-fer oldies show in PA - Big Mike features the Drive at 5, playing double shots of your favorite artists! Dick Clark’s music calendar is up at 5:30). For several years I would find myself listening to the Nights with Alice Cooper Radio Show on road trips and Breakfast with the Beatles from WXRT 93.1 in Chicago on Sunday mornings as I drove our daughter to hockey practice
WORK PLAYLIST Here’s a playlist to help you, apparently, get shit done
TRAVIS TRITT Last Wednesday my wife surprised me with an early birthday present (in the parking lot of the Pentagon, of all places) - two tickets to see “Member of the class of ‘89” Travis Tritt (other members - Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Clint Black). We spent that evening at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA with Mr. Travis Tritt, his guitar and about 1500 of his closest friends. He spent the night playing his hits, reminiscing about his inspirations (including but not limited to Jerry Reed + Bob Baer + George Jones + Merle Haggard + Waylon Jennings + Hank Jr. + Allman Brothers) and telling stories. It should be noted that he is very capable of making himself laugh at his own jokes. He also told a little, lovely story about a 12-string guitar and several women called out in the silence to him - they kindly and loudly let him know he is “hot and sexy.” He is neither hot, nor sexy. But he does make wildly entertaining music videos like these and this one
For Every Heart…in Gray
NAVY CONTINUES TO REALLY SUCK Here’s yet another article detailing how the Naval Academy is falling apart
ARMY WOMEN’S TENNIS The team made a trip to the National Capital Region late last week. We had the chance to see the women’s team practice at the Army-Navy Country Club which is just a few minutes from our house in Arlington, VA
GRANT STATUE Check out the work in progress
VICTOR CONSTANT We came across this post announcing the opening of the ski slope at West Point, which prompted us to check out the website for the ski slope, which led us to this cool Ski Patch logo and this one for an event
FIRST CAPTAIN The First Captain made a visit to speak to the West Point Society of DC. We took his picture and learned some things
The Matrix
38 The elder member of the CADET TEAM (me) turned 38 this week. Looks, like my NBA career has finally hit a dead end. Regardless, I decided to rededicate myself to physical fitness and to create a routine of good habits, I have undertaken a 38,000 push-up challenge for my 38th year of life. It’s actually a fairly reasonable daily activity of 104 push-ups-a-day. So far so good. It’s a marathon, not a sprint
The Design of Things
THE DESIGN OF CULTURES Snow Sports, Mountain Sports, Ski culture…whatever you call it…it has some great graphic design. It was great being immersed, this past weekend, in a culture that has so much fun with its design. This was good inspiration because I was took on a graphic design client this past week
ANOTHER POINT Speaking of cultures, it would be fun to re-imagine West Point in this vein
RE-IMAGING THE OSCARS? - Likewise, this would be fun…Cadet Magazine’s Nominations for our very own annual awards??? Should we do this? Screen Junkies does a good job of this
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN If you are familiar with Austin Kleon, you might have noticed that we are completely guilty of STEALING (Like an Artist) this “From the Desk of…” format from his weekly newsletter - which you can sign-up for here. It’s totally worth it, one of the best parts of our week
CADET INSPIRATION Several years ago we took notice of a certain online sports publication that was differentiating itself by doing two things: Black & White photography and first person narrative. It was also created by Derek Jeter - The Players Tribune
AMERICAN HYGGE
SKI LODGE LIFE and the Comfort of Crackle Barrel. Apres Skiing, big fireplaces, over the top Bloody Mary’s, big sweaters. We had a blast inculcating ourselves in ski-culture over the weekend. We can’t wait to go back to Seven Springs in PA. Plus this logo of theirs has up feeling pretty lucky and very good. On our way back home we indulged in Cracker Barrel solely for the nostalgia
Podcast FROM THIS WEEK
FREAKONOMICS We’ve dug the Hidden Side of Sports Series and the current episode taught us about Shrinking your Worldview and the Athletic Mindset
99% Atomic Tattoos episode talks in-depth about Atomic Bomb survivability including the infamous “duck…AND coverrrrrrrr” campaign, and a voluntary blood-type tattoo program in Indiana
EYE Eye Magazine on Stack
PHOTOGRAPHY
365 & 100 I was digging through our archives, my personal IG account, this Robert Frank NYT article and revisiting an old year-long 365-project and am thinking its time to start a new undertaking. Maybe do a new one - 100 strangers/portraits project has always interested me. Its a good way to create stock & flow. After all, you are what you repeatedly do
SOCIAL MEDIA
10 The 10-year challenge was the flavor of the week. We didn’t participate
8-BIT The Army Athletics Communications team is talented. Mike Richards created this awesome Army Hockey Animation for the big match-up with the Royal Military Academy. We’re suckers for 8-bit pixel art and animation
IG FEATURE We has one of our photos featured on West Point’s Instagram feed!
The Magazine
VOL III has hit the final stages of production. We hope to have the magazine completely finished within the next 7 days. That puts pre-ordering at your finger-tips any day now. We can’t wait to show you what nearly 20 collaborators have in store for you and your eyeballs
SWATCHES we love this Post from Legacy Magazine of the color swatches they’ll be using in their upcoming issue. We’ve had a color swatch idea in the on-deck circle for a while and this post may have pushed us towards taking a chance on it