Discomfort Zone

I found a refuge from a threatening world in the mountains. So did everyone else

What happens when a casual chess player takes on a grandmaster? Reality check!

I am generally a calm person. I mean, don’t you dare check with my wife about that. But I will concede to a distinct lack of calm whenever I have to call customer support. I’m not proud of going all Joe Pesci from Goodfellas on these poor anonymous souls doing their crappy jobs for AT&T, BofA and 1800FLOWERS.

Lost credit cards, sick kids, smashed fingers and other mishaps when we tried to relive a favorite family trip

Five days in Vegas with Jack Friedman, my dadMy father was born in Brooklyn on Oct. 14, 1926, and in 1953, he married Florence Ulrich, also of Brooklyn.

The discomfort: He’s a rugged Alaskan who’s never hiked the desert The zone: A quixotic quest to trek the entire circumference of Las Vegas To understand what happened during my 2013 expedition to hike the circumference of Las Vegas, I have to start from the beginning. It was late September of 2010.

[HEAR MORE: A Cold War pilot recalls his favorite spy planes on "KNPR’s State of Nevada."]

I’ve always been known as the guy in the gray T-shirt. Then one evening, I decided to play dress-up It was my amazing technicolor dream shirt: a crazy-hued patchwork of fabric remnants that my mom sewed into a long-sleeved testament to one teenager’s desire for attention.

The first rule of backcountry hiking: Be prepared. But what if you’re too prepared? The discomfort: His first big solo backpacking trip — carrying everything but the kitchen sink The zone: Zion’s beautiful — but rugged — West Rim My feet were hamburger, socks soaked through with blood.

The discomfort: He loves to show off his (bad) taste in music. The zone: Can he complete a DJ set without being booed off the stage? I’ve always harbored this fantasy of just blowing people away with my music.