Nick Roberts

If mountains have a vibe, Baker’s was “quiet stoner” compared to Rainier’s “Type-A caffeine addict drill sergeant.” It was a welcome relief. The crowds were massively thinned out by comparison, the vert-gain-per-day was about three or four thousand, and we had two nights in large, comfortable tents, rather than a noisy wood box covered in tar. My guide Henry said the key reason for the fast-paced...

Our summit bid was in doubt until the moment we set foot on it. Leading up to and after our climb, foreboding cumulonimbus clouds sailed around Shasta, strafing the surrounding landscape with lightning. I also almost lost the mental battle against pain from my blisters and fatigue. My climbing partner was another Nick. He and I met at a wedding about a month ago in Santa Barbara. We were seated at...

I set out from Bend, Oregon, this past Wednesday morning and began the five hour commute up to Ashford, Washington. The whole time I was driving, I fretted about the weather. Rainier, like most big peaks, is known for unpredictable and rapid changes in its atmospheric attitude. Looking back on my experience, I feel like I cheated a little: We summited with cloudless skies and mellow winds. For man...

During our high-velocity nomadic year, I resolved that I would vent my pent-up gaming energy on a long binge whenever I pulled my PC back out of the storage unit. But part of this resolution was that I'd be careful about it and select finite, story-driven games. This highly-relatable piece on video game addiction from Eric Hoel (thanks to my pal RobG for the link) makes this "finite"/"infinite" di...

I'm slowly caffeinating and jotting notes for this piece while taking in the morning glow. As the sun crests the Mule Mountains, the golden light spreads itself over the gulch that clutches old-town Bisbee, Arizona. My wife's family lives here and we're visiting again for the holidays. I wrote about this place earlier this year, before all the craziness of 2022. It's a strange and storied old copp...

In January of this year I read Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air which documents the tragedy on Mount Everest in May, 1996. Krakauer happened to be part of a doomed expedition and recorded the disaster, wherein eight climbers died on the mountain over the span of 24 hours, in excruciating detail. I realize now that seeking out mountaineering challenges in the wake of that reading is probably a strange...

Rear Admiral Pete Pettigrew, callsign "Viper," served in the US Navy from 1964 to 1998, completing 325 combat missions, and 529 carrier landings along the way. In one of his bios he says “I am the only former Top Gun instructor with a confirmed kill”—a MiG-21 over Vietnam on May 6, 1972. He’s also highly decorated, having received the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, three air medals,...

Getting all sentimental at age 30 is a little arbitrary. I’m not that old. I also feel no different than the 29-year-old version of me from yesterday. But looking at it another way, I’ve now lived around a third of the total span of my life (assuming I'm lucky enough to live to 90) and I’ve just completed three full decades on the Earth. It’s a nice, round number; a good a time to take stock. For...

I finished reading Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer a couple days ago. I'm about to give away some of the story, so there's my warning if you want to read it first. The book is Krakauer's account of the disaster on Mount Everest in May, 1996, where eight climbers died over the span of a day. The book is clearly and movingly written, but I was amazed while reading the postscript just how controversial...

Scott Roberts is a previous guest of this show. He is a retired Lieutenant Colonel, a former F-15E fighter pilot, and my father. Today, we have a short chat about his reaction to the brand-new F-15EX, the most capable fourth generation fighter plane on the market. We talk about the controversy it has engendered, the new features it brings to the fight, and the what the next decades look like for t...

Technology episode Katie Roberts, my sister, works as a research scientist at BBN Technologies, a subsidiary of Raytheon, the defense contractor, in Boston, Massachusetts. BBN, incidentally, was selected by ARPA in 1968 to create the ARPAnet—the precursor to the internet we know today. Another little-known fact is that it created the first person-to-person network email in 1971 and the use of the...

Aviation Episode   Lieutenant Colonel Jason Brightman is a former US Air Force pilot with one of the wildest careers I’ve heard of. He also happens to be my flight instructor, bringing me up to speed on the Cessna 172. Jason and I were put together by chance (and by COVID) at our flight school. Ordinarily, he flies for a major airline, but found himself with a whole lot of time on his hands d...

Technology/aviation episode: Mike Christman is a product manager at Google and, previously, a CIA intelligence analyst turned Marine AH-1 attack helicopter pilot. With the Marines, he served two tours in Afghanistan and three total. On his first, he flew regular combat missions against the Taliban in the Helmand Valley. On his next, he became a forward air controller, guiding close air support ont...

Lieutenant Colonel Ken Peterson flew the B-52H Stratofortress and the B-1B Lancer bombers during some of the most tense moments of the Cold War. Today we talk about his experience while on alert, ready to take flight with terrifyingly powerful weapons in tow. We also cover the time Ken briefed the Air Force’s Scientific Advisory Board which recommended the B-1 program to President Reagan. Asi...

Technology episode: Nic Bertagnolli is an itinerant data scientist who lives almost full-time from his van with his partner, Laura McNerney, a previous guest of this show. He’s also mathematician, tinkerer, and, though he may not admit it, a futurist and philosopher.  Outside of this, Nic enjoys mountain biking, rock climbing, and mountaineering. He’s worked for the likes of 3M, a series of s...

Aviation episode : Father’s Day was just a couple weeks ago and to show my appreciation to my dad, I made him read a book with me. It’s called Return with Honor and it’s by Captain Scott O’Grady, U.S. Air Force retired. The reason I chose this story in particular is because his and my father’s histories overlap somewhat. They were contemporaries in the Air Force, they both did some time in the 555...

Aviation episode: Laura McNerney is a pilot, engineer, skier, climber, mountaineerer, kite-surfer, van-lifer, mountain biker, and the textbook definition of a badass. She ranks among the youngest women ever to join Delta Airlines as a pilot. Today I speak with her about her experience going from building components for intercontinental ballistic missile systems, and having no piloting experience,...

Aviation Episode :  Today I bring you an interview with my dad, Lieutenant Colonel Scott Roberts. As I’ve mentioned before, this podcast is going to jump around a bit between focuses on technology, history, aviation, and travel, as I come across interesting topics and interesting people. I know, it’s somewhat low-hanging fruit to interview your own father, but he’s had a storied career and go...

History episode:  A brief history of nuclear escalation and its nail-biting byproducts Script and sources: https://medium.com/@nickrroberts/broken-arrows-and-almost-annihilations-ca0ff71cdec8 Referenced in the podcast: "The Bomb" Making Sense, Sam Harris: https://samharris.org/podcasts/186-the-bomb/ ,  The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War, Fred Kaplan, Co...