Great-on Beach, or my wife may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night..

Other than ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’, Nirvana is often achieved with two beach chairs, an umbrella, an ocean (or gulf), a good book, a cool breeze and someone special with which to share the aforementioned items.  Thanks to intelligent design of Grayton Beach (lotsa dunes and beautiful beach), the moon (for the tides), and ‘The [...]

Baseball where it’s meant to be..

Meant to be watched, that is…In a bar with the sound down.   An engineer, a high school basketball coach, a Radio Shack manager, a executive car deliver-er, and a state employee walk into a bar, just like they have for the past 25 years.  The bar is Brown’s Diner, and the occasion is annual: The [...]

Magdalena

That’s Magdalena on the left (my wonderful daughter on the right). Magdalena is Erin’s ‘host sister’. She’s 16 years old and tighter than a tick with my daughter. This picture is from a restaurant in Lima where we ate the best cerbiche’ known to man.
Magdalena doesn’t have any English and my Spanish [...]

Why the trip was worth it and why I’d go through it all again

No, no..not to see a picture of me. It was worth every stinking delay, the getting sick on the plane part back to the states, the fun of the hospital in Miami, including the 14 hours in an emergency room bed next door to a man wearing a loose robe and a thong [...]

For your Peru-sal..this is where i’m gonna be for a while..

Looking forward to seeing the daughter. And for what it’s worth, if you are a burglar or have plans on intruding, one of the sons and the dogs will be at the house to greet ya. Back in a week or so.
Go Vandy!!

The political* speech you’ll never hear

Ladies and Gentlemen, fellow congressmen/governors/senators/legislators/teammates:
I have disgraced my office/team, and more importantly my marriage and my family. No one has figured out what I’m doing. My name will not be appearing in court papers, in any blogs or in the mainstream media. I’ve been committing adultery/embezzling funds/taking bribes/having sex with interns/consorting with gay [...]

Most people or, it’s the baseball that has the grip on me..

Most people would not choose to fly to New York in the dead of winter, AFTER Christmas.  Most people flying to NY would at least visit Manhattan, stay in Manhattan or Brooklyn.  That’s most people..
Me..i’m flying into Kennedy in a few hours, then taking the Air Train to Jamaica Plains (not THAT Jamaica, the warm [...]

Those bastards stole the day

My dad was born on 9/11/1926.   He died in 1986 and although I still miss him and would like to send a hearty ‘up yours’ to the damn cancer that took him out, I am glad he didn’t have to see 9/11/2001.   Until that horrid day, 9/11 had always been a specially wonderful day for [...]

No respect, no respect, I tell ya..

I came into the office this evening to run a couple of jobs that I wasn’t able to do while I was in K-ville. This is what greeted me in the hallway:

There were a half-dozen of these signs. And, in the entrance of my cubicle, I was greeted with:

Clearly, an overload [...]

From 60 to zero, and back again - shaken up in and by Peru

The world is certainly a tricky place. One day you’re celebrating a significant anniversary and you’re happy and sassy and thankful and feeling cozy and the next day there’s an earthquake in Peru. At first when I heard there was an earthquake outside of Lima, I felt bad, but not scared, because [...]

It was thirty years ago today…

ten years after Sargeant Pepper taught the band to play, we got married.  I spoke of this earlier, but since today is THE day, I want to say Happy Anniversary to my wonderful wife Lynn, and a big ‘you better be appreciative’ to my kids out there.  Your genetic oleo would have existed no where [...]

Your Sunday morning homily

We had the privilege of hearing Don Schlitz (and Fred Knobloch and Thom Schulyer) under the stars last night out at Dyer Observatory. You’ve heard some of his songs, even if you don’t know the name - ‘The Gambler’, ‘Forever and Ever, Amen’ and many many many more).
Besides the wonderful tunes, he shared [...]

August is a big month for us..or, Thank you Elvis

Thirty years ago a quiet young woman married a long-haired young man who wasn’t quite so quiet. Both the bride and the groom wanted a small quiet wedding. They managed to obtain the beautiful front room of a brownstone in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. They only invited family and close [...]

If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues; morphine..or morphine is bueno bueno..

Actual conversation at Baptist Hospital between my wife and the charge nurse after i was moved from ICU* to a regular room:
Wife: My husband is in 7625 …could he have a cup of water?
Nurse: He’s not there yet.
Wife: yes, they brought him down a few minutes ago
Nurse: no, he’s not there yet.
I had been [...]

Lounging at the Bounce B to Beantown Bash, or, I’m too much like Jimmy Swaggart (I like to watch…)

Here’s the sad deal. I can’t sing. I mean, I really really really can’t sing. I would love to sing. I can lip synch like a mofo. I really can’t dance, but I do understand where the beat belongs. I also can’t drink. It’s not a moral or [...]

A recent quote from the daughter’s blog…

made me snicker…
My host mom told me that I had gotten really good at washing my clothes by hand, and finally that meant I could get married. Shoot me

A brief note about the new header…

There are no extant pictures of the immediate fam where all five people are looking at the camera. Apparently, we are easily distracted. My oldest son (to my right, your left) always looks at the camera, because he’s an engineer and it makes sense to look at the camera. The event [...]

Happy Day - Mother, or not

We have three ‘kids’. I say kids because to me they will eternally remain my ‘children’ despite the fact that none of them live at home and are all well into their 20’s. I don’t write about my sons much because they live here in town and I want to protect their [...]

The gospel according to John…

From a recently discovered manuscript - The Dead Sea Blog..
And they came to Him, wanting new rules. Even though their own rules, such as zero tolerance, three strikes - life sentence, and councilmanic courtesy really hadn’t worked out all that well, some people just flat need rules. So He said, ‘ok, if ya [...]

Zoning in…still life at the Metro Council Meeting

The Salemtown Neighbors Association showed up at the Metro Council Meeting last night.   It was ‘public hearing’ night.  The agenda for the meeting was approximately 12 pages long.  ‘Our’ issue was on page 8.
Our issue was a bill to permit a developer to flood a nearby tract of land with duplexes.  We weren’t asking for [...]