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• How about we all try getting by with less ‘stuff’ in our lives?: OK, so this is my little “sermonette” (or just a rant?) for today: Maybe our nation and our world would be in better shape all around if we just all [...]
• Heat spell makes me fantasize about travel plans from long ago: I’m sitting in the middle of a nasty stretch of hot, humid summer here in the Missouri Ozarks wishing I were someplace cooler. This early summer heat spell, I confess, [...]
• Older I get, more I enjoy my sense of humor about politics, religion: I find that the older I get, the more I appreciate having an active sense of humor — particularly when it comes to the Big Duo of cultural discussion here [...]
• Thinking I am brontophobic — no, it has nothing to do with literature: I think I’ve found a label for one of the problems I’ve developed in recent years: brontophobia, a fear of lighting and thunderstorms. It’s also called astraphobia, keraunophobia, or tonitrophobia. [...]
• Home repairs offer harsh distraction from news, newspapers: Sometimes I sit here trying to keep informed and make at least somewhat intelligent comments about “the news” — then sometimes I just get, should we say, distracted by home [...]
• A useless personal ‘rant,’ I suppose, but here goes anyway …: Sometimes you just gotta RANT. And when you’ve got to rant, well, the only way to get it out of your system is by ranting, then moving on. I keep [...]
• My respect for these chain store customer service guys grew: I have to admit that I’ve never been a fan of a certain Big Box national franchise that sells electronics and entertainment products. (I won’t name them, but their store [...]
• Personal note: Yesterday’s physical went surprisingly well: I try to be very upfront about anything I discuss here, and that includes a couple of personal health facts: 1) I currently have no health insurance, and, 2) I [...]
• Gossip mongers of the world — give it a rest with Tiger: Gossip mongers of the world, whether you call yourselves “journalists” or whatever label you use — give it a rest with Tiger Woods. It truly distresses me that so-called “news” [...]
• Holiday season offers unexpected contact with old friends: My wife and I had Christmas dinner today with several hundred old friends, most of whom we rarely see anymore. She and I both worked for several years at the [...]
• Getting ready to juggle travel plans, online business: For the first time in a few years, we now own a car that’s dependable enough for us to trust taking it on a long trip. The old jalopy we [...]
• My tile work will never rival remnants of antiquity: I was looking around the Internet using Almighty Google to research some information about tiles and how they were used in the ancient world. Made originally from baked clay, then [...]
• Show respect when you use term ‘pond scum,’ please: I was reading an interesting article online earlier today about the wonders of wildlife some urban grade school kids experienced when they went on a field trip to a nearby [...]
• Vacations renew the spirit, sometimes really tire out the body: It had been more than two years since my wife and I had a vacation, so last week and over the weekend, we took a bit of a “mini-vacation.” Didn’t [...]
• Just canceled my Twitter account: For those of you who have been following me on Twitter — nothing personal, but I just canceled/deleted my Twitter account. I simply could NOT justify the monumental waste of [...]
• If I were designing my own new home, I would …: My post awhile ago regarding homeownership, apartment living, and our friendly neighborhood bat colony started me thinking about what it would be like to have unlimited resources to design and [...]
• Ruminating about apartment living … and a house with bats: All right, I admit it: There are probably many more pressing issues out there I could ruminate about than apartments and apartment living. But as a 30-year+ homeowner, I was [...]
• Fans rejoice — football season only weeks away: All of us football fans out there are rejoicing — the new football season is only weeks away. (Caveat, when I say “football,” I’m talking about American football, not the [...]
• New school year probably means doing some moving: Ah, the joys of each new school year in America. I remember them well, both as a student and as a parent of students, and none of those memories move [...]
• What’s the point of all the comments, commentary, attitudes, anyway?: One of the beauties of owning a blog like this one is that if you choose to do so, you can simply rant. Today appears to be one of my [...]
• Ah, okay, I’ve gone back to good old ‘Downtown Java’ theme: Ah, well, okay, you win. I decided to go back to the good old “Downtown Java” theme instead of that glitzy little number I had up for a couple of [...]
• Zowie! How’s this for a cool looking down-to-business blog theme??: I can’t believe how I stumbled onto this nifty new blog theme. It’s a bit “busy” in terms of design, i.e., somewhat distracting to the eye. But I think I [...]
• Sometimes I just feel like spiffing up the old website: If you hang around here often, you’ll see that I’ve made a couple of changes to the “decor” of the place. Sometimes you just feel like spiffing up the old [...]
• I wish you the very best of everything for 2009!: My very best wishes go out to you for 2009! I saw a cartoon in today’s local paper with a guy and his wife barricaded in their home, speaking to [...]
• Not superstitious, but sometimes I think this old house is haunted: I’m not a superstitious person (I don’t THINK I am, anyway) but sometimes I think this old house of ours is haunted — or maybe it’s just out to get [...]
• What adventures await in your new year?: The fun thing about a new year is trying to imagine what adventures await, both good and bad, as we look forward to it? President-Elect Barak Obama has his bags [...]
• To me at least, pomposity seems off the mark for Christian leaders: I wonder — do they make a diet pill designed to trim down “fatheads”? Oh, of course I know they don’t. But the last post I made has me thinking [...]
• Here’s a tip for you — growing old isn’t particularly fun or funny: You’ve probably heard the term “growing old gracefully.” Or maybe that’s “graciously,” I’m not sure. I AM sure, though, that growing old is nothing like I imagined it would be. [...]
• Why can’t otherwise smart people get it right regarding marriage?: I have been married for just over 41 years. My wonderful wife, Shirley, and I have had our shares of squabbles and ups and downs, but in truth I can [...]
• Do you buy office supplies? Do you ever buy them online? How does that work for you?: Funny what a person thinks about sitting in the midst of a rainstorm looking at a computer screen. In my case, the old mind turned toward office supplies — what [...]
• The freelance gigs were running out so I had to take a ‘day job’: I titled this website “Just a Guy Who Reads the Papers” because I wanted to emphasize that I’m no one really talented or special, just a guy who reads the [...]
• Obama appears to be side-stepping Clinton, tackling McCain: Remember that often-quoted line from the baseball-diamond-in-a-corn-field-movie? “If you build it they will come,” or something like that I think. That appears to be Barak Obama’s latest campaign tactic: If [...]
• Speaking of old homes and repairs — don’t even get me started on ceiling fans and ants: Forgive me for doing so much personal moaning and groaning here. This has been the sort of week already that’s just about driven me up the wall — up the [...]
• Little joy living in a 100-year-old house — especially when we’ve been here 28 of those years: Ah, the joys of having a small income and an old house. Well, not REALLY all that joyful. Our house was built in 1907. We bought it as a “fixer-upper” [...]
• Easter Sunday — musings on a special day and what it meant to me and my family: I’m not trying to get preachy or sermonize here, but this is a special day for my family, Easter Sunday, and this particular Easter has been very “up and down” [...]
• Personal rant: Clock radio technology has passed me by: Okay, that’s it: I’m going to sound like a truly grumpy old curmudgeon here — I should not have to spend most of a day of my life driving from [...]
• When the storms of life hit — you’d better learn to duck: Wow. In the city where I live, I feel lucky right now. We had something like 15 hours of severe weather entertain, amuse, and amaze us overnight Monday. It wasn’t [...]
• Wow, what happened? Another year slipped by so quickly — Happy New Year!: No getting around it, time goes by faster when you get older. I’ve heard about some psychological studies that have been done on our perceptions of time and the passage [...]
• Playing catch-up: My webhost crashed big time and I’m starting over: Hey, faithful readers out there. I thought I’d bring you up to date on some major problems/changes in the last few days. On Sunday morning — December 16 — I [...]