• Dads and Dishwashers

    The dishwasher is a constant source of battle in our house. As I considered it this week, while once again rearranging dishes my kids put in the wrong spots, I realized I am never more of a Dad than when I’m correcting how they put dishes into the dishwasher. “These can’t go on the bottom rack, they stick through and…

  • Weekend Notes

    First off, obviously some changes to the site’s look. Big changes, for now. I know it’s a little jarring and I’m not sure if I’ll stick with it, but as I was doing some other administrative work, I figured why not throw up a theme that looks like nothing else I’ve used in my 17-year blogging career? I’m happy to…

  • Friday Playlist

    It looks like it has been nearly a month since I shared new music in a Friday post. That has left quite a backlog. So let’s get caught up with a mega-playlist to take us into Father’s Day weekend. “Carousels” – Doves. The first new Doves song in over a decade, and it does not disappoint. Sounds mature yet maintains…

  • Reader’s Notebook, 6/17/20

    The Border – Don Winslow For an author, finishing a trilogy has to be difficult. Especially when you didn’t set out to write a three-book series to begin with. This is the final entry in Winslow’s excellent Power of the Dog series, in which he unfurls the epic story of the rise and fall of a Mexican drug empire and…

  • This ‘n’ That

    Before I get to some more notes on what’s been going down around here, a quick warning that I’m going to be doing some of my patented “jacking around with the blog” over the next few days. I’m hoping I can do it in a way that doesn’t prevent you from finding the site when you look for it. If…

  • Roughin’ It

    It’s been a few days. A couple of you checked in – which I appreciate – and all is well. The girls and I spent a few days out in the wilderness. OK, that might be overstating it a bit, but here’s a breakdown. We went with our old neighbors to Turkey Run state park, about two hours east of…

  • Lazy Days Already

    Just a couple weeks in and we’ve already entered the lazy days of summer. Swim most days. Have some family or small group of friends over on the weekends. Hope it doesn’t rain yet complain when it’s too hot. That happens quick when there’s no place else to go. S popped into the nearest mall one day last week to…

  • Ten Influential Albums

    I think I’m done with Facebook for awhile. I’m not a huge user to begin with. But over the past week I’ve been disappointed at both Mark Zuckerberg’s continued stance that FB has no role to play in reining in posts that are meant to deliberately mislead people and spread lies and with a few friends who have posted/shared things…

  • Friday Playlist

    Another week in the books that was a little worse than the week before. I don’t know what the end point is, when things will start getting better, but I fear where the next worst week will take us. For this week’s playlist, some songs that both sum up what’s happening and how I feel about it. Not the most…

  • What I’m Watching, May 2020

    My goal for May was to knock a bunch of movies off my To Watch list. At first glance it will look like I did exactly that. But I must admit I watched eight of these movies in that last nine days of the month. That was solid work! The Last Dance Well, shit, I never got around to writing…