Reader’s Notebook, 1/7/26
My final four books of 2025, which ended up being my most prolific reading year on record. Appropriately, and I’m not making this up, I read 67 books last year. Honest to God! SIX SEVEN!!!! Cross, Sanctuary, The Devil – Ken Bruen Three more entries in Bruen’s brilliant Jack Taylor series, read over roughly a week. Somehow they are getting…
Fitness Update
A few more catch up posts I need to crank through before we officially turn our backs on the old year. The final quarter of 2025 ended up being my worst workout stretch of the year. Not a huge surprise, as the weather turned, I had a couple weeks of foot pain, I spent several days shuttling C back-and-forth as…
Holiday Break Notes
Shut down the blog for nearly two weeks and there’s a lot to catch up on. I’m sure none of you want to get back to work anyway, so consider this a public service on my part. Holiday Stuff It was your standard Christmas around our house. I spent nearly all Christmas Eve day prepping, making five casseroles for Christmas…
December Media
The Usual Suspects Elf Christmas Vacation A Christmas Story A+, A+, A+ Holiday Baking Championship Well, they did it. After how ever many years of watching these holiday baking shows – at least a decade – the Food Network finally drove me away. Following the semi-debacle that was this year’s Halloween Baking Championship, I was hoping things would return to…
Friday Playlist
“The New Year’s Resolution” – SpielbergsI made just one resolution this year, and I already broke it. Such is life. “Fighting Back” – VoxtrotVoxtrot had a little moment during the blog rock era in the 2000s. Next month they will release their first album in 19 years. On this lead single they sound like they haven’t missed a beat…
End Of Another One
For my readers who have followed me here for years – thank you all! – you know my brain works in very linear/circular ways.[1] I’m very into the rhythms of the year: the flow from week-to-week, the changing of the seasons, when school begins and ends, etc. Something was ingrained in my brain when I was young, or perhaps I…
Favorite Songs of 2025
Once again we have reached the end of a calendar year and one of the greatest days of the blogging year: the unveiling of my favorite songs of 2025. This year the process was as fun as I can recall. As you know, I keep a running list throughout the year, constantly shuffling songs in and out as they catch…
Christmas Playlist
Time to close up Ye Olde Blogge Shoppe for the Christmas holiday. To celebrate I’m going to offer a playlist I last shared a couple years back that features some of my favorite Christmas music deep cuts. Some of these are fun, some are wonderful, all of them are terrific. Merry Christmas to all my readers!
Weekend Notes
A relatively chill weekend for us without any of our football teams playing and no KU basketball. Power Out Friday morning I was jolted out of bed around 5:30 when high winds sent a tree or branch into a power line located a couple hundred feet from our back windows. The sky lit up with all the fun colors that…
Friday Playlist
I am putting the finishing touches on my Favorite Songs of 2025 list. Not sure if it will get posted before or after Christmas, but it is getting very close, my friends! For this week’s playlist I’ll share the songs that were in the running for the final list but just missed. “Afraid Of Guns” – MotorbikeBest…