The New Year
Our summer of change, 2018, is officially over. The girls went back to school today. M begins her final year at St. P’s as an 8th grader,[1] C in 6th, L in 4th. The last time all three girls will ever be in the same school building. I think they were relatively excited to go back. M and C were…
The Golfs
I remember hating how much my stepdad and other guys his age loved Jack Nicklaus winning the 1986 Masters. I couldn’t believe they wanted some washed-up, has-been like Jack to win instead of the brash, exciting, much younger Greg Norman. If my stepdad was still around, he would have been laughing at me yesterday as I watched most of Tiger…
Reaching for the Stars, Vol. 11
Chart Week: August 5, 1989 Song: “18 and Life” – Skid Row Chart Position: #32, 5th week on the chart. Peaked at #4 the week of September 23. These late 80s countdowns are not my favorites. By 1987 my tastes were drifting away from mainstream, Top 40-style music. Emphasis on the word drifting, because I still liked plenty of music…
Settling In
Another pretty busy weekend in the books and now we’re suddenly just over a week from school starting. Yikes! C went to King’s Island amusement park with a friend on Friday. L had two birthday parties over the weekend. M had two friends over Sunday night. We took them all to Top Golf, they slept over, and we made a…
Friday Vid
“Leave It Alone” – Amanda Shires. This song totally blew my mind this week. Shires is Jason Isbell’s wife and a member of his backing band, The 400 Unit. When I first began exploring his music, I checked out some of the songs she had recorded in the past. They leaned a little too country for my tastes. But her…
On Venmo and Privacy
I’ve been using the Venmo payment service for a few years. Mostly I use it to pay my sister-in-law, who is a personal chef, for the meals she makes for us weekly. When I first signed up for the service, I thought it was strange that I could see a timeline of all the transactions of my friends who also…
Old TV + Reader’s Notebook
As I’ve documented here many times over the years, sometimes I get paralyzed by the many options I have for watching quality TV. There is a long list of shows that I need to go back and watch, but I’m always torn about where to start, whether to watch one to completion on its own or to start several at…
Weekend Wrap
It is a dreary, rainy Monday. A good day to just lie around and not do anything. Which is a good thing since about half the house is out of commission thanks to a stomach bug that is still working its way through the house. Not especially good timing for that as last weekend was a big family gathering for…
Reading for the Stars, Vol. 10
Chart Week: July 10, 1982 Song: “Play the Game Tonight” – Kansas Chart Position: #17, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #17 for three weeks. I would guess I heard this song approximately once in a quarter century before I heard it at, of all places, a high school football game a few years back. In the hour of…
Camps and Sports
It is another camp week for us, which means the house is a little quieter. M is spending her week at CYO camp an hour south. We dropped her off Sunday. Although we drove through rain on the way there, we did not have to walk through a deluge to get to her cabin as we did with C in…