February 27, 2024

The Allegheny Special

Well, this has been a thorough goof up. Typically I try to present photos in the “relative” order that they were taken. For whatever reason, I’ve managed to completely hose that up. Let’s just say things are out of order and get on with our lives, shall we? My wonderful children went looking for something nice to do in celebration of my retirement last May. What they found was The Allegheny Special. I’m fond of old trains and scenery, and it seemed like a really good photo opportunity. So, the tickets were procured for the July 4th weekend as Jourdan and Stefani were planning on being in town. Let’s preface…

February 18, 2024

The detritus of life……

Firstly, apologies. The blog has gotten left by the wayside of late. No good reason other than lack of desire. That’s pretty pathetic if’n you ask me. We’re still in “transition” at this juncture in the new house, which we are coming up on 5 months of occupation. Life has been full of honey doo’s of late. Most of the general moving in, getting settled stuff is complete at this juncture. We finally got the last of the blinds installed last week and now, pretty much I’m tweaking things. I’ve replaced three light switches with motion sensing switches, in the garage, laundry room and stairwell. After instantiating Home-Assistant, I realized…

January 1, 2024

Happy New Year!

Firstly, let me wish each and every one of your a Happy New Year. May your New Year be filled with new adventures and good fortunes. It’s been a tumultuous year for us. Lot’s of transitions in our lives. The new house: After some 6 months of to-ing and fro-ing, construction began in December of 2022. One year ago, this is what our house looked like: Now, a year later this is what it looks like: My, what a difference a year makes. Melanie and I travelled down from Fairfax to Williamsburg weekly to keep our finger on the construction process. We became good friends with the I-95 corridor in…

December 25, 2023

Merry Christmas

Good morning to all and a very Merry Christmas to each and everyone out there. In years past, I have crafted an early morning Christmas e-mail to blast out to folks. A couple of years ago that morphed into a Christmas blog entry, but alas last year it didn’t get done. Shame on me. Anyway, today we’re here to pick up the baton and reflect on this joyous holiday season with the wonders it brings. We had an “early” Christmas celebration on Saturday with Jourdan, Stefani, Meghan and Dottie here at the new house in Williamsburg. It was a wonderful, peaceful day and the perfect holiday celebration. I’ll talk more about…

September 24, 2023

Stage One

Well, Everything was scheduled for the movers to load up the trucks on Friday and then drive down Saturday morning and unload. And then Ophelia entered the picture. My son sent me a rather panicky text asking if I had seen the weather reports. Well, yes, but no. So doing an in-depth analysis, an executive decision was made to do the loading on Friday as planned and then unload on Monday morning. Based upon the weather reports, the storm should be well clear by then. On Wednesday, I called the movers and they were completely oblivious to the potential of 4″-6″ in Williamsburg… So I asked if we could push…

September 17, 2023

Blogus Interruptus

We haven’t talked much about this, but Melanie and I are building our retirement home in Williamsburg, VA. This has been ongoing seemingly forever at this juncture, but in actuality since December last year. The house is nearing completion, so it’s come time to move again. Ish…. The house is NOT complete and/or ready for occupancy. Prolly won’t be for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately we have to be out of the townhouse that we rented some 2 1/2 years ago by months end. The contactor has agreed that our “worldly goods” can be placed in the house, but he will not have a Certificate of Occupancy. We can’t legally…