September 2, 2024

Carolina Renaissance Festival

Hi de ho all. Well, tryin’ to get back on the horse a little bit, posting more frequently. Anywho, last year, before our scheduled house move in, Jourdan and Stefani invited us to come down to Durham the week of my birthday, and we would go to the Carolina Renaissance Festival. This was to be a rather tumultuous time in our schedule as we were literally planning to move from Fairfax to Williamsburg the week before. Unfortunately the house wasn’t quite ready yet (no occupancy permit, and as of this time no gas), so it was going to be a bit of a juggle. To add fun to the mix…

August 7, 2024

Luray Caverns

Well, firstly, Mea culpa. I’ve completely forgotten you over the past several months. My apologies. I honestly have no excuse whatsoever. Just a general lack of motivation. In times past, I would sit at the bar on Sunday morning (ish) and craft a blog message for my faithful followers, which I’m completely certain have all disappeared by now. Now that every day is weekend, it’s completely fallen off the map. Anyway, as the move in day approached last year, we started looking at things to do in the area, Northern Virginia, that might not be so easy once we were in South-Eastern Virginia. I pinged Meghan to see if’n she…

April 30, 2024

Farewell dude……

On the 19th of April, Meghan called the house. Melanie picked up the phone and Meghan asked to get me on the line as well. Of course my first question was “are you ok”, and she said yes, but I have to tell you that we lost Bently today. He had collapsed in the back yard and wouldn’t get up. Meghan got Rob to help her pick him up and take him to the emergency vet clinic. An ultrasound indicated some definitely un-natural things going on inside. They said that they could probably save him with emergency surgery, but at best it would only extend things a couple of months….

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…