Horse Manure Park

I read that today is National Coffee Day. Who comes up with this stuff? Not that I have anything against coffee. Oh heavens, no! Every damn day is national coffee day in my life. Coffee is my elixir; my cure for all things dark and dreary. In fact, on this overcast and chilly autumn afternoon, guess what I'm drinking? You guessed it. I'm kidding. Coffee it is. Specifically, Caribou Daybreak, even though it is nowhere near daybreak at the moment. Hell, I will probably be swilling this stuff well into the evening hours. And by 10:00 PM, I will be deeply regretting my decision. I will cross that bridge when I come to it. But what can I say? I love coffee. Good, strong coffee. And best of all, the Surgeon General has decided that it won't kill me now.   This is still the Surgeon General, right? He's the only one I'm familiar with, so I'm guessing there's been no change in the past 35 years. I remember my introduction to coffee. I was a fresh...

I always enjoy a good read and thanks to a recommendation from my old friend, Jon, I just finished an excellent one. The Rising Tide by Jeff Shaara was first published ten years ago and documents Operations Torch, Husky and Avalanche during World War II. But it is way more than just that... it's a good story revealing the human element of men whose names are larger than life. This is hardly Shaara's only work of historical fiction. Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure are just part of his impressive profile. While this is a novel and there are a handful of fictional characters, it is based on real events, real places and real people. Shaara undoubtedly invested thousands of hours in research (in the foreword he mentions he prides himself on historical accuracy) and the novel's narrative flows effortlessly in Shaara's very readable style. The book was particularly interesting to me because my father was a part of both Operation Torch and Operation Aval...

I could categorize this weekend as "first world problems" for myself. Petty stuff, I know, considering some people don't know where their next meal is coming from or don't have clean water to drink. Still, they're my problems. It started last night when I tripped walking up the steps while carrying my iPad (yes, I was still sober at this point). My left forearm hit the stairs and my right hand (with iPad) reached out to break my fall. Somehow the iPad still works, but the case didn't fare so well. I almost had my excuse to get a new iPad since mine is old and S-L-O-W. Maybe better luck next time. Also, yesterday I solidified my reputation as a wold class computer-illiterate moron.  I wanted to update my Mac with the new Sierra operating system. I decided to back up my iTunes data via external hard drive (good idea, Sam). It had been five years since I backed up anything (yes, five years) and I could not remember how to do it. I went to the Apple web s...