Horse Manure Park

It is the last day of 2016. Thank you for "tuning in" to read my posts; it is a rare event when something new pops up here (and I really must change that). If I was a true believer in resolutions, I would resolve to write more. But my cynical side tells me I am setting myself up for failure. The excuses will fly left and right why I don't post more often. Instead, I will write today -- mark time as the year ends -- and see what tomorrow brings. The past year was very memorable, but for mostly the wrong reasons. So many famous people in the entertainment industry died this year and I've taken a few minutes to compile a list (certainly not exhaustive): David Bowie Alan Rickman Dan Haggerty  Glenn Frey Abe Vigoda Maurice White  Harper Lee (author of To Kill a Mockingbird ) Sir George Martin  Frank Sinatra, Jr. Garry Shandling  Patty Duke Merle Haggard Prince Morley Safer Elie Wiesel (author of Night ) Garry Mashall Gene Wilder Bobby Vee Kay Sta...

Way back on 25 October 2007 I made my first blog post. That was almost nine years ago. For a while I was a blogmaster. I wrote constantly about my life and times. Then this turd called Facebook came along and I pretty much abandoned my beloved blog. Blogging became mundane. It was stupid. I mean, nobody wrote blogs anymore. Now I've come full circle. I've not been here at Blogger.com for some time. In fact, it was called Blogspot.com last time I was here. They've done a lot of cool improvements. I like it. And it's free. In the meantime, I've come to despise the world of Facebook. I enjoy connecting and communicating with family and friends, but there are also many jerk-offs on Facebook. Not long ago, Facebook must have changed a setting with one of their updates. Suddenly, people you don't know - complete strangers - can read stuff you write if you have a mutual friend who has commented/liked a posting of yours. Now, this is a problem, because those stra...

I just flew in from Vegas, and boy are my arms tired. But seriously, folks... Yes, we just returned from our first "real" vacation in 11 years, just me and the Speaker, and our two great friends, Brian and Lindsey, who were kind enough to invite us along to enjoy their timeshare for a week. I am jotting down a few thoughts (mostly for myself) while they are still fresh in my ever-fading memory. Some (most?) will find it boring, but it's my blog... so there. Anyway, the four of us headed to Sin City on Valentine's Day under the pretense of celebrating our anniversaries. Brian and Lindsey will be married 25 years in June. The Speaker and I will be married 20 years in September.  But mostly we just wanted to get the hell away from the snow and cold and have a little fun. And that's exactly what we did. First and foremost, a big thank you to Grandma for watching our two tax deductions so we could enjoy some time away. There was some separatio...

I'm attempting to make a few changes today, because I know when there's too much on my plate. I am speaking in figurative terms here. I never seem to know when there's literally too much on my plate. I eat everything within my ZIP code (figuratively). Especially pastries. I love me some pastries. But let me get back to my original thought... whatever that was. I shouldn't have mentioned doughnuts. Oh yeah, I was talking about changes.... Today I opted not to renew the domain name for my football web site (thelonepylon.com). It was a difficult decision, but this is about knowing one's limits: there are not enough minutes in the day for me to keep a fantasy football site up-to-date with accurate and timely information. The problem is this: I am gainfully employed, I have a couple of tax deductions, and occasionally I try to be a reasonably adequate husband. (You know, minor details.) This means something's got to give. And why pay money for a d...

Ever have one of those mornings when you have absolutely nothing planned for the day except to whip up a tasty Bloody Mary, watch a  Hogan's Heroes  marathon, and eat as much bacon as humanly possible? Then something totally unexpected comes up and, without warning, you find yourself knee-deep in the hoopla (to borrow a terrible line from a terrible song by a terrible band). Has that ever happened to you? Such was the case for me last Sunday. It started innocently enough.  The Girl and I were spending some quality father/daughter time early in the morning, snuggling in my easy chair with a blanket.  We talked about school, types of wolves, crayons vs. colored pencils vs. markers, the virtues of cheese pizza, how far away the moon was from the earth... You know, your typical eight year-old idle chatter. Then she suggested that we watch t.v. and said, "Let's watch one of your shows, Dad." It was too early for football, so I turned on the Science ...

We spent the Fourth of July holiday deep in the heart of North Dakota.  The five days we spent there as guests of the Baumann's reminded me why North Dakota was recently crowned the beer drinking capital of the United States. Too much of a good thing is never a bad thing, however. Even though the start of the vacation was met with a bit of bad news - the Independence Day parade was cancelled in Mandan due to lightening - we rallied and had a great time anyway. Good food, cold beer and great company.  Can't beat it. Here are a few pictures of our adventure west.  I know not many will be interested in these, but just to mark time, I am posting them. I think the highlight for the kids (other than taking the pontoon on the Missouri river and swimming on a sandbar for the day... and getting a bit too much sun along the way) was a visit to the North Dakota State Heritage Center at the state capitol. The Center had a very impressive display of Native American an...