Someone in my neighborhood decided that Saturday, October 29th, would be our official “trick or treat” night. I don’t remember a discussion or being asked or voting on it or anything like that. Someone I don’t know announced the change on my neighborhood’s Facebook page, the official source of information for what’s happening in my neighborhood, and that was that. Fortunately my wife saw the announcement and had our candy bowl ready, else we would have been confused the first time children in costumes rang our bell Saturday night which, and I think I’ve already made my point here, was… (read more)

Over the weekend Susan and I attended Morgan’s high school marching band contest in St. Louis. Susan and I drove to St. Louis last Thursday and spent four days away from home. Yukon’s Friday afternoon performance was good enough to land them a spot in the finals and so the band performed again on Saturday. While Susan and I attended both performances and the awards ceremony Saturday night, that gave us lots and lots of time to explore the city. While Susan has attended several of Morgan’s band competitions (sometimes as a spectator, often as a volunteer), this was my… (read more)

Judy Tenuta, the “Petite Flower, Giver Goddess, Fashion Plate, Saint” as she introduced herself on her first comedy album, passed away from ovarian cancer over the weekend at the age of 72, according to the Associated Press. As a kid, I grew up listening to my parents’ comedy albums — Bill Cosby mostly, although I occasionally spun Richard Pryor and Cheech and Chong records when I could sneak the records into my room. Cosby’s Himself, Eddie Murphy’s Raw, and a never-ending stream of Gallagher specials were in regular rotation on HBO and Showtime in the early 80s. By the time… (read more)

When most people think of “impulse items” at the store they think of candy bars or those magazines on display in the check-out lane. Technically I suppose an impulse purchase is any item you hadn’t specifically intended on purchasing. For me, that happened to be a 12′ Halloween skeleton last weekend which, at $299, cost way more than a candy bar. Home Depot has been selling this particular skeleton for a couple of years now, but finding one has been nearly impossible. They don’t sell a lot of them and I guess because of that, the don’t keep many of… (read more)

For the second year in a row, Susan and I were asked to serve as float judges at our town’s annual Czech Day Festival, which takes place the first October of every year. Once again our friend and former classmate Jaime Olvera organized the annual parade, and both Susan and I were thrilled to take our spots again on stage sitting at the judges’ table. All of the Czech royalty attending the parade wear the fanciest of outfits, and Susan and I felt a little out of place last year in our normal street wear. For this year’s parade, Susan… (read more)

Over the past few days I fell down a rabbit hole while watching free UFO documentaries on Tubi. One documentary I watched was The Urzi Case: A UFO Mystery in the Skies of Italy. Ten years ago I wrote a blog post titled UFO Sightings: Who Not to Trust. Three untrustworthy groups I mentioned were “people who have communicated with aliens several times”, “people who have filmed UFOs on multiple occasions”, and “any UFO footage that comes out of Mexico.” Antonio Urzi falls into the first two categories, and almost everyone else involved falls into the third. Most of the… (read more)

On Sunday, after conquering Mount Scott (in our car) and filling our bellies at Meers, Susan and I made our way to Medicine Park. Medicine Park is a small resort town in the Wichita mountains near Lawton, Oklahoma. According to Wikipedia, the population of Medicine Park as of 2010 was 384 people. The first thing most people notice when entering Medicine Park are these round cobblestones, which are literally everywhere. The cobblestones are naturally formed, made of granite, and unique to Wichita mountains. When we asked a local where they find them, he said “dig six inches and you’ll find… (read more)

This year my wedding anniversary fell on a Friday, which meant my birthday was Monday. Susan and I took Friday and Monday off work to have an extended four-day weekend. We had originally planned to spend the weekend in Eureka Springs, but ended up cancelling those plans. Susan’s backup plan was to rent a camper van for the weekend, but the renter backed out on us at the last minute. Instead, we ended up driving our own vehicle to Medicine Park, OK, and stayed overnight in a tiny house village made of shipping containers. This change of plans allowed us… (read more)

I saw the first lizard in our driveway about a month ago while I was outside working on my van. It was a hot day, well over 100 degrees, and it wasn’t until I removed my glasses to wipe the stinging sweat from my eyes that I saw something on the ground move. Sitting just a few feet away from me in front of my workshop’s garage door was a small lizard. With my glasses back on I saw that the lizard was looking back at me. After watching the lizard for a few minutes and taking a few photos… (read more)