Grandma O’Hara, my last living grandparent, passed away over the weekend. She was 85 years old. I could tell you a million different things and facts and stories about my grandma and will probably share a few of them with you this week, but for some reason the only one that comes to mind right now is the time my grandma sent me a shrunken head for Christmas. I suppose a lot of older people take part time jobs after they retire and my grandma was no exception. Some grandmas work at food banks and retirement homes and hospitals. Grandma… (read more)

I’ve been working for the FAA now in one capacity or another (both as a contractor and a federal employee) for almost 20 years. I recently shared the story of my first day of work at the FAA with a co-worker and decided to capture and re-share the story here as well. (SOURCE. Note: No one is allowed to take pictures on federal property without prior written consent. The pictures used in this article came from Google Images. I did not take them.) This story begins as many of my stories from the 80s and 90s begin, with a phone… (read more)

When we bought our current home back in 2011 we also bought a new washer and dryer. I don’t remember why we bought a new washer and dryer. I don’t even remember being dissatisfied with our old ones. I guess Susan just wanted new appliances for the new house. We bought our new washer and dryer from Hahn’s. I consider Hahn’s to be the Aldi’s of appliance stores. I don’t mean that negatively. Hahn’s sells things inexpensively because they don’t spend money on superfluous things in their showroom, like carpet. Also if I recall our Hahn’s was having a grand… (read more)

Susan being away from home for a week isn’t anything new. In her last position at work she was visiting Washington DC up to one week each month. We have a pretty good system for when this happens. Before she leaves, Susan cleans the house and stocks the refrigerator with easy-to-prepare frozen meals. Then the kids and I spent the entire week eating out for every meal and leaving trash everywhere. A few hours before Susan is set to arrive home, I wheel in one of the big outside trash dumpsters into the entry hallway and spend a few minutes… (read more)

I don’t remember life before this toybox. My dad made this toybox for me for Christmas in 1974, when I was still a year old. As far as toyboxes go it was quite large, especially considering the size of my room at the time. Our house at the time was 983 square feet. According to my mom, my bedroom was 8×10 (my sister’s was 8×9 and the master bedroom was 9×11). I distinctly remember being able to do a complete lap around my room — starting on the bed, crossing over to the dresser, climbing over to the toybox and… (read more)

It’s a new year, and I know a lot of you (like myself) made resolutions to get organized. One of the things I want to get a better hold of this year is my digital photo collection. I have a lot of digital pictures. Like, a lot a lot. Like, 50,000+ pictures. I have very few physical photographs around the house (the ones I have are old). All of the pictures I’ve taken during vacations and holidays and of the kids are all digital. I read once that owning a tool but not being able to find it is the… (read more)

As a Star Wars kid growing up, it was impossible to avoid acquiring duplicate action figures. Owning duplicates of some figures made sense. Multiple stormtroopers came in handy to building armies, for example. And then there were figures that nobody really wanted one of, much less multiples. Hammerhead was one of those figures. According to later lore, Hammerhead’s name was actually Momaw Nadon the Ithorian (“Hammerhead” is actually a derogatory term). To kids, Hammerhead was simply that big headed brown alien who we caught a split-second glimpse of in the Mos Eisley Cantina in the original Star Wars. As you… (read more)

On January 1st, 2015, I shut down my BBS. (Yes, you read that date right. 2015, not 1995.) I’ve been messing around with BBSes for almost 35 years now. When I was just a little kid, my dad and his friends ran multiple BBSes. There was PC-X (which ran on a PC XT), the Backdoor BBS (which ran on our PC Jr.), and many others. In the mid-80s, several of my friends ran Commodore 64 BBSes (I think Jeff even ran one after hours for a while). My BBS, The Gas Chamber, didn’t go online until the 90s. It ran… (read more)