I've had a pretty sociable week.

Storytelling Show: Saturday night’s storytelling show went well. We had a good and responsive audience. The venue was easier to get to than I expected it to be. And they had an excellent sound system. My story went okay, but I left out a couple of things I had planned to say, but so it goes.

Medicare: I had ( Read more... )

The main reason I am so far behind on writing here is that I’ve taken a couple of semi-local trips, each about a three hour drive away, this month.

Shenandoah Valley: The first trip was to the Shenandoah Valley the first weekend of the month. I drove out to Clifton Forge (a bit west of Lexington, VA) on Saturday, November 5th for the first ( Read more... )

TCC Luncheon: Saturday was a Travelers’ Century Club luncheon. I invited a friend who also travels a fair bit to come along so I got a dose of work-related gossip along with the travel talk. She enjoyed the meeting (as did I) and will probably join as a provisional member. There aren’t too many places where somebody can ask, "Who’s been to ( Read more... )

Celebrity Death Watch: Chuck Barris was a TV producer, responsible for The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show. Dallas Green played for several baseball teams (mostly the Phillies) and managed a few, including some success with the Phillies and remarkable lack thereof with the Mets. Lola Albright was an actress, best known for her ( Read more... )

Celebrity Death Watch: Betsy Bloomingdale was a socialite and fashion icon. Dave Bald Eagle was a Lakota chief who is probably most famous for having acted in the movie "Dances with Wolves." Miss Cleo was a TV psychic. Jack Davis co-founded Mad Magazine. Richard Thompson was a cartoonist ("Cul de Sac") and illustrator. Doug Griffin played ( Read more... )

I’ll write up my weekend trip to New York separately, but here is the rest of the catch-up.

Celebrity Death Watch: Al Molinaro was a character actor who, among other things, played Murray the Cop on The Odd Couple. Fred Thompson was an actor and senator. Helmut Schmidt was the Chancellor of West Germany in the late 1970’s. Allen Toussaint was a ( Read more... )

Celebrity Death Watch: Burt Shavitz had bees (and a related business). James Tate was a poet. Ernie Maresca was a songwriter, notable for "Runaround Sue" and "The Wanderer." Omar Sharif and Roger Rees were actors.

Thing I Want to Make: I just discovered these toy animals made from sock yarn. They’re knitted in a tube and tied like balloon ( Read more... )

I’m leaving for Recouvery tomorrow, so I wanted to get caught up before then. Here is what I’ve been up to.

Las Vegas: Vegas is a good destination for mileage running as: a) airfares are reasonable, b) the distance is enough to be worth accumulating PQM but not so far as to be punishing, and c) you can entertain yourself there easily between ( Read more... )

·For several years, I have been seeking organizational nirvana. I am a complete sucker for organizing tools and, for example, consider hanging file folders to be one of the greatest inventions of my life time. (They are right up there with velcro and Lee press-on nails, but I digress ( Read more... )

Books about organizing often say that one should never have a filing category labeled "miscellaneous." You are supposed to, instead, actually make more folders or just get rid of stuff or something else that I don’t understand. My goal is to have just one "miscellaneous" file. Consider this entry the electronic equivalent.

Celebrity Death ( Read more... )