I kept a secret for the last year, but now it's time to let that secret escape.

In September of 2016, our beloved Ford Focus fell victim to a guy trying to turn into traffic with the setting sun in his eyes. We replaced it with what became equally beloved, a 2014 Ford Escape, which I call burgundy but which is technically ruby red.


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I'm not even sure how to start when it comes to Covid. As a writer I'm a professional smart-ass, but with this I got my ass kicked, and didn't feel too smart about it.

Illness or injury traditionally accompany our vacations: Last December Emily and I came down with the flu when we were supposed to visit her family and friends in Missouri. This ( Read more... )

What do you get for the woman who has everything?

Or more importantly, what do I get for my wife? She certainly doesn't have everything, but I can't afford a winter house in Hawaii, and the whole hiding a horse in our garage thing didn't work out well at all.


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 Seven years ago, I swore I would never, EVER drive in Chicago again ( Read more... )

 The Fifth of March is my eleventh wedding anniversary, so I checked and found out the traditional gift for that particular landmark is ... steel ( Read more... )

As mentioned before, I don't usually write about bad stuff unless it can somehow be made funny. Well, funny to me. That's why I haven't said much about Emily and I both being sick through the entire month of December, and now into January ( Read more... )

Who's a proud grandpa? I'm a proud grandpa!

We were down with the flu all week, so I'm just now getting a chance to post some photos from Lilli's 5th birthday party. Also, I didn't take all that many photos--I was busy eating pizza. But it was great, because all four of my grand-kids were there in the same place, and I don't get to see that very ( Read more... )

(You can read the original version of this--and see a cute picture of our dog--over at the newsletter:  https://mailchi.mp/1de8decbbe08/ive-become-an-interstate-sensation?e=[UNIQID]I was featured in VoyageMichigan ( Read more... )

Thanks to everyone for your birthday wishes! There got to be so many that I wasn't able to respond individually, so I pretended I was Neil Gaiman and couldn't respond to all my fans. Sadly, I wasn't able to duplicate the accent, or the looks, or all those book sales.

I did intend to ask everyone to buy one of our books for my birthday, which would ( Read more... )