Spectacular Dunk

Here is a dunk by Heidelberg's Nate Davis last Saturday during their home game against Trine University of Angola, Indiana. I'm sure that this play went just the way the coach drew it up on his clipboard. Unfortunately, Heidelberg lost 86-76.

Cookie Day

After my Dad passed away, I started to make cut-out sugar cookies at Christmas like he did. Mine are never as precise as his, but they usually taste good. I had just about decided to skip the cookie making this year because we have a lot of work to do this week to get ready for the trip south.

That was until Sue and I stopped in to see my Aunt Esther at Stow-Glen Nursing Home where she lives. During our visit, we talked about Christmas coming soon and Esther was remembering how she used to bake cookies. On the way home I thought to myself, "That woman is going to have some Christmas cookies".

So this afternoon, I made two batches of cookie dough and let it rest in the fridge until tonight. Then I baked and iced 5 dozen Christmas cookies. Tomorrow we will take some of them over to Esther. Hey, I'm not totally unselfish. She's not gettin' 'em all.

A Few Old Pictures From My Mom's Side Of The Family (The Ebners)

Sue and I went to Malvern today to bring home my Mom's sewing machine. It is old but in good condition and has a nice table that is made to hold a sewing machine. We looked at some other things while we were there and found quite a few old pictures. I photographed a few with my phone and have picked some of them to post here. Mom was good at putting names and other information on the back of pictures. That's good because I would not have known some of these people. Jim and I talked about getting all the old pictures scanned and stored on DVD or something. That's in the future. We want to be sure that we don't lose any of the Ebner history.

My Mom and her brother John (mid-1920's)

(that baby carriage is in her bedroom now and in excellent condition)

My grandparents, William (Bill) and Irene (Rennier) Ebner

(This is how I remember them when I was a kid)

The lady in the wheelchair is Mary Ebner, my 2x great-grandmother.

The lady on the left is Ella Rennier, my Grandma's mother. Her husband is partially visible next to her. I don't recall his first name, but it is written on the back of the photograph. The middle of the three women is Ella's mother, whose married name was Worley.

This is my Grandpa Bill when he was serving in the army during WWI.

Another picture of Mom and Uncle Johnny(ready for church)
Mom was shy as a kid. In many pictures, she is looking down)

Here is a picture that I don't remember seeing before. This is Mabel Rennier, my Grandmother's sister. She became Sister Mary Nora, a nun in the order of The Sisters of Notre Dame. I remember going to visit her many times. She was in Norwalk, OH then later in Canton and in Toledo. Sue drove my Mom to Toledo to attend Sister Mary's funeral. She was a wonderful gardener and quite the comedienne. This picture was taken on my grandparent's wedding day. Aunt Mabel, as my Mom called her, was the Maid of Honor. The other picture shows my grandparents on their wedding day.

Tomato Soup 2011

We turned 50 lbs of tomatoes from our garden into 28 pints of tomato soup on Wednesday. Only one pint didn't seal, so we ate that one on Thursday.

Silent Night

On Saturday, November 19, The Akron Derbytown Chorus sang at the 2011 Akron Children's Hospital Tree Festival. This video is one of the songs that we sang and that's me in the second row on the left singing the verse in German. Sue recorded this with my phone and the sound picked up well, but have your computer sound turned up to get the best effect.

Watch Out For The Krampus (if you've been naughty)

Evidently, in some Alpine regions of Europe, a visit from St. Nicholas comes a little earlier in December and is quite a bit more scary.

Check out the "Scary Christmas" link in the top right corner of this blog page.

David Waldon Plays The Beatles-I Should Have Known Better

I Should Have Known Better - remastered

For Howard To See (and others)

Here are some pictures of our new towbar system and our auxiliary braking system.

Christmas In Branson

The Christmas shows start here tomorrow, so it's Christmas in Branson, MO. We had Christmas dinner tonight, a gift exchange and a visit from Cindy Lou Who and The Grinch. But since it is October 31, we decorated the motorhome for Halloween.

Sweaters For Penguins

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Beckwith's Farm

This is a short video done by Channel 3 on a visit to Beckwith's Farm. This farm is on the outer edges of Kent, right here in Portage County. We have gone there to get pumpkins, apples, cider and the wooden horse wall decoration that hangs in our living room.

Alsatian Dancers

Courtesy of "cousin??" Jean-Claude Halter, here are some traditional Alsatian dancers. Except for the hats, the guys are dressed like barbershoppers.

Towing The Bus

Here are some pictures that I took of our motorhome being towed to Craig Smith RV Center in Galion for brake work and some other repairs. The brake work is related to a recall from Workhorse chassis (GM) so hopefully that cost will be covered by Workhorse. The other items, such as some roof leaks, generator check up, etc. were jobs that I was going to have someone do, but since the bus is in this garage, we're having them done now. That way we should be in shape for the trip south later this year.

It was a long day. We had to get up this morning and get all the items that we needed to take home with us transferred to the car. Then we disconnected the water, sewer and electric lines and put the slides in. After fastening everything down inside for safe travel, we waited for the very large tow truck to arrive.

Then we followed the tow truck to the RV Center, got all the repairs authorized, had a late lunch and drove home. Of course, we then had to unload the car and sort everything out to the proper place in the house. We were tired. We did get a bit of a lift from the beautiful sunset shown in the last picture.

Balloon-a-Fair

Here is a slideshow of some of the hot air balloons that we saw on Saturday.

Vintage TV

Sue and I were watching "The Price Is Right" today and I mentioned that I remember the show being quite a bit different when I watched it as a kid. Thanks to YouTube, we can all see how the show, with host Bill Cullen, looked in 1957. Maybe it's just me, but I think that Drew Carey is trying to morph into Bill Cullen.

A Trip Down Guitar Memory Lane

My favorite part of the Lawrence Welk Show, back in the black and white TV era, before the pastel leisure suit band uniforms, was when Buddy Merrill would do a guitar number. Here is Buddy doing a little tribute to Les Paul.



Speaking of Les Paul, here is a video of Les and his wife, Mary Ford, singing and playing along with 24 tracks of music history. I remember the first time that I heard this song on the radio. I had a feeling similar to the one that I had the first time I heard the Beatles. Sort of like, "Did this music come from Earth or from some other galaxy?"

You know that you're pretty good when the guitar model is YOUR NAME!

Second Look At Rolling Ridge Ranch

Here are some videos that are from our visit to the animal park on Wednesday.

Rolling Ridge Ranch Animal Park

This animal park is a short drive from the RV park that we are staying in this week. We went there today, walked around one small part of the exhibit and then took the 1 hour horse-drawn wagon ride to look at hundreds of other animals. We each got a small bucket (or two) of pellet food to feed to the animals. It was a really interesting ride and our Amish driver gave us some good background information about what we were seeing. On the way home, we stopped at The Amish Door restaurant for lunch (after we washed our hands twice).

Here is a slideshow of pictures that I took at Rolling Ridge. There are some videos of the animals that I plan to post later, so stayed tuned.

Pan Music

Mark was in a steel drum band while at Miami U. and became legendary on the instrument while he was living in St. Kitts. He is now thinking about starting a small "pan" band to play in the Cincinnati area. Here is a video of Mark playing some steel drum music.

Notice that Wickett is barking his approval toward the end of the video.

From Bulletin

Summer Music, Food and Relaxation

Sue and I had a great time in Cincinnati over the past weekend. We got to visit with Kris and Mark and Mark's family. We also got to attend the CD release party for Josh Eagle and the Harvest City. Mark is the drummer for the band and has written some of the songs that they have recorded.

After all the excitement of the Saturday night party, with 300 fans dancing to music by JEHC and other bands, we (Mark, Kris, Sue and I) looked for something to do on Sunday that was relaxing and would keep us out of the very hot weather. We decided to have some Mexican food for lunch and then go to a movie. The movie choice was "Cowboys and Aliens". If you like westerns and slimy aliens, you will like this movie. I enjoyed it. The cast certainly featured some well-known actors. I have included a link to more information about the movie in the Hot Links section of this blog.

Now, Sue and I are at Evergreen Park RV Resort in the heart of Amish country near Mount Hope, Ohio. We will be here for a week and plan to do some sightseeing and, of course, eating at some of the many Amish-style restaurants that are in the area. An antique tractor show starts nearby on Thursday and I would like to check that out.

The RV park has great cable TV and WiFi. If we can have this in Amish country, what's the problem with IBE where we stay in the winter?

That Sue Was Quite A Driver, Even In Her Younger Days

I stumbled upon a rare photograph of Sue putting her car, "Clyde" through its paces on her way to McDowell HS. This was when she had a part-time job as a test driver for Motor Trend magazine. I can attest to the fact that her driving talents have not diminished over the years.

After 8 years, We Got A New Car

Even though our two Hyundais were dependable cars and fun to drive, Hyundai does not make a vehicle that can be towed behind a motorhome with all four wheels down. So when we started shopping for a new car a couple of weeks ago, we had to look in another direction. I, for one, will miss the 10 year/100,000 mile warranty.

Thanks to publications from groups like TrailerLife and FMCA, we could identify cars that were able to be towed (we RVers call them Dinghies). As we narrowed our search, we could check online to make sure that towbars, baseplates and all the other stuff was available for the cars that we were still considering.

So yesterday, after the usual friendly haggling, we bought a 2011 Ford Escape XLT from Klaben Ford, right here in Kent, Ohio. Sue and I feel very good about our choice and are having fun learning where all the controls are, etc. It will seem a little strange for us to only have one car, but I think we will be ok. The Elantra, one of our trade-ins, had only about 32,000 miles on it. That's after 8 years! We'll also save a significant amount on insurance, license, etc., without a second vehicle. And, of course, if we find that we really need a second car, next summer I can buy a nice little Porsche two-seater.

(click on the pictures to enlarge them, if you want)

Grape tomatoes from the garden.
They were the inspiration for our choice of color for the car.

Maybe we'll nickname it The Towmato

Between now and the time we head south, we will buy the necessary towing equipment and get it installed. That will involve some more shopping, because there are several different manufacturers, like Blue Ox and Roadmaster, who make these things. We also want to work at selling or trading in the Roadmaster tow dolly that we used to tow the Elantra with the front wheels up. Fortunately we have a lot of time to do this.

So, that is the big news for us this week. Thanks to niece, and Ford employee, Sara , for enabling us to get the X plan, Friends and Family discount on this purchase. She stepped right up and admitted that we were related to her.

Maybe we'll go for a drive after the sun goes down and the temp falls below 90.

Check Out The New "Hot Link"

I used to really enjoy Ripley's Believe It Or Not each day in the newspaper. It isn't in the paper that we subscribe to, so I started getting it emailed to me every day. Beginning today, I have added the link for Ripley's in the Hot Links section at the top right of my blog page. I hope you like it.

Keep On Truckin'

I've been listening to some CDs that Kris made for us a few years ago. On one of them is "Six Days On The Road", the Grateful Dead version. I used to sing this song in the first band that I joined back in the early 90's. In the lyrics, there is a line that goes, "I got ten forward gears and a Georgia overdrive" (The Grateful Dead said Georgie overdrive). I never really knew what that meant so I looked it up. It refers to when a trucker puts the transmission in neutral to coast down hills or especially mountain roads and can go faster.

This video shows Dave Dudley singing this song in 1970. Check out the clothes and hair style on the electric guitar player. Very typical of the 70's. Evidently, Dave recorded this song at Sun Records in 1963. The Dead did it later.

Recordpub.com - Food Network to show Ray's Place burger on Monday: Kent restaurant to appear on "Best thing I ever ate'

Check out the article from The Record Courier and if you can, tune in to The Food Channel at 10:00pm on Monday to see the story about the burger at Ray's Place.


Recordpub.com - Food Network to show Ray's Place burger on Monday: Kent restaurant to appear on "Best thing I ever ate'

Sleepy Man Banjo Boys

I saw these three young men on The Late Show with David Letterman a couple of days ago. When they finished, Dave said to Paul Shaffer, "They're like the Jonas Brothers' right Paul?" and Paul said, "Well, no, they're not".

The song starts out slow, but catches fire quickly.

Video via Jean-Claude

This is a video from Jean-Claude Halter, who lives in the Alsace region of France. There is a reasonable chance that he is a relative because his grandfather and father were farmers who lived in the same small town that my ancestors left when they came to America. That area of Alsace was mostly German in the early 1800's and my relatives spoke German.

Tar Heels

This weekend, when we were visiting The Akron Zoo with Kris and Mark, we saw some deer-like animals called tahr. This led to a mention of the North Carolina Tar Heels and the question of what the mascot of the NC athletic teams was. It's the ram.

Sean Chambers Band

My Facebook friend, Gary Keith, plays harmonica with this group. Gary is also my friend on FB for CityVille and CarTown. Give them a listen and if you want more, they have several other videos on YouTube.

Summer Solstice

Happy First Day Of Summer

• Pagans called the Midsummer moon the "Honey Moon" for the mead made from fermented honey that was part of wedding ceremonies performed at the Summer Solstice.
  
  
• Ancient Pagans celebrated Midsummer with bonfires, when couples would leap through the flames, believing their crops would grow as high as the couples were able to jump.
  
  
• Midsummer was thought to be a time of magic, when evil spirits were said to appear. To thwart them, Pagans often wore protective garlands of herbs and flowers. One of the most powerful of them was a plant called 'chase-devil', which is known today as St. John's Wort and still used by modern herbalists as a mood stabilizer.
  

Playin' The Blues

Today, I watched the 1946 movie that included the performance shown below. It turns out that Frank (Sugar Chile) Robinson spent a large portion of his life away from performing music. The second video shows him in 2007 after being "re-discovered".

No Ring For LeBron

To steal a quote from my son, "Karma's a bitch!!"

"Kid's" games get real.

They Sure Have Fun "Over At Grampy's House".

Annoying Orange

As I've mentioned before, I'm easily entertained. Your turn.

Farewell, Robin Hood

By Thomas Gallick and Dave O’Brien | Staff Writers
The Robin Hood Inn in Kent was no more as of 11 a.m. Thursday, following slightly more than 90 minutes of work by an excavator’s claw.
Drivers slowed down while going through the intersection of East Main and Lincoln streets to take one last look at the Kent landmark, a tudor-style structure built in the 1930s, while a crowd of at least a dozen took pictures and videos. Others perched along the wall at the rear of the building to witness the demolition from a different vantage point.
Dr. John Jacobs was there to take photos for the Kent Historical Society and to say a fond farewell to a building that housed many happy memories.
“I had my wedding reception upstairs there in 1950,” said the retired physician, who is a volunteer for the historical society. “I went to school with the owners’ son. I’m kind of close to the Robin Hood. I’m sorry to see it go, but it’s progress.”
The main chimney on the west side of the building fell with a crash at about 10:05 a.m., sending mortar fragments across North Lincoln Street.
Through the dust, it was obvious that many of the building’s artifacts had not been cleared out.
A box of Christmas decorations fell into the rubble from an upstairs room. A Labatt Blue beer sign also was crushed. Several painted walls, including a wall bearing a large advertisement for Jaegermeister, the German liquor, were still visible.
Dan Brown, a Kent State University student who lives on Lincoln Street, said he just happened to catch the Robin Hood’s demolition while driving home from work.
“Seeing the Hood being destroyed is a little bit of a shock,” he said. “It’s very sad.”
A group of employees from KSU’s Office of Alumni Relations were among the bystanders who watched the demolition.
Alumni Relations staffers Brittney Braydich and Ashley Katona, both KSU alumnae, watched as the excavator tore into the building, which dated to the late 1930s.
Katona, assistant director for communications, recalled seeing bands perform in the popular Kent venue as a student.
“It’s very sad to see it go,” said Braydich, assistant director for outreach. “We have a lot of sad alumni.”
Nancy Schiappa, associate director for outreach with Alumni Relations and a KSU alumna, took photos of the Robin Hood coming down and hoped to snap up a few bricks.
She said alumni who return for 2011 Homecoming at KSU likely will be shocked to see the Robin Hood is no longer standing.
“When you came from the west side of Kent on S.R. 59, you knew you hit campus when you reached the corner with Brady’s (now Starbucks), the Robin Hood and Prentice Gate,” she said. “It’s sort of an iconic corner.”
Stow resident Eric Marschik said he remembers the Robin Hood as one of Kent’s nicest restaurants in the 1950s.
“I came here with my dad in the late 50s for a nice dinner,” he said. “It was one of Kent’s most upscale restaurants at the time. And then during college I came here to drink. A lot of old memories.”
Christine Coven, the current owner of the Robin Hood property filed a demolition permit for the building with the city of Kent last month. City officials with knowledge of the building said it had significant structural issues, which could cost up to $500,000 to fix.
Coven could not be reached for comment.
Cynthia Ebert of Kent stopped by to take photos of the demolition and collect a few bricks herself. She shared that in the 1950s, her great-aunt and great-uncle, Zena and Grover Freeze, and their friends, May and Ed Brown, all of Canton, used to take Sunday drives through Stark, Summit and Portage counties looking for a good sit-down meal.
“By the time I came here ... it was a bar,” Ebert said of the Robin Hood.
“‘It breaks the heart,’” she added as she watched the demolition.
Elizabeth Bujack, Coven’s sister and daughter of former Robin Hood Inn owner Joseph Bujack, declined to comment previously.

Cat Ninja?

How long will it be before someone makes an "all feline" martial arts movie?

Summer Project??

A Salty Piece of Land

A Salty Piece of Land by Jimmy Buffett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I really enjoyed this book. I was ignorant of the fact that Jimmy Buffett had written this book and several others, so I didn't know what to expect. The story was interesting and the adventures of the main character and all his many friends held my attention. I have another book that he wrote that contains short stories with characters from "A Salty Piece of Land", so that one is next on my reading list.




View all my reviews

Beatles Forever

This makes me want to get the band back together.

Mom's Ramp

Here are pictures of the really great ramp that Mom's neighbor, Donny LeBeau, built for her. It makes it much easier for her to get from her kitchen to the garage. The old steps were hard to negotiate. I had to be careful myself when we visited. Wickett got used to the ramp very quickly. I think he would like to have one that goes from our deck down to the backyard. (Note: Check out those uniform, straight mortar joints in the glazed tile walls that my Dad built)

(you can click on any image to enlarge it)

Crops From The Garden

When we got home, I saw that there were a few carrot tops (not the comedian) poking above the ground in the garden. They were leftovers from last summer's garden and they spent the winter in Ohio. They were an odd shaped bunch, but I cleaned them up and put them in the fridge. I ate some as I was working and they really had a good taste.

Homeward Bound-2011

Last night, we stayed at High Springs Campground in northern Florida. It was a journey of about 300 miles from Bonita Springs. The trip went well, with the normal stop for lunch and another for gasoline. We did have a traffic jam after we passed Sarasota that probably cost us an hour. We still arrived at the campground at 4:45pm. Our site is shown below.


A pretty good thunderstorm arrived around 4:30 am. We lost our electricity for a while and got a lot of rain. Further north, in Georgia, the storm was more severe and six people were killed in the state.

We started out today (Tuesday) with gray skies and cooler temperatures. As we moved into Georgia, the sun came out and made for a really nice day on the road. We got to the KOA campground near Forsyth, GA about 4:15. Wickett has been sleeping even more than usual today. He was awake a lot last night because of the storm. We have stayed at this KOA before. One of their traditions is that they deliver a box of three very large chocolate chip cookies to your site after you have had time to get settled. They are very, very good cookies. Below is a picture of our site here in Georgia.


Tomorrow, we go to Jellystone Park Campground in Nashville for a three night stay and a visit with Howard and all the Moomys and Meadors. The forecast here tonight is for temps in the upper 30's, so it will be time to turn on the furnace. I guess that is good preparation for Ohio weather.

Farmin' Is In Their Jeans (Genes).

(click on the picture to enlarge it)

The Garden Club in Streetsboro had a contest for sunflowers and Kris and Mike each won ribbons. One prize was for the tallest sunflower(Mike is next to that one) and the other was for the plant with the most flowers (Kris is next to that one). Since I see that Mike has two ribbons pinned on him, I think that he might have gotten one for the biggest flower too.

Slides From The Past

These few pictures are my first attempts at transferring 35mm slides into digital form on the computer. I did no enhancing or other editing on these. That will come later. The scanner was a present from Kris and Mark over a year ago. Don't ask me why it took so long to get started on this project. My only excuse is that the user's manual was so confusing that I didn't really make any progress until I put it aside and just let the program guide me. These pictures are from the collection of my father-in-law, Howard Moomy.

I need to practice my guitar playing more often.

IBE Variety Show

Here are a few pictures that Sue took during the Friday night performance. On Saturday night, we do it all again. In the one above, I am hiding behind our director.


This is me, Rudy, Glenn and John singing "Lida Rose" during the medley of songs from "The Music Man".





This is The IBE Jam Band. From the left, Angela, Rudy, Joe the Drummer and me.







Here are Philippe and Marcella, from Quebec. They sang two beautiful songs in French, accompanied by The Jam Band.








Below is a picture of one of several dance teams that performed for this show. We had jazz, line dancing, tap and more.


We had a full house on Friday (200 people) and Saturday night is sold out also. There were a lot of good performances and a variety of acts. The show started at 7:00 and was over just a little past 9:00, with no intermission.

Hands Across The Border

Next week on March 18 and 19, I will be participating in the annual variety show here at IBE. I will be singing with the chorus as we do medleys from Carousel and Music Man. Also, four of us from the IBE Jam Band will be doing two songs. And just recently, the jam band was asked to back up a couple of our French-Canadian neighbors as they perform two songs. I have included YouTube videos of these two songs. It will be a busy week. Tech rehearsal on Monday, regular chorus rehearsal on Tuesday, dress rehearsal on Thursday and then the show on Friday and Saturday.

Comet Guillaume-H-3111??

(click on the picture to enlarge)

No, not really. After dealing with pain in my lower left abdomen, ranging from mild discomfort to "ouch, dammit, ouch", for all of last weekend, Sue drove me to the emergency room at a nearby hospital early Monday. They did some tests, including a CAT-scan and found that I had a kidney stone.

They said that it had almost completed its path to the bladder and should pass out of my system on its own soon. The fact that it was only 3mm in size would help that process. Stones as big as 7mm usually pass easily. So, after 4 hours at the hospital, they gave me prescriptions for pain (Vicodin) and Flomax (to help the exit happen easier) and sent us home.

I used the Vicodin twice, but didn't have much pain after about 10:00 pm on Monday. Then, around 6:00 pm on Tuesday, this little guy presented himself to the world. (much to my relief)

Tomorrow (Thursday), I go to a urologist here in Bonita Springs. He will look at the stone and decide which one of four possible types it is. Some are caused by infections, others by mineral deposits. One very rare kind is even hereditary. I don't think that I have that last kind, but both my Dad and my brother had kidney stones.

A big thanks to Sue for expertly applying the light source so I could use a magnifier and camera to take the picture. I wanted to have a record of the event in case the urologist doesn't return the little boulder to me.

To all blog readers, I fought the urge to post this picture on Facebook. I believe that it was a wise choice.

Three's A Crowd

Sue and I were getting on our bicycles today when she noticed that her bike was already occupied by one of the local lizards. This little guy wanted to go along with us on our trip to find a good viewing spot for the Space Shuttle launch. We eventually convinced him to stay home, but he was stubborn.




Even though we are close to 300 miles away from the launch site, the exhaust flames and vapor trail are visible on a clear day. Unfortunately, there were clouds that hid the shuttle from our view today. We had DVR'd the launch so we came home and watched all the NASA video.

Marietta 84-Wilmington 73

Nephew Trevor scored 19 points tonight (2/22) as Marietta defeated Wilmington in the first round of the OAC tournament. The next game is Thursday against Heidelberg. Below is a picture of one of the more spectacular baskets that he made during this game.

The Shadow Knows!

Science Marches On

What happens when laboratory animals are subjected to a steady dose of music by Flock of Seagulls? I think you can guess.

Heavy Traffic Ahead

Clear Choice at Cleveland Browns' Stadium

Here we are singing The Star Spangled Banner at Family Days at Browns' Stadium last summer. There were all kinds of activities and concessions for people and then the team played a four quarter scrimmage. Dan Nichols was unavailable that day, so Mike filled in well for him on the tenor part. It was fun to get to sing at this location with my son.

Animals is the craziest peoples

I don't know how to introduce this video, so I'll just say that I hope that you laugh as much as I did.

Rainbow Revisited

I posted this video on Facebook last night, but for any followers of this blog who missed it, or are not on FB, here it is again. We saw it when we stopped to pick up some RV supplies at Camping World, south of Fort Myers yesterday. It was even more amazing in person, but the only camera I had was my phone. I think that my video camera might have captured the colors better.

Afternoon Of Art

In January and March of each year, the city of Bonita Springs hosts artists from all over the country at the Bonita Springs Art Festival. We went last March and enjoyed it so much that we decided to go back again this afternoon.

We spent a couple of hours admiring the work of over 200 very talented people.

Here is a slideshow of just a few of the things that we saw. Warning, not all of the people in the pictures are real. See if you can tell which ones are actually "art".

Vacations Can't Be Fun All The Time

Jimmy Malone, one of the hosts on the WMJI morning radio talk show in Cleveland, often says that the most dangerous people for a kid are his/her parents. In this case, he may have a point.

Trevor Hits A Triple To Win The Game in California

This video, courtesy of Marietta University, shows my brother's son, Trevor, hitting the game winner last week against The University of La Verne in southern California (he's #3 in the dark uniform). Since then, Marietta has won another game, has a record of 13-0 and is ranked 24th in the nation in D3. All of this with a team that has no seniors on the roster. They might be good next year too.

Christmas in Alsace

New Cav's Employee

ESPN is reporting that the Cleveland Cavaliers have hired this gentleman, Ted Williams, giving him a 2-yr contract and agreeing to pay his mortgage. I have to say that anyone who can speak like this should be given a chance to use his talent and try to turn his life around. If it doesn't work out with the Cavs, any barbershop quartet that is searching for a bass would certainly be interested in him.

I guess the next question is " Can he learn the "Princeton offense"?

Wickett's Florida Haircut

We took Wickett to PetSmart last Monday for a bath, haircut, toenail trim, teeth brushing and all around grooming. It made quite a difference in his appearance, as the two pictures below will show. This shorter trim is much better for the warmer weather down here.

Before


After