{Begin rant} I just love news like this: Constable Stephen Paul Carroll, 48, was shot dead in Craigavon, 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Belfast, late yesterday, two days after two British soldiers were killed by members of another breakaway group, the Real IRA. Police began raiding properties...

Sixty, that rather unique blogger and friend of mine, has reminded me that I have been remiss in posting about the new theme change here at the site. Well, he’s right. I should have said something earlier but I figured that the folks who visit on a regular basis around here are already used to me ...

A damn good reason for appreciating indoor plumbing (especially for those living in snow country). Outhouse belongs to a friend of ours who lives up in the hills. She took this photo the day after the last storm. There’s about 3 storms worth of snow there. Tags: snow-days, weather, winter Possibly...

For the longest time now I’ve had a sense of spinning my wheels but not getting anywhere. Where is the enthusiasm that I always had? Why am I feeling so uninspired lately? I needed to sit down and have a serious talk with myself. Unfortunately, I wasn’t interested and told myself to screw off. S...

I called up the IRS yesterday… Now isn’t that a fine way to start a post? I called up the IRS yesterday with a question I had never thought I would ever have to ask and that was: What if I didn’t earn any money last year? It was a legitimate question since, for the first time in my life, I...

Three times a charm they say and in my experience what they say (in this case) is often true. In parley with my surgeon down at the Boston VA yesterday we finally came to an accord. Surgery will take somewhere between the 15th and 30th of April, exact date depending on what her monthly surgery sched...

I’m an avid news reader and thanks to the WWW I’m not limited to mainstream media’s idea of what news items make money rather than reporting without bias. Even better than that is being able to read comments on those news articles that allow them which is rapidly becoming the rule rather than ...

It seems that while I’ve been dealing with the slings and arrows of outrageous illness, this third incarnation of my first blogging effort had it’s third birthday (anniversary?) without me. In other words, I’ve been doing-it-myself for 3 years now plus a handful of days. According to the archi...

Just a quick follow up post to let you all know I’m somewhat on mend. This has got to be the worst crap I’ve ever encountered since my experience with a yellow fever vaccine. And I’m sorry if the title to the previous post shocked a few folks. It was supposed to be all in fun. Just...

Did you ever notice that there are times when everything comes together at once? Well, Tuesday turned out to be one of those days indeed. Okay, maybe it’s not exactly a day I’d want to call the local newspaper about but it certainly wasn’t bad. First the mail arrives with a lette...