Personal

When I was growing up, my family collected boxes from all the high end stores.  Every time they’d buy something in Jordan Marsh, Remick’s, Gilcrest’s or any other perceived highfalutin store, they would ask for a box or sometimes two.  Come Christmas time they would have a collection of boxes from these places and the gifts that they bought from Kresge’s, Woolworths or Zayre’s would get wrapped up nicely in those boxes (always with tissue paper) and given to friends and relatives. It wasn’t that we were cheap bastards, we were just poor bastards. When the person receiving our gift unwrapped it, they would always ooh and ahh over the box and how special it was that we got them …

About a month ago we had a dead tree taken down and we decided to keep the mulch to use around the property. Since we are entering snow season, I was afraid that we’d have a major snow storm before I got a chance to take care of the pile, which would make things really tough when it came time to plow the driveway. Luckily, the weather today was just perfect to do that type of work so I spent the afternoon shoveling mulch into a wheelbarrow and depositing the mulch on a path down our hill. It went well but it was hard work. The picture of the pile doesn’t do it justice since it’s taken from above which …

I’m thankful that the Pilgrims had the foresight to have Thanksgiving on a Thursday, the day before trash day, so that it’s easy to dispose of all of the leftover trash. I wonder how they knew?

I was saddened last night to learn of the death of Jerry Pournelle. I never met Jerry, but I was certainly influenced by him.  In the early days of computers, he wrote a column for Byte magazine and it was the first thing I would turn to when I received my issue.  He was also a science fiction writer that wrote a number excellent novels.  His collaborations with Larry Niven are some of the best sci-fi books in the business.  He also was one of the first people to have a blog on the web.  Chaos Manor (http://www.jerrypournelle.com) has been one of my go-to sites for years.  Jerry always posted thought provoking articles and user comments. Sadly, in recent years, …

I’m starting over once again.  Here’s my latest attempt at a website.