Christmas Market Fail

My wife and I decided to take our Grand-daughter to the “Christkindle” German Christmas Market in Lawrenceville, GA this past weekend. Now, as a general rule I’m not terribly fond of these kinds of events because of the crowds and the prices. Still, it was something different and it seemed like a good way to get our granddaughter out of the house and engaged in the world around her. The trip down there took about an hour and traffic wasn’t bad (which was a surprise because traffic in the Atlanta area is always bad!). Parking, too, was very easy, though we ended up parking a fair distance away because we didn’t know the area and didn’t know that there was parking much more convenient. Well, actually we followed the instructions from the website that suggested this was the best place to park. ...

2025-12-08 981 words 5 min

Sixty Seven Trips Around the Sun

It’s hard to believe, but in a few days, I will celebrate sixty-seven trips around the sun. I have now lived longer than both of my parents and several of my uncles. Given a family history of deaths at younger ages for the men, I’m just a tad surprised that I’m still kicking. And kicking well! It’s odd, though. I don’t feel 67. I feel more like 25 or 30. Well, except for the bad knee and tweaky shoulder. In fact, I actually feel better today than I did, say, twenty years ago. ...

2025-12-05 452 words 3 min

Driving a Hybrid Pickup Truck

Driving a Hybrid Pickup Truck I drove a 2000 Ford Ranger for over 20 years. I loved that truck and basically just wore it out. I think when I finally sold it in 2021 I had put over 250K miles on it. But, alas, all good things come to an end and as it got longer in the tooth it began to have more problems, with their associated costs, than I was willing to deal with. So, having two other vehicles in our house I decided to sell my favorite vehicle of all time. For two years, then, I did not have a truck and, by and large, didn’t find that I needed one. ...