New Shoes in the Rain

My wife and I are heading out to Colorado on vacation, leaving later today.  We're driving, so that's always quite an adventure.  And I've had another hectic week leading up to our departure. I was out of town Monday through Wednesday for business, but that was a successful trip, punctuated only by a flight delay on my last flight Wednesday and then a luggage claim delay (so much for Sky PRIORITY, Delta).  Since then we've been doing what anyone does before leaving for vacation, but, along with that, we aerated, seeded and fertilized our backyard, which I had done to the front yard before leaving for my business trip. Our days in Colorado will be spent with our six-year-old granddaughter, who'll be on spring break next week.  We'll be taking her out to do some fun things with Gram and Poppy, and she'll decide a lot of it.  But that hasn't stopped us from asking for input from her mom about where she likes to go, eat, stuff to do, etc. Also asked a ...

This is a phrase that I use with my wife a lot, mostly when we're discussing things like houses and cars and other LARGE purchases.  And given that we live what I would consider to be an above-average upper-middle-class lifestyle, the line between what we want and what we need blurs considerably. If you visit here even infrequently you are likely aware that I love gadgets, particularly those of the Apple variety.  I'm on my second Mac computer (current model is a Macbook Air, the ultra-light-and-thin portable), have owned more than one iPod (right now I have an iPod Nano, which about the size of a postage stamp and not much thicker).  And at my insistence, when my wife was due for a cellphone upgrade, we got her an iPhone, and she's extremely happy with this. I also have an iPad.  Original version, bought it two Christmases ago.  64 GB storage memory, no cellular connection, just Wi-Fi.  I tried to use it as my travel computer for work, even, although I...

Morning, all.  No particular theme today, but that's often the case around here.  Raining today, but the sun's going to shine tomorrow, they say. I was horrified to hear of an American soldier going door to door firing an automatic weapon on innocent civilians in Afghanistan over the weekend.  In my view, that's proof that our forces have been there too long and that it's time to leave nation-building to those whose nation it is--the Afghan people. The item above will, I'm sure, be termed a failure of the Obama administration by the four lesser minds who seek the Republican nomination for President.  They're all in the South arguing about who's had grits in the past or who says "y'all" as a part of his normal speech patterns.  Oh, and it's Mitt Romney's 65th birthday today, so he's one step closer to that much needed government retirement and healthcare. Peyton Manning's looking for a job.  He appears to have good qualific...

My wife and I watched "The Wizard of Oz" the other night. No, we didn't have the grandchildren with us.  We watched it because WE wanted to.  And we enjoyed it. And I got all choked up near the end, just as I had since I was a kid. We've both always liked that particular movie and when the Blu-Ray disk came out we decided to get it when the price wasn't quite so outrageous.  So we waited, we bought it and we enjoyed it. But that started me to thinking about other movies that evoke a discernible emotional response, whether through manipulation or genuinely created emotion.  For example.... One of my very favorite movies is "Field of Dreams," and if you're one of the small number who don't know what it is or don't remember, Kevin Costner plays a reluctant Iowa corn farmer who hears a voice that tells him to plow under most of his crop in order to build a baseball field.  Why?  So that Shoeless Joe Jackson, a disgraced former major leagu...