New Shoes in the Rain

Back to normal here in central Kentucky....well, sort of, anyway. The weather took a nice turn into springlike conditions late last week, although Kentucky experienced some severe thunderstorms and other weather phenomena (as did many of our neighboring states).  So nice that my wife and I did some much needed work in our yard on Saturday, creating a mulch bed around our bird feeder in the backyard (reusing some mulch that was created when we had a couple of trees removed in the front last fall) and then spreading mulch, grass seed and fertilizer in the front yard.  Cross your fingers for us to have some grass in a month or so! Also back to normal in that the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are now over.  But not without a little controversy and some disappointing performances from some of the heavily hyped American competitors.  I watched some of the USA's men's hockey team games and was disappointed by their 1-0 loss to the Canadian team.  Still can't ima...

As you can plainly tell if you’re a regular visitor to this space, I’m a big sports fan.   And along with that, I’m also a great fan of good sports announcing.   And when you watch a lot of sports on TV and listen to a good amount on the radio, you have the opportunity to form opinions about many announcers who do their thing at the local, regional and national levels. I began to think about this a bit when it became apparent that Bob Costas was not going to be able to perform his customary duties in NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics in Sochi recently.   If you hadn’t heard, the poor guy came down with a pretty severe eye infection just about the time the games began, and though he toughed it out for two or three nights, squinting through the discomfort, he had to take some time off.   NBC visibly diminished the role of the “host” during those days, probably because it’s readily agreed that Bob is most likely the best big-sports-event host in the business. ...

Good morning, folks.  Another Monday, another blast of winter here in central Kentucky.  Got about two more inches of snow overnight last night.  It was 15 degrees when I ventured out to shovel our driveway and the neighbor's (a very good neighbor, who looks out for us and we do favors for one another periodically, plus he's in his mid 70's).  I swear, this is the winter that just keeps coming.  At least my friends in California finally got some much-needed rain, but their weather is just as much of an aberration as ours is this year. And now for something completely different, as our Monty Python friends used to say for an abrupt segue into another topic.  In recent weeks I've been feeling a some stiffness and soreness in my shoulders and elsewhere in my upper body, and think I've traced it to my neck.  I have taken to stretching my neck by tilting my head as far as I can from one side to the other, and, wouldn't you know it, my shoulders and arms f...

The NFL football season came to an end last night, with the Seattle Seahawks' punishing defense stifling the Denver Broncos and their vaunted offensive attack in the Super Bowl.  As I just said to a friend in a message, I knew it wasn't going to be Peyton Manning's night when the first snap of the game went sailing wide and high, setting the tone for a game where an experienced team played as though fearful, and the younger, less tenured Seahawks went for broke nearly the whole game.  Guess that's why they go ahead and play the games. We joined our son and his family for the game and some good food.  Baked chicken tenders, a corn/tomato/avocado salad, lots of crunchy stuff, and a cake and whoopie pies for dessert.  Best part of the night, particularly since the Broncos weren't able to generate any excitement for our group of partisans! The commercials were not great this year, as you probably also found if you watched.  Among my favorites this year were the ...