Regular Life

Anyone whom we sent a Christmas card probably already has it, or will very shortly. It looks exactly like the image above. All of you who do not receive one can just look at the picture here. We’re not even sure we’re going to send out 70-something cards next year, so keep your eye here [...]

Ben likes to draw, and lately he’s been going through construction paper so fast that I’m expecting a visit from Treehugger.com. More and more these days, we come pretty close when guessing what he has drawn. Almost every time, his explanation of the scene makes sense in relation to the lines and [...]

Our "chariot" awaits (click to enlarge)
Last year we drove around Dallas’ Highland Park neighborhood, a relatively swank area featuring homes I grew up calling mansions, to look at grand Christmas displays. You know. The kind that people pay to have installed by illegal immigrants.
This year we did it in style.
In [...]

  That’s me in the center, with Captain Morgan as my team leader.
(NOTE: I’m trying something new with the photos today. Click any thumbnail to view full-size, and then click anywhere in the text behind it to come back here.)
It’s time finally to tell the tale of another first, and this one’s not for the [...]

From the darker end of the bridge (1-second exposure, freehand).
(click any image to enlarge and sharpen)
After my work was done on Thursday, I tried to make it to Clarkson Covered Bridge before sunset. Tucked in a valley, its surroundings go dark before the sun completes its dip below the horizon. Built in 1904 and restored [...]

(click to enlarge and sharpen)
Four-year-old Benjamin hangs on atop a mass of various cousins on Thanksgiving.
See if you can follow this. The one completely face-down with gray pants is Benjamin’s first cousin, only son of the Charles who comments here. He’s five weeks younger than Benjamin. The kid on the bottom, second son of my [...]

A random audience member at a Beatles tribute band concert.
(click to enlarge, or here for a detail of the tattoo)

Lately, I’ve been wondering whether I could endure a real tattoo. Unlike this guy, the only tattoo I got was accidental.
I was a new kid in a school district that stuffed its 850 seventh graders into [...]

Note: New banner up for November. If you still see the bird, then force a browser refresh.

Play before bedtime on Halloween.
(click to make that dinosaur bigger)
We didn’t ask for much. We just wanted to pick out what we needed, pay for it, and go home. The night before Halloween, my wife needed to buy 21 [...]

Local donut shop could work on its name a bit.
(click any pic to enlarge and sharpen)
They finally did it.

Benjamin and friends aboard the barrel train.
(Click to overload on the cuteness.)
You ever stand downwind of a billy goat? They soak their beards in their own urine to mark themselves. I understand why there’s no goat overpopulation problem.
What’s with the popularity of pumpkin farms recently? It seems every town has one nearby, usually hawking pumpkins [...]