O-Dark-Thirty

The Republican National Convention is over, at last. We now know more of the man who will run against our incumbent President, Mr. Barack Obama. What the future holds for our country is still uncertain, regardless of who wins the upcoming election. What I'd like to see is for the United States to remain the bastion of Freedom, the cradle of Democracy, and the home to the tired masses that it should be. Clint Eastwood was pretty funny, though, or at least the clips I watched. So once again I distract myself with the technical world. How about that Apple™ versus Samsung™ conflict, and the results? One of the funniest bits about that, though, is on YouTube. When I looked at it this morning it only had 311,000 hits, but I think it is being viewed across a lot of other venues. Apple kills Star Trek PCMAG put out its article on The Best Antivirus for 2012 . As expected, of course, Norton and Kaspersky scored well (nicely done, Wes!) for the ones that cost money. For those of us t...

Our previous house is still on the market. We need to sink more money into it so it will sell, and that's okay. I liked the wallpaper in the kitchen, but now it goes. Oh, and we are dropping the price a bit. The new place is shaping up, and I really need to quit referring to it as "the new place" since now it is simply home. I mean, that's where Darling is, and that's where the food and bed are, so that makes it home. I do have quite a few of my swords now hanging in my new Study ( not Office!). And many, many less boxes in the house than there were. In fact, all but one room is box-free. Darling did have a Doctor appointment today and now will have another surgery next Wednesday. I am not sure what it entails, but I'll find out about it tonight. It might or might not make it to the blog. I read a number of books suggested by my brother B: Christopher Bunn's trilogy A Storm in Tormay (I liked it), David Wells' Sovereign of the Seven Isles up...

Never this pretty at our house, though I've written about Mom's cooking before, so I won't go into it here. There is one funny story, though, and it has to do with the milk we got from Aunt Nora. Mom often let the cream separate and then scooped it off the top before she watered it all down. We would occasionally be allowed to have some cream on our berries as dessert, and it was lovely. One time Mom decided she was going to do something special and make whipped cream, from real cream. She added the sugar to the cream and beat it. Then she had me beat it for a while. She was looking for that smooth, fluffy appearance, but wasn't getting it. So she beat it some more. I actually remember the look of puzzlement on her face when she stopped beating that bowl of sweetened cream. We now had butter. Mom invented sweetened butter. We loved it. She never tried to make whipped cream again. Mom was always canning food. We had a pretty good garden and Mom canned a lot o...

My brother turns fifty today. Happy Birthday, B! Fifty is a milestone, so welcome to the decade! I didn't get you a present, but I'll send you to something almost guaranteed to make you laugh: Elizabeth's most recent blog post !

Elston Organic Farm, LLC - run by Uncle Jerry's son Lee and Lee's son Garrick All the relatives cared for Mom while Dad was away. Most notable among them was Uncle Jerry. He dropped by to see Mom a few times each week, quite often leaving an extra can of food, or some small package that he bought too much of. The best story of all happened one Saturday, though. Uncle Jerry came in with a long face. I remember, because he always seemed quite content with life. "Jerry, what's wrong," said Mom, sitting him down at the old vinyl table and giving him a cup of coffee. She sat in the chair next to him. "Fran, I have a problem." (He probably called her Earline, a name my Mom hated, but grew up with in Brown City. If anyone called her Fran, though, it would have been Uncle Jerry. Earline is actually the name listed in the 1940 census also. Mom would have hated that.) "I'll do anything I can to help, Jerry. What can I do?" Mom clasped her ...

 Maids a-milking Mom's Uncle Dwight, similar in appearance to Don, always seemed as good-natured as Uncle Don seemed ill-tempered. We didn't see much of him because he worked all the time. So did his three daughters and his wife, our Aunt Nora. A working dairy farm seemed a hard life, and I think it was. My three cousins were up every morning before dawn to do the morning milking, and to bed late after the evening milking and homework and other chores needed to keep the farm running. I once tried to help my eldest cousin, a girl a few years older than I. She hefted a full five-gallon milk pail in each hand and carried them to the ice house. I barely managed to drag a single container out there. Some help I proved to be…  Mom visited Aunt Nora for milk and took us with her most of the time. I'm sure we disrupted the household routines, but it was always a pleasure to see our cousins. Mom refused to take charity from anyone, even her local relatives, so sh...

During the recent trip to Michigan my brothers mentioned that they would read my blog if I wrote more stories about our childhood times. Not that I crave readers, but it does seem like a good idea. Some stories can be inspirational, some can be warnings, some simply informational and some likely boring. But I do have stories, so this seems a good place to share them. Since we just came back from Michigan, I can start in the middle, in about 1968, the times we spent in Michigan. This will cover a few posts, but I'll start with some background. We lived in Brown City Michigan when Dad was in Viet Nam. Mom signed me up for fifth grade and then had to correct it to sixth grade after I went for the first day. I don't recall what I said, but I was probably pretty upset. That sort of thing bothered me, even then, and I'm also sure I didn't want to repeat fifth grade. Once was enough. Instead of going to school in the main building in Brown City, I went to class in Burnsid...

I did pretty well on posts last month. It wasn't because the month was busier or I had more to say. I did cheat a little. I found a way to assign a posting date, so even if I was late (which I was for the first three posts) I could make it appear I followed my schedule. Keep an eye open; I'll do that in the future if I need to. I also found some quiet hours and wrote a number of posts, then kept them ready for dropping in place. I need to do that more often. I probably just felt more loquacious. It helps that my cousin Mary and brother Dave chimed in on a few of the posts. That gives me incentive to write more. (With apologies to my long-suffering steady readers; I value your comments too.) In my defense, the last week was almost unreal. On Friday Darling got the house empty and arranged for a painter to come in and completely repaint the interior, including stripping the wallpaper from the kitchen and painting it. I wasn't keen on the idea, but, as she pointed out, if...