Those were the days, my friend...

...I hope they never end:

Engineers having fun the old-fashioned way

Deflates for easy storage

In a few minutes, frozen precipitation will fall onto the ground around me.

Soon, my wife and I will eat homemade potato soup.  For dessert, I will munch on some See's Candies Toffee-ettes (r).

I thank Stephen King for mentioning Microwave Dave and the Nukes.

I thank Moe's BBQ for last night's dinner and Beverly at the Broken Egg for great service at lunch today.  Walmart and Publix provided emergency supplies for the next few days of cabin fever (a good kind of fever as in "Fever in the morning, fever all through the night," etc.; not the cabin fever of "The Shining").  Mike's Merchandise provided some fun stuff to play with at home, including coffee cups to use for hot cocoa and an inflatable back rest to keep my back from popping out when I lay flat on the bed.

Thanks to the young woman at Merriam-Webster for the video on the word "gridiron."

Thanks to Tony Jones for stepping up and leading the young men at the University of Tennessee in their performances on the basketball court for an octet of games.

Thanks to the Muslims acting as human shields during Coptic Christmas.

Thanks to the 10-year old Canadian who discovered a new feature of our view of the universe around us.

Always thanking people for their past actions, have you noticed?

Instead, I'll thank the police officers living on my street for their future good deeds.

I thank the parents who will give their children positive encouragement to lead others into the fantastic future ahead of them (Rainbow, that includes you).

I will be lost in thought for the next few days so if I don't thank you for your actions around me in the moment, know that I appreciate what you're doing even if I don't mention it here.

The Committee reminds me there's a world to run in this solar system and I won't always have time to see and remember the people, places and things within my normal stimuli range.

What a shame, isn't it?

If I can't be the person I was born, how can I be the person I am meant to be?

That's enough of the words on a page.  Time to get lost.

Get lost, Rick! Haha.

20th Century Postcards - Part 1

Here's half of a collection of postcards from my wife's mother's side of the family:

Early 20th Century Postcards

More as the scanner turns...

Confessions of a teenage computer user

I was informed by AOL that I have been a member of their computer network since December 1979.

Before PCs with the familiar desktop WYSIWYG software, Internet browsers and mouselike input devices...

Thirty-one years later and we're back to touchtyping again?

This is progress?

[Frequent reminder to self : Silence is my friend from forever.]

Adieu.

Ubiquity

Ghosts of Students Past - found in my parents' basement an old homework assignment, a poster of a one-hour snapshot of a "hot clock" of a local radio station, WTFM, when I was a student at ETSU in 1985.

Thanks to Walgreens for being open today to allow me to make a few last-minute Christmas purchases.

Thanks to Daniel Boyd, Sarah LeRoy, Holly French, Mr. Robert G. White, the solo dancer, the servers of the sacrament of Holy Communion, and members of the congregation who showed up last night for the Christmas Eve service at Rogersville Presbyterian Church.

Thanks to those serving in official capacities today, including police, fire, air traffic controllers/pilots/attendants/ground crew, hospital staff, petrol station clerks, salt/scraper road crews, restaurant workers, TV/newspaper techs/reporters, military personnel, Internet infrastructure support employees, and whomever I've forgotten to mention who are often forgotten but perform important duties like power plant operators.