Author Archives: Sparky
Very good news and kind of good news
Today, within 15 minutes of each other, I received 2 phone calls that I have been awaiting very anxiously. The first, from the Quabbin Pines RV Resort in Orange MA, confirmed that they do, in fact, have a suitable site for me for the summer. A few details – like picking a site when no … Continue reading
“Dance of Death” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Copyright 2005 by Lincoln Child and Splendide Mendax, Inc. Published by Grand Central Publishing, New York. This is #6 in the series of Preston & Child books featuring Aloyisius Pendergast, FBI agent extraordinaire. I have read several other Pendergast books but this is the earliest one in the series of all that I have read. … Continue reading
TN7 still uncertain, but more certain than yesterday
The plan for the 7th trip north (TN7) is still taking shape. The two things that are most critical to making final plans are (1) the date of my second COVID vaccination and (2) the date of my final cataract surgery appointment. Today I learned the answer to (2): April 9. That is later than … Continue reading
Twisting the COVID knife
I previously reported the difficulty that I was encountering in my attempts to get the COVID vaccine. But what used to be merely annoying has now become cruel. On Friday I was, for the first time, offered a chance to book a vaccination appointment on the Publix site. But the nearest available appointment was in … Continue reading
The vaccination wildcard
I don’t know why it took me so long to recognize the obvious, but all of my tentative plans to travel north in April are moot until I get vaccinated. It is nearly impossible to get the vaccine here in Florida, as a resident of the state, and I think you can drop the “nearly” … Continue reading
Shutout #4
Today, for the fourth straight time, I was denied an appointment for the COVID-19 vaccine. I should mention that the shutout occurred on the Publix supermarket site, which, along with the Florida state site, seems to be the only source of vaccine right now. I think that is rather odd – why Publix? Why not … Continue reading
“The Cuban Affair” by Nelson DeMille
Copyright 2017 by Nelson DeMille. Published by Pocket Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, Inc., New York. I am having a hard time evaluating this book. This is my first Nelson DeMille novel and I have to say that I like his writing style. Very lively. The characters are interesting. The settings are places … Continue reading
WOW (softball edition)
We won our softball game today, 20-19 in extra innings. This victory was a minor miracle as we were outplayed and beaten badly for 5 innings . We were down 17-9 after 5. But we held them in the 6th, then scored 5 to make it 17-14. They added one in the 7th but we … Continue reading
2020 blog booklet
2020 was a disastrous year, but the booklet, as I realized as I was assembling it, is fairly upbeat, largely because of the wonderful 2-week cruise early in the year. Anyway, if you want the PDF you can get it here:
Patriots by proxy
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers won Super Bowl LV on Sunday by a score of 31-9, a huge surprise for most sports prognosticators. But three of the Tampa Bay touchdowns were passes from Tom Brady to Rob Gronkowski (2x) and Antonio Brown. All 3 are former New England Patriots. Anyone who has watched the Patriots for … Continue reading »