Foil backdrop
It didn’t look so great yesterday when I poked my head into the ballroom. It had all fallen down.
Epic fail.
Somebody put it back up, with stickpins, so it looks good again. But it still feels like a fail to me.
NYE fail
Categories: FL, Places, RV Living
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Letting my (freak?) flag fly
Flag pride
I also, by coincidence, got and installed on the same day a front license plate for the truck. Now everyone knows that I am a Red Sox fan. Not that it was a secret.
License pride
Categories: Uncategorized
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Ghosted by my printer
The first 4 volumes, from printi.com
I have published the first four volumes of the blog – 2011 through 2014 – and have the 2015 volume ready for print. But my chosen printer – printi.com – has disappeared. Apparently they have been gobbled up by VistaPrint. Their website now redirects me to the VistaPrint website. But I have been unable to find similar booklet publishing services available through VistaPrint. The only spiral-bound booklets they offer have plastic bindings, which I deem unacceptable. So I am looking for a new printer. Not how I wanted to spend my holiday time.
Categories: Books
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Rusty the goofball
The goofball at rest
He is a funny dog. A goofball, for sure. He amuses himself by tossing dog toys into the air and catching them. He kicks a ball down the hallway, then chases it. While he enjoys meeting other dogs, his interest usually lasts less than 30 seconds. Maybe the best thing about him – when walking him, anyway – is that he completely ignores dogs who are being aggressive towards him.
He is a good dog. We will keep him.
Categories: Family
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“Night School” by Lee Child
Copyright 2016 by Lee Child, published by Delacorte Press.
This is the 21st book in the Jack Reacher series. I like all of the Jack Reacher books. He is larger than life, sometimes tender, sometimes brutal, always analytical and never predictable. All of which makes for a good read.
In Night School he is in the army – which is somewhat confusing as he had mustered out in some of the earlier books. Apparently these stories are not chronological. But they almost always stand on their own, so it is not a fatal flaw. At some point maybe I will try to go back and put them in sequence. But not today.
The premise of this one is that Reacher has been ordered back to the classroom, ostensibly to learn about the latest developments in interagency cooperation. But it is a cover, of course, for a clandestine operation. A small group, consisting initially of a CIA agent, an FBI agent and an MP (Reacher) has been assembled to look into an alarming report of possible terrorist activity in Germany. It quickly develops that an AWOL soldier is selling something to a terrorist group for $100 million. The question is what. What could a lowly soldier from a mundane unit in Germany have acquired that could command that price? What could interest a terrorist group for that kind of money? It has to be small (because a single man stole it) and simple (because it can’t require a lot of training or support to be used). It also has to be something that has slipped between the cracks in the military’s inventory control because nothing of that value is missing.
It is a puzzler, all right, but Reacher loves puzzles. He also loves that the liaison with the NSC is an attractive woman who falls for Reacher’s charms and is more than willing to share his bed between forays into the field in search of clues.
Once the culprit is identified to be the AWOL grunt and it becomes obvious that his theft is the culmination of a plan that formed years earlier, before he even joined the army, the investigation tries to figure out what the plan is by interviewing people from his past. The most salient clue is a cryptic comment he made to a fellow soldier that he joined the army “because of Davy Crockett.”
Of course the team figures it all out eventually and just in the nick of time, with about 95% of the credit due to Reacher and his insights. They all get a medal.
Not the most compelling Reacher story I have ever read, but damn good still.
8 out of 10.
Categories: Books
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Stats for Jett’s American ancestors, 2018
Number of American ancestors: 549
Location of graves, by state:
- MA – 443
- ME – 42
- NH – 16
- NY – 12
- CT – 7
- VT – 6
- NJ – 2
- RI – 2
- VA – 2
- FL – 1
- SC – 1
- Canada – 1
- England – 1
- Barbados – 1
- unknown – 12
Number of immigrant ancestors: 326
Country of immigrant birth:
- England – 300
- Ireland – 8
- Netherlands – 6
- Scotland – 5
- Wales – 5
- unknown – 2
Categories: Genealogy
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Jett’s American ancestors, 2018 update
I have gone through Jett’s Ancestry tree, reviewing new hints, correcting some errors and adding a few newly-discovered ancestors – specifically the ancestors of Mehitable Williams (a 6th great-grandmother). In the course of reviewing these new hints i discovered some new things:
- She has several new direct links to Plantagenet royalty (specifically Edward III).
- She is a distant cousin to both Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher (they were siblings).
- One of Abraham Lincoln’s 6th great-grandfathers is one of Jett’s 10th great-grandfathers, making her a distant cousin to Old Abe.
- Another 10th great-grandfather, Thomas Macy, was one of the 10 original owners of Nantucket Island.
The total number of documented American ancestors in her family tree is now 549. Pretty deep roots.
Categories: Genealogy
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First footers, of a sort
The empty sites to the north
It is not yet The Season in southwest Florida – that starts Jan 1 – so the park is still only about one-third occupied. The 3 sites to our north are all empty and the neighbor to our south has gone away for the holidays, leaving us feeling a little lonely and isolated. So it is a good time to make an effort to meet people who are in the same situation.
To that end we invited a couple of near neighbors – the couple across the street and the couple four sites to the north – to our place for drinks and appetizers. We could have just offered appetizers because they brought their own drinks. But their presence made them “first footers” of a sort. Technically a first footer is the first visitor to enter a new dwelling. Well, they didn’t actually enter our RV and even if they had they wouldn’t have have been the first. But they were the first visitors to set foot on our site, so I think they qualify.
It was a good time. And it felt good to make some new friends. It has been a while since we have done that. We didn’t make any real friends over the summer as Lamb City was a weekend/family kind of place. But as residents who are committed to staying at least 3 years, we hppe to make some good lnng-term friends here.
First footers are a start.
Jett preparing for the guests
The sumptuous spread
Categories: FL, Places, RV Living
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Painting the steps
Painted/unpainted steps
I noticed that the steps were looking a bit worn and were starting to show some rust. They needed a new coat of paint. Easier said than done as they are the only means of access to and egress from our living space. So the steps had to be painted in… steps. One step a day for four days. And because the paint required a minimum of 3 hours to dry, I had to plan to paint when no one – no even Rusty – needed to use them for at least 3 hours. So I painted a step after I took Rusty for his afternoon walk and it would be dry enough for him to step on it by the time his evening walk came around. I continued to step over the painted step, giving it all night to dry. The plan worked well. I now have a set of steps that look nearly new.
The photo shows two steps – the top one painted, the bottom one unpainted. Big difference.
Categories: RV Living
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Sunsets in Fort Myers
Sunset at the pool
Dusk over the pond
Translucent clouds
Red at night, sailor’s delight
Dusk at the pond
Nearing sunset