He's doing it again

Oh, no. It's happening again. Hi, Luna here. I'm taking over my Daddy's blog since he's totally ignored it and I have some sad news. Remember at this time last year when I wrote about how he was going crazy? Well, eventually, he settled down and things returned to normal, if you want to call a tree inside the house normal. Well, anyway, he's started acting crazy again. There's tubs filled with plastic bags out on the carport and he keeps carrying...

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Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Navy

I had my morning coffee in my favorite Ohio State mug. By game time, Gidget and I had our Ohio State jerseys on, prepared to watch the first game of the 2014 season. Usual protocols followed for an Ohio State football game. After a week of reading all the pregame analyses and musings of various sportswriters, I was prepared to watch this game with the same uneasiness I think most Buckeye fans were experiencing. After all, we'd lost senior quarterback Braxton Miller to a shoulder injury in practice two weeks earlier forcing Urban Meyer to start...

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Ten Years Later

Ten years ago today, we knew our Friday the 13th (Aug. 13, 2004) would not be a normal day. Hurricane Charley was churning through the Gulf of Mexico along the southwest coast of Florida, with expected landfall somewhere in the Tampa Bay area. With that in mind, we were not overly concerned, but of course, had made appropriate preparations just in case. Boarding up the windows, gas in the cars, cash in hand, etc. Employed as a reporter with the Charlotte Sun-Herald and working out of the Englewood office (our hometown), my beat was Sarasota County...

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The New Colored Pencil -- A Review

I am a novice artist, teaching myself to draw, sketch and paint, using either a pencil or watercolor paints. I have a set of colored pencils, but have only attempted one piece with those, a rendering of a bloom from our orchid tree. To my delight, "The New Colored Pencil" by Kristy Ann Kutch, opened my eyes to the vast possibilities of this medium. Filled with gorgeous illustrations, Kutch explores the traditional color pencil, water-soluble...

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Quirky places

Anyone who reads my blog routinely sees this photo, the office of the Longaberger Basket Company in Newark, Ohio. Now, this unique office building is an entry in USA Today's10Best Reader's Choice for Best Quirky Landmark in the United States. As this was near my hometown during my youth, you know this gets my vote. Voters can vote once a day until June 23. The winners will be announced at noon on June 25. Other nominees for best quirky place...

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Father's Day

I've been blowing hot and cold for the past few days about writing this particular blog post. You see, even though I'm a father and step-father, my own father has been gone for the majority of my adult life, 36 years now. And for the first time that I can remember, I'm really missing him this Father's Day. My dad passed away from cancer when I was 28 in 1978. He was young, I believe (blame a faulty memory) only 48 years old. I remember we got the diagnosis in October 1977; by March, he was gone. From the time I was 18 and going forward, we had...

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Morel heaven

When I was a teenager back in Ohio, I loved this time of year, or maybe two weeks earlier, depending upon the weather. No, it wasn't spring fever or the nearing end of the school year that made May a favorite month. No, it was the growth of one particular plant and the hunt for this elusive, epicurean delicacy. I'm talking about mushrooms, or morels. I forget when my father first took me mushroom hunting, and like most mushroomers, he had a couple...

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Monuments Men

Although I haven't seen it yet, the new George Clooney film, "The Monuments Men," has drawn attention to one of the little-known stories of World War II, the effort by the Allies to save precious cultural treasures from the ravages of war. The film, which is based upon a book of the same name by Robert Edsel, follows a platoon of soldiers as they attempt to discover and retrieve artwork stolen by the Nazis. But while Monuments Men, who were officially members of the "Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) section under the auspices of the...

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