To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
Well, I finished this book, finally. As you might recall, gentle reader, I have been reading it for some time. I started it before I began the library’s winter reading challenge (which I finished on or around February 22), so it was the book I picked up after Wuthering Heights). I read the sixteen books […]
I just can’t quit turning a viewing of the New Shows Of…. video compilations that Ace links to into personal reminiscences and quizzes. Yesterday, he linked to the new shows of 1984. How many do I remember/did I watch? As always, I’ve bolded the ones I remember and added a link to references to the […]
In addition to spending the days together, I made a point of watching movies this week with my boys. We watched six from Monday through Friday: Night Movie Daddy Always SaysFrom This Movie Comment/Reaction Monday Fletch “I charged [it] to Mr. Underhill’s American Express Card. Want the number?” “Can I borrow your towel for a […]
My wife spotted this book on my to-read shelves and brought it to my attention: I should read it soon, or it might disappear from my shelves. She has read other things by the author, a three-time cancer survivor, so that might be how she knows of him. So after I finished the Winter 2021 […]
I said last week: As you might remember, gentle reader, I inherited a box of my grandfather’s old books when my aunt passed away a little over a year ago. They have remained in the box as they include a fourteen volume (plus index) set of The Classics in Greek and Latin from 1909 that […]
I thought I first heard about Susan McBride because she was the first winner of the Mayhaven Publishing prize for fiction which came with a publishing contract. I entered my novel John Donnelly’s Gold in the same competition (well, a later one–not the same as Ms. McBride) and did not win. But that’s not exactly […]
So let’s get on with Christmas presents: I am often underwhelmed on the gifts I receive. Sometimes, it’s a little premature that I look askew at something under the tree, as the time when I got a Keurig single-use coffee maker which I thought I would never use, but as my life changed from upstairs-mind-the-children-by-the-coffee-pot […]
To be honest, I’ve struggled a bit with writing the summation of this course, or at least what I learned about it, because it’s Africa, which is where [Some] black people come from. I say “Some” because Australian aborigines are dark skinned to the point they might be considered black and not merely southwest Asian […]
Yesterday afternoon was glorious. Warm; the temperature topped out at a golden 80 degrees. I finished my work day, and as I had calls until past time to pick the youngest up for school, we could not do our early martial arts class. I had the choice of noodling on my computer until dinner time, […]
Now that my oldest child is in high school, which officially makes me as old as my peers (well, not quite–some of my peers are grandparents, but old enough anyway), we have found ourselves at small town high school football games on Friday nights.
Sorry to continue with the conspicuous consumption that is the hallmark of these pages, but after we got back on Wednesday night from our trip to Branson, I went looking for my most recent annual pass to the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield to see if I needed to get one before my boys and I […]
On Friday night, the oldest boy stayed at a friend’s house, so the younger, my movie-watching buddy, and I watched a film. He’s always more patient with films; the older boy fidgets, wanders in and out of the room, and offers his commentary track atop what’s happening–but often needing to ask what’s going on because […]
Today at Nogglestead, we’re doing some efficient homeschooling. We’re studying both the Spanish language and sex education reviewing the works of Shakira. Eeesh, just kidding. If I wanted my boys to be educated like that, I’d send them to public school. Although I own the album She Wolf, I really can’t watch the whole video. […]
My father was born in the Baby Boom generation to a family of carpenters and outdoorsmen, gentle reader, so as I grew up, I was pretty sure he knew how to do everything. He could build a house, repair or rebuild a car, survive in the woods on his own, and so on. Of course, […]
“It’s highly unlikely,” I responded. “Good night.” And I put out his light. He might have been looking for certainty, an assurance from his father that everything was going to be all right. Perhaps some parents do that for their children, apply absolute answers where statistics indicate a small chance exists, but I’ve never been […]
Kansas man requests ‘trial by combat’ with swords to settle custody battle with ex-wife: A Kansas man has asked an Iowa judge to let him engage in a sword fight with his ex-wife and her attorney so that he can “rend their souls” from their bodies. . . . . He also asked the judge […]
I bought this book in November and started on it because I’d stalled out on the couple of other poetry books I’ve been reading of late. It’s a collection from nominally three poets with a marker from a veteran’s cemetary on the cover, someone who died at 22 in 1997, so a contemporary of the […]
I might have mentioned that I have an aunt who might be terminally ill in St. Charles. I have been remiss in visiting the St. Louis area and seeing her in the last ten years since we bought Nogglestead–I might have been back only two or three times–so I have been inventing excuses to drive […]
I always find stories like this interesting: Fugitive lived in isolated bunker for 3 years to evade arrest in Wisconsin: His hideout was near the Ice Age Trail, a 1,000-mile footpath that winds through Wisconsin woodlands. It’s a rustic trail, still partially in development, and in remote places like Ringle sees very little foot traffic. […]
Kim du Toit has posted a list of things he encouraged his children to read while homeschooling them. A list of books? That’s a quiz! So how do I do compared to a du Toit? Once again, I will bold the things I’ve read and underline the things I own but have not yet read. […]