Sunday

Here I sit in a somewhat disappointed household, Kiwi and Peanut were all excited yesterday ad they thought that they were going to get a chance to ride around on the lawn tractor and have fun, they had their day all planned out and they got a double whammy. It was wet from raining the night before and I even tried to start the tractor up for the second time this season, did so a couple weeks ago, and this time the battery was dead. It would not turnover. Fortunately I do have a batter charger and have it hooked up to the charger. I was able to get it started but I let it charge the rest of the day to get a full charge before I start the mowing season. Maybe I'll get a chance today to cut it. 

Michelle is going to head up to Elwood City with Chris, Amanda and a few others for Maddie's Birthday Party. They are going to head north after church for the day. If the weather permits, I might ride around in the yard and put Kiwi and Peanut in a better mood. I'm just hesitant to do that when I'm the only human here, especially after giving myself a concussion a couple years ago holding back a tree branch that about knocked me out and caused me to be lethargic the next morning. Better safe than sorry, but the weather is supposed to be nice. 

I waas talking to Mom yesterday, she said she had been de-hydrated and I suggested Pedialyte Pops that are always really helpful for me when I am under the weather. I know I really like them and like them so much it is an unguilty pleasure I can have year round. 

Have yourselves a great day

Saturday

Here I sit on a quiet Saturday Morning. Kiwi and Peanut have been up all night watching the RADAR and hoping that it's nice weather. They said they want to help me cut the grass today, and they want to drive the tractor around the yard. I heard them secretly discussing doing figure 8's in the grass. I don't know what I am going to do with these two. 

Michelle will be doing the grocery shopping today and I'll be handling things on the home front. I wish I could say I am just going to supervise as Kiwi and Peanut drive around the yard, but you know how that goes. I was going to cut the grass last Saturday, but Val said that it is bad luck to cut your grass before Easter, and Michelle said it was going to rain, so I never got it cut. This is on my agenda today, weather permitting. 

Nothing much more planned for us today, although Michelle is going back home to Ohio for a few hours on Sunday. It's Maddies Birthday and she is going to go up with Chris, so I will be home holding down the fort for the day. Kiwi has been reading go-kart manuals, so he might want my help building a Go-Kart in the garage. 

Have yourselfs a great day. Make some memories. 

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes, it is once again that time of the week that we all look forward to when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is again the dawn of another weekend and a Big Ole Hairy Friday!!!

I think Kiwi and Peanut have broken into our old wedding stuff and have decided the celebrate the start of the weekend Jimmy Buffett style. They are really in a festive mood and they have Jimmy streaming on the Alexa app. I think they like this time of the year as well, very festive of them. 

So no plans on the agenda as of yet, but you never know what may come our way or what we will end up doing. 

I'm still a couple of months from starting my Friday blogs with the free concert series, helping me fill up content for people to read. 

Have yourself a great day.

Hi ho hi ho 

Photo Flashback Thursday

Once a week, I like to take a little bit of time out, time to look at some of the 30,000+ photos that I have stored on my computer. Little lost moments in time that I either captured with a lens, scanned, or just stole from somewhere on the internet. I like to find just one and post it up, recalling or reliving the picture to the best of my ability. Sometimes this is a pretty easy task, and sometimes it's not that easy, but one thing it has always been a lot of fun.

Can you guess who this sexy Geospatial Genius is sitting on Grandma Hall's lap? It is none other than your favorite Blogger/Geographer, me!!!!

Don't ask me what year this picture was taken, being I'm only 21 I'm going to guess that this picture was sometime on or before 2004, but that is just a guess on my part. Forget that Grandma Hall has been gone since 1980, she had a time machine she hopped on to help pose for this picture. 

Have yourselves a great day. 

Hi ho hi ho

Lucy's Journal

Lucy’s Journal – April 8, 2026

Dear Journal,

Today started with a very serious plan. Kiwi said we were going on an adventure—like in that movie where the kids walk along train tracks and have a big journey and discover themselves (or at least find something dramatic).

Peanut was immediately on board, mostly because he thought there would be snacks involved. The Quackers didn’t really understand the assignment but loudly agreed anyway, which is pretty standard for them.

So off we went.

Kiwi took the lead, puffed up like some kind of feathery explorer, declaring, “All great adventures require train tracks!” Peanut nodded like he knew exactly what that meant, even though I’m pretty sure he was just hoping for a hot dog stand somewhere along the way.

We walked. And walked. And walked some more.

Around neighborhoods. Past the river. Up a hill. Back down another hill. The Quackers argued the entire time about which direction “felt more train-tracky,” which, for the record, is not a real navigational method.

At one point, Kiwi climbed up onto a fence post, looked around dramatically, and announced, “They have to be around here somewhere!”

They were not.

Peanut started to get suspicious about an hour in.

“Are we sure Morgantown even has these things?” he asked, flopping down dramatically on the sidewalk.

Kiwi refused to admit defeat. “All great stories involve perseverance,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “but most of those stories also involve actually finding what you’re looking for.”

After what felt like forever (and at least three wrong turns suggested by the Quackers), we all kind of just… stopped.

There were no train tracks.

No grand discovery.

No dramatic movie moment.

Just us, a little tired, a little confused, and very aware that we had absolutely no idea where we were going anymore.

That’s when Peanut said the smartest thing anyone said all day:

“Ice cream?”

And just like that, the adventure changed direction.

We found a little shop, piled in, and ordered way too much. Kiwi tried to “sample” everyone’s cones (without permission, of course), the Quackers managed to get ice cream on each other, and Peanut dropped his scoop and stared at it like his whole world had ended… before immediately ordering another.

We sat there laughing about how we set out for this big, meaningful journey and ended up completely failing to even find train tracks.

But honestly?

It didn’t feel like a failure.

It felt like one of the best days we’ve had in a while.

Turns out you don’t need train tracks to have an adventure.

Sometimes you just need your favorite crew, a questionable sense of direction, and a really good ice cream cone.

—Lucy

Wednesday

Tuesday's Tidbits

* Monday is over, now we are staring straight down at a Tuesday. Good time for a tidbits. I like these 8 hour days better. 

* It has been 22,747 days since I was born, that is 21 years using my new,  new, new, and improved 1,069-day Calendar. Mom is at 30,403, which would make her 28 according to my new and improved calendar. 

* It has been 8,001 days since I graduated from WVU with a Degree in Geography. I love what I do and am thankful to still be working in my field. Has it really been 8,000 days? 

* 6,595 days ago, Michelle and I had our first date together. Life has been much better since then. 

* 5,799 days ago, I proposed to Michelle in the backyard at 4:00 in the morning. I've been the luckiest guy since that fateful day. 

* It was 5,836 days ago in front of our closest friends and family, for the most part, Michelle and I became husband and wife at the Marilla Center, it was a great day with friends and family. 

* I have now lived 2,974 days longer than my Dad did and I'm still going strong, slowing down but still going. 

* Michelle has been living a clean and productive life and beat that alcohol demon 1,628 days ago today. 

* My older Brother Jonathan lived 21,280 days, I've now outlived him by 1,484 days, making me Senior Supreme Sibling once again! 

* Old roommate Gregg proposed to his fiancée 206 days ago, I'm happy for those two. I asked him a couple weeks ago if they set a date yet, he said we would be the first to know. 

* I have 2,143 days to go until I retire, give or take a few hundred days here or there, but I love doing what I do. Who knows, though, doing what I do I may never retire.

* 301 more days until Phil steps to center stage once again for Groundhog Day. I'm still mad at the damn rat

* 268 more days to go until my Goodbye 2026 Blog is posted. 

* There are 261 more shopping days left until Christmas 2026. 

* There are 246 days until I hit the age of 63. Yeah I know, I'm really older than 21. 

* There are only 129 more days to go until Michelle and I will celebrate our 15th Wedding Anniversary......maybe

* There are 76 days until my second favorite season begins, Summertime!!!!!!

* It has been ∞ (infinity symbol) days since I have hated both Pitt and Penn State.

* I have written 8,309 blogs in what is now 21 1/2 years of Blogging. 

* Progress on my Selfie in Space, right here. We are ready for liftoff and holding. 

* Looking for Girl Scout Cookies? Ryleigh's Page

* Looking for Girl Scout Cookies still? Arabellas Page

* This is my favorite TicTok of the week. And people wondered why I never pitched, seen too many of these through the years. 

* Hi hoi hi ho

Happy Birthday Terri Rehmani

I would like to take this opportunity to wish my amazing sister Terri a very Happy Birthday today, by my count she is still just 21, but I never use traditional calendars and use my own unique temporal measuring system. 

 
Terri is a strong and inspiring woman and now she has the title of Breast Cancer Survivor to go along with everything else. She is an amazing woman/ 

Terri is one of the most unselfish and amazing person you could ever meet or come across. If you have someone like this in your life you're pretty lucky and I'm pretty lucky. It was her that picked me up at the lowest point in my life and dusted me off and put me on the right path despite me having the fears that I had at that time, that makes her pretty damned amazing in my book and I'm thankful she is my sister.

Not sure if anyone will see Terri today, but if you are fortunate enough take a little bit of time out and wish her a very Happy Birthday today.

Happy Birthday, Terri.

Monday

All good things must come to an end—but if you’ve got to wrap up the weekend, today’s a pretty exciting way to do it. Now it’s time to take our collective noses and press them firmly back onto the grindstone of life. Back to work, back to the hustle, back to doing our part to make this spinning rock a better place.

It is back into the offices today for both Michelle and I. She is coming off a five-day weekend, and I'm just finishing up a three-day weekend and rested and relaxed. I do go back to a normal 8-hour day today instead of those longer 10-hour days. You wouldn't think that's tiring, but in an office environment and sitting at a computer screen, that makes for long days, especially when you are doing tedious tasks like transcribing numbers from paper copies into a spreadsheet (handwritten, so OCR Readers are out of the question), so I can convert the coordinates into a geospatial dataset. It'll help us improve spatial integrity with where things are located. 

It was nice to see Hayley, Tyler, and Luke yesterday. They all came down for Easter Dinner thar Michelle (actually Peanut and Kiwi) prepared. It was an absolute feast, and it was great to see everyone. I hadn't seen any of them since Thanksgiving. 

So what is coming up in the week ahead? I have a weekly meeting first thing this morning, we use it as a skull session as to how we will be addressing projects. Michelle has an ever-expanding role where she picks up new skill sets all the time. She is quick to pick up on things, so she is becoming a bigger and bigger asset every day. She actually closed a $4 Million deal last week, which she was quite happy with. I asked her if we get to keep the whole $4 Million, the answer, unfortunately, was no. 

Have yourself a great day. 

Hi ho hi ho