Big Ole Hairy Friday the 13th

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 Peanut and Kiwi are taking this whole Friday the 13th thing just a little too far, but hey if that is what makes them happy and floats their boats then so be it. They do keep things lively and entertaining around here to say the least. 

No big plans for the day, well I guess that really isn't true as we have to have the exhaust repaired or replaced today on Pearl. It broke off at the between the mufflers (had dual mufflers) and the manifold. We're going to take it to Hartsells this morning and have it repaired. It's broken in half, so something tells me this may not be a cheap repair. Brian did do the exhaust last time, so it may still be under warranty so that could save us some money. 

Have yourselves 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.

I played around a few weeks ago with AI, like it is something I always do for my blog, and I had it create an AI image based on what it knows about me. I did have to upload a picture for it to use, but this is what it made. I have no idea why it has me drinking coffee, yuck. 

Have yourself a great day. 

Hi ho hi ho

Lucy's Journal

Lucy’s Journal Entry – March 11, 2026

Dear Journal,

Today turned out to be one of those days where the plan changes halfway through… and somehow gets even better.

This morning I was exploring the garage with Kiwi, Peanut, and the Quackers when we discovered something very interesting tucked behind a stack of old boxes. It was a big dusty bag filled with Ed’s old softball equipment! There were gloves, a bat, a few softballs, and even one of those hats that looked like it had played about a hundred games.

Kiwi immediately hopped up on the bag like he had just discovered treasure.

“BALL GAME!” he squawked.

Peanut flicked her tail like she was a professional athlete who had been waiting her whole life for this moment. The Quackers, of course, started quacking excitedly and waddling around the garage like a team preparing for the big championship.

So we carried (well… mostly dragged) the equipment out to the backyard to start our big softball game.

Now, there were a few problems with this plan.

First, Kiwi kept trying to sit on the softball instead of hitting it.
Second, Peanut thought the glove was a toy and kept pouncing on it.
Third, the Quackers refused to stand in the outfield and instead followed the ball every time it moved.

We tried to bat, but the ball kept rolling under the porch.
We tried pitching, but Kiwi kept yelling “MY TURN!” whether it was his turn or not.

After about fifteen minutes of total chaos, Peanut sat down in the grass, looked at the softball, and then very deliberately nudged a big red rubber ball that had rolled out of the garage.

Kiwi tilted his head.

“Kick… ball?”

The Quackers looked at each other.

QUACK QUACK!

And just like that, softball was officially canceled.

Kickball, however, was a huge success.

Peanut was surprisingly good at guarding the bases. Kiwi took his kicking very seriously and did a little victory flap every time the ball rolled across the yard. The Quackers ran after the ball like a feathery stampede every time someone kicked it.

At one point Kiwi kicked the ball straight toward the garden and the entire team—Peanut included—chased after it like we were in the championship game of the Backyard Kickball League.

We laughed, we ran, and we probably broke every official rule of kickball ever written.

But it didn’t matter.

By the end of the afternoon we were all laying in the grass, tired and happy.

Softball equipment discovery: successful.
Softball game: not so successful.
Kickball game: legendary.

Sometimes the best games are the ones you didn’t plan.

Until next week,
Lucy

Wednesday

Tuesday's Tidbits

* Monday is over, even though it was a short weekend I am still adjusting to Daylight Savings time. 

* It has been 22,721 days since I was born, that is 21 years using my new,  new, new, and improved 1,069-day Calendar. mom is at 30,375 which would make her 28 according to my new and improved calendar. 

* It has been 7,973 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. 

* 6,567 days ago Michelle and I had our first date together. Life has been much better since then. 

* 5,771 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 5,808 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 2,946 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 1,600 days ago today. 

* My older Brother Jonathan lived 21,273 days, I've now outlived him by 1,463 days, making me Senior Supreme Sibling once again! 

* Old roommate Gregg proposed to his fiancée 178 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 2,171 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.

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

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

* There are 289 more shopping days left until Christmas 2026. 

* There are 273 days until I hit the age of 63. Yeah I know, I'm really older than 21. 

* There are only 157 more days to go until Michelle and I will celebrate our 15th Wedding Anniversary......maybe

* There are 9 days until my favorite season begins, a lot of people love different seasons, I am a Spring person who loves the Springtime. 

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

* I have written 8,276 blogs in what is now 21 years of Blogging. 

* Michelle loves Starbucks, but the last couple of months she has replicated her favorite drink at home at a fraction the the cost and much easier.

* It does feel weird only having one employer at the moment, been a while since I could make that claim.   

* 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. I know it is AI, but it is funny. 

* Hi ho hi ho

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, even though we are an hour ahead of where we were last week. 

Kiwi and Peanut have both decided that even though they like daylight savings time, it's still too early for them and their bodies just havn't adjusted yet. They have decided to sleep in as Michelle and I head out to work. I told Kiwi the early bird gets the worm and he looked at me and said I like seeds Dad, Seeds not earthworms. Worms are for those outdoor cats less intelligent than him. 

So what is coming for the week ahead? Well I did update my linkedin, indeed and my resume to make them all up to date with the recent changes, I really didn't mention too much when I worked for Parsons, what I was doing for the DoD was not something I wanted out there. It was fun while it lasted, but that chapter of my life at least for now is over with. I'm sure if they needed man hours they would reach back out to me, but I would be working for a private company contracted to them again like I was when I worked for Lancesoft. 

Have yoursleves a great day. 

Hi ho hi ho

Sunday

Here I sit at about the time we set the clocks ahead an hour. Kiwi and Peanut have volunteered to be the official spring forward guys in this household tp make sure that our clocks are all set ahead an hour so that they reflect the right time. 

I do love Daylight Savings time, and to be honest my body has been slowly adjusting over the past few days for the time change, so I think I'm ready for the time adjustment. 

No big plans for the day other than resting and relaxing and getting ready for the week ahead. I know Kiwi and Peanut were still drawing up plans for their planned stream diversion and building the waterfall in the back yard. They are both innovative, but I don't think that they will pull this off. I know they were going through the garage and found my old softball equipment and are thinking about calling Lucy anbd the Quackers for a little bit of a game this week. 

Have a great day, make some memories. 

Saturday Morning Ramblings

Here I sit in a quiet household, Kiwi and Peanut are playing a game of Operation. Peanut is kicking Kiwi's butt on this because she is much more patient, and those surgical claws make things easier for her as opposed to Kiwi's trying to use his yapping beak while trash-talking his sister. 

Yesterday was my official last day with Parsons. I have my equipment packed up, and I'll take it to FedEx this morning to return my PC Tower the two monitors (that are really nice), and my laptop. It was a great job, but they ended the Casual employment thing as a few supervisors were taking advantage of workers, and some filed complaints that they were unethical (they are govt contractors, this is big), so rather than get dinged, they just ended the program altogether. I really haven't worked for them since June and it was a feast or famine type of job. I can still work for them if the situation presented itself; I would just have to go back through a third-party vendor like Lancesoft, like I did before. 

I had a pretty good week at work, I'm about done with the training PowerPoint for the new website for the putage management site. My boss's boss wrote roughly 30,000 lines of code to make this thing work and I even have to say it is state-of-the-art. I can't show it to anyone because the information inside is both proprietary and protected by TSA-ISS. 

Michelle was off yesterday and is enjoying a three-day weekend. They had to take their network down for system upgrades, so they gave her the day off. She's happy.

Have yourselves a great day

Hi ho hi ho