Awful iPhone photo aside, the way skies lit up on campouts away from the city inspired me to finally invest in a telescope to check them out myself. But I had to suffer through a couple early shortcuts first. Learning from my Early Astronomical Missteps Folks in my family tend to be obsessive. At least,... Continue Reading →
Words to live by…. I didn’t become a regular coffee drinker until I met my wife and settled into a lazy AM routine of sunshine, catching up on news, and plenty of cream and sugar in my cup. Add kids to the brew, and stir in a unhealthy shot of constant, crazy world events, and... Continue Reading →
Hey, that’s me at my first Pittsburgh Great Race since 1999, wearing my 1997 race shirt. Officially, this was race 44 since June 2021, on my way to 46 by year’s end. Keeping a good run going Looking back on a lovely 2023 running, I can’t help but take stock of the journey three years... Continue Reading →
Around Christmastime 2020 I was pushing 245 lbs. on the scale, and had gone a good two years since my last attempt at getting back in running shape. Starting Dec. 28, I vowed to work out every day for a year, and starting around New Year's Day I began tracking all my meals and absorbing the daily lessons of the Noom fitness app. By Dec. 27, 2021 I had lost almost 90 lbs., logged nearly 1,600 miles -- including 10 races -- and am cruising along at 40 miles per week with a long run for the year of 13.1.
Some might say the “holy grail” of genealogy is putting aside all that paper research and gumshoeing and spitting into a tube, sealing it up, and mailing it off to the Mormons for verification in their ever-expanding database of lives lived, down to the DNA. But that just doesn’t get my socks going up and down. It’s a trick of chemistry that, to me, makes blood, somehow, impersonal.
I’ve skipped the saliva-gram altogether, and found my own grails to pursue.
Every spring, the flowering shrub planted — or having taken root — at Michael Pfouts’s gravesite swallows his memorial stone, and each autumn, it shrivels to reveal the stone again. Picture from March 2011. This was one of my most unique genealogy finds — I first visited the cemetery south of Bowerston, Ohio, in Spring and couldn’t find Michael’s stone due to the flowering plant. When I came back at the tail end of winter, there was the resting place of our oldest Foutz ancestor, first to come to the United States from Germany.
Howdy, all, after a good long while. And happy 2020.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Whispering Across the Campfire. And though a kind of yawning chasm has tended to open up between my posts, especially of late, this year I’ve resolved to open up the archives and spill…
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In Praise of Chicago Pizza Shipped to My Door During the throes of this pandemic, as we brace daily for whatever might be coming next, and try to tamp down our dread enough to enjoy the day, in spite of all that's changed, I think it's only appropriate that I keep bringing up in this... Continue Reading →
Drinking Tuna Water? It's Meow-valous Every dog has his day, so they say. And around our bustling household, that goes for cats, too. Or should I say, cat. (Thank God we just have the one.) Something to hopefully tickle your fancy today as the world continues with our hunker-down approach to the spreading corona virus:... Continue Reading →
Ebbets Field Flannels Liquidates Seattle Storefront Strange times we're living in. Strange times indeed. Been sort of surreal since returning from my business trip to London and Amsterdam, just as U.S. borders were closing, I haven't left my house in 14 days due to self-quarantining (I fortunately feel fine), so I have not had a... Continue Reading →
In Praise of the Rosewood Hong Kong, Champion of Hotel Luxury Throughout the United States, and around the world, many of us are nearing the end of a second week of social isolation. My world has narrowed to the walls of my house, maybe the walking perimeter of my neighborhood, and my commute is as... Continue Reading →
Three Electric Toothbrushes: Dadtritus Alert Is it just me, or do most Dads mow through toothbrushes with our mighty molars at a pace that leaves them buzzing and stuttering in our wake? To wit: at last count, I had not one, not two, but three Philips Sonicare models of various vintage standing sentry on my... Continue Reading →
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