The Terrible Catsafterme

It was nice to finally get a chance to sleep in on Wednesday, July 9, 2008. After four full days of traveling from sun-up to sundown (and the sun went down late), it was a much-needed refresher. Unfortunately it meant sacrificing some precious time in the city of Amsterdam. Afterall, we were at the ‘Amsterdam’ convention, but since we were staying in Alphen aan den Rijn, on the outskirts of the city, we had yet to see the famous and debaucherous Amsterdam. Read the rest of this entry »

The classic 1983 film A Christmas Story has become ingrained in my mind – and I’m sure on the minds of anyone else under the age of 40 – as a necessary staple of the holiday season… especially now that it seems to play on a continuous loop for the entire month of December. In fact if you looked up ‘holiday film’ in the dictionary, you might find a picture of the leg lamp. As part of our Ohio tour, on July 27, 2008 Bob and I visited the primary house in the slums of Cleveland that was used in the film as the home of the Parker family.

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President James A. Garfield is a name virtually lost among the United States Presidents. Having served just six months and fifteen days of office – the second shortest term of any President – he was shot on July 2, 1881 by a disgruntled Federal office seeker named Charles Guiteau. For the last two and a half months of his term, Garfield lay incapacitated until he finally succumbed from the gunshot wound on September 19. It has been argued that it was really the ineptitude of his doctors that actually caused his death, but nevertheless Garfield is considered the second of four assassinated Presidents. Read the rest of this entry »

Although I was starting to get used to the time zone difference (6 hours), it was still difficult dragging my butt out of bed. We had another 8am bus to catch on the morning of Tuesday, July 8, 2008. Whereas we had traveled to the northern part of Holland the day before, this bus would be taking us to the southern part of Holland. I got ready, dropped Jackie a note on the internet, and then enjoyed another great breakfast buffet – which was the exactly same everyday, but just perfect the way it was. Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday, October 7, Bob, Jimmy, and I headed from Bob’s place in San Bernardino toward Las Vegas. The main reason: to see the Penn & Teller live show at the Rio, which I covered in a previous posting found here. But while we were in town, Bob wanted to show us around a bit. I thought that this sounded great as it would provide even more great things to do and report in our family Christmas Newsletter. As much as my website helps drive many of the adventures I go on these days, the Christmas Newsletter helped drive events back in 2005. Read the rest of this entry »