Tom’s Handy Adventure, the GFCI saga If you want to be seen as a good photographer, only show your good photographs. The same advice applies to becoming handy, show your finished work, don’t reveal how you got it done. For example, I was challenged with the problem of three non-functioning (no power) wall outlets in a master bathroom for the past two months. Let’s go through the steps Confirm – Plugged in a razor charger to all three outlets and indeed there…
I attended the 2019 Rubber Tramp Rendezvous in Quartzite, Arizona from Wednesday, January 9, 2019, to Sunday, January 20th. This is the largest gathering of nomads in the world, people who live in their vehicles. Many choose to be homeless while others had this lifestyle thrust upon them, living in vehicles as small as a Prius to 40-foot school buses. I saw retired Fed Ex trucks, mail trucks, ambulances, Class A, B, and C RVs, home built boxes on truck…
I’m getting sick and tired of “Caller ID Spoofing“. Caller ID spoofing has been around for more than a decade. In essence, the caller doesn’t want you to know their true phone number so they electronically manipulate caller ID to display another number. Legitimately, if a company employee calls you, the company doesn’t want you to know the employee’s desk phone number but would rather you see the company’s main phone number on your caller ID. Makes sense. However, it is being…
Another bucket list item In a previous post, I talked about buying a 2001 BMW R1100RT in Texas with the intention of riding it back to Virginia. Hurricane Florence and then Tropical Storm Gordon delayed that trip for two weeks so I rode 1,000 miles on hot Texas Roads getting used to the bike. One training trip was a good example of an unusual America Road Side attraction. A What? US Roadside attractions are giant, turn-your-head, what was that, weird…
I’m really good at Analysis Paralysis, study and research a problem indefinitely to avoid decisions and commitment. A good example is motorcycling. My introduction to motorcycling was in 1970-71, my third year at UVA. My roommate Dan Hanson and I bought a one-cylinder, two-stroke, Harley-Davidson Sportster 250 from Al Hollister, the saxophonist I played with in a jazz band. Kind of learned to ride it but not really. No classes, just hop on and see what happens. Thought it would be…
I rode my 1991 Honda VFR motorcycle 1,750 miles in eight days. My first long motorcycle tour! Day 1 – Thursday, August 9, 2018 Packed up and rode from Midlothian to Roanoke staying on quiet back roads. That night I checked into RoadRunner Magazine’s Touring Weekend, a two and a half day gathering of touring motorcyclists with talks, communal dinner, and group rides on the beautiful roads of the Shenandoah Valley and surrounding mountains. There were more than 200 riders…
Handy? I want to be skilled at using my hands, a person able to fix things. I learned early in life that I wasn’t “handy”. My repair attempts more often than not ended poorly. Failure did not mix well with my introverted, shy nature. I would quietly watch my father do home repairs but seldom tried. I didn’t “do”. I was afraid of another failure. There are “doers” and “thinkers” in our world and I was a thinker. In my teens…
We just returned from a lovely stroll through the Cotswolds, English countryside designated as “an area of outstanding natural beauty”. With rolling hills, “wolds”, it is the second largest protected landscape in England (in case you are wondering, the Lake District is the largest). Also, in case you were wondering, a “cot” is a sheep enclosure. So the Cotswolds are a land of “sheep enclosures on rolling hillsides”. Inhabited since the bronze age, the area made its fortune and reputation…
When I was in high school, I remember “old people” talking about their 50th High School Reunion. Is that possible, does anyone live to be that old? Well, it finally happened in the blink of an eye. One day I was in high school and the next day I am going to my 50th High School Reunion. Didn’t help that the day before I was scanning photos and pondered my grandmother Riley in her old age … three years younger…
Morgan continues to expand and refine his voice and directorial talents with OTARP, On the Air Radio Players, a division of Henrico’s Recreation and Parks. OTARP recreates live old-time radio shows. Though not broadcast over the air, you can sit and listen to the Golden Age of Radio come alive several times a year on the stage of the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen. Morgan has participated, either as a performer or as director, in eleven productions (25+ performances). On…