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Showing posts from August 2, 2015

Summer is Over

After struggling with the first five years or so of my illness so I could finally acquire an accurate diagnosis of my debilitating health problems (now that was a brutal five years), I knew I needed a break from medical appointments. Five solid years of medical appointments every few days... involving quite a few painful, invasive tests... is enough. I quickly came up with a new rule... absolutely no medical appointments through the summer...  June through September. I need a break... I need to enjoy life... I need to focus on me, not my health. For the most part, I've been successful with this rule over the past ten years. Sometimes, however, a rule must be broken. This is one such summer when this rule needed to be broken. As a result, my summer is now over and it is back to business, as usual. My business since procuring this insidious illness is managing medical exams, medical testing and medical care. We've been to the ophthalmologist five or six times in the past week

Lake Champlain Maritime Festival

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I can't believe an entire year has already passed but this coming Saturday is the day for the 2015 Lake Champlain Maritime Festival. It seems like we were at the 2014 show (and the sweltering, oppressing heat) just last week! Since I'm a big fan of antique wooden boats, I really do enjoy this show and look forward to it every summer. I wish I could find a nice little wooden runabout for myself with a relatively small engine... maybe at this year's show! Assuming the weather is cooperative... assuming that Sheila's health is cooperative... and assuming my health is cooperative... we plan to be in Burlington for this year's show on Saturday. If anyone would like to join us, just let us know. I know we are looking forward to spending the day in Burlington looking at classic boats, doing some street shopping at the annual Sidewalk Sale and visiting a few watering holes. Until the show this weekend, here are some photos from last year's show... The Ar

"Gramps" Tanker

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Today was a rather slow day (poor health through the night) so I took a little time to shoot a photo of a tank car I picked up on eBay recently. There is some significance to this particular tanker though... it has the name "Gramps" written in large lettering across the car like it is a special production train car rather than a true model of a real train.  The moment I first saw one of these unusual freight cars, I thought of my own grandfather, whom we affectionately called "Gramps", and how he is one of the main people to get me interested in model railroading as a young child. Dear 'ole Gramps is no longer with us but he is in my thoughts often. Both he and my grandmother were responsible for providing piano lessons for me... for my sailboat... for my love of antique wood boats... he got me started in photography... he is responsible for my nautical knowledge and interest in boating... my grandmother is responsible for much of my cooking skills and ab