Scattered Thoughts . . .

I n addition to Sheila's doorstep colony of frogs arriving late, we had a new mantle clock arrive on Christmas Eve.  So, this was sort of a late Christmas gift to both of us from ourselves.   Most people simply use their cable set top box to display the time near the television.  Unfortunately, when Comcast installed their high end, high speed Xfinity set top box at our house, the first thing the technician pointed out was that this box has no display on it at all so there is no clock.  Actually, it is not even a "box"...   it is a big, monstrous tower that just barely fits in our shelves next to the fireplace and under the television.  I figured, "No problem...  our router can display the time" and that is what we used for a short while.   Our high speed router has a big colorful display on it which makes using the router abundantly easy.  It didn't take long before we noticed that the router was beginning to work intermittent...

O ur living room wall clock has been an intermittent problem for months and it finally bit the dust about a month ago.  So, we were on an internet search for a better clock.   There was a beautiful clock at Monticello that is sold as a reproduction that both Sheila and I really liked.  I've mentioned this before in this blog but I should mention it again here in this blog entry that I have always been fascinated by Thomas Jefferson and his Monticello homestead.  I even studied this historic home design while in college as an engineering student.  I like Monticello's fusion of old European, French Provincial and Early American styles.  One could also argue that Monticello has many Craftsman features and details as well.  These are all styles I am fusing together in our own home.   So, finding a wall clock at the Monticello gift shop was a plus and we both really liked this clock.  The problem was that I had never spent more than abou...