Tell me Thursday – hearing aid

For my Wordless Wednesday submission yesterday, I posted a photo of my nephew, Willie, wielding a decorative paddle that his parents own.

What’s it all about? I’ll explain it all for Tell Me Thursday.

My wife snapped that photo of 16-year-old Willie and it pretty well sums up the lad. He’s a hoot, that one, and just tends to do stuff like that, you know?

I’m actually a bit envious of young Willie. He seems to be making plans to head off to the Coast Guard Academy after high school and is obsessed with one day owning a classic muscle car from the 1960s. I hope he succeeds on both counts. He’s at an age that’s perfect for coming up with obtainable goals and figuring out how to achieve them.

My wife took that photo last week when we were visiting her family in northwest Arkansas for Thanksgiving. It turns out that’s about her favorite holiday as she has a large family and they all get together for Thanksgiving. There are no gifts to buy, no real pressure and we all set a day aside to catch up with each other. Fun stuff.

I prefer Christmas to Thanksgiving, but I do see Marci’s point. Christmas is expensive and requires a ton of work – shopping, putting up decorations and everything else. Fortunately, my wife generally shops through the year for gifts and trimmed down our list further by hitting the “black Friday” sales after Thanksgiving. So we can just sit back, relax and enjoy the season (I’ll get my shopping done for her this weekend, but that’s not big deal – I know what I’m getting her and know which stores to visit, so it shouldn’t take long).

I wonder if that “hearing aid” paddle is something that will be passed down from generation to generation…

Wordless Wednesday -- hearing aid

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday fun.

Music Monday -- A Flock of Seagulls

An almost perfect pop single. Man, I do miss the 1980s...

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The Hummer is back?

During our Thanksgiving break in scenic northwest Arkansas, I noticed something odd going on up there -- a lot of ads for the Hummer.

"The Hummer is back," declared an ad from some car lot in the part of the world as some announcer spoke excitedly about the virtues of owning one of those nasty things.

Wait a minute. I thought the Hummer had become as outdated as the pet rock and the AMC Gremlin. I figured the Hummer had one foot in the grave and the brand's vehicles had been relegated to used car lots around the country.

Here in Benton, Ark., the Hummer lot in town is little more than a parking lot for econo-boxes offered up by Chevrolet.

The Hummer is back? The symbol of everything that was wrong with the U.S. auto industry is making a comeback? People feel confident enough in the economy to blow thousands on vehicles that burn gas like it's still $1 a gallon? Really?

I'm not sure if that's true or not, but here's the truly ironic thing -- GM is in the process of selling Hummer to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery, a Chinese company (of course).

Actually, that makes sense. China is in the process of buying everything else (and holds more U.S. government debt than will ever be repaid in my lifetime (if at all)), so why shouldn't it own Hummer, too?

The Christmas season kicks off in earnest at Casa de Hawg

Go ahead and take a close look at that photo.

Well, it's not a very good photo. Take a look at it anyway. And I know there's a gap in the string of lights on the roof -- a bulb went out and I've replaced it. So there.

Anyway, that's my 13-year-old son and me celebrating our hard work.

"Look! Look what the men have done," we're boasting. "We've hung up Christmas lights."

That's right -- The Boy and I strung up 125 lights around about half of our roof. We've hung up those mini-light, blue icicle things for the past couple of years but went with those big, ceramic colored bulbs this time. I think we'll stick with the big lights.

Ah, yeah! C-9 bulbs all the way. It's like Christmas in 1975 with all those huge, bright bulbs on our house. It took us a couple of hours but The Boy and I did the hustle and got it done.

Yeah, let the games begin. We love Christmas around here and my wife goes absolutely crazy right after Thanksgiving. We've got three Christmas trees in our house (two in the living room and one in the dining room), a lighted garland for the fireplace mantle, a four-piece ceramic tree that my wife painted, a slew of Christmas candles, a train running around the base of one of the trees and assorted odds and ends. All we're missing, really, is some of those animated yard decorations and a lighted runway for Santa on the roof.

Some people might claim Christmas has become too commercial, but I say phooey on that. In my house, we view setting aside a day to recognize Christ's birth as something to celebrate with gusto. If Christians can't be joyful, then what's the point?

Besides, most of the shopping is done so we can relax, look at our decorations and enjoy the season.