Doing the News

Sir Richard Branson and the crew of Virgin Galactic's "Unity 22" mission just completed a successful trip to the edge of space topping out at an altitude of 282,000 feet. That's enough to make each of the members of the crew an astronaut and the era of citizens being able to experience space without having to go through the many years of training to become a professional astronaut is now upon us. I don't care…

Today we were visiting Julia's old neighbourhood in Clayton to see how her house was holding up many years after it had been sold after we got married. We hadn't even gotten near her house when we saw a yard that even Fred Sanford would have been moved to a one word observation: DAMN! We can only imagine just how thrilled that neighbourhood must be with a junkyard in their midst. But then we saw…

It seems like it was less than a week ago Nicholas had successfully earned a regular Class C driving licence and we were testing the waters vis-a-vis a car for him to use with the expectation of being lucky enough to find one by August. Oh wait, it was! And now we find ourselves with a black 2011 Toyota Camry LE in the driveway far sooner than we would have ever expected would be possible…

You might have noticed a recurring theme of "adulting sucks" in the previous posts when it comes to Nicholas and his impending driving being inflicted upon the driving public. One last obstacle remains...surviving the DMV licence examiners! Visits to DMV's licence offices are often such a joy and the weather certainly seems to be setting the mood alternating between brooding and overcast to dropping a fair heap of rain! We've armed Nicholas with as many…

Today's the day Nicholas and I assault the mighty mountain of bureaucracy known as the NC DMV and attempt to get his regular Class C driving licence at his appointment in North Raleigh this afternoon! Oh...joy. Welcome to "Adulting Sucks (DMV Edition)!" If you've not experienced the joys of getting a REAL ID from the DMV's driving licence offices, you truly have not lived a full life! Sherman...set the Wayback Machine(tm) for a couple of…

Another Father's Day has come upon us and I'd like to continue a new tradition of finding a random picture of Dad and giving you dear readers a glimpse into the story behind the photo. This one comes from our visit to Florida during Thanksgiving in 2008. The picture seems innocuous enough...two of the kid's three living grandparents at the time and two of the kids beating on the drums outside the Harambe Wildlife Preserve…

It's been less than a week since Nicholas graduated from Enloe High School and he has gotten to experience many of the unbridled joys of adulting up close and personal this morning! There's a reason they call this "the real world" and many more reasons why it occasionally sucks! We started out the day registering him for his automotive courses for the fall semester at Wake Technical Community College's new Shangri-La for learning wrench turning…

Katie and Nick got their first doses of Pfizer today and are well on their way to being vaccinated. All in all, it was pretty painless even without appointments with the only real hiccup being the registration volunteer who took three reminders about HIPAA and privacy before he took the hint. Another patient had entered the small space we were in but fortunately the vast majority of the protected health information (PHI) portion of the…

Oh, what a difference a year makes! Last year, we were able to find some measure of joy in the COVID-19 lockdown by following the adventures of Lord and Lady Robin who had taken up residence in their nest atop one of the pillars on the porch. Let's just say that the local birds have hatched far more nefarious and diabolical actions this year...so much so that I can't help but think of Inspector Clouseau.…

(Photo courtesy of Julia Williams) This Memorial Day is a bit of a milestone with Nicholas preparing to graduate from Enloe High School and it being just slightly more than five years ago that we got our date for Dad's service at Arlington National Cemetery. It seems almost a lifetime ago that it was my turn to walk across the stage at the Ocean Centre in Daytona Beach as a graduate from Spruce Creek High…

Nicholas and I were rolling up to Enloe High School this morning when we noticed an interesting looking group of what appeared to be ultra-fundamentalist characters unloading a fair heap of anti-abortion posters from a truck just up the street from the conga line. Sure enough, as I'm pulling out of the traffic circle in front of the western building housing the main office, I can see a couple of them stationed on the sidewalk…

The main reason I opted for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine was that it seemed to be much more predictable than the others in terms of side-effects induced when the second jab in the sequence irritates the immune system into creating many B and T-cells which will be the body's long-term defence against infection. From a casual survey of other Pfizer recipients, it seemed that the worst period was generally 24-36 hours after the second injection.…

The Petrol-Pocalypse(tm) has left the vast majority of petrol stations completely out of fuel thanks to the Russian criminal gang DarkSide taking down the Colonial Pipeline with ransomware that got behind their firewall and royally buggered their operations. The Colonial and Dixie Pipelines are the ones that supply the vast majority of petrol, diesel, and aviation kerosene from Houston TX to New Jersey and all points in between with the Colonial accounting for 45% of…

On this 108th anniversary of Grandma Williams' birthday, it was finally time to get the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19 and start on the journey to getting a reasonable immunity against this bloody virus. Shot #1 was three weeks ago which I detailed in this BLOG post: https://www.sunfox.com/doing_the_news/2021/04/21/11221/ Give me that Pfizer jab! Today's experience was pretty much the same as before...everyone was polite and efficient, the nurse listened to what her…

We actually ended up starting the annual acknowledgement of the entropy odometer yesterday evening due to a certain someone having to go to work later today but that trip to Neomonde for an amazing Mediterranean dinner was definitely an enjoyable appetizer especially after being up until the wee hours of the morning putting the final touches on the evidence for the upcoming hearing in front of the State Property Tax Commission. The morning started out…

This morning after dropping Alex off at school, I received the first dose of the two-dose Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine regime at the building that usually serves as my voting precinct location. Wake County has done a reasonably decent job of cutting down on some of the more tedious aspects of getting the jab...the registration and appointment were made online, a QR code scan and some girls asking questions armed with the contact-less temperature phaser currently…

Today started off with the sad and unwelcome news that HRH The Duke of Edinburgh has passed away at Windsor Castle at the age of 99. Prince Philip as he was also known was a larger-than-life figure who was a decorated veteran of the Royal Navy prior to marrying Princess Elizabeth who ascended to the throne much earlier than anyone had expected in 1952 and has been sovereign ever since. His tireless devotion to his…

If that first grand prix in Bahrain is any indication of the possibilities of the new season, the world championship fight should be one of the most epic ones in memory! It's not often you can watch a grand prix and truly be OK with whoever came out on top in the end, particularly when it was that closely fought in the final five laps. Will Red Bull use their new found pace and stability…

A recent post where I opened up about the feelings that came out of a seemingly innocuous conversation with Katie on a rainy day trip for school photographs really seemed to strike a chord with the community of friends on Facebook with whom I shared the link to the story. The prevailing view seemed to be on the scale of being moved to tears themselves to actually thinking I'm a writer. The irony was that…

It's not the cheapest technique I can envision but it certainly was very successful this afternoon! Ingredients: Planet MarsMars Reconnaissance OrbiterMars 2020 Perseverance Lander"Seven Minutes of Terror" So, nerd that I am (and have been repeatedly accused of being by my daughter Katie!)...of course I was taking a break from the current project of mining the interesting Facebook posts of the past several years and preserving them for posterity on sunfox.com to watch the play-by-play…

Oh, what to do on a dreary Saturday morning doing it's best imitation of properly wet and dreary British weather? I've spent the morning going to the shoppes for groceries, Nick's off to work at DQ and I'm thinking it's well past time for lunch but haven't a clue what I'm in the mood for considering that my local Burger King was recently torpedoed amidships and is going to be in dry dock for a…

A week ago, Katie and I had a bit of time together as I had collected her from Clayton for her photo appointment at Enloe High School...a task that necessarily did not include her constant companion named Mistletoe! As we're on the way back toward Clayton, the conversation turned toward the looming second impeachment trial of former President Trump who stands accused of "inciting an insurrection" and how different Washington DC was now compared to…

Today's bit of joy dealing with customer disservice comes to us courtesy of Amazon. Now, don't get me wrong...Amazon has been a god-send during the pandemic to keep me out of the brick-and-mortar germnasiums and help with practicing social distancing (yay!) without having to wear a mask (not so yay!). And to be fair, the vast majority of orders come through quickly and correctly though they could certainly add a bit more padding in the…

Watching the Penguins-Rangers game being played in a nearly empty Madison Square Garden and listening to the crowd noise backing track and I can’t help but wonder this: Did the Rangers slip in that very distinctive wolf whistle you often hear at MSG that is followed by the entire arena yelling “POTVIN SUCKS!!!"? I haven’t heard it yet but wouldn’t be surprised if they slipped it in a couple of times when the network censor…

I came across some interesting bit of local news this morning prior to making the usual journey to collect Katie, Alex, and Mistletoe for today's bit of virtual schooling at the house. It seems that someone fell asleep at the wheel round 0420 and ended up torpedoing the Burger King that I tend to visit every now and then with a direct hit amidships. Fortunately, the driver will apparently be OK but to give you…