My home on the web since 1995
Today is Xena’s 14th birthday! Here is a puppy picture from the day we picked her up at the NEADS program. She is a “Fabulous Flunkie.” This means she did not make the cut to be a service dog, so NEADS adopts these flunkies out as companion dogs. Xena is not the smartest dog, but she is the sweetest. I’ll also include a current photo of the old girl. Fourteen is old for a lab, but she is still doing pretty well for 98! Happy Birthday, Xena!
Veteran’s Day 2025. Here is a photo taken in 1970 of my pen pal, Carl Johnson, during the Vietnam War. He did come home, but like other Vietnam vets, he did not get the respect or thanks he deserved due to the unpopularity of the war. Unpopular is putting it mildly, plus considering we lost that war. The 60s and 70s were turbulent times with Vietnam, assassinations, civil rights, and protests. What will history have to say about 2025?
Some Halloween 2025 fun, well, sort of… We did some pumpkin carving with the kids, but unfortunately, Anthony is missing. He is currently in the hospital with sepsis. The good news is that this was caught right away, and with IV antibiotics, he is getting better fast. His lungs and abdominal x-rays are normal, and with no other obvious source of infection, we assume it’s a respiratory thing (Negative for MRSA, RSV, COVID, etc). Still waiting on the sputum culture, but he is comfortable; his fever and WBC are now down. They want to continue IV antibiotics for a few days, and he should be discharged soon.
You love them, you hate them, or you don’t care. I happen to love them. I got my first tatt back in the early 1990s when tattoos were still illegal in Massachusetts. I just walked into a tattoo shop in Rhode Island and picked a “flash” design off the wall. My mistake, LOL! I love most of my tattoos, but most people do have some tattoo regrets. But I’m fine with all of my tattoos. They all have meaning and memories. I’ve got what could be called a half-sleeve on my lower right leg, which includes about a dozen or so patchwork, tropical-themed tattoos. I also have a “sister” tattoo on my right forearm. My sister and I got the same tattoo to celebrate our birthdays back in 2020. The Arrow is because we are both Sagittarius. The feather is a chicken feather because we both have chickens, and the hearts are for big sister and little sister.
I’ve now started working on my left leg. A while back, I dreamed that I had my grandfather’s ham radio call sign tattooed. I thought, strange dream, but an interesting tattoo idea… Most people who grew up in Lakeview, Waltham, MA in the 1950s and 1960s will know these call letters because when my grandfather would broadcast, he would interrupt everyone’s TV reception in the area with W1KXX! While I was at it, I decided to make the tatt a tribute to my paternal grandparents. Through my genealogy research, I discovered that my grandmother was a Mayflower descendant. This fairly new tattoo combines a radio tower and call sign with Mayflowers. The large bottom flower is similar to the logo on the back of the Mayflower II ship docked at Plymouth Harbor.
My most recent tattoo was done at the 1st Annual Providence Tattoo Convention in Rhode Island in August 2025. I’m a big fan of the TV show Ink Master. I heard that my favorite artist and an Ink Master finalist from Season 12, Dani Ryan (@daniryantattoos), would be at the convention. Aaron also likes tattoos, so we took a ride to RI for the day and had a great time at the convention. For Dani, it was a first-come, first-served day, and I was lucky to snag a spot! She is both super nice and extremely talented. All I really cared about was getting an Ink Master tattoo from Dani, but what should I get? Finally, I decided to get the word Aloha with a Hawaiian flower as the letter “o” to celebrate our recent dream vacation to Hawaii and to honor my Hawaiian cousins. Aloha is a single word with multiple meanings. It can be a greeting or a goodbye, but it can also represent many other feelings, such as love, fellowship, empathy, compassion, peace, and kindness. It’s a beautiful word and a beautiful tattoo.
