Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just past 4:30 a.m. in "The City."

The current temperature is 46° as we head down to the overnight low of 40° under skies that are drizzling rain until about 8:00 a.m. this morning. Today's high is forecast to reach 49°. The sun will rise today @ 7:22 a.m. and set later @ 5:33 p.m. Yes my loyal readers, I managed to reset all of the clocks and watches here at the manse, including my Citizens Eco-Drive wristwatch, for standard time by moving them all back one hour.

There is a Small Craft Advisory for the "Big Lake" still in effect until 7:00 p.m. Today. You know what that means. If you don't have a very large ship or if you don't know what you are doing, stay off the water. There are no additional warnings in effect.


The Chicago Bears played more like the "Bad News Bears" or the "Spare Bears" in a 14 - 22 loss to the Eagles yesterday. The Bears managed just 15 plays from scrimmage in the first half, totaling less than 10 yards. In his post game press-conference, Head Coach, Matt Nagy, said of the team's effort, “Just really, really sloppy, extremely sloppy,” “We need to start faster. When we play from ahead and we give our defense a chance to pin their ears back, that will really help us and that didn’t happen.” Ya think?

In another example of a bad game, the Detroit Lions lost to the Oakland Raiders, 24 - 31. In yet another postmortem analysis in an attempt to explain why the Lions are only 3 - 4 - 1 this season, Head Coach, Matt Patricia, said this, “Kind of that up and down game we know we don’t want,” “We have to coach it better, I think, in general. It always starts with me. I have to coach better to get the team ready to go so that we can play consistently. I don’t think we played consistent here today.” Once again, Ya Think?

All of these players are professionals, highly paid men who should be ready to play every game. If you can't be your own motivator, you don't deserve the huge salaries that many players command/demand. The Patriots have a winning attitude, they are ready for every game, they expect to win every game. Is that about good coaching? Maybe, but it is just as likely that they believe that they can and will win every time they take the field. Just one man's opinion...

I was home finishing the indoor chores yesterday afternoon as Mary traveled to the grocery store. I did some reading, and I was half-watching the Lions game.

Earlier in the day, I had left a note for Mary to make pizza dough so that we could have one of her delicious cast-iron pan pizzas for dinner. She made that dough before she left and it was ready to go around 6:00 p.m. This pizza was made with Mary's favorite pizza sauce, some of my vegan Italian sausage, and vegan cheese. It was indeed delicious and it also looked great.

Yep, better than mom used to make.

Today, I have to go to the hospital to have my annual blood-tests and enjoy the salad-bar in the hospital cafeteria for my lunch. Mary will be stuck here having vegan Italian meatballs for her repast.

Later, we have to take the fur-children to their doctor for their annual shots and wellness checkups.They don't understand, but that's something that a good pet-parent does for their fur-children.

Speaking of not understanding, our fur-children don't understand that when the clocks get turned back in the fall, that 4:00 p.m. isn't the new 5:00 p.m. To them, 4:00 p.m. is 5:00 p.m. and they wanted/demanded their dinner @ 4:00 p.m. We will have to wean them off of their internal schedule a bit at a time.

I have a busy day today. Lab tests, veterinarian visits, and my every other week Grand Haven Art Meetup tonight between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. Mary will just have to muddle through. Ciao.