On Being A Man...

...in a pajama boy world...The Redux.

A while ago I wrote about one of the distinctives of being male...that of shaving your face.

Ok, stop staring ladies...that's my #4 son, and he's taken...happily married with a couple of kids.

I will say whenever people happen to see us together they invariably comment that it's just like seeing twins.

"Why you two could be brothers!" they exclaim in wide eyed amazement, at which point I pay each of them the $20 I promised for lying so convincingly.

But as is my habit, I digress.

So where were we?

Ah yes, discussing the manly art of shaving...

As I'm sure you remember, having committed each of these fascinating blog entries to memory, at that time I waxed eloquent about the nostalgic superiority of shaving with a straight razor.

And I truly do enjoy my morning ritual, from stropping to lathering my face with a badger hair shaving brush, to deftly removing whiskers with my 1920-something Geneva Cutlery straight razor.

But here's a guilty confession...due to a work schedule change that requires me to drag my aging carcass out of bed at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am...

...my 7 days a week homage to the way Granddaddy used to shave has been relegated to only 2 or 3 days now.

Yes, in spite of my admonition to all of you to slow down and not live life in such a mad panic all the time, I'm guilty of not taking my own advice.

I just can't seem to squeeze my preferred method of defoliating my face into my schedule that many hours before sunrise.

Besides the time crunch there's also the very real issue of the neural network that passes for my brain not operating at anything close to full capacity at half past ridiculously early in the morning.

I'm lucky if I remember to put my underwear on before I pull on my pants.

Shaving with a straight razor?  Fuggeddaboudit...

So...what to do?

Well, how about an electric razor?

Dear ol' Dad used one back in the day from time to time, as have many of my acquaintances through the years.

Why an electric razor?  Why not a simple, ubiquitous, disposable multi-blade drug store quality razor?

Well yeah...if boring and uninteresting is the look you're going for, truck on down to your local dollar store and pick up a bag of throw away razors.  You'll have the manly art of shaving reduced to an annoying afterthought in no time.

Besides, didn't you ever see Santa arriving on a Norelco electric razor?

It's tradition my man.  Rudolph, Yukon Cornelius, The Abominable Snowman and Norelco electric razors.

So if you can't - or the good Lord in heaven forbid, don't want to - shave with a straight razor - but you do still want to embrace the art of manliness, read on.

My choice of electric razor?  After reviewing a number of options online, and in spite of the special place in my heart Santa and his Norelco will always have, I opted for the Remington F5-5800...

It's a no frills, budget friendly choice but receives high marks when compared to more expensive options like a totally decked out Braun shaver, which is a couple of hundred dollars more expensive.

Norelco also makes a good electric razor, but like the Braun, a little too pricey for my taste.


Switching gears, apparently we unwittingly sponsored a turkey trot on our back patio recently...

...wasn't present when this event took place, so I have no idea who won.

That's going to have to do it for now...as always, thank you for checking in with the bottom 50%.  We do appreciate it, no matter what news reports say.

later, mcm fans...

'Twas A Happy Birthday...

...for my beautiful wife!  Not allowed to say what number it is or I might have to spend the night shivering in a snowbank, but she looks 20 years younger than her chronological age...I've taken to introducing her as my daughter when we're out and about, since that's what everyone assumes anyway.

Karen with a homeless octogenarian that wandered onto our property earlier today...

To celebrate I took the day off from work...

...and Karen wanted to visit Curragh's Irish Pub in downtown Holland...ethnically confusing I know, but apparently the Dutchies here carved out a small patch of land for the fighting Irish, as long as they keep the mayhem confined within the four walls of the pub.

Music and Drink at Curragh...and so there was.

A very enjoyable lunch in the warm environs of an authentic Irish pub...why even the leprechauns were friendly.

We sat by the warm fire and enjoyed some good food and drink...

...then motored back home and celebrated with chamapagne and cake...

...a good time was had by all...I mean both...

The definition of Irony...

...wishing someone happy birthday while reminding them of our ultimate destination.

As the keeper of the MOTD (message of the day), I've been accused more than once of manipulating what saying shows up when to suit my nefarious purposes, but I'm innocent I tell ya...a friend born on Groundhog Day sent me the above but I assured him that particular MOTD was just how the cookie happened to crumble...don't know if he believed me or not.

So #1 son Micah and two of his sons, Marcellus and Isaiah, came over last night and completed the demo of the ceiling in our guest room:

A lot of work due to the wire mesh and stucco that was used when putting the ceiling up many moons ago.  Thank you gentlemen for all your hard work!  Next step will probably be to deal with some electrical issues here...need another light or two, a switch placed by the door, and a few more outlets in the room.  Gonna hafta sell a few thousand books to finance this project...

Now that the kitchen is finally complete, Karen decided she wanted a Western Electric Sculptura rotary phone in there to complement the look...

Got this very cool phone from Ericofon, a great website filled with classic phones.  If you have any interest in these communication icons from the past - whether long past or recent - I highly recommend you visit this site.

Richard Rose is the proprietor...he's very knowledgeable and a nice guy, too...he even supplied phones for the Mad Men series:

Check out his site...www.ericofon.com...you'll be glad you did.

Here's a cool Lawson clock I have by my bedside:

These date back to the 1930's, though this particular model is probably from the early 1950's.

Love its art deco stylings, and it is often identified as a KEM Weber design.  More likely it's the work of a couple of designers named Ferher and Adomatis.  Let's see if Alex Trebek knows that...

On a somber note - and in memoriam of this day Don McLean famously tagged as "The Day The Music Died" with his 1972 megahit "American Pie" - Karen and I watched two movies last night...The Buddy Holly Story and La Bamba...

Besides being great movies with outstanding performances by (brace yourself) Gary Busey as Buddy Holly (yes folks, that's actually him performing and singing in the movie) and Lou Diamond Phillips as Ritchie Valens, they are of course tragic, representing as they do great musical potential cut down in its youth.

As someone trained in flight (commercial pilot's license with an instrument rating), I am just sick at heart over how totally unnecessary their deaths were.

 After enduring freezing temperatures on broken down buses for days on end, Holly was finally fed up with the horrible traveling conditions of their Winter Dance Party Tour.

He decided to charter a plane for himself and two others in the hopes of getting to the next stop in Minnesota early enough to sleep in a warm bed for once. 

So shortly past midnight on February 3rd, 1959 the air charter company's 21 year old pilot and his three passengers took off in a 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza V-tail...

...into deteriorating weather that soon became IMC (instrument meteorological conditions).

Almost inexplicably, the pilot was only VFR (visual flight rules) rated and was flying into a growing snowstorm...in short, they had no chance and died within six miles of the airport, slamming into an Iowa cornfield at 170 mph in a downward turn to the right.

The three passengers - Holly, Valens and Richardson - were thrown from the cartwheeling plane; the pilot died entangled in the wreckage.

Sometimes stuff just happens...you take every precaution, do all the right things, but within God's plan it's simply Time.  Those events are still difficult to take, but what can you do?  The best laid plans...

But when fools rush in where angels fear to tread and the predictable ensues...those are the true tragedies...the senseless waste of Life's Grand Potential.

One of Holly's band members gave up his seat on the flight so JP "The Big Bopper" Richardson, who was suffering with the flu, could fly instead.

That band member was country music hall of fame member Waylon Jennings.

When Holly found out Jennings had given up his seat to Richardson, he jokingly told him "I hope your ol' bus freezes", to which Jennings replied in a similar vein with "I hope your ol' plane crashes".

Had he only known.

and on that sorrowful note...

later, mcm fans...

Get Your Kicks...

...on Route 66...that's an actual photograph of yours truly in my 1956 Corvette taking a quick Marlboro Man style break on my cross country tour of "The Mother Road".

Ok, so I'm lying and that's not me...and I don't own a corvette...or smoke cigarettes...and I've never traveled (as an adult) on Route 66...

...but you have to admit, it is a pretty cool poster...great view...and a very nice ride.  I'm 50 shades of green with envy.

Some more Route 66 nostalgia...

...don't forget the sunblock and water.

I did travel on Route 66 as a kid...in the back seat of the family station wagon on vacations...but never this far west.

Giving equal time to another favorite mode of transportation...

...the golden age of train travel...beautiful.

And of course, have to give a tip o' the hat to my favorite airplane...

...the beloved Ford TriMotor.

Pretty wild about this one, too...

...a real workhorse that greatly advanced the commercial aviation industry.  Plus, it was a tail dragger, as all the best planes in the world always are...a classic from back in the day when air travel was enjoyable and exciting.

Post 9/11 it's just a pain in the hind end and has all the elegance and ambiance of herding livestock into cattle cars...mooooo...git along little dogie...

Shifting gears, here's a very cool pic of my granddaughter Tionna:

She's a member of the Navy Ceremonial Guard, seen here shaking hands after one of their events with some of the brass.

She has another one coming up at the White House very soon.  Say hello to The Donald for me.

Very proud of you, young lady!

In the continuing saga of our home restoration, we had to tear down part of the ceiling in our guest room this past week...

Had a nasty leak that pretty much trashed that part of the interior ceiling...much to our surprise, there was no insulation at all overhead!

This room used to be a carport at one time, and somewhere along the way they enclosed it...when they did I guess they decided to keep it as a three season room and didn't worry about R-factor.

Many thanks to Micah, Marcellus and Isaiah for their hard work doing most of the heavy lifting and cleaning up the mess after!  Now we have to get it dried out, put some insulation up there, and patch the enormous hole...always something...

On the plus side, we had the finishing touches in the form of floating shelves installed in our kitchen this week:

Still need to paint them of course, but you get the idea.  Pretty excited to see this project finally drawing to a close.

Just overheard my 19 year old stepdaughter Sarah talking with Karen about a couple of co-workers...

Karen: "How old are they?"
Sarah: "They're old..."
K: "How old?"
S: "I don't know...really old...like 40 maybe...?"

And on that instructive note...

later, mcm fans...

MCM TV...

...heaven...that's my 1959 GE Slimline (formerly) black and white TV, retrofitted with a Philips color tube by Justin Rubsam...

...shown here in his workshop putting the finishing touches on my set.

Justin owns Stellar TV out of Sacramento, CA.  Check out his site, as he gets involved in some very interesting projects.

A recent endeavor found him providing 11 TV sets for David Copperfield's private museum of magic.

Mr. C is highlighting the influential magicians from his youth in separate displays on period correct television sets; enter Justin and his expertise.

In the "considerably less exotic" department, my set is being shipped back and should arrive in my friendly confines sometime next week...pretty excited about that.

A view of the innards...

Justin had to deal with the electronics as well as the design / carpentry aspect of the case to get all this to fit / work...plus he upgraded it with an HDMI connector so it will easily hook up to our DirecTV system.

Should be perfect for our living room near the fireplace...tune in for time travel back to I Love Lucy and The Jackie Gleason shows (neither of which I ever watched)...probably more likely to watch some old movies on cold winter nights by the warm fireplace.

Hatari, anyone?

"DANGER!" in Swahili...

Pursuant to all our furniture rearranging, Karen has populated our art deco display case with part of her Cameo Rose china collection:

...really looks spectacular...I know her mom would love it if she could see it now.

Other than that, nothing much new to report...stuck here at the north pole, though we are experiencing the famous January thaw at the moment...

...wishing the thaw could be followed by Spring but sadly we're a couple of months away from that.

There were a couple of years, several years back, when we were fortunate enough to enjoy a winter getaway to someplace warm...but in recent years work has conspired to make that an impossibility...too many "crisis projects" that make being gone for a week in December / January / February impractical...but I miss Palm Springs...

...and the Desert Riviera Hotel...75 degrees and sunny in January...oh yeah...the owners, Rick and Martha, are fabulous folks who make you feel right at home...

I miss them and luxuriating at their lovely hotel...have to make a point of getting back there soon.

But for now, it's a Wednesday night in the not so frozen north, 1/3rd of the way through January, so...

later, mcm fans...

Welcome 2018...

...and who could have guessed?  It's snowing again...how unusual...come on Lake Michigan, freeze already!  It's been cold enough...single digits, even below zero at times...hoping less open water will help shut down the lake effect snow machine that so far has operated continuously for the last 10 days or so.

So another year has come and gone, and last night we welcomed 2018 in our usual manner...we watched When Harry Met Sally...

...saw the ball drop...

...then shared a kiss and some champagne at midnight.

Today is officially "de-decorate" day...

...won't all happen in one day...didn't get put up in one day...but by nightfall most of Christmas will have been vanquished, boxed and stored away for another year...so sad...

Now begins the longest stretch of the year...we've just finished two and a half months of "the holidays"...Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's...decorating / celebrating is over and it's time to plow through the next three months of hard winter.

Thankfully in our home we have Karen's birthday and Valentine's Day to brighten up these winter blues...

...and work promises to be crazy since we have a major deadline looming in mid-February.

Hopefully I'll blink a couple of times and it will be spring again...

later, mcm fans...

Serial Beginner...

...at bowling...we never do it enough to become consistently good, but we do go bowling 3 or 4 times per year...so we're always beginners.

But that's ok...it's an enjoyable "fill in" activity, and that's a pretty good picture of me...it's my best side, and it captures the moment just before all the bad stuff happens...

The neverending snow continues...

...which makes me wish for summer again...

...as Karen posted on FB, looks like I'm standing in front of a small castle...and I do love our little castle...

Came across this spectacular art deco clock...

...encrusted with rubies and diamonds, it sports a 7 figure purchase price...made by sculptor Sandoz in the 1920's, I believe...wish someone would make a replica...I'd buy one in a heartbeat...very cool.

Hard to believe vacation is winding down, but vacation days fly by at twice the speed of work days, so here we are..today, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and then it's back into the fray...the worst part is going to be getting up to my 4:30 am alarm clock...I've actually laid in bed until almost 8 am some mornings this past week...yikes...my system is in for a shock come Tuesday...

later, mcm fans...