Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. Hard to believe we are already cruising through October and that I celebrated another birthday. I know it is better than the alternative, but it is getting to the point that the cake would catch on fire if they lit all of the candles at the same time. With that being said, I celebrated by taking a day off from work; it was a beautiful fall day, and to make it even better, my plumbers came to put in my jet pump/booster pump. Two hours and $600 later, I…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. As I have noted, my birthday is very near, and I got a very big and surprising birthday gift. My oldest daughter, Tina, flew in from Virginia to surprise me at work last Friday afternoon. I was shocked. I think the last time she was at my house was 15 years ago when she came to Indiana and we went to the Indianapolis 500. It was blistering hot that day, one of the hottest race days on record. In addition to the surprise visit, she also got me a…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. My birthday week is coming up, and I have the next few weekends tied up with travel plans. So, to speed things up and take the pressure off, I am going to skip right to the funnies. Enjoy, and we will catch up next week. SMILES Three sisters ages 92, 94 and 96 live in a house together. One night, the 96-year-old draws a bath, puts her foot in and pauses. She yells down the stairs, “Was I getting in or out of the bath?” The 94-year-old yells back,…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. You will have to accept my apologies since I am multi-tasking more than usual as I write this article. My middle daughter has taken up physical fitness competition, and happens to be live streaming the competition from Chattanooga, Tenn. So, on one screen I am writing this article, and on another in the background I am keeping an eye/ear open for her appearance on stage. Good news! I got my laptop back. As I mentioned in my previous article, I had to take it in for a compete scan…

As I was recently listening to the tragic story of the house fire in Buckingham County that claimed the lives of three people, something that the Virginia State Police said caught my ear: investigators had not yet been able to rule out that the fire could have been set intentionally. Fire investigators begin at the same point at every fire: was this fire intentionally set or is there an accidental cause? Determining how a fire started is vitally important to the safety and well-being of those living in a community. I believe that the fire in Buckingham will be found…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. Just so you know, this article is being written from my secret Dogpound bunker, which happens to be my office at work. Sadly, the reason I am in here on a Saturday morning is that my laptop is in the shop for repairs. I am having my laptop scanned for any bad software that might have been installed by a third party. Let me explain. I was having some issues with my laptop a few weeks ago, and I got into a help site that offered to do a…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. As of this writing, the next Democrat presidential debate is just around the corner (Sept. 12). It looks like two dozen have been cut down to a more manageable size of 10. This is not surprising since the top three – Biden, Warren and Sanders – are totaling a combined 70 percent of the poll numbers. I think many people will watch the debate just to see if Joe Biden generates one of his classic gaffes. He has been on a roll as of late, and I think it…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. Technology is great. Today, we each hold in our hand more computer power than it took to get to the moon and back, and yet it can be a pain. I will give a recent example. We have a nice place about 30 minutes from where I live in Sullivan, Ind., called Boot City. They are one of the largest stores for western clothes, boots and other accessories in the state, and to complement their store, they built an adjacent building that houses a very nice auditorium where they…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. My dental insurance provides for two free annual cleanings, but they are not really free. The last one cost me over $200 because they had to update my x-ray chart, and, of course, I wanted the fluoride treatment. I actually dread going for my cleaning. Why? I dread the question, as they poke around my teeth, “Have you been flossing?” I tell her I do floss, but that is really kind of a white lie, since I hate flossing. I cannot get into all the areas, and I am…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. Hard to believe that we have blown through August and will celebrate Labor Day in a few days. This is the general signal that summer is over, and it is back to school for many kids. Some, I understand, have already gone back to school. At my age that is not something I have to worry about anymore, but I did pick up some extra labor around the house. The previous owners of my house put in a very nice flower garden in front of the house. It took…