How many of you have started a diet and failed to accomplish your goals? Maybe 10 pounds a month over the next three months for a total of 30 pounds lost. That is an admirable goal if that is what you need/want to lose. For those who accomplish this goal, how many manage to keep it off? Often the course of action is lose the weight, quit the diet, and within six months to a year, you’ve gained it all back. There is a term for this: a yo-yo diet. Lose, gain it back, and repeat. Not a healthy practice.…
Browsing: Commentary
Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. Let’s spend a minute or two talking about that over-commercialized holiday which is just around the corner. You know the one, the one that has been on the store shelves since Christmas, as if you could really forget: Valentine’s Day! This year I think you should look at changing things up a bit. I mean, you can do the candy, flowers, and postcard thing, but I would like to suggest another way. It is a four-letter word…no, not the word you are thinking of right now (love), the word…
The area under your house is called the crawl space, since in most cases you cannot walk upright, but must crawl. If it is a livable space, then it is called a basement. The crawl space is usually where the water and drain pipes and wiring runs and where the air handler for your HVAC is found. I have been in some crawl spaces where my belly is tight to the ground and my back is rubbing the floor joists. There is nothing good about fires in this space. A malfunction with electrical wiring or mechanical equipment under a house…
Cynthia Piazza HOPEWELL — The John Randolph Foundation recently announced a new memorial fund at its Jan. 17 awards ceremony. The Cynthia Piazza Mind and Movement, or M&M, Fund will honor the life of a Chester woman who died Oct. 31 after battling brain cancer. Piazza taught for more than 20 years and was a Title I math specialist at Harrowgate Elementary School for 14 years. She was named the county’s elementary teacher of the year in 2010. The M&M Fund will carry on Piazza’s passions of improving the education of underprivileged students and encouraging physical fitness. Her husband, Michael…
Your “Living Safe” column by Pete Hypes (Jan. 16) brought back memories of a true story when I was living in Powhatan County and a member of the local all-volunteer fire department. It seems that back in the late 1960s, over a period of several months we received six or eight fire calls on a parcel of land owned by a couple who had a young boy (8 or 9 years old) who was somewhat mentally challenged. Following one of these fires, while chatting with one of the sheriff’s deputies, who was also a fire department member, the young lad…
The hypocrisy is simply overwhelming! Attorney General Mark Herring demanded that Gov. Ralph Northam resign because Northam admitted to appearing in blackface, or worse, as a 25-year-old medical student. Now, Herring admits that he, too, appeared in blackface whilst in college. Is Herring going to look in the mirror and resign? I doubt it. What galling and unfathomable hypocrisy! But folks, it’s even worse. Five years ago, these two same individuals (Herring and Northam) condemned Myrna’s and my relationship. They stated in their sanctimonious, holier-than-thou attitudes that I should resign from the House of Delegates while at the same time,…
A team of seven, including me, have just returned from a 13-day journey to South Africa. It is summer in that part of the Southern Hemisphere. Warm days, thunderstorms and occasional cool breezes offered us a break from our winter. I call the place where we worked the “land of many boulders.” On the distant horizons are towering mountains like the Rockies. Our task, as always, was to share the gospel wherever we were given the opportunity. This was my eleventh journey to Africa. These words will only scratch the surface of what we witnessed God do. For me and…
Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. As I have mentioned in past articles, I am in the middle of moving and it is driving me crazy. My current house has an attached garage, but the new location has a detached garage. This is not a deal breaker, however, I am not thrilled walking out in the morning and getting my work shoes covered in snow, so I thought it would be a good idea to get a pair of galoshes. Not just any kind; I wanted a pair big enough that I could easily slip…
The times, they are a changin’, and no more so than in politics. A new redistricting map drawn by a court-appointed special master will result in five Republican state House seats becoming “lean Democrat” and one becoming “swing,” and one Democrat seat becoming “swing,” unless the U.S. Supreme Court – which is scheduled to hear arguments in mid-March – tosses the map. Proceeding with a new map will mean that House Speaker Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, will run in a district that is 32 percent more Democrat. Party registration in the new House District 66 favors Democrats by 6.5 percentage…
I do not know the details of the pedestrian who was struck on Route 288, but we passed through there after it had happened. From the little that I heard on the news, the individual who was struck and killed had been looking under the hood of his vehicle moments earlier. This is one tragedy of many that have happened on the side of a limited-access roadway. Traffic on routes 288 and 895 and interstates 85, 95, 64 and 295, the Chippenham and Powhite parkways and the Downtown Expressway, is heavy, and, in most cases, traveling above the posted speed…