Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. I am a bit haggard now and in the middle of trying to move from one house to another about 10 minutes away. Things are complicated: the house I want to move into is currently occupied, and the bank closing is this coming Thursday. They have agreed to move one week after closing, and the family that has bought my house needs to move in two days after that deadline. So you can see that this is building to a very tense moment. My house is in complete disarray…
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D Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. For the holidays, I made plans to visit my oldest daughter and her husband in North Carolina, and for good measure, I also made arrangements for daughter number two and her son to fly in from Knoxville. My flight was rather uneventful; my first flight got out the gate about 20 minutes late, but by the time we landed we were back online. Of course, the flight was full, and I got the last seat in the back of the plane, next to the toilet. I had no…
As I watched the late news last night, I saw a photo of the front of a house in the north end of Chesterfield County fully engulfed. I was going to write an article that offered three educated guesses of the potential causes, but my first inclination was determined to be the cause. From my observation, my thought was that the fire started on the outside of the home and progressed inside. The house in north Chesterfield was destroyed on the outside and the inside, displacing the residents. A fire that starts on the outside will get a head start…
In 2004, four coworkers and I were tasked with rewriting the fire department’s policy for dealing with children who set fires. The primary deterrent is parental supervision. Parents cannot overlook this because as long as you have a child who is “playing” with fire, everyone in your family is in danger, especially other children. I know of children who have been hurt or killed by other children setting fires. How does a child become a firesetter? The first piece is access to matches or lighters. Do not assume that your child is not old enough or smart enough to light…
Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. If you remember from a recent article, I was recovering from an accident that put my poor Betsy in the repair shop. It was not a surprise that my insurance decided it was not worth the effort to patch her back up; I was not surprised, since she was born in 2004 and had lived over 257,000 miles. However, I was surprised by my insurance company. Before they had determined the dollars involved in fixing old Betsy back up, they told me that I could rent a car. They…
Caleb M. Soptelean With the first month of the new year in full swing, I decided to take some time and reflect on 2018 and the new year. 2018 was a good year overall. The economy kept humming along, and we had more money in our pockets, thanks to federal income tax relief. How that plays out in relation to our state income taxes remains to be seen, which is something the General Assembly will be tackling soon. This year’s legislative session began Jan. 9. Concerns about tariffs and a “trade war” with China and other nations didn’t seem to…
Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. As I mentioned in my last article, I did some traveling by plane to visit my daughters over the holidays. As you know, you are not allowed to board the plane when you want to; you must follow a very precise process which starts with a loading number that is assigned to your ticket. The flight I was on had nine levels, of which 1-5 were considered “special” loading. This generally represents first class, military, silver class members, etc. Then they get to the final numbers 6 to 9.…
SIDS stands for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Every year, many infants die in this way. I am not going to provide any clinical aspects or findings of this syndrome. My intent is to write about this in a way that helps to educate about this syndrome. Although it can occur at any time, the highest incidence seems to be in winter. The bottom line is that a seemingly normal child is put down for a nap and never wakes up. Some would say, you lay them on their back, you lay them on their stomach, you lay them on their…
As we pass from 2018 to 2019, be vigilant to prevent a fire in your home. I am giving each of us the benefit of the doubt that we have been mindful of fire safety up to this point. There are still cooking-related fires that are displacing people from their homes every day. The reason for this is that the heat, fuel and oxygen are present on a regular basis. If there were other rooms where heat and fuel were together, then fires would occur there as well. Unless we want to live in a hotel room or move in…
Hello and welcome back to the New Year Dogpound, and welcome to 2019! Wow! Another year under our belt, and where do I start? As I have mentioned before sometimes, it is difficult to decide what to write about. In this case, do I recap 2018 or do I go out on the limb and predict what the new year will bring? Then it hit me. I had a car accident. My poor Betsy (a Honda CR-V) got smacked on the driver’s side by a huge Chevy truck that is at least three times the size of Betsy! Last Saturday,…