I am a firm believer that Good can be found wherever there is Bad. I believe this because good and bad and interpretations of life. I mention this because my sister is going through a particularly tough time in her life. In an effort to help her out, I offered to take her boys off her hands for three weeks. See? Tough time in life: boys get summer vacation in DC! It all works out!

In any event, the My Nephews photo album is a compilation of pictures I took during their visit. Some of them are from our visit to Virginia Beach. My nephews had never been to the ocean and the waves were particularly rough. They had a blast!

Other pictures are of our visit to Washington, DC. We ate at a rather bad Chinese restaurant, but then trekked over to the Vietnam War Memorial to see if we could find Storm's doctor's brother's name. And we did!

The boys are back in North Carolina now, but I know they took great memories back with them! It was a fun and learning experience hosting them!

HJ

I really am blessed in that I work with a great bunch of guys. I heard (on a radio commercial) that if you truly love what you do, then it's not really work. I do like my job, but I also like the people I work with. We have some really eclectic conversations. Sometimes, if we are really stumped about something like who played Buffy in Family Affair or what Jan Brady is up to these days, or who sung that song we heard on the radio coming to work, we consult the Oracle (the internet). Usually, during our consultation, we stumble across some other interesting fact that will spur a new conversation.

Truly, they are a great bunch of guys and I'm happy to be associated with them!

Since I retired from the air force, I've always wanted to do something that I was not allowed to do during my enlistment. I don't drink and drugs are out. I could grow my hair long but I associate long hair with my unpleasant time in high school. Ah, but I could still grow my hair long...on my chin!

Every so often I don't shave for a couple of days to let me skin heal from a week's worth of shaving. One day I just decided to write off shaving altogether. Check out the Howard's Beard picture album to see the results.

It didn't last long, a week and a half maybe. The whiskers started to curl around the poke my skin. It really wasn't comfortable. I tried to shave it off but it was too long and the razor jumped out of my hand the hid behind the toilet. Coward! So I had to borrow a pair of clippers from my friend Darren. That did the trick.

Yes, the beard is gone. If you like me with it, you can download the pictures. Otherwise, my cheeks are as clean as a babies bottom!

HJ

I just wanted to add a note about our trip to VA Beach. Arlen and Daren, neighbors and close friends, joined us in a trip to VA Beach. We all had a blast as the waves were very high and very strong! All in all, we had a really nice time!

HJ