Every year at this time I watch several versions of A Christmas Carol. It is my favorite show during the holidays. The period in which the story takes place has forever fascinated me. If you are like me the most glaringly obvious sign that a story is taking place in this period is the clothing. Waistcoats, triple breasted vests, high collars and of course the top hat were staples of the day. The first silk top hat, made from silk shag (a...

It’s that time of year again.  The gloriously hedonistic annual jaunt through that labyrinth filled with religious land mines called XMAS.  As I get older I have noticed that I loath xmas more and more each year. I find that as soon as the turkey is all gobbled up, my mind begins an old internal struggle.  Should atheists ignore xmas or celebrate It? I know that many do generally because they always have and don’t want to change....

Throughout the course of my life I have met some extremely colorful characters.  I have a large circle of people who I am happy to call friends.  I have a lot of clients that I work for that I don’t really consider friends.  I want to tell you about a couple that fall into the former group. These folks originally joined my group of acquaintances by becoming customers of mine. I was approached to update their existing business...

    I must admit I find it incredible that I am up at 12:30 the day after xmas writing a blog post.  I felt like I needed to write this while it was fresh on my mind.  The way I feel right now though I think it will be fresh on my mind for a while.  I treated the family to a movie the evening of the 25th.  It has sort of become something of a tradition.  Presents, family time, a meal and then off to the movies.  This years agreed...

    Part of TV that we usually gloss over or ignore is the proverbial network promo spot that usually takes a small bit of commercial air time in between regularly scheduled programs.  Here in TN I ignore most of these also, save for one.  As a child growing up in the south, it was never a sure thing that snow would appear during the holidays.  Likewise not living in a large urban cityscape wih huge buildings chock full of animatronic...

    On December the 19th 1843 a novella written by the most popular author of the Victorian era was published by Chapman & Hall. It has been said that it is the catalyst that both revitalized and restored our nostalgic love of the Christmas holiday.  We all love a good ghost story and when you mix that with old world English dialog and settings it just makes for a fantastic story.    Since the medium of Television has really taken...