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Columns

  • Memories of beautiful Caribbean islands, remote beaches and gross boat rides

    Years ago, before Betty and I discovered the amazing advantages of cruising, we would fly to vacation destinations and spend a week or two in one resort area. We now know that a couple of weeks cruising permits one to visit many interesting sites.
    Back in our non-cruising days, we flew to the Caribbean island of St. Martin/St. Maarten. St. Martin is the French side and St. Maarten is the Dutch side of the island, but people on the island are free to move between the French and Dutch sides without showing a passport.

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  • 'Roads and shacks….' (here we go again)

    My junior high school teachers were so very well culturally and historically versed that they made sure we, their protégés, would also be very well versed in the knowledge of who we were.

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  • Sweet tea, the greatest threat to S.C. since Sherman...by Sen. Greg Gregory

    A recent visit to a local restaurant found me waiting behind three wide bodies blocking the tea dispensers. Despite tilting the sweet tea canister 45 degrees they found none to be had, so they waited for it to be filled. It didn't enter their minds to try unsweetened tea just as it wouldn't have entered mine several years ago.
    All my life I derided unsweetened tea as "Yankee tea" and considered most anyone who drank it from the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon line. I felt strongly that there was something wrong with people who didn't drink sweet tea.

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  • Don't tread on tea

    If you haven't done so already, please take a moment to read the column on this page authored by State Senator Greg Gregory, in which he suggests that we all give up drinking sweet tea. Once you've done that, please return here to read me discredit his argument, assail his credibility and openly campaign for his opponents.

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  • Are you ready to have your eyes opened again?

    "You shall indeed hear but never understand, and you shall indeed see but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn for me to heal them." (Isaiah 6:9-10).
    Quoting Jesus:
    "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind." (John 9:39).

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  • Sleepy fishing villages and high-flying performers

    The first time that Betty and I ever heard of the sleepy Mexican fishing village of Zihuatanejo (see-wah-tah-NEH-ho) was in the movie "The Shawshank Redemption."

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  • The old Denmark thing again...

    I have often said that one of the things I miss the most about being in Chicago is the gathering of like minds to have extended discussions on what was going on in the world as a whole. These discussions would then translate into actions designed to make things better for those involved.

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  • They say it's your birthday

    I'm not on Facebook or Twitter. People try to convince me all the time that I should be. They tell me that Facebook, in particular, is a great way to communicate with long lost friends. I usually respond that if they were really good friends, they wouldn't be long and lost in the first place. On top of that, I sit in front of a computer all day every day at work, so I'm not especially interested in sitting in front of a computer as a leisure activity.

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  • New life for your old computer -- solid is better

    People often come to me and ask how they can make their computer faster. Barring a big bad virus, which would require a system clean and/or reimage, for years I've always suggested that a RAM (memory) upgrade would make the PC feel like it's faster.

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  • El Niño versus La Niña – Are we talking Spanish or English?

    Oh my gosh, can you believe the rain we have had in the last few weeks? Every time I watch the news they say we are still a half inch below in rainfall for the month of January. Really?
    And then the ups and downs in the temperatures. We go from the 60s and 70s to the 20s and 30s in no time flat, then back again. And the severe tornadoes and straight winds that have hit our area and the surrounding areas in the middle of the winter. Have you ever heard of such? What in the world is going on?

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