A friend started talking about the old Kmart on State Street in Saginaw. Got me thinking about all kinds of memories, like getting new clothes and those nasty submarine sandwiches at that Kmart with my mom as a kid, being dragged into Fashion Bug or Payless, getting the slightly off-color Cub Scout uniforms from Sears, and of course, stopping into the long-closed Dawn Donuts.

Today I start working on a task I asked someone else to do a year ago.

I need to put a self ban on looking at Zillow listings in the Midwest.

Beautiful day on the Oregon coast.

Remembering my brother today and every day.

And while I’m old-man ranting, have you seen the eye rolls they give you nowadays when you refuse self checkout? While paying for said $7 deodorant?

Has anyone seen the price of deodorant lately, or are we all collectively ignoring that along with everything else? $7 for Old Spice.

Perhaps the biggest difference I’ve noticed between suburbs in the Pacific Northwest versus those in the Midwest is that the PNW has much better landscaping. If you’re going to have parking lots everywhere, you might as well have trees and bushes and berms blocking your sea of parking.

Yesterday was hard to beat.

Sick kids again.

All you folks who eat fish and seafood, were you born without tastebuds? I can barely stand the smell let alone put it in my mouth lol.

Mac ‘n cheesin’

An annual zoo membership is the best bargain in town when you have a couple little ones.

I’ve been thinking about new volunteer opportunities I could do and I think Habitat for Humanity ReStore would be great except for the fact that my garage would be filled with materials for home improvement projects I’d never complete.

I should know better at this point to never wear light colored shirts. My kids are always using me as a napkin.

It’s been a couple years now and you’d think Apple would’ve fixed their weird glitch where the Apple TV remote randomly freezes at least once per day and needs to be restarted.

I had to quit certain social media sites long before a certain dude took over, simply because of hatefulness and politics.

I’ve seen a big uptick in politics on Mastodon lately, which makes me sad. I’ve been using that unfollow button pretty liberally, but maybe I just need to figure out how to block keywords.

An absolutely perfect Portland evening for some back porch lounging.

Sometimes I think it would be cool to have a Jeep or a Bronco to take to the beach. But let’s get real, there ain’t no way I’m taking a carload of kids and a dog anywhere without the van. I’m a convert.

Never thought I’d say this, but I’m ready for my son to be past the Scooby Doo phase. Watching every episode and movie dozens of times is beyond my limit. Time to expand your horizons, boy.

Took a chance on the Grammarly plugin for Outlook. Verdict: the free version is unusable.

Anyone have a decent alternative?

Nothing quite like the feeling of scrimping and making smart choices to put away over 50 grand into retirement since 2021, only to have the balance remain about the same as it was 2 years ago.

Got my tomatoes planted outside yesterday. Really wish I had more space because I only have room for 6 plants or so and I have a lot of good starts left over. I might put a couple in some 5 gallon buckets.

I did get the zucchini and acorn squash out of the raised beds and into mounds this year, which gave me room to experiment with things I don’t typically grow.

Dunno why, but growing stuff is fun.