August News

On Tuesday, July 16th, my wife and I flew out to spend a week in Binghamton, New York. On Friday was a combined Windsor High School reunion ice breaker for classes of 1964 (60th) and 1965 (59th) at an Elks Club. On Saturday was a five hour bbq and clambake at a mountain events facility close to the Pennsylvania border. The hundreds in attendance were from several years of Windsor graduates. I ate too much…

Flying to the small Binghamton airport took three jets. We flew out of San José to Los Angeles. After a wait, we boarded a larger jet and flew to Detroit where we had around a three hour layover. A much smaller jet took us from there to Binghamton.

Coming back was a @%&**% pain. We flew Delta and they were still in dire straits from that big security software crash that grounded planes all over the world. It also affected hospital computers causing many scheduled operations and procedures to be cancelled.

Our flight home from Binghamton started a few minutes late, but did fly. However, when we got to Detroit again, our flight to Salt Lake City was cancelled. Our first encounter with Delta’s help desk was painful. The attendant said we couldn’t get a flight for two days. A second attendant took over and five hours later we got the last two seats on a non-stop to San Francisco. Hooray! My wife contacted the airporter limosine service and they changed their pickup from San José to San Francisco. We finally walked into our house at 6pm.

Now… all was fine for two days. Then… I got sick. It was probably either from someone on the flights or in the crowded Detroit airport. Fortunately, it was not Covid. Just a super bad cold. Very sore neck, sore throat, then a lot of coughing. After six days, my neck is still a little sore, and my coughing has slowed down. It’s been a bummer week with very little sleep. I haven’t had a cold in over five years.

As for woodworking, I did very little this last month before we went traveling. I did clean up my studio and shop, something I really needed to do. I still have a mini hog-nose psaltery that’s close to being done. I hope to finish it in the next week or so. (God willing and the creek don’t rise…)

For now, I’ve been attempting to write and work on the two novels that are both at 10,000 to 12,000 words. Only 60,000 to 80,000 more to go.