December 2025

Nick and I had a weekend visit in Ft. Wayne for a guy's morning on a Sunday, where we visited the Ft. Wayne Zoo for a couple of hours, in between two meals so we had a separation in our consumption.  It's a nice place, and it was cool, breezy and quiet, my favorite environment. Nick chatted up the woman running the small train onsite. We found a decent pizza place on the north end. It's been rewarding seeing Nick spend more time at 'the shop' at the Historical Society and skin his knuckles a few times. He's getting the hands-on he needs to accompany his engineering background. On another visit he took me over to the shop now that he knows the place well from working there.  Gotta admit sitting up inside the cabin of a steam engine is pretty cool. He's also drawing again, and more than just trains, so it's good to see his art skills expanding, lots of animated characters from video games (now I know who Kasane Teto is.)

Grateful for another Thanksgiving at home. Brandi prepared a fantastic meal, which Nick is now old enough to appreciate for more than a few minutes.  Grandpa joined us.

Nick was quoted in the St. Francis Knight Life magazine saying nice things about the school from his time there. He made the grade (enough) to end his first semester at IT.  Now heading into a trigonometry class for his second semester, and says it's coming easy to him, so SFS prepared him well.

We had  Christmas at home, with a beautiful tree that brings us joy, dammit (Brandi had to completely re-string the lights.)  After a couple days at home resting, I took two quick trips (Nick didn't want to travel this year.)  First trip was to DC to see the Wings v Capitals with Brad for a weekend, brunch at Clyde's and the other usual stops, that was a road trip.  Second trip was a quick flight to Clearwater to spend a weekend on the beach, stayed at the new Hiatus hotel.  Donny and I did our usual long brunch... 14 hours from drinks until late night Mexican food.  Then I drove into Sebring to visit the crew, of which Miranda and Sue had just returned from the Rose Bowl Parade.  Miranda and I took a day at Universal Studios.  It was my first time on a roller coaster in thirty years, and the body held up well, those that we rode were fantastic (upside-down over the lake Velocicoaster is amazing!) A two-park hopping pass was $200 per person, which is nuts, but we managed to cram in two parks across ten hours of walking and riding, before dinner and a late trip home.  I continued on to St. Pete Beach for two nights before flying home.

Happy to see 2025 come to a close.  It seemed so far away when Nick was born, but 19 years later, here we are.

Photos from 2025 linked here. 

Fall 2025

We are thru the fall months and ready for winter. Pool is closed, most of the outdoors maintenance at both houses are ready for snow, maybe one mow left in the year. (Don has it right, he packed up and moved to Florida in ten days... sold, left it all behind, tossed clothes and dishes in a truck, bought a new place on the other in end in Largo. A master-class.) It's been a little more effort with Nick gone, but he jumps in to help when he comes home for a weekend here and there.  Bran is keeping Grandpa going, with his appointments and plenty of food.   She had him try a 'gummy' one evening, and he extended his arm to receive the remote upside down... said he felt like never getting out of his chair again.  Memo: a full gummy is too much for Grandpa.

I attended one more ballgame with Jay, Game 4 of Tiger v Mariners in the ALDS, which we won big, but then the they went on to lose the series. It was a perfect afternoon, good crowd, and good to catch up with Jay. 
Nick came home for a long weekend after he aced his mid-terms (drove home on his own), which turned into a full week since he can watch his class lectures online.  We took a weekend trip with to see him two weeks later, with Brandi preparing him party mix and rice krispy treats which he and Owen wiped out quick.  We had dinner at the Gas House downtown where Nick was treated to a $50 steak as a break from his campus meal plan. Then we just stayed in and watched bad movies for the evening at the hotel, booked two rooms.  We were able to get Nick's car washed at the self-wash near the diner on Sunday morning after breakfast, so we have that routine figured out. 

Nick's getting a rhythm now, volunteering each weekend, where he's sanding and stripping a train at the Historical Society. One Saturday he told them he came from a 'car washing family' so they had him power wash an engine and car... for five hours.. and he got half-way done. Neat, I can't image washing something that huge.

We closed October with Halloween at home. I handed out candy from Grandpa's house where there's more kids. I saw Tilly in her witch costume, had about 150 kids before I ran out of candy (two pieces each, I wasn't cheap), and nice weather this year for a change.  Some kid told me I had candy but no decorations, which I pointed out to him the real spider web under my candy table, because my father hasn't dusted in a decade. He says, "cool".

August 2025

Move-in Day for IT was mid-August, and we sorta just dropped him off and ran. We were roughly one of the first twenty students in line for our keys, and somehow his roommate Owen beat us to the room. Owen's parents are hyper-prepared, with every item their dorm room could need, from fridge to microwave to big screen TV. After a quick hour of unloading Nick's stuff and meeting Owen's family (he has a sister!), we headed home. He handled books and schedules on his own.

I had a clinic in Pasadena for Bronco Sport, quick one-day of sessions. I always enjoy the food when I travel to SoCal, and did a quick visit to the Petersen Museum to see the Totally Awesome 80s Display which is on the main floor for this year. I hadn't been to Petersen since I lived there in the late 90s, and had never been into the vault in the basement. I look back on my career and will remember traveling with the guys on these clinics, the Oaxaca Old Fashioned, and probably the Breakfast Burritos All Day in Pasadena, of course.

Brandi and I let Nick settle in over two weeks before our first check-in trip.  We took a nice walk around campus, where shockingly the only person we passed knew Nick by name... who would have thought that?  Nick and I traveled up to Elkhart on Saturday afternoon to attend the restoration meeting at New York Central for the 3001 steam engine, he was able to network with the leaders and some volunteers in prep for the Fall.  And we managed not to hit any Amish buggies along the way.

We filled in time with a quick show at Delkers with the Corvette, which I rarely take a car to these, but this was also the month the Monte Carlo needed an overhaul... refurbish the radiator, bearings packed, fluids and belts, enough work to make it last another 30 years. Brandi took a cookie decorating class, which I am saving the last one.  And she started a new job two days a week at an office just a mile from home.  We also walked the Glass City Riverwalk in downtown Toledo for the first time, which is a really nice park, and had lunch at Old Bag of Nails.

Visiting Nick roughly every two weeks, I went back for a guys weekend at the end of September. We visited the Auburn Cord Duesenberg museum for the afternoon, which Nick loved, and then drove north to Mayberry for the ultimate feast: the Amish buffet at Das Dutchman Essenhaus, where we both ate ourselves nearly to death, but oh, so worth it.  Never to declare an end to consumption, we finally found a good diner in Ft. Wayne, Liberty Diner, where we can become regulars for our breakfast activities. And coincidentally, there's a self-service car wash right next door. 

Pics here so far this year.

 

July 2025

Besides the trip to the UP, we did have a full month.
I was a little under the weather for a couple of days, and Nick offered to bring me lunch while Brandi was away at services for Nanny's memorial in Huntingdon.  "Go easy on my stomach," I tell him.  He brings home this deep-fried chicken sandwich, the size of my fist, with 3/4" of mac-and-cheese on it, smothered in cheese sauce and pickles.  It was good tasting, but I felt like I was committing the sin of gluttony just looking at it. He's made four visits to the Wing Snob since it opened nearby, they probably have his photo hanging in the lobby already.

He and I went to see the new Naked Gun film for an evening of mind-numbing distraction, and it worked.  Except that the young kid serving popcorn was so out of control with his butter that I had it all over my cup, up my elbows, on my shirt, it was a greasy disaster. These young people have a much more lackadaisical approach to everything.  Nick massacres an envelope when he gets mail, I feel sorry for the mail, it looks like a rabid dog opened it.

We are prepared to move him into school mid-August.  Kimberley picked him up a small set of dishes for his dorm.  We went to pick them up one morning after breakfast, and while he's good conversation, his pick-up lines are rough. "You smell like Coke," he says when he hugs her, as she'd just had a shower and it was probably soap or something.

Brandi and I got up to the DSO to see them on a hot rainy evening at the Meadowbrook Amphitheater, which was nice as we were under the structure up front.  Around all of the family events and school prep, that was our only date night.
We had a day where Grandpa was feeling rather strong and swam with Nick in celebration of turning 84. It's impossible to get a photo of them both smiling as those are such rare occurrences independently, so this photo here is close enough.

Schnartons UP 2025!

  

Nick a I took a summer trip north to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, first time for each of us that far north. We planned these four days almost six months ago, and it was quite the logistics to get five households in the same place at once.

We left mid-afternoon on Tuesday and stopped in Higgins Lake to see Duncan for a couple of hours, which Nick was very patient while I gossiped with my former boss. He napped in the car while I sat along the beach with a beer and Jasper, seeing the sun drop over the lake's west beaches. Duncan's grandfather built the cottage on the north side, east shore in 1926, and it's really something.  He encouraged us to stop at Gobblers on the way to the UP for a turkey sandwich but the sign on the door said 'closed - out of gravy' so we rolled into Big Buck Brewery in Gaylord, which worked out fine (see large bottle of beer in the photo.)

Having checked into St. Ignace on Tuesday night, we awoke Wednesday morning to our own adventure, as the other boys wanted to parasail and we weren't ready for that just yet.  Nick wanted to visit Sault Ste Marie, so we booked a locks tour and visited the Museum Ship along the shore before and after, which is inside of a retired tanker ship.  Very cool all around.  Lunch was spectacular battered perch at the Lockview Diner, which was the best meal of the trip.  By evening we caught up to the rest of the family for dinner at Dawson's, a little show at the Lumberjack event, and finally ice cream in downtown Mackinaw in the evening. A little holler of 'Timber!' was enough to make conversation with the group of teenage girls nearby, my effort to help the three teenage boys in my circle network a little.  Mason got a phone number, Noah smiled and declined, and Nick disappeared to stock up on more candy from the store nearby.  Nick and I wrapped up with a nightcap at Keystone Bar, and nearly bought an $1,800 sheep made of car parts, until the price was obvious.

Thursday was a travel day to Newberry for our second hotel.  When we pulled in, Nick accurately described the hotel as 'Bates Motel or Schitt's Creek' but either way, we weren't staying.  We'd lost Earl and Sue along the way when Carrie called an audible and redirected us from the Falls to the hotel. They all backtracked, but Nick and went forward, finding a much nicer hotel in Munising, and Pictured Rocks Pizza.  I sat along the bay in the evening watching the ducks and relaxing, far from the circus back in Newberry. And because we love to eat, we tried Eh, Burger along the bay in Munising, which was busy as the only late place in town to eat. There was also an uneventful hour cruise around the Seney National Wildlife Park squeezed in there, but we saw nothing, maybe a dozen different species of housefly if you count those.

Friday was the main event, we took a five-mile kayak tour of Pictured Rocks, which was amazing. We had perfect weather, the tour was well organized, we stayed dry thanks to some aprons I'd never seen used before, and the views were breathtaking.  Robin brought us snacks, and there's no shortage of pics and videos to capture the scenery.  Half the gang joined us, the other half watched us from a boat tour at a distance.  Following lunch at the DogPatch in Munising, we needed to entertain Carrie's 8-year-old twins for a few hours, which was why I booked a hotel with a pool and waterslide, which easily passed 4+ hours for us.  We went back into town for an evening drink and pizza.

Saturday was the ride home, we brought Jessica along with us since we passed DTW along the way.

Photos here.