Winter Solstice Blog"

A good, cold wintery greetings to all. Actually here in South Central Kentucky today it's not too bad; the temp's are in the high 40's. But rain is predicted to start again soon and with it plunging temperatures, which will result in ice and probably a lot of (my much hated) snow. When I was a kid it was nice to see snow as it meant we'd probably have a day called off from school or I could get out there and build a snowman or go sled riding, but as I grew older it became nothing but a nuisance to try to drive in. A "White Christmas"? Sure. Just as long as I don't have to go anywhere that day and it's all gone by the next. Personally if I could control the weather here it'd be 70 degrees year round.

Well I've decided to start eliminating any photos and pictures I've posted on my blog site after 30 days max. A good friend is letting me use his photo hosting service gratis anyway and it just ties up space to much and too long. So if you click on something I've done a month ago, don't expect illustrations. I don't use a whole lot of them on my posts; I try to save them only for something ;"special", and that will continue to be the rule here in the future.

I'm going to try to get the rest of my Christmas shopping done today. I still lack the rest of my wife's gifts so I'm taking her over to "Wallyworld" later on and see if I can finish that up. Just haven't had the time and/or extra cash AT the right time to do all of that before. In fact, I'm still awaiting any sort of Christmas "bonus" from my employer. Looks like they'd already given those out so their employees could enjoy a little of it before the holidays, but as usual, they'll wait until the last moment.

Had more bad luck with my teeth (again). This time a front tooth broke while eating a sandwich. It's not really noticible due to it being offset to one side on the front, but still it peaves me. This was one of those my dentist rebuilt rather than pulling and simply adding another to my lower partial plate. I've asked him numberous times, "Don't you think I should just have the rest of the lower ones pulled and dentures made?" Always he'd say, "No! Try to keep what teeth you have as long as you can!" Of course, by now, I only have something like 5 of my original lower teeth, one back one that is rebuilt to hold the back of the partial in place, and with all the money I've soaked into this over the years I could have had the denture made and been done with it. Naturally, that'd meant my dentist would have been out-of-business with me(which I'm SURE he doesn't want to happen). I've ALWAYS had tooth problems. I was born anemic and couldn't drink whole milk. In fact, only less than a year after my birth I had to be rushed to Children's Hospital in Louisville for transfusions. The doctors said I had a calcium deficiency which would cause things like "soft" bones and poor teeth. One dentist told me I'd be lucky to keep my original teeth until I was 40. I'm 53 now; time to have some lower ones made that'll "do the job". On top of everything else, I called my dentist and he's on vacation now until January 3rd. I'm fortunate this stub of a tooth left hasn't started aching.

And with this New Year nearly upon us one of my resolutions is truely to never buy anything off of eBay again unless it's insured, and not to buy from anyone that I don't know, have bought from before, or really trust. I've harped on all the bad luck I've had since last September with auction wins and not receiving my merchandice. I finally gave up on some items I won back on Nov. 30th., and I have just one item left that hasn't arrived (altho' it's "due" anytime). After that I buy only from my friends from which I've ALWAYS gotten my goods, or I just save up my money and wait until stores that carry what I want have some sales. It's really been just too much of a hassle with these (supposingly) lost packages.

Other New Year's Resolutions: Maybe look around for another job. I've been at my current position for 5 years, never had any real insurance, and my patience is running thin with the continuous and ever-mounting hassles and obligations put upon me. If they'd get some "decent" help for me I might reconsider, but otherwise I think it's getting closer to that time for me to just move on to something else. I'd also like to get a personal loan paid off so I can have the extra $200. a month for other bills, and I want to get my huge trees trimmed in the yard, or cut back (or down) just to eliminate a lot of big, falling limbs and the increasing number of leaves I always have to rake every year and clean out of the gutters. Sort of like to do some repainting of the walls inside the house as well and maybe lay new carpet in the living room and dining room, and perhaps as well, new tile in the bathroom. I'd also like to add a "shower kit" over the old claw-foot, antique tub we have, as I really do miss my hot showers.

I think this year I'll, comic book-wise, try to concentrate on completing my collection of Doom Patrol titles and app.'s and complete my set of Strange Adventures from #100 to the end of the title. I need something like 50 books to do that. (I'm not as keen on pre-100 issues of ST because I have them all on CD's where I can read them any time I'd like.) I'd also like to concentrate on completing any issues of silver-age Marvel Annuals and Giants I need. I might need about 14 or 15 of those now (mostly some early annuals). And I'd like to pick up some more of the Charlton or Tower silver-agers I've had at one time or another. All of those are books/titles I've always really enjoyed reading in the past.I'll probably buy some more Archive and essential reprint volumes,too as it's cheaper than trying to buy the originals these days.

So here's ~D.Puck' Wishing anyone reading his blogger site only The BEST of CHRISTMAS WISHES and The HAPPIEST of NEW YEARS!

I sincerely hope that 2005 proves to be a better year for us all.