As we did last year, we have scoured a year's worth of Ballard Street cartoons to find the ones most appropriate to represent the Hargrove household. We find it continually amazing how Jerry Amerongen manages to capture the absurdity of the modern world with such economy of expression. We admit to changing the names in the captions, but otherwise these are simply things that appealed. Although the Austin American-Statesman in its continuing struggle to reduce the comics page to bedrock banality by keeping such lame features as Mallard Fillmore while eliminating Ballard Street, the web has come to the rescue. Check out comics.com.
Our Year
It's been how long?
This has been an eventful year. We celebrated our 40th anniversary. When we announce that, we usually get a response of, "Wow!" We aren't sure whether that means that people are impressed that we have been together that long ("It seems like only yesterday…") or whether they are expressing shock ("Amazing that anyone could live with Jim that long…"). Read the full story…
Explain Again Why You Moved Next Door
Yes, we moved next door to our old house. As Jim puts is, "Our address change was the minimal possible, one bit." For those of you who think that changing from an even address to an odd one must imply moving across the street, we remind you that zero is a very special number. In the case of Bend O River Drive (or Bend of the River as the street sign has it) it marks the very end of the cul-de-sac. We now occupy the house just to the right of our old house as viewed from the street. Notice that we still haven't explained why we did this. For that, you'll have to read the full story…
Then, there was that other event
Our grandson, Kai Austin Hargrove, burst onto the scene on May 10, 2006 to the cheers of a crowd assembled in the birthing room. He weighed a remarkable 9 pounds and so far doesn't seem to resemble anyone in particular. (Though you can get an argument on that point.) We've given him his own tab on the navigation bar and includes some photos and videos. Read more…
And then, we did some traveling
In keeping with our tradition of seeking out places most people have never heard of, much less been there, we signed up for Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 2006 Jungle River Cruise. This was the first time we'd been on a large ship filled with birders, and we discovered that we kind of liked it. Linda was a big hit after she spotted a spectacular bird that almost everyone got to see. Read the full account...