For nearly three years now, I have been one half of a very satisfying, loving, and all-in-all terrific domestic partnership with a very lovely woman. If two people were ever fated to spend the rest of their lives together, surely they are Niki and I. However, until we created our blissful home together, I never realized how forgetful I am and how many things are a direct result of my shortcomings. In other words, I never understood how many things are my fault…

The moth is a blight. The moth is an annoyance. The moth is one of Nature’s superior idiots. Yes, just like manufacturers sometimes produce consumer products that are subpar, the Great Architect seems to have dropped the ball in regards to the moth. This is evident for two reasons: First, clothing and foliage apparently taste the same to the moth. Now, I don’t know about you, but I imagine that my life would be impacted negatively were I unable to determine whether I was eating a salad or a pair of pants. The second, and perhaps the more damning display of the moth’s stupidity, is its total obsession with light. During summer evenings, everyone’s porch lights are swarming with hordes of fluttering drones that range in size from tiny to freakin’ huge. Why?

“It would be wicked to give it a zero because it does show some very basic skills we are looking for, like conveying some meaning and some spelling.”  That’s what Peter Buckroyd, a British high school English teacher, told the Associated Press after he awarded a student 2 points out of a possible 27 for [...]

“Absolutely everything I have, I take nothing with me.”  That’s what Ian Usher told the entire world when he decided to auction off his entire life.  Mr. Usher, a 45-year-old British businessman, had been living in Perth, Australia with his wife Laura.  On June 29, the final bid was taken for all that he had and [...]

Would you put a porta-potty inside your home?  I certainly wouldn’t.  Call me unreasonable, but when I have finished my business in the bathroom, I take great comfort in the ability to flush it away.  However, were it a hundred years ago, and I did not have indoor plumbing, I would have an outhouse in my [...]

Would that I were a cartoon super villian.  For much like “Family Guy’s” Stewie Griffin, I too have the desire to be our globe’s ultimate authority.  However, not being a cartoon places a tremendous handicap upon this ambition.  Because I don’t have billions of dollars, I do not have a secret chamber built into my [...]

All in all, I am a just man.  Within all of my rantings and ravings, I have asked for neither the impossible nor the unreasonable from humanity.  I have never expressed anger or wonderment over anything overly intellectual or scientific.  Indeed, it would be unfair–and extremely boring at that–to use this blog as a vehicle to [...]

As my father has gotten older, that particular area of his temper that kicks into action when confronted by a dumb ass has changed from angry finger pointing and thundering, harsh words to a quiet, sarcastic, kind of amused grace.  Indeed, rather than shouting at the every day idiot (known scientifically as homo-idius abiectus), Dad offers them [...]

Forrest Gump explained, “Life is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re going to get.”  Well, that little fortune cookie excerpt also applies to answering the phone at Rebecca’s Auction Gallery.  Every time it rings, I never know what I’m going to get…
The woman that called that blustery March afternoon was extremely [...]

I pray every day that when I’m old enough to start losing my mind, as all great geniuses do, that I have enough money to be considered eccentric rather than just plain old crazy.  For example, one of my goals–or fantasies–is that by mid-life I will have a gigantic house upon its very own mountain.  [...]

It was the summer of 1999… the summer that we moved Rebecca’s Auction Gallery to Olyphant.  I was alone at the gallery, setting up for the approaching auction, when two women (I’ll call them Dense and Denser) walked in to have a look.  All seemed normal.  Dense and Denser perused the inventory, making ignorant quips and clucking [...]