I take a lot of photos around the Fox Valley. Parks and the lakefront, the river when the water is low, downtown Appleton at night, a deer at the 1000 Islands center that held still just long enough. I have been posting them here for years. This week I turned them into a game. Where…
A handful of posts I’m fond of and think are worth a look — a mix of local history, photography from around Wisconsin and beyond, pet care, and a few odds and ends. If you’re new here, this is a good place to start. The “Fad” That Never Faded: Why AI in 2026 is 1996…
The time has finally come! After months of focused, behind-the-scenes work, I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that I am officially retiring the old look of my blog. This marks the exciting end of one long era and the dynamic beginning of something I believe is much better. This blog is my digital home, and with…
There’s something about an old house at Christmas that a new one just can’t quite match. This is my parents’ dining room on Christmas Eve 2025, in a home that has been standing in Neenah since 1917 — and on a night like this, you can feel all of those years in the woodwork. The…
I came across this old photo recently and couldn’t resist scanning it and putting it up. That’s me as a kid — somewhere around the early 1990s, judging by the haircut and the outfit — caught mid-goofball in the driveway with my arms out and a grin a mile wide. Behind me is my grandparents…
Christmas at my parents’ house is one of those traditions I hope never changes. Their home — a beautiful historic place here in Neenah — always looks its best this time of year, and the dining room is the heart of it all. Here it is on Christmas Eve 2023, the table set and ready:…
Photo history unknown. St. Mary Central High School and Church. Some buildings stay standing long after we leave them, waiting for us to come back and visit. This one doesn’t have that luxury. The St. Mary Central High School I walked through every day is gone now, demolished not long after my class filed out…
No Christmas at my parents’ house would be complete without the tree and the train. Every year a big fresh tree goes up, and every year it disappears under what has to be decades’ worth of ornaments — glass figures, lights in every color, tinsel, and keepsakes that have been hung on these branches longer…
Just a few favorite photos of Karen and Bogey from late fall of 2022. Bogey is our scruffy little Shih Tzu, and he has never met a camera he didn’t like. Here he is getting some love from Karen, then posing like a champ in a big pile of bright yellow maple leaves, and finally…
Of all the old family photos and odds and ends I’ve scanned and saved over the years, this is the one that sent me down the deepest rabbit hole. It’s a vintage postcard of the Frank Cuneo Memorial Hospital in Chicago — the hospital where my dad was born. I went looking for just a…
It ended up being an absolutely beautiful Halloween day. The temperature actually made it up to 55 degrees, which was a welcome treat after a long stretch of chilly, below-average days this October. We started our morning with a trip down to Milwaukee to catch the final outdoor farmers market of the season, picking up…
Every season has to end sometime, and this was the final Menasha Farmers Market of 2018, on a crisp, colorful day at the end of October. Back then the market was held downtown by the Menasha marina, right across from Parker John’s BBQ. Karen and my friend Valerie got into the Halloween spirit with their…