Spend enough time online and it will happen to you. You go a searchin� for the best recipe for pecan pie, say, and next thing you know you�re ass deep in some really obscure site checking out pictures of scuba gear or reindeer accessories or the like.

We�ve all done it. Fallen down the old rabbit hole of link after link, until we shake our heads and look at the clock and realize that 6 hours have disappeared and the working wife is due home any minute and did you take the chicken out of the freezer like she asked you to do? Hmmm?

I have to blame at least part of it on my dearly departed (but not entirely gone, thank goodness) Sundry buddy, a writer of vast talent who has taken to the big leagues of blogging with a vengeance. Check out her sidebar links in that story and if you're sharp of eye, you�ll find the reason for one of my recent plunges into rabbit hell. It led me to This Guy, and he�s funny and very readable in his own right, but he in turn led me to a half dozen others, and I spent nearly an entire Saturday reading about life in Antarctica. How there are people who live and work there year round, and how there�s a waiting list of people to take their place. It was several hours of pure escapism for me, some fascinating stuff. I understand that carpenters are in demand down there . . .

Yesterday I found a blog that was so outrageous I read the whole damn thing, 3 years worth, and that�s not so much a testament to how fast I read but to the hoot worthy content. There�s a bunch of them out there and I�m sure that finding them is just a matter of continuing to click, and click some more.

That�s how some poor rancher out in Colorado, looking for information on how to fill in or detect rabbit holes who will find his way here. By clicking, that is.

I mean, that�s how y�all wound up here in the first place, isn�t it?

Here�s one more link on the progressively lengthening list of semi-worthless stuff I look at. Know him by his links, I always say. But Land and Farm is such a shameless way to enjoy the geography of real estate I couldn�t let it pass by. For those of you looking to find a good deal on retirement property or investment land, especially if you need to cross the state line if you�re looking beyond your own borders, this is the place.

I commented a few days ago about how much I�d like to pack up the truck and do a little escapism of my own in a nice warm place. It�s stuck with me. We all have a vision of tropical climes and umbrella drinks but I like to think mine is a little more modestly confined to the Southeast.

I�ve got another couple of years before all the kids are, at least legally and morally, free to move about on their own. Ally and I have been laughing about it (or crying about it) since the day we found out our third one was on the way and I gave her a congratulatory peck on the cheek and said �That�s great honey, see you in about 18 years, okay?� Funny at the time, not so funny in practice. More truth than fiction, you see.

In the years of raising kids and running all over the Southeast installing stuff I realized something. One - I was gonna make good on seeing Ally in 18 years, really seeing her I mean and Two - we needed to spend our waning years someplace in the South. I mean, we live in the sorta/kinda South right now, a lot further South than lots of folks, but it�s not the real South, you know? The palmetto tree, red clay, dirt farmer South.

I can read all I want to about hanging out in Antarctica but digging for clams on a beach in South Carolina is a whole lot more my style. Warmth becomes me. I�ve already lived in a near Arctic environment as a youth and have no desire whatsoever to go back to it. Humid breezes in March do not scare me, nor do fire ants. Or single-wide Baptist churches.

Convincing Ally of this won�t be a problem. She was raised down there, is comfortable with it. Her natural father (a whole �nother entry needed) still lives there and we visit him when we can. I don�t think I�ve ever seen her more . . . comfortable, I guess that�s the word, than when she�s been lounging on his front porch on a sweetly warm Southern evening with a glass of iced tea and nothing but conversation to wind the day down. Her only objection would be relative distance from children, as would be mine. We�ll need to work on that.

But it�s hard not to get a little misty eyed about a three room clam shack (with hammock and a cable modem) near the Gulf. It�s a rabbit hole I fall down every single time.

You may have noticed a (whee!) minor graphical improvement herein, and it�s now easier to find the appropriate link for the guest book over there on the left (see it? �Leave a note for . . .�) but just for the sake of uniformity, I�ll leave the convenient Guestbook link down here as well, for a few days. Thanks for reading.

previous - next 0 comments so far