Toys ‘Were’ Us

I was four-years-old when I met Darth Vader. My memory of the event is foggy, but I remember it was dark so it must have been either early or late. It was cold. We — my mom and I — stood outside in the Toys ‘R’ Us parking lot waiting for the advertised celebrities to greet us. First was Spider-man, followed by the Hulk, but the one I remember most vividly was Darth Vader. For all I know, whoever wore that black costume, helmet, and cape that day was just some teenager who worked at the store, but to me,… (read more)

Cheater Spacer Shelves

During this week’s furlough, I decided to tackle a few projects around the house that I’ve been putting off for far too long. One of those projects involved creating a pair of “spacer shelves” for our upstairs entertainment center. The built-in entertainment in our upstairs den is really nice, but the shelves are way too tall. Take a look at the shelves to the right of the television in the (terrible) picture above. Each shelf is almost 18″ apart; probably great for displaying photographs or trophies, but terrible for things like DVDs. Here you can see some of my Blu-ray… (read more)

Furlough, Can You Go

For the second time in five years, Susan and I have been furloughed. What that means is, until a budget is passed by congress, all non-essential federal employees — that’s us — are prohibited from working and will not get paid until the furlough is over. We can’t even volunteer to work for free. The first question everybody asks is, “yeah, but don’t you get back pay?” The answer is, “probably.” It’s not guaranteed, but historically, I don’t think it’s never not happened. That being said, our back pay will arrive on the first full paycheck following the furlough. The… (read more)

Sickness and Updates

I started feeling under the weather right after New Year’s. By Friday of that week — the fifth, right? — I felt so awful I ended up staying home from work. I felt a little better that weekend before it really hit me. I broke down and saw a doctor last Friday. The nurse I saw was sure I had the flu, but the doctor said my results were negative. Regardless, I ended up with three prescriptions (two pills and a nose spray) and have gone through three bottles of cough syrup over the past two weeks. The doctor told… (read more)

Star Wednesday: Chewbacca Bandolier Strap

Kenner was truly a marketing genius, realizing early on that kids buying action figures would also need things to hold, store, and transport action figures. In the late 70s and early 80s, Kenner made several different types and styles of carrying cases for kids. The earliest cases were essentially little vinyl briefcases that held two dozen action figures. Then there were those large plastic sculpted busts of Darth Vader and C-3P0 that opened up and held even more figures. Kenner made lots of different storage cases, some more successful than others. One of the oddest ones they produced was this… (read more)

The Ghosts of Pizza Inn

There was a time not so many years ago when my work friends and I used to go lunch together almost every single day. Increased job duties, the introduction of teleworking, and conflicting meeting schedules have mostly put an end to those frequent outings. These days, getting three or four of us together for lunch involves blocking out time on calendars, coordinating schedules, and a lot of finger-crossing. I really miss those days when we could all just hop in a car and go somewhere for lunch. One of our frequent lunch destinations was the Pizza Inn on the corner… (read more)

Swimming in Unsolved Mysteries

In my 2017 media review I mentioned that I’ve been watching a lot of Unsolved Mysteries. I didn’t expect someone to ask me, “what’s that?” Unsolved Mysteries was a television show that debuted in 1987 on NBC and ran there for ten years before moving to CBS for another two. Lifetime picked the show up from 2001-2002, and it was relaunched on Spike from 2008-2010. According to Wikipedia there were 580 episodes in all, although many of the Spike TV episodes simply recycled segments from earlier seasons. While later seasons tweaked the formula slightly, the bulk of the show’s episodes… (read more)

No Disassemble

Mason O'Hara

It’s 6:30 p.m., Saturday night. The sun set about an hour ago. It’s dark, 45 degrees outside, and Mason is lying in the driveway, installing the new car radio antenna his grandpa bought him for Christmas. I can’t help but remember all the hours Andy, Jeff and I spent wiring things into my cars. My Mustang didn’t have any rear speakers until I bought a set of Jensen 6x9s from Walmart. For the backseat of my Firebird we built a lopsided speaker box using the wrong type of wood to hold two used speakers I bought from the flea market.… (read more)

My Year in Review: A Look Back at 2017

Rob O'Hara, Susan O'Hara in casino

2017 was another great year for the O’Haras. Morgan turned 12, Mason turned 16, and Susan and I both turned 44. The country experienced an eclipse, Susan officiated her first wedding, we discovered not one but two snakes in our house, I found a ton of vintage VHS tapes containing tons of treasure, I bought a six-foot dragon skeleton to go with Mick Rib, I met Guy Hutchinson in person for the first time, we discovered an interesting Asian food market full of super hot Ramen noodles and live turtles, and Mason walked a 5K. (A bunch of crazy stuff… (read more)

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