Bob's University

Here, Little Bob is delivering a lecture on "Travel as Essential to the Cultural Development of Today's Cosmopolitan Penguin."  You see that he has invited a guest speaker as well, Connor the little Irish sheep.

You may notice standing in the back Ominous, the scary little blackbird.  He's a grad student at Bob's University of Advanced Penguinity & Comparative Avian Studies, of which Little Bob serves as vice-chancellor and chair of the Dept. of French and Francophone Studies.  Indeed, LB is quite well known in France.  Below is a pic of him being introduced to the press corps at the Elysée Palace (look carefully; he's not very tall you know).

Here is an official portrait of Bob himself in his regalia as Arch-Chancellor and Rector Magnificus of the university.

Flags

I'm an ardent vexillologist (happily you can't get arrested for that in Va)... which simply means I study and collect flags.  I have since high school, loooooooong before Sheldon on "Big Bang Theory."  It's really quite fascinating, and my particular interest is heraldic vexillology, i.e., flags taken from coats of arms, etc.  I recently found a new source for my collection, French but you can get them on Amazon.  You may recall, I do not really have hobbies, I have serial obsessions.  Below are some of my most recent acquisitions.

l to r: Dept. of the Rhone (France), Dept. of the Ardèche (France), Parma-Piacenza (Italy), Brittany (old), Friuli-Venezia Julia (Italy), French naval galley, French royal navy (restoration)

l to r: French royal, flag of Oswain Glyndwr (Welsh), English royal (16th cent.), Napoleonic imperial banner, Austria-Hungary (naval), Holy Roman Emperor   

It's Monday...

 ... time to start battling those pesky little demons again!

Alexandria Cemetery

Finally got a round to visiting the old Alexandria cemetery.  Quite interesting, and it was a lovely day for a stroll.  In addition to the city cemetery there is a national cemetery on the premises. Below are various worthy photos, some with commentary.  Enjoy... if that's the right word.

 

 Few condos in Alexandria can boast such spectacular graveside views.

In Alexandria, everyone knows where the Boddies are buried.

It's not unusual for a town to have a Jewish cemetery and a Catholic cemetery, but Alexandria is even more discriminating when it comes to burial.

 

 Alexandrians also believe in honoring their physicians.

 

As You Like It

 Despite it all, enjoy you're weekend in whatever way you fancy!

We're Back Home and so are the Flowers

 

Medieval Music: The Ultimate New Wave

 Click and enjoy!

Uncle Joe

 

Stalin was kinda cute in his younger days.  I probably would have dated him.

Heaven knows I dated worse...

Gott Erhalte Unser Kaiser!

 Today is the birthday of His All-Highest and Apostolic Majesty emperor Franz-Joseph.

Celebrate accordingly!

 

 

 

Travel in the Plague Year

Howdy folk!  We're back from a little socially distant, carefully disinfected sojourn to Lexington and Cleveland.  The occasion was my brothers' birthday: born on August 14th, 5 years apart.  This one was special since my oldest brother turned 80 and the middle brother 75.  (The gentle reader is kindly advised that I am very much younger than my brothers.)  Since we were headed west, AH decided to replenish his supplies of high-end bourbon in KY.  So we stopped there first, which presented the opportunity to have dinner with my lovely and beloved former dept. chair and her equally enchanting husband.  In general, the weather was good and a welcome change from sweltering NoVa.  Upon crossing the state line into KY, I asked David what the temp was. I remarked that I was surprised that it was fairly pleasant, since Hell was freezing over right at that moment.  I was pleased that I experienced no ill symptoms upon my brief return, but 24 hours was plenty long enough.  From there we headed north to my beloved ancestral homeland.  Highlight there, aside from seeing my brothers, was a very pleasant trip to Chagrin Falls, a town next to the one I grew up in.  Happily, the people we saw in WVa and OH were quite conscientious re masks, and we saw more Biden signs than Trump signs.  All in all, it was much more diverting than I was anticipating.  Here's what Chagrin Falls looks like: 

 

Be back next week...

 

Here's a herd of guinea pigs...

So What's New?

 After a couple of days of more than usual cabin fever and the accompanying emotional downs, I find I got nothin' to post today.  Rather than exercise myself further over this, here's an interesting book on human sacrifice.  Ah!  If I only had this around when I was still an active faculty member...

 

Stand-ins

 When needed, the penguins are all too happy to stand in for a flower vase.  Inanimate flightless aquatic fowl are just the best!

What is a Bidget?

I was recently reminded by a comment on another blog of my on-and-off crusade to establish bidget as a word.  This started when I typo'd "budget," was amused (as I easily am) and looked up the word.  It doesn't exist.  I was taken aback since it seems like such a natural for the English vocabulary.  So it only now dawned on me to open this up to the cyberuniverse and solicit potential meanings for the word.  What can you come up with?  Egad!  I just realized I created my very first on-line contest!  First prize will involve being mercifully spared when The Hamster finally succeeds in conquering the globe.  Have fun y'all!