Thursday, 12:35 pm: If we’re supposed to get a “Nor’ easter” later today, the temperature probably should drop quite a bit. Right now it’s 44° (F.) and generally clear. That’s not to say it can’t snow this evening, but at the moment I’m very skeptical. I’ve been known to eat my words on more than one occasion, and I am not a meteorologist.

I just got off the telephone with an old Army buddy. I manage our infantry company’s web site, so I get many phone calls during the week. We’re getting up in years now, and are in various stages of disrepair. All of us who were in Vietnam together are now older than are parents were at the time. Some are already collecting Social Security benefits, and some are unrecognizable from their photos from 37+ years ago. But we’re alive. "So it goes."

And life goes on. My wife and I are getting ready for our upcoming trip to Europe. Three weeks of blasting through part of Switzerland and most of Germany in a subcompact car. Berlin should be interesting; my wife has many family members there. As I mentioned before, most of her family in Berlin are former communists, now enthusiastic capitalists. It reminds me of a scene out of some old Film Noir picture. Luckily they have side-stepped polyester and disco and fell head first into the 21st Century.

“So it goes,” is my tribute to Kurt Vonnegut who originally used the phrase in Slaughterhouse Five. He died yesterday. I’ll see if I can work out the logistics of writing a blog from Germany.

Current values from our wireless Vantage-Pro weather station:

Temperature: 44.6° (F.)

Barometer: 29.932 & falling rapidly

Humidity: 22%

Wind: ENE at 2 mph light & variable

Visibility: > 3 miles

Skies: Partially cloudy

Precipitation: None

Since midnight:

Low temperature: 11.9° (F.) at 6:49 am

High wind: 11 mph at 1:27 pm