Life after Faux Retirement...snow in Bow, back to work and blog updates and upgrades!

Forgive me...no posts in over a week.  Why? Well, we arrived home from St. Maarten March 26 (great flights on USAirways--not even a minor hiccup and no holes opened up in the fuselage) and the old "if you're going to play you have to pay" kicked right in. Stacks of mail, unpacking, piles of laundry--reporting back to work.

We were just about organized when the April Fool's Day snow storm hit. We didn't get the foot they predicted, just 5" or so. Maggie was not amused--the snow flattened the Tina Turner "do" she got at the All Dogs Gym and Inn Grooming Salon on Tuesday.

I suspect she is thinking back to the wonderful beaches in Gulfport, Mississippi where she could run in the sun and sand...

instead of getting her bell-bottoms all clumped up with snow.

Faux retirement was great--a real learning experience (and we didn't kill each other!), but we're happy to be home with family and friends. Bud is loving being back doing dentistry at Generations Dental. He missed everyone at the office and all his patients. We both missed all 8 grandkids!

And I am back writing my regular column for the Concord Monitor.  My April 3 column is about what the US government can and will do for you if you get caught in an earthquake, tsunami--or something man-made like riots or invasions. To read it click here.

Over the next few months I am going to be refocusing my blog a bit and integrating it with columns and features for the Monitor and other outlets. Some of the threads I'll be blogging about:

• places to go and things to do in New England (dog-friendly and not)
• how to decide where to go next (read along as we figure out our next destination)
• comments and opinions on travel news as it happens (do you have a Southwest flight coming up--are you nervous about the plane falling apart midair?)
• a glimpse into Maggie's world (she's back in training classes at All Dogs Gym as of last night!)
• anything else that occurs to me, travel-wise!

I'll always have direct links to my current Monitor articles in my blog text--and just click on the link to the left (Travel Talk) for a complete archive going back to 2005. At the end of all my current articles, there will be a reference/link back here to the blog.

In the process, I hope to become a much more sophisticated blogger, adding Facebook and Twitter other social media as well as many more features and links on my blog--all while keeping it personal and remaining committed to my newspaper. I'm starting by adding a new gadget (to the left above "About Me") that sends you an email when I have a new post. This is replacing the older subscription gadget, which I understand doesn't always notify followers when there's new material. Just type in your email to subscribe--and let me know how it goes.

I'm now working on a feature for the Monitor that explains how to set up your own travel blog--look for it an upcoming Sunday Travel section.