Welcome everyone to the New Year! I can’t believe we’re already three weeks into 2024. It seems like yesterday we watched the Green Bay Packers beat the Minnesota Vikings 33 to 10 and rattled off our next year’s resolutions and goals before the shiny silver ball dropped at midnight. For the record, I’m not a…
Author: stormstrouper
Prelude to The Shadow Elm Memoir (a story from The Shadow Elm Memoir)
I can’t repeat it enough. North Carolina is the strangest and most remarkable state I’ve ever lived in. Those western mountains, the eastern flat coast, and every crevice in between, is charged with fascinating and unusual things that confirm this. These things aren’t the lions, tigers, and bears from the Wizard of Oz. Oh my!…
It took Jonathan Frakes and the Biltmore House for me to watch a Hallmark Channel movie
It’s the summer of 1997. You’re watching your favorite new show, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction. The theme song starts. The narrator says, “Beyond belief, fact or fiction, hosted by Jonathan Frakes.” Then, the narrator says more about a world of truth or deception. The song eventually fades out. Frakes emerges from the hallway of…
A Hike, Burrito, and Beer in Hendersonville, North Carolina
The office was closed, so I headed to Hendersonville in the North Carolina mountains. My soul needed some elevation, along with a hike, a burrito, and a beer. SUMMARY -Dupont State Recreational Forest is very rich in waterfalls. -Mary’s Burrito is a scrumptious spot. -D9 Brewing might no longer manufacture Into the White beer. Let’s…
I’m either 297 days early or 68 days late for Bad Poetry Day
I wrote a poem. I call it “I’m a lousy poet, and this poem knows it.”
My girlfriend and I went to Blowing Rock during peak leaf season, and here are three things I wished you had told us beforehand
A fall trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains should be on every North Carolian’s to-do list. The Blue Ridge Mountains are large, natural, magnificent, and breathtaking. The Blue Ridge Mountains are magnificent and breathtaking when covered in vibrant yellow, orange, red, and purple leaves. Peak fall foliage can be a moving target since deciduous…
There’s no other way to put it but gout sucks
Telling someone I got tested for gout sounds shameful or humiliating. Right? Gout sounds like one of those STDs that your doctor would throw some penicillin your way to treat. Well, it’s not clear, or I wouldn’t be writing this post. I’ve recently experienced several gout flare-ups, and let me tell you how absolutely horrific…
Wu-Tang Clan Marvel variants are something to blank with
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has had the super ability to place variants of our favorite characters in their movies and shows since the Multiverse set up in the first Doctor Strange movie but ultimately explored in the first season of Loki, arguably. Since then, the Multiverse has had significant roles in Spider-Man: No Way…
Were any of the SYFY Channel original programming actually filmed in the USA?
In a few weeks, the Science Fiction Channel, now SYFY, will be broadcasting movies and TV programs from this Channel’s namesake genre for over thirty years since its September 24, 1992 debut. Back when SYFY got set into motion with 300 movies, which included Star Wars, Star Trek, and various classic monster movies. And showed…
Two Waterfalls, a Pub, and Ice Cream Scoops in the Blowing Rock Area
My girlfriend and I were looking for something to do in our state of North Carolina over the long Labor Day weekend. So we decided to head to the mountains after seeing Blowing Rock’s great weather report for Monday. You can’t beat blue skies, sunny conditions, low eighties, and elevation. We figured out where to…