While I'm not a big fan of the NFL, I do enjoy me some college football! I do not have allegiance to any one team, I just enjoy watching the game. The closest thing to a favorite team I have would be Tennessee. My family has been going on vacation to the Smoky Mountains for almost 25 years, and we now own a vacation home in the area - so East Tennessee kinda feels like a second home to me.

This weekend, the Vols hosted Alabama...WOW!! What a game! I only listened to/watched the 2nd half. By then the game was back and forth, frustrating yet exciting, and an epic game of college football. Tennessee ended up winning 52-49 in a heart-stopper. This win also pushed the Vols to #3 in the AP Poll - right behind Ohio State. It was definitely a game that is an example of why college football can be so thrilling!

Earlier this week we lost another entertainment legend, Angela Lansbury. She was 96 years old...just 5 days away from her 97th birthday! What a career she had. From her first role at 19 in "Gaslight" (1944) to her last role at 96 in the "Knives Out" sequel "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" (2022), which will be released next month.

Of course she was very well known for her work on Broadway. I'm of the generation that was introduced to her as Mrs. Potts in "The Beauty & the Beast". Her other big role of course was as Mrs. Jessica Fletcher on "Murder She Wrote" for 12 seasons!!! I am a big fan of mystery/who dunnit tv shows, theater, and movies. I never watched "Murder" while it was on the air, but my Grandma did. It still is shown everyday on Cozi TV (Channel 3.3 locally) at 6 & 7am. Sometimes I'll watch when I get home from work.

As with Betty White, I always thought of her as America's Grandmother (even though she was British).

Rest in Peace Angela Lansbury.

Some might (and have) called my TV watching habits odd. I do not have cable, just rabbit ears and streaming. My favorite shows to watch are shows (especially sitcoms) from the 80s and 90s I watched growing up. I will stream those quite a bit with SOME live TV thrown in.

However, my two favorites to stream 24 hours via Pluto TV:

1. Bob Barker era episodes of "The Price is Right"

2. Robert Stack era episodes of "Unsolved Mysteries"

Now, I have loved TPIR since I was young and staying home sick from school like the rest of us. My love for the show grew in high school and college...then Bob retired while I was in college. I like Drew Carey, but it's just not the same for me. I was so happy to learn I could stream episodes from the Bob Barker era! Now, these are shows from the early 1980s when Johnny Olson, Dian Parkinson, Holly Hallstrom (my favorite model), and Janice Pennington were still on the show. Cars cost roughly $6,500-$8,000! It's so fun to watch these old episodes of one of my favorite game shows.

Next is Robert Stack on "Unsolved Mysteries". When I was about 6 or 7 years old, the theme song for this show SCARED ME TO DEATH!!! Again, Robert Stack IS the host of this show. It's just not the same without him. He had the voice, the presence, and the right attitude for the show. It's so interesting to look back at these old cases and see what has been solved by now (they still have a website to send in tips), and think about what may have happend with those that are still unsolved.

October 11th is National Coming Out Day. Today, I thought I'd share a bit about my story. I started to realize I was different somewhere in middle school. I realized I was gay in high school, but it really took me until my early 20s to fully accept who I am. I came out to friends and family at the age of 22.

It was the Spring Semester of my senior year in college...the very last one before I was to graduate. The year was 2009. We just had the financial crisis of 2008, and I was dealing with coming to accept who I was and freaking out that I'd be a college grad who couldn't find a job. I ended up suffering severe depression for quite a time. Luckily I got counseling and was able to get past all of that.

Thankfully, everyone from friends, to family, to co-workers have been extremely wonderful toward me. I know that many people aren't so lucky. I feel so grateful to have had the experiences I have had to this point and I am so happy where my life is at right now. If you know someone who is going through the process of coming out (it is a process), be supportive. They need all of the love and support they can have.

Baseball always has and always will be my favorite sport. Being October, it's time for some postseason Baseball...and the Guardians are a part of it! Whether it's a Wild Card game against Tampa, or the World Series against the best team from the other league, October Baseball just has a different feeling to it.

I will always associate the playoffs with 1995 vs. Atlanta, 1997 vs. Florida (now Miami), and 2016 vs. the Chicago Cubs. I mean, how could I not? The three times we've made it to the series in my lifetime. Now that we are taking on New York in the next round, these games can still be as electrifying as the 2016 series, just months after the Cavs ended our championship drought. 

To be fair and honest, I don't believe we are going all the way. HOWEVER, let's just enjoy the ride while it lasts! GO GUARDS!!!

I absolutely suck at cooking. So I end up eating out more than I really should. This past Friday, I went to Dave's Hot Chicken on Detroit Ave in Lakewood for dinner (they have another location at Westgate Shopping Center in Fairview Park). Now I have baby mouth, so I don't do heat well. I selected the Mild spice, which was more than cool enough for me. I got a tender, a slider, and crinkle cut fries. I thought it was delicious! A little taste of Nashville right here in Northeast Ohio. :)

So I saved the best part of vacation for last - the Whale Watch Cruise! OH. MY. GOD. was this SPECTACULAR! We went on a 4 hour whale watch cruise out of Boston Harbor to the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. We saw A LOT of Humpback Whales...we were told that there were 60-80 around our boat! They are up North this time of year to feed as much as they can before they head to the Caribbean for the Winter to give birth (turns out we aren't the only snowbirds lol ;)). As you see in the picture, sometimes there would be as many as 5 or 6 on the surface at 1 time feeding - and sometimes no more than a about one hundred feet away! We also saw a couple breach the water which was AWESOME! 

On the way back to Boston, our guide suggested to a group seated near us to never go on another whale watch cruise again simply because they'd be disappointed. The crew repeatedly told us that our cruise was the best viewing of whales they had seen in a LONG time. I feel so lucky to have experienced such an amazing animal in their natural habitat.

My mom and I spent a couple hours one afternoon in Plymouth,MA - the site of the pilgrim landing in 1620. We saw the Mayflower II docked in port, a reproduction of the original from the 1600's. It was built in England in the '50s and then sailed to Massachusetts just like in 1620! We stopped at Plymouth rock and heard a park ranger talk about the reasons the pilgrims came to America and what they had to contend with once they got here.

It amazed me, because now the rock is honestly not much to look at. The ranger told us that is because it's now about 1/3 of the size it was 400 years ago! 

Next we took a self guided audio tour of the Plymouth shoreline and important sights in town. That was a nice way to see Plymouth and get my steps in for the day :). Not surprisingly, Plymouth is a cute and quintessential example of a New England town.

This past Friday, my mom and I visited Salem,Massachusetts...it DID NOT disappoint! It was September 30th, so everything AND EVERYONE were all decorated for Halloween, but without all of the parking restrictions and INSANE crowds - that started the next day...LOL. We took a trolley tour around town and saw a few of the sights that were used in the filming of 'Hocus Pocus'. We learned more about the witch trials of 1692, saw some important landmarks having to do with the trials and visited the Witch Museum. 

Some of the architecture there is indeed from the 1600's. Salem is quite impressive and you can easily spend 2 days there seeing everything it has to offer. One thing I learned is they take witches seriously there! Just like Roswell,NM has alien heads for street lights, Salem has a witch sitting on a broom on the doors of their police cars and the shoulder patches of the police uniform. I love it!

Part of the firsat day of my vacation in Boston was spent at the Kennedy Library. In kind of a weird, spooky twist...we visited on the 62nd anniversary of the famous Kennedy/Nixon televised debate (Sep. 26th)! Being it was JFK's only term and election, much of the museum is spent on the election between him and Richard Nixon. Another huge topic discussed is the Cuban Missle Crisis. VERY interesting to look back on. As the library sits right on the bay, there are absolutely beautiful views of the water and the city of Boston. Totally BREATHTAKING!

I have visited several presidential museums/sites:

1. James Garfield home in Mentor (Highly recommend btw...and SO close!)

2. Rutherford Hayes home in Fremont

3. Andrew Jackson's Hermitage Home & Museum in Nashville

4. LBJ's boyhood home & ranch outside Austin,TX

5. The Nixon & Reagan Libraries outside Los Angeles

While the Kennedy Library is not my favorite of these sites, I still enjoyed it and feel it's a great way to learn about our history.