13 December 25

It's a rare Saturday when I choose to wear a tie for no good reason, but I'm taking the chance to observe the 13th day of National Tie Month with a tie featuring "postage-stamp snowmen." They are shown as built in Cairo (made of pyramids), 16th century England (decapitated), Honolulu (made of pineapples), Pisa (leaning over), Florida (a puddle), and New York City (covered with graffiti). We got about 4 inches of snow recently; it's melting today but there should be more tonight/tomorrow.

20 November 22

So far this fall we have seen only brief snow flurries in central Kentucky, but Beth and I have great memories of heavy snows that fell annually in Houghton, New York, from late October through March. This past week we heard reports from the Buffalo area of a snowstorm that dropped four to six FEET of snow! My tie shows "postage stamps" of snowmen in Cairo (pyramids), 16th century England (decapitated), Honolulu (pineapples), Pisa (leaning precariously), Florida (sloppy puddle) and New York City (covered in graffiti). The extra photo shows the campus of Houghton College (now University) during February 2019.

22 February 21

 This may be my last chance this winter to wear a snowman tie. We've had a very nice two weeks of freezing temperatures (down to 3 degrees!) with ice and snow. I didn't build a snowman this time, but Ben and Amanda and Evelyn built one for Grammy! My tie shows "postage stamp" images for snowpeople from Honolulu (pineapples), Pisa (a leaning tower), Cairo (a tower of pyramids), England in the 16th century (decapitated), Florida (a messy puddle) and New York City (covered with graffiti). An extra touch is my tie clip containing a tiny thermometer!

1 July 19

On this date in 1847, the first US postage stamps went on sale -- 5-cent-Franklin and 10-cent-Washington -- in New York City. My tie features postage-stamp images of snowmen from all over the place -- a graffiti-covered guy in New York City, a pile of pyramids in Cairo, Egypt, a beheaded man (a "Roundhead"?) from 17th century England, a pile of pineapples in Honolulu, a leaning tower of snow in Pisa, and a puddle in Florida. With our current muggy weather with temperatures in the 90s, thoughts of snow are especially welcome . . . In other news, today is the birthday of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716).

5 February 18

Hoping for snow -- flakes are flying through the air today -- wearing my "postage-stamp snowmen" tie with images from Pisa (leaning snow tower), Honolulu (pineapples), Florida (melted puddle), Cairo (pyramid), New York City (graffiti and dirt), and 16th Century England (beheaded). Eastern Kentucky University celebrated the cold weather and icy roads with a two-hour delay!

26-27 January 17

Beth Kleppinger chose this tie for today, as we begin celebrating her birthday (tomorrow) into this whole weekend. We hope that my wearing these snowmen will inspire the weather to give us a blizzard like we had around this time last year! The worldwide "postage stamps" on this tie show a pyramid-snowman from Cairo, a decapitated snowman from 16th century England, a pineapple snowman from Honolulu, a Leaning Tower snowman from Pisa, a snowpuddle from Florida and a graffiti-ed snowman from New York.

15 February 16

Wearing my postage-stamp-snowmen tie to celebrate some great wet clumpy snow! The snow people are from Pisa (leaning), Honolulu (pineapples), Florida (a big puddle), Cairo (pyramids), New York City (dirty snow, graffiti), and 16th-century England (head rolled away).

23 February 15

Returning to work today as usual, in frigid February temperatures. Plenty of snow remains from last week's major storm! The "postage stamps" on this tie show how snowpeople fare in various environments, such as leaning in Pisa, or melting in Florida, or getting graffiti-ed in New York City, or made from coconuts and pineapples in Hawaii. There's also a "beheaded" snowman, labeled "England, 16th Century."

4 March 14

MORE WINTER! Five inches of snow, on top of ice, on our cars and streets today. I wore this postage-stamp-snowman tie 366 days ago, to celebrate a March snowfall.

3 March 13

Hooray for some snow! I'll celebrate a dusting in the grass this morning by wearing one of my favorite snowman ties.

09 January 11

Two or three inches of snow makes me happy, and so here's my "postage-stamp-snowmen" tie. The detail shows the figures from Pisa, Florida and New York City, but you can't see the ones from Cairo (stacked-pyramid-man), England (a decapitated ordinary snowman) or Hawaii (a pineapple-man).

31 January 10

Six inches of snow from Friday evening through Saturday morning!

21 January 09

Today was very cold and snowy. This tie is one of my personal favorites, featuring geographcally-correct "postage stamp" drawings of snowmen. The figures are tagged for the following places:

• Cairo: a pyramid-man
• England (16th Century): a beheaded snowman
  
• Honolulu: a pineapple-man
• Pisa: a leaning-tower-of-snow-man
• Florida: a melted-snow-puddle
• New York City: a graffiti-covered snowman (who also may have been "mugged")