For nearly 20 years, my in-laws had been wintering down in Naples, FL. Each Winter, they would drive down to Naples to escape the cold New England weather. Each Spring they'd return to find (most of the time) the snow melted into a distant memory.

Back in 2021, my father-in-law passed away while away in Florida. Thankfully, a lot of us in the family were able to be here visiting them when this happened. After taking care of a few things, my mother-in-law drove back to New England with her cousin. That Fall, they drove back down together.

But, somewhere along the way I put out an idea. I remember saying, "You know, I'd drive your car and Scotty (her faithful dog) down for you." Fast-forward a few months and, during a phone call, she asked if I was serious about driving her down to Florida.

Wait, is that what I said I'd do?

"Of...course."

That was sometime during the Fall of 2021. By Christmas, I was booked to fly down the following April and drive her and Scotty back to New England. The following October, we drove down together and I flew back a few days later.

And the tradition continues. Last April, I flew down again and we took the long 1500+ mile trip back to New England.

Now you might say - wow, you must be her favorite son-in-law. I used to say - well, isn't that obvious? But then her other son-in-law went and added an in-law apartment to his house for her to move into.

Did I mention that other son-in-law is my brother? Yup, brothers married to sisters.

So after I make this grand gesture to secure a seat in the son-in-law Hall of Fame, this bum goes and tries to knock me off my pedestal? How selfish of him.

Anyway, why am I choosing to write about this right now? Well, because today - Monday, November 6th - I am writing to you from sunny Naples, FL. We couldn't leave as early as last year - but just a few days back we headed out from chilly Massachusetts and today we arrived to the warm air of Florida.

And I am exhausted. Time for bed.

Oh look it's almost been a month since I last posted something! Oops! October is here and with it comes Spooky Season! What exactly does that mean for me?

Well most of it, as most of my life, revolves around my dog. We entered a few online dog costumes and went to one in person a couple weeks ago.

She didn't win, but she did almost fall asleep while sitting there.

This year she is dressed up as a caterpillar. My wife got the costume off of Etsy, and while it's cute it's not my favorite of the five Halloweens we've had with this little peanut.

She'll be wearing it again on the 31st as she helps me hand out candy. I have a "Very Hungry Caterpillar" shirt I'll be wearing, while playing halloween music and saying hello to neighbors I someone know.

Besides that, since it's October, "Fine Movies. Fine Spirits." is one again covering two horror movies for the podcast. This is a movie podcast I do with guys I've known since I was 3 years old. We just posted an episode about Barbarian and next week we'll be recording an episode on the original Scream.

I've also started season two of my horror podcast, SLASH. It's not specific to Halloween, but I started it on Friday the...well Saturday the 14th actually. So naturally for my second season I am talking about...the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Don't worry Jason, your day will come.

Besides that I haven't watched that much horror. Apparently I only watch movies when a podcast is involved? However I have been reading scary books!

To kick off the month (or technically to end September and bring in October) I read the original "The Amityville Horror" book that I picked up at a thrift store.

It was okay. Written by a reporter and sometimes it felt like it was a guy reporting on something rather than telling a story.

It probably would've been much scarier in the 70s or 80s to read, but after you know more of the story, not as much. But still enjoyable.

I followed that up with a book I picked on on Amazon after the recommended it to me (after reading the Clown in a Cornfield books).

I had never heard of the author before, but the title alone - "Camp Slaughter" sold me. It was exactly what I was hoping - a slasher movie in the form of a book.

It was extremely violent and sometimes not in a fun way - which made it horrific at times.

So - a win in my mind if you want to read a story that scares and unsettles you.

Half way through the book I added the follow up to my Kindle and pre-ordered the finale "Final Slaughter" that comes out next year.

The author, Sergio Gomez, is definitely someone I want to keep an eye on.

Oh and speaking of that follow up - I read it RIGHT after finishing the first one in only a couple days (which is super fast for me).

This one is book is bigger, has more characters, and expands the story.

And it's as violent as hell.

I am not sure I enjoyed it as much as the original but I still enjoyed it.

After all that slaughter (and there was a plethora of it indeed), I decided to read something a bit tamer - but still in the horror genre.

One of my favorite authors recently is Grady Hendrix. I've read most if not all of his books over the past year and this one has been on my Kindle for a while and I finally got around to starting it.

So right now, as I am typing this, I am in the middle of "The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires" which is just as much fun as the title makes it sound. I really like the way Grady Hendrix tells his stories and looking forward to seeing how this one plays out.

All those book links go to "Goodreads" which I use to keep track of the books I read. If you use it to, you can follow me at:

• https://www.goodreads.com/mikey_c

Well that's it for spooky season right now. Still 11 days left until it's Turkey season.

Until then, I'll leave you with how I close out all of my "SLASH" podcast episodes:

Remember....IT'S FUN TO BE SCARED!

I never, ever would've thought of myself as a germaphobic guy. That all seemed to change once the pandemic started. I did my best to stay away from people - direct family excluded - but even that wasn't perfect. There was a bit of a bubble that allowed me to see my niece and nephew while everyone was working and doing school from home.

I know what you might be thinking - well that is if you are actually seeing this, which to be honest most of the world isn’t. But you are. You are reading this right now so you are seeing it.

And you might be thinking, “Wait is he still using Blogger?” And I have to admit sometimes I say that to myself. I am a huge WordPress nerd. I love using it for my podcast website and I use it at work as much as I possibly can.

Even though Wordpress is a free tool, setting it up on a site does have its limitations. First, you may have to pay for hosting. Second, without paying you probably have to deal with ads.

Hosting is fine for a project I hold near and dear to my heart (namely my FansNotExperts.com site that I’ve been running for years - on both WordPress, then over to Blogger, then BACK to Wordpress for the past few years).

And there it is again. Blogger. To me, it may not be the original (I really don’t know) but it is the one I keep going back to over and over again for two reasons. Well, three reasons if you add a third reason - which I just did.

It’s Free

No matter what you can say about the options and limitations of Blogger/Blogspot over the years, cost has never been one thing. It’s never charged me a cent and it has never put ads on my blog unless I want them to be there helping me. It wants to make money off my blog sure, but only if I want to

It's Customizable

You might look at Blogger and say - well there are only so many templates available while WordPress has tons out there for free. And at first glance that might be true, but Blogger actually has a ton of free 3rd-party themes that people create that you can use for, you guessed it - free! I have been off and on looking for a good theme here and there and they always seem to be “magazine” or “photography” based, but when I found this theme I am using right now, it felt perfect and so far it’s been simple and great for me to use for just writing a blog. Check it out here:

https://www.themexpose.com/2017/07/typography-text-based-minimal-blogger.html

Now of course this is my FIRST blog post on this newest, latest, version of a blog for me. But gosh darn it (sorry kids) I don’t want it to be my last. I want this to be the place I go to just to jot some ideas down. Maybe some feelings? Maybe a story here or there? Who knows.

But if I come back in a month and this is the only blog post I’ve created. That’s a shame.

But, hey at least it was free

Easy to Use

Oh wait, the last part. Now I did add some customizing to my theme and there is a learning curve to that (the above link walks you through how to do all that if you want to), but as far as setting up a free blog and just typing? It takes like a minute of your time - you just log in through your Google account and start typing

Start blogging. Do it now. Even if for no one else, do it just to get your brain working. I’ve been sick for the past week (you can guess with what) and starting to finally feel like myself again (cough, cough). I hope that self includes blogging more.

We shall see…