Author Archive

2025: A Year of Recovery and Small Pleasures

By From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Jan 1st, 2026 • Category: Blog Entries.Local

It’s time for the requisite year-in-review post. Although 2025 marked my first full year of retirement, it was a low-key and, at times, frustratingly sedentary one. After a previous year marked by chronic pain and ineffective treatments, I underwent ba…



A Post-Christmas IDPA Match

By From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Dec 30th, 2025 • Category: Blog Entries.Local

I’m not getting to the range nearly as often as I’d like. Even so, deciding to shoot the Cavalier IDPA match just two days after Christmas wasn’t an easy call. With family visiting for the holidays, it would have been easy to stay home — but instead I …



A Post-Christmas IDPA Match

By From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Dec 30th, 2025 • Category: Blog Entries.Local

I’m not getting to the range nearly as often as I’d like. Even so, deciding to shoot the Cavalier IDPA match just two days after Christmas wasn’t an easy call. With family visiting for the holidays, it would have been easy to stay home — but instead I …



Christmas Evening with a Padrón 1964 and Woodford Reserve

By From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Dec 26th, 2025 • Category: Blog Entries.Local

We don’t often have a white Christmas in this part of Virginia, and that “tradition” held firm this year. In fact, the temperature soared to over 60 degrees by midday. After a late-afternoon dinner — highlighted by a standing rib roast cooked to perfec…



Christmas Evening with a Padrón 1964 and Woodford Reserve

By From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Dec 26th, 2025 • Category: Blog Entries.Local

We don’t often have a white Christmas in this part of Virginia, and that “tradition” held firm this year. In fact, the temperature soared to over 60 degrees by midday. After a late-afternoon dinner — highlighted by a standing rib roast cooked to perfec…



The Joy of Christmas

By From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Dec 25th, 2025 • Category: Blog Entries.Local

When the angels went away from them to heaven,the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go, then, to Bethlehemto see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, …



The Joy of Christmas

By From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Dec 25th, 2025 • Category: Blog Entries.Local

When the angels went away from them to heaven,the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go, then, to Bethlehemto see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, …



A Christmas Eve Eve Smoke: Oliva Serie V 135th Anniversary

By From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Dec 24th, 2025 • Category: Blog Entries.Local

It’s the calm before the storm. The evening before Christmas Eve is a moment I especially look forward to and savor. Once the Feast of Christmas arrives, the house comes alive with activity — family, food, drink, and all the merriment that accompanies …



A Christmas Eve Eve Smoke: Oliva Serie V 135th Anniversary

By From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Dec 24th, 2025 • Category: Blog Entries.Local

It’s the calm before the storm. The evening before Christmas Eve is a moment I especially look forward to and savor. Once the Feast of Christmas arrives, the house comes alive with activity — family, food, drink, and all the merriment that accompanies …



Smoke and Stillness at Advent’s End

By From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Dec 22nd, 2025 • Category: Blog Entries.Local

Advent unfolds with a familiar rhythm — candles lit, days counted down, anticipation slowly building. And yet, when Christmas week arrives, it always seems to come sooner than expected.Here we are, just a few days out from the big day. Despite the usua…