They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. I'm certain they meant absinthe.

by Christopher Hodapp

My deepest fraternal apologies for the long silence on this site. We've had road trips, medical issues, family challenges, roofers, and other episodes at Hodapphäus that have kept me preoccupied for some time now. Plus, Alice and I are currently engaged in some actual paid employment from the For Dummies folks at Wiley Publishing, for which we are grateful.

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Thanks to Indianapolis Valley of the Scottish Rite

A belated thanks to the kind brethren who invited me to speak at the Scottish Rite Valley of Indianapolis' annual bean supper night on September 9th. Hat tip especially to Tom Fallis who has just been named as the new Executive Secretary of the Valley and who saw that the evening went off flawlessly. 

As Homer Simpson once said, "If I could say a few words... I'd be a better public speaker." 

I leave it to the audience to decide whether my speech was rousing, or just a dreadful abuse of a wind instrument.

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Another Outstanding Festive Board at Rubicon Masonic Society

From a similar Festive Board evening in Spindletop Mansion

I had the pleasure of being a guest of the Rubicon Masonic Society in Lexington, Kentucky on August 26th for their annual Festive Board at the magnificent Spindletop Mansion. Speaker for the evening was dear friend and Brother S. Brent Morris. There's always a certain level of galactic concern when a Dummy and a Complete Idiot come into contact with each other (sort of like the Lazarus episode of Star Trek, but totally different), but it was wonderful to see so many familiar faces again. 

A previous Festive Board
crowd at Spindletop

If you haven't been to one of Rubicon's Festive Boards, have a look at their film The Masonic Table (streams on Amazon Prime), which is a detailed, how-to guide to hosting the sort of event they put on.

Rubicon has been creating videos of Masonic education for quite some time now, starting when COVID shutdowns became ubiquitous. There are currently 24 episodes and they can be seen online HERE.

Hat tip to Brian Evans, Worshipful Master of Lexington Lodge 1, and WB John Bizzack, who seems more like an unstoppable force of nature every time I see him. 

Kentucky's historic Lexington Lodge 1 is one of the top observant-style lodges in the U.S. today, and if you're interested in belonging to a lodge such as this, you owe it to yourself to attend their meetings and events. It's a very different experience than you're probably used to in your local, neighborhood lodge.

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New Book Project: RV Vacations For Dummies

Finally, our current project, RV Vacations For Dummies, just popped up for pre-sale on Amazon and is due out on April 11, 2023, so we're busily pounding our faces into the keyboard. 

This one also acts as a companion piece to our 2021 RVs & Campers For Dummies so we can do the old Chico Marx sales job:

"No, itsa not in thata book. Itsa not in thata one, either. You haven't GOT thata book."

"I don't, huh? I'll bet I'm going to get it in a minute, though."

"One'sa no good. Ya gotta have the whole set..."

Unlike our first RV book, RVs & Campers For Dummies, this one's more about planning an actual itinerary for RV road trips, and we've got sixteen different ones to recommend. This one is not a completely original work from us—it was first published in 2003 in conjunction with the Frommer's travel book people, and it is generally revised every few years. Ours will be the seventh edition, and a lot has changed across the fruited plains just since the COVID closures.