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I”ve been walking my dogs at Melton Hill Park every weekend for several years. This morning, for the first time, we saw deer. I’d always seen deer scat and tracks, but never actually seen one. This morning we saw two.

Shots were ringing out over the ridge while we walked, so I knew the deer hunters were over on TVA land. As I rounded a turn with Xena and Ozzy, I heard something rustling up ahead. At first, I thought it was two large German shepherds. But their gait and then their size made it clear they were a pair of bucks. The dogs never actually saw them because the grass was so tall, so we didn’t have a chase seen. When the bucks saw me, they split, with one turning back and the other moving even closer. I got within about 30 yards, then he took off over the hill. It was a nice complement to a crisp autumn morning. Most of the leaves are down now, and it really changes the way the light filters through the woods at sunrise.

And the deer were foreshadowed. Last night, Lara brought home a cooler full of venison. Seems a guy who works for her loves cigars, but his wife won’t let him spend money on them. He’s an avid hunter. I’m an avid Atkins-ite. I told him I’d trade him Padron cigars for deer meet. Can’t wait to toss a few of those steaks on the grill. Now I need to run out and get him some Padrons.

Lara and I lost a dear friend this week. We knew Boogie’s health was failing. She’d been given only a few years to live. But we were stunned when she was robbed of even those few precious years. Rather than dwell on the sadness of losing Boogie, we spent a lot of time talking about the good times and how she brightened our lives.

One of my favorite Boogie stories dates back to the Birmingham days, when we were all hanging out in the kitchen. I was banging on a guitar. Lara was being her cheerful self. And a beleaguered Boogie was trying to make daiquiris. As she struggled to make the drinks, we started heckling her from the peanut gallery.

“Y’all shut up and drink,” she said, just as she hit the start button on the blender.

Without missing a beat, I pounded out a few blues chords on the guitar and howled:

“Y’all shut and and drink/

She said from the sink”

Unfortunately, my lyricism ended there and those are the only words I was able to put to the song. But it lives on in infamy.

You left us too soon, Lynn. But you live on in thousands of fond memories and two incredible children. Thanks for the years you did give us. They were a gift.

Here’s the obituary that ran today in the Montgomery Advertiser:

EVANS, Carol Lynn Rollings, 43, loving mother and award-winning journalist, known affectionately as

I got to put my latest gadget to the test yesterday. Lara and I are in Dallas visiting Wes. Wes and I decided to look for a cigar store. But he didn’t know where the nearest one was, and we were already on the road. So I pulled out my new cell phone and started surfing the Internet looking for one. It was far from a flawless search. The first one I found in the directory didn’t exist. We plugged the address into his car’s GPS, and when we got to the location where the cigar store was supposed to be it was a residential interestion.

So I tried again.

This time it worked. I found the address, we plugged it into his GPS and the car took us right to the place. I was a little worried that the Internet availability wouldn’t be too useful, but I’m starting to rethink that, especially given how much I travel. It will allow me to check flight schedules and weather reports online, and having instant access to online yellow pages is pretty handy. I also liked that GPS system. Again, it isn’t flawless. But it’s pretty useful. And that’s really the key gauge of a gadget’s worth.