A year long effort at losing weight through exercise, food moderation, and, well, smoking again, has yielded great results.  The results have been so good, a few people who have not seen me in a while have looked at me with rather alarmed looks and asked me if I am sick.… Read full post »

The bike seat has to be one of the more painful devices known to MAN.  A skinny little thing on which you place all your weight and the point at which you place all your weight happens to be a part of the male anatomy on which many men place all… Read full post »

An annual Harris Poll of 2,681 US adults listed the following top 15 favorite TV dads:

1. Cliff Huxtable of "The Cosby Show"

2. Ward Cleaver of "Leave It to Beaver"

3. Jim Anderson of "Father Knows Best"

4. Andy Taylor of "The Andy Griffith Show"

5. Ozzie Nelson of "The… Read full post »

The on-line news features did it to me again.  An article titled “You Won’t Believe What Lady Gaga Wore” got me to click on the link.  Who needs to worry about health care matters when some C list wannabee comes up with some odd costume to garner the attention her singing… Read full post »

I sat in my office over the garage listening to Don Imus with my employee.  My oldest son, then 13, was home sick from school.

Imus made mention of a plane flying into a World Trade Center Tower.  He thought it was a small airplane at first.  

After a few… Read full post »

I moved in 2001 from a community of 12,000 that had a volunteer group that raised money to put on a spectacular Fourth of July parade replete with fez-adorned Shriners in their little cars nearly gunning down children chasing after the candy tossed to them from fire engines and the like.… Read full post »

Ed McMahon dead at 86.  He had a good run.

 Ed was the butt of many, many jokes over the years, and yet he played a valuable and often under appreciated role in life of the unflappable and unconditionally supportive partner.  He took whatever Johnny Carson threw his way with geniality.… Read full post »

One of the biggest fears one has as a lowly small town official is getting oneself quoted for something that gets picked up state wide, or, perish the thought, nation wide.  Nothing good ever comes of such notoriety from elected officials in sleepy little New England villages.  It ty… Read full post »

There's scant reason for a socially liberal, fiscally conservative hawk from the northeast to stick around the Republican Party these days as it continues down its path to becoming a regional party of angry, southern white males.

 There's no future in that particular specialization, and nic… Read full post »

Relaxing can get old at times ... or so I am told. 

The vacation mentioned in this previous submission played out a little like being at summer camp.  We all waited around on the dock before heading out on what was a 2 ½ boat ride to our/… Read full post »

In an earlier post I chronicled being with my son in the building next door to where the Virginia Tech shootings were taking place back in April 2007.   The event did not really upset us.  We both felt safe and sound during the whole thing.  It was somewhat surreal, actu… Read full post »

The college tour in April 2007 with number two son started out by driving through a Nor’Easter south from Massachusetts before touching down somewhere on Route 81 in Virginia 12 hours later.  After a night in some $60 a night motel, we got up, had a quick breakfast and made the colleg/… Read full post »

I scanned the first paragraph of a front page Wall Street Journal article, and had somewhat of an epiphany.  The article talks about Cisco Systems, a telecommunications-oriented technology company, issuing $4B in corporate bonds because the bond market has thawed and the money is cheap right now… Read full post »

As a child I remember a guy by the name of Don Kent who stood by a simple board with moveable objects to denote the weather.  The sun had a happy face on it, is all I can recall from the dim recesses of my mind.  I wasn’t really paying too/… Read full post »

Networks love reality shows.  They cost infinitely less to produce than an hour long drama series of some, minimal artistic value such as the recently cancelled Boston Legal.  Get a bunch of nitwits together, toss them in the human rat maze of your choice, place the cheese where you want an… Read full post »

The Agony of Defeat.  Father Time Never Loses.

I have skied for 38 of my 49 years.  It comes with the territory when living in New England.  Our Puritan forebears might not have been so keen on the endeavor, given that it does qualify as recreation, but I/… Read full post »

Price is the market clearing mechanism.  So it has always been; so it shall always be.

We do not pay the true cost of petroleum product consumption in this country.  We do not pay enough to support the infrastructure needed to consume it, or to abate the pollution associated thereto. … Read full post »

The first day in the middle of this thing was a tail chasing exercise.  After the aforementioned wake up call from the Chief of Police and the viewing of a limb falling on my car, I seemed to hurdle from one event to the the next.  During this time, my mind… Read full post »

A previous submission had me complaining about New England Winter.  One of my closing lines was "New England Winter: Bring it!

 I should not have done that.  I threw the gauntlet down to Mother Nature, and she picked it up and slapped me.  HARD.

I own two homes.  One, a fully… Read full post »

Every once in a while something happens in life that startles you as if you were slapped about the head and shoulders with a cold, dead mackerel.  Sometimes it is all internally driven like staring at the old man in the mirror or realizing reading glasses have morphed from being/… Read full post »

Thanksgiving absolutely represents the best holiday we have.  The only requirement happens to be to visit relatives and engorge oneself.  We all know relatives can suck, so that is why we have made sure we have football games to watch to avoid any in depth discussions with relatives we want/… Read full post »