Ahhhhh nice music. I am fascinated by the spectrum of people’s musical tastes, and how much the choice of tunes affects my mood and the ambience of a place. I often commandeer the Pandora selection here at the cafe, and switch it to a playlist that includes Frank Sinatra, Ella […]
It was cold, and it was late, so I volunteered to take Nathan to his school, just a few blocks away. As I often do I took on a new role for our short trip, I told him I was honored to be his chauffeur. Since he was a bigshot […]
I saw an ad today that was prescient…it was for Clear, a 4G wireless system that’s now available in Hartford. They offer customers the chance to pay $60 per month and get the same speed as a home Wi-Fi system anywhere they open up their laptops. Again it’s a sign […]
Ted Conover wrote a book called “The Routes of Man,” in which he traveled around the world and wrote about the impact of roads on civilizations. While I enjoyed the white knuckle account of life driving in Bolivia’s mountains, I am more enjoying the account from when the author joined […]
I am in between about the most recent move by Obama to extend the Bush tax cuts. While I do believe that increasing taxes doesn’t do much to stimulate the economy and create jobs, a column by Joan Vennochi in the Boston Globe did make me pause. It was about […]
After a light dusting of snow, it really feels like December, and the Christmas season. There are so many errands to run and things to take care of, I thought about them as I walked from the house to the cafe, well protected with longjohns and with gloves. Mismatched, but […]
The cold has set in…every time you go outside, you will either be glad you wore your longjohns or wishing, silently, that you did. I have been running in and out of the cold, and I am not cold. Ugh, though this is a symbolic first blast for a long […]
Electric cars are in vogue now, and I read with great interest about another category that’s moving even faster. That would be electric delivery trucks. The math makes sense: a diesel truck that Frito Lay uses to deliver chips around New York City gets about 10 miles per gallon, and every […]
I was stunned when I thought about how many years back it was that I last saw Chris Isaak and his band perform in concert. It was at the Oakdale theater, in the 1990s, but tonight when I saw him again at the Calvin Theater, the show felt similar, and […]
Jason Gay’s column in today’s WSJ about the Patriots and Jets rivalry had me laughing out loud as we flew back from Florida on JetBlue. Here are few of my favorite lines, as he described the two teams and how they compare this year. First, the rivalry, which is not […]
I’m a simple man and simple pleasures make me happy. How about a cheeseburger and a beer in a hotel room with a Wi-Fi connection, satellite TV, and an entire Sunday to look forward to with absolutely no obligations? I’ve got all of that after a Saturday night on Ocean […]
At breakfast at our hotel I read a review by Graeme Wood of Nicholas Ostler’s new book about language called “The Last Lingua Franca. He begins with a story about walking through the airport in Tripoli, Libya. It seems that the dictator, Gadhafi, doesn’t like English, so instead of signs […]