4
2012
Summer Is Shaping Up, But Something’s Different This Year
It’s only May and the calendar is filling up with important events and vacations. In just two weeks Cathy and I are attending a wedding for one of my childhood friends. After sending the happy couple off with a post wedding breakfast we’ll be heading off for a vacation ourselves. To where? Who knows! Montreal. Philly/Washington DC…someplace else? We can’t decide. The only thing we know for sure is we’re going somewhere. I might even, gasp, leave the cell phone at [...]
30
2012
Cycling, Cycling, Everywhere!
I grew up cycling everywhere. Floral Park was a community where children had bikes and rode them to school, friends houses, the park, for recreation…pretty much everywhere. Then I went to college in a less than hospitable climate for cycling — Rochester, NY. Don’t get me wrong, Rochester has been evolving into a bike friendly city for the last decade or so. It was just that the idea of riding a bike to class, to the store, or just for the sake of recreation never sounded appealing. [...]
29
2012
Holes in Kayak Hatch Rim: Manufacturing Defect or Normal?
A few years ago I purchased a Wilderness Systems Tempest 170. Since then I’ve paddled the boat up and down the East River and around Jamaica Bay hundreds of times. Each October I give the boat a good once over and through cleaning before storing it for the winter. Each spring I do the same. I swear the boat gets just as dirty sitting on it’s storage rack as when I paddle it regularly. This year during spring cleaning I noticed what appear to be manufacturing flaws in my boat. [...]
3
2012
11 Excruciating Months With HostMonster Have Come To An End
A little less than I year ago I was forced to move to shared web hosting after running my own dedicated web & email servers for years. The reason for the move was purely financial — hardware and internet connection costs simply pushed the luxury of dedicated hosting out of reach. When searching for a web hosting service the usual suspects kept surfacing; Bluehost, Dreamhost, FatCow, HostGator, and HostMonster (powered by Bluehost). I decided to go with HostMonster based on their being one of the oldest and largest hosting [...]
3
2012
America, Land of Unequal Equality
Oh how hypocritical we can be. America. Land of the free. Land of Equality. Do we really have equality in America? I submit no. True equality does not exist. While debating recent health care legislation a large percentage of congressional members likened provisions of the bill to “death panels”. Their interpretation envisioned a review panel whose responsibility was to make decisions over life saving treatments — taking the decision out of the hands of the patient’s doctor. Although stemming from a very loose and possibly inaccurate interpretation, these members [...]
10
2012
TSA: Remove Your Sweatshirt!?!
I showed up at JFK’s security checkpoint just like I have dozens of times before. Belt-less, shoeless, jacket-less, liquid-less, with my shoes and laptop on their own trays for inspection. Today, however, security had another requirement. “Are you wearing anything under your sweatshirt?” shouted the screening agent. “Yes, an undershirt” I replied. “I need you to remove your sweatshirt.” The person ahead of me was wearing polo shirt over a t-shirt as were several people around me but for some reason I had to remove my Sweatshirt and go through [...]
5
2012
I Want to Learn How To Play a Car
There are lots of talented muscians in the world. Some are gifted with a good voice, the ability to play a music instrument, or simply a good ear — giving them the ability to write/compose/produce music. There are also lots of talented engineers in the world. They design the buildings we work in, the houses we live in, the things we use, and the cars we drive. What happens when these talents collide? OK Go makes one of the coolest car music videos I’ve seen:
18
2012
An Open Letter to the Genesee Brewing Company — Save 13 Cataract Street
The Genesee Brewing Company has proposed the re-development of and old packaging facility as a Genesee Brewery Visitor Center. Unfortunately they have hinged the project on the demolition of an adjacent structure, 13 Cataract Street. Because of the great historical value of this structure I started a petition to help influence the Genesee Brewing Company to save 13 Cataract Street from demolition. With demolition plans progressing and the final Zoning Board meeting on the subject scheduled for tomorrow, January 19 at 11:30am, I [...]
25
2011
Remembering Rochester’s Midtown Plaza During Christmas
By the time I moved to Rochester in ’98 Midtown Plaza was well past it’s prime. Major retailers had moved to the newer and arguably nicer malls in the suburbs. Much of the plaza was vacant and the stores that remained weren’t exactly draws. Although times were tough the atmosphere at the mall changed during the holiday season. Midtown Plaza filled with families. Both parents and children downright giddy to be in Downtown Rochester — visiting Midtown Plaza. However the draw wasn’t shopping. You see, during the holiday season Midtown [...]
1
2011
New York City From 10,000 Feet
As those of you who know me personally are aware, I’m not the biggest fan of flying. I used to fly the leg between New York City and Rochester regularly however following 9/11 I came to the realization that I prefer transportation methods where I have some control over my destiny. So…I’ve been “making the drive” exclusively for several years now. Well my caprice caught a cold. I’ve been making due without a car but I had to find another way to travel between NYC & ROC last weekend. JetBlue [...]
