The ACC makes it sportsmanship week, but will our athletes ever play nice?

It’s “Sportsmanship Week in the ACC,” the announcer intoned, explaining to those of us wondering just why the players from these two college football teams were standing wide, almost end zone-to-end zone, facing each other quite near the center of the field and ready to take those last couple of strides to shake hands. All…

A recipe for Polish kielbasa and pierogi, because my name is Bialczak

These last nine months I’ve been admiring those gorgeous pictures posted by the food bloggers of the world. I may have indeed raised my iPad up to my nose to imagine what the dish smelled like. Don’t tell anyone, please. Never, though, do I pay as much attention to the accompanying recipes. My dear wife…

The clock changes but do you?

At 2 a.m., most of us folks in the U.S. return to Standard Time. You know what they say: spring ahead, fall back. That was the mantra to help us all back in the day when you actually had to run around the house and change the time by twisting a knob or pushing a…

Funny, but I really love writing without a pen

This T-shirt’s message made me laugh out loud. Luckily, my dear wife Karen is accustomed to my shopping behavior, so she kept on eyeing her own interests in the fancy-dancy souvenir store in the toney Niagara Falls mall. So I had to point this particular message out, and grab my iPhone to capture the thought…

Happy Halloween from somebody who’s not into it as much as you

Happy Halloween is the salutation of the day. Trick or treat! I will not be dressing up lavishly for the occasion. Oh, I have donned a costume in my adult past. Sometimes I’ve enjoyed it. A handful of years ago, my dear wife Karen and I went to a Halloween-night local-band gig dressed as the…

Will a Syracuse team fighting for a bowl chance lure Central New York to the Carrier Dome?

The last time I took a look at the Syracuse football squad here, the Orange was coming off a 49-14 loss to Clemson in front of a just-about-full Carrier Dome in its first game ever in the Atlantic Coast Conference. I said that the two road games in between would go a long way toward…

More photos from Niagara Falls (Or, I’ve got you over a barrel)

Quick quiz: Where was this above photo taken? No, I didn’t sneak in another location while I’m on my Niagara Falls roll. This is the park at the bottom of the Ontario city, just below the blocks of tourist shops and just above the majesty of the falls. My dear wife Karen and I had…

Niagara Falls is a wonderful place to revisit on a fifth wedding anniversary

The idea was perfect. Our present to each other for our fifth wedding anniversary should be a return trip to the ground where we’d made it official, my dear wife Karen declared many months ago. I nodded with plenty of enthusiasm. She made reservations at the same hotel where we stayed on our wedding night.…

From on high, the sun rises over Niagara Falls, Ontario

My first eye-opening view on Oct. 27, 2013. I am on the top floor, the 19th story, of the Doubletree. Our room faces East. Niagara Falls, Ontario, is pretty darn special. A Wonder of the World, really.