Bernie Williams, at the park and in the theater

Bernie Williams would rather talk about his current pursuit as a guitar player than his past career as an all-star center fielder with the New York Yankees, publicist Steve Fortunato said while setting up my phone interview two days ago. I can respect that. During a very invigorating phone conversation yesterday, Bernie Williams told me…

Are you ready to watch two dumb guys two decades later?

I was peacefully digging Jimmy Fallon’s wise humor hosting “The Tonight Show” a couple nights ago when Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels took over the guests’ couch. The living room was peaceful no longer. Enter pandemonium. “Dumb and Dumber To” is coming to theaters on Nov. 14, and the two stars were there to debut…

An ocean of excitement

Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle, meet the Atlantic Ocean. Our rescue mutt was introduced to really wavy water for the first time in the fourth year of her life, when we woke up on our fifth morning not in Syracuse and decided to drive to Provincetown. Our smart dog liked the ocean more than she…

When the vacation rain holds up, it’s for the dogs

When you wake up not in Syracuse and the grounds around the cottage are soaking wet and the sky is gray and more rain is coming down every now and then, you sit on the couch with your dear with Karen and Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle and you figure out what Cape Cod has…

Great Cape food, strolling, and a drink that could have laid me out

The first time my dear wife Karen and I snuck away from Syracuse to Cape Cod, she told me that Julie and Lisa said we should have breakfast at The Pancake Man. I loved the suggestion as soon as we pulled into the parking lot. Every single thing that unfolded inside the doors backed up…

Two young stars shine brightly, and love conquers cancer

The first time I saw Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort together, they were playing a futuristic and quite different brother and sister in “Divergent.” OK was my reaction. About them individually. Collectively. The movie. Saturday I saw the two young actors star as Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters in “The Fault in Our Stars.”…

Beachy keen

The second morning my dear wife Karen and I woke up not in Syracuse, we knew the car would be headed the mile or so down the road to the Atlantic Ocean. All the car unpacking and grocery shopping and cottage settling in and other-blog-duty-movie-going and neighborhood-walking and Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle-reacclimating had been…

It wasn’t history, and it wasn’t Syracuse

My dear wife Karen and I settled into a friendly enough neighborhood joint to watch the Belmont Stakes yesterday afternoon. It was the kind of place that was glad to pour us two pint drafts to take to sit down at a table, just Karen and I. It was the kind of place that puts…

A Taste of Syracuse in various bites

It’s called Taste of Syracuse, and the name of this June festival could not be more appropriate. For two days, tens of thousands of people flock to the blocks that surround Clinton Square in downtown Syracuse. They get to sample much music. Three stages worth, in fact. Around noontime Friday, three Syracuse music veterans played…

The garden cycle works out just right

The peony in the corner of the front of our home in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood gave us its all during a furious week of budding and beauty. A full 15 flowers shot out of that one sturdy green plant in one week. They lasted slightly longer than that. I let the petals…