I had to recycle my Blue Bin story on the phone

My dear wife Karen and I try to be good citizens of our Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood and our dear planet Earth. So we follow the spirit of our local recycling laws, tossing our plastic and paper and cardboard and glass into the city-provided Blue Bins, which are picked up along with the regular…

Photo 101: Finding bliss in The Little Bitty

Assignment No. 4 in Photo 101 is Bliss. Open up the door a little wider, Cheri. What brings me happiness in life? Much, hopefully. Great grown daughter Elisabeth. Love to write, for this blog and the freelance opportunities elsewhere. Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle. My dear wife Karen on a line of her own. And…

Photo 101: Water everywhere, including the kitchen sink

No matter the assignment on this third day of Photography 101, I was determined that my post was not going to include one flake of snow. And then comes the word. Water. Horizontal view of water. Vertical view of water. Perspective included, reminds instructor Cheri about lesson two, because this month’s instructions are meant to…

At home in Syracuse: Why I’m sick of winter 2015

Happy home, home on the range on Monday, March 2, 2015? Not really. Allow me to explain, from the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. I took the liberty of using my iPad Air for the first Photo 101 essay to lay out the extent of my discontent. Topic: Home. Still surrounded…

Snow four dogs high

Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle’s got to walk. No matter how high the snow gets in our Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. On this weekend morning, the extreme cold of this February being a bit less crushing, my dear wife Karen joined us on the two-block loop to nearby Norwood Park. I asked her to…

Talking Springsteen, ‘SNL’ and Syracuse with blogger Phil Prehn

I’ll always jump at the chance for a live chat with somebody whose blog I follow. So when Phil Prehn emailed during this bitter Syracuse winter to set up a coffee get-together at Cafe Kubal, up James Street from my dear wife Karen and I’s Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood, I…

Well it looks pretty nice

Things were looking pretty as Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle raced to do her morning thing off the back porch of the Little Bitty my dear wife Karen and I share in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Syracuse. The sun was inviting. Postcard alluring, perhaps. Vivid skies invited birds to the treetops off in the…

What’s worse, the snow or the cold?

I’ve yet to venture outside this Sunday morning, choosing instead to work on my blogs. Here’s why. At 10:25 a.m., the crawl on “CBS Sunday Morning” proclaimed the temperature in Syracuse, N.Y., to be -4 F. My peering out the side at 8 allowed me the vision of Good Neighbor Tim and Wonderful Wife Lorraine…

A Valentine’s Day story about a dog and a bird

My Valentine’s Day started with an Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle clamor. Bed to floor to French doors to bed to my face. Get. Up. Da! I know the language of our beloved 4-year-old rescue mutt well. The 7:30 a.m. door-open resulted in a quicker exit than usual, and Ellie B scampered haphazardly around the…

So about this Syracuse snow

I know the snow that’s fallen in the last three or four days cannot compare to the way in which my blogging friends Ann Koplow and Austin Hodgens in Boston and Bangor have been blasted this winter. And besides, our winter-of-2014-15 fate had been relatively tame except for some early December storms until now. But…