One family member loves the snow

I’ve fully chronicled my wish that the snow stay away from the our Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. The reasons are many. Snow removal of course is high on my list, right up there with my aversion to driving in it, on it, through it. This week’s storm came through the…

A snowy start to the new year

We’ve had it so easy so far weather-wise in our Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. So I dare not complain about the snow falling the first morning of 2016. In fact, with less than a quarter-foot having graced the grounds of the Little Bitty so far when normally some 30 inches have accumulated in Syracuse…

If there’s no snow, you might as well eat

A trip this week to work on the next freelance story for Central New York: The Good Life magazine took me some 20 miles southeast of Syracuse to Toggenburg, a ski complex n Fabius, N.Y. My piece for the March/April edition will not be about skiing. Nevertheless, it was impossible not to notice that right…

A gray day on the Syracuse University hill

It’s not winter yet here in the top half of the world. And yet when it’s gray, and I’m walking on the Syracuse University campus, there’s that familiar feel in the air. It’s coming. Soon. I don’t need to red-circle Dec. 21 on any calendar … Hover over any gallery photo for a description. Click…

OK, you’re still the boss

Did this past week of 40-degree (F) temperatures raise my spirits and optimism here in Syracuse, N.Y.? Yes, indeed. Did I enjoy the magnitude of snow melt we’d experienced after 50 straight days of sub-freezing weather and snow that topped 100 inches? Sure thing. Did I think we’d escaped winter’s icy fingers? No, I’ve lived…

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…

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…

You win some, you lose some

Snow and cold, hot Italian food, snow and cold, hot college basketball, cold and snow. A happy Valentine’s Day it was for my dear wife Karen and I in Syracuse, N.Y. We started with a drive through the snow to Carrabba’s Italian Grill in nearby Fayetteville. The 2 p.m. late lunch/early dinner plan was perfect…