All Entries in the "COLUMNS" Category
Grapevine
This week I present Report #2 in my periodic series I refer to as “What ever happened to ______?” The subject matter of my weekly columns typically has a natural and logical beginning and conclusion. However, there have been occasions in which the storyline has been in a state of flux. Whether reporting on an [...]
Home Guru: Old Houses and Antiques are Rebounding, But Not Old Kitchens
When my historic house was on the market almost two years ago, there were buyer prospects who fell in love with it. But in each case, the feedback from their agents was similar: Clients love it but don’t want to spend the time or money to update the kitchen. What? Here I am, writing as [...]
Grapevine
At a recent tasting event I hosted, the subject of wine ratings, wine reviews and wine descriptions arose. One of the guests was unsure whether to rely on the ratings and comments of so-called wine experts. This is a subject that I’ve been ruminating over for a number of months myself. Is evaluating wine a [...]
Home Guru
It was so embarrassing, but not my fault. My new client had given me the address of a home he renovated and wanted to sell on a mountaintop in Putnam County. Before our meeting, I decided to do a drive-by and take a photograph of the exterior for my listing presentation. When I arrived I [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: How to Keep Parental Arguments Under Control
Disagreements and arguments are a natural part of relationships and marriage. Parents will inevitably disagree about a variety of issues throughout their relationship and parenting years, and it isn’t necessarily a bad thing for children to witness some dissention. Lessons can be learned from respectful conflict resolution, but hostile fights that involve screaming and name-calling [...]
Grapevine
The United States system of democracy has been a model for countries worldwide for the last two centuries. During that period our Constitution has held up remarkably well. In place since 1789, there have been only 27 amendments, the first 10 of which are the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791. Over the last 222 [...]
Home Guru: Ins and Outs, Ups and Downs, and Over Driveways
It was so embarrassing, but not my fault. My new client had given me the address of a home he renovated and wanted to sell on a mountaintop in Putnam County. Before our meeting, I decided to do a drive-by and take a photograph of the exterior for my listing presentation. When I arrived I discovered [...]
Kentucky Derby Shaping Up to be Wide Open Race
By Charles Palombini So here we are…only days away from the first Saturday in May and that means its Kentucky Derby time. The Kentucky Derby is the first leg of the thoroughbred Triple Crown, a series of three races featuring the top three-year-old race horses in the world. In last week’s article we discussed the [...]
Grapevine: When Life Imitates Art, it Can Be Heart-wrenching
In my column two weeks ago I measured the variations in the life cycle of one of my favorite wines, the 1989 Chateau Pichon-Longueville Baron, from the French Bordeaux region. I posited that fine wine has a life cycle similar to human development, starting out awkwardly, then beginning to mature and develop unique characteristics, ultimately [...]
Home Guru
What if I told you that there is one simple household chore that helps you get things organized, improves the quality of your life and generally makes you a happier person? You may already be doing it without knowing its importance and benefits, and if you’re not doing it, you might be alarmed by what [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: Does My Child Need Medication or Therapy?
When children are diagnosed with ADHD, depression, or anxiety disorders, parents have to make some tough decisions. Should we medicate? Try therapy? Do both? Medication is often immediately considered in extreme cases. If a child is too depressed, or too hyper or anxious to learn coping strategies and make gains during therapy sessions, medication might [...]
Home Guru
We’ve all grown up with abbreviations and acronyms. There are those that probably originated at sea, such as SOS (originally for save our ship) to POSH (for portside out, starboard in). Many others developed on land: VIP (very important person), RSVP (respondez s’l vous plait), ASAP, (as soon as possible) and the important one I [...]
Grapevine: Closure(?) on the Mystery of the Shipwrecked Champagne
In the course of my musings and meanderings the last five-plus years of penning this column, I’ve had the occasion to report on a multitude of subjects around the mesmerizing world of wine. Oftentimes educational (wine regions, grape varietals), on other occasions self-exploring (pairing wine with music, linking my enjoyment of wines to life events) [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: Parenting Lessons from the Business World
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article examining factors that make happy families happy. Bruce Feiler, author of the article and book The Secrets of Happy Parenting, explains how families can utilize workplace strategies to create a happy household. “Agile development,” a system of group dynamics that organizes workers into small teams, can be [...]
Grapevine: An Anecdotal Tale of Life Passages and Maturation
Fine wine has a life cycle similar to human development, starting out awkwardly, then beginning to mature and develop unique characteristics, ultimately reaching full maturity and peaking in sophistication and complexity. A number of years ago, I set a goal to try to better understand the progression of fine wine over its life, which is [...]
Home Guru- The Housing Market: ‘Something’s Coming, Something Good’
At least two or three lifetimes ago when I was in the chorus of “West Side Story” in summer stock, I was envious as I listened in the wings each night when the actor playing Tony got to sing “Something’s Coming,” the quintessential song of optimistic premonition. I don’t know if I’m especially prescient or [...]
Grapevine: Man vs Nature and the Shifting Balance of Nature
Modern man is at the top of his homo sapiens game. Since we first stood upright, we have been subject to the constant whim and temperament of Mother Nature. Throughout our evolutionary lifecycle, our efforts to master and control nature have come in fits and starts, with successes and failures coming in long waves of [...]
Home Guru: The Ubiquitous Doorbell, From Buzz to Beethoven’s Fifth
It’s funny how a certain smell or sound can evoke memories of something totally unrelated to an experience at hand. With me, whenever I hear a doorbell, I think of the Fuller Brush man who years ago would go door to door selling his wares. My wife and I as newlyweds had just moved into [...]
Business Buzz: New Study Reveals Local, Mobile Search Favors Restaurants and Auto Service/Dealers
Last year I reported on key search and social media marketing trends from the annual SESNY conference in New York City where mobile marketing and social media’s influence on search were prominent themes. At this year’s show, mobile continues to wave its magic wand filled with fantastic promises of improved consumer reach, interaction and access [...]
Home Guru: Healthy, Wealthy and Wise, Thanks to My Garbage Hauler
At the beginning of the year, my town switched garbage haulers, a move that saved each resident $70 annually in taxes. A good thing, right? Yes, except that this move changed my life, at least two days a week. When I founded my own business some years ago, with one wing of my historic home [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: Helping Children with Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder, otherwise known as manic-depressive disorder, is a serious mental condition that affects children’s functioning in school and at home, and it interferes with most relationships. Symptoms of bipolar disorder are more easily recognizable in adults than in children. It is characterized by intense episodes of depression and mania (i.e., heightened energy and excitability) [...]
Grapevine: Advocating for Change at The Wine Advocate
Deciphering the hodgepodge of wine ratings has perennially been fraught with skepticism over the independence of wine critics. Over the last 35 years, the one critic who has risen above these distractions to objectivity is Robert Parker. Publishing critiques through his newsletter The Wine Advocate, he has consistently voiced his opinions with an aura of [...]
You Heard it Through the Grapevine: Unraveling the Meaning Behind the Ratings Codes
So many good wines, so little time to drink them all. With the flood of new wines hitting the market each month, we all could use a filtering mechanism to assist us as we rush through our daily lives, bombarded with emails, Google Alerts and wine critics’ proclamations. Certainly, these filters exist–abundantly–but then a sub [...]
Home Guru: No Matter What You Do in Bed, There’s a Mattress to Support it
A recent television commercial for Sealy, the world’s largest mattress manufacturer, made mesmile each time it ran. Its slogan was “No Matter What You Do in Bed, Sealy Supports It.” It reminded me of the first story I heard about mattresses, that of the princess and the pea. Even as a naïve child, I thought, [...]
“Innocent Bystander” — Where is Smedley Butler When We Need Him?
General Smedley Butler is one of America’s least known and unsung heroes. Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 1881 into a prominent family of Quaker decent; Smedley Butler opted not to follow in his father’s footprints to become a lawyer and a judge. But instead lied about his age to, enlist in the marines to [...]
Direct Rays: Former Mullet-Wearers Saddened by BIG EAST’s Last Stand as We Know It
Heck, there’s not much I remember about 1985. I know I was rocking the world’s best mullet at SUNY Oneonta, and set the non-fraternal record for most kegs at a house party on 16 Myrtle Avenue (legend has it still standing at 35); though I don’t remember much about that particular day, other than the [...]
Smoke, Mirrors & Social Media: Mendelson Calls Out Gurus
He says social media is “bullshit,” yet his own presence on Twitter is more impressive than most self-proclaimed social media experts. He’s using the same online platforms he scoffs at (even swears at) to spread the word about his book, Social Media is Bullshit. B.J. Mendelson — who has sold 7,000 copies of his book with a [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: Be Smart With Your Smartphone
Parents are often frustrated by the amount of time their children spend staring and tapping away at their iPhones. While it’s true that teens spend a lot of phone time on Facebook or texting, smartphones can be put to good use. Many applications (apps) help individuals independently manage day-to-day tasks, handle schoolwork, cope with health-related [...]
Grapevine: A Major Shift in French Drinking Traditions
The French have a long tradition of fine food and wine, enjoyed in an atmosphere of camaraderie and conviviality. Generation after generation enjoyed a joie de vivre. Generation after generation enjoyed a diet rich in classic French cooking, steeped in a tradition of butter and cream, foie gras and local cheeses. Generation after generation consumed [...]
Direct Rays: Just or Unjust, PV Boys Hoops Coach Ouster Wreaks of Bad Timing
There is probably nobody on this planet that has butted heads more with former Putnam Valley boys’ basketball Coach Ed Wallach than me: I reckon we’re just a pair of strong-willed alpha males who truly believe they are rarely wrong in their views. Love him, or not; the cat is set in his ways, but [...]
