Everybody’s talkin’ at me…Can’t hear a word they’re sayin’…Only the echoes of my mind. It was 1969 when Midnight Cowboy hit the big screen and boy did it score big. It won Best Picture, Best Director (John Schlesinger), and Best Writing (Waldo Salt). Both stars, Jon Voight (Joe Buck) and Dustin Hoffman (Ratso Rizzo) were nominated for Best Actor, but lost to the long-time favorite of Americana, John Wayne for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn…
Yesterday was a dark and stormy day here on the hilltop. The weather report says that we got 0.42 inches of rain, which in an area that averages 10 inches per year, that’s a healthy rain day. Hidden Meadows (of which we are technically a part of even though it is not an incorporated village) receives between approximately 5.6 and 13.6 inches of rainfall per year , with sources varying somewhat. One source reports an…
I have often said over my life that my biggest problem with food is less about the fact that I love it too much and more that I have no respect for it. While that is hardly something to be proud of, I do think it accurately reflects the relationship I have generally had with food. The only time I was ever involved with food preparation was in my early college fraternity days. I was…
When you go to high school in Rome, Italy and your school is called Notre Dame International and is run by the Brothers of the Holy Cross, there’s a good chance you will end up reading Dante Alighieri. Dante lived from 1265-1321AD. That period falls during the Late Middle Ages (also called the High Medieval period, transitioning into the Late Medieval period), and marks the early stages of the Italian Renaissance. When you travel around…
AI is changing every day. I remember back in 1996 when one of my friends brought out a new toy on one of our motorcycle rides to Vermont. He had been a Naval Officer in the past and considered himself quite the navigator. This gadget he had acquired was something he called a Global Positioning System and it was about the size of an old Nokia cellphone. On it, on a dimly lit screen was…
I’m sitting out on our deck on a Saturday morning in mid-October and the weather on our hilltop is pretty much ideal. It is 77 degrees with 53% humidity and an 8 mph breeze blowing in from the Pacific Ocean. There is not a cloud in the sky and on this west-facing deck at 10am it is cool and light and perfect weather to enjoy a lazy weekend autumnal day. Gary & Oswaldo are down…
Fingernails serve several important functions that were crucial for our ancestors and remain useful today. Given that our sense of touch mostly happens through our fingers, its only logical that they are very sensitive and have lots of nerve endings. Nails shield the sensitive fingertips and the underlying bone from injury and trauma. The nail bed underneath is rich in nerve endings and blood vessels, and nails act as a protective plate. Nails provide crucial…
I think its fair to say that we are all eating more chicken than ever these days. Protein consumption has been rising significantly in recent years. Chicken provides 7.2% of total protein intake in the United States. To put this in broader context: chicken accounts for 13.9% of animal protein consumed in the US , making it the dominant meat choice. Americans consume about 102.6 pounds of chicken per capita annually, and poultry accounted for…
Today I am going for my semi-annual doctor’s visit for a check-up. The general state of my health is good (I know its not “excellent” and I find myself debating if its just “good” or “very good” in the five level rating system the questionnaire asks). In fact, it’s much better than it was six months ago, which is before I lost twenty pounds, solved my edema problem and started wearing compression socks every day.…
I am aware that I live too much in my mind. I can’t seem to help it. Someone broke off my internal volume control knob and I’m fairly certain many people who know me only wish I had an accessible external volume control. I recall during my college fraternity days that there was a caricature artist who came to the fraternity once a year (with 54 fraternities and probably 15 sororities at Cornell in those…