After four years of rigorous college (YOU try finishing a chemistry and physics double major), I then spent six years in graduate school, then another two years as a post-doc. Twelve years of higher education. And my career arc has led me to the pinnacle- I now spend...
Everyone is going to restaurants on one of the two very worst days to go to a restaurant (the other being Valentine's Day) Kitchens are slammed, lines are long, the food is rubberized from sitting under heat lamps. Coincidentally these are both Hallmark holidays....
I'm making up for last week by doing three Links in a row. I had one more hilarious reminder of my kavorka in the form of a local crazy lady who buttonholed me, kept trying to invite herself over, and wouldn't let me politely exit. Fortunately, one of our baristas...
Here in the Gulch, we on the Planning Board are wrestling with a controversy, STRs. Initially, I thought that was some kind of venereal disease but it turns out to mean "short term rentals," as in "AirBnB or VRBO." Given the bright vivid Blue of the village's makeup,...
Banjos and Sloopy are out today, so The Old Guy steps in. Planning Board and Board of Trustees for the Gulch are having a joint meeting tonight to discuss our latest controversy: short term rentals (e.g., VRBO, AirBnB), how to zone and regulate. I suspect you know...
In which Prime and I escape the snowy climes of WNY.
Keep your fucking beignets, Goy Boy. We got hamantashen. They may have been partying down in NoLa, but at the same time, I kept thinking, "This is a really poor-ass version of Purim." Which it is. Nobody parties like drunk Jews. They sometimes even spend money. So...
I feel for you. For each and every one of you. I feel your pain, your sadness, but also your joy, and your happiness. What am I saying? The only thing I feel is horny. And greedy. While Spud is gallivanting around Hawaii on his honeymoon, Prime and I decided to trash...
St. Hallmark is the patron saint of useless synthetic holidays. I will spend this one babysitting Sweet Baby James, then making some pizza for Prime and me, with accompanying adult beverages. Unlike Spud, I did not get married this week, so I'm still allowed to be...
Putting aside the good news about Sweet Baby James taking his first steps and Prime and I having our first alcohol-free date (we went to a cult restaurant specializing in buckwheat pancakes and maple syrup, open only two months a year), I have more amusing local...
Exciting days here in the Gulch. Every little village needs a crazy guy wandering the streets. In our case, it's the son of a professor, the latter notorious for her rather eccentric behavior (like hitting on me). He was trespassed from our little business a year or...
Sunday without football seems... empty. I look at the four walls around me and wonder, "Why? What's it all about? Our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." But eventually, there will be again 22 physically large multimillionaires...
Isn't it nice to have the most cliché possible picture? Holy shit, January is almost over. Maybe it's an age thing, maybe it's me being busy and time flying, but it doesn't feel like we could already be a month in. This weekend will drag, of course, because no...
Here in the Gulch, we had our Team Red and Team Blue caucuses (cauci?) this week to nominate candidates for the village Board of Trustees. Now me, I always think of trustees as some position for squealers in a prison, but here it applies to the elite set of...
One effect of the frigid weather is that it's driven some of the local rodent population indoors. Couple that with the closure of the pharmacy next door who kept a semi-feral cat and we suddenly have mice paying us a visit. In our attempt to be a muroid Auschwitz, we...
It's fucking cold out. Like -5 degrees with lost of wind for a wind chill low enough that it doesn't matter whether you specify it in Fahrenheit or Celsius. A couple feet of residual snow on the ground and another couple feet arriving tonight and tomorrow. Where the...
Well, the pressure is off, I no longer have to pretend to root for the Bills. And TBH, if I could pick a Super Bowl from the remaining teams, I'd want to see the Bears vs Texans. It likely won't happen, but a boy can dream. Anyway, Prime loaded me up with pizza, beer,...
When SP and I bought this Little House In The Gulch, the idea was to fix things up and redo it in our image of a home we wanted to share. She was exceptionally handy with painting, electrical, and carpentry and could guide me through assisting her. Obviously, that...
Sometimes, I outwit my dogs. Sometimes they outwit me. A couple months back, I spent a PILE of money putting up a 6 foot wooden fence to confine them. They're good jumpers but not quite that good; five feet seemed to be about their limit. Day One free in the yard,...
So after last weekend's debacle, Prime said, "You're a Bills fan now." It was not stated as a question. Fun happenings at Glibs Gulch: in addition to the weekly Tuesday noon protest ("What are you protesting?" "Whaddaya got?"), we had a special Friday protest at The...
OK, I was expecting that the Browns would be the Browns last week. But somehow, they weren't. So there's actually an important game for the Ravens today. CAW CAW!! I'm spending the run-up to it stone sober, for a change- I have a technology article to finish (about a...
"I've been framed, I tells ya! Lemme outta here!" It was a fine New Years Eve with the family- and I'm including Prime in that category these days. WebDom, 10b0t, Sweet Baby James, 10b0t's other two kids, Prime, and I gathered around the table, gorged ourselves on a...
Sorry, my fan hat is on. On the one hand, the Ravens are still alive. On the other, it may be for just hours since their life depends on the Browns today. Nobody should ever be in a position of needing the Browns to win. Nobody. After the playoffs slip away in a game...
To be fair, I *am* actually busy with tasks. Getting ready for New Year's dinner with Prime and my local family, doing a ton of loudspeaker measurements for a soon-to-be-overdue article, preparing some lectures on photoacoustics for a course the university asked me to...
All the little goy kids are running downstairs to see what that white-bearded Hebe brought them. But it wasn't me, I have an alibi. Anyway, this year the phony pseudo-pagan holiday (Christmas) and the celebration of the Jewish Taliban (Chanukkah) almost aligned; we...