As an artist, I was deluged with advice that I needed to have a website. The result was that I spent good deal of time in the last year photographing my artwork, measuring it, titling it, writing about it, editing the images, loading them into my photo file application, and finally, publishing all of the preceding onto my website. This content preparation, similar to that of preparing all t... More >>

Do you cry? I do.

I am very sentimental. Sad movies, happy stories and anything involving children.

When I was a kid my father took me to a Planet of The Apes marathon at a local theatre. (I am clearly dating myself). At the end of the third film, in the ultimate scene, the ape mother throws her baby overboard into the rumbling water below to save it from the attackers. (OK, it wasn't re... More >>

Books:

We have chosen a book for our first Book Club Blog: “Escape” by Carolyn Jessup. For our second book, I thought “Into the Wild” might be interesting and spark a lot of dialogue. In four weeks, I will post a blog entry discussing portions of Escape. Readers please comment and provide your thoughts.

Road Trips

This past weekend we spent Thursday through Sunday in Marlboro... More >>

I have been very lucky this past year. My son Josh, who is 24, was working on a start up business with a friend in the forex market and I gave them an office in my suite. He was also living with me since he moved back to New York from San Diego last November. It was a nice little set up we had, having lunch together, sometimes dinner, watching football on TV, cutting out of work early during t... More >>

As I rustle through my pantry this morning to find something for breakfast, I look around and see the present state of my excess. Thanks to the warehouse clubs, I now have enough paper towels to sop up a flood in my basement, sufficient toilet paper to handle my habits for the next fifteen years, and enormous quantities of Q-tips, bars of dove soap and Advil. If aliens came down to our planet and ... More >>

Is the name Felix Lopez familiar to you? I thought not. Well get used to it as Mr. Lopez is Executive Vice President of my New York Yankees. Possibly his more significant (and explanatory) title is son in law of ("The Boss") George Steinbrenner. According to urban legend he is the daughter's second spouse and met her while doing landscape work at her house. Passing on Mr. Lopez' qualifications (l... More >>

Two weeks ago, I lost a pen...actually it was more than a pen. It was a combination pen and pencil. It was small, nicely designed and was the companion of a similarly-styled fountain pen. As is my custom, I put the pen in my pocket and, as is not my custom, a few hours later, I realized that it was gone. I had been to several places since last seeing my pen and retracing my steps was out-of-the... More >>

Too Much Information! It’s a fairly recent phenomenon and I’m not sure when it started. Is it a symptom of the computer age? A cultural phenomenon? It doesn’t really matter – the fact is – it is pervasive. Yesterday I heard a tour guide rattle on and on about the cost and location of his rent controlled apartment. Not relevant to the tour and I’m just not interested.
... More >>

It is a fact. My recent blogs have not attracted the same number of comments as in previous weeks. This troubles my competitive spirit and so I decided it was time to bring out the big guns – the “ick” experience.

Last Tuesday night I experienced the most significant “ick” I can recall in a long time – and to make it worse, it happened over dinner. As with many dinners in our hous... More >>

Does anyone want to join a book club? You don’t have to leave your house, you are not even required to attend a meeting, or host one for that matter.

I want to start a book club, right here on my Monday blog. If you think it’s a good idea and would like to participate, please comment and provide the name of an amazing book you would like the group to read. I will post the selections in t... More >>

Being a lawyer means that I have to make important and difficult decisions every day. Like what to do for lunch, for instance.

Every time I have to move my office, one of the considerations is how good the nearby lunch joints are.

Everyone has their own lunch routine. There are desk eaters like me, or those who go out and sit down and order, or those who have their lunch delivered. I ev... More >>

It's Friday and it's raining. I won't have time tomorrow to write my blog 'cause I'm trekking to Rhode Island to see Jake run in one of the larger invitationals. The team is already up there and have taken an nice jog around the course. He's pumped and feeling good.

Cross country is funny. There is very little cheering. You watch them start, which is usually slow, and then they disappear into ... More >>

1969 Gore serves in Viet Nam (rare for son of a US Senator).
12/2000 Gore is screwed out of Presidency.

2001-2006 Gore recreates himself (and is early Google investor).

2/25/07 Gore wins an Oscar for documentary film "An Inconveni... More >>

I am constantly amazed at what we have that is so close to us and yet completely unknown. At the risk of opening the floodgates of tourists on the North Fork of Long Island, I must share with you that there are buffalo on Long Island.
As many of you know, Jeremy, my step-son, is a doctoral candidate in environmental biology and has been cultivating an extinct frog in several, caref... More >>

Halloween Past


We all seem to have “issues” that are triggered by Halloween. When I was a child and Halloween, like most holidays, was more innocent and less commercial, the most I hoped for was a selection of little foil wrapped chocolate bars that were the ultimate treat in luxury packaged candy. People were still giving out apples then, until those horrible urban legends arose of f... More >>

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” So true.

I remember obsessing about what suit I should buy to interview for my first job. Every detail was important, down to the shoes. The follow up thank you letter was equally painstakingly crafted.

Today, first impressions are found in new places. Electronic first impressions are often out ahead of any in-person connec... More >>

Wait, it’s not Halloween yet, is it?

My 7 year-old asked me last night, with a hopeful expression, “In how many days is Halloween?”

I tried to count, 2 weeks is 14 days plus 3 more…”17 days!” I said, excited to have calculated it so quickly for her.

She said in a loud, winy, outraged voice, “What!? How could that be? I bought my costume already and everyone has decorat... More >>

I was thinking the other day about whether to renew my lease. Suddenly the sun popped into my head and I thought about it someday becoming a huge red giant, vaporizing Mercury and Venus and frying the earth, and then shrinking into a little sun dwarf and dying. It got me wondering how that might effect real estate values.

Of course none of this is going to happen for a few billion years, if y... More >>

Or "What I wouldn't do for my fellow gothamites"

Last Wednesday afternoon I found myself in Ed "Wavy Gravy" Bienstock's magic bus making my way to New Haven, CT along with Fred, Esther, Cayce and Jack to celebrate New Haven's one year anniversary as a group. At the two hour mark I began to wonder why I agreed to make this trip. Traffic on 95 was it's usual crawl and my knees started to talk to ... More >>

Smarting from the agony of defeat and facing ignominious first round play-off elimination for the third year in a row I benefited from a reprieve when my boyhood, beloved New York Yankees won last Sunday night. The next day I decided to keep a suffering fan's diary and this is it:

10/8/07 George Steinbrenner (78 year old team owner) is a horrible man who has seemingly failed to mellow with ag... More >>

When I come back from a vacation, I wonder how long the curative relaxation will last. Unfortunately, I am most often shocked at how quickly I begin to feel that I need another vacation. In a somewhat similar vein, as I sat in temple during the High Holy Days several weeks ago, I wondered how long the spiritual and contemplative sense that I was enjoying would last. Experience has taught me that ... More >>

On Monday night, David and I watched Wheel of Fortune before that night’s Yankee game. The spinners made their usual uneven progress, and it reminded me that winning games is frequently about Good Luck. Four-leaf clover, four aces in your hand, pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, lottery winning good luck. On Wheel of Fortune, the lucky players spin past bankrupt and into twenty five ... More >>

Mitch’s blog on Saturday made me think. Mitch wrote about a “lazy” Saturday in which he was busy from sunrise to sunset.

My Saturdays, and for that matter Sundays, are similarly packed. We are typically scheduled from morning until night with multiple back-to-back activities.

We run from dancing school to the football field, to karate, haircuts and shopping. Throw in a playdate or... More >>

Let me start by saying that I grew up with two sisters. My Catholic upbringing was somewhat strict – our parents and the nuns taught us to be modest and respectful (of others and ourselves).

I thought at age 40, not much could really rattle me. I didn’t think that I could feel like a 13 year-old girl again. But apparently I was wrong.

My son’s hockey practice was at the Arena in L... More >>

The FDR presidential museum and library in Hyde Park, which I visited last weekend, has the desk Roosevelt used in the Oval Office on display. It is filled with artifacts and objects and things. On either side of the desk is a book with pictures of each item and a description of what they are and where they came from. For example “Glass paperweight, gift from Winston Churchill, 1943,” or �... More >>

Lazy day, dream away....let the sun take a holiday.

Mow the lawn, shop for groceries, shuttle Jake to his track practice then to his Pep Band and Drumline show. Squeeze in my Sparks program to the Hofstra homecoming game. Make it back to video Jake's halftime show for posterity. Find a snack along the way and somehow get to my computer to check the blogs to approve any comments.

Nothing lik... More >>

There was a really good article in last Sunday's Times Styles section on those who have become famous for commenting on high usage blogs. According to the writer "commenting on a blog is the new call-in radio".

This got me to thinking. Although I really enjoy my "Friday With Fred" blogging, I enjoy commenting on other's blogs far more (rarely do I comment on mine). Setting aside the niceness o... More >>

This should have been an easy week for me, blogging-wise, that is. I had already written my blog and was looking forward to not having my usual Wednesday anxiety of what to blog about. But I heard from "the little birdie of Gotham" that the blogs are getting "too Jewish"...and I have to respond.
First of all, I'm speaking for myself, in this blog and all others. "The views expressed in m... More >>

I am not ordinarily a compulsive person, but for some reason when I start researching a topic, I am compelled to keep going at it relentlessly until I find an answer. The result is that I have been told that I get “world class” results at this type of tedious work. In reality, I think it’s just that I enjoy searching for facts and finding answers.

For example, when looking in... More >>

I have a theory. Based on years of observation, men and women are constantly battling about the temperature. One gender prefers the room cold, similar to the icebox effect. The other seeks a temperature fix reminiscent of a trip to a Caribbean beach.

As a child growing up, one of my parents learned to wear socks to bed at night so the other could warm underneath a heavy blanket. In my hou... More >>

I thought about posting a comment to Don’s blog, but instead decided to make it my Blog.

First of all, I am sure MONDAY is the worst Blogday to have. There are many Monday mornings I wake up innocently thinking all I have to do in the next 45 minutes is get the kids up, dressed, fed, make their beds, pack their lunches, force them to brush their teeth and all the while listen to their comp... More >>