What do you get when you cross a blogger with a former TV news anchor?  You get a video blogger.

This is a "screen grab" from video

Not exactly what the builders of my 1926 home envisioned....

Check it out.  Joining us live from my living room, my own teleprompter!   I know, I know, you’re asking what does one do with a teleprompter in the living room?  I’m still trying to figure it out myself, but I promise it will be cool.

Words appear on my laptop screen then get reflected in mirror image in the glass above

I’ve actually recorded a few video blogs for other websites to which I contribute and the customers seem to like them so far.  Essentially I read their blog articles on camera to attract more hits and encourage visitors to linger; all ingredients of successful e-commerce. The advantage of a teleprompter is I can make direct eye contact with the camera, even though I’m looking at the words of the article scroll on a piece of glass.

Ah, the comforts of working from home; slippers and sweats

It’s just like the multi-million dollar operations at television stations only mine was assembled in my living room for multi-million dollars less.  For example, my online mentor Rich Hill got me started with a computer he picked up at the recycling center after someone threw it away.  My handyman Mike built the stand with $35.00 worth of lumber.  At the moment I use my daughter Natalie’s point and shoot camera because my own point and shoot won’t sync with any editing software.   Whenever I get stuck with technical issues I enlist my techno geek 17 year old son Christian,  or Andreas my Swiss Ph.D. graduate student in Information Technology who occupies the guest room in my attic.  I’ve got an entire professional network right in my own home.

I’m still thinking of ways I can use video on my own blog.  What do you suggest I do?

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Recently I touched on the concept of urban acupuncture as part of a larger article on Geographic Information Systems. Urban acupuncture attacks decay in tiny doses.  It’s one building, one reclaimed block, one community garden over time that creates a steady, sturdy patchwork of success in an area.

Because I believe nature achieves balance; winter with summer, light with dark, war with peace, and prosperity with need, urban acupuncture may well be a trend that takes hold for some time because it’s the opposite of the gargantuan projects of the past which haven’t all worked, and which we can no longer afford anyway.

Consider the sort of balance between two long ago infrastructure schemes for our area.  The Erie canal was the result of a giant man-made trough, east to west, across New York State, an umbilical cord of sorts for all our upstate cities; Albany, Amsterdam, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, as mules pulled cargo and a new economy from the Atlantic Ocean to the Midwest.

Once trains took over for the mules, we were left with a river that looks like nature had put it there.  Today the Erie Canal is lovely.  Pleasure craft float by willow trees with branches that bend and touch the water.  In some places the old canal runs through charming pedestrian and boat-friendly villages like Seneca Falls which offer us an appealing European aesthetic.  The project was a success, but its death was a success too, which is rare.

There’s no such evocation of nature with Interstate-81  This is another trough, the one that goes from north to south.  Though the need for vehicular transport of people and goods past Syracuse is not obsolete, the monstrous hulk of concrete and asphalt that cuts our city in half is expensive to maintain and at the end of its lifespan.  It must be entirely rebuilt or eliminated, but unlike the picturesque Erie Canal, a decaying elevated highway is not something from which we can simply walk away.

I say knock it down.  No one who uses that highway ever gets off and explores our city with their tourist dollars.  Traffic should be diverted onto Interstate-481, our version of a beltway.  The remaining local traffic is something we can handle.

Removing the highway would open the expanse of real estate that stands between the part of town that is growing; the University hill, with the part of town that is not; everything west of it.  That so much is made about every detail of the build out for a single national retailer, Urban Outfitters in Armory Square, says something scary about where we are.

Because there is no more money for giant projects, we’ll have to approach the future differently.  That’s where the acupuncture comes in.  If we divert north/south traffic onto I-481, we can slowly reclaim small pieces of what is left behind.  It doesn’t all have to happen at once.

Until we decide what to build, plant vegetable gardens.  That’s acupuncture.  Think of how many Syracusans could find fresh produce within walking distance of their homes.   I’d love to see all the residential south side streets that dead end on both sides of the highway reconnected, one block at a time, more acupuncture.  I’d like to see energy efficient, affordable housing where the passing lane once lie so the people least able to afford to heat and repair crumbling, uninsulated homes have some money left over for other necessities.

With the south side portion of route-81 gone, my kooky dream is to open up the original main entrance under the grand redstone gates of Oakwood Cemetery.  Southsiders could once again access this beautiful and historic cemetery/ architectural gem/arboretum, and meet up with the rest of us who come in from Comstock Avenue to the west.  Right now a monstrous berm blocks the gates and trees grow from cracks in the masonry, but you have to know where to look to find it and looking is hazardous when you’re driving a few yards away at 60 mph.

Just as the most comfortable of homes are decorated over time; a family heirloom here, a new furniture purchase there, we can take baby steps at building a better city too.  Whether or not we get the land back from route 81, we can fix up pockets of the place one block, one project at a time; nothing too ambitious, just some acupuncture applied here and there for a steady and modest improvement of where we live.

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The one and only cruise I ever took occurred in the same waters as the ill-fated Louis Cruise Line, hit with rogue waves off the coast of Marseilles, France today.  Two people seated near the front of the ship were killed and 14 other passengers were hospitalized after a series of waves estimated at 26 feet in height slammed into the liner.  Can’t imagine a 26 foot wave?  Think about standing on the roof of your house and seeing at eye level the white cap of water rising to meet you.   Meteorologists blame the high winds for what happened.

Ironically, the cruise I took with my sister Susan and some advertisers with WTVH-TV in 1996 had historically bad weather, the “worst weather” in the 8 year history of the Italian cruise line, we were told.

Our ship, the Costa Romantica

We were on a new and ultra sleek liner with brushed stainless railings and glossy polished woodwork.  As the cruise wore on, staff used those railings to drape plastic seasickness bags for anyone who might suddenly need one.  As you can imagine, it rather detracted from the otherwise elegant decor.

We set sail from Genoa with stops in Naples, Palermo and Tunisia.  That northern tip of Africa was the last time we saw sunshine.  Things deteriorated from there.

Susan, and less than ideal weather

The itinerary called for an overnight voyage across the Mediterranean from Tunisia to Palma de Majorca, but all night long the boat rocked and slammed down on the diagonal like a bathtub hitting solid ground.  I found it oddly thrilling, but the prefab walls separating our berth from the people next to us told me not everyone was enjoying it as I was.  At first I subconsciously wondered why was the guy in the next room yelling?  Oh.  Ick.  Poor guy.

Susan and I are the last ones standing, with seasickness bag "purses"

I fall asleep from the motion of the car.  A gently rocking hammock is heaven on a summer day or maybe heaven is the little pull and tug of the lines connecting a small power boat to the dock.

So when the Captain announced on the intercom that seas were so high he would have to slow down that night, I put my head on the pillow to enjoy Mother Nature’s roller coaster.  Perfect sleeping conditions.

Susan, however, is an accomplished sailor and she was on edge.  She kept sitting up and looking out the porthole onto angry water partially illuminated by the ship’s running lights.  We guessed how high were the seas.  15 feet seemed about right to me but the expert Susan said no, they were closer to 8 feet which were big enough, and cruise ships are not constructed for heavy seas like this.  Indeed, every time the ship landed hard after a wave, I heard a hollow gong and I eventually caught Susan’s viral concern that all the rivets might not hold.  Well they did.  We survived and then took note of the rapidly dwindling percentage of people making it to the dining room each night for the remainder of the cruise.

Until today the worst thing you anticipated on a cruise was a stomach-churning norovirus which quarantines ships for bleaching.  Once in awhile you hear the sad tale of a passenger taking a suicidal jump overboard.  But waves that reach up to five decks and smash windows and kill people are not something you anticipate when you pack the sunscreen.

WTVH Photojournalist Joe Picciotto and Susan in Palma

We’ve figured out how to warn people of blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes, even tsunamis.  But the events of the last week remind us we have a ways to go to fully cracking nature’s code.  Earthquakes and rogue waves.  In the early part of the 21st century, they remain the bogeymen of natural phenomena.

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You know the drill.  I start ‘em, you finish ‘em. You don’t need to come up with all the unfinished answers, just write as many as you want.

1.  It’s satisfying to break a record in Syracuse for something not related to snow.

2.  I turn to mush when I see the Rautins crying on the sidelines at Senior Night.

3.  They almost make me forget the Red Sox began spring training.

4.  Because they play as a TEAM. And they bring an Orange smile to my face.   Thanks Ken

5.  Laugh at a guy who bought a 34 dollar ticket and could not see the court. Thanks Denny

6.  They make Jimmy smile.  Thanks Don

7.  As for Don’s “making ‘Jimmy’ smile” — that’s an accomplishment for the ages.  True, Cathy. Thanks

8.  S.U. Basketball is the only thing that makes Syracuse winters bearable -and this team is the best of the best!  Thank you Pat

9.  They are a team and care about each other. Just seeing Andy Rautins and how far he has come. Thanks Carol

10. They started the season losing to LeMoyne and by the last home game they’re ranked #1 Yeah!  Thank Denise

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As promised, here are the answers to the riddles I created the other day.

Thanks to readers Mike and Don for playing along.  Each correctly guessed two of the answers, but no one got them all right.  No Foley this time.  But stay tuned, more contests, and the chance to open more jars, to come!

Number 1:

It goes back around the clock.

Bumpy caterpillar swims smooth

on water that hurts.

Oh no, the back becomes the front.

Some butterfly is this.

This is short track speed skating

Number 2:

Plastic the muscles bend.   They splay

like the fliers.  Speed for some.

Danger on the back.

Upright or prone they zing.

Back again to the beginning.

This is the biathalon Don and Mike got this one right

Number 3:

The world is flat, avoid the edge

Fall off, cut deep or crush the fear.

The valley, not death; it feeds

the dart higher and higher.  Turn,

Come back!

This is half-pipe snowboarding. Don got it right.

Number 4:

Halloween a different form,

this knows winter by name.

Fast the ghost speeds by, horns turned inward

Like the bull.

This is the skeleton. Mike got this one

Also, welcome to the readers of the Syracuse Post Standard and syracuse.com who found my blog from today’s article in the weekly MoneyWise section.   And thank you Post Standard!

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What is the very first thing you remember?   Everything I’ve read on the subject of memory suggests it is unusual to remember anything before the age of 5.  Whatever the age, I believe our earliest memory involves trauma.

My earliest recollection took place on Sunnyhill Drive in Worcester, Mass.  I was playing in the sandbox in the backyard of the neighbor’s house with several older children when one of the boys told me to drink the sand I was pouring in my toy cup, and like the trusting blob of a developing person that I was, I did it.

That in itself is not what formed the permanent impression. I don’t recall choking or crying.  I don’t even remember being uncomfortable.  But I do remember what happened next.

A quarrel broke out between the kids who laughed at me and the others who felt remorse.  The mom came out of the house with a concerned look on her face.  Someone must have told because she produced a glass of water and told me to sip it and spit it out again.  Drinking but not swallowing was a new concept and I remember the mom teaching it to me and scolding the troublemakers at the same time, all while I remained seated in the sandbox.

I believe the reason I remember this little drama is because it introduced me to betrayal.  I walked away from the sandbox intact, no chronic nightmares or fear, but to this day betrayal is what hurts me most.

Many years later, I relayed this story to my astonished mother.  She vaguely recalled it too.  She filled in the details of that particular house at the top of the hill and the family who lived there.  Turns out, I was brought there to play quite often as my mother gave birth to more babies.   We moved from that street in 1960.   I was 3.

I wonder then, how old was I when I was ordered to drink the sand?  Two?  18 months?   Would an expert say it’s impossible I remembered that when my mom and I both knew it to be true?

I remember many other things about life on Sunnyhill Drive too, like wanting to help my mother wash the dishes but facing resistance for the bigger mess I would create.  It was my dad’s intervention one night that got me to the sink.  I remember standing on a chair to reach it.

We had a little stone retaining wall in the backyard.  I remember sitting in the grass near my mom as she gardened and getting bitten by a garter snake one day.  I kind of remember screaming my head off.

Some of my impressions of life under the age of 3 were very pleasant.  My dad used to come home from work and walk me down the hill to the playground at the bottom of our street.  He used to put me on a leash.  Can you imagine?  He’d probably get arrested if he pulled that in 2010, but my memories of these walks to the playground, me leashed and trotting ahead of my dad, are sweet.

When we moved to 535 Chandler Street, I remember the commotion when one of two derelict barns on the property burned to the ground our first week there.  I remember getting delivered to the homes of neighbors we didn’t yet know for supervision while my parents attended to  the disaster in our yard.  I was 3 years old at the time.

From there, the remaining years growing up on Chandler Street are blurred.   I lived there until I went to college, so did a particular event at home occur when I was 7?  Or 10?  Did we take down the crumbling tree house when I was 11?  Or 16?

It’s difficult to bookmark a point in time when the surroundings of that time looked the same.  But take a pure and developing mind, shake it up and disturb it a bit, and that little snapshot on the brain might last forever.

So, am I right?  Are first memories always traumatic ones? Please tell me what you think.

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It is time to welcome a new advertiser to our blog, my trusted and remarkable handyman named Mike.  Don’t worry that you can’t pronounce his last name, all you need is his phone number.

I have written articles about his work in the past, beginning with the restoration of my 1926 wooden windows and more recently when he rescued me from a clogged pipe under my kitchen sink. There isn’t a single challenge he has not met and the outcome always exceeds my expectations.  In fact, even when I give up on a historic home problem, Mike lets it sink in for awhile, get it?  Sink? …sometimes for weeks until I’ve forgotten about it, but then he pulls into the driveway to announce he might have the answer and he’s ready to try.

If you own your own home, you know how difficult it is to find good help for a fair price.   Mike comes early, leaves late and works like a horse all the hours in between.  I’ve never seen him just sit for a moment to take a break.   In the early days last summer when I offered Mike a sandwich for lunch he said “no thanks, if I eat I’ll just get tired and want to stop” so he doesn’t eat and he doesn’t stop.  I don’t know how he does it because eating and stopping are popular around here, especially by me.

Unlike so many contractors who want large jobs, Mike likes the punch list of little stuff. The door that sticks, the electrical outlet that doesn’t work.  Last week he tore down the chilly walls in one of the walk-in closets and replaced it with drywall and insulation.  Now it’s cozy in there and I won’t be miserable when I get the National Grid bill.  Well, maybe that’s going a bit too far.

Mike’s advertisement and phone number are in the ad titled Syr. Handyman.  He wouldn’t let me take his picture as he’s shy in that way.  Please consider him.   This gentleman handyman is worthy of your trust.

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On our way to the checkout at Kmart, our arms loaded with fabric softener, toilet bowl cleaner and makeup foundation, my daughter Natalie glanced at the clothing and said  “Quick.  Pick out the best outfit you can, one that would impress a guy on the first date, and do it two minutes.”  Faster than I could giggle at such a challenge, Natalie disappeared among the racks. She is like that; creative and spontaneous and always ready for an offbeat kind of fun.

Former Charlie’s Angels star Jaclyn Smith lends her name and perhaps her design ideas to some of the clothing at Kmart.  Her name was prominent on the rounds of goods simultaneously pushing spring and bidding farewell to winter with markdowns.

In short fashion, no pun intended, I found two pieces that flatter my boyish figure.  I selected straight, narrow dark-washed jeans, dark enough for evening at a restaurant, and a filmy black drop-waist shirt in sheer cotton. It was the perfect silhouette to show off my slender arms and legs, and still mask the stomach that cannot lie about the four pregnancies I had or the food I love.

Natalie didn’t mention accessories, and without a shopping cart my arms were already taxed holding onto the toilet bowl cleaners, so I didn’t take precious time to walk to the other side of the store in search of shoes or jewelry, however I would have selected black gladiator sandals with grommets if I there were any, and a long large linked chain as a necklace.  The outfit was actually kind of elegant and it was certainly affordable.  Both pieces combined were about $18.00 on sale.

I yelled to Natalie asking if she found something and found her gliding around the other side of the department, her head moving quickly above the rounds like she was on a bike.  She expressed frustration that she couldn’t find anything but suddenly approached me with a very pretty, very long black and white dress that would look like a nightgown on me and a stunner on her.  Natalie and I have different body types; her curves and average height come from her father’s side of the family.   The dress she chose, for $19.99, would have looked gorgeous on her beautiful figure.

In that little ten minute exercise across from the checkouts at Kmart, I learned I have a spirited  daughter who turns the routine into something memorable, I learned you can do worse than get fashionable clothing from Kmart, and I realized if we ever decide to “impress guys”, we’ll likely make a pretty good impression for less than $40.00 for both of us.

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It goes back around the clock.

Bumpy caterpillar swims smooth

on water that hurts.

Oh no, the back becomes the front.

Some butterfly is this.

1. What sport is this?

Plastic the muscles bend.   They splay

like the fliers.  Speed for some.

Danger on the back.

Upright or prone they zing.

Back again to the beginning.

2. What sport is this?

The world is flat, avoid the edge

Fall off, cut deep or crush the fear.

The valley, not death; it feeds

the dart higher and higher.  Turn,

Come back!

3. What sport is this?

Halloween a different form,

this knows winter by name.

Fast the ghost speeds by, horns turned inward

Like the bull.

4. What sport is this?

Maureen-
OK, this, as my son would say, is awesome. You’ve outdone yourself. Just 2 questions before I tackle these.
I’m presuming they cover ALL Olympic sports, not just the winter ones we’re watching now?
You will you provide the “answers” sometime soon … right?
Thanks,
Don

No Don, we are dealing with my feeble memory here.  Summer Olympics?  What are those?  These riddles involve only the winter games. And yes, certainly I will post the answers.  I’ll do it Monday, March 1.  Good luck and thanks for playing along!

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