The universe has a tendency to balance itself out, and this time, unfortunately, the announcement of Dot was countered with the departing of Grandpa Punaro. I grew up living next door to my grandparents, so seeing them was a regular occurrence. While age took it’s toll on his body, his mind was always [...]

I was scanning through the Buffalo Issue Alerts digest email this morning and saw this post from Cynthia Van Ness:
So I was listening to WBFO this morning and heard a story about efforts to qualify the Grand Island bridge for federal aid in order to eliminate bridge tolls (but there was no link at their [...]

The author of the YouTube video I posted in my last Aquarama post directed me towards another of his videos. The end of this video shows two shots of the Aquarama/Marine Star being scrapped in Aliaga, Turkey. It truly is no more.
This pretty much closes the book on the Aquarama. Since we [...]

I had intended on going out to take photos of the eclipse, but instead found myself enthralled with the total view of the night sky. This, my friends, is why you move out to the country.

(click for full size view)
Here’s the Eclipse, nearly full.

Thanks to everyone for their well wishes! Amanda has been pretty consistently sick since finding out she was pregnant, but it’s been getting progressively worse over the past week. Today, a quick call to the doctor won her a free (co-pay not included) trip in for an exam. Two urine tests later, [...]

Amanda says…
Well, I will have been sick for a month this weekend. I have never been sicker in my life. EVER! When Derek took me to the doctor on Jan 24th I was sure that my appendix was going to be taken out that day. Instead, the doctor told us this:
“Well, [...]

Ok, maybe it’s not quite as lyrically gifted as the original, and it’s about Minnesota, not Buffalo, but it works.

The New York Times says…
administration officials are counting on a lift this summer from the $168 billion economic stimulus package that Congress passed last week and from the Federal Reserve’s recent decisions to reduce short-term interest rates….[CEA Chair Edward Lazear] predicted that the stimulus package would create an additional 500,000 jobs this year.
Economics professor Greg [...]

Turns out, New York State’s STAR program failed in it’s primary goal – to reduce the property tax burden. It actually had the opposite of it’s intended effect – it accelerated spending by local school districts, which in turn raises the homeowner’s taxes.
I really don’t understand how politicians think. If a whole bunch [...]