Paul LaRosa's Blog
November 24, 2009
Last year at this time, the NY Times was publishing an analysis of NYC's parking violations and came up with the statistic that the so-called "Black Friday" shopping holiday — the day after Thanksgiving — was a disaster for the city's drivers. More parking violations typically are given out that day than for any other day during the year.
The reason is obvious — almost everyone has off the day after Thanksgiving and everyone assumes it's a holiday so the city's drivers, normally the most...
November 21, 2009
I've had a lifelong love affair with newspapers. I worked at the NY Daily News for 16 years and those were some of the most fun years of my life. Today, I still love newspapers but the printed editions….not so much. I still get the NY Times and Daily News delivered to my home each day but more for my wife than myself.
Three things recently changed my morning reading ritual:
– The Times Reader 2.0 which is available to all subscribers. It is a desktop NY Times that I find super-easy to read. I c...
November 20, 2009
This photo says it all, really. I took it today at the Seventh Avenue station on the F/G line in Brooklyn. It was left there by someone to remember the guy who jumped to his death on the tracks during Thursday's morning commute.
The unidentified man jumped in front of a G train that was pulling into the station at approximately 7:40 a.m., just before the height of the morning rush hour. Why he did it is unknowable and who he was is better left unsaid. The motorman operating the train, who...
November 19, 2009
Yeah, I have it and everyone wants it. From the time I began driving, I've had a sixth sense about finding parking spots in NYC. I used to think it was just intuitive but I've come to believe that most people have no idea how to look for a parking spot.
For one thing, you've got to shut off the radio, crack open that window and listen. I can't tell you how many spots I've discovered by "hearing" an engine start or someone jingling their keys as they walk down the street. One morning, I was...
November 17, 2009
Nearly every morning when I leave my Park Slope brownstone, I am greeted with a puddle of dog urine right outside my front door. And almost always, that dog urine is on a small wall of my brownstone as in this lovely photo.
Now I like dogs and, until my little dog Midnight died last year, I was a dog owner. I realize you cannot always control where they pee. In fact, walking down the street sometimes seemed like a mine field of places your dog could just NOT relieve itself. No to the trees...
November 13, 2009
Yawn. Every day around 4 o'clock, I get kind of, well, tired and nothing seems to help. I can have a triple-espresso, red-eye, sugary, super-caffeinated coffee concoction and still, I'd feel my eyes half-open, or closed if you wanna be a pessimist.
The only thing that helps is a nap but that's hard for most of us to do at work. One of my colleagues (who shall remain nameless unless you ask me) manages to sneak in naps virtually anywhere. One day, I went to the bathroom, and came back to find h...
November 12, 2009
Boy, does the NY Times have a thing about Park Slope or what?
Yet again today, the Brooklyn neighborhood (full disclosure: I live there) is once again the target of a Times article, as it has been many times over the past year. But today the Grey Lady seems to have gone out of her way to feature and, yes, subtly ridicule the nabe.
The story is about the Maclaren stroller recall that, ahem, is a nationwide recall. It seems that in some models, children are having the tips of their fingers cut...
November 9, 2009
I was reading the NY Times this morning and noticed this tiny item at the back of the business section, right on the same page with the hottest movies and music downloads of the week.
There was a little box of type and here's what it said:
"Valerie E. Pringle passed away in August 2009. Her maiden name, Valerie E. Atkinson. She was married in New York in or about 1983 to Mr. Pringle. This notification is to inform Mr. Pringle of her passing."
Huh?
Obviously, Valerie had not seen Mr. Pringle in...
November 8, 2009
When I read the stories about Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan and the horror he inflicted on all those innocent people fighting for US, it once again brought home how removed I am and I think most of my friends and acquaintances are from the twin wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It wasn't so much what Hasan did but it was reading about Fort Hood and how so many Army families consider it a home away from home and how safe they all felt there….
These wars affect a lot of people and, yet, I do not...
November 6, 2009
I don't care what any of those Yankee haters say….this is the best, especially when you began rooting for the Yanks, as I did, when Roy White was their best player, and Fritz Peterson their best pitcher. There were a lot of lean years when they finished in last place with Dooley Womack, Ross Moschitto and Stan Bahnsen so this is sweet indeed!! All the money in the world cannot buy a World Series ring, as the Yanks themselves have proven the last decade.
