Through luck, determination and grit, I was able to score an exclusive interview with Cleo, the Egyptian Cobra, who was reported missing by Bronx Zoo staff earlier this week, and was recovered late yesterday.

 OES: Cleo, thanks for joining me for this interview.

Cobra: Sheepy, it's a pleasure. Y… Read full post »

The recent escape of an "adolescent" Egyptian Cobra from New York's Bronx Zoo Reptile house brought back a flood of childhood memories. In random order

Edith:: SHhhhh… Read full post »

About two and half hours of my day is spent riding the train to and from work. There's a lot I can accomplish on this ride. I can read, write, text, e-mail, sleep, but mostly I watch the people. I get great reward from this pastime.

On the Friday before Martin Luther… Read full post »

In the George Burns' book Gracie: A Love Story, a conversation is purported to take place between then up and coming vaudvillians Gracie Allen and Jack Benny before Jack takes the stage.

Jack Benny: Gracie, I hope to live up to your expectations.

Gracie Allen: Don't worry Jack, you will. I'… Read full post »

Salts Sticks resting on a 10 inch dinner plate made by Benkert's Bakery, Great Neck, NY

When I say the endangered list, I don't mean food like roasted Polar Bear or Spotted Owl stew. Nor do I mean food that has been genetically engineered or irradiated so it glows in the… Read full post »

My wife and I both had to work today, she in Connecticut, me in the Bronx. So while I am now done, she'll be catching the 11:47 train to New York and I have about an hour of time to kill before meeting her at Grand Central Terminal.

So what do I… Read full post »

Most of my career I've managed  not to have to move from one office to another. Since I've been back in New York, I am now moving to my third office in 18 months.

The company I work for has four locations in Manhattan, three of them within a five minute walk from Penn St… Read full post »

Courtesy bruceatkinson.com

Seabrook Station in 1981

 I worked as a Security supervisor during construction of a nuclear power plant in New Hampshire in the early 1980s. I watched the reactor vessel when it arrived in Hampton Harbor, welded to an ocean going barge.

I watched as the… Read full post »

Best birthday wishes to the delightful blogger of the midwest, Fay Paxton.

  Read full post »

David Broder, Washington Post columnist, and the so-called "Dean of the Washington Press Corps" died yesterday at 81. His death notices and comments from colleagues were a journalistic version of a Field Marshal's funeral, filled with all the pomp(osity?) and circumstance of such an occasion.

Broder… Read full post »

Talk show host Johnny Carson once opined that the shortest amount of time ever measured by man is between the time a light turns green in midtown Manhattan, and a car horn sounds. At the other end of the spectrum, it seems that the slowest amount of time is when you… Read full post »

I've been struggling to write this for several weeks. The struggle hasn't been about the content, it's been about the presentation. Our nation was founded on a series of compromises. You can go back to the Connecticut compromise, which gave us a bicameral legislature. Then there was the Missouri comp… Read full post »

The previous post appears here.

As I drove across Moshulu Parkway, I had figured out the why of this mystery but not the how. My guess was that Saul Panzer’s assignment was finding out the how. But what about the missing Rabbi’s widow? That photograph in the hospital lobby would… Read full post »

See the previous post here

 I walked over to Curran’s at Eleventh Avenue to get the car that Wolfe owns, and I drive, a 2011 Heron sedan. Heading up the Henry Hudson Parkway to Riverdale, I thought a visit to the Rabbi’s widow was a fool’s errand. After all, grilling… Read full post »

I had to grab some lunch on the fly today. So I walked into one of the national chain fast food restaurants, and was waiting on line (I believe everywhere else, but New York refers to it as being in line), when the clerk behind the register said, "May I help… Read full post »

Some randoms thoughts. You try and connect the dots.

Of all the people in the world to have a doppleganger, mine has to be Mike Huckabee. Who did I tick off in a previous life?

What's with all the hate for teachers, lately? Politicians who never got good grades?

Obama… Read full post »

It isn't often that you will see smiles on the faces of New York City commuters. It also isn't often that you can find them amazed and delighted. So imagine my surprise and my delight as I walked through Grand Central Terminal yesterday and boarded a brand spanking new commuter train.… Read full post »

The overexposure of personality in the media probably got its start when Zsa Zsa Gabor started appearing on late night talk shows in the 1960s. Ms. Gabor was an attractive, oft married, sometimes actress from Hungary. Her lifestyle and persona became fodder for late night talk such as The Tonigh… Read full post »

You know eventually Charlie Sheen is going to run out of talk shows on which to appear. That could be in about  two or three weeks. So in the interest of protecting this great national treasure, I've done extensive research and found some other gigs Charlie can do that viewers will… Read full post »

It's pretty clear that the situation in Libya represents a threat to oil prices around the world. No one is really sure when or if Qaddafi will fall. Oil prices in the US have gone up, and gasoline prices at the pump are almost forty cents higher than they were a… Read full post »

One of the most interesting things about getting a business degree, is that you have to take a class called Business Law. Business law helps you understand about torts, contracts, liabilities, and something known as the uniform commercial code.

Contracts are fundamental to civil law in the United Stat… Read full post »

My left shoulder had surgery yesterday. I am still attached to it, and I have device called an ICEMAN attached to it.

Ice water circulates through a pad wrapped around my shoulder. My doctor is recommending that I use a keyboard to help my recovery. So here's a… Read full post »

I don't know about you, but I am certainly surprised that CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, didn't see the political upheavals in the middle east coming. The conventional wisdom wouldn't lead one to think that Murbarak could be toppled as easily as he was.

Now that Gaddafi is fighting for his… Read full post »

Good morning GOP elected officials. Where are the jobs you promised? What have you done to create jobs? The world waits, and wonders.

Don't get sucked into the hype when elected Republicans say "we are broke." Don't believe that unions are the cause of state deficits.

It is all a political smokescreen. The biggest reason that our country is suffering financially are the budget busting tax breaks given to the ric… Read full post »