Ferris Wheel Day

Today (February 14, 2022) is National Ferris Wheel Day.

I have two memories of Ferris wheels:

1. I remember the time when I was a kid attending the St. Rocco's Feast in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, in the early 1970s, when I was around ten years old. That was the church of many of my maternal family members. I went on the Ferris wheel with my cousin Phil and his wife Jacqueline. I was seated between them. The wheel stopped when we were at the top. Phil started rocking the seat back and forth, and laughing. Jacqueline screamed, "Phil, stop it." I was a little scared, but I was laughing, too. That is a fond memory from my childhood.

2. I remember the time when my wife and I took a ride on the giant Ferris wheel called the Wiener Riesenrad at the Prater amusement park in Vienna, Austria. You could see all of Vienna and beyond from the top. It had compartments that could hold many people, but I think they only allowed about twenty people in each for safety. It's 64.75 meters (212 feet) tall and has half as many compartments as it did when it was constructed in 1897. The removal of half of the compartments was also for safety. It was the world's tallest extant Ferris wheel from 1920 until 1985.

A Present For My Mom

My wonderful wife recently procured this beautiful bracelet for my terrific mother. My mom likes the colors white and blue. We gave it to my mom (to thank her for all of her help and support, and also for Valentine's Day), when she visited with us at our home for a couple of hours this afternoon (February 13, 2022).

Happy Birthday To Aunt Doris

Happy Birthday to my Aunt Doris (my father's sister) who turned 86 years old today (February 13, 2022). Here we are at her house on Long Island, New York, on June 30, 2007.

Me (Psychedelic)

 Who: Me

When: January 30, 2022

Filter: Psychedelic

(I'm) Publishing Another Poem

I recently received a letter in the mail from Eber & Wein Publishing for me to submit one of my poems to be included in their upcoming anthology titled "Best Poets of 2021." (Part of the letter is below.)

The deadline for submission is February 28, 2022, so I need to get busy writing. I would rather write a new poem than submit one of my older poems.

My poem will also compete in a contest, with a top prize of $2,000 and with more than $6,000 in other prizes. I have had two poems published with this company; hence, I am considered to be one of their "best poets."

My poem titled "That's Not What I Meant" appears in their 2021 anthology titled "Best Poets of 2020: Quarantine Edition, Volume 3."

My poem titled "Startled Glances" appears in their 2010 anthology titled "Sunflowers and Seashells: Nature's Miles." I won a third-place award for this poem. I received a bronze plaque about the size of a 50-cent piece encased in clear plastic on a wooden stand and a $25 gift certificate to the company, if I wanted to use it to buy another copy of the anthology or a framed copy of my poem. I never used it. For perspective, there was one first-place winner, 20 second-place winners, and 100 third-place winners. Thousands of poems from around the world were considered in this contest, so I did fairly well.

I have had many of my poems published in anthologies, mostly in the 1990s. A few of them are included in books that were sold in bookstores. Many are housed in the U.S. Library of Congress. While my poem "Somnolence" won one of the second-place prizes in a poetry contest in 1997 with The National Library of Poetry, and was published in their anthology that year, I still haven't won any cash in any of these contests.

As a (lifetime) performing member of The Port Jervis Poetry Society in upstate New York, I performed two of my original, self-penned poems on stage as part of one of our poetry, music, and art shows in February 1990; the show was later broadcast on public-access cable television.

I joined the society in 1989 and soon auditioned to become a performing member. In 1990, I accepted a different (journalism) job in a different part of upstate New York. While I was unable to participate in the weekly meetings and shows due to long distances, I am still considered to be a lifetime performing member of The Port Jervis Poetry Society.

By the way, I am in the preliminary stages of self-publishing a book of seventy-five of my poems. I have written more than 300 poems since 1986, so I need to pick my best and my favorite poems.

The tentative title of my book of poetry is "Quizzical Sojourns: Observations and Practices of a Self-Proclaimed Bohemian," which is currently the title of my personal blog. That means I need to write a brand-new poem with that title for inclusion in my book.

This is the perfect opportunity for me to write this poem for inclusion in Eber & Wein's upcoming anthology. I'm going to do that.

I am also in the midst of writing an autobiographical novel set in the 1990s, specifically from 1992 to 1996, when I was a reporter/writer, editor, and researcher in New York City for an international weekly magazine on the chemical industry.

Mexican Meal: Mole

As a late lunch/early dinner, my wife and I decided to have Mexican food delivered.

I ordered the "Enchilada de Mole" with yellow rice and refried beans topped with cheese. (See photo below.)

It's actually two corn tortillas filled with shredded, spiced chicken and topped with mole sauce and melted cheese. Mole (pronounced "mo-lay") is a spicy, sweet sauce made with chili peppers and chocolate.

Whenever mole is on the menu of a Mexican restaurant, I will order it. While I once purchased a jar of it at a supermarket, I would like to make a homemade version. I absolutely LOVE it.

Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday: Here I am at the Ratha Yatra Festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on July 19, 2008. During the summer every year, these festivals in honor of the Hindu god Jagannath, a representation of Lord Krishna (God) who lived in India five thousand years ago, are celebrated in small villages up to large cities all over the world. The first festival was held in the year 1558.

My religion is Gaudiya Vaishnavism (Hare Krishna), a sect of Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism).

Here are two of the many photos that my wife Debbie took of myself at the festival.

In the first photo, you can see me help pull one of three colorful chariots for a few miles through the streets of the city. One of these chariots, which are about 45 feet high and 35 feet in length and width, can be seen in the background. The "tents" on the chariots had to be lowered and then raised again whenever the chariots passed under traffic lights.

In the second photo, I am holding a plastic bag of halva in my right hand that was given to me at the festival. While my shirt has a Hindu prayer printed on it in the Sanskrit language, it does not represent the official garb of the Hare Krishnas. The cloth bag hanging from my neck, which has a Hindu prayer printed on it in Sanskrit and IS carried by the Hare Krishnas, contains mala (prayer beads). My necklace holds a golden, colorful pendant of the Hindu god Jagannath.

About an hour after my wife took these photos, I was taken to the hospital by ambulance with heat exhaustion. After all of these years, I continue to thank my wonderful wife for accompanying me on my spiritual pilgrimage.

National Pizza Day

Today (February 9, 2022) is National Pizza Day.

What is your favorite pizza topping? Mine is pickled capers. I also like a fried egg on top, which I also like on top of a hamburger, but under the top piece of bun.

Another Pizza (For Dinner)

For dinner this evening (February 8, 2022), my wonderful wife made yet another homemade pizza. She used dough that she recently made and sugo (tomato sauce) that we recently made together. Italian cheeses (Mozzarella, Provolone, Parmesan, Asiago, and Romano) with roasted onions and green bell peppers are on her side. Salami, the Italian cheeses, and extra Provolone cheese are on my side.

Boy Scouts Day

In 1947 or 1948, my father became the youngest Eagle Scout in the United States. He was 13 years old when he attained this honor.I was never in the Boy Scouts, but I was in the Cub Scouts for several years during the 1960s. I received the Bobcat pin and then earned the Wolf and Bear badges, but that's as far as I got. Our pack disbanded, and I didn't pursue Boy Scout training. My mom was a terrific Den Mother.

(I have been a Men's Rights Activist since the early 1990s, when I was in my early 30s, so I support and promote anything and everything related to the male species, this being one example.)

Iowa Day

(There is a reference to Iowa in this somewhat long post.)

For about 14 months in and around 1997, I covered commodities trading, specifically the futures and options trading of "Softs" (coffee, sugar, cocoa, cotton, orange juice, and occasionally whole milk) from the New York City bureau of a wire service called "Futures World News," also known as "FWN." We broadcast more than one thousand stories every day via satellite to traders in 93 countries from our bureaus around the world.

I covered those five main markets in real time, writing 13 to 16 stories every day, plus one weekly feature story. I covered two exchanges in New York City and one exchange in London. Our bureau was directly across the street from the World Trade Centers, so I would occasionally visit with the traders on the trading floor (on the second floor) before the day's trading began. I also covered weekly money-supply meetings at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

(I cross-trained for a couple of weeks on "Energies," specifically crude oil, natural gas, etc. Unfortunately, I never got to train on "Forex" ("Foreign Exchange," meaning monetary-currency comparison), or "Metals" (gold, silver, etc.), both of which I preferred to cover because they are the more glamorous markets.)

FWN had various bureaus throughout the world, specifically New York City, Chicago, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Tokyo. All of the hundreds of stories written throughout each day from all of these bureaus were sent to copy editors in our main office in Waterloo, Iowa, where they were edited and then were broadcast via satellite to traders all over the world.

(We also published the monthly magazine titled "Futures," but I was not involved with that.)

Kite Flying Day

I flew box kites when I was a kid in the 1960s.

Dinner: Baked Rigatoni

For dinner, my wonderful wife made Baked Rigatoni: rigatoni (pasta), ricotta cheese, and our homemade sugo (tomato sauce) with mozzarella cheese on top and then baked.

Periodic Table Day

Today (February 7, 2022) is National Periodic Table Day.

I have enjoyed chemistry since I was a kid, and I even studied it in high school and at university. I retain an interest in it to this day.

While I ultimately became a journalist, I was quite fortunate in the 1990s to land a job in New York City where I could indulge my love of a topic that has interested me since I was a young kid in the 1960s playing with my chemistry set. From 1992 to 1996, I was a Reporter/Writer, Editor, and Researcher for an international weekly magazine on the financial and technical aspects of the chemical industry. This included agriculture chemicals, petrochemicals (aromatics and aliphatics), pharmaceuticals, flavors, fragrances, plastics, paints, coatings, oils, fats, waxes, surfactants, and more.

Yes, I'm a nerd ... and proud of it.

I am honored to have worked for one of the oldest publications in the United States. The magazine, initially titled "Oil, Paint, and Drug Reporter" and titled "Chemical Marketing Reporter" ("CMR") when I worked there, was first published in 1871. I still laugh at the title of my first position there: Oils, Fats, and Waxes Editor. It was my job to cover such products as castor oil, grease (both yellow AND white), and carnauba wax from an industrial standpoint. I was later promoted to more complex coverage areas: Flavors and Fragrances Editor, then Heavy and Agriculture Chemicals Editor, and then Market Research Editor.

I rank this job as my most favorite job since I became a journalist in 1982 partly because, as I still sometimes jokingly say, it made me appear smarter than I actually was. Also, my groundbreaking story on tung oil as a natural industrial lubricant in its infancy was cited in USDA and EPA governmental reports. My writings were also cited in a university student's doctoral thesis.

While I was working for "CMR," I sent a copy of the magazine to my former university chemistry teacher from the early 1980s with a letter to let him know that I never lost interested in this subject and that chemistry was my professional life at that time. He wrote back, thanking me. He told me that a teacher usually doesn't know how far his influence on his students will go. He also mentioned that he had never heard of tung oil.

Video: Roasted Chestnuts

I created and then uploaded a video onto my YouTube channel of myself making Roasted Chestnuts. For some reason, when I post the link onto Facebook, only about half of the frame can be seen.

The following are the title, the description, and the link to the video:

Recipe: Roasted Chestnuts (Feb. 6, 2022)

I made a video of myself making what's known as Maroni in Austria, Caldarroste/Castagne in Italy, and Roasted Chestnuts in the United States. They are quite delicious.

Here's how I did it:

With a knife, make two cuts in the shape of a cross in each chestnut. Put the chestnuts in a pot of cold water on the stove. Boil them for a couple of minutes. Drain them. Arrange them on a sheet pan with their cut sides up. Roast in a 425-degrees F. oven for 15 to 20 minutes. Cool. Peel. Enjoy.

https://youtu.be/-xRtvFKvc5I

NOTE: If you wish to see the full-screen version, copy the following link, paste it into a browser for my list of videos, and then click on the Roasted Chestnuts video.

https://youtube.com/channel/UC_K6Ge5R1VZnmni4HRt1sZg

Homemade Bread

My wonderful wife made this loaf, using our electric bread machine.

Maroni, Castagne, Chestnuts

I finally got around to making what's known as Maroni in Austria, Caldarroste/Castagne in Italy, and Roasted Chestnuts in the United States. They are quite delicious.

Stew & Pizza

My wonderful wife made stew: beef, potatoes, carrots, sweet peas, fresh onions, and fresh garlic.

For dinner this evening (February 5, 2022), my wonderful wife made this homemade pizza. She used dough that she made this afternoon; and sugo (tomato sauce) that we recently made together. Italian cheeses (Mozzarella, Provolone, Parmesan, Asiago, and Romano) with roasted onions and green bell peppers are on her side. Pepperoni and Provolone cheese are on my side.

Dad, Peter, & Me

Happy 16th wedding anniversary to my wonderful wife. Debbie and I wed on February 4, 2006. Here we are shortly after our marriage ceremony at a small church in Delray Beach, Florida. Personal Trivia: I must admit that when the photographer snapped this photo, I was thinking that Debbie and I were much like Lois and Peter Griffin from the animated TV series "Family Guy" of which I was a huge fan at this time. So, my smile in this photo is my tribute to Peter's smile and also to the smirk that I often saw on the face of my father (1934-1997).

Cutting The Cake(s)

Happy 16th wedding anniversary to my wonderful wife. Here we are, ready to cut into the first of our three chocolate-raspberry cakes at our wedding reception on February 4, 2006. As per tradition, the two of us enjoyed eating the smaller, elevated cake not-so-fresh from the freezer on our first anniversary.

My Wedding Vows

Happy 16th wedding anniversary to my wonderful wife. Here are the self-penned wedding vows that I wrote (during coffee breaks at work) and then recited in front of dear friends and cherished family members in a quaint church in Delray Beach, Florida, on our wedding day on February 4, 2006. The last paragraph of my vows is the Hindu Wedding Prayer. All of these words still ring true but with more intensity today than on our wedding day.

Anniversary Sustenance

On our 16th wedding anniversary today (February 4, 2022), my wife and I invited my mom to our home to celebrate. My wonderful wife constructed this spread of delicious food.

Happy 16th Anniversary

With this video, I hereby profess my love for and my thanks to my wonderful wife on our 16th wedding anniversary.

Happy 16th Wedding Anniversary (Feb. 4, 2022)

https://youtu.be/GXWMo_659Cs

Pasta Shells With Sugo

This early evening (February 1, 2022), my wonderful wife made pasta shells stuffed with ricotta cheese; topped with our homemade Sugo (Italian tomato sauce) that my wife and I recently made; then topped with shredded Italian cheeses (Mozzarella, Provolone, Parmesan, Asiago, and Romano); and then baked. It is one of my favorite Italian dishes.

Highs & Lows of February

February is filled with highs and lows for my wife and me:

4th - our wedding anniversary
4th - my wife's sister's birthday
13th - my father's sister's birthday
14th - my father's mother's birthday
14th - anniversary of my dad's death
14th - anniversary of my wife's grandfather's death
16th - anniversary of my wife's mother's death
25th - my good friend Bryan's birthday
25th - George Harrison's birthday
26th - my birthday
27th - Rainhard Fendrich's birthday (my favorite pop singer)