Pity New Jersey.  The state has an identity crisis, overshadowed by New York.  It’s the rear end of constant jokes.  Television gave it plenty of exposure—thanks to The Sopranos.  Its politicians always get caught up in corruption scandals, including the one last week that even ensnared some rabbis!  But there’s more to Jersey than the [...]

Starting today, we will have a There’s a Place! segment, featuring reviews of restaurants and cafés that are—or are working on—using organic or local ingredients, as well as incorporating sustainable business practices. Recently I spent the day with Ara as he had knee surgery and was unable to drive.  Dehydrated, hungry, and groggy, he suggested [...]

Today a UK study questioning the nutritional value of organic food made the newswires, and of course, sparked debate on the radio waves.  The study involved parsing through 50 years of research papers, zoomed in on 162 papers that compared the nutritional value of organic and conventional foods, and concluded, “the Bush administration had it [...]

Let’s face it:  95% of us have at least one pair of Crocs or at one point we were dying to have a pair.  The other 5% of us are liars. Crocs were all the rage just a few years ago.  Once relegated to boaters, professionals like nurses who were on their feet all day, [...]

I recently made a quick trip to Silicon Valley to say goodbye to a very special man in my life, Robert Gomez.  Mr. Gomez was a music teacher for almost 40 years, and most of his career was spent at Cupertino High School.  He was a man of family, community, and of course, music.   [...]

I just returned from a quick trip to the Bay Area, and on Friday morning, as my mother was driving me down I-280 from the CA-85 interchange, a gateway to Cupertino, I suddenly saw a stunning white cable bridge spanning the highway.  It reminded me of similar bridges I’ve seen around the world, from Buenos [...]

Some Albanians even think the bunkers dating from Hoxha’s regime should stay, and therefore oppose erasing this chapter in their history, even if it had been a bleak period.  And one entrepreneur even turned one into a bistro.  Tourists, meanwhile, are often curious about odd little domes.

My dear friend in Ottawa announced several weeks back—on Facebook—that she had bought a dual flush toilet.  I remember seeing these all over East Asia, especially in Korea and Japan.  It makes sense, right?  Smaller flush for #1, and well, a bigger flush.  That’s actually how I figured out the Chinese characters for “big” and [...]