Ten years ago, I was:     Twenty-eight years old, working at The Orlando Sentinel.     Living in Orlando with my wife and daughter and our first house.     Still a relatively new dad. Kelsey was on the verge of turning two. ...

    Every Feb. 28, Keith and his buddy Pete go out at midnight to celebrate March's arrival with a run. They've never managed to get anyone else to join them.     Until this year. I said yes.     And Cedric said yes.    ...

It's been a seasick kind of week in a few ways. Then I got an email from a guy I only know as someone who bought a copy of Collect All 21 last fall. In part, it said: I loved the book. It took me back to my childhood and made me laugh, smile and even cry. There are tons of books out there about ...

    I've been itching for a full-on convention experience for too long.     Star Wars Celebration III in Indianapolis marked the last time I went and stayed and dove head-on into a multi-day rush of general geekery and crowds of fandom. Couldn't make Celeb...

Last night, we had a brief hiccup regarding the newly-dominant Linux systems in our house. I needed to check a particular detail regarding a paycheck. Problem? The corporate site I needed is accessible only to users of a specific browser, which two of our machines now lack. (Am I being paranoid in n...

So, the Booth Ubuntu Linux switchover is complete, though not completely spit-shined yet, but ... dude. This is freaking AWESOME and the overall experience has been way easier and smoother than I had anticipated. Background: We've been a Windows family with every computer we've had, mostly f...

Besides being a hell of a photographer, Jim Carchidi is also a football fan, and having the Super Bowl just down the road from Orlando was too much to resist. He and his brother (lifelong Philly fans, for the record) spent the day before the game hanging out and soaking up the NFL Experience - Fires...

Twice a week, I pick my daughter up from gymnastics practice, along with one of her best friends, whom we drop off at her house on our way home for dinner. These two have been best friends since preschool, and they’re now middle-school sixth-graders. (I’ve always thought it’s kind of neat that...

Look, I love The Karate Kid. Can't help it. I'm a child of the '80s, and a celebrator of all its cheese pop wonder, and Daniel LaRusso delivering the Crane Kick to that dickhead Johnny Lawrence is right up there with Vader heaving the Emperor down into the Death Star's core. Part of ...

There are a few very kind reviews of "Collect All 21!" on its Amazon page that give me gut butterflies because they make me feel like I've accomplished a big part of what I wanted to do. Check it out: "Over the years, I'd forgotten so much from my youth...until I read 'Col...