It was, no doubt, a strange way to end four years of college for this year's graduates. With formal commencement exercises canceled, Villanova put on a virtual graduation ceremony. And it was wonderful. Here are some screenshots of the ceremony which was broadcast live yesterday afternoon. The top photo is of our President, Father Peter … Continue reading Villanova’s Wonderful Virtual Graduation
I've heard of researchers studying Twitter feeds to get their fingers on the pulse of current events. Well now maybe we can use music to do the same thing. OnBuy.com, a UK-based online marketplace, recently completed some interesting analysis to determine the most popular lockdown songs on Spotify. The words 'Coronavirus', 'COVID-19', 'lockdown', and 'quarantine' … Continue reading So What Music Are You Listening to During the Lockdown?
Way back in 1999, Budweiser came out with one of its classic commercials - the "WASSUP!!" commercial. It featured a bunch of friends just calling each other and asking what they were up to, to which they replied, "watching the game, having a Bud". The ad debuted on Monday Night Football in December 1999 and … Continue reading Just Watching the Jordan Doc, Having a Bud
It is a challenging time for higher education, with most schools having closed their campuses this Spring and switched to an online teaching format. In addition, many schools have canceled all on-campus events for this summer. And there is tremendous uncertainty as to what will happen come the Fall semester. My employer, Villanova University, has … Continue reading Thank You, Villanova
One of the benefits of having owned a gym for a few years was that when I decided to close it down in 2010, I was able to take some of the equipment home with me. One of the pieces I kept was a Life Fitness recumbent bike. I'd been an avid user of such … Continue reading This Was Worse Than If My WordPress Stats Stopped Working
Tiny Desk Concerts is a video series of live concerts hosted by NPR Music at the desk of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen in Washington, D.C. The first Tiny Desk Concert came about in 2008 after Boilen and NPR Music editor Stephen Thompson left a bar show frustrated that they couldn't hear the music over the crowd noise. Thompson joked that the musician, folk singer Laura Gibson, … Continue reading Music Monday: At Home with John Fogerty
This post was inspired by fellow blogger Michael Kuch, who asked his readers today to respond to a series of questions as a way to get to know each other. One of the questions was "Your Favorite Toy as a Child". My kneejerk response was "Matchbox" toy cars, probably influenced by Michael's answer of Hot … Continue reading This Was One of the Coolest Toys I Had as a Kid
Steve Jobs famously said in his Stanford graduation speech: "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let … Continue reading Everything in My Life Has Led to This Moment
It was a mid-afternoon, early evening snack that oftentimes ended up being my dinner for the day when we stayed in London a couple of years ago. Of course, I'm talking about beer and french fries (or chips as they call them in England). I know french fries aren't the healthiest food in the world, … Continue reading I Think I May Need to Move to Belgium for a While
Note: this is an update to a post from five years ago... Date: April 28, 1978. Place: a college party at Lake Valhalla, East Stroudsburg, PA It started off like many other Friday nights in college, heading out to a party with friends. Who would have known that by the end of the evening, my … Continue reading The Day That Changed My Life
Borden's Blather 