Renovating the ancestral villa

Written by Joe Pisani
Friday, 15 January 2010 12:02

A friend of a friend of a friend — or something like that — had a relative with lots of money, so much money he was ranked as one of the top 500 executives in the world, or maybe it was one of the top 500 executives in South Jersey.

He was clearly a force to be reckoned with when it came to the time-honored tradition of making money.

While she was at lunch with him and his wife, she spent the greater part of the afternoon listening to them talk about success — his successes, their mutual successes, the successes of their children and their upcoming successes. That’s a lot of success to endure. Needless to say, it made for a tremendously boring lunch, listening to them brag nonstop.

Restoring pride to ‘Made in America’ label

Written by Joe Pasani
Friday, 08 January 2010 12:10

Traveling on the train through Fairfield County, you’ll pass the steel and glass headquarters for RBS and UBS. You’ll also see the vestiges of a manufacturing era characterized by hard work and Yankee ingenuity, which produced the world’s finest products — firearms, typewriters, locks, sewing machines and many other things.

Cities like Bridgeport, Norwalk and Stamford were once centers of manufacturing that sent goods worldwide.

Many of the brick factories, which stretched for city blocks, are vacant and dilapidated. Others have been renovated into artists’ enclaves, office buildings and condos.

A new spin on resolving to improve

Written by Joe Pisani
Monday, 28 December 2009 13:01

Every year right about now I vow I’m going to change. There will be a new and improved me. I’ll adopt a positive outlook on life. I’ll get a trendy hairstyle and comb the few strands I have left over the top of my head. I’ll even start taking multivitamins — the Flintstone brand.

Going forward, things will be different. Today will be the first day of the rest of my life, however long or short it may be.

But every year, it’s back to business as usual after a week or two. I suspect I’m not alone in this lack of resolve when it comes to making improvements in my personality and lifestyle. Although I realize there are a lot of opportunities for changes, I’ve been vowing to make them for about 30 years with little success. And yet I’ve changed in ways large and small, but not necessarily for the better.

An unexpected gift on Christmas Eve

Written by Joe Pisani
Monday, 21 December 2009 10:49

A few months before Christmas, my father and I had a bitter argument about my mother, who was dying of cancer and had Alzheimer’s. I got so angry I stopped calling and visiting him.

Our family always had Sunday dinner at my parents’ house, where my four daughters would spend the afternoon watching cable TV, reading my mother’s Star magazine, eating Twinkies, and doing everything we never let them do. But we hadn’t gone there in weeks.

On Christmas Eve, we were driving to New Hampshire and decided to drop off my parents’ gifts before we left. I didn’t want to go in the house, but knew I had to.

Craving peace while getting stuff

Written by Joe Pisani
Tuesday, 15 December 2009 10:01

Every December for 40 years, we asked my father, “What do you want for Christmas, Dad?” and every December for 40 years he promptly responded, “Peace and quiet.”

He said he had everything he needed and didn’t need anything else. No shirts, no sweaters, no tools, no toys. “Save your money,” he advised us.

Sooner or later, we all reach that self-satisfied stage in life — sort of like materialistic Nirvana — but I’m not there yet, which means to say I’ve already sent my two-page list to Santa, and he better deliver ... or else.

Our family generally viewed my father’s holiday sarcasm as the eccentric behavior of a 20th century Scrooge. It was his cranky way of telling us, “Keep it quiet while I’m doing my crossword puzzles” or “Make sure those noisy grandkids don’t visit too long” or “Stop nagging me.”

Visions of livestock dance in his head

Written by Joe Pisani
Monday, 07 December 2009 16:58

Last week I was happier than the guy who won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes and moved to the Samoan Islands, where women in grass skirts served him piña coladas and strummed on ukuleles.

When I opened the mailbox — nestled among the bills and beneath even more bills — was my passport to freedom, the first piece of mail to excite me since 1999 when I got a refund from the IRS, which I promptly used to pay my taxes to the state of Connecticut.

Curled up in the box was a magazine I’ve been dreaming about. Not “Maxim,” I’m too old; not “The Atlantic,” I’m too shallow; not “Martha Stewart Living,” I’m too low-class.

A simple solution to password perplexity

Written by Joe Pisani
Monday, 07 December 2009 16:55

My life almost came to a screeching halt when I forgot the password to my 401(k) — largely because I’ve avoided looking at the dismal results for the past year and eliminated the word “retirement” from my vocabulary.

Then, I forgot the password to my Verizon voice mail — largely because I hate voice mail and never check it, which meant my mailbox was full and my wife couldn’t leave me a message complaining about my credit card bill, and my daughter couldn’t beg me to change her oil.

I also forgot the password to my AOL dial-up account — largely because dial-up ended a century ago, and I never canceled it.

One way to keep from going extinct

Written by Joe Pisani
Monday, 07 December 2009 16:52

Maybe because I have thousands of books stored in a barn in New Hampshire, or maybe because I have hundreds more at home, piled on the floor and stacked perilously high on my nightstand about to topple, or maybe because I just wanted to be cool, I did the unthinkable — at least the “unthinkable” for a dinosaur who loves the smell and feel of paper.

In a moment of temporary insanity, I bought an “e-book reader,” one of those high-tech electronic gadgets where sentences magically appear on a screen, and there are no pages to turn. And if I’m really lazy, it will read to me in a voice that sounds a little like a Munchkin on heavy medication.

Out of every pain comes some good

Written by Joe Pisani
Monday, 07 December 2009 16:50

On a tour boat traveling across Lake Winnipesaukee on a beautiful autumn afternoon, the kind of day you wish would last forever, I found myself sitting beside a middle-aged woman glued to her cell phone with the painful intensity of someone about to get test results from her doctor.

While everyone else was enthralled by the waterfront mansions, she was sequestered in a corner, talking in a loud voice that even the churning of the engines couldn’t drown out.

It was the kind of conversation I hear from time to time on Metro-North when people shamelessly broadcast their personal problems for everyone to share.

Avalanche of e-mails keeps on growing

Written by Joe Pisani
Monday, 09 November 2009 18:31

While I was waiting in line at the information desk of Barnes and Noble, a clerk told the woman in front of me, “I’ll contact you when the book comes in. What’s your e-mail address?”

There was a moment’s pause before she responded, “I don’t have an e-mail address.”

The young man looked up quizzically. This was like telling the mothers in the carpool, “I don’t have a driver’s license.” It was totally out of the ordinary in the post-modern technological era when people put their whole lives, including their police records and sexual preferences, on Facebook for the entire world to see.

To confirm this eccentricity, the woman, who looked about 40-something, shook her head “no.”