Tom Faranda's Folly

Wow. Tom Petty gone after a sudden cardiac arrest.  I always liked this song and a couple of his others. He would have been 67 on October 20th.

UPDATE: The Daily Mail (UK) coverage – Playboy founder Hugh Hefner dies of natural causes aged 91 surrounded by loved ones at his infamous $100million Beverly Hills mansion He was 91. Founder of Playboy and "deep thinker" for The Playboy Philosophy. Quickly stated – you can do anything you want as long as it doesn't … Read more

Is Apple! Despite having been not around for that long.  It edged ahead of ExxonMobil this year. See the very interesting chart and the text from this NY Times Business Section article. Well worth hitting the link for the complete article, but excerpts below – The iPhone helped to catapult Apple into its position as … Read more

45 years as a Deacon.

Of course one of the all-time popular Saints – a great mystic. his Feast Day is October 4th and I came across a novena to him that begins on September 25th. It's going on my calendar. Starting on September 25 and ending on October 3, Pat McCloskey, OFM, Franciscan Editor of St. Anthony Messenger and the author … Read more

Brigid and I had done this a couple of years ago (actually in 2011 – hard to believe!) with Brigid’s niece June and her husband Andrew. Go here. This time with the Riner & Cannon contingents yesterday. Total walk on a totally flat surface with great views in ideal weather – just over 3 miles. … Read more

Apparitions! An interesting & difficult topic. This is from The Washington Post, so no pay wall. Excerpts below the link. The Faranda family guru, the late Fr. Benedict Groeschel, would appreciate this. Father Laurentin, a French theologian who died Sept. 10 at 99, was perhaps Catholicism’s preeminent scholar of contemporary miracles and Marian apparitions. A … Read more

Today is the 230th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution. Many Americans are poorly informed about basic constitutional provisions, according to a new national survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center.     The annual Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey finds that: More than half of Americans (53 percent) incorrectly think it is accurate to say … Read more

The new place in "downtown" Croton-on-Hudson. Brigid  & I ate there on a Saturday night a couple of days after it opened. Good food but slow service – which I expect they'll fix, if they haven't already. Here's LoHud's take – Fratelli's Trattoria offers northern Italian cuisine in Croton-on-Hudson The eatery, which he said specializes … Read more

I hate today. Below is a posting I first put up in 2006. Tommy should be 46. I knew seven people killed on 9/11. But I only knew one of them real well. I knew Tom Knox ("Tommy") because I coached him for five years at the North Jersey Rugby Club. He was a great … Read more