It wasn't the notorious Russian flu of 1889, but it was Russian, and it was a flu, and it hit me in the middle of the night halfway through my trip to Moscow. I first assumed that it was food poisoning. Earlier in the night, six colleagues and I went to what was billed as a trendy retro Soviet-styled canteen called Stolovaya No. 57. Evidently, retro Soviet-themed restaurants are popular in Moscow the way I suppose that '50's style diners are popular in America except instead of burgers, fries and milkshakes, they served goulash, borsch and watered-down cranberry juice. (Come to think of it, I saw several 1950s American-style diners around Moscow, too.) It was more than a little ironic that the restaurant was housed in a fancy shopping mall surrounded by expensive high-end stores. It made me wish I had time to visit Lenin's mausoleum to see if he was spinning or not.

As Jim Anchower from The Onion would say: "I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but a lot of shit's been going down in Jim's part of town."

While trying to come up with a display for Deborah's jewelry trade show booth at the Buyer's Market of American Craft in Philadelphia last weekend, we struggled to keep costs down by using whatever we had on hand. Our teaj dining room table, although heavy and hard to move, was the perfect size. But since we were planning to throw the wooden table, along with an assortment of other display materials -- lights, a rug, and so on -- in the back of my open bed pickup truck, we were reliant on a decent weather report.

Deborah and Signe were both doing well selling their creations at the BUST Magazine Craftacular in SoHo yesterday, and neither of them wanted to risk losing a sale by leaving their booth, so shortly after I arrived to visit, I offered to get them lunch. Although the Craftacular is billed as a "craft and food fair," the only vendor I could find that wasn't selling cupcakes, cookies, or other chocolaty snacks was a booth selling meatballs. "Mother's Balls" they were called. Neither Deborah nor Signe wanted a sandwich, so I got them each an order of what was listed on the menu as "Just the Balls." Funny, I suppose, but slightly awkward to order.

When the loosely organized local vintage motorcycle community, of which I am a loosely organized member, got word that the critically acclaimed British documentary TT3D: Closer to the Edge about the infamous Isle of Man Tourist Trophy motorcycle races was going to have a short run at a Manhattan movie theater, the group made plans to see it. When, for some reason, the theater pulled the movie from its schedule, Corinna, who runs the weekly moto-themed movie night Cine Meccanica at Otto's Shrunken Head, took it upon herself to make it happen anyway, DIY style.

I have a theory. I actually have a lot of theories, but most are best kept secret. This one is based upon what I think is a generally accepted scientific belief, but since Science is always updating and refining these things, I may be behind the times. But so what, this isn't my PhD thesis.

As has become the custom in recent years, my family met at my sister's house in scenic Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving dinner. Aside from rare quality time with my family, a highlight of any visit to my sister’s house is poking around to see what my sister's de facto husband, Dan, has been up to lately.

Well over a year ago, I did a freelance gig for a production company that was contracted by Radio City Music Hall to create video set elements for the legendary <i>Radio City Christmas Spectacular</i> (Now in its 79th year!). I worked a solid three months in the sweltering heat of the summer creating animatics for a wintery North Pole scene featuring candy and elves and snow, and presents.

Behold my explosion.

No, that’s not a picture of me. Not even close. After arriving home with a broken shoulder from Flat-track racing school, Deborah wasn't keen on allowing me to pursue the venture any further. She didn't want me riding a motorcycle at all, and racing? "No way!" But yesterday I convinced her to come with me to watch a few friends race at an upstate speedway.

"Are you going to the reunion?" I asked Mark, a co-worker who was in my graduating class at RISD. We didn't know each other in school, but we've gotten to know each other over the years while freelancing for a few of the same companies.

A mere 10 miles from our apartment, but worlds away, lies Fort Tilden Park, a former military installation now hidden in the dunes and overgrown with wildflowers.

Home-made guitar project complete. Well, nearly so. There are a few details left to address, but I spent the morning with a soldering gun and a screwdriver until I was finally ready to string it up, plug it in, and let 'er rip.

There's a silver statue of Andy Warhol in Union Square. It's temporary as far as I can tell, but if you ask me, they should install it there permanently.

What have I been doing, you ask? Well, I haven't been writing, obviously. Or maybe it's not so obvious. My mother asked me if I was hard at work on my second novel. Since I hadn't been writing on my blog, she imagined me holed up in my apartment, feverishly writing thousands of words a day -- perhaps surrounded by balls of crumpled paper like in the movies -- closing in on the denouement. She sounded disappointed when I told her no.

I once posted a photograph of a flyer I saw taped to a lamp post advertising paints, canvases, easels, and so on. The top of the flyer read: "Giving up on my art career sale."

After meeting our friends Jason and Erika for brunch, we all decided to see The Black Swan at what has been called the most hated movie theater in all of New York City: The Park Slope Pavilion.

I was back at work yesterday after an unplanned stay in a New Jersey hotel due to being snowed off the road on the way home from western PA. (The hotel was straight out of The Shining, and I'll tell you about it later.)

Jason bought a used van over the summer. To say it's used is a bit of an understatement. It's a rusty old thing that whistles, rattles, and jerks in a haze of exhaust as it careens down the highway with a blur of asphalt rushing past the rusted-out holes in the floor.