Season 16 The Amazing Race: On Your Mark . . .

Next Sunday marks the start of Season 16 of The Amazing Race. Will it be a love-fest or just another Valentine's Day?
Check out this season's racers now on cbs.com. How many cliches can you find in the cast of characters?
The producers have cast a team of lesbians, a team of cowboys, and a team of cops. Lesbians are the logical next step after last season's gay brothers. Any one hoping the cops will go rogue?
Several good candidates vie for the next Bickersons. My money is on the wife who said she will have a hard time not blaming her husband if they lose. However, the brother team who admit to infighting might get the nod. Last season's bickering brothers came in second, but I maintain that fighting is a team's biggest downfall (besides being completely unathletic).
This season brings a few recognizable names, but none who rank even as high as Kathy Griffin's D-list. Most notably, we have the unfortunate Miss Teen South Carolina who strung a bunch of words together in response to a question about finding America on a map. Hope she reads maps better than she explains them. Train wreck fans will be watching closely for her intellectual blunders. She, no doubt, is hoping for redemption.
The Miss Teen America contestant is the exaggerated version of last season's pretty blonde with the plastic swimming floaters on her arms. The couple that were former Big Brother Season 11 contestants is the latest iteration of Rob and Amber.
For baseball fans, we have a coach from the Cleveland Indians and his daughter.
Despite the cliches and the attempts to kick each season up a notch, I will be glued to the set next Sunday and every Sunday after, racing vicariously with teams and hitting the mat to face Phil.

Winter in Battery Park City, New York

Down in Battery Park City, as in much of downtown Manhattan, the wind is on steroids. Strong, and stoked by tall buildings and narrow streets, the winter wind saves its best work for west of the big highway where the Hudson River adds its two bucks.
On any given day, the air feels at least ten degrees colder in Battery Park City, especially in seasons where you need every degree on the your side of the tote board.
The wind whistles through spaces in the windows of our 18th floor apartment; it pounds on our walls and makes us huddle close to the space heater and under a comforter on the couch.
This brutality is payment for the beautiful summers down here when Battery Park City is spared the sweltering stench of the rest of Manhattan, where the same tall buildings create oven walls to contain the heat.
The Hudson River relents, and the mad, mad space makes you close your eyes and spin around without knocking anyone over. Among the joys of summer: The Esplanade, Rockefeller Park, and the North Cove where the yachts are moored, the World Financial Center Plaza where PJ Clarke's and South West have hundreds of outside tables, the fountains, and the places where you can just sit outside, undisturbed.
I count the days until March when I get my annual reminder that March is still a winter month. Okay, I'll count til April then, which for some is the "cruelest month," but not for me!

New Year's Day: The Philadelphia Mummers

photo by Max Lang

New Year's Day holds many traditions for those who wake up intact on the difficult first day of January. Besides football games and polar bear swims, there is a tradition that I have yet to witness, in the land of my in-laws, the Philadelphia Mummers Parade.
The Mummers have a rich and colorful history. The five divisions of the Mummers are: Comics, Wench Brigade, Fancies, String Bands and Fancy Brigades. I can divide my friends and acquaintances into similar divisions, but will never commit those assignments to paper.

Whatever you are doing this first day of the new decade: whether you're sleeping it off; inhaling fat, salt and grease at your local diner or four-star brunch restaurant; toweling off from a dip in Lake Michigan or partaking in other New Year's Day festivities, enjoy!

Travel 2009: A Year for the Home Fires

Tonight, people will say goodbye to 2009. Don't let the door hit you in the ass.
A tough year in many respects, 2009 was a year to stay relatively close to home. Many of us, despite the wanderlust in our hearts, did just that.
The stay-cation became an accepted norm. In New York, the stay-cation is no raw deal. People pay good money to get here; we don't have to sink the airfare or hotel cost to see a Broadway show or visit the Met.
In more certain times, we take one big trip out of the country and several domestic trips every year. But we only left the borders of the city a couple of times, though we did reach the left coast once.
The moment my job was assured, we spent a week in California, driving down Highway 101 and spending some time in both endcaps, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
In August, we went to Milwaukee for a week, since we skipped it in 2008 in favor of Austin. Milwaukee is my adopted hometown and 2009 was a year for going home.
Not everyone confined themselves to the continental US. Good friends went to Turkey and Greece, another just headed to India.
Where, if anywhere, did you go in 2009?