At Home

By Bruce Sallan
Be the first to comment. »


“Jingle Bells, Daddy smells.
Daddy poops on rocks!”
My three-year-old comedian thinks this joke is hilarious. I usually roll my eyes and remind my son that his take on the Christmas classic isn’t funny. My critique doesn’t seem to matter. I’m treated to about a dozen zingers about pee-pee, poop, and toots every day.
Don’t get me wrong. [...]

As a dad, I have found that one of the greatest temptations is to provide FOR my family at the expense of time WITH them.
It is so easy to do. Especially if this was modeled to us by our own father.
As men, we have a tendency to connect our identity with such things as our [...]

Do you want to know the one food that has all you need to build lean muscle and burn bodyfat? Oh yeah, and it tastes great AND is easy to prepare!
Your mother always told you to “eat your breakfast,” it’s the most important meal of the day!” Well, your Mom was right… again.
Just think [...]

The parents of every generation expect and hope that their children can and will do better than they did. Ours may be the first generation, in a very long while, where it is both unlikely and unrealistic to have this expectation. The world has just gotten much more complicated, much harder, [...]

There’s a lot of attention on the economy right now and the difficult times we’re in – and many people are worrying and preoccupied with their finances and economic struggles. This type of stress can take its toll on you and your relationships. For you and your significant other, it’s [...]

I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember. It started one fateful evening when my family went out to dinner and there was this new machine at the restaurant, and it wasn’t a pinball machine. It had two long blocks and the goal was to knock the smaller block past the [...]

Many a man — and woman — have spent more time in the master bathroom than in the kitchen.
That’s why the latest market for computerized home gadgetry is a dream come true. What was once a simple bathroom can now be transformed into a high-tech oasis with a shower that remembers your preferred water [...]

I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember. It started one fateful evening when my family went out to dinner and there was this new machine at the restaurant, and it wasn’t a pinball machine. It had two long blocks and the goal was to knock the smaller block past the [...]

In the television world, no show, no matter how original and smart is completely safe. Some of my favorite shows of all time have been cast into the awful world of cancellation. From the hilarious and poignant Freaks and Geeks, to the over-the-top (and apparently over people’s head) intelligent humor of Arrested Development to the [...]

Heading into the Olympics, the United States men’s hockey team didn’t really get a lot of respect. The Yanks were ranked far below the likes of Canada, Russia and Sweden and just below Finland and the Czech Republic. With a very young and inexperienced squad, not much was expected from this group by [...]

For those of us in the northeast, it may seem like winter is not even remotely close to ending. But, the first day of spring is March 20th, also known as the Vernal or March Equinox. It is now less than a month until spring technically begins. What styles of beer is spring known for? [...]

The scene: Four parents sitting at a cocktail table drinking a beer and munching on chips with salsa. The board game is splayed out in front of us. The category is “vehicles.” One parent shouts out, “bus.” Another parent states firmly, “airplane.” Sounds like another boring game night of Pictionary, right?
The “builder” continues to plug [...]

Some of you may be thinking, “Dr. E…, you’ve got that all wrong. It’s supposed to be ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.” Well let me tell you all, we’ve got trouble… right here in River City…with a capital T that rhymes with P… (sorry, I digress). But seriously, we do have [...]

The dawning of a new year prompts many people to take a fresh look at their annual budget, and what they’ll find is that auto insurance costs are substantial. Even after that revelation many people just grin and bear it, but a larger number of people are now spending more time searching for better insurance [...]

Orthodontists and College. No two words scare me more since each involves kids and significant amounts of money.
But college is the scarier word. Orthodontia might or might not be required, but if the kids are going to have a leg up in the world, then some form of higher education will be required.

Talking to children about tragedy is a job most parents would love to avoid. If only our children did not need to hear about things like this week’s devastating earthquake in Haiti. But they do hear. And they are full of questions: Could this happen to me? What’s going to happen to the children? Can [...]

One thing auto industry veterans will tell you is they never saw a year like 2009 … and they never want to see another one like it. The year included the seemingly unthinkable: bankruptcy for General Motors. And as an added fillip, Chrysler went bankrupt too and was rescued by the unlikely combination of the [...]

Bye-bye, Aughts — don’t let the door hit you in the ’00s on your way out.
True, there were all those years of economic euphoria. Only thing is — like that classic sitcom Seinfeld — they were based on nothing. As a result, the United States is stumbling into the Tweens with a full-on nasty hangover [...]