The Pioneer Press’ shiny-new HQ across the river from downtown St. Paul has many sweet amenities, including an outdoor patio with a spectacular view of the city skyline.

So, when KARE 11 asked to interview me, I thought the patio would be the perfect place to do this. I was right.

Cameraman Nicholas Petersen did an awesome job of capturing the the patio’s visual allure using his two cameras. More …

When Esme Murphy of WCCO-TV last week invited me to appear on her Sunday news show for Father’s Day tech-gift picks, she couldn’t know what a horrific day it would turn out to be.

My live segment, naturally, got preempted along with all the rest of Esme’s Sunday Morning line-up. She did record my segment for later use, though.

My wife has been dropping a small fortune on garden ornaments in the shapes of animals, fairies and the like for a reason: The younger neighborhood children are nuts about them.

She has created a veritable civilization of ceramic beings that are scattered throughout a lovely curbside garden she maintains. Tots with their parents often traverse the adjacent sidewalk outside our house, and the kids never fail to pause and excitedly examine what to them are wondrous, magical toys. More …

Long ago, when working in Washington, D.C. at one of my first journalism jobs, I was a bicycle commuter.

Thirty-six years ago this winter, a Catholic young man living in San Juan, P.R., took a leap of faith and — sight unseen — chose a secluded, wooded Benedictine campus in a faraway land called “Minnesota” as his home for the following four years.

It was the best decision of my life (up to that point; meeting and marrying a certain green-eyed woman now tops the list). More …

Ralph the Toddler and I crossed paths for the first (and, so far, only) time at a Minneapolis backyard party last summer.

The little dude was impossible to miss: He nonchalantly picked up a garden hose, engaged the trigger, and proceeded to spray the adult attendees for several seconds until someone frantically intervened.

It was awesome.

Now think about an entire book filled with such awesomeness. More …

I love to read and I’ve lately been disgusted with myself for not doing more of it.

I am talking about reading books, specifically, and I’ve been feeling tortured about the backlog of unread volumes in my bookcases.

So, this year, I vowed to get caught up. What’s more, I set a goal for myself of reading 200 books this year. More …

As a palm tree-worshipping Puerto Rican, I am not crazy about Minnesota winters … but this bitter season does sometimes trigger fond memories.

It was during a deep-freeze January that my wife, son and I moved into our current St. Paul home, which turned out to be one of the best decisions of our lives.

“That was five years ago, right?” More …

Book day was perhaps my happiest time in grade school, when I was so awkward and shy I was all but unable to make friends. Books were my buddies.

On book day, boxfuls of Scholastic Corporation volumes arrived to much rejoicing all around. The tomes I had painstakingly selected and ordered were at last in my possession, often with profound effects that linger to this day. More …

I just got back from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (on my birthday, no less) and I’m unprepared to render a final verdict.

I have to let this one percolate for a while, as with other films that feature treasured pop-culture icons like “Star Trek” and Superman. In fact, I will need to go see the new “Star Wars” movie at least once more, maybe twice. More …

I made another of my periodic guest-host appearances on the Minnov8 Gang Podcast with Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Phil Wilson and Steve Borsch … who, as per usual, are a bunch of weisenheimers.