The Super-Human Handyman

Bigger than a dinosaur. Faster than DSL. Able to knock down tall buildings with a single blow. Cera The Bull chuckles, and the room shakes. These things that people say about him may be a slight exaggeration. But be careful; they may be true. Let’s try not to put it to the test. Sead Cerovic, aka Cera The Bull, is indeed a big guy. His 6-foot-2 frame stands on 240 pounds of monumental muscle. With his Popeye arms, piercing blue-grey eyes, long, straggly jet-black hair and earring, he looks…

Continue Reading →

The Girl Fumi Fell For

The black lacquer coffee table is covered with a piece of chocolate-brown burlap. Boxes of vintage buttons and beads are scattered about. Asami Hotta, cheerleader cute, kicks off her flip-flips and flips her long dark hair behind her head. Seated on a brown-leather footstool, she picks up a petite pair of pliers, and with the skill of a neurosurgeon, starts turning the bits into a piece of one-of-a-kind costume jewelry. “I love antique things,” she says, unscrewing the lid of a jam jar…

Continue Reading →

The Trespassing Teens

My friends in Connecticut always talk about the wildlife that raids their yard. Deer, rabbits, moles and foxes — this is the city, I don’t have to contend with such pedestrian pests. Every weekday from September to May, my small patch of property is overrun with none other than the Trespassing Teens. There is a Catholic high school whose back faces my back yard, and when the school bell utters its shrill ear-splitting peal every afternoon, the Trespassing Teens, traveling in packs of…

Continue Reading →

The Homemade Food Blogger

“The biggest thing about cooking is the story about it,” says Bradley O’Bryan Hawks. “The story always makes the food taste better.” In his case, the story — the spice or slice of life — starts a little more than three decades ago in the half-teaspoon Midwest white-bread town of Wanamaker, Ind. Wanamaker had only one stop light, but there were lots of corn fields and farms. Bradley’s mother taught high school home economics, and his daddy was a high…

Continue Reading →