Memoir of a Real Life Archives

Lessons From Failure Of Burning Barn Productions Unlock Success Rules That Drive You Forward (Part II)

By Chris Carosa on April 15, 2025

Inspired by such classic films as The Battle of the Bulge, Burning Barn Products reached its peak with the release of The Battle of Dortmund Circle. Still from the movie.

As revealed previously, (see “Lessons From Failure Of Burning Barn Productions Unlock Success Rules That Drive You Forward (Part I),” Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, April 10, 2025), we couldn’t move forward towards success without understanding the initial lesson. After learning our first success rule—get one ally before rallying the group—we were ready to turn dreams into movies. Convincing your peers to jump into the unknown isn’t easy. That’s what my brother Kenny and I faced when our neighborhood film making ambitions took off.

With my brother backing me, it was easy to convince the other boys to go along.

Hmm, maybe not that easy. There were initially too many objections. Remember, we were Continue Reading “Lessons From Failure Of Burning Barn Productions Unlock Success Rules That Drive You Forward (Part II)”

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged 1973, Alien, Ask Big Or Go Home, Battle of Dortmund Circle, Battle of the Bulge, Bigger Better Be Better, Bruce, Burning Barn Productions, carnival, Chili, Chili Avenue, Clint Eastwood, Dad, David, Dortmund Circle, Estes rockets, failure, Feed Their Imagination, Jack, Kenny, movie, Mr. Voegtle, NASA, Novelty Excites, operation sandtrap, Peter Principle, Proof Beats Doubt, robot, sci-fi, Stick to Your Strengths, success, tank, Twilight Zone, World War II

Lessons From Failure Of Burning Barn Productions Unlock Success Rules That Drive You Forward (Part I)

By Chris Carosa on April 8, 2025

The sun shone brightly in this opening still from 1973’s surprise hit Operation Sandtrap

Admit it. You’ve never heard of Burning Barn Productions—and frankly, why would you? It never made the Oscars. Heck, it never even made VHS. But its epic failure holds the keys to your next big win—because sometimes the lessons hidden in our disasters burn brighter than our successes ever could.

More likely, you looked at the title and instantly thought, “What is Burning Barn Productions?” You couldn’t care less about it failing—companies fail all the time—you just wanted to know if it produced movies or television shows. You were curious if you’d ever seen one of their productions.

Chances are, and I can almost guarantee this, you never saw either of the two movies that made it out of the production room. Yes, they were shown to live audiences, but if you’re Continue Reading “Lessons From Failure Of Burning Barn Productions Unlock Success Rules That Drive You Forward (Part I)”

Posted in Business Tips, Memoir of a Real Life Tagged 1973, Battle of Dortmund Circle, Bruce, Burning Barn Productions, carnival, Chili, Dad, David, Dortmund Circle, failure, Jack, Kenny, movie, Mr. Voegtle, operation sandtrap, success, tank, The Godfather, The Wingman Principle, Treehouse Club, World War II

The Art Of The Segue

By Chris Carosa on April 1, 2025

“Wow!” I said. “This makes segueing so much easier!”

My confused hosts shot a quick glance at each other before chiming as one, “What’s segueing?”

A lot had changed in forty years. Apparently more than I thought.

Everything was different—even the location. No longer was it housed in a dilapidated carcass of an old hall with its aging hardwood floors that echoed when you walked on them. Today, the Continue Reading “The Art Of The Segue”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Abbey Road medley, Alumni, AM 660, dead air, deep cut, diskjockey, DJ, Led Zepplin, NPR, records, Reunion, segue, Spotify, The Beatles, The Who, Top 40, vinyl, WYBC, Yale

Save The Barns: Why RG&E’s Upgrade On Canfield Road Shouldn’t Undermine Mendon’s Rural Heritage

By Chris Carosa on March 18, 2025

In the last few years, I’ve perused old texts covering the Town of Mendon. I find the words useful for research. The pictures, however, captivate me. They allow me to effortlessly go back in time and immerse myself in the bucolic beauty of the town I call home. It’s like a time machine. Diving into those pictures gives me the feeling of tranquil bliss.

I didn’t know about these historic books thirty-odd years ago when I served on the Mendon Town Board. No doubt others, wiser than me, did. Despite my naivete, I played a role (albeit a minor one) in realizing a modern-day homage to those pleasant nineteenth century illustrations.

And you can experience the fruits of that realization every time you drive down Route 64 from Pittsford into the Town of Mendon. Just north of the Thruway bridge, look to the west on Canfield Road. You’ll see a peaceful array of agricultural buildings straight out of the late 1800s. As you pass it, if you think about it at all, you think, “That’s so… appropriate.”

Now, imagine that same spot occupied by an industrial eyesore of steel pipes and smokestacks oozing white clouds. Very shortly, if RG&E gets its way, that’s what you’ll see. As part of its upgrade project, the energy company hopes to strip away forever the barn façade and reveal the hulking gas transfer station concealed within it.Continue Reading “Save The Barns: Why RG&E’s Upgrade On Canfield Road Shouldn’t Undermine Mendon’s Rural Heritage”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries, Western New York State of Mind Tagged 1993, 19th century, agricultural age, Canfield Road, Empire State Pipeline, gas transfer station, industrial age, Jeanne Loberg, Joanna S. McCarthy, Mendon, Pittsford, pubkic hearing, RG&E, Sentinel, Town Board

Media Literacy Will Destroy Civilization

By Chris Carosa on March 4, 2025

A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, the idea of bringing computers into classrooms emerged as a real possibility. More than a possibility, it presented a strong controversy. “The kids lack the media literacy to judge what is real and what is make believe,” cried concerned citizens.

This was back in the 1990s. I was on what was then called the HF-L Technology Committee because of my computer background (and also because, as Town Board school liaison, I had to be on some committee). Today, those complaints seem naïve. And they were. But not for reasons you think.

It turns out secondary school students aren’t the only perpetrators of media illiteracy. We all Continue Reading “Media Literacy Will Destroy Civilization”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, History, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged 1960s generation, Alexis de Tocqueville, American Dream, American Exceptionalism, Baby Boomer, Bill Murray, Bob Woodward, Democracy in America, extreme skepticism, Founding Fathers, Gell-Mann Amnesia effect, George Carlin, George Washington, HF-L, hippie, historiography, History, Joe Rogan, John Belushi, media illiteracy, media literacy, Murray Gell-Mann, Nixon, question everything, skepticism, Technology Committee, Thomas Jefferson

The Empirical Past vs. The Remembered Past

By Chris Carosa on February 25, 2025

If you don’t know it by now, I like to tell stories. While I enjoy spinning yarns on historical events that captivate audiences, I much prefer those drama-in-(my)-real-life vignettes that allow me to explore fun lessons I lived through. Indeed, one of the first Carosa Commentary columns published in these pages told a coming-of-age tale that really took place at the bus stop when I was in fourth grade. It was a three-part series (that began with “Terror at the School Bus Stop—A True-Life Story (Part I),” Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, January 11, 1990).

The trouble with these personal stories is that they’re personal. Unless I can figure out a way Continue Reading “The Empirical Past vs. The Remembered Past”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Abbott Parkway, acausal, Carosa Commentary, classical physicist, determinism, entanglement, future, Kenny, memory, past, philosophy, Physics, present, psychology, quantum philosophy, quantum physics, retrocausality, School Bus Stop, Schrodinger's cat, superposition of states, Teresa, Time, Time Travel, wave-particle duality

My Life With AI—Part IV: Curses! Foiled Again!

By Chris Carosa on February 18, 2025

Many years ago, I sat in a strategic planning session for our local school district. My kids were young, not even in school yet. My participation represented a legacy of sorts. When I served on the Town Board, I was the youngest member by a generation or two. They figured that made me the perfect person to serve as liaison between the Town Board and the School Board. I soon found myself sitting on quite a few school committees, from capital projects to technology.

This strategic planning committee was a little different. For one thing, it was ad hoc. For another, it involved a lot of big mucky mucks from every facet of the school district. Still closer to my twenties than my forties, I kept my mouth shut for the most part. Oddly, despite my Continue Reading “My Life With AI—Part IV: Curses! Foiled Again!”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged 1987, AI, AI Agent Framework, artificial intelligence, Borland, Chinese, computer, CrewAI, database, debugging, English, FORTRAN, grammar, hack, internet, kludge, Latin, left field, Mendon Town Board, Microsoft, Multi-Agent Systems Platform, outside the box, programming, Prolog, Python, School Board, scientific method, strategic planning, Turbo C, Turbo Prolog, Visual Studio 2022

My Life With AI—Part III: What Comes Around Goes Around

By Chris Carosa on February 11, 2025

If you recall from past columns in this space, you might remember one of the first things I did during my second run at publishing this esteemed periodical was to replace myself.

Allow me to explain.

Among the software we found buried deep within the bowels of one of the two extremely outdated computers we inherited was an ancient DBase III program. For those not old enough to recognize the name or even the purpose of that old code, it allowed you to collect and update a customized database you could then manipulate in any way you desired. I installed this program in 1989 when we started the newspaper. I then created a database in which we could keep our subscriptions on. We used it not only to know when people needed to renew but also to print out the mailing labels to attach to the newspapers every week.

Nearly thirty years later, the previous owners of the Sentinel were still using this archaic software. The very first thing I did was extract the data (into a comma-delimited file for all you nerds out there), which I promptly imported into an Excel spreadsheet. From that spreadsheet, I wrote a mail-list merge routine in Word to print out the mailing labels.

And with that, I had replaced myself. (For those keeping score at home—and who notice how Continue Reading “My Life With AI—Part III: What Comes Around Goes Around”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged AI, AI chatbots, AI tools, artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, Claude, DBase III, DR-LINK, Gemini, generative AI assistants, Grok, hallucination, Large Language Model, LLM, Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, New York State Press Association, programming, Publishers Conference, Textwise, Wikipedia, X

How Psychic Numbing Weirdly Helps You… Or Doesn’t

By Chris Carosa on February 4, 2025

If you read a lot of spy novels or watch a lot of action-adventure movies, you’re used to scenes involving at least the threat of torture. Now, we know torture might happen in real life. As a dramatic element, however, it has very limited appeal. This is especially true in shows that want a family-friendly rating.

How do writers deal with this? They bring us right up to the edge of the actual torture and maybe a little beyond because Continue Reading “How Psychic Numbing Weirdly Helps You… Or Doesn’t”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged beatnik, behavior, Buffalo Bills, Cold War, coping, Death In Life, emotion, Gates-Chili High School, hipster, Hiroshima, Holocaust, Kirk, peer pressure, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, psychic numbing, PTSD, rational, Reykjavik, Robert Jay Lifton, Ronald Reagan, Soviet Union, Spock, torture, Vietnam War, wide right, Yale

The Layers Beyond The Image Reveal Mesmerizing Rabbit Holes

By Chris Carosa on January 28, 2025

Take a look at this picture. What do you see? What do you feel? Does it spark your curiosity? Does it inspire you? Or are you simply left wondering if you’re coming or going?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but those thousand words often represent just the start of a great story. Here are the thousand words (and beyond) prompted by this picture.

First, just the facts. I took this picture in August of 1988. It’s just outside the medieval village of Fontecchio in the Province of Abruzzo, Italy. That’s the hometown of my father’s father. I was the first of his descendants to visit there. (My father and his sister wouldn’t get there until a year or so later.)

But it’s not like we didn’t have family there. It’s just that I didn’t know any of them, and I assumed they had no idea who I was. Indeed, during a scouting trip to Fontecchio the day before, it certainly seemed that way. After all, despite my pedigree, I felt I looked a lot less Continue Reading “The Layers Beyond The Image Reveal Mesmerizing Rabbit Holes”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged a picture is worth a thousand words, Abruzzo, Angelo Rosati, Buffalo, Fontecchio, great grandfather, Mike Morris, Nunzia, Rhode Island College