Thursday, June 23, will be my last day as editor here at East Windsor Patch. I’ll be sad to leave you all, but I’ll be glad to have the summer off before I embark on my next great adventure—law school, where I hope to pursue a career protecting the public interest. I got into journalism on something of a whim after I graduated from college and taught English in France for a year. I’ve always loved newspapers (perhaps somewhat ironic, given my current position) and figured that in the news industry I could learn what I needed without getting a graduate degree, as opposed to my other career …

Well, it’s past 6 p.m. now and not much has changed. At least not as far as I can see, hear or read about online. While some people — like Christian radio broadcaster and doomsday predictor Harold Camping — were supposed to be watching the clock in rapt (forgive me) attention, I didn’t even notice it was past the hour of foretold doom until I heard a newscaster on the TV in the other room.  Some of Camping’s followers reportedly quit their jobs, spent their life savings and cut off personal relationships in order to warn their fellow humans that the second coming of Christ was to occur today…

It’s been just over a week since Rosario DiGirolamo admitted in court to killing Amy Giordano, his mistress and the mother of his son, right in Giordano’s apartment in downtown Hightstown. The admission—and the ensuing guilty plea to the charge of aggravated manslaughter—cut short what had promised to be a highly publicized murder trial. DiGirolamo must serve at least 85 percent of a 25-year sentence in state prison, with 8 months already accounted for. Michael, the couple's son who was 11 months old at the time of Giordano's death, has been adopted, but officials are mum on the details. The …

I promised myself I wouldn't start this column with any of the puns other publications have used. No "triple threat" for my column! Instead, let's put it plainly—I lost a game of chess to a first-grader. In my defense, Constantine "Costas" Oskiper is an exceptionally good chess player. As I posted earlier today, his teachers think he and his brothers have the potential to become grand masters one day. I met up with Costas and his mother, East Windsor resident Katerina Varsou, over coffee (and tea) at Da's Slowdown Cafe and Noodle House. Katerina told me how she taught her three children to …

The snow came a day late for a white Christmas, and as far as I was concerned it was also well beyond a dollar short. I was hardly the only person who had to cut short a stay with family, and even if I drove through the blizzard in very slow traffic, I didn't have to travel more than a (treacherous ) 60 miles. Still, I was not thrilled with the abbreviation of the time with my loved ones, and I was positively aghast at the need to shovel so much snow. After all, journalists work more—not less—on snow days. "I'm the only one!" I lamented as I dug out my car on a "break" from work. "No one else…