Life In A Word

Local Flavor

On a trip to Philadelphia last weekend to visit family, I was reminded the city is well known for its cheesesteaks (among other things). You’ll find several restaurants claiming to offer “the best” in the downtown area. But my niece – a resident of the city for ten years now – was careful to point out which establishments cater to tourists versus those preferred by the locals. It’s advice someone like me wouldn’t know off the top of my head. At least I knew to call the sandwich a “Philly” instead of a “Philadelphia”.

Sure, no matter where you live it’s referred to as a “Philly Cheesesteak”. But what about the city itself? Calling Philadelphia “Philly” is a privilege reserved for its residents… or so I thought until I asked my niece. “Oh, heck no“, she said. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a local or not – you always call it ‘Philly’. Call it ‘Philadelphia’ and it’s pretty obvious you’re not from around here.”

Huh. And here I thought city nicknames were reserved for those who actually lived there. Maybe this is Philly’s way of sharing “brotherly love” beyond its downtown streets.

I find it interesting how locals come up with jargon for the places in which they live. It’s a semi-secret language that can only be learned by spending enough time there. When we lived in Colorado Springs the city was never referred to by its full name, but instead by just “The Springs”. (A visitor might wonder why you weren’t referring to adjacent Manitou Springs instead.) Pikes Peak, the mountain forming the majestic backdrop of The Springs, was always just “The Peak”. Garden of the Gods and its famous sandstone rock formations was always just “The Garden”. And so on.

Maybe all of this name-shortening is a nod to the more relaxed world we live in today. Corporations could be said to use jargon as well. Remember when it was “Federal Express” instead of “FedEx”? “McDonald’s” instead of “Mickey-D’s?” Kentucky Fried Chicken instead of “KFC”? Even “Subway” was once known as “Pete’s Super Submarines”. Credit American Express – they might’ve been the original shortener of names. “Amex” has been used since the company’s founding in 1850.

Cities may have their nicknames but I also think I’ve heard a few imposters. Seriously, does anyone refer to San Francisco as “Frisco” when the more common option seems to be “San Fran”? Chicago will always be “The Windy City” to me; not “Chi-Town”. Dallas is too short a word to mess with so you’ll only get “Big D” from the locals on occasion. And more recently I’ve heard “Cali” and “So-Cal” out west but I couldn’t tell you if that’s what the locals go with.

Washington D.C. is “D.C.” whether you live there or not. St. Petersburg just sounds better as “St. Pete”. Oklahoma City is “OKC” just like New York City is “NYC”. I never grew up in Los Angeles but I did grow up in LA… maybe like you grew up in KC, Indy, or Cincy. Where does all of this jargon end? Right here… right now… at the end of this blog post where, now that I think about it, you’re welcome to call me “Dave” instead of “David”.

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LEGO Neuschwanstein Castle – Update #9 (read about the start of this project in Fit for a (Fairy Tale) King

Do you recall how we added the “Palas” (living quarters) to the castle the last time around? Apparently King Ludwig needed two of these structures. Bags 17 and 18 (of 23 bags of pieces) finished off one Palas and began another – the latter building at the far west end of the castle complex. All of a sudden we’re entering the home stretch of this entire project. Next week’s LEGOs will complete the castle itself, while the following week’s will give it a final flourish of landscape elements.

The “Palas” is the very tall element on the left

As you can see above, Palas #1 has been completed and installed. For the record, “completed” was much easier than “installed”. When you build an element like the Palas separately from the overall model, it’s a delicate process to bring the two together. You have to position the structure just right before you snap it down in amongst the rest of the castle. Easy to illustrate in the instruction manual; not-so-easy to do in reality. My first attempt was a mini-disaster, loosening several pieces from the castle base. My second attempt – mercifully – came together with a satisfying series of LEGO clicks.

Here’s a look at the “Western Palas”, still under construction and destined for the askew foundation you see on the far left of the larger model. Palas #2 includes a two-story balcony for views of the surrounding Alps (the big opening on the top floors of the structure), and a whole lot of living space underneath that was never ever completed. The Western allocates two floors to a “grand throne room”, also never completed. I find it sad, for all of the details of this wondrous castle, Ludwig never sat on his throne, let alone in a throne room from which he would’ve/should’ve performed his royal duties.

Running build time: 9:32

Total leftover pieces: 59 (!)

Accompanying movie soundtrack: Titanic (1997). It wasn’t my plan to go with the epic of the sinking ship, not today nor in any chapter of this build. But the music from Field of Dreams – a favorite movie of mine – just didn’t deliver the goods. Like Chariots of Fire, all you get with Field of Dreams is its theme song followed by random bits of music. Don’t save it to your listening library. But its composer James Horner scored Titanic as well, and for this one the Academy Award was well deserved. Subtract Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” – the song just overlaps the ending credits. The real magic of this soundtrack is in the haunting instrumentals and wordless vocals. The theme song starts with the wailing tin whistle and morphs into the utterly lonely vocals, brought to you by the incomparable voice of Norwegian soprano Sissel. It echoes the despair and futility of it all – literally – which is exactly what Horner intended. Listen to it here.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Thinking Inside of the Box

When my wife and I travel we toe the line on the weight limits the airlines impose on baggage. Our suitcases, looking ready to burst, always come in at 48-point-this or 49-point-that on the front counter scale. There’s a sigh of relief when we don’t hit the number where we’d have to pay more. So call it unfamiliar territory when my suitcase was only two-thirds full for a weekend getaway earlier this month. I mean, there was space in there still looking to be filled. I was tempted to throw in the pillow I sleep on just to keep everything from jostling around. It was a dilemma that came back to me just this morning over breakfast.

Allow me to introduce you to one of my favorite foods. Nature’s Path Organic produces grain-based cereals with the rare double-win: they taste great and they’re good for you. Nature’s Path combines exotics like amaranth, quinoa, millet, and spelt, and somehow makes them taste delicious alongside a little fruit and milk. My wife loves their “Golden Tumeric” variety while I prefer their popular “Heritage Flakes”. Sometimes I go with the sweeter “Flax Plus Maple Pecan Crunch”. Trust me, breakfast cereal has come a long way since Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.

What hasn’t changed about breakfast cereal however, is the amount of product you find in the bag when you first open the box. The photo you see here is a source of constant irritation for me. You have a box, a bag, and some cereal. The size of the bag is consistent with the size of the box. So why-oh-why (like my recent suitcase) is the bag only two-thirds full? Why not a) dial up the setting on the bag-filling machine to top things off, or b) reduce the size of the box to match the amount of the cereal?

This is the age-old game manufacturers choose to play with us consumers, of course. As production and material costs rise, they find subtle (or not-so-subtle) ways to make us believe we’re buying the same amount of the same product for the same price. At least Nature’s Path doesn’t swap out their ingredients for some chemical alternative. But they do fill the box with air along with the cereal. Honestly, I wonder if the box was ever completely full.

Here’s another sales ploy. Nature’s Path claims this cereal has a “new look” with the “same delicious taste”. What exactly is the new look (and do I even remember the “old look”)? Did the flakes change shape or size or is it the box that has a new look? More importantly, why would I care about a new look when all I want is the same bowl of cereal I bought last time? What aren’t they telling us here?

Now note the fine print at the bottom right corner of the box. First we have a disclaimer of “fruit shown as serving suggestion”. Followed by “enlarged to show texture”. Both statements let me know that what I see is not what I will get. There is zero fruit in the box. The cereal flakes are not as large as the photo suggests. And for today’s water cooler question, does cereal flake texture make it more likely you’ll buy a box?

Finally – and this one probably goes back to the early days of cereal production – the “serving size” suggested by Nature’s Path is one cup. One cup. Try the following some time: Without measuring, pour out what you’d think would be one cup of cereal into a bowl. I guarantee you’ll pour more than a cup. Imagine the saddest, smallest portion of food you will ever see and I present one cup of cereal in a decent-sized bowl. But “one cup” allows Nature’s Path to boast “about 9 serving per container”. No sir. My serving size (and yours) means I’m lucky if I get four bowls out of the entire box.

Look, I get it; organic foods are expensive. A box of Heritage Flakes would run me ten dollars or more if Nature’s Path filled the bag to the top. Add blueberries and milk and it’s an even pricier breakfast. But I’m willing to pay more for flakes instead of air. I suggest Nature’s Path go with the plan for my two-thirds-full suitcase instead. Throw in a giant marshmallow to take up all of that extra space.

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LEGO Neuschwanstein Castle – Update #8 (read about the start of this project in Fit for a (Fairy Tale) King

Neuschwanstein Castle’s (unfinished) “Palas”

Today’s construction felt like building a miniature castle within the walls of a much larger one. Bags 15 and 16 (of 23 bags of pieces) were entirely dedicated to the “Palas”, Neuschwanstein’s main residential structure. Within the walls of this building you’ll find King Ludwig’s stateroom, his servant’s quarters, a conservatory, a salon (a room to entertain guests), and an enclosed grotto at the very top. Makes me wonder why Ludwig needed to build the rest of Neuschwanstein, but I guess that’s just his way of showing off.

See the swan parked in the middle of the Grotto?

The grotto sounds like a nice place for a king to hang out, even if the LEGO equivalent makes it look a little cramped. It’s a covered outdoor space with a waterfall, colored lights, and sliding glass doors for unobstructed views of the surrounding Alps. Pretty darned progressive for a castle built in the late 1800s.

Finally, Ludwig had a thing for swans. He probably had several live ones living at the base of the waterfall but he also had the large sculpture you see above, placed prominently in the grotto. For the record, it’s a futile exercise to create a realistic-looking swan out of LEGO blocks. And the “headpiece” is so small LEGO threw in an extra one in case I somehow misplaced it.

Running build time: 7:57

Total leftover pieces: 52

Accompanying movie soundtrack: Chariots of Fire (1981). The theme song from Greek composer Vangelis is iconic; easily one of the most recognizable pieces of movie soundtrack music ever composed, whether the leadoff with the hunting horn or the sweeping piano tune itself. The melody really does evoke images of the human body in motion. However, I was quickly reminded this film score hardly represents a satisfying listen without watching the film at the same time. The rest of the synthesizer music can only be described as bizarre. Some parts are designed to accompany dramatic slow-motion running scenes. Other parts have zero rhyme/reason when they stand alone. And right in the middle of the soundtrack you get an abrupt shift to church organ music and the voices of a beautiful choir. But never mind all that. Just listen to the famous theme here.

Lois Lanes

Like many towns these days, my own hosts an annual festival featuring a series of running races; the 5k on up to the marathon. My choice of those is the 10k, about six miles start to finish. Those miles give me a good tour of everything our town has to offer, including Civil War-era buildings and landmarks. But even better, the middle miles of the run go down a street I consider utterly unforgettable. After all, the street is named after my mother.

Okay, it’s safe to say Marion Street is not named after my mother because it was added to the map almost a hundred years before she was born. But the name grabs my attention because of the spelling. My mother is “Marion”, not “Marian” or “Maryann” (or however else you choose to spell it). Besides, when our town’s other streets default to standards like “Second”, and “Park”, a woman’s name smack dab in the middle of them all certainly stands out.

I ran the town 10k for the fourth time last April, so it was another chance to blow a kiss to my mother as I huffed/puffed down her street. But this topic never would’ve become a blog post without broadening the search a little. Which brings me to “David Street”, a discovery I made just this past weekend. Driving down a road I rarely traverse, the street sign popped up just after a curve, causing a double-take and a tap on the brakes. Marion Street and now David Street? What’s going on here?

Believe it or not, the study of street names (like we’re doing today) also has a name: odonymy. “Odonyms” in U.S. cities prefer to go with numbers, trees, or landscape elements. There’s a good chance your town has a Second Street, Elm Street, and/or a Park Avenue. If you do have a street named after someone, that person was likely a U.S. president or a prominent figure in American history. And the person is most assuredly dead, because tradition says we don’t name our streets for the living.

Odonymy trivia: “Second” is the most common street name in the United States (there are over 11,000 of them), followed by “Third”, followed by “First”. Why is “First” in third place? Because “First” is often replaced by “Main” (for a town’s most prominent street) or “Front” (if that street fronts something noteworthy like a river).

Streets used to be named for the trades you could find located on them.

If a town’s grid is big enough the street names can be part of a group. In San Diego, the city chose trees in alphabetical order (e.g. “Ash”, “Beech”, “Cedar”) intersected by numbered streets, so your location at say, “Fourth and Elm” is very easy to find. Austin, TX named its streets after Texas rivers. Palo Alto, CA went with distinguished colleges and universities. And even though Tucson, AZ didn’t go with a group of names at all, they still get points for calling their streets on the diagonal “Stravenues”.

Because I can’t resist a good treasure hunt I looked up the rest of my family on Google Maps. Guess what? Of my four brothers, two are on street signs right here in town, while the other two are less than thirty minutes away. My three children are in the neighborhood as well. As for my father? Well, the nearest “Bob Street” is over two hours away, yet that seems apropos. After all, my dad was always one to endeavor far beyond his immediate surroundings.

To bring us back to where this all started, the mystery of Marion Street is really no mystery at all. My town chose South Carolina counties for its street names and Marion County is one of those, just off the Atlantic coast. The name “Marion” honors Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox” brigadier general who served in the Revolutionary War. But I prefer to honor a certain someone else instead. So every chance I get I’ll run down her street, give a little wave to her sign as I pass by and say, “Hi Mom!”

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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LEGO Neuschwanstein Castle – Update #7 (read about the start of this project in Fit for a (Fairy Tale) King

King Ludwig’s castle is determined to be the most difficult LEGO build I’ve undertaken, even if the construction has been fairly straightforward so far. Bags 13 and 14 (of 23 bags of pieces) returned to the Bavarian Alps below the structure, working to close in the far end of the castle’s earthly foundation. Today was effectively ninety minutes of adding more of the green, grey, and beige pieces you see in the surround of the model. And the build was going just swimmingly… until it wasn’t.

To the far right, well below that skewed hollow rectangle… a missing piece was not-so-missing after all.

LEGO left another piece out of the box (or so I thought). As I wrapped up construction of the contents of Bag 13, I realized the little bugger simply wasn’t there – and it was an important little bugger. I looked everywhere to no avail. So clever me improvised by replacing the piece with a fairly similar one from my pile of leftovers. It wasn’t until I was well into the build of Bag 14 that I noticed the missing piece staring up at me from the remaining parts. Which begs several questions. 1) Did LEGO put the piece into the wrong bag? 2) Did I somehow mix up the pieces from both bags (since I emptied them out together)? Or most probably, 3) Did the piece not want to be held captive in the model and was trying to make a run for it?

Despite what you might think, this section is constructed correctly.

Whatever actually happened I managed to install little bugger where he originally belonged, but not before having to take apart a good chunk of the angled area you see here to gain access to his rightful location. You can’t even see this missing piece when all’s said and done, but it does serve as an anchor for the pieces above it so it’s kind of necessary. I’m happy to report, our little runaway is now officially captive inside of the model. Forever.

Running build time: 6:41.

Total leftover pieces: 41.

Accompanying movie soundtrack: On Golden Pond (1981). After last week’s barrage of Italian opera solos from Breaking Away I was ready for something calmer. And it doesn’t get much calmer than the music from On Golden Pond. The story itself is not a walk in the woods (by design) but who among us baby boomers wouldn’t jump at the chance to see Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn in the same film? Both won Academy Awards for their performances. The soundtrack, as it turns out, isn’t much more than the movie’s theme song, a beautiful wandering piano solo with a little flute (and a few loons). So I just put Spotify on repeat and hung out on Golden Pond (over and over) for awhile. Listen to the melody here.

Honest Jane

Every now and then you make a mistake and then find yourself entirely dependent on the actions of others to get it fixed. As much as you might want to make things right yourself, you’re forced to sit back and hope for the best from someone else. Such was the case this past Labor Day, when my wife was so eager to deplane from our return flight home that she left her iPhone in the seat pocket in front of her. When you realize the magnitude of this kind of mistake – and it hits you after you’re long gone from the airport – it kind of takes your breath away.

Let’s be fair. Leaving things on planes is not my wife’s specialty; it’s mine. I’ve left everything from reading glasses to a Kindle e-Reader to a really nice pair of Bose headphones behind, a sort of “Merry Christmas” to those who clean the planes. So my wife would be forgiven for her audible gasp when she realized her out-of-character mistake. And my mind promptly went to the consequences of her actions: a) A trip to the Apple Store more than an hour from our house, b) The purchase price of a new iPhone, and c) The likelihood my wife hadn’t backed up her left-behind phone (and all those precious granddaughter photos).

As it almost always does, the problem-solver in me shifted into high gear. I realized my wife had shared her (iPhone) location with me, which meant my phone could see if her phone was still on the plane. So I had her check my phone (since I’m a responsible driver) and guess what? Not only was her phone not on the plane anymore, it was moving. Down the airport concourse, away from the plane, boldly in the direction of the free world beyond.

At this point two more thoughts entered my mind. One (sadly, the first one), whomever cleans the plane pocketed the phone and was casually on their way out the door, with hopes of breaking through the passcode and wreaking havoc. Or two, an employee of the airline was carefully shepherding the phone to the front counter, where maybe-just-maybe they’d make an effort to contact my wife.

Why wait for either scenario to play out? I told my wife, “Call your phone”. Which she did, and guess who answered? Honest Jane. Okay, Honest Jane wasn’t her real name, but after the conversation that followed it really could’ve been. “HJ” was walking down the concourse towards the front counter, phone in hand, where she intended to check the flight record for contact information for my wife. Pretty sure this long stroll from airplane to counter wasn’t part of Jane’s regular job description. But she made it sound like a walk in the park – happy to do so. Were we still at the airport (and with my wife’s approval), I would’ve kissed HJ on the cheek.

Instead, more options. Do we turn the car around and go back to the airport, rescuing the phone but adding another three hours to our drive home? Or do we ask HJ for a more convenient solution? I chose Door #2. HJ thought for a minute as she continued her walk and then said, “Well, you could set up a personal FedEx account, create a shipping label addressed to yourself, overnight the label to here, and then you’d get your phone back in a day or two.” Well bless your heart HJ, you’re a problem-solver too!

As of this post I’m happy to report my wife’s phone has been reunited with its owner. All means of texting, social media, and exchanging of granddaughter photos has resumed. But a question remains: What to do about HJ… or more to the point, how to thank Jane for her Honesty? Trust me (and trust HJ while you’re at it), I’ll come up with something. After all, Honest Jane’s a rare breed. She deserves an attagirl.

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LEGO Neuschwanstein Castle – Update #6 (read about the start of this project in Fit for a (Fairy Tale) King)

Normally I’d update you on my latest efforts of castle construction, followed by a brief commentary on the movie soundtrack I chose for my background music. Today I must cover both topics together. For the second Indiana-based movie in as many weeks (alongside Rudy), we have Breaking Away (1979). This “little” movie and its heartwarming story will always be one of my favorites. Now if only I could say the same about its score.

Bags 11 and 12 (of 23 bags of pieces) started out innocently enough, with the creation of one of Neuschwanstein’s spectacular towers. But like Breaking Away‘s soundtrack, things went quickly south. After finishing the tower I realized I’d left off an entire level, which meant deconstructing almost back to the bricks at the base to get it right. At the same time I realized several windows from prior construction were out of alignment, which meant even more deconstruction.

Normally I’d take these missteps in stride but the Breaking Away soundtrack was really, really getting on my nerves. I forgot one giant detail about the music – it’s all opera, and it’s all in Italian. Words of advice: don’t try linking foreign language operatic soloes to particular moments you remember in movies – it doesn’t go well. Well, except for M’appari tutt’amor from Act III of the comic opera Martha. It’s the film’s signature solo and the song the lead character chooses as a serenade to a college girl he can never have. This captivating scene, and so many more like it, is what makes Breaking Away an unforgettable film. Just don’t bother with the soundtrack afterwards.

Running build time: 6:33

Total leftover pieces: 43

Peachy Keen

We’re getting a new dessert destination in town called “The Peach Cobbler Factory”. It’s a franchise I’ve never heard of despite locations in twenty-six states. As you’d expect, The Peach Cobbler Factory offers fruit pie in a cup (à la mode or sans ice cream) but also lots of other desserts. Choose from cheesecakes, cookies, or brownies, and all sorts of spins on peaches. Now if only I actually liked peaches.

Without “cobbler” in the name this business would never have caught my eye. The truth is, I love peach cobbler. It’s one of those foods I find inexplicably tasty even when its main ingredient doesn’t appeal to me. The same can be said for Fig Newtons. I’ve never been a fig fan yet I’ve eaten scores of the cookies. Not that they taste like fresh figs. But cobbler tastes like fresh fruit.

A peach cobbler cinnamon roll? Maybe, maybe not.

I grew up in a household that was all pie and no cake (read my take on pies in Any Way You Slice It). My mother used to make delicious hot fruit pies from scratch. Cherry, lemon meringue, apple, and peach, and there might’ve been a blueberry in there somewhere as well. The cherry was always my favorite but the peach was a close second. My mother knew how to make a homemade crust, with the wonderful latticework on top to finish off the look. She also knew what ingredients went into the pie to give it just the right consistency.

So go figure; I love hot peach pie even if I don’t love peaches. Maybe I had too many as a kid (not by choice), sliced into a bowl and served with cream. Maybe the sugar and crust of the pie somehow makes the peaches more palatable. Whatever the reason, I know I’ll be visiting the The Peach Cobbler Factory and giving their products a try.

Peaches are a big deal around here, evidenced by the groves (no, not “orchards”) of trees just about everywhere you look. South Carolina harvests over 90,000 tons of the fuzz balls every year, over twice as many as our neighbor to the west. That’s right; Georgia may consider itself “The Peach State” (as their signs boast when we cross the Savannah River) and their pretty girls might be “Georgia Peaches”, but South Carolinians know which state really delivers the fruit. On that note, here’s more peach trivia:

The peaches you buy at the market are likely a local product, but no country produces them in numbers like China does. If you added up the peach production from every country in the world you wouldn’t be close to half the number coming out of China.
A nectarine is technically a peach. So is an apricot. The fruits are only separated by one recessive gene (causing the “shaved” look of a nectarine). You can even find peaches and nectarines growing on the same tree.
Peaches come in 300 varieties. The “yellow” is the one you’re familiar with but the white is more common. Peaches can also look like donuts (flatter, with a hole in the middle). They’re categorized as “freestone” or “clingstone” according to how the pit separates (or doesn’t) from the fruit itself.
Peach fuzz is a form of defense. It protects the fruit from the rot brought on by surface water. It also discourages bugs from taking a bite. Maybe I should skip my morning shave whenever I work in the backyard?

I’ll be sure to report back after I give The Peach Cobbler Factory a try. I’m hoping their signature dessert is as peachy keen as Mom used to make. Of course, it’ll be cobbler – not pie – which adds to today’s trivia. With a cobbler I don’t get a crust under the fruit… only on top. That’s okay. As long as it’s hot and a la mode I’ll be transported back to the pie days of my youth. With desserts like those, who needs cake?

Some content sourced from the Lane Southern Orchards website, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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LEGO Neuschwanstein Castle – Update #5 (read about the start of this project in Fit for a (Fairy Tale) King

As predicted, we’ll continue to build this castle in modules. Bag 9 came together in a cool eighteen minutes, but Bag 10 was another test of patience with more of those tiny, tiny pieces. The end result of both bags is the structure and tower you see above, carefully snapped into the surrounding model after I completed it. It’s known as a “bower”, a private apartment for the ladies of the house. Fancy digs, no?

I would’ve loved to see the bower in all its glory. The fact is, with only 14 of Neuschwanstein’s 200 rooms completed the bower is likely just the elegant exterior walls you see here and nothing else. And those walls are full of windows, aren’t they? I’ve added dozens of windows to the castle (with several dozen more to go). And – painful lesson – those windows need to be oriented correctly. I got one wrong on the lowest level of the bower, which meant several steps of deconstruction/reconstruction. Not so fun.

Here’s a close-up of Neuschwanstein’s “lower courtyard”. It’s where King Ludwig would’ve welcomed his guests when they arrived. It’s also where you – should you choose to visit – will begin your tour of this magnificent structure. When all’s said and done, the castle itself will utterly tower over this courtyard, a statement about not only the castle but also Ludwig himself.

Running build time: 5:07.

Total leftover pieces: 37.

Accompanying movie soundtrack: Rudy (1993). I can’t believe this movie came out over thirty years ago. Then again, I can’t believe I graduated from Notre Dame over forty years ago. Extreme bias aside, Rudy is a story of perseverance unlike any other. Just when you think Rudy Ruettiger can’t 1) Get accepted into Notre Dame, 2) Make the football team, 3) Actually play in a football game… Rudy delivers the goods time and again. You need hear only a few seconds of the flute-soloed theme to know most of the soundtrack. I can tie every bit of the music back to specific scenes in the move but that’s just me, a Notre Dame fanatic. I’ll be watching my Fighting Irish – in person – this weekend as they take on Wisconsin at Green Bay’s Lambeau Field. Meanwhile, you’ll be listening to the Rudy soundtrack. Here.

Hat Trick

In the coastal village where my wife and I spend a couple of weeks each summer, a hat boutique has been converted into a gelato shop. An’s Hatmakers, paying homage to the location’s prior business, claims to be one of the top five gelato shops in America two years running. You’d believe it if you saw the line of twenty-plus patrons we joined to give it a try. But there’s more to this story than ice cream and headgear. In fact, you might call it something of a hat trick.

My wife and I have always been ice cream fanatics, so much so that we’ve banned any and all versions from our household freezer for fear of overindulging. I blame Häagen-Dazs, the brand that brought ice cream to a whole new level of quality (and butterfat) when it debuted in the 1970s. Today a pint of Haagen-Dazs sets you back $6-$7. That may seem like a lot until you consider places like An’s Hatmakers. A pint of An’s runs you twice that much.

Seriously, who pays $15 for a pint of ice cream? Apparently more people than the twenty-plus in line at An’s. Artisanal gelaterias and ice cream shops have been popping up online and on-street in numbers like we’ve never seen before. Baskin-Robbins and Coldstone Creamery won’t be threatened – especially with these eye-popping prices – but it may interest you to know the customer who buys at Baskins is the same one who buys at An’s.

It’s an oft-heard post-pandemic story. A person is unexpectedly pushed out of their corporate job by COVID. Exploring their inner-entrepreneur, this person combines something they have with something they’re good at and voila… a boutique business is born. I’ve just described A to Z Creamery in Minneapolis. A to Z was born in a home kitchen, from nothing more than an ice cream machine, a penchant for creating unique flavors, and a bit of online marketing. A to Z started as a “drop business” (filling orders online as they came in) but today they’re a thriving retail establishment. At $15 a pint.

$15 ice cream speaks to an interesting trend of economic tolerance. With prices through the roof on all sorts of items, it’s fair to say some of us can no longer afford (or no longer choose to pay for) the things we would’ve dropped big money on ten years ago. Maybe we forego a new car for a used one. Or an expensive trip for a stay-cation. As a reward for being frugal we may find ourselves with a little spending money. So we opt for “micro-indulgences” like overpriced gelato.

The pandemic also fostered more of a you-only-live-once (YOLO) attitude. We’re more about enjoying the moment instead of planning for the future. It’s the primary reason An’s and A to Z have lines of customers down the block. I’m reminded of the early years of our marriage, when my wife and I struggled with California’s high cost of living. We couldn’t afford the houses our Silicon Valley neighbors boasted so what did we do instead? We bought a luxury sedan we really had no business owning. But that car sure made us feel better.

Here at home, our little town hosts three ice cream shops. Each sells a perfectly good product. If you convert the cost of their scoops to pints (4:1), any one of them tops out at around $8. Which makes me think the next time I’m at An’s I’ll be buying a hat instead of gelato. After all, I want to have something I’ll eat if I ever spend $15 on ice cream.

Some content sourced from the KSL.com article, “What a $15 pint of ice cream says about the economy”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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LEGO Neuschwanstein Castle – Update #4 (read about the start of this project in Fit for a (Fairy Tale) King)

Believe it or not, I wish King Ludwig built an even bigger castle. If he had maybe LEGO would’ve used bigger pieces for its model. Bags 7 and 8 (of 23 bags of pieces) contained some of the smallest bits of LEGO I’ve ever tried to get my fingers around. When I first spilled out the bags I let out a big sigh, not just for today’s construction but for the similar chapters sure to follow. After all, we’ve only built the Gatehouse and a portion of the lowest level of the castle so far. The finished structure will be about three times the height you see in the photo. That’s a lot more LEGO bits.

We built away from the main model today. Each bag represented a separate “module” of the castle like you see in this photo. When it’s complete you drop the whole assembly into the base. This sort of approach is possible with the cranes we use in modern construction but certainly not in Ludwig’s time. His builders would’ve been creating the castle one brick at a time. Regardless, at least we have the beginnings of the castle instead of just boring Bavarian Alps, right? The Gatehouse was the first part of the castle to be completed back in 1872, so credit LEGO for designing the model to be built in the same order.

Here’s what we started with today. Most of these LEGOs are seriously small.

As I searched for tiny piece after tiny piece today I got to thinking, “Man, it’d be nice to have an AI bot right now. This bot could consult the instruction manual, scurry over to the piles of LEGOs, and haul back exactly what I needed for each step. But hey, like a jigsaw puzzle the hunting for the pieces is (supposed to be) part of the fun. I just wish they were bigger than cake crumbs!

Running build time: 4:02.

Total leftover pieces: 28.

Accompanying movie soundtrack: Dances with Wolves (1990). No one should disagree Dances with Wolves is the crowning achievement of Kevin Costner’s film career. With it he won the Academy Award for Best Producer, Best Director, and was nominated for Best Actor. I’ll never forget a random hotel stay with my wife, where we turned on the television to Dances with Wolves just as it was starting. We’d never seen the movie before. Three hours later we sat speechless, having long missed our dinner reservation. John Barry’s scoring of the film also won the Oscar and is entirely deserving. Understandably – assuming you’ve seen the movie – the melodies are mostly haunting and forlorn, but the score is beautifully tied together time and again with the unforgettable theme music. Listen to it here.

A Tale of Two Women

There’s a well-known saying in the South: The intolerable heat of July and August is God’s reminder you don’t want to go to the bad place some day. The coping strategies include lots of time indoors or traveling to more temperate places. Thus did my wife & I find ourselves on the California coast for a couple of weeks. Giving up the sweat and bugs for the sun, surf, and sand was an easy trade. But true to form Cali delivered an experience worth sharing (or at least blogging about).

We all have choices when it comes to shipping our stuff. Maybe it’s the post office in a small town but for the rest of us it’s a franchise like The UPS Store or PostNet. My option during this trip was PostalAnnex, conveniently adjacent to a market where my wife could disappear. So I entered the shipping store alone, phone in hand, fully prepared to get lost in my newsfeed while waiting in a long line. Only there wasn’t any line – just one woman being helped by another behind the counter. My lucky day! I’d be back to the sun and surf in no time.

I’d hardly glanced at PostalAnnex’s impulse buys when I began to pick up on the conversation at the counter. The woman was sending a vase. It was fragile. She wasn’t convinced it would get to its destination intact. But credit the clerk for her calm, soothing voice, assuring the woman she’d packed countless fragile objects before, and this one would be no exception. To which the woman literally shouted, “Well, I hope so! Otherwise my vase will be as broken as my marriage!”

As broken as my marriage? Okay, that got my attention.

Look, I’m not one to eavesdrop but I was kind of a captive audience here, okay? And I had no idea this woman was just getting started with her personal soap opera. “Last name?”, the clerk asked, intending to search the PostalAnnex database. “Jones… Lisa Jones”, declared the woman, who promptly corrected herself by saying, “No… WAIT!!! Not Jones!!! That’s who I used to be!!! Clark!!! It’s Clark now! And you gotta update my first name too because I changed that as well! Ari Clark! Yes I’m… I’m Ari Clark now, thank you very much. New first name and new last name!!! This is me severing every last connection with that no-good loser ex-husband of mine!!!”

Oh my. And here I thought she was just mailing a vase.

Since I was the only male in the store you can understand why I considered bolting for the door at that very moment. But since the woman didn’t turn around and say something to the effect of “ALL of you men are scum of the earth“, I maintained my quiet presence. Quiet, that is, until the clerk looked over at me somewhat helplessly and said, “Sir, are you just dropping off or do you need to set up a shipment?” Which prompted the woman to look back at me and – thankfully – give nothing more threatening than a what are you looking at? glance.

“I look good, don’t I?”, she continued, clearly posing for the clerk. “I mean, I’ve made the changes, if you know what I mean. I’m ready to get out there and start living again. My ex – man – he totally blew it with that affair of his. 35 years of marriage and he goes and cheats on me? Over and done with, baby – your loss.”

“Um, your address please?”, the PostalAnnex clerk pleaded.

“58 Charles St., Apartment B. That’s right, a new address to put into your system because I’m done with that old address. Like I said, I’m done with everything about the last thirty-five years.”

The clerk then assured this woman she looked great and was doing the right thing by moving on, and in fact, should move on right now so the next customer (me) could be helped. And bless her heart, that’s exactly what the woman did… that is, after paying with a credit card she assured us had her new first and last name.

When it was my turn at the counter (twenty minutes after walking through the door) the clerk joked with me. “Well, I guess I offer free marital advice along with shipping services. So let’s chat first; how long have you been married?”

“Thirty-nine years”, I said, a little too proudly.

“Thirty-nine years?“, she exclaimed. “Goodness – no one in California lasts that long! Tell you what, just for you: the thirty-nine-years-of-marriage shipping discount!”

Did I really get a discount? Who knows. I’m just glad I didn’t run into the other woman in the parking lot. I’d put up with enough blistering heat already this summer.

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LEGO Neuschwanstein Castle – Update #3 (read about the start of this project in Fit for a (Fairy Tale) King)

No surprise, we continued to move mountains (er, Bavarian Alps) this week instead of anything brick or stone. The colors and shapes of the LEGO pieces in Bags 5 and 6 (of 23 bags of pieces) were decidedly “earthy”. What we have in the photo above looks like some sort of ocean trawler instead of a castle foundation. But the good news is, we’ve just about reached the far end of the model (on the right), so a little more earth-moving will shift gears into castle construction.

In my haste to move mountains I knocked that single white turret off its footing, which forced me to leaf back several pages in the instruction manual to remember where it was based. Strange how LEGO chose to tease me with a lone turret (and castle wall) this early in the build. That little assembly will be utterly dwarfed by the castle once it rises above it.

A footpath outside of the castle walls, perhaps?

Speaking of the LEGO instruction manual (better known as the “Tome of Construction”) this is a good time to dismiss LEGO “Builder”. For those of you in the know, Builder is a smartphone app that replaces the instruction manual, so you just tap your phone every time you move to a new step. Nope, not gonna do it. The Tome of Construction is much bigger than a phone screen, with easy-to-turn, easy-to-read pages. There’s really no good reason to go electronic with the steps. After all, Neuschwanstein didn’t have electricity when it was built so why should its construction?

Running build time: 2:37.

Total leftover pieces: 21.

Accompanying movie soundtrack: The Natural (1984). Here’s an appropriate choice from my favorite soundtracks list, since we’re in the middle of the major league baseball season. The Natural is a mystical, beautifully filmed story of an aging baseball player. Robert Redford plays the lead role (with Glenn Close supporting, and looking a lot lovelier than she did in Fatal Attraction). The movie score is both haunting and majestic. It taps generously from Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”. It also echoes Rudy, a soundtrack I’ll spend a little time with a couple of weeks from now. Have a listen to The Natural here.

Mighty Fine Print

Whenever a season of sports comes down to the last couple of teams, I pay extra attention whether it’s the Super Bowl, the World Series, or college basketball’s March Madness. A championship is the culmination of an entire season, so the final game puts the stakes at their highest. Just last week I made it to the finals of a competition myself. The thing is, I didn’t even know I was playing.

We’ve all received one of these flyers at one time or another, haven’t we? A bold, colorful announcement suggesting we’ve won something big. In this case, a Viking River Cruise (red capital letters, top left) suggests a tapped mailing list because I’ve cruised with Viking twice. Regardless, this flyer almost went into the trash before I read ~~some~~ all of the fine print. And I must say, whoever came up with the nuts/bolts of this particular contest deserves the Academy Award for Best Producer.

To begin with, notice the element labeled “Combination Box”. This little device is ingenious for two reasons. First, it stretches the envelope the flyer came in beyond a flat piece of paper, tempting the recipient to wonder what’s in there? And second, the device is “activated” by pulling a tab to reveal the “5-digit VIN number” you see here. Then you scratch off the gold circle further down the page to reveal another 5-digit number and – “how about that?” – they’re the same number, which makes me a “Grand Prize Winner”.

The flyer also contains utterly random stuff that has no bearing whatsoever on the contest. I am “cordially invited to ‘The Great America Cruising Expo'” (a fictitious event). Just below the black box is a “VIP Winning Number 5508738” (also useless). Finally, when I call the toll-free number at the bottom (which, to be clear, I will never call), I’m supposed to mention “Code AKSC”. Pretty sure anyone could call the toll-free number, mention the code, and discover they’re also a “Grand Prize Winner”.

Now for the good stuff. Here’s the lower right corner of the flyer. Call Within 48 Hours…? Within 48 hours of what, exactly? How do they know I’m calling within 48 hours of anything? More importantly, look at the four “gifts” below; one of which is apparently mine. Take a guess – which trip do you think I won?

Credit to the contest producers; I guessed wrong. I would’ve thought the 7-Night Resort Stay at Worldwide Destinations was my prize. After all, how much vaguer can a trip description be? If I called the toll-free number they’d probably go, “Yes you won but you can only take the trip on these 7 nights”. And “worldwide destination” technically means anywhere in the world so maybe I’ve won seven nights in the middle of Iowa.

In fact, the prize I “won” is the Caribbean Cruise for Two for Up to 7 Nights. The more I think about it, that one makes more sense. Any ship in Caribbean waters could be considered a “cruise” (even a foreign freighter with an empty cargo hold). “Up to 7 nights” could mean just two nights or even an overnight. And however I actually get to this cruise ship is on my own dime.

The pièce de résistance is on the back of the flyer: the fine print. The five hundred words you see above include the odds of winning (which is how I know I won the Caribbean cruise). Out of every 2,000,000 mailed flyers, 1,999,997 will win the Caribbean cruise, while just three people will win the three trips of any real value. In other words, one person wins a free Viking River Cruise. Okay, enough already; now this flyer goes into the trash, where it should’ve gone in the first place.

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LEGO Neuschwanstein Castle – Update #2 (read about the start of this project in Fit for a (Fairy Tale) King)

We continued to move mountains this week (as expected) but I was delighted to see bits of the castle starting to rise up already. Apparently I need to bring in cranes in addition to my earth-moving equipment. Bags 3 and 4 (of 23 bags of pieces) contained a lot of tiny, interesting, colorful bits. I had to be careful those little guys didn’t run down the mountains and try to escape.

For the first time in a half-dozen models I’m here to tell you… LEGO left out a piece. They really did. If you look at this step in the process (and yes, I’m already through 50+ steps), that little two-dot middle-row-right was AWOL. I checked the bags a dozen times thinking he was still in there. I scanned the piles of parts another dozen times. No two-dot. Maybe he’ll show up in another bag further into the build but by then it’ll be too late. The good news is, his location is buried inside the mountains and is not structural. You will never see the small cavity created by his absence.

What you see in the first photo is only about half the size of the completed model. It will be a full rectangle of Bavarian Alps when it’s done. Of course, by then you won’t even notice all the earthmoving I’ve accomplished, because Neuschwanstein Castle will utterly lord over the (LEGO) land.

Running build time: 1:52.

Total leftover pieces: 17.

Accompanying movie soundtrack: Leap Year (2010). I could use the excuse of the lovely Amy Adams to justify this favorite, but this so-so rom-com came out when she was hardly a name. However, Randy Edelman’s score is wonderful. It’s so much larger than the movie itself. “Anna’s Theme” – which the score returns to again and again – is a calming tune using a lot of piano and guitar. Elsewhere traditional Irish instruments make their inevitable appearance. Maybe the movie is forgettable but the music most definitely is not. Have a listen here.

Note: Life In A Word will be taking a vacation break for the next few weeks. Join me for the next chapter of the castle construction on August 20th!

What’s the Score?

Among the televised game shows I remember watching as a kid was one called Name That Tune. The version I watched wasn’t the original but it was the most successful, running from 1974-1981. Contestants competed for cash prizes by guessing the name of a song from a sound bite performed by the live band. The appeal of Name That Tune was the ability to play the game yourself while you watched (like you can with Jeopardy). But there was one genre of music Name That Tune didn’t tap into very often: film scores.

Here’s my question of the day. Name the last movie you saw where you also remember the music that accompanied the film. Titanic? Okay, but I’m not talking about soundtracks made up of popular songs you’d hear on Spotify (sorry, Celine) but rather instrumental scores where the music is tied to particular scenes of the story. Here, listen to the following sound bite and see if you can name the movie. Bonus points if you can picture the scene where the music was played. (scroll to the bottom for the answer)

Maybe your brain doesn’t associate movies with music the way mine does, but to demonstrate this acuity it took me no time at all to come up with a dozen of my favorite film scores; instrumentals so memorable I instantly recall the movie. Some, like the one I teased above, won Academy Awards (for “Best Original Score”). Others on my list weren’t even nominated… but maybe should have been.

Speaking of Academy Award winners, perhaps examples will help you “hear that tune”. The Best Original Score in 1965 was for The Sound of Music, primarily original songs with lyrics but several instrumental turns as well. The winner in 1973 was for The Sting, in which Scott Joplin’s ragtime piano tunes played the major role. The winner in 1975 was for Jaws, and I wonder who can’t hear that threatening theme whenever they picture a man-eating shark. The 1977 winner? Star Wars, scored by John Williams, who created the music for dozens of blockbuster films. 1990? Dances With Wolves by John Barry, another giant of the world of film scores. The list goes on and on.

As for my own list of favorites you’ll have to be a little more patient. I’ll include them – one at a time – as I give updates on the construction of my LEGO Neuschwanstein Castle over the next several months. If you’re wondering what movie soundtracks and a German castle have in common, I refer back to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang of course, with scenes filmed at Neuschwanstein. The story is a vivid childhood memory start to finish but so is the music. Trust me, for the number of times I’ve seen the film I can “name that scene” for just about every piece of the score.

LEGO Neuschwanstein Castle – Update #1 (read about the start of this project in Fit for a (Fairy Tale) King)

You’d think the construction of a castle would begin with the cornerstone. With the LEGO model you’d be wrong. We’re moving mountains instead. King Ludwig already had the Bavarian Alps at his disposal but we have build them from scratch before they’re crowned with his creation. Good thing this structure isn’t full-size or I’d be renting some serious earthmoving equipment!

With Bags 1 and 2 (of 23 bags of pieces) we got our hands dirty piling up dirt, rock, and other rather undefined landscape to create a mountaintop. Well, one-third of a mountaintop or so. If the next few bags represent the other two-thirds I’m not gonna an exciting update for you next week. At least the pieces snapped together smoothly. As with all LEGO models I’ve built, there were moments where I thought LEGO left out a piece, and other moments where I backed up a step or two to correct the construction. One change I’ve noticed from previous models: LEGO puts the tiniest pieces into paper “baglets”, which I’m not a fan of. Those little bags aren’t transparent, so you don’t always know when a piece gets stuck way down in the corner.

The model’s instruction manual – which henceforth shall be called the “tome of construction” – includes a few teasers about the real castle. Neuschwanstein has secret passageways! It also has “ingenious” inventions of its time, like modern toilets, central heating, and an electric call system for all of the servants who never spent a moment inside the walls. If any of these details are worth seeing before I “close in” the castle, you can bet I’ll be snapping a few photos for your viewing pleasure. Until next week!

Accompanying soundtrack: Mary Poppins . Did the magical nanny really make my list of favorite film scores? No she didn’t (not even for a spoonful of sugar), but I couldn’t find Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on Spotify and Dick Van Dyke was already singing in my head so… I went with Bert the chimney sweep instead.

Running build time: 44 minutes. Leftover pieces: 4.

“Name the movie” audio answer: Chariots of Fire (during the scene where several runners clad in white jog barefoot on the beach).

Some content sourced from, IMDb.com, “the Internet Movie Database”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

A Builder’s Half-Dozen

Considering the decimal system we Americans use for counting, it’s a little curious how many of our purchases come in sets of six. Soda cans and soda bottles comes in sixes. So do paper towels and toilet paper. Cube-like things have six sides. So do hexagons. Strum a guitar and six strings sing. Finally, let’s acknowledge sets of twelve where you only need half of them. A half-dozen eggs. A half-dozen doughnuts. Or for purposes of this post, a half-dozen LEGO models.

Before I lay the cornerstone of the LEGO Neuschwanstein Castle I thought I should revisit the five LEGO models that preceded it; the ones that perch quietly in various places in my home office. Like Neuschwanstein, these models have sentimental value, which speaks to the primary reason I chose them out of all of the other LEGO possibilities. I mean, I could’ve built the 10,000-piece Eiffel Tower (for example) but would I have been inspired to do so? Hardly, since I’ve only seen it from a distance. Here then, my builder’s half-dozen:

U.S. Capitol Building – I can’t remember what year I purchased this one, my first LEGO build, but it was sometime before this blog even existed. At over 1,000 pieces, it was one of the more sophisticated models of the budding LEGO Architecture Series back then. The LEGO U.S. Capitol does have sentimental value. As a California kid my parents recognized the need to get my brothers and me to the East Coast for a dose of “real” U.S. history. That month-long driving trip through Colonial America is one of my fondest childhood memories.

Grand Piano – You can read about this build starting with Let’s Make Music. It’s my one LEGO model outside of the Architecture Series but also my very favorite. Snapping together 3,662 LEGO pieces over several months allowed me to blog about my favorite pieces of classical music. The piano also brought back countless childhood memories of practice, lessons, and recitals at the keyboard. I may not play as much as I used to, but the LEGO Grand Piano reminds me that classical music will always be a part of my DNA.

Fallingwater – Frank Lloyd Wright’s signature design is undoubtedly my favorite residential structure, especially the way the house blends seamlessly with the natural surrounds of Western Pennsylvania. Fallingwater speaks to my college degree in architecture as well. I built the spartan LEGO Fallingwater model in early 2023 (read about its construction – and my favorite works of architecture – in Perfect Harmony) and then made the long-overdue pilgrimage to Fallingwater itself in the summer of 2024. The experience was every bit as serene and dramatic as I had hoped. If you find yourself anywhere near Pittsburgh, take a little time to visit Fallingwater.

Notre Dame de Paris – The cathedral on the banks of the Seine River in Paris is the first of two LEGO models that harken back to my junior college year in Italy. During spring break I met my parents in Paris and took a whirlwind tour of the city. I didn’t climb the Eiffel Tower and I didn’t even visit the Louvre, but at least I spent a few moments inside the glorious sanctuary of Notre Dame. Forty years later I completed the LEGO version; my biggest build at 4,383 pieces (read about this adventure in Highest Chair). I still need to add the sophisticated lighting kit, which will give the church the dramatic illumination it deserves.

Trevi Fountain – LEGO offers several options to build a structure located in Rome, but the Trevi Fountain spoke loudest to me. I walked through its piazza many times during that college year, throwing coins over my shoulder with hopes of returning to the Eternal City one day (which still hasn’t happened). The Trevi is one of the smaller models of my LEGO half-dozen – less than 2,000 pieces – but it’s high on sentimental value. Read about the build in Brick Wall Waterfall.

Neuschwanstein Castle – I shared a few details about King Ludwig II’s creation in last week’s Fit For a (Fairy Tale) King. The castle’s LEGO model is 3,455 pieces of stone, brick, turrets, towers, and trees, perched above LEGO’s version of the Bavarian Alps. I’ve often thought I should be building this one on top of a ladder to simulate the dramatic location. But the twenty-three bags of pieces and the hefty instruction manual will be challenge enough. I’ll be sharing the ups (and no doubt the downs) of its construction over the next few months.

If you liken a builder’s half-dozen to that of a baker, we’re actually talking seven LEGO models instead of six. And that, my friends, is the convenient caveat for claiming Neuschwanstein Castle will be my final construct (convenient, caveat, claiming, Castle, construct… NICE Dave!). After all, LEGO will keep adding new models to its Architecture Series. I only have room to display six of them but I’m sure that won’t deter me when the seventh comes a-calling.