America – Page 9 – Life In A Word

Floral Fire

Billboard ranks “Firework” as Katy Perry’s best-selling single, with millions of downloads since its 2010 release. The self-empowerment tune “skyrocketed” to #1 on Billboard’s Top 100 at the time and ranked in the top five on twenty other charts worldwide. “Firework” also “sparked” an award-winning music video, and Katy has since performed the anthem live at two presidential inaugurations and during the halftime show of the Super Bowl. Searching Wikipedia for “firework”, therefore, it comes as no surprise to be asked, “Do you mean the song or the low-explosive pyrotechnic device?” Today, I choose the latter.

For the first time in countless July 4th celebrations I can’t speak to having seen a single overhead firework display this year. No giant “willows” with their graceful descending trails of sparks; no “peonies” where those same trails radiate in straight lines from the center; and no “horsetails” (my favorite) where each trail bursts a second time, followed by a crackling, glittering shower of fire. Also, no “grand finale” where it looks like the entire sky is splitting open to some fiery furnace beyond.

From the vantage point of our house, we used to count on the fireworks show from the nearby U.S. Air Force Academy. That show has been canceled for the last ten years because of budget cutbacks. We also used to bring blankets to the shore of a nearby lake, where we were treated to a “small-town” fireworks display funded by donations from the public. Today, that display has been swallowed up by a bigger all-day “Festival on the Fourth”, where you pay for parking and walk a mile or two just to secure a spot on the lake several hours ahead of the fireworks. Even so, we thought we’d see bits and bursts from one of the other nine shows scattered around nearby Colorado Springs. Nope, not so much as a snap, crackle, or pop.

Palmer Lake, CO 2022 fireworks display (photo courtesy of local resident Bartley Willson)

Fireworks are nostalgic for me, with two distinct memories from childhood. The first, in the 1970s, brings me back to the beach of the Pacific Ocean in Los Angeles. Back then the only commercial displays seemed to be over the ocean. My parents would grab a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and several blankets, and the whole family would find a place on the beach where for several hours, we’d eat and play as twilight became dark, in anticipation of the late, late fireworks show from the end of the nearby pier.

The second memory, a decade later, also brings me to the Pacific Ocean but to a beach further south near San Diego, where we’d shoot off our own fireworks (from the “Safe and Sane” boxed collections my dad brought home every year), followed by an overhead display from the nearby county fair. Every childhood July 4th was the same: food, fun, and fireworks; lots and lots of fireworks.

In 1976 – America’s bicentennial year – the firework display in New York City included an unforgettable “waterfall” effect off one of the bridges. This year, that same July 4th display (sponsored by Macy’s) ballooned to a two-hour televised extravaganza with over 2,000 blasts and effects per minute. I’d say Macy’s department stores and their profit margins are doing just fine, wouldn’t you?

I shouldn’t be surprised to learn fireworks were invented by the Chinese (well over a thousand years ago) but here’s a less-obvious bit of floral fire trivia: Disney is the largest consumer of fireworks in the world. It used to be – back when their single amusement park was California’s “Disneyland” – you’d only catch a Disney firework show on summer evenings (directly above Cinderella’s castle), and only if you stayed until just before the park closed. Today you’ll find displays at any one of the twelve Disney parks, in any month of the year. For the record, only the U.S. Department of Defense purchases more explosive devices than Disney.

There’s more firework trivia, of course. The very first iterations were empty bamboo shoots, creating a mild popping sound when ignited because of natural air pockets. Seeking more pyrotechnics, the Chinese added explosive chemicals to the shoots to create firecrackers”. Eventually they figured out how to launch and propel their creations, and the overhead fireworks display was born, in an impressive rainbow of chemical colors. But take note; you won’t see a blue firework very often. Blue requires an infusion of copper at just the right temperature, and the “cool” color tends to get lost next to the “hotter” reds and yellows.

I’m still puzzled why I didn’t hear so much as a “BOOM! BOOM! BOOM” aftershock (to quote Katy Perry) of a firework display this year. Maybe most of my fellow Coloradoans kept the bursts and blasts to the ground instead, from what they purchased at the local firework stand. Those of you living in New Jersey, Massachusetts, or Delaware can’t relate because consumer fireworks are illegal in your states. Not so much as a sparkler in your hand. (Which may be a good thing since sparklers can heat up to 2000 ºF) So you probably did what I did this year – simply watch a recap of the Washington D.C. grand finale on your smartphone. It was the only floral fire I could find.

Some content sourced from the BuzzFeed article, “17 Things You Probably Never Knew About Fireworks”, the Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks website, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Many Happy Returns

Unlike 2021, the due date for U.S. tax returns was back to mid-April this year. Most of us sweated under the ticking clock as we combed through statements and receipts in search of last-minute tax breaks. I have this recurring pipe dream where the IRS tells me to just keep what I owe (followed by the dream of how I would spend the money). Sadly, I’m a taxpayer who rarely sees a refund, and keeping what I owe certainly won’t happen. On the other hand, retailers could soon be asking me to keep what I want to return. Now there’s something to ponder.

Picture this. You place an Amazon order for a brand new Playstation 5. You plunk down the $500 it costs and a few days later your purchase shows up on your doorstep. But while you were waiting for your gaming console the IRS sent you a reminder about the balance due on your 2021 taxes. Whoops. You owe that $500 to the federal government, young taxpayer. Hello, buyer’s remorse. Full of regret, you contact Amazon to arrange the return, and their carefully worded response goes like this:

Dear Amazon Prime Member. Thank you for your inquiry into the return of your Playstation 5 gaming console. After reviewing our current stock we have determined it is not necessary for you to return this product. Accordingly, nothing further is required at this time. You can expect a full refund applied to the credit card used to make this purchase. Thank you for shopping with Amazon.

Wait… keep the product AND get a refund, you say? Crazy, I know. Or maybe not, at least if you shop at Target or Wal*Mart. Both retailers are considering this no-return approach with clothes, garden furniture, and “bulky” kids’ toys among other products they currently overstock. It’s the result of consecutive worldwide events. First, the pandemic, which allowed consumers to build up their savings accounts while mostly staying at home. Second, record-setting inflation, which dragged a knife through what was supposed to be a post-pandemic spending frenzy. Retailers stocked up early in anticipation of the purchase party, but then the lights and music were abruptly cut off. The result: overstocked with a capital “O”.

This version of keep-the-product-keep-the-cash kinda-sorta happened to me years ago. My sister-in-law ordered a ping-pong table for her family and when it came, they discovered a bit of damage in one corner. So she contacted the company, who told her, “Keep it. We’ll just send you another one.” Thus, in a moment labeled “Christmas not on Christmas”, my family got a free ping-pong table (Thanks, Sis!) Sure, the bounce of the ball was a little off on that one corner, but my kids didn’t care. Besides, before I knew it they were old enough (or not) to drink and pretty much destroyed the table when they shifted to beer pong.

But I digress. With a ping-pong table I’m almost sure the cost of shipping back to the manufacturer was more than the profit after fixing and reselling it. So my sister-in-law got two tables for the price of one. Hey, what if she’d bought ten ping-pong tables and all of them were defective? She’d go up and down her street handing out free tables. She’d gain a bunch of new best friends and her neighborhood would hold massive ping-pong tournaments. All for the cost of one table.

The problem at Target and Wal*Mart is more than just the cost of returns and overstocked items. It’s also, they can’t charge the same price they charged you. For one, the item may be offered at a discounted price by the time you return it. For two, certain items have to be classified as “used” and can’t be offered at full price after the first purchase, or even offered at all.

Which brings me to orange juice. Orange juice, you ask? Yep. Try to return a jug of juice to the market some time. We bought five jugs a couple of months ago for our daughter’s bridal shower, assuming the mimosas would flow like Niagara Falls. Wrong. Only a few of the guests opted for the bubbly since the shower was mid-day. So I called my local market to confirm the return of four unopened jugs of juice, and was horrified to hear, “Sure, you can return them for a full refund. But we’ll just throw out the juice.” Throw out the juice? Yes, it’s the world we live in these days. Many food items cannot be resold for fear of tainting. So I’m drinking a lot of orange juice right now.

Let’s wrap this public service announcement with a caveat. One of these days you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you end up with a purchased product AND a full refund. Lucky you – it’s “Christmas not on Christmas”! If it’s through Amazon, however, be wary of the following purchases: hazardous materials, gift cards, jewelry, groceries, and live insects (uh, live insects?) None of those can ever be returned, nor will you get your money back. In other words, the sea monkeys you adopted in a moment of nostalgia (remember those, Boomers?) should be considered bought and paid for. No refunds.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Just keep your returns…”, and the Clark.com article, “12 Items That Can’t Be Returned to Amazon”.

Adding Fire to the Fuel

When I step up to the counter at Starbucks for my favorites (hot: Grande Flat White, cold: Grande Cold Brew w/ a splash of cream), I find it interesting how accepting I am of the high price of my purchase. By nature I’m a penny-pincher, monitoring the family budget with a fully-focused microscope. But the scan-and-go Starbucks app makes it easy to overlook the five dollars for a single cup of coffee. On the other hand, a gallon of gasoline for the same price is literally headline news.

I don’t wonder if you’re just like me at the gas station these days because you are. When you pull up to the pump you try to ignore the unbelievable digits on the station sign and on the pump itself. The tank in your vehicle is probably closer to “E” than usual (though my wife still refuses to go below the quarter mark). You may even shop around now before choosing your station. Finally, the price of your favorite octane has you considering a cheaper option, even though none of them are really “cheap”. Just like the Starbucks menu, purchasing gas is no longer the mindless decision it used to be.

$5.00/gallon. Ten days ago the U.S. hit that preposterous average for the first time in its history. Just two months ago the average was $4.00; two years before that, less than $2.00. Forecasters say we’ll see a nationwide average of $6.00 before the end of the summer. No wonder our fiery conversations are all about fuel these days.

When my car’s “low fuel” light pops on (with an annoying “DING!”) I know it’s going to take eighteen gallons to get the needle pointing back to “F”. That’s $90 in June 2022 math. When a stop at the gas station sets you back almost $100, you start to think about what else you could buy with the money. Four or five dinners out. Ten months of Netflix. Twenty Starbucks Flat Whites.

If it’s any consolation, at least we’re talking about self-service gasoline here. Some of you are too young to remember when a “gas station” was a “service station”. Prior to 1980, it was all about full service. I can still hear the ding-ding as the wheels of my parents’ car passed over black hoses, triggering the bell to let the attendant know they needed a fill-‘er-up. Then he (yes “he” because I never remember a “she” working at service stations back then) would run over to the pump, ask what octane and how many gallons, and start the filling. He’d also ask you to “pop the hood” so he could have a quick look at the oil, washer fluid, and engine. Finally, he’d give your front windshield a wash, take payment (in cash, of course), and off you’d go. For all that service, you simply rolled down the driver’s-side window and paid the man.

Full-service is still a thing of course but it’s a lot harder to find these days. Unless you live in Oregon or New Jersey. In those states, self-service is rarely an option. Attendants are still the norm. It sounds like an alternate reality for 2022 (or the scene from Back to the Future below) but two out of the fifty states stubbornly refuse to allow self-service. They stand by the well-worn concerns: fire hazards, difficulties for the elderly or disabled, and loss of station attendant jobs. They also charge a few pennies more per gallon because they can’t make a profit the way they used to – by offering services beyond the gas itself. For the most part, those under-the-hood services moved to car dealerships a long time ago.

Just this week our politicians proposed a three-month “holiday” on gas taxes (and taxes on gasoline should be the subject of its own blog post). The holiday won’t happen, though. Our politicians won’t allow the sacrifices made by not collecting those taxes. Or activists will wonder if gas companies will maintain the high prices and generate additional profit. And if gas is on its way to $6/gallon anyway, it’s kind of like adding a new lane to the highway, where by the time it’s finished the traffic has increased too much to notice any difference.

Not speaking for other countries but Americans won’t be driving less in the next several months. The travel forecast calls for more vehicle miles than even in the summers before COVID. Our lack of efficient mass transit and our woes at the airport (can you say, “canceled flight”?) will, uh, drive us to drive. In other words, we’ll pay $5, $6, maybe even $7 before we’ll pull back on our stubborn habits. Just like I will, admittedly, at Starbucks.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Why New Jersey and Oregon still don’t let you pump your own gas”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Raising a Red (White, and Blue) Flag

I knew this was coming. When you blog several hundred times over, you start to wonder, “Have I already covered this topic?” Today’s subject seemed like new territory so I answered with a resounding, “No, I haven’t”… and I was wrong. Way wrong. Turns out, I’ve already discussed a certain mid-June U.S. holiday twice in previous posts. Whoops. Is this what happens when you turn sixty or am I subconsciously determined to elevate a somewhat meaningless festivity? Okay, don’t answer that. Just bear with me while I unfurl my opinion for a third time here. Happy Flag Day, America.

You missed it again, darn you. You’re reading about Flag Day here, at least two days after the fact, and now you’re wondering how you could’ve possibly forgotten to raise your Stars and Stripes on Tuesday. I mean, c’mon, you did raise your flag on Memorial Day, right? And you’re planning to do the same on July 4th? So how could you forget the “holiday” smack dab in between? Think about it. Technically we celebrate the birthday of our flag on June 14th (and this year we put 245 candles on her red, white, and blue cake). Isn’t the birth of our flag more important than honoring our fallen military or celebrating our independence? Of course it is… NOT.

I’m struggling (third time over) to appreciate Flag Day. We celebrate a big birthday at Christmas (er, some of us) and another one on July 4th (again, some of us). Those are major parties. With the former, we have an entire season leading up to the holiday itself – music, food, presents, and decorations galore. With the latter, we have parades, festivals, 5K races, family barbeques, fireworks, and more decorations galore. But June 14th? Just another day at the office, I say. Unless your town throws a parade like Quincy, MA (“Longest-running of its kind!”), Troy, NY (“50,000+ spectators!”), or Three Oaks, MI (“Three-day celebration!”), you didn’t even think about raising your flag. And for the record, the Troy, NY parade called it quits five years ago. Can you say “holi-dying”?

No disrespect to the U.S. flag, mind you. The red, white, and blue has quite the history. The version you see these days is the twenty-seventh since its birth in 1777. She flies permanently (all day, every day) in over twenty locations, including the U.S. Capitol, Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, and the moon (yep, that one). And I’ll bet you didn’t know, the American flag “should be displayed at full staff” on eighteen calendar holidays. Even on Christmas. But especially on Flag Day (sarcasm with a capital “S”).

Trivia break (because we need a break). I’m here to tell you the largest American flag – as deemed by the good people at Guinness – is not in Texas (after all, everything’s bigger in Texas). It’s Superflag and it’s deserving of its nickname. Superflag (“It’s not just a flag, it’s a feeling!”) is 1.5 times the size of a football field. It weighs 3,000 pounds and needs 600 people to hold it up. A single star in Superflag’s field of blue is seventeen feet high. That’s a big banner, citizens; so big, in fact (and unwieldy), its creator birthed “Superflag Jr.” as a more convenient size. You’ll see Junior unfurled before the Super Bowl, covering almost the entire field.

Giant flags may fire me up but here’s a subject that does not: Betsy Ross. Sure, “Elizabeth” was a real person, living in a real house (which you can still tour today in Philadelphia); an upholsterer by trade and a talented seamstress besides. She was even an acquaintance of George Washington. But credit her with creating the very first American flag? Sorry, compatriots, it’s just not true (or at least there’s no evidence to prove it). Makes for a quaint story from our colonial roots, but when any association of Betsy and the first flag includes “purported” or “legend”, you have to wonder who makes this stuff up.

Talking about Superflag and Betsy Ross makes you think I don’t have enough to say about my original topic. You would be correct. But if you simply must know more about Flag Day (and for the record, I don’t think you must), check out my previous posts American Hollow-Day (full of mirth) and Banner Birthday (less tongue-in-cheek). Neither “old-glorifies” June 14th any better than this one… nor did the zero-count of American flags I saw on Tuesday around town. This holiday is on the ropes, people. I’m not here raising a red, white, and blue flag but more like, a red flag. Third blog strike. I’m out.

Some content sourced from the We Are The Mighty article, “This is the world’s largest American flag”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Curtains for Calls

Denver’s getting a new area code next month!

No, I’m not short on blog topics – stay with me here.

“983” will be added to 303 and 720 because Denver’s rapid growth means they’re running out of new phone numbers. But it’s not our state’s fifth area code itself that has my attention (by comparison, California blows us away with 36). It’s the 25 years “983” is expected to last before Colorado needs a sixth area code. Seriously? Will we even have phones in 25 years?

“Area code” feels like an old-fashioned term. I associate area codes with the physical act of “dialing” (also an old-fashioned term). Sure, we need area codes to establish new numbers the first time we get smartphones (as preschoolers?) but then they become more labels than three-digit numbers, don’t they? Think about it. If you need to call someone these days, forget about their area code because you already have it in their profile. You either tell your phone to call the person or you pull them up in “Contacts” and simply touch the number on the screen. In other words, your phone dials the area code but you do not. Not anymore.

Before smartphones, area codes had more prestige. They were required to make “long-distance” phone calls, which meant you had to dial an extra three digits. Outside of toll-free numbers, area codes conjured up exotic destinations, as if dialing halfway around the world instead of somewhere else in your state. Area codes made you feel like you were calling someone important. Today, they’re just labels.

If I really wanted to date myself, I could be talking about telephone exchange numbers instead of area codes. KLondike, WRigley, and TEmpleton all referred to the central offices of telephone exchanges, with every phone number in an exchange starting with the first two letters of the central office. PEnnsylvania 6-5000 was a memorable example because it connected you with the famous Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City, and Glenn Miller made the number into a popular swing jazz tune in the 1940s. I wasn’t around in the 1940s (or even the 1950s), so enough with this topic.

Let’s flush “dialing” out of conversations about phones, shall we? Nobody “dials” anymore. Dialing (for you preschoolers) hearkens back to a time when phones were phones. You picked up the corded “handset” from the “cradle” on the “base”, nestled it against your jaw so the “receiver” lined up with the ear and the “microphone” with the mouth, toggled the “switchhook” for “dial tone”, and placed a call by spinning the rotary dial once for each digit in the phone number (got all that, kids?) The dial would rotate back to its original position after each digit so you could dial the next one. The whole process took 30-45 seconds, followed by a long pause, and then the “ringer” sounded on the receiving phone. With that in mind, do you take the ease of your smartphone touchscreen for granted? Of course you do.

[Author’s Note: The mechanics of rotary phones (base, dial, ringer, handset) made them HEAVY. You can find movies from the 1940s or 1950s where a character uses a rotary phone as a weapon simply by clocking someone over the head with it.]

Dialing eventually gave way to “touch-tones” (thanks to the invention of the transistor). The rotary dial was replaced with a grid of plastic pushbuttons, one for each digit. Yes, we still “dialed” area codes but with buttons instead. The buttons then migrated from the phone base to the handset. The handset then went cordless. Finally, the base disappeared altogether, and voila! – you had the first “mobile” phone.

Area codes make me nostalgic because I associate them with actual phone calls, one voice talking to another. Today we’d sooner text than talk. Delivered mail to your box on the street isn’t long for this world. One of these days it’ll be curtains for phone calls as well. Which re-begs the question about Denver’s latest area code. Do we really need bright and shiny-new “983”?

Phone calls of the future may simply be mind games where we’re able to “ring” each other brain-to-brain. A little far-fetched, you say? Probably, and the idea of thought control makes me squeamish anyway. Call it old-fashioned, but I hope we’re still talking about area codes in 25 years after all.

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

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Lego Grand Piano – Update #19

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

Today’s section of the symphony was short and entirely predictable. Bag #19 – of 21 bags of pieces – assembled the rest of the piano’s top lid, shown completed in the photos below. I simply picked up where I left off from last week’s Bag #18, continuing to build up the “wall” of the lid until it was complete. It’s a repetitive process using pieces of similar sizes and shapes. Now, all we are left with – my patient audience members – is the support structure of the piano lid (so it can be raised to its very elegant angle when open), and the free-standing pianist’s bench.

Today’s build took less than twenty minutes. (I could’ve built Bag #20 as well, but why change my weekly pace this late in the game?) As I was finishing the piano lid it occurred to me using Mr. Instruction Manual is a lot like using sheet music. You shift your eyes between the manual and the piano itself constantly as you work, step-by-step-by-step. Just as you would when playing the piano from a sheet of music.

Running Build Time: 13.3 hours. Musical accompaniment: Brahams’ Violin Concerto in D. Leftover pieces: None again!

Conductor’s Note: Johannes Brahms had to be included in the list of musical accompaniments for my Lego Grand Piano build because, well, he’s one of the “bigs” in classical music. His Violin Concerto in D Major sits on Germany’s Mount Rushmore of violin concertos, beside Beethoven’s, Mendelssohn’s, and Max Bruch’s. You, however, know Brahms best for his beloved lullaby “Cradle Song”, which starts “Lullaby, and goodnight, with roses bedight…”

Changing Planes

My wife & I are boarding more flights than usual as we anticipate our upcoming relocation to South Carolina. “More than usual” deserves context I suppose, since so many of us skipped airports altogether the last couple of years. Flying is different now – some ways better, others not so much (and unquestionably more expensive). Regardless, I was happy to learn our favorite choice of airline before AND after the emergence of COVID just earned the label “world’s best” for 2021. Care to guess which one?

I already gave you the subtlest of hints in my blog title. With mathematics at least, the world’s best airline is also known as “an incremental change in a variable”, which makes its logo – the triangle – a fitting symbol. Its slogan is the uber-confident “world’s most trusted airline” but I prefer one of its older ones:

Maybe Delta Air Lines is your airline of choice too. If not, you’re wondering where your favorite ranks among the world’s best. I’ve never heard of Cirium (have you?) but the data-mining company spends its days converting 300 terabytes of aviation performance metrics into annual best-in-class rankings. (300 TB meant nothing to me until I crunched a few numbers. A ten-page Word doc is about 2 MB By my calcs Cirium is sorting through five million pages of data. I’d say their rankings are legit, wouldn’t you?)

Let’s end the suspense. Here are the top ten airlines measured by “operational performance”, for 2021:

Delta (“Platinum Award” winner)
Alaska
American
United
Spirit
Frontier
Southwest
JetBlue
Air Canada
Allegiant

Delta should put a lot of stock in this win, and not just because 9 of its 10 aircraft arrived on time in 2021 (10% better than second-place Alaska). It’s more about the impact of the passenger experience to the result. Is the boarding process efficient? Is the flight crew rested and available? Is the aircraft properly maintained? How is baggage handled? How are unruly passengers dealt with (a more recent trend)? Every one of these details number-crunches to a measure of on-time arrivals. And no one does it better than Delta.

I may be biased but my own experiences seem to back up the numbers. My wife & I have flown Delta several times since 2019 (including a trip to Europe) and every one of those journeys met or surpassed our expectations. I’m not saying Delta goes over the top to gain customer loyalty (though a warm chocolate-chip cookie would help). They simply do what I expect. Arrive on time and make the journey as pleasant and efficient as possible. Is that too much to ask?

Sadly, my affection for Delta is bolstered by my dissatisfaction with its competitors. I’m surprised to see American and United make the top five. My family and I have had several lousy experiences with American, including delayed or canceled flights and could-care-less customer service agents. Meanwhile, United may know how to arrive on time, but their coach seats should be labeled “cattle class” (not unlike Spirit and Frontier). Drop down the tray table and open your laptop. I challenge you to type comfortably.

Southwest could’ve been higher in Cirium’s rankings but I’m sure their logistical issues last year contributed to the number. Scores of their canceled flights were attributed to “weather challenges” during an unprecedented upheaval in the workforce. I’ll forgive the bald-faced excuse. When Southwest is running on “all engines” their brand of customer service is second to none – which keeps me coming back for more.

From my days in corporate America, I remember an equilateral triangle as the symbol of a successful company, giving balance to customers, employees, and shareholders. Looks a lot like the Delta logo, doesn’t it? More than just a nod to the Greek letter (Delta) or a throwback to its origins in the Mississippi (“Delta”, that is). Even the dictionary definition of delta belongs in the conversation. Positive change befits operational excellence.

If my wife & I were relocating to Salt Lake City or Atlanta (or one of Delta’s other hubs), we’d be changing planes and flying more often with the “triangle”. Just this week my wife enjoyed another Delta flight she described as “perfect except for a few inconsiderate passengers” (which seems to be the norm these days). Delta celebrates one hundred years of passenger flights in 2029 so it’s safe to say they’re guided by experience. The Cirium ranking is just a numbers-crunching confirmation of what I already know. Delta is ready when I am. Or, to put it mathematically, Δ = (S)atisfaction + (L)oyalty.

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “The world’s best-performing airline has been revealed”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Lego Grand Piano – Update #18

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

Today’s section of the symphony could’ve, maybe should’ve used a stand-in pianist. Bag #18 – of 21 bags of pieces – assembled a little more than half of the piano’s top lid. I show the structure on its side in the first photo because that’s how I built it, from the ground, er… desk up. I imagined myself as a tiny mason, building a wall brick-by-little-brick, working right-to-left, then over to the right again. You – my faithful reader – could’ve handled this part of the construction easily. In Lego terms, it’s a wall made with various lengths of rectangle pieces. That’s it.

Not a wall, but part of the hinging piano lid.

Know what I love about this adventure? (which is rapidly coming to a close!) You don’t always see what’s coming. I knew I was building the top lid, but it was hard to see how it fit the piano until I set it on its side when I was done (second photo). More to my point, I have three bags of pieces remaining. One is the remainder of the piano lid. One is the free-standing bench for the pianist. Which leaves… you see? I still have no idea what’s coming.

Running Build Time: 13.0 hours. Musical accompaniment: Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Leftover pieces: None!

The top lid rests in its future location.

Conductor’s Note: The story behind Louis-Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique is more interesting than the piece itself (seriously). At the somewhat tender age of 24, Berlioz fell in love with an Irish Shakespearean actress, who kept him at bay until she finally agreed to be his – seven years later. Maybe the length of Berlioz’s pursuit extinguished the flame because the romance didn’t last. But Berlioz wasn’t left empty-handed. He composed the Symphonie fantastique to depict the idealized version of his Irish lover. I just didn’t find his music fantastique.

Emerald Greens

In the final lines of our national anthem, Americans sing, “O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave”. Those labels are a little dicey today. Are we really free? Are we really brave? It’s a debate best left to more intellectual bloggers. I’m simply looking for less controversial words to describe the United States. Take Ireland, for example. The little republic is nicknamed “The Emerald Isle”. Of this, there can be no doubt. Before your flight even touches down, the window seat view is nothing but endless rolling green hills. And not just any green.

See what I did there? Inside of a single paragraph I distanced myself from heavy topics like freedom and bravery, and now I’m focused on the color green. Bravo, Dave! Now then, let’s continue.

Emeralds have always been my favorite of the precious gems. In the jewelry shop it’s hard to ignore diamonds (because they’re everywhere), yet somewhere in the glass cases you’ll find the more colorful stones. Blood-red rubies. Royal blue sapphires. Modest little garnets (my birthstone). And green, green emeralds. I’m drawn to emeralds because green is my favorite color. On that note, do you realize your favorite color never changes? Nobody says, “Well, I used to like purple but now my favorite color is orange”. You can move to another country, switch up your career, or overhaul your wardrobe, but your favorite color is a constant.

I digress (sorry). I have emeralds on the brain for good reason. My wife & I just celebrated thirty-five years of marriage (thank you very much), and she hinted emeralds might be a nice gift. So I paid a visit to my jeweler. I told her I was looking for something understated, maybe earrings and a necklace. She showed me a pretty set, where I thought my only decision was the shape of the stones (Round? Square? Pear?). But then she threw me a curve when she said, “Would you prefer natural or lab-created?” Huh? Why would I buy my wife anything other than the real thing?

Here’s the rub of the green. Lab-created gems are the real thing. They’re “chemically, physically, and optically identical to their natural counterparts.” So why choose one over the other? Cost. Lab-created gems can be significantly less expensive, especially as the number of carats grows. In other words, easy choice, right? Wrong. The lab-created gems – at least in my jewelry shop – were small enough to be the same price as the naturals. Instead, my decision came down to color.

Was I tempted by the blue-green clarity of the lab-created? Absolutely. Did I choose them? Absolutely not. I kept coming back to the emeralds in my brain. Call it natural green, kelly green, or Irish green, but I prefer the green on the left. And I think my wife did too.

Liz is wearing $6.5M worth of emeralds and diamonds

I’d like to share some trivia on today’s topic but – warning – it’s a little pedestrian. Emeralds are one of the twelve birthstones (conveniently, the month of May). Emeralds come from the mineral Beryl (as do aquamarines). Their rarity makes them “precious”, alongside diamonds, rubies, and sapphires. They’re delicate, susceptible to chipping. Finally, emeralds are considered, among other things, a symbol of rebirth.

A section of the Florida Panhandle is called the Emerald Coast for the area’s clear, green water. The Wizard of Oz lived in the Emerald City for reasons only Oz fanatics can explain. And little Ireland, deservedly, earns its nickname for those rolling green hills, as well as Irish jewelry, made primarily from green gems (if not all emeralds).

I saved one more fact for last, mostly to make points with my wife. After I bought her the earrings and necklace, I said to my jeweler, “By the way, it’s silver for the 25th anniversary and gold for the 50th, but what about the 35th?” She replied, “Emerald” (even though several Google searches suggest jade). Whoa. I didn’t plan on that coincidence but I’ll certainly take the credit. After all, my wife is one-quarter Irish. My daughter’s name is Kelly. And my favorite color is green. How could it be anything but emeralds?

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

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Lego Grand Piano – Update #17

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

Today’s build demanded more of an overhead view so you can see the difference between last week and this week. Bag #17 – of 21 bags of pieces – earned me the row of seventeen black caps you see in the second photo (on top of the piano wires), as well as the wide stand for sheet music, just behind the keyboard cover.

The piano is a remarkable instrument. When you press down on a key, you’re actually pushing a “hammer” up against the underside of a piano wire, creating a musical sound (or “note”). When you release the key, a black “damper” (one of the seventeen I just built) drops down on the top of the wire, silencing the sound. Add in the functions of the three pedals at the base and you should consider the piano a musical mechanical marvel.

Running Build Time: 12.5 hours. Musical accompaniment: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee. Leftover pieces: 2

Conductor’s Note: The Bumblebee is a brief orchestral interlude of an opera, composed well over a hundred years ago. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s furious little piece, when played on the violin, really does sound like a buzzing bee. It’s only 84 seconds in length, but you find yourself catching your breath after you’ve heard it. It’s even more remarkable when played on the piano, the fingers almost a blur. Have a listen to the audio file here. I’m sure you’ll recognize the tune from some of today’s movies and cartoons.

Happy Holiday

If you subscribe to Disneyland’s claim of “the happiest place on earth”, you’re really talking about the several happiest places on earth. Besides the original parks in California and Florida you now have more exotic locales like Tokyo, Shanghai, and Paris – a total of twelve Disney theme parks across the globe. Now throw in Hawaii’s Aulani (Disney) Resort & Spa for a baker’s dozen. But do a search on “the happiest place on earth” and nothing remotely close to the lands of Disney comes up. Instead, you get the land of the Finns.

Maybe you haven’t heard of the World Happiness Report? I have. I first blogged about it five years ago in my post, Happy Days Aren’t Here Again. Back then I wasn’t lamenting the fact the UN established a rather desperate-sounding holiday (“International Day of Happiness” – March 20th). Rather, I was un-happy the United States ranked #14 in the holiday’s companion report. Thirteen countries, including #1 Norway, were happier places on earth. To make matters worse, the U.S. had been slipping in the happiness rankings since the first report in 2013. This year? The Americans dropped again, to #16.

An objective report on happiness sounds a little ridiculous but when one country (Finland) ranks “happiest” five years running, you sit up and wonder what you’re missing with Laplander life. Consider the variables in the happiness report calculation:

Healthy life expectancy
GDP (goods and services) per capita
Social support in times of trouble
Low corruption
High social trust
Generosity to the community
Freedom to make key life decisions

Maybe you assume Finland’s proximity to Ukraine (and Russia) puts it in a nonpareil position to earn high marks for say, “social support” and “generosity to the community”. But this year’s rankings were determined before Russia’s invasion. Finland was already socially supportive and generous (and apparently “happy”). So, does Finland come to mind when you consider the list above? It doesn’t for me, but I will say this. The Finns enjoy day-to-day living. On a Baltic Sea cruise a few years ago we spent several hours in the capitol city of Helsinki, where we had the chance to observe the locals. What were they doing? Sunning themselves in the parks on an unusually warm day. Shopping in open-air markets. Children walking home from school unattended. Peace and quiet wherever you looked. Happiness.

Eight of the ten “happiest” are on this map

Let’s visit some of the other happier-than-America countries. There must be something good in Baltic Sea water because Norway, Sweden, and Denmark also make the top ten. Iceland skates in at #3, which almost makes for a clean (and happy) sweep of the Nordic countries. Switzerland (#4) and New Zealand (#10) are also “happiest”, and I can think of several reasons to spend time in both places.

As the song goes, “don’t worry, be happy”, but I confess I’m a little concerned about happiness here in America. We need to step up our feel-good game from more than just Disney theme parks. Maybe post those seven criteria on our refrigerators as regular reminders. Or, spend more time in saunas like the Finns do. Otherwise, it may be time to pick up and move further north. After all, happiness beckons.

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “The World’s Happiest Countries for 2022, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Lego Grand Piano – Update #16

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

Every piano keyboard demands a cover to keep it clean. Bag #16 – of 21 bags of pieces – was entirely dedicated to the protection of the keys. As the photos show, the keyboard cover hinges gracefully up and down, blending seamlessly with the rest of the black piano frame.

A word about leftover pieces (another 3 this week). I need to be more thankful they’re “leftover” and not “missing”. I swear I was shorted an important piece this time around (and maybe I really did swear). But as usual, there it was in plain view in my pile of pieces. I’m grateful to the human or the machine making sure every last piece was included in my Lego Grand Piano box.

Running Build Time: 12.0 hours. Musical accompaniment: Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Leftover pieces: 3

Conductor’s Note: Peter (or Pyotr, if you prefer) Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture was an interesting choice for this week’s build, because I completed the keyboard cover before 8:30am. If you know the Overture, you know it’s fortíssimo, like an alarm clock firing on all cylinders. It’s a blast better meant for an Independence Day fireworks celebration (and some orchestras add a real cannon for the finale). The Overture is also brisk; a mere sixteen minutes from start to finish. I wasn’t that quick with the keyboard cover build, but I did wrap it up in less than a half-hour.

Blues Choose

When our daughter gets married this June, she’ll include the tradition of “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”; all items meant to bring good luck. “Old” is a ring from her grandmother; “New” a necklace. “Borrowed” is still to be determined while “Blue” is the garter her husband-to-be tosses at the reception. Now, if the “blue choose” were mine to make, I’d go with a handful of juicy berries instead.

This week I learned a few things about blueberries, my favorite fruit in any orchard, grove, or patch on earth. Just outside the tiny town of Whiting, Maine (pop. 482) you’ll find Josh Pond, a farm known for its “organic hand-raked wild” blueberries. Josh Pond is harvesting into its fourth generation and its 150 acres include a herd of Oberhasli goats and a giant field of strawberries. In other words, shop on the JP website and you’ll find a variety of cheeses, jams, and jellies alongside the blues.

You already know a thing or two about organic produce but perhaps you’ve never heard the term “hand-raked”. Check out the following video (which beats any description in words). It’s a soothing process to watch and a bountiful harvesting technique. Josh Pond can hand-rake up to 2,000 pounds of blueberries a day. They’re then quick-frozen, packed into 5-pound boxes, and shipped directly to you…at $100 USD a pop. Do the math. Josh Pond grosses $40,000/day on its blueberries alone.

$20 for a pound of blueberries is way steep for my purchasing power. I’m reluctant to pay half as much, and even then I drop them sparingly into my yogurt/granola breakfast. But I may be stingier than I think. JP customer Chelsea Balboni gushes in her online review, “My wild organic blueberry subscription has changed my life. Every month a 5-pound case is overnighted to me…” Every month? Who spends $1,200/year on blueberries (besides Ms. Balboni)? For the record, I’m not knocking Josh Pond. If you want the best blues North America has to offer, JP is your go-to. Just be ready to pay.

Maybe I still spend more on blueberries than you do, but I find it interesting my blues choose – when it comes to food in general – is very limited. Quick – name a blue food (besides Josh Pond blueberries). All I could come up with was Blue Curacao, which isn’t food so much as a liqueur served as a cordial or in tropical drinks. Blue Curacao, ironically, comes from the dried peel of bitter orange and is then dyed blue. (Why blue? No idea, but we’re getting off-topic here).

A consult of a blue food list comes up with just a few worthy entries. Blue crab. Blue corn (tortillas). Blue (or bleu) cheese. And Brilliant blue FCF, a synthetic “safe and non-toxic” dye for ice cream, cotton candy, medications, and cosmetics. I half-expected to find Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts on the list but then I remembered: the wholly chemical toaster pastries contain no blueberries whatsoever. (Okay, maybe a dried trace of them, way-y-y-y down on the ingredients list.)

No post on blueberries would be complete without a mention of Violet Beauregarde. Violet who? C’mon now, channel your inner Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Violet was the obnoxious, gum-loving rich kid who sampled a chew of Willy Wonka’s four-course dinner gum, including the blueberry pie dessert that “wasn’t quite perfected yet”. In a wonderful scene (from the classic 1971 version), Violet turns deep blue as she chews, and inflates into a giant blueberry. The last we see of Violet, the Oompa-Loompas are rolling her away to the juice press to be squeezed back to normal size again.

All of this blues talk reminds me I need to read my granddaughters Blueberries For Sal, one of my favorite childhood stories. Also, I’ll probably cave to one of the giant blueberry muffins my wife brought home from Costco the other day. As for the tempting bounty from Josh Pond? Ah, if only I could purchase just a handful for my daughter on her wedding day. Instead, I’ll leave those hand-raked beauties to blues-choosers with a little more discretionary income.

Some content sourced from the Josh Pond website, the Prepared Cooks article, “18 Foods that are Blue”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Lego Grand Piano – Update #14

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

You’ve seen this before, as we cruise past the 2/3 DOWN, 1/3 TO GO road sign. Bag #14 – of 21 bags of pieces – added another seven keys to the board for a total of twenty-four. There’s a lone key remaining to the far right; then the whole assembly goes into the body of the piano (and heaven help me on that maneuver).

Piano keys are getting repetitive so let’s talk about Sergei Rachmaninoff. His name is intimidating but his music has an interesting connection with pop. If you remember Eric Carmen, you already know a little Rachmaninoff. All By Myself is based on Sergei’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Never Gonna Fall in Love Again is based on Sergei’s Symphony No. 2. Both Carmen songs were huge hits but they’re also depressing. Did Eric seek comfort in classical music when his personal relationships weren’t going his way? Maybe, but it wasn’t without expense. The Rachmaninoff estate brought “copyright” to Carmen’s attention, and promptly helped themselves to 12% of the royalties on both songs.

Running Build Time: 11.0 hours. Musical accompaniment: Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Symphony No. 2 in E minor, and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Leftover pieces: 6.

Conductor’s Note: Forget Eric Carmen. Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody… is one of the most moving classical compositions you’ll ever hear. The piece starts ever so simply on the piano, then brings in the orchestra to dramatic, sweeping interpretations. My wife isn’t a classical music fan yet she loves Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody… especially since it’s the theme of the romantic time-travel movie Somewhere in Time. Have a listen here.

A Month of Sundaes

I seem to have an affection for the hyphen. The humble horizontal line appears regularly in my posts. The “dash” is more formal than the “dot-dot-dot” yet more relaxed than the semi-colon – perfect for blog pauses, don’t you agree? My hyphen habit may be the result of formative moments in my life, like Hanna-Barbera cartoons (hello, Yogi Bear) and Hewlett-Packard, where I worked most of my professional career. But if I had to pick just one – or should I say, thirty-one, I’d go with my favorite hyphen of them all. Baskin-Robbins.

The next time I write a post, remind me to have something to eat before I sit down to the keyboard. My last four entries cover graham crackers, doughnuts, waffles, and now ice cream. Might be my anticipation of Easter Sunday (when my Lenten sweets sacrifice comes to an end). Bring on the jellybeans, Peter Rabbit! But today is about ice cream – and not just any. It’s about the one you grew up with; the one you still identify with. For me, it’ll always be Baskin-Robbins.

“B-R”, as they’re now called, has a quaint beginning worth a few sentences here. Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins got into the ice cream business independent of each other. Then Burt married Irv’s sister. The now brothers-in-law decided to combine “Burton’s Ice Cream Shop” (10 flavors) with Irv’s “Snowbird Ice Cream” (21 flavors), and there you have it – the birth of “31 Flavors”. B-R was a single shop back in 1948; today, how about 8,000 parlors in 50 countries? Their new slogan – Seize the yay – has more to do with “celebrating small, joyous moments” than ice cream. Even the rebranded logo removes the nostalgia of the B-R I grew up with (though the embedded “31” is clever). But I get it – B-R needs to appeal to younger generations as well.

Baskin-Robbins is inextricably tied to my childhood memories. Our local B-R was one door over from my mother’s hair salon. It was also right down the street from our church. So ice cream for me was often the reward of patience with Mom or simply going to church with Dad, who often couldn’t resist a stop at B-R on the way home. You could always find a container of B-R Rocky Road in Dad’s freezer, all the way up to the last day of his life. He was fond of saying while he enjoyed a bowlful, “Nothing beats Baskin-Robbins’ Rocky Road.” (I beg to differ with B-R’s Peanut Butter ‘n’ Chocolate, but hey, we all have our favorites).

A lot of my posts mention ice cream yet I’ve only mentioned Baskin-Robbins once in all my blogging (in The Sweets Life three years ago). Kind of a crime there because B-R deserves a post of its own, as does your favorite ice cream parlor. Wikipedia has an article called List of Ice Cream Parlor Chains (of course they do). Your favorite is on that list. I may be partial to B-R but I’m familiar with several others, including Braum’s in Oklahoma and Texas, Carvel to the Northeast, Farrell’s to the West, and Lappert’s in Hawaii.

Of course, with Baskin-Robbins I’m talking “ice-cream-parlor ice cream”. Back at home, you won’t find any B-R in our freezer because Häagen-Dazs (ice cream) and Talenti (gelato) earn the shelf space instead. H-D goes a whole lot higher on the butterfat scale so naturally it tastes better. H-D even has a hyphen! And Talenti, well, it’s gelato. Need I say more?

If you live in a bigger city than me, you have better ice cream options than Baskin-Robbins. Big cities have wonderful local places (follow Lyssy in the City for some of the best in New York). But do they have hyphens? Mine does (as does this post – 48 if I counted correctly). Yes, B-R may be updating its brand, but I’ll always insert the rainbow-sprinkle “dash” between the initials, returning me to those ice-cream parlor memories of old.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “This 77-year-old ice cream chain is getting a makeover”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Lego Grand Piano – Update #13

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

We passed the ten-hour mark with the build today, which amounts to a very long piano concerto. (Good thing you’re not being asked to sit and watch, eh?) Bag #13 – of 21 bags of pieces – added another five keys to the board for a total of fifteen. Eight more next week will complete the entire set. Maybe we’ll be installing them into the piano as well!

Here’s a stop-sign warning if you take on a project like this. Pieces can easily be installed backwards. For all my “practice” building keys these past few weeks, I got a few tiny pieces reversed today and had to disassemble to make things right. Mr. Instruction Manual includes warning-like diagrams to make sure you don’t do this. In other words, the piano student must pay attention at all times!

Running Build Time: 10.2 hours. Musical accompaniment: Strauss’s The Blue Danube waltz. Leftover pieces: 3

Conductor’s Note: The Blue Danube is familiar from the very first bars (especially if you saw 2001: A Space Odyssey and remember the scene with the rotating space station). Strauss was fond of waltzes and this one is his most famous. With its repeating theme, I thought The Blue Danube would be appropriate this time around since I’ve been building key after key after key.