travel – Life In A Word

Ear Plugs Recommended

I try to avoid topics causing thoughts of negativity or fear. After all, who wants to read about invasions when they can find plenty about them in their daily news feed? But one particular assault has been relentless, both in the media’s coverage and the anticipation of its arrival. They’re coming; I just know they’re coming. One day very soon I’m going to be surrounded by buzzing, mating, disgusting cicadas.

Until we moved to the South, I admit to knowing virtually nothing about cicadas. Sure, I could pronounce the word and probably had a vague idea of what they looked like, but I’d never heard, let alone seen the insect in locales further to the West. Well, Mother Nature has decided to address that deficit of knowledge this year, in spades. The forecast infiltration of B-flick bugs is projected to run into the billions (as if anyone could possibly count how many). And they’ll be here in the next week or two.

To prepare for this overwhelming assault, I decided to learn a little more about the humble cicada. It is one of God’s more bizarre creatures, both the look and the lifecycle. Cicadas live underground almost their entire lives. They feed on the sap of plant roots. The only time they surface is to mate, about fifteen years after birth. The females lay their eggs in slits they make in the branches of trees. After birth their little “nymphs” plunge to the ground, where they burrow down deep to begin their subterranean lives, and the cycle starts over again while Mom and Dad promptly enter the pearly gates of cicada heaven.

It’s the stuff of horror movies, this bonanza of bugs. The problem is, a realistic depiction on the big screen has to include a soundtrack loud enough to make the viewing unbearable. THIS is what your local reporter is so jazzed about. The male cicada makes a shrill sound to attract the female, which can only be described as an incessant scritch-scritch, scritch-scritch. Now multiply the sound by billions, and the better descriptor is “lawnmower” or “jet engine”. Best get a set of earplugs while the stores still have them.

The “buzz” (ugh) about this year’s offensive is the overlapping emergence of two broods where there would normally only be one. It’s a doubling-up that hasn’t happened since the days of Thomas Jefferson. There’s enough membership in both clubs to adjust the forecast from “billions” to “trillions”. Brings a new meaning to “take shelter”.

Let’s build the horror film script, shall we? Cicadas make their skritch-skritch sound with vibrating membranes on their abdomens [pausing here to allow stomachs to settle]. Cicadas shed their exoskeleton as they transition from juvenile to adult (time to grow up, little ones), and leave those shells all over tree trunks for us humans to find afterwards. Finally, cicadas are chock full of tree sap. For a wish-I’d-never-read-it analogy, just think of cicadas as nature’s Gushers… the bright green variety of the candy.

Birds will be thrilled with the arrival of trillions of Gushers. They’ll feed on them to their heart’s content. Okay, so now we’re talking about two cicada invasions followed by one bird invasion. Oh, and throw in several poisonous copperhead snakes while you’re at it. The copperheads like to hang out at the base of the trees, to feed on any falling cicadas. I told you this would be a horror movie.

The rumors are flying on the when and where of this year’s cicada onslaught. America’s Midwest and Southeast regions seem to be sure things. More specifically, Illinois and Georgia, although one report includes several counties here in South Carolina. Seriously, the thought of untold numbers of these winged nightmares living below the very ground I walk my dog on puts some serious shakes into my legs.

Despite the headlines and anticipation (and the inevitable movie due out next Halloween) there’s very little “horror” to expect from the cicada raid. They don’t bite, they don’t move around much, and they die pretty darned quick after they mate. I’m guessing they don’t care much about the humans walking underneath them either, because they’re too busy making trillions of nymphs.

Normally this time of year I’m complaining about a wholly different invasion of insects. Out in Colorado – where we still have a “For Sale” sign on the property of our former ranch – we’re about to get a visit from the wretched miller moth (which I blogged about in Late Night Racquet Sports). Like the cicada, miller moths don’t bite and don’t care much about humans, but man do they migrate. Like, from the Midwest to the Rocky Mountain states and on into Utah. They’re so messy I’d almost prefer a double dose of trillions of cicadas instead. Like I have a choice.

Some content sourced from the Mercer University article, “What’s up with all the cicadas?…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Fresh Food for Thought

When it comes to healthy lifestyle, the chatter seems to have shifted from diet to drugs. Instead of “you are what you eat” you could say, “you are… the product of whatever prescription you can afford”. A regimen of Ozempic, the trendy weight loss injection of celebrities, will set you back $1,000 USD a month. So with this kind of pharmaceutical spending in mind, it was refreshing to read an article about the Atlantic Diet, a fresca (fresh) foods spinoff of its more famous predecessor, the Mediterranean.

Because it’s a common way to eat in Spain and Portugal, the Atlantic is formally known as the Southern European Traditional Atlantic Diet (a real “mouthful” there). But you can just call it “The Atlantic” because it’s so simple. A lot of fresh fish, a little meat and dairy, vegetables, whole-grain bread, and the occasional glass of wine. To contrast, the Mediterranean demands more plant-based foods like fruits, vegetables, and olive oil on top of just about everything.

No surprise, the Atlantic improves your health by lowering blood pressure, insulin resistance, total cholesterol, and the circumference of your waist. It’s not rocket science but it still takes fortitude to pass up the other temptations of, say, the American diet. Soft drinks. Processed foods. Just about anything with sugar in it. The usual sacrifices that come with a healthy diet.

There’s a more challenging aspect of the Atlantic diet besides whole foods. The meals are meant to be home-cooked and served family style, encouraging social interaction. Accordingly, an Atlantic dieter should a) turn off the TV, b) put away the cell phone, c) focus on meaningful conversations, d) chew slowly, and e) pause between bites. Talk about overhauling the way you eat, huh? So I ask, especially to you fellow Americans, which of those five would be the hardest to achieve? You’re forgiven if you answer “all of the above”.

Admittedly, my wife and I would be challenged by the Atlantic approach. We enjoy making dinner together, but after a long day there’s nothing more appealing than plopping our meals on trays and sitting down to another episode of mindless streaming TV. And the cell phones are always nearby in case a text chimes in. We’re so immersed in our show in fact, who knows how fast we chew or if we ever pause between bites. Heck, do we even taste what we’re eating?

At least we’re not tempted by Ozempic. “Miracle drug” perhaps, but don’t ignore the side effects. Dropping the weight through injections can gift you with blurred vision, gallstones, allergic reactions, and a constant state of exhaustion (just to name a few). Worst of all, you might literally wear your results with “Ozempic face”, a hollowed-out look with sagging skin and signs of premature aging. No thanks. Those couple of countries on the other side of the Atlantic have a much better approach.

Some content sourced from the CNN Health article, “A cousin to the Mediterranean Diet: the Atlantic Diet explained”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Loco for Cocoa

In the last few weeks a purchase of pure gold reached a record high of over $2,400 an ounce. Thanks to uncertain global markets and a stepped-up demand from China, the precious metal is a more popular investment than ever. I find it amazing you can stroll into your local Costco and add gold bars to your shopping basket. The promo was so popular however, Costco ran out of their allotment in a couple of months. But here’s an even bigger concern. I’m worried Costco’s going to run out of chocolate.

It takes a bold headline to get me to read the article, and here’s a recent example: Chocolate Might Never Be the Same. What I hoped would be several paragraphs about a newer or even healthier spin on my favorite confection was anything but. Instead, I was stopped dead in my reading glasses when I saw the words “global shortage”. It seems the world’s supply of cacao beans, which come primarily from West Africa, has been threatened by climate change.

What I found interesting in the story was not so much the reasons for the shortage (drought, disease, aging cacao trees) but rather the speculation on how chocolate as we know it will change. Right away, of course, the cost of high-end products will increase (chocolate was already up 10% in 2023). Down the road, the powers that be may even relax the definition of “chocolate”, which currently requires (only) 10% of a product’s weight in cocoa. And further down the road you’ll find faux chocolate, which doesn’t contain any cocoa at all. Kind of like an Impossible Burger.

My relationship with chocolate, one that has matured beautifully over sixty-plus years, feels a little threatened. Like most kids growing up in the 1960s, I loved Hershey bars… and a lot of other candies that gifted me a mouthful of cavities. Then as a teenager, most of those candies fell by the wayside in favor of chocolate bars like 3 Musketeers, Milky Way, and Snickers. But technically each of those is a “candy bar”, where the only chocolate to be found is the outside coating.

I credit three products for developing my taste for “just chocolate”. First, Nestle’s Toll House Morsels, a bag of which could always be found in my mother’s pantry. Second, Chunky’s foil-covered blocks, which brought appeal to, literally, consuming chunk chocolate. Finally, Ghirardelli’s “Flicks”, colorful foil-covered tubes of what can only be described as oversized Toll House Morsels, sold alongside the popcorn and boxed candies at the movie theater.

Little did I know at the time, I was nowhere near the best that chocolate had to offer. A college year in Europe introduced me to more exotic brands like Perugina, Lindt, and Toblerone, and my taste for chocolate quickly matured from the milk to the dark varieties. Here’s how far I’ve come since then. The percentage of cocoa in a pure bar of Lindt chocolate starts at 70% (and goes all the way to 100% if you’re so bold). My preference? 78%, a far cry from the minimum 10% definition of chocolate. And a far cry from the chocolate bars of my youth.

We’re fortunate to have an authentic Belgian chocolate shop here in our small town. Its proprietor was trained as a chocolate artisan in Belgium, and her creations start with Callebaut chocolate (also from Belgium). Her truffles, as you can imagine, are exquisite. The pure chocolate nibs she sells by the pound are even better. And yet, as if to underscore today’s topic, her shop’s website now warns in a big, bold font: … at this time we are no longer able to accommodate wholesale prices. Meaning her big buyers are now paying as much as we smaller ones. Meaning chocolate is getting more expensive.

If the quality chocolate I’ve learned to love rises to price points I can’t digest, I might be forced to relive my childhood and settle for the “satisfaction” a milk chocolate Snickers bar claims to provide. It’s a regression I don’t look forward to, but at least it beats faux chocolate. Come to think of it, I should pick up a few of those gold bars at Costco. Maybe my Belgian chocolate shop takes more than cash or credit these days.

Some content sourced from The Atlantic article, “Chocolate Might Never Be the Same”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Where’s Wendy?

The 96th edition of the Academy Awards came and went last Sunday without much fanfare. Mercifully, Monday’s reviews were more about who won, instead of tabloid headlines like wardrobe malfunctions or acceptance speeches gone wrong. I only watched the opening monologue, and not because I cared about what Jimmy Kimmel had to say. Rather, I wanted to see if I could spot a seat filler.

Back in my days as a mid-level manager in corporate America, dozens of resumes came across my desk for prospective employees. Their sections on “previous experience” sometimes caught my eye, if only for the really strange stuff people do with their time. Innovation Sherpa. Hacker. Direct Marketing Demigod. Happiness Hero. I wouldn’t sign up for any of those “jobs” but hey, at least they come with a paycheck. The only compensation a seat filler gets is a free ticket to the show.

If the title isn’t self-evident, a seat filler is someone who attends a televised event (like the Academy Awards) and stands in the shadows of the outside aisles until a “real” attendee gets up to get a drink, use the restroom, socialize, or whatever. The seat filler then dashes over to occupy the seat until the person returns, so the panning cameras give the television audience the impression the event is always filled to capacity.

I could spend several hundred words talking about the myriad ways live TV manipulates a viewer’s perception (flashing “APPLAUSE!” signs come to mind) but seat fillers may be the most absurd of all. Thousands upon thousands of people apply for these opportunities, with only a handful chosen for a given event. As if remaining nameless among the Hollywood elite isn’t humbling enough, seat filling is last-minute employment with all expenses paid by… you.

Imagine opening the email. Congratulations! You’re going to the Grammy Awards! There’s the good news. The bad news is, now you have to book an expensive flight and hotel, buy or rent a dress-code-worthy tux or formal gown, and plead for last-minute approval from your employer for a few days off. Assuming you do make it to the Grammy Awards, you’re subject to a strict set of behaviors. Surrender your ID and smartphone. DON’T walk on the red carpet. DON’T talk to celebrities (unless they talk to you first). And plan on being on your feet for hours, in a covert location where you can’t even see the show, waiting for the command from the Manager of Seat Fillers to “fill that seat!”

As one filler described the experience, maybe there really is a breathless kind of rush when you plop down next to someone like Taylor Swift or Beyoncé. But let’s get real here; celebrities see a seat filler coming from a mile away. How many of them are going to engage with a smile, let alone a word of acknowledgement? Even if you did manage to exchange a sentence or two, you’re going to ask yourself, “Why did I say that to Taylor?” for the rest of your days.

Without your phone, you won’t be able to capture your seat-filling fifteen minutes of fame. You’ll be lucky if you nab a copy of the event program (which can be purchased online anyway). Seat filling is a the very definition of “anonymous”, and it’ll be hard to convince your friends and family you were even there. Unless the TV camera points your way at just the right time, of course.

As for my careful study of the Academy Awards audience on Sunday night, it seemed like a fun game at the time. Pause the picture when the camera pans the people, then walk up to the screen and play a sort of “Where’s Waldo?” (or Wendy) to spot the seat fillers. But I quickly realized the error of my ways. I can’t even recognize the actors. They’re either the too-old versions of the ones I remember (sorry people, the Botox doesn’t help) or they’re the too-young versions of actors I’ve never seen in anything at all.

Suffice it to say, I will never be a seat filler. If I ever go to an awards show it’s because I’m a “real” attendee who deserves to be there (in other words, another lifetime). In this life, I’ll consider more appealing employment prospects for my retirement. Beverage Dissemination Officer. Golf Ball Diver. Professional Sleeper. Hey, at least those pay.

Some content sourced from the Business Insider article, “I was a seat filler at last year’s Grammys…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

First-Name Basis

It’s only Tuesday as I type, but I’ve already cleared my calendar for Friday. After all, I have a very important day ahead of me. So important in fact, I need to organize a parade, raise a flag, and prepare unique dishes for the expected throng of adoring fans. But why am I wasting words on the details? You already know we’re celebrating Saint David’s Day in a few days, don’t you?

They’ll be celebrating in Wales, at least, just as they do every first day of March. You’ll find my cathedral there too, way down in the southwest corner of the country. Well, St Davids Cathedral, I mean. And the funny thing is, he’s not the David you’re thinking of, the one from the Bible who took down Goliath as a boy and became king as a man. This David helped to spread Christianity throughout the UK, united the Welsh people against a warring England, and performed several miracles. David’s a big deal in Wales.

St. Patrick’s an even bigger deal, of course. At least Patrick rates a celebration in the U.S. But admit it, you’re not celebrating Patrick’s spread of Christianity throughout Ireland, nor his miracle of removing all snakes from the land. You’re thinking more about what garment of green to wear, four-leaf clovers, beer, and maybe, just maybe, this is the year you participate in your local St. Paddy’s Day 5k.

This business of saints is interesting to me because, well, it’s not as defined as I was led to believe. The rules and processes to put “Saint” in front a first name are a little vague. Suffice it to say, you need to be a model citizen, as well as a teacher, person of influence, and someone who cares little for the material goods and comforts of this world. I know a lot of people who fill this bill, but add in “wonder worker” or “source of benevolent power” and the list drops to zero.

Saints are also on my mind because I grew up in California and, well, they’re all over the place out there. Francisco to the north. Diego to the south. Barbara somewhere in the middle. My childhood home was right down the street from Monica. My brother lives in Fernando’s valley. 99.9% of the state’s residents think of those as “places”, but firstly they were people. You’ll find “San’s” and “Santa’s” all over the Golden State.

Saints get a little watered down when you consider the Catholic Church’s take on them. More than 10,000 have been recognized over time. Even more to the point, Catholics acknowledge anyone making it to heaven to be a saint. I’d hope that count is way more than 10,000 by now. Maybe it’s the reason we have patron saints: the cream of the crop, the ones regarded as “heavenly advocates of particular nations, families, or people”. My patron saint isn’t David by default, but I sure like his name.

Eat Welsh Rarebit when you celebrate on Friday (grilled cheese on toast, zero rabbit)

Admittedly, my mind wanders somewhere other than historical figures when I think of saints. Our dog is a Saint Bernard, one of those gentle giants you picture with a brandy brandy around the neck. A few years ago we went on a cruise, with a stop in the Baltic Sea port of Saint Petersburg. “St. Elmo’s Fire” is a luminous phenomenon caused by an atmospheric electric field. (also a pretty good movie from the 1980s). And so on.

You can read a bit more about Saint David and his cathedral in one of my very first blog posts: unsung. You’ll discover that his town of Pembrokeshire – the smallest ~~kingdom~~ enclave in the UK – is right across St. George’s Channel from the Irish town of Kildare, where you’ll find St. Brigid’s Cathedral, my wife’s namesake. The blog post is really about Brigid but at least David gets a mention towards the end. Even if you don’t “read a little more”, remember, Friday’s the big day. Parades, flags, and fun food, all for a darned decent guy. Makes me blush anytime somebody says, “Dave, you’re a saint.”

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

Teeny-Weeny Towns

My daughter forwarded a video about a suburb of Knoxville known as Safety City. In this little town you’ll find roads and traffic signals, businesses and shops, but no cars. Sidewalks are for pedestrians while streets are reserved for bicyclists and other “non-motorized vehicles”. Everything in “SC” is an easy walk, whether to the post office, football stadium, movie theater, or dinner at Applebee’s. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention… everything in Safety City is miniature.

Safety City is a novel concept because it reduces the real-life aspects of a town down to a dimension children can relate to. And relate they do. Entire classes bus over to Safety City to experience vehicular, pedestrian, bicycle, and fire safety at a young age. So much more effective than traffic school on a blackboard!

I’ve always been a fan of miniatures; a feeling hearkening back to my childhood. Anyone who read Gulliver’s Travels knows “miniature”, as in the inhabitants of the (literally) small town of Lilliput. Anyone who ever held a snow globe imagined those little places and figures inside the glass coming to life.

I wonder if grade-school children still make dioramas. What a cool concept for a kid. Within the confines of a shoebox you create a miniature world of your liking: buildings, people, animals, trees, etc. Then you cut a peephole in the center of one end of the box and cover the open top with tissue paper. When you look through the hole you see your little diorama world, with the light filtering through from above. It gives your creation a startling sense of reality.

Model trains certainly fueled my interest in miniatures. I remember several friends who collected the popular “HO”-scale sets (1:87, or about 2″-high trains). They could buy so many accessories (endless tracks, buildings, trees, and figures) they could create an HO-scale world big enough to fill a two-car garage. Go figure, the only train set I ever owned was the “G”-scale, where the train’s a good 8″-10″ in height. Not so miniature.

Speaking of model trains, one of my favorite episodes of the old television series The Twilight Zone was called “Stopover in a Quiet Town”. A couple wakes up in a strange house after a night of partying, can’t get the phone or the lights to work, and find the refrigerator stocked with plastic food. They walk outside, only to discover the surrounding town is utterly still – no people, no sounds, no movement. Then the train whistles and pulls into the station, so they hop aboard, hoping to be taken back to somewhere familiar. But the train merely travels in a wide oval and returns to the same station where it picked them up. As the couple steps off the train, the giant hand of a child reaches down to grab them, while a mother’s voice can be heard saying, “Be careful with your pets, dear…” Twilight Zone indeed.

Replicas of miniature cities can be found everywhere, whether Knoxville’s Safety City, Disneyland’s Storybook Land (viewed from canal boats), or Legoland’s Billund Resort, Denmark’s largest tourist attraction outside of Copenhagen. There’s even a “top ten” of the world’s miniature cities, including “Miniaturk”, 122 famous buildings of Turkey in a park-like setting in Istanbul; “Tobu World Square” in Japan, which showcases the world’s UNESCO world heritage sites in the presence of 140,000 miniature people, and The Museum of Roman Civilization (which I’ve seen myself), a remarkable recreation of ancient Rome’s “Golden Age” thirty-six years in the making.

Maybe all this talk of miniatures has you thinking of the recent trend of tiny homes. Those are an entirely different concept; not at all “miniature”. A tiny home is like a full-scale house with most of the air sucked out of it. The components are still full-scale but the spaces are decidedly smaller than normal. Tiny homes kind of look like shoeboxes to me. Maybe we should add peepholes on the ends so we can watch the inhabitants try to make a living in their cramped quarters.

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

Game, Set, Matches

The LEGO Eiffel Tower is the tallest of its model kits and undoubtedly the largest of its Architecture Series. At a deliberate count of 10,001 pieces, this behemoth is a whole lot more detailed than LEGO’s 2014 original, which clocked in at a mere 321 pieces. So imagine my awe (okay, and shock) when I learned about another Eiffel Tower model; one with a staggering 700,000 pieces. Suddenly 10,000 seems like a nice, reasonable number.

It’s true, of course. A Frenchman recently converted 700,000 matches into a model of the Eiffel Tower, in an attempt to break the world record for, naturally, “tallest matchstick Eiffel Tower”. (Is there a world record for everything these days?) I suppose I can get past the 700,000 matches – even if I can’t picture that many in one model – but what I can’t fathom is the eight years Richard Plaud sacrificed to build his creation. I’m picturing Monsieur Plaud waking up each morning, bidding adieu to his wife after a croissant and some French press coffee, and heading off to his studio to play with matches, a giant bottle of glue in hand. Day after day after day.

Our Frenchman’s accomplishment wouldn’t be so interesting if there weren’t a little drama thrown in for spice. Turns out his 23.6-foot model may not earn the world record after all. Why? Because Plaud cut the heads off the matchsticks as he built. When he got tired of cutting, he contacted a French “matchmaker” (ha) and asked if he could place a massive order of headless matches. And there’s the rub, fellow model builders. Guinness is disputing Plaud’s claim of the world record because the materials used can’t be purchased by you or me, should we try to build our own matchstick Eiffel Tower (but would we?)

Meanwhile, a 21.6-foot Eiffel Tower model built by Toufic Daher (coolest name ever) retains the world record. Daher’s model was completed in 2009 using six million (headed) matches. I have no idea how long it took him to build, but seriously, how long does it take to simply pick up six million little sticks, let alone shape and glue them into a replica of the Eiffel Tower?

Gustave Eiffel (another cool name) surely had no idea people like Plaud and Daher would be obsessed with his tower 135 years after the fact, in pursuit of world records. Frankly (“France-ly?”) Eiffel’s “Iron Lady” is impressive enough to stand on her own wrought-iron feet. After all, she’s among the most recognizable structures in the world. She surpassed the Washington Monument when she opened to the public in 1889, as “tallest human-made structure” (sadly, seventy years before Guinness started tallying world records). Today she still merits an entry in the world record book, albeit for a different reason:”Most Visited Monument with an Entrance Fee”.

There’s a touch of iron-y to this post. As much as I’m making blog fodder of these Eiffel Tower model builders, I’m tempted to become one myself. Not with headless matchsticks; the LEGO version. Several years ago I completed the LEGO U.S. Capitol Building (1,032 pieces), followed by the LEGO Grand Piano (3,662 pieces), and more recently, LEGO Fallingwater (811 pieces). I keep an eye on the LEGO catalog for other models of interest but not one calls to me… except La Dam de fer. But then I pause to ask myself, am I really willing to dive into a project that’s effectively one hundred bags of one hundred pieces each, where ever single piece dark grey? Stay tuned.

As for our French ami Richard Plaud, his eight years of pick-up sticks may not have been in vain after all. Guinness admits they might’ve been a little quick to dismiss his claim. In their words, they wanted to make sure “the playing field is level for everyone”. Playing field? Ah, so this Eiffel Tower model-building is a game, is it? For Plaud at least, I’d call it game, set, matches.

Some content sourced from the USA Today article, “8 years down the drain?…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Dreamy Las Vegas

DID YOU HEAR? The price of Super Bowl tickets dropped this week! That’s right, you and me will pay less for seats today than those jump-the-gun fans who got theirs ten days ago. The game’s in three days so we’ve got no time to lose! Let’s make our travel plans!

I’m gonna surprise my wife. I mean, I’m the bigger football fan, yes, but she’ll be so proud of me for getting our game tickets for less! And to celebrate “all things her” I figure, why not splurge on the rest of the trip since I’m saving money on the game? Once in a lifetime, I’m telling myself. Heck, by the time the Super Bowl comes to Vegas a second time she and I could be dead!

FIRST, new luggage. I want the two of us to be those people, where just a glance at their bags has you thinking, “Whoa, who are they?”. So, a quick trip to Tumi for a couple of their hard-shell packing cases ($1,500 per) and matching carry-on’s ($750). Getting the gold finish too, because you’ve got to look the part if you’re going to Vegas.

SECOND, airfare. I got me an itinerary lickety-split on Expedia, flying American. Leave Thursday, return Tuesday. Turns out we can’t get there direct since we live in the middle of nowhere but at least we can fly first class, for just $6,826, with only $600 in taxes and fees. Score!

THIRD, transportation to the hotel. I’m not about to show up at the front doors with Tumi luggage in a rental car so it’s limo service for us! My choice: a modest SUV for two (well, three, including our private driver). I know, I know, I could’ve gone with the BMW stretch limo that seats twenty-five, but what are my wife and I gonna do – run laps around the inside of it? Besides, the SUV is described as “… for the VIP who prefers discretion” and that’s a great way to describe my wife. Round-trip: $375, with $75 in tips.

NOW THEN, the hotel. Gotta be big and flashy, right? Can’t be going to Vegas and the big game and staying at a Motel 6. Let’s go with the Bellagio. I don’t need a suite but I’d sure like a view of those lovely fountains. The hotel website quotes five nights for a “1 King Bed Fountain View” at $10,113, including $3,144 in resort fees. Yeah, I winced a bit with the five-figure quote but then the website flashed, Jackpot! This is today’s low rate! so I felt much better. The website also added a ten-minute timer on the rate but no worries – I booked it in less than five! Makes the $300 room service dinners seem like nothing, doesn’t it?

In the days leading up to the game I’ll pamper my wife a little. In fact, since I love the view of those Bellagio fountains so much, guess what? I can order up a couples massage right there in the room! Only $650 for the two of us, including $110 of gratitude to the masseuses. Then we’ll be nice and relaxed for a dinner at, say, the Eiffel Tower Restaurant at the Paris Hotel (and another view of those fountains). We’ll start with Casco Bay scallops ($32), followed by mixed greens ($38) and the “Queen’s Cut Beef Tenderloin Filet Mignon” ($138), with a plate of accompaniments and sauces ($42). We’ll finish up with a couple of the house special “Eiffel Tower soufflés” ($44), and wash it all down with a nice enough bottle of red ($80). Another $110 in tax and tips calls it a night.

Now wait a sec’. Since when does anyone in Vegas “call it a night” after dinner? So I thought about taking my wife to a big-name concert at the new Sphere but then it hit me. ‘O’ by Cirque du Soliel is right there in the Bellagio hotel! Two orchestra-center seats: $657, and only $93 tax/fees!

FINALLY… what I’ve been building to for hundreds of words now – Super Bowl XVIII. I’ve never been to Allegiant Stadium before and this’ll probably be my only visit, so… No, I didn’t go completely off the rails (like seats on the fifty or a sky box) but I do want to see the plays up close and personal so it’s got to be lower bowl, at least the 20-yard line. Oh man, what a relief! I found the last pair of tickets in Section C137 for $29,000 out the door (only $5,000 in service fees!) A flame emoji and a blinking “selling fast” sign had me sweating but I managed to get ’em before the next guy! Don’t forget, these same tickets would’ve cost me even more just a week ago. Can I find a bargain or what?

(Yawn… stretch…)

Oh, uh… hey… it’s Dave, your, uh, “weekly blogger”. Holy cow, let me tell you, I just woke up from the craziest dream. I was headed to the Super Bowl last-minute, see, and everything about the trip was the best Vegas had to offer. Hotel, dinner, show, game tickets – the works. Now that I’m awake, I’m wondering what all that fun would’ve cost me. $53,598 comes to mind for some reason but I’m sure I didn’t “spend” anywhere near that amount. Just a crazy dream. Anyway, sorry to write and run but I’ve got to return a call to my bank, asking about unusual activity on my credit card.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Super Bowl ticket prices have dropped but they still cost a fortune”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Poor Little Ginny

Next Tuesday, if I could drag myself out of bed before dawn, I’d see the planet Venus hole-punched into the inky sky, low and bright. If I looked further I’d probably see Mars – dim but distinctly red. And if I really did see Mars I’d be sad, because I know Ginny’s up there, all alone, waiting for someone to bring her home. I’m sorry, Ginny… I’m so sorry. Nobody’s coming for you, not for a long, long time. Rest your rotors in peace, little helicopter.

Ginny (known more formally as Ingenuity) is a brave little helicopter. She may look like a nasty bug instead of something you’d want to cuddle with, but she’s quietly been filling up the record books with her remarkable achievements. Four years ago Ginny hitched a ride to Mars on the belly of NASA rover “Perseverance”. A few months after Percy plunked down on Mars, Ginny took her “first steps”. She spun her rotor blade into a blur, rose ten feet above the Martian soil, took a quick look around, and dropped right back to where she started. That brief maneuver earned her the title: “first powered, controlled, extraterrestrial flight by any aircraft”.

[Note: You can read about Ginny’s first flight in the post Whirlybird Wonder]

Ginny may not be easy on the eyes but I’m in awe of what she accomplished in her brief time on Earth (er, Mars). I should’ve paid better attention in science class. Imagine the teacher saying, “Okay Dave, here’s your assignment. I need you to design a mini-copter that can travel to Mars, perform a few lighter-than-air maneuvers, and be able to take a few photos at the same time. You’ll be at the controls back here on earth, so whatever communication mechanism you come up with needs to work over, uh, 140 million miles.” Cue my blank stare.

The smarter-than-I-am people at California’s Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL) designed little Ginny to do all those things. What makes her ten-foot hop on Mars so remarkable is this: the atmosphere up there is less than 1% as dense as Earth’s, so there very little to hold Ginny aloft. To put it another way, earthly helicopters can only fly to 25,000 feet. Ginny had to be designed to fly to 80,000.

Let’s call her “The Little Copter That Could”, shall we? Ginny was supposed to fly five times in thirty days. Five little hops in a month’s time and her mission would’ve been considered an unqualified success. But Ginny chose to be an explorer instead of an experiment. She flew seventy-two individual missions, further and longer each time than her JPL designers ever expected. She also captured images as she flew, so scientists could better decide where on Mars they wanted big-brother Percy to rove.

Ginny was more “alive” than any helicopter I’ve ever known. She cleaned herself up after nasty Martian dust storms. Her solar panels froze unexpectedly during the rough winters, rendering her unable to fly or even take commands, yet she still radioed “wellness reports” to Percy so the JPL people would know she was (barely) there. She made three emergency landings when her sensors detected trouble. And even when one of those sensors went dead, Ginny kept her rotors a-whirling on demand.

Ginny captured the shadow of her “broken wing”

Whatever happened on Ginny’s Flight #72 two weeks ago remains a mystery, one Percy hopes to figure out as he rovers back to her location. Ginny had been close to another landing when she suddenly stopped communicating. A day later the JPL team reestablished the connection to find Ginny resting comfortably on the Martian soil. Somehow she’d still landed on her feet. Somehow however, she also damaged a rotor blade. Ginny can’t repair herself so alas, her flying days are over. Now her waiting days begin.

Admirers like me refer to Ginny as “that little extraterrestrial trailblazer”. Haters call the dormant helicopter “the first piece of trash on Mars”. As long as Percy’s in her neighborhood, Ginny will keep sending her little wellness reports (even though she’s really not so well). I just hope the scientists at JPL are already hard at work on their next mission to Mars. A brave little copter is waiting to be rescued and brought home to the Smithsonian.

Some content sourced from the CNN article, “After damaging a rotor blade, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter mission ends on Mars”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Setting Little Booklets Free

In Breaking Away, the charming little movie about bicycling and broken dreams, there’s a scene where Barbara Barrie talks with her son about her passport. She’ll never really use it, she says, but she carries her passport all the time so she can present it proudly if ever asked. With newfound hindsight, I should’ve held onto my wife’s passport as tightly as Barbara Barrie held on to hers.

If you have a passport, you know the drill. Every ten years you have to renew the little book. The process is cumbersome, even online, because the authorities ask for almost as much information as they did the first time around. Everything goes into the (re)application except a copy of your birth certificate. Three pages of personal information later, you print, date, and sign, attach an unflattering black-and-white selfie (no smiling!) and mail it in together with your expiring passport.

So far so good with the hindsight. But as soon as I went to the post office last October I made a big boo-boo; the so-called fatal error. The desk clerk convinced me to send the application through regular mail. “Save your pennies”, I remember him saying. “After all, you’re sending through one government entity to another government entity. What could possibly go wrong?” So I saved my pennies… and that’s the last I ever saw of my wife’s passport.

Did this machine eat my wife’s passport?

Okay, maybe not ever. Perhaps the little booklet eventually finds its way home after completing whatever misguided tour it’s been taking. Or maybe, as our travel agent was quick to suggest, it was mangled and shredded by the sorting machine of an automated postal facility. Or maybe #3 – the one that has me staring at the ceiling into the wee hours of the night – it’s the latest identity of the head of an international drug cartel.

Laugh or feign horror at my expense, but you can’t blame me for wandering to the worst case scenario these days. The outside of the mailing envelope said “National Passport Processing Center” while the inside contained what obviously feels like a passport. Easy pickings, especially for an enterprising minimum-wage postal worker. My recurring thought: why didn’t I fork over the fifteen bucks for a secure, insured, overnight envelope? Because I’m cheap, that’s why. Ah hindsight, thee be a cruel character.

Not that you’ll ever need it (because you’re learning from me) but there’s an easy process to report a “lost or stolen” passport. You provide as much information as you can and if you’re lucky the authorities identify and “decommission” the missing booklet, reducing it to mere paper and plastic in the hands of another. But that still left my wife with no passport, which meant filing a new (not “re”) application. Dig out the birth certificate, take another photo, make an in-person appointment with the local post office, and pay another application fee. Mercifully, I watched that application get sealed into one of those secure/insured mailers before disappearing down the conveyor belt.

My first inkling of identity theft hit when our credit card company informed us of a $500 charge from a merchant in Germany, a company I didn’t recognize (and couldn’t begin to pronounce). My second inkling hit when our travel agent tried to make charges for the trip we needed the passports for, and our other credit card was rejected. One inkling makes you pause, but two inklings? That pushes the big ol’ panic button. But the god of credit cards must’ve been looking down on me favorably because the first charge was cancelled while the second charge was only denied because our travel agent had an old card on file. In other words – to my knowledge – we’re talking random events instead of identity theft.

There’s a happy ending to this story. (Actually, it’s more like an intermission since the authorities sent me a letter saying my wife’s passport is still lost or stolen until it’s not.) We have new passports now, which means no renewal process for another ten years. Our compromised credit card was cancelled and replaced. And we froze our credit in case a “new wife” out there tries to open accounts. I’m not convinced that’ll ever happen but I’m breathing easier as the months pass by. And rest assured, I’m keeping our little booklets secure so nobody can, you know, “break away” with them.