Home

Hello, I’m Veronica

The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.

About Me

Destination Guides

Instagram

  • , , ,

    The Time of My Life

    Yesterday I was sitting at my desk thinking, “Hey Dave, time’s a-ticking. Gotta come up with a topic for tomorrow’s post”. I stared at the clock, considering a few interesting ideas. The slender second-hand edged ever closer to the next minute, to the next hour, time literally passing before my eyes. Suddenly it hit me. My topic. Time.  More to the point, clocks.  To which I lob an interesting question your way: analog or digital?

    The Seth Thomas “Promise”

    My house is full of inanimate objects screaming for attention. When I’m lost in thought and staring into space, a certain something in the room starts to say, “Pick me! PICK ME!” in a desperate attempt to become a blog post. Today my desk clock actually pulled it off. I was dead set on a couple other topics until my clock somehow ticked its way to the top of the list.  Perhaps today’s title should’ve been, “A Moment in Time”.

    We’re not talking about just any desk clock, mind you. The little guy you see here (all of 2.5″ wide by 3″ high) is a Seth Thomas “Travel Carriage Alarm Clock”, a quartz analog model made by the hundreds of thousands in China. You can find one online for $14.99, the affordability belying its simple elegance. I chose this clock as a gift from Hewlett-Packard (HP) on the fifth anniversary of my employment back in 2002.

    I had better choices than an analog clock, but the Seth Thomas somehow captivated me. Even twenty years ago when I got it, a desk clock waxed nostalgic, especially with arrow-capped hands and Roman numerals. The “Promise” model also makes a pleasing little tick-tock-tick-tock sound as the second-hand sweeps the minutes away.

    German AND Swiss-made…

    If my four-year-old granddaughter were reading this post she’d ask her dad what analog means.  Let’s face it; my granddaughter’s growing up in a wholly digital world.  Her watch, her smartphone, her computer, and the clocks she displays in her future house will exhibit squarish lifeless numerals instead of graceful minute and hour hands.  She’ll “tell time” the way McDonald’s cashiers push the hamburger key instead of entering the amount.  No interpretation required.

    I took a stroll around my house and counted three analog clocks, each with sentimental value.  Besides my Seth Thomas, we have an intricate cuckoo clock we purchased in Germany (with the mechanics made in Switzerland), and a horse-head clock we’ve had forever (which no longer works but still graces our bedroom wall).  Our digital timepieces are many more in number yet I still prefer the soothing tick-tick of analog hands, as well as the lazy swing of the cuckoo clock pendulum.

    When I was a kid, I grew up in the presence of a formal grandfather clock, standing guard in the curve of our entryway staircase.  I can still hear its chimes, with a higher pitch than you’d expect from its heavy-framed stature.  My bedroom was close enough to hear the bells of the hour in the middle of the night, a gentle reminder it was time to get some sleep.  Whenever I wind our cuckoo clock today, I remember my dad doing the same thing with the grandfather all those years ago.

    Since we’re talking about analog, I owe my wristwatches a few words.  I have eight of them and most stopped ticking a long time ago.  Two are also from HP anniversaries (What the heck, were timepieces my only choices?) but three others have more significance.  One carries the logo of my father’s seafood restaurant.  I still have the Snoopy watch I believe was my very first timepiece (my granddaughter wouldn’t know Snoopy either, sigh).  I also have my first “big-boy” watch; a gold Pulsar with matching hands on a cream-colored face.  Yes, I may be wearing a sleek digital Fitbit as I type but I always wear one of my analog watches on special occasions.  At least, one that still works.

    [Author’s Note: I’m a little unnerved to see each of my wristwatches in the above photos is stopped at the exact… same… time. I didn’t do this! Why would I do this? Either someone’s been playing in my watch drawer or my house is haunted. Maybe both.]

    Prague’s Astronomical Clock

    I can’t decide if my granddaughter will miss out with the lack of analog in her life.  She’ll take trips where she’ll see quaint clocks high up in the steeples of New England churches.  She’ll take a hop-on-hop-off double-decker bus through London, passing under the shadow of Big Ben.  She may even make it to the Old Town Square in Prague to see the famous Astronomical Clock, still operating since 1410.  But will she know how to tell the time?  Time will tell (ha).  More likely, her grandfather will teach her how.

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

    ——————–

    Lego Grand Piano – Update #5

    Last week

    I describe this week’s movement as “allegretto”, or “light and cheerful” (read about my hesitant warm-up in Let’s Make Music!).  I completed the build of Bag #5 – of 21 bags of pieces – in a cool 46 minutes.  Maybe I’m finding the rhythm of this piece, though I did have a tense moment where two critical blocks were installed the wrong way and I had to disassemble several steps to get them right.  Whew – that was close!

    Dare I say, we’re starting to see hints of the finished product.  Those four circles in the “this week” photo are part of what you’ll see when the piano lid is open.  All those little yellow “grabbers” will cradle the piano strings.  To the rear, we’re seeing some of the graceful curves of the instrument’s black body.

    This week

    Simple math tells us we’re approaching 25% completion of the build.  To put it another way, our concerto is about to wrap up the first of its four movements.

    Running Build Time: 5.0 hours.  Musical accompaniment: Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Leftover pieces: ZERO! (Holy cow – how did that happen?)

    Conductor’s Note: I’m about 700 pieces into the build and this instrument is getting heavy.  Now I understand why you need special movers to relocate a piano.

  • , ,

    Triple Booked

    The Oxford University Press, a publisher for more than 700 years, churns out 6,000 physical titles a year despite today’s electronic alternatives. Oxford focuses on educational materials, including dozens of dictionaries. At one time the Press had the exclusive right to print the King James Version of the Bible. I know Oxford for one other reason, however: their 21-volume illustrated collection of the works of Charles Dickens.


    I’ll bet you have a collection of something yourself, where the number of items in the lot goes beyond pure necessity. We have more Christmas ornaments than any reasonably-sized tree can hold. We have more mugs than we’ll ever use for coffee or tea. My brother seems to collect cars (or maybe he really does drive them all). Whatever feeds our need to collect also fuels our stubbornness to ever let these items go.

    Such is the case with my Dickens collection. When I was in my twenties I got a mailer from Oxford Press advertising “a Dickens book a month”.  Must’ve been inexpensive back then, and somehow the collection spoke to me even though I’d never read a lick of Dickens.  Maybe I envisioned my future dwelling with shelves of classic literature (never happened). Several decades after I purchased the last Dickens I still haven’t read a page, but the books sure look nice all standing in a row.  I’ll never get rid of them.

    This talk of Dickens and collecting is just a preface to my real topic today.  I’d like you to meet PixxiBook.  Maybe you don’t collect books (outside of those you purchase on your e-reader) but ask yourself: what if you could have your blog posts pressed into books worthy of your coffee table?  That’s what PixxiBook does, and they do it well.

    PixxiBook is one of those I-wish-I’d-thought-of-it businesses.  The husband and wife behind the scenes did what most startups do: create a business based on a personal need.  “Tim and Sabrina” wanted to convert their travel blog into a book but realized the process takes more time and effort than most people are willing to invest.  So they designed a computer program to do the work instead.  Then they partnered with a printing press, aligned with WordPress and a few other blogging hosts, and a business was born.

    I’m not sure whether Tim or Sabrina gets the credit, but here’s the marketing genius of Pixxibook (and the point where you’ll stop reading this post).  You can create your PixxiBooks from your blog now… and instantly preview the finished product.  No charge.  Just go to Pixxibook’s website, enter your blog’s URL, and watch the computer program crunch through your posts to create your books.  If you like what you see, you can purchase the real thing.  When my wife ordered my PixxiBooks as a 60th birthday present, they were printed and shipped so quickly I’d only written two new posts by the time I got them.  Seven years of weekly posts published in three elegant volumes.  Life In A Word is now a “triple-booked” anthology.

    I wrote this one three years ago.

    Earlier I mentioned your coffee table, and how PixxiBook is worthy of its surface.  Not quite true.  Some of you – especially you non-bloggers – are thinking, “Nobody’s gonna leaf through old blog posts, Dave”.  Hey, I agree with you.  Blog posts are read and digested, and then we move on to other things.  So why pay for books?

    Go back to my Dickens’ collection for the answer.  Those Oxford Press gems are mine.  Not my wife’s, not my dog’s, not someone’s who we invite over for a dinner party.  Mine.  I can admire them from across the room, leaf through one every now and then, or maybe finally start to read Oliver Twist.  Doesn’t really matter what I do with them.  Just like my PixxiBooks.  They’re a nice collectible and worthy of my shelf space.  I’m never getting rid of them.

    ——————–

    Lego Grand Piano – Update #4

    Today’s portion of the concert was legato or “smooth” (read about my hesitant warm-up in Let’s Make Music!), though I won’t go so far as to say “effortless”.  The only real drama with Bag #4 – of 21 bags of pieces – was the one little piece that skitted off my desk and tried to escape the room.  Caught the little bugger before he got too far.

    All Bag #4 pieces assemble to a single structure: the light-colored “deck” you see here with the red pieces towards the top and the grey pieces to the right.  Those little yellow grabbers will eventually secure the piano strings.

    The second photo is a good look at the piano “mechanics”.  This view would be as if you were sitting at the bench looking directly at the keys.

    Running Build Time: 4.2 hours.  Musical accompaniment: Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Leftover pieces: 3

    Conductor’s Notes: Mr. Instruction Manual included a couple extra pages today; pictures to show me how to “turn on” the piano by pushing a button on the battery pack.  Once I did, the battery pack started flashing.  Had to disconnect a cable to make it quit.  Wish I knew what that was all about.  Patience, maestro, patience.

  • , ,

    Just Off the Podium

    This time of year I find myself doing a little cyber “spring cleaning”. I know, it’s not spring yet and I could simply busy an alcohol wipe on the keyboard or fog the monitor with Windex, but I’m talking about electronic purging here: files, emails, photos, and the like.  I even reset passwords.  When I’m done giving the Delete button a workout I pick up my laptop and hope for something more light-as-a-feather.  Nope, but at least my digital house is in order for another year.  Just like my blog.

    The Winter Olympics start tomorrow, did’ja know? (You didn’t? Shame on you! Pay more attention!)  With the fifteen-hour time difference to Colorado I’ll be lucky to catch ten percent of the action, but I still seek out the good stuff.  Downhill skiing and figure skating are my favorites.  So much skill and grace there, with the occasional feel-good story thrown in for the heartstrings.  But skill and grace only matter if they amount to medals, right? We hang our hats on gold or silver triumphs, even bronze. As for the poor lass or lad in fourth place? Hardly a mention. Fourth place is swept harshly into the performance dustpan, to be dumped on a heap of lesser statistics seldom referenced again. Fourth place can be a mere hundredth of something from the medals podium. Inches. Seconds. Points.

    “fodder”

    Fourth place at the Olympics is an apt way to describe a lot of topics I consider for my weekly blog posts.  You see, part of my writing madness method is to cull interesting bits from my daily newsfeed; fodder for future posts.  I store these bits in an electronic folder and then pull back the curtain when I need a topic.  But not just any topic, loyal readers.  Heavens no, my topics don’t make the medal stand unless they successfully sift through five filters:

    1. Is the topic substantial enough for an entire post?
    2. Is the topic somewhat off the beaten path of “breaking news”?
    3. Is the topic worth a little more research (or as I like to call it, “continuing education”)?
    4. Is the topic an easy target for grins and giggles?
    5. Can I weave a personal memory or two into the topic’s fabric?

    Take away just one filter and the topic isn’t a winner.  No medal… er, post for you, little news story.  Instead, the topic sits idle in the folder gathering cyber-dust until I decide it’s never going to make the cut.  Then I “Delete”.  Before I do this time, however, I thought you’d enjoy a smattering of the near misses; the fourth-place finishes if you will.  Here are ten interesting-but-not-quite-good-enough topics sitting just off the podium:

    • Asparagus.  A recipe for the healthy, non-cruciferous vegetable was published smack dab in the middle of an official Belgian law database, side-by-side with national legislation and royal decrees.  Food for thought?
    • Mercury (the planet).  A European-Japanese space probe passed within 124 miles of the Mercury’s 800°F surface on its seven-year mission, collecting images and sending them back to Earth.  Now that’s what I call “hot shots”.
    • Qantas.  Last May the airline offered a “flight to nowhere” for travel-starved Australians wanting a better view of the late-month supermoon.  Tickets ran upwards of $1,000 USD and sold out immediately.  Travel-starved indeed.
    • Cannabis.  If you live in Ontario, Canada, Uber Eats will be happy to deliver an order of recreational cannabis to your front door.  I’m sure this new service makes the country’s rampant illegal pot producers very happy.
    • Robots.  The world’s first living robots (or “xenobots”), each less than a millimeter wide, can now reproduce.  They could already move about, work together, and self-heal before this more disturbing evolution.  In a word, YIKES!
    • Style.  Billionaire heiress Ivy Getty got married last November at San Francisco’s City Hall in a wedding dress covered with mirror shards.  She referred to her dress as “… just like everything I could’ve dreamed of and more.” Really?  I don’t think I want to meet Ivy Getty.
    • Taco Bell.  The Bell now offers a monthly taco subscription for those who join their rewards program.  $10 gets you a free taco every day of the month.  The Bell saw a 20% increase in rewards program membership when they began offering the subscription.  Confirmed: we Americans are hopelessly addicted to fast food.
    • Bees.  May 20th is World Bee Day.  You can find a lot of interesting trivia about bees on the Web.  They communicate by dancing.  They use tools.  They get mad if they haven’t eaten in a while.  The more you learn about bees, the more you realize they’ll probably take over the world one day.
    • Contact Lenses.  A company has designed the first “smart” contact lens, capable of delivering real-time information to the eye.  The lens connects to your smartphone and generates an image similar to what you’d see on your screen.  So the next time you see someone with “eyes glazed over”, don’t be so sure they’re falling asleep.
    • Millennium Tower – A 58-story building in downtown San Francisco has been leaning to the northwest at a rate of 3 inches per year, for a total of 24 inches so far.  If I were one of the owners of the building’s 419 luxury apartments I wouldn’t be sleeping so well.  I say get ahold of engineers in Pisa, Italy.  Their world-famous leaning tower is predicted to remain standing for another 200 years.

    Maybe one of these topics grabs your attention and you want to learn more.  Go for it.  In fact, write a blog post about it.  I’ll read your version of the story and maybe say, “Crud; missed a good one there.”  But probably not, because I didn’t consider the topic podium-worthy.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch the Olympics (fifteen hours after the fact).  I don’t want to miss those medal ceremonies.

    ——————–

    Lego Grand Piano – Update #3

    Today’s portion of the concert was difficult (read about my hesitant warm-up in Let’s Make Music!).  Bag #3 – of 21 bags of pieces – was smaller than the first two so I figured this step would go quickly.  Wrong.  Bag #3 contained tiny, tiny pieces and I don’t have nimble, nimble fingers!

    The picture here is the “before Bag #3” while the picture below is the “after”. Notice the difference? There’s now a series of posts running upper left to lower right like a fence.  I can make the posts move up and down with my finger.  Inner workings of the piano keys!

    Running Build Time: 3.3 hours.  Musical accompaniment: Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A. Leftover pieces: 2

    Conductor’s Notes: I’m starting to get comfortable with leftover pieces.  I’ve ended up with a few after each bag so far.  Doesn’t mean I don’t go back and check my work to be sure I didn’t overlook a step.  Also, I couldn’t find a piece today.  I thought Lego forgot to put it in the box.  Took me three scourings of my Bag #3 pile of pieces (and a little sweat) before I realized it was sitting there right in front of me.  Utterly unnerving.

  • ,

    Beyond Words

    Life has moments of joyful happiness, overwhelming sadness, breathtaking awe, and quiet gratitude. Also moments – a select few – where these emotions come together as a powerful force of transcendence. This was a week with one of those moments. As I reflect (and a gaze at the Pacific Ocean is the perfect way to do so), I realize the moment deserves my undivided attention. My complete focus. So I pause, lift my hands from the keyboard, and simply say…….. we’ll chat again next week.

  • , , ,

    I Just Turned 59.99589!

    It may interest you to know there are real Memory Lanes in the bedroom communities of every American state. Look them up on Google Maps (I stopped searching after finding dozens.) Must be fun to be one of those residents and see the look on someone’s face when you give them your address.  No, I don’t know anyone who lives on Memory Lane, but me, I kind of do; one with no stripes or sidewalks. Mine is paved with sixty years of material, some of it worth a visit; other items best left alone.  All of this “Dave” stuff is somewhere between my ears and today it’s time for a big – okay, little – reveal.

    59.99589.  If you’re reading this post the day it was published, I’ve just revealed my age to ridiculous exactness.  The 0.99589 amounts to 363 out of the past 365 days.  You could say I’m still in my late fifties (very late, Dave), but more accurately you’ll say I’m either sixty on the dot or a mere forty-eight hours removed from it.  Do I feel old now?  Of course not!  Er, until I calculate my age in months.  I’ve spent 720 of those bad boys.  For Pete’s sake, what have I been doing all my life?

    Well, let me answer that question.  In fact, let’s make it a game because then you get to play too.  Think about the last sixty years (or in your case, however many decades you’ve been around).  Now let’s create a list – off the top of our graying heads – of up to ten significant world events in the timeframe of our years.  No, no, no; not the events you learned in the history books, but the ones with lasting, maybe even personal impact.  Here are mine, in no particular order:

    1. 9/11 (2001)
    2. COVID-19 (2020-???)
    3. San Francisco Bay Area earthquake (1989)
    4. Space Shuttle Challenger (1986)
    5. America’s war in Afghanistan (2001-2021)
    6. Apollo rockets (1961-1972)
    7. Colorado’s Black Forest wildfire (2013)

    I don’t have enough time to explain my choices (after all, I only have forty-eight hours until I”m a “sexy-genarian”) but trust me; these seven came to mind in a heartbeat.  Now arrange them in chronological order to paint an interesting picture.  My childhood was inspired by Apollo rocket launches (courtesy of black-and-white TV’s); my young adult years by two disasters – the Challenger explosion and the devastating earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area; and my adult years by big-bad-ticket items like terrorism, war, wildfire, and a global pandemic.  Sadly, not one of these events makes anyone’s “good list” (am I a product of headline news or what?). But that’s not to say my sixty years have been altogether bad.  Quite the contrary.

    Now, here’s where the game gets more interesting.  Make a similar list as above, but include up to ten significant events of a personal nature.  These are the formative moments, where you’re not the same person after they happened as you were before.  Leave off relationships (including marriage) and having kids, because most of us have or will have those in common.  Let’s see now.  My eyes are closed, I’m in a thoughtful trance, and I’m typing, all at the same time (a man of many talents, no?) Okay, pencils down.  Here’s my “formative” list, also in no particular order:

    1. Corrective eye surgery (1977)
    2. I-survived-but-the-car-didn’t rollover (1984)
    3. Immersive year of studies in Rome, Italy (1982-83)
    4. Traded California’s coast for Colorado’s Rockies (1993)
    5. First job <McDonald’s> (1975)
    6. All things Boy Scouts (1973-1978)
    7. Architecture career ends, tech career begins (1993)
    8. All things basketball (1974-1979)

    Again, I’d love to wax on about my choices but I’d turn 61 before I’d be done typing.  Instead, sort my formatives from earliest to most recent.  Notice anything?  All happened between the ages of 10 and 30.  My “clay was molded’ in a mere one-third of my lifetime.  Not really true, of course.  Ages 1-10 – none of us remember much of those.  But now I hear you saying, “So Dave, what have you been doing for the last thirty years?”  Well, you know the answer already  The same thing as most every other red-blooded American male.  Raising a family.  Making a living.  Loving my wife.  Loving my life.

    I predict my sixties will be my greatest decade; just you wait and see.  I’ll witness another significant world event or two (maybe even a “good one”!)  I’ll break my thirty-year run of nothing and come up with at least one more formative experience.  I’ll write another 520 blog posts (and you’ll block a chunk of your calendar to read them).  But let’s be real; this is just musings about my sixties.  I’m only in my fifties. My account still shows a credit of forty-eight hours.

    ——————–

    Lego Grand Piano – Update #2

    The concert is underway! (read about my hesitant warm-up in the post Let’s Make Music!).  Bag #2 – of 21 bags of pieces – started out innocently enough, with big pieces and easy assembly.  My maestro-confidence overfloweth.

    Suddenly things got v-e-r-y complicated in Mr. Instruction Manual.  Tiny, tiny pieces!  Mechanical components!  Cables!  Batteries!  Here’s last week’s build, and then below, this week’s additions for comparison.  Enlarge the second photo for a better look at the colorful, scary-looking “spindle”, running top left to bottom right.  I have no idea what it’s for but it connects to the gray/white motor (at least I think it’s a motor) just behind it. I count forty-five little Legos on the spindle, each required to be positioned exactly as you see them.  Almost walked off the stage when I was done with that step.

    Running build time: 2.5 hours.  Musical accompaniment: Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor” (three times through!)  Leftover pieces: 5 (Conductor’s note: Last week I only had 1 leftover piece.  5 = concern.  I need to double-check this week’s work before moving forward.  Safe to say you can’t go back and “repair” after the fact).

About Me

The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.

Follow Me On

Subscribe To My Newsletter

Subscribe for new travel stories and exclusive content.