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.
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Small Fly
Whenever we travel to our favorite little town in South Carolina, we have the option of a connecting flight through Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) or Atlanta (ATL) to get there. DFW is the fourth-busiest airport in the world, with five terminals, seven runways, and 164 gates. The airport property covers twenty-seven square Texas miles, with its own zip code, police, and fire departments. Meanwhile, ATL is merely the busiest airport in the world, hosting 300,000 passengers and 60,000 workers every day. One of ATL’s runways is so long they hold an annual 5k running race on it. DFW and ATL are mega-ports and can be mega-stressful to pass through, which is why landing in little Augusta, Georgia, our final flying destination, is like a breath of small-town fresh air.
Augusta Regional Airport (“…at Bush Field”, or simply “AGS”) is the smallest airport in the world. Okay, that’s not even close to true (especially if you consider landing strips in cornfields) but it sure feels like it. AGS sits quietly on the banks of the Savannah River, just west of the Georgia state line. It’s served by the smallest aircraft of Delta and American. Its tiny terminal building is shaped like a capital “T”, with two little ticket counters at the top, followed by a quick stroll down the middle to a boarding lounge the size of an oversized living room. If you average out the flight schedule, AGS has a single plane touching down every two hours. They should hire the Augusta High School marching band to welcome each landing (“Go Orioles!”)
The first time I realized AGS was big-time-small was after a late landing on a weekday night. Walking down the brief concourse the airport was noticeably dark. The rental car counters were already shuttered for the night. At baggage claim, the single attendant (literally, the only employee in the building) announced bags would be hand-delivered to the curb instead of circulating on the belt. Yep, they just lined ’em all up by the waiting cars.
Watch the planes from the “front porch” My other AGS big-time-small moment was the first time I saw the parking lot (free for 30 min, $8/day). Half the lot was given over to rental cars. Think about the number of rental car spaces you need for an airport where just a handful of planes land each day. Now double the number. That’s the size of Augusta Regional’s parking lot.
The design of AGS, boasting one-story red brick, proud white columns, and suburban landscaping, reminds me of the clubhouse of a golf course. In fact, Augusta Regional bears the nickname “The Country Club Airport”, entirely fitting since The Masters professional golf tournament is held every April just twelve miles from its runways.
Lounge outside (past security) before you board… AGS reminds me of my first small airport experience back when I was a freshman in college. Flying from Los Angeles (LAX – second-busiest in the U.S.), I deplaned in a modest midwestern town, and for the first time ever descended stairs onto the outside tarmac instead of through a jetway to the terminal. I happened to be the first passenger off the plane, which meant leading a line of people to the glass doors of the boarding lounge. Only I couldn’t open the glass doors. They wouldn’t “push” despite my best efforts. Several greeters on the other side of the glass (this was pre-9/11) gestured to “pull” instead of “push”. Took me just a little too long to figure that out. Believe I heard the words “city boy” as I was on my way to baggage claim.
When we landed in Augusta most recently, we were the last flight of the night. As we sat on the park-like benches at the curb waiting for our daughter to pick us up, I watched one of the few remaining employees bring in the trash cans and turn out the lights. She made sure we had a ride, then locked the terminal building doors. Only one other passenger was waiting to be picked up. It was a little strange to be among the last couple of people on the property. I mean, most airports don’t even close.
… or play a little golf. At Dallas/Fort Worth, you can rent private rooms at the “Minute Suites” for naps or freshening up right there in the airport terminal. There’s even a full-service spa. In Atlanta you’ll find a Starbucks in six of the seven airport concourses. Augusta Regional? How about a soft pretzel at the one concession stand, or an overpriced unofficial souvenir from The Masters? Doesn’t matter. You can show up less than an hour before your departure, and you can take in the take-offs from a comfy rocking chair. Yep, this little small-fly is a pretty sweet landing pad.
Some content sourced from the Augusta Regional Airport website.
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Lego Grand Piano – Update #8
(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)
Last week Our instrument really came together this week, as you’ll see in the second photo. Bag #8 – of 21 bags of pieces – not only connected both large pieces, but also added strings! We now have enough of the black frame in place to where our little gem is finally starting to look like a piano.
I went with Haydn’s “Surprise Symphony” today because I completed this section in the early morning hours and needed the famous jolt the orchestra gives you at the end of an otherwise piano movement. (Yes, “piano” can be an adjective). Haydn was famous for these little “jokes”, placed randomly the middle of his compositions.
This week Running Build Time: 6.75 hours. Musical accompaniment: Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 in G Major. Leftover pieces: 4 (including a couple of piano strings).
Conductor’s Note: We’re getting very close to boxing in the complex mechanics of the instrument… and I’m nervous. We have a couple “loose ends” in there which must somehow attach so they’ll do something productive (like make music). Hoping next week’s Bag #9 addresses this concern.
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Not-So-Sweet Jesus
If you take a stroll down your supermarket’s greeting card aisle today, you’ll find Valentine’s Day cards long gone and Easter cards in full force. It’s only the start of Lent, yet the aisle is bursting bright with pink bunnies, yellow chicks, and painted eggs. I won’t be sending Easter cards this year (haven’t done so since my kids were little) but I will give up something for Lent. I’m thinking “foods with added sugar”.
I know what you’re thinking. We live in an age where giving up tempting foods isn’t as difficult as it used to be. Whole foods are so available we have an entire chain of stores called “Whole Foods”. Sugar has so many alternatives I should revise my sacrifice to “foods with added sweeteners“. Even processed foods have matured to where “healthy snacks” are pleasing to the palate. I have options.Doesn’t matter. Dropping added sugar will still be a challenge. My desk drawer (second one down on the left if you’d like to help yourself) is replete with black and red licorice, and some form of chocolate, be it a bar, a cookie, or those little baking morsels straight out of the bag. Giving up licorice for forty-six days and nights won’t be a stretch, but NO chocolate for all of March and half of April sounds like an eternity. What can I say? Everyone has a weakness and mine is chocolate. It speaks to me from my closed drawer with “come hither” seductiveness.
Straight out of the bag…YUM! I’ll bet you’ll find thousands of blog posts about chocolate with a quick search. I’ll bet you’ll find entire blogs about the sweet stuff. I just checked my blog’s history and unearthed a dozen takes on chocolate (including this one from a year ago talking about the things people give up for Lent. Chocolate tops the list). So let’s make it a baker’s dozen because I invented a chocolate challenge. I call it the “85 Percent Ascent”.
Let me explain. There was a time when I liked my coffee sweeter than a Starbucks Sugar Cookie Frappuccino. Together with artificial creamer I’d dump in sugar cubes or pour the white stuff straight from whatever you call those pourable glass containers. That was a long, long time ago. At some point (probably, er definitely my college year abroad in Italy) I realized coffee tasted pretty good all by itself. I started to wonder why you’d “taint” coffee by adding the other stuff. But let’s be real: it’s not like you go from Frappuccino to Americano cold turkey. You’ve got to ease into the one extreme from the other. Slowly I backed down the sugar (like years-slowly). Slowly I backed down the creamer. One day I eliminated the sugar altogether. Today, I still go with a tablespoon of (almond-coconut non-dairy no-sugar) “creamer” but otherwise it’s straight dark-roasted coffee for me. I even fancy an espresso shot every now and then.
It’s a good analogy for my Percent Ascent challenge. 85% cocoa content is seriously dark chocolate (meaning not sweet at all). If your go-to is a Hershey’s Bar or a Milky Way you’re down below 50%. And moving from 50% to 85% is a serious ascent with chocolate. It’s like standing on top of Kilimanjaro and seeing how much further you have to go to summit Everest.A recent article on chocolate lists nine criteria for the healthiest and best-tasting bars in the world, including:
- The first ingredient must be cocoa, cocoa mass, or chocolate liquor (not sugar or milk chocolate). In other words, put down the Nestle’s Crunch; it’s not even close.
- Ingredients must include real cocoa butter instead of (cheaper) vegetable oils. 95% of America’s chocolate manufacturers just dropped out of the race.
- The cocoa must come from an “Equator country” like Ivory Coast, Ghana, or Peru.
- The bar should be labeled “Organic” and/or “Non-GMO”.
- Bonus points: should be fairly traded and ethically harvested.
As if the search isn’t already difficult, NOW you have to go with >85% cocoa content. Not so hard to find actually, especially if you go online. I purchased a bar from five different manufacturers meeting every one of the above criteria, including Green & Black’s from the UK, and Theo from Seattle. All five bars fall between 85% and 90% cocoa content (and yes, 100% is an option). All five use scary words like “strong”, “super black”, and “extreme” to describe their product. Not gonna lie; I’m a little nervous to take a bite.
As bitter as these chocolates are sure to be, I still have to give them up for Lent. Every one of them has “added sugar” (albeit way down on the ingredients list). So let’s just agree – I’m not going to break my Lenten covenant on a food that doesn’t even taste sweet. Think I’ll opt for a piece of fruit instead. I just hope it doesn’t come from the Garden of Eden.Some content sourced from the “Experience Life” / Life Time article, “How to Find the Healthiest Dark Chocolate”.
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Lego Grand Piano – Update #7
(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)
Last week I worked outside of the box again this week. Bag #7 – of 21 bags of pieces – assembled a second layer on top of the section I can’t yet attach to the bigger section behind it. From “Last week” to “This week”, you can see I worked almost entirely in black, which suggests I’m creating more of the outside of the piano.
Despite the majestic wash of Debussy’s “La Mer”, Bag #7 was completed in less than thirty minutes, with only one heart-pounding moment where I thought I’d left out pieces in the Bag #6 build. Thank goodness I was wrong. Still on track.
This week Running Build Time: 6.0 hours. Musical accompaniment: Debussy’s La Mer and Prélude à l’aprés-midi d’un Faune (try and say that ten times fast). Leftover pieces: One (clearly an extra, whew!)
Conductor’s Note: Today’s build wasn’t very exciting, so it helped to have Debussy booming in the background. However, as I turned the page of Mr. Instruction Manual in anticipation of Bag #8, I saw pictures of… long, thin, reed-like pieces. Holy buckets, Maestro, it’s time to make this piano a stringed instrument!
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Look What the Catfish Dragged In
When I consider my options at a seafood restaurant, I go for halibut or sea bass. Both are offered wild-caught (a healthier approach than farmed). Both have a distinctive flavor and pair well with a variety of sauces. But once in a great while I come across catfish on the menu. I confess to never having tried it. The jury’s still out on whether catfish is a good choice vs. utterly lacking in flavor. Probably depends on the prep. All I know is, a catfish is a bottom feeder. If it’s anything like con man Ali Ayad, it really is lacking in flavor.
Bottom-feeder In the world of tech, catfishing is a disturbing practice. The “fisher” creates a false online persona (photo, bio, accounts), then trolls social media looking to establish relationships, usually for financial gain. The victim is lulled into a false sense of security through casual texting and email conversations, until he or she unwittingly hands over the money or even worse, gives access to personal information. Favorite catfishing targets: senior citizens and those looking for love.
Manti Te’o, aka “prey” A well-known example of catfishing involved former American football player Manti Te’o (a graduate of my alma mater, I’m embarrassed to say). Te’o developed an online relationship with a woman at Stanford University just as his name was starting to make headlines as a Heisman Trophy candidate. Te’o pulled heartstrings when he revealed to the sports media his girlfriend had leukemia. It took a full-blown investigation to determine not only the false persona of Teo’s girlfriend but also the con behind it: a childhood friend of Te’o’s who was in love with him. The resulting embarrassment undoubtedly affected his future NFL prospects.
Ali Ayad is our latest example of catfishing and his story is a whole lot more disturbing than Manti Te’o’s. Ayad started digital design company Madbird in 2020, from nothing but clicks on the keyboard. He invented a corporate website and claimed a random London street address as his office. He created a fake co-founder, stole photos of real people to build the rest of his executive staff, and developed a resume of high-profile clients he never worked for (complete with testimonials). Then he went in search of real people around the globe to put in the long hours to get Madbird off the ground.
It almost worked. Ayad hired fifty employees in a matter of months, convincing each to walk away from real jobs to work from home on commission, with the promise of a fixed salary after six months. One employee pitched the company to over 10,000 contacts, becoming Madbird’s “Employee of the Month”. Others in other countries uprooted their lives, anticipating Madbird as their ticket to eventual relocation to the UK. No client deals were ever closed and no commissions were ever paid.
The catfish himself Then Ayad made a misstep. He hired Gemma Brett, a designer from West London. Two weeks into her employment Brett innocently mapped the commute to Madbird’s offices. The street address turned out to be a building of residential flats. Suspicious, Brett engaged another employee to dig further into the company, and Madbird’s inauthenticity started to reveal itself. The BBC got wind of the story and conducted a thorough investigation, which you can read about here. The extent of Ayad’s charade will have you shaking your head. If nothing else, watch the on-street interview towards the end of the article where reporter Catrin Nye catches Ayad off-guard. Even in this confrontation Ayad believes he’s done nothing wrong.
Ayad reminds me of Rumplestiltskin spinning gold from straw; he’s just a lot more attractive and charismatic than the old buzzard from the Grimm fairy tale. Ayad’s also tech-savvy enough to convince perfectly intelligent people to go for his gold, which leaves me with two questions. Why did Ayad go to such lengths to start a company whose foundation was destined to crumble? And what are the consequences of his actions?
Nature’s catfish are typically harmless but there’s also a particularly nasty one, nicknamed the striped eel for its markings and shape. This catfish has hidden poisonous stingers in its fins. Handle with care; in rare cases, people have died from its venom. Maybe our man Ali Ayad is not just catfishing; he’s a bona fide striped eel. A bottom-feeder, still lurking, ready to poison his next victim. Watch out.Some content sourced from the UK Insight article, “Jobfished: the con that tricked dozens into working for a fake design agency”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
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Lego Grand Piano – Update #6
(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)
I worked outside of the box this week – literally. Bag #6 – of 21 bags of pieces – assembled into a portion of the piano I can’t attach to the section I’ve built so far. Its width suggests it’s part of the front of the instrument (just behind the keyboard) and it has a few moving parts, but darned if I can figure out how it’s going to connect.Despite the furious background rush of a Prokofiev piano concerto, I completed this section with calm and confidence in just forty minutes. Either I’m getting better at this or the bags of pieces are shrinking.
Detail of the mechanics Running Build Time: 5.6 hours. Musical accompaniment: Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major. Leftover pieces: Zero (again!)
Conductor’s Note: The Prokofiev Concerto and Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto No. 5 (accompanying the Bag #2 assembly) were both included in the soundtrack of “The Competition”, a 1980 film starring a young Richard Dreyfuss and even younger Amy Irving. If you’re a fan of classical piano, it’s a must-see.
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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”.
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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.
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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: 3Conductor’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.
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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.
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