Georgia – 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 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”.

Living On The Edge

The state line between South Carolina (SC) and Georgia (GA) follows the twists and turns of the Savannah River. You know you’re heading into one state or the other whenever you cross the water. Driving from our part of South Carolina into nearby Augusta, GA is interesting. The interstate loops Augusta by starting in SC, touches a bit of GA, goes back to SC for a few miles, then continues into GA again as it follows the river. It’s an example of my life on the edge.

Growing up on the coast of California, it never occurred to me the geography of my younger days was limited to only three of the four cardinal directions. If I headed north I’d leave the urban stretches of Los Angeles for the more rural towns of the the central coast. Head south and I’d parallel the beaches all the way to San Diego. The only thing east of the city seemed to be the endless Mojave Desert. As for the last of the four directions? Not an option, at least not without a boat, plane, or a whole lot of swimming. Horace Greeley would’ve never told me to “Go West, young man”.

South Bend sits where the yellow and red come together at the very top of Indiana.

In my college years in South Bend, IN, I was a fifteen-minute drive from the line where the Central and Eastern time zones meet. Back then you didn’t touch your clock for Daylight Savings, so half the year you were the same time as Detroit while the other half you were Chicago. It was confusing, but not as confusing as someone who lived on one side of the line and worked on the other. Imagine leaving the house at 8:00am, driving an hour, and arriving at the office at… 8:00am? It’s a neat trick, pulled off by a lot of those who live on the edge of a time zone.

Raising our kids in Colorado Springs, we always knew which direction we were heading because the line of the Rocky Mountains lay immediately to the west. Those peaks rose up like the Great Wall of China, just daring you to push through. Sure, we drove the interstates into the Rockies for skiing, hiking, and such, but day-to-day we were down at the base, literally living on the edge. Like California, we had one less cardinal direction at our disposal.

Grays Peak, on Colorado’s Continental Divide

The Rockies conceal another important edge, known as the Continental Divide. The Divide is elevated terrain separating neighboring drainage basins. Plain English? The north-south line from which water flows either west to the Pacific Ocean or east to the Atlantic. I always wanted to stop somewhere flat on the Divide and pour out a bottle of water. Let’s see if it really flows both ways from the line, right? It’s an experiment that to this day remains unconducted.

Football, one of my favorite spectator sports, is all about lines and edges. One team faces the other, on an imaginary line defined by where the referee places the ball. Cross that line before the ball is snapped and you’ll be flagged with a penalty. Advance the ball ten yards past that line – to another imaginary line – and your team is awarded more play. The sidelines of the field might as well drop off to a bottomless void. Catching a pass outside of that edge is not allowed. Running the ball outside of that edge brings the game to a halt. But catching or running across the lines at end of the field? That rewards you with a score.

$50 gets you a spot on “The Edge” sky deck

For all this living and playing on thresholds, maybe I should visit one of New York City’s newest high-rise attractions. One hundred floors above the sidewalk, The Edge is billed as “the highest outdoor sky deck in the Western Hemisphere”. Jutting out from its host building, The Edge allows unparalleled views of the city below, because the surrounding walls are solid glass, as is a portion of the deck floor itself (yikes!) If Spider-Man is your thing, you can go even higher by scaling the outside of the remaining floors of the skyscraper. I have to say, this sort of thing draws a “fine line” between entertainment and, well, insanity.

I won’t be going to The Edge… ever. I’m not good with heights, so anything above a pedestrian Ferris Wheel just isn’t my cup of tea. Nope, leave me behind, comfortably grounded, where crossing the Savannah River from one state to another is plenty adventurous. That’s my definition of life on the edge.

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

Boundaries

My wife and I took a “triangle trip” last week to see her family and then our son, flying from Augusta (GA) to Denver to Dallas, before returning to Augusta again. There’s nothing round-trip about an itinerary like that; just three one-way flights in a row. Like any other frolic in the friendly skies however, the journey served up easy fodder for a blog post. Hectic airports? Uncomfortable turbulence? Delayed flights? Yes, yes, and yes. But for today’s post, step up to the podium my fellow passengers, for it is you who have earned my writing wrath.

We’re in familiar territory here. I’ve written about my flying annoyances in Sitting in the Catbird Seat and First Class is now un-American (among others). But those musings focused on airplane seats and airplane sections. Today is about airplane occupants. Some of them are making the national headlines for their ridiculous antics. The others all seem to have ended up on my flights. Allow me to introduce my new “friends”.

On the flight from Augusta to Denver, a family of three filed into the row directly in front of us; wife on the aisle, young child in the middle, husband on the window. As they settled into their seats, the kiddo started rapid-firing questions: Dad, when are we going to take off? Mom, where do I put my jacket? Dad, I can’t get my seat belt on! Do we get snacks? Dad? Hey, DAD!!!

Kids are loud. I remember my first flight too, and the drive-you-crazy curiosity of a six year old. But I certainly didn’t expect the parents to answer in baby talk. Oh Stevie, the biggy wiggy pilot way up in the fwont of the plane decides when we get to fly up, up, up in the sky! Maybe if you’re a weely weely good boy he’ll give you a wittle pair of wings to put on your backpack!

Or how about… Now Stevie, yelling at Mr. Seat Belt isn’t very nice. Look, there’s a wittle buckle and a wittle other end! Let’s make it a game! See if you can snap those bad boys together!

This is why I never leave home without noise-cancelling headphones.

On the flight from Denver to Dallas, we had our choice of “uncomfortable”. First, we trudged to the back of the plane, in front of and back of a large group of men who a) chose to be loud and laughy, and b) chose to speak across the aisle/rows in Spanish (even though the smattering of English made it clear they were fluent in both). At first I thought my nearby amigos were just being a little obnoxious. But the longer they kept it up, the more I thought I probably ought to know what they’re saying just in case…

This is why I never leave home without Google Translate.

Also on Denver to Dallas, a small child several rows forward spent the whole flight wailing I want Mommy! I want Mommy! I want Mommy! We were too far behind to see or hear what her traveling companion was doing (if anything) to make her feel better, but eventually some kind of alarm went off in my head. What if this child was being abducted? After all we were heading to Dallas, which could be considered a gateway to the world for that sort of thing. I alerted the flight attendant, who assured me everything was okay. And it was. Turns out the child belonged to one very overwhelmed father, solo-parenting (or not) a total of three kids.

This is why I never leave home without my wife.

I haven’t even mentioned the usual annoyance. Since my wife prefers the window seat I graciously accept the middle. So why is it my neighbor in the aisle seat always takes the armrest? Doesn’t he or she realize I’m squeezed between two bodies? Over the last two decades the average airline seat width has shrunk from 18.5″ to 17″. If the passenger on either side of the middle takes the armrests that means I’m reduced to 15″, while each of them gets 18″.

This is why I never leave home without my elbows.

If you ever fly with me, I’m the guy with his head down reading his Kindle. I’ll be polite and, for the most part, leave you alone. But don’t be fooled. I’ll only have one eye on my e-reader. The other – and both ears – will be tuned into whatever you’re up to in your seat. Please respect your boundaries.

Strange Bedfellows

Welcome to Masters Week, sports fans! Even if you don’t know the first thing about professional golf, you’ve probably heard of The Masters. The tournament begins again this Thursday (for the eighty-sixth time) at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. If you have nothing better to do this weekend, you can watch a dozen mind-numbing hours of the television coverage. While you’re at it you’ll discover the Masters traditions, like the champion’s green jacket, the clubhouse top-story “Crow’s Nest” (where the amateur golfers reside), the famous pimento cheese sandwiches, and of course, Waffle House. Wait, Waffle House?

Question: When do waffles and golf belong in the same sentence? Answer: When it’s April at The Masters. Why? Because alongside the golf hats, shirts, and commemorative this-and-that for purchase at the souvenir shop, you can buy a limited-edition pair of Adidas golf shoes for your long walk along the course. The shoes will set you back $200 – a little pricier than most – but hey, they’re limited-edition. You’ll be among the select few advertising Waffle House on their heels.

Before you think waffles and golf shoes are the most random “pairing” (ha) in the history of merchandising, remember; The Masters is in Georgia. So is Waffle House. Their headquarters is right down the road in Atlanta and they have over 400 restaurants across the Peach State (way more than any other state). In other words, a pair of Waffle House Adidas at The Masters may earn as many thumbs-up as strange looks.

Speaking of strange, Adidas took the breakfast look of its limited-edition shoe to an extreme. Besides the rear-facing logo, a square-after-square print runs along the side, in a muted tone meant to represent waffles and syrup. Adidas calls it “batter-like colorway” (a phrase you’ll never hear again, ever). Including syrup in the design and labeling it “batter-like” might be how Adidas keeps distance (and lawsuits) from competitor Nike, which famously created its first shoe using a waffle iron. Whatever. Shoes and waffles still make strange bedfellows. I mean, look at the marketing photos spaced throughout this post. Clever yes, but isn’t your first thought, “Get your dirty sneakers off my dining table!“

[Props to Adidas, if you have buyer’s remorse with your breakfast kicks, at least you also get a shoebox looking exactly like a teeny, tiny Waffle House.]

I’m not on my soapbox to knock Waffle House; quite the opposite. Any restaurant keeping the doors open sixty years after the very first plate deserves my respect. So does a restaurant where waffles are the main event because I love waffles. If they’re on the menu, I’ll order waffles whether at Waffle House, Belgian-style, or made-to-order at the finest champagne brunch. I’ve even been known to eat an Eggo or two. Ideally, top your grids with strawberries and Chantilly cream, with syrup on the side for dipping. Heaven on earth.

I’ve only been to Waffle House twice in my life. Was it a memorable experience? NO. Both times I perched on a backless stool at the counter. Both times I sat next to characters I’d never, ever choose to dine with. Finally, the Waffle House kitchen is right there in the wide-open so you can watch your breakfast being prepared. Wouldn’t say it was the most sanitary process I ever saw.

Waffle House does have its charms, however. The original menu had just sixteen items; today, well over a hundred. Each location is open all-day-all-night, which has some customers believing Waffle House doors don’t lock. Each location also has a jukebox, including favorites from the “Waffle Records” label (Ex. They’re Cooking Up My Order by Alfreda Gerald, released in 2006). Finally, two percent of all restaurant eggs in America are cracked at Waffle House. Two percent is rarely a big number but in this case, it’s got a lot of zeroes.

Waffle House did make a famous mistake once. In the 1960s, the chain was approached by one S. Truett Cathy, looking for an outlet for his proprietary chicken sandwich. The sandwich was added to the menu for a short time, but sales were so strong Waffle House worried its waffles would lose the spotlight. So Cathy moved on, and of course, Chick-fil-A soon became an even more popular place to eat.

To be fair, the Adidas shoe isn’t the first time waffles and golf crossed paths. In 1996, Kevin Costner starred as a down-on-his-luck golfer in Tin Cup, which included a memorable scene at a Waffle House just before the U.S. Open. Somehow this worked better than waffle-golf shoes.

According to its website, Waffle House has 10 locations in my home state of Colorado versus 439 locations in Georgia. Do the math. If a hundred Georgians order two waffles a day in each of those restaurants, Waffle House is cooking up over 600,000 Peach State waffles every week. WHOA. Now there’s my excuse to go to The Masters!

Some content sourced from the ESPN.com article, “Waffle House and Adidas team up for waffle-themed golf shoes”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Lego Grand Piano – Update #12

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

We’ll be “playing” the keyboard for the next few weeks. Bag #12 – of 21 bags of pieces – added another seven keys to the five I constructed last week, which puts us not quite halfway across the board. I’m showing the complicated mechanical action in the photo because once the keys are installed it’ll be hard to see. Notice how pressing the piano key down makes the rounded counterweight to the left go up. The weight strikes the piano string above it (once inside the piano), and Voila! Music.

When you work on one of these Lego projects for almost ten hours you notice things. Little things. Today I realized, for the first time ever, Lego imprints its logo on every one of the thousands of raised “bumps” on its pieces (like the beige bumps just to the left of the black piano keys here). A perfectionist would have all of those logos facing the same direction. Nope, not gonna happen; we’re on a one-way street here.

Running Build Time: 9.6 hours. Musical accompaniment: Handel’s Water Music. Leftover pieces: 3

Conductor’s Note: Water Music is a collection of short pieces for a large orchestra. Because Handel wrote the set of suites for King George I for a concert on the River Thames, Water Music is often performed outdoors. Next to his choral work Messiah (“HA…lle-LU-jah!”), Water Music is Handel’s best-known composition.

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.

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.

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!)

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.

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.