Category Archives: Media

Business, Media, News, Travel, Uncategorized

World Record

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In the weird world that is Guinness, the news this week is what was the steepest street on the planet has been overtaken. For many years, the official steepest street has been (no, nothing in San Francisco) Baldwin Street in Dunedin, New Zealand, coming at a gradient of 34.97 percent.

The upstart steepest street is Ffordd Pen Llech (say that three times quickly!) in the seafront town of Harlech in North Wales, which is about 240 miles northwest of London.  Ffordd Pen Llech has a gradient of 37.45.  Apparently there was a concerted effort by the town of Harlech to win the coveted “steepest” title; tourism is expected to rise with the influx of folks wanting to see it and have their picture taken on the street.

Dunedin City Council has already met to discuss their loss and have decided they will market themselves as having the steepest street in the southern hemisphere!

Who’s the tallest in your family?

100 Words, Business, Fantasy, Media, News, Science, space, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized

New Phase of the Moon

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NASA has been back in the news with the announcement that a return trip to the moon is in the works for 2024. And this means that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is back in the news with HIS announcement that he wants to bankroll 6-8 artists to go with him on a SpaceX flight affectionately named “Dear Moon”. He says that taking artists to space would allow them to “communicate their experiences to the masses in new ways”.

Of course, this project is just in the offing and we’ll have to see if it comes to fruition by 2024.

Would you want to travel to the moon? Or Mars?  Or beyond?

Business, Fantasy, Fitness, Food, Media, Science, Uncategorized

Down the Rabbit Hole

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Over lunch today I thought I’d watch John Oliver – he always makes me laugh while he’s giving me something to think about. That video led me to a SciShow piece debunking last week’s news about a study purporting that cell phone use was causing horns in young people.  That led me to a long piece on “How I Found Out” about flat earthers and the next step was to look up the big 2024 solar eclipse to see the closest spot to Minneapolis to see it in totality.  That led me to the calendar to find out what day of the week that will be in 2024.  Then I searched a bit to see if the calendar that I like for my fridge was done for 2020 yet, which led me to Amazon.  There I decided to check on an order that I placed a few days ago and was happy to see that my world map was on the truck for delivery. Then I got a text from a girlfriend about dinner tonight – how about El Jefe?  I googled them, they are closed on Mondays, so then spent time googling a few other restaurants, which  led me to recipes using corn and queso fresco.

Then suddenly my lunch hour was over and I hadn’t even finished eating my lunch!

What distracts you?  What rabbit hole have you been down recently?

Family, Gatherings, Media, TV, Uncategorized

Surprise! It’s a Wedding

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I’ve observed recently how many weddings are more expensive and elaborate than they used to be, while at the same time skipping over some of the tried and true rituals – paper invitations in the mail comes to mind. This week’s CBS Sunday Morning program featured something I’d never heard of before – a Surprise Wedding. What happens is this:  the happy couple, for whatever personal reasons, invite their desired guests to a Party, and once everyone is there partying, announce that that it is ALSO THEIR WEDDING. In the show’s clips , the guests were loud and ecstatic in one, and kind of stunned and subdued in the other. (I wonder if, for the surprise wedding where everyone was so joyous, they let at least the parents know ahead of time.)

I can imagine why someone would want to try this, considering all the difficulties and angst involved in wedding planning. When Husband and I started contemplating our wedding, we got stymied at the guest list – my extended family was all over the map, plus I’d already made them travel to one wedding that did NOT prove to work out. Husband’s family is huge, and where do we stop – if you invite one cousin, should you invite all 39? We kept putting off the decisions, and then decided to elope! We did tell our folks about it beforehand.

There are a few planners, apparently, who can help you pull it off. It does seem to cut down quite a bit on the wedding gifts, but with any luck you’ve also cut down on some of the expenses.

How do you think you would react to being at a party, and discovering you were also at a Surprise Wedding?  What’s the most fun you’ve ever had at a wedding?

Family, Media, Travel, Uncategorized

A Good Hair Cut

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My hairdresser of 30 years had a stroke last year, and I had to switch to a new stylist. The new one  did sort of OK for the past 12 months, but things weren’t really working out for me but I didn’t really know how to tell her what wasn’t working.

When Barbara in Rivertown did her Baboon retrospective a couple of weeks back, there was a photo of me and Husband taken by Steve when we met up for a meal in Oregon. I had just had my hair cut by my old stylist before we set out for the West Coast. I showed my new stylist the photo, and she knew immediately what I wanted. A picture was worth a thousand words. I don’t speak the same language she does, and the photo did the talking. I left her looking like I wanted. It was such a relief.

Who do you find it easy to communicate with? Who is hard for you to communicate with? 

Art, Family, Kids, Media, Travel, Uncategorized

You Call That Art?

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We went to The Broad Museum in Los Angeles in May. It is a museum of contemporary art with works by  Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol, among others.  Admission is free, and the place was packed with citizens of all ages. They had a special exhibition called “Soul of a Nation, Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983” curated by the Tate Modern out of London, that Husband went to. He said it was interesting but hard to describe.

Daughter and I viewed the general collection.  It was fun to tell her about Warhol and show her the paintings of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe, and the soup cans. The Lichtenstein comic-inspired paintings were far bigger than I ever imagined they would be and were pretty amazing to finally see in person.  She liked all of it, but neither of us quite understood what we were looking at. It is all significant, but I don’t know the reason why. I really don’t know the meaning of the big blue Dachshund made out of plastic or the enormous dining room table and chairs.

What are your experiences with modern art? What are your favorite art works?

Baboon Achievers, Games, Media, News, Technology, The Baboon Congress, Uncategorized

Crunching the Numbers

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Two years ago this month we hit 5,000 followers on the Trail. So I thought I do some stat updates:

Followers: 7,892
Total # of views: 858,848
Total # of comments: 146,681
Most active recent day: March 22, 2019 (That Ole Devil Moon – VS)
Most active day and time: Tuesday, 8 a.m.
Most viewed post:   R.I.P. Tom Keith – November 1, 2011
Most commented posts:
Chores & the Great Depression (182) – Jacque’s
Finding the Back Roads (180) – BiR’s
Banished Words (180) – also BiR’s
Top recent commenters: PJ, BiR, tim, Renee, VS, Linda, Steve
Today we have folks viewing from: US, India, Netherlands, UK, UAE, Canada, Kenya, Sweden and the Czech Republic.

Nothing earthshaking, I just thought this was all very interesting.

Anybody have a question to go with our stats?

History, Media, Movies, Music, Uncategorized

RIP Doris Day

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I’ve just seen that Doris Day has passed away at the age of 97. Born in 1922, she got into show business at the age of 17 as a big band singer and her first film was “Romance on the High Seas”.  The first part of her film career was top heavy with musical comedy but she broke out of that mold in 1955 with “Love Me or Leave Me” which she always said was her best performance.

Her later life was filled with music and her deep care for animal rights. The Doris Day Animal Foundation is a very active presence and supports all kind of animal initiatives.  She released her last album “My Heart” in 2011 and all the proceeds went to the Foundation.

Doris Day certainly wasn’t my favorite actress of all time, but I did admire her and thought she lived a full and meaningful life. The world is slightly less buoyant today for her loss.

Tell me your favorite and your least favorite Doris Day films?

 

 

Business, Media, News, Technology, Uncategorized, Words

If You’re Going to Blow it, Blow it BIG!

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Photo Credit: Reserve Bank of Australia

As part of my job, I send out communications to travelers all the time. Most of our communications are proofed by four or five people, more if the client actually reads the copy.  Every now and then we find a typo after something has gone to print and we tend to say the same thing “How can so many people look at something and not see the error?”

Well now the Reserve Bank of Australia is asking this same thing. Their new £50 note with Edith Cohen (first woman member of the Australian parliament) has a typo.  In teeny tiny letters, as part of the background, the note says repeatedly “It is a great responsibilty to be the only woman here and I want to emphasize the necessity which exists for other women being here.”  Missing an “I” in the word responsibility.  46 MILLION of these notes are now in use around the country.  Wow – when I mess up, it usually only has an impact on 100 folks or so.

Australia says they won’t recall the notes but will correct the mistake when they print the next batch of £50 notes. This makes me wonder if folks will hang onto the notes as a curiosity that won’t be repeated, like that rare Beanie Baby or Geordi Laforge action figure without a visor.

Do you collect anything?

gardening, Media, Nature, News, Science, Uncategorized

If I Be Waspish, Beware My Sting

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Now that it’s about time to start big works in the garden and yard, it’s time to start worrying about bees, wasps and mosquitos.

Just this morning I read that according to a new study that just came out, they’ve determined that wasps can use a form of logical reasoning to figure out unknown relationships from known relationships. What this means is that wasps can determine that if X is greater than Y, and Y is greater than Z, X is greater than Z. For most of history we have thought this was something unique to humans. In just the past 30 years, scientists have discovered that some vertebrate animals (monkeys, birds, fish) can reason like this, but wasps are the first invertebrate that shows this ability.

This news means I am really hoping not to have to spray any wasp nests this summer.

How do you co-exist with all the little critters?