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5-1/2 Reasons that Numbers are Better than Letters

Michael Leave a comment

Do you remember the Top 40 Countdown? Do they still have a Top 40 Countdown? Who decided on 40? Why not 50? Was it perhaps a conscious attack on the Top Ten? We all have some fascination with numbers. Sometimes that fascination becomes an obsession, sometimes a compulsion, and sometimes a headline writer’s dream.

I noticed something the other day while perusing the headlines on a national news web-site. Once I got past the REALLY BIG BANNERS IN LARGE, BOLD FONTS, about half of the headlines were counting something.  22 Terrible Songs by Terrific Artists, 5 Hottest New TV Shows, 7 Things that Trigger Alzheimer’s. Again, once you get past the REALLY BIG stories, these are the articles that get mouses clicking. Why is that?

I proposed these reasons why we are fascinated with numbers.

1. Numbers are universal. There is no question that numbers are everywhere. And wherever they are, they are almost always the same. “Five” might be “five,” “cinco,” “cinq,” “cinque,” “fimm,” “viisi,” “besh,” or “ezinhlanu,” but “5” is just plain “5.”

2.  Numbers are easier to read than letters. Until they get really, really big, like 1,817,654,427,003 your brain sees, reads, identifies, and processes “117” much faster “one hundred, seventeen.”

3.  Numbers play favorites. Go ahead, ask someone what his or her favorite number is and you will certainly get an answer. Favorite numbers end up in passwords, on security keypads, on roulette tables, and being played in the daily lottery drawing. Ask someone what his or her favorite letter is and you will get a blank stare.

4.  Numbers are memorable. Spirit of 76, Apollo 13, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. All you have to do is think of the number portion and right away you know the significance of what you’re seeing. That’s why ATMs use PINs, not PILs.

5.  Numbers are pleasing to the eye. Seriously, numbers are attractive little devils. Rattle off 36-24-36 and everybody knows exactly what picture to paint in your imagination.

5-1/2. Sorry, there is no 5-1/2 but it sure did make the title of this post more memorable, didn’t it?

Numbers. As the Science Officer aboard NCC-1701 would say, “Fascinating.”

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Bridge for Sale

Michael Leave a comment

Labor Day has come and gone and you know what that means. No more white shoes or Seersucker! Uh, no. It’s the start of a new season. I don’t mean the change from unofficial summer to unofficial fall. What with meteorological autumn and astronomical autumn and autumnal equinox and the fall TVseason the last thing we need is any unofficial season. No, the period after Labor Day is the beginning of a new festival season.

Ok, those of you who have always suspected that I’m closing in on batty it’s probably official – or maybe even unofficial. I’ve been marking the seasons by the changes of festivals for years. Winter heralds holiday festivals, spring brings my beloved maple festivals, summer is the season for arts festivals, and fall is the time for covered bridge festivals. This should be nothing new for regular readers of RRSB. I’ve brought up the local covered bridge festival before. (See “Passages of Fall,” September 15, 2014.) (Come on, give me a little break. I’ve been doing this for almost five years. We’re going to revisit some things every now and then.)bridgeforsale

But let’s digress here for just a moment. Festivals have morphed terribly from the traditional definition. That is, “a day or time of religious or other celebration, marked by feasting, ceremonies, or other observances.” Modern festivals often include feasting, otherwise the corndog and kettle corn industries would be in shambles, but around here they’re known more for jamming as many hand-made and/or ersatz hand-made crafts, foods, clothes, and furniture into any open field and for the greatest concentration of the Square point of sale app per vendor per acre.

And that’s what I love about them! You can buy anything at a festival – and I have. Chain sawn eagle yard ornament? Bought one. Framed, numbered, signed pencil sketch? Bought one. Metal sculpted snowman family. Bought one. Commemorative newspaper front page parodying offspring’s eccentricity? Bought one. Hand-hammered silver jewelry ensemble featuring recycled place settings? Bought one.  Hand-made left-handed wooden kitchen utensil set? Bought one. Full scale carved wooden Jack-o-lantern? Bought two!

Oh sure, you can buy maple syrup at the maple festivals and real art at the arts festivals and traditional Christmas decorations at the holiday festivals. But you can get that stuff at lots of places. But where else can you find a four foot, hand carved, wading flamingo carrying a surfboard under its wing? What can I say? I live for kitsch.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Man At Work

Michael Leave a comment

Happy Labor Day America. That wonderful holiday when we celebrate the people who work by making people work so others who aren’t working can take advantage of another day, weekend, or month of sales. A day when the people who aren’t working complain that they might as well be at work because it will be twice as busy on Tuesday when they get back and a day when the people who are working complain that they are working while collecting twice their normal pay. You gotta love those holidays.

There are a handful of people who are working today who aren’t complaining about it. They will get tomorrow off. Actually they’ll get every tomorrow off from their current position. Those are the people at the Bangor, Maine Howard Johnson Restaurant. So why are they special? When they close there will be only one Howard Johnson Restaurant left in the country where once it was the largest hospitality chain with over 1,000 restaurants and 500 motor lodges.

I remember eating in several Howard Johnson’s but one in particular still pops into my head now and then. In 1925, Howard Johnson (yes, there really was a Howard Johnson) borrowed $2,000 and bought a pharmacy in Quincy, Mass. There he installed a soda fountain and brought enough business in to open a sit down restaurant by 1929. In 1940 the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened using the abandoned South Pennsylvania Railway tunnels and rights of way connecting Irwin in the west with Carlisle in central Pennsylvania. Eventually the turnpike mainline was completed from the Ohio to the New Jersey borders through the southern part of the state. Why are these two things related?

Although only 360 miles from east to west (or west to east, even), a distance that can be travelled comfortably in a less than a single workday today (if you felt like working on Labor Day), in the 1960s the trip just halfway across the state was far from a comfortable day’s drive. In the western part of the state the mountains made for slow climbs, challenging twisty downhill runs, and constant stoppages while new tunnels were being blasted through the Allegheny Mountains. I know because I was then a back seat passenger with two sisters while the parents rode up front each summer on our trek from Western PA to Eastern MD. A high point of the turnpike portion of the journey was the Howard Johnson Restaurants at the turnpike service plazas.  After lunch we would be allowed to splurge on dessert and have one of the famous 28 flavors of ice cream. For some reason I always picked chocolate.

Howard Johnson’s were fixtures on the Pennsylvania Turnpike from its opening in 1940 until the 1980s when the full service restaurants began to be replaced by fast food chains and their familiar counter service. The PA turnpike restaurant was the first restaurant the Howard Johnson Company would open on its way to becoming the largest restaurant chain along American toll roads.  In 1979 the Howard Johnson Company was sold and eventually many of the familiar orange roofed restaurants on and off the turnpikes were converted into other brands. By 1986 all of the former company owned Howard Johnson Restaurants were closed or rebranded and only the franchised restaurants remained open. The motor lodge business was divested entirely in 1990.

Today, where I once was served my hamburger on a plate at a Howard Johnson Restaurant along the Pennsylvania Turnpike I have a choice of picking up a pizza or a Whopper and carrying it back to a plastic table in a reconstructed service plaza holding two fast-food restaurants, an ice cream stand, a coffee counter, a gift shop, and a dirty bathroom. Elsewhere there are only two Howard Johnson Restaurants serving comfort food and comfortable memories. Tomorrow there will be only one.

Labor Day had already been celebrated for 3 years before Howard Deering Johnson was born in 1897. When Howard opened that first store in 1925 the Mount Rushmore site was dedicated before construction began on the mountain which would be completed in 1941. That was just in time for Howard Johnson to start opening restaurants along highways that would be packed with hungry families on holiday weekends.

That must be why I always manage to have a quart of chocolate ice cream in the freezer on Labor Day.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

(If you want to see the last remaining Howard Johnson Restaurant you have to get to Lake George, New York. You should hurry. It already closed once in 2012 and reopened just last year. Rumor has it that Rachel Ray worked there as a teenager. No word on if she still stops in.)

 

You have the right. . .

Michael Leave a comment

I don’t listen to satellite radio often, but when I do I prefer the commercial free channels. The funny thing about satellite radio is that on the channels that are not commercial free, a great many of the ads are for credit repair, an unusual sponsor for a service that charges hundreds of dollars a year in subscription fees. Or maybe not. One in particular caught my ear lately.

It began, “You have the right to reduce your debt.” My first thought was, no you have an obligation to reduce your debt and it’s called bill paying. Actually, my first thought was to switch channels but I fought that off, not because I need to reduce my debt but that once upon a time I was so heavily in debt that your average homeless person had a higher credit score than I. I reduced my debt by stopping indiscriminate buying, selling off assets, paying off creditors, and closing credit cards. I was pretty sure the fellow espousing my rights to un-indebtedness didn’t have those notions in mind.

I’m sure there are many reasonable ways to reduce debt. Just because most governments haven’t figured out a way to do it doesn’t mean that we have lower ourselves to their levels. Especially on this weekend – Labor Day weekend. Huh? The thing is, you don’t want to reduce debt that’s going to cost people their jobs. Huh?

It doesn’t matter if a business is a 12 seat diner owned by the guy down the street or a multi-national banking business run by a bazillionaire. If you take money away from them they will work out a way of making it up. Either that means raising prices or lowering expenses – and the biggest expense of any business is its human resource.

Yes, you have a right to reduce your debt. It’s not right up there with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But then again, maybe it is. If it makes you happy, you should reduce. You also have a responsibility to reduce honorably. When you sign an agreement to accept the terms of credit it includes the expectation of repayment. It’s what the people who lend you money deserve.  And it’s what the people who are paid their salary based on the money you pay them deserve.

Back to that ad – while most of it was playing I was mentally drifting thinking about most of what you just read. But I came back to earth in time to hear the tag line – “Don’t let the credit card companies trick you into thinking that you have to pay them what you owe.” Huh?

Happy Labor Day.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

I’ll Drink to That

Michael Leave a comment

Remember the McDonald hot coffee lawsuit from back in the 90’s? Some batty old lady spilled coffee in her lap, got burned, went to the hospital, went to a lawyer, went to trial, went to jury, and won! The verdict was something like $160,000 for medical expenses and $2.7 million (!) in punitive damages. Punitive means punishment; McDonald’s was punished for serving hot coffee.

Yesterday, a California judge dismissed a case against Starbuck’s for misrepresenting the size of their iced drinks because they contain, in addition to the drink, ice. Apparently the legal system runs hot and cold when it comes to frivolous lawsuits.

But wait! Lawyers have long argued that the McDonald Coffee Case was far from frivolous. It was a wake up cup err, call to the damaging practice of big business putting profits over safety. And the public has the efforts of the tireless lawyer people to thank for seeing that those danger-mongers pay for their negligence. Yeah, right.

I’m sure lawyers serve some purpose. Unfortunately the very visible fruits of their labors have been left out to rot. Over the last several months I, and some hundreds of thousands others, have gotten e-mails about settlements reached that protected my rights and punished companies that have taken advantage of me. I got about $12 from Barnes and Noble because somebody claimed they overcharged for e-books or some such thing. I can get $5 from Angie’s List because they might have taken money for ads from service providers, and I got two free tickets for one or several concerts that have no available seats from Ticketmaster for them being Ticketmaster. My “damages” come to a whopping not quite twenty bucks.

I would thank the lawyers who worked so diligently to get me my double sawbuck. I worked hard for my money and I didn’t appreciate those big, bad companies taking advantage of me. Of course it’s only right that they get some of the windfall. As near as I’ve been able to figure, those lawyers who worked on just these three cases made about $281 million.

I don’t know about you but if I ever figure out how to use that Ticketmaster free ticket voucher and can actually score two free tickets to something, I’m bringing a lawyer!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

The Ultimate Participation Award

Michael Leave a comment

Anybody who has ever been at a youth sporting event medal ceremony knows they can be longer than the event. With that in mind, it’s a good thing they don’t have participation medals at the Olympics. Sort of.

There were over 11,000 athletes at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. As it was, there were over 900 medals awarded in 306 events. Since there were several multiple medal winners that means that quite fewer than 1% of the athletes who participated in the games went home with an award.

All those participants in all those events and the only ones who stood on a podium and had gold, silver, or bronze draped over them were those who finished first, second, or third in their particular endeavor. And that’s the way it is. Only the top three contestants are awarded medals. Plus another twenty-one.

The Pierre de Coubertin Medal is a special award given to those who exemplify the true spirit of sportsmanship in the Olympics. Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee and introduced the modern games to the world. He felt the games were an opportunity to promote peace, unite people around the world, and celebrate the struggle of competition.

How special is this special award. Saturday it was awarded for only the eighteenth time. Maybe you saw when long distance runners Nikki Hamblin of New Zealand and American Abbey D’Agostino got tripped up during the women’s 5,000 meter preliminary event. Hamblin went down and D’Agostino stopped and urged her to get up to finish the race. They began running again and that’s when D’Agostino went down and it was Hamblin’s turn to stay with her.

The two women became the 20th and 21st people to have received the award which has been presented eighteen times since its introduction in 1964.

Even though neither was expected to medal in the event, both left Brazil with the ultimate participation award. Hamblin said of the incident, “You can’t choose what happens to you, but you can choose what you do about it.”  Words more precious than gold.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Down Two, Then Left

Michael Leave a comment

It’s not usual for me to miss such an important day. Particularly one of such personal significance. But somehow I did. Why weren’t you keeping an eye out for it for me? I know. You don’t have to tell me. It’s because it’s no big deal.

You can tell it’s no big deal because the world hasn’t paid a bit of attention to us since the dawn of man. Who are us? And what it is that isn’t such a big deal? We’re the left handers of the world and last Saturday was International Left Handers’ Day.

It’s clearly not a priority with the rest of the world. In this time of extreme tolerance and political correctness to every special interest, no such consideration is given to the left handed who often feel left out. We also feel fear, anger, and embarrassment probably because almost everything made for manual use is best used by the other hand.

Since we all have two hands available when deciding which hand will be handier, logic would seem to determine that they should be close to an even division of left and right handers. Since logic is usually associated more with right handedness you can see where that argument was going to go. In fact, only about 10 percent of the global population is left handed. I know as a child I had been “encouraged” by teachers to use my right hand since everything at school, and everywhere else I would eventually learn, was designed for right handers. I resisted but often wondered how many of the 90 percent who use their other hand were born tending to their left.

Here we may account for only 10 percent of the population but at one point our closest celestial neighbor boasted 100% left handed inhabitants when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon in July 1969. (Michael Collins who continued to orbit the Moon while his fellow astronauts were doing their moon walks is also a left hander.) But then in November, William “Pete” Conrad became the first other hander to occupy the Moon. As best as I can tell it took until April 1972 when Charles Duke became the third and last left hander of the 12 men who had or would land on another world other than the world.

So if those guys were able to accomplish what they did, I guess I can manage with ball point pens and kitchen shears designed to be operated by a right hand. And I’ll be content in the knowledge that if our personal worlds are indeed controlled by a cross-wired brain, then I am undoubtedly in my right mind.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

GYM? I thought you said GIN!

Michael Leave a comment

The Olympics are here! The Olympics are here! Oh, wait, that’s how I began the last post. It still applies. I’ve noticed that since the Olympic coverage started on TV that the gym has been getting a real work out. (Yeah, I know. That was terrible. Sorry.) I may be wrong but I think the former definitely has something to do with the latter.

I remember as a young boy being taken by the Olympic spirit every 4 years. At least I was once or twice every 4 years before it settled in just how much work it took to land on the front of a Wheaties box. While the 1964 Olympic cycling events were being dominated by the Italians, this young Italian was pedaling his way through his own backyard qualifying heats. I didn’t fare much better than the 18 Americans who made it to Tokyo that October but my newspaper route never got delivered faster than during those two weeks.

How long have parents been trying to get their children outside for some physical activity – before the Pokémon Go craze even? For generations the Olympics gave parents a hand doing just that. Personally, I think it’s cool that the exercise bug is biting a slightly older crowd now.

Maybe we’re just getting to be a slightly more physical people and that’s why more folks are exercising. Or it could be that old drive to see oneself immortalized in breakfast food that is driving so many people to the fitness center. All I know is that where once I had my pick of machines I now have to arrive early lest I am forced to tackle my cycling on the outside on a bicycle that actually goes somewhere. I mean, sure, I have one of those but I haven’t seen my paper bag for years now.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

The Thrill of Victory, Modified

Michael Leave a comment

The Olympics are here! The Olympics are here! Sports junkies around the globe can take a breath, sweat a brow, pop a cold one, and enjoy the games. I just wish there were more of them. Well, maybe not so much more of them as different ones of them.

Four years ago I pitched the idea of Olympic Bocce right here on these pages, err screens, umm electrons. (See “The Sport the Olympics Didn’t Think of,” August 30, 2012.) I thought it was a terrific new sport that would complement the old world-ism the Olympics have been missing ever since Beach Volleyball was introduced.  (But then, beach volleyball is about as close as you can get to the ancient Olympic tradition of competing in the nude, wrestling notwithstanding.) Bottom line, another Olympics and still no bocce. We got Golf instead.

To many, golf is a wonderful game. Yet I don’t see many gods on Olympus arguing who’s “away” and I know for sure they wouldn’t abide someone else carrying the equipment around for the athletes. Still, somebody decided golf is more of a sport than bocce. Fine. I would think that any game that includes a pit stop for snacks and a pint of lager halfway through is more recreation than sport but then the same could be said for the aforementioned beach volleyball.

Actually, if you look at the modern Olympic schedule you see events more often associated with country clubs than sports arena. Sure we have swimming, track and field, and weightlifting.  Archery, shooting, and the equestrian events harken to days of having to compete with nature for survival. Fencing, boxing, and gymnastics are examples of strength and grace in single presentations. But consider some of the others. Tennis? Handball? Badminton?

That got me thinking; it was no wonder the IOC didn’t care to include bocce. They obviously are interested in more genteel undertakings. So with that in mind I present this year’s proposal for inclusion in upcoming Olympiads – Shuffleboard!

It epitomizes civility. It doesn’t take much space. It is a boon for the older athlete. And like bocce, it has a natural winter game counterpoint in curling.

If I start practicing now I can be the first Olympic Shuffleboard Gold Medalist! I can see myself on that chair-lift assisted podium waving to the politely appreciative crowd. All I have to do is find a sponsor to book me on seniors’ cruises for training from now until August 2020. Tokyo here I come!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

The First Shall be Last

Michael Leave a comment

Now that the “major party” conventions are over the ads and pundits (neither having anything to do with reality) can begin. It was less than a week ago that news broadcasts, outlets, websites, feeds, and editors began remarking on the nation’s first woman candidate for president. Someone even went so far as to note that this fall, the US voters will get to cast ballots for their first woman, first outsider, or first third party president. And that on the heels of the outgoing first African-America president. Actually, none of those labels are correct. I’ll ‘splain that later. First, let’s look at some legitimate firsts that really have happened over this last year.

Actually the first first hasn’t officially happened yet but some games have already taken place and the opening ceremonies will take center stage tomorrow night in Rio. That first is the first Olympic games to be held in South America. The odds have been against that particular continent since the games re-appeared in 1896. That’s because South America is almost completely in the Southern Hemisphere. In the 120 year history of the modern Olympics this is only the third time the summer games have been held in the Southern Hemisphere. (The other two times have both been in Australia.) The Winter Olympics have never taken place south of the Equator.

The second first just happened in the past few days and it got very little press even within the United States which is odd since every news broadcast, outlet, website, etc., etc. was so big on talking about firsts. That news was that for the first time the Center for Disease Control released a travel advisory for within the US encouraging travelers not to do so in South Florida. They even came up with some suggestions for the people who live there – try to stay inside.

The third first is (and here let’s dispense with individually numbering each first and collectively address all the remaining firsts as “remaining firsts begin with”) Cuba now has wireless internet service for the first time. Sticking with computers, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a drug manufactured by 3D printing for the first time. (High dose Levetiracetam for epilepsy). Still with computers but heading back south, the Rio Olympics will be the first games where every event will be available somewhere on-line.  In entertainment of a different kind, a film grossed over 500 million dollars in its opening weekend for the first time (Jurassic World). And speaking of DNA (Jurassic World, remember) human trials on T-cell augmented cancer treatments using the body’s own cells to fight cancer began this year. And if you want to write about that and be grammatically correct while addressing a particular test subject without knowing his or her sex, you may now officially use the third person singular and not be chastised by your grade school English teacher.

So the next time you have to hear about the first woman running for president consider that there have been 5 women nominated by recognized political parties on general election ballots for president. In fact, 1884 the Equal Rights Party presented an all woman ticket for president and vice president. And the next time you have to hear about the first outsider running for president consider that four sitting presidents never held an elected position before being elected president. And when you next hear of how a third party candidate could win this year’s election consider that of the 44 elected presidents, only 30 have been republicans or democrats. One (Washington) had no party affiliation (and yes, there were political parties then), and one (Tyler) changed parties while in office.

If you should hear about any of these “firsts” feel free to mention to the speaker to not worry, there are lots of other real firsts going on all around us. All they have to do is pick their head out of their – ummm… All you have to do is look.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?