Mountain Air Versus Ocean Air

There is a certain invigorating quality to mountain air. It’s thinner, of course, but there’s also a coolness and crispness to it, and frequently a whiff of pine or juniper, too. Mountain air is the quintessential fresh air, and you can’t help but savor big gulps of it.

Ocean air is special as well. It’s got that salty tang to it, and also a faint (and sometimes not so faint) odor of rotting seaweed that we associate with the shoreline. And, because you are by definition at sea level, it’s a heady, oxygen-rich mixture.

So, which is better? That’s an impossibly tough call, but if I were forced to choose I’d probably go with the ocean air. I know one thing for sure, though — either beats city air, or indoor air.

Atop Pike’s Peak

On our visit to Colorado we drove up to the top of Pike’s Peak. The summit is 14,115 feet high — pretty rarefied air for a flatlander from the Midwest — and offers a commanding view of the surrounding mountains and countryside far below.

There was construction at the summit and preparations for a road race were underway, so visitors couldn’t drive up to the top by themselves. Instead, you had to stop at the 13-mile marker or the 16-mile marker and take a shuttle to the summit. We stopped at the 13-mile marker, just below the tree line. That allowed us to avoid the white-knuckle part of the drive and entrust our safety to somebody who (presumably, at least) was used to navigating the guardrail-free hairpin turns that take you to the peak.

The summit is stunning. Photos can’t really capture the vast, panoramic views. It was very windy at the top, so you didn’t want to get too close to the edge and flirt with a potential mishap. It was noticeably colder, too, with snow on the ground in spots. It didn’t take long before the thinner air and high altitude started to have a physical impact on the members of our group, manifested in budding headaches and a feeling of malaise.

Twenty to thirty minutes is plenty of time to check out the top, and we were all glad to board the shuttle and head back down the mountain. On the way down we saw some antelope and the curious rodents that inhabit the area. When we got back down to the 13-mile marker, safe and sound, we celebrated with some big gulps of oxygen-rich air.

Why TSA Pre-Check Is Worth It

It seems like the standard security line at the Denver airport is always jammed, as it was this morning at 7:30 Mountain time as shown in the photo above. If you regularly fly through certain cities — Denver is one of them, as are Chicago O’Hare and Atlanta — paying for TSA pre-check status so you can skip the lines and dodge the stress and hassle is worth every penny.

Swan Serenity

For all I know, swans are inwardly tormented creatures. They could be wound tighter than a coil, churning on the inside with deep-seated angst and concern. But if that is in fact the case, swans are masters of concealment — for no other animal or bird projects a more placid demeanor than a swan gliding gracefully and calmly across the surface of a lake.

When you can start the day with a few laps around a peaceful lake on a crisp, bright morning, with a swan for company, it’s sure to put you in a serene frame of mind.

Mountain Time

I’m out west for work, enjoying some fresh mountain air — and trying to adjust to the time change and the change in elevation.

On the time change, there’s not much you can do except try to sleep as late as your brain permits and not get too upset if you are wide awake at 3:30 a.m. You can do something about the elevation, however, and that’s drink lots of water. I ignored that advice on an early trip to the Mountain Zone and paid dearly for my stupidity with some temple-crushing headaches. This trip, I’m taking no chances and guzzling water like I’m about to trek across the Sahara Desert.

It’s nice to see a mountain every once in a while, by the way, and a time change and constant hydration is a small price to pay for the privilege.

Flying Through A Time Warp

On this morning’s flight, the snack distributed with your beverage order was a little bag of . . . Lorna Doone cookies. Seriously . . . Lorna Doones! I felt like checking to see if I had mysteriously appeared in an episode of The Ozzie and Harriet Show.

What other snack from the ’50s and ’60s might make an appearance on a plane flight into the past? Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy? Fig Newtons? Dots? Ruffles Potato Chips? Homemade Chex mix? A Swanson’s Swiss Steak TV dinner?

Summer, Glorious Summer

Just for the record, I’m declaring it summer whether the rains stop or not.

Plus-Sizing America

People come in all sizes, large and small.  And in these days of increasing obesity among Americans, the range seems to be shifting toward the “plus-sized” end of the spectrum.

So, what’s a business that deals with seating any customers who might walk in — like a restaurant — to do to account for that fact?

This year the New York Times ran an interesting article about the challenges that “plus-sized” diners face when they go out to eat.  They not only feel judged by restaurant staff and other patrons about what they are ordering in view of their weight, they also struggle to find places where they can comfortably sit for a meal.  Depending upon a diner’s size, booths may be impossible for them to squeeze into, and bar stools may be too narrow and shallow to provide a viable seating option.  And places where the tables are positioned closely together may put larger diners in the position of intruding into the personal space of a neighboring table.

Those of us who aren’t in the plus-sized category don’t pay attention to such issues, because standard seating options are perfectly suitable for us.  But for the large people among us, such options may be so painfully confining that they interfere with the enjoyment of the meal — and some options may be physically impossible to use, period.

It’s an example of the challenges that are arising from the plus-sizing of a significant chunk of America’s population.  People who are XXXLers are going to want to go out to eat like everybody else, and they are going to want to find places that can appropriately seat diners their size.  If restaurants want their paying business, they are going to need to come up with ways to comfortably accommodate such patrons — without calling undue attention to the effort.

Foodie Calls

Two recent surveys have identified what is being depicted as a “new trend” on the dating scene:  the “foodie call.”  It happens when one person goes out with another person that they really aren’t that interested in — just to get a free meal.

The two surveys of heterosexual women were conducted by Azusa Pacific University and the University of California-Merced, and the results were published in the journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.  The participants were asked questions about their personalities, the views on gender roles, and their views, and personal histories, with “foodie calls.”  In one survey, one third of the respondents admitted to going out on a date just to get a free meal, and in the second survey 23 percent of the study group admitted to a “foodie call.”  The research also found that the majority of respondents were aghast at the concept of a “foodie call” and believed it to be moderately to extremely unacceptable.

What are we to make of “foodie calls”?  Speaking as someone who enjoys a good meal from time to time, I don’t think being motivated, in whole or in part, to go out on a date to get a good meal is incredibly egregious behavior.  I also think, however, that people who go on “foodie calls” might be selling themselves short, and I wonder if they ultimately find the meals very satisfying.  Spending two or three hours with somebody you really have no interest in and making cheery chit-chat that entire time would be exhausting, and is a pretty high price to pay for some fine dining.  Meals are supposed to be a pleasant, shared experience, and having to work hard to maintain a conversation would tend to interfere with your enjoyment of the cuisine.

As for the guys who’ve paid for the “foodie calls” — well, if the person you’ve asked out starts negotiating with you about the only restaurants that would be acceptable destinations for the date, you might just want to be on guard.

Backyard Morning

It’s a beautiful morning in Columbus — crisp and clear, with powder blue skies and a few cotton candy wisps of clouds far above.

Our house faces due east, so in the morning the backyard is a place of deep shadow, save for a shaft of sunlight from the space between our house and the neighboring house to the north. The cool, shaded air feels good against the skin and is a perfect complement to the hot coffee. The birds are singing and the leaves of the trees are gently swaying in a mild breeze.

Sometimes the time, and the place, are perfectly matched, and when that happens you need to take full advantage of the happy confluence. This morning is made for the backyard.

Pocket Parks

In 1962, a plot of land that was going to be developed into an apartment building was acquired, instead, by the City of Columbus. Covering about half of a city block on Beck Street, the city named the spot Beck Square Park. To the locals who watched the parade of pooches in and out of the park — often without sufficient owner attention to their societal obligations as canine consorts — it was colloquially known as “Dogshit Park.”

Then the City of Columbus teamed up with the volunteers from the German Village Garten Club, and “Dogshit Park” was transformed. Renamed Frank Fetch Park in 1985, after a former president of the German Village Society who had promoted the creation of the park, it is now a beautiful garden and neighborhood gathering spot that is enjoyed by German Village residents — and their dogs, who are more respectful of the grounds than they apparently used to be.

“Pocket parks” like Frank Fetch Park may have a small footprint, but they can have a big impact on the nearby community. I wish the City of Columbus would resurrect its 1962 approach, buy one of the surface lots downtown, and convert it into a small park. The increasing number of people living downtown would surely appreciate a Frank Fetch Park in their midst.

Living In A Time-Free Zone

It’s June 21, which means it’s officially summer.  (Those of us in the rainy, cool Midwest may be forgiven for not recognizing that.)  June 21 also means the summer solstice has arrived and therefore, in the northern hemisphere, it’s the longest day and shortest night of the year.

Some of the northernmost cities of the globe have already been enjoying days where the sun never sets.  In Sommaroy, a Norwegian island that is north of the Arctic Circle, the sun doesn’t set for more than two months — from May 18 to July 26.  And during that period of constant daylight, the islanders don’t exactly follow conventional concepts of time.  In the early a.m. hours, when most of us are abed, Sommaroy residents are likely to be out doing activities that we associate with late morning or afternoon.  In part, that’s to compensate for the fact that, from November to January, Sommaroy doesn’t get any sunlight at all — but the practices of the islanders during this time period also recognize that standard concepts of time, set by a daily sunrise and sunset, really don’t apply when you have 24 hours of constant daylight.

Now Sommaroy residents want the Norwegian government to recognize their practices officially, and declare Sommaroy a “time-free zone” during the constant daylight period, which would allow businesses and schools to have flexibility in their hours of operation.  Visitors to Sommaroy during this period are encouraged to acknowledge the “time-free” concept by leaving their watches on the bridge that connects the island to the mainland.

Many of us live lives that are governed, to a certain extent, by the clock.  We get up, eat, work, watch TV, and go to bed on a schedule that is derived, in large part, from the rhythms established by the sun.  What would it be like to live in a place where there was constant sun — or for that matter, no sun — and therefore no standard concept of time?  Would you still follow a schedule, or would you simply sleep when you wanted, eat when you wanted, and work when you felt you had to, without regard to the tyrannical clock?

Most of us don’t have to think about that, because we don’t live in places where there is constant sunlight, or constant darkness, for any part of the year.  But if humans venture into space, and take years-long interstellar voyages or live underground on inhospitable planets and moons where sunrise and sunset are not daily occurrences, our prevailing notions of time will be put to the test.  In a way, our time-free friends on Sommaroy may be giving us a peek into what human lives might be like in the future.

Emphasis Added

Anyone who does much writing will eventually confront the question of the best way to give emphasis to a particular word or phrase in what they have written.  Maybe it’s a desire to attach special significance to part of a quote, or a need to make absolutely sure that the reader doesn’t miss a central point — but the time will come where, to be on the safe side, emphasis must be added.

So, what’s the best way to emphasize the written word?  The basic options, currently, are using underlines, italics, or boldface.  Some people then use a combination of the three to give even more emphasis.  (Back when I first started working, in the days long before social media and texting, some people used all caps to provide emphasis.  Now the all-caps look is generally perceived by the reader as screaming, and there’s very little being written about that needs that much emphasis.  What you want is for the reader’s internal voice to “think” the word being emphasized just a bit louder than the rest of the text, and not have them mentally screaming like a character in a bad teen horror movie.)

My emphasis tastes vary depending on what I’m writing.  For blog entries like this one, I prefer to use italics to give a word that special nudge.  For legal briefs, however, where case names are italicized and section headings are in bold print, I tend to use simple underlining to emphasize specific text.  That way, there’s no mixing up the message.

And I don’t like using various combinations of bold, italics, and underlining to give extra-special emphasis to certain words or passages.  For one thing, I think random mixtures of “emphasis-adders” is confusing to the reader; it suggests that there is some emphasis hierarchy that the readers hasn’t been told about, which may leave them wondering about relative emphasis rather than concentrating on what is written.  (“Let’s see — is don’t supposed to get more emphasis than don’t, or is it the other way around?”)  And using multiple combinations for some words seems to devalue the words that merit only a single emphasizer.  I think emphasis-adders should be used sparingly, and if you’ve got to use combinations you’re probably overdoing emphasis to the point where the message is being lost.  You might want to think about editing your sentences to be shorter and clearer, instead.  Plus, the use of random combinations of emphasizers makes the printed page look messy, like a riotous fruit salad.

So, my rule of thumb on adding emphasis is to stick to one — and only one — technique, and to use it sparingly.  If you write clearly, you’ll be just fine with that.

High Water In A Shallow Lake

Lake Erie is the shallowest of the five Great Lakes.  This spring, however, the constant rains have raised the level of the Lake by almost three feet.  In some places, like Sandusky, the water levels are the highest that have ever been recorded.

The high water levels are doing some real damage, too.  Some docks and parts of shorelines have become submerged, and increased erosion caused by the high waters is eating away the Lake Erie coastline.  From the North Coast communities of Mentor to Vermilion to Sandusky, officials are dealing with the impact of high water taking down trees, rendering docks inaccessible, and leaving low-lying areas underwater, and homeowners along the lake also are dealing with flooding issues.   The water levels in Sandusky are so high that the normal outfalls from Sandusky Bay to Lake Erie have been reversed, and water from the lake is now raising the water levels in the bay — causing officials to take drastic actions to try to pump the excess water out.  And the impact of the rain and high water has been compounded by a persistent wind from the north that is pushing the Lake Erie waters against the Ohio coast of the lake, increasing the damage.

The conditions pose special peril for boaters, in ways you might not expect.  The high waters will affect bridge clearances over lagoons and access rivers and is submerging some break walls that would otherwise be visible.  And, with increased erosion and trees collapsing into the lake, there is increased risk of debris messing with motors and propellers — all of which means that boaters had better watch it when they are close to shore.  And any experienced Lake Erie boater will tell you that the lake is legendary for its sudden storms that can appear in the blink of an eye, whip the water into a frenzy, and, in some instances, put boaters at risk of losing their boat — and their life.  The high waters won’t help in that category, either.

One lesson that you learn from reading about the impact of high water levels — there’s not much human beings can do about it, short term.  What the communities around Lake Erie need right now is a break in the constant rains and a period of sunshine and warm temperatures to allow evaporation to play its intended role and reduce lake levels back to normal.  In short, we need Mother Nature to show us a little mercy.

Word-A-Day

For many years now, one of my standard holiday gifts to Kish has been a “word-a-day” calendar.  It’s a calendar that features a different, typically unusual word each day, gives you the definition and the pronunciation — if you can decipher those weird pronunciation symbols, that is — and then provides a quote that uses the word in a sentence.

It’s an interesting thing to check out each day, and a chance to engage in a little vocabulary building.  Typically the words on the calendar fall into three categories:  words we already know and use, words that you would never try to work into a conversation, and words that you actually think could become part of your standard word-stock.  The first category is easily the smallest in size, but when the calendar does use a word we already use — yesterday’s word, for example, was rarefied — you feel a certain sense of accomplishment.  The second category is the largest.  Sometimes the words are so technical that there really is no chance to use them in everyday conversation, and others are so high-falutin’ you can’t imagine dropping them into a discussion.  Tomorrow’s word, for example, is faineant, with an accent over the e, which means idle and ineffectual or indolent.  I doubt I could even pronounce that one properly, much less find an opportunity to use it correctly.

But the third category is why you buy the calendar.  Today’s word, quiddity, falls into that category.  My favorite recent word in that category is gorgonize, which means to have a paralyzing or mesmerizing effect, and is synonymous with stupefy or petrify.  I’m saving that one up for a choice opportunity — like when one of my friends tells a long-winded story about people I don’t know at lunch and I confess that their tale gorgonized me.