Showing posts with label Days of Yore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Days of Yore. Show all posts

Monday, April 3, 2023

Days of Yore: It's About Time, Part 1

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff."

- The Doctor
Doctor Who, "Blink"

As a kid, I loved getting the newspaper. We got the Stars and Stripes in the Philippines, and I went straight to the comics. One of the comic strips that I followed regularly was Dick Tracy. Tracy was a detective with a distinctive yellow hat and yellow trenchcoat. He solved mysteries and put the bad guys away, in part with the help of his state-of-the-art wristwatch that had a two-way radio built into it. I was amazed by everything his watch could do, and I wished there was such a thing in real life. I couldn't know that decades later, the smartwatch would be invented. Wireless Advocates, where I worked until recently, sold them at their kiosks. They didn't look like Dick Tracy's watch, but they could do some of the same things that may or may not be related to telling the time.

Image by XaMaps on Adobe Stock

Watch

When I was younger, I wore a watch on my left arm, which was how I remembered left and right. They were not connected to satellites at that time, so we had to get the time from the radio or other sources (such as a clock on the wall) when we were setting them. Sometimes, as a mark of our friendship, my best friend and I would synchronize our watches, or set them so they were exactly at the same time, down to the second. Because we had to set them manually, different people's watches were sometimes in disagreement, but generally pretty close to each other. Some watches were slower or faster, so we sometimes had to correct the time. My first watch had a traditional clock face, except that it had Mickey Mouse in the middle using his arms to tell me the time. As I got older, I graduated from a traditional clock face to a digital watch. Both kinds had the date (or some portion of it), and I liked to look at my digital watch at midnight every New Year to watch the year change.

These days, smartwatches can do a lot more than just tell time, and they are generally connected to satellites so we don't have to set them manually. As I have gotten older, my skin has gotten more sensitive, so I can't wear a watch any more. So for all the dreaming of Dick Tracy's watch being real, I don't have one now because I can't wear it if I don't want a rash. But I have other ways of telling time. (Fun activity: Try saying "I wish to wash my Irish wristwatch" or "Which wristwatch is a Swiss wristwatch?" ten times quickly!)

Pocket Watch

By the time I came around, most people didn't use pocket watches (such as the one in the picture above) any more, but they were pretty cool. Some people did have them in their pocket, which you could usually tell because of the chain dangling from their belt or button loop and extending into their pocket. They could take the watch out, open it, and check the time. I have an image in my head of someone wearing a monocle  with a matching chain while doing so, though monocles were long since out of use by my time. Some people also wore them to look tough.

Alarm Clock

We had a couple options for alarm clocks when I was younger. We had a small clock that I could put next to my bed, and set it to ring when I wanted to wake up. Alternatively, my watch had an alarm on it that I often used.


Holy Doctor Who, Batman!

Were there other ways of telling time?
Did my grandfather own a clock, and did it fit on the shelf?
Am I going to blog more about this, or have I gone cuckoo?
Do I even use my cell phone to tell time, or should my phone be confined to a cell by Dick Tracy?
Am I going to TICK another post off the list, or will you need to TOCK to someone else?
Will the pendulum swing to a new post?
Can the clock in my car take me Back to the Future?


TUNE IN TOMORROW!

    SAME BAT-TIME,

        SAME BAT-CHANNEL!

Saturday, April 1, 2023

Days of Yore(ish): Social Media

I got my first electronic mail (e-mail) address in high school in the '90s. I used Juno at first, and I believe I may also have had an e-mail address on my high school's domain. As I covered e-mail in my post on mail, I will not go into it here. But I mention it here for an important reason.

In 2003, my good friend Tom Anderson co-founded MySpace. I call him my friend because he was everyone's friend, as long as they had a MySpace account. I don't recall ever interacting with him, but he had a very recognizable profile picture with a friendly smile (I've seen it called "the Mona Lisa of profile pictures"), and his posts were always friendly and welcoming. At that time, social media was a foreign concept to many, and he got the pleasure of introducing it to the world. He described it as "e-mail on steroids."

Photo: @myspacetom/Twitter

MySpace

MySpace opened a whole new world that went beyond what e-mail could do. You could still send messages to people, but at that time, when writing an e-mail, could you set up a whole profile with a welcoming background, things you liked, your heroes, a profile picture, even have a musical soundtrack on your profile? Nope! (You can do some of that on e-mail now, but you couldn't at the time.) Was the founder of your e-mail domain so personable that you considered him your friend even if you had never met him or interacted with him? I imagine some had, but for the most part, nope! MySpace still exists, but I haven't checked it in years. I wonder if my account is still there?

Facebook

In 2007, my second-cousin Aric and my friend Craig recommended a newer website called Facebook, founded by Mark Zuckerberg. It was supposed to be better than MySpace. It had a very different look and feel, and no music soundtrack (which I enjoyed on MySpace, but in retrospect, don't miss). I am still very active on Facebook, more so than other social media. But Mark doesn't strike me nearly as friendly as Tom. But as I've never met either of them, I can't say that for sure.

Twitter

Twitter came along as a much simpler place where you could post short messages, no longer than 90 characters. At first I didn't get the point, but as I got into it, it started consuming all my spare time as I had to catch up on all my friends' updates. I finally pulled back because it was too much. But I had a Twitter account until recently when it was purchased by Elon Musk and became too politicized for my tastes. I deactivated it at that time.

LinkedIn

My friend Jared, who I knew in the Philippines, introduced me to LinkedIn. It is more professional in nature, and has been a big help in connecting with friends, colleagues and others, as well as allowing a place for resumes. In my recent job search, I have also gotten into their online courses for work skills. It is a great tool. Up until recently, I mainly only used it for resume-related purposes, but lately I've been posting my blogs there, and I've also been encouraged by posts from former colleagues at Wireless Advocates, who have all been searching for work.

Instagram

A few years ago, I got into Instagram. It's a place where you can post pictures, and it also has filters and other tools that other social media outlets didn't offer. It was eventually purchased by Facebook and has changed over the years (introducing video at one point), but I still enjoy posting there.

Google+

I loved Google+. My brother Aaron introduced me to it, and it had amazing potential. It was better than Facebook. However, Facebook learned lessons and adapted in response to certain features of Google+, and it sadly never really took off. They eventually closed it down.

YouTube

YouTube offered a place to post videos. I have posted a few, but mainly I have used it to watch videos. It was eventually purchased by Google.

Vimeo

Similar to YouTube, Vimeo offers another place to post videos. I posted my movies and animations from my design classes there.

Pinterest

This is a place you can post pictures, either that you upload, or that you found online and liked. Many people also use it to post recipes and other things. They call their posts ideas, which you "pin" in Pinterest. I use it to post my artwork.

Behance

I learned about Behance in my design classes. It's a place where you can share art, in a more professional manner than Pinterest and others. In some ways it's a bit like LinkedIn for artists, though more for portfolios than resumes.

SnapChat

SnapChat was yet another place to post videos, but there was a catch: they had to be short (only a few seconds), and the videos only stayed up for a day. I enjoyed it for a while, but eventually lost interest and deactivated. I would rather my posts stay up longer than a day. It's possible it's changed since then, but I don't know.

FourSquare

Maybe it's just me, but this one creeped me out. It was a place where you could check wherever you happened to be at the moment. You could even be declared the mayor of a certain place. I never set up an account because I didn't really feel like telling the world where I was at a given moment. (You can also do this on Facebook and other social media, but it isn't the main point of those sites.)

Dribbble

Yes, that is spelled right. The letter B happens three times in that word. I just recently learned about this one. It's a similar idea to Behance, where you can post your art and design portfolio.

Social Media Concepts

Between social media outlets, there are several common threads:

  • MySpace, Facebook and others have friends. You can friend and unfriend people. Friendships go both ways automatically, though you have to accept friend requests.
  • Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and others have followers. Typically, you can follow people, and they have the option of following you back. Depending on your settings, you may or may not have to approve followers. (You can also follow people on Facebook, but it doesn't give you as much visibility as being their Facebook friend.)
  • Hashtags offer a way of grouping concepts on multiple sites. You start with a hash mark (#) and type a word. I feel these can be #overused, but some people use them all the time. When you click on a #hashtag on sites that use them, you can see a list of people who have posted on that #subject. When I was younger, the # symbol was called a pound, hash or number symbol. Now most people know it as a hashtag.
  • Most sites start profile names with @. (For example, I am @stevobaggins on most sites that I use. In a couple cases I'm @stevensauke where @stevobaggins doesn't seem professional enough.) Clicking on someone's @ name generally takes you to their profile. (Google+ used + instead of @.)
    • In case you are wondering, the movie of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001, shortly before I joined MySpace. Being a Francophile, I ordered the French version of the movie on video from Amazon.ca as soon as I could. Frodo and Bilbo Baggins are Frodon Sacquet and Bilbon Sacquet, respectively. Sacquet sounds very similar to Sauke. It was a little freaky hearing the Ringwraith coming into the Shire and whisper sinisterly, "Sa - cquet!" What? What did I do?? Anyway, Stevo was an attempt at making my first name sound hobbity, and Baggins is due to the way Sacquet sounds like Sauke.
  • If something is trending, it is being discussed or shared by thousands of people at once on a given social media outlet. Things generally only trend for a short period of time. Generally subjects or #hashtags tend to trend.
  • If something goes viral, it is shared quickly and widely, sometimes by hundreds and thousands of people. It spreads like a virus, though some would prefer to go viral online to doing so by spreading a disease. Pictures, articles, videos, blog posts (hint, hint), and any number of things can go viral. The musical Dear Evan Hansen involves a video of a speech by the title character going viral online.
  • You can "like" posts on most social media sites. Some sites, such as Facebook, offer other options like "love", "care", "angry", "laughter", "sad" and others. Used well, these can be an encouragement to the poster. Used poorly, they can be hurtful, so I recommend being careful with them, particularly since it's easy to accidentally select the wrong reaction. LinkedIn has a different set of reactions.

I put "ish" in the title of this post because social media is still new enough that I don't particularly consider it "yore" (though I imagine some of the kids today might disagree with me on that...now I feel old)...but it has changed enough over the years that I felt it fit in the theme.

I leave you with my favorite YouTube video on the popularity of social media. Though some sites have come and gone, the popularity has continued since then.



Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Days of Yore: Chores

"In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and SNAP! The job's a game!" 

- Mary Poppins

Growing up, I had a list of chores that I had to check off every week. It was covered in clear plastic and I used a dry erase marker to check each one off as I did it. Once we had squared everything away, I could wipe it off and start a new week on the same sheet. How many chores I had done made a difference in how much allowance I got. Chores have never been my favorite thing, but they are a fact of life, and I have learned it's best at least to try to make them somewhat fun. How we do them has changed over the years, for some chores more than others.

Photo by Tomasz on Adobe Stock

Trash

Sorry for the trash talk. (couldn't resist) In the Philippines, I took the trash out to the back and burned it. It was interesting watching it burn, but I was not a fan of smelling like smoke when I was done. After we moved to another house, a garbage truck came around, so we didn't burn as much. We hadn't had that at previous houses. This garbage truck played the same tune loudly every time, so we knew it was coming and to bring the trash out. (I could still sing the tune for you, though I don't know what it's called.) Back in the US, we have taken the trash out and set it in front of the house for the garbage truck to pick up. Toward the end of his life, that was my dad's job. I wasn't a fan when I helped out, but I was surprised after losing him that I no longer mind it so much. Funny how losing someone you love and miss terribly changes your perspective on things. Prior to that, the only time I really enjoyed it was when I was in college and we took our trash out to the big dumpster that sat open. It was huge, and there was a platform with steps leading up to it. My roommate introduced me to cool garbage bags that had a plastic drawstring to close them. The drawstring was a new concept for me. Between the cool bags and just tossing the bag over the railing of the platform into the dumpster, suddenly it was fun! (What can I say? I'm easily entertained.)

Dusting

No, I don't mean a dusting of snow. We didn't get those in the Philippines. (We did occasionally get a dusting of puns, though.) We have used a variety of items to dust. Featherdusters, fancy dusters that they sold at the fair, rags, water, Lysol, Clorox wipes, and others. I have mixed feelings about dusting. Not always the most fun thing to do, but there's something satisfying about dust just wiping away and something shiny (to varying degrees of shiny) being revealed underneath. When I get into it, sometimes it's almost exciting.

Photo by Wayhome Studio on Adobe Stock

Sweeping

Some of the most amazing brooms I have encountered were in the Philippines. They have two main kinds. One kind looks more traditional, with a handle and soft bristles. They're softer than the bristles on the average American broom, but they often work better. The other kind is much more stiff. It's like a bunch of long and thin sticks bound together. They are also very useful, as they can get things that the softer broom can't. The stiffer ones are especially helpful on cement. Like dusting, it's satisfying to see things get swept away. Probably best not to make sweeping generalities, though.

Vacuuming

Vacuuming is similarly satisfying to sweeping skillfully and safely. The biggest difference being that it's a lot louder and it sucks! But in this case it's a good thing that it sucks! As my dad's ears got more sensitive as he got older, we had to do the vacuuming when he was out, although it helps that our current vacuum is quieter than previous ones. He wore earplugs when he did the vacuuming. Some things just can't be done in a vacuum. Some people have a Roomba that they don't even need to push.

Cleaning the Bathroom

[Note to self. Let's avoid the puns here. Some things just don't need that kind of potty humor - AHHH! I had one job!] Anyway, not a lot has changed as I recall in the area of cleaning the bathroom. I have used spray in cleaning the sink, counter and tub (often using rags or toilet paper), swept the floor, scrubbed the toilet with spray and toilet bowl cleaner and a special brush... I also once cleaned a colony of angry fire ants out of our showerhead just by turning it on. That was a painful experience. Cleaning the bathroom is not my favorite job, and I think I'll leave it at that. [Don't say it.] Sometimes I just get that [Steven, I'm warning you] sinking feeling talking about it. [sigh...]

Washing Dishes

I hope I didn't dish out too many details in that last section. We washed our dishes by hand in the Philippines. One thing I liked about returning to the US was that we could use a dishwasher, which saved a lot of time. Having grown up washing dishes by hand, my dad tried to conserve as many dishes as possible. He often commented that there was no sense dirtying another plate. When we had a dishwasher, we sometimes liked pointing out sarcastically that there was no space in the dishwasher for yet another plate! Of course, not all dishes can be washed in the dishwasher, so we still have to wash pots and pans and other things by hand. Also, some things can't wait until the dishwasher is filled up. So I guess it's a wash. On the rare occasion our dishwasher is out of order, we sometimes use paper plates that we can just throw away.

Photo by dglimages on Adobe Stock

Washing the Dog

This was my brother Tim's job in the Philippines. As we haven't had a dog since moving back to the US, I'm not sure if things have changed, but when we were in the Philippines, we had special dog shampoo that Tim used. After spreading it over the dog, we had to let it set and do its thing for 15 minutes. Sadly, our dog Butch was not known for his stellar obedience skills, but he was a big fan of digging holes in the dirt, which he wasn't allowed to do—but he didn't always see the point of letting that stop him. I do not envy Tim having to re-wash the dog after he (Butch, not Tim) decided to dig up dirt while covered in shampoo! I sincerely hope dog shampoo has made improvements since then so it is no longer necessary to let it set! Otherwise, that has got to take a lot of dogged determination! Thankfully, Butch's successor was a good deal more obedient, though he also had his interesting quirks.

Walking the Dog

Though I did not generally wash the dog, I did often walk him. It was an interesting challenge keeping Butch away from cats (he was a very gentle dog, except with cats...pity the poor kitty that got in his way!) and keeping his successor Killer away from other dogs (he came with the name, and it was too late to rename him when we got him...his name was perhaps the biggest misnomer I have ever encountered, as he was a very kind dog—though pro tip: If your dog's name is Killer, it's best not to yell  his name loud enough to wake the dead when he is snarling at a cute little dog that a neighbor is walking). At times the dog walked me. I loved our dogs, but they were interesting.

Feeding the Dog

In the Philippines, we generally fed our dogs rice, and sometimes we put other stuff in it to make it more interesting. When we had to give them medicine, we had to get creative in hiding it in their food, as they tended to eat around it. We sometimes ended up opening capsules and spreading the powder on bread. After Butch contracted heartworm, my dad ended up having to force him to take the pills because he refused otherwise. Butch wouldn't hurt a fly (though cats were another matter), but his reflexes didn't agree with my dad's hand, and let's just say my dad ended up having to get rabies shots just in case. Butch eventually had to be put to sleep...but that's another (heartbreaking) story. In feeding the dog, we would set the dish in front of him and tell him, "Wait....wait...wait...OK!" He had to sit nicely while we told him to wait, and as soon as we said OK, he could start eating, which he did with gusto.

Washing Clothes

In the Philippines, most of our houses had washing machines, but not all of them had dryers. We sometimes washed clothes by hand, but usually we were able to wash them in the machine. (Pro tips: wash light and dark colors separately, and remember to take pens out of your pockets before putting them in the wash!) We usually had to hang clothes out to dry, so we had a clothesline in the backyard. Now we usually dry things in the dryer, though I do still have a few things, such as socks and masks, that I hang to dry. Personally, I preferred hanging out with friends to hanging clothes out to dry. I have a dream that someday, we'll have a third machine where we can throw all our dried clothes in, and they will come out all folded and neatly stacked. (Come to think of it, we were promised in the '80s that we would all have robots to do that by now! I want my money back!) When the washing machine has been unavailable, we've occasionally used a laundromat, but that's very rare. (I also find that the Cleaners is a bad place to take someone on a date. Not that I've ever dated. Maybe that's why?)

Photo by Kyle Arcilla on Unsplash

Mowing the Lawn

Most of our houses in the Philippines didn't have a lawn, and if they did, it was pretty small. Cutting the grass wasn't my job in the Philippines, but the person who did it often used garden shears. In the US we have used a lawn mower. I'm not a huge fan of pushing a lawn mower around, but like with sweeping and dusting, it is satisfying to watch the tops of the grass disappear as rows of fresh-cut grass are revealed. The smell of grass was refreshing as a child. I have mixed feelings about it now. I could elaborate further, but perhaps it's best to cut this section short.

Cleaning My Room

When I was little, I had this lovely idea that it was impossible to have a messy room if you didn't have toys to mess it up, so you were always having to put them away. Sadly, I proved myself wrong as I grew older. I enjoyed toying with that notion while it lasted.

I have had other chores as well over the years, but those are the ones that come to mind. What are your favorite and least favorite chores? Do you like to try making them fun? 

Monday, March 27, 2023

Days of Yore: What the Cool Kids Wore

Pro tip: When moving from the Philippines to the US, don't do it for 8th grade. Having been away from American fashion (and never having been much for being stylish anyway), I was the height of uncool. One of my fellow middle schoolers thoughtfully (read: rudely) advised that I stop wearing my parents' clothes. I quickly found out that stripes were "out", as were most other things I wore...but for some reason everyone was jealous of my Adidas shoes. At least something about me was cool!

Image by ink drop on Adobe Stock

Let's rewind a bit. In the '70s when I was born, people wore bellbottoms—that is, pants that were wider at the bottom than the top, somewhat reminiscent of a bell on each leg. I don't believe those have been popular since the '70s, but they are interesting. A lot of people had long straight hair, and headbands were fairly common. Many also liked wearing beads and necklaces. Peace signs were common.

As the '80s went on, people went for loud colors. Not just pink, but HOT pink. Not just green, but BRIGHT green. The brighter and louder, the better. Many people had bangs over their foreheads, and women in particular (though some men as well) liked to curl their hair. Many men (and some women) had their hair in mullets, or as they say, "business in front, party in the back." They were cut short on the front and sides, but allowed to grow long in the back. In my opinion, it looked a bit odd, but hey, whatever floats their boat! Mohawks also happened - the sides shaved, and a strip of hair going from front to back in the middle. They often put stuff in them so that the mohawks stuck straight up and back, often spiked, and also sometimes dyed in multiple colors. I also thought these looked odd (and they were banned at my school in the Philippines), but again, whatever floats their boats! Hairspray, gel and mousse were fairly common to fashion the hair in the directions people wanted it to go. Personally, my biggest change in hairstyle was when I stopped combing my hair to the side and started combing it forward. Now I generally keep it short enough so I don't have to comb it. I go for low maintenance on that kind of stuff. As my dad was watching his hairline move farther and farther back, he got this bright idea to let a strip on the side grow long, and he combed that over the top. He kept the rest short. I think it was an effort to make it look like he had hair on top, but it didn't fool anyone. I think it also may have been to keep as much sun as possible off the top of his head in the tropical heat. It was a bit of a relief when he decided to cut it. :-)

The bright colors of the '80s also extended into photography. It was fairly common to have bright, multicolored, neon laser-looking lines going every which way in the background in portraits. They also had an interesting technique in which they combined two portraits into one, with the person looking forward, and then to the right or left, and usually higher, another picture of their profile.

Glasses also tended to be larger, on the whole, in the '80s. I wore aviator glasses from my first ones in 1984 to approximately when I started college. They were made of different materials. My first pair had metal frames, but as I was fairly active and it doesn't take much in the tropical heat to start sweating, they soon rusted. (I've never seen glasses rust since then, so I'm not sure if that was a fluke with that pair.) After that, I wore plastic frames that wouldn't rust. I also preferred the aviator style because with two bridges, if one bridge broke, they could still hold together with the other bridge. Like many active and bespectacled kids, I tended to go through glasses as a kid. After returning to the US in 1991, I went back to metal frames, but still aviator. Later in high school, I got half-rimmed aviators. I eventually transitioned to ones with one bridge as my tastes changed, though I've always preferred the rectangular shape over the round ones. At one point I had rimless glasses, and several pairs have been half-rim. Currently, they have thicker black rims. I am not sure my particular tastes were always indicative of the styles around me, but they were acceptable by society. I got teased as a kid for wearing them, which is normal, though that didn't make it OK. I didn't actually start enjoying them until I was maybe in my late teens. Now I'm proud to wear glasses, and I want to help remove the odd stigma many still have about them. I have a theory that if people think they don't look good in glasses, they just haven't found the right pair. They are very cool, and a great way of helping people see without having to put something in their eyes. That unfair stigma has also kept many from addressing issues with their vision.

Our family in the mid-'80s
(I forget the exact year)

I have always enjoyed wearing fun t-shirts with puns, jokes, or celebrating shows, movies and musicals that I like. When COVID hit, though I hate everything about the disease, as well as a lot of the controversy and recklessness it brought out in society, I did find a new exciting way of expressing myself: I got some fun masks! I had to do a bunch of research to figure out how to wear a mask without fogging my glasses, but I found some good options. The best is certain masks that are made to be worn with glasses. 

These days, colors are not generally as loud as in the '80s, but I feel whatever floats people's boat is generally fine. Of course, nobody needs my permission or approval. :-)

Since I know you're wondering, no, I do not get dressed using my cell phone. But I have ordered clothes and researched glasses (and ordered a few pair) on my phone. I still buy clothes at the store on occasion.

Saturday, March 25, 2023

Days of Yore: Restaurants

Restaurants have changed a lot during my lifetime. Different kinds of restaurants have come and gone and changed with the times. How you order has also changed. On the whole, there are more options now, though some have gone by the wayside.

While drive-in restaurants were not as popular by the time I came around as they were in the '50s and '60s, there still were some. In the Seattle area, Burgermaster is the only one that comes to mind that still exists as such. Sonic is another example, which is in this state, but not very close to me. Some of them may have had places inside to sit, but they were mainly known for providing a place to park and eat in your car. You would pull into a parking spot, which had an electronic menu with a speaker. Similar to a drive-thru, they would take your order through the machine. The obvious difference to a drive-thru would be that you were parked before ordering, as opposed to pulling up to the window and moving on before eating. When the food was ready, the servers would bring it out to your car. It generally came on special trays. You would roll your window partway down, and the tray had a notch that attached to the car window.

Photo by Kevin Sarduy on Unsplash

A variation on this was restaurants like Dick's Drive-In, a burger chain in the Seattle area (and a must-visit when you're in the area), which is still very popular and growing. Most branches don't have tables or seating, but you walk up to the window, place your order, and pay. Up until a few years ago, they only took cash. Once your food is ready, they hand it through the window, and you go back to your car and eat. Unlike the other kind of drive-in, you actually have to get out of your car to order.

Drive-in restaurants (both varieties mentioned above) generally serve(d) burgers, fries, milkshakes and the like.

Fast food restaurants like McDonald's, Burger King and others have been popular for years, and continue to be popular. Though some of them have automated, they are generally similar to how they used to be. They often have a drive-thru, where you stay in your car, order through the speaker, drive up to the window to pay and get your food, and then go park and eat. Fast food generally has the food already prepared (or nearly prepared), and they can bring it right out to you. Other kinds of restaurants, you generally have to wait for it to be prepared. In the Philippines when we were there, McDonald's' biggest competitor was Jollibee. They have been gaining in popularity in the US in recent years, but they were all over the place in the Philippines when we were there. We have one just south of Seattle (and I hear there's a new one opening in Tacoma). I went to one in Manhattan last September.

Fast food restaurants generally serve burgers, fries, milkshakes and more, but some specialize in other things as well. KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) and Popeyes (along with others), for example, specialize in fried chicken. If you're in the Seattle area, I highly recommend Ezell's for your fried chicken needs. (Since we don't have Cracker Barrel in this area, Ezell's is just about my only option when I have a hankering for fried okra!)

Then there was the classic diner. The biggest example I can think of is Denny's, which, though not as popular as it once was, is still pretty big around the US. Many diners were independent and not chains like Denny's (and in my experience, the independent ones are better than Denny's...but don't tell Denny's that). They often had booths along the edges of the restaurant with padded benches on either side next to a window. Next to those were standing tables with chairs or stools. (This depended on the size of the diner, as some were too small to have the free-standing tables.) Past the tables was the bar, which had taller stools for people to sit. Of course, layouts varied, but that was the general pattern in most diners I've been to. Diners also had a variety of formats for the building. Some were a fairly traditional-looking restaurant from the outside. Some looked like train cars that were placed on a foundation and converted into a restaurant (such as the one in the picture below). I think some of them actually were converted train cars.

Diners also serve burgers and fries (generally bigger and fancier than their fast food counterparts), along with milkshakes and other regular lunch items, but also fancier meals, such as fish, spaghetti, and more. They also often serve breakfast food. (Some fast food restaurants do as well, but not on plates like diners, not as fancy, and not as big portions.) Diners were often a great place to get pancakes, omelets, biscuits and gravy, and more. Some have amazing desserts.

Photo by spiritofamerica on Adobe Stock

Malt shops, though much more popular before I was born, have still endured somewhat. They often had a similar setup to diners, but specialized in cold desserts, particularly malts and milkshakes. Ice cream parlors were similar, but had vats of ice cream, and you could tell them what flavors you want, and they would scoop them out into a cone or cup. (They are still around, though I haven't heard them called parlors in years.)

Diners and malt shops often had jukeboxes in the past. Some still do, but not as many. Some had small jukeboxes on every table.

Pizza restaurants often have a similar setup to diners, but specialize in pizza (obviously). They tend to have more variety in how they are set up, as some do and some don't have places for seating. Over the years, seating has generally decreased, I've noticed. Some have no seating and only do their pizza to go. However, in the past, they almost all had tables to eat in the restaurant. Some of them also have salad bars.

All-you-can-eat buffets are considerably less popular than they used to be. They were fun, and oh so delicious, but I'm not complaining too much about the recent paucity of them because my eyes were always bigger than my stomach, and I'm probably still shedding pounds from all-you-can-eat feasts 20 or more years ago! They had plates at one end of the buffet, and you could load your plate(s) and eat at your table. We generally paid at the front of the restaurant.

Sit-down restaurants were (still are) generally more formal. Some of the above have been sit-down restaurants on occasion. I'm not sure if there's a more "proper" name for them, but that's what I call them. Diners fit in that category. Some require you to wait at the front until a server seats you. At others, you can find an empty table. The server then hands you a menu, and you can look at it and place your order. You generally pay when you're done eating, after the server brings you the check. Many of these have either closed or changed formats in recent years. For example, Pizza Hut in this area has generally removed their tables and only does take-out and delivery now. But there are still a bunch of sit-down restaurants around!

Steak restaurants, such as Outback Steakhouse, are much more formal (and usually expensive) restaurants. They are delicious, and always sit-down restaurants. Due to the price, we generally only go for very special occasions. They also seem to have decreased in number in this area.

Restaurants featuring food from different cultures vary by culture. Most of these have not changed much in my observation, but I will point out any changes I've noticed.

  • Chinese restaurants generally serve food family style, so your group orders several dishes, and they put them on the turntable in the middle of the table, and then you dish up into your bowl and eat it with chopsticks. Some serve dim sum at certain times of the day: dumplings and other small foods that servers take around the dining room in a cart. When they come to your table, you tell them which ones you want, and they take the steaming basket of deliciousness off the cart and put it on your table. My dad was the best person to take with us to Chinese restaurants, as, having lived in Hong Kong, he ordered in Cantonese. We often got more authentic food that way, as many Chinese restaurants in the US have made adjustments to the recipes to cater to American tastes.
  • To celebrate my graduation, we went to a Japanese restaurant, which had tables set in square recesses in the floor, so we sat on the floor and could still dangle our legs below the table without sitting cross-legged. Some of the dishes, they brought a portable stove out to the table and cooked it there.
  • Many sushi restaurants have dishes on a conveyer belt that circulates around the room. If you see a plate that you like, you take it off the belt as it goes by. When you are done eating, you take your stack of plates, which are color coded by price, to the front and they total up the price based on how many and what color the plates are. (I generally get my sushi from the grocery store, usually found in the deli area.)
  • Teriyaki restaurants are generally fairly small, and you can either call in your order or order at the front counter, and pay there too. Some of them offer free soup. They also sometimes have bubble tea. They are often closed on Sundays. They usually have tables to sit down, but it's also more common than other kinds of restaurants to get it to go.
  • In Mongolian grills (which appear to have originated in Taiwan, not Mongolia), customers go to the front where they have a buffet-style bar. You take a bowl, and put rice, noodles, bean sprouts, meat, vegetables, sauces, and whatever else you might want in the bowl until it's full. You then hand the bowl to the server, who dumps it onto a flat round cooker and cooks it up, then serves it to you fully cooked. In my observation, these have declined in number in recent years, but they are a special treat when we get to one of the few remaining ones in our area. I also like it because I can usually put half of it in a box to go and get a second meal out of it.
  • Vietnamese Phở restaurants serve Phở (pronounced "fuh"), which is a kind of soup with noodles, sprouts, other vegetables and meat in a broth. You can add peanuts, fresh basil, crispy shallots, and/or Sriracha sauce if you like. These restaurants also usually serve Banh mi, or Vietnamese sandwiches in a baguette containing, among other things, meat, sprouts, basil and jalapeños. (I tried ordering it without the jalapeños once, and though still good, it just wasn't the same.) In these restaurants, you generally order at the front and take the food to your table. While I haven't seen many changes in the format of these, I have noticed they have gotten a lot more popular in recent years. I also love how the owners often tend to have "phở" naming their restaurants with puns.
  • Mexican restaurants such as Azteca tend to be more sit-down restaurants where you sit down at the table and a server comes to take your order. Before even ordering, they typically put baskets of fresh hot tortilla chips on the table with a couple different kinds of salsa. They refresh them until the food comes. The dishes generally consist of Spanish rice and refried beans, along with what you ordered: meat, burrito, enchilada, quesadilla, molé, or other entrées.
  • Thai restaurants tend to be sit-down restaurants as well, though sometimes they are laid out similarly to Phở restaurants. They have a five-star rating system for how spicy you want your food. I like to order mine ไม่เผ็ด, or zero star/not spicy. I've only had to translate that into English for a server in the US once, and it's fun surprising the servers by practicing my very limited Thai knowledge. Meals generally consist of rice or noodles with meat and sauce. They also tend to be more peanut-based than other cultures. They also often do family style like Chinese restaurants.
  • In recent years, I have noticed a trend in several of these, particularly Chinese and Mexican restaurants, of serving buffet style, and you build your meal at the front counter. For example, at Panda Express, you select either rice or chow mein, and then can add entrees, such as orange chicken, beef and broccoli, or a number of other options. Chipotle and Qdoba have a similar setup where you can build your own burrito (or quesadilla or other option), selecting which rice, which meat, which cheese, which other toppings you would like, and then they wrap it in a tortilla and put it in a foil wrapping (or you can order it in a bowl without the tortilla, or order the tortilla on the side). MOD Pizza has also joined in the fun with a large selection of pizza toppings and several size options for the crust. You tell them what toppings you want, they load it on the crust, and then put it in the oven. Subway and other sub sandwich restaurants have a similar setup.
  • Mexican restaurants such as Taco Bell and Taco Time go for the fast food format (detailed above), but with tacos, chalupas and other Mexican options. Where most fast food restaurants offer French fries, they often go for Mexican-style tater tots (which Taco Time calls Mexi-Fries). I've noticed a decline in the number of these restaurants in recent years, but they're still around. (My brother Aaron likes to hang out with friends at Taco Bell. He calls it Talk-o Bell when he does that because he talks with them. I admire how he really makes an effort to get to know people and make them feel loved and heard. If he didn't live in Texas, I would join him sometimes!)
  • Greek and Mediterranean restaurants also tend to be ones where you order at the front, pay, and go back to your table. They make the food and bring it to you. They often have gyros (meat and vegetables with pita bread), shawarma (delicious roasted meat with rice) and other dishes. I like ordering the beef and lamb mixture. They often come with hummus, olives, salad and pita bread. Greek fries are also a special treat...French fries smothered in Feta cheese and spices, sometimes also including tzatziki sauce. These restaurants seem to have gotten a bit more popular in recent years, though I haven't seen a lot...just enough so there's usually one nearby.
When I started at Wireless Advocates, I learned about the wonders of food trucks. They've been around for longer than that, but that's when I started going to them more. They park on the side of the street, usually in the same spot every day (or every other day, or specific days of the week), and you can form a line beside the truck. They take your payment and cook your food right there. When it's ready they call your name and you come up to the window to get it. There were all kinds of restaurants...Greek, Filipino, Chinese, Thai, Italian, fried chicken, Mexican, Mediterranean, you name it and there's probably a food truck for it. There are also phone apps that can tell you where the local food trucks are.

Food courts have been another great idea. They're typically in malls. As malls have declined in number in recent years, we have less food courts now. But they generally have all kinds of restaurants arranged in more or less of a circle or oval. You order your food at the restaurant of your choice and take it to any of the tables in the food court. All kinds of restaurants are represented...food from multiple cultures, diners, buffets, ice cream, dessert, fast food, hamburgers... again, you name it and it's probably in a food court somewhere (or used to be).

If you have been reading my "Days of Yore" posts, I imagine you have an idea of what's coming... Though I do sometimes go through a drive-thru, I don't often go physically to restaurants these days, opting instead to order though DoorDash or other apps on my phone. When I worked downtown, I also ordered through Peach, which delivered to the front desk at our business. Ritual offered the option to order a meal, and you could piggyback on a coworker's order. You could pay for your food in the app and one person could go to the restaurant nearby to pick up the food for everyone who ordered that day. In the past, we could call ahead to order, and either go pick up the food or have them deliver, but only certain restaurants (mainly pizza and certain fast food restaurants) had a delivery option, and the delivery people were employed by the individual restaurant. These days, especially since the pandemic, almost all restaurants have a delivery option, and they use apps such as DoorDash and Uber Eats, so a delivery person would be employed by DoorDash or other app company and go to whichever restaurant the person ordered from, then pick it up and deliver it. These apps also offer an option to tip the delivery person. Some restaurants do still employ their own delivery people, though they usually also participate in the apps. Many restaurants also let you order on their website and their own app, either for pickup or delivery.

What is your favorite restaurant?

Thursday, March 23, 2023

Days of Yore: Lighting

The Greeks tell the tale of the titan Prometheus, who got this crazy idea to steal fire from the gods and give it to humans. Humanity has never been the same, and Prometheus got to spend a lot of time torturously chained to a rock to think about what he had done as a result. Not being an ancient Greek, I believe this to be fiction, but it is an interesting story, if violent at times. (In his novel The Silmarillion, JRR Tolkien tells of the elf Maedhros, who has a lot in common with Prometheus. That story is not the same, but both stories involve hanging out on rocks—quite literally—as well as fire, and stealing valuable items from powerful beings.) In any case, humans have used fire for millenia in multiple ways, for cooking food, warming up, roasting marshmallows, sitting around a campfire telling ghost stories, and more. In school I learned about how Abraham Lincoln sat by his fireplace and read by the light of the fire. For many years, people lit torches using sticks, branches, and other materials, when they needed light on a long trek, or exploring a cave, or any time they needed light they could hold. Fire has always been both helpful and destructive. It can help cook food and warm people on a cold day to sustain life, and destroy life and property if misused or allowed to get out of control.

Shine Together
Painting by Jason Kotecki
All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

As time went on, people invented candles out of wax and wicks. I did homework by candlelight in the Philippines when our power went out. Candles could be used in a similar way to torches, though they didn't necessarily give off as much light, generally being smaller than your average torch. Candles lit chandeliers, sconces and other light fixtures. Some cultures even put them on their Christmas trees. (It still blows my mind how that worked without starting fires. The modern lights on strings seem safer to me.)

Thanks to a key and a kite and some lightning, Benjamin Franklin gained some important insight on electricity. The lightbulb came along, and Edison got the first patent, though he does not deserve sole credit for the invention.

Of course, most of the above was before my time (aside from doing homework by candlelight). By the time I came along, lightbulbs were common. Cars had headlights. Lighthouses shone their powerful lights out to sea to help passing and approaching boats. Spotlights and other lights lit up the theatre stage. Lamps and lanterns lit up rooms and other spaces. People could also use lanterns in much the same way they used torches (sometimes using fire and sometimes lightbulbs), and in a safer manner than torches. Though gaslighting has a different meaning now, that concept is inspired by a play and movie called Gaslight, which features lamps that required gas to burn. (The movie was Angela Lansbury's cinematic debut.) For centuries, people used gas and oil in lanterns, as it burns easily. As long as it is contained and used carefully, it can generally be used safely. But used unsafely, it can cause big problems when mixed with flames. We had flashlights by the time I came around, which could be held in the hand and shine light by means of a lightbulb inside. (The British still call them torches. In CS Lewis' Prince Caspian, Edmund got a torch for his birthday and left it in Narnia. We would call that a flashlight.) 

There was another nifty invention that was much newer by the time I came along. The lava lamp (painting above) was invented in 1963, and was popular in the '60s and '70s. It was lit from the bottom and filled with two kinds of liquid. A thick wax mixture floated in water. The light from the bottom of the lamp often changed color while the thicker liquid floated around, gently bubbling, separating, merging, and just generally being mesmerizing to watch, especially with the changing colors. They didn't give off a lot of light, but it was enough to light a dark room softly and made for a relaxing atmosphere. They were also a good deal more relaxing than watching real lava erupting out of a volcano. Well, if I were in the vicinity of an erupting volcano, I very likely would not be passively watching.

A few years ago, once camera flashes were introduced on cell phones, those flashes were eventually able to be repurposed for use as a flashlight. The first time I downloaded a flashlight on my cell phone, it struck me that I never would have dreamed that would be something I could download. Now it comes standard on smartphones. I still have regular flashlights, but I generally use my phone when I need one. However, to light up a room, my phone doesn't usually provide enough light, and I need ceiling lights and/or lamps, or if the power is out, lanterns. We also have headlamps we can strap to our head if we need our hands free to explore in the dark. Book lights also help when reading a traditional book in the dark. Some candles run on batteries without the need to light a flame. Using the definition of the word that the kids use today, it's really lit!

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

OK, Boomer: Slang

Zounds!

Growing up, I always associated that word with science fiction set in the distant future. Space men said it in comic strips. Spaceman Spiff, of Calvin and Hobbes fame, liked to use it. I knew we didn't say it much, but if comic books were to be believed, it would be used all the time in the 21st Century! So imagine my surprise when I was studying, of all subjects, Shakespeare, and learned that he used it in the 16th and 17th Centuries! It is an expression of surprise like "Wow!", and as I learned, is a contraction of "His wounds" ("His" referring to Jesus'). I've heard it pronounced in two ways: rhyming with "pounds" and "wounds." I still don't generally use it, particularly considering its derivation, but it's an interesting word.

Image by lexiconimages on Adobe Stock

In the early 20th Century, a lot of things were swell. I was born in the late '70s, and by that time, things were groovy, man. We're talkin' gnarly! I remember vaguely in the early '80s when people still observed that that is so boss! Those words are generally no longer used in that way (though I have heard them on occasion). As the '80s went on, a lot of things were radical, or rad for short. It meant great. These days, radical isn't generally a good thing, but it was more commonly a good thing back then (although we did use it in its current sense as well, referring to political and religious extremes...a lot depended on context). But though it isn't used as often now, rad still means more or less the same thing as it did then. The word cool, on the other hand, has endured longer. I still use that one. More recently I've heard the kids talking about how things are lit. (When I was younger, lit had a very different meaning. I wasn't all that familiar with that word in its colloquial sense at the time, as I wasn't around people who were lit, or drunk, very much. Now it has a much more positive meaning, more along the lines of groovy and cool.) Even cool has changed in meaning over the years. Though it still can mean calm and not upset, that isn't as common a usage these days. If The Flash (CW series starring Grant Gustin) is to believed, things will be schway by 2049. Note that these words are nuanced and don't mean exactly the same thing. For example, rad was stronger than cool in the '80s. However, the meanings are similar.

Image by Rawpixel.com on Adobe Stock

One phrase that has changed considerably over the years is "just alright." The classic '60s and '70s song "Jesus is Just Alright with Me", recorded by the Doobie Brothers and others, was high praise at the time. It meant that I think Jesus is awesome, great, incredible, groovy! Now "just alright" means "meh, not great." To the people of the '70s, there was alright, and then there was the much more impressive just alright! So next time you hear the Doobie Brothers (or DC Talk, or Stryper, or other bands who recorded it) singing that, understand that they are not saying that Jesus is meh. Instead, they think He's the bee's knees! Jesus is lit! (using the current definition of lit, not the definition from the '60s and '70s)

With the increase in popularity of the internet, I started noticing a lot of TLAs (three-letter acronyms) being thrown around on the internet and in e-mails (and more recently in text messages). The first time I saw "LOL" I wondered if it meant "Little Old Lady," which didn't make sense in the context. I finally asked someone, but figured it out before they answered. It means "laughing out loud." Please note, it does NOT mean "lots of love." I have seen that misconception, and it has led to a lot of unfortunate misunderstandings (the classic one being the text conversation between a mother and her son, something along the lines of... Mother: "Your uncle died, LOL" Son: "What?? Why is that funny?" Mother: "It isn't funny. Why would you say that?" Son: "What did you mean by LOL?" Mother: "Lots of love." Son: "That stands for laughing out loud." Mother: "Oh no! I'm going to have to apologize to everyone I told!") The point there being, never use LOL for "lots of love." I like the French equivalent, MDR, which stands for mourir de rire (literally, "dying of laughter"). Personally, if I feel the need to express laughter, I go for the classic "Hahahahahahahaha!!!" (or longer or shorter variants of that)

Swear words have also come and gone, some more enduring than others, but in the interest of keeping this family friendly, I will not go into those. I don't use them myself, but have gotten a lot more tolerant of others using them as I've gotten older. Still not a fan, though. Our counselor in elementary taught us to use the words of the immortal philosopher Winnie-the-Pooh, "Oh bother!" Much more wholesome, and it usually gets close enough in meaning. I have a few other things I use on occasion, such as "Rats!" "Bummer!" "Seriously??" "Good grief!" (Thanks, Charlie Brown!) "Uff da!" "Ay nako!" "Bless your heart." Though I don't use these alternatives as much, I also like "Fiddlesticks!" "Dagnabbit!" "...cottonpicking..." "Doggone it!" "...dadgum..."

Another term I have grown up with, owing to my Norwegian heritage, is Uff da! It's an all-purpose interjection that doesn't have a direct translation in English. The closest I've heard in any other language is the Yiddish Oy veh! and Oy gevalt! Uff da means "Oh my!" "Good grief!" "Oh no!" "How silly!" "How awful!" "Eww, gross!" (among many others). The Tagalog Ay nako! (literally, "Oh my mom!") and the French Zut alors! come close. The French Oh là là! (which does not mean what many Americans think it means) also comes close.

Of course, there has been so much slang over the years, and if I went into all of it, this would be a very long post. But that gives a small taste of it.

Oh, and I sometimes use slang on my phone. I also use it when I'm talking. It isn't exactly in the same class as other things I've covered in this series, but I feel it's important to mention whether or not I use it on my cell phone now.

One more thing...you may be wondering about the title of this post. The baby boomers and the millennials seem to have some sort of rivalry going on. They don't tend to understand each other so much. Boomers (stereotypically) tend to believe millennials are lazy and other negative adjectives. Millennials, in turn, (again, stereotypically) tend to see boomers as hopelessly old fashioned. And then, here I am, in Generation X, looking in both directions and scratching my head. (I'm an Xennial, which is the group of people born at the end of the Gen X era and the beginning of the Millennial era, who carry some aspects of both Gen X and Millennials.) Anyway, many millennials finally gave up with the criticism coming from their elders, a lot of which was unfounded, and just say, "OK, boomer." Whatever you say. I won't argue. It was the closest I could think of to a modern slang version of "Days of Yore."

OK, another thing...how is it that, given their meaning, "colloquial" and "vernacular" are not generally used in today's vernacular?

Sunday, March 19, 2023

Days of Yore: Research and Organization

As you may remember, I covered research to some extent in my post about books. In that post, I mentioned that we spent a lot of time in the library looking up information in books. We used encyclopedias, dictionaries, newspapers, magazines, microfiche, and more. In my post on telephones, I mentioned the wonders of phone books. But there were other ways that we kept track of phone numbers and contact information. I covered aspects of today's subject in previous posts, but here I expand on more.

Photo bpuhhha on Adobe Stock

Going to a library could be a tad daunting at times. Once you got to know how it was laid out, finding the book you needed was easier, but could still be challenging at times without help. We had a couple options. We could ask the librarian, who was usually quite helpful, or we could check the card catalog. It was a cabinet with small drawers just big enough to fit cards that listed all the books in the library. Most libraries I went to used the Dewey Decimal System, which arranges books by subject. For example, computer science, information and general works are classified as 000; philosophy and psychology are 100, religion is 200, and so on. The numbers in between are more specific. Each book in the library has a sticker on the spine with its Dewey Decimal classification, which gets more and more specific, down to identifying the individual book. The card catalog is arranged in a simpler manner so books are easier to find. They have a section that lists the books by title. Another section lists them by author. Each card represents one book, and it tells its Dewey Decimal classification so you know where in the library it is. (We usually wrote down the information from the card so we could remember it when searching for the book on the shelf.) The aisles of books are typically labeled with the classifications in that aisle. Though libraries still use this system, Google and Amazon have simplified this considerably. I haven't been to a brick-and-mortar library in years, though I have been to bookstores more recently. Bookstores typically don't use the Dewey Decimal system. They still arrange books by subject, and then usually alphabetize them on the shelves by author.

Card Catalog
Photo by Andrey Kuzmin on Adobe Stock

When checking out a book, we would open the front cover and find a paper pouch with a card in it. That card had a list of names of people who had checked it out in the past. At the front desk, the librarian would stamp the card with the date and file the card until we returned the book. Most libraries had a limit on how many books you could check out at a time, and also how long you could keep them before you had to return them. They often fined you if you kept the books too long.

One way of keeping track of appointments and such was a calendar. Not the kind you hang on your wall, but one you could carry with you and mark up. My dad jokingly called it his brain. They were of varying sizes, typically from small enough to carry in your pocket to regular paper size. Now Outlook and other programs have calendars (with a similar setup) where you can do it electronically. I have a calendar on my phone that reminds me about appointments and other events coming up.

Filing cabinets were a way of keeping papers neat and organized. Drawers were organized similarly to a card catalog, but you could arrange it in whatever way worked best for you, and label the drawer. They often had hanging file folders that hung from tracks on the sides of the drawers, and then you could put manila folders in those to organize papers further. (Honestly, with ADHD, filing was one of the most boring jobs I have done. I don't bore easily, but when I am bored, it may be when filing things in the old-fashioned filing cabinets. Even so, it's a great way of keeping papers organized!)

Then there was the rolodex. Where phone books came with the phone numbers printed in them, you could customize rolodex with just the contacts you needed, and when placed next to your phone, it was a convenient way to find contact information. They came with special cards that fit on the wheel, and you could put them in their alphabetical place for easy reference. (They could also be used for other things, but keeping track of contact information was one of the most common uses.)

Rolodex
Photo by Albert Lozano-Nieto on Adobe Stock

I'm sure it will come as no surprise that I do all these things on my phone now, and rarely use the above options. I have a filing cabinet, but I don't use it much. I have physical books, but most of my reading is done on my phone, Kindle and computer. It's also much nicer to carry your entire library on a small device, as opposed to lugging heavy books around. That could get cumbersome, and it was sometimes a little awkward to pull out a big book on the bus. On the other hand, books don't have a battery that wears down and dies if you don't recharge or have access to an outlet, so there's that. These days, I may not lug around books, but I might bring some wireless chargers if I anticipate not having access to an outlet for a while. My trusty chargers came in handy when visiting New York last September, though didn't help the day I forgot to bring it and my battery ended up dying just as I got to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I did have my cord with me, so I found an outlet in the lobby during intermission and got permission to use it. That helped a bit, so I was still able to check the subway route after the show, and write down what I needed in case it died again.

Back to books...I have gotten rid of a lot of my books, as they just take up space. Some of them are in storage. I still have some in my room, but most of them are either in storage or gone. I do still use wall calendars.

Friday, March 17, 2023

Days of Yore: St. Patrick's Day

In which my "Days of Yore" series meets my previous series on simple acts of kindness shown to me in the past. Most entries in my current series concern changing trends over the years. This one is more along the lines of my previous series, but does take place when I was a child, so it fits in both categories. Also, leprechauns are known for their mischief and shaking things up. Besides that, I'm part Irish, and proud of it. So there's that.

Image bArtificial Dream on Adobe Stock

Anyway...

St. Patrick's Day was serious business at our school in the Philippines. Friends and classmates had no trouble pinching anyone who was not wearing green. So it was with some shock and consternation one March 17 on the bus to school that I suddenly realized I had forgotten what day it was, and—horror of horrors—I was not wearing green! (Cue the Psycho theme) We're talking major emergency here. As I was on the bus, I couldn't go home and change! What is a kid who needs some green, stat, to do to avoid the dreaded pinch?

That's what friends are for. Sara was a year or two ahead of me in school. Her younger brother Luke was around my age. Their dad was a teacher at our school, as was mine. They were even British, which gives a person a lot more authority in the matter of an Irish holiday. Sara had a running theory that as long as a person wearing green is touching someone who isn't, the person who isn't can't be pinched. (This theory worked better for kids in the '80s than it would for adults today.) Obviously, she couldn't follow me around all day for so many reasons, but she had a better idea. As soon as we arrived at school, she and I raced down the stairs to the playground and hurried to a tree, where, with a great sense of relief, I obtained some leaves. I don't remember how I wore them, but the day was saved by the quick thinking of a thoughtful friend who was herself wearing green.

Come to think of it, maybe it would be a good practice to carry green lapel pins or something with me in case people I meet on St. Patrick's Day are enduring a similar crisis. Hmmm...

Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Days of Yore: Julius Caesar

Friends, readers, countrymen, lend me your ears. Today we remember a man who met his untimely demise on this day 2067 years ago.

It was March 15, 44 BC, the Ides of March. An auspicious day in ancient Rome when they settled debts, it turned tragic that year as one of their greatest leaders, Gaius Julius Caesar, was assassinated by a large group of senators. He was the father of the Julian Calendar (which is close to the calendar we still observe today), and the month of July is named after him. Obviously, it was before my time.

Illustration by Steven Sauke

This is an unusual "Days of Yore" post, as it does not relate something that I remember from childhood, and it is not something that I now do on my cell phone, aside from perhaps discussing it to some extent on social media. (Come to think of it, maybe I should download Shakespeare's play on Kindle and Audible. I do find ancient history fascinating, though I imagine Shakespeare isn't necessarily the best source if I want the actual facts. Hmm...) That said, I don't claim to be an expert on the subject. Most of the information in this post is from research I did just now.

For good or ill, Julius Caesar was a great man whose legacy still lives on today. His family was believed to be descended from the Trojan Prince Aeneas, subject of epic legends. He was born July 12, 100 BC, and was killed 55 years later at the Theatre of Pompey in Rome. Caesar was a skilled military leader, still viewed as one of the greatest generals in history. He led a conquest of Gaul. He granted citizenship to many from farther reaches than in the past. As mentioned above, he proposed the Julian Calendar, with the help of Roman mathematicians, adding three months and adopting aspects of the Egyptian calendar. He ordered Carthage and Corinth rebuilt. He and several others formed the First Triumvirate, a political alliance. For most of the time he was in power, he was considered pontifex maximus, or supreme pontiff. (Today the Pope is the pontiff of the Catholic Church, though obviously Caesar was not Catholic.) Near the end of his life, he was designated dictator perpetuo, or "dictator for life." (Ironically, that title was very short-lived.)

According to William Shakespeare in his play Julius Caesar, his last words were "Et tu, Bruté? [And you, Brutus?]—Then fall, Caesar." This was addressed to Brutus, one of his assassins, who was apparently not as much of a friend as Caesar thought he was. However, the real Caesar probably didn't say those words. Some say his actual last words were, "Και συ τέκνον" (Kai su, teknon), or "You too, child." But ancient historians even disagree on that. His assassination unintentionally brought an end to the Roman Republic with ensuing civil wars led by Mark Antony, Octavian (Augustus) and others, laying the groundwork to the Roman Empire.

Following his assassination this day 2067 years ago, he was succeeded by his great-nephew Gaius Octavius, who was successively called Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (that last word was to distinguish him from his great-uncle), Imperator Caesar, and Imperator Caesar Augustus. Rome's first emperor, Augustus was still in power when Christ was born around 40 years later. Augustus died in AD 14, succeeded by Tiberius.

Monday, March 13, 2023

Days of Yore: Transportation

Once upon a time, a young child with ADHD (who didn't know at the time that he had ADHD) was sitting in the car looking out the window singing, "Old McDonald had a - FORD!"

Yep. Some kids interrupt themselves to yell, "Squirrel!" I interrupted myself when I saw a billboard advertising Ford cars, as well as any time I saw an airplane or helicopter in the sky. (Certain birds, such as eagles and robins, as well as cows and llamas, have also elicited such a reaction out of me on occasion.) I got very excited about any cars, and I'm told I could identify the make and model of a car from a long way away. I often cut pictures of cars out of magazines to put in scrapbooks. I had a relatively large collection of matchbox cars. When I visited my great grandma when I was little, my favorite part of her apartment was the closet where she kept her toys, which included cars. After her memorial in 1983, our family went to her place to split up her belongings. I made a beeline to her toy box and claimed the toy cars. As I got older, I collected models and other representations of Philippine jeepneys. My dad and I liked to assemble models of cars, planes and other vehicles. I also loved playing with Transformers, which were usually toy cars, trucks or planes that converted into robots.

Jeepney in Cebu, Philippines
Photo by Øyvind Holmstad
CC BY-SA 4.0 license

The Philippines had several different kinds of transportation.

  • Jeepneys were adapted from World War 2 jeeps. The picture above is an example of one. They were elongated, and behind the driver's seat, there are two benches going from front to back on either side. It's a common form of public transportation, and people often crowded them. Riders would bang on the ceiling when they wanted to get off. Generally, jeepneys are privately owned, and the owners take pride in decorating them in bright, artistic colors. They often list the destinations where they go on the sides.
  • Our mission agency had a Toyota Tamaraw. A tamaraw (the animal) is similar to a water buffalo (carabao), but smaller and wilder, and the horns are a bit different. They live on the island of Mindoro, Philippines. The automotive version was very similar to a jeepney in setup, but with aspects of a van. They had plastic on the windows that rolled up, so on nice days they could be rolled up and open to the air, and rolled down and secured on rainy days. (I think newer models have changed since we lived there, but that's how they were at the time.)
  • Tricycles were common in neighborhoods. They involved a motorcycle with a sidecar. Sometimes the sidecar was decorated, and it sometimes had a roof. People often decorate their tricycles similarly to the way they decorate their jeepneys. The sidecar generally has a capacity of one or two people, but that didn't stop people from crowding more onto them on occasion. In Thailand, they had a similar vehicle called a tuk-tuk, which is kind of like a cross between a motorcycle, rickshaw and golf cart. Both tricycles and tuk-tuks have three wheels, counting the motorcycle.
  • Since the Philippines is an archipelago, they traveled between islands using planes and boats.
  • Bangkas are rowboats with wide pontoons going out on either side. They are common for taking people out on the water, going between smaller islands, snorkeling and fishing. 
  • Glass-bottom boats are particularly common around the coral reefs. There are benches around the perimeter, and the middle has a glass bottom, so riders can look down and see the awesome beauty of the colorful reefs, coral and fish, among other sea life. They often had a place in the back where you could jump off to go snorkeling.
  • Calesas were common in the older districts in Manila. They are the Philippine version of horse-drawn carriages, with massive wheels on either side, and decorated similarly to jeepneys and tricycles. (Since the Philippines doesn't get snow, the annual Nutcracker ballet used calesas instead of sleighs. There were a lot of other things they did with the set, props and costumes to make it more relatable to Filipinos, while leaving the music and ballet itself intact.)
  • They also had transportation more normal to the average American, such as cars and buses, as well as airplanes and helicopters.

Airplanes have changed a lot over the years. The changes that immediately come to mind are that they no longer have phones on the backs of the seats in first class, and the meals they serve (if they serve any at all) have gotten a lot smaller. I've noticed in recent years, they sometimes charge for meals separately from the price of taking the plane. If I remember right, meals used to be included in airfare. Also, planes often have in-flight wifi now. They sometimes had a screen in the front of the cabin to watch movies, and you would plug headphones into the armrests in the seats to listen. Then they started having screens in the seat backs and the ceilings. Now many planes no longer have screens, but have options for watching on your phone or device after logging into their network on wifi. Devices generally need to be turned off or put in airplane mode during ascent and descent, though.

I took the train in Thailand, as well as in different parts of the US. I also took the train from London to Paris (part of the journey under the English Channel) and back. Trains have changed during my lifetime, but as my train experience has been much more limited than other forms of transportation, I haven't had as much chance to observe those changes. 

While Seattle doesn't have a subway, I have taken the subways in Paris, London ("Mind the gap!") and New York. I've also taken the El (elevated train) in Chicago. Seattle does have a monorail, and the extensive light rail system is under construction. The completed parts of it are in use.

Cars have done away with the ashtrays that used to be standard. They have also gotten a lot smaller, on the whole. 8-track players in cars gave way to cassette players, which were replaced by CD players. Now many cars don't even have those any more, but there is usually an option for playing streaming radio, such as SiriusXM. Now you can roll the window down in the car by pressing a button, and the driver usually has the option of locking the windows. When I was younger, there was a crank on each door to roll the window down. That crank liked to get stuck sometimes, and good luck rolling the window up when it's rainy if the crank is stuck! It sometimes took a lot of muscle to roll the window up and down. When I was little, I thought cars with seatbelts in the back were cool. Most only had them in the front, if they were even there. In cars with seatbelts in the back, we often had to go digging under the seat for them because they had a tendency of retreating into the inner recesses of the car. Now they are standard in all cars, and required wearing by law. When I was younger, I loved riding in the back of pickups, and it was especially fun riding in the trunk of my grandparents' station wagon. Now that isn't legal any more, so it's been years since we've done that.

I got a car for my 18th birthday. I remember telling my French teacher about it. It was a yellow Dodge Viper. She was impressed until I pulled it out of my pocket and showed it to her. It was a matchbox.

When I was 15, a lot of my friends started taking driver's ed. In Washington State, you can get your learner's permit at 15½. I was a bit wary at first because I had slow reflexes when I was younger, and was worried that would cause issues. Also, when playing Pac-Man, I kept missing corners and could just see myself driving a car and overshooting an intersection. (Thankfully, I have since learned that isn't how cars work!) So I waited a few years before getting my driver's license. Even after getting my license, it was several years before I got my own car. I drove the family car when I needed to, and occasionally borrowed one. Seattle has a great transit system, so I generally commuted to work on the bus.

As long as I can remember, I have always named our (real) car. My first car was Astrid. My dad helped me to find a place that sold used cars, and Astrid had been a rental before being retired from that status. She was beautiful. Being single and not having kids, she was like my child. It was heartbreaking losing her in an accident in 2019 (see the poem I wrote in the link in this paragraph). I waited a couple months to get a new car, due to injuries from the accident, but once I was cleared to drive again by the doctor, I went looking for a new car. A friend recommended CarGurus.com, and I found the perfect car at a nearby dealer. I was able to haggle the price down a bit, and he is an amazing car. I named him Luke. Though he has less trunk space than Astrid, I feel he was an upgrade on the whole.

At this point, I'm sure you're wondering how I drive with my cell phone. The simple answer is, I don't! I know, it may be a bit shocking that there are things I don't do with my phone (such as drinking coffee), but driving and texting or holding a phone is illegal in this area, and my phone does not magically transform into a car, or a robot for that matter. (Don't tell Optimus Prime or Bumblebee. I'm sure they'd be disappointed.) That said, I have been known to check bus schedules and New York subway schedules on my phone. The OneBusAway app is great for bus schedules. Google is also great. I have also used my phone to order plane and train tickets and request rides on taxis, as well as Uber and Lyft.