Cupcakes and Pies

     There are many things I never quite get.  I could probably spend the rest of my life writing about things I don’t get and things I don’t fully understand.  There are those, e.g. Ara Topouzian, who will say that the list of things I don’t fully understand is endless and that things I do not fully understand is all I write about.  If I only wrote about things I know about, I would probably only have one or two postings. 

     There are trends that mystify me on some level simply because I never bought into them.  The great cupcake trend was one thing of these trends.  Certainly when I was a kid, I liked cupcakes as much as any other kid.  We were excited to see them at birthday parties and special events.  They were prepared by one of the mother’s lovingly for whatever event we were at and they were always… disappointing.  A slice of cake was, to me, always better.  Cakes are  better tasting because they have more layers, and hence had more frosting.  The only exception was the iconic Hostess Cupcake with the white icing swirl and the cream filled center.  Every other cupcake paled in comparison.  I do believe the recent cupcake craze was born of the childhood memory of cupcakes and it resonated, loudly, with lots of people.  I would see grown ladies get all excited when a tray or tree of cupcakes was brought out at parties and weddings.

     I could appreciate the excitement but never fully got it.  A cupcake never tasted as good as a slice of a full cake made from the exact same batter and frosting.  This is true for one very simple reason.  A full cake is always moister than a cupcake.  It is a simple fact that has been confirmed by my brother in-law John who has a gourmet cake business.

     The cupcake trend, which the business media refers to as the gourmet cupcake trend, began in the early 2000s.  Individual shops and eventually chains popped up that made exotic cupcakes that sold for $4.50 apiece.  They were all the rage.  Crumbs was a cupcake shop that opened in Manhattan in 2003.  Over the years, Crumbs became a chain that grew to 67 stores in mid-2013.  The number of locations had doubled from 2011 to 2013.  On July 1, 2014, the company closed its operations and went out of business.  In 2011, the gourmet cupcake business grew 8%, in 2013 the market declined by 8%. 

     While the cupcake fad was raging, I was wondering what happened to pies.  What they used to call “a hunk” of pie was an Americana mainstay of the first half of the 20th Century.  I was wondering when a pie craze was going to hit.  It seemed as logical as the cupcake fad.  To me, a good apple, blueberry, cherry, pumpkin, or pecan pie is better than any cupcake. 

     So, you have heard it here first.  There will be a pie craze.  It probably won’t last long but it will be tasty.

The Wisdom of the Ages

I was at a Chinese Restaurant recently and received a fortune cookie with the wonderful message in the photo.  This was quite a fortune and definitely a cut above what I am used to seeing in fortune cookies.  While I do not usually put much faith in what fortune cookies say, there are are some, like this one, that resonate with me.  I can only imagine that I have at my command the wisdom of the ages.  For all the things I might have ever wished for from being a musical virtuoso, a world class athlete, a renown man of letters, or being world-class wealthy, I think I would prefer to have at my command all the wisdom of the ages.

I immediately took a photo and posted it on Facebook.  What else do you do with such a fortune as this one?  I included the following words with photo: 

Wow. If I have just been bestowed with the wisdom of the ages, I hope I use it to benefit mankind. 

If I have had it all along... I have clearly squandered this gift.

These are good points.  I have to conclude that I have not had command of the wisdom of the ages all along.  If I did have command of this wisdom, it follows that I should have been aware of it at least on some level.  Given that I have not felt in command of such and that I have not had any influence on world hunger, world peace, poverty, pollution, preserving endangered species, or simplifying the US tax code is a clear indication to me that I have not had command of the wisdom of the ages. What if, the wisdom of the ages includes the intelligence not to tackle unsolvable problems such these?  What if, in some dichotomous twist, that one never knows if they have command of the wisdom of the ages?  These are sophomoric questions from back in the day when we all thought about becoming hippies.  The bottom line is that I doubt I have had command of this wisdom all along.

Maybe everyone, or at the minimum everyone with an internet connection, has access to the wisdom of the ages.  The Bible, The Koran, The Tao Te Ching, The Bhagavad Gita, and The Book of Mormon are all available online.  Every word of every philosopher of note is also online.  The poetry of the great masters of poetry in the world are online as are the great classic novels and epics.  Online, one can also access, history books and scientific treatises from antiquity up through when they started copywriting things.  In theory, almost everyone has access to the wisdom of the ages.  Access, however, is not command.  Command to me means like command of a language i.e. the ability to communicate in the language.  Likewise command of the wisdom of the ages means one should be able to utilize this wisdom in some fashion.

Clearly, if I have command of the wisdom of the ages, it is newly acquired.  Yet, I feel no different than before I cracked open that fortune cookie.  It must be noted however that since I read that fortune, I have been trying to be more and more profound with each word I speak or write.  

When at a loss, I do what I always do:  I google it.  I googled “wisdom of the ages” and quickly realized that my fortune was not all that special.  It seems that one of the great gurus of self-help, Dr. Wayne Dyer, wrote a book in 2002:  Wisdom of the Ages: 60 Days to Enlightenment.  It is available, used, for $.01 plus $3.98 for shipping.  This is much cheaper than the Chinese dinner but then without the fortune I never would have found the book.  

 

Robin Williams

July 21, 1951 - August 11, 2014

Sadly, today we learned that Robin Williams passed away.  He was born on July 21, 1951 in Chicago and died today, August 11, 2014 in his home in California.  Per the New York Times, “the county sheriff’s office said in a statement that it 'suspects the death to be a suicide due to asphyxia.'  A further investigation was under way.”  His publicist said that he had been suffering from depression as of late.
       Robin Williams is best known for his high energy, frenetic delivery, rich with ad libs, that left everyone rolling in the aisles.  From my perspective, he burst on the scene on February 28, 1978 when he made a guest appearance on Happy Days as an alien known as Mork from a planet named Ork.  I watched that episode and was totally amazed by the antics.  I remember thinking that his performance was so strong there would most likely be a spinoff.  Clearly, this was a universal feeling, a spin-off sitcom, Mork and Mindy, aired on September 14, 1878.  
     I religiously watched the first few years of Mork and Mindy.   I am sure there were plots to the show.  Of course, I remember Pam Dawber’s lovely presence on the show.  But, the reason I watched the show was to see Robin Williams in action.  I am sure they had a script and I am equally sure that the dialogue written for Mork was but a suggestion upon which Williams ad libbed.  It was incredible how he could be a Scotsman one minute, an Orthodox Jew the next and then alternate between being a southern cracker and Russian.  He had an uncanny ability to switch between characters very quickly.  Not only was he deft at this staccato style but each switch raised the level of camera.  Even his Snickers commercial embodied this style and is hilarious.
     Robin Williams reminded me of Jonathan Winters in the way they both slipped into and out of other characters in the routines and the importance of ad libbing to both of their comedic styles.  It is no wonder that Williams and Winters were friends.  It is also no wonder that both suffered from bouts of depression.   It is almost as if one would have to be bipolar to have the frenzied highs both comedians were capable of.  It is almost as if they have to balance all the funny, frenzied, positive energy with equal portions of depression.  
     I loved his movies.  Specifically, I was amazed by The Bird Cage, Jumanji, Good Morning Vietnam, Aladdin, and, surprisingly, RV.  While I prefer his comedies, I was most impressed by his dramatic performances in Good Will Hunting and his very creepy role in One Hour Photo.  We will have these wonderful films as a legacy to this very talented man. 
     There are so many great moments for which Robin Williams can be remembered.  One of my favorites is this bit from a stand-up routine on golf.  I have watched it many times and never tire of it:  Robin Williams golf routine.  I am sorry for the loss of this immense talent that brought so many moments of laughter and happiness to so many.   The news of his passing had such an impact, I just had to write these words and express my sorrow and sadness for our collective loss.
     As we Armenians say, may God illuminate is soul.

July 2014: Road Trips

On June 26, our first grandchild, Aris Gabriel, was born.  We were absolutely delighted.  We absolutely had to get to DC.
      Upon getting the news that his birth was imminent we began looking for flights to Washington DC.  Yikes!  Sticker shock! The prices were outrageous.  They were at least double what we were spending the last time we flew to DC.  Of course, we were buying the tickets the day before we were leaving and planning to head to DC during the most busy tourist times of the year:  the 4th of July.  Still, it was shocking.  This was not an isolated sticker shock.  We have noticed over the past year in any of the air travel we were planning.
     In the post Great Recession world, there have been many changes.  One of them has been the increase in airfares due to a number of factors.  First and foremost, the airlines have consolidated.  The three main carriers in the US are American, United, and Delta.  All airlines have trimmed their fleets and routes, taxes have increased, and jet fuel is at an all-time high.  It used to be useful to check several different airlines and travel sites to find the best deals.  The market has become more efficient in terms of pricing and all the various travel websites reporting the same prices per airline per route.  Even with these higher fares, the planes are all full.  The pricing clearly reflects the supply and demand.
      As a result of not being able to find reasonable airfares, we decided to drive to Washington DC to welcome Aris Gabriel to this world.  It was 728 miles each way and it took about twelve hours with two stops for gas, food, and to wash our hands.  Except maybe taking our children from Connecticut to South Bend and Ann Arbor for school, we have not regularly made car trips of these kinds of distances.  We flew.  But, times have changed and such road trips may become more the norm than the exception.
     We drove south through Chicago and into Indiana where we caught I-80.  We took I-80 east across Indiana and Ohio.  We then took a right turn onto I-76 just before entering Pennsylvania.  We proceeded into Maryland and into DC.  We left on June 26th and returned on July 6th.  The weather was good and scenery was very nice especially in Pennsylvania.  Surprisingly, there was minimal road construction and the traffic was moderate.
     When I was a kid, there was never a question of fly or drive.  The answer was always to drive.  With a family of six, it was simply more economical.  We used to travel every year from Detroit to Watertown, MA to visit my paternal grandmother.  We never went to Boston, we always went to Watertown.  We would go through Canada taking the 401 to the QEW.  We would connect to the New York Thruway and then the Massachusetts Turnpike into Boston.  On those trips, I used to read the signs and see all the various places we could stop and see interesting things none of which come to mind as I write this except Niagara Falls.  I never thought to ask because my Dad was not one for stopping, he wanted to push and get there.  Mom packed food for the trip so we never bought anything at the rest stops.  I always took note of all the touristic tchotchkes that we never bought.  We travelled according to our budget and our means.
     When I first became a business road warrior, I always bought these tchotchkes back.  I bought them because they were fun.  I bought them because I could easily afford what we couldn’t back in the day.  I bought bottle openers, refrigerator magnets, miniature hour glasses, key chains, and other useless things for our kids or the kitchen.  After a while, as travel became a routine, and I stopped doing that due to a combination of getting buying that silly stuff out of my system and realizing that we did not really need any more bottle opener, egg timers which we never used, and refrigerator magnets which we used all the time.  My travel purchases moved upscale to more memorable, meaningful, and less frequent gifts.  
     In business travel, I liked to visit attractions when time allowed.  I could not do everything I wanted usually due to wanted to get back to the family.  I do recall some memorable weekends in Brussels, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Costa Rica, Lima, and Guatemala to name a few.  My friends and colleagues took me around and showed me some wonderful sights in these countries.  
     This car trip to DC was kind of a throwback.  It was also a study in what was the same and what has changed.  We stopped in four different places:  Indiana, Ohio, and twice in Pennsylvania.  The stops in Indiana and Ohio were rest stops on the toll roads.  In Pennsylvania, we exited the Interstate to stop at those chain gas station mini-department store complexes that are all over the place these days.  In the old days, any gas station we exited the expressway to refuel sold only gasoline, oil, and a few other automotive products.  Maybe they had a gumball machine.  Now, at these department stores, you can purchase groceries, ready to go food offerings that boggle the mind, a full ultra-casual wardrobe, tchotchkes galore, and a full array of automotive parts and accessories.   One place we stopped at have a massive array of jackknives, LED flashlights, hot dogs, pizza, a Subway store within the store, seventeen different varieties of coffee, cell phones, cell phone holders, cell phone chargers, cell phone cases, and clothing from hats to boots and everything in between.  Not surprisingly, every single offering in the place excluding food and automotive parts could be bought in camouflage.  
      The rest stops had the look and feel of the older rest stops and plazas.  One big difference is that the toll road, turnpike, and thruway authorities smartened up in the 1970s and leased out the food service to name brand fast food restaurants.  That was a wise move both for the states and the consumers.  More recently than that the more frequently visited toll road and turnpike rest stops have gone to the food court concept. 

Should have gotten a brochure for the RV/MH
Hall of Fame

The rest stops still had the racks for brochures for all the local touristic places.  These racks are in hotels and rest stops everywhere.  I have seen people browse, but I am not sure if I have ever seen anyone take a brochure with them.
     Back in the day, gas was much less.  We drove cars that took leaded regular gas.  Regular gas was in the 20 - 30 cent range.  Wherever we stopped, they would pump the gas, check the oil, and was the windows for us.  Now, the car we took on this trip, required premium gas.  Every gallon of gas we bought was over $4 per gallon.  In DC proper, I saw one station that was charging $4.99 a gallon.  Needless to say, we did not buy gas there.  We have been hearing about $5 per gallon gasoline for the past few years.  It may really happen this year.  Even at these prices our out of pocket travel costs were a fourth of what two round trip tickets would have cost.  This did not include the extra miles on our car would cost us.

Ugh...

      There are certainly all kinds of movie and sitcom skits and jokes about the various odd roadside attractions in these United States.  There is Carhenge in Nebraska, the largest ball of twine in Kansas, a giant turtle made of car rims in North Dakota, and many others.  There were a few in Detroit that I had actually seen including the Giant Uniroyal Tire and the Giant Stove at the State Fairgrounds.  There are three sites in Illinois, one in a town just a few miles away from my home, which I have not seen.  There is a Giant Bottle of Catsup in Collinsville.  The town of Griggsville has a natural and pesky mosquito problem due to its marshy surroundings.  The town built the largest Purple Martin house to attract these birds that can eat two thousand mosquitoes a day.  In Niles, the town close to me, they have a half scale Leaning Tower of Pisa.  Why most of these attractions start with “The World’s Largest” or “Giant” is, I suppose, to attract people to the venue.
      We have never really stopped at these places.  I joke about it with my wife and the kids when they were with us, but truth be told, we didn’t ever really have time to make a long car ride longer by stopping to the Largest Frying Pan in the world.  We used to drive by all kinds or serious tourist attractions too.  I would have loved to visit Presidential Libraries on our travels.  The only one I ever visited however was the Truman Museum and Library in Independence, MO.  I found it quite interesting and thought to visit as many as I could.  That was in the 1980s, and I yet to visit another.  We did visit the Lincoln home in Springfield, IL.  When we lived in CT, I meant to visit the Franklin Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park, NY.  It was on 63 miles away… never made it.  I did visit Yale University a few times.  I loved it there.  Because of my fascination with all things nuclear, I wanted to visit the USS Nautilus and Museum in Groton, CT.  When we finally went, the Nautilus was under upkeep and not available for tours.  
      Since our children married, we have taken a few side trips on our way to Detroit.  We always wanted to stop at the famous century old Win Schuler’s Restaurant in Marshall, MI.  As most of our trips were for weekend visits, football games, or particular family events, we seemed to be on a tight schedule.  We finally dined there a few summers ago.  In that same summer, we also visited the Amish town of Shipshewana, IN.  Maybe stopping to smell the roses or to see the Giant Catsup Bottle is something older folks due when their schedules are freer than they once were.  
      On this recent trip to Washington, we passed something that I had not seen before on the Indiana Toll Road:  the RV/MH Hall of Fame.  Really, there is a hall of fame and museum just for recreational vehicles and mobile homes?  Yes there is.  The reason I never noticed it before is because it was founded in 2013.  It is brand spanking new and I have to admit that I had no interest at all in exiting the Toll Road for a quick tour.  Not surprisingly, a Google search revealed their website.  It seems to be a serious place and they have an impressive collection of vintage RVs and mobile homes.  Clicking through the virtual tour was interesting, but really it was all the RV/MH history I would ever need.  This is one roadside attraction I will easily be able to drive right on by.

Shoe Shine Machine... really?

I saw something in one of the rest stops that I have not seen in a long time.  It was a shoe shine machine.  It looked vintage and well worn.  The cost was $1.  I wondered how many people used it these days.  People dress so casual, especially all the folks I saw in the rest stop, that very few people wore the kind of footwear that required polishing.  We also saw one of those machines that flatten out pennies into copper ovals embossed with words and logos of whatever tourist site you were at.  Normally these machines, called Penny Press Machines, cost 51 cents.  The machine keeps the quarters and you get the smashed and embossed penny back.  I got one of these from the NY Thruway years ago, drilled a hole in it, and had it on my keychain for at least ten years.

Penny Press with Pay Phone

A week after this “go see the new grandson” trip,” I had the occasion to go on another kind of classic road trip.  Our band drove from Chicago to Belleville, IL (think St. Louis) to provide listening and dancing music for the annual church dinner of the Holy Virgin Mary and Shoghagat Armenian Church.  As there are five of us and we have a lot of equipment, we load up a minivan and an SUV and make the five hour drive.  We listen to music.  We call other musician friends.  We stop for coffee, food, and bio-breaks.  We reminisce, exaggerate, and laugh a lot.  Oh, that is on the way down.  Being kind of tired after the gig, late hours, and perhaps a libation or two, we are more subdued on the longer trip home the next day.  Needless to say, there is no touristic stops on these kinds of band road trips.  It is all about getting there one day and all about getting home the next.
      Wanting to see the World Cup Final between Germany and Argentina, we got up early on Sunday morning and hit the road.  Coffee and some kind of bready, doughy, breakfast was an absolute necessity for all.  For some reason, I am going to call it fate, GPS took us on side roads longer than we thought it should have before getting on the Interstate.  We saw a Krispy Kreme Donut store and knew that is where we getting coffee and “breakfast.”  GPS guided us another few miles north on whatever road we were on before having us turn right on the road that would take us to the Interstate.  I used the word fate because shortly after making that right, we saw the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle.  Cool.  Check that off of the list.

The New Google Docs App

I just downloaded the new Google Docs and Sheets app onto my iPad.  There is an app for Slides coming out soon. Clearly, Google is making a move to better match up with Apples office suite of Pages, Numbers, and Keynotes and Microsoft's Office 365.  

• Google's offerings of Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides is entirely free.  While there is limit on file storage, but the free storage provided is such a generous amount that it would serve anyone's needs who is not using Drive for videos and photos.   Drive works very well with Google documents and it can store any kind of files but seems cumbersome and awkward with Microsoft files.  MS files are easy to store but very difficult to open them from Google Drive in the MS application.  Drive opens them in Google’s equivalent.
  
• Apple offers their Pages, Numbers, and Keynote suite of products.  These apps work very well.  99% of the time I am using Pages.  When I am done in pages, I copy the final work into blogger, Google Docs, or word depending on what my end goal for the writing is.  
  
  Their cloud storage seems to work well on Apple devices but it is not accessible, as far as I know, on non-apple devices.  Lastly, the Apple Cloud is only for apple file formats. So, the Apple Cloud cannot be used for general file storage.  The capacity is limited but I have no idea what the limit is or the charges when the free limit is reached.  Apple used to charge $10 each for the three office suite apps.  That is what I paid a few years ago.  Since September of 2013, they have been providing it for free on new iOS devices. 
  
• Microsoft 365 small business, which is what I would get, offers the very comprehensive and ubiquitous MS Office Suite of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.  The charge for the software, on up to five different devices, and base cloud storage of 1 TB per user is $12.50 a month or $150 per year.  This gives unlimited video conferencing, skype, and more.  One gets Notebook, Access, email, file sharing, and more.  It actually sounds like a very good and very attractive deal.

This Google Docs app is a little confusing in name because Google first called their cloud based equivalent to MS Office Google Docs.  Last year or the year before, Google renamed the file storage and cloud part of this offering Google Drive.  Now it is offering the named products for their office suite independent of Drive.  They are doing this after Microsoft has leapfrogged them in terms of offerings and features.  Microsoft charges and it seems to me that they are providing more value than what Google is providing for free.  

I am writing this little bit on the Google Docs app.  It has the kind of the same feel as Apples Pages app but it is definitely missing some features.  Specifically, I was looking for word count so I can keep track of how much I have written.  I tried to find and turn on a ruler bar so I could indent paragraphs.  As I could not find the ruler bar, I am using left justified paragraphs and putting a line space between at the end of each paragraph.  I can certainly cut, copy, and paste using this app but only on the touch screen.  Control x, c, and v do not work with my Zagg keyboard.  In reading reviews online, I have come to find that it is not currently possible to copy and paste photos in this Google Docs app.  I am sure that Google will close the gap and the most used functionality of MS Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.

Google Docs is a very simple typing app without even some the basic tabs and formatting features found on mechanical typewriters.  I did not try to use Sheets but the reviews I read noted that there are almost no features one expects to see in a spreadsheet program.  Both seem be suited to capturing minimum thoughts or data for further editing in the online version of Google Drive.  

While Apple Pages has a lot more functionality, it can be very slow to load.  Sure, I can cut and paste quotes or photos from other apps or the internet, but I switch back to Pages, I have to wait until it is ready for me to resume... like it is coming out of hibernation.  This may be the price I pay on an iPad2 for a modern app that is dragging a lot of functionality along with it.  

Both Google Sheets and Google Docs are very bare-bones and basic versions of what's available online. Rather than useful tools, both apps appear to be rushed-to-market responses to Microsoft Word and Excel for iOS. While Google Docs can at least be used to do drafts of documents and share them with other individuals while mobile, Google Sheets has nothing to commend it as a true spreadsheet other than the fact that it presents cells on a page.

Anyone who is looking at getting real work done on an iOS device at this point will be better served by Apple's Pages and Numbers (US$9.99 each, free to owners of new iOS devices) or Microsoft Word for iPad and Microsoft Excel for iPad (free, but requires an annual subscription to Office 365 at $75+ per year).  ~ TUAW.com

Right now, on my iPad, Google Docs and Sheets rank third behind Apples Pages, Sheets, and Keynote which I have and Microsoft's Windows 365 which I am seriously thinking about getting.  

     Note:  For the final edits of this piece, I used a laptop and the online Google Docs.  The word count is:  960… LOL