The World Cup has it wrong. Many of the countries competing are really not soccer people.
I know my countrymen aren’t. Is it the American pastime? Even the American pastime isn’t anymore. Baseball is great but it seems to have had its nine innings.
I am going off-topic here so back to my proposition to remedy the matchups.
If this were a Baseball World Cup, Japan and the USA might lead the matches. The World wants to participate in whatever games are afoot. We’re a playful lot.
A truly global event should give everyone an equal chance.
We could piece one together by letting the soccer-obsessed part of the earth play their soccer games. Maybe the US vs Japan in a round of baseball games would be fair. Frisbee anyone? Sailing? Golf? Fly-fishing?
The point is if a nation is dismally poor at one sport, it could partake of one where it excels.
An Indian architect tweaked artificial intelligence until it came up with some amazing structures. His story and designs can be found in this CNN piece.
In the future Manas Bhatia and the AI program he used envision us living in tree houses. Giant living breathing tree houses.
Life on Mars? Well, not exactly. There is a project called MOXIE which might make living on the planet feasible, however.
The technology involved uses artificial trees to generate oxygen, ie the air we need to breathe.
Someday, we might be living in trees and living by the grace of trees.
My travels on the coffee trail took me to the 7-11 to try out the Brazilian I spoke of recently.
Picture this with me: if my walking the coffee trail entails following the little brown beans strewn along the path to help me find my destination.
I imagine this path is a bit slippery as we crunch along, grinding coffee beans underfoot. Or it is perhaps a bit more slidey if the coffee is already ground and catches to the soles of our shoes.
Sorry for the digression or should I say detour. Back to the coffee mission in which we follow-up on the promise of checking out the selections at 7-11.
7-11 cleverly arranges small, medium, large and what Starbucks calls “Venti Hot” cups with little increment in cost. They also require you self-serve which makes for a more personalized cup.
This participatory experience also means you get much quicker service. I chose the medium size cup, and truth be told, had a delay in the process due to indecisiveness.
To be fair, there are many coffees on display. 7-11 has installed some fancy machines that offer to make cappuccino, latte or other fancier caffeinated drinks. I would say stay away from these.
After hemming and hawing over the vast choices, I settled where I started. A 16-oz (I think) cup of Brazilian to which I added a splash of half and half was a delicious $2.29. The fellas with the street carts sell these for $1.75 but elsewhere the price is closer.
Price is not the only criteria, of course, so factor in convenience and taste. While I loathe the Seattle-brewer, I think Dunkin provides an excellent alternative.
Specialty coffees, in my opinion, should be specially made so head for a neighborhood brewery like our Le Moulin a Café.
Speaking of specialties, I am enjoying a cold Mocha brew from a new joint called B&B. It’s on 1st and 73rd and its actual specialty is bagels, I imagine. Never had one of these before so too sweet should cover it.
There’s a lot of new-fangled equipment at my local playground. I was impressed by the nimble little girl making her way down from the top. These things are challenging. I don’t know that I would have made the climb when I was little.
Workplace humor is fodder for sit-coms. I am joined by a jocular team of workmen over my morning smoothie. They tell jokes about their co-workers which only a union member would get. It’s their rollicking laughter that carries the room. A little standup in the a.m. and when they’re gone it’s so very quiet.
A public place for reflection awaits you in the midst of Broadway traffic.
The Constitution of these United States has an amendment guaranteeing our freedoms should all the other amendments fail us. Who knew? Thank James Madison for this little safeguard.
Specifically, #Madison’sNinth ensures that we, the people, are granted rights not enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
There are things I should know about human history, but honestly it is such a long history. The archeologists among us demarc that history in ages identifying, for example, the materials used. So we get a bronze age or a stone age to describe our ancestry. My failing in this regard is not having a clue which came when. I am fortunate in that my science newsletter (from CNN) specifies dates of service for each of the peoples that came before us.
Another fact that escaped me all my school years is that we are the evolutionary relatives of a broad range of hominids. I have come to find out that different members of our extended family roamed the earth at the same time, perhaps finding themselves in adjacent caves… Well perhaps not, but it’s not a clear timeline from one “brand” of humankind to the next.
Not knowing should lead us directly to knowledge as soon as we know all we don’t know.
Convoluted enough? Simply put, I have the opportunity to endeavor to learn more.
It's a continent, Those groups Of clouds, at Rest in a gray Sky. Hunched Together as if To form a map. Directions to Climbing this Mountain run, This Everest, This widest of Rivers, forded And travelled, These trails, These byways, These prairies, Are purely in The imagination Of this traveller.
A continent un- Folded, drawn And redrawn in A demarcation That has no firm Boundaries, as It floats across A clear pale sky. If I were to climb Or wander the Pillowing mounds Or if I could row Over the billows Would my feet Fall softly or find Their footing lost?
All The Best 