Friday Donuts

Friends, This week finds me spaced-out. SpaceX’s first manned commercial flight to the ISS was conveniently pushed to Saturday at 1:22 PM. A perfect time to grab a beer while we blame the weird hour on planetary alignment. You know, that precision exercise that is hurling a highly explosive device from a rotating sphere towards a small moving object. Then if you’re in the mood for a little detective work, Sherloc and Watson are going to Mars in July. Sound like the plot for a bad B-movie exploiting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters? Actually, it’s just two instruments aboard the Perseverance rover. Christened in the space agency’s geeky tradition of reverse-engineering acronyms to fit clever names, SHERLOC (Scanning for Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) will be accompanied by WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering). As an aside, who capitalizes the second letter of a word in an acronym? (NASA, that’s who).

Friends, Society seems comfortable with this notion that people born within a 20-22 year window share common traits. Marketers and the media casually refer to us as Boomers, Gen-Xers and Millennials. Popular as these groupings are, we seldom delve beyond the broad strokes they convey. Peel the curtain back a little, and a bizarre framework emerges. I’ll set aside the 80-90 year repeating cycles of idealists, nomads, heroes and artists –if you’re curious,  read this . Instead, I’ve decided to share some random observations –from this easily amused Gen-Xer (yes, I had to look it up). The now defunct Millennial catchphrase “OK Boomer” carries a secret irony: it’s based on a generational paradigm created by two Baby Boomers: William Strauss (b. 1947) and Neil Howe (b. 1951). Gen-X gets its name from the 24th letter in the alphabet, because it’s the 24 th  generation on the list. Fittingly, unlike the preceding and following generations, we were too lazy to change it. Baby Boomers were prec

Friends, We underestimate human creativity at our own peril. People around us are always coming-up with new ideas, big and small. I love those small unexpected surprises that bring a big smile to my face. Here are a few examples from recent days.  My youngest son, Rafael, came-up to me with a bundle of plastic characters asking me to guess what it was. I recognized the three figures as different versions of Link, the main character in the Legend of Zelda video game, and noticed they were surrounded by a small chain. It's a chain link fence, he says to me, smiling. As I'm still laughing, he pulls-up what appears to be the arm of another Link figurine. What's this? he says. I give up. The missing Link! It appears he has inherited his father's sense of humor. His older brother, Pablo, delighted us with an exploration of Twinkie cuisine. I had heretofore thought of Twinkies as the snack of last resort, when the zombie apocalypse renders biodegradable food inedible. Boy was

Friends Merriam-Webster defines a pyromaniac as "a person who has an uncontrollable impulse to start fires". Those of you who think me a pyro, on account of my new year's eve celebrations , should note I can control my impulses. I guess that makes me more of a pyro phile . That said, I do enjoy a good pyrotechnic display, no matter the proportions. Case in point, my grandmother Jane would have turned 100 years old on Sunday. She was really keen to reach this milestone and blow-out 100 candles. Although I had promised her I would host the party, the deck seemed stacked against it. When she passed away six years ago, I could have called it off. I didn't. When the pandemic hit, limiting gatherings, again, I could have called it off. I didn't. I was ready to have a small get together when inspiration hit and technology came to the rescue. Enter Zoom! Sunday, most of the family joined to sing happy birthday and watch the fire hazard from a safe distance (what el

Our household has imported the Ecudaorian "Año Viejo" tradition. At midnight for the past dozen years we have read the old year's last will and testament and then proceeded to burn an effigy representing the old year. Each year has its own personality, and so have the effigies. If I wrote about them on this blog, I have included a link to that post. 2019 – M-Peach-Mint   2018 – S tephen Hawking Hitching a Ride from Spaceman   2017 – Playboy Bunny Commiserating with Twitter Bird 2016 – The Zika Mosquito Kills Fidel 2015 – El Chapo and Isis Breach the Trump Wall 2014 – El Chavo del 8 Goes to Heaven 2013 – Nicolas Maduro speaks to a bird and says goodbye to Nelson Mandela (with a Morgan Freeman photo) 2012 – Call Tech Support, the Maya Calendar is Broken !  2011 – A reunion in Hell: Osama, Kim and Khadafi 2010 – New TSA Procedures  2009 – Rafael Correa Shutters Teleamazonas (with a band that reads "My Constitution") 2008 – Non-

Friends, My kids sometimes tease me for using big words. Curious, because I try to keep my language simple and straightforward. Still, with so many words out there, it's tempting to throw-in an obscure term once-in-a-while. New words sometimes come from unexpected sources. This week, it dawned on me that Netflix was one such source. While I wouldn't call the shows I've been binge watching particularly educational, I have picked-up a new word here and there. Let's see if you can guess the show from the word (clicking the links takes you to the wikipedia page for each show). Peaky . A particular style of hat. This beautifully-produced series about an English gang, notorious for sewing razor blades into these hats, roars through the twenties. Sassenach . An oft-disparaging way the Scotts (and Irish) say something or someone is from England. If you drank a shot every time the term was used as a pet name during this show , you'd be drunk after every episode (unless