Friday Donuts

Friends, The world wide web is weaved of wires working their way from homes and businesses to places far and wide. Using glass fiber instead of silk strands, this web is not intended to catch insects -- unless, of course, they are streamed in 4K. In the U.S., this infrastructure is by-and-large concealed --often in plain sight -- to spare our aesthetic sensibilities. Elsewhere, it's more likely to resemble something a spider spun-up. I'm often fascinated by the way these webs are woven. Gravity-defying workers precariously perched on ladders leaning on the cables themselves. Safety, schmafety! If climbing on wires is not your kind of extreme sport, maybe skateboarding in Granby is more up your alley. Of course, when you go you must check-out the first place mural of a very realistic  3D donut . (thanks to David Bromberg for the tip).  Happy Friday!

Friends, Guinea pig (or  cuy  as we call it in Ecuador) is a delicacy enjoyed across the northern Andes.  Asking how cuy tastes is akin to asking how chicken tastes. It depends. A well prepared rotisserie cuy has a crunchy skin, meat that falls off the bone and slight hints of savory gaminess mixed with garlic. Like chicken, it’s best enjoyed without silverware. If you can get past the form factor, it’s delicious. Tradition suggests you should wash it down with some  canelazo  — sweetened hot cinnamon water steeped in naranjilla (solanum quitoense) and mixed with cachaça — so the cuy won’t “kick” (i.e., cause next day discomfort). I highly recommend trying it at Tres Estrellas restaurant in Cuenca --you'll have to reserve a table and tell them how many you're having -- a good rule of thumb is half a cuy per person. If you’re too squeamish, I understand. Perhaps a donut is more your thing. Happy Friday!

Friends, There's a new gold rush afoot. The Denver Nuggets and Golden Knights, two teams whose names elicit the precious metal, won their respective leagues' pennant this week. I suppose this bodes well for other similarly named teams -- although, the 49ers shouldn't count their chickens before they hatch because I think the Broncos are gonna win it all. Either way, both the Nuggets and the Knights (pronounced "KUH-nuggets", in classic Monty Python tradition) won their first title in an impressive five games. Seems like a perfect advertising opportunity for Golden Nuggets cereal (the UK version of Cap'n Crunch), if only Nestle hadn't discontinued it in 2021. I guess that's why they say hindsight is 2020 -- not 2021! If I were in Colorado, I'd celebrate with some  Whisky and Doughnuts  tomorrow night (sounds intriguing). If you make it out there, let me know your thoughts. Happy Friday! Swoosh!

Friends, Forty years. A lifetime. A blink of an eye. A last minute plan for a long overdue meeting with a friend I hadn’t seen in four decades. The best of friends. The best of meetings. Any reservations or misgivings about chemistry or camaraderie, needless and unfounded. Memories shared. Memories made. We laughed so hard it hurt, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I added a few new smile lines. Funny how great friends seem to pick up where they left off without missing a beat. Why we waited so long to reconnect beats me. Life has a way of getting in the way, I suppose. The urgent got in the way of the important and someday never came. Until it did. So glad it did! I smile as I bite into a donut and look back. Life is good.  Happy Friday!

Friends, How do you measure life? I’m not talking about monetary value, although I suppose that’s one potential way to do it — fortunately the Ford actuarial team saved us the math by setting the cost of a human life at $200,000 when deciding not to spend $11 on a safer gas tank for the Pinto. I realize any measure we ascribe would be arbitrary, subjective and debatable. Still, the exercise might yield some guideposts for living.  So, how would you go about measuring life? Do you measure it in duration? The time we spend above ground feels like a reasonable metric. It also seems insufficient. After all, it’s not enough to just have a pulse. You could measure it in distance (places you’ve been), experience (things you’ve seen and done) and impact (lives you’ve improved). Spirituality, goodness, accomplishment… descendants? With so many possible variables, an index is a reasonable approach. Then there’s the question of scale. How do you measure the love you give or the health you have? A