The homeland security threat level today: pink?

My wife and I recently took a short vacation to Cancun, Mexico. On our way home, we learned something new about how our borders are protected.

Before I get to this insight, I’m happy to say that Cancun is delightful. Clean and new – only about 40 years old. Admittedly, what we saw was not Cancun proper but “hotel row,” an island shaped like a 7, lined with both moderately priced and luxury hotels, malls and theme parks, and connected to the mainland by bridges at both ends.

And the beach is postcard beautiful – sparkling white sand and the Caribbean a brilliant turquoise in the shallows and a rich blue in the deeper water.

Our itinerary included overnight stays both ways in Los Angeles, there being no direct flights between San Francisco and Cancun. So we went through both outbound security and inbound customs at LAX upon our return.

The TSA people were especially alert as we left. At the security point, they pulled my wife’s luggage for detailed inspection. The offending substances: Nordstrom delicate fabric wash, a white powder in a small plastic container along with alleged facial creams, all in approved 3-ounce plastic containers. The fabric wash didn’t pass the X-ray test, so the inspector had to take it out for hands-on inspection.

No problem. We complimented them on their diligence. Hey, they were doing their job and we thought they were doing it quite well.

After a wonderful stay in Cancun, we came back to LAX. After the usual long wait to show our passports, we made our way to the exit where a customs agent was collecting the tourist card you must present to authorities when you return from Mexico.

My wife, dressed in comfortable travel clothes that included a pink tunic top and pink pashmina wrap, handed the document to the guard.

He gave it a quick glance, said, “OK,” and waved us through. The speed surprised us.

“Is that it?” my wife asked.

“That's it,” the guard smiled. “Terrorists don’t wear pink.”

Formation Flying

I was out running the other day and three ducks happened to fly over on a glide path down to a small man-made lake. They were in formation, one in the lead of a small “V” and the other two on either side.

Later that day I saw a flock of pigeons swirling and swooping over a three-story building on a main thoroughfare in a commercial district. They were not in what you would call a formation, but they were somehow staying roughly together.

If the ducks were a team, the pigeons were a mob. Or maybe a high-energy crowd, to put it more charitably.

It was the ducks, though, that kept my interest. I did a little research on duck and bird formation flying and found out that formation flying – especially in a V – is more efficient for all the birds except the one in the lead. And flocks of birds alternate the lead role on long migrations so as to evenly distribute the fatigue of covering long distances.

Seeing those ducks the other day – they were in and out of my line of vision in two or three seconds – brought to mind one thrilling formation sight I will never forget.

The Navy Blue Angels were performing at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California. A quick geography primer: Moffett is on the shore of the southernmost end of San Francisco Bay. Nearby are salt evaporation ponds separated by wide dikes or berms. There are trails on these berms that are open for hiking, running or biking. Some of them extend well out beyond the salt ponds into the bay itself.

I decided that the end of one of these berms jutting out into the bay would be a great place to watch the Blue Angels. And indeed it was. I was completely alone – not like the packed crowds at Moffett. Of course the Moffett runways were the center point of all the Blue Angels’ amazing aerobatics, but if you’ve ever seen them you know they cover a lot of real estate on their approaches and departures from the center point.

At one point late in the show the four who fly together formed up in a diamond formation and came soaring past me in a thunderous roar, banked for a right turn. They were going from my left to my right and passing directly in front of me. It was a spectacular sight.

What I hadn’t realized was that there were some ducks in the water right below where I was standing. Just at the moment when the Blue Angel formation was directly in front of me, the ducks must have been startled and burst up out of the water, wings beating furiously, water dripping from their feathers as they became airborne.

The ducks came up out of the water in formation! I really don’t think they planned it – but if they had they could not have executed it more perfectly. They flew up and to the right on a trajectory that perfectly mirrored the Blue Angels. So what I saw in one field of view was the Blue Angels in formation in the distance and the ducks in formation just a few yards away from me. It was a jaw-dropping, stunning, unbelievable sight.

I put these stock photos together just for the fun of it. Many is the time I have wished that I could have caught that scene for real with a camera, but it is just as well that I didn’t have one because I couldn’t have reacted fast enough. Anyway, I was so blown away I probably would have dropped my camera in the water.

Flipping and YouTubing

I figured it was time. High time, in fact.

Time to join the YouTube Generation.

If I’m going to promote rebooting and reinvention, I’d better do a little rebooting and reinventing myself. And a good place to start would be getting into the 21st century.

So the first thing I did was to buy a Flip video camera.

My reaction? Wow!

I was absolutely amazed at the capability of this stunning little device, completely impressed with its ease of use and blown away by how simple it is to take videos and then get them onto your computer.

I’d read a lot of praise for Flip, and now I understand why. It’s all true. Very small little box, not much inside except the Flip, a one-page quick start guide (that’s actually understandable), the warranty, a little carrying pouch and a wrist strap. It came with the battery half charged so all I had to do was take it out of the box and shoot a video, a 23-second epic of my wife sitting at our breakfast room table.

I slid the little button on the side down and out popped a USB arm. Slipped it into a USB port on the side of my laptop, and the Flip software automatically uploaded from the device to the computer. Downloaded my first video onto the computer.

In less time than it takes to write about it I was in the video business.

End of Part 1, now time to move on to Part 2: YouTube.

Figuring out how to upload a video to YouTube wasn’t as simple as learning to use the Flip, but after some trial and error, I figured it out. Now my first video (and a second test shot today) are uploaded to YouTube, along with – how many others? Several hundred billion or so?

Doesn’t matter, I did it.

Yes, I’m late to the party, but that doesn’t matter either. The important thing is that I have just opened a couple of doors to new worlds, and I feel great about it.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star…

“Hi honey, Happy Anniversary. Here’s your present.”

“Ooh, wonderful, what is it? It feels like a picture frame.”

“Open it up! You’ll love it!”

(Sound of paper being ripped off a frame.)

“Oh. Wow, what is this? What does the writing say? I don’t have my glasses. ‘Inter…’”

“International Star Registry.”

“International Star Registry? What is that?”

“I named a star for you to show you how much I love you.”

“You did what?”

“Named a star for you. This is the document that identifies the star and certifies that it is named for you.”

“Wait. It identifies a star named for me?”

“Yep. Just for you.

“But… there are so many stars up there. How do I know which one is named for me?”

“Oh, honey, that’s no problem. Look what’s on the certificate: the telescopic coordinates of the star, an informative booklet with charts of the constellations plus a larger, more detailed chart with the star named for you circled in red. So we can find it any time we want to with a telescope.”

“We don’t have a telescope. You knew that, didn’t you?”

“Well, we’ll get one so we can look at your star.”

“So do I now own this star?”

“Well, no. The International Star Registry doesn’t own the star, so they can’t sell it to you. But the star is now associated with you. It is something you can point at to know that there is something special out there for you.”

“OK. So, if I don’t own it, will astronomers and scientists recognize it as ‘my’ star?”

“No. The International Star Registry is a private company that provides Gift Packages. Astronomers will not recognize your name because your name is published only in the International Star Registry Star catalog. They periodically print a book called 'Your Place in the Cosmos,' which lists the stars that they’ve named.”

“Well, dear, thank you for your thoughtful gift. I’m really touched to have a star named for me, that I need a telescope to see, that I don’t own but is ‘associated with me,’ that astronomers don’t recognize as mine, and that’s listed in a book which this outfit ‘periodically prints.’”

“Yes, honey, and because it’s you, I got you the Heirloom Ultimate version. Look! The certificate is beautifully matted in an architecturally inspired frame designed by Stanford White. The matte is a vintage eggplant color complimenting the colors in the certificate. And look what else: The personalized star chart is framed also in this package. The frame measures 24 1/2" X 20 1/2" and matches the frame in the deluxe package.”

“Who’s Stanford White?”

“I don’t know, I guess he’s a frame designer. Must be famous.”

“I guess I’m bowled over, even if it was free.”

“Uh, honey, it wasn’t free. You know they couldn’t do this and give it away.”

“You paid money for this?”

“Well, yes I did, but it’s our anniversary.

“How much?”

“Uh, well, it was only $489.00.”

“WHAT? FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-NINE DOLLARS?”

“Uh, yeah, plus shipping and handling.”

“Well, honey, I have to say I never expected to have a star named for me. And for only, say $500, after shipping and handling. You really know how to make your wife happy.”

“Anything for you, dear.”

“I’m almost speechless. I can only say one thing. You shouldn’t have. Really.”

Expanding the scope

Since I started this blog, all my posts (with a few exceptions) have had something to do with rebooting or reinvention.

I've decided to expand my topic areas to include random subjects that I find interesting. So you will see more blogs that are not really "RebootYou"-oriented.

I'm doing this because of late I feel a renewed urge to write -- just to get things down on paper. Or on the screen. Have been a writer in one form or another most of my life, and I enjoy it. On rare occasions someone will say they enjoyed something I wrote. That makes me think I occasionally have something to say, so I am going to say it!

A couple of days ago I wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times, which they probably won't publish. The subject was Standard & Poor's downgrading of Greek debt, and the ensuing tailspin of markets around the world. My question: S&P is a bond rating agency. These agencies were major culprits in the financial meltdown because of the spurious AAA ratings they slapped on collateralized debt obligations made up of subprime mortgages. So why should we believe them now? Did they suddenly get religion, and we should go back to accepting their ratings without question?

One more thing I don't get about this mess.

The last word on Creamsicles

I have just finished a delicious raspberry Creamsicle.

First one I’ve had in too long to count. And it was just as good as I remembered. (Please see the preceding two blogs.)

Today I mentioned my “ice cream man” memories to a friend who told me that if I went to the grocery store and looked in the frozen foods section, I could find Creamsicles. “I know they are there,” he said. “My wife eats them all the time.”

That’s all I needed. Within 30 minutes I was in my neighborhood supermarket and sure enough, right in the ice cream freezer, there they were. I bought an 8-pack of orange and raspberry. As the Campbell’s soup ad used to say, “Mmmmm, good!”

The Creamsicle is a derivative of the 105-year-old Popsicle. In 1905, 11-year-old Frank Epperson of San Francisco left a mixture of powdered soda, water, and a stirring stick in a cup on his porch. It was a cold night, and Epperson awoke the next morning to find a frozen pop. He called it the "Epsicle."

It was a hit with his friends at school, and later with his own kids. They constantly called for "Pop's 'sicle." So in 1923, Epperson changed the name and applied for a patent. A couple of years later, Epperson sold the rights to the brand name Popsicle to the Joe Lowe Company in New York.

The Good Humor Company, a subsidiary of Unilever, bought the rights to all the “sicles” in 1989. Popsicle®, Creamsicle® and Fudgsicle® are all trademarks of Unilever.

I still need to figure out how my memory served up “Dreamsicle” instead of “Creamsicle.”

Neuron asleep at the switch

Last night I had an exercise in remembering something from my childhood maybe 65 years ago. The overall experience I was remembering was the arrival of the “ice cream man” on our street. Specifically, I recalled (or thought I recalled) a specific product the ice cream man sold. It was a combination bar of frozen juice with ice cream inside. I remembered it as a “Dreamsicle.” I wrote about it in yesterday’s blog.

This morning, in the shower, I had a flash: It wasn’t a “Dreamsicle,” it was a “Creamsicle.” I had remembered the sound of the word but I pulled up an incorrect rhyming version of it from my memory. The minute I got out of the shower I rushed to the computer, pulled up the incorrect blog and corrected it.

This got me to wondering how memories are created, stored and recalled in the brain. I Googled “how memory works” and found Public Broadcasting’s Nova Science Now website. There I was able to view a video of neurosurgeon Itzhak Fried talking about how memories are stored and retrieved.

According to Fried, an experience (say, the arrival of the ice cream man and buying stuff from him) is captured by a single neuron, or a group of neurons firing together. When the call goes out to recall that memory, the same neuron or neuron group fires again.

So let’s say each neuron in the group of neurons that captured the original visit by the ice cream man remembered one part of the experience: one captured the look of the ice cream box, another the sound of the cow bell that signaled the ice cream man’s arrival, and several others the taste of various goodies in the box.

But on further reflection, there must have been one neuron for each quality of each particular product – in this case, the Creamsicle. One neuron got the flavor, one got the temperature, one the location of the ice cream inside the icy blanket around it, one the stick frozen into the Creamsicle to provide a handle and, finally, one got the name.

So let’s dig a little further. Maybe there were several neurons assigned to grab the name. One got that it ended in “… sicle.” Another got that the first syllable sounded like “…eem.” And the one in charge of getting the first letter probably got “C” at the time – but something happened to it along the way.

Now, 65 years later, along comes a memory call: Hey, remember that bar with frozen juice on the outside and ice cream on the inside? What was it? Every frozen-bar-with-ice-cream neuron hustles up to bring its part: Here’s “..sicle,” and here’s “…eem,” and… “Hey, where’s the neuron with the first letter?”

Well, it turns out that neuron was asleep at the switch, as it were. “Duh, I’ve forgotten. Maybe it was ‘D’ for ‘Dreamsicle,’ because they were pretty dreamy-good. So I’ll offer up ‘D.’”

For a few hours, the other neurons accepted the D. But this morning the faulty first-letter neuron snapped awake and said “Hey, wait a minute, it was C, not D. Creamsicle, not Dreamsicle.”

Why did it fail? It came close, but it failed. Has it been doing other things since the ice cream man came by? Remembering algebra, sunsets, the smell of apple pie in the oven, an acquaintance’s name, a dentist’s appointment? Has it been overworked?

Or has it been lying there in the cranial soup, with no responsibilities other than remembering “C?” Did it just go flabby? Use it or lose it, and I didn’t use it?

I’ll probably never know. But I have certainly profited by the experience. I’ve delved deeper into my brain than I thought I would. And I may know a little more about how this amazing organ works – maybe one neuron’s worth.

One thing is for sure. After all this, that dumb neuron better not come up with D again.