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Reblogged:Friday Hodgepodge

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Four Things

1. Here's an amusing coincidence: The day I forgot to bring a mask with me into three businesses that require them in a row, the CDC changed its mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated adults to stop using masks in most situations.

I'm vaccinated, but there are a few things I still won't do, on the off-chance my vaccine isn't effective, but I am sometimes surprised at how much head space I have gotten back since then.

2. My cell phone's SIM card sensor died last week, naturally during a two-day period when I needed cell phone service more than I normally would over two weeks. Here are a couple of samples: The one time I needed to text the parents to cancel my son's soccer practice? That day, of course. The next morning, within minutes of having my wife text someone to use the land line if he needed to contact me, that person canceled an appointment due to a personal emergency.

So I bought a new, mid-range phone, Samsung's Galaxy A52 5G. I'm not someone who gets too excited about phones: The dazzling technology is often undercut by very dumb software or interface decisions precipitated by our bizarre modern culture. My big "favorite" with this one comes in the form of a question: In what universe is NOT HAVING A UNIVERSAL NO-VIBRATE OPTION for notifications a good idea? I'd like this phone a lot more if it didn't come with a battle royale like this right out of the box.

This may sound like borderline lunacy to many people, but: I want to forget about my phone and check it for messages at sane intervals of my choosing. Seriously: If something really is time-sensitive, I'll make sure I know about it as soon as I need to.

At the beginning of my quest to answer the above question and remedy the situation, I thought that perhaps the App Store would have some kind of vibration control app on offer. My first search failed to find one, but it did find a plethora of apps that purport to turn a phone into ... a means of massaging oneself.

Not quite what I'm looking for, but thaks all the same, Google.

Other than that, I have already terraformed the new phone enough for it to be useful. Hopefully, I won't need to spend much more time fixing this biggest problem. Otherwise, this phone is about what I need.

3. My source surprised me by admitting a "complicated history" with them, but be that as it may, he points out an article on the history of fish sticks:
[F]ish sticks were invented to solve a problem. Stronger motors and bigger boats back in the 50s meant that there were too much fish being caught to sell quickly so they started skinning, deboning, and freezing it on the boats. That raised the question of how to sell the frozen fish. After a series of failed experiments, they settled on fish sticks, which did surprising well. The article has other curious facts about fish sticks...
Call them the "baby carrots" of the '50's.

We like them, and they regularly solve a problem for me: What's for dinner when we get home late from soccer practice?

I usually serve them with tater tots, which have their own interesting history.

4. To be filed under definitely NOT on my bucket list would be a walk along England's Broomway, which the BBC reports is a favorite walk of author Robert Macfarlane.
broomway.jpg
Image by Qneiform, via Wikimedia Commons, license.
The Broomway traverses vast sand flats and mud flats that stretch almost unsloped for miles. When the tide goes out at Foulness, it goes out a great distance, revealing shires of sand packed hard enough to support the weight of a walker. When the tide comes back in, though, it comes fast -- galloping over the sands quicker than a human can run.

Disorientation is a danger as well as inundation: in mist, rain or fog, it is easy to lose direction in such self-similar terrain, with shining sand extending in all directions. Nor are all of the surfaces that you encounter reliable: there is mud that can trap you and quicksand that can swallow you. But in good weather, following the right route, it can feel nothing more than a walk on a very large beach.
Okay, then. I'll take his word for it, given that he lost me at "when the tide goes out."

-- CAV

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