Possibly Smarter. Definitely Less Hairy.

[captainsblog]

Tuesday's trip, my second Rochester voyage in five days, was promptly followed by my third in six the next morning. I left later, returned earlier and only had one fixed appointment (plus catching up with the fourth of the day from Tuesday who I postponed), and even though I was driving Eleanor's comfier car this time, I was way more exhausted by the end of the day.

Cumulative effect of all- both physically and mentally. She's been experiencing that, too- with some actual math I will get to later.

Anyway- around 1:30 Wednesday, just as I was wrapping things up before heading home, I got a call from Supercuts. I'd been unable to even get them to answer the phone at my usual location, but a nearby one I've been to before picked up and booked me for Wednesday at 5.  The call this time was to let me know they'd freed up time and could I come in earlier?  I told them I was out of town but that I'd call once I got to the Transit exit. By the time I did, though, they were all booked again and said I would have to come at 5.  No prob- I dropped things off at home and headed to the office here, only to get another call that the previous call was a mixup and I could come right in.

Fortunately, they cut better than they book. Behold, Shorn the Sheep!



Pepper remains scheduled for her spa date on the 18th. THEY texted Thursday night and offered up an opening yesterday. Back in Rochester, which would have been four trips there in eight days. We passed.

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The two days since have been ordinarier, other than the usual craziness going on out in the world. Confederate flags are being banned and statues are coming down; now Cuomo's getting heat for not recommending the same treatment for the prominent Paisan displays of noted genocider Columbus.  To which, someone came up with the perfect idea for a replacement honoring Italian-Americans, but only after he left and came back with Oh, Just One More Thing:

 

Pepper, meanwhile, misses out on all of it.  She even failed to notice a gorgeous boy doggie walking right past her on walkies yesterday morning, because she was focused too much on her one true love:



And I came home the night before to a sad sight, one of a couple of Signs of the Printed Times.

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Earlier in the day, I got word of this news from a longtime friend I met at Cornell.  I'll tell it from my own perspective of the time:

Starting around this time 40 years ago, I worked part-time in Ithaca as a regional reporter for the daily newspapers (plural, then) in Syracuse. I wore the only boots on the ground for the entire county. I either dictated copy over the phone or transmitted it by an ancient CRT typewriter over a modem to the home office on Clinton Square. (The phone bill was staggering in those Ma Bell days, but they paid it.) I was also the only photographer; I'd bring rolls of film to the Greyhound station and put them on the bus.

My competition was a bunch of other students from WVBR and The Cornell Daily Sun (who I also worked for under an agreed mutual nonagression pact), an occasional WTKO reporter, and probably someone from the then university-owned WHCU that I don't remember. Oh, and course Ithaca was the Venerable Beat of the Gannett-owned Ithaca Journal. It was the only year-round daily in Frank Gannett's former college home (Cornell class of 1898), and the second jewel in the crown after buying his first papers in Elmira. In time, he moved on to Rochester and formally founded the conglomerate bearing his name that, at its peak, had over 70 daily papers as well as other media outlets.

Then the company started USA Today and it all went to shit. 

Still, the Journal kept the journalism going. It printed The Sun at its downtown pressroom in my time, and typeset it with actual hot type not many years before that. Kenny Van Sickle's "Sports Tower" rivaled coverage of much larger communities.

But like most in the fold, it got smaller and less relevant. Its printing and back office operations got moved to near Binghamton and beyond, and now word has come that its news staff is down to just one reporter- a guy by the name of Matt Steecker. I hope they give him a CRT and modem that work. And pay his phone bill.

Speaking of phones, this was what was on my driveway that night:



That, kids, is what used to be known as a "phone book." You can't see from that angle, but it's less than an inch thick.  I still go through my ritual, no matter how small the drop, of homaging Steve Martin in this scene from his first movie, The Jerk:
 

Watch on YouTube

Alas, I can no longer use it as proof that "I'm somebody!" anymore:(




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Still, let's end with something smarter. (I'll save the Eleanor story for next time.)

As I've occasionally mentioned, I was invited into an online, oldschool-style, Jeopardy-level quarterly competition called Learned League.  It was a humbling experience, to say the least.  For 25 "match days" over a little over a month, weekends and other occasional days off, you get a series of six questions on a variety of subjects. Like J! clues, their correct responses are often hinted at in the question.  You are tested on what you know, with a strict no-cheating policy, but you win, lose or tie based on your assignment of points to that day's mostly-unknown opponent.

I see the glazed eyes. I shall stop.  Anyhoo:  in my first few go-rounds, I typically hung near the middle to the bottom of the results, usually rebounding in the final few days to barely reach the break-even mark (i.e., won as many days as I lost).  I passed on the February competition, but was invited to rejoin for the one that started in mid-May.  All players at all levels get the same six daily questions, but you are promoted or relegated into "levels" based on your performance, and after spending the last round or two in level C, I was placed this time in level D, one above the Going to the Zoo Class E, which is still full of very smart people prone to torturing themselves.

A funny thing has happened. The head-to-head competition might be slightly easier, but the questions this time round (which, remember, are the same six each day for all levels) have been more in my various wheelhouses. With ten matches to go yesterday morning, I realized I only needed to win two of them, or win one and tie two, to be assured of a .500 record.  So of course, yesterday's were brutal: I only knew one for certain, could only take random stabs at most of the others, and it ended with a subatomic science question for which the only hint at answer was that it was same name as a "type of building." I stupidly guessed "barn"- and was correct:)  This morning, word came that those two correct answers had held up, and:

You are currently 1st in Rundle D Memorial Div 1, with a record of 10-3-3.

It won't last. I don't care. For one, brief shining moment and all....