Would you prefer to have an adventure, or read about one?

While there are a few adventures I would prefer to read about, for example, anything that triggers my selective fear of heights, having an adventure is far better.  How to get those adventures takes some thought, which I’ll demonstrate with a couple of examples.

My first trip to Europe is one type of adventure, one where you’re so completely thrown into a new environment that it’s overwhelming.  When Jeff and I landed in Paris we picked up our rental car, destined for our hotel.  We did a half-circle around the périphérique, exiting at the proper spot, landing on the streets of Paris without a clue where the street signs were located.  Using our map and counting intersections and roundabouts, we miraculously found the hotel.  After checking in we decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower, again figuring to use our obviously excellent map skills to locate.  After a few blocks, we noticed that the street signs are located on the sides of the buildings, about ten feet or so off the ground.  That discovered, we continued our journey to the tower and decided to buy a couple of bottles of water.  We ordered “deux eau”, or “two water”.  In rapid-fire French, the lady behind the counter replied with something like “gasse, non-gasse?”  At first I had no clue, but it only took a few seconds to deduce within the context of the situation that she was asking if we wanted sparkling or still water.  I replied “non-gasse”, Jeff held out some money so she could pick out what she needed, and we were on our way.  After a couple of days, I wanted nothing more than to fly back to my familiar, comfortable home.  On the third day, we were driven to Châteauroux, a city in south-central France, for a business meeting and towards the end, we were asked to help solve a computer problem involving a modem.  With the help of a translator, and probably a ton of good fortune, we were able to resolve the issue.  On the way back to Paris, my apprehension subsided and I was looking forward to the rest of the trip.  That’s good because the next day involved a meeting in Bristol, England and ended at a hotel bar in Vienna, Austria.  A longer story for another time.  Getting thrown into a totally unfamiliar environment and fighting your way through it will inevitably end in memorable adventures.

I learned a lesson about over-planning trips through what I first thought was an unfortunate event.  I was by myself in Napa Valley on a Friday day off and I had a list of wineries I wanted to visit.  But a network problem at work kept me on the phone all morning and by the time I was able to break free, more than half the day was shot.  Looking at my list, I decided I would first go to the ZD winery and taste their excellent chardonnays.  Having little time left, I needed to eliminate as much travel time as possible, so I asked the lady that poured the samples for a nearby recommendation.  I went to that unfamiliar winery, did a tasting, and asked for more recommendations.  This server pulled out a Napa map and began circling her choices.  She even called one of the wineries to see when they were going to close.  I followed one recommendation after another until the day was done then drove back to the hotel, reflecting on just how wonderful my day had unexpectedly become.  From that moment on, I don’t plan a trip, wine country or not, with a schedule that leaves no room for adventure.  Now a wine trip starts with what type of wine (e.g. merlot, champagne) we’re going to focus on, and each day starts with a scheduled, private tasting around 10:00 am in the direction we want to travel.  From there the rest just happens from tastings to lunch to dinner.  Leaving time for adventures was a lesson well-learned.

What are some of your favorite smells?

I like many aromas but some of the best are the ones that can only be truly appreciated when they are totally immersive, when every breath brings another wave and you’re compelled to breathe through your nose.  I played golf years ago in Florida on a course that doubled as an orange grove.  The sweet smell of fresh-squeezed oranges was everywhere.  Then on my first visit to the Hawaiian island of Maui, I walked out of the hotel room to be greeted with the smell of bananas and noticed the banana trees were planted all over.  Finally, we took the lavender tour at Matanzas Creek Winery in the Bennett Valley region of Sonoma.  The stroll through lavender fields was awesome and when we ended the tour at the drying barn’s open barrels of lavender seeds, the aroma was overpoweringly delightful.

Other smells are not in-and-of-themselves pleasing, however, they invoke a happy memory or perhaps just a feeling of a happy memory.  The smell of certain burning plastics brings back one of those happy feelings.  I seem to faintly recall a toy, sort of a boy’s version of an Easy-bake oven, that molded plastic into various shapes.  I have no memory of what I made or what I used it for, it’s just a feeling, but obviously a very good one.  Others I recall quite vividly.  I used to love to assemble model airplanes, meticulously gluing together dozens of parts.  The smell of that type of glue takes me back and makes me smile.

Perhaps an odd observation, but I find myself sniffing first when meeting people or turning the corner into a new room.  Scents travel and often are the first sense we can employ to gain a little recognizance ahead of an unfamiliar situation.  This might be a primal reflex, but I’m not an expert.  I’ve just caught myself over and over sniffing first and seeing, touching, or hearing later.  Maybe it’s just me, but it’s what I do.

Walking in the front door of the house and being greeted by waves of baking bread or a Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing dinner are awesome aromas.  Waking up to the fragrance of hot cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven. The first inhalations from a morning’s freshly brewed coffee.  

During COVID I lost my sense of smell for a few days.  Only when you’re missing something can you really appreciate how much you treasure it.  Coffee was just warm brown water, losing all of its appeals without its scent.  I hope that never happens again.

 

If you could thank anyone, who would you thank and why?

That would be a very long list of family, founding fathers, entrepreneurs, and managers that led me to where I am today.  From my German immigrant ancestors, the writers of the Constitution, computer hardware and software pioneers to those people that gave me a chance and trusted I would deliver.  But I give the nod to the question posed to Joseph Gayetty of New York and his 1857 introduction of a product I’m so thankful I don’t live without.

The 2020 pandemic caused panic buying of everything from cans of Spam to packets of yeast to lots of paper products.  It made everyone step back for a minute and decide what they could not live without.  While Spam is not considered by many, except myself and the entire state of Hawai’i, a delicacy, it’s shelf-stable for 3-5 years.  I wonder who has hundreds of cans they now regret buying.  Why yeast was gone is a mystery; it’s not like most people bake bread all that often.  Maybe the thought was you could make your own pizza dough and avoid contact with an infected delivery driver.   Paper products make sense, particularly toilet paper, for obvious reasons, and maybe tissues for blowing all the feared COVID snot from your nose.  Stocking up on paper towels, while I use them quite a bit, should have been a lower priority, but those were scarce also.  Maybe a poorer substitute for TP?  Trying to figure out how people think (or don’t) is not terribly useful in the grand scheme of life.

Back to Mr. Gayetty.  He is credited with introducing the aforementioned toilet paper to America.  You can read up on all the ways we cleansed ourselves before then, but none of them are in any way appealing.  Perhaps the best and most common dual-purpose idea was the Farmers’ Almanac, which for over one hundred years, was used for both reading and wiping.  Readers would punch holes in the corner of the publication so it could be hung next to the “throne”.  In 1919, the publishers began punching a hole in the upper-left-hand corner to help out.

Like many of the world’s greatest inventions, it took time to get it right.  Gayetty’s sheets would take thirty-three more years to become the now-familiar perforated rolls and another forty years after that before they were manufactured without any splinters.  Yikes!  

Thank you, Joseph Garrity, for the most indispensable product in my life.