Pizza!
In the past, i.e., before “The Physics of Baking Good Pizza” was published by researchers from University of Rome Tor Vergarta, Argonne National Laboratory, and Northern Illinois University, in Physics Education this September, you had only one option. If you wanted a perfect pizza, you had to book your ticket to la città eterna, Rome. That was it.
No more.
Now you can simulate that experience in your humble electric oven. At home.
The mouth-watering study by physicists
Royalty!
If you fly Cityhopper, the regional carrier subsidiary of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines that ferries folks between European cities, you might in for a pleasant surprise.
Your pilot might be Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand (1967–), “by the Grace of God, King of the Netherlands, Prince of Orange-Nassau, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Marquis of Veere and Flushing, Count of Katzenelnbogen, Vianden, Diez, Spiegelberg, Buren, Leerdam and Culemborg, Burgrave of Antwerp, Baron
Heart!
I left my heart in San Francisco!
Well … it wasn’t San Francisco. It was Sacramento. Close.
And it wasn’t a metaphorical heart of romance and passion. It was, literally, a heart, as in the four-chambered organ.
And the one who left the actual heart in Sacramento? Nope, not me. It was Southwest. As in the airline, based in Love [Field, Dallas, TX], and whose stock ticker symbol on the NYSE is LUV. Appropriate.
The heart in question wasn’t mine either.
It belonged
Homiletics & Hermeneutics
For those interested in a debate on preaching, here goes:
Homiletics and Hermeneutics: Four Views on Preaching Today (Baker), edited by Scott Gibson and Matthew Kim (both of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary), just came out in December 2018.
Your faithful blogger had the privilege of presenting one of those four views and commenting on each of the other three views produced, respectively, by:
Ashes!
But these “Happiest Places on Earth” are also venues for “celebrations” of a different kind.
The custodians of said parks in Orlando, Florida (Walt Disney World) and Anaheim, California (Disneyland) report that these famous locations are preferred places for guests to scatter their loved ones’ ashes!
In fact, such disbursements of remains are so popular that custodians have a code for the resulting cleanup: HEPA cleanup (from the High-Efficiency Particulate Air filters used in the process: forcing air through a fine mesh traps those minute ash particles—an ultrafine vacuum cleaner).
Apparently, Disney theme park guests sneak in these ashes in plastic bottles or pill bottles inside purses and backpacks, and then spread the goodies throughout the parks’ landscaping.
Missouri native Shanin Himebrook, confessed that she had laid her father to rest near Disney World’s gates earlier this year to remember and memorialize their frequent summer trips together to this place.
Said Himebrook:
He wasn’t my tired, graveyard-shift Dad suffering through Disney World. He was, ‘Let’s get you the Mouse ears! Let’s get your name stitched in it!’ It’s like, ‘I love this Dad! Can we stay here together forever?’”
Needless to say, such activities by guests are not condoned. Said a Disney spokesperson:
This type of behavior is strictly prohibited and unlawful, and any guest caught in the act will be escorted off property.”
Anaheim Police Department spokesman Sgt. Daron Wyatt confirmed to USA TODAY that officers have answered calls regarding ashes at Disneyland. The Orlando Police Department didn’t respond to the paper’s request for comment.
In any case, HEPA cleanups, custodians say, continue to be carried out at least once a month.
Reported one journal:
This leads to visions of Grandma or Grandpa spending eternity inside a Hoover.”
Nope! Not at all.
As Jesus told the repentant thief on the cross:
“Truly
Weight!
So, many tourists who fall into the last mentioned category—and they are numerous!—take donkeys to get around those steep and cobbled hills.
Well, Greece is now having a new kind of problem. These overweight tourists are crippling their donkeys! And so Greece has come up with a new kind of solution. Locals have begun to breed their donkeys with stronger mules so that it becomes easier for these beasts of (obese) burden to schlepp around with fatter tourists!
Said a spokesman for charity Help the Santorini Donkeys—yup, I kid you not, there is such a charity (such is the gravity of the problem!):
Local donkey ride hires are having to resort to using cross-bred mules, as the donkeys just aren’t strong enough. It’s recommended animals carry no more than 20% of their body weight. Obese and overweight tourists combined with the lack of shade and water, heat and cobbled steps is what’s causing such a problem.”
Santorini is a popular stop for ships cruising the Mediterranean. These boats unload folks who’ve been doing nothing much more than consuming a lot of good food and drink aboard. And all of them want donkeys. Many of these animals have to make four or five journeys a day up and down the 500-plus steps to Santorini’s capital town, Fira.
Santorini also has its own Animal Welfare Association. Its founder, Christina Kaloudi, who moved to the island from the mainland ten years ago confessed:
The number of overweight US, Russian and British tourists has trebled. Donkeys are pretty much in work year-round. There are some good owners
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.