Category: Travel
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Denim Sandwiches
Today’s expression: To wrap one’s head around something. Meaning: To understand something complicated Origin: While the expression wrap one’s head around something seems to have appeared in the 1970s and may be primarily an American phrase, the term get one’s head around something first appeared in a British boys’ magazine in the 1920s. Example: I tried to…
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Summertime Freshness
Amuse-bouche: Shield from sun, song, and scent. Today’s Wonderful Word: “lemonade.” Definition: a drink made from lemon juice and water, sweetened with sugar. Etymology: 1650s, nativized from French limonade, from Italian limonata or else a French formation from limon. The earlier English spelling was lemonado (c. 1640) with a false Spanish ending. It’s a hot day in the south of France. You sit…
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Voyage au Texas
Today’s quote: What did Batman say to Robin before they got in the Batmobile? Get in the Batmobile. Food and fun in a few Texas cities Dallas Food Attractions Fort Worth Food Attractions Houston Attractions San Antonio Food Attractions Austin Food Attractions Waco Food Attractions Miscellaneous restaurant chains Brain teaser: Arrange the numbers from 1…
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La fête du citron
Amuse-bouche: French people are so hardcore they eat PAIN for breakfast. Life is pain. Eat pain for breakfast. Pain is the bread of life. Today’s Wonderful Word: “refulgent.” Definition: shining brightly; radiant; gleaming. Etymology: First recorded in the early 1500s, “refulgent” comes from a Latin word meaning “to radiate light.” The prefix means “again” while…
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Bare with me
Amuse-bouche: “Naked” and “baked” are pronounced differently. Today’s Wonderful Word: “peregrinate.” Definition: travel around, through, or over, especially on foot People who peregrinate are constantly on the move, traveling from one location to another. You might peregrinate from Italy to Spain to France during your European backpacking trip. Bare with the hairy bears baking naked, making baked hares. Bare…
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Bikes of New York (Part 9)
Today’s quote: “We send thanks to all the Animal life in the world. They have many things to teach us as people. We are glad they are still here, and we hope it will always be so.” Excerpt from the Thanksgiving Address, Mohawk version. Happy New Year! Thanks again to everyone who is reading this.…
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Bikes of New York (Part 8)
Amuse-bouche: Heavy light. An oxymoron. Today’s Wonderful Word: “chiaroscuro.” Definition: the distribution of light and shade in a picture. Etymology: “Chiaroscuro” was first recorded in English between 1680 and 1690. It comes from Italian and is composed of chiaro, meaning “bright,” and oscuro, meaning “dark.” From chiaro comes the English word “clear,” “free from darkness; light,” and from oscuro comes “obscure,” “not…
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Bikes of New York (Part 7)
Today’s quote: “If you dwell upon any distraction, Your feet, they are bound to lose traction.” Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals. Enjoy a nice Jolabokaflod this year. Brain teaser: Below are the names of five countries with alternating letters missing. What are the five countries?
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Bikes of New York (Part 6)
Amuse-bouche: Roommate, doing laundry: “I decided just to put in my clothes, so I didn’t throw those other towels in there like I said I would.” Me: “Who’s Mike Lowe?” Today’s Wonderful Word: “Jolabokaflod.” Definition: an Icelandic tradition in which books are given as Christmas presents and opened on December 24, after which the evening…
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Bikes of New York (Part 5)
Today’s quote: “A pondered mistake is regret. A corrected mistake is experience. A pondered corrected mistake is wisdom.” Brain teaser: Today’s brain teaser is all about the sound “zh” and the many English letters that can represent it. For example, the “g” in “beige,” the “s” in “measure,” and the “z” in “seizure.” There is…
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Bikes of New York (Part 4)
Amuse-bouche: “Have you heard of Wadaisei’s Law?” “No, what’s that?” “What I say is law.” Today’s Wonderful Word: “circumlocution.” Definition: a roundabout or indirect way of speaking. Etymology: “Circumlocution” was first recorded in English between 1375 and 1425. It comes from the Latin word circumlocūtiō, “the act of speaking around; periphrasis.”Circum– is a prefix with…
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Bikes of New York (Part 3)
Today’s quote: “Si vis pacem, para bellum.” If you want peace, prepare for war. The phrase “Si vis pacem, para bellum” is adapted from a statement found in Roman author Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus’s tract Dē Rē Mīlitārī, in which the actual phrasing is “Igitur quī dēsīderat pācem, præparet bellum” (“Therefore let him who desires…
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Bikes of New York (Part 2)
Amuse-bouche: Stream of consciousness. About to lose my mind your own business ventures often fail after 10 years ago I fell into a well being tends to be a low priority for teenagers. Today’s Wonderful Word: “cognoscente.” Definition: a connoisseur or someone in the know. Alternative definition of “cognoscenti,” the plural form: people who are…
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Bikes of New York (Part 1)
Today’s quote: “All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?” – Siddhartha Gautama, The Dhammapada Welcome to December. The year’s almost over. How’s it been? Any millions of responses are valid, each one in their own right. Because millions…
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Vacation (Part 2)
Today’s quote: Chaque homme a sa passion qui le mord au fond du cœur, comme chaque fruit son ver. – Alexandre Dumas, Le comte de Monte-Cristo More pictures. Don’t forget to do the Stingray Shuffle. Moving Water Rock Water Rock coming up for Air Look at its little Nose. Ha! Brain teaser: You can go from…
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Vacation (Part 1)
Today’s quote: “Artists use lies to tell the truth while politicians use them to cover the truth up.” – Evey Hammond, V for Vendetta 11/11. Make a wish. I wish I were in Captiva. Pictures are worth thousands of words. Green life Special moss Big lizard Blue sky Flying things What are you lookin’ at?…
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Gelato me crazy
Today’s expression: “Break a leg.” Meaning: Good luck. Use: A phrase of encouragement typically said to one who is about to perform before an audience, especially a theater actor. Origin: This expression is thought to be used due to the superstition that wishing one “good luck” will result in the opposite, but the exact origin…
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Travelers
Today’s quote: “None of us is as strong as all of us.” Source: A sign in the high school study hall that we always made fun of because we couldn’t (and still can’t quite) understand it. Travelers: A game invented by two young boys The object of the game is to travel and go on…
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Walk Beneath the Walking Tree
Today’s expression: « faire la grasse matinée. » Literal translation: to do / make the fat morning. Figurative translation: to sleep late, to sleep later than usual, to stay in bed after waking up. Take a walk with me beneath the arches of the walking tree. Banyans are native to India and only grow in…
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