The End of Speech

I don’t usually bother with product surveys, but occasionally I’ll give some free data in an effort to steer companies to continue doing things I like. A recent but ominous example comes from fandango.com, who has a promotion running where you can get a free ticket (2-for-1) on Friday nights when using a Visa Signature credit card.

Survey question #4 gave a jolting update on our state of existence in the electronic age. The question was simple enough — I thought it even contained its own answer in the question, like Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb? But the potential answers opened my eyes to the new reality.

#4. How did you talk about the Visa Signature “+1 Movie Fridays” ticket offer?

Answer choices were …

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Blog Post
• Phone/Text
• Email

While one might learn or share about this offer in many ways, it seems obvious that the only choice on this list that could be used for talking is the ‘Phone/Text’ choice. Although, like all other choices, that requires an electronic gadget.

In my case, I actually talked about the promotion the ancient way: in person, with spoken words, and without the use of electronics. I am now painfully aware that I am obsolete, a relic perhaps, and I need to make sure I’m never separated from my phone or other internet-capable device if I hope to do any of that ‘talking’ stuff in the future.

Strategy tip: Since the offer is only good once every 30 days with a given Visa Signature credit card, you should get several cards and rack up thousands of dollars in debt on each in order to get a free $10 movie ticket each week.

Two tales of one city: Venice

Creative writing teachers take note — sometimes you just can’t make up this kind of fiction. While perusing the web for a place to stay for a couple nights in Venice, I came across a hotel review that was complete with mystery and intrigue. Two people describe the same episode, each spinning their own tale and both appear to be sincere attempts to describe what happened. There were clearly some language issues, an emotional meltdown, and expectation differences — that latter point indicating some good marketing work by the hotel. Well, good until you arrived, to the travellers.

Click/Tap HERE for the stories – the ‘Absolute Scam!’ review. And vote for your favorite version.

And if you’re a writing teacher, this would make a good creative writing assignments: Create a tale of an episode described from two opposing viewpoints, both of which are true to the respective parties.

Apple desperation ad: improvement suggestions

With the Samsung Galaxy S4 phone coming out, Apple has countered by … coming out with their own new model? No. Instead, they issued an ad. This pitch attempts to re-convince the world that the existing Apple iPhone is what we really want. Intended message: please please please don’t run out and buy one of those Samsung Galaxy big phones with their ever increasing big share of the market.

(Please note that I am a long time Apple customer, and like them so much that I built my own Mac-Pro-like “Hackintosh” computer, which had the side effect of Apple making almost zero money on that computer. Oops.)

The ad provides “talking points” for you to use, both when talking to Galaxy phone owners, and when engaging in self-talk because you’re being tempted once again to buy a Galaxy for yourself. I will give some pointers on how the talking points are supposed to work. Click/tap HERE for the love-iPhone ad. And be prepared to fall in love all over again.

Apple is sensitive to the larger size of the Galaxy phones, as it seems to have taken them by surprise that everyone wants one. So among the ad features is the claim to the ‘Retina 4′ display. This can be used as follows:

Galaxy owner: “Wow, I just watched another movie on my phone’s theater-sized display. It was great!”
iPhone owner: “But does your phone have a Retina 4 display?”
Galaxy owner: “Huh?”
iPhone owner: “Ah-ha! I thought so! You didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as you could have!”
Galaxy owner: “What’s Retina 4?”
iPhone owner: “No idea, but who cares? My phone has it. Right here!”
Galaxy owner: “Where? Oh, you mean that little thing is a phone? How cute.”
iPhone owner: Urggh!

The ad also mentions other nice features like Siri, the female robot that lives in the phone, dines on quarks and electrons, listens to you talk, and then helps do things. For example, on a number of occasions I’ve told Siri to dial phone calls for me, and have talked to several different people that way (even though I was only trying to call one of them).

Anyway, I think Apple failed to highlight the important and poignant features that would remind current users to stick with iPhones and draw in new customers. I offer these free of charge.

Swype-free: As you may know, Swype is a method of using the keyboard to form words just by tracing your fingers through the desired letters, instead of pecking at each one. It’s one of those miraculous technologies that you know can’t work until you try it and see that it does.

Quickly swyping the word ‘quick’

iPhones don’t support Swype, like Android-based phones do, although you can get a Swype-like app on your iPhone that allows swyping. But only in that app. So you can make swype-words that you can’t do anything with in a practical way. When you want to send a text message, it’s back to keyboard pecking. This is surely clever, for reasons we haven’t quite worked out; but that’s to be expected because Apple is smarter than us. We all know that.

I think I may have identified an angle Apple could exploit. Imagine (try!) that it could be possible to get cancer from using Swype too much (research has not ruled this out yet). If that were true, then anyone who stopped us from doing that and therefore stopped us from getting cancer would be doing us a big favor!! I think a sales slogan that would probably withstand most legal challenges, because it’s technically accurate(-ish), is along these lines:

Swype-prevention feature stops potential associated injuries,
including cancer and agonizing death.

In these Obamacare days people are surely worried about medical issues. Apple should capitalize on this, but just needs to be careful not to mention anything about frustrated Swype-wannabes who bang their head against the wall or throw their iPhone at the window when they realize they’re limited to keyboard pecking.

Out-of-this-world Camera: 

I don’t want to go into great detail here, but as I posted previously, my iPhone allowed me to capture a rare shot of our binary sun system. Really. (As far as I can tell.) Enough said on that.

Rounded corners:

Apple went to the trouble to sue and at least partially beat Samsung for violating some of their patents, which include their rounded corner case designs. For crying out loud, let’s not leave that one on the table — it needs some media coverage! One possibility is to use this to expand on the medical benefit angle:

The iPhone rounded-corners case design:
Specially engineered to prevent inadvertent lacerations
and accidental stabbings.

I don’t see how that can be anything but a big winner.

Apple Maps: This is clearly an underrated feature because, very literally, it takes you places you never imagined. That is something special that should be shouted from the rooftops, not hidden away like a dirty secret.

iPhone owner: “I had an amazing day today! I drove to Nevada. And then back through Montana.”
Other person: “Really? Where were you going?”
iPhone owner: “To the grocery store across town.”

I had my own fun with this one day, when I first went to use Apple Maps. I figured that the problems other users had been reporting were just obscure cases by a bunch of whiners that could never happen to me. [Cue spooky music here.]

Apple maps took me to a place that was almost where I wanted to go, and confidently announced I had arrived where there was no house anywhere in sight. My first thought was obvious: pull up Google Maps and get myself over to where I was supposed to go. But unfortunately this in was a remote location where the only service anyone’s phone could get was the GPS signals being used by Apple Maps to get us to our “destination.” We had to drive 10 miles back toward civilization to pick up service and find my way back to the real address.

2nd Creek Rd mysteriously relocated

The many marketing possibilities just about leap from the page:

“Unanticipated Adventure!”
“Enhance your problem solving skills!”
“See the world – by surprise!!”
“Character growth through handling adversity!”

Wide screen, and then some:

When the big Galaxy phones first started cutting severely into Apple’s market share, the user community was eagerly waiting the response that the iPhone 5 would bring. Apple delivered a surprise, all right, when they increased the phone size by making it about one-third of an inch taller, and no wider. Wowza! This was such a clever engineering move because hardly anyone could tell that the screen had actually been made larger.

Apple has apparently stuck to a philosophy that people want a fairly skinny phone and are willing to have widescreen (when turned sideways) as long as it doesn’t lose that skinnyness.

This makes us fairly confident that the following prototype is what the iPhone 6 will look like. This model, which goes by the code name “iSwizzle,” was found left in a bar, where it apparently was also used to stir drinks. This aspect ratio indicates that Apple will be first to support upcoming very-very-widescreen movies — yet another game-changing move.

Water Sensor:

A feature you might not be aware of in the iPhone is the moisture sensors in the phone. This one has surprising potential, yet so few are aware of it — but I’ve seen it unleashed. You bring in your non-working phone to the Apple store, and the technician feeds in a little scope to take a look at these concealed sensors inside the phone. If you accidentally did something like dropping your phone in the toilet, these sensors will remember it. And Apple may be suddenly very reluctant to help you out.

Well it’s all about how you spin it, and I think this one might work:

The Apple iPhone:
Finally, a smartphone smart enough
to know that it’s been in the toilet

Earth in stable orbit around binary star?

Recent evidence indicates that Earth may unexpectedly be orbiting a pair of stars, instead of just the one that most people call the ‘sun.’ And since we exist on this planet, there’s a reasonable chance that such orbits can yield habitable planets. The picture below was taken at the Charlotte, NC airport and appears to clearly show the two stars out on the morning horizon. This is an un-retouched photo — it’s just as it came out of the iPhone camera. (OK, the bottom part was cropped out.)

Morning photo over downtown Charlotte, NC

Binary stars — with two suns orbiting each other — were first discovered (in public consciousness) in 1977 in the first Star Wars movie, as Luke Skywalker gazed out from the planet Tatooine at the two stars in his solar(s) system. Since then, scientists have discovered that binary stars are actually fairly common in the universe.

Luke and his two legitimate suns

Many stars are in binary (dual) or larger systems — perhaps one-third of star systems are binary (or more), meaning (do the math) about half of the stars are in these systems. But there is some controversy, that lots of little, harder to see stars are singles and thus binary stars are not quite as high a percentage. (Pretend to care about that for a moment … OK, done.) A visible-to-the-eye case is the second star in the handle of the Big Dipper, which has in the past been used as an eye test. It also turns out that the North Star is part of a triple star system (but two of them can’t be seen with the naked eye). Here’s how that works, using the Alaska flag for convenience.

Alaska flag with Big Dipper and North Star

There has been a fair amount of calculating going on, trying to figure out if a planet can orbit a binary star system in a stable, life-friendly way. A quick survey of the literature indicates that the definitive answer is: maybe yes, maybe no.

Some folks claim that if things are just right, like if two closely placed stars are about 80% as big as our sun (the one you read about, not the other one in the first picture above), then there could be some places where a planet could sneak in and orbit stably and comfortably for life to exist. There are, unfortunately, a lot of ways a planet in a binary system could try to orbit that would alternately freeze its local residents to death, followed a little later by cooking them to death, due to odd shaped or perturbed orbits (such as ones that eject the planet from the star system). Try this link for the hopeful story. Some other pictures here.

But another article studied this problem and, not to give things away or anything, they put the word ‘pulverized’ in their title, as in “Planets Pulverized in Double-Star Systems.” If you want to live there, at least housing should be affordable, and you should ignore any analysis of the planet’s orbit that includes the phrase, “Something chaotic is very likely going on.” Why worry about things you can’t affect?

A Name by many other names

Something one can quickly notice when reading about Jesus: he, his contemporaries, and even his ancient predecessors had a lot of names and descriptions for him. Here’s a sampling of some 125 or so, though this list isn’t comprehensive. Some are the things he called himself (like “the Good Shepherd”), or those his followers used (“King Eternal”) or those proposed years in advance (“Prince of Peace”). Altogether it’s quite a set. When you get this kind of attention, there’s usually a good reason. Click (or tap) on the picture for a larger version, and find your favorite.

At the least, exploring this set gives some idea of his impact. My favorite probably changes over time, but the “I Am” was a profound one that Jesus used of himself (see John 8). In that time and to that audience, a non-crazy person would know this was nearly a complete blasphemy (equating himself with the voice in Moses’ burning bush episode) if not true. And thus the crowd quickly but unsuccessfully opted to try stoning him to death.

For those who are into the details, and you’d have to really want it, here are the Biblical references to the various names. In small print just to make you work for it. The names are from the King James (KJV) and/or New International (NIV) translations, with one from World English Bible (WEB) just to mix it up.

—————–
Eternal Life – 1 John 1:2, The Power of God – 1 Cor 1:24, Son of the Living God – Matt 16:16, Chief Corner Stone – 1 Pet 2:6, The Greater Temple – Matt 12:6, Heir of All Things – Rev 1:2, Man out of Heaven – 1 Cor 15:47, Consolation of Israel – Luke 2:25, Ancient of Days – Dan 7:9, The Great Light – Matt 4:16, The Sign – Matt 12:38, Living Water – John 7:37-39, Good Shepherd – John 10:11, Emmanuel – Matt 1:23, Word of Life – 1 John 1:1, The Door – John 10:7, Glory of Israel – Luke 2:32, High Priest – Heb 2:17, Messenger – Mal 3:1, Son of David – Matt 1:1, Teacher – John 3:2, Wonderful Counselor – Is 9:6, Dayspring – Luke 1:78, Creator – Col 1:16-17, Son of Man – Matt 9:6, Helper – Heb 13:6, Beginning and the End – Rev 21:6, The True Vine – John 15:1, Savior of the World – 1 John 4:14, Wisdom of God – 1 Cor 1:24, Everlasting Father – Is 9:6, Passover – 1 Cor 5:7, Brother – John 20:17, Master – Matt 23:10, Only Begotten of the Father – John 1:14, Redeemer – Is 49:26, Prince of Life – Acts 3:15, The Great Prophet – Luke 7:16, Physician – Mark 2:17, King of Kings – Rev 17:14, God over all – Rom 9:5, Our Life – Col 3:4, Our Hope – 1 Tim 1:1, Sun of Righteousness – Mal 4:2, The Eternal – 1 Tim 1:17, Son of God – John 5:25, The Great God – Titus 2:13, The I Am – John 8:58, Lord – John 13:13, Prince of Peace – Is 9:6, Alpha and Omega – Rev 1:8, Commander – Is 55:4, Lord and Savior – 2 Pet 3:2, Righteousness – 1 Cor 15:45, Precious – 1 Peter 2:6, Servant – Matt 12:18, Jesus – Matt 1:21, Savior – Luke 2:11, Righteous Judge – 2 Tim 4:8, Anointed One – Ps 2:2, Friend – Luke 7:34, Life-Giving Spirit – 1 Cor 15:45, Word of God – Rev 19:13, Great High Priest – Heb 4:14, Image of the Invisible God – Col 1:15, Our Peace – Eph 2:14, Ordained – Acts 17:31, Blessed Hope – Titus 2:13, Lamb of God – John 1:29, Head of the Church – Eph 5:23, Light of the World – John 8:12, Holy One – Acts 2:27, The Living One – Rev 1:18, Salvation – Is 62:11, The Way – John 14:6, Lord of All – Acts 10:36, Exalted above the Heavens – Heb 7:26, The Immortal – 1 Tim 1:17, Firstborn of Creation – Col 1:15, Mediator – 1 Tim 2:5, Firstborn from among the Dead – Col 1:18, The Christ – Matt 16:20, The Mystery of God – Col 2:2, Bread of Life – John 6:35, Faithful Witness – Rev 1:5, The Beloved – Matt 12:18, Truth – John 14:6, Fragrant Offering – Eph 5:2, Comforter – John 14:16-18, God Blessed for ever – Rom 9:5, Wisdom – 1 Cor 1:30, Lord of Glory – 1 Cor 2:8, Deliverer – Rom 11:26, The One and Only Son – John 1:18, Lord of Lords – Rev 17:14, Approved by God – Acts 2:22, The Almighty – Rev 1:8, Messiah – Dan 9:26, Rewarder – Rev 22:12, Son of Abraham – Matt 1:1, Head over all – Eph 1:22, The Grain of Wheat – John 12:24, King Eternal – 1 Tim 1:17, The Last Adam – 1 Cor 15:45, Manna – John 6:48-51, Judge of the Living and the Dead – Acts 10:42, Author and Perfecter of Faith – Heb 12:2, Lion of Judah – Rev 5:5, Desire of the Nations – Hag 2:7, Perfect – Heb 2:10, Fulness of the Godhead – Col 2:9, God Revealed in the Flesh – 1 Tim 3:16, Bright and Morning Star – Rev 22:16, The All in All – Col 3:11, The Resurrection – John 11:25, The Mighty God – Is 9:6, Author of Eternal Salvation – Heb 5:9, The True God – 1 John 5:20, The Amen – Rev 3:14, Prince and Savior – Acts 5:31, A Light of Revelation – Luke 2:32

A leap year worth of running

August 31 marked 366 consecutive days of me getting out for at least a 1 mile run. That’s a full leap-year year’s worth of runs. A summary of this collection of daily running:

• Ran in 6 states (WA, ID, CA, FL, GA, UT)
• Ran in 5 countries (US, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Ukraine)
• Used 3 different pairs of shoes
• Racked up approximately 925 miles
• Shortest run: just over 1 mile
• Longest run: The Seattle Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon, officially 13.1 miles; my GPS watch says I meandered a bit for 13.27 miles.
• Hours I didn’t run: between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. Ran pretty much all the others
• Temperature range: 29F to 84F
• Altitude: Sea level (at/in the Atlantic in GA) to 7000 ft (Park City, UT)
• Weight loss: about 12 pounds

Why would someone run every day for a year? Well there’s the obvious answer: the person’s stark raving mad. But those who are lunatics don’t necessarily know it, so they look for other reasons for such running. I’m debating between these two deep answers, which are handy since they apply to various problems:

• Because it’s there
• To get to the other side

And there’s also that deep sense of accomplishment that you get when you can join other folks who are similarly tuned into accomplishing the same meaningless accomplishment. Like the folks at runeveryday.com, where I should get included in an update soon, if I’m not on the list already.

For me, this running feet-feat got started from a newspaper article that mentioned one of the guys on that run-everyday list who had been running daily for over 40 years. This got me to thinking about consecutive day running. Back then I apparently had more mental faculties because I decided to see if I could achieve a relatively minor mark of just running a whole 10 days in a row. It seemed unlikely. But I managed it … and then I sort of forgot to stop.

A few highlights along the year:

Cork, Ireland: Flying internationally presents some schedule concerns for those trying to run every day, often requiring an early morning or late night jog. I mentioned running in Cork in a previous post. I was there a few times during this year, and usually left on an early morning flight for a long day of flying home. I had some colleagues willing to run also, so on flight day, we would gather at just after midnight for the day’s run. The downtown area is quite alive at this hour on a Friday night / Saturday morning. As I trailed my faster companions around the city, I would occasionally come up to a few lads outside the pubs watching my colleagues and making some choice comments about their mental capabilities. Lesson learned: This is a good way to pick up a few handy terms in the local slang that you’re not so likely to hear in the office.

Spain – La Rambla: I got to spend a few days in Barcelona, and started by running down La Rambla in mid-afternoon. This was one of the more challenging runs of the year in the zig-zagging sense, which you’ll understand if you’ve visited that super popular tourist spot. La Rambla is about a kilometer pedestrian mall packed with kiosks, tourists, human statues, pickpockets, and tourists who just got pick-pocketed while watching the human statues near the kiosks.

Early morning at La Rambla: La Empty, unlike the afternoon when it’s La Packed. The wavy sidewalk look is an illusion of the tile shape, it really is flat. This is slightly disorienting when running.

This route led the year in terms of the most sudden course changes per foot run. These sudden re-directions also presented a challenge for the pickpockets, and they were only able to take about half the things out of my pockets along this run. Lesson learned: Nothing overcomes jet lag like a run against an ever changing turbulent flow of humanity.

Lviv, Ukraine: I arrived here in the afternoon and was shortly out for a run. I knew if I didn’t go immediately, jet lag would get me and I’d wake up and have to run a new city in the dark. I headed for a park with a nice hill that looked out on the city. I had a map of the area printed out, though its street names didn’t quite match the spellings on the signs. After I ran to the park and up to its peak, I knew I wanted to exit the park toward the south and turn right. But I missed the turn and was soon going the wrong way but didn’t know it. As seen in the picture — click on it for a larger version.

Jogging route including peak of Vysokiy Zamok (High Castle) Park and then on to unexpected bus ride

So after covering about 4 miles, I saw a couple ladies and stopped to ask for help. Words were not effective in the conversation until I said the magic word “Opera”, since the Opera House is a landmark across the street from my hotel (the Opera Hotel). They made it clear that I wasn’t going the right way, but they couldn’t read my map and didn’t want to offer directions. A bus came up just then and they indicated that the bus would take me to “opera.” One of the ladies was riding anyway, so I decided to go for the adventure.

Lviv bus, useful for a lift back to the hotel

I didn’t happen to have any money with me, and the lady who got on with me was clearly trying to explain that I needed to pay for the ride, as she gestured with a bill. I gave the universal sign that I didn’t have money (showed my empty pockets), and I think she paid for me. Later the bus filled up and a young man who could speak English sat down next to me. He looked at my map and was able to tell me we were now off the map to the north, but would eventually swing around to the hotel area. In the end he got off with me to make sure I found my way to the hotel. So their kindness got me through my ignorance and lack of preparedness.

Opera House, hotel on the left

Lesson learned: Take some money along, like a few “grivnas” in  Ukraine, when running on uncertain streets the first time. In the Ukrainian case, the 20 grivna bill also happens to feature that Opera House on the back, which could be useful if you’re staying in the  hotel across the street.

Park City, UT: We stayed in Park City for a couple days to visit our son. While there I got to quickly understand why a number of real runners come here to train: because you can’t breathe while running. At least that’s the way it felt. After a few days I managed to stagger out 2.5 miles while desperately seeking oxygen most of the way. Recommendation: just enjoy taking the lifts up into the mountains. There’s a near endless supply of ski slopes up there.

Lesson learned: Don’t be fooled by the fact that you can walk around with relative ease in places like this. It’s a trap, which you discover when you start the run.

Jekyll Island State Park, Georgia: This was a surprisingly nice park with lots of Atlantic beach for running. I took the opportunity to run barefoot for the only time in these runs, wandering in and out of the water

Inviting Georgia Park, worth a visit.

Lesson learned: barefoot running leads to sore calf muscles the next couple days.

I-90 Floating Bridge: It took me a while to work up my courage for a there-and-back again run across the I-90 Floating Bridge. As part of my half-marathon training I went out for this 10-ish mile run, and part of it was at almost-lake-level. The floating bridge and the East Channel bridge both have a pedestrian / bike lane on the north side. Lesson learned: This was the best route I found to be out in nature and still an arm’s reach from high speed traffic and its associated exhaust.

I-90 Floating Bridge and Mercer Island

Race results: As high as the top 20 (out of 20), and as low as 1888th (though that was out of 14240 in the half marathon).

Times: My pace usually falls in the 8:30 – 8:50 minutes/mile range. My half-marathon pace was 8:46 officially, 8:40 on my watch due to my slightly extra distance covered. My fastest mile in that race was the 13th mile, at 8:01. If the course had been just a bit longer, I might have broken the 8 minute barrier.

Injury issues: I had some muscle issues with the upper part of my right leg, starting around run #70. I saw a physical therapist for a while, and dropped down to running just over 1 mile for about 30 days after run #100. I went from having to hobble along at the beginning of the jog, to a full recovery. For the last few months I’ve had a pain at the ball of my left foot which can be bothersome if I go for long runs (checked for stress fracture – negative). Lesson learned: Just keep going. What could possibly go wrong?

I was never sick during this year. But I had a plan: if  I wasn’t in a coma or otherwise confined in a hospital, I would get a ride to the top of a long hill and then run / stagger down it for a mile. Rules are rules, and crazy people make crazy plans.

Run #366

Final run: On that 366th run, I managed to coax my favorite running partner out for a mile. She ran with me for a grand total of 1.5 miles during the leap year of running. After the mile mark, she headed back (and met me with a sign at the end). Meanwhile I continued on and ran up my favorite hill, Bellevue’s Lake Hills Connector with a stretch featuring a 300 feet uphill climb, followed by another 100 or so feet of more gradual uphill. It was a quiet warm summer evening around sunset, with blue skies, the sounds of the occasional car going by, a random other jogger or two, and as I coasted along the downhill side of the run, I enjoyed the comforting thought that I didn’t need to do this anymore.

Elevation (feet) along the 5+ miles of the leap run

Which is why I got up and ran the next day, too. And the next day …

If you have meaningless accomplishments to rival this, let me know.

Sunrise at night, green non-flashes, and other curiosities

I was on a recent flight from San Francisco to Seattle that took off just as the sun was about to sink below the horizon. From a window seat on the left side, I faced over the ocean to the west. As the plane climbed, the setting sun actually began to rise further and further above the horizon. This occurred since our climbing into the sky allowed us to see further over the horizon. The sun rose from just the tip top showing, to about 40% above the ever-changing horizon line. So instead of disappearing quickly, it was nearly frozen (a challenging adjective to use for the sun) in that position for maybe 15 minutes, and then it ever so slowly finally set. For a while the scene was like the following picture, taken from the window from my phone – the actual sun was a lot sharper partly-below-the-horizon view.

Rising sunset from exit row seat

There is a reported green flash that can occur just after a sunset (or before a sunrise) if atmospheric conditions are just right. I hoped to see it – perhaps several times in this case – but whether due to clouds along the horizon or whatnot, it didn’t occur. More on that later.

Curiously, on the flight I was reading the book The Light Between Oceans, a novel set around a lighthouse on an island southwest of Australia. As I watched the reverse sunset, I was reminded of this line in that book, about the perspective from up at the top of the lighthouse tower: “Because it’s this high above sea level, the light reaches over the curve of the earth – beyond the horizon.” One character notes the light is like “seeing into the future,” looking ahead to save a ship before it knows it needs help. For my case, it was like looking slightly into the past, pulling the sun back up above the horizon after it had nearly disappeared.

That book features a live baby that washes up on the island, with a dead man on board the boat. This is not much of a spoiler because you learn this after about page two. It reminds me of a curiously similar plot point in CS Lewis’ Narnia book, The Horse and His Boy, in which (page 5 spoiler alert) a living baby washes ashore in a boat that also contains a dead man. In that case, the child had been sent off by someone trying to stop a prophecy that the boy would lead to a kingdom’s downfall. This attempt to block the prophecy was the necessary ingredient to make it come true.

Which echoes, curiously enough, a theme in the previous book I had read, Terry Pratchett’s The Last Continent, which also took place on Australia. Well, as Australia-like as can occur in a ‘Discworld’ novel, complete with kangaroos. In this novel, the wizard Rincewind is selected to solve a particular problem, and such scenarios always mean pain for him. So he flees, as it turns out, in the proper direction to allow him to eventually save the day. In a sense.

And speaking of the Narnia series, the book The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” ends (spoiler alert) with a few humans and a mouse sailing off, to beyond the end of the world, toward a spectacularish sunrise. That suspended rising sunset that I saw gave a small yearning for this Narnia event, which included this bit, with several details omitted:

And suddenly there came a breeze from the east … It lasted only a second or so but what it brought them in that second none of those three children will ever forget. It brought both a smell and a sound, a musical sound. Edmund and Eustace would never talk about it afterwards. Lucy could only say, “It would break your heart.” Why,” said I, “was it so sad?” “Sad! No,” said Lucy.

And back to that lighthouse book: As it turns out, the boat that serviced the lighthouse island was named Windward Spirit. Which is a bit curious since this turned out to be within one vowel of an almost appropriate title for the guy sitting next to me in the exit row of the plane; he leads an organization called Windword Ministries. He had just been doing some ministry work in Mexico and was heading back to B.C. via Seattle.

And curiously, while watching the sun hang on the horizon, I was listening at the time to one of my favorite songs, Beautiful by Shawn McDonald. Here were the lyrics playing into my ears, giving an apt description of what I saw with my eyes at the time:

As I look off into the distance
Watching the sun roll on by
Beautiful colors all around me, oh
Painted all over the sky
The same hands that created all of this
They created you and I
What a beautiful God

The green flash that can appear after sunset or before sunrise is elusive and some of us have yet to see one. You need a good view of the horizon and some favorable atmospheric conditions. A good explanation of it (along with rainbows and mirages) can be found here. [Bonus points for seeing the error in the 7th-to-last figure.] And I wouldn’t suggest that pictures of the green flash are ever faked, but if you click on the ‘source‘ for the final green flash picture in that rainbow post, you’ll see at least one serious skeptic concerned about its genuineness. I’d never make that claim, just as I’d never suspect that the super elusive tricolor-flash picture below (must have been taken from the exit row of a low flying airplane) could be fake — could it? Just curious. (Click on picture to spot the supposedly real flash.)