The Great Wall of Pumpkins

Croton on Hudson has annual pumpkin This is a tradition dating all the way back in 2005.  



The image shows the director of the event and the great wall. They also have many other sights, including a pumpkin planetarium (I think you have to see that one up close as the image didn't come out well).


All may be seen at this report in the NY Times:


 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/nyregion/the-spark-behind-the-great-jack-o-lantern-blaze.html?_r=0

Halloween and Global Warming

The US Energy Dept put out a pumpkins themed public announcement. While the tone is positive, it implies that untreated pumpkins contribute to global warming.  In order to make this seem important, the Energy Dept reports total garbage in tons and pumpkin waste in pounds.

here is a piece of paragraph 2 of the announcemnt

"...With the passing of Halloween, millions of pounds of pumpkins have turned from seasonal decorations to trash destined for landfills, adding to more than 254 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) produced in the United States every year...."

and here is a piece of paragraph 8 of the announcemnt

".... It might not be long until the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins we produce annually are nearly as important to our energy security as they are to Halloween!"



http://energy.gov/articles/turn-your-halloween-pumpkins-power

Pumpkin Biz is booming

Today's newspaper had a big article on the pumpkin biz.

It is, uh... well...healthy.

Pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks has apparently inspired numerous other pumpkin flavored products.

 

In the image is pumpkin spice donuts, pumpkin latte and in the back, pumpkin flavored cheesecake.

As the pumpkin farmer stuffed creature might say,

"Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen."

The newspaper article is here. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/09/03/its-not-just-lattes-how-pumpkin-took-over-cat-food-cheese-vodka-and-everything-else/

Coke Bear Approves of the new drink

I bought a bottle of fairlife earlier this week. It is an 'improved' milk which has more protein and calcium and less sugar than regular milk.

Coca Cola, Inc. bought the company in early 2015 and has bringing the product to chain stores.

I had read about the product and the reviews were that the milk is more creamy than regular milk. From my tasting, this is true. The bottle in the image (about 52 ounces) cost about $4.50 at Shoppers.

The product should help us get thru the 'no meat' restrictions of the first part of Av which began last night and ends Sunday night the 26th.

Since it is very similar to chocolate milk, I didn't say the blessing for 'bringing me to this occasion'.

Back in Feb, a number of nutritionists had negative things to say about the product.

On our way back from Israel, we picked up some Mozart chocolates at the airport in Vienna, Austria.

We put the package on a table and our dachshund, Gretel, examined it. Gretel approved of our purchase since, as something of a German cultural supremacist, she considers products to be 'better' based on their German content.

A Lobster Disaster is Averted

A truck carrying 30,000 pounds of lobsters overturned on I-95 in Maine a few days ago (first image).

According to the reports, the lobsters were all in crates and, although they were jostled about, none of the lobsters were hurt (although how that is known is difficult for me to imagine).

The news article is here.

As lobby (lower image) would say, 

"Great. Now they can relax on their way to being eaten."

Lobby has been criticized for this by lobsters but he says that he is just making a livelihood for himself and he doesn't understand their problem with him.

Mikey on Pi Day at Ben Yehuda

It was pi day, that is 3-14 and super pi day because it was 3-14-15.



And to add to the excitement, one of the kosher pizza places opened after the sabbath on Saturday night.

Everybody celebrated at 9:26 pm when it could be (sort of) 3.1415926 (or possibly 3.1415927 if you wait another minute and round to the nearest whole number seven to the right of the decimal point). 


Mikey went with George and Justin Walls (aka Rabbi Gedaliah Walls) to the pizza place and tried to eat a 28" pizza in one hour. Ben Yehuda made the pizza with triple thick crust and the two eaters fell just short...

Nevertheless, Michelangelo proclaimed it awesome. Perhaps it made the day special for Mikey because the previous time George had brought him to a pizza place, George left Mikey in the car when getting pizza.

Michaelangelo has Awesome time on the Cruise to Hawaii

 For our cruise to Hawaii we brought along Michangelo. Gator wanted to go but I began reading about the various endangered animals on the Islands and decided that Gate might create an incident or at the least, would frighten people.  

One nice thing for Mikey was that one of the dining rooms was named for him (or possibly for that other guy, who did some paintings and sculpture).

They also had a Pizzeria on board. Of course Mikey found that awesome. 



 
We took Mikey on two off ship tours. One was the submarine ride, which is cross posted on the Hawaii trip blog.


 
Mikey liked staring out the window at the fishes and having him along side the submarine.


One day, our cabin steward made a towel dog who kept Mikey company while we were at supper.

Finally, we took Mikey into Ensenada to see the blowhole (La Bufadora). I will agree with Mikey that the blowhole was pretty awesome.        




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