Beware of stealth fruit juices

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a product is called may differ significantly from what it actually contains. A few days ago I bought a bottle of OceanSpray REVItALIZE Cranberry Apple flavored juice drink with 3 juices (as shown above). What is the third one? The list of ingredients on the bottle (and on the Albertsons web site) says it contains:

 

Filtered Water, Grape Juice (Water, Grape Juice Concentrate), Cranberry Juice (Water, Cranberry Juice Concentrate), Pineapple Juice (Water, Pineapple Juice Concentrate), Natural Flavor, Magnesium Gluconate (Magnesium), Vegetable Concentrate for Color, Gum Arabic, Ester Gum.

 

The second (and stealth) ingredient is grape juice, but there’s more of it than either cranberry or pineapple!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also have a can of AriZona brand ALL NATURAL Kiwi Strawberry Fruit Juice Cocktail (as shown above). The ingredients listed on that can are:

 

Filtered Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup (Glucose-Fructose Syrup), Pear Juice from Concentrate, Kiwi Juice from Concentrate, Citric Acid, Natural Flavors, Strawberry Juice from Concentrate, Fruit and Vegetable Juice for Color, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Gum Acacia, Ester Gum, Beta Carotene for Color.

 

Here the third (and stealth) ingredient is pear juice, but there’s more of it than either kiwi or strawberry!

 

Back on November 5, 2010 I blogged about Do you like stealth raisins? In that post I discussed how my wife dislikes oatmeal cookies containing raisins, but found those just labeled oatmeal cookies had stealth raisin paste.

 

Brand names and changes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I drive west on Fairview Ave to the WinCo supermarket where I grocery shop, I pass what used to be known as Bad Boy Burgers. But an article by Autumn Robertson at Boise Dev on July 27, 2023 titled ‘Always wanted to be a cowboy’: From Bad Boy to Cowboy, Fairview burger joint changes names described how that restaurant (which used to be one of three Bad Boy Burger locations) changed - since the ownership previously had changed.

 

Anyway, Bad Boy struck me as a curious choice for a name. It’s not as awful as the mythical Bad Guy Burgers (shown above) – which could be a cue they were ‘horsing around’ with the meat.  That had happened a decade ago in Europe as described in another article by Felicity Lawrence at  The Guardian on February 15, 2023 titled Horsemeat scandal: the essential guide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was growing up in Pittsburgh, the local franchise holder for the Big Boy hamburger was called Eat’n Park. That struck me as not being in chronological order, so they could have been called Park’n Eat (as shown above). I remember that when we drove to Wheeling the franchise holder for West Virginia instead was Elby’s (for the Elias brothers). In other places it was Shoney’s or Frisch’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On April 6, 2022 I blogged about how It is easy to parody a brand name or logo. I mentioned Yellow [Freight] whose logo already was a parody because it was colored orange rather than actually being yellow. Now they instead are bankrupt. An article by Elizabeth Napolitano at CBS News on July 31, 2023 is titled Yellow is shutting down after 99 years. Here’s what happened.

 

An image of the Big Boy statue came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Quotations from Vital Speeches of the Day: #3 Marcus Fila on playing the long game

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marcus Fila is an Associate Professor of Management at Hope College. In a speech delivered at their commencement on May 8, 2022 he said to avoid short-term thinking, and that:

 

“You have to be willing to give something up today in order to have something better tomorrow – and this is why so few people bother to play the long game. But if done well (and I’m a work in progress on this myself) there can be many immediate pleasures and rewards of playing the long game, in the knowledge that you are setting the foundations for long-term flourishing.”

 

His speech appeared in the August 2022 issue of Vital Speeches of the Day magazine on pages 186 and 187.

 

The pattern came from page 431 of The Grammar of Ornament.

 

Pausing can improve your public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The August 2023 issue of Toastmaster magazine has a good article by Joel Schwartzberg on pages 18 and 19 titled 9 Surprising Ways You Can Benefit From a Pause. They are:

 

Pausing puts your mind in charge of your mouth.

Pausing gives the audience time to process.

Pausing draws and holds attention.

Pausing looks like thinking.

Pausing puts power behind key ideas.

Pausing controls speed.

Pausing lets you breathe.

Pausing defeats crutch words.

Pausing costs you nothing.

 

Why did I say good and not excellent? Because his second paragraph says:

 

“Read on to learn more about the great powers of the pause, including some that will almost certainly give you pause!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pause wrongly implies there is only one type. Back on November 16, 2019 I blogged about Please don’t just tell us about ‘the pause’ – because there are several different types and lengths. Five types (and punctuation lengths) are shown above. Also, at the top of page 19 in Joel’s article there is a photo overlaid with the same pause icon I showed at the top of this post.

 

There is another excellent article by Marsha Zinberg at The Write Touch on October 24, 2022 titled Pausing for Effect: Seven Reasons Pauses Enhance Your Speeches (and Eight Ways to Ace Them). She lists eight types:

 

Punctuation

Look at Me!

Remember This!

Have You Ever….?

Ta-Da!

Rimshot

What Just Happened? Or Where the Heck Am I?

Dying of Thirst.

 

Think about using different lengths of pauses when you speak in public.

 

Troubles in our toilet tank

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we moved into our new home a decade ago, we had a plumber replace the cheap, low toilets that had round seats. He put in taller ADA-compliant Toto low-flow (1.28 gallons per flush) models that had elongated seats. Eventually the rubber seals in the tank flapper and fill valve will deteriorate, and the toilet will start wasting water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recently I heard the fill valve on the toilet in our ground-floor half-bath running. That was odd because it had not been used in the previous hour. I shut it off and looked at the pink flapper (shown above) and its mating white plastic seat. On the seat there was a pink area where material had transferred from the surface of the flapper. When I removed the flapper, I found the rubber was slightly gummy and there was an area (arrow) matching where the material had transferred. I got and installed a Korky generic replacement flapper to eliminate the leak. A YouTube video I watched about replacing the flapper also mentioned that the seal on the fill valve also could deteriorate and result in a leak.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A week or two later the fill valve started to malfunction by not reliably shutting off. I watched some more YouTube videos that described how to completely disassemble and inspect the Toto #528 fill valve, (shown above). But the valve seat (arrow) did not look or feel unusual, and I didn’t find anything else obviously wrong. I decided to spend the $10 for a replacement valve seat. When I went to a plumbing supply store (Grover’s Pay & Pack Electric and Plumbing) I found they didn’t have the replacement for the Toto valve seat – but that a whole new Korky #528 fill valve was only $11. So I got one and installed it. The overflow tubing on the new valve interfered with the brass arm from the flush handle, so I had to shorten it.  

 

Rubber also can crack, as I discussed back on April 27, 2012 in a post titled Seeing what is there that shouldn’t be.

 

 

A trip to Lake County, Oregon’s Outback

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On July 6th and 7th I finally visited Lake County, an area in south-central Oregon just north of the California border. Travel Southern Oregon has a web page titled Oregon’s Outback, where you can download a detailed map of Lake County titled Oregon’s Outback – Outdoor Recreation Map. On the 6th I drove west on US 20 past Burns, and then south on US 395.

 

One prominent feature is the alkaline Lake Abert and Abert Rim (shown above), that is about 25 miles north of Lakeview. A sign from the Oregon Travel Information Council about the Abert Rim (also shown above) describes the geology as follows:

 

“Behind you to the east is a steep cliff called Abert Rim, made of many layers of hardened lava flows. This 30-mile-long, 2,500-foot-high, steep cliff is an example of a fault scarp, produced over millennia by great blocks of rock tilting and moving along faults in this region where the earth’s crust is thinning and stretching.

 

The fault that produced Abert Rim is one of many in the Basin and Range Province – a geologic region where rising blocks of crust (horsts) form mountain ranges, and sinking blocks of crust (grabens) create broad basins. The region spans about 300,000 square miles, including almost all of Nevada and parts of Oregon, Idaho, Utah, California, Arizona, and New Mexico.

 

Geologists believe the crustal movements contributing to Abert Rim’s formation were probably accompanied by earthquakes of up to magnitude 6 to 6.5 – they also believe the fault is still active.

 

Lake Abert, in the basin below Abert Rim, covers 63 square miles – but it is only a remnant of Ice Age Lake Chewaucan, which once covered over 470 square miles. Lake Chewaucan’s shorelines can still be seen lining Abert Rim’s cliffs, far above the present shoreline.

 

Archaeological evidence shows that Native Americans have been here for about 11,000 years, with the greatest use between 2,000 and 500 years ago. Most lived in earth covered lodge (pithouse) villages along Lake Abert’s shoreline. Artifacts suggest these early people were affiliated with ancestors of the modern Klamath and Modoc Indians, who now live to the west.”

 

There is an article by Jess Thomson at Newsweek on January 30, 2023 titled Shocking images show plummeting water levels at Oregon lake.

 

I stayed overnight in Lakeview, the county with a population ~2400 and an altitude almost twice that (4,757 ft.). It has a local Burger Queen instead of a Burger King.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the 7th I drove east on Oregon 140 to Adel. On my way back I passed the little gem of a waterfall shown above. The gravel pull off I stopped at only had room for my car. That little waterfall is not on the Oregon’s Outback – Outdoor Recreation Map. It’s about 25 miles east from US 395.

 

Quotations from Vital Speeches of the Day: # 002 – Hakeem Jeffries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a speech of January 7, 2023 delivered on the floor of the U. S. House of Representatives, and titled A Year of Ambiguity: What Direction Will We Choose? the Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, alphabetically stated the following:

 

“House Democrats will always put:

 

American values over autocracy

Benevolence over bigotry

The Constitution over the cult

Democracy over demagogues

Economic opportunity over extremism

Freedom over fascism

Governing over gaslighting

Hopefulness over hatred

Inclusion over isolation

Justice over judicial overreach

Knowledge over kangaroo courts

Liberty over limitation

Maturity over Mar-a-Lago

Normalcy over negativity

Opportunity over obstruction

People over politics

Quality of life issues over Q-Anon

Reason over racism

Substance over slander

Triumph over tyranny

Understanding over uglieness

Voting Rights over voter suppression

Working families over the well-connected

Xenial over xenophobia

Yes we can over you can’t do it

And zealous representation over zero-sum confrontation.”

 

His speech appeared on pages 47 and 48 in the March 2023 issue of Vital Speeches of the Day magazine.

 

The image was adapted from page 511 of The Grammar of Ornament.