"I have a [great] feeling about this!"

If you've been living under a social media rock today, there is some news you need to hear: Disney has agreed to buy Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion and they plan on releasing Star Wars: Episode VII in 2015. If you're a huge Star Wars fan like me, this is either the best or worst news ever -- either way, it's huge. Personally, I am pumped. So pumped. Here are five reasons why:

1. Goodbye, George Lucas. Now, I don't hate the guy. But I will be the first to admit that while I enjoy Episodes I-III (especially III), George didn't do the best job with them. He is an excellent visual director, but he's terrible at harnessing the actors' talent and he can't write dialog to save his life. Think of the quality writers and directors the Star Wars brand name can attract. Sure, given the notoriety the prequels carry, it would be a risky move to write or direct a new Star Wars movie, but there are undoubtedly many great writers and directors willing to take a shot at it.

Lucas signs his life way. I hope this agreement contains a clause that he can't go back and tinker with the old films ever again. Full press release and image from here.

2. Pixar and Marvel. Marvel makes great comic book movies and, for the most part, Pixar makes the best animated movies. I'm hoping this logic follows with future Star Wars movies from the new Disney-owned Lucasfilm.

3. Despite the acquisition, Lucasfilm is not Disney. The acquisition allows ol' George to step down, letting others add to the Star Wars universe he has created. Lucas has simply entrusted Disney to protect -- and hopefully honor -- Lucasfilm's Star Wars brand (while padding his pockets with $4.05 billion).

4. Learn from the past. With the sale of Lucasfilm, Lucas has appointed longtime cohort Kathleen Kennedy as president. Under new leadership, I hope Lucasfilm will be wary to repeat the mistakes they made with Episodes I, II, and III.

5. Midnight. Maybe best of all, it gives me an opportunity to dust off my old Jedi robes*, head down to the theater and camp out all day while I wait for the midnight showing. In short, I have another opportunity to make memories with my family and friends. For me, that's what Star Wars is all about.

Since the release of Episode III, I've always wondered what Star Wars in someone else's hands would look like. With this acquisition I will finally see that. I couldn't be more excited.

*I don't actually own a set of Jedi robes. That needs to change.

Update: My brother Thomas is speculating on directors on his blog. Check out the post here and be sure to follow his blog.

no little plans

"Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized."
     -- Daniel Burnham

Through a series of events too lengthy to detail here, one night in late July of last year I found myself seated with my family for dinner at The Original Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana in New Haven, Connecticut. (How come no one ever pronounces that second "C" in Connecticut?) It was possibly the best pizza I've ever had.

Now, I've always been handy in the kitchen. I remember baking cookies, cakes, and brownies with my mother and grandmother at a young age. As a teenager, every week I was responsible for our Sunday dinner dessert. I started small with cake mixes and simple chocolate chip cookie recipes. Over the past few years I've expanded my repertoire to include more complex desserts like baklava. My current go-to chocolate chip cookies recipe is much more subtle than the cookies I used to make. And I've even tried my hand at cake decorating.

About a year ago I decided I wanted to start making pizza. I can't detail exactly how this desire developed, I just know that this serendipitous visit to Pepe's in New Haven was the initial catalyst. I set the ambiguous goal of being able to make really good pizza.

For the past year I've worked on that goal quite passively. And today I can make a pretty good pizza. Earlier this week I remembered that quote above by Daniel Burnham. It's worth repeating: "Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized" (emphasis added). So after a year -- a reasonable amount of time for someone with my home kitchen experience to come up with a really good pizza -- why haven't I been able to realize this goal? Because "really good pizza" is what Daniel Burnham would call a "little plan."

So this week I decided to upgrade my pizza goal to something that stirs my blood and hopefully stirs the blood of those around me. I don't want to make really good pizza. I want to make the best pizza in the world.

This isn't one of those bullcrap, shoot-for-the-moon-land-among-the-stars goals. When I say in the world, I mean in the world.

Of course, I have no idea how I'm going to do this. I'll begin by sampling the finer local pizza joints. And travel to the pizza capitals of the world will be necessary. More than once I've looked into building a backyard pizza oven (I should probably buy a home first, eh?). As Helen Keller put it, "Life is either a daring adventure or it's nothing." I look forward to the adventure that will come in creating a perfect pizza.

To Frank Pepe I say thank you for best pizza I've ever had. One day mine will be even better.

== == == == ==

It seems counter-productive to put a disclaimer on your dreams, but I do have to say this: While I will no doubt have to sacrifice in the pursuit of this lofty goal, one area where I will not compromise is in the relationships I have (or will have) with my family, loved ones, and friends. I love pizza but I love people more. The cool thing about pizza is that it's easy to share with people.

flat like the old days

For my birthday a couple months ago, this really great girl I'm dating gave me a set of maps of Canada that, based on the maps' provincial and territorial borders, date from somewhere around 1881 to 1889. She knows I'm a sucker for maps and old crap, and having served as a missionary in Quebec and Ontario, the great land of Canada is quite dear to my heart; so these maps were a perfect gift. (And she also got me a pizza peel and a pizza cutter, the kind that's a huge blade that rocks back and forth, which could also double as a weapon in the event of a home invasion.)

Here are the maps:

Ontario here was one of the first Canadian provinces when the Dominion of Canada was formed on July 1, 1867, although it was much smaller then than pictured on this map (it's even larger today).

Quebec, which was incepted* the same time as Ontario, is my favorite province, if only out of pure bias: I spent the majority of my mission there. (Don't worry Ontario, you're a very close second.)

And finally we have Montreal. I've heard Montreal called the San Francisco of Canada but to compare it to that great city cheapens it a bit, as Montreal holds its own among the great cities of North America and the world.

Not pictured: A map of the entire Dominion of Canada circa 1881-1889. This one is hanging on the wall in my bedroom and I was too lazy to remove it from it's frame to photograph it.

*Not a real word.

== == == == ==

Like I mentioned earlier, I love maps. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that I spend an inordinate amount of time on Google Maps, on both the mobile app and full web versions. Anyway, these old Canadian maps got me thinking. How hard would it be to add a function to Google Maps that lets you take a map back in time to see the layout of a certain country or city, say, 100 years ago? Google Maps already has layers for traffic, weather, bicycling routes and more so adding another wouldn't be that hard. Time consuming? Sure, to pore over old maps and come to a consensus on where borders and roads actually were is no small task (I nominate myself for this job). But Google is known for taking on new projects a piece at a time, and this wouldn't be any different.

Am I the only one who'd be interested to see what my home town looked like 10 years ago? Fifty years ago? One hundred years ago? True, this function may not have an every day use like Google Maps' traffic or navigation features. But if you're like me and 75% of your Google Maps usage comes from perusing maps for the sheer joy of it, this function would be awesome. Or rather than adding a new function to Maps, maybe Google needs to create an entirely new product: Google History or Google Old World or whatever they feel like calling it.

Google, you already read my email so there's a good chance you're reading this too. Please make this happen.

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Can Apple Maps do this? Google Maps news: "Google's Street View Goes Into The Wild".

who knows why or should

In my quest to read everything ever written by John Steinbeck, last year I acquired a used copy of The Log from the Sea of Cortez. In 1941, Steinbeck and his best friend, marine biologist Ed Ricketts, mounted a nautical expedition that led them to Mexico's Gulf of California. A detail of their exploits, co-written by Ricketts, was published later that year as Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research.

On the evening of May 8, 1948, days before his 51st birthday, Ricketts' car was struck by a train just after leaving his lab. Ricketts held on for three days before passing away on May 11. In 1951, Sea of Cortez was republished as The Log from the Sea of Cortez. Not only were Ricketts' species catalogs left out of this new edition, he received no credit as co-author.

While his name is absent from the cover, The Log from the Sea of Cortez contains a powerful tribute to Ed Ricketts penned by Steinbeck. Last May I haphazardly decided to read this appendix, simply titled "About Ed Ricketts." At the end of the tribute I found one of the most powerful Steinbeck passages I have ever read:

I have tried to isolate and inspect the great talent that was in Ed Ricketts, that made him so loved and needed and makes him so missed now that he is dead. Certainly he was an interesting and charming man, but there was some other quality which far exceeded these. I have thought that it might be his ability to receive, to receive anything from anyone, to receive gracefully and thankfully and make the gift seem very fine. Because of this everyone felt good in giving to Ed -- a present, a thought, anything.

[...]

It is so easy to give, so exquisitely rewarding. Receiving, on the other hand, requires a fine balance of self-knowledge and kindness. It requires humility and tact and great understanding of relationships. In receiving you cannot appear, even to yourself, better or stronger or wiser than the giver, although you must be wiser to do it well.

It requires a self-esteem to receive -- not self-love but just a pleasant acquaintance and liking for oneself.

Once Ed said to me, "For a very long time I didn't like myself." It was not said in self-pity but simply as an unfortunate fact. "It was a very difficult time," he said, "and very painful. I did not like myself for a number of reasons, some of them valid and some of them pure fancy. I would hate to have to go back to that. Then gradually," he said, "I discovered with surprise and pleasure that a number of people did like me. And I thought, if they can like me, why cannot I like myself? Just thinking did not do it, but slowly I learned to like myself and then it was alright."

This was not said in self-love in its bad connotation but in self-knowledge. He meant literally that he had learned to accept and like the person "Ed" as he liked other people. It gave him a great advantage. Most people do not like themselves at all. They distrust themselves, put on masks and pomposities. They quarrel and boast and pretend and are jealous because they do not like themselves. But mostly they do not even know themselves well enough to form a true liking. They cannot see themselves well enough to form a true liking, and since we automatically fear and dislike strangers, we fear and dislike our stranger-selves.

Once Ed was able to like himself he was released from the secret prison of self-contempt. Then he did not have to prove superiority any more by any of the ordinary methods, including giving. He could receive and understand and be truly glad, not competitively glad.

[Emphasis added]

[Photo Above: Ed with a Humboldt squid. Image from here.]

I don't know what the universal key to happiness is, but I imagine a big part of it has to with seeing yourself as you really are, not as seen through the lens of your experience, but as you really are -- and then accepting that. When you've accomplished that -- which is a difficult, fleeting thing -- it's so much easier to accept and love others.

== == == == ==

Want to learn more about Ed Ricketts? I do too. Turns out we're in luck. Independent filmmaker PJ Palmer recently ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to complete a documentary on Ed Ricketts and his influence on Steinbeck and other important minds of that era. The film is called For Ed Ricketts. Be sure to follow this project on Twitter and Facebook and check out the promo video on Kickstarter.

authenticity

The other day I made a peach pie. Having never before attempted a pie crust from scratch (well, it wasn't truly from scratch if we are to believe Carl Sagan), I was worried that it would fail. While there were a few things I will try differently next time -- using a bit less water (I hear too much makes the crust hard) and brushing the crust with an egg wash (to give it a deeper color) -- not only was the crust easy to make, it turned out better than I expected.

Behold the finished product. Please excuse my phone's inferior camera. Not even an Instagram filter can hide that blur. Is there an iPhone 5 in my future? We'll find out in May (so far away) when I'm eligible for an upgrade.

If you read the preface to the recipe I used, you'll notice the author makes a case for reducing the sweetener (here, a mix of brown and white sugars) and spices (cinnamon and nutmeg) in order to give the peaches a bit more credit. While I understand and respect where she's coming from, I like my pies more on the side of sweet and flavorful so next time I'll be increasing the sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg a bit. (That said, this pie is still wonderful as it is.)

After baking this pie and enjoying a slice, I scrolled down the page to read some of the comments about the recipe. One in particular that stood out and got me thinking:

I agree with your premise. The classics are classic for a reason – and peach pie is absolutely among those. But then you get foolish and add cinnamon and nutmeg to it. You’re confusing your juicy, luscious, summery peaches for apples. It’s a common mistake. But when you consider the climate and environment peaches grow in, it’s easy to recognize. The truly classic peach pie needs no additional spices at all. Just peaches, a smidge of sugar, some sort of starch to thicken it, a pinch of salt, butter, and pie crust. If, for some unknown reason, you feel it needs more bite than that, a tiny grating of fresh ginger is more appropriate than the cinnamon and nutmeg additions you profess as correct. (Which is not to say they’re bad, just that historically speaking, they’re inauthentic.)

Apparently adding anything but "a tiny grating of fresh ginger" to a peach pie is "foolish" and a "mistake." If it is a mistake, it is a common one as the commenter says. A quick scouring online revealed that almost all peach pie recipes called for cinnamon and/or nutmeg, and not a single one mentioned a "tiny grating of fresh ginger." Curious.

During the two years I spent traipsing around eastern Canada I came across two -- yes, only two -- Mexican restaurants. Both were in Montreal. (OK, I can think of another in Ottawa but I never had a chance to eat there.) The first was called something like Au Coin du Méxique or similar (who cares about the name -- clearly I'm just showing off my French here). As I sat down to eat with a large group of fellow gringos, our server warned that what we were about to eat was authentic Mexican food, not the Tex-Mex we were likely used to. I made some statement about being from Arizona and that I know real Mexican food. To be honest, even as an Arizonan I hadn't had Mexican food that was as authentic as served at this small restaurant in Montreal.

The next place was also in Montreal, in a far less urban arrondissement (again, just showing off my French) called Lachine. I don't remember the name of this restaurant. I just know that it was delicious and that I ate there often. One of my favorite dishes was their chile relleno. The chile relleno that I'm used to, the kind that I understand to be authentic, is a poblano chile stuffed with cheese or sometimes meat, dipped in batter and then fried. It's one of my favorite Mexican dishes. But this restaurant did their chile relleno differently. Rather than using a poblano chile, they halved a bell pepper, filled it with diced carne asada, and topped it with melted cheese. Authentic? Unless this is how they do chile rellenos in a certain region of Mexico, I don't think so. Delicious? Yes, very.

Don't get me wrong, I love eating authentic food. I love experiencing food as the people from a certain place or time have experience it. But more than that, I love eating good food. In my experience authentic doesn't guarantee good.

Of course, I'm willing to substitute "a tiny grating of fresh ginger" in my next peach pie but I have my doubts that it will top the hominess of cinnamon and nutmeg.

Update [9.17.2012]: While checking this post for errors I began to wonder in what culture or time period a ginger-spiced pie would be authentic. If ginger has its roots (pun intended) in South Asia and sweet pies are primarily a European/American dish -- does anyone else feel peach pie is almost as American as apple pie? -- when and where did ginger and peach pie combine forces? Somewhere out on the American frontier? I doubt it. Perhaps the commenter above meant to say "complementary" instead of "authentic."