[Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]
11/11/23
Aloha Everybody ---
I started this week on a real high note -- solving the Wordle word puzzle in one try! Karen and I usually give this a go as a way of exercising a few grey cells and of neutralizing some of the toxicity of the
morning's news. If you play this game you know that the starting guess is a key ingredient in successfully guessing the solution in less than six tries. Up until Monday I've had pretty good results by alternating between two words, one of them generated by an AI bot that has apparently studied the game. For some reason, on Monday I decided to try a different start word, and damn if it didn't turn out to be the day's solution! This was obviously accomplished with a huge dose of pure luck, so I can't take much credit. Still, human egos being what they are, I'll boast a teensy bit anyway.
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| Yippee! |
This week is our annual Kona Coffee Festival, a celebration of the island's signature industry (aside from tourism, of course). The festival isn't really geared to tourists but rather to the community itself -- particularly those of Japanese heritage because of their success in running small coffee farms in the late 1800's and early 1900's when a world-wide crash of coffee prices led the owners of large coffee estates in Kona to divide their holdings as a way to survive. All week long there have been events and activities,
including a parade, coffee picking contests, crowning Miss Kona Coffee, a Kona Coffee Cupping contest with international judges, a cooking recipe contest, and a lei-making competition. The vibe here is very positive and supportive, even with all the "contests." I have to confess that I no longer drink Kona because it has become VERY expensive -- $40-60 per pound. The growers have succeeded in making the name Kona a legal appellation, and blends have to have at least 10% beans grown in the official region and be labeled as blends. The blends are considerably cheaper, of course, but hardly the real thing.
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| The Winner |
including a parade, coffee picking contests, crowning Miss Kona Coffee, a Kona Coffee Cupping contest with international judges, a cooking recipe contest, and a lei-making competition. The vibe here is very positive and supportive, even with all the "contests." I have to confess that I no longer drink Kona because it has become VERY expensive -- $40-60 per pound. The growers have succeeded in making the name Kona a legal appellation, and blends have to have at least 10% beans grown in the official region and be labeled as blends. The blends are considerably cheaper, of course, but hardly the real thing.
As I mentioned last time, we had appointments a week ago today to have our flu/covid shots. We have our vaccinations usually at the pharmacy where we also buy some of our groceries (Safeway) because we get 10% coupons for shopping. The pharmacies here are short-staffed, so you really have to schedule this in advance. All went well. Until it didn't. Nothing catastrophic, and certainly better than the alternative of getting the viruses, but both of us had "vigorous" reactions. For about 6 hours I had achy joints and itchy crawly skin but that was gone by Sunday morning. Karen had a very sore arm for about 3 days, but I didn't. Both of us, though, have been Zombies all week -- sleepy and lethargic much of each day. This is all probably a good sign that our immune systems kicked into high gear and will be much better at recognizing and fighting the real thing. We're feeling better, and in fact we managed to spend some time at the Makalei driving range on Thursday and did fairly well. Maybe a round next week....
Ok, off to farmer's market, a beach breakfast picnic, and to the lei-making contest. Take care, try to ignore the crazies if you can.....
8 comments:
That Wordle score is remarkable, despite no skill involved. What is the probability you would hit the correct answer on the first try? Their dictionary is huge. I still play Wordle every day, though I have largely lost interest in it. Have you tried NYT Connections? I love that one—it is challenging. By the way, I got the Wordle answer today on 3 tries.
I've read that there are about 2300 words in the solution list, and they aren't reused. So as long as you try a word that hasn't been used the odds aren't all that bad, and they're getting better all the time.
At some point I bet NYT will re-set the list, maybe soon.
I just started playing connections. It can be tough! Some days I get the connections quickly but there are many when I'm stumped. I think I'm getting better, though. Oh, and I always try to figure out the last category before I look at what it is, even though it's really a "freebie."
I had a sore arm until next day this time. My very first and second vaccines were Pfizer and I had same reaction. Moderna didn't give me any reactions. This most updated one is by Pfizer so I concluded that Pfizer vaccine is stronger!
Interesting to see how varied the reactions are. All of our previous Covid shots have been Pfizer and this one was Moderna. In the past sometimes I've had no reactions and other times the reaction was very strong.
One of the things I do with NYT Connections is first scan the words and think of all of the meanings they might have. Often, the most common meaning of a word is not going to help you solve the game. Sometimes the solution involves knowing stuff that mostly young people know (forget it!) but often it involves knowing stuff that boomers tend to know. I love the game.
That’s a great strategy and I’ll keep it in mind next time.
Dick, do you mostly stick with the same word in Wordle on the first round? I always use “slate” but I think I will start using different words. There is a list online of all the words which have been used since the beginning. I haven’t used it, but as time goes on it would increase the chances of getting the answer on round one. I don’t know if I like the game enough to use the list.
Coleen -- I usually rotate between soare and salet. Neither of these are in the Wordle list, so they would never be the solution. The day I got it in one guess I decided to try a different word because so many solutions have been words beginning with S that I thought I might have a better chance with something else. There are lots of strategies out there, and some heavy duty brain power has been used to figure out the optimal starting word. Good luck!!
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