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shayanyaan · 4 years

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Two Eleven Super

“London is very human-scale,” I am quick to pitch for one of my favorite cities in the world.

Her eyes widen and her face lights up. She nods her head vigorously and points her finger at me, in complete agreement. This is the moment in a conversation when one person articulates perfectly what the other person was thinking but couldn’t quite put into words. B and I have been explaining to each other how both of us are more comfortable living in cities where we can walk or take public transport.

“Oh gosh London, yes! Seeing a London trip on my schedule always fills me with immense warmth. Imagine being able to walk around a city slowly absorbing all that it has to offer, the sights, the sounds, the traditions.”

They say never meet your celebrity heroes because you’ll inevitably find something disappointing. I think the same applies to some of the great cities of the world. But both of us conclude hands down that London does not fall in this category.

“Actually London is not even a celebrity. London is a reliable old friend. A friend that has not lost their sense of culture and tradition. The monuments, the churches ...”

“.....and the bridges across the Thames - each one steeped in history.” We are finishing each other's sentences now. “The railway stations. The tube - a subterranean metropolis beneath a metropolis. The Mind the Gap jokes.”

“And what about the black cabs and then … and then the red double decker buses. Oh the red buses - what an icon! They say tourists take the tube but real Londoners take the bus.”

“Aha! You’re probably right. Flocks of pigeons on Trafalgar square, the shops on Oxford Street.”

“And you can’t forget the ever present murky skies, steady rain, rippled puddles, umbrella bearing pedestrians.”

“Of course you just had to mention the Great British weather!” A disapproving look is thrown. The entire body of humor surrounding the British weather is a road we agree not to go down.

---

I continue to quiz B on some of the other cities that she thought would fit the human-scale bill. New York inevitably comes up as a place she has not only travelled to but lived in. I am glad she brought up New York. Now New York is not an old friend. New York is a person you know you shouldn’t fall for, but you do anyway. There is something about the pace and the madness that sets New York apart from the rest of the US. Something about the people, coming from all corners of the world. To make a living, or even half a living. American dream and all that.

In New York you are acutely aware of the class divide that exists in society. New York is dirty. The subway is full of creaking old trains. New York has JFK and LaGuardia both of which are dismal at best and soul destroying at worst. Oh and Penn Station. Never has there been a more classic case of the mighty having fallen. A complete and utter hell hole out of some post apocalyptic world.

But somehow it all works. Barely. And that is where New York absolutely has you. As you walk around the city, you peel back the layers and beneath all the flaws and scars, you will find a genuinely captivating person. A person that knows how to push your buttons and make you forget the pandemonium, if only for a split second. Through the dollar pizzas on the street corners. Through the sheer magic of Central Park and the museums. Through the Manhattan skyline; hands down the best skyline in the world. Standing next to the Hudson, under the Brooklyn Bridge, with Lady Liberty keeping a quiet watch from a distance, you will be powerless as New York sucks you in. One glittering high rise at a time. Dreamy eyed, you cannot help but stare in wonderment. Hundreds of floors, thousands of windows. What goes on inside? And the lights! Yes so many lights. What could be a better tribute to Tesla, Faraday and the like?

“In general, the east coast of the United States is on a much more human-scale. Relatively small states with trains taking you across borders within a couple of hours at the most.”

“Going west of maybe Illinois, they started drawing great big rectangles for states.”

“And then there’s Texas. Vast open skies in an almost revolting shade of blue. Just as vast are the expanses of highway, further than the eye could see, or care to see. Wide, long and monotonous. Not a single human-scale building in sight”

“And who the hell builds highways passing through the center of a city!? Makes going to get some milk feel like a great expedition to the other side of the world.”

More chuckles.

Then a brief silence, during which I am suddenly reminded of where I am - in a lounge on the upper deck of an A380. A massive ship hurtling through the ether, pushing the speed of sound. A big TV screen near where I am standing silently glares back at me indicating that -50 degrees is but a mere 10 meters from where I am standing. Yet here we are, B and I, chatting like two friends catching up over coffee.

But of course, we are not friends. Not even acquaintances. She is on the Emirates cabin crew. And I am just a passenger.

---

Back at my seat, halfway through an episode of Chernobyl, I pause to stare out of the window. Beyond the wing, which seems to stretch out to eternity, a smudge of orange is forcing its way through the royal blue of the sky. I can hear the muffled yet reassuring boom from the four Rolls Royce engines. It is then that I realize that there is nothing about the A380 that is human-scale. There is nothing about the skies which she inhabits that is human-scale. I've travelled on the beloved Super dozens of times. Yet I continue to be amazed at the size and scale with which she operates. Devouring continents and swallowing oceans. Bringing the other side of the world just a little closer to home.

A friend of mine often describes journeys on the A380 as the closest we can get to the long sea voyages on gigantic ocean liners in the 1930s. And he is right. Two decks with so much space to stretch out. Bars, lounges, showers - no expense spared in ensuring luxury. Imagine peering out of the window from your first class cabin on the Queen Mary and seeing nothing but vast open sea. Right now I am doing exactly the same. Only from 36000 feet above the Earth, and all I can see is the vast open sky. Far below, Moscow and St Petersburg slip behind us. Scandinavia and the Atlantic Ocean lie ahead. As we burn more fuel, over North America, we will eventually settle in the exclusive airspace of flight level 410.

The Boeing 747 is a work of art. Sheer poetry. The Airbus A380 however, is a lesson in outsmarting the laws of Physics. It is an absolute whale of a plane that looks like it should never leave the surface of the Earth in the first place. But somehow it does, through the most languid and sluggish of take offs. Once up at cruising altitude though, it is steady ship all the way to your destination. The ability to punch through the sky without even the faintest of trembles is simply unmatched. I continue to stare wistfully out of the window, thinking about how much I’ll miss the A380 when she’s gone. She’s right up there with the Concorde in that nothing like this will ever be built in my lifetime.

---

Resting my head on one of the fluffiest pillows ever to have taken flight, I gaze at the roof of the cabin - tiny twinkling stars gently coaxing me to drift off into a deep sleep. And frankly, it is not hard to. The bed is completely flat and the mattress is more comfortable than the one I have at home. The blanket is ever so soft. The fake gold and wood around the windows is not something I’d furnish my home with, yet up here in the sky, it somehow adds to the coziness. From my own little cocoon, I can see neither the aisle nor other TV screens. Not a single window shade in the cabin is raised. I don’t remember the last time I fell asleep on a plane without an eye mask. All I can hear are the engines whirling away, and the hushed sound of the air beating against the fuselage - no more than a relaxing white noise.

In the moments between lying down and falling asleep, I am thinking about the countless journeys I’ve made with Emirates over the last two decades. Leaving home as often as I’ve had to, I’ve come to really treasure the sense of familiarity that an Emirates flight brings to me. I’ve never stopped to think about it before but there is a certain warmth and tenderness you feel when you have an old faithful travel companion to share your journeys with. And Emirates has been that companion for me, helping me wipe away the homesickness. Slowly at first, then all at once. The boarding music that says “Hello Tomorrow”. The inflight announcements that say “Tayaran Al Emarat”. The reassuring voice of Sir Tim Clark answering questions on the default podcast channel. The wavy curves on the cabin wallpaper. The cabin crew with their brown blazers and their red hats. When choosing an airline to fly, it is hard to look past this comfort of familiarity resulting from a bond first formed unwittingly, many years ago. And strengthened over numerous journeys from one side of the planet to the other, including this one. Before I can process any more thoughts, I slip into a happy and peaceful sleep. We are probably somewhere over the North Atlantic. But in this moment, it hardly matters.

---

Six hours have passed. B is on hand to wake me for dinner. It seems the crew has saved the best meal till the very end. Three courses this evening, starting with a chick-pea salad that doesn’t make you hate your life with its dreariness. I politely refuse the alcohol but ask for a piece of garlic bread on the side. Which is brought to me, warm, from a basket lined with cloth. The main course is served with the Jeera rice cooked in just the right amount of butter. The ratio of jeera to rice - perfect. The Rajma has the power to rival any dhaba in North India and along with it is a second curry made with melt-in-your-mouth soft paneer. Actual phulkas to go on the side, instead of pita.

And if you're going to go full North Indian with your meal, you need some achaar. Which obviously is on my tray as well. Emirates just knows how to serve Indian food. If I had any doubts about this, they are well and truly shattered when B brings the dessert. Four of the finest pieces of Rasgulla. Sometimes you have a meal so sublime that you are moved to shedding a tear or two. This AVML has been one such.

I call B over one last time to thank her for everything. She passes me a brownie, one very similar to those I’d been wolfing down earlier while talking to her in the lounge. This of course, brings the widest of smiles to my face. Not because I like brownies. But most certainly because of the fact that she had noticed. And remembered. The crew has been absolutely stellar on this flight.

---

Business class. A crew that knows how to pronounce your ridiculously long last name. A crew that has time to engage in conversations with you. Meals served on crisp white table cloths. Meals that come in courses. Flat beds to stretch your legs. Flat beds to rest your weary soul. On a grueling ultra long haul flight across 10 time zones, almost anything that seeks to make you feel more earthly is highly appreciated.

This has been Emirates Two Eleven Super - Dubai to Houston in just under seventeen hours, albeit the best seventeen hours of my life.

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the-entangler · 4 years

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The Advocate

As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling; and as this business of whaling has somehow come to be regarded among landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuit; therefore, I am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby done to us hunters of whales.

In the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to establish the fact, that among people at large, the business of whaling is not accounted on a level with what are called the liberal professions. If a stranger were introduced into any miscellaneous metropolitan society, it would but slightly advance the general opinion of his merits, were he presented to the company as a harpooneer, say; and if in emulation of the naval officers he should append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm Whale Fishery) to his visting card, such a procedure would be deemed preeminently presuming and ridiculous.

Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honoring us whalemen, is this: they think that, at best, our vocation amounts to a butchering sort of business; and that when actively engaged therein, we are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers we are, that is true. But butchers, also, and butchers of the bloodiest badge have been all Martial Commanders whom the world invariably delights to honor. And as for the matter of the alleged uncleanliness of our business, ye shall soon be initiated into certain facts hitherto pretty generally unknown, and which, upon the whole, will triumphantly plant the sperm whale-ship at least among the cleanliest things of this tidy earth. But even granting the charge in question to be true; what disordered slippery decks of a whale-ship are comparable to the unspeakable carrion of those battle-fields from which so many soldiers return to drink in all ladies’ plaudits? And if the idea of peril so much enhances the popular conceit of the soldier’s profession; let me assure ye that many a veteran who has freely marched up to a battery, would quickly recoil at the apparition of the sperm whale’s vast tail, fanning into eddies the air over his head. For what are the comprehensible terrors of man compared with the interlinked terrors and wonders of God!

But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does it unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage; yea, an all-abounding adoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles that burn round the globe, burn, as before so many shrines, to our glory!

But look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sorts of scales; see what we whalemen are, and have been.

Why did the Dutch in De Witt’s time have admirals of their whaling fleets? Why did Louis XVI of France, at his own personal expense, fit out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to that town some score or two of families from our own island of Nantucket? Why did Britain between the years 1750 and 1788 pay to her whalemen in bounties upwards of L1,000,000? And lastly, how comes it that we whalemen of America now outnumber all the rest of the banded whalemen in the world; sail a navy of upwards of seven hundred vessels; manned by eighteen thousand men; yearly consuming 4,000,000 of dollars; the ships worth, at the time of sailing, $20,000,000! and every year importing into our harbors a well reaped harvest of $7,000,000. How comes all this, if there be not something puissant in whaling?

But this is not the half; look again.

I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, for his life, point out one single peaceful influence, which within the last sixty years has operated more potentially upon the whole broad world, taken in one aggregate, than the high and mighty business of whaling. One way and another, it has begotten events so remarkable in themselves, and so continuously momentous in their sequential issues, that whaling may well be regarded as that Egyptian mother, who bore offspring themselves pregnant from her womb. It would be a hopeless, endless task to catalogue all these things. Let a handful suffice. For many years past the whale-ship has been the pioneer in ferreting out the remotest and least known parts of the earth. She has explored seas and archipelagoes which had no chart, where no Cooke or Vancouver had ever sailed. If American and European men-of-war now peacefully ride in once savage harbors, let them fire salutes to the honor and glory of the whale-ship, which originally showed them the way, and first interpreted between them and the savages. They may celebrate as they will the heroes of Exploring Expeditions, your Cookes, your Krusensterns; but I say that scores of anonymous Captains have sailed out of Nantucket, that were as great, and greater, than your Cooke and your Krusenstern. For in their succorless empty-handedness, they, in the heathenish sharked waters, and by the beaches of unrecorded, javelin islands, battled with virgin wonders and terrors that Cooke with all his marines and muskets would not have willingly dared. All that is made such a flourish of in the old South Sea Voyages, those things were but the life-time commonplaces of our heroic Nantucketers. Often, adventures which Vancouver dedicates three chapters to, these men accounted unworthy of being set down in the ship’s common log. Ah, the world! Oh, the world!

Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but colonial, scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on between Europe and the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific coast. It was the whalemen who first broke through the jealous policy of the Spanish crown, touching those colonies; and, if space permitted, it might be distinctly shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated the liberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain, and the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts.

That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia, was given to the enlightened world by whaleman. After its first blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships, long shunned those shores as pestiferously barbarous; but the whale-ship touched there. The whale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony. Moreover, in the infancy of the first Australian settlement, the emigrants were several times saved from starvation by the benevolent biscuit of the whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor in their waters. The uncounted isles of all Polynesia confess the same truth, and do commercial homage to the whale-ship, that cleared the way for the missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carried the primitive missionaries to their first destinations. If that double-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due; for already she is on the threshold.

But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has no aesthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I ready to shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a split helmet every time.

The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler, you will say.

The whale no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler? Who wrote the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job? And who composed the first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who, but no less a prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down the words from Other, the Norwegian whale-hunter of those times! And who pronounced our glowing eulogy in Parliament? Who, but Edmund Burke!

True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils; they have no good blood in their veins.

No good blood in their veins? They have something better than royal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel; afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and harpooneers- all kith and kin to noble Benjamin- this day darting the barbed iron from one side of the world to the other.

Good again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is not respectable.

Whaling not respectable? Whaling is imperial! By old English statutory law, the whale is declared “a royal fish.”

Oh, that’s only nominal! The whale himself has never figured in any grand imposing way.

The whale never figured in any grand imposing way? In one of the mighty triumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering the world’s capital, the bones of a whale, brought all the way from the Syrian coast, were the most conspicuous object in the cymballed procession.

See subsequent chapters for something more on this head. Grant it, since you cite it; but say what you will, there is no real dignity in whaling.

No dignity in whaling? The dignity of our calling the very heavens attest. Cetus is a constellation in the south! No more! Drive down your hat in presence of the Czar, and take it off to Queequeg! No more! I know a man that, in his lifetime has taken three hundred and fifty whales. I account that man more honorable than that great captain of antiquity who boasted of taking as many walled towns.

And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone; if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.

Moby Dick, Chapter 24 - The Advocate, Herman Melville

#herman melville #moby dick #the whale #the advocate

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nate-the-ok · 5 years

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Short Attention Span Writing

I compulsively write short stories, but hardly finish them. I`ll be posting them here to gauge interest. If people like them, I`ll keep going on them, if they don`t I won`t. I encourage you to bully me.

The Small Empty

In the year 2515, humanity is alive and well. Stretched across the stars with more than a dozen planets in the colonial anterior, humans have proven time and time again that they are the most remarkable and adaptable form of life in the galaxy. They searched, they scoured, and they settled world after world, in a low and slow crawl from blue-green ball to blue-green ball. This growth however, undid the old order of mankind

The distance between earth and Alpha Centurai, the closest habitable planet, is so extreme that the fastest forms of communication developed take a month for just a few gigabytes of information to travel from one end to the other. Still, it is a vast upgrade from the initial 200 year journey it took for the first colony ships to reach AC, as the residents there now call it. During that long slumber in the depths of space, earth was panicking. Nations were fracturing and flowing with extreme fragility, and many of the most rich and powerful were looking for ways off the planet. During that time, near light speed travel was developed, letting a few thousand people packed in sleek ships to zip right past the colony ship, and arrive at AC nearly a hundred years in advance. They set up shop and conquered the planet well in advance. Patriotic and diplomatic space travelers were unthawed and packed into the sprawling apartment complexes of the Alpha Corporation. Their ambitions for a new earth founded by the best minds of old nations were cut off at the knees. Physicists, mathematicians, five star generals, genius inventors, artistic savants, they all surrendered, and tried to make due, to serve the corporatists.

Communications with earth were largely ignored, reduced to discussions about the weather. On this new garden world, few people cared what happened to their parents` house. In all likelihood, for all people cared, the earth died in darkness.

When Alpha Centurai was coated in cities, towns, resorts, polluted zones, and the children of immigrants grew bored of the place, they too set their sights on the stars. The science got better and better at getting people from point A to B, and the Alpha Corporation experienced a scisim. Bravo, a branch of the corporation that specialized in research and development, loaded their best people into their best ships, and split in three different directions, for three different planets. Alpha didn`t bother to follow. Bravo became a myth for years, nobody knowing what had happened to their expeditions, until radial burst messages started to come back. Some found habitable worlds. Others wanted to turn around. One was ripped apart in a black hole; detailed the whole experience. They had proved one point though. There were still more planets to be found.

One seeping feeling had been crawling further and further into the minds of everyone who bothered to look to the stars. The further we travelled, the harder we worked, it never made a difference. We were always the only intelligent life. Alpha had some pig-like creatures that moved in packs sure, but they were not much better than livestock, and even then their species didn`t survive domestication. A few Bravo expeditions found animals, but usually nothing bigger than a dog. Once they found the flower that ate the dogs however, they understood why not much got big on that planet. Like a glass filling with dark beer, this sense that humanity was alone in the universe grew larger and larger in the optimistic mind.

Chapter 1- Commuting Mind

Justin`s hand softly slid across the varnish of the bar`s counter. The layering was so thick that you couldn`t even tell that there was wood under there, but it made sure that glasses didn`t tip over. Back and forth as he sat, his hand went over the little space his seat had entitled him to. Using his senses, not so much his eyes, he studied the marks in the counter. He wondered just what could scratch this kind of counter. Car keys? A broken glass? Enameled nails? He wasn`t sure. It was the kind of damage that happened slowly, over time, and without anyone`s notice. He looked to his left, and to his right, up and down the counter. He tried to get a feel for what was happening around him despite a dim warm light only being rationed out to every three seats at the counter. A person would sit, wait for the bartender, and toss little pieces of cloth his way. A glass would come back, and people would sit and talk. Justin still didn`t have any idea how this counter got so scratched.

His beer was still cold. It was dark and bitter, just the way he liked it. People would often ask him why. Justin learned over time as a kid to like the taste of black coffee as he sat in the kitchen talking to his dad. This beer, in a way, was a maturation of the sensation.

Justin didn`t know what the bar`s name was. He didn`t know anyone in the bar. He kept his cred collar tight to his left wrist. He came here to be alone, because he needed time to think. There is no better place to be alone than in a place where nobody knows who you are.

A call came over the collar. The vibration rattled the little plastic wristband against the counter. He turned his wrist to see the caller ID. Nina. If it had been a few weeks ago, he would have answered immediately. If it had been a few months ago, he would have welled up in tears and blocked the call. But he just stared. Stared and watched the call go to voicemail, a voicemail which he never bothered to clean out. He took a larger sip of his beer, and then, noticing that the glass would soon be empty, conducted a loose calculus. It was only 9:30. A beer costed six dollars. He could either have another beer now or save the six dollars for next week so he could have two, maybe three beers then. After some thought, he decided that he had had enough for tonight, and walked for the train. Nobody said goodbye. Nobody even looked at him. Its what he wanted, for sure, but it didn`t make him feel better.

Paying for the train at night in New Toronto was for tourists. Most conductors wouldn`t bother people past dark. A ten dollar train pass, when you only make eleven an hour whether anyone pays for the train or not, is not worth getting your nose broken by a drunk or a knife in the ribs from a junky. The conductors just stayed behind their locked door and tried not to hit too many people. Justin thought about that job a lot. Apparently once a week, someone, somewhere in the city throws themselves in front of the train. Most of the time, its during the fastest part of the ride. Then, people put nets over the track, and blocked off access to the route. The jumpers just laid down at the stations, and let the trains crush them. So, gates were put up that retracted when the train had come to a stop, and went up when it wasn`t in the station. The jumpers just sought out every little gap the city forgot about, and let the train hit them. By the end of it, the entire track was encased in a tube, or completely underground. The jumpers just slit their wrists in their showers now. All the while, the conductors watched. They would hit someone. They would feel bad or, due to their experience, shrug it off. Collect some cruel statistics, like how men usually jumped in the middle of the night and women jumped closer to noon. All the while, their little world got smaller and smaller and smaller, entombed in concrete, steel, and plastic. They couldn`t see the city from their cockpit anymore. Justin thought that if he were a conductor, he would wonder why there were windows up there in the first place.

The ride brought him to Eucharist, his hometown. Originally known as plot point 499, a Jesuit preacher from the first colony ship settled there, and had a little run at religion for a hundred years or so. All kinds of religious names there now. For the streets that is, not much else. There were still all kinds of people about. Women in small, constricting dresses, men in loose, cumbersome coats. Groups of friends getting on and off the train, a gang or two of kids looking for someone vulnerable to bully into getting money for drugs. It was always a homeless guy. Everyone else was too well fed to be a target.

Vicar`s Village was

#my writing

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caesarsme · 3 years

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lcseogreat · 3 years

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foodreceipe · 4 years

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Maybe Just Don't Drink Coffee♫

The best part of waking up is overwhelming anxiety in your cup ♫

by Matt Buchanan Jun 8, 2016,

Illustrations by Kit Mills

It's eight in the morning and you can barely keep your eyes open, much less engage in the activities that constitute productive participation in the glorious neoliberal machinery of our economy. Maybe it’s because of the sleep you gave up to spend hours gazing through a rectangular portal into a glowing, bottomless pit you were lured into by the entrails of your own teased apart tastes and beliefs, or because you slept on your friend's waveform of a sofa while your slightly cooler-than-you-can-afford apartment played host to European Airbnb users.

It's not like the particulars matter all that much, anyway, since you can't recall all of them through the haze of drowsiness. At this point you could, as more than half of all American adults do on a daily basis, drink a cup of coffee to stave off the fog of imminent unconsciousness. After all, you love coffee. And not just because of the caffeine. But have you really thought it all through?

Sure, just the other day, you bought some incredible single-origin nanolot coffee beans, and that half-pound bag cost as much as two, maybe three avocado toasts. In fact, you bought enough to keep some at home and at work. It's a legit varietal, like Gesha or Bourbon, from a remarkable local roaster who operates quasi-legally out of a sick loft and specializes in light—but not too light!—roasts, a respectful homage to modern Scandinavian coffee that lets you really get a sense of the bean's terroir, down to the GPS coordinates where it was discovered during an expedition into coffee country led by a white man of great taste, and the barista said that the acidity from this coffee is "really wonderful and fruit-forward, like Hawaiian Punch micro-dosed with LSD."

When you bought it, you checked the roast date printed in the too-small font carefully—because after two weeks you might as well dump it all down the garbage disposal—and how it was processed, because you don't want any of those weird or off flavors you get sometimes with natural coffees, which would ruin everything. Anyway, the point is, the coffee beans are totally great. Right? Sure.

You still have to make the coffee, though. You're so tired you'd love it if a machine made it for you, but cheap automatics aren't good enough for your great coffee beans, and the good automatics aren't cheap enough for your budget. The Chemex's filter is so thick all you can taste is paper; the Aeropress doesn't make enough coffee to get you through the morning, though it'll do whenever you’re on the road or at a friend’s; the French press is for Europeans and charlatans who love sludge; and you're reasonable enough to never try to make espresso at home. Obviously, you're just going to have to make a pourover, which is fine and totally worth it anyway, you guess, because there's nothing quite like the feeling of crafting, with your personal human hands, a perfect cup of coffee. One. Cup. At. A. Time.

Of course, you might mess it all up, and if you do — as you totally know — you'll have at minimum rendered meaningless the life of a plant, the time and labor of a farmer, the care of a processor, the energy of an importer, the discernment of a coffee buyer, and the skill of a roaster. And there are so, so many ways to screw it up. If you grind the coffee too finely in your no-less-than-two-hundred-dollar burr grinder, or make the water too hot, or let it take too long to brew, it will be bitter, because you will have committed the sin of overextraction according to the gospel of the Brewing Control Chart, having dissolved more than twenty-two percent of the grounds' solubles into your cup. Disgraceful.

On the other hand, if your grind setting is too coarse, the water too tepid, or the brew time too short, it will taste sour and vegetal because you underextracted it, and didn't get even eighteen percent of the coffee solubles into your brew. What an idiot, either way. Still, don't be so hard on yourself: As long as the grind is perfectly dialed in, the water correctly heated to the precise temperature, and your drip technique as graceful and measured as the lines of the gooseneck kettle you're pouring water from, everything will turn out just fine.

But if you're not up to doing it yourself — and who could blame you, you’re so exhausted — you could totally get coffee at that fancy shop near your office. You know, the one with the white brick walls, marble counters, and wood accents reclaimed from the wreck of a ship that had carried the very first coffee cargo from Indonesia to Europe after the Dutch colonization.

Sure, the barista who you see every time scowls at you, and he always asks if you want milk and sugar in your coffee, and it’s not because he's trying to be chill and accommodating to regular people who just want some coffee the way they've been drinking it their entire lives, but because one time a friend of yours gently asked if she could have some of the shop's flavored syrup in her iced coffee, thereby obligating the barista to explain that a cup of coffee is the singular and miraculous end product of a process that involved the labor of dozens of people stretched across an extraordinarily long supply chain that reaches halfway around the world, and it shouldn't really be covered up with sugar syrup, which is only on the menu for the rubes, anyway.

Then there was that time you tried to order the "seasonal guest espresso" prominently listed on the hand-written menu, just to prove that you’re on the barista’s level and that you deserve respect as a knowledgeable customer who tips well if not as a human being, but he just mumbled that it wasn’t dialed in and so he wouldn’t serve it, and you’ve been beaten down ever since. Facing down that disdain is worth it though, knowing that your coffee is going to be absolutely perfect, because that barista has never made a bad cup of coffee in his entire life.

But the lines are so long, and you're right, you don't have thirty minutes to waste looking at Instagram while you wait for that guy to dourly make your coffee. You need to be driving your Uber or cranking out #content or putting together pitch decks or writing code for a social network for shaved cat owners that will change the world. Maybe you could just buy one of those new ready-to-drink cold brews that come in little bottles or cans, like craft beer, or in little cartons, like craft ... milk? They're super convenient and they're made by the companies that made coffee good in the first place, so they're definitely filled with great coffee, even if they don't tell you exactly where it's from on the packaging and, like you read in that one article, all cold brew tastes the same because it doesn't really like taste like much of anything at all — cool water is a poor solvent, so it doesn't extract all those finicky flavors from the beans that let you really know where they came from, right?

On the bright side, that means you could get one of the cartons with the milk and sugar mixed right in, because there's no reason to feel guilty about covering up the coffee when you don't know where it comes from or exactly what it tastes like, and besides, it's finally starting to be cool to admit that milk and sugar taste really good in coffee. But you forgot: carbs. Also, you're not so sure why you're expected to pay just as much for one of those bottles or cartons filled with weeks-old coffee as you would for freshly brewed coffee in a fancy shop, or how you can afford to pay five dollars a cup for coffee twice a day, every day of the week.

Starbucks, then? Never. Even if it's getting nitro cold brew and the white mocha, which you've definitely never taken a sip of, though you often admit in a performatively sheepish way, is "pretty good."

Well, you haven't considered this in a long time, but maybe it would make sense to just get a cheap cup of coffee somewhere. At Dunkin Donuts, or Tim Horton's, or a deli. Or even the office pot. Not every cup of coffee needs to be life-changing, after all, and you just need to stay alert enough to seem engaged.

But then you start to think about what's in the paper cup, and your mind moves backward in flashback sequence with lots of fast cuts: the carafe of coffee growing rancid as it's kept warm by a hot plate hours for after being brewed, the grounds dumped indiscriminately into the brewer from a vacuum-sealed foil bag weeks or even months after being roasted at faraway production facility, and finally, on the undistinguished green coffee beans being picked by anonymous farmers paid well below subsistence-level wages for their labor and their crops, or at least way less than they would be paid for growing good coffee, because all that cheap coffee is definitely not fair trade, much less direct trade — there's not a single black-and-white photo of a coffee farmer on Dunkin's website, you’ve pointed out before — and in the end, you just can’t allow yourself to engage in such rampantly unethical consumption.

You know what? All you really need is the caffeine. A Diet Coke sounds great.

Anyway, the point is, the coffee beans are totally great. Right? Sure.

https://www.eater.com/2016/6/8/11883828/dont-drink-coffee-single-origin-beans-aeropress-starbucks

#Coffee

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itskateak · 4 years

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Oceans and Stars - Chapter 4

(art by itskateak...do not repost without permission)

Story Summary: A story of how Bucky Barnes falls in love with oceans, stars, and the woman who gave him the reasons to.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Velika Dante King (Fem!OC)

Chapter Summary: The day has come and Velika has received her letter calling her home to fight. Bucky doesn't know how to feel.

Words: 2.6K

Warnings: War mentions, mild language, angst

A/N: I've been thinking about this chapter for so long and it's making me sad.

Masterlist

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

𝓕𝓻𝓲𝓮𝓷𝓭, 𝓘'𝓵𝓵 𝓶𝓲𝓼𝓼 𝔂𝓸𝓾.

Velika paced in her room, the letter gripped tightly in her hand. She knew this day would come, but she didn't want it to. After her excursion to the Arctic circle and the warning of two months, she had been counting the days and hoping against hope that her instincts were wrong for once.

In one week, she would ship out to the Southern borders of Hell to fight. One week to say her goodbyes and to come to terms with the fact that she may not return. One week to make up for a lifetime in case she didn't make it back.

With a deep breath, she left her room. She had to tell everyone. They were in the common room for Bonding Night, either watching a movie or playing a game. She could hear their laughter from down the hall, Natasha's voice raised as she yelled at Steve. The mood was light and she hesitated in the doorway, not wanting to ruin the atmosphere.

Velika stepped into the room, the letter tucked behind her back. She almost turned to leave but reluctantly stood her ground.

Vision and Wanda were on the couch, watching a show. Pete was completely entranced by the tv, leaned forward with his forearms on his knees. Clint was twirling an arrow idly between his fingers, shaking his head at the fight sequence going on.

Natasha and Steve were bickering over a rent price in their game of Monopoly. Sam was backing Steve up, teaming up against Nat. Tony was trying to sneak a little extra money from the bank, but Bruce (the unbiased third-party banker despite not playing) was watching him carefully. Bucky lounged back against his chair with a glass of some kind of carbonated drink in his hand, smiling at their antics.

"Hey, Veli! Nice of you to show your face around here." Steve greeted her with a wide smile before ducking a piece of popcorn chucked at him by Natasha.

"Miss Velika, we're watching that show you recommended! Come sit with us for a little bit." Peter glanced her way before turning back to the screen, totally engrossed with the paranormal mystery show. She had told him time and time again to just call her Velika, but the kid insisted on being respectful. She thought it was cute. She'd miss that.

Bucky looked up with a smile as well, but as she made eye contact, it fell slowly. He could tell something was wrong by her expression and body language. He had a feeling he knew what had happened. "Velika?"

"Guys, I need to talk to you." She said, biting the inside of her lip.

Tony twisted in his chair to look at her. He read her expression quickly and nodded. "Hey, Pete. Pause the show for a minute. The game's on pause, too, you guys. No cheating."

Peter picked the remote up and did as asked without question. Everyone turned their attention to her expectant looks. She held the letter up and their faces fell nearly in unison.

"I got the notice. I leave next Tuesday. The war has officially started." Velika's voice wavered and she didn't want to look at them.

The room was silent as time seemed to freeze. She watched as each person realized what that meant and the air suddenly became heavy. The letter wasn't just a call to action and service. They all knew there was a chance she wouldn't return and that this coming week would be the last they'd ever see of her.

"How long's your tour?" Steve finally piped up, voice thick with worry.

"I don't think it's that simple, Steve," Natasha muttered, casting a sideways glance at him.

"It's not. I fight until we win or lose or get captured or die." Velika explained, dropping her hand to her side. The paper crinkled beneath her fingers as her fist clenched. She was barely keeping it together. "It could last days, it could last years. And time works differently there. A year here is five years there."

"No telling how long you'll be gone, then," Clint said with a heavy sigh.

"A week is all we have with you?" Peter asked in a quiet and trembling voice. Immediately, her heart broke. He was so young and didn't need to have that worry on his shoulders. "That's not nearly enough time."

"I know...it's longer than the last time I was called to fight. I had to ship out that night and barely got to say my goodbyes." Velika ran a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry for throwing this on you guys right now."

"Hey, don't apologize. You're going to war. It's a big deal and you need to get as much time with the people you care about." Tony waved her off and tried to sound his usual unflustered self, but she could see the worry already building behind his eyes.

Velika spared a glance at Bucky, who was pale and staring at the table. He was the only person who had known what the expedition to the Arctic circle meant.

"When did you find out?" He finally asked, looking up at her. She could see the dread behind his calm expression.

"I just got the letter an hour ago." Velika gave him a sad smile. "I should go start packing some things. Call my brother. That kind of stuff."

"Would you like some help?" Sam asked, leaning forward in his seat to prepare to stand.

"No, but thank you. I just need some time alone."

Bucky watched her leave with blurry vision. Tears had started to prickle at his eyes and he looked down at the table to hide it.

Slowly, people started back in their activities. The tv flicked back on and the banter between the main characters filled some of the silence. Someone rolled the dice and their piece hitting the board brought the room back to its previous rhythm. It felt heavier in the room, though, and everyone couldn't enjoy their evening as well knowing they could lose a friend.

"Buck, it's your turn." Steve nudged him.

"I forfeit. Return all my stuff to the bank." Bucky stood from the table and grabbed his glass, moving quickly out of the common room as he blinked back tears.

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

𝓘'𝓵𝓵 𝓶𝓲𝓼𝓼 𝔂𝓸𝓾.

The last week Velika had with them flew by faster than anyone expected or wanted. She hadn't been sleeping well and her mood had taken a somber turn. Everyone's had. The prospect that she could leave and never return loomed in the back of their minds. She did her best to live in every moment before she ran out of moments to live in.

She spent a whole night binge-watching that paranormal show with Peter and Wanda. Pete had asked her questions about the supernatural between shoveling popcorn in his mouth and being completely absorbed in the show. Wanda painted Velika's nails and quietly gossiped about celebrity drama.

She and Steve took the train out to Brooklyn and spent the day volunteering in the soup kitchens and helping people wherever they could. She couldn't count how many times someone stopped them to take photos, which they did willingly. They made a game of it. Every time they took a photo with someone, they would donate five dollars to an organization that would help clean up the oceans. By the end of the day, they had raised four hundred dollars.

Clint helped her brush up on her incredibly rusty archery skills. She hadn't handled a bow in a very long time. She estimated since basic training before they had handed her a shield and broadsword. After she had gotten used to holding a bow again, he proposed a friendly competition. He won, as predicted, but she didn't mind. The banter and time with him were more than enough to make her smile.

Tony and Bruce helped add new tech to her old armor. Insulation for the cold, waterproofing for rain, and so on. She swore she had never laughed that hard before as they moved around each other in the lab. They worked perfectly together in an oil vs water kind of way. They didn't exactly blend, but they could coexist.

Natasha helped her train, kicking her ass three ways to Sunday and gossiping about the team the whole time. She taught her new maneuvers to take someone larger than her off guard and to the ground. Nat helped her get used to carrying a shield again. She noticed Velika's attention drift when Bucky walked by. Go talk to him, she'd said with a knowing smile. He's worried.

Sam ran aerial courses with her and tried air combat tactics. He wasn't very good at it mele air combat, so they just stuck to aerial routines. She taught him new ways to deploy and ways he could manipulate his wings to maneuver more efficiently. He was impressed to see how quickly she could move through the air without jet propulsors. She laughed and just raced him to the edge of the compound's property line and back.

Velika couldn't bring herself to seek out Bucky. That would make it too final and real. As long as she hadn't said her goodbyes to Bucky, she could live in the fantasy that there was still time before she had to leave.

Then Monday night rolled around far too fast and it was suddenly less than twelve hours until she had to ship out. The roof had been her haven the last year and a half, the stars inviting and the moon calming. They were far less friendly as she stared up at them for the final time.

Her things were packed and ready to go. Photos of the team were tucked safely into an inner pocket of her bag. She had a mix of group and individual shots, but they were all her favorite photos of her teammates. She would miss them dearly. She'd learned to trust them and had become close enough that she considered them family.

"Thought I might find you up here." Bucky startled her out of her thoughts and she shifted to look at him. He smiled thinly in greeting. "You've been avoiding me."

"No, I haven't." Velika paused briefly. "Okay, maybe I have a little. I didn't intend to." She turned back around, sighing.

"I don't blame you. But I did want to say goodbye," Bucky joined her at the railing, leaning his lower back against it. He was quiet, staring at the horizon where the sun had dipped behind. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "This sucks."

"Yeah." She looked up at the sky dejectedly. "It does."

Bucky grimaced and crossed his arms. Silence fell over them again only filled by the distant chattering of birds and the chirping of crickets. They didn't need words anymore. Just each other. Many nights on the roof after nightmares or insomnia had kept them awake had proven that.

"I wanted to give you something." Bucky suddenly spoke as if he'd just remembered why he was there.

Velika watched him pull something out of the front pocket of his jeans. He held his old dog tags out to her with a soft expression. The metal of the chain glinted in the moonlight. She took them with a small smile, running her fingers lightly over the engravings. Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes.

"You don' have to take them if don' wanna," He rubbed the back of his neck shyly, a light blush on his cheek.

"Thank you, Bucky." She pulled the dog tags over her head and left them outside of her shirt. "Here, wait. It's only fair I give you mine in return. My old ones from before I defected."

"No, it's okay. You don't have to." Bucky shook his head, eyes wide.

She drew a gold chain out from the collar of her shirt, revealing silver tags engraved with gold. She removed her dog tags and held them out to him. He gingerly took them and examined the engravings. Lt. Velika.

"What does this symbol mean?" He asked, tilting the tag to show her the raised pattern. The simple wings were composed of swirls that extended to opposite directions.

"The crest of the Praesidium. The highest section of the Guardian caste." She explained. "I'd give them to my brother, but he's been called to fight, too."

"I'll keep them safe." Bucky clipped the chain around his neck and tucked them into his shirt. "I promise to return them when you return."

"If I return," She muttered, gaze falling to the ground.

"Hey, don't talk like that. I know you're gonna make it out. You're one of the best fighters I know. Which is sayin' something, since we live with ex-assassins and enhanced people." Bucky nudged her shoulder and she cracked a smile.

"But realistically...there's a good chance I won't make it back." Velika felt tears pushing at her eyes again. She'd cried her fair amount this last week and she was tired of falling apart.

"Hey, when you get back," Bucky turned to her with a serious tone in his voice. He shoved his hands into his front pockets looking everything like the smooth-talking boy he was back in the forties. "I wanna take you out. See a movie. Be a tourist in our own city. Go dancin' or walk through Central Park. Doesn't matter to me. Just wanna take you out."

Velika looked at him with wide eyes. Did he just ask her out on a date when she was about to ship out for a damned war? She was flustered and taken by surprise. "Bucky, that sounds wonderful. If-"

"Then it's a date." He spoke over her, stopping her before she could say the words that would tear his heart apart. "Don't know when, but it's a date."

"Bucky...you know as well I as do that-"

"Just say you'll be there." Bucky's voice got caught in his throat and the look he gave her broke her heart.

"I'll be there," She whispered, tears pushing at her eyes again.

"Don't miss it," He said.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world." Velika smiled. There was a brief moment of silence before she threw her arms around his neck, pulling him into a tight hug. She buried her face into his shoulder, the tears finally falling.

Bucky wrapped his arms around her waist, bending down so she didn't have to stand on her toes. He hid in the crook of her neck, closing his eyes. "I'm gonna miss you so much."

"I'm gonna miss you, too," She mumbled through a soft sob. She squeezed him tightly, trying to commit everything about him to memory. The way he held her, the sound of his voice, the scent of his cologne.

Bucky gently pulled back and brushed her tears away. "I have one more thing to ask you."

"Shoot, Buck." She sniffed, feeling much better after her small meltdown.

"One last constellation story before you go."

"I think I can do that." She smiled and took his hand, tugging him to their usual spot. "And I'm gonna promise you something. If...when I get back, I promise to tell you the story about my favorite constellation."

"I'll hold you to that." Bucky laid down next to her, lacing his fingers with hers. "You get to choose the constellation tonight."

Velika squeezed his hand and scanned the sky. "Ursa Major has many names. Some call it the Big Dipper, but it is really Callisto. Callisto was once a beautiful nymph who had caught the eye of Zeus..." She began her story, hand twined with Bucky's.

This would be the thing she missed most.

𝓟𝓻𝓸𝓶𝓲𝓼𝓮 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝔀𝓸𝓷'𝓽 𝓫𝓮 𝓰𝓸𝓷𝓮 𝓵𝓸𝓷𝓰.

#oceans and stars #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x oc #bucky barnes x ofc #bucky barnes x female original character #bucky barnes x original character #james buchanan barnes #mcu #marvel #mcu fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #velika dante king

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localocksmithnearme · 4 years

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Ford Fob Keys And Remote Program New Brunswick NJ

If you are looking for a swift 24 hours Ford keysmith service, you found the right website. New Brunswick Key Replacement line an emergency ignition cylinder repair, car key replacement and popalock services in New Brunswick NJ and nearby area for any car model, year and manufacturer of automobiles by a crackerjack car keysmith. Adopting our decent professional tools and advanced compilers and cutters we can heel eminently all type of vehicles, whether it is Japanese, Asian, domestic and European automobile manufacturers including a 24hrs emergency replacement keys and vehicle lock-out services. Alternative to hiring a towing-truck, call our main office to explain about your condition and one of our specialist car lock smith will drive to you quickly to replace, program or repair and basically settle all kind of ignition, keys and locks problems on site.

Models: Explorer, F350, Crown Victoria, Contour, Escape, Ranger, Excursion, Fusion, Taurus, Mustang, Edge, F250, CMAX, Cougar and Expedition

Ford lost key made in New Brunswick NJ

If you broken your ignition key in the crater hole or forgot where you put your vehicle key, you have a few possibilities to obtain a fresh set of Ford key replacement:

Driving to the New Brunswick NJ regional dealership is in many cases possibly a modest or agile way to originate a new key by the vehicle ID number, but in some conditions (like General-Motors) the dealer need you to show a credible car registration or title with an identical street address on the owner ID. In some other scenes, the dealer don't have access to aged key codes by the vehicle identification number (like Mercury, Ford and Mazda), the dealer-ship may generate outplacement keys only for models from the previous 10 years.

As well as the regulatory commission above, in numerous conditions, your vehicle is locked on the street in in a backwoods area, with a broken key in the ignition or locked with the key in the truck and to use the dealer-ship will incorporate almost additional hundred dollars for a towing truck service.

About Ford keylock platform

Ford is a United States of America auto manufacturer manufacturing range of mainstream cars. From 1996 Ford key-lock technology operates on a passive anti theft system chip platform and in 2007 accept the Intelligent Access with push-button start as the smart key and push-start ignition concept for practically all of its designs.

The electronic P.A.T key transmits an extremely low level digital message to the car that can only be identified when the right encrypted key is in the switch, elseways the combustible system and the vehicle will not burst and conceivably blocked for 5 mins.

This anti theft technologies is serving the motor vehicle owners, auto makers and insurance companies in defeating crime and save a lot of money worldwide, nonetheless substituting lost, stolen and broken keys or even duplicating an extraneous key will be a lot more expensive.

Ignition cylinder repair

The Ford ignition switch has three positions that activate specific instrumentation as the key is turned. The ignition cylinder will activate the electric detachments on the 1st stage, activate the fuel injection on the second stage and burst the engine on the 3rd stage.

One of the most common thing drivers ask us in our main office is for assitance with, ignition system problems. Even though we are usually ecstatic to tackle and diagnose your scenario, it can be terribly hard to perform over the phone. On top of having proper Ford diagnostic and lock-cracking tools, an essential understanding of the way car ignition system operate is mandatory, yet prior to calling an ignnition expert try to check following:

No lights on dash-board

If you turn the ignition switch on and no lights turn over on the instrument panel which actually means that no electrical power running from the car battery. It may be A deflated battery or frequently a failed electronic wiring connection or alternator could cause this. Turn on the front lights, if they wont work, it's actually means the battery is empty which is a task for a mechanic.

Ignition key wont turn

Majority of car compose of a steering wheel locking mechanism that activates whenever you pull the ignition key out at the end of a drive. Many times, the steering column can lock in a position that puts weight to the ignition system, and bars the key from turning (usually when parking on a hill) or when one of a two front wheels is pressed with force against an object (e.g. sidewalk corner).

* Before you begin fixing this issue, assure that your car has the parking brake applied.

Grasp the steering wheel and try to swing the steering wheel to the sides left and right and back and forth while gently jiggling the ignition gripping the key - which might help to release the steering lock.

The ignition is remarkably significant element of any car and containing so many small components that can be wearisome to troubleshoot by an incompetent hands, so the most a person may do running into ignition cylinder or key malfunctions is to double-check you are actually attempting to start your own car and call a motor vehicle lock-smith to arrive to your location to reprogram, replace repair the ignition or key which will priced as about $140–$325.

Chipped key construct

A transponder is practically anti-theft security system. With transponder, hot wiring or lockpicking a vehicle is not going to be useful nomore if someone thinking about stealing a car.

The concept behind a digitized keys and locks instrument is a microchip hidden generally in the apex of the key, when the driver insert in the ignition key crack, the small chip emits a distinct enciphered signal to the immobiliser. If the engine control module will not verify a correct indication code, the motor vehicle will not kindle.

Even though few years and models car manufacturers afford dashboard outline to program another key all alone, motor vehicle key replacement, repair and programming turned to be surprisingly costly then in the past and more then that, if all keys are lost, the ECU should be rekeyed by specific key programming machine owned by a locksmith or the dealership.

Ford keyless device

Ford smart key allow a car owner to lock and unlock the car doors besides lighting up the car yet avoiding inserting a physical key, and starting at 2007, varied Ford vehicles in the market come with some type of a smartkey platform that consist of a brief distance remote transmitter.

With a keyless entry, opening the door to your Ford is ordinarily gained by emitting a combination of audio and infrared indication message from a chip in the smart key to a vehicle computer unit on a coded channel when the user solely passing by within the range of 5 ft of the car with the proximity key on a key ring or in the pocket.

This radio frequency indication message and the Ford smart key platform, moreover authorize push button start ignition (also called Crash starting or Bump starting). Using this system a driver is able of flaring up a motor vehicle engine by clicking a push-buttons on the dash board as a substitute to twisting a key in a key-pit.

Copy vs lost car keys

After the mid to late 1990s, close to all auto manufacturers began to accommodate electronic keys and immobilizer as a security means in which a vehicle computer will identify the chipped key at the moment that you run the car. If the vehicle doesn't identify a matching key, immobilizer neutralize the fuel supply and the car wouldn't crank.

This platform serve as anti theft to avert against lock crackerjack or hot wiring the car and help drivers and insurance companies in eliminating vehicle theft all over the world, however the costs of motor vehicle keys went up to $45-$125 for a elemental duplicate chipped key and probably around a hundred dollar more if for a lost key replacement.

24 hour car lock out

If you find yourself locked-out of your car, you definitely want to hire an immediate and trusty establishment! Only New Brunswick Key Replacement fast pop a lock personnel can execute the task of unlocking your car door or trunk for nearly all auto manufacturer, year and model. Pick up your phone and call at (973)200-4870 to get high class car lock-out company in town who is adopting specific lock-cracking equipment besides the specialize to eradicate harm to the car air bag, power windows or electrical locks instruments for your absolute inner calm.

Vehicle locks qualifying

Did you paid for a new Ford ignition and requisite to swap an aged one?, got one of your Ford keys taken? or lost the keys to your car?, cleave to make sure that no one else gather the skill to turn over your car? Good News! You have landed on the right place, in that re keying of car locks is one of New Brunswick Key Replacement cornerstone quirk. Our pros can adapt the internal pins inside your ignition or door lock, so it would use the brand new key and turn down the archaic one. Rear the telephone and call our dispatch center to get your car lock changed by a well trained lock man hastily

To conclude

If you have ever braved the inconvenient situation when you losing or locking the keys to your vehicle, you seemingly know how valuable it is to have an adept and a devoted local lock-smith company at hand. We render the expedient services on call 24 hours every day and the fruitful policy and competent lock-smiths enables New Brunswick Key Replacement to be the leading vehicle key lock givers in town. . If you are scouting for Ford key replacement service 24HR in New Brunswick New Jersey, call (973)200-4870 for a reliable local mobile locksmith, lost car keys made, ignition repair, transponder, keyless entry remote fob cut and program.

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years

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A Beginner’s Guide to Consigning Wine

A rarified world of numbered paddles and thick glossy catalogs, where individual lots routinely cost as much as a down payment on a house. That may be what comes to mind when picturing a wine auction, but the burgeoning popularity of online wine auctions has shifted the landscape dramatically, democratizing a formerly posh affair.

I first entertained the idea of consigning wine in January, when I received an email from Hart Davis Hart stating that they were taking consignments for upcoming auctions and that the market was in a very good place to sell. I have some lovely bottles in my cellar, but nothing worth more than a few hundred dollars, which I didn’t think they’d be interested in. Nevertheless, I responded to the email with a list of wines for appraisal. They cordially got back to me in a few days and demurred — sure enough, I was right. There were a couple bottles they might be interested in, but only if I had a full case.

A few months later, in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic, I realized I could use the funds from parting with some of these bottles. I had heard a lot about Acker’s online wine auctions from friends, and it seemed like they were interested in a broader range of wines. I reached out and had a great experience working with Rob Molyneaux, Acker’s regional representative in the Chicago area. I sent in a list of my wines and within a couple days an appraisal was prepared, listing each wine with a high and low estimate plus a reserve price, so I could determine which wines to part with and which to keep.

HOW IT WORKS

Acker charges a 3 percent handling fee, based off of the high estimate, for inventory inspection and cataloging, and shipping is the responsibility of the consignor. They were the first auction house with a zero percent seller’s commission, which transformed the industry to a much better marketplace for sellers.

After determining how many bottles to consign, empty wine shipment boxes arrived via FedEx for me to fill, and I scheduled pickup from my doorstep. Fees and shipping charges are removed from the proceeds of sale, so there’s no money required upfront. With regular weekly auctions, my wines were up for auction the following week, grouped by Acker into lots with select bottles sold individually. They kept me informed every step of the way, confirming that the wines arrived and passed inspections, and then sent a post-sale report the day after the auction closed. The entire process went really smoothly and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was. Checks are mailed approximately 30 days after the auction closes.

All auction houses operate on a consignment model, but Acker was far and away the market leader in Q1 2020, selling close to $30 million of wine at auction, which was three times the size of its nearest competitors. Acker has hosted online wine auctions on a monthly basis for 20 years now, but last autumn it increased the frequency to weekly, a prescient decision in light of the Covid-19 crisis.

“There has been a 25 percent increase in the number of overall bidders since our live auctions have gone virtual in April, and the overall dollars consigned has been in line with our pre-pandemic expectations,” says Acker chairman John Kapon. “We are in the midst of another strong quarter despite going completely virtual.”

Other auction houses may differ slightly in fees or procedure, but the general process of consigning is similar.

TIPS FOR FIRST-TIMERS

For Acker, Burgundy is the king of the market, accounting for 40 to 50 percent of overall dollars sold, led by Domaine de la Romanée Conti, which accounts for more than 10 percent of the market on its own. Bordeaux follows at 25 to 30 percent but the eclectic selection includes wines from around the world.

“We like to call our online auctions ‘a drinker’s auction’ because there are great, smaller lots of one to three bottles that many clients like to try out before they commit to larger quantities,” Kapon says. “Mixed lots are also very popular, whereby we group sets of desirable bottles together under one lot.” He recommends that consignors provide all details about their bottles upfront to expedite the consignment process. Especially for older bottles, where the bottle was purchased and how it has been stored is as critical as the vintage and producer.

At Zachys, wine sales and consignments have been holding steady through the pandemic, according to senior specialist and auctioneer Charles Antin.

“Find someone you trust to help guide you through the process,” he suggests. “The best auction specialists know that a long term relationship is the best one. Also, decide what you want from the process and what results will make you happy. Do you want to be intimately involved or do you want someone to handle everything for you?”

As for which regions are popular with the Zachys audience, Antin says it leans heavily to Burgundy and Bordeaux, with Piedmont, Champagne, and California. But other regions are represented as well. “Our e-auctions are a great place to find slightly more esoteric wines from the Loire, Germany, and Australia,” he says.

The article A Beginner’s Guide to Consigning Wine appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/beginners-guide-consigning-wine/

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