Today is Sunday, July 17 and there are only 161 days until Christmas. Time to start untangling the strings of lights.  Today we remember the birthdays of Isaac Watts, John Jacob Astor and Phoebe Snow.  On this day in 855 St. Leo IV ended his reign as Catholic Pope, in 1938 Douglas (Wrong Way) Corrigan left NY for LA and wound up in Ireland and in 1962 the Senate rejected Medicare for the aged.  In Korea it is Constitution Day, in Mexico it is the Day of National Mourning and in the US it is National Peach Ice Cream Day and National Yellow Pig Day.  Also, for those of you who need an excuse, Tuesday is National Daiquiri Day.

I don’t have much to discuss this week.  I have been taking my younger grandson to a cooking class this past week.  He alleges that he made some great stuff.  I assume he did since he ate it by the time class was over each day.  My daily routine was to take him to school and then go home and take care of some chores.  Then I would go pick up my older grandson and we would go pick up the “chef”.  We would then spend the next few hours having lunch and driving all over the place playing Pokemon Go.  I have to be honest, I have no idea what that is all about.  All I know is they enjoy it.  They are always finding things and speaking in a language that I do not understand.

The thing that bothers me about this is that people have found a way to take something fun and entertaining and make it dangerous.  There have been stories about people being beaten, robbed, molested and, in one case, kidnapped.  Have we really fallen so low that we take advantage of people having a good time by stealing from them?  That is a shame.  I think that a concentrated effort should be made to catch these people.  Once caught, they should be made to memorize all the different aspects of the game before they can be released.  Listening to my grandsons, I would be incarcerated for quite some time.

The other day I called a company to pay a bill.  It took me longer to go through all the security questions than it took to actually make the payment.  Why must I prove that I am me to pay my bills over the phone?  I would think that if I am calling to pay a bill, they would just say, “Okay, what is the account number and how much do you want to pay?”  I would then give them the information they needed and that would be that.  Are there really strangers calling to pay my bills?  And if they do, why not let them?  Let’s face it, if someone tried to pay your gas and electric bill would you really want some security-conscious phone rep to stop them?  The company should just be happy that the bill is being paid and not care who is doing it.

I was, briefly, watching a show on fashion the other evening.  They were showing some very nice outfits.  Not that unusual, not really ever worn in public stuff that you see during fashion week, but nice everyday stuff.  The problem was, and I know I have said this before, the outfits were not designed for real people.  The models were lovely, had great hair and makeup and looked like they ate about 8 ounces of food a day.  Now take that same outfit and put it on the typical woman of today.  The woman who got up early to get her kids ready for school, took a quick shower, ran a brush through her hair, slapped some lipstick on, put on that outfit and dashed out the door.  Not the same polished, lovely look contrived by stylists, makeup artists and a team to dress her.  It is not fair.  Models should have to do their own hair and makeup and only have 10 minutes to get it done before they go on.  That would be more realistic.

Don’t get me wrong, it is no better for men.  The average male model has a great tan, great hair, straight teeth, is thin, well muscled and always smiling.  The real man, who wants to wear those clothes, is usually a little thick around the middle, if he has hair it could use a trim, usually doesn't have a tan because he is inside working and is generally too worried about his job and paying bills to smile.  When he wears those clothes, the jacket never closes completely and he is doing good if he remembers to zip up before going out.  I think the time has come for companies to use real people to advertise their products.  I am available, as long as it doesn’t interfere with Pokemon Go.

Two more things I want to mention and then I will let you go for this week.  One thing, I read recently that we should start referring to “age” as “levels” so that when you are level 80 it sounds more badass than just being old.  The other thing is that sometimes I just want someone to hug me and say, “I know it’s hard. You’re going to be okay.  Here’s a coffee and 5 million dollars.”

This week our fact tells us that in 2009, Facebook rejected co-founder of WhatsApp Brian Acton’s application for a job.  WhatsApp was later created and ultimately sold to Facebook for $19 billion.  The HR person is going to take a long time paying off that mistake.