Mashup Drinks

I like making my own mashup drinks to reduce calories and get the exact flavor I want.  I start with a small can of zero-calorie soda like 7-Up Zero Sugar then doctor it up with watermelon puree, strawberry daiquiri mix, or the Reàl Peach puree in the picture below.  The Reàl brand has a large selection of infused syrups including blackberry, raspberry, banana, and black cherry.  You can find their entire selection at the link below which includes a long list of delicious drink recipes.

https://www.realingredients.com/products

Quantum Computing For Dummies

I used the multiple four-hour flights back and forth to Las Vegas to learn more about Quantum Computing, one of the current "big things" in the technology world.  Borrowing a "for Dummies" book from the Dayton Metro Library was a fitting choice, as so much of this might make sense to a physicist or a mathematician, a lot of it was so far over my head it was spinning.  I boil it down to using some strange behavior that happens in the subatomic world (e.g. superposition, entanglement) to create a massively parallel system that speeds up certain types of problems (e.g. cracking encryption, route optimization) so solutions can be found in a usable timeframe.

Google recently announced that their new Willow quantum computer solved a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes which would take today's fastest traditional computer 10 septillion years (that is, 10 to the 25th power) years.  

The book also postulates that what happens in this subatomic world just might mean there exists a multiverse.  Woah!

https://www.dummies.com/article/technology/computers/what-is-quantum-computing-300551

Cirque Du Soleil

Cirque Du Soleil has five permanent residencies in Las Vegas including "O", the water-themed performance we attended in January 2025 at The Bellagio.  An hour-and-a-half full of synchronized swimming, high-driving, and gymnastic performances with some comedy during set changes.  The stage can be lowered in sections creating anything from a solid floor to a seventeen-foot-deep pool with 1.5 million gallons of water.  We opted for the VIP experience which included meeting three of the cast members, including the clown who gets set on fire.  

https://bellagio.mgmresorts.com/book-show/o-by-cirque-du-soleil

Las Vegas Sphere

We stayed at the Horseshoe Hotel during our last trip to Las Vegas and paid a little extra for a room with a view of the Sphere.  It was fun to look out our window and watch the ever-changing visuals on its massive dome.  Its exterior contains 580,000 square feet of LED displays and measures 366 feet high and 516 feet wide.  It cost 2.3 billion dollars and opened in September 2023 featuring a 40-show residency by the Irish rock band U2.  So cool.

https://www.thesphere.com

Rack Of Lamb

Lamb is not a meat we have all that often but while perusing the meat counter at Costco we spotted the small rack shown below and we thought to give a new recipe a try.  Gourmet Chef Elaine lined a baking sheet with aluminum foil, drizzled on some olive oil, placed the ribs bone side down, and cracked come salt and pepper on top.  She topped that with a spread made of garlic, rosemary, dijon mustard, honey, and olive oil.  Done in about thirty minutes in a 450-degree oven followed by resting for ten more.  

https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a39026720/rack-of-lamb-recipe

No TSA PreCheck

Sunday morning at the Las Vegas airport is a really bad time to have closed the TSA PreCheck line, relegating us to the cattle call chute shown below.  The line consisted of ten, 80-foot lanes that snaked back and forth painfully slowly.  It took a little over thirty minutes to get through that 800-foot line and then we had to have our carry-on bags scanned twice because we had our iPads in them, which we don't have to remove when using PreCheck.  Fortunately, we gave ourselves extra time to get to our gate, but the whole process was such a pain.

OK, enough bitching...

Silence Unknown Callers

If your iPhone rings and it's from an unknown caller, you probably won't answer it.  But you can simply have your phone ignore them completely by going to Settings, then Phone, and tapping "Silence Unknown Callers" as shown in the screenshot below.  I was surprised to find it turned off by default, but I guess some people actually answer these calls.  This option has been around since iOS 13 (2019), so if you have an iPhone, you likely have it.  Some additional tips can be found at the Apple Support link below.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/111106

Laptop Bag Strap

I've used the laptop bag seen below for probably ten years and never could figure out the purpose of the horizontal strap on the back.  Maybe it's good for something else, but I recently found it's a great way to secure the bag to the extended handle on a piece of luggage, making it easier to haul through an airport.  Better late than never I suppose.

iPad On A Plane

On our flight back home I noticed the lady in the window seat was watching a show on her iPad.  I never thought to suspend my iPad by shoving the cover in the pocket of the seat back in front of me.  I either held it or placed it on the tray table, but that will now be a thing of the past.  When I asked her how she came up with such a brilliant hack, she replied "Tik Tok".  That explains why I never knew about it.

DLM Cafe

Last summer Gourmet Chef Elaine and I decided to visit Dorothy Lane Market's awesome salad bar.  My salad, of course, features little to no lettuce, lots of cheese, tomatoes, onions, jalapeno peppers, and probably more salad dressing than necessary.  We ate our lunch at their indoor Cafe and made it a dining-out experience.  As you can see at the link below, DLM has many awesome stations where you can get soups, sandwiches, sushi, burgers, pizza, and much more.   It makes a deliciously cost-effective luncheon alternative.

https://www.dorothylane.com/in-store-eats