A time-traveling encounter shows how things have changed

It started, as these things usually do, unexpectedly.

I was walking across the garage to my car after work and suddenly he was  next to me. A younger me, from 1985, the year I married Mrs. Brad.

I was startled, but didn't want to scare myself.

"What was that?" the younger me asked.

"What?"

"Did that car beep at you?"

"It's unlocked," I told me. "Because of the key fob."

The younger me was befuddled. By my Toyota Prius, by the word "fob," by the fact that I look like an old man. He apparently knew he was seeing a future version of himself.

"What year is it?" the younger me asked, speeding up the process of getting to the point of this column.

"It's 2019."

The younger me continued to get to the point, since I only have about 600 words in a column. He said he bumped his head that morning and woke up in my office building, confounded by the people around him. He saw me and thought I was his father, then realized I was the future him.

He began walking next to me.

"Can I give you a ride somewhere?" I asked. I knew he lived hundreds of miles north with the younger Mrs. Brad. I remembered that part of life.

"Let's just ride around in this spaceship," he said, laughing. "This is awesome."

The younger version of me said awesome a lot. He looked at my phone as we began driving.

"What's that?"

"It's Waze. It helps with directions."

"Like a map?"

"Yeah."

Then I started a music app, which played through my car's system.

"Your Waze plays music, too? Sweet." The younger me said "sweet" a lot.

He sang along with "One Night in Bangkok," ("I get my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine!") as I explained smartphones to him, told him we can now take phones with us, that long-distance calls are free and tried to explain the concept of texting. And yes, I had "One Night in Bangkok" playing on my phone.

We began talking about changes. He was fascinated. About streaming services and that few people bought music anymore. About the Giants winning three World Series titles. About hybrid cars.

"I'm not sure if I can ask this, but are Mrs. Brad and I still married?" he asked. He didn't call her Mrs. Brad yet–that column bit started about 15 years into his future–but let's go with that.

"Yeah. You're still . . . we're still married. Happily. I think."

We both laughed and he said, "sweet," because I said that in 1985.

"Well, I bet one thing never changes," he said. "Relationships, right? (Mrs. Brad) and I just got married and that's probably pretty much the same."

"Well, kind of, although that's different."

I told the younger me about the increase in "destination weddings" and that bachelor and bachelorette parties are now frequently get-away, expensive events.

"Wait. You go out of town? That's seems crazy," he said. "Mine was one night with my friends. In town."

That's not all, I told him. People now have "babymoons," before their first child and "baby sprinkles" to get gifts for their second child. They  choreograph dances at weddings and post videos of them on social media.

"Social media?" he asked. "What's social media?"

There was much more to discuss, so I told him the column was done and we'd finish the discussion next week.

"Sweet. I love cliffhangers," he said. "Like 'Who killed J.R.' on Dallas. Awesome."

There was more to talk about, which you will see next week.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Vacation without people teaches important lessons

Mrs. Brad and I recently got a taste of what post-apocalyptic life would be like . . . presuming there are no zombies nor nuclear waste and there's still plenty of food.

We got to see how it is to live without other people.

Our annual September vacation now has a familiar flow. We tent camp for a couple of days to accelerate the decompression from regular life. Then we head to a cabin or hotel with showers, a kitchen, beds, a TV and Wi-Fi for the rest of the week. We do it after Labor Day, to avoid traffic.

This time, we also avoided people.

Our camping was done at Lake Siskiyous, across from Mount Shasta along Interstate 5. The campground is huge, with more than 300 sites . . . but we appeared to be the only tent campers there.

We camped for two weekdays. In mid-September, after school started. There were several people in recreational vehicles, but they were in their own part of the campground.

Where we pitched our tent, there were no people. Dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of empty sites, no people. We had to walk a half-mile to see evidence of humanity.

It was great. Silent, peaceful. We did our regular camping-vacation activities: Hiking and reading. And reading. And resting. And reading.

The peace was fantastic, except . . . on Tuesday, I put my book on my lap, laid my head back and took a quick nap. I felt something on my lap, awakened slightly and . . . saw a squirrel. On my leg. Looking at me.

Wild animals of any type scare me, so I flailed my arms, gasped and the squirrel ran off.

I stopped napping.

After two days, we headed to a cabin near a small body of water called Hyatt Reservoir, about 20 miles east of Ashland, Ore.

There was a cluster of about 20 cabins and one other home had a vehicle in front of it, but we never saw people. We were the only ones there. For three days, the only people we saw was when we drove to one of the two nearby restaurants and saw two or three people.

Otherwise? Us and birds and chipmunks. (After my experience with the squirrel, I was hesitant to relax too much around the chipmunks.)

We hiked most of the way around the reservoir. No people, despite another big campground.

We sat on our deck and watched the sky. No people.

We read our books at the water's edge. No people.

It was refreshing. You could hear  the wind whispering through the trees and the sound of birds' wings flapping as they flew over. No traffic sounds. No sirens. No loud neighbors.

You could get used to this . . . except I couldn't.

By Day 4, I was restless. I wanted to do something. I realized I wanted to be around people and when I asked Mrs. Brad, much more of an introvert than me, she felt the same.

It's peaceful and necessary for us to get away. It's wonderful to be in nature. It's great to be able to read and rest and read and hike and rest.

But we're not ready for life in a remote wilderness – even if the squirrels leave us alone.

A week without people was enough.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Why use Wikipedia when Five-Word Encyclopedia works?

Let's face it: Wikipedia is awesome, but has too many words for most people.

We've shifted from writing letters to posting on Facebook (pictures and words) to posting on Instagram (pictures of words). We've replaced words with emojis and soon we may communicate with grunts and signals only.

I can complain about that until I'm red in the face (and have), or I can join the revolution.

Today I'm doing that. Today, I'm proposing the Five-Word Encyclopedia.

This is where Wikipedia meets Twitter, then shaves it down. A lot.

You know Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia where people contribute information on everything.

You probably know Twitter and here's where it fits. Twitter was originally a "micro-blog," a place where people would post thoughts using 140 characters (including spaces!) or less. Then it adjusted the length to 280 spaces.

I'm going the other way. In a world where everything is online and brevity is valued, I today provide a new idea: Five-Word Encyclopedia (FWE).

Five words. About everything.

When you need to know enough to say something brief about any topic, you can go to the FWE.

You want to know about Greenland, but don't need to read through the history of the country? Come to my site, which tells you, "Part of Denmark. Not Iceland."

You want to know about John Denver, but don't need a list of his songs? Come to my site, which tells you, "Singer of 'Rocky Mountain High."

Five words. Exactly five words!

Like the hitchhiker character in "Something About Mary" who insisted his "Seven-Minute Abs" were going to revolutionize the fitness industry, I believe my idea will change everything.

Here are some examples of movie descriptions on FWE:

"The Godfather." Son takes over mob empire.

"Casablanca." "Play it again Sam" flick.

"Wizard of Oz." Girl leaves, returns to Kansas.

"Forrest Gump." Low-IQ man does everything.

"Star Wars." Kirk and Spock visit worlds.*

(* Some definitions haven't been vetted for accuracy.)

You see the value of this. You don't always need the thousands-of-words description of the Civil War found in Wikipedia. If you want a quick description, come to the FWE and get this description of the Civil War: North defeats South, ends slavery.

Five-word descriptions. It's ingenious!

There are plenty of areas that this is helpful. You need to talk about an actor?

Tom Cruise: Versatile actor, aging slowly, Scientologist.

Johnny Depp: Willie Wonka, 21 Jump Street.

Kate Winslet: Academy Award Winner (also: Titanic).

Will Smith: Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

Sports is another area where the FWE will help.

Instead of Googling "Oakland Raiders" and sifting through the team's website, history, current roster and more, you can come to this proposed site and get the five-word description: Three titles; twice abandoned Oakland.

Los Angeles Dodgers: Haven't won championship since '88.

1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team: Do you believe in miracles?

You don't need hundreds of words to describe most things. You just need a sentence.

With the FWE, you can have a knowledge base that's a mile wide and five-words deep. Go to a cocktail party and someone mentions Boris Johnson, the prime minister of England. You quickly check FWE and have something to say: "England's version of Donald Trump."

Bingo, bango!

(Bingo: Game involving cards, beans, numbers.)

This changes everything. Years from now, people will routinely mention FWE and when they think about where the idea started, they can look up my name in FWE.

Brad Stanhope: Inventor of Five-Word Encyclopedia.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

We've gone too far with pumpkin-spice Spam

Remember when pumpkin spice was something you used in a pumpkin pie? (Or, frankly, you were like me and didn't know that there was a spice connected with pumpkin?)

That was a lifetime ago.

We now live in a pumpkin spice world, with Starbucks rolling out its pumpkin spice latte progressively earlier every year. There are a variety of other products – tea, gelato, pancakes, cough drops and more – that offer pumpkin-spice-flavored versions.

Yes, pumpkin-spice cough drops. When you want your coughs to feel like autumn.

The recent pumpkin-spice flavor avalanche is enough to scare many people. Where will it end? Is there a product that's immune to pumpkin spice? Will the return of the Spice Girls feature a singer named Pumpkin Spice who will be the most popular in the group?

We thought pumpkin spice mania hit the nadir last year, when a deodorant company came out with a pumpkin-spice-latte scent.

We were wrong. Dead wrong.

Because this year, we have . . . pumpkin-spice Spam.

Yes. Spam.

The rectangular meat-in-a-can product that heretofore has been popular primarily among Hawaiians, Filipinos and former U.S. military members.

Spam.

Now with a pumpkin spice flavor.

Hormel Foods, the company that makes Spam (as well as Dinty Moore stews, Hormel Chili, La Victoria salsa and Skippy peanut butter) said it will make the pumpkin-spice Spam available Sept. 23 through the online outlets for Walmart and Spam.

(Side thought: what do people at Spam headquarters call their junk mail? Do they have to teach their junk mail filter to not automatically delete anything with "spam" in the name? How do they avoid having their outgoing email not go into spam folders when the email address is brad@spam.com?)

Anyway, back to pumpkin-spice Spam. Will this trend ever stop?

There is science behind the idea that sugar and pumpkin spice are highly addictive. The popularity of the otherwise inedible Spam among some people – who go wild for the stuff – suggests that it similarly has a strange physical hold.

Is the combination of Spam and pumpkin-spice flavor is the food version of a speedball – a mixture of cocaine and heroin? Two highly addictive substances combined together?

I'm not slamming Spam. I respect Spam's game. I respect the cultural values that somehow . . . no, wait a minute, that's not true. Spam is a gross food made by an American food company and packaged for mass consumption.

It's slimy "meat" in a can!

Hormel somehow convinced people that Spam is tasty, but now they're trying to expand their empire by luring pumpkin-spice fans into the cult.

You can enjoy Spam if you like. You can enjoy pumpkin spice if you like. But let me warn you: Combining the two flavors is a crime against humanity and there will be repercussions.

When you see a generation of kids drinking that slimy "juice" that comes out of Spam cans because it's pumpkin-spice flavored, remember 2019. Because this is the year we went too far.

With Spam. With pumpkin spice.

Two things that should never be combined.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

An expert shares how to become a viral hit

What's it like to be a viral sensation? Well . . . it's surprising.

I realized that I was a viral sensation recently when poking around on the admin side of the Daily Republic website. I found a way to calculate what articles are the most-viewed in the history of the site and learned that one of my columns ranked sixth, with more than 79,000 views.

(For clarity, my ranking includes only articles that appeared on the website. Among the most-viewed pages are such things as the home page, the classified ads page, the list of comments made, etc. For further clarity, my definition of "viral sensation" is anything that receives more than 78,000 views.)

Of course, Tony Wade is also the list.  His 2013 "Back in the Day" column about "The medieval history of Fairfield, California" checked in at No. 38, with 23,000 views.

Isn't that cute? Keep trying, Tony.

Anyway, I'd like to take this opportunity to share some tips on becoming a viral sensation. First, though, here's a list of the articles on the website that have more views than mine.

The most-viewed article is Ted Puntillo's column from 2013 on who qualifies as a veteran. Puntillo's post is a runaway winner, with more than double the number of views of any other article. Second is a Tim Jones column from 2014 asking whether a renter has to cooperate if their landlord wants to sell a house. Third is a syndicated column from 2017 on the "10 Worst Things Trump Has Done" (For my money, I hope "ruined the United States Football League" made the list). Fourth is an article by Todd Hansen about the massive October 2017 fire in Solano County and fifth is an Annie's Mailbox column about there being a huge difference between a "father" and a "dad."

Sixth is mine: Ranking the greatest (and worst) generations.

From 2015.

With 79,000 views.

It's an ongoing thing, too. On Wednesday, I checked to see where my article ranked in the past 30 days. It was the 17th-most viewed article during that period. Four years after it was posted!

So you're asking: How do you become a viral hit like that? How do you connect with people in such a way that four years later, they're still clicking on the Daily Republic site to see your article?

Frankly, the answer is simple.

Ready?

The secret: Be the only person to write about something. And put that unique thing in the headline (Again, the headline was "Ranking the greatest (and worst) generations.")

That's it. I believe I am the only person in the world who written a column ranking the generations.

If someone types in the phrase "ranking generations" into Google, what comes up first? Generally, that Daily Republic column from 2015 (Google results may vary for different users, but the principal is the same).

You want to be viral? Whether it's on social media, in a blog or some other way, there are options:

• You can post an amazing video of a cat juggling chainsaws.

• You can write a touching post that says something in a way that strikes people ("Sadness is just happiness waiting to bloom.").

• Or you can write a column or blog post on something no one else has addressed.

Me? I'm hoping to knock Puntillo off the top spot with my next column: "How ranking generations determine who qualifies as a vet and whether that person has to help their landlord sell a house."

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.