Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Italy Travelog #18
Chia, Sardinia - Wednesday, 28 May 2025, 10am

We've been in Sardinia for almost a day at this point. We've been taking it easy for the most part. Yesterday we had lunch with colleagues after arrival, then I crashed in our room for a few hours before the reception dinner. This morning we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at the hotel then got ready for the day's outing— a cave tour. While we're en route to the cave I'm jotting down a few notes about Sardinia thus far.



The first is that it's beautiful here, and rural. Sardinia has a population of about 1.6 million. That may seem like a lot; it'd be a fair sized city, if it were a city. But Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean. A size comparison shows it's about the size of Vermont. ...Well, Vermont has 6500,000 people, so Sardinia is less rural than Vermont. Perhaps a better comparison would be to Sicily, the largest Mediterranean island, which is only slightly larger than Sardinia and has 3x the population.

Part of what makes Sardinia feel so rural is that the coast is very wilderness-y. There are no towns along the rugged coastline, no multi-million-dollar mansions, no high-rise resort hotels. I've heard accounts from two people now, including a local archaeology Ph.D., that the "no towns" thing is because of the historic threats of invasion and piracy. Occupants of the island from hundreds of years ago to thousands of years ago built villages inland so they wouldn't be so exposed to marauders; whether the Romans, the Carthaginians, the Phoenicians, the Moors, or the Spanish.

Speaking of the Spanish, it's actually the Catalans who've had a strong influence here. Our tour guide (the aforementioned archaeology Ph.D.) mentioned that with a broad smile because two of our companions on our little group trek are Catalan, from Barcelona. For hundreds of years during the Middle Ages Catalans ruled the island. There are still communities of Catalans on the island today, though they are in the north and we're traveling around the far south.

One other thing that strikes me as we're driving around these remote parts of the coast in Sardinia is that it looks and feels a lot like California. Except for the road signs being in Italian I could almost swear I'm on the central coast. It's the rugged coast, the mountains near the water, and the types of trees and shrubs all around us. Climate-wise, it's a similar climate.

Blue Ridge Trip '24 #5
Bland, VA - Sun, 1 Sep 2024. 5:30pm

First of all, Yes, there's really a Dismal Creek Falls. It's on Dismal Creek, which is that small waterway's actual name. (Though some maps title the falls Falls of Dismal.) And also Yes, I am also not making this up, it's just outside the town of Bland, Virginia. In fact Bland is not just a bland little town, it's the county seat of Bland County. Yes, the whole dang county is bland. And from what I can tell its main industry is the state prison in Bland. I guess that's what makes Bland dismal.



Dismal falls is actually anything but dismal, even on a dismal day like today has been. Yes, it's raining. Even despite this rain there are a few carloads at Dismal Falls enjoying the water. Imagine how overrun this place would be if the weather were merely bland, let alone good! 😂

Okay, in all seriousness, I am surprised by how crowded these falls are on a shitty late afternoon, out here in the middle of freakin' nowhere. The town of Bland has a population of just 300. ...Actually it's not even a town, it's an unincorporated area. The whole of Bland County is around 6,000 people— probably not including the prison inmates. It's one of the least populated counties in the state and it contains no incorporated towns or cities. But hey, you don't have to be an incorporated town to have kids who want to do something outdoors. In fact, it probably because Bland is so... dismal... that probably every person under 25 in the town— all, like, ten of them— is out here this afternoon.

What's in a number? In the case of a telephone number, a lot. The number corresponds not to just one particular line, but the area code and branch number (the first three digits after the area code) also tell us where that line is based. Now that mobile phones on nationwide networks are commonplace, the number's less telling about where the person at that number lives, though it's still true for landlines. Buried within some area codes is a bit of additional lore. Everyone knows that area codes correspond to certain parts of a state, or in some cases a particular metropolitan area. The original area codes, those established in 1947, also told you how populous your area was.

When area codes were first established in 1947, dialing a phone worked by spinning a rotary wheel, or dial. That's where the whole verb of "dialing" a phone comes from! You'd spin the wheel one direction with your finger, using guide slots for each particular number. After each spin a spring would spin the dial back, transmitting an electrical pulse across the phone line as each detent was passed. So a 1 was 1 pulse, a 2 was 2 pulses, etc. Zero, all the way around the dial, was 10 pulses.

Because turning the wheel took time, and especially the phone signalling the evenly-spaced pulses took time, designers of the first area code system optimized it to minimize time spent dialing. They assigned the shortest area codes to the most populated areas.

"What's a 'short' area code?" you might ask. "They're all three numbers." Yes, they're all three numbers, but the issue is how many pulses were required to transmit those numbers. 212, an area code for New York City, is 5 pulses (2+1+2=5).

There were additional constraints on the original set of area codes. The first digit had to be 2-9. The second digit had to be 0 or 1. (That was because 0 and 1 weren't used in any branch numbers up to that point.) The third digit could be 2-9 if the middle digit was 1, or 1-9 if the middle digit was 0. Thus the fastest number assignable was 212, which was assigned to New York City.

Here's a map of the original area codes in 1947:


Image courtesy of Wikipedia

So, what were the most populated cities/area in 1947, as indicated by area codes?

# pulses	Area Code(s)	City / Region
5	212	New York City
6	213 312	Los Angeles, San Diego, Southern California Chicago & suburbs
7	214 313 412	Dallas & Northeast Texas Detroit & suburbs Pittsburgh & southwestern Pennsylvania
8	215 314 413 512	Philadelphia St. Louis & eastern Missouri Western Massachusetts Austin, San Antonio, Southern Texas

What's interesting about this is the way cities ranked by population in 1947 is different from today. The biggest 3 cities then are the same now— New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Each now has multiple area codes. Southern California has grown so much that 213 is now specific to part Los Angeles instead of covering the whole region. Orange County and San Diego have multiple area codes of their own. Even San Bernardino County has two area codes, including 909, the "last" of the original area code system.

What about the others? Well, if the list were being made today, Dallas would still be fourth on the list, rating an area code like 214, but Houston and Washington, DC would have jumped up into the slots alongside it with 7-pulse area codes. (Note, I'm going by rank of metropolitan area population, not city population.) Detroit would drop two categories as it's now the 14th largest metro area. Pittsburgh, now the 27th largest metro, would drop several boxes.

Today (October 10) is Columbus Day in the US. Don't feel bad if you didn't know; it's not widely celebrated anymore. It seems like the only people with the day off are the government, banks, and some schools. I only knew about it because late last night Siri popped up a reminder on my phone asking me if I wanted to turn off my 6:45am alarm since today's a holiday. Sorry, girl, it's a workday for me!

It's been years since I've written about Columbus Day, so here are Five Things:

1. Columbus Day is a federal holiday in the U.S., honoring Christopher Columbus for his discovery of the New World beginning in 1492. Celebration of it is not exactly widespread; it seems to be limited to federal and state government offices, many banks, and some schools.

2. The extent to which Columbus Day is celebrated varies. From personal experience I'd say it's more of a thing in the East than the West. It's also more of a thing among Italian-American communities. For example, in San Francisco— part of an area which otherwise takes a dim view on what Columbus represents (see #3, below)— there are big parades in the Little Italy neighborhood of North Beach. In addition it strikes me that celebrations have become fewer and further between over, say, the past 20 years.

3. Not everyone agrees with portraying Columbus as a hero. He did bring exploitation, slavery, disease, and death to the natives of the lands he explored. In 1992 the City of Berkeley (California) proclaimed it Indigenous Peoples' Day as part of a counter-celebration of Columbus Day. From the late 1980s and early 90s I also recall people using the moniker "Native Peoples Subjugation Day". I've continued using that phrase myself, as a form of irony and dark humor. The more anodyne name Indigenous Peoples Day has been adopted officially by several states and 100+ cities, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, and many others.

4. Columbus did not "prove" the earth is round. Part of the standard modern narrative is that Columbus "proved" to benighted kings and queens of Europe that the earth is round. In fact the educated elites already knew that. The roundness of the earth was established 2,000 years earlier in Western history by Greek scholars. In fact they even calculated reasonable accurate estimates about it's diameter... which Columbus got wrong. And not just a little wrong; he was off by a factor of 3x! When he bumped in to the Caribbean he thought he'd sailed all the way around to Southeast Asia. He thought he'd reached India-- a claim which he insisted on until his death-- and to this day we perpetuate his error by calling the native peoples of North, Central, and South America Indians.

5. Celebration of Columbus Day is a modern artifact. With the American nursery rhyme "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue" you might think celebration of Columbus Day has been around for 500 years... or maybe 200-300, at least. There were a few one-time celebrations during that time frame— and they were monstrously used as excuses to commit racial violence in the name of "patriotism". San Francisco claims the longest annual observance, at just over 150 years now. But Columbus Day as a national holiday is just over 50 years old. It's a creation from mid-20th century lobbying by Italian-American community advocates to create a positive Italian-American role model. Some say it's a reaction to the popularity of mafia stories, such as Mario Puzo's The Godfather series, typifying what Americans thought of Italian-Americans. Columbus Day became a federal holiday since 1971. I've always wondered, if we're going to pick an Italian explorer to honor, why not Amerigo Vespucci? Y'know, the guy the continents of the western hemisphere are named for??

High Desert Weekend Trip-log #3
Grapevine, CA - Sat, 26 Mar 2022, 9:30am

🎵 I bet you're wondering how I knew
About your plans to make me blue
With some other guy that you knew before
Between the two of us guys you know I loved you more
It took me by surprise I must say
When I found out the other day
Oo-ooh, I heard it through the grapevine 🎵

...Haha, no, not that grapevine. Instead, not long after leaving Bakersfield and continuing our drive south in California, we've reached "The Grapevine".



"The Grapevine" is a popular if also inaccurate name for a steep mountain grade along Interstate 5 where the road quickly ascends from the flat San Joaquin Valley into the Tehachapi Mountains. In the course of only 10 miles it climbs from near sea level to over 4,000' at the Tejon Pass.

I mention that "The Grapevine" is an inaccurate name. The mountains are the Tehachapi, the pass is the Tejon.... Grapevine is actually the name of a tiny, tiny town, little more than just a dot on a map, at the base of the mountains. But because that roadsign that says Grapevine— the one you can see in the picture— is the only indicator there, millions of Californians for generations have come to know these mountains as The Grapevine.

Why does it matter what these mountains are called? From a perspective of naming, it doesn't matter a lot. Place names change as new people rename them. Often a place is known by 2 or more names at the same time. The mountain's the mountain whether you call it Tehachapi, Tejon, The Grapevine, or Shirley.

But whether you call it Tehachapi, Tejon, The Grapevine, or Shirley (don't call it Shirley), it's an important landmark for millions of Californians and visitors. The Grapevine is not just an inspiring sight, especially now early in the Spring with green grass covering its flanks and riots of wildflowers clinging to the canyon walls higher up, but also a geographical and cultural boundary. North of the Grapevine you're in the Central Valley. Once in the Grapevine, and especially once south of the first pass, you're in Southern California.

Up next: Poppies!

Maine Week Travelog #10
Acadia National Park - Wednesday, 16 Jun 2021, 10pm.

On many lists of things to do at Acadia National Park you'll find "Watch the sunrise atop Cadillac Mountain." Cadillac, the park's tallest mountain, is said to be where the sun first rises on the United States. Watching sunrises there is so popular the Park Service has instituted a reservations system for trips to the Cadillac summit, with tickets for sunrise often selling out within minutes of availability. But we're not going to do it. Why? Because sunrise is at 4:48am!

Instead we've bought tickets to go at 8am tomorrow. That means we only have to wake up at 6:45 or so, instead of setting our alarms for 3:45am or even 3:30 to wake up, dress, pack, and drive up there.

Latitude and Longitude

Does the sun actually rise first at Cadillac Mountain? Well, Maine is clearly the farthest east of the 50 states. Bar Harbor, at 68.2° W longitude, isn't the farthest east part of Maine, but the claim rests on the fact that Cadillac Mountain's 1,529' elevation means the sun strikes it before lower lying land that is further east.

Note I've said, "farthest east of the 50 states". The US territorial possession of Puerto Rico is farther east. San Juan, PR is at 66.1° W.

There's also the matter of when during the year. Bar Harbor, ME is at 44.4° N latitude. In the summertime, when days are longer further north, dawn arrives earlier than at places further south. But in the winter, the north's days are shorter than the south's. That's where it's important to understand how far east Maine is relative to other east-coast states. The Atlantic seaboard of the US is often conceptualized as running north/south. That's inaccurate. In fact it runs northeast/southwest. For example, Miami, Florida, is at 25.8° N, 80.2° W compared to Bar Harbor's 44.4° N, 68.2° W.

BTW, another conceptual inaccuracy about the geography of the US is that states in the northeast are far north. They are not. Bar Harbor's latitude of 44.4° N is south of Portland, OR (45.5° N) and the entire state of Washington. In terms of other counties, the entire UK is north of Maine.