Hi:
I wanted to do a special this week for Leap Day.
4 years ago, February 29 fell on a Saturday, so rather than publish on March 1, we banged one out Saturday night and posted it. I wanted to do it again on Thursday, but the day just kind of got away. Now we have to wait another 4 years. Oh well.
There were a couple of interesting stories in regard to February 29 I wanted to discuss. Here is one of them.
Mary Lea Forsythe of Sand Springs, Oklahoma celebrated her 100th birthday on Thursday, though technically this was only the 25th time she got to celebrate on her actual birthday.
Mrs. Forsythe was born on February 29, 1924. She's been around since Calvin Coolidge was President. But with February 29 coming around once every 4 years, she had to celebrate 75 of those birthdays on different days.
That would drive me bat$h-t, which I know is both immature and irrational, but they say God only gives those burdens to those who can handle them. Mrs. Forsythe made the best of it.
She told Good Morning America....
"I always thought I was blessed." She explained that in non-leap years, she would celebrate the occasion two or three times over. "It was so much fun. We celebrated whenever we wanted to."
Her late husband's birthday was March 6, and many times she celebrated her birthday along with his. One year they went out for breakfast to a diner where you ate free on your birthday. When the Forsythe's went to this diner on March 6, they didn't give the husband any guff, but they questioned Mary Lea.
"His birthday is March 6 and mine is February 29. And there is no February 29 this year, so I'm celebrating on March 6th." she told the wait staff.
They both ate free that day. I guess it wouldn't have been as sweet a story if they made her wash dishes on her husband's birthday to settle the check, right?
Her husband passed in 2011. Had he lived another year, they would have celebrated their 70th anniversary.
She was given a centennial birthday party by her local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, an organization she is a proud member of. The Revolutionary War had only been over for a mere 140 years when she was born. The Civil War had ended a smidge under 60 years before she was born. WWI had ended 6 years before she was born.
Along with Mrs. Forsythe, Pacers center Tyrese Haliburton, rapper Ja Rule, and the late Dinah Shore-a (thank you Adam Sandler) were all February 29th babies.
Now, the reason we have to do February 29 every four years is that it actually takes the Earth 365 and 1/4 days to go around the sun. Rather than add 6 hours to a day every year, the powers that be decided a full day every 4 years would fit the bill. I heard on the radio on Thursday, and I had to verify, but back when, the early calendars, rather than have February 29, actually had two February 24ths! Can you imagine? I have one current co-worker and two former co-workers born on 2/24. 48 hours of birthdays? If they had two August 5ths, most of my family would have stopped speaking to me years ago. (kidding)
Nobody really knows when February 29 became official, but historians have narrowed it down to around the 15th century. Like I said, I probably should have either wrote all this on Thursday or saved it for 4 years, but who the hell knows what 4 years from now will bring.
With that, we press on...
FAST FOOD- Say it aint so!
Dave Thomas must be spinning in his grave.
The late founder (and tireless spokesman) of Wendy's Old-Fashioned Hamburgers, I believe, would have been shocked and appalled by the news this week that his beloved fast-food chain is considering raising the prices of their wares at peak mealtimes.
Wendy's CEO Kirk Tanner told a meeting of investors that the company is planning to invest $20 million on high tech menu boards that can update menu prices in real time. As opposed to having some poor 16-year-old kid have to get up on a step stool and change the prices manually. Being that I was the tallest kid working at Baskin-Robbins back in the 90's, I'm guessing that would have been one of my jobs.
They call this surge pricing, comparing it to what Uber Drivers do when it's harder to find a car. A 10.00 ride on a night where it's warm and clear shoots up when it's cold or raining. Now they want to do that with my Baconator?
"They call it surge pricing" says Karl (the Ace) Ludwig, "there's another name for it, price gouging, and the last time I looked that was illegal."
Well, illegal or not, the folks at Wendy's backtracked later on in the week, suggesting that while yes, they would be installing the real-time menu boards, there were no plans for goug, er, I mean surge pricing.
Per NBC News...
To clarify, Wendy’s will not implement surge pricing, which is the practice of raising prices when demand is highest. We didn’t use that phrase, nor do we plan to implement that practice," a spokesperson said in an email to NBC News. They added there are "no plans" to raise prices at high-demand times.
"We said these (digital) menu boards would give us more flexibility to change the display of featured items. This was misconstrued in some media reports as an intent to raise prices when demand is highest at our restaurants. We have no plans to do that and would not raise prices when our customers are visiting us most," the Feb. 26 statement reads. "Any features we may test in the future would be designed to benefit our customers and restaurant crew members. Digital menu boards could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the slower times of day."
A Wendy’s spokesperson had initially confirmed the digital menus, as well as dynamic pricing, in a Feb. 26 statement to TODAY.com, noting the company's future ability to change prices at different times of day. The initial statement did not say the fast food chain would only lower prices with the new "dynamic pricing" model.
“As we’ve previously shared, we are making a significant investment to accelerate our digital business. In addition to evolving our loyalty program, we are leveraging technology even more with the rollout of digital menu boards in some U.S. restaurants,” the statement read. “Beginning as early as 2025, we will begin testing a variety of enhanced features on these digital menu boards like dynamic pricing, different offerings in certain parts of the day, AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling based on factors such as weather.”
Riiiiiiiiight.
I give the higher-ups at Wendy's credit for having the good sense to back track on this when the spit hit the fan. But let's be honest, the toothpaste may be already out of the tube. If Wendy's doesn't end up doing this surely McDonalds or Burger King will. The man is forever looking to separate us from what my friend, former nighttime Post sports editor Hondo referred to as our DDP's (disposable dead presidents)
And here's another case in point....
COMMUTING: Congestion Pricing
On my way to work on Friday, I heard Boomer and Gio on WFAN discussing the new Congestion Pricing Plan for folks driving into midtown Manhattan. Both Boomer Esiason and Greg Gianotti were lamenting the plan, since both of them drive in every morning from Long Island to the FAN's downtown studios.
It's hard to feel bad for either of them, especially Boomer, who is a former NFL MVP, and in addition to hosting the FAN's morning show, also is a panelist on CBS's NFL Today, and gets paid handsomely for both gigs. Gio doesn't make as much, $$$, but still, he's getting paid to rant about sports, something I do here every week for bupkis.
But they're not wrong.
It's going to cost a regular passenger car $15 to enter Manhattan below 61st Street between 5 AM and 9 PM on weekdays and 9 AM-9PM on weekends. A $1.25 surcharge will be added to all yellow cabs and $2.50 for rideshare apps. Trucks will be charged per size.
I lived on the Upper East Side from 2006 till early 2009, and I used drive to work in Westchester 4 days a week (I'd take the train most Fridays) They were talking about doing this back then, and one of the plans was to make the toll from 86th Street and below. (This current plan wouldn't have screwed me as much, since I lived on 70th Steet and I came over the Willis Avenue/3rd Ave Bridge) This was in addition to what I was paying for parking and all the other joys of living in Manhattan.
Back then, they were also talking about tolling the East River bridges which led to some heated exchanges with (Razor) Ray McGarvey, who as I've now grown up and matured, I will refer to as a scientist and environmental advocate, as opposed to the geek and tree hugger I probably called him back then.
As we discussed it the other night, Ray, Ace and I all seemed to think that while the idea has its merits, the execution is perhaps a bit flawed.
I would reconsider the cab/Uber surcharge. Yellow cabs are already surcharging the $h-t out of their riders, which is a matter of survival as the ease of Uber/Lyft has made their jobs 10 times harder. The more folks use these services, the less they'll drive, so I would encourage that more by making it more affordable.
The truck issue is a bit more complicated. On one hand, it's those large trucks that take up room on the narrow Manhattan streets and block parking spots. I get nailing them for higher prices. On the other hand, their delivering products and goods, the costs of which will rise dramatically as the costs associated with congestion pricing will no doubt be passed along to us the consumer.
Now we are being told that the money raised from congestion pricing will go to rebuilding and improving the dilapidated NYC Subway system.
I've been hearing this song and dance for years.
Now, in the past few years, we've had the long-awaited 2nd Avenue Subway, which Tim and I recently took from 96th Street to MSG and it took us 15 minutes. We also have the new Grand Central Madison (which we'll talk about in a bit). improvements like these are rare, usually the MTA is a money pit. They raise the fares, and the services get worse. Less trains, meaning the ones that do come are more crowded.
I'm sure there are members of the MTA who are well intentioned and believe in their heart of hearts that this plan will be the elixir that will fix everything. It will reduce pollution and traffic, inject funds into rebuilding the outdated system in place now, and in the end serve as a model for cities around the country if not the world.
But I've watched this show too many times, and that is rarely the ending. Who knows where the money goes, but its usually not to the improvements we are promised. And I have my doubts that traffic will go down as much as they think it will.
The MTA believes that they will be able to implement this plan around June 15, so we're all going to find out together.
Back to Grand Central Madison for a sec..., since we're at the one year anniversary of the opening of the new hub, there have been a bunch of reviews coming in. They've been mixed, I think it really depends on where you are heading. Since it cut down my commute by about 15-10 minutes, I've been very happy. Those folks who worked near Penn Station or anywhere on the West Side lamented that the train they normally took had been rescheduled. I can understand that issue.
But my favorite complaint are those folks who were complaining of the lack of "dining options."
Dining Options?
Yes, the main atrium of Grand Central Terminal at one time had a Michael Jordan's steakhouse. But if you've ever gotten on the train at Penn Station and sat behind folks eating BBQ chicken and pizza and burgers, I mean, don't get me wrong, all good things, but the combined stench, not to mention many of the folks consuming these foods have been tying one on the past few hours, well, lets just say, I'm kind of glad there aren't too many dining options at GCM.
(As a public service, and so I don't come off as a total snob, there's a McDonalds that's open pretty late on 47th between 5th and Madison if you are looking for something to eat near Grand Central Madsion)
Mostly I just like the term dining options to describe pizza, hot dogs, burgers and chicken.
I wanted to write about this last week, but kind of ran out of juice...
SPACE TRAVEL Moon Misson
Intuitive Machines, a private company, was able to land a spacecraft on the moon a week ago last Thursday. That was the good news. The bad news was that one of the four landing legs broke and the craft landed on its side. While the lander was able to transmit some pictures, it ran out of solar power this past Thursday, a disappointing ending to Americas first contact with the moon since the end of the Apollo program 51 years ago.
Odysseys the name of the lander was a joint project between NASA and Intuitive Machines. While both of the involved entities painted a positive picture of the mission, seems to me there were a lot of bumps. The hope is that the machine can repower itself and come back on line in two or three weeks. That's assuming parts of it don't freeze during the lunar nighttime.
Right now, we are really no closer to putting a human back on the moon than we were before, and maybe I need to get a life or something, but I find that incredibly frustrating. Especially that we were able to do so, pre interwebs in 1969. It's just amazing to me how much our space program has regressed.
I know there are many people who feel that space travel is a waste of time and money, especially with all the problems down here on Earth. But the way I look at it, if we can establish a presence on the moon, we won't have to worry about paying 15 bucks to drive into Manhattan, or 15 bucks for a Dave's Double at Wendys.
These are the things I dream about.
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We managed to get through this week's post without mentioning sports or National politics. I'll just quickly mention, for what it's worth, that Super Tuesday is coming up on, well, Tuesday. Quite possibly the least dramatic Super Tuesday in history, or at least as long as I've been following these things. Captain Orange won this weekend's contests in Michigan, Missouri and Idaho.
Saturday was a washout , but Sunday was a spring preview here in NY. I hope you got to enjoy some of it.
Stay Safe
and Have a Great Week
