Two things: I seem to be fascinated by modes of transport, and someone pointed out that I haven't blogged in over two years.

Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, envisioned a human transport system comprised of passenger-filled pods that travel through vacuum tubes at incredibly high speeds -- 700mph to be exact. Such speeds could carry passengers from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 20 minutes (a distance of 400 miles). Hyperloop One offered to work with Musk to explore the possibilities, and tests are being conducted in the Nevada desert.

It's been a while. Now that Uber cabs are all over the news, I took a long hard look at the company's ascendancy and, as I usually do, tried to borrow some "best practices" from their business model and cross pollinate them with services found in public libraries.

Sunday's Times had a cover article on the annual All-Japan-Phone-Answering Competition. Yes, you heard that right. A record 12,613 contestants (mostly women because Japanese business types like their phones answered in high-pitched voices) competed to take home top honors. The competition is in its 52nd year!

I just watched Billy Wilder’s film, The Apartment, starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray. A commentary track by film historian, Bruce Block, provided some brilliant insight into Wilder’s attention to detail (he co-wrote the script as well as directed and produced) and the art of screenplay writing. Wilder thought Lemmon the consummate actor, calling him “Macy's, Gimbels, and the Sears-Roebuck Catalog all rolled into one.” He could play anything – comedy, drama, leading man, every man.

I usually get ideas worth blogging while I'm traveling in my car and by the time I "land" all I have is a scrap of envelope with some hard-to-decipher scratchings. As I advance in years I find my handwriting degrades proportionately. We have a few young staffers at the library and I marvel at the clarity and perfectly formed characters of their penmanship.