We never met Bob Barker, but he always felt like family.

The iconic host of TV's longest-running game show, The Price Is Right, who recently passed at age 99, was always present whenever we were filling out an application or checking in to a hotel.

As soon as anyone saw our last name was Barker, the next question became predictable:

"Any relation to Bob?"

I already my standard comeback ready:

"If so, he's not claiming us."

This little dialogue exchange became a standard part of all our road trips. And when it didn't happened, we kind of missed it.

If we had been related, I would have been proud. Like Bob, we are avid animal lovers. Plus he just always seemed like a nice, genuine guy -- the kind this old world needs more than ever.

Rest in peace, Bob -- from your maybe, long-lost cousin.

The subject of UFOs took centerstage in our nation's capital this week at a Congressional hearing where one witness said not only does our government possess downed alien aircraft, but also has recovered the bodies of alien pilots. He also testified of a super-secret program to reverse engineer alien technology that's been going on since the 1930s.

Now that's a lot to unpack.

The whistleblower -- David Grusch, a former intelligence officer in the Air Force and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency for 14 years -- has credentials to make such claims. Unfortunately, he doesn't have any hard evidence that could collaborate his story.

Do I want to believe him? As a longtime fan of "Ancient Aliens" and the whole UFO phenomenon, sure I do. In fact, I hope it is true, and aliens really have been visiting us for thousands of years, serving, for lack of a better term, as our "cosmic caretakers."

And that brings me to my own "conspiracy theory," of sorts. Consider this:

When the New York Times published those Navy videos of unexplained UAPs (Unidentified Arieal Phenonmena) interacting with our jets in 2017, it propelled UFOs into the mainstream like nothing else, giving it a new credibility at the same time.

In 2021, the Pew Research Center reported: "As an unprecedented U.S. intelligence report brings new attention to the phenomenon of unidentified flying objects, about two-thirds of Americans (65%) say their best guess is that intelligent life exists on other planets."

Could it be it's all part of a grand plan to "condition" the human race to the reality that other lifeforms do exist and yes, they are among us.

And why now? Maybe, just maybe, the answer is two words: Climate change.

If our planet really is facing a Doomsday scenario in the next 25-100 years, and we have already passed the tipping point, the time could be right for some do-gooder aliens (we hope they are) to come to our rescue. At least, that's my theory.

Over 50 years ago, the brilliant Rod Sterling landed on the same idea in his "The Twilight Zone" episode, "To Serve Man." Except in that case, the outcome was decidedly darker. Take a look in this clip:

 Since we don't know what we don't know, it's anybody's guess what the real truth is. But if it comes down to saving the planet, let's don't rule anything out.

Every time there's a new "Gigi in the 561" podcast, I learn something new. Such as, who knew QR codes were on the way out -- at least at restaurants.

You know what I'm talking about -- those odd-looking, square, Barcode-on-steroids images that you see almost everywhere. You scan them with your smartphone camera to get more information, enter contests or trigger some other clever marketing gimmick. In the case of restaurants, it pulls up their menu in place of the traditional one you hold in your hands.

QR (Quick Response) codes have been around since 1994, when a Japanese car parts company came up with the idea. They needed to keep track of their inventory, and barcodes didn't cut it. As they say, "necessity is the mother of invention." From that humble beginning, the QR exploded onto the scene.

The menu QR code didn't really gain traction until COVID hit, and "touchless" took over wherever possible. But even then,  it was often more trouble than it was worth. There was time spent fumbling with your phone, trying to get the right scanning angle. If you were with friends or business associates, God forbid it didn't work and you looked like a doofus.

We have actually been on some cruise ships where QR was the only option -- there were no regular menus. Putting all your eggs in the technology basket -- yeah, that's a good idea.

Quoting from an article in Gizmodo:

“They (QR codes) are almost universally disliked,” Kristen Hawley, founder of the restaurant technology newsletter Expedite, told The New York Times, citing one reason as etiquette. Taking a phone out at a table can feel like a distraction, something people use to pass the time when they would rather be doing almost anything else, and when forced to use a phone as a menu alternative, it successfully kills the mood."
It's not like people using their phones while dining isn't annoying enough already. Do we really want to provide another reason not to interact in what is supposed to be a social setting?

​For me, it harkens back memories of the Cue Cat, the ill-fated, proprietary, barcode reader that debuted in 2000 as the "next big thing." By using a cat-shaped scanner attached to a computer, users could scan a special code to navigate to a specific Internet URL. It drew in a bevy of investors, including my former company, Belo (owners of The Dallas Morning News).

Unfortunately, it didn't work out. Installing it was clunky and time-consuming, consumers didn't see the need and there were privacy concerns as well. After a big, initial splash, it quickly flamed out in a sea of negative press. It was pretty much history by 2001, and Belo ended up writing off nearly $40 million.

The idea of information shortcuts isn't a bad one. With billions of URLs out there, having instant access to the ones we want has merit. We just may have to wait until the human-computer interface is perfected.

Until then, can I have a menu, please?

As lovers of cupcakes and other sweet confections, Pam and I are always on the lookout for a new place to quench our desire for sugary Nirvana. This week, we found one: Crumbl.

No, that's not a typo. Crumbl, sans the "e," is a cookie store that is apparently taking the country by storm. The brainchild of two cousins, the first Crumbl opened in 2017 in Logan, Utah, and has since expanded to over 800 locations in 49 states, making it the fastest-growing cookie franchise in the United States.

When we learned one of those locations was across the street from Costco on Northlake Blvd., we wasted no time making the trek there. 

We discover a big plus right off the bat -- they are open six days a week (closed Sunday), from 8 am to 10 pm, and open until midnight on Friday and Saturday. Now we have somewhere to go that doesn't close at 5 pm. 

​The first thing to know about Crumbl is their store is incredibly clean, and open. You can watch the cookie makers at work, right alongside the large mixing machines that churn the dough. A big display lists the "Flavors of the Week" menu, which rotates weekly, and then the hard part starts: Making a decision.

Today we can choose from Milk Chocolate Chip, Cookie Butter Ice Cream, Confetti Cake, Peanut Butter Brownie, Triple Berry Cobbler, Classic Pink Sugar, Dirt Cake, Strawberry Cake, Chocolate Milk and Semi-Sweet Chocolate. Too bad they don't offer a mini-sampler -- I need to try them all. Ultimately, Pam goes with the Semi-Sweet and I pick Cookie Butter Ice Cream.

Price-wise, a single cookie is $4.48, with a 4-pack going for $14.60 and a 6-pack for $22.48. There's also the Party Box, $38.23, if you want to impress your friends.

​Each cookie is nicely packaged by the store's friendly attendant in a pretty pink box, which Pam says reminds her of the pink packaging used by Sprinkles cupcakes in Beverly Hills. Be advised: Not only are the cookies large, but also thick. in other words, one cookie will probably fulfill your cookie cravings.

​Now, about the taste. We both agree -- one of the best store-bought cookies we've ever had, comparable to the cookie we've always held in high esteem, Cheryl's, in Columbus, Ohio. Sorry, Cheryl's, but that's the way the cookie crumbls.

​Besides, Northlake is a tad closer than Columbus, Ohio.

If you listened to Pam's "Gigi in the 561" podcast today (and I hope you do), she talks about the "Sky Hotel," a concept envisioned to forever circle our skies and never have to land, or at least, rarely touch down.

It gave me immediate flashbacks to my growing up years when I devoured science fiction  writers like Isaac Asimov, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert Heinlein, to name a few, as well as movies like "This Island Earth" and "Forbidden Plant." Most painted a futuristic earth where cities of glass and steel floated in the clouds, and people moved about in flying cars. The idea of a flying hotel would fit right in.

Powered by nuclear energy, the Sky Hotel would circle the earth continuously, giving vacationers spectacular views of the planet and phenomena like the Northern Lights. Guests would be ferried to and from by jet planes and transported via elevators to the hotel.

The dream of a hotel in the sky has been around a long time. It played a pivotal role in the late, great Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, "2001: A Space Odyssey." Since the dawn of the Space Age, and particularly since the privatization of space travel, many of us expect a Hyatt or Hilton to be orbiting the earth any time now.

While many things science fiction have become science fact, it's still much easier to create concepts than take those dreams from the drawing board to reality. And just imagine how much a stay in the Sky Hotel would cost, and that's before you add in the "resort fee" -- not to mention what the valet charge would be to park a private plane or jet.

Isn't it sad how reality crushes our childhood dreams of one day living like "The Jetsons"? Chances are, we'll have to settle for the virtual reality version of hotels that fly or cities that float in the clouds. I'll ask my AI app to get busy on that.

It's one of the conundrums of our Age: Literally thousands of TV shows, movies, documentaries and instructional videos streaming on every possible platform 24 hours a day, and yet we can't find anything to watch.

Such was our dilemma after we came to the end of the latest Ted Lasso episode -- which is worth watching -- on Apple TV. Searching for something new, we ran across "The Big Door Prize," another Apple TV offering that has high marks on Rotten Tomatoes, which has supplanted the New York Times as the barometer of movie ratings.

We hadn't gotten very far into the first episode when I got that feeling -- haven't I seen this somewhere before?

​The show centers around a machine called "Morpho." It asks for your social security number, and your fingerprints, then spits out a card proclaiming your life's purpose. My mind instantly returned to one of my favorite "Twilight Zone" episodes -- "Nick of Time" -- which originally aired over 60 years ago.

​Starring William Shatner (Shatner seemed to appear in Rod Sterling's best "Twilight Zone" episodes, like "The Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"), he and his wife are stranded by car trouble in a small Ohio town, where they run across a "Mystic Seer" fortune-telling machine at a local diner. Like the people who become mesmerized by Morpho, Shatner soon can't make a move without asking the Seer first.

While the execution is different, the basic idea is the same. For me, it just reinforces the old adage adopted from the Bible, "there's nothing new under the sun." Since our streaming, on-demand world has an insatiable appetite, that's not a good thing. Is it possible AI (Artificial Intelligence) will come to the rescue?

​Let's ask the Mystic Seer.

Pam and I love to travel -- pretty obvious by taking one look at this website -- and besides the allure of new places and experiences, it truly is educational. Every time we venture forth, we always learn something we didn't know.

Take the Ylang-Ylang tree, for example.

Deep in the rainforests of northeastern Puerto Rico, our tour guide stopped to grab a few buds from one of the tropical trees around us.

"This is a Ylang-Ylang tree," he said, holding the buds in the palm of his hand. "Have you heard of Chanel perfume?" he asked. Of course. "This is used in making it."

To demonstrate, he rubbed the buds between his fingertips and invited us to smell. We could tell right away it had that floral scent you find in many perfumes. And just like that, we learned something we didn't know.

Ever-curious, I had to find out more at the source of all knowledge these days: Wikipedia. The latter informed, "the fragrance of ylang-ylang is rich and deep with notes of rubber and custard, and bright with hints of jasmine and neroli, thus it is sometimes described as heavy, sweet, and carries a slightly fruity floral scent."

Further, it has other uses as well as perfume:

-- "The essential oil is used in aromatherapy" for high blood pressure, skin problems and is even considered an aphrodisiac (buying your significant other Chanel No. 5 might bolster that claim).

-- In Indonesia, "ylang-ylang flowers are spread on the bed of newlywed couples."

--In the Philippines, its flowers are made into necklaces that also "adorn religious images."

Who knew?

Wanting to smell better as we trekked into the rainforest, I grabbed a few buds myself and rubbed them on my neck. "No," Pam said, laughing, "it doesn't work that way."

I think I better stick to buying the finished product.

Self-driving cars continue to be a hotly-debated topic as governments grapple with safety and logistical issues. The general public is pretty divided as well. 

But did you read about what could be the next step in self-driving ideas?

It's reported that Ford wants to patent an application that would permit a car to repossess itself when the owner doesn't make payments. In such situations, the car could be commanded to lock its doors and drive itself to the lender or an impound lot.

But, according to the story on Business Insider, it would have other options at its disposal for delinquent borrowers, such as:

-- Turn off the air conditioning or radio

-- Limit the driving range by day of the week

-- Disable cruise control, the radio or GPS

Then there's this: "The computer could also prompt the car to start emitting an 'incessant and unpleasant sound' whenever the driver is there."

Shades of the HAL 9000 from "2001: A Space Odyssey."

But why stop at cars? Slow to pay on that new refrigerator? Watch as the temperature starts to rise. Funny, my TV now only gets three channels. And try washing clothes with the rinse cycle turned off. Not fun.

Can anything stop technology from taking over our lives, determining our future and ruling supreme over everything we do? Only one thing: Pay your bills on time.

Artificial Intelligence. Or simply, AI.

The darling of science fiction writers for many years, it has now firmly moved into the mainstream with the meteoric rise of ChatGPT, the chatbot app that many users tout means the end of Google.

Ask it anything. It "allows you to chat and converse with a mind-blowing assistant using state-of-the-art language processing AI BOT," so says its developers. By the way, in case you were wondering, "GPT" stands for "generative pre-trained transformer." Better to stick with the initials.

There are wildly divergent opinions on AI. Super-techie Elon Musk has said artificial intelligence is more dangerous than nukes and will doom Mankind. He is quoted in one story that it poses “a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.” Come on, Elon, don't sugarcoat it. The late Stephen Hawking agreed with Musk, while Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg reportedly sees those views as an overreaction.

The worry, of course, is that AI will become so powerful, it will grow beyond man's ability to control it. Humans will, in effect, become irrelevant as machines evolve to pursue their own destinies.

As mentioned, this has been fodder for Hollywood for some time. Go back and watch the 1964 film, "Fail Safe," when the President, played by Henry Fonda, has to make an impossible decision when a computer malfunction sends one of our bombers to nuke Moscow and can't be recalled. Or more recently, the AI-empowered robots of "Ex Machina," who turn on their human creators.

Good or bad, there's no question it's a fascinating topic. I was especially intrigued with this recent story, published in Fast Company, entitled: "AI can explain the meaning of life and the answer will surprise you."
It focuses on a new book, "What Makes Us Human: An Artificial Intelligence Answers Life’s Biggest Questions," written by Iain Thomas, poet and novelist, and Jasmine Wang, technologist and philosopher.

When asked that really big question humans have asked themselves for millennia, AI came back with three answers. The first of those is love. Quoting from the authors: "Love is the meaning of everything. Love is the purpose behind our lives; the reason why we’re here. The AI came back to it again and again in many different ways."

Second, "the idea that we should return to the present moment—that Heaven, Paradise, is found within this present moment. As soon as we start to leave it, and we start to dwell on the past or become anxious about the future, we begin to suffer."

And third -- which "AI returned to again and again in a way that was perhaps much more prevalent than the other two" -- was connection, "that we are fundamentally connected to each other and to the universe around us."

Three simple truths that great thinkers, poets, artists and religious leaders have espoused and recognized almost since we first asked that question of ourselves.

The Beatles knew it: "All You Need is Love." Romeo and Juliet knew it. Love is the one emotion that gives us comfort in the face of a cold and indifferent universe. As musician Steve Winwood sings in "Higher Love:"

"Think about it, there must be higher love
Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above
Without it, life is wasted time
Look inside your heart, I'll look inside mine"

Then the idea of living in the present. Carpe Diem. Make the most of every moment of your life. With time our most precious commodity, that one is hard to argue. Of course, physicists have a hard time of pinning down just what "present" means in the vast scheme of time. What exactly is that moment, sandwiched between what is past and what is future. Maybe that's another question for AI to answer.

Lastly, the idea everything is connected. On small scales, it could be Kevin Bacon's six degrees of separation; on cosmic scales, it means we are truly one with the universe. Buddhists have known that for thousands of years. Dust off your copy of "Siddhartha" and give it another read.

Just as we send robot spacecraft to report on hostile environments, maybe it's a good idea to dispatch AI down intellectual rabbit holes, even if, in the end, it validates what we already knew.

As to whether AI will eventually rule supreme and end the world as we know it, only time will tell. Many would say Mankind is speeding us toward that already.

In 2015, after careers in the newspaper business, Pam and I established North Palm Beach Life. The name comes from the community we call home, but our focus extends to South Florida and through our travels and podcasts, worldwide.

Part of our mission continues to be publicizing events and news from organizations and nonprofits that deserve your attention. At the same time, Pam shares her views and commentary in her podcast, Gigi in the 561, which just started its third year and is available on over 20 platforms, including iTunes, Amazon, Pandora, Spotify and Google.

Here you'll also discover the latest news from the cruise industry in our Cruise News blog, and reviews of over 60 cruises (and counting) we have taken, as well as travel by rail and car throughout the USA. North Palm Beach Life also proudly features travel contributors, as well as humor writer Susan Goldfein. 

I also cover reviews and random topics in my personal blog, Gerry Pronounced Gary, and have reposted concert reviews from my days in the Seventies as a rock music writer in Rock and Roll Rewind. If you have an interest in digital history and online prior to the Internet, you might want to check out The Story of StarText.

One decision we made early on is to not accept advertising. We want our website to be a place with no strings or obligations attached. It's worked so far.

We welcome your comments and suggestions -- email us at northpalmlife@gmail.com. You can also find us on Facebook and instagram, where Pam posts the latest goings-on. In the meantime, thanks for stopping by and please invite your friends. --Gerry and Pam Barker