The Henrys are coming for Deluxe, Ultraluxe and More

Treasure Islands promise the riches of wealth and that means being able to purchase luxury.  Owning luxurious things - that signifies reaching high achievements, success, or rank.  There is super deluxe and ultra deluxe to distinguish even further levels of quality.   First world people keep getting wealthier so there have to be more levels to climb to the top. In simple terms "luxurious" seems to be about how much it costs.  The most expensive "luxurious" yacht is $4.5 billion US.  The most expensive parking spots are in Manhattan for $1 million US. Can a parking spot be luxurious?  From the pictures shown, it appears it can be - valets waiting to open the door. Watches have symbolized luxury for centuries. The values of the most luxurious watches are in the $25 to $55 million range.  And prestige watches come with provenance - Paul Newman's Rolex Daytona sold for $17.8 million - only one in the world. Take hotels.  Sleeping and eating can easily be understood as luxurious experiences.   And status experiences are replacing luxury goods as a status symbol.  What about the most luxurious hotels in the entire world?  How many are there?  Are there 10, 20, 50? It looks like there are a few hundred - maybe 200 - 600 hotels. Rather than looking up each item, could we go to a luxury living website and find out what the top luxury items are?  The top blogs and websites are HERE.  And what for the future? With the U.S. having the heaviest concentration of millionaires - 41% - over 17 millionaires live in the U.S. This is followed by China with 3.5 million, Japan 2.8 million and the U.K. with 2.4 million.  Forbes says these wealthy people will change luxury. The Forbes article says: "Looking across this vast generational cohort, defined by Pew as 73 million strong in 2019 and born between 1981 and 1996, there is one segment in that cohort that is most important for luxury brands: the HENRYs (high-earners-not-rich-yet). With higher incomes relative to the majority of the population, between $100k and $250k in the U.S., HENRYs hold the space above the bottom 75th percentile but below the top 95th percentile, where luxury brand’s traditional ultra-affluent customers are found. Since true affluence comes with age, the millennials aged 23-to-38 in 2019 are only now beginning to hit their stride in terms of income and wealth."  This comes from Pamela N. Danziger whose first book was "Why People Buy Things They Don't Need" and has since written 8 more. our pictures today show the finalist winners from the Betterphoto contest last month.  They had a peeling paint contest category for the first time.  There's one that looks like a tree, another like angel wings, another is a pattern of locks, and finally I went to look at who came in first place - and it turns out to be one of my images.  It is the horizontal image  Ebb and Flow.  This was peeling paint on a cafe wall. Here it is on Betterphoto  HERE.

Lily Lantern - Betterphoto Contest Winner

Lily Lantern is a second place winner in the flower category of Betterphoto's December contest.  The following three pictures are finalists.  You can see all the winners HERE.  Here's my question for today. If you listen to JazzFM you know these lyrics: "I hear babies crying, I watch them grow They'll learn much more than I'll never know And I think to myself what a wonderful world Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world" The voice you would likely associate with this is Louis Armstrong.  He's singing "What A Wonderful World" as though he's still with us. The songwriters are George Douglas / George David Weiss / Bob Thiele.   The song was initially offered to Tony Bennett, who turned it down.Then it was offered to Louis Armstrong. George Weiss recounts in the book Off the Record: Songwriters on Songwriting by Graham Nash that he wrote the song specifically for Louis Armstrong. Weiss was inspired by Armstrong's ability to bring people of different races together. The song was not initially a hit in the United States, where it sold fewer than 1,000 copies because ABC Records head Larry Newton did not like the song and therefore did not promote it. It reached number 1 and was the biggest selling album in the U.K. It gradually became a standard all over the world and is much used in movies and television. What I wondered about was how much "babies will learn that we'll never know".  In the song it is a sentiment, but now it is a fact.  In terms of fact Buckminster Fuller created the Knowledge Doubling Curve.  He noticed that until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century.  By the end of World War II knowledge was doubling every 25 years.  On average human knowledge is now doubling every 13 months, and IBM predicts that it will double every 12 hours.  I wonder if this is quantity rather than quality.  Whichever way it lands, it is true that there is information and knowledge today that wasn't in existence 50 years ago.  To get an idea, I checked out Good Housekeeping's list of 40 things we didn't have 40 years ago - it's HERE.

Wrapping Up 2015 with a Panda Test

You can easily find the top stories in 2015 that are negative and heart-wrenching.  I found sunnyskyz.comand it has happy news, but it is Huffington Post who brings us "Find the Panda".   Call it panda-monium. On Dec. 16, Hungarian artist Gergely Dudás (also known as Dudolf) posted an illustrated puzzle to his Facebook page asking his followers to “find the panda” amongst a flurry of snowmen. That post went viral. Some people found the puzzle easy, others found it difficult, but Tracy Lynn Heightchew of Louisville, Kentucky, found it familiar. In fact, it reminded her of a picture that hangs over her kitchen sink. She decided to post her real life version of “find the panda” on Facebook. “I knew that everyone would enjoy this too.” So, can you find the panda in the picture above? Don’t worry, the panda is there, we’re not trying to bamboo-zle you. TRACY LYNN HEIGHTCHEW “It's a photo I bought at a thrift store,” Heightchew told The Huffington Post of the August 1978 picture that was originally snapped at a Junior Achievers National Conference in in Bloomington, Indiana. It includes a bunch of kids wearing silly glasses and clothes. Many of whom are holding different stuffed animals. Heightchew stared at the photo for years until one of those stuffed animals finally popped out at her -- a panda. “I love pandas, so the day that the panda jumped out at me, years after I bought the pic was a sweet day for me,” she said. [SPOILER note: Still can’t find the panda? Here is the answer] TRACY LYNN HEIGHTCHEW Even with the red circle, I can't tell what the shape is.  So I'll move on to our picture today - Finalist in the November Betterphoto Contest.  It is an Ensata (Japanese) Iris that I got for the garden this summer. As well, I've published a photo essay about the Calamus Rusty Shed at Lifeashuman.com.  It's here.