During the month of September I was still recovering from my July 15th open-heart surgery to replace a defective heart valve and repair an aortic aneurysm. Once sternal precautions, which limited my upper body and arm movements, ended on September 9th, my physical therapist began a regimen of stretching exercises for me designed to strengthen and restore my previous range of movements. But before that, I was encouraged to walk...in September I recorded some 60 miles covered, and the figure is probably considerably higher if you include mileage I didn't count. I also ran some on a limited basis, recognizing that it may take a bit longer to match my pre-operation level in that activity. I've also resumed using daily my home's exercise bike as well as practicing my therapist's earlier prescribed workout for my legs and lower body. Starting next month I plan to record and report on my running mileage, longest single run, and days run as I had in previous months. But for now, I'll just report that I'm encouraged and progress is being made. As for future races, I feel it's a little too early to look at specific upcoming events as I'm focused on listening to my body as I run and allowing myself ample opportunity to progress at a rate that is safe and lasting. But so far things are looking good...
Thursday, September 30, 2021
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Weekly Short Stories: 1977 Science Fiction, Part 1
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Game of the Week: The Lottery
Monday, September 27, 2021
Professor Benjamin's "Great" Math Course
Sunday, September 26, 2021
Great Old TV Episodes...from Bewitched
Saturday, September 25, 2021
Tackling Still More Jigsaw Puzzles at Home
Friday, September 24, 2021
Quote of the Week...from Padme Amidala in Star Wars
So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause. ---Padme Amidala
Thursday, September 23, 2021
Weather Finally Shifts Here, with Lower Humidity
Today marks a big change in our weather in north-central Florida. For many days there has been a blanket of very high humidity here...partially caused by the remnants of tropical storm Nicholas. Combined with high summer temperatures, it has been stifling to walk or even just stand outside for any length of time. But glory be, just as the official seasons changed from summer to fall, a cold front swept down through our area this morning and we are currently blessed with dry, temperate conditions. And although the temperatures are expected once again to rise over the next few days, that blasted extreme mugginess should be gone...at least through the end of September. Who knows, maybe I'll actually be able to go outside tonight and finally do some serious star-gazing under clear sides...
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Weekly Short Stories: 1976 Science Fiction, Part 4
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
Game of the Week: Croquet
Monday, September 20, 2021
Just Finished Reading First Three Nancy Drew Books
While recuperating at home from my surgery, I've had some extra time on my hands...why not go back and read an old childhood series, one I've never covered? Nancy Drew Mystery Stories quickly came to mind, so I read the first three books, originally published in the early 1930s but revised about 30 years later, reportedly changing Nancy's age from 16 to 18 and having her less assertive and rebellious and more compliant and conforming...now always ready to help out with the dishes or housecleaning. There were also black characters in the earlier editions that the author wrote with racial stereotypes common in that era...the revised editions "solved" that by simply eliminating the black characters! And I've read that in some revised editions, the plot was so drastically changed that there was little resemblance to the originals. Still, I thought I'd cross over the gender stereotypes and be a guy reading supposedly "girl" books...heck, I read all of my sister's Trixie Beldon and Donna Parker books when I was a kid. By the way the listed author of the Nancy Drew books is Carolyn Keene, but they were really written by an assortment of writers over the years, starting with Edward Stratemeyer and his kin...
In the first book, The Secret of the Old Clock, a wealthy, recently-deceased benefactor apparently has left his considerable fortune all to one snooty and undeserving family while several different people Nancy befriends claim that he had promised them a share of his inheritance. Now the search is on for the second will that, hopefully, will set things straight. Unfortunately, the book's title as well as the cover picture tend to give away the story...
The second book, The Hidden Staircase, has Nancy investigating a supposedly haunted house that an unscrupulous real estate speculator is inexplicably trying to buy up...Nancy's friend Helen enlists her help as her aunt and great-grandmother live there and are understandably unsettled by the frights. The disappearance of her father, apparently kidnapped, adds urgency to her efforts to find him and solve the mystery. Guess what? The solution involves a hidden staircase...who would have imagined...
In the third book, The Bungalow Mystery, Nancy and her friend Helen find themselves in dire peril after a raging storm sinks their boat in the middle of a lake...only to be rescued by Laura, an orphaned teenager. Her mother only died recently and had arranged for a nearby couple to be her guardians...but when they arrive they only seem interested in locking Laura in her room and trying to take from her the valuable jewelry her mother left behind. Meanwhile, Nancy's lawyer father Carson has enlisted her help in an embezzlement probe...I pretty much had this one figured out early on...
As you would expect children's novels to be, Nancy Drew is written in short, simple sentences with plain language...ah, how refreshing after reading so much "adult" writing that seems to be deliberately designed to be difficult to understand. Still, I think I'll leave Nancy for a while and tackle one of those "big boy" books...
Sunday, September 19, 2021
Great Old TV Episodes...from The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
THE MAD, MAD TEA PARTY AFFAIR was first aired in February, 1965...by that time (I was eight) its series, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., had easily become my favorite TV show, with me writing down the names of each episode as I saw them and enjoying the whole secret agent ambience of it...which clearly in retrospect was a takeoff on the successful James Bond movie series. This particular episode takes place almost entirely within U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement) in a high-rise building, presumably New York City. Protagonist agents Napoleon Solo (played by Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) find themselves at headquarters confronted with two challenging problems: an eccentric elderly man has infiltrated the supposedly secure building while THRUSH, the criminal enemy organization of U.N.C.L.E., has sent someone to plant a bomb there to kill those attending a crucial meeting. But what makes this episode so memorable to me happened before it was ever aired: at the conclusion of each episode they would show short previews for the following week's show...for this one they showed an airplane headed straight at a skyscraper building, from the viewpoint of the building itself! That image always stuck in my mind and quickly came to the forefront when 9/11 happened more than 36 years later. No, it wasn't a passenger jet...just a model plane launched from a nearby park by that earlier-mentioned gentleman: but he did make the creepy comment that it was on a suicide mission. Although that episode had some serious suspense and stakes as to its outcome, it also had many moments of lightheartedness...and I recommend it to this day if they ever get around to showing this very entertaining old series on television again...
Saturday, September 18, 2021
Gainesville Attorneys Vie for Title of Biggest UF Gator Fan
As I sit here watching the University of Florida football team behind Alabama late in their game...although performing much better than I had expected...I wondered how some competing Gainesville attorneys have been spending their time for the last three hours. One firm's ad has its senior lawyer sitting with his son, the junior partner, in an empty Ben Hill Griffin Stadium (UF's home field) looking up to the sky like visionaries to show how devoted they are to their Gator idols. Then there's the commercial featuring another local lawyer who indirectly puts down the first firm and claims that HE was the true Gator...not only was he a Florida grad but also played on their football team, by golly! And the other evening I saw yet a third firm claiming that THEY bleed Orange and Blue. Presumably, potential clients of these attorneys will see how attached these dudes are to the University and as a result will rush to employ their services. As for me, they might as well have come out with their favorite color or rock band, for all the meaning that conveys. If I need to seek legal counsel, I'm going to want to know facts about their competence, integrity, and track record of attaining successful judgments...not irrelevant tripe like this. And what if I have a beef with the University of Florida...the last person I would want to represent me in court is someone who has professional and/or deeply emotional ties to that school. So you're a football jock from your youth and want to use that to hawk your trade...that approach makes ME more likely to reject you, not run to you. I feel the same about other ex-jocks, Gators or not, who trade on their athletic pasts to promote their respective business ventures or endorsements. As for the Gainesville attorneys, I wonder whether any more will join the contest for Biggest Gator Fan...
Friday, September 17, 2021
Quote of the Week...from Robert Benchley
Thursday, September 16, 2021
Constellation of the Month: Capricornus
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Weekly Short Stories: 1976 Science Fiction, Part 3
Tuesday, September 14, 2021
Game of the Week: KenKen
Monday, September 13, 2021
My Take on the Recent U.S. Open Tennis Tournament
Sunday, September 12, 2021
Enjoying Outdoors Starbucks after Hiatus
Saturday, September 11, 2021
About 9/11 and Our Country, Then and Now
Friday, September 10, 2021
Quote of the Week...from Morris West
Thursday, September 9, 2021
Just Finished Reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
Wednesday, September 8, 2021
Weekly Short Stories: 1976 Science Fiction, Part 2
Tuesday, September 7, 2021
Happy Anniversary, My Dear Melissa
Today I'd like to say HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to most definitely my "better half", my sweet wife of 35 years. Melissa, with each succeeding year I only grow more in love with you...and the health trials I've experienced this summer have only brought us closer together. Baby, you're the greatest!
Monday, September 6, 2021
Just Saying...From a January 1970 Newspaper Report
Sunday, September 5, 2021
Great Old TV Episodes...from The Twilight Zone
Saturday, September 4, 2021
Just Finished Reading A Runner's High by Dean Karnazes
Friday, September 3, 2021
Quote of the Week...from Vincent van Gogh
Thursday, September 2, 2021
Recently Saw the Movie Dances with Wolves
This past weekend Melissa and I decided to watch a movie at home together. Being Netflix subscribers, we browsed through what was available and I noticed the 1990 movie Dances with Wolves. Neither of us had seen it, and I knew it was critically acclaimed and won multiple Oscars, including Best Picture. So in spite of the fact that it was listed as lasting for more than 3 hours, we settled down to watch it. Kevin Costner starred in it, directing, co-producing and portraying the protagonist. Adapted from the same-titled book by Michael Blake, Costner's character was that of Lt. John Dunbar of the United States (Union) Army, whose introductory scene in the Civil War has him lying in a medical tent with his injured foot about to be sawed off. Somehow he manages to painfully put his boots back on and sneak away, but he realizes that he's liable to suffer a slow death from infection and decides impulsively at the start of a battle with entrenched Confederate soldiers to take a horse and ride to his death in front of their lines. But miraculously none of the enemy soldiers' bullets find him, and his action spurs his own side to boldly attack, winning the confrontation and resulting in Dunbar getting the best medical treatment for his foot, a promotion in rank, decorations, and the choice of where his next assignment will be. Finished with the war, he chooses the westernmost outpost, deep in the northern Great Plains. Eventually he is further assigned to a remote post in the middle of nowhere and which has been abandoned. From here he faithfully performs his duties in solitude until he discovers he is not alone...there are Indians nearby, camped by the creek with many horses and tents. And from here the story takes off about how this one soldier first confronts, then befriends...and finally joins the Sioux people, complete with buffalo hunts and a battle against their enemy, the Pawnee. He also finds love among his adoptive people. But Dunbar knows that the whites will be coming in great numbers here, led by his own Army...and the meeting of the two cultures can only go one way. The movie's ending as expected is very climactic and I felt that both Blake the author and Costner the director and actor did a great job spinning a very compelling tale...no wonder it garnered those awards. Still, I have some issues about it to discuss...
I remember, when Dances with Wolves first came out, from its description that it sounded an awful lot like the 1970 Dustin Hoffman film Little Big Man. In fact, while the later story essentially was independent and stood well on its own, I kept noticing elements of the first movie that were incorporated into it...there seems to have been a lot of derivation going on. Even the Pawnee Indians were depicted as thoroughly murderous and depraved in both movies. Which brought me to another problem: the Pawnee were shown to be collectively and individually bad while the Sioux were just wonderful in every way. The white Union soldiers, when they finally arrived on the scene (except for Costner's character, of character), were dominated by cruelty, petty greed, fear, and bigotry. Were these three groups really this distinctly categorizable? I think not...I tend to believe, and you're free to disagree with me, that within different ethnicities of people there are both the good and the bad, and yes, sometimes the net effect of those different groups meeting one another will result in one becoming dominant, sadly at times even to the point of genocide. But if I were a descendant of the Pawnee nation I'd really feel like my ancestors were getting a unfair, bad rap from these movies. Nevertheless, I thought Dances with Wolves was great and Costner deserved all the accolades he received for it. Still, it was a little difficult sitting through three hours of it...we decided halfway through to take a break and walk around the block...