Thursday, November 30, 2023
My November 2023 Running/Walking Report
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Weekly Short Stories: 1994 Science Fiction, Part 4
Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Just Finished Reading Exercised by Daniel Lieberman
Daniel Lieberman's academic title is "paleoanthropologist", a mouthful that I'm confident he's gotten quite well at enunciating...I, though, have some catching up to do. I first saw him in a YouTube interview on the excellent channel Diary of a CEO and was impressed enough to check out his book Exercised from my public library. Its premise resounds like Lieberman's interview: humankind evolved not to engage in exercise, but to avoid it. He posits his theory based on his academic research living among different ongoing hunter-gatherer cultures in various parts of the world. There the people's lives are doubtless physically strenuous, but only when their necessities, such as hunting, demand it. Otherwise, they seem quite lazy, sitting around and definitely not jogging or weightlifting. Lieberman says that this is why people in more "advanced" technology-based cultures (such as presumably yours and mine) need to intentionally move our bodies even when labor-saving devices can do most of the physical work for us. He believes that the advancement of the species through evolution is focused on getting the individual successfully past reproductive age, beyond which their survival into old age becomes more extraneous to the process. But by assigning special social roles to the elderly that benefit the group's survival, they, too, can achieve long and healthy life spans. Daniel Lieberman is a big advocate for both resistance and aerobic fitness training, and he himself is a long-distance runner. He also has something to say about the very passive way of sitting for long stretches of time in "advanced" cultures as opposed to the more squatting, fidgety way he observed in his field work of the more "primitive" peoples...our ways lower longevity. I liked both this book of his and his online interview. Check it out if you have the time or inclination...
Monday, November 27, 2023
My Favorite Songs for 2023 So Far
Sunday, November 26, 2023
Enjoyed Watching College Football Rivalry Games on TV Yesterday
Saturday, November 25, 2023
Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning
After my half-marathon on November 12th, in which I had my best final time since 2015 by employing the Jeff Galloway strategy of inserting regular short intervals of walking over the course of the race, I decided to see how this would work on a shorter, 5K race. Although in earlier years my final times of this distance had gotten down to 23-24 minutes, since 2019 for the span of my previous 26 Depot Parkruns here in Gainesville (a free weekly Saturday morning run/walk run by volunteers) I never ran faster than my 30:00 finish in that first Parkrun. Until today, that is. This time I ran the first 6 minutes, then speed-walked 40 seconds...then ran again until my timer hit 12 minutes, then speed-walked 40 more seconds, alternating like this until I crossed the finish line at 29:47, finally breaking that frustrating 30-minute barrier. I already knew I could do it anyway because in another relatively recent local 5K race I had run it even faster, but this time it seemed more satisfying since it pointed the way to how I intend to run any future race, regardless of the distance. The race time (7:30 am) temperature was 50 degrees with 93% humidity...lots of folks lined up bundled up: I dressed as usual, tee-shirt and shorts. Running this Galloway method is more than getting faster finishing times...I actually feel that I could continue on for an indefinitely longer distance. So now I'm wondering whether I really should set half-marathons as my longest race in the future. You can view today's results by clicking HERE...
Friday, November 24, 2023
Quote of the Week...from Steve Kaufmann
I study on my own when I feel like it. When I'm tired of whatever I'm doing, I move on to something else. ---Steve Kaufmann
In his latest podcast, polyglot Steve Kaufmann, who has at different times in his 77-year-old existence mastered some 20 different languages, describes himself as a "lazy language learner". He is the creator of LingQ (pronounced "link"), a language-learning website app, as well as a weekly podcaster I regularly listen to. On one of Steve's latest shows, he gave the above quote after claiming that he is a lazy language learner. That may be true now, but I happen to know that in his early adult years he underwent intensive language training in Chinese and Japanese while he served there in his country's (Canada) foreign service. So, Steve Kaufmann knows on a deep level how to successfully tackle languages, and that can partially be attributed to life experiences that wouldn't be applicable to most of us, me included. But I understand the gist of his argument, which is that repeated exposure to the target language, both listening and reading, can activate the mind's natural language learning abilities without subjecting oneself to graded classes with exams or memorizing long word lists and intricate grammar rules. Yet in my own past I did memorize and repeatedly reviewed long word lists...including 1,700 Chinese characters...and this I feel has greatly helped me to understand what I am hearing and reading today. I think each of us has our own special set of experiences, proclivities and skills that we bring to the table of language learning and that it's okay to use them to our advantage...no one formula fits everyone. What I call "lazy" language learning greatly overlaps Steve's version while differing in some respects. I just need to get easier access to instant translation of unknown words I come across in order to make my learning more meaningful...
Thursday, November 23, 2023
Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody
Wednesday, November 22, 2023
Weekly Short Story: 1994 Science Fiction, Part 3
Today I deliberately made the number singular on this weekly blog feature of mine. Usually, I'll read a few entries from an anthology and then briefly review each story. But this week as I was reading through Gardner Dozois' sci-fi anthology series, specifically The Year's Best Science Fiction, Twelfth Annual Collection, I ran across a pretty lengthy novella. Dozois has always had a penchant for inserting long stories like this one, not quite at novel-size, into his series. So, here's my reaction to that novella...
Tuesday, November 21, 2023
Sixty Years Ago, Tomorrow
Monday, November 20, 2023
Just Finished Reading Level Up by Rob Dial
Very recently Rob Dial, known for his Mindset Mentor personal development-themed podcast that often offers topics for my blog articles, had published his first book: Level Up, long title Level Up: How to Get Focused, Stop Procrastinating, and Upgrade Your Life. This pretty much describes the book, which incorporates the gist of Dial's podcast messages and presents it in more whole fashion. Level Up is divided into three sections: why you're not taking action, how to take action, and creating habits and making them stick. In each of them are subtopics that logically contribute to the main message. At the chapters' close are personal journaling questions...Dial believes strongly in introspection and writing down on paper one's inner thoughts and feelings. In that sense this is an interactive book...not in the adopted cyberworld sense but in that the reader is invited to participate, step by step, with the program as it is laid out. I haven't sat down and begun this interaction...no, I've procrastinated, dang it! But there's no better time than now...actually, there's no time other than now. I think you'll find this book helpful regardless where you happen to be in your own personal walk through life...there's none of that mystical nonsense that I've encountered in other works of this sort. Hopefully, the public library web service Libby will begin to offer it for checkout before long...
Sunday, November 19, 2023
Computer Problems Cause Gap in Blog
I've been experiencing some technical difficulties with this blog and my computer in general...I'll be back before too long.
Thursday, November 16, 2023
People and Happiness: Not Synonymous
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Weekly Short Stories: 1994 Science Fiction, Part 2
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
NYC Marathon Open to Slow Finishers, Unlike Gainesville-Area Marathons
Monday, November 13, 2023
Enjoying the Change of Weather, If Only Briefly
Sunday, November 12, 2023
Ran the Tom Walker Half-Marathon This Morning
This morning I got up early and once again headed out to Boulware Springs Park off 15th Street in southeast Gainesville to run in yet another Hawthorne Trail race...this one the Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon, hosted by the Florida Track Club, of which I am a member. It's my fifth Tom Walker Race...I ran it in 2010, 2011, 2019, and 2022. Last year's race took place under unusually warm and humid conditions...I didn't properly prepare myself for that and had to walk the final three miles (yet still won my age group). Today the weather was much more conducive to running, being 61-62 degrees although the humidity was still high...and the cloud cover made things better as well. This time around I employed the Jeff Galloway run-walk strategy, with me running five minutes and then fast-walking one minute, repeating the cycle throughout the race. It worked better than I could have imagined, and I had no shortage of energy as I finished strong at 2:18:06 chip time, once again winning my age division. It was also my fastest half-marathon since 2015...I didn't expect that to happen! Recovery after the race seems to be going well, and I appreciate all the encouragement and support from my loved ones, especially Melissa. You can view the race results by clicking the link HERE...
Saturday, November 11, 2023
Volunteered at Gainesville's Depot Parkrun This Morning
Friday, November 10, 2023
Quote of the Week...from Neil Gaiman
The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can. Neil Gaiman
Thursday, November 9, 2023
Podcaster Discusses How to Make Oneself Miserable
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Weekly Short Stories: 1994 Science Fiction, Part 1
Tuesday, November 7, 2023
Just Finished Reading 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson
Monday, November 6, 2023
Some Comments After the NYC Marathon
Sunday, November 5, 2023
NYC Marathon Taking Place Today
Saturday, November 4, 2023
Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun This Morning
Friday, November 3, 2023
Quote of the Week...from Mark Twain
It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. ---Mark Twain