Thursday, February 29, 2024
My February 2024 Running, Walking and Swimming Report
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Weekly Short Stories: 1995 Science Fiction, Part 6
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Septuagenarian Marathoner Gives Me Pause About My Own Plans
Monday, February 26, 2024
Podcaster Discusses ADHD
Sunday, February 25, 2024
Good Day Off for Me and Family
Today has been a day of relaxation, exercise, companionship with Melissa and our dog Daisy, and personal musings. At the day's start I realized that the TV was on the news and there was a lot of anger...seething anger...going out from people outraged at this thing or that. While information is a good thing in principle, how it's transmitted and how I receive it have become crucial elements of my own life in these divisive times we're living in. I choose the path I want to go down...if others want to be slaves of media manipulation then I guess that is ultimately their own choice as well. I find that while it's important to live each day fully mindful of the present and my surroundings, I also know that it's to my advantage to plan out at least a tentative structure for the future days, weeks and months ahead...and that's been at the roots of those musings I was referring to. All in all, a good day, and I hope yours has gone well, too...
Saturday, February 24, 2024
Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning
Friday, February 23, 2024
Quote of the Week...from Carl Jung
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Training Strategies at Home
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Weekly Short Stories: 1995 Science Fiction, Part 5
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
Podcaster Discusses How to Quell Anxiety
Monday, February 19, 2024
On This Presidents' Day
On this Presidents' Day, which seems to have been de-emphasized as a national holiday, I'd like to make the point that while people can and should discern the best candidates during election years while holding the ongoing president accountable while their tenure is going on, they should respect the office even if the current occupant doesn't meet up to their standards of what a president should be or what policies he or she should support or oppose. When Donald Trump was elected in 2016, I recognized the results promptly and wished him success as president although I didn't vote for him. But in 2020 this same individual, having lost that election, refused to recognize the result, filed more than 60 lawsuits challenging it, and even called one state's election official to ask him to manufacture more than 11 thousand nonexistent votes to give him that state...and it's out there on audio for anyone to hear. Yet instead of being in prison for this attempted fraud, he is leading in the polls over his incumbent rival. Can you imagine the haughty outrage from Trump's supporters had President Obama or losing candidate Hillary Clinton behaved likewise in 2016? Yet both of them graciously accepted the election results then and Obama expedited a smooth transition period between administrations, something Trump spitefully held up with incoming president Biden. So while I want to honor all of our presidents, past and present, please forgive me when I can see what is going on right now in my country, which seems to be on a path to end its treasured tradition of free and fair elections to determine its political leaders...
Sunday, February 18, 2024
Updated Personal Song of the Year List, 1964 to Now
1966 Time Won’t Let Me…..The Outsiders
1967 All You Need Is Love…..The Beatles
1968 America…..Keith Emerson & The Nice
1969 Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In…..The Fifth Dimension
1970 Little Green Bag…..George Baker Selection
1971 I’ve Seen All Good People…..Yes
1972 Layla…..Derek and the Dominoes
1973 Hummingbird…..Seals and Crofts
1974 Number Nine Dream…..John Lennon
1975 Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding…..Elton John
1976 Livin’ Thing…..Electric Light Orchestra
1977 Song for America…..Kansas
1978 Love is Like Oxygen…..The Sweet
1979 What a Fool Believes…..The Doobie Brothers
1980 Another One Bites the Dust…..Queen
1981 Bette Davis Eyes…..Kim Carnes
1982 Abacab….Genesis
1983 In a Big Country…..Big Country
1984 Leave It…..Yes
1985 Everybody Wants to Rule the World…..Tears For Fears
1986 Live to Tell…..Madonna
1987 Luka…..Suzanne Vega
1988 What Have I Done to Deserve This…..Pet Shop Boys/Dusty Springfield
1989 Handle With Care…..Traveling Wilburys
1990 Blue Sky Mine…..Midnight Oil
1991 When the Levee Breaks (from 1971).….Led Zeppelin
1992 Dazed and Confused (from 1968).….Led Zeppelin
1993 Close to the Edge (from 1973).….Yes
1994 Let Me In…..REM
1995 My Wave…..Soundgarden
1996 Again…..Alice In Chains
1997 Naked Eye…..Luscious Jackson
1998 Fly Away…..Lenny Kravitz
1999 Scar Tissue…..Red Hot Chili Peppers
2000 Lord of the Boards…..Guano Apes
2001 Only Time…..Enya
2002 Here to Stay…..Korn
2003 There There…..Radiohead
2004 Look What You’ve Done…..Jet
2005 Soul Meets Body…..Death Cab For Cutie
2006 Vicarious…..Tool
2007 Starlight…..Muse
2008 Time to Pretend…..MGMT
2009 Casimir Pulaski Day.....Sufjan Stevens
2010 Us....Regina Spektor
2011 To Binge.....Gorillaz
2012 Firewood.....Regina Spektor
2013 Switchblade Smiles.....Kasabian
2014 Something From Nothing.....Foo Fighters
2015 Treat.....Kasabian
2016 Blackstar.....David Bowie
Saturday, February 17, 2024
My Phone App's Muffed Weather Forecast for This Morning...So What's New?
I have this local weather phone app that is notorious for giving out faulty forecasts, even for the near future. For example, yesterday I kept trying to ascertain whether it would be raining this morning for my planned 7:30 Depot Parkrun 5K race here in Gainesville. The hour-by-hour prediction from the app kept reading 0% of precipitation until 9:00, when it rose to 45% for light rain...to subsequently increase for the remainder of the day and into Sunday. So I wake up around 6 this morning and, naturally, it's raining and the soaked ground in the back yard says that it has for quite a while...no run today since I'm not so keen on slipping, sliding and falling on slippery surfaces: I had my fill of that hazard last week in Micanopy. No problem, I can exercise from home and am currently getting ready to do so with the TV showing the PGA Genesis Invitational golf tournament, held in who-knows-where. But I think there's a pretty high probability...nearing 100%... that once I get into my workout I'll probably be surfing around the channels, and I don't need any useless app to tell me that...
Friday, February 16, 2024
Quote of the Week...from Eckhart Tolle
Thursday, February 15, 2024
Affiliated With the Non-Profit FTC, Not the Commercial Version
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
Happy Birthday, Melissa!
On this St. Valentine's Day, what do you know but it's also the birthday of my dear, sweet and beautiful wife Melissa! Happy Birthday, Sweetheart...may the coming year be the best one yet!
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
Contemplating Weekend Travel Adventures
Monday, February 12, 2024
Just Finished Reading The Longevity Diet by Dr. Valter Longo
Sunday, February 11, 2024
Chiefs Prevail in Super Bowl over San Fran, I Guess I'm Happy About It
Saturday, February 10, 2024
Ran the Florida Track Club's Micanopy Ten-Miler This Morning
Back in 2022 I ran the Florida Track Club's annual Micanopy ten-mile race...at the same time they offered a five-mile race option as well. Then it was unseasonably warm and muggy...it was slightly cooler this time around as I pulled into a parking spot there with the temperature at 54 degrees and the humidity around 90%...light clouds with no rain chance. Over the course of the 8:00 AM race, which consisted of a short stretch through "residential" Micanopy combined with a long loop of a hilly, rocky and slippery dirt path south of town, the heat rose along with the sun and made the run a bit arduous for me. Still, I felt in shape for it and although my left leg along the calf ached some toward the end, I never lost any energy, practically sprinting to the finish line at a time of 1 hour, 39 minutes, 18 seconds (9:55/mile pace). It was 9 minutes faster than my 2022 time, and since I had wanted to beat 1:40, I thought it was a very successful outcome for me. There was a moment toward the end when a ferocious looking, growling German Shepherd dog broke out and harassed me and two other runners...I just sweet-talked it and it left me alone. I continued my Galloway Method strategy of alternating running for 9 minutes with speed-walking 1 minute, that is until toward the end when I just walked up the hills. Second Wind Timing posts the race results...click HERE to view them. Other than the Depot Parkrun 5K events I often do, I'm not sure when I'm going to next run a relatively long distance race like this one. There's something going on in April in Hawthorne and in Ocala they regularly hold half-marathons, but I'll just have to wait and see...sometimes life gets in the way when I plan too far ahead...
Friday, February 9, 2024
Quote of the Week...from Opie's Brother
But first, the tranya! Balok in Star Trek's The Corbomite Maneuver episode
Clint Howard is Ron Howard's lesser-known brother, who has played bit parts on television and in movies for decades. My two favorite roles of his happened in the sixties. On The Andy Griffith Show, he played Leon, a little boy who was always going around holding up his half-eaten peanut butter sandwich to share with others. And on the Star Trek original series, in one of its very first episodes, he played the mysterious reclusive childlike alien Balok, who in the Corbomite Maneuver classic episode, puts the USS Enterprise and its crew through a grueling test to ascertain their intentions. After he decides to accept them, Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy and Lt. Dave Bailey stoop down low to transport into the low alien ship's quarters. Balok, with his adult voice dubbed in, treats the guests to a special drink of his, tranya, and then sits back in frustration when they distrustfully hesitate. So, "Opie's brother" takes the first step and drinks his fill and the others follow suit...it's delicious! I first saw this wonderful episode only at its tail end since we had only one TV set in the house and my parents, ardent Bewitched! fans, insisted on watching that half hour comedy series on Thursday evenings on ABC when it ran opposite Star Trek on NBC...I learned the endings of a few of those first-year Star Trek episodes long before I saw their beginnings. Were I in Kirk's position, having gone through such a perilous ordeal with my ship nearly torn apart just for a "test", I don't think I would have displayed the amount of grace and good will that he was able to muster up. But he reminded his colleagues of their mission to encounter new life out there in space and they were able to progress. I recently had the experience of reading a local nonprofit's mission statement and mused how they, without even the danger of a Balok threatening their existence, have strayed from it. Sometimes I think a little adverse pressure can bring people back to their stated priorities...
Thursday, February 8, 2024
Hey, Where's the 2024 Presidential Campaign (and Do I Care?)
With the two major political parties virtually already nominating their candidates for president, this 2024 presidential campaign has been on the back burner in the news...thankfully, although to be perfectly truthful (as former House Speaker Tip O'Neill used to say) I haven't exactly been paying much attention anyway. This 2024 election between an authoritarian fascist and a seriously declining incumbent should be a big, big deal to me, and I plan to march drive right out there to my precinct first Tuesday in November and vote. To further complicate matters, a vaccine conspiracy theorist with an impressive political name has thrown his hat into the ring by declaring his independent candidacy...doesn't change anything with me, though. I will vote for the doddering decent dude over the fascist and the nutcase, and then let the chips fall where they will as I already recognize that I am on a runaway train and the easily manipulated American public is at the controls...democracy in action! So the Florida primary is next month...I think I'll vote in it anyway despite the preordained outcome...my polling place is the nearby Senior Recreation Center and I'd like to see what they've done there in the years since I've been there last. So yes, I'm cynical about politics, but to quote former president Barack Obama, "And may God bless the United States of America"...
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
Weekly Short Stories: 1995 Science Fiction, Part 5
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
A Good Foreign Language Resource on YouTube
Monday, February 5, 2024
Adopting One of Frank Poole's Exercising Strategies
Dr. Frank Poole isn't an authority on health or exercise...actually, the dude doesn't even exist! Yet many of us know of him through the Stanley Kubrick/Arthur C. Clarke classic 1968 science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Shown about halfway through the story, his mission...along with that of co-astronaut David Bowman, several others in suspended animation, and a wayward computer named HAL...is to travel to Jupiter on the spaceship Discovery One to solve a deep mystery found on the Moon and seek out alien contact. Its design mimics gravity through centripetal force, and Poole is introduced jogging on its circular inner perimeter while shadow boxing. Well, I'm not planning to go out in space anytime soon, but I do a bit of running. What I'm adding to my exercise routine in emulation of Dr. Poole is working out my upper body by mimicking various weight lifting routines and swimming strokes in the air. No extra weights are involved here...and I think the good doctor wouldn't mind if I avoided his boxing moves, for which I have no training. I think more people would probably do this as well if their routines took place in the privacy of their own homes...it might look a little weird in public moving your arms around all willy-nilly while running! Working out my upper body and limbs is something I need to add to my running and walking...although to be perfectly honest I already do plenty of rigorous lifting and carrying at my current job. Still, this new addition to my workout seems to be helping...