Saturday, May 18, 2024
Walked This Morning's Depot Parkrun 5K in Gainesville
Friday, May 17, 2024
Quote of the Week...from Pablo Picasso
Thursday, May 16, 2024
My Mid-Week Neighborhood 7.1 Mile Run/Walk
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Weekly Short Stories: 1996 Science Fiction, Part 6
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Shortcomings in Digital Technology Skills Impair My Computer Use
Monday, May 13, 2024
Just Finished Reading Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday
Sunday, May 12, 2024
My Mother's Day Neighborhood 8.8 Mile Run/Walk
Saturday, May 11, 2024
My Cumulative Running/Walking Race Record Update
2-14-10 HM 2:17:10 Five Points of Life (1) Gainesville
3-27-10 15K 1:23:55 Climb for Cancer Haile Plantation
4-24-10 5K 23:05 Run Amuck NFR Office Park
5-22-10 5K 25:00 Somer's Sunshine Run Orange Park
6-05-10 5K 23:23 Cpt. Chad Reed Memorial Cross City
7-04-10 3m 23:04 Melon Run (1) Westside Park
11-6-10 HM 2:01:41 Tom Walker Memorial (1) Hawthorne Trail
1-23-11 M 6:04:35 Ocala Marathon South of Paddock Mall
11-12-11 HM 1:59:38 Tom Walker Memorial (2) Hawthorne Trail
1-01-12 HM 1:56:07 De Leon Springs De Leon Springs
7-04-12 3m 25:45 Melon Run (2) Westside Park
11-22-12 10K 53:10 Turkey Trot (1) Tacachale
1-20-13 HM 1:55:20 Ocala Half-Marathon South of Paddock Mall
3-03-13 HM 1:50:53 Orange Blossom Tavares
11-09-13 2m untimed Gator Gallop University Ave, SW 2nd Ave
2-01-14 5K 25:53 Education for Life Westside Park
2-16-14 HM 2:07:36 Five Points of Life (2) Gainesville
11-27-14 10K 56:56 Turkey Trot (2) Tacachale
12-20-14 HM 2:03:30 Starlight Half-Marathon Palm Coast
1-31-15 15K 1:18:21 Newnan's Lake (1) West of Newnan's Lake
2-15-15 HM 1:58:48 Five Points of Life (3) Gainesville
3-14-15 10K 56:24 Run for Haven (1) Tioga
12-05-15 6.5m 1:03:52 Lumber Around the Levee Micanopy
1-30-16 15K 1:31:20 Newnan's Lake (2) West of Newnan's Lake
3-12-16 10K 59:00 Run for Haven (2) Tioga
5-14-16 5K 28:36 May Day Glow Run (1) Tioga
Ran Today's Gainesville Depot Parkrun 5K
Friday, May 10, 2024
Quote of the Week...from Epictetus
If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid. ---Epictetus
Epictetus was a Stoic philosopher, living within the Roman Empire during the early Christian era. Earlier in his life he was a slave but was later freed and then banished to Greece. Many of his sayings form the basis for the Stoic way of life that grew during that period, to the point when a later Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, embraced this philosophy. I ran across the above quote of Epictetus and it struck me as being especially true and relevant to me. Nobody likes to look clumsy and awkward in what they do, nor do they like to publicly make mistakes. Yet if you're learning to do something new, then by necessity you're going to screw up a bit at whatever stage of it you are in, and come out of it looking a little "foolish and stupid" as the good philosopher pointed out. Of course, the opposite is true: you're being wise and smart in stretching yourself with this new endeavor...as well as courageous and strong! We were in a store in the Oaks Mall yesterday when we ran across an employee who I heard speak Russian...my first impulse was to keep my mouth shut, but then I thought, why not see how well she understands my speech? I felt very silly even with the basic things I said to her, but she understood it all quite well: a good experience that would never have happened were I too afraid to step out of my comfort zone. The truth is, though, that I probably could have been bolder about practicing my speech then, but I'm still a bit skittish about looking like the fool...which in itself is foolish...
Thursday, May 9, 2024
How My Neighborhood Training Run/Walk Went This Morning
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Weekly Short Stories: 1996 Science Fiction, Part 5
Below are my reactions to two more stories appearing in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fourteenth Annual Collection, in which the editor picked his favorites from the year 1996. For me, I started out that year at the Gainesville Post Office on the Tour 3 shift (late afternoon to early morning) on the LSM sorting outgoing letters and ended it as a manual clerk on the letter aisle on Tour 1 (the graveyard shift)...much more peaceful as they were getting rid of the Letter Sorting Machine anyway. I definitely preferred that latter assignment. But back to those stories...
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Enjoying Amazon's Music Unlimited Feature
A few weeks ago Melissa, who is infinitely more adept than me at maneuvering through the intricacies of the Internet, got our household on Amazon's Music Unlimited feature. Since then I've enjoyed listening to various artists I've loved in the past and have been reacquainted with a lot of forgotten music. I've also used it to listen, commercial-free, while I do my neighborhood runs. Alexa, who seems to be everywhere, is the AI voice I speak with to make my requests...sometimes she gets them and sometimes she's off track: hey nobody's perfect! Already an Amazon fan...as well as with Google, which provides the platform for this blog as well as its amazing YouTube...this music feature has done for me what I had hoped Amazon Kindle would have done for books but hasn't by a long shot, with so much written material still digitally unavailable. But I'll gladly take the music, both from Alexa and from YouTube, and take a rain check on the books. Now excuse me while I get out my headphones and ask Alexa to play some Kinks...
Monday, May 6, 2024
Just Finished Reading Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham
Sunday, May 5, 2024
My Neighborhood 8 Mile Run/Walk Today
Late this afternoon I continued my recent change in training to covering some lengthier distances on my home neighborhood streets, using courses I've already designed through the MapMyRun app and alternating two minutes of running with two minutes of brisk walking throughout the session. I started it off from my own house at 5:20 PM knowing, with partly cloudy skies above, that there was a distinct possibility of rain showers at some time on my venture. I put my earplugs in and set my Amazon Music to play a shuffle of songs by The Doors...and set off. The temperature at the start was a hotter 88 degrees with 39% humidity...for about twenty minutes near the end it rained and that did cool it a bit to 81 with 66% humidity when I finished. I covered a distance of 8.0 miles with a finishing time of 1:28:40...a slightly faster pace than my previous 7.2 mile outing this past Wednesday. Unlike last Sunday I encountered much fewer people out and about, which suited me just fine...I think the showers also helped in that regard. I also had a much quicker recovery than with Wednesday's effort. All in all it was a positive experience and I plan to continue this twice-a-week system to complement my other workouts...