My December 2013 Running Report

This final month of 2013 saw me cutting back on my total mileage and missing some days in the middle due to what seems to have been a viral illness.  I ran a total of  80.2 miles in December, while I ran on 26 out of the 31 days.  My longest single run was for 5.5 miles.  I missed out on a 9K race in the middle of the month, but was already beginning to feel under the weather when I found out I would need to go in to work the morning of the race.

Since the end of September, there have been four local races ranging from 6K to half-marathon in length that I had intended to run in but for various reasons have skipped.  Still, next year there is the Ocala Half-Marathon in on January and, later in February, the FivePoints Half-Marathon here in Gainesville.  Let's see if I can't make it to at least one of these, even if I have to walk part of the race...

Read My First Louis L'Amour Novel Yesterday

In a temporary change of genre, I just read my first Louis L'Amour novel, a 1980 story titled Lonely on the Mountain.  L'Amour is a famous author primarily of westerns, but with a sprinkling of other types of fiction, which I was surprised to also include science fiction.  Upon further reading about him, I discovered that this author had written 100 novels and 250 short stories,  quite a feat of prolificacy.  The book I read was simply what I picked up off the library shelf and was one of those novels that continued to highlight a particular recurring set of characters...in this case the Sackett family.  In Lonely on the Mountain, the plot flows around the quest of the Sackett brothers (this is all taking place in the post-Civil War far west) to drive several hundred cattle hundreds of miles through all sorts of dangers in order to rescue a relative, who had made the request under duress.  I liked L'Amour's writing style, but I have to admit that while I was intrigued by how he depicted life in the wilds of the American frontier in the late nineteenth century, I didn't particularly care for the way that the characters fell squarely in either the "good guys" or "bad guys" columns: I like more complex personalities in my fiction.  But overall I had a pleasant go of it with this story and may find myself delving into some more of Louis L'Amour's works in the future (especially the science fiction)...

Many Playoff Spots in NFL to be Decided Today

Today the playoff lineups will be decided for the National Football League 2013 season.  I'm gratified to see that this year the Miami Dolphins are still in the running, favored to win their game against the New York Jets while at the same time needing either Baltimore to lose or San Diego to win.  But regardless how the other teams do, I'll be proud of the Dolphins if they can win their final regular season game and earn their first winning season since 2008.

Elsewhere, other teams are vying for playoff spots as well.  Dallas will play Philadelphia and Chicago will play Green Bay, with the winner of each game advancing into the playoffs.  Also, New Orleans and Arizona find themselves needing successful outcomes in games today in order to secure for themselves a playoff spot.  Other teams in both conferences are jostling around in the standings to see who wins their divisions, who will have first week byes, who gets home field advantage, and whether they will be division winners or simply wild card teams.  So a lot is at stake here, not just for the teams trying to make it to the playoffs. 

Although I'll be busy today doing other things, I'm looking forward to see how everything "plays" out, especially for Miami...

Holiday Visit to NFR's Duck Pond

Last night, Melissa and I paid a visit to Gainesville's North Florida Regional Medical Center...nothing serious, you understand.  No, we were on a sightseeing mission, to the facility's duck pond which rests on its east side by busy Newberry Road.  Every Christmas holiday season, they install many lights and decorations there, and residents flock to the site after sunset to view it all.  I've managed to live in Gainesville since 1977 and somehow miss this traditional hometown experience, but this year we got out to take a stroll around the grounds.  There were a lot of people there, mostly families composed of parents and small children.  It was a scene of low-tech extravagance that could have been produced seventy years ago, with pleasant seasonal music piped in on strategically located speakers.

The top picture is a panoramic shot of the duck pond and its surrounding lighting taken from the Newberry Road vantage point. The bottom shot is, well, you know...

Finsished Reading Baldacci's Divine Justice

Today I finished a quick read through David Baldacci's novel Divine Justice, which is the fourth installment in his Camel Club series.  I earlier read the first volume, also titled The Camel Club, several months ago but inadvertently skipped the next two books.  Actually, I picked Divine Justice because it happened to be what was on my library shelf when I stopped by the other day (usually I check out my items after placing holds on online catalogue searches).  As it turned out, with this series it is a good idea to read the books in order, as Divine Justice feeds heavily off the events of the immediately preceding book Stone Cold and often refers to events from second book The Collectors.  Still, in spite of feeling irritated at missing out on much of what underlies the developing story in Divine Justice, I was still able to follow it.  One reason is that Baldacci's heroic characters are very likable and are fun to follow, demonstrating humor and rapport with one another.  Not that what transpires in this novel has much to laugh and smile about: it's just refreshing, after plowing through the ponderous fantasy series of George R.R. Martin and Terry Goodkind with their ever-grim characters, to see a few with the ability to take things in stride every now and then.

The Camel Club series is about ex-CIA professional assassin "Oliver Stone" (his assumed name) and his collected assortment of loyal friends (hence the series title)...and how they struggle to get through their various crises.  I felt that the first book was better, while Divine Justice reminded me of television's David Bannister or MacGyver going to small towns and getting caught up in their dramas and scandals.  I didn't like it then and I don't like it now.  Still, the writing was easy to follow, the story flowed well, and the characters were compelling.  And the book wasn't too long, either! 

I suppose that now I'll go back to #2 and read The Collectors.  Excuse me while I go to my library's catalogue and place it on hold...

Seem to be Recovering from Sickness

It looks as if I might finally be coming out of the sickness that sidelined me from running for several days this month.  It has been difficult for me, as I have been suffering from general inflammation, allergy feelings, a sense of a sinus-type infection, and all sorts of mysterious aches and sore spots hitting different parts of my body.  It wasn't the flu, but there was probably some kind of viral component involved here.  But in the last two or three days, my energy level seems to be returning.  Yesterday I ran once around my block (.7 mile) and today I ran 2.1 miles.  Hopefully, this trend of recovery will continue for me: I first noticed that something was amiss nearly two weeks ago...

Finished Reading Koontz's By the Light of the Moon

I just finished reading Dean Koontz's 2002 novel By the Light of the Moon.  In a very speculative, nonscientific way, it explores how nanotechnology can be used and abused to affect the basic constitution and behavior of humans.  A man and his autistic brother are abducted by a mysterious elderly man who seems to be a scientist.  He gives them a shot of some mysterious substance and leaves them to try to escape their captivity on their own in time to avoid a deadly attack by another party.  They eventually link up on the road with a woman who has had the same traumatic experience.  The story develops with the three discovering how the injection has changed them and the nature of the injections, with involve nanotechnology...along with the role that the "mad scientist" who had kidnapped them had played earlier in their lives.

By the Light of the Moon strongly hints at a sequel with the way that the protagonists come out at the end of their ordeal, but none has ever been written as far as I know.  Also, a late-night radio talk show host was introduced into the story whom Koontz obviously patterned after long-time Coast-to-Coast AM host Art Bell.

By the Light of the Moon isn't very long and provides some good escapist reading even if it doesn't exactly convince me about nanotechnology...

Temperatures Today Much Cooler Than Forecast

In another one of those massive goof-ups, the weather forecast for today, as I heard it this morning on the radio while driving home from work at 7:30, had one more "hot" day in store for us here in northern Florida (Gainesville) with temperatures climbing into the low 80's before conditions started to cool tonight...eventually making way for a pleasantly cold Christmas morning.  But there's only one problem with that prediction: by the time I had walked out of my workplace, it had already chilled quite a bit.  Now, at ten in the morning, I'm sitting here with the temperature at 57 degrees...and there is at present a "new" predicted high for today at 66 (I doubt we'll even reach that).  So the forecast was way off because they didn't anticipate the cold front sweeping down that fast from the northwest.  Not that I'm complaining, you see...

I love cool days in the winter with cold nights that don't quite get down to freezing.  Plus, in Florida, when it gets that cold, conditions are usually very dry, as is the case for today and tomorrow.  And that's what is happening now, and at just the right time: Christmas Eve and Christmas! 

May all of you enjoy a merry, merry Christmas!!!

Dolphins Still in Playoff Hunt After Loss

The Miami Dolphins had control over their own destiny going into the final two weeks of the 2013 NFL regular season...and they couldn't handle it, failing in essence to show up at Buffalo's stadium yesterday afternoon and getting wiped out by the underdog Bills 19-0.  Amazingly, though, Miami still has a reasonable shot at getting the final wild card spot of the AFC in the playoffs if they win next week at home against the New York Jets, a team they already beat on the road this year, 23-3.  Along with a Dolphin victory, though, they need for either Baltimore to lose against Cincinnati or San Diego to win against Kansas City.   But I'm not going to get all wound up next Sunday worrying about them: I'll see where they stand when the regular season has ended and then appraise how they did this year.  Of course, I'm enthusiastic about Miami's prospects should they get into the playoffs as they have had a tendency this year to overachieve against favored opponents.  Unfortunately, they also have fallen flat against some teams they were supposed to beat...like Tampa Bay and twice against Buffalo.  Good thing they won't be playing any of them should they make the playoffs...just teams like Cincinnati or Indianapolis, division winners that the Dolphins have both beaten...

Simultaneous Universal Opposition

We in this America of ours today find ourselves in a particular situation, politically: all of us (the ones who actually care one way or another, that is) find ourselves simultaneously as being in the "opposition".  If we belong to a fringe party or belief system outside of the standard Republican/Democratic paradigm, then we're always in the opposition, regardless. But nowadays even the mainstream finds itself feeling left out of the process while the "other guys" are in there doing things that we just don't like.  For Republicans, they have had a Democratic liberal president in Barack Obama since 2009...not only has he passed a national health insurance law (although it was largely based on Mitt Romney's Republican plan in Massachusetts and took into account features of the Heritage Foundation's proposals of the early 1990's) and had the temerity to shake the hands of both Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro, but he hasn't even invaded another country yet (threatened attacks against Syria, the assassination of Bin Laden, and drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen probably wouldn't count).  Yes, to them that Democrat is "out of control".  Would be that we had a GOP president, they would probably be completely ignoring calls to balance the budget as they had the entire time that their "guy" Bush was in there running the country for the previous eight years while running up massive deficits.  The Democrats, for their part, see the tea party everywhere, controlling the House of Representatives and slowing the legislative process to a standstill and shutting down the government...and state governorships and legislatures are dominated in most states by the Republicans, who are basically passing laws against women's reproductive rights, restricting voter access to the polls, getting rid of government unions, and refusing to participate in Obamacare by not allowing Medicaid expansion....but generally faring quite well when it comes to balancing their budgets, encouraging business development, and keeping taxes low.

I recognize that there is good and bad on both sides, and I'd like for the good people who hold office to see this as well and work together to implement the good while rejecting the bad.  Instead, though, I see demonization and hyperbole as the sadly emerging norm when it comes to dealing with the opposing party...

Brittle Athletes of Today

Is it just my imagination or is today's big-time athlete more prone to injury?  Whether speaking of baseball, football, or basketball, it seems to me that what usually determines a particular team's success or failure for a season is whether they have somehow been able to avoid serious injury...or have succumbed to this ominously increasing trend.  I'm looking at the Los Angeles Lakers, which at the start of last year looked as if it just might coast to the championship with superstars Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, and Dwight Howard. But injuries crippled this team throughout the season and both Nash and Bryant seem to be permanently out of play with a succession of tears, breaks, and nerve damage.  Derek Jeter, Derrick Rose, Michael Vick, Robert Griffin III, Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Rogers...the list goes on and on.  My Florida Gators football team lost most of its starting lineup with injuries, including the quarterback...and then the backup got injured!  Just look at any team and you'll see something where a star on it has been sidelined with injuries.  I know injuries have always played a role in sports, but I wonder if something about the way today's athletes are trained and play contribute to the problem.

It used to be that athletes were gifted with their builds that gave them an advantage in their sports and, sure, the bigger and faster ones tended to be more successful.  But now that the science of athletic performance has advanced as much as it has, athletes now are becoming stronger and faster...and the sports are placing greater and greater strains on their bodies as they try to keep up with each other as a natural part of competition. It seems, though, that with enhanced performance comes a corresponding increased brittleness, a higher susceptibility to injury...

Duckman's Anti-Gay Rant and Consequences

There is this reality show on Arts and Entertainment channel called Duck Dynasty that supposedly exalts the lifestyle and beliefs of a family living and working somewhere in rural Louisiana.  Looking like ZZ Top wannabes, the male members of the family all sport large beards, their trademark I guess.  Apparently, along the course of the show, a Christian worldview has been identified with them, prompting evangelical churches across the country to embrace this series as one of their own.  But now, one of those men, a dude named Phil Robertson, has touched off another of those "Chick-Fil-A" variety social media firestorms by making derogatory comments about gays.  Here we go again, with the calls from the "pro-duck" side to boycott A&E after they made the decision to suspend Robertson for a few months from the series.  I say to those who want to boycott this channel to please stop and reconsider...all it will accomplish in the end will be to give second thoughts to anyone in television thinking of starting any more series spotlighting a family practicing their religion...while reinforcing the oft-held belief to the world that Christians are narrow minded bigots, hampering those of the faith who are trying to spread the love of Jesus and his gospel message.  Besides, I've heard that the next season of Duck Dynasty has already been filmed, complete with Mr. Phil Robertson prominently featured in the episodes.  And the next taping comes later, after a few more months.  So how exactly did they propose to enforce that suspension, anyway?

I think a lot of Americans who tend to look down on homosexuality for whatever reasons of their own look at how the gay rights movement has succeeded here in the passing of anti-discrimination laws, benefits for same-sex partners, and the ushering in of same-sex marriage into our society...and see this as a threat of some kind.  But they fail to take into account that, for much of the rest of the world, in countries like Russia, Ethiopia, and Uganda, for example, the trend is in the direction of persecution of gays.  And some Islamic nations, whose legalism Christians often loudly point out against them,  are very legalistically opposed to gays, offering prison and even death as punishments for those convicted of the "crime" of having a different sexual orientation. 

To me, the very essence of being civilized as opposed to being barbarian is to have educated and incorporated within oneself the realization that the people in our society have a diversity of appearances, backgrounds, beliefs, and characteristics.  Everyone differs from each other in some way, usually many ways.  We can choose to either find common ground with them where we can or to emphasize the differences.  I'm sure Phil Robertson has some common ground with me and many aspects to his life and character to appreciate, but when he goes off on a rant against people he sees himself as being superior to, I don't exactly feel very magnanimous to respecting HIS point of view.  After all, isn't arrogant pride a sin in the eyes of the Lord, too?

This isn't at all about whether you or I approve of homosexuality or oppose it.  Rather it is about demonstrating a civil respect for others who are different from us and recognizing that there is more to a person than those aspects which displease us...

The Sunda of Indonesia

Many years ago, I used to check out one particular book from my local library that piqued my interest.  It was a compilation of small articles taken from various world languages, some of them with very exotic (and sometimes beautiful) scripts.  Some of these languages were in the highly populated island nation of Indonesian.  In particular, I remember two languages: Javanese and Sundanese.  Both of these languages are spoken on Indonesia's very densely populated island of Java, with the former comprising the predominant ethno-linguistic group there.  The Sunda people are concentrated on the western end of the island while there are Madurese on the far eastern side.  Today, however, in spite of the lovely traditional scripts, both Sundanese and Javanese are written using Romanized script: check out Wikipedia to see for yourself.  Sundanese strikes me at a glance to be similar to Indonesian, that country's official language.

The Sundanese are a primarily agricultural society that, like most of the rest of Indonesia, practices Islam with a strong traditional culture which predates that religion for millennia.  They have their own creation story and many orally-passed-on stories that speak of a culture that is ancient and profound.  I am interested in learning more about their culture as well as listening to some of their more traditional music. 

More to come... 

Feeling Under the Weather

For nearly the past week or so I have been feeling very crappy, under the weather. It isn't the flu, and I am functioning through it, albeit without enjoying it one bit.  One casualty in my daily routine, though, has been my running...which I may or may not pick back up after recovery.  The way I'm feeling right now, the prospect of getting out there accumulating miles doesn't exactly thrill me.

So far, I haven't missed work and hope that I won't.  I have sought medical help in all this and am working out some prescribed remedies.  Hopefully, they will work and I'll make a timely and full recovery.  But the overriding thing I want to do right now is sit/recline still and quiet, either watching TV or listening to pleasant music.  Sounds like a great blueprint for my future!

Doubly Frustrating Monday Night Football Game

Last night I was following a very frustrating Monday Night Football game between the Detroit Lions and the Baltimore Ravens...frustrating on a couple of counts.  You see, I was rooting for Detroit, I team that I don't like, to beat Baltimore, I team that I do like...all because I felt that "my" team, the Miami Dolphins, had to beat out the Ravens in the regular season in order to get the last available playoff spot for the post-season.  And it was also frustrating because the Lions kept turning the ball over and dropping pass after pass.  They still almost pulled it out, getting themselves a brief lead toward the end of the game.  But Baltimore squeaked out a win with an improbable 61-yard field goal in the closing seconds.  As a matter of fact, they managed to beat Detroit without a touchdown...scoring 18 points on six field goals.  I hope that's the last time I feel that I have to root for Detroit.  And it apparently turns out that it was unnecessary after all, because...

All Miami has to do is win its last two games and they are in the playoffs as a wild card team.  The reason is that Baltimore can now win their division outright with a final game victory over Cincinnati.  And if that happens, then Miami wins the wild card tiebreaker with the Bengals, whom they defeated in the regular season.  Should Cincinnati win that game, then Miami (with those two final wins) beats Baltimore out with a better regular season record.  So it's doubly frustrating in that I could have been ENJOYING the Ravens putting it to the Lions the way they did last night.  In any event, I feel free to cheer for Baltimore again, at least until they (hopefully) face Miami later in the playoffs...

Obama Shakes Castro's Hand...So What

Some of the more politically opportunistic opponents of Barack Obama have gone on the media warpath complaining about him shaking the hand of Cuban president Raul Castro at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela this past week.  Apparently, those folks are concerned about the human rights violations on that island nation which has brought so many refugees over to our primarily Floridian shores and come to constitute a potent conservative Republican voting bloc within that state.  I am not all that enthusiastic with the totalitarian/autocratic rule of the Castro brothers over the Cuban people either, but the fact remains that they are the internationally recognized leaders there and have to be dealt with as such...like it or not.  The whole idea of diplomacy is wrapped up in how to deal with other parties with which one has differences in order to gain the best outcome without resorting to war against them.  So it is always valuable for the leaders of all nations to know each other and to practice common courtesy.  President Obama shaking Castro's hand was nothing more than this, any more than it was when he was courteous to Venezuela's late president Hugo Chavez a few years ago (for which he also received flack).  Some of us, myself included, look at the ridiculous attitude of snubbing Israel and its leaders on the part of some Arab nations (some of whom we entertain close relations with) and see that as being childish.  Well, we're doing the same if we can't at least show a little decorum and maturity in our own dealings...

Miami Wins Important Game Vs. New England

Well, maybe this is going to be the year that the Miami Dolphins make their return to football respectability, after all: they have just hung on to defeat the New England Patriots 24-20.  Now Miami stands at 8-6, guaranteed at least to not have a losing season.  And their last two regular season games are against divisional foes the Jets and the Bills, both behind the Dolphins in the standings.  They are both very beatable.  As far as the playoffs are concerned, Miami's biggest challenge is Baltimore, but the Ravens have a pretty challenging end-of-season schedule and might not be able to keep up.  Also, San Diego seems to be surging...but Miami beat them already and has the tiebreaker advantage should the two finish with identical win-loss records.  But Miami lost to Baltimore a few weeks ago, so they need to best them with their record. 

This team has been fun to follow this year, the bullying scandal notwithstanding.  Let's see how far they go...

New Strategy for Learning Chinese Characters

I have been studying how best to dramatically increase my learned Chinese character vocabulary and have come up with a plan that might just provide explosive growth.  The key is in breaking down a character into its component two parts: radical and phonetic.  The radical part of a character, besides placing it in its proper order in traditional Chinese dictionaries, also categorizes it according to its general meaning.  The phonetic part, on the other hand, only hints at the character's pronunciation. Take, for example, the chemical element for neon.  Neon, being a gas at room temperature, carries the radical 气 for that meaning (gas/vapor/air), while its pronunciation of nai (third tone) carries the phonetic 乃, which other characters of similar pronunciation but different meaning carry.  Together, they constitute the composite character 氖 for neon.  This is a character building principle that pervades Chinese.

My plan is to use an old Chinese-English dictionary that does a good job of breaking down each of the 5,000 characters it contains into radicals and phonetics.  Only instead of the systematically classified and numbered radicals that are usually ordered in dictionaries, I will categorize the characters according to their phonetics.  I believe this will make my memorization more enduring and will also aid me when I encounter an unfamiliar character in regular text.

Job Nixes Race Plans Again

Once again, my workplace has tripped me up just as I was going to enter a running race.  Before last Thanksgiving I was about to sign up for the 10K Turkey Trot here in Gainesville, but fortunately I hadn't paid anything yet before I discovered that they had me scheduled to work on my holiday, something that is not supposed to happen...especially in a place where seniority is supposed to count for something (I've been working there for more than 26 years).  But it was a trade-off of sorts, since I made some extra money for my extra work.  Besides, as I wrote in a previous article, I would have a December 15K race on the 14th that I could run in...and it would be on a Saturday, my day off and on which I don't believe I ever had to work since I switched to the graveyard shift in early March.  So last night I tried twice to register online for the event (for which I was also signing up my daughter, who was going to run their 5K race), but a glitch kept the registration from going through.  No problem, I'll just sign up and pay on the morning of the race, right? Then, while at work last night I was notified that I have to report in for Saturday morning...in direct conflict with the race.  So  the only two times that I have had to unexpectedly report for work in the past 9+ months have come when I was about to run a race. Once again, I suppose that there will be that trade-off of making some extra money for my trouble.  And I have to admit that it was quite fortunate that my online registration (and payment) was prevented in both instances, saving me a tidy sum of money in the process...

Consensus, Not Ideology, Drives Electorate

I have a problem with the way that our American system of political representation works.  A big problem.  I'll examine the recent presidential elections, but the problem permeates all the way down the line to the state and local levels.  It is about how candidates run in elections, why voters vote for (or against them), and then how the newly elected interpret the results.

You can go back for many, many elections and still come away with the same conclusion.  The winner of each presidential election has successfully presented himself as the more reasonable of the two main candidates and who is more dedicated to using common sense to govern and handle the nation's issues than is the opponent.  The appeal is clear: whether one is talking about ideologically "pure" conservatism or liberalism, the electorate as a whole will vote against the candidate who presents him/herself this way in favor of a candidate who, while probably ideologically bent on the "other side", seems to project an image of pragmatism and compromise.  Yet that very candidate, upon election, often abandons that cloak of consensus building and claims a "mandate" to ram the ideology of his or her party down the population's throat.  This happened after the 2004 reelection campaign of George W. Bush, who immediately following his razor-thin victory over languid, uninspiring John Kerry, proclaimed a "mandate" for himself and his party.

When it became clear that Barack Obama was going to win his reelection campaign against Mitt Romney on election night last year, many media talking head pundits expressed that this indicated that in his second term, Obama should claim this "mandate" and strenuously pursue more progressive policies.  But in truth, the election taught a different lesson, as far as I read it: the voters didn't trust Romney's catering to the right-wing ideological wing of his party, and his selection of Paul Ryan went a long way to confirm that fear in the eyes of many, who instead went over to Obama...the status quo president who seemed to have done a reasonable job so far.  Following the maxim of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" isn't exactly a mandate for an ideological assault.  By the way, President Obama, to his credit, has resisted people in the far left wing of his own party who want him to  aggressively push their agenda on the country.  It's a shame that the opposition party is completely clueless about this principle of governance and instead allows its own tea party/kool-aid wingnuts to dictate its own policies...

I have one word of beginner's advice to the extremists in either party who think they are as pure as the driven snow with their "principles": stop depicting the democratically elected representatives from the opposition party (and even the moderates from your own) as the "enemy"!

Finished Reading Koontz's Watchers

I just took a little break from my long journey through two different drawn-out fantasy series (Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth) and George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire) and read one of Dean Koontz's novels.  I first came to know of the existence of Mr. Koontz gradually as I, while browsing through the Stephen King books in the fiction sections of various bookstores and libraries, would reach Koontz's books, signifying to me that I had gone too far on the shelf and needed to backtrack to King.  After a while, I decided to check out this prolific writer who seems destined to be compared, for better or for worse, to his more renown colleague by dint of alphabetic proximity.  At this writing I've only scratched the surface of his vast bibliography, having only read Shattered, Intensity, Midnight...and now Watchers.

In writing Watchers, Koontz sewed together three independent themes (eventually) into a cohesive story.  There was a man and woman coming together as a couple, each having to deal with broken pasts and heartache.  There was a top-secret government project with military applications involving the genetic manipulation of animals to raise their intelligence.  And then there was the good old typical psychopathic killer roaming around reaping mayhem everywhere he went. During the first part of the book, the man and woman were presented as separate plot lines, as was the killer.  It was interesting to surmise how the author would eventually bring them all together...but by Dean, he did!

Dean Koontz writes in clear, easy flowing language which  some may regard as shallow but which I appreciate and want to emulate as a writer.  There is such a thing as being too fancy...just get to the point of the story and make it vivid enough to me and allow my imagination to create the imagery.  Watchers accomplished this, and within the constraints of what I believe Koontz wanted to do with it, I think he was successful.  A "plus" was that the book was relatively short, a refreshing break from the fantasy sagas I'm reading... 

Last Weekend's Football Games

Looking back on this past weekend in college and pro football, I have a generally positive outlook on the future with the teams I want to succeed (and some of those I don't).  Ohio State lost their Big Ten championship game to Michigan State, so the winner of the SEC championship game, Auburn, has a clear shot at the national championship game against Florida State, who easily handled Duke in their ACC championship game.  I don't think I could have dreamed up a better title matchup...unless of course it had been Florida winning the Southeastern Conference instead of Auburn. But alas, the Gators had all sorts of issues with their team this year and suffered a miserable 4-8 record.  I am happiest of all, regarding the national championship picture, with the exclusion of Nick Saban's Alabama from being in it after their momentous final-play loss to Auburn a couple of weeks ago.  Although I am a Floridian by heart, I'm going to pull for Auburn against FSU simply out of gratitude for the Tigers beating the Saban Tide. 

In the NFL, Miami managed to play well enough in Pittsburgh to win 34-28, in a game marked by a desperate , multi-lateral final play by the Steelers that very nearly saw them scoring the winning touchdown. But but their runner had stepped out of bounds (just barely) and the Dolphins kept up with their wild-card race rival Baltimore at 7-6.  I don't know whether or not Miami will manage to make the playoffs this year, but from where I stand a winning 9-7 record would mark a successful season for them.  Tampa Bay and Jacksonville have also recently done well, each team now at 4-9 and in next-to-last place in their respective divisions after 0-8 starts.  I don't know exactly what this means for them...are they getting better or simply playing more loosely without concerns of "choking up" in important games (of which there are no more for them this year)?  I don't know, but it's still pleasing to see them playing stronger.

Pondering Whether to Follow NHL

I wonder what it would be like to attend a hockey game in person.  I'm not a northerner, having grown up in south Florida and currently living in north Florida for more than 36 years, so ice hockey is not a sport that I ever played or was ever played in any school I attended, including college.  We do have the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning NHL pro teams here in Florida, but I think maybe their main source of fan appeal is from transplants from the north. 

On channel 33 where I live, I can often watch NHL games and sometimes do, although I am not at all clear about the various rules in the sport.  In particular, I feel a bit clueless about what constitutes off-sides and icing penalties...and I'm not sure what the rules are restricting opposing team access to the goal area.  I think that perhaps I should pay a visit to YouTube to see if there isn't some kind of video illustrating these rules.

Earlier this spring I enjoyed watching the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs and was excited at the play of "my" team, the Chicago Blackhawks.  However, if I ever do go to attend hockey games, I'm sure my allegiances will naturally shift to the most "local" team around, which is Tampa Bay...which I hear actually did win the league's Stanley Cup championship playoffs one year and in so doing traumatized everyone to the point that they cancelled the following year's season...

Actually, all kidding aside, it was a management's lockout against the players in a labor contract dispute that caused the season-long cancellation.  But the Lightning got a "two-for" out of it: they got to be defending champions for two straight years!

Finished Reading A Storm of Swords

I just finished reading George R.R. Martin's third volume in his ongoing A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, titled A Storm of Swords.  Fantasy fiction as a general rule tends to be violent, but Martin seems to delight in killing off one protagonist after another...and whoever is left standing is left BARELY standing, often maimed and hopelessly scarred, both physically and emotionally.  A Storm of Swords doesn't disappoint, if this is the kind of outcome the reader is expecting.  The world in which Martin works his literary magic is a cutthroat one, with medieval "honor" combining with the gore and horror of medieval warfare. There are no cell phones or Internet here to clear up false rumors circulating among the royalty, and those rumors can touch off wars that bring whole regions to ruin and famine with thousands brutally slaughtered in the process. 

I'd like to think that there are some characters in this series who are destined to endure to the end of the final volume (whenever that's going to be published at some indeterminate future date, if ever), but I'd be deceiving myself if I thought that the author thought that any character was indispensable as long as his or her demise could further the story.  So I've learned, as a reader, to emotionally distance myself from all of the characters here...and I don't think that's a very good thing for writers to instill in their faithful readers.  Still, I'm plodding on ahead, carnage notwithstanding, to the fourth book titled A Feast for Crows.  Since crows have often been described in this series as feeding on the dead, I entertain little hope for the survival of any of the rest of the sorry, hapless bunch...

Today's NCAA Football Conference Title Games

Today marks that time that all true college football fans look forward to each year, and some have more than a passing interest since one of their own teams is involved.  It is conference championship game Saturday!  Now that the Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences have finally joined in with the playoff concept, almost all major conferences now have a championship game...and the results will determine the national championship game lineup as well as which team gets to play in which bowl game.  The conferences getting the most attention are the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, and Southeastern since the teams involved in those contests are the highest ranked and figure in the national championship game.  Top-ranked Florida State plays 20th-ranked Duke in the ACC, a game that hardly anyone (including me) thinks will go Duke's way. The Big Ten and SEC games should be close and exciting, though.  Ohio State, currently undefeated and ranked #2, faces off against Michigan State in the Big Ten.  Should Michigan State win this game, the Southeastern Conference title game between Auburn and Missouri should determine who faces Florida State in the national championship game. The only problem I see with all this is if Ohio State wins their contest, finishes undefeated, but still gets deprived of a national championship opportunity because of bias in favor of the SEC.  I hope that does not happen.

Other major conference matchups include Stanford vs. Arizona State in the Pacific-12 and the final week for the regular season in the Big-12 (they have forgone having conference championship games).  In the Big-12, Oklahoma State, Texas, and Baylor at present are still in the running for that conference's championship, depending on how their games go today.

As far as the games which are already lined up for today are concerned, I'm pulling for Florida State, Michigan State, Auburn, and Arizona State in their respective contests.  I guess that ultimately I'd like to see Auburn and FSU face off for the national championship: Florida State is a "home state" team and I am grateful for Auburn beating Nick Saban's team, whichever one he happened to be coaching (it happened to be Alabama this time).  But if Ohio State wins their game today, I want them included in the title game next month...

Nelson Mandela's Full Life Ends at 95

In 1984, from time to time MTV used to show a video of a group calling themselves "Special A.K.A.".  The song was Free Nelson Mandela and had a rich African musical flavor to it.  It was the first time I had heard of the imprisoned African National Congress leader, who would eventually emerge from his confinement into the presidency of the very country that had taken away his freedom for nearly three decades of his life.  His burning desire was to eliminate the Apartheid in South Africa and allow for all South Africans equal opportunity of expression, movement, and economic activity.  What many in the world celebrate him for nowadays, especially on this day of his death at age 95, is how he fervently worked to reconcile the whites and blacks in that great nation following the end of that horrendous system of racial segregation and oppression.  Moreover, Mandela, who could probably have retained the leadership of South Africa for life, served out his one elected term and then left office...a great sign of humility and respect on his part and a strong example for his successors to emulate.  I admire him for all of that, but I have to admit that I initially had misgivings about him during the mid-to-late 1980s, suspecting that perhaps he had plans to amass power and rule his country as a dictator like Fidel Castro in Cuba.  Instead, Nelson Mandela turned out more like George Washington in terms of his ability to unify his country and voluntarily step down from what must have been a very tempting amount of power.  God bless him!

Weather Forecast Suddenly, Drastically Changes

I was watching my local weather TV station yesterday evening when they displayed their day-to-day forecast for the upcoming week, stretching ahead to a five-day outlook.  The temperatures were projected to be higher than usual for this time of year, but on the fifth day they had a projected high of 67 degrees with a low of 46.  That would be more to my liking and gave me something to look forward to.  But a funny thing happened between last night and this morning: the forecast for that very day changed to a high of 82 and a low of 63, with no cooling in sight!

We're already experiencing near-record high temperatures for this time of year here in north central Florida...and evidently more is to come.  Ironically, it seems, though, that every time I tune in to a football game anywhere else in the country, the spectators are all bundled up in winter clothing.  Only down here things are continuing to operate in "warm" mode.

I'm also getting sick and tired of the talking anchor heads on my local TV news station WCJB/Channel 20.  They consistently brand anything in the weather that doesn't involve clear, hot skies all day long as "bad".  For me, I've had my share of clear, steaming hot days (and nights) much too much this year and would like a little respite from it.  Just give me a nice, cool overcast day, please...

Dolphins Still in Playoff Hunt

The Miami Dolphins, incredibly, after slumping following an auspicious 3-0 start and then sinking further into an embarrassing, headline-grabbing bullying scandal, find themselves on the cusp of a playoff spot at 6-6, with all four of their remaining regular season games having an important bearing on their prospects.  Three of Miami's last games are within their own division, meaning that if they win at least two of the three (I'm not so confident about their prospects with New England, even with a home game) they will ensure themselves of a strong second place finish in their division.  But that would only give them an 8-7 record: to give themselves a real shot at the playoffs, the Dolphins have to win the other game, against the Pittsburgh Steelers, to end up with their first winning record season record since 2008 and a decent chance at the playoffs.  But even if Miami wins all of their remaining games and goes 10-6 they still have to get by Baltimore, which already beat them this year and thus has the tiebreaker advantage if the two teams end up with identical win-loss records.  The Ravens, like Miami, currently have a 6-6 record.  But a Miami win over the Steelers, especially on the road, would do a lot toward changing their reputation as a third-rate NFL team.  Right now, I'll just settle for second-rate, thank you!

2013 New Favorite Songs Sparse for Me

It has been a while since I wrote about my favorite songs for this year.  In fact, as far as anything new is concerned, I don't have anything to report on.  All of the music I regular listen to is on a playlist on my MP3 player and has been around for a while.  I suppose that, were I to try to name a favorite song of the year, then Kasabian's Switchblade Smiles, from their earlier Veliceraptor! album, would be the one: I listened to it a lot early in 2013 an it circulates around on my playlist shuffle.  But as for any new material, whether that be due to recent releases or to me discovering earlier recordings, just hasn't filtered through to me this year as anything outstanding.  I suppose at year's end I'll try to come up with some of a year's "best", but I have a feeling that I will be hard-pressed to come up with ten songs that are "new" to me for 2013: most of them, I think, will probably be Kasabian tracks from earlier albums I discovered several months ago...

As for whatever they've been coming out with on radio lately, though, forget it! My MP3 playlist focuses on personal favorites from acts like Beck, Metric, Spoon, Linkin Park, Arcade Fire, Kasabian, Regina Spektor, Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens, Gorillaz...and some old gems from others sprinkled into the mix...

Comet ISON Destroyed by Sun

Comet ISON, which many in the astronomical community had predicted would light up the nighttime sky early in December after it had passed close to the sun in its very elongated orbit, appears not to have survived its solar rendezvous and is now more or less a cloud of debris, fading away from sight as it moves away from the sun.  That's disappointing as I had hoped to be able to observe it around this time.  But the comet's destruction was always one of the possible outcomes and the result doesn't exactly come as a surprise to me. 

Speaking in general of sky gazing, we are now entering the time of year when the skies are usually clear and, with the humidity around where I live being relatively low, the stars at night come out looking brighter.  Also, in the evening December and January sky we are treated to one of the brighter and more interesting regions in the sky, with remarkable constellations like Orion, Gemini, Taurus, Auriga, and Canis Major dominating.  Sirius (of Canis Major) is striking as the brightest star in the night sky while the second brightest, Canopus (of the constellation Carina) is visible just a few degrees above the southern horizon, almost due south from Canis Major and Orion.

All this has me thinking that it's been a while since I paid a visit to my local planetarium at Santa Fe College and see what shows pertaining to this season they have to offer there...

Will Ohio State Be Passed Over for 2013 Title Game?

Going into this past weekend's games, the major college football BCS ranking system, which ultimately decides who gets to play for the national championship with the top two ranked teams playing for the title, had the top five teams ranked as follows:

#1 Alabama
#2 Florida State
#3 Ohio State
#4 Auburn
#5 Missouri

Alabama, FSU, and Ohio State each was undefeated while Auburn and Missouri each had one loss on their records.  Alabama, Auburn, and Missouri are all members of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), which has produced the national champion in each of the past seven years.  So the SEC has a great deal of weight when it comes down to which teams are ranked the highest.  That's important to keep in mind when considering what just happened yesterday in college football.

Alabama lost a thrilling, tight game to Auburn...which now means that the SEC has no undefeated teams left.  Meanwhile, Florida State and Ohio State remained undefeated as they won their games (Ohio State's victory was a one-point squeaker).  Missouri also won their contest.  So now FSU and Ohio State are the remaining two major colleges that are undefeated...the common sense conclusion would be that these two will face off for the national championship.  But wait...

Alabama is now out of the picture for a national championship, but Auburn and Missouri will play each other next week for the Southeastern Conference championship.  Whoever wins this game will gain a great boost in their BCS status because of the strength of the opponent that they beat.  And I'm afraid that this, combined with the already slanted deference given to SEC teams in the rankings, may well result in the winner of that game vaulting ahead of Ohio State...even though Ohio State has yet to lose a game this year.

I'd hate to see a scenario where an undefeated team from a major conference like the Big Ten doesn't get to play for the national championship while another team who has a loss on their record from the SEC does, but it looks as if this may well happen.  The only way I see this not happening is if Ohio State loses to Michigan State in the Big Ten championship game next week, or in the extreme improbability that FSU would lose to Duke in their ACC championship game.

Urban Meyer took over coaching duties at Ohio State University last year and took them to an undefeated record.  But then they were under probation for rules violations under the previous coach and were ineligible for championships or bowl games.  And he has yet to lose this year, too!  Wouldn't it be something if Ohio State went undefeated again and were denied a shot at the championship...when they were one of the two undefeated teams left?  Incredibly, this travesty of the championship process looks to be a distinct possibility...

My November 2013 Running Report

In November I continued to keep up with my monthly running goals, surpassing 100 miles again with a total of 126.21 miles.  My longest run was for seven miles, and I ran on 29 out of the 30 days.  I passed on a couple of races in November I could have entered, but I have no regrets...I'll get back on the racing "circuit" when I know I'm ready.  The weather improved toward the end of November and consequently I began to run more outside instead of using the treadmill.  This trend should continue in December. 

Perhaps I'll run a race in December...I'm thinking right now of a 15K race (for 9.3 miles) that will take place in Gainesville on December 14.  Also, there's a half-marathon in Jacksonville a couple of weeks later.  I'll just have to assess how I feel when those opportunities approach...and whether I have any scheduling conflicts.

Pleasant Five Mile Run in Pleasant Weather

It was about 63 degrees outside, with the humidity hovering around 50%, when I did a twilight five-mile run around my neighborhood a little while ago.  The conditions were perfect for me, and my running responded in kind as I felt strong and energized throughout...I probably could have kept on but decided that it was getting a little too dark for me.  I wish all days were like this...at least it looks as if, for the foreseeable future, we'll be enjoying pretty much the same weather in Gainesville.  That's quite a departure from the previous few days, when we went through a rapid succession of warm mugginess, extreme storms, and then a frosty freeze before today's pleasantness...

Happy Thanksgiving, Keep Your Black Friday

I'd like to wish all of my faithful readers a happy Thanksgiving...and a sense of perspective about the consumer frenzy known as Black Friday.  Only it seems now that Black Friday has seeped deeply into Thursday and now thoroughly impinges on what once used to be a major holiday.  Amassing "stuff" isn't on my list of priorities in life, although I have certain things I want to buy as well (or receive as gifts).  I more highly value time, both in a relaxed setting with my family and in a more reclusive sense as I study and meditate.  Material possessions are O.K., but I already have enough of just about anything I need.  It looks as if most other people have enough, too, but they are restless to "upgrade" to the latest gizmos being churned out for consumption.  So this purchasing frenzy, as I see it, is not transformational in nature but rather marginal and compulsive.  There is too much effort being spent to gain too little of an improvement.  Also, I suspect that many people caught up in this shopping insanity are behaving like herd animals, just following whatever they perceive the others are doing in order to "fit in".  What a sad way to live a life...

Gamma Ray Burst Could Help Martin's Characters

I've just begun reading A Storm of Swords, the third volume of George R.R. Martin's projected (at present) seven-volume A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy saga.  It didn't take very long for me to quickly come to the conclusion that the overwhelming preponderance of characters in this series are so incredibly miserable in their despair that everyone's interests would probably be best served if a gamma ray burst from a nearby supernova explosion didn't just sweep over and instantly sterilize the entire blasted planet, which doesn't really exist anyway.  This feeling came to a head for me when I started reading a chapter in which Davos, a captain in one of the warring kingdoms' navies, finds himself shipwrecked and dying, imploring death to come and rescue him from his suffering. And then the damned fool goes and gets himself rescued...no doubt to despair and suffer even more down the line.

I get it: the author has to keep the story tight...no slackening...and accomplishes this by placing the various protagonists in a chronic state of peril and suffering.  But I have to admit that while I suppose this helps to sustain my interest in those characters, I'm starting to suffer from empathetic suffering pangs.

In the first book, A Games of Thrones, Martin smartly put the "bite" into everyone's peril by unceremoniously knocking off what was reasonably understood then to be his chief protagonist.  After this, it became clear that NOBODY was safe!  It reminds me of what Hitchcock did in the movie Psycho, when Janet Leigh's main protagonist character was murdered early in the story in the motel shower.  After that, the movie was almost unbearably frightening as I followed the remaining "survivors",  anticipating similar outcomes for them.

But I think there's something more to this dreariness that I detect in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.  I detest his fantasy world and its society...and the insensitivity and brutality of its people, especially those in positions of leadership.  I suppose that this is probably all allegorical, though, and I could apply some of the social models and problems that Martin reveals to our world today.  That doesn't make it any more pleasant to read, though...

Finished Reading Goodkind's Blood of the Fold

I have just completed reading Terry Goodkind's third novel in his twelve-part The Sword of Truth series, titled Blood of the Fold.  The title refers to an organization that parallels the Spanish Inquisitional movement in our own history, with a religiously fanatical leader going around with his army looking for heretics that he arbitrarily designates as working for the "Keeper" (analogous to Satan) while he continuously justifies his own cruel actions as being for the "Creator" (i.e. the Lord God).  It's obviously Goodkind's own statement against religious intolerance...the demonization of anything that is beyond the direct control of whoever is on a judgmental religious track in their lives.  But beyond that, Blood of the Fold is more or less a continuation of the author's fantasy world roller coaster ride of series protagonists Richard, Kahlan, and Zedd with a new cast of foes and all assortments of magical and prophetic quirks and gimmicks.  Now that I know how this series is going, along with the fact that there are nine more books to go, I feel that I can probably expect more of the same as I read on.  However, as tedious as this may seem, I do enjoy Goodkind's writing and his rather philosophical take on how people should live their lives and view things.  That doesn't mean that I necessarily agree with all that he promotes, but I know how to filter out the useful from the dross...

Oh, by the way, I was anticipating Terry Goodkind introducing a new "wizard's rule" as he did in each of the first two volumes.  I wasn't disappointed, as he revealed in his "Wizard's Third Rule":

Passion rules reason, for better or for worse.  

Next: Volume #4, Temple of the Winds...

Some Factors in Keith Richards' Success

As a continuation of my reaction to Keith Richards' autobiography Life, I'd like to examine some "success" traits of his.  From childhood and throughout his life, Richards was no doubt intent on pursuing his main interest and love, which was music.  He was determined and disciplined in his zeal to both perfect his guitar skills and create within the medium of music.  He also engaged with others and shared his learning on a professional level in a generous manner, inviting them to share with him what they had learned and incorporating much of their input into his own work.  Richards was a natural collaborator on projects...even this autobiography was a collaboration, and it worked out very well.  He kept his fanatical interest in music strong while concentrating his social relationships on being with others who shared his love for it.  At various points in his life story, he displayed a humility about his own abilities in music while openly acknowledging those he had encountered who excelled in the art.  Oh, one other thing...Keith Richards, in his early childhood, had adults present in his life who also loved music and introduced him to it with encouragement and an example of success that he could model himself on. Finally, Richards gave credit to those who had helped him at various stages of his life journey with a strong sense of gratitude.

Finished Reading Life by Keith Richards

I just finished reading the autobiography of Rolling Stones guitarist and songwriter Keith Richards, a quite lengthy book with a short, simple title: Life.  It's not, though, as if Richards just decided to sit down one day and crank out his life's story: on the contrary the book is essentially written by "co-writer" and friend James Fox, who conducted a series of sometimes intensive interviews with Richards over a five-year period.  It reads very well, though, as if the lead Stones guitarist is recounting in the first person his own personal experiences and beliefs.  I liked the book a lot, but not necessarily because I liked Keith Richards.  On the contrary, I never did like him, even from early childhood in the 1960's, and found a lot of stuff in Life to dislike him even more.  What I did appreciate about this particular autobiography is that he didn't just set out to justify himself in it, but rather put both the good and bad out on display, including the "dirty linen" of his extensive drug use over the years.  As a matter of fact, he was so candid about how badly it had gotten out of control that he opened the book with an incident relating to a drug bust that happened while on tour in the U.S. in 1975...and only then launched into recounts of his childhood as traditional biographies do.

I think that this book is something worth examining in future articles, for there is a lot to cover here.  There is a way, an approach to encountering people and befriending them that appealed to me in Keith Richards.  On the other hand, without explicitly coming out and saying it, he seemed to display some of the classic behavioral patterns of a bully at times, sorry to say.  Well, I'll leave some of that for a future article and just say right now that I'd recommended Life for anyone who either knew and liked some of what the Rolling Stones did over their incredibly long run as a rock and roll band or is interested in what went on (and probably still goes on) behind the scenes with rock and roll acts going back to the sixties and seventies.  And in spite of Keith Richards' excesses and personality flaws, some of the personality factors that contributed to his material and artistic success are revealed in this book...as a matter of fact, they become so self-evident that they seem to scream at me! 

Pathetic Gators Lose to Small College 26-20

So my University of Florida football team has skidded so far down this year that they just lost to a minor team, Georgia Southern, 26-20.  This was the "extra" game on the schedule after the regular season limit was increased to twelve...designed for Florida to have a breather as they prepared for their annual rivalry contest against Florida State.  Instead, they have now lost six in a row and have a 4-7 record and a guaranteed losing season, making them bowl ineligible.  Why, though, anyone would care to see them in a bowl after this dismal season is beyond me.  But for some reason there is no blame coming to the coaching staff from Athletic Director Foley.  Back in 2004, Ron Zook was fired mid-season as head coach for a much better performance...but current coach Will Muschamp seems to have entranced the Florida A.D. somehow in spite of the mediocrity he is showcasing.  Sure, the Gators have had their share of injuries, but so have other teams...who somehow seem to have been able to fill in the gaps with players off their bench.  With Florida though, it's all about the injuries and not about the coaching philosophy, strategy, or decisions.  I see little hope for improvement next year under Muschamp, but sooner or later the clamor by the fans and alumni will be too loud for Mr. Foley to ignore...

JFK Assassination Fifty Years Ago Today

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of a horrendous national event: the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in the middle of a publicly intense motorcade running through downtown Dallas, Texas.   Since then, all kinds of conspiracy theories have abounded concerning who shot Kennedy and why...enriching quite a few of their promoters in the process.  As for me, I'm inclined to believe that the official suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone without anyone pulling the strings behind the scenes.  As for you, believe whatever you want to believe...bet you can't prove it! 

I was in the second grade in Hollywood, Florida on that fateful afternoon, just following lunch, when a kid from the adjacent classroom rushed in to inform us that President Kennedy had been shot...either in the back or the eye, he wasn't sure.  From that moment on, everything changed as no one could talk or think about anything else.  When I got home, the television was on CBS/Channel 4/WTVJ, which was providing continuous coverage of the crisis.  Both of my parents were Kennedy supporters although neither voted in order to avoid jury duty (nowadays this is a moot point with having a driver's license being the prerequisite for summoning).  It was pretty heavy and somber as I remembered it.  And of course, by the time I had gotten home from school, word had gone out that Kennedy was dead. 

I was only seven when JFK was killed.  I didn't know anything about politics, although I remember being familiar with the name of Kennedy as the President when the news came down that sorry Friday afternoon in 1963.  I became aware very quickly who Lyndon Baines Johnson was as Kennedy's successor...and even more so the following year when he would preempt regular televised programming by sounding war alarms about Vietnam and how we needed to respond...a double tragedy.  Some speculate that John Kennedy would have kept us out of Vietnam...I tend to think that he would have kept a covert US presence there without going overboard with the troop commitment and subsequent mass carnage.  And since a great part of the tide of changing American history turned on that war, it's easy to see how this assassination was so pivotal...as Stephen King speculated so provocatively in his recent novel 11/22/63...

NCAA Football National Championship Preferences

It's now getting to the point in the college football season when the hopes and aspirations of the teams I'm rooting for give way to often dismal reality, and I begin to side with schools that I usually wouldn't pull for as a first choice.  Two cases in point are Auburn and South Carolina.  These are the two "runner-up" teams in each Southeastern Conference division, behind Alabama and Missouri respectively.  I like Auburn because I dislike Alabama's coach Nick Saban, while I like South Carolina (who could win the conference title but not the national championship) because I like their coach Steve Spurrier and resent newcomer Missouri being able to pick up a divisional title in only their second year in the league. Outside the SEC, I'm still pulling for Michigan State to beat Ohio State...but if Urban Meyer's Buckeyes prevail, I would root for them in a national championship game against Alabama.  I'd like most of all for Florida State to win the national championship, but there are two obstacles to this. One, they'll have to get by Florida at Gainesville in their final regular season contest and two, their star quarterback Jameis Winston is, I'm afraid, on the verge of having his college career (and perhaps ultimately his noncriminal status) ended with a sexual assault charge.  I'm still rooting for my Gators, who I think have a shot of winning, to get by the Seminoles...as for the sexual assault matter, I just want for truth and justice to prevail regarding the victim and whoever gets accused.

Here is my list of teams with national championship possibilities, according to my preferences:

1 Florida State
2 Auburn
3 Oregon
4 Michigan State
5 Ohio State
6 Baylor
7 Stanford
8 Missouri
9 Alabama

So far, Alabama and FSU are the consensus favorites for the national championship game, with Ohio State and Baylor waiting in the wings hoping that one or both of them lose in the waning regular season or in their conference title games.  Meanwhile, teams like Auburn and Oregon are hoping that Ohio State and Baylor lose one of their final games as well...which I believe is a distinct possibility.  If Ohio States wins out and still misses the title game, it will have been coach Meyer's third team in his career that has gone undefeated without getting a shot at the championship!

Schedule Conflict Nixes One Race, Another Available

Just when I was about to register and pay for this Thanksgiving morning's 10K Turkey Trot race here in Gainesville, I discovered that, for the first time in many years, I have been scheduled to work on Thanksgiving.  Since the race itself begins at 8:30 AM and I won't be getting off from work until 7:30 AM, this simply won't work out.  So I'm skipping this race as well and am glad that I didn't sign up too soon.   I checked my local Florida Track Club website race calendar and discovered there is an annual event called Season of Hope 15K that takes place on the Hawthorne Trail (the same location as the Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon that I just passed over last weekend).  The 9.3 miles involved in a 15K race should be a great preparation for the ensuing Ocala and FivePoints half-marathons as the long-distance running season goes full throttle in the winter here in northern Florida...

Skipped Second Half-Marathon in Two-Months

For the second time in a two-month span, I have skipped a half-marathon running race that was held here in my home town of Gainesville.  I thought that I could have finished the last one, the Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon held on Saturday morning, November 16, but the weather was unseasonably warm and extremely humid.  That morning, instead of running 13.1 miles, I stepped out of my front door and ran a short 2.33 mile course through my immediate neighborhood.  It was a very unpleasant run, affirming my decision to bypass this race.  I do believe that I have the endurance necessary to finish a half-marathon, although my final time probably won't be up there with my best.

I look ahead on the calendar and see, early in 2014, two half-marathons that I have run in before: Ocala in January and the FivePoints (Gainesville) in February.  Perhaps I'll just aim for these.  In the meantime, there is the 10K Turkey Trot run to be held in town on Thanksgiving morning the 28th.  This sounds like a good event to enter.

Should I feel more comfortable running in a half-marathon before next year, I might check out the area calendar for December.  For example, there is a half-marathon scheduled in Jacksonville at the end of that month...

Champagne Time for '72 Dolphins

Sometimes it happens sooner and sometimes it happens later, but sooner or later it happens.  Once again, the last undefeated team in the National Football League has lost their first game, this season after nine straight opening wins.  This year it was the Kansas City Chiefs who made the startling run, considering that last year they went 2-14.  But with a new coach and quarterback (albeit successful veterans from other teams) Andy Reid and Alex Smith, respectively, they have transformed themselves into a true contender.  Unfortunately for them, the Chiefs are situated in a division with the Denver Broncos, who may well be the best team in the league this year.  The two divisional rivals played last night on the road in Mile High Stadium and the Chiefs lost 27-17.  So no more undefeated teams remain, and that's party time to the 1972 Miami Dolphins players and staff.  Time to break out the champagne! 

Miami went 14-0 in the regular season in 1972 and won the Super Bowl.  No team has won it all since then, although there have been some close calls.  The most notable were the runs of the Chicago Bears in 1985 and of the New England Patriots in 2007.  The Bears would probably have pulled it off were they not upset by the Dolphins in the next-to-last game of the regular season, and the Patriots came 35 seconds from having a perfect season...that is, until the New York Giants scored and went ahead with that miniscule amount of time left in the fourth quarter of their Super Bowl.  This year, though, won't come close to those two and Miami's unrepeated legacy remains intact. So, as the tradition goes, the surviving members of that '72 Dolphins team either will meet or already have met to celebrate Kansas City's first loss of the season.  Frankly, I like the Chiefs and dislike the Broncos and was in an uncomfortable position last night rooting for Denver.  But now I can go back to pulling for KC (unless they play the Dolphins, of course)...

Just Finished Reading Grafton's M is for Malice

I like reading Sue Grafton's "alphabet mystery" series.  I think she's gotten all the way to "W" by now...but I can't remember exactly which "letters" I've read and which I haven't.  The first book I read of hers was L is for Lawless, and I remember A is for Alibi and G is for Gumshoe.  I've read more than that, too, but can't remember which ones.  So my last selection I made was of M is for Malice: that title just did not sound familiar at all!

As with all of these books, the main character is a woman named Kinsey Millhone, an ex-cop turned private detective, living in coastal California around some of the other "regulars" in the series.  She has ongoing issues with personal relationships (an orphan from childhood, alienated from her other relatives and twice-divorced, currently going in and out of voluntary celibacy).  Kinsey likes her three-mile daily runs on the beach, something about her that I can finally relate to (although I live far from the ocean).  She is also proud of her self-sufficiency, but inevitably finds herself having to depend on others around her for help (also like me).  I generally like Kinsey's personality, although as a private eye she can be a little tedious as she describes each new setting she finds herself in (the stories are told in the first person) with excruciatingly great detail.  When I get to one of these areas in the book, my mind often takes off and wanders around a bit until I can get back to the actual story!

In M is for Malice, Kinsey is hired by a distant relative to find an heir to a fortune, and this heir has been missing for decades.  The rest of the family regards him as the black sheep and judges his past severely.  Sometime as the story is unraveled a murder occurs...and I quickly sniffed out the correct perpetrator out of the assortment of suspects Grafton  had laid out!  I knew it had to be someone presented early in the story who wasn't an obvious suspect...voila, there was the answer!

I think it would be a good project for me to just read some basic descriptions of each of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone mysteries, for I'm sure I haven't read most of them and would like to know which ones.  And they are good, fun reading!

Comet ISON Becoming Visible to the Naked Eye

As Comet ISON, also known as C/2012 S1, nears the Sun, it is rapidly brightening, with some reporting that they can see it (under very dark conditions) with their naked eye.  The magnitude as of November 14 was recorded as +5.4, and should be soon visible to the general public observer by the time it reaches +4.  Of course, the comet's increasing proximity to the Sun over the next few days will interfere with its visibility and counteract, to a degree, its increase in magnitude.  It is to be seen just before sunrise in the constellation Virgo, very near its brightest star Spica (to its west until November 18-19...then to the east).  I'll have one opportunity to view it tomorrow morning, if I'm awake and the clouds aren't obscuring my view.  Then for the rest of the week, I'll be inside a building at the time at work. 

It's still unclear how bright Comet ISON will get after it rounds the sun...or even whether it will survive the close encounter.  So it might be a good idea to get in your observations before the comet gets too close to the heat...

Lately, On My Kindle

Being a Kindle owner for a little more than a month now, I haven't exactly been going all out to build up a collection of books on it.  I recently did check out, through my library, an e-reader version of Isaac Asimov's Foundation, the first novel in a series of his about the results of historical planning on a galactic scale.  But even though this book was relatively short, I had just a few days to read it before the expiration date passed and it disappeared from my Kindle.  I wonder why, if I check out a hard copy book from the library, I'm given four weeks to read it (with the option of twice renewing the loan) while I'm supposed to apparently just zip on through the material if I electronically check it out on an e-reader.  Also, why, after my online request was made for Foundation, did I have to wait a few days for it to become "available", when the whole process of transferring to a Kindle is virtually instantaneous?  Go figure...

These days I'm rereading another of my favorite authors, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose Sherlock Holmes stories are among my favorites.  I bought the complete Holmes works, plus some bonus stories, for 99 cents.  I just finished the initial Holmes story, titled A Study in Scarlet (with a not-so-complimentary view of Mormon history) and am now undertaking The Sign of Four, in which the good Doctor Watson falls in love with Mary Marston.  I love the idea of being able to carry these stories around with me and reading them so conveniently...

Gators, Dolphins Disappointing at 4-5

As it stands right now, the University of Florida Gators and the Miami Dolphins, the two football teams that I follow the most, are mired in 4-5 seasons after each team started out well.  Florida had built up a 4-1 mark before going into a tailspin while Miami won its first three games.  Both teams have been plagued by injuries, while the Dolphins lost two starters from its already inadequate offensive line due to the Incognito/ Martin bullying scandal.  Both teams have competent quarterbacks in Tyler Murphy and Ryan Tannehill, but the offensive line simply will not protect them.  This really makes little sense with Florida since their coach Will Muschamp has deliberately employed a ball-control strategy that presupposes a standout offensive line. 

Florida plays tomorrow at Steve Spurrier's South Carolina, while the Dolphins are at home against San Diego.  At this point, Florida is only playing for an opportunity for a bowl game, for which they need to upset the Gamecocks.  Unfortunately, Murphy is injured and the Gators will be starting third stringer (and inexperienced on the college level) Skyler Mornhinweg.  Good luck, Skyler!  Miami, on the other hand, incredibly is still thick in the running for a playoff spot and can greatly enhance their position in the standings by defeating the Chargers, also with a 4-5 record.  But if the Dolphins lose this crucial game, they might as well forget about the playoffs this year, as far as I'm concerned.

We'll see what the weekend brings...

About to Begin Book Three in Sword of Truth Series

I am continuing on my literary journey through the massive jungle of fantasy writer Terry Goodkind's twelve-volume Sword of Truth series, having just completed the second book Stone of Tears.  Once again, the main characters of Richard, Kahlan, and Zedd are struggling through a war-infested world full of magic, intrigue, and dire prophecies.  Knowing that I'm going to end up plowing through twelve books gives me a dual feeling: one, the main characters...at least Richard...will manage to survive their ordeals in each book (at least for a while in the series), and two, whatever victories that they achieve at the end of one book will quickly be transformed into potentially disastrous problems for the next.  That's fine with me, for the main appeal in this series is Goodkind's writing style and how he allows his characters to develop and learn from their situations.  Also, in each of the two previous books, Goodkind has revealed a "wizard's rule", the correct or wrongful application of which has a direct bearing on how the story culminates.  I wonder if he'll continue in the next book with a new rule.

I'm about to start on book #3, titled Blood of the Fold.

The Question Is Not X, But Y

When establishing one's priorities for action or analyzing something for its salient points, often the statement comes out that "It isn't a question of (the extraneous points), but rather (the salient point)".  Here's an example...

I'm taking a class at my local church.  It meets weekly, and each week a written assignment that involves answering questions about the previous week's lesson is due.  We're on Lesson 11 and the assignment is due tomorrow before class. Depending on how busy I am during the week, I'm either on pace with completing my assignment or behind.  This week I was behind, and had to invoke the "question is not" principle to getting the assignment completed and turned in: "The question is not how deep and significant my answers are for this assignment, but rather whether I can crank it out and turn it in on time."  Once asked, the answer to it is obvious and self-contained.  Just do the blasted assignment, turn it in, and move on to the next lesson!  So having established my priority, I did just that...and amazingly, while working in this mental framework I was able to come up with some pretty good answers, if I do say so.

I think that cranking out a product is the often the issue that needs to be addressed instead of insisting on perfection, for time is a factor in a lot of things that people often tend to ignore when appraising how best to approach them.  But also, once the question of what one's priority or focus should be has been ascertained, that question, within its new context, can shift as well.   As a matter of fact, sorting out priorities of emphasis is a crucial mental process that we need to be habitually adept at and consistently apply in a practical sense.

Finished Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms

I have a backlog of books that I have read and want to write about.  I might as well start off by discussing a "classic": Ernest Hemingway's World War I story A Farewell to Arms.  Before getting into the story, I have to admit to a little bibliophobia about authors like Hemingway, Pearl Buck, John Steinbeck and Joseph Conrad.  When I earlier read books they had written, it wasn't for my own pleasure and enlightenment, but rather to fulfill high school English class assignments.  And part of those assignments, without exception, involved afterwards picking apart the assigned novels according to the criteria that the inevitably boring (to me) and disinterested (in me) teachers presented to us.  So I came to regard these greats in literature as something of an enemy, and this feeling sadly lasted well past the time I left that prison known as high school.

I have since still avoided Buck, Steinbeck, and Conrad, but did manage to read Hemingway's Spanish Civil War novel For Whom the Bell Tolls.  This novel read like a movie, and the ending was something I never forgot.  So I set out recently to read his "breakthrough" novel A Farewell to Arms, which is about an American serving as a lieutenant in the Italian Army during World War I as they fought against Austria.  Part of the narrative is about his experiences in the ambulance corps there and part is about his romance with an English nurse.  The story in itself isn't really anything to get terribly excited about, but I was impressed with how the author developed the characters through extensive, intricate dialog.  Also, Hemingway's presentation always used simple, short sentences that, strung together, were very effective at describing not only the plot as it developed, but also the interesting setting in which it was placed.  The story and its underlying theme of victimization at the hands of the powers that be, presented in the first person by the protagonist, is about as gloomy and cynical is it comes, making me feel that this might be a good "Goth" novel for its bleakness and negativity.  Still, there was a kind of sweetness and friendly intimacy to how many of the characters related to each other that reminded me a little of Stephen King's Joyland, which I had just finished reading before picking up A Farewell to Arms.

When I was in high school, instead of being graded on a 0-4 scale, or even "F" to "A", we at my obnoxiously "special" school naturally had to do it differently, using a 0-9 scale instead...who knows why.  A "5" grade would correspond to "C-".  I say that because that's what I would expect my "wonderful" English teachers to give me for the above review...which incidentally is written in a manner to avoid giving the story away to potential readers...

Gator Football Woes Point to Coaching

I think it's a shame that the University of Florida football team has now lost four games in a row and is now only 4-5, likely to finish the season with a losing record and without a bowl appearance.  It's even more of a shame when you consider that in four out of those five losses, an excessive amount of very untimely Gator turnovers accounts for the loss margins.  That means that if they had just been able to hold onto the football, Florida right now could have been 8-1!  Combining their high turnover rate with chronically high amounts of penalty calls and quarterback sacks caused largely by poor pass protection from the offensive line and you just might come to the conclusion that there is something definitely wrong with how this team is coached...especially when you throw in the fact that every year, for the past several years, Florida has ranked at or near the tops in the nation in recruiting star high school players.  So they have the talent, supposedly, but when that talent hits the field after all of the weeks of practice and preparation they get outperformed game after game by the opposition?  That sounds like really lousy coaching to me.  The excuses have been made that the Gators have had injuries this year, including their original starting quarterback and first-string running back.  But other teams have had their own share of injuries as well...and besides, the backup players have stepped up to the plate (sorry about the mixed sports metaphor) and filled in admirably.  No, this is a flaw with the coaching.  Sorry, Will Muschamp...

Our 2013 Gator Gallop Run

Yesterday was the traditional two-mile Gator Gallop run, technically a race but in reality a mob surge (estimated 600 entrants) down University Avenue from the University of Florida track area to NW 6th Street, down that road and then back on SW 2nd Avenue almost back to UF.  Earlier in the week I had preregistered myself and my daughter and was surprised to find that there were no timing chips...and that the finishing times wouldn't be recorded.  So in the end this was just a privilege I was paying for to be part of a Gator Homecoming tradition...for this run immediately precedes the beginning of the Homecoming Parade each year. Okay, I thought, I can handle that...and then hang around after the run to watch the procession of floats, cars, trucks, marchers, and performers.

Melissa drove Rebecca and me down to UF and we found some parking close by for five bucks.  Then she left to find a good spot along the upcoming parade route and waited for father and daughter to run by during the Gallop.  Which we did, resulting in the picture of us below.

I found it was just as fun to sit around and get a feeling for the festive atmosphere, with entrants planning to either walk, run, skate, or skateboard.  There were plenty of dogs taking part in the event with their humans, as well as parents pushing their babies in strollers.  Also, there was an inordinate number of little children running in this two-mile adventure.  I told Rebecca I wasn't  trying to win anything in this race, but please don't let any of those pipsqueaks beat me!

Most of the race, especially the first two thirds, involved us simply trying to avoid slower participants and find pockets that we could fit in. It was nearly impossible to establish any reasonable pace, so I just "sat back" in a manner of speaking and took in the experience.  Rebecca, despite feeling some discomfort during the run in her left ankle, surprised me with a powerful sprint at the end. Just beyond the finish line (no times...we had to do that ourselves), there was water, fruit juice, and bananas.  The walk back to where Melissa awaited us was lengthy, but it was fun to me because I got to reflect on how much the campus had changed with its newer buildings and landscaping since I had been a student there.  Finally, we reached our roadside seat and enjoyed the parade, about which I wrote yesterday...along with the accompanying photos.

And here are a few pics of our Gator Gallop experience, along with a little campus stuff!

University of Florida Homecoming Parade 2013 Pictures

Here are some pictures I took at the University of Florida Homecoming Parade, which took place a little earlier this afternoon.  Before the parade, my daughter and I ran the two-mile Gator Gallop, about which I'll write tomorrow.  The street you're seeing is West University Avenue, and I'm sitting with my wife and daughter watching it from the UF(south) side near Fletcher Drive.