My January 2014 Running Report

A year ago in January, I ran in the Ocala Half-Marathon and amassed 200 miles for the month while running every day.  This year in January I only ran about half that amount, 102.08 miles to be exact. However, I somehow did manage to run on every day of the month.  And although I skipped the Ocala Half-Marathon this year and didn't run any races this month, I am going to run tomorrow's Education for Life 5K event with my daughter tomorrow morning, taking place here in Gainesville at Westside Park.  My longest single run in January was relatively short: 4.54 miles. 

I'm still entertaining thoughts of entering Gainesville's FivePoints Half-Marathon for February 16.  I'm not in the same running shape, though, that I was a year ago.  But to just cover the distance without concerning myself about my time would still be a pretty nifty accomplishment for me...and I love the course, which goes through much of Gainesville...

Isaac Asimov's Novel The Currents of Space

As I wrote a couple of days ago, I'm currently in the processing of re-reading Isaac Asimov's Empire trilogy of novels.  I just finished the second one, titled The Currents of Space.  In it, Asimov speculates that it will be discovered that in deep space, "currents" exist that contain relatively large amounts of various elements.  Also, when a star system passes through a space current possessing a large amount of carbon, the star becomes a prime candidate for a nova explosion.  I don't think, however, that this is where we are nowadays with our understanding of novas...but for this story at least, we just have to play along with our good author's notions on the subject.  This is important because in the universe of Asimov's fictional future thousands of years from now, a specialist in the field of space currents has a dire warning to convey to the leaders of an inhabited planetary system...but unfortunately someone wipes his memory away (using something called a "psychic probe") before he can get his message across.  The story develops as he gradually recovers his memory while he and two companions are pursued by two conflicting sides: the locally dominant Sarks and the galactic empire of Trantor.  There is an important subplot to this tale, in which the planet of Florina is under Sark domination and whose inhabitants, of a lighter skin pigmentation than other people in general, are subjugated and suffer racial discrimination.  This is a not-so-oblique analogy to what was going on in America (especially in the South) with its racial segregation and prejudice of the mid-twentieth century, when The Currents of Space was written.  To leave no doubts in the minds of the reader about what he is doing, Asimov then has the oppressed people group forced to grow kyrt, which supposedly is a variant of cotton that grows better on that planet than anywhere else in the galaxy.  I guess back then this exposition against racial bigotry would have been considered a bold move on the author's part, but it seems somewhat patronizing and redundant to me now. 

The Empire series contains stories told with the backdrop of the growing Trantor Empire, each one transpiring a substantial time span after the previous.  With The Currents of Space, the Empire is strong but only covering about half our galaxy.  The third and final book of this series, titled Pebble in the Sky, has Trantor dominant throughout...

Leon: A Cold and Stormy Character

For nearly a week already, the weather forecasts have been pointing to today as being a rather nasty day.  Initially it was projected to dip down into the twenties.  Then it looked as if we were in for an ice storm with freezing rain, icy roads and even a potential for the first appreciable snowfall here in Gainesville since December of 1989.  But as the day grew close, the forecast backed off about the severity of the impending storm, which I was astonished yesterday to discover possesses a name: Winter Storm Leon.

I had long thought that putting a name to something automatically makes it more memorable, and some of these wintertime frontal storms can cause at least as much destruction and injury as a hurricane strike.  Apparently, somebody in the weather bureau agrees with me; I wonder how long this naming of winter storms has been going on.  I don't recall hearing anyone refer to other such storm systems by a name, but Leon does start with the letter "L": doesn't this imply that there already have been winter storms A through K? And has this already been going on previous to this year?  My next proposal will be for them to start naming summertime heat waves!

In spite of temperatures giving us a break with Leon (at least here in Gainesville), we are still stuck in very rainy circumstances here and cold (for us)...it isn't supposed to get warmer than the low forties all day long.  Looks like I won't be running outside today!

Just Finished Reading (Again) Asimov's The Stars, Like Dust

The late Isaac Asimov was one of those writers who created his own fictional "universe".  It is common knowledge that, within the fantasy genre of fiction, authors typically reshape the planet with completely different maps of imaginary continents, along with their topography and political divisions.  As a matter of fact, one of the first things I do when I pick up the beginning book in a fantasy series is to look at the map of the area.  Sometimes, as with authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin of Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire, respectively, these maps are very intricate and well thought out.  And then there are other maps, like those of Terry Goodkind in his Sword of Truth series, which are very sketchy and incomplete.  But Asimov was a science fiction writer, not confined to one made-up world...instead,  his created "world" spans the future history of our galaxy; his "map" is of time rather than geography.  This "Asimov Universe" wasn't created beforehand, but rather evolved over the span of decades as he wrote many different novels and short stories that fit together to form a cohesive picture of his vision of the future as to how it pertains to humanity.  These stories can roughly be grouped into three time eras: the Robot Era, the Empire Era, and the Foundation Era.  With the robot tales, you can read each story without too much concern about keeping "in order", but with Empire and Foundation (especially the latter) it's a pretty good idea to go from beginning to end. 

I just reread the first of Asimov's three Empire novels, titled The Stars, Like Dust.  It is set in our galaxy, with many worlds already having been settled for thousands of years, after the crucial ability to be able to "jump" through space/time had been acquired that made travel to the stars beyond our Solar System feasible (in Star Trek this advance is called the "space warp"). I feel a little uncomfortable when I speak of the future as past "history", but this apparent paradox works anyway.  The idea of future history becomes of paramount importance for the Foundation series, which is completely based on it.  But before Foundation could take place, a galaxy-wide united empire with a centralized capital city and government had to be established, and The Stars, Like Dust lays out the preliminary setting for the beginnings of this process by depicting a rebellion against a minor empire in a localized group of star systems.  The story involves an executed rebel landowner's son who finds himself sucked into a web of intrigue involving  rebellion, murder, romance, and revenge.  How it all ends is...well, to my thinking it ends pretty inconclusively, making me wonder why I invested my time in reading it a second time, much less the first!  I wasn't too happy with Asimov making such major efforts to scientifically describe the various technological innovations in his story as well as giving short lectures on chemistry and physics...I think he could have accomplished what he wanted to do without sounding so pedantic (I've had the same problem with Michael Crichton in his novels).  But it is the story's young protagonist, Biron Farrill, who bothered me the most with his childish emotional reactions to just about everything...only to reveal at the end that it was all just a ploy on his part to manipulate the behaviors of others to reach the higher objectives of discovering who betrayed his father and where the center of rebellion against the Tyrann empire was located.    But all in all, I'm glad I read it (and that it's over)...and am about to embark on a rereading of the (better) second book in the Empire series, titled The Currents of Space...

Referring to Super Bowls

This seems like an opportune time to bring up something that my vague memory tells me I already did on this blog in some form or another a few years ago.  And that is the ridiculous way that Super Bowls are designated. 

It's pretentious enough that those in the National Football League leadership chose to implement their own system of counting years starting with Super Bowl "1" (this Sunday it will be Super Bowl "48"), but to aggravate things even more they have insisted on using Roman numerals instead of the Arabic ones we are accustomed to.  So I can say "Super Bowl 48", but I write "Super Bowl XLVIII".  In spite of the NFL's efforts to replace the old B.C./A.D. system (or BCE/CE if you prefer) of marking the years with "BSB/ASB" (which kind of implies that somebody sees football is being akin to a religion, doesn't it), nobody I know actually refers to old Super Bowl games this way.  Instead, they have a different problem when they refer to the calendar year...

For example, Super Bowl XL (or "40") took  place early in 2006 to determine the 2005 NFL championship in which Pittsburgh handled Seattle, 21-10.  But someone who refers to this game by saying "the 2005 Super Bowl" may be mistaken as referring to the game played in earlier in 2005 to determine the 2004 champion (which was New England).  On the other hand, using the actual year that the game was played in could be mistaken for the 2006 season...the Super Bowl championship which Indianapolis won.  As far as I can tell, the most common way to refer to a Super Bowl year is to use the season's designation.  So this year's Super Bowl between Seattle and Denver, although played in 2014, will be generally known as the "2013 Super Bowl".  Got all that? Good, because I may need you to tell me what I just said!

I discovered something else relating to past Super Bowls that surprised me.  For the first four years of this game, for the 1966-69 seasons, the National Football League and the American Football League were completely separate entities who sent their champions to face off for bragging rights in an unofficial, essentially exhibition contest...never mind that it was called "Super Bowl".  It wasn't until the 1970 season, when the NFL and AFL officially merged to form the NFL with National and American Conferences that the Super Bowl became the NFL championship game starting with the fifth game of the series.  So in spite of the fact that the New York Jets upset the Baltimore Colts 16-7 in that famous "Super Bowl III" after the 1968 season, the NFL champion for that year was...the Baltimore Colts! The following year Kansas City in turn upset Minnesota 23-7 in their Super Bowl.  As it turns out, that season was Minnesota's turn to be NFL champions...in fact it has been their only NFL championship! Yet both the Jets and Chiefs have won a Super Bowl...although neither has ever officially won an NFL championship!                                    

Just Finished Reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I just finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first volume of the late Swedish writer Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy.  As you might suspect, the setting of this story is Sweden...and the trilogy's title refers to the name of the story's magazine that Mikael Blomvist, one of the two main protagonists, runs.  In this first story, he finds himself found guilty in the courts for defaming a seedy wealthy industrialist and readies himself for a short jail term.  He then finds his future plans radically altered by another aging industrialist, named Henrik Vanger, when the latter hires him to investigate the 1966 disappearance and presumed murder of his daughter Harriet.  Blomvist is chosen for this job largely because of the extensive background check performed for Vanger by Lisbeth Salander, an antisocial prodigy with a flair for getting in trouble with the authorities...and the other main protagonist.  The novel involves several other characters, including several "suspects' in the Vanger family...but Blomvist and Salander are the standouts.  The story eventually has them meeting up with each other and becoming a formidable investigatory team, eventually solving the Harriet Vanger affair...and then going further with other matters.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is one of the best written thrillers I've come across in recent memory...and I've gone through quite a few lately.  The protagonists are very likeable and unforgettable, especially the enigmatic Salander.  I strongly recommend it to anyone who is into the mystery genre of fiction.  It was also recently made into a movie...featuring among others the British actor Daniel Craig, performing between James Bond roles.  Perhaps you've already seen it; I haven't yet, but since it's on Netflix I'll probably watch it now that I've read the book.  And I will most definitely be reading the next in the trilogy, titled The Girl Who Played with Fire...

Campaigns for Local March Election Underway

Late yesterday afternoon I was driving here in Gainesville along NW 43rd Street, northbound.  As I approached the 16th Boulevard intersection I saw several people smiling, waving at the passing cars, and holding up signs touting the candidacy of Annie Orlando for city commission.  I thought oh no, here we go again.  March local elections.

It never fails to amaze me that, with the already pathetically low voter turnout we have in this supposedly democracy-loving country of ours, my home town of Gainesville regularly holds its commission elections in March...when voter turnout is almost certain to be around a quarter of total registered voters or less.  This gives candidates with more extreme views and a more hardline, committed following of a relatively small number of voters the opportunity to sneak into elected office when a November election with its higher (but still too low) turnout would more likely prevent this from happening.  We have three races for our local government body that will be voted for on March 11...one at-large commission seat that will represent the whole city of Gainesville and two district seats that will represent certain sections. 

Aside from the fact that Annie Orlando is a Democratic Party candidate who seems to have establishment support for the at-large seat, and the Democrats usually win city-wide elections here in Gainesville, the alliterative, geographical, pop musical, and American historical nature of her name will probably garner a few extra votes as well.  The name Annie Orlando has that sonorous, alliterative ring to it, the Joe-Montana-like geographical glamour, the Tony-Orlando-and-Dawn pop musical allure (for those old fogies among us), and, last of all, the Annie Oakley American western history appeal...although that one is a tad more obscure than the others. 

I don't know which candidates I'll be voting for, but at least I'll find out more about who's running in the next few weeks and go to my precinct and cast my ballot on March 11.  I take my this civic responsibility of voting seriously and haven't missed an election in more than thirty years.  Annie, your name has pizazz but don't count on my vote unless I discover there's more substance behind it...

Finished Reading Michael Connelly's The Lincoln Lawyer

I recently finished reading my first Michael Connelly novel, which I had borrowed from my local public library.  Always a little unsure when I begin a new author, I was encouraged when I stepped up to the check-out counter and the attendant began praising my selection, titled The Lincoln Lawyer.  Later I found out that many others also liked this novel, with some claiming that it ranks as one of the best of Connelly's works.  It was not only his first foray into writing a story about law, but was also adapted into a film...about which I knew nothing. 

The Lincoln Lawyer is told in the first person by young hotshot (and very cynical) Los Angeles defense attorney Mickey Haller.  He definitely has his own philosophy about the legal profession that leaves little room to think about lofty concepts like principles and justice.  Still, as the story develops, something interesting happens: he begins to feel the pangs of a conscience and sets out to right what he considers wrongs that he has done...unintentional wrongs, but wrongs nonetheless. 

The story involves the defense of a spoiled and irresponsible rich young man, backed by his rich family, who is charged with aggravated assault and attempted murder of a young woman.  The defense investigation, as do typical fictional investigations, rankles some people and causes some severe responses.  Ultimately, the trial takes place under very conflicted circumstances for Haller.  The author kept me as a reader interested and in suspense, wondering both who was truly guilty and how the protagonist would be able to get himself extracted from the dilemma in which he had become trapped.  But the biggest impact this story had for me was its probing into the thoughts of opposing lawyers as they relate to presenting their sides of a case to a jury.

When I served as a juror a few months ago, I got the feeling that the lawyers on both sides were manipulating the jury with behavior that was designed to play on our emotions instead of providing us with the evidence and sufficient testimony we needed to arrive at an appropriate verdict.  Connelly's depiction of how trials are conducted did little to change my opinion...it only affirmed it. Both sides act on the surface with an air of deference and respect to those serving jury duty, but actually hold them in low regard. 

I liked The Lincoln Lawyer and will definitely seek out more of Michael Connelly's works.  As it turns out, he was born the same year I was, grew up and went to school in South Florida in the same county as me, just a few miles away, and now resides here in Gainesville.  Those coincidences are interesting...and admittedly a little creepy as well...

Mid-Life Medical Field Career Change Options

Yesterday I paid a visit to Santa Fe College here in Gainesville as a part of that institution's outreach to people 50+ years old who may be contemplating mid-life career changes or are possibly looking for something interesting and productive to do after retirement.  The focus was on careers in the medical field for which Santa Fe offered programs, such as nursing, respiratory care, nuclear medicine technology, cardiovascular technology, dental hygiene, and radiography.  I am interested in some of these, especially cardiovascular technology, nuclear medicine technology, and radiography.  These are areas of professional growth that will only be in higher demand as the years pass and the "baby boomers" enter a period in their lives of more prevalent medical care...along with the advances in technology to diagnose and treat them...and with a corresponding increased need for those trained to handed those new technologies. 

My father retired in 1982, at age 56.  He lived another 31 years, which although making  up a pretty decent life span at 87 years, also was marked, after retirement, by a retreat from the world and an ever-increasingly reclusive life within the walls of his house.  I do not ever want to be like that, even though I am reclusive by nature myself.  But I do recognize that I am a human being, and being as such, part of what I am necessitates me being an active, participating part of society, as difficult and painful doing that can be at times.  Continuing after retirement with some meaningful employment that utilizes my God-given abilities is a good way to continue this social involvement.

The academic advisor, Scott Fortnoy, guided those of us attending the workshop/tour around the various classrooms of their programs, pointing out what the jobs demanded from employees as well as important aspects like pay, hours, available of jobs, and the prospects for their growth.  He did a great job with his presentation, and I came away from the experience even more interested in employment in the field of medical technology.  The programs I am interested in are two-year degree programs, and may not be practical for me to pursue until I actually retire from my current job...which may not be until 2017 or even later.  I'll have to further investigate my options, though, and Scott made it clear to us that his office is open for us to visit and get answers to our questions.  I think I'll take him up on that...

Changing NFL Extra Point Rules

The current National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell has just come out suggesting that the extra point after touchdowns is so nearly automatic that it should be eliminated and teams just be given seven points after a touchdown...with an option to pursue an eighth point with what we now call a two-point conversion.  If that play is unsuccessful, a further point would be deducted and the scoring team would get only six points for all their trouble.  I don't like that idea: no one deducts points in a game in any sport unless it is because a scoring play has been reviewed and overturned.  Instead, in my opinion, they  should keep the system basically the same as it presently is, with the only difference being that an extra point attempt would take place on the twenty-yard-line (as the line of scrimmage from where the ball is hiked to the placeholder, making the kick essentially 36-37 yards long)...still probable but certainly not a shoo-in. Also, successfully kicking extra points, even from the current close range of today, is more problematic in college football and very "up in the air" on the high school level.  Placekickers should keep their important role on the team and in the sport: my suggestion would make them even more a deserved focus of attention.

I remember the times back in the early 1970's when NFL teams that had accurate long-distance kickers could consistently get themselves into field goal range by just getting into the opposing team's territory.  My Miami Dolphins racked up a lot of points that way by running a ball-control offense, getting a few first downs to the point where they had gotten a little bit past midfield, and then sending in Garo Yepremian to boot another long three-pointer.  In reaction to the ever-increasing ease of scoring field goals, the NFL rules were changed and the goal posts were moved from the goal line to the back of the end zone.  My suggestion about moving the extra point attempt back to the 20-yard line is in keeping with this sort of change and doesn't dramatically change the nature of the game, as Commissioner Goodell's proposal would...

Broadening (and Diluting) the Meaning of Addiction

The other night...I mean LATE night, while I was at work, I tuned in to the Coast-to-Coast AM radio talk show hosted by George Noory.  He had as a guest the famous science fiction writer David Brin.  Brin was in the middle of discussing the nature of addiction, and was about to state what he believed to be America's greatest addiction...but Noory quickly interrupted and shrewdly broke to several advertisements while keeping the listening audience (the ones who were still awake, that is) waiting in anticipation.  When Brin finally got back to the topic, he laid it out bluntly: in his opinion, the greatest addiction in our country is "self-righteous indignation".  While agreeing with Mr. Brin that this is indeed a problem in the United States, I have a couple of beefs about his statement.  For one, self-righteous indignation is something affecting humanity as a whole, not just one particular country or culture.  Also, it is timeless: just look the Bible, which is full of people who get themselves in a self-righteous huff about others (and usually end up rebuked for it).  But beyond the common assertion I hear that Americans are collectively guilty of things about which other people in the world are virtuous, the very appellation of "addiction" that Brin uses is erroneous.  It would be better to term this phenomenon as a "thinking error", "attitude problem", or "character flaw" instead of the emotionally charged word "addiction".  On the other hand, David Brin may just be following a common trend, which involves broadening the meaning of a heretofore precisely defined word to the point that it essentially becomes meaningless.  Hence we get a television series titled My Strange Addiction that groups compulsive behaviors like sleeping with a blow dryer or eating toilet paper, along with eccentric choices like living around a bunch of hairless rats, all under the umbrella designation of "addiction".  But there's more...it's becoming more acceptable to describe any kind of attachment to anything or any activity that one has a special fondness toward as an addiction.  What ever became of the narrower concept of addiction as being deeply dependent on an ingested chemical substance like nicotine, alcohol, heroin, and the like?

That having been said, I appreciate David Brin for at least bringing up self-righteous indignation as a societal problem.  I think too many folks resort to it too quickly when dealing with opinions or behavior that they see in others and with which they differ instead of trying to put themselves in the other person's position.  And why not? Look at the professionals in the opinion media and how they go about with their pious posturing, regardless of their positions on the issues, conservative or liberal.  And don't get me started with Nancy Grace.  You know, those people make me so-o-o self-righteously indignant!

A Couple of Reverend King Quotes

Even though today is the official national holiday celebrating Martin Luther King's birthday, he actually would have turned 85 on January 15 had he not been assassinated back in April of 1968 and instead survived through the subsequent years.  Known chiefly for his important contributions to our national civil rights movement as well as being a worldwide inspiration for his advocacy of human rights, Reverend King also had much to say about life in general...and what makes up a life truly worth living.  He encouraged people, regardless of their socioeconomic station in life, to take pride in their work and not demean it with a sense of inferiority or succumb to how others may look upon it.  Here are a couple of quotes of his in this regard, which I gleaned off of the Brainy Quotes website:

Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.

and...

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

I think that's a pretty wise way to look at things...

Just Read My First M.C. Beaton Story

I recently discovered a prolific mystery writer going by the name of M.C. Beaton.  The book I read was Death of a Bore, which as it turns out is just one of a long series of short mystery novels featuring Scottish Highlands constable Hamish Macbeth and all of which sport "Death of a(n)" titles.  This story presents Macbeth as an amiable and protective, albeit uncomfortably nosy policeman of a small "backwoods" town called Lochdubh, reminiscent of the Sheriff Taylor character in the old Andy Griffith TV series.  And by the titles it is obvious that all of the stories are murder mysteries: no lost kilts or bagpipe heists here to solve.  I enjoyed the various personalities in Death of a Bore, and am confident that many of them resurface in other novels of the series.   The "bore" in the story I read is a self-important writer who visits Macbeth's town and starts a creative writing class: after taking submissions from the enthusiastic students and then mercilessly insulting their writing abilities, he is found shot to death...with suddenly a load of suspects.  Hamish Macbeth plods along and naturally solves the crime, although I wasn't satisfied with the solution. My  biggest enjoyment out of this novel was how Beaton depicts life in the Scottish Highlands.  As it turned out, she would know more than most, being a resident of Glasgow. 

Oh, by the way, M.C. Beaton is a pseudonym for Marion Chesney, who under the Beaton name is also responsible for the Agatha Raisin mystery series.  Chesney is still writing and enjoying life...and has her own Facebook page if you'd like to check it out...

NFL Conference Championship Games Tomorrow

Tomorrow will be the day of the National Football League conference championship games for the 2013 season.  Winners will face off in the Super Bowl.  In the National Conference, the Seattle Seahawks will be a formidable opponent at home against the San Francisco 49ers, who went to the Super Bowl last year (and very narrowly lost).  In the American Conference, the Denver Broncos will host the New England Patriots.  I like the NFC teams, largely due to their coaches, and dislike the AFC teams for different reasons.  I'm a big fan of Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and his positive enthusiasm, which is pretty infectious.  The 49er coach Jim Harbaugh is somebody that I initially didn't care for, as I felt he was a bit too abrasive.  Now I've come to a different conclusion: he is a man of his convictions and won't back off from them just to get to placate others...and he does have a blunt demeanor to his personality.  But I kind of like that, though.  I also like the San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick and the way he socked it back to the Carolina Panthers in last week's playoff game.  He's got spunk, and unlike Lou Grant...I like spunk!

On the other side, I dislike Denver for various reasons.  For one, I'm sick and tired of the way their quarterback Peyton Manning, who never could beat my Florida Gators when he played in college for Tennessee, is always treated as some kind of superhuman football Einstein.  His baby brother, though, has won more Super Bowls than him and I'd like to keep it that way.  I also dislike the way that the Denver organization, led by John Elway, allowed Tim Tebow to turn the franchise around in the middle of the 2011 season from a last-place loser to a division and first-round playoff game winner...and then unceremoniously dump him in favor of King Peyton.  I do like their coach John Fox, though, and share with him the same medical situation, albeit not to the degree that he had it before he successfully underwent corrective surgery in the middle of the season.  Still, overall I dislike Denver and would have an easy time rooting against them tomorrow were they playing anyone else besides the New England Patriots, a franchise whose arrogance and historical disregard for the rules dwarf anyone else...except possibly the New Orleans Saints and their "bounty" scandal of last season.  Illegally videotaping other teams' sidelines during games in order to cheat on their strategies makes all of their three Super Bowl victories (for the 2001, 2003, and 2004 seasons) suspect in my mind.  I admire qb Tom Brady and his skill and poise...too bad he doesn't play for the Miami Dolphins, their divisional rival and the NFL team I root for the most (mostly in vain).  So I'm not sure who to pull for in this game...but right now I'm leaning toward Denver (while holding my nose).  Regardless who wins it, though, it will be the SF/Seattle winner that I will want to win the upcoming Super Bowl...

Weight and Work Schedule Hamper Long Distance Running

I've tried to determine exactly why it is that my running seems to be leveling off at a relatively short daily mileage and I never seem quite ready to undertake a long distance race like a half-marathon.  One reason is that I have gained some weight over the past few months and could stand to lose about twenty to twenty-five pounds.  Another is that, since I changed my working hours to a graveyard shift last March, I have had a degree of difficulty with my time management.  I used to either be at work or sleeping for most of the nighttime, with my "free" remaining discretionary time occurring during daylight hours.  This larger daytime "window" gave me a greater opportunity to regularly go out running.  Now I have a narrow time window after I awake in mid-afternoon before the sun sets...and I do not want to run in the dark.  But since I don't see my work schedule changing anytime in the near future, I will have to adapt to this problem. 

Another advantage I enjoyed when I used to run in the late morning/early afternoon was that, during weekdays, my home neighborhood was almost empty, with most residents out at work or school.  The traffic level was pretty low, so I usually could run without having to pay undue attention to cars either passing me or pulling in or out of driveways. 

I do have the option of going down to my local gym (Gainesville Health and Fitness) in the evening hours to run on one of their treadmills.  But treadmill running, while being useful as a way to run during conditions that would otherwise prevent doing so outdoors, isn't an optimal way to consistently train for road running races. In "normal" running, there is the action of my feet pushing off against the hard surface of the road and the need for my own mind to take authority in my pacing, things that treadmills remove from the running experience.

Sometimes at night I'll just run a few minutes in place inside my home or run a short distance back and forth across the living room/hall area.  Still, this isn't the same thing as getting out on the road...

I suppose that I could still run during late mornings/early afternoons with my current schedule, but that would entail me either splitting my sleeping hours around my running time or going to bed immediately thereafter, neither prospect sounding very pleasant or feasible.  So for now I'm just going to have to be very disciplined with my running and keep my eyes open for the cars late in the afternoon...    

Finished Reading Terry Goodkind's Soul of the Fire

I have just read the fifth book in Terry Goodkind's lengthy fantasy Sword of Truth series, this one titled Soul of the Fire.  As with the previous volumes, the protagonists Richard, Kahlan, and Zedd spend a great deal of time traipsing around various lands trying to deal with crises that they are usually responsible for creating in the first place.  This is so because the solution to the crisis at the end of one book almost inevitably creates a dire crisis for the next book.  In the preceding book, Temple of  the Winds, Kahlan had summoned something called the "Chimes" to heal Richard of the plague.  After the healing, though, these denizens from the underworld present a major problem as they go about sucking magic from the world.  And in a fantasy series, you just can't have critters running around depleting the world of magic.  No problem, though...the heroes in Soul of the Fire eventually figure out how to deal with them...and I'm confident that whatever they did will come back to bite them in the "aft end" in the next book! Also, there is usually some new country or kingdom introduced that is the focus of the story, and in Soul of the Fire this is more true than ever.  So in reading each successive book I feel as if I'm not really getting anywhere: volumes 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are upcoming and I don't know how anything will change substantially.  Still, I must be a glutton for literary punishment as I plan to push through to the bitter end...

The Polar Express a Hit With Me

Last month I was walking through my living room on the way to do something or other when I noticed what my wife and daughter were watching on TV.  It was another one of those Christmas shows, a movie whose title I was familiar with but never got around to watching: The Polar Express.  I quickly forgot what I was doing and became deeply engrossed in it, even though the movie was about halfway through already.  A boy was riding a magical train to the North Pole where Santa and his elves lived...only this boy had stopped believing in Santa. The story was poignant and typical Christmas: what mesmerized me was the way animation, computer enhancement, and real-life acting were seamlessly mixed together to form a unique type of cinema with its own special appearance.  Tom Hanks was ubiquitous, playing the train's conductor, the story's narrator (the boy grown up and looking back), a  mysterious transient on traintop, and Santa himself.  The focus of the story was four of the children riding to see Santa...along with that conductor.  Each child had an important lesson to learn from their experience, a lesson revealed by the message that Hanks the Conductor punched out on their magical tickets.  Later on I watched The Polar Express again, this time from the traditional starting point, to complete the experience.  For such a movie that emphasized special effects, thrill ride scenes, and graphics, I was surprised by how deep both the story and characters were.  The movie, as I later discovered, was an adaptation from a written story by Chris Van Allsburg.  This was a real tear-jerking experience for me and I would recommend The Polar Express to anyone, at any time of the year...

Look East at Early Evening Sky

I just stepped out of the house to discover the early evening sky is crystal clear...not to mention very pleasantly cool.  I looked out to the east and saw quite a spectacle.  Directly east and high up from the horizon is the moon, almost at its full phase but still technically gibbous waxing.  Just left of the moon (toward the north) is Jupiter, the two forming an impressive sight together.  To the right (south) of the moon is Orion, easily the most striking constellation with its bright stars Betelguese and Rigel situated on opposite sides of its three-star asterism "The Belt".  Rising just above the east-southeastern horizon is Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.  Up higher from the moon is the constellation Taurus with its red star Aldeberan and the smudgy-looking famous cluster Pleiades close to the zenith.  Left of Jupiter are Gemini's twin bright stars Castor and Pollux, and up (west) from them is Capella, another bright star...in the constellation Auriga. 

It seems that lately the skies have been more cloudy than clear, which is unusual for this time of year.  But during the next few nights we in northern Florida may be treated to some very clear nights...conducive to some fun winter sky-gazing...

Personal Time Management a Priority

In the course of my daily life, I find myself needing to reconcile three often opposing forces: daily routines, non-routine "things to get done", and special events. Routines are those activities that are either basic to my daily health and maintenance or are interests, the nature of which lend themselves to incremental improvement over day-to-day practice. In the latter category I place daily activities like running, foreign language study, reading, and writing (hence this blog).   An extension of this  category are activities done on a weekly basis, like attending church, small group meetings, or mowing the lawn. "Things to get done" are the items that, given any particular day, are peculiar to that day but taken together figure into my life maintenance.  Examples of this are doctor/dentist appointments and having my house re-roofed (which will actually occur on Wednesday).  The third category, special events, is similar to the second but tend to take up great parts of a day...or even several days.  Going on trips with the family, or travel of any kind for that matter, belong to this type. Since all three forces place demands on my already-scarce time or confine me to a place when I want to be somewhere else, they tend to arise at each other's expense.  Being more or less a creature of routine, I have thus a tendency to experience anxiety when events lend themselves to crowding out those daily routines that I want realized. Part of the efforts of "self-improvement" that I am engaging in now involve both managing my own time in order to accommodate, to a realistic but optimal degree, those daily routines which I value while effectively negotiating the often stressful (to me) torrent of punctuated or special time-consuming events that tend to arise around all of us to varying degrees.  I am not one of those people who will ever make the complaint "I am bored"....I frankly don't understand people who allow themselves to feel that way, much less express the sentiment to me as if I am somehow responsible for making their life more interesting.  There is so much around me that is interesting...I simply do not have the time to cover it all!

To deal with these three aspects of personal time management, I need three tools...they can either be in "paper" or computer form or internalized within my head...but they all require some advance planning at the start of the day:  (1) A calendar which I can fill in and refer to regarding special events, "things-to-do", and weekly activities, (2) a list of things that I want to accomplish each day, prioritized by the importance and urgency of the activities, and ultimately (3) a time map of each day, with hourly blocks filled in by planned activities, based on what is on (1) and (2).  It is (3) that I can then carry around with me to guide me through a day and ensure that much, if not all of I want to do gets done...and with as little anxiety as possible in the process.

Advance planning of my day's activities may seem at first to be a bit cumbersome, but like other things if made into a timely, daily habit then it will come naturally to me.  And this is what I am currently dealing with now...

Mixed Results with NFL Playoffs, My Running Plans

I'm sitting here early Sunday evening, considering a few things and enjoying life.  The NFL playoffs look as if, with only one game left this weekend to finish and that result looking to be in Denver's favor over San Diego, what many pigskin prognosticators and the beginning of the season had forecast will be proven true: San Francisco plays at Seattle for the National Conference championship and New England plays at Denver for the American Conference title, with the winners of those games facing off in the Super Bowl.  It almost never happens like this, but this year it looks as if the favorites will prevail.  I had wanted that Seahawks/49er pairing in the NFC, but the AFC has been pretty disappointing.  First I wanted Miami to make the playoffs, but they blew it playing poorly in their final two regular season games.  Then I wanted Kansas City to advance in the playoffs, but they blew a 38-10 lead over Indianapolis and they're out, too.  Now I'm left with San Diego, but alas, they are currently behind Denver 17-0 in the third quarter with little sign of an offense so far.  Oh well, it looks as if I'll be pulling for the NFC in the Super Bowl!

The weather today was beautiful, reaching a high of 65 with very low humidity.  I went on an afternoon run of 3.25 miles around my neighborhood.  I had plenty of energy throughout, but didn't feel that I was ready to try a 13.1 mile half-marathon anytime soon.  Unfortunately, I need to decide very soon whether to enter the Ocala Half-Marathon, scheduled for next Sunday morning.  I'm thinking instead of running a 5K race here in Gainesville with my daughter on February 1 in preparation for next month's local FivePoints Half-Marathon, an event that for various reasons I haven't been able to run in since 2010...

Finished Reading David Baldacci's The Collectors

After skipping from the first to the fourth in his five-volume (so far) Camel Club series, I decided to go back to David Baldacci's second book The Collectors with the hope of realigning myself into the "proper order".  Still, I already know some crucial things that won't unfold until the third book, titled Stone Cold.  After finishing The Collectors, I am especially glad that I didn't read book three first, as the ending evidently flows directly into the next book.  I would have been lost had I skipped around further.

Having said that, I found The Collectors to be a worthy successor to volume one, which was also titled The Camel Club.  John Carr, the protagonist ex-CIA agent with the assumed name of Oliver Stone, once again finds himself embroiled in shady goings-on in the Washington, D.C. area among the various national security agencies there, this time with the Library of Congress being a murder site.  A mystery involving spies passing secrets to enemies combines in this book with the introduction of a "new" character named Anabelle, with whom I am already familiar after reading book four, titled Divine Justice.  She is an expert con artist who runs afoul of a major underworld gangster after conning him out of forty million dollars.  But to see how that subplot resolves itself, I'll have to read Stone Cold.

In The Collectors, Oliver Stone and his three pals in the crime-busting Camel Club once again work to solve assorted mysteries while trying to avoid kidnapping, torture, and imminent death.  My pleasure in reading Baldacci's books in this series, however, derives more from his characters and how they relate to one another than the action and adventure.  I haven't considered any of the three books I've covered so far to be especially deep or memorable, but they were enjoyable experiences nonetheless.  Maybe you'd think so as well, so why not start with book one, The Camel Club?

NFL Playoffs Down to Eight

The National Football League playoff field has been whittled down to eight remaining teams, and I'm sad to say that I don't care for most of them.  Still, I plan to follow the four games this weekend and root for one team in each game.  Last week, Kansas City, which at the start of the playoffs I had wanted to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl next month, blew a third quarter 28-point lead to Indianapolis and lost 45-44.  That leaves San Diego as the only team left in that conference that I like.  In the NFC, Seattle and San Francisco are still there, hopefully to play each other the following weekend to see which one goes to the Super Bowl.  On the negative side, my least favorite teams New England, New Orleans, and Denver are still in the running as well. In the upcoming games, I want Seattle to beat New Orleans, San Francisco to beat Carolina, San Diego to beat Denver, and Indianapolis to beat New England.  Regardless who advances to the next round, though, I'll always have a favorite lined up for whatever games are scheduled.

Here is a list of the teams according to my preference:

1 Seattle
2 San Diego
3 San Francisco
4 Carolina
5 Indianapolis
6 New England
7 Denver
8 New Orleans

I wasn't always a fan of the Seattle Seahawks, but last year I came to admire and respect their head coach Pete Carroll.  He is very engaged with his players and generates great enthusiasm from both them and the fans.  You can see the imprint of such a leader when you notice how the team is almost unbeatable in their home games due largely to the fan presence there.  I used to feel the same way about New Orleans Saints coach Sean Peyton, but became disenchanted with him when it came out that under his leadership some of the players were being paid extra, under the table, for injuring opposing players in games.  Who knows, maybe Carroll is involved is some kind of insidious subterfuge as well, but at this point I have to evaluate him according to what I see.  And based on that, I wish he were coaching "my" Miami Dolphins instead of the Seahawks...

Just Finished Reading Great Expectations

I just finished reading Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations.  At the risk of being visited in my dreams by the ghosts of high school English teachers past, present, and future, I'm going to attempt a semblance of a review...

In Great Expectations, which is set in mid-nineteenth century London, Dickens examines the then-very strongly delineated class distinctions in England of that era.  Pip, an orphan boy, is taken in by his strong-willed sister and her amiable, easy-going husband...who becomes a strong friend to Pip.  He grows up in a working class neighborhood and has a scary run-in with an escaped convict.  Later, after becoming bonded as an apprentice in his brother-in-law's smith craft, Pip is notified by a crafty lawyer and his equally crafty clerk that he is the recipient of an endowment from an anonymous source, with the intention of making him a gentleman in the upper class, with "great expectations".  The story then winds on, examining Pip's ordeals and pretensions as he tries to reconcile his former and present lives with the people he had come to know on both sides of the social divide.  Along with this is a recurring subplot focusing on an eccentric reclusive elderly woman and her adopted daughter, with whom Pip falls in love.

Great Expectations has a great range of emotional expression, with a generally sad feel to it that has a great amount of humor nonetheless.  I think I enjoyed the characterizations more than anything, especially those of the aforementioned lawyer and clerk.  I couldn't help thinking that, as a child, Pip displayed more common sense and reason than when he had moved away to become a gentleman.  The adults in this novel at times reacted in a very irrational, childish manner, creating a scenario that reminded me of the cartoon satire series South Park and how they generally portray adults.  As a matter of fact, after reading Great Expectations, I wonder whether the creators of that series might have been thinking of it...after all, they even at one time had a character named Pip who was patterned after this story.

I think that, regarding Great Expectations, the population is divided three ways about it:  the overwhelming number who never read it, the number who only read it because they were assigned it by an English teacher, and like me, the number who read it on their own.  I belong to that last category, which in all probability is also the smallest.  I'm glad I read it, though, and regret that high school, at least for me, tended to make what could have been fun reading into something of an ordeal...

Expedient Political Attacks on Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie

I can't help but take the current political news and attacks on perceived 2016 presidential front-runners Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie with anything more than skeptical disdain.  I'm seeing the political spin war going on full blast between Democratic and Republican advocates on TV, almost three years before the election...and of course neither Clinton nor Christie has expressed whether they are even leaning toward running.  But public opinion polls are driving the media furor, first by revealing that if Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, then the only Republican with a chance to beat her is Christie...while with a Christie GOP nomination, Clinton comes out as the only one with a chance.  Therefore both sides see it as an imperative to ruin the credibility and consequently the political viability of their "opponent" by pushing anything that hints of criticism.  So former Defense Secretary General Robert Gates conveniently comes out now with a "tell-all" book that paints then-Secretary of State Clinton in an unfavorable light, while (New Jersey) Governor Christie is being depicted as something of a vindictive, hot-tempered dictator with the current "lane closure" scandal being pumped through the media.

The irony of all this is that there are elements within each party that dislike their own opinion poll leaders and would like to promote potential candidates more suitable to their ideological leanings.  As for me, I think I can handle either a Clinton or Christie presidency, individual drawbacks and party ideology notwithstanding.  Both of these seem to be capable leaders and interested in appealing to the political center, which just so happens to be where I see myself...

Two Florida Counties Rashly Close Schools

Early this morning I was listening at work to the news on my radio around three AM when they were discussing how bad the weather was up north, with all the snow, frozen roads and very cold temperatures.  Then I heard the news that it was so bad that schools would be closed for today as far south as Virginia, to which I had to stop and reflect.  You see, I had just heard that a couple of northern Florida counties also had announced that school would be cancelled for today, in spite of the fact that temperatures were only dipping into the twenties (above zero, as opposed to much of the Midwest) and there was no remote hint of snow or sleet for the area.  So I'm getting in my mind the enormity of the weather-generated crisis up north...and then neighboring counties like Columbia and Clay suddenly shut down school.  Why?

It's true, as my wife pointed out to me, that if a child in a family of working parents gets sick and needs to stay home from school, someone will also need to stay home to take care of them.  But usually that is a situation that only a minority of families have to deal with at any one time.  When the entire school system gets unexpectedly shut down, though, all families with working parents have to scramble around to accommodate the situation...so that situation had better merit the decision to cancel those classes.  In this case, those responsible for closing schools in the two aforementioned counties acted rashly and irrationally without taking into account the consequences of their decisions.

Why Fans Sometimes Root for Rivals

This morning on the sports talk radio, on ESPN's Mike and Mike Show, the two presumed "Mikes" were discussing why fans of a particular college football team would turn around and root for their bitter rival in a bowl or championship game just because they were in the same conference and/or state.  To these Mikes, team loyalty should overrule conference or state pride.  They gave as an example the large number of University of Alabama fans who say they will be rooting for cross-state rival Auburn (who beat them in a crucial game late this season) in their national championship game.  The announcers may not have understood one thing, though, that plays in my mind when deciding whom to support...

I grew up in Florida, not Gainesville where I now live, but rather in the southeastern part near Miami.  From the time I was twelve I rooted for any Florida team that played anyone else that was outside the state, be it Florida State, Florida, or Miami (or Florida A&M, Bethune Cookman, or Tampa for that matter).  It wasn't until later in life that I planted myself here in Gainesville where the University of Florida is and became primarily a fan of theirs.  I think that may be the same way with a lot of fans growing up and living in Alabama, who from childhood got used to pulling for Alabama or Auburn...whoever happened to be playing at the time.  I myself never got too deeply into the sometimes hateful rivalry that developed between Florida and FSU, so I'm quite alright with the Seminoles winning tonight's national championship game with Auburn.  However, I will be pulling for the Tigers to beat FSU as I am grateful for them beating Alabama and knocking their coach Nick Saban out of a chance to play in the title game. 

So I'm "slightly" rooting for Auburn tonight, but if Florida State wins as expected that will be fine as far as I'm concerned, even as a Florida Gator fan here in Gainesville...

Relaxing on Day Off

I spent much of my free time on my day off today reading and hanging around drinking coffee...with a little bit of church and football thrown in.  The sermon was about seeking joy in life, with the main reference being Philippians.  The football was first the San Diego-Cincinnati NFL playoff game (which "my" Chargers won) and now the San Francisco-Green Bay game in zero degree temperature (who knows how that will turn out).  The coffee was at Starbucks in my local and very busy Oaks Mall and the reading was of George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons on my Kindle.  The weather has been unseasonably warm today with it approaching eighty degrees.  But tomorrow night, after a day of rain, it is supposed to drastically drop about forty degrees in the span of just a few hours, after being in the low sixties all day, down to the low twenties.  What a roller coaster ride this winter weather is here in northern Florida!  At least we don't have to deal with sleet and blizzards...

Radio Jocks Say Runners Aren't Cool

A couple of days ago, I heard a couple of radio talk jocks rambling on, on a local sports program (WRUF/850), about how neither of them liked to run and how it just wasn't "cool".  Both seemed to deem it "cool", though, to relate the degree to which they didn't like running.  One of them had a wife who, seven months after giving birth, had run a marathon.  He was so graciously able to excuse her behavior, but railed against others he would see running around the neighborhood while belittling people who sought any kind of personal fulfillment in running long distance races.  Being a runner myself by inclination and determination, I felt that these two were either basically a couple of jerks or they were cynically trying to stir up some interest...any interest...in their show, which was most likely failing in the ratings. In their mutually agreeable rant against runners, I kept hearing the word "cool" being bandied around, and I began to wonder whether these two had truly grown up after all...or whether they were permanently trapped in an adolescent mindset...more of a prison to themselves than to anyone on the outside that they may choose to deride from their imagined (and greatly deluded) "high" position...

Running is a great activity, even if you can't bring yourself to call it a sport.  Although not everyone can run, it is certainly more accessible to the general population than the "glamour" sports of football, baseball, and basketball.  Running for me is not a matter of looking "cool" or outcompeting others (although during races my competitive nature comes out) but rather having a special time when I can challenge myself to grow both mentally and physically while facing square-on the limitations that both the world and my own body place on me.  For me, I think that's pretty cool, but I would never expect the two children I heard on the radio to ever understand that...

NFL Playoffs Start Tomorrow

The 2013 NFL season playoffs begin this weekend with four first-round games.  My preferred teams, the Miami Dolphins and New York Giants, both missed the playoffs this year, so I have to pick the best of the survivors to root for.  In the AFC, Kansas City is at Indianapolis and San Diego is at Cincinnati.  I want KC and SD, both wild card entrants, to advance.  In the NFC, I'm pulling for the home teams Philadelphia and Green Bay to win against wild card visitors New Orleans and San Francisco, respectively.  Those games, especially the one in Green Bay, should be interesting in that weather conditions will be frigid. 

Ultimately, I'd like to see Seattle (which received a bye for this week) and Kansas City play in the Super Bowl.  My least favorite Super Bowl lineup, based on the teams that have made the playoffs, would be New Orleans against New England.  Most likely, though, I'm seeing a Seattle vs. Denver championship game...

My Top Favorite Song of 2013

Every year I come out with my own top personal list of favorite songs.  Lately, this list has been comprised mainly of music released before the year in question, often by several years.  This year, I cannot think of a single song that came out in 2013 that I would consider to be a favorite.  Heck, I'm not even inclined to make a "favorites" list for 2013, although there is one song that I do regard as my clear favorite for last year: Kasabian's Switchblade Smiles.

Kasabian is a British alternative rock band that I have been following since 2005.  Their 2011 fourth album Velociraptor! contains several good tracks, and Switchblade Smiles is a buried treasure on it.  This song reminds me greatly of Led Zeppelin at their best...and I think the old Robert Plant could have made it into a monster.  There is a recurring catchy guitar riff that stands up alongside anything the great "Zep" has come  out with, and there are different melodic themes that circulate throughout.  But there really is no need for Robert Plant to cover this song since Kasabian's own lead singer Tom Meighan has his own special style and vocal talent which he uses well in this effort.

Often I'll hear a song that figuratively knocks me off my feet when I first hear it, but after a few listens I tire of it.  The reverse is true with Switchblade Smiles: at first, I didn't care too much for it but suddenly realized one day what a masterpiece it is.  And I've never tired of it since!

Back in 2007, near the start of this blog, I listed and described my (then) 25 all-time favorite songs.  Well, there's been a lot going on in the interaction between the musical world and my brain during the past seven years and I think a revision, "2014 edition", is called for.  Look for this in a few weeks... 

New Year's Eve Visit to Downtown Gainesville

Last night Melissa and I paid a visit to downtown Gainesville's Bo Diddley Community Plaza to join in the New Years Eve festivities and hear a concert by a Beatles tribute band calling themselves The Impostors.  It was fun to just sit there watching people mulling around and sometimes acting silly while listening to a few of my old favorites from years gone by.  The Impostors knew their songs for sure and were deft with the instrumentation, but the vocals in my opinion were sorely lacking.  Still, I enjoyed hearing them go through tunes like I Saw Her Standing There, I'll Get You, I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends, The Word, Revolution, Back in the USSR, and even Hey Bulldog (although with this song they mysteriously decided to end it with the very "non-Beatles" James Bond theme).  We hung around until the group went on a break and then made our way back to the house, where we all ushered in the New Year together as a family. 

Here's a pic of that plaza and the band performing...