My July 2014 Running Report

My running mileage took a hit in July, with me amassing a total of only 73.2 miles, far short of my monthly goal of 100.   I did manage to run some, though, on 27 out of the 31 days. My longest single run during the month was for 5.3 miles. 

The biggest problem I see with my running right now is that I have fallen into a holding pattern, instead of setting lofty goals and working to fulfill them.  I have already finished seven half-marathon races and one full marathon since February of 2010.  There is the fall running season coming up, which includes half-marathons in my general area as well as one within Gainesville itself.  Should I aim for them?  I'm not sure right now...

Have Begun Reading Tolstoy's War and Peace

I am currently in the process of reading Leo Tolstoy's classic novel War and Peace, often cited over the years by many for its length.  Yes, this is a very big book, but if you consider that the average book I've been reading is 500-1000 pages long, then this 1386-page book really isn't that big a deal.  Still, it's probably going to take a while for me to finish it: I'm a little over a fourth of the way through...

War and Peace is about what happens to a small number of Russian noble families during that tumultuous period in European history known as the Napoleonic Wars.  Napoleon Bonaparte, the self-proclaimed Emperor of France, is traipsing through Europe conquering country after country and out-maneuvering his opponents on the battlefields.  In 1805, Russia stands with Great Britain and Austria (formerly known as the Holy Roman Empire) in opposition to Napoleon, and the Russo-Austrian alliance is put to the test late that year in the decisive Battle of Austerlitz.  That's where the timeline is right now in my reading.  But I know what happens next: Napoleon crushes his foes and Austria switches sides to become his ally and Russia and Britain's enemy.  But also, I know that in 1807 even Russia will change its allegiances to France against Great Britain.  Ultimately, though, that alliance with Napoleon won't last and he will decide to invade Russia on June 23, 1812...and I'm confident that War and Peace is going to cover much if not all of these developments.

There is a curious parallel between Napoleon's temporary alliance with Russia and his subsequent invasion and Hitler's non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union's Stalin in 1939 and the German dictator's decision to treacherously invade it...on June 22, 1941.  With Napoleon, Moscow was occupied but had already been evacuated and was set afire while Hitler's Nazis never quite got there.  Neither of them could conquer St. Petersburg/Leningrad. And the combination of harsh winters, logistics nightmares due to the sheer scope of the distance covered, and an effective Russian resistance under occupation were involved in both cases. 

I didn't anticipate a heavy history lesson with War and Peace, but I should have known it was coming with a book sporting such a title...

Baseball's July 31 Trade Deadline Approaches

As someone who has taken more of an interest than I have in the past in Major League Baseball, especially regarding my favorite teams Tampa Bay and Miami, it is disturbing to arrive at this point a little more than two thirds through the regular season as the July 31 trading deadline approaches and many teams will dramatically alter their rosters, largely depending on where they are in the standings.  Those teams who feel that they are still in reasonable contention for the post-season this year will be looking to add some star talent to their lineups to bolster their prospects.  And exactly where do they expect to find that star talent? Nowhere other than from the teams that don't entertain much hope of reaching the post-season.  This brings it back to Tampa Bay and Miami.  Both teams are slightly under .500 and, while each is capable of reaching the playoffs, they are currently relatively low in the standings.  And if either loses a couple more games before the trading deadline, their management may decide to trade away players that I have come to follow and identify with the teams.  Tops among these stars is Tampa Bay's Cy Young Award-winning starting pitcher David Price.  But he isn't the only one who could go.  I don't think it is wise of franchises like the Rays and Marlins to invest so much time and energy publicizing their players to the fans just to deal them away with still around fifty games to go.  It conveys the impression that they have given up on their team for the season...so why shouldn't their fans as well??!!

My Take on Downed Malaysian Jet in Eastern Ukraine

The understatement of the year may be that there is a lot of bad feeling going around concerning the recently shot-down Malaysia Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, causing the deaths of nearly 300 passengers and crew, among them many Dutch.  I'm convinced that Russian separatist rebels, armed with anti-aircraft missiles from Putin's Russia, shot it down mistaking it for Ukrainian fighters that were actively engaging them in warfare.  It is a terrible tragedy, but in the context of war, it is also an accident.  Clearly no one was trying to shoot down a passenger jet.  The U.S. and most every other nation under wartime conditions have committed their own share of accidents with innocent deaths resulting from them.  The corridor of the flight, which apparently was heavily used (but no more, obviously), took it directly over the combat zone.  Many critics in the West are pointing an accusatory finger at President Putin for arming the rebels with missiles sophisticated enough to target and hit such high flying planes, and I think he is definitely operating in a warmongering, land-grabbing mode.  But I believe that you can't go about business like usual in your own little peaceful bubble and intrude into war zones without expecting some potentially catastrophic results to arise.  The main problem I'm having with Putin and the Russian rebels is the cover-up and denial they seem to be engaged in following the fact, which they should have admitted as an obvious mistake and assumed responsibility and apologized for while cooperating with the crash investigators and recovery team.

The Russians living in eastern Ukraine, before the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 into its constituent republics, had always considered themselves as being part of Russia even though Krushchev in the 1950s had redrawn their area into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.  But back then it was all one big country, and they didn't have to submit as a minority within another country to that country's majority political direction.  The same goes for the Crimean region that Russia just annexed through force a few weeks ago.  Seeing for years within Ukraine that there was a deep division between the regions populated chiefly by ethnic Russians and the majority Ukrainian areas that caused serious crises in previous elections, the leaders in Ukraine should have been wise enough to allow referendums in the affected areas for the people to democratically determine their destiny, be it remaining with Ukraine, becoming independent, or rejoining Russia.  This way that Putin has of crisis-by-armed-crisis confrontational behavior destroys any trust or good will toward Russia that had been built up after the fall of the USSR and is only going to serve to militarize the rest of Europe in fear that he will seek further territorial gains elsewhere...

Blog Topics Need Widened Scope

Sometimes I reflect back on the kind of topics I choose to write about on this blog.  In the last few months, my articles have been rather narrow in scope.  They have chiefly been about books I've read, sports stories, my running progress (or lack thereof), the weather, and my very occasional visits to the beach.  There's nothing wrong with any of these subjects, but I used to write more about the news, politics, philosophy, and religion as well.  If you examine the archives here, especially the older articles, you'll find more about these.  Of course, with news, politics, philosophy, and religion, I'm also much more likely to ruffle a few feathers here and there among my readership...even when I express mainstream opinions, like I did when I happened to write a "religious" article lately on the "end times".  But you know, I'm not getting any younger and I have an increasingly stronger feeling as I age (I'll be 58 in October) that, looking back on my life from the end, my regrets will come more from missed opportunities than from acting when I should have restrained myself.  So I've decided to ratchet up my writing a notch or two and bring up topics that may or may not qualify as being controversial...as I used to.  After all, there's all kinds of stuff to look at: Russia/Ukraine/Putin, Israel/Gaza, the 2014 campaign season, discussion of Christian/Biblical topics, and various societal trends.  Oh, and I also used to publish lists of my favorites in music, literature, and TV.  Maybe I'll do a little more of that, too...

Just Finished Reading Robert Jordan's The Fires of Heaven

I recently finished reading the fifth book in Robert Jordan's fourteen-part The Wheel of Time series, this one titled The Fires of Heaven.  I have to admit that this series, of all of the fantasy series that I have read, is turning out to be my least favorite.  And it's the longest!  I have a number of objections, one of the biggest being its pretentious tone.  Another problem is that I am experiencing a great deal of difficulty in empathizing with the characters I'm supposed to be caring for.  They seem to spend the greater part of their time together arguing and insulting one another. One of the series subplots that I do like concerns the character Perrin and his developing romance with Faile.  So what did Jordan do with The Fires of Heaven but completely exclude them from the narrative, as if they never existed!  He'd better quickly pick up on their story in the next book if he expects me to continue on reading (if he were still alive, that is)...

But the main problem I have with Jordan's Wheel of Time series is the same one I have with George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice.  There are too many characters, kingdoms, and subplots going on, with the confusion increasing with each successive book.  It is said that after the eleventh book, Jordan had intended to wrap up the series in the twelfth, but he died...leaving another fantasy writer, Brandon Sanderson, to finish it up.  But the story was apparently so convoluted that Sanderson needed to write three more books to bring it to a proper conclusion!  And here I am, a frustrated reader after only five books completed...

Pleasant Overnight Stay at Daytona Beach

I'm sitting here writing this early in the afternoon [published on this blog later in the day] at the Hampton Inn in Daytona Beach, looking out on the swimming pool area from the dining room.  Melissa and I came over here for an overnight stay, and it has been very pleasant.  This Hampton Inn is the newest one in town, located a little bit north of the boardwalk area.  We spent most of the time here lounging around the pool and the beach, naturally.  I managed a 1.6 mile run about three hours ago...it was pretty hot, but I was surprised by how well I felt running it. The weather has been cooperative for the most part, although yesterday evening it stormed a little.  We're going back to Gainesville a little later this afternoon...

Lebron James Owes Nothing to Cleveland Area

Four years ago, when superstar National Basketball Association forward Lebron James made his decision to leave his old Cleveland Cavaliers team to join the Miami Heat as a free agent, it seemed that many in the media accused him of deserting his home town and roots.  Now that he has made the decision to return to Cleveland, he is receiving positive press for returning to his "home", as if he were somehow personally responsible for staying there his whole life.  Yet I know of no other professional athlete in any sport who has had this sort of injunction placed on them.  Do top athletes like Carmelo Anthony, Deron Williams, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, the Manning brothers in football, or anyone else feel the slightest pang of guilt at choosing to play in a sports city far from their own upbringing?  What about foreign born athletes like the Yankees' Masahiro Tanaka or basketball's Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol, Manu Ginobli, and Tony Parker...are they being "disloyal" to their homelands by playing in the United States?  Isn't it truly preposterous, then, to confine this "rule" to one and only one individual, namely Lebron James?

When Lebron James played for Cleveland the first time around, I felt that, despite the great talent he brought to the court, he was socially immature and exhibited very poor sportsmanship at dealing with defeat...as exemplified by his behavior following playoff series defeats to the Orlando Magic and Boston Celtics.  However, after he  joined up with Miami I began to notice a more mature Lebron James who seemed to care about others and who displayed grace when things didn't always go his way.  Now he is returning to play for the Cavaliers and I wish him all the best there.  But I sincerely hope that Lebron isn't going back because he feels that he owes anything to them just for having grown up there...because he doesn't and never did!

Just Finished Reading Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn: The Final Empire

Seeing that I am five books through a fourteen-part fantasy series by Robert Jordan and having already read through an eleven-volume fantasy series by Terry Goodkind, I thought it would be refreshing to embark on a series that was a tad shorter...say, a simple trilogy.  So I decided to read Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy, beginning with Mistborn: The Final Empire.  As it turned out, that original idea of a simple trilogy with this series was wrong: Mistborn is an ongoing project of Sanderson's, as he plans to make a "trilogy of trilogies" out of it, with nine total projected books.  He's working on the second trilogy, and I will probably eventually catch up to him as I did with George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series...and then await the next installment.  But in the meantime, I just finished reading book number one.

Mistborn: The Final Empire takes place in that mythical Final Empire, whose capital city is Luthadel.  For centuries the people have been oppressed by a seemingly immortal tyrant, the Lord Ruler.  There must be a lot of volcanic activity in this world, for everywhere in the daytime ashes permeate the air.  In the night, though, strange mists come in to settle the ashes and blot out the sky.  The common people fear the mist...but not all.  Within this society are people, born of nobles (in support of the Lord Ruler), who possess special powers, called allomancy, which derive from the burning of certain metals they ingest and which have their own specific superhuman effects.  On the fringes of this nobility, which enjoys the Lord Ruler's support, are people descended from at least one noble but who are considered common and who also have the ability to practice allomancy.  Among these are the rebel leader Kelsier and a young teenage girl named Vin, whose special skill at burning all of the allomantic metals earns them the designation of "mistborn".  Along with other more specialized allomancers like Ham, Breeze, Spook, and Clubs, they plot how to overthrow the Lord Ruler and liberate their society.

Sanderson, in this book, succeeded in creating a fantasy world vividly different from those about which I have read before.  Also, the very nature of the Lord Ruler, including exactly how he had saved the world from the "Deepness" in the distant past and apparently continues to do so is a mystery that the book reveals at the beginning of each chapter in the form of old journal entries of his as he struggles with his burdensome role and newly-found powers. Much of that mystery continues to the end of this first book and beyond: I'm looking forward to seeing how Sanderson reveals what really happened long before and what dire threats this interesting fictional world now faces... 

Very Stormy and Humid Weather Lately

The weather for the past week here in north central Florida has been has a progression of severe storms, constant rain, and intermittent mugginess.  Both the rainfall and lightning strikes have been much stronger lately than I've seen in years...I wonder whether there isn't some defining general weather phenomenon causing this. I do remember that, at the start of the record-breaking 2005 hurricane season, we experienced a lot of wet tropical weather, but what we're experiencing now is much more electrical.  Also, it transcends the typical pattern we see during the summer, when the temperature and storm conditions usually intensify during the day into late afternoon outbursts after generally clear mornings.  But the storm threat is around the clock: the other morning lightning was crashing around me at 5:30 during my "lunch" break at my graveyard shift job.

Besides the possibly of electrocution if I step outside during one of these many lightning storms, the sheer amount of rainfall has so saturated the ground in my yard that parking a car on it, or even pushing a lawn mower over it, causes heavy gash tracks.  But even above and beyond the lightning and rain, I have come to detest the extreme humidity and its unpleasant effects.  The other afternoon I walked around my block with Melissa and it felt like a run.  I'm not exactly happy with arid conditions either, but this is ridiculous! But the frogs around where I live seem to love it, though, if their continual, deafening noise indicates happiness...  

My complaints, however, seem to pale in significance when I turn on the news and they show what's been been going on further north around Pennsylvania and neighboring states...

Well, today it looks like we got a break from the bad weather...I hope it's the beginning of a new pattern...

World Cup Yields Germany as 2014 Champion

After watching several games in this year's FIFA World Cup men's soccer championship series, I have come to a conclusion about what constitutes "boring" spectator sports.  Earlier I had placed soccer in this category, as it seemed that all the two teams ever did was just kick the ball back and forth...if a goal did occur, it seemed to come as a fluke, not part of a strategy or the result of any special skill.  But now that I have become more familiar with some of the subtleties of the sport as it is being played, I can see how, by noting how the players are aligned and spaced on the field, I can often guess how the next few seconds of play will progress.  Toward the end of the Cup play, it almost was frightening, as a matter of fact, when more than once it seemed as if I were viewing the situation through the players' eyes when they would push the ball down the field in much the same way that I had envisioned them doing.  No, instead of the play being happenstance and random, it is really rather complicated and something quite to behold when it is well executed. 

I had been rooting for Argentina with their "Pepsi/Gatorade" star Lionel Messi to win it all...and they came pretty close, finally bowing to Germany 1-0 in a game lasting 120 minutes.  Some of the TV announcers expressed concern that low-scoring games like this were boring to watch, but I felt that it was fascinating to watch how the defenses of both teams were so quick to adjust to a change in possession and get down the field to exactly the optimal location in order to defend their goal...and when to come up and challenge whoever had the ball at the time.

Now that the European professional leagues are getting set to open their regular seasons soon, I am looking forward to watching more of this sport on TV wherever and whenever I can find a match being shown.  Who knows, maybe I'll even find a favorite team to pull for...

Just Finished Reading Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes

I just finished reading Mr. Mercedes, which is Stephen King's most recent novel.  The story centers around the struggle between a psychopathic murderer who drove a stolen car into a line of people awaiting a job fair, killing eight, and the retired police detective bent on catching him. The killer, an expert at computer hacking, stalks the detective and tries to provoke him to suicide...but his actions only serve to motivate him.   

Unlike many of Stephen King's other works, Mr. Mercedes contains no elements of the paranormal.  It is instead a classic cat-and-mouse struggle between good and evil as represented by people living out their lives in the real world. I actually, however, prefer King's stories that delve into more speculative/alternative reality stories like It, Lisey's Story, Insomnia, and 12/22/63.  The characters in Mr. Mercedes seemed to me like recycled characters from some of King's earlier works: I felt that I already knew them, but that they were in different stories with different names.  No, I wasn't particularly impressed with this book. I instead would recommend other recent Stephen King books like Joyland and Doctor Sleep...  

FIFA World Cup Now Down to Four Teams

Today begins the semifinal round of the FIFA World Cup of men's soccer, with Brazil pitted against Germany.  Not only is Brazil's star player Neymar out with an injury, but another key player, team captain Thiago Silva, is suspended for this crucial game because he accumulated too many penalty cards in the previous game.  That rule, along with the asinine off-sides rule in soccer, in my opinion detracts from the sport: instead, they should institute something like in ice hockey, where they charge penalty minutes after which they let the guilty player return to the game.  Then, fans could look forward to seeing their hero come into the game at a certain point, adding to the dramatics.  I'm rooting for the Brazileiros...but the bigshots who get paid for pushing their opinions in the media seem to be lining up behind the Germans.  In the other semifinal contest, to be played tomorrow, "my" team Argentina will play against the Netherlands, led by their dive-happy jerk Arjen Robben.  There are teams in sports, like the current New York Yankees, that I root for because of one great player (in NY, it's Derek Jeter).  Then there are teams that I WILL OPPOSE just for one player that I despise... in Holland's case, it's that diver Robben, who robbed Mexico with his antics, faking fouls by diving with accompanying pained facial expressions.  For that alone I would have rooted against Amsterdam...but I also like Argentina and their brilliant offensive genius Lionel Messi.   So GO Argentina, my current favorite for the Cup...

Looking at Other Pro Soccer Leagues

I've been checking out the Internet a little to see how the American-based MLS professional soccer league stacks up against other professional leagues across the world.  I was surprised to find it up in the rankings...in 12th place on one site and even in 7th on another.  The top leagues are clearly Barclay's English Premier League, La Liga (in Spain), and the German Bundesliga.  Having experienced a string of exciting FIFA World Cup matches (most of which did NOT feature the U.S. team), I have joined a growing group of Americans more interested in watching soccer beyond the once-every-four-years scope of the World Cup.  I have seen Barclay's shown in the past on one of the sports networks, the MLS regular season is currently ongoing, and the Spanish-language Univision shows some other leagues at different times (usually on weekends).  I'd like to become more familiar with the various teams in the biggest leagues...as well as those in the MLS.  Just the other day, the MLS Houston and New York teams had a good, close game that went back and forth.  I'm looking forward to more...

It seems that the European pro soccer leagues run from around August to May.  Apparently, the Americans stage their play earlier in order to get a jump on the American football season, which still draws by far the greatest interest among U.S. sports fans...

Just Finished Reading Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

I just finished reading The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, culminating with the final book, titled Mockingjay.  The society that heroine protagonist Katniss Everdeen struggles to come to grips with is set far off in the future and involves a centralized dictatorial government (set in a place known as The Capitol, located somewhere in the Rockies) that oppresses the surrounding districts that comprise North America.  A rebellion has formed, though, and its leaders have embraced and promoted Katniss as its public relations/media leader as she has gathered a large following from her former participation in the previous to-the-death Hunger Games...when she openly defied The Capitol and its brutal ruler President Snow.  The rebel movement's symbol is the mockingjay, a hybrid new species combining mockingbirds and a genetically engineered bird called a jabberjay.  Katniss has deep reservations, though, about the rebel movement and particularly its leader, President Coin.  As the story progresses and the rebels advance, it begins to look like the last line in The Who song Won't Get Fooled Again: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".  But does Katniss get fooled? Don't count on it...

Much of Mockingjay is about the relationships between Katniss and her friends, particularly in regard to her efforts to rescue and restore her old Hunger Games partner Peeta.  Although it is clear that Katniss is a victim of the system and circumstances, she has a tendency to wallow in self-recrimination, blaming herself for everything bad that happens around her.  But then again, I wonder how many combat veterans have had to deal with that issue, especially if they survived situations that caused loss of life among their buddies but spared them...

The best part of Mockingjay is one crucial insight and decision that Katniss makes toward the book's end...a decision that I thought was so cool that I had to reread it a few times!  I enjoyed this series more than most of what I have read lately.  I have yet to see any of the movies, but now that I've read it all it might be a good idea to get started...

FIFA World Cup Now Down to Eight Teams

The 2014 FIFA World Cup of men's soccer has now progressed to the quarterfinal stage, where only eight teams remain to contend for the title.  In spite of their goalkeeper's heroic play (Tim Howard, with an incredible 16 saves), the United States lost to Belgium 2-1 and are now out of the running.  The teams that remain, however, promise some exciting games to come...

The quarterfinals will run on Friday and Saturday, with the following matches slated:

Friday July 4
--France vs. Germany
--Brazil vs. Colombia

Saturday July 5
--Argentina vs. Belgium
--Netherlands vs. Costa Rica

As for me, now that the U.S. is no longer contending, I have my own favorites to follow: Colombia and Argentina.  We'll see how far they go...with their respective opponents Brazil and Belgium up next for them, it may not last the weekend!  I do have one prediction, even though I'm not a particularly astute soccer fan: the eventual 2014 champion will come from the Brazil/Colombia and Argentina/Belgium matches...

Finished Reading Inheritance by Christopher Paolini

I finally finished reading Christopher Paolini's four-part Inheritance series, which began with the famous book Eragon (made into a movie), progressed to Eldest and Brisingr, and concluded with Inheritance.  I would be less than honest were I to claim that it was my favorite fantasy series, but then again it wasn't the worst, either.  Paolini did take a lot of themes from other fantasy works, especially from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.  This made me wonder to myself whether some of the ideas he introduced that seemed innovative on his part weren't actually taken from fantasy works that I hadn't yet read.  However, in spite of his obvious borrowing, Paolini was able to establish a legitimate fantasy world with its characters, history, and rules of magic.  He also emphasized the idealism that societies very different from each other and with a history of mutual conflict and prejudice could eventually be able to work out their differences and become allies...and eventually friends. 

Anyone who embarked on this series recognized that the main protagonist Eragon would eventually have a showdown against his antagonist, the evil King Galbatorix...and it naturally came toward the end of Inheritance.  Ultimately, it was wisdom, not brute strength, that would determine the outcome of that confrontation...something that I appreciated.  The climactic scene between Eragon and Galbatorix did not, however, take place at the very end of the book.  Instead, there was much material following it that sought to tie up all of the loose ends of the various characters' lives.  And yet Paolini slyly allowed some room for future spinoffs of this series...at least I think he did it intentionally....