My February 2023 Running and Walking Report

A few days ago, I strained my back a little while playing "double soccer" with my 40-pound mixed breed puppy Daisy in the back yard...I was losing my balance and instinctively jerked my back in a probably unwise way to keep it.  But I've kept myself functional and active over the past few weeks, still available for races although a confluence of factors has seemed to impede me from this.  The main running race I wanted to participate in during February was the Florida Track Club's Micanopy Ten-Miler on Saturday morning of the 11th.  Unfortunately, not only do I get off from work late Friday nights, but they had forecast 90% chance of rain with thunderstorms for the entire Saturday morning in question.  I had signed up for it but as a FTC member was spared an entry fee, so Friday night I decided to skip the race.  I woke up the next morning and discovered it wasn't storming after all...I felt bummed out from the faulty forecasting.  I ran the same event in March of 2022 and had wanted to establish a tradition with it.  And although here in Gainesville we're blessed with a free 5K race (the Deport Parkrun) every Saturday morning, I just never got around this month to pulling my sleepy body out of bed to get out there by race time at 7:30.  Still, I've been consistently running at home and walking, keeping myself in shape. As for March, on the 25th there is the annual Trail of Payne 10K run that's in Paynes Prairie south of Gainesville...I've always managed to avoid it over the years and, of course, it's on a Saturday morning.  Looks like I'll have to change my sleeping and waking times if I ever want to run another race...and I'm now more than a little skeptical of my local weather forecasts. I'm looking a bit ahead to April 8th when there will be yet another half-marathon held from Hawthorne, going down the same Hawthorne Trail stretch I ran in another half-marathon on January 15th.  What I would like is to get into the habit of running at least one public race per month, even if it is only the 5K Parkrun...but preferably a longer event...

YouTube an Interesting Site for Exploring

Right now, on my television (in Roku mode) is a YouTube video, three hours forty-three minutes in length, from the viewpoint of someone running the Boston Marathon...and man, the weather on this date is awful!  Rain, obvious cold, slick roads...not exactly my choice for running a race, but definitely interesting to watch.  Of late I have been exploring what's available on YouTube and have been pleasantly surprised.  Although audiobooks and movies seem to be largely available only at a premium, the "free" version of this site contains an incredible selection of video types to watch.  If you want to learn anything in an academic setting without the twin traumas of exams and tuition, you can attend high quality classes online in just about any subject you want...I'm partial to the college mathematics material and my current favorite teacher is "Professor Leonard", who has an excellent teaching style, not skipping steps and showing the kind of respect toward the students I found uncommon in my own experience going to school.  His courses span college curricula from algebra review to precalculus to three levels of calculus to differential equations to statistics.  I had hoped he taught linear algebra, but alas, that's not to be...but there are other resources for that.  I also like foreign language listening practice videos...Kendra puts out some good ones in the more known languages.  When I was recliner-bound, recovering at home from my open-heart surgery in 2021, I liked to watch coffee shop videos that would go on for hours...just empty shops with hot, steaming coffee cups in different tables with usually some piano or light jazz in the background.  Lately I've noticed a plethora of "study with me" videos, usually of college students either doing their assignments (mostly on computer) at home or in public places like Starbucks (my preference).  I also have enjoyed going on various roller coaster rides vicariously on YouTube...my favorites are the rides at Tampa's Busch Gardens like Montu and Kumba...and some of the newer ones I've yet to go on.  I've always regarded Montu as the "Cadillac of Coasters" and have ridden it in the "real world" some 27 times...unfortunately I've read that Kumba (rode it 22 times) may soon be disassembled to make way for future attractions at the park...still, I'll have the YouTube experience to fall back on, I suppose. I've only begun to scratch the surface of what is available on this fascinating medium. I just turned around to see what's going on in the marathon: there are some blue patches in the sky around the 27-minute mark, but they're all still far from downtown Boston on the course, although they're no longer way out in the boonies where the race began...

This Winter Ridiculously Warm Here in Northern Florida

It's hard to imagine that we're still in the middle of the winter as February winds to a close with daytime temperatures in the upper 80s day after day...ugh.  I would have thought that we'd be seeing temperatures dipping in the 40s at night with highs in the 70s...but no, this 2023 winter has got to be the record-setting warmest, at least in my memory, for northern Florida.  Of course, I grew up in South Florida, living throughout childhood without any air conditioning at home, so I'm at least a little conditioned to stifling heat...but now I can find refuge indoors with the AC cranked up to high.  I was watching the Weather Channel this morning...they were deploring what they (and they alone) were calling "Winter Storm Piper" as it made its way with snow and icy conditions across Wisconsin, headed toward Michigan.  It's funny: I had all my winter clothing ready to go in anticipation of getting at least some use, which mostly now involves throwing on a light sweater when the house gets just a little too chilled.  I hope this all doesn't portend a record breaking hot summer...

Just Finished Reading "And In the End" by Ken McNab

And In the End is a 2020 book by Ken McNab describing the turmoil-filled year of 1969 for the British band the Beatles, a year that led to their breakup.   I just finished reading it and thought the author, a journalist from Scotland, did an excellent job treating the subject from the viewpoints of not only Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, but also from others who were around them at that crucial time.  After the drug overdose death of their manager Brian Epstein in 1967, the Beatles were directionless and helpless regarding their financial and legal matters.  Creating Apple Records as a new way to bring in and promote new talent, they soon discovered that their project was speeding them toward bankruptcy.  The fact that the British tax laws meant that they were losing some 90% of their income to the government didn't help, as was also the fact that although John, Paul and George wrote by far most of their own music, they did not own majority ownership rights to the songs and only derived a percentage of the royalties.  Epstein's death and Apple's financial troubles prompted Lennon in a January 1969 news conference to declare how badly the band's finances were...prompting successful American music promoter and manager Allen Klein, already known for his work with groups like the Rolling Stones and Animals, to quickly meet with Lennon and his soon-to-be wife Yoko Ono: not only did Klein impress the two, but Lennon convinced Harrison and Starr to join him in hiring Klein as the Beatles' manager.  But Paul McCartney was skeptical at the start of Klein and thought him to be engaged in shady practices...he wanted his fiancée Linda's father John Eastman to take charge as band manager.  This split between McCartney and the other three Beatles, along with several other negative incidents over the course of the year, including Harrison's angry departure from the band only a week after beginning recording for a new album in January and several difficult business meetings, eventually culminated...despite the band's having recorded two excellent, memorable albums (Let it Be and Abbey Road)...in their breakup.  Without reproducing the book in its entirety, let me instead provide my own insights. For one, each of the Beatles had their own personal lives, loves, and interests. These tended to draw them apart from each other.  The money and song ownership issues cast a gloom over their whole Beatles enterprise, to which they had devoted themselves so much for their entire adult lives...they were worn out from it all.  But to me, the glaring problem that accelerated their demise was the faulty notion...probably held more by Paul than the others...that they were under some sort of time pressure to constantly stay busy coming out with new material.  Looking back from today's era when it's an accomplishment for musical acts to space their albums out by two or three years, the frantic pace of the Beatles in the sixties seems almost insane. If anything, these guys seriously needed a break from it all and to chill out!  Ironically, they had just signed a contract in September of '69 that would have accorded them that breathing room when John, reacting to Paul's suggestion that they go on the road performing at small venues, retorted that he was leaving the band.  Had they managed to stay together, I'm sure their music would have been a lot different, and I regret that we missed out on a lot of potentially great songs because of their breakup.  The supreme irony, I think, is that after Lennon's outburst at McCartney, the band did end up going on an extended break...after which the latter announced the end of the Beatles in April of 1970.  If you're interested in the history of rock music, or maybe just liked the Beatles and some of their songs, this is a good book that captures the personalities and viewpoints of the principals involved in the closing of their illustrious, long collaboration...

Quote of the Week...from Steve Jobs

Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.            ---Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs (1955-2011) co-founded Apple and led the company as a pioneer in the new digital information age.  I never did go for the Apple line of products...probably my loss. Since today is Jobs' birthday, I decided to check out some of his quotes...he's got a lot of good ones, but I settled on the one above.  Whether you're a leader or just some ordinary "Bill" like me getting through life, each day carries with it a multitude of choices, decisions that sometimes have a trivial nature, but often can change the direction of your life in a profound way.  I have to be centered on my own thinking process and have enough confidence to make those decisions, at times acknowledging that I might be in error but never going against my strongest convictions just to fit in with others who convey a more aggressive manner to express their opinions.  I'm a big fan of the Desiderata line "Avoid loud and aggressive people, they are vexatious to the spirit".   That doesn't mean I feel the need to pick an argument with those I disagree with, but I've long grown past the time when I gave a hoot about what the background of other people thought of me...at least beyond a certain point.  Each of us has to chart our own course according to the values we individually hold dear.  But that doesn't not mean forsaking community and close relationships: it does mean establishing in an honest way who we really are to those we care for and love the most...which is actually a way to demonstrate deep respect for them.  Of course, if you're a complete lowlife jerk, it might behoove you to forget what Jobs said and listen for a change to those other opinions...

Podcaster's Notions about Gut Feelings Interesting but Possibly Flawed

On a recent Mindset Mentor podcast of his, personal development coach Rob Dial discusses his opinions about intuition, more specifically what he terms "gut feelings", in making decisions about others and situations.  Announcing that it was science, he claims that we all have a separate nervous system from our brain-controlled Central Nervous System (CNS): the Enteric Nervous System (ENS), that exists with more than 500 million neurons within the walls of our digestive system.  This much I go along with...Michael Gershon discovered the ENS in the late nineties, according to Dial.  What I do have difficulty automatically accepting is Dial's notion that connects the ENS, or "second brain" as Gerson terms it, with the idiomatic expressions "gut feeling" and "butterflies in stomach" as if it's giving me independent information.  Dial goes further and says that the ENS, unlike the brain which often focuses on the future and past, is wholly rooted in the present and makes itself known through feelings.  The part of his show that I did get was that we shouldn't carelessly dismiss those feelings and signals...regardless from where in our bodies they arose.  If you want to believe that you're a multiplicity of thinking systems, go for it...I tend to think that it's a lot more complicated and interrelated (and interdependent) than that.  Rob Dial is good in his "lane" of self-improvement advice and coaching, but he's not a scientist...neither am I.  Just because he or I may have learned a little about something doesn't qualify either of us from going downtown with it and attributing special narratives where they haven't been shown to apply...

Weekly Short Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 6

Here are four more selections of 1989 science fiction short stories I'm reviewing from the late Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventh Annual Collection.  Let's see, back at that time I was working at the Gainesville Post Office Downtown Station mail processing facility, on the graveyard shift keying letters on the letter sorting machine (LSM) and then later switching over to the newly installed flat sorting machine (FSM) for magazines and mail of that size.  While doing this I would listen to music on my Sony Walkman. My "Song of the Year"? Handle With Care by the star-studded supergroup Traveling Wilburys, with Sowing the Seeds of Love by Tears for Fears a close second.  But back to those stories...

LOTTERY NIGHT by S.P. Somtow

In Thailand a family feels it needs to win the local lottery to keep their financial heads above water. The son teams up with a friend to visit a nearby graveyard where his great aunt's ghost just might cough up the winning number for him.  Full of Thai culture, ancestor worship, Buddhism and superstitions...maybe not so much science fiction, although entertaining...

A DEEPER SEA by Alexander Jablokov

In a future Earth, whales and dolphins have achieved civil rights with the human community, even to the point of becoming space explorers, their bodies modified and shielded as they become essentially cyborgs in space and on environmentally hostile worlds. A Russian scientist familiar with them has to make grave decisions of conscience as he confronts his past abuse of these highly intelligent mammals during wartime...

THE EDGE OF THE WORLD by Michael Swanwick

On an alternative Earth, the world abruptly ends somewhere in the Middle East. Three American teens whose parents are stationed there during tense times decide to go down the often-treacherous steps over the steep cliff and edge.  In the process they reveal their true selves to one another...quite a chilling ending that reminded me of the Twilight Zone episode And When the Sky Was Opened...

SILVER LADY AND THE FORTYISH MAN by Megan Lindholm

In today's time a young woman, a would-be professional writer, tries against hope to keep up with her bills while working underpaid in a big city department store.  One evening an ordinary-looking "fortyish" man enters and ultimately reveals himself to be Merlin.   This is a very funny story, full of odd, awkward predicaments, and should capture the hearts of anyone who has a writer's block and is struggling to make it in the literary world...

Next week I conclude my look at 1989 science fiction short stories...

Constellations of the Month: Canis Minor and Monoceros

I had originally intended to just make Canis Minor ("Little Dog" in Latin) my "constellation of the month" for February, but since, as you can see, it's only represented on star maps by two stars connected together: I thought that might be a little boring.  So, I added Monoceros (supposedly representing a Unicorn), sandwiched between Canis Minor and, to the south, Canis Major.  Monoceros is basically a sector of the night sky marked by dim stars...good luck making it out in the city.  But both stars in the Little Dog are easily visible, and Procyon is a bright, first-magnitude star, a nearby one only some 11 light years away (just 67.4 trillion miles!).  The drawing of Monoceros connects the faint stars to resemble a unicorn...just barely, but none of its stars are brighter than fourth magnitude. The Rosette Nebula is in its "head", at 6.0 magnitude just barely visible to the unaided eye if there are no earthbound lights to interfere with viewing.  There is also a Messier object in the constellation's south part, M50, which is a star cluster. Out of this whole picture I am used to easily finding Procyon against the background patterns of other constellations, most notably Gemini to the north, Orion to the west and Canis Major (with Sirius, the night sky's brightest star) to the south.  Next week I'll try out figure out another constellation (or two) to discuss...

The "Four" and My Imaginary Double Album

Last year Radiohead members Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke collaborated with other musicians to form a side project called The Smile and released the album A Light for Attracting Attention.  Unlike with Regina Spektor, whose "next" album I had been waiting for since 2015, this was something unexpected. I bought the CD (along with Regina's new one titled Home, Before and After) and have it in my car, ready for play at a moment's notice.  Of late, I have focused on tracks 1,2, 10 and 11 of the Smile album: The Same, The Opposite, A Hairdryer, and Waving a White Flag...yes, the titles sound a little strange, especially that third one.  That's what I listen to when driving to and from work.  As for what I listen to while working out at home, I turn my TV/Roku on YouTube and play an imaginary "double album" loaded with favorite songs that I think go together: here they are (think how "vinyl" LPs are structured):

RECORD ONE

Side 1

1-HELD by Spoon

2-FORTUNES by Metric

3-TIMEBOMB by Beck

4-RAINDROPS by Regina Spektor

5-WILD by Spoon

Side 2

1-THE SAME by The Smile

2-THE FACE, PT.1 by Metric

3-RABBIT HOLE by Arcade Fire

4-THE OPPOSITE by The Smile

5-LOVEOLOGY by Regina Spektor

RECORD TWO 

Side 1

1-SPACETIME FAIRYTALE by Regina Spektor

2-EVEN FLOW by Pearl Jam

3-TIME TO PRETEND by MGMT

4-E BOW THE LETTER by R.E.M.

Side 2

1-TREAT by Kasabian

2-US by Regina Spektor

3-THE WRONG CHILD by R.E.M.

4-MORNING BELL by Radiohead

5-CALCULATION (THEME) by Metric

I am a creature of routine and habit...I tend to stick to the above order in my listening, go figure.  I put this out here in the blogosphere just in case you, my valued reader, might already know of some these acts and their music or, perhaps might be inspired to give them a listen.  In any case, I got a kick out of writing this...

Strong, Accurate Drives Crucial to Pro Golf Success

I've been watching professional golf on TV pretty regularly for about a year now, and although my experience of hitting a stationary ball with a stick is confined to the games of croquet and miniature golf, I think I have a handle on what it takes to succeed in the major sport.  I say this because it has been obvious while watching these PGA tournaments that leaders tend to either prevail or choke because of one aspect of the game that is completely absent from that which I have been used to: the drive from the tee.  It's the main reason why back injuries affect golfers' performances more than just about anything else...a real career-squasher for golfing superstar Tiger Woods (his horrible car accident didn't help either).  Speaking of Woods, this past weekend he hosted the Genesis Invitational, held annually just outside of Los Angeles, California.  Although Woods wasn't in contention at the top of the leaderboard, he did acquit himself well in spite of his past injuries, age and physical limitations.  It was Jon Rahm, already ranked number one in the world, who held off Max Homa at the end to win by two strokes...and it was his drives, contrasted with those of Homa, that ultimately won it for him.  To win at golf you not only have to have great overall strength to send the ball far down toward the hole, but you need to have the form and coordination to be able to direct it to stay on the course while at the same time you are giving it all you have.  Even in pro golf, I'm always seeing drive shots veer way off the course into the trees or spectators...I think this was Homa's undoing, as before his drives began to stray, he was leading Rahm.  When I was a kid watching golf on TV, I was more attracted to the putting green, but now it's the teeing off at the start that fascinates me...

Just Finished Reading Fit to Die by Ellery Adams

Ellery Adams is the pen name of prolific cozy mystery novel writer Jennifer, or "J.B." Stanley, who has produced a number of series of different-themed books since 2006.  One of her earliest is the Supper Club Mysteries...I just finished reading the second installment, from 2007, titled Fit to Die.  As in the opening book, Carbs and Cadavers, the setting is the fictional west Virginia town of Quincy's Gap as James Henry, a former college literature professor and now head of the area's public library, finds himself in need of shedding a few pounds due primarily to overeating...especially those pesky cheese puffs he just can't seem to resist.  He befriends a circle of like-minded people, and they create an informal group called the Supper Club in which they encourage one another with their eating habits...not easy to do when temptation is all around!  In Fit to Die, two opposites spring up suddenly in the form of two businesses.  One is an ice cream shop and the other is a fitness studio...their owners, respectively Willy and Ronnie, both have their appeal to James and his friends...but one night Willy's store burns down, with a fatality, which is attributed to accident although the circumstances seem suspicious.  As for Ronnie Levitt, her enthusiasm and energy convince the Supper Club to join her program, which is a mixture of purchasing special meals, abstaining from the "bad" stuff like sweets and fats, and painfully exercising their buns off.  The author's descriptions of their travails in this regard are both funny and sad...the latter because I, too, tend to go for foods that tend to lean to the "junk" side.  As in the first novel, this one contains a murder mystery that gets satisfactorily solved at the end.  Add to this the subplots of James' slowly developing romance with Lucy, another Club member, her attempts to get promoted within the police department, and the emergence from bitterness of his widowed father Jackson, and you have a good formula for a developing series with compelling characters.  Also, Ellery Adams has a penchant for hilarious book titles...the next one in this series is Chili Con Corpses...

Quote of the Week...from Marcus Aurelius

You have power over your mind...not outside events.  Realize this and you will have strength. 

                                                                      ---Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius was Roman emperor from 161 to 180.  He adhered to the Stoic branch of philosophy that emphasized personal accountability and freedom in getting through life.  His reign was marked by an unusual peace in the empire, although he has also been accused of persecutions against the growing Christian religion there.  Today I'm just focusing on his above quote...probably looked really cool in the original Latin...and juxtaposing it against my article from yesterday deploring the times we're currently living through.  In spite of all the lunacy, selfishness, bigotry and violence around me, I can still make my own personal choices...a notion that Nazi concentration camp survivor Viktor Frank promoted in his book Man's Search for Meaning.  One of these choices is to feel and express gratitude for all the wonderful blessings I see for myself and my loved ones.  And that includes the remarkable vaccines we now have, not just for Covid, but for so many other ailments that have plagued humanity over its history.  Although it was threatened in January 2021, we still have a nation of law that has continued our sometimes-bumpy road here in America with our ongoing experiment of freedom and representative democracy.  With bigotry, I can be accepting of those who are different from me whether or not others follow suit.  As for gun violence, I'm not sure what attitude to take other than personally trying to avoid inadvertently setting off unstable people.  And I can place confidence in my own country's leaders enough to allow them the responsibility for working to bring about an end to this fighting in eastern Europe and pave the way for a more peaceful future.  I can't control any of these situations since I, as one individual, cannot change the news I hear, but at least I can be a part of the solution and live my own life with a sense of dignity and appreciation.  Still, it doesn't mean that I won't comment on the negative trends I see going on around us in the world and our country.  My power over outside events is limited, as the old Roman despot said.  But I can still be at peace with myself...

The Times We Live In

This decade in our nation's history has not exactly been one to inspire my confidence in its future.  The COVID-19 pandemic was one of those crises that hit us from time to time, testing the resolve of our people to confront it. Sad to say, in much of the country it was a failed effort, with folks flipping out over the notion of simply wearing a mask around others and refusing to accept freely given, safe and potentially life-saving vaccines.  Then there was the 2020 presidential election, when a sitting president, for the first time in United States history, adamantly refused to acknowledge the results of his defeat and encouraged a violent insurrection against Congress to prevent the electoral votes from being officially counted.  Worse, two thirds of his party in the House of Representatives...including its current Speaker...supported overturning a free and fair election, and a majority of Americans polled in the same party agreed that the losing incumbent president, who recently said he wants to institute firing squads, guillotines and mass executions, should have stayed in office.  Rabble-pandering politicians like my own state's governor are tripping over each other in a race to see who can seem the most reactionary and intolerant with their edicts and laws.  Mass shootings claiming innocent lives have become commonplace in America...but don't offend the gun-worshippers by suggesting any meaningful firearms regulation laws. And now, for nearly a year in running, another fascist leader...this one in Russia...is threatening nuclear war as his military seems hopelessly bogged down in neighboring Ukraine, a country that, following the breakup of the Soviet Union, gave up its own nuclear weapons in exchange for an assurance that Russia would never invade it.  So, these are the times we live in...can't wait to see what happens next...

Weekly Short Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 5

I continue my look at the year 1989 in the world of short science fiction, examining Gardner Dozois' selections for his anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventh Annual Collection.  In August of '89, Melissa and I would move from our south Gainesville apartment to our house in the northern fringe of the city...the next month we found out she was pregnant, and Will was born the following spring.  Also, in December of 1989 we experienced snow for the last time in Gainesville...and it was quite a bit, following an early morning of freezing rain, treacherous roads and icicles hanging everywhere.  Ah, memory lane...but how about those stories?  Here are my reactions to the next ones in the book...

TALES FROM THE VENIA WOODS by Robert Silverberg

In an alternative history world in which the old Roman Empire endured over the millennia and finally reverts to a Republic, a teenage boy and his little sister discover the heir to the throne of the banned empire after wandering deep through the woods near what we would in ours call Vienna, Austria.  This story is another venture in cognitive reverie with the author doing a lot of speculating on "what if", as these alternative history stories tend to do...yawn. Not one of my favorites from Silverberg, whose writing I generally like...

VISITING THE DEAD by William King

An intriguing look at a possible future when humans living through generations in outer space need artificial exoskeletons to support their fragile bodies when visiting Earth...and the native population there has become passive and complacent, addicted to simulations that duplicate the effects of reality.  And there are the Greys, humans genetically modified to WANT to be servants and do menial work that the jaded rest of the population deems beneath themselves.  Kinda scary, actually...but that part about "simulations" seems to be coming true in my own lifetime...

DORI BANGS by Bruce Sterling

This is a counterculture alternative history tale of a rock critic and his eventual love who bypass their respective premature deaths...and then just go on stumbling through life without seeming to have learned anything. I wasn't quite sure what the point of this story was: you live and then die OR you get to live some more and THEN you die...

THE ENDS OF THE EARTH by Lucius Shepard

A novelist, rebounding from a traumatic affair, becomes an expatriate American living with expatriates from other countries in a secluded Guatemala coastal town.  His rival there is an Englishman who has been playing a mysterious and ominous board game that goes back to ancient Mayan times.  There are a lot of dream interludes as the game takes over our protagonist's mind, and reality becomes blurred as to whether he is himself or the grotesque and violent character his game piece portrays.  This novella goes deeply into people's outer masks and the hurts and drives hidden behind them...the ending was pretty interesting considering what all happened...or did it happen...as the story reached its climax.  In this it reminded me a little of that 2000 Christian Bale movie American Psycho, truth be told. Shepard is an incredible writer...

THE PRICE OF ORANGES by Nancy Kress

An elderly man living in a big city has a secret he shares with his friend: his apartment contains a portal into the past, going back 52 years to the year 1937.  Seeing no suitable prospects for his rebellious granddaughter to marry, he goes back then in search of potential husbands...with surprising results.  I've always liked the notion of a secret time portal...it's one of the main reasons I liked Stephen King's novel 11/22/63 so much...

Next week: more 1989 stories reviewed from the Dozois anthology...

Happy Birthday, My Dear Melissa

Today I'd like to wish a very, very happy birthday to my wonderful, beautiful, darling wife Melissa...and of course a happy Valentine's Day to you as well.  I love you so-o-o-h, so much, Sweetheart!

Podcaster Discusses Ways to Increase Energy

On his Mindset Mentor podcast last Friday, personal development coach Rob Dial listed five suggestions to increasing energy throughout one's day.  I liked how he personalized his presentation, giving examples from his own life while encouraging the listener to follow their own experiences and what they have learned from them.  The first item was to select and listen to music that serves to energize...this to me makes a lot of sense because, for example, when I am doing long distance training runs I do better when listening to rousing music...in my case usually alternative rock...that does seem to energize me more.  Dial's second idea is about the people surrounding him...some are energizing ("batteries") while others are draining ("black holes").  He suggested hanging out with the former while diplomatic putting distance between oneself and the latter if possible.  While understanding his point, even though I tend to have a reclusive personality, I also acknowledge that we all live in community with one another and the diversity of "people types" is something that is a given and not necessarily open for much manipulation...nor should it be.  Thirdly, Dial emphasizes the need to control one's sources of information, and that includes social media like Facebook.  He claimed that recently he unfriended more than three thousand people...I've gone through some pruning in that regard as well while recognizing that my notion of "friends" differs from the shallower interpretation that Facebook gives it.  Dial avoids the news and all that opinion-piece blather plaguing cable news networks and social media...me, too, bro!  Number four on Dial's list is to pay attention to the food one eats...he recognizes that we have our own notions as to what's good or not, for himself he avoids processed foods and extolls occasional fasting.  Finally, he urges listeners not to depend too much on their own feelings when setting out on something, instead taking action up front in order to give themselves a chance to be motivated as well as summon up that energy that they may initially think is lacking.  Sometimes I think Rob Dial is right on target with his podcast message and sometimes he seems to be a little off the mark...this one worked for me...

Super Bowl and Phoenix Open Headline Arizona Sports Today

Today the Super Bowl for the 2022 National Football League season will be held in Glendale, Arizona.  The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, two teams I actually rooted for (once the three Florida teams were eliminated in the playoffs), are facing off in a battle between Chiefs head coach Andy Reid's present and former teams.  For some reason I'm usually not all that into the Super Bowl and its hype...this year's no exception.  But I'll probably watch at least some of the game this evening...maybe with the sound down...and also probably completely avoid the halftime show, this year featuring recording star Rihanna.  Apparently, she's in some kind of social media feud with extreme narcissist Donald Trump because an old Tweet of hers from 2020 panning the Orange Man in profane terms resurfaced, and he read it and responded in his typical manner of belittling her and her talent.  I think Rihanna is definitely talented...I'm just not into the celebrityhood angle or the type of music she is involved with, so I'm skipping the show.  Down the road a few miles in the same state, the WM Phoenix Open in golf, with its strange stadium-bracketed 16th hole, is playing its final round with the leaderboard currently showing Scottie Sheffler with a two-stroke lead over a crowded field at the top...I'm more interested in how that turns out than the Super Bowl.  The game is supposedly evenly matched, but I've seen my share of Super Bowls that quickly went one-sided in spite of the surface equality between the two contestants.  Let's just hope that everyone gets out of it all in one piece...

YouTube and YouTube Channel Both Good Resources

Lately I've been exploring different YouTube channels and video series that teach and review mathematics and foreign languages...it's pretty amazing how you can choose just about any topic you want to learn about and get instruction on this excellent site.  In our household, we also switched from our cable-based television service to the YouTube Channel...different from YouTube itself...to provide at a much cheaper rate the same channels we were previously receiving, using Roku.  To supplement them we purchased an inexpensive indoor antenna and through it pick up all the local stations as well as spinoff channels like MeTV and Comet.  And, of course, I like to listen to the music that YouTube provides...sure, I get a lot of commercials but that's cool.  Maybe in some future article I'll discuss some of the things I'm studying in greater detail...

Quote of the Week...from James Clear

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.  No single instance will transform your beliefs, but, as the votes build up, so will the evidence of your new identity. 

                                                                    ---James Clear

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear spells out a philosophy of daily living that elevates becoming someone new over goal setting.  According to him, personal transformation comes about over the course of time as small habits are accumulated, the whole process being an incremental one.  While I don't discard the usefulness of establishing goals and personal milestones for the future, I fully recognize Clear's emphasis on taking hold of my present moment and living it fully according to my own sense of personal identity...that is, the person I am becoming.  Being aware continuously of my own attitudes and behavior in the now does not automatically entail me being perfect...who is...but it does establish a system of personal feedback and evaluation that can steer me back on the right course should I stray from who I am becoming. Just as in an election the winner usually has many who vote the other way, the victory comes, as James Clear maintains, in the amassed effect of positive, productive, healthful and loving small actions.  Do I screw up? Lots of times, but as I grow, I am more quickly and acutely aware of those moments, while equipped with the truth that I can use them for correction and enlightenment...

Just Finished Reading Carbs and Cadavers by Ellery Adams

A while back I delved into the literary subgenre of "cozy mysteries", that is, short novels...usually combined into different series...that are relatively light reading and usually carry some sort of theme appealing to various tastes.  I wasn't too impressed with what I read back then but decided to give it another try with a new author.  Ellery Adams is the pseudonym of prolific cozy mystery writer Jennifer Stanley, also writing under the name J.B. Stanley.  I just finished reading the first book in her Supper Club Mystery series, titled Carbs and Cadavers. After his divorce, college English professor James Henry has returned to his small (fictional) hometown of Quincy's Gap, in western Virginia, to assume head librarian duty there and live with and care for his recently widowed father Jackson.  James feels he has a problem with food, chiefly cheese puffs, to which he seems addicted.  He becomes acquainted with and befriends others in this small community, and they decide to start an informal weight loss support group called the Supper Club, in which they would encourage one another and hold themselves accountable for eating better.  Thet's one side of the story...the other is a murder mystery when an arrogant young man is found dead with a suspicious prescription drug in his system...from there the police hastily jump to conclusions and arrest the wrong suspect.  This involves James, his potential love interest Lucy, and the rest of the group in the mystery...which naturally ends up as a perilous climactic situation.  I felt that Stanley (or Adams, if you will) had her heart in the story and did a great job of developing its characters.  And she exhibited a lot of good-naturedness as well...but if you're particularly sensitive to "body shaming" you might not like this tale about people possessing the virtues of humility and humor working together to make each other's lives better. Since I've done my share during my adult life of yo-yoing up and down the scales, I identified with the characters and enjoyed Carbs and Cadavers...and plan to embark soon on the second Supper Club Mystery installment...  

Weekly Short Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 4

Today, as I look back at the year 1989, I switch over from the final Donald Wollheim "year's best" sci-fi short story anthology in his series to the continuing one edited by Gardner Dozois: The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventh Annual Collection.  There is very little overlap between the two anthologies: only Gregory Benford's Alphas and Brian Stableford's The Magic Bullet...already reviewed previously...appear in both.  Below are my reactions to the first six stories...

TINY TANGO by Judith Moffett

This 1989 story about AIDS/HIV projects into the future a few decades, making some predictions that didn't come true...thankfully...but ultimately presenting some insight as to how different people afflicted with chronic medical issues adjust their lives to accommodate their conditions...and search for new ways to fulfill themselves: a hopeful message.  A young woman caught AIDS and has become a long-term survivor, in more ways than one...

OUT OF COPYRIGHT by Charles Sheffield

Cloning past scientific and inventive geniuses from the past gets the treatment here as figures like Einstein, Fermi, Newmann, Bohr, and the like work for different companies competing for fat space development contracts: Al, the story's narrator, heads such a team as they attempt a difficult problem on one of Jupiter's moons.  The story's punchline is when we discover at the end who Al really is...

FOR I HAVE TOUCHED THE SKY by Mike Resnick

A few weeks ago, I reviewed the story Kirinyaga by the same author, creating a traditional Kikuyu (from Kenya) society on another planet.  The thread continues with this tale for a girl whose thirst for knowledge and enlightenment directly conflicts with the authoritarian ruling witch doctor's insistence on traditional roles, which he believed would be threatened by the girl's explorations.  A disturbing but thought-provoking story that has analogous ties about the ethical limits of knowledge and the rights of people to pursue it...

AT THE RIALTO by Connie Willis

Dr. Ruth Baringer is a physicist attending a convention of quantum physics at a Hollywood hotel. It isn't long before she discovers that her surroundings begin to imitate the uncertainty and frustration involved in making sense of quantum theory itself.  It's a funny tale and made me want to go a little deeper into the field myself...think I'll steer clear of L.A., though...

SKIN DEEP by Kathe Koja

This is a completely different "Skin Deep" story than the one I discussed a while back. This one read more like a Stephen King horror tale as an obviously alien, hideous blobby creature has a penchant for somehow luring people...men and women both...to its squalid apartment room where they sexually expend themselves on it and become addicted to the experience.  The horror becomes magnified by what happens at the end...not for the faint at heart...

 

THE EGG by Steven Popkes

In a far future Boston, the sea level has drastically risen, submerging large parts of the area.  And human contacts with other races in the cosmos has flourished, with a robust alien presence all around.  An orphaned boy lives with his cynical aunt and her son...he has as a guardian companion an alien being named Gray.  The circumstances of his parents' deaths weigh heavily on them all...this story treats relationships and reveals that some of the strongest and most loyal can transcend family ties...even those of home worlds...

Next week: more reactions to 1989 science fiction short stories from the Garder Dozois anthology...

Warmer Winter Than Usual Continues

I don't have the statistics at hand, but it seems to me like this has to be one of the warmest winters in my memory since I moved here in northern Florida in 1977.  Sure, we've had a small number of dips into the 30s with a few freeze warnings...even a few consecutive days once of below-thirty temperatures.  But the trend has been much warmer, and my lawn, with the explosion of native weeds all over it, reflects this. It's funny that my half-marathon run back in mid-January just happened to coincide with the deepest temperature dip...since then there haven't been many opportunities for me to wear my sweater or jacket outside.  I'm considering running the Florida Track Club's Micanopy Ten-Miler this coming Saturday morning, but it looks like rain...might run it anyway as it looks like a relatively wet winter, to go along with the heat...

Just Finished Reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Andy Weir is a science fiction writer best known for his novel The Martian, adapted to the blockbuster movie hit starring Matt Damon.  Last year he published another space-based book, titled Project Hail Mary: my sister gave me a copy this past Christmas, and I just finished reading it.  I haven't read anything by Weir before, so I was pleasantly surprised at his deft, personable writing style.  After all, this is a "hard" science fiction story, meaning that an enormous amount of the narrative is spent describing often technical concepts that one would need to take advanced courses for in order to fully understand...yet the author made the narrative flow easily as the protagonist, a young middle school science teacher named Ryland Grace, takes the reins recounting his experiences in resolving a debacle of truly cosmic proportions.  It has been discovered that the sun is suddenly dimming, with its heat output projected to cause mass extinctions on Earth at an unprecedented rate...including possibly the eventual extinction of all life.  The cause appears to be a cosmically borne microorganism that thrives in a carbon dioxide environment and draws its energy directly from whatever star it has infected.  Grace, earlier in his career a biology professor having written on potential extraterrestrial microorganisms, is recruited by the hastily assembled international research and rescue team to plan a mission to another star system where a similar phenomenon is not causing the same effect as here...why the difference?  Weir toggles with Grace's narrative back and forth between the flight preparations and Grace's experiences on his largely automated spaceship after he is resuscitated from an artificially induced coma.  It's a mystery how he might solve the enigma of the Astrophage, as the organism causing all the harm is called.  And it brings into play the notion that we are not alone, and wouldn't it be a cool thing to make common cause with other life in the cosmos.  In spite of the technical material covered, I think you'd like this book even if you weren't a scientist or engineer...I'm certainly not, and I plan to check out The Martian (never saw the movie) and Artemis, which he wrote in between the other two books.  Thank you, Anita, for a thoughtful gift...

British Alternative Virtual Band Gorillaz Keeps Chugging Along

Earlier this week I hinted at a weekly Sunday blog feature here, in which I would discuss various music studio albums by acts I like...and here we are on the first Sunday afterwards and I've only listened to one album instead of the at least three I had planned.  Being a fan of traditional rock n' roll artists from the previous century as well as some of the 21st century's more prominent alternative acts, my plan was (and still is) to take the later albums they produced following their peak periods of popularity and search for noteworthy tracks on them...I did something like this with David Bowie and Prince following their respective deaths in 2016.  The British alternative "band" Gorillaz is the brainchild of Blur front man Damon Albarn...responsible for the musical and lyrical side of the act...and animation artist Jamie Hewlett...creator of Gorillaz's imaginary four characters that perform and dramatize the music on videos.  Gorillaz recorded four hit albums from 2001 to 2010.  Then they broke up for several years, with Hewlett's complaints about his diminishing role in the act's success fueling the dissention.  They got back together, though, with the release of the album Humanz in 2017 and, subsequently, three more since.  I listened back in '17 to Humanz and didn't care at all for it...this past week I gave it another chance and realized that some tracks are actually pretty good.  Most of them...as with Gorillaz's previous albums...feature guest artists, many of them in the hip-hop genre.  I am partial to the songs Ascension, Submission, She's My Collar and We Got the Power...a special bonus CD contains Out of Body, which I think is the best track of all (with Submission a close second).  Listening again to Humanz reminded me of why I came to like Gorillaz so much in the first place: back in 2010-11 I had put those first four albums on my MP3 player and listened to them in shuffle mode while out on long runs: it's great music to move to!  Humanz is similarly very dance-oriented...I have the sneaking suspicion that the more I listen to it, the more I'll like it.  As for the other, more recent Gorillaz albums, I'll just need to find the time to listen to them...as well as to the enormous number of more recent albums by other artists I like that I've never heard...

Just Finished Reading Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore

A few days ago, while browsing through Books-a-Million with Melissa, I noticed some young adult fantasy series on a table display.  One of them was Graceling, by an author named Kristin Cashore.  Being a fan of young adult books, I nevertheless didn't want to get myself committed to a long fantasy series, so I investigated this young writer's still-brief bibliography and discovered that she published in 2017 a standalone book titled Jane, Unlimited.  I just finished reading it, and, sad to say, discovered that it belongs to a category of works that I have put down in frustration after only partially reading them.  Yes, I did pick it back up again for the sake of attaining some closure to this reading task, but it was an overall unsatisfactory reading experience for me.  I then checked Goodreads and discovered that readers either thought this novel was a masterpiece or they likewise quit reading it long before the finish, panning it unmercifully.  For me, I'm somewhere in between the two extremes, deciding to go ahead and give it the old college try...oh well, now that I read it, I can now check it off my reading list!  I liked Cashore's writing style and she created a very compelling character in Jane, a young college dropout orphaned twice, first from her parents and then her Aunt Magnolia, who was mainly responsible for her raising.  Jane's friend Kiran invites her to stay over at Kiran's mansion of a home, called Tu Reviens, and Jane remembers her aunt once imploring her to accept any such invitation to that place.  It's a strange house with a lot of strange people, and soon after Jane arrives a stray dog decides to adopt her...it seems to have a sense of wisdom about guiding her around.  I liked the novel's setup with the mysterious house and characters, but the author decided to have the narrative split off into alternate stories that left me confused and, at times, angry.  Yet I have to admit that writing unhinged books isn't a new thing, and James Joyce, Kurt Vonnegut and Jonathan Swift achieved great renown for some of that kind of stuff...maybe Kristin Cashore was looking at them when she wrote this, who knows.  The problem I had with the alternative narratives was that sometimes the previous narrative "counted" and sometimes it didn't as the book progressed...there was no sense of the main character, Jane, achieving any sort of peace about her own life because before too long there would be a "reset" and it would all start over, with a completely different emphasis.  I didn't care for that, but you just might.  In any event, I greatly respect the author for writing this book and presenting some pretty interesting characters along the way...Jane's talent for creating artistic umbrellas was a good example...

Quote of the Week...from Alan Watts

I owe my solitude to other people.                                  ---Alan Watts.

Alan Watts (1915-73) was an English philosopher and author who tended to focus on Eastern thought systems and spiritual outlooks.  So, it might not be surprising that the above quote of his might seem a little bit Zen in its overt sense of paradox.  I, on the other hand, am in no ways bound to his training or possibly poetic tendencies, seeing his statement instead perhaps more literally than he had intended...I guess I'd have to resurrect the dude and ask him to his face to make sure, in any case.  Not exactly known for being a gregarious lover of people and their company, sometimes their manipulation and annoying presence that messes with my mental, emotional and spiritual equanimity just gets to be a little bit too much and I feel the strong urge to retreat a few steps.  If you're one of those aforementioned annoying gregarious manipulators, then you might condescendingly say that I'm going into a shell and hiding, but then again, I've already described you as annoying and manipulative, haven't I?  Besides, I'm not saying I want to be a hermit, as I have a small circle of loving family and friends that I find reassuring and supportive...God bless them all.  I simply find much human interaction as tedious and draining...and some days, like yesterday for example...severely test my ability to withstand all the bull thrown my way.  May today go better...I'm being proactive in that regard by bracing myself against more social aggression and manipulation...

Podcaster Discusses Sensitivity to Incompleteness

Podcaster Rob Dial recently presented a topic very worthy of my consideration, and timely in today's world of media manipulation. People are instinctively sensitive to things in their life that are incomplete, with the lacking element(s) tending to gnaw at their consciousness until closure is attained.  That's why they give sly little teasers on the network news shows just before commercial breaks, hinting at some major revelation that usually fizzles...the same thing applies to Internet news feeds, the lead-in statement usually sensationalizing the often-trite "deeper" story, once you commit and click on it.  With our personal lives, loose ends of unfinished business similarly gnaw at us, robbing our ability to be at peace and concentrate our attention on specific tasks. Dial suggests we make a list (he's a big advocate of sitting down with pen and paper) of the things we want to accomplish in a given day and then prioritize them as to the most important.  Then further break those down to more "bite-size" time-consuming units that allow a sense of completion. He also recommends the Pomodoro Technique of cycled, complete focus for 25 minutes, followed by a break for 5 minutes...then resume.  At day's end, review the list, noting what's been completed (celebrate this) and then put what's left over, in order of priority, on the next day's list.  This helps to clear the mind of those creeping feelings of failure that incompleteness can instill. I know that for me there are several ongoing projects I'm working on, and a few that I want to start.  Conceptualizing them by blocks of time spent working on them...and recording my progress on paper...helps me to feel...for the given day...that sense of completion that helps me meet the next morning with a more positive outlook.  Of course, if you're Bill Murray's alter ego Phil Connors on this calendar date you can just relive the same day over and over and over again, taking your sweet little time getting better... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 3

Here are my reviews of the final four science fiction short stories from 1989 as they appeared in Donald A. Wollheim's The 1990 Annual World's Best SF, featuring his selections from the previous year.  Wollheim would die later in 1990, so this concludes his excellent anthology series.  Henceforth I will be only using another worthy annual science fiction anthology series, The Year's Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois and going all the way through the year 2018: plenty more to come!  But for now, let's look at those final four tales in Wollheim's book...

NOT WITHOUT HONOR by Judith Moffett

This is a nostalgia-soaked story focusing on the old fifties Mickey Mouse Club television series, especially Jimmie Dodd as its mature, mentoring figure.  Set in the future, a biome scientist on Mars meets with alien travelers who picked up the old series' signals over the light years of space and are here to meet Mr. Dodd, their idea of honor and goodness.  Only how to break it to them: Dodd is dead and so is a lot of what he exemplified...

DOGWALKER by Orson Scott Card

Hi-tech medical implants combine with street-wise criminals working for organized crime in this scary tale of a "vertical" young man whose brain was altered after being nearly fatally shot...to some he is dead anyway. Although the criminals here are ruthless, the scariest part is the notion that drastically altering the human brain and essence through medical procedures in order to achieved specialization isn't that far beyond our present capabilities...

SURRENDER by Lucius Shepard

In one of the most vicious polemics I've read against war, especially of the proxy sort staged in poor third world countries, a genetically modified food has caused severe mutations over generations of a native population in Central America...they are now the immediate enemy for an American correspondent and his colleagues.  But he knows the real enemy behind it all and doesn't hold back on his wrath...

WAR FEVER by J.G. Ballard

As in the previous story, the ongoing enemy in the intense narrative isn't the ultimate one. Here it's perpetual urban war in Beirut with no end in sight...but what about those UN peacekeepers...

Next week: more sci-fi stories reviewed from 1989, using the Dozois anthology...