My March 2024 Running, Walking and Swimming Report

In March I picked up my running mileage considerably, in spite of spending a week of it on a western Caribbean cruise with Melissa. As for speed walking and swimming, I didn't focus on them as much, though.  I ran two 5K races in the month, both at Gainesville's Depot Park on Saturday mornings and with good (for me) finishing times.  A couple of weeks ago I signed up to run a full marathon on April 7th...it will be my second attempt ever at that distance, the other race having taken place in Ocala in January, 2011.  This race, dubbed "Run Your Buns Off" and located in Hawthorne at the eastern end of the Hawthorne Trail, has the exact-same course as the Mary Andrews marathon which the Florida Track Club offered back in January.  I know I can cover this distance if I run a strategically-smart race, the weather is decent, and my health holds up.  After it's over, I plan to spend some time recovering and then embark on a spring-through-summer, more balanced regimen blending running, walking and swimming.  As for swimming, although I did get some practice during the cruise in their salt-water pool (much preferable to freshwater), I still need a lot of pool time to improve my form...that's going to be a major project.  As for actual races, after this upcoming marathon I don't have anything else planned for the next few months except for regular weekly forays to Deport Park, where I would like to mix up running the 3.1 mile course with some more stints at speed-walking...along with walks with Melissa and some volunteering.  I'm still trying to figure out how to get the best use from the local gym of which I'm a paying member...it always seems to be excessively crowded and uncomfortable, and there's no telling when I get there whether the pool for swimming laps has any open lanes.  Of course, that's not the only pool (or gym) in town, and maybe it's getting time for me to explore possibly better options...

Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun This Morning

Just at sunrise, when the weekly Gainesville Depot Parkrun began today's 5K (3.1 miles) event, it was 46 degrees with 97% humidity under clear skies.  I was there at Depot Park, a few blocks south of downtown, but Melissa had to be at work.  My intent for this race was to just run/walk it as I have been doing for the last few months and see how I felt at the end.  And in the end I felt fine, finishing with another sub-30 minute time at 28:18...then I promptly drove back home.  As I was sitting there in my car before the run, looking at all the assembled humanity around the starting line, I thought that it would be much better for me were there a system where individual runners could go somewhere, run a specific distance, and be "officially" timed and recorded as having publicly accomplished it instead of having to go through all this mingling and crowding in a race setting. I must be out of my mind to actually be considering running in a future big-city distance event when this much more subdued one irritates me so, but there were a lot more people than usual out there this morning.  In any event, click HERE for today's results...

Quote of the Week...from Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) in The Godfather

He never asks a second favor when he's been refused the first, understood?   

                                                                   Tom Hagen (played by Robert Duvall) from The Godfather

Tom Hagen is the adopted son and attorney of Don Vito Corleone...aka the Godfather in the famed movie series.  After being sent out to Hollywood to secure a sensitive favor from a belligerent movie producer, Hagen finds himself a guest at the dinner table as "Mr. Woltz" refuses the Godfather's request while indicating that he'd be only too happy to comply with any others.  Both parties know that the requested favor is only a superficial nicety to cover up what is essentially an extortion demand...do this or else.  That Vito Corleone thrived in a criminal environment of circumventing the law never kept him from enunciating and practicing his own "principles"...the above "one-and-done" refused favor being one of these.  Crime, extortion, violence...not at all for me, thank you.  Yet I can see the Don's point of view from my own life experiences of dealing with obnoxious people whose paper authority in certain settings goes to their heads as they try to remind me of our relative positions on their cherished, pathetic pecking orders.  I will ask such an individual for something once and if they make a grand show of resistance to my proposal based on their "superior" status, then that's the absolutely final time they will ever hear from me about any request...and they'd just better forget about me ever covering for their eventual mistakes as well.  The Godfather...I'm speaking about the original movie...is a masterpiece of psychological and social relationships, exposing the corruption beneath practically...if not all...institutions (including business, law, government and religion).  Corruption, I might add, enforced by its own extra-legal system of justice devoid of due process.  We like to pretend we live in a free society, but I strongly disagree for the above reason...

About Our Recent Cruise

After writing recently about Melissa and me scheduling another cruise this year, it occurred to me that I hadn't much discussed the one we were just on. It was a March 2-8 Royal Caribbean Western Caribbean cruise, and our stops had us in Mexico (Costa Maya/Mahahual, Cozumel) and Honduras (Roatan). Our ship was called "Enchantment of the Seas"...it is reportedly an older model and smaller than the "Allure of the Seas" we took in February, 2020 on the eve of the COVID era. I wasn't thrilled about the foreign excursions we took this time, but I guess they do bear discussing in some future article. I liked more the time we spent on board the ship, with our outer balcony overlooking the water, as well as the food, pools, and generally relaxed ambiance. My favorite destination was the 9th Deck Solarium, restricted to adults...although truth be told I liked having the kids on board this cruise. Since the Royal Caribbean ships have similar structures, I'm interested in comparing the one were just on to our next one to Alaska...necessarily so since it will be moving through a much colder climate...

Weekly Short Stories: 1995 Science Fiction, Part 9

Here is my ninth week of slogging through the short stories and novellas appearing in Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection, featuring his picks from other writers' works in that genre for the year 1995.  Below are my reactions to three of them...

THERE ARE NO DEAD by Terry Bisson

Dozois prefaced this story by stating it reminded him of the whimsical, nostalgic tone of many of Ray Bradbury's child-themed tales...I agree.  I kept waiting for the science fiction angle to it, though...until the ending, which made it seem more like a Twilight Zone episode.  Three boys grow up into adulthood and continue to hold reunions in which they revert to playing as if they were still little children, but life still catches up with them...or does it?

RECORDING ANGEL by Paul J. McAuley

On a societal-stagnated world in the far distant future, there are very tightly defined roles for everyone, including the protagonist, who is the official archivist.  A spaceship lands and a runaway woman escapes to show the seeds of discontent and rebellion wherever she goes.  This story tends to support the argument that only through violent revolution can society fundamentally change: I beg to disagree...

ELVIS BEARCLAW'S LUCK by William Sanders

In a future Earth where an infectious disease wipes out human life except the immune Native American Indians...a reversal of what happened to them with the smallpox catastrophe a few centuries ago...a celebratory fair of games is being planned and staged.  The story's title figure, Elvis Bearpaw, is looking to enhance his luck in them.  But in the end, was he lucky...or exactly the opposite? A funny but ultimately gruesome tale... 

One more week to go with this anthology, which ends with yet another novella...

Just Finished Reading The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

It was bad enough that I had confused Alfred Adler, the inspiration for this book on psychology The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, with American philosopher Mortimer Adler.  As I began reading it, I was peeved to see it written in the form of a manufactured dialectic debate between an elder Adlerian adherent and a disaffected young person.  The youth was angry at the world and himself, blaming his past for turning himself into a somewhat cynical adult.  The elder was content and patient, welcoming challenging arguments to his philosophy by "refuting" them with invalidating proclamations. I thought that was a bit phony, as was the imaginary setup between the two, culminating with the youth "coming around" to the other's arguments as the book conveniently reached its conclusion...reminded me of the pattern in the old Perry Mason murder mystery TV dramas when at with about five minutes to go the real murderer inexplicably breaks down on the witness stand and confesses to everything. Adler maintained that personal trauma of the kind his contemporary, Sigmund Freud, emphasized, wasn't real, that is, in the sense that the person who holds on to it has a reason that serves them somehow.  Also, it's important to take ownership of one's own tasks, setting up boundaries for them, and respecting the tasks others face without interference or or imposing one's own standards on them.  Adler/The Elder hold that all problems stem from personal relationships, yet true happiness arises only from one's feeling of contribution to the betterment of others...wrap your head around that one.  To the extent that this book, whose co-authors reportedly adhere to their own particular Japanese philosophy related to to Adler's, extol the virtues of people taking responsibility for their own lives while respecting the necessary boundaries of others and living in the present as opposed to past regrets or future worries, I couldn't agree more.  On the other hand, I am more than a little wary (and weary) of gurus handing out rules and principles to follow.  Read it and get back to me (if that's your "task", that is),,,

Stepping Back from Manipulative News

In case you might be wondering why on this blog I'm not deeply analyzing and reacting to all the different developing stories in this election season with the corruption charges, wars, terrorism and dictators, it's not because I'm covering up my eyes and ears to the media onslaught.  Rather I have come to a point in my life where I know that I have some degree of control over some things, beyond which I can do little about them.  It's 2024 and the press is a hotbed of manipulation, not just on FoxNews.  One of my Florida senators, Marco Rubio, whom I've never supported, was interviewed a few days ago on ABC's Good Morning America and got the hostile treatment when he simply expressed his own opinions on various topics, opinions several of which I might add I disagreed with.  But it's all in the presentation and how different "news" sources frame the real messages they are trying to get across to their audience.  I've associated in the past with people who are addicted to this kind of thing and have learned to reduce or even cut ties with them because of their obsessions...especially when they get outraged because I dared to express a thought they disagreed with.  To them I say, some are addicted to gambling, others to substances, still others to materialism, and so on: have fun letting yourselves be continually manipulated, in the end it's YOUR choice to play that game...

Alaskan Cruise Planned for July

Melissa and I have decided to have another go at a summer Alaskan cruise after last year's came to naught when both of us fell ill just before leaving.  The itinerary is similar, with Seattle, Washington figuring heavily into the travel as well as is stepping onto Canadian soil, in British Columbia.  It's the same line as our last two cruises, and we're looking forward to hashing out the final details of on-shore excursions and hotel reservations.  We really enjoyed our western Caribbean cruise at the start of this month...that ship was much smaller, though, and with half the passengers of the one we're taking in July.  Having never been to the American west coast, that should be an experience as well...and I've always wanted to visit Seattle...

Just Finished Reading Something Borrowed, Someone Dead by M.C. Beaton

On our cruise earlier this month, on the ship's sixth deck, near their Starbucks store, was an informal "library" area where passengers could donate books they'd already read and select another from the shelf.  I found there a 2013 detective novel by the late Scottish writer Marion Chesney, probably better known under her pseudonym M.C. Beaton, titled Something Borrowed, Someone Dead.  It's one of more than thirty novels she wrote in her Agatha Raisin detective series, and was a fun departure from my recent slew of non-fiction books.  The English sleuth Agatha Raisin, with her collection of supportive characters, delves into a mysterious poisoning of an obnoxious recently-moved-in woman who has alienated pretty much her entire little town with her flirting with married man there and her tendency to either borrow others' property without returning it or simply stealing it outright...pretty soon practically no one wants to associate with her.  Her last mistake is to steal a bottle of wine from a neighbor's cellar...she is found dead, poisoned.  Who did it? Plenty of suspects, but Agatha soon finds that everyone in the town wants to squash her investigation and cover up the dastardly deed.  There are plenty of ongoing subplots with the series' regular characters, and I can see how readers could be drawn to Beaton's witty writing.  As a matter of fact, I might just read the whole series...but let's see if I can't read them in chronological order: the one I just read was #24...

Quote of the Week...from Pablo Picasso

Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.            Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso, of course, was the great twentieth century artist probably best known for his development of the cubist genre.  While he didn't exactly eschew publicity during his long life, his above quote struck me for its wisdom...I'm only 67 but know from personal experience that Picasso is right on target here.  The problem is that seeking solitude seems to count in our relationship-obsessed culture for a kind of mental disorder that needs to be nipped for the sake of "community"...a buzz word that, for me at least, seems to signal that whoever uses it is about to manipulate me.  I'm not against relationships per se, it's just that the only meaningful, constructive and loving ones are concentrated and deliberately few in number.  But even with these, it is no insult to any of them that I often want to be by myself, think, and work things out.  I don't, however, feel that solitude in itself has to take place physically isolated...I'm writing this at a table in my nearby Starbucks, with many customers and workers all around me.  But I am not engaging with them, nor they with me: there is no interruption of my thoughts and efforts here. On the other hand, at my job there are times when I need to focus on my core assignment, which demands that I meticulously concentrate my attention on important, pertinent matters without distraction. Unfortunately, though, my seriousness to my work in this regard I'm afraid is sometimes framed as antisocial...nothing could be further from the truth. I've also noticed that many of those who act as if they want to socialize along with their work are continuously "forgetting" things they need to do, things that interfere with the ability of others (and sometimes myself) to effectively perform their jobs.  Nothing wrong with having a chat from time to time, but please don't screw me over in the process...

Signed Up to Run Marathon Race Next Month

I recently signed up to run the 26.2-mile marathon in an upcoming race, held in Hawthorne...or, more precisely, the outskirts thereof...a few miles southeast of Gainesville.  With the theme of cinnamon buns in mind (to be provided on race day by Panera Bread), it's called "Run Your Buns Off" and offers 5K, 10K, half-marathon and marathon choices...all to take place on the exact stretch of the woodsy-but-paved  Hawthorne Trail on which I ran the Florida Track Club's Mary Andrews half-marathon back in January.  If you read my article from back then, you'd note that I was originally going to sign up for their marathon instead, but they were stuck on capping finishing times for it at five hours...very elitist of them in my view.  So I'm going nearly three months later for essentially the same thing, although I'm not too enthusiastic as to the probably warmer and possibly wetter weather conditions come April 7th, when the race is scheduled to happen.  The course is about as basic as you could make it...unless you do what ultra-marathoner Dean Karnazes once did in his youth and run a marathon by going 105 laps around his high school track.  It's a four-cycle out and back, taking place on the same 3.27 mile stretch of trail...yawn.  Yet I do have an imagination, and my idea is to take whatever stage of the race I'm in and pretend that it's that same place in the New York City Marathon, which I've watched (and trained) to on YouTube many times to the point that I think I know the layout of some streets better than a lot of the natives there.  In any event, I see this race for me as an experiment as well as a fork in the road about what direction I will subsequently go with my running, as well as walking.  Should things work out as foreseen, this would be my second official marathon run, the other occurring back in 2011 and "highlighted" by me having to slowly walk its final seven miles while suffering from a very painful leg strain... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1995 Science Fiction, Part 8

Actually, the title of today's article is misleading, since what I'm discussing today isn't a short story but rather a novel, and it was published in 2000...let me explain. Poul Anderson, one of the great science fiction writers of the late twentieth century, sadly passed away in 2001.  The year before, though, he expanded his 1995 novella Genesis into a full-length book.  Genesis first appeared in that '95 novella form in Gardener Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection.  Discovering that it was later turned into a novel and that it was available for checkout from my Libby app, I did just that and read it.  I was intrigued by the story's premise, in which the development of artificial intelligence has culminated in the entire human race uploading itself into AI, which reminded me in a different vein of what happened to everyone in Clifford Simak's earlier, wonderful novel City (read it to find out).  Anyway, the way Anderson implies, our identities become immortal...in  a sense...and space travel and exploration and "settlement" of the cosmos becomes very feasible, especially since lifespans and time itself cease to be a limiting factor.  So it shouldn't surprise readers that "man" is still around hundreds of millions of years in the future, in the virtual forms of former-real humans who have been sent by the major AIs to try to circumvent the sun from destroying the Earth...its resident AI, called Gaia, is inexplicably resisting their efforts.  I'd like to say I came away from the reading with great praise, but I found it extremely difficult to follow as the author would hop from one plot sequence to another without explanation.  And the "humans" were also hard to empathize with, seeing that in essence they were only constructions of a greater intelligence and not real flesh and blood.  Genesis was picked, as I said, for the Dozois anthology,  It probably would have been best had Poul Anderson just left it back there as a novella and not tried to make it something bigger.  I'll see if I can't come up with a few more hopefully-shorter stories to review from the Dozois book next week...

Voted in Florida Primary, Among Few Others

This morning around eleven I went down the Senior Recreation Center near my home...not to recreate seniors, mind you, but to vote in the 2024 Florida Primary: it's my precinct's polling site. Well, if you read my article from a few days ago, you'd know by now that I'm a registered Republican, since the only measure on the ballot was the party presidential primary and Biden's running opposed in the Democratic Party, at least in Florida. Melissa went with me and we went through the empty polling area...other than the workers...and bubbled out and inserted our ballots into the machine.  It registered that we were the 23rd and 24th voters in the four hours since the polls opened that morning here...no surprise since the "election" was essentially meaningless with the party's cult idol already assured of nomination without any remaining organized opposition.  Still, the names of some former candidates who dropped out of the race were still on the ballot, and I cast my vote as I had indicated before.  After voting, we went on to the more practical part of the visit, which was to check out the Senior Recreation center.  I could see that many elderly would derive a lot of benefit from it, with the game rooms, exercise classes, limited workout room (monitored by a registered physical therapist), pickle ball courts, and a weekly schedule of programs and activities.  Yet I didn't see anything there that called out to me...yet.  As for the vote, it was obviously just symbolic for me, but it was nice to get out there and vote in person after the COVID pandemic and subsequent mail-in voting...    

The Players Championship Golf Tournament Was a Classic This Year

The Players Championship golf tournament, played in nearby Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida (just south of Jacksonville is one of those PGA events that attract attention beyond the sport's regular adherents.  This past weekend we saw Scotty Scheffler, perhaps the greatest golfer of this current era, struggling to defend from behind his previous year's title in the event.  Starting the final round yesterday, Scheffler was tied for sixth place, five strokes behind leader Xander Schauffele.  It seemed that only an incredible final round, combined with more restrained performances by Schauffele, Wyndham Clark and Brian Harmon, the last two only one and two strokes behind, respectively, would enable Scheffler to repeat as champ.  But events unraveled exactly as Scotty would have preferred and he won dramatically by a single stroke at the end as opponent after opponent missed their achingly close birdie attempts on the 18th hole...it was a classic to be remembered.  I've never played "regular" golf before, only mini-golf, but I've enjoyed following the professional golf tournaments in recent years.  Before yesterday's action, I tuned in to the Golf Channel to hear their commentary and was dismayed to discover that they only seemed interested in setting up betting odds on the probable winners.  The only time I ever bet on spectator sports was in high school when I went in on an NFL pool for one weekend.  I came close to winning it with my predictions but, fortunately, narrowly lost to another kid...who ended up having to hassle many of the others in the pool to pay up.  I say fortunately because it helped to further steer me from gambling money, something I was already on guard against because my father, although a responsible provider who saved money and kept us all financially floating, had a weakness for betting the dogs at many of South Florida's tracks and seemed often preoccupied on a mind-numbing level with his various betting systems which he often changed around.  So no, whatever vices I have, gambling away money isn't one of them.  On our recent cruise there was a casino and Melissa and I passed through it on the way to somewhere else...the folks there were so intensely involved with their little machines and games that it frankly kind of freaked me out.  A couple of days later we were seated for breakfast at a table where the other two couples couldn't stop talking about their casino adventures and systems.  Well, I suppose if you're helping to financially prop up the cruise industry with your gambling so that I have better options with it, then go for it!  Besides, the more in the casino, the fewer clogging up the pool and deck...

Congrats and Condolences for UF Men's Basketball Team

In a bittersweet roller-coaster day for the Florida Gators men's basketball team, they culminated their long run in the Southeastern Conference postseason tournament with the championship game against heavily-favored Auburn.  Already pretty much guaranteed a spot in the NCAA championship "March Madness" tournament, they still had the Tigers as an immediate hurdle.  Bowing to Auburn 86-67, the Gators' greatest disappointment by far, though, was the loss of their starting center, Micah Handlogten, to a broken leg as he was coming down for a rebound only two minutes into the game.  We all wish him a full and speedy recovery, and as he was a sophomore, a good return for next year.  Florida was awarded in the South Region as the 7th seed...they are scheduled to begin their tournament action next Friday in Indianapolis against the winner of the Boise State/Colorado contest on Wednesday, currently sporting a 24-11 overall W/L record. Todd Golden, the Gator coach, seems like a fine young man who just might be the next Billy Donovan that fans have been looking for.  I wish him, the Florida team...and, of course, Micah, the best in the next few days and weeks.  Should they advance past Friday, they will play the winner of Marquette/Western Kentucky game on Sunday in their question to make the "Sweet Sixteen" of remaining teams...click HERE to see the interactive tournament bracket...

Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

When I got up this morning at 6 it was still dark, due to the "jump ahead" to Daylight Savings Time last weekend.  It was also cloudy, unseasonably warm (69 degrees, still in winter) and a stifling 92% humidity.  I decided right then that I was going to today's Depot Parkrun 5K, held weekly at that park just south of downtown Gainesville, not to set any records but rather to see how I could do under these conditions.  I continued to use Jeff Galloway's run/walk method, my strategy this time to alternate 5 minute running with 40-45 seconds of fast walking throughout the race.  The fact that it was "earlier" at the 7:30 start meant that the sun was lower in the sky...and it being cloudy, I never had to directly contend with the glare.  I started the run feeling energized and ended it that way, not a personal best for this, my 36th Depot Parkrun, but still a pretty good time at 28:19...click HERE to view today's results.  For next week I had been considering a muddy 10K trail race in Paynes Prairie that I had been avoiding for years...probably will continue that streak in '24.  After all, there's the Depot Parkrun 5K, a free, volunteer-driven weekly run on Saturday mornings (I've volunteered 4 times, probably need to up it a bit).  Melissa had to be at work this morning and couldn't make it out there...we'll just take things a week at a time and see what opportunities lie for us...

Quote of the Week...from Will Self

Always carry a notebook.  And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea forever.              ---Will Self

Will Self is an English journalist and writer...no, I've yet to read any of his output (other than the above quote).  I already follow his advice to carry a notebook...well, in my case a memo pad as well as a slew of folded-up pieces of paper that tend to get misplaced.  I think I have a reasonably good memory, but it frustrates me when I am searching my recent past for details of experiences or thoughts that seem to have slipped away from me...can I ever retrieve them?  For example, the cruise that Melissa and I went on earlier this month started in the early afternoon of the 2nd, on Saturday, and ended a week later in the morning on the 9th.  Let's see...today's the 15th so my experiences should still be fresh in my memory.  But, of course, some memories tend to quickly fade while some others tend to undergo some distortion.  Today I'd like to see how much I can remember about what I ate during this Royal Caribbean cruise from Tampa to the western Caribbean and back.  Turns out there was a lot to remember...

Bagel/Cream Cheese

2 Glazed Donuts

2 Chocolate Frosted Donuts

3 Bananas

Orange

Pancakes

French Toast

Scrambled Eggs

Grits

Several Pepperoni Pizza Slices

Several Caesar Salads

Greek Salad

2 Baked Onion Soups

Several Ice Cream Cones

Several Chocolate Bar Cake Slices

Tiramisu

Several Beef Tacos

Nacho Cheese Platter

Lots of Bacon

Lots of Breakfast Sausage

Several Rolls with Butter

Crab Cakes

Seafood Bakes

Minestrone Soup

Lasagna

Lemon-Baked Cod

Cheesecake

Vegan Tofu Cheesecake

Apple Crumble Dessert

Braised Lamb Rogan Josh

Mutton Entreé

Enchilada

Macaroni and Cheese

Spaghetti Bolognese

Sounds like a lot, but I know there's a lot more food that I stuffed into my mouth during this outing but simply cannot remember.  But I wonder if, had I not stopped at this juncture today to recall as much as I could, would most of these memories also have slipped by the wayside.  I don't know if I'd like Will Self's writing...maybe I'll venture to find out before long.  But since I wrote about him on this blog it is tantamount to using a notebook, isn't it, and that makes the reference to him much less likely to be forgotten.  On the other hand, I can't just go around constantly writing down everything I experience, either. By the way, my favorite dinner on the cruise was on "Italian Night", when they served minestrone soup for the appetizer, lasagna as the main entreé, and tiramisu for dessert.  Nothing I hadn't had before, but the ship's kitchen produced the very best of each of these I had ever eaten...

Just Finished Reading The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

The Art of Racing in the Rain is a 2008 book written by Garth Stein, adapted eleven years later to film with what I've read were mixed reviews.  The premise of the story, narrated by a dog, is his affection and bonding to his owner Denny, a budding race car driver whose in-laws connive to legally extract custody of his young daughter following his wife Eve's death due to a brain tumor.  It's very sentimental and cute, and Enzo, named after a famous race driver Denny admired, knows everything, including all about auto racing. But being a dog, he is unable to express himself.  After reading the book through, am I motivated to go see the movie? No chance of that, but I always respect an author like Stein who skillfully and coherently put together this story. Would I recommend it to you?  Well, the only reason I read it in the first place was because it was one of the "Playaway" MP3-based audio books available at the time at my local public library, it caught my eye, and I checked it out.  I wasn't all that interested, frankly, in the domestic goings-on between a dog, his master and the master's family...no matter how compelling Enzo made it all seem.  Maybe it will work for you...I've read much worse, and this book wasn't bad...

Weekly Short Stories: 1995 Science Fiction, Part 7

Today I continue my look at 1995 short sci-fi tales as they appeared in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection and edited by the late Gardner Dozois, himself a recognized writer within the genre.  In doing this I'm temporarily skipping by a full-blown Poul Anderson novella featured in the book...I plan to review it next week.  So here goes...

COMING OF AGE IN KARHIDE by Ursula K. Le Guin

Le Guin was one of those writers who has, like Isaac Asimov or Stephen King, created their own fictional universe from which to derive creative inspiration and a ready-made setting for stories...hers is the Hainish universe of settled worlds scattered across the galaxy eons into the future and which provide a laboratory of observation as to how human societies can all be the same on some levels...and very different on others.  In this story people on one world, normally sexually neuter and inactive and being essentially hermaphrodites (possessing both male and female sexual organs), go periodically through a sexually-intense state called "kemmer". Here a young person goes through it, and the accompanying fears, for her/his very first time.  Le Guin was a bold groundbreaker in the examination of sexuality using the genre of science fiction...

FEIGENBAUM NUMBER by Nancy Kress

A mathematician is plagued by a special problem, which he thinks is unique to him: everyone he encounters presents two images of themselves, their real selves and, behind them, who they could have been ideally.  He believes that it all somehow comes down to a special number (hence the story's title) and how it relates to cause, effect, and chaos, as he joins his colleague in developing a special equation that he hopes will solve this enigma that is oppressing his life.  And then, what do you know, he finds another sharing his gift/curse. I have to admit to having some difficulty understanding the mathematics of this story, but then again maybe the author was winging it, too...

HOME by Geoff Ryman

In a dystopian future where just going out one's own door (and even staying at home, for that matter) can bring physical violence from the hands of roving young criminals running rampant, an elderly man has a view of "Home" that might eerily remind some of what is evolving in our society these days with the advancement of video games and virtual reality...if plugging into the real world is unbearable, then why not one more suitable, humane, meaningful and safer?  The shortest story of the three today, it is also the most chilling for its immediate relevance to what is developing around us...

Next week: my reaction to that '95 Poul Anderson novella...

Discrepancies Between Workout Settings

I've been writing on this blog off and on about my struggles with developing efficient swimming form and endurance...it's going unevenly, to say the least.  My main stroke is the freestyle American crawl, while I'm working on the fundamentals both of it and the breaststroke.  The pool at my local gym, Gainesville Health and Fitness, can seem daunting at 75 feet of length as well.  On our recent cruise we had access to a smaller pool that had an unexpectedly positive feature: salt water, which provided much more buoyancy and aided with my brief swimming practice there.  That would have been a good pool to be able to swim 75 feet in! In one setting I feel like Mark Spitz while, in the other, just little old me thrashing around awkwardly.  It's not only swimming in which the setting can make a difference.  Naturally, treadmills tend to give the user better mileage and speed scores than if they were running on the ground or road, and they tend to be gentler on the legs and feet.  But there are differences between them as well. At GHF I can get to a sustained walking pace (no inclination) on their treadmills at 5.0 mph, but the treadmill at home we recently purchased can go up to 5.4 and it seems easier than the slower gym treadmill pace.  I've come to believe that whether I'm swimming, walking or running, it's a good idea to vary the setting a bit while not getting hung up on how fast or far I'm able to go...consistency is the watchword here.  Of course, with swimming my variables are pool availability, pool size and water salinity, factors I have much less control over now that I'm off the cruise ship.  Melissa suggested that maybe it's time to get a pool in our backyard, one that is conducive to swimming laps.  Interesting, but I'm also thinking of that salt water: maybe the beach is a good idea, too...or another cruise...

Dutch is My Improbable Third Language, In a Manner of Speaking

As we were finishing our cruise from last week, Melissa and I explored other cruise destinations available from our line, Royal Caribbean.  One course takes the ship to the southern Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Venezuela with visits to the "ABC" islands, formerly colonies of the Netherlands: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao.  Together with Sint Maarten and two other islands in the eastern Caribbean, they comprise the Netherlands Antilles, which was dissolved in 2010.  Now in 2024, Curaçao and Sint Maarten are autonomous territories of the Netherlands, Bonaire is under that country's direct administration...and Aruba is an independent nation...correct me if I got that wrong. Anyway, back in 1967 when I was eleven and listening to the radio at night, I picked up on AM-800 kHz the powerful station PJB2, which broadcast out of Bonaire with 500,000 watts, a staggering amount of power (U.S. clear channel AM stations are limited to only 50,000 watts).  About mid-evening the station, which called itself Trans World Radio, featured English-language evangelistic Christian programming, Back to the Bible, Unshackled and the TWR-produced Music and You being the shows I regularly listened to. Earlier in the evening the station served as a relay for Radio Nederland's evening programming from Hilversum, Holland, which included the English-language Happy Station Program as well as news in Dutch.  With English being my first language and Spanish lessons starting in my fourth grade (1965), in retrospect it was this funny-sounding national language of the Netherlands that was my third language, although I didn't understand any of it and hardly ever studied it in the ensuing decades of my life.  Yet Dutch is supposedly the closest distinct language to English if you discount the Frisian tongue that very few speak.  I wonder how many in the former Netherlands Antilles speak it...the prominent language spoken on the ABC islands is Papiamento, a creole based on Portuguese. I'd like to visit Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire...most probably on a cruise...

Meaningless Florida Primary Ongoing with Early Voting

This has to be by far the deadest presidential primary season I've ever experienced since following them in 1968...both major political parties have pretty much folded up and closed shop with their anointed candidates, fascist Donald Trump as the clear consensus choice for Republicans and incumbent Joe "Not Trump" Biden for the Democrats.  And now early voting is underway in the Florida Primary...at least on the Republican side as Biden has no listed opposition.  But all of the major GOP candidates running against Trump have ended their campaigns without ever gaining any traction among the adoring masses enthralled with their orange personality cult idol.  I am currently a registered Republican and still plan to vote in the primary on "election day" March 19, for what it's worth.  Since former New Jersey governor Chris Christie spoke out the most vehemently against Trump during his brief campaign, I'm planning to vote for him...holding my breath in the process, not exactly being a Christie fan either.  And then it'll be on to the conventions where the parties will crown their dubious choices, with anti-vaccine conspiracy nut Robert F. "Neither-Trump-Nor-Biden" Kennedy, Jr. waiting in the wings as an independent option for voters looking for an even worse candidate.  So this is liberty and democracy...are you telling me that these three are the best my country could come up with?  Biden's my reluctant choice in November, but I won't waste my writing time trying to convince anyone to go out there and join me, much less dissuade those inclined to push one of the other major candidates into office.  Be my guest and do as you will, for all I care... 

Back in Gainesville from Cruise

For the past week, Melissa and I have been on an ocean cruise on our vacation break.  We took the Royal Caribbean ship Enchantment of the Seas out of the Port of Tampa on a Gulf of Mexico/Western Caribbean cruise with stops in Mexico and Honduras before coming back.  It was the first time in my life that I actually set foot on land outside the United States, although the two excursions in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and the island of Roatan in Honduras were largely under "cruise control"...still, they count and I'm now up to three countries...whoopee!  I took a break from a lot of things during this outing, including this blog and my cell phone...and especially social media.  I'm guessing that from time to time in the days to come, I'll be discussing some of my reactions to this thing or that from the cruise.  By and large, I have a positive take from it and some pretty interesting memories.  But for the time being, I'll just let it go at that...good to be back!

Super-Constellation of the Month: the Good Ship Argo

 

I'm planning on viewing the ancient Greek super-constellation Argo on my cruise trip down to the western Caribbean, at a latitude where hopefully I can capture the full scope of these interesting star patterns of which I knew from childhood but never had the opportunity to just go out and observe.  Because Argo was so big, it was later divided into the "official", smaller constellations of Puppis (the Deck), Carina (the Keel) and Vela (the Sails). My only real connection with Argo has been with Canopus, my favorite star of the night sky and the second brightest after Sirius.  There are also four stars on the above map, two in Vela and two in Carina, that if you looked at them a certain way you could make out a cross...it's the "False Cross" that for centuries has fooled observers looking for the Southern Cross, which is far east of Argo and constitutes the constellation Crux.  My success in observing Argo will depend, of course, on the cooperation of the weather: fog and overcast skies, or annoying shipboard lights for that matter, could present issues...but I'm remaining optimistic...

Rereading James Clear's Book Atomic Habits

I have been listening to James Clear's book Atomic Habits while driving...I checked out the CD-set from my local public library although we own the book.  I've read it before...click HERE for my earlier review.  He has a lot of information to share, and it can be a bit daunting to ingest.  The main point I've taken from it is that habits are best tackled first in a modest way, making them small enough to handle within a short span of time.  Good habits should be made attractive and immediately rewarding in some way, which sometimes requires creativity since by-and-large they involve delayed gratification.  As for things that give an immediate pleasurable feeling, the author warns that they can lead to bad habits...oh, swell, just what I wanted to hear!  So far the one big thing I've taken from this rereading is his idea of starting on a new habit by making it ridiculously small...he uses the "two-minute rule"...and then gradually increasing the time and/or intensity. I do some variations of this already, whereby I'll just set aside a small block of time, say 15 to 30 minutes, and see how much I can get done with a specific task.  Sometimes my daily schedule carves out a time niche with borders, within which I'll devote myself to a worthwhile activity I want to make into a constructive habit.  I think that keeping up with the mundane things in my life on a habitual level is probably the most immediate desire I have with regard to replacing bad habits with good ones.  As with many things in life, transforming it all into a kind of fun game works for me...

Quote of the Week...from Kelly Clarkson

The thing I love most about going on vacation is that I get to leave behind any kind of schedule. My entire life is scheduled from morning to night, and when I'm on vacation, there is no schedule.

                          Kelly Clarkson

Musical artist Kelly Clarkson has it right about what she loves about going on vacation...at least for herself, that is. Melissa and I are embarking on our own starting tomorrow and, since we're traveling, there are destinations to tour and, frankly, it's necessary to follow a time schedule at least some of the time.  Meals are offered on our boat at different times of the day, and even from day to day the theme changes for the passengers...I'm not too keen on that aspect (I'm sure Kelly would agree).  Fortunately, we should also have plenty of unstructured time to ourselves and I am definitely looking forward to that.  As for this blog and new articles during our trip, I'll just have to play it out, in an unscheduled sort of way, naturally...