No Racing This Weekend

I was planning to go to my local Albert Massey "Westside" Park this morning to participate in the US Road Running racing event scheduled on the fourth Saturday each month...I was going to do the 10K race, which I did there a month ago.  In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which brought down a lot of branches if not whole trees even in Gainesville, not in its direct path, the Depot Parkrun, held in that city park, was canceled for today at the request of the Gainesville authorities who expressed the need for time to clear it of debris.  I'm imagining that the same conditions exist at Westside as well, and besides when I woke up this morning it was raining and soggy...yuck.  So, instead I'll exercise some indoors today and make the best of what's around me.  I think I got a little spoiled anyway with that Depot Parkrun being held every week...a little break from public races, as with other things, can be a healthy thing...

Quote of the Week...from Geladriel in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of Men, who above all else desire power.     ---Geladriel 

In J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Geladriel...played in the film version by Cate Blanchett...is the "Lady" of the Woods, the great Elf-queen of Lothlorien.  She gives a preamble to the epic, explaining the origins of the different rings bestowed upon the various humanoid groups of Middle Earth by the scheming Sauron, deviously seeking to bind them all under his control with the Ring of Power.  As for men, the above quote explains their rings and their motivations...they themselves seek power, even if it means ultimately bowing down and surrendering all of the values they claim to hold dear.  Rings are pretty to behold...as is the notion of free and open elections in our "real" present times.  Both are attractive features of society, yet in the final analysis our politics point to Geladriel's message, which is that with politics as with most anything else, people seek power over others.  In our 2024 election cycle, all those smiling faces and resumes and family backgrounds and staunchly held "principles" are like rings masking the true aim of aspirants to political office: the attainment of a position enabling them to tell others what to do and how to live. When I see a political ad, whether on TV or social media or in my mailbox, I don't see potential public servants but rather power-grabbers. Sorry to be the one to bring you these sober tidings...no, I'm not, actually I'm quite happy to do so, thank you...

Hurricane Helene's Brunt to Pass West of Gainesville This Evening

Hurricane Helene is passing by this evening, a near-miss to Gainesville...but a miss still the same.  Although schools, garbage pickup and different businesses are closing for either the whole day today or a part of it, my workplace at the post office is remaining open...at this writing I'll be off to work in an hour or so.  Although destined to miss the brunt of Helene's predicted Category Three winds at its landfall later today a few miles south of Tallahassee, we should still be under sustained tropical storm winds throughout the evening, eventually slackening during the wee early morning hours.  The rain level here shouldn't be all that bad...it's the wind and possible power outages that present the biggest concerns. Wishing you and yours safety and a smooth passage through this storm...and it is forecast to affect most of Georgia and points beyond as well.  There, I got to use the word "brunt" today...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 12

Although my reading has slowed down, it's still there, and I'm here to dutifully report on another week as I got through one more story in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection, and featuring his selections of short fiction from various writers appearing in the year 1997.  Here's my take on the next one in the book...

AFTER KERRY by Ian McDonald

After reading this story about voluntary memory erasure, I was reminded of the Jim Carrey/Kate Winslet 2004 movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which a split-up couple have their memories of each other erased.  After Kerry, predating that film by seven years, has the adult daughter of a manipulative, abusive and chronically gaslighting mother going a step further and having her own entire identity changed, wiping out all of her memories of her previous existence and substituting implanted new ones.  Kerry's brother, the protagonist and narrator, goes on a detective sleuthing mission in search of her new location and identity after their mother's death to reveal the "good" news.  There's a lot of darkness in this story...but maybe that's a common element of science fiction that tries to delve deep within the sometimes very dark and disturbing recesses of the human psyche...

Next week I'll hopefully be in a position to review a larger number of stories from this 1997 anthology...

Potential Hurricane Helene Slated to Hit Thursday Evening

Yes, recently this blog's output has been a bit porous, with me often skipping days.  Today, though, I thought it timely to discuss what is brewing weather-wise out in the western Caribbean: Potential Tropical Cyclone Nine, or PTC-9.  Now all the head honchos in the weather bureaus have it forecast to became Hurricane Helene and become a strong one before crashing into Florida's Big Bend area on Thursday evening before heading on to blanket Georgia.  The Governor has already had his hurricane prep press conference, and people in the affected areas...which extend far down the Florida Gulf Coast and inland to places like my Gainesville...to stock up on necessary items and prepare for power outages.  The maximum sustained winds at this Tuesday morning writing are still at sub-tropical storm force, so calling it a "potential tropical cyclone" is still technically applicable.  But it's no service to the general public to delay...like they did with two other systems in recent weeks...in giving it the next name, Helene, just because some ivy tower meteorologist wants to get anal about it all even though the winds may be strong enough: I've had it with this  "PTC" nonsense.  In any event, the storm in question is predicted to rapidly form and intensify in the next two days while picking up a lot of speed traveling across the Gulf of Mexico.  Hopefully, we won't be too directly affected by it in Gainesville, but then again they're not totally certain exactly where it's going to hit...

.....and now it's 11 AM, and they just named it Helene.  Winds are now at 45 mph and it's picking up speed, about to pass between Cuba and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula before entering the Gulf...

Body Aches, Took It Easy at Home Today

Today I stayed at home, skipping my customary Saturday morning running race.  Yesterday all day I felt crappy, with a general sense of body aches and inflammation.  Today I spent time with my family and enjoyed watching sports on TV...later on I did do a little running in the house.  Hopefully, I'll continue to feel better tomorrow.  Maybe next week I'll see if I want to run a weekend race.  Oh, I did have an interesting experience while I slept in this morning.  I was dreaming (in bed) when someone knocked on my car window and woke me up...into another dream!  A nested dream, just like in the movie Inception...

Quote of the Week...from Rob Dial

Done is better than perfect.                             ---Rob Dial

Once again I pick a quote from personal development podcaster Rob Dial, who delivered it during a recent show.  His message is simple: better to get yourself in the mix of things, and then you can see where you need to improve.  Otherwise, never starting is guaranteed failure.  Now, as in just about all generalizations, this comes with important exceptions.  Like surgery or flying a plane, for example...although with preliminary training that doesn't involve putting others' lives at stake, Dial's maxim is still in full force even in those areas.  Besides, even with the best in any area, perfection is an elusive goal...

Long Lull in Supposedly Active Hurricane Season Continues

As long as I'm sitting here at this computer, I might as well write something on the old blog.  Let's see...after all the commercials and non-weather-related features, I finally got to hear what The Weather Channel and Fox Weather had to say about the Tropics and hurricane season.  Looks like there are a couple of spots out in the Atlantic that might develop in the next week or two, but the main area is in the southwestern Caribbean off the Central American coast where they expect development over the next few days...and that's it.  Nothing at all like the extraordinarily active system they were predicting...and it doesn't hurt my feelings one bit...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 11

Time for another look back at the year 1997 in short sci-fi, as revealed in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection and spotlighting series editor Gardner Dozois' picks. Reading the following two stories reminded me of how much I liked and admired the meticulously-crafted scenes in the movie The Godfather, Part II...especially the one in which Michael Corleone pays a visit to his rival, gangster financier Hyman Roth, at the latter's south Florida home.  I could almost swear the dude lived in the old West Hollywood neighborhood where I grew up in the sixties, it was done so well.  And that's the problem I see in stories (like the two below) that bend reality into alternative, virtual ones...I think it's harder to capture reality on paper or the screen while the more fantastic creations in science fiction give the author more literary license but are more difficult to visualize.  But how about those stories, anyway...

NEVERMORE by Ian R. Macleod

Gustav, a painter (artist) residing in a future Paris, spends most of his time in the virtual worlds instead of the "foreal" world of what you and I would term "reality".  He is despondent over the death of his love Eleanor, yet he sees her often...and fully vibrant...in virtuality.  What is real and what isn't?...it's easy to get confused and lost in this tale.  Yet although we're not yet at that stage with virtual technology, I think a lot of us have gone over the proverbial cliff with regards to designing our own personal realities, especially concerning the personas presented on social media...

OPEN VEINS by Simon Ings

The virtual world in this story...based more or less on a "future" closer to the time when it was written, is a place people can literally plug themselves into...and make real, grave changes in the world if not checked.  So it's all hush-hush, "black-ops" secret government stuff, yet one former worker has somehow slipped into the virtual network, apparently committing suicide while in it.  The protagonist/investigator must find out what she was up to, who helped her...and then contain it all from leaking out.  Along the way he gets maybe a little too involved with the couple residing there...

Next week: more from '97...

Storm System off Coast of Carolinas

This Monday morning we have a weather phenomenon that looks like a tropical storm and acts like a tropical storm...only the authorities have decided that it isn't one after all.  Potential Tropical Cyclone 8, also known as PTC8, is swirling like a tropical storm just off the coast of where South Carolina meets North Carolina.  At this writing it has maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, well over the minimum threshold for giving a name to this system.  In any event, it is expected to crash ashore later today, already causing coastal flooding and storm surge.  Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Gordon, no harm to anyone except in a stray boat, has diminished to a tropical depression.  In northern Florida the past few weeks, it has been as if we were in a continual storm system...without the winds but with plenty of rain.  People just stopped mowing their lawns because of the high water level in the ground.  Yesterday I managed to mow our front and back yards but one section was nothing but a soggy, mucky mess.  Well, maybe that'll do for another month.  In the meantime, I'm happy we're not being besieged by hurricanes as predicted at the start of this Atlantic tropical storm season...but I am sick of this ongoing crappy weather, still the same...

Walked Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

Today, on another Saturday morning in Gainesville and the third week in a row for a UF Gator home football game...with the accompanying crowded streets and coffee shops...I did my periodic speed-walk during the Depot Parkrun 5K, held at that park a few blocks south of downtown.  It was a steamy and foggy 74 degrees with 100% humidity, but that never bothered me with my walking.  Before the race they were celebrating the 250th Parkrun here in Gainesville...that's pretty cool.  A lot of people were out there, and even another speed-walker, a middle-age woman whom I had never seen before.  She passed me early on and I managed to keep pace with her until, after three of the four required laps, she finished...either tired or mistaken.  In any event, I wish more participants tried walking the course at a fast pace, but, alas, there I was pushing hard through the final lap alone.  I finished with a time of 39:15, not my best for walking but I had slackened off of my training this past week because of a doctor visit and anticipated testing...you can view this week's race results by clicking HERE...

Quote of the Week...from Rob Dial

Let action and routine drive your life, not your emotions.         ---Rob Dial

Rob Dial is the creator and host of the podcast Mindset Mentor, which addresses issues in personal development.  He began one recent episode with the above quote, which he attributed to no one else...hence I'm giving Dial credit for it until further notice.  It's a simple concept, but one that few of us...at least me...consistently adopt for our lives.  I think there's another one that goes with this, dealing with how the quality of our lives depends on the brief pause between our triggers and cues and the actions we take in response to them...let's see, here it is, by Viktor Frankl: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response is our growth and freedom."  The first quote deals with a proactive approach, the latter with how we react to circumstances.  With both of them, I think I could do much better with how I handle daily living...

About the Tedious Presidential Debates

Everybody in social and mass media is abuzz about the recent debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris...at least that's how they'd like us to think.  I'm guessing that you're not all that much into that kind of nonsense...and I'm certainly not.  I can go back to 2016 when Trump debated Hillary Clinton...and in my estimation, she clearly won and her poll numbers soared.  Then FBI Director James Comey infamously decided to interfere in the campaign at the most crucial moment and, with great fanfare, announced he was reopening an investigation into, of all things, Clinton's emails.  This was happening among the opposition's cries of "Lock her up!", so Comey knew that what he was doing was interference and did it anyway.  Yet in 2024 it's apparently okay for their champion to be a 34-count convicted felon!  So no, I don't care about debates and discount their usefulness, although to be fair the previous one did get Biden to bow out.  I recently listened to someone recount their experiences listening to Tuesday evening's debate after I myself had studiously avoided it...and was affirmed in that avoidance.  If by this time you haven't figured out what you're going to do in this year's presidential election, I don't know what to say to you.  But then again, these elections always seem to hinge on how the stupid, emotion-driven pain-in-the-ass last-minute undecided voters sway, don't they...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 10

This week I managed to read a couple more stories from the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection, and containing material first published in the year 1997.  Without any further ado, here are my reactions...

LETHE by Walter Jon Williams

In a future humanity where people can have multiple copies made of themselves and be broken down and built back up...molecule by molecule...by advanced nanotechnology, a man grieves for the loss of his female mate who died in a deep space accident.  He seeks solace through his "sibs", that is, his other living copies, but they and their mates...the same copies as his lost partner...turn out to be individuals in their own right and quite different in outlook from him.  I look at this fictional scenario and hope it never happens.  Life extension, yes, but the copies aspect, a big NO.  I never could latch on to the notion that my subjective identity can be artificially copied and transferred to the new, manufactured physical version of myself, like those Star Trek "Beam me up, Scotty" transporters...

WINTER FIRE by Geoffrey A. Landis 

It is a future time in Salzburg, Austria, and that long-peaceful city is besieged in a war of attrition between advanced pan-Slavic forces and the more western-oriented defenders.  Written in the middle of the brutal wars of the 1990s involving the former Yugoslavia states of Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, it is a commentary on how these horrible situations are contained while just a few miles away life goes on as usual.  In "our" world, Salzburg, although near the turmoil, is happily insulated from it.  I think that's what the author was driving at here: the choices the outside world makes that keep such horrible, genocidal conflicts going...and separated from themselves.  Also, how most of the victims of war within the general population have no notion as to why there is a war in the first place, as it takes on a mindless, all-consuming momentum of its own...

Next week: more from '97...

About the Recent US Open and Tennis in General

This past weekend the US Open professional tennis tournament, taking place in the Flushing Meadows complex in Queens, New York, concluded with the women and men finals.  Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner, two of the favorites, took the titles in each category and I'm happy with that.  Actually, I'm happy with whoever wins, quite the opposite of the typical fanatically partisan fan...and I don't give a hoot about which country they are from.  These players all work hard to perfect their craft, and this is the big opportunity for them to display their efforts to the world...good for them.  I will say that the sport of tennis is extremely competitive, more so than, say, running, swimming or golf.  In those sports, one can gauge their progress and success by their finishing times or by how many strokes they take to complete the course.  With tennis, though, the pertinent statistics are almost completely dependent on the direct competition...if your opponent is playing extraordinarily well, then you're going to look worse regardless of how well you're playing.  I'd like to follow tennis more...maybe I'll check out the Tennis Channel from time to time to see what's going on.  As for my own level of playing, let's just say that I did complete a beginner's class in the sport while at college (in 1975) and have played very little since...

"PTC-6" to Become Francine Soon Today

This cyclone at the western end of a protracted stationary summer weather front spanning the western Gulf of Mexico through northern Florida...arcing through Louisiana...is predicted to be named Tropical Storm Francine sometime today.  Its maximum sustained winds are already at 50 mph...tropical storm strength...and it is forecast to develop into a substantial hurricane before eventually making landfall along the western US Gulf Coast.  At this writing, they're just calling it "PTC-6", or "Potential Tropical Cyclone Six".  Doesn't matter, I'm just wondering which Weather Channel meteorologists will be stationed at the target locations like Corpus Christi and Houston...Paul Goodloe has already been out there in New Orleans "braving" the heavy rains there.  This 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, prediction to be a strong one with many named storms, has been pretty much on hold for the past few weeks with dust from the Sahara stymieing tropical storm development in the eastern Atlantic.  But maybe things are about to change...

Our Weekend Beach Visit

Melissa and I enjoyed our outing to Daytona Beach this weekend...we just got back into Gainesville.  There didn't seem to be very many people out there, and that suited us just fine.  The beach was fine for walking, and the swimming pool at our hotel was usually empty and we used it during our brief stay.  I'd like to say it's nice to be back, but frankly I'd rather be extending my stay over there...

Happy Anniversary, My Sweet Melissa

I'd like to wish my wonderful, dear and beautiful wife Melissa a very happy anniversary.  We've been married for 38 fantastic years today! I love you so much, Sweetheart!

Ran Florida Track Club's "Is It Fall?" Four-Mile Race This Morning

This morning I decided to skip the usual Depot Parkrun 5K event and instead switch over into Florida Track Club mode, running their "Is It Fall?" four-mile race.  It starts and finishes at Squirrel Ridge Park on Williston Road close to US 441 on the south side of Gainesville.  For almost the entire race, the course has us running the backroads of SW 17th Terrace and SW 56th Avenue...it's an "out and back" race.  I ran it last year...my goal today was simply to improve my finishing time.  And I did, considerably, despite the dew point being at 75 degrees, with 100 % humidity: a really muggy morning.  I was slower the first half than in the last half, a common trait of my racing.  My final chip time was 36:46...click HERE to view the results, provided by Second Wind Timing.  They gave out awards for the top finishers, age-graded: the formula they used qualified me for a plastic water bottle with the FTC logo on it.  The club president told me before the race that they'd be doing something different over in Felasco Park this time next year: a combined 5K and 10K trail run there...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 9

I admit it: reading...and even writing as well...hasn't been very fun for me lately, with the recently transpired events in my life.  Yet I still plod along, reading and writing less but still coming out with blog articles, albeit not daily (at least for this season).  I'm continuing with the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection, and have the next two stories in it, from the year 1997, to discuss...

YEYUKA by Greg Egan

This is a biting commentary on the disparity between the elite level in medical technology for some and the scarcity of anything effective in the Third World.  A physician wears a ring that diagnoses and treats just about anything medical that could go wrong in his body, but his technology isn't available to those living in Uganda, the site of a major outbreak of the fatal disease Yeyuka.  Yet some there are feverishly working hard to come up with bootleg versions based on spare parts they can muster. up  Out protagonist doctor discovers this on a volunteer mission to treat the epidemic and has a major ethical decision to make...

FROST PAINTING by Carolyn Ives Gilman

A professional critic searches the Montana wilderness to find her artist live-in lover, who left her to join a weird commune that supposedly is in deep communication to an alien race residing there.  Is art for its own sake worth basing one's life on, or is tailoring one's talents to others' preferences a sellout.? This, along with a pretty disparaging view of heterosexual men by the lesbian protagonist, dominate this brief tale...

More next week from the Dozois anthology...  

Enjoying Watching This Year's US Open Tennis Tourney

I enjoyed watching the US Open this weekend, with the round of 16 taking place on both the women and men's sides of this major tennis tournament, held in Queens, New York in Flushing Meadows.  I got to see some really good matches, although it seemed to me that for the men they were too drawn out with their best-of-five sets per match, as opposed to the women's more reasonable best-of-three.  My favorites so far have advanced...Iga Swiatek and Daniil Medvedev...and I like some of the upcoming matchups as they head into the quarterfinals.  Tennis is one of those special sports that are a combination of exceptional coordination, strength, mobility, endurance, and a chess-like sense of strategy...too bad I didn't get past the beginner stage.  Still, it's fun to watch although I found it a little sad to see people like Nick Kyrgios, whom I followed in years past, relegated to the broadcast analysis role on the sidelines after injuries to his knee.  Although I don't dig hyped-up nationalism in international sports...the recent Olympics is a case in point...it still disappointed me that the Russian and Belarus players are there without any noted national reference, as if we're going to make a difference in those governments' ongoing military actions by simply pretending they don't exist.  The world is full of nasty little despotic, belligerent regimes and their athletes are still welcome on the world stage with open arms, along with their countries' banners.  Sure, express your displeasure with the war over there but let's cut it with the double standards, okay?

Gator Football Saturday Performance Not to Many's Liking

Well, after the University of Florida football team convincingly bowed down to Miami in their Gainesville game yesterday afternoon by a whopping 41-17 score, it's not surprising that clamors are circulating for third-year head coach Billy Napier...who has yet to produce even a winning season, much less contend for any title...to be replaced, and soon.  I predicted this, as well as the same for a substantial number of colleges across the country after their teams lost their opening games.  But for the Gators, people have come to expect elite teams each year, and what they saw on Saturday was anything but that.  I think it's reasonable to have moderately successful seasons, going say 8-4 or 9-3 and getting a nice bowl bid at the end.  But that doesn't line up with the viciously competitive and professional turn the sport of collegiate football has reached.  For too many, if you don't win it all then you're a failure: lighten up, folks.  Still, I don't think Napier has a grasp on his own team, which played very sloppily...