Baseball, Early Rising, Reading, Media Junkie, Gratitude, Exercise

 Yesterday evening I enjoyed watching the MLB premium channel for the regular lineup of contests, minus those being visually blocked for including Florida teams like Tampa Bay and Miami.  It's fun to follow the flow of an inning, with the pitcher scrambling to get in his throws before the timer expires.  My favorite action involves fly balls that compel fielders to chase the dropping ball, sometimes resulting in collisions and comedic falls.  So far I've been impressed with the pitching and general play of the Texas Rangers,  especially with regard to attaining and maintaining middle-and-late inning leads against Baltimore.  Philadelphia provided some late-game excitement against Washington when centerfielder Brandon Marsh bravely chased down and caught a deep fly ball that came close to escaping the ball park...that play ended the game.  Today I'll be checking out the schedule to see what's available. This morning I, too, bravely rose out of bed to run 10 minutes in-place and brew a pot of coffee.  There's still that Shadow Magic novel by Joshua Khan I have as a reading project.  The narrative still seems uninteresting to me...the gloomy Gehenna setting is something that I would like to thoroughly avoid, and I simply cannot relate in any fashion to the characters.  Still, this is a good habit I'm working on. And speaking of the news, I expect our presidential media whore to monopolize TV coverage while he continues his prima Donna life's mission to transform my already-humble existence into a reality TV episode.  Let's just see if I can't stay at home and live a peaceful, grateful life away from the manipulation while watching my eating and hydration.  And making progress with my fitness efforts would be quite fine, too.  So how about sitting placidly outside and/or watching YouTube self-improvement channels... 

Memories of Historic Past Iran Conflict "Color" My View of the Present

 There's nothing like getting up a couple of hours before sunrise and getting started on the day.  Brewing a nice pot of flavored coffee works well with a ten-minute session of running-in-place on the living room rug floor.  My reading and studies seem to be morphing into more passive, visual and mental undertakings, and my little habit changes are becoming more directed toward the more manageable, less supremely ambitious sort.  Today is Monday, March 9.  Were I going to the 9th grade at Nova, I'd get my homework worked and gathered at the dining room table, setting the final morning alarm to give me a reasonable amount of time to clean and dress for school. As it actually is at this moment in time, I can sip my cup d K-cup flavored and brewed coffee and move over to watch a little YouTube TV.  And after a brief bathroom visit I can return to Jim Rohn's stoic personal development podcasts. Then it's back to bed for a while.  I'm getting sick and tired of the war news going on, with Trump trying to constantly insert himself in the press meetings.  

This Iran thing brings to memory when I was first going to college in the mid-to-late 1970s when the two campuses I attended became loaded with Persian overseas students.  To me they seemed to enjoy a promising, privileged existence (although none wanted to talk with me) and the idea that their home country was an autocratic police state that imprisoned and/or tortured dissidents seemed far-fetched...why, the Shah was our buddy, wasn't he? It wouldn't be until the violent rioting in 1978 eventually  kicked Shapour Bakhtiar out and brought in Khomeini for his long brutal, murderous reign.  And then came the hostage crisis.  After Khomeini began to crack down on the nation's socialists, I got a knock on my apartment door from a couple of Iranians who wanted me to sign on with their cause.  What's that, you go to town loudly running down me and my country to the world, and now we're all suddenly friendsy-pindsy because we think we might have a common enemy? In politics, trust is a difficult thing to build and only too easy to destroy...never again, Iran and Russia.  I honestly don't understand how most of our so-called allies can trust us to any degree after our current president's behavior toward them, espcially Ukraine and Denmark with its prized Greenland that Trump wants to add to his personal map of territorial conquests..  Now let's see...I look ahead right now for the next several hours, noting the potential for a a nice wide-open time span devoted to modest personal projects...A little attempt at walking endurance looks like a good option...  

Early Morning, Rohn Podcast

 Another morning early arisen...let's see what this one brings.  I ran in place for 12 minutes after brewing coffee.  Then I listened to a Jim Rohn podcast about the value of tackling things alone.  Now he's talking about designing your own day in the early morning and honestly reviewing it during the evening.  Rohn is a stoic advocate of picking a small number of things to focus on and is pragmatic about it all.  Sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed by all his information...what do I filter out?  Rohn wants me to grow and not regress.  So what do I plan for today?  In the news there's that war...oh, well.  For me I want to continue being intellectually active and commit myself to a reasonable degree of home exercise, with plenty of allowance for rest and recovery.  Should I get in the white Camry and try starting it, carrying my license and some money?  Walk around the block once or the back yard?  I know, let me enjoy the day without getting carried away with eating.  Enjoy life and appreciate it...

56 Miles

 It sadly looks now as if I'm going to be deprived of being able to freely type out my opinions here for future blog articles.  My blogsite has built-in features that deliberately restrict my data entries, often preventing me from using capital letters.  I think back to being at the USPS plant in 1998 with arrogant, dismissive bullying supervisors waiting in ambush to impede my efforts and actively sabotaging me, running me down in the process either around others or behind my back, no matter what I do or say.   And so I will wake up and arise a little later this morning.  I can still study using my coiled notebook...maybe that's where I am going with this narrative.  And fill in today's coming vast time stretch with home exercise while working on keeping an upbeat attitude...

Podcaster's Time Management Strategy

I've written in the past about Rob Dial's Mindset Mentor podcast, and the various topics he's presented regarding personal development.  Sometimes he's on point and sometimes not...and I'm finding more and more that he's repeating the same things that I've heard in the past.  That last thing is something I would have expected and embrace...at least in the areas that resonate with me.  And time management is one of these.  The other day he broke down his strategy of managing a day in his own life with four key points: mastering one's to-do list, mastering one's schedule, employing the Pomodoro Technique of 25 minutes focused work on ONE thing with 5 minutes rest, and then reviewing the day at the end.  I tried it the other day and pleasantly discovered that I was actually getting ahead of my plans, finishing tasks earlier than expected.  Yesterday I didn't do it and...it didn't work out so well.  Everyone's different and I doubt that Rob Dial would even recognize my own interpretation of his suggestions...I always take what he says with a grain of salt: I think he'd like that...

My Updated Cumulative Lifetime Running Race Record

I've updated below my cumulative running race record...you can see that since the last update in April of this year, most of my ventures have been to a single location: Gainesville's pretty Depot Park where, on Saturday mornings, they hold a free 5K race/run/walk called the "Depot Parkrun"...I've covered it 28 times at this writing on December 10th.  I also ran half-marathon, 15K, 10K and 4-mile races during recent weeks.  Races 10K (6.2 miles) or longer I have highlighted in red. If you see a race you'd like to read more about, just click on the listed title to read my same-day blog article.  As for the distance abbreviations, m=miles, K=kilometers, M=marathon and HM=half marathon. And now, on to more running adventures...

PS, I have been updating this article subsequent to today's December 10 date...

3-23-73        2m       11:56      Nova HS at Piper track meet         Piper High School, Ft. Lauderdale

4-10-73         2m       11:35      Broward Country South Division Meet    S. Broward HS, Dania

11-27-74      ~2m      ??            Turkey Trot  (BCC) (1)                  Davie, FL

11-?-75      ~2m      ??            Turkey Trot (BCC) (2)                     Davie, FL

7-?-76      ~5m      ??            -unknown-                                         Hollywood, FL   

10-04-08    5K       25:10      Red Cross                                         University of Florida

10-18-08    5K       24:07      Hope Heels                                       Westside Park

11-01-08    5K       24:28      Dog Days                                            Westside Park
2-14-10     HM    2:17:10     Five Points of Life (1)                      Gainesville
3-27-10     15K    1:23:55    Climb for Cancer                                Haile Plantation
4-24-10      5K        23:05     Run Amuck                                        NFR Office Park
5-22-10      5K        25:00     Somer's Sunshine Run                   Orange Park
6-05-10      5K        23:23     Cpt. Chad Reed Memorial                     Cross City
7-04-10      3m        23:04     Melon Run  (1)                                Westside Park
11-6-10    HM    2:01:41       Tom Walker Memorial (1)              Hawthorne Trail
1-23-11      M       6:04:35    Ocala Marathon                                South of Paddock Mall
11-12-11    HM    1:59:38    Tom Walker Memorial (2)              Hawthorne Trail
1-01-12      HM    1:56:07    De Leon Springs                              De Leon Springs
7-04-12      3m        25:45     Melon Run (2)                                Westside Park
11-22-12   10K       53:10     Turkey Trot (1)                                 Tacachale
1-20-13      HM    1:55:20    Ocala Half-Marathon                    South of Paddock Mall
3-03-13      HM    1:50:53    Orange Blossom                             Tavares
11-09-13    2m     untimed    Gator Gallop                                   University Ave, SW 2nd Ave
2-01-14      5K        25:53     Education for Life                           Westside Park
2-16-14      HM    2:07:36    Five Points of Life (2)                    Gainesville
11-27-14   10K        56:56    Turkey Trot (2)                                Tacachale
12-20-14    HM    2:03:30    Starlight Half-Marathon               Palm Coast
1-31-15     15K    1:18:21       Newnan's Lake (1)                          West of Newnan's Lake
2-15-15     HM     1:58:48    Five Points of Life (3)                    Gainesville
3-14-15     10K        56:24    Run for Haven (1)                           Tioga
12-05-15   6.5m   1:03:52    Lumber Around the Levee           Micanopy
1-30-16     15K    1:31:20    Newnan's Lake (2)                           West of Newnan's Lake
3-12-16     10K       59:00    Run for Haven (2)                           Tioga
5-14-16       5K       28:36    May Day Glow Run (1)                    Tioga

7-4-16         3m      28:22    Melon Run (3)                                  Westside Park

11-24-16    10K    1:01:13    Turkey Trot (3)                                Tacachale

2-26-17     HM    2:24:29    Five Points of Life (4)                    Gainesville

3-11-17      10K        58:45   Run for Haven (3)                           Tioga

5-21-17        5K        33:00   May Day Glow Run (2)                 Tioga

1-27-18       15K    1:38:41    Newnan's Lake (3)                        West of Newnan's Lake

2-18-18    HM      2:19:37    Five Points of Life (5)                   Gainesville

3-17-18        5K        29:17    Chris Lacinak Scholarship           Gainesville

12-8-18      15K     1:37:33    Season of Hope (1)                       Hawthorne Trail

1-5-19          5K        30:00    Depot Parkrun (1)                        Gainesville

2-9-19         5K        30:36    Depot Parkrun (2)                        Gainesville

3-16-19       5K        31:16     Miles for Meridian                        Tioga

4-27-19      10K    1:01:52    Run the Good Race (1)                 NFR Office Park

5-5-19         5K        30:38    May Day Glow Run (3)                Jonesville

11-10-19    HM    2:35:20   Tom Walker Memorial (3)          Hawthorne Trail

11-28-19    10K    1:02:16    Turkey Trot (4)                             Tacachale

12-7-19      15K    1:35:48    Season of Hope (2)                       Hawthorne Trail

4-3-21         5K        32:40    Headwaters (1)                             Gainesville

5-29-21      5K        30:50    Depot Parkrun (3)                        Gainesville

6-12-21       5K        33:06    Depot Parkrun (4)                       Gainesville

12-4-21       5K        33:03    Depot Parkrun (5)                        Gainesville

2-12-22       5K        31:28    Depot Parkrun (6)                        Gainesville

2-20-22     HM   2:33:51     Five Points of Life (6)                  Gainesville

3-19-22      10m  1:48:24    Micanopy Ten-Mile (1)                    Micanopy

3-26-22       5K      30:45     Depot Parkrun (7)                        Gainesville

4-9-22         5K       29:28     Headwaters (2)                            Gainesville

10-15-22     10K   1:04:55    Tom Walker Preview (1)                   Hawthorne Trail

10-22-22    10K   1:03:20    Run the Good Race (2)                Gainesville

11-06-22     HM  3:05:29   Tom Walker Memorial (4)           Hawthorne Trail

11-12-22       5K       31:38   Depot Parkrun (8)                         Gainesville

12-10-22      5K       31:46    Depot Parkrun (9)                        Gainesville

1-1-23           5K       32:59   Depot Parkrun (10)                      Gainesville

1-15-23       HM   2:34:42   FTC Mary Andrews (1)                 Hawthorne Trail (east end)

3-11-23        5K         34:02  Depot Parkrun (11)                      Gainesville

3-25-23       5K         33:19   Depot Parkrun (12)                     Gainesville

4-22-23       5K         32:47  Depot Parkrun (13)                      Gainesville

4-29-23       5K        33:34   Depot Parkrun (14)                      Gainesville 

5-6-23         5K        33:08   Depot Parkrun (15)                      Gainesville

5-20-23       5K        31:46    Depot Parkrun (16)                     Gainesville

5-27-23       5K        45:14    Depot Parkrun (17)  (speed-walk)  Gainesville

6-3-23         5K        31:22    Depot Parkrun (18)                     Gainesville

6-10-23       5K       33:38    Depot Parkrun (19)                      Gainesville

8-19-23       5K       32:52    Depot Parkrun (20)                     Gainesville

8-26-23      5K       31:29     Depot Parkrun (21)                      Gainesville

9-9-23        4m      41:59     Is It Fall 4-Miler                            Squirrel Ridge Park, G'ville

9-16-23      5K       32:17      Depot Parkrun (22)                     Gainesville

9 -23-23     5K      30:23     Depot Parkrun (23)                      Gainesville

10-14-23    10K    1:04:51  Tom Walker Preview (2)               Hawthorne Trail

10-21-23    5K       30:19     Depot Parkrun (24)                      Gainesville

10-28-23    5K      30:38     Depot Parkrun (25)                      GaineGainesvillesville

11-4-23       5K      30:14     Depot Parkrun (26)                      Gainesville

11-12-23     HM  2:18:06    Tom Walker Memorial (5)          Hawthorne Trail

11-25-23     5K      29:47     Depot Parkrun (27)                      Gainesville

12-2-23       5K      30:39     Depot Parkrun (28)                     Gainesville    

12-9-23      15K   1:33:02    Season of Hope (3)                       Hawthorne Trail

12-16-23     5K      28:57     Depot Parkrun (29)                      Gainesville

12-23-23    5K       42:20    Depot Parkrun (30) (speed-walk)  Gainesville

1-1-24         5K       27:38    Depot Parkrun (31)                      Gainesville

1-13-24       5K    1:00:40   Depot Parkrun (32) (with Melissa) Gainesville

1-14-24      HM  2:07:40   FTC Mary Andrews (2)                Hawthorne Trail (east end)

1-20-24     5K        57:26    Depot Parkrun (33)  (with Melissa) Gainesville

2-3-24       5K     1:10:25    Depot Parkrun (34) (volunteer walker) Gainesville

2-10-24    10m   1:39:18    Micanopy Ten-Mile (2)               Micanopy

2-24-24     5K        27:36    Depot Parkrun (35)                      Gainesville

3-16-24     5K        28:19    Depot Parkrun (36)                      Gainesville

3-30--24   5K        28:18    Depot Parkrun (37)                      Gainesville

4-13-24     5K        28:47    Depot Parkrun (38)                     Gainesville

4-20-24    5K        39:43    Depot Parkrun (39) (speed-walk)  Gainesville

4-27-24    5K        27:10     Depot Parkrun (40)                     Gainesville

5-4-24       5K       28:19     Depot Parkrun (41)                     Gainesville

5-11-24    5K        29:11      Depot Parkrun (42)                     Gainesville

*******************

As for the standard-distance races from 2008 through the present, here are listed my total races finished for each distance along with my personal best time for them...

                         # of Finishes   Personal Best

5K                         56                 23:05  (4/24/10)

10K                       11                  53:10   (11/22/12)

15K                         7               1:18:21  (1/31/15)

10 Miles                2               1:39:18  (2/10/24)

Half-Marathon  17               1:50:53  (3/3/13)

Marathon             1                6:04:35  (1/23/11)

Need Patience at Start of New Projects (or Resumption of Old Ones)

After my operation last July, in which my sternum was cut apart to allow the surgeon access to my heart, I had a necessarily slow recovery to allow for the rib cage to fuse back together. Physical therapy for my lower body could proceed sooner while my upper body was healing. I was walking the day after surgery and a month later began light running in place. I was assigned certain body stretches to perform with my legs while waiting for the sternum restriction protocol to be lifted, afterwards allowing me once again to stretch my arms and upper body...that last stage didn't begin until September.  Being a runner, I was interested in seeing what my prospects in this area were...my surgeon, a runner himself, had given me every indication that once I had recovered from the surgery to repair my aortic aneurism and replace a congenitally defective heart valve, I would be able to resume this activity. The block I live on is relatively long...seven tenths of a mile, but short from a distance runner's perspective. In my weeks of recovery I would regularly attempt to run the whole lap around the block but would rarely make it to the halfway point before needing to stop and walk.  It wasn't until three months after surgery that I was able to run the complete circuit nonstop...and from that point my progress drastically improved.  I ran a 5K race in December and two months ago, a half-marathon followed by a ten-mile race in March. This article seems to be all about running but it can apply to anything I'm undertaking, either for the first time or after a period of interruption or decline.  It may seem at first to take forever to make any progress, and the temptation will be to throw in the towel and give up. That's why the standards at this stage have to be easier and gradual.  Getting started and not giving up are instrumental here...I need to cut myself a little slack when it comes to starting something new that I really want to accomplish. I'm embarking on an ambitious new intellectual project that eventually stands to dwarf my running, but right now I'm taking those slow and easy steps...

Exploring, Experimenting, and Microchanging as Life-Enhancement Strategies

Just going by the mass popularity of self-improvement and motivational literature and programs out there, I'm pretty confident that a lot of us want to do what we can to make our own lives more productive, healthy and fulfilling.  Regardless of my genetic or environmental background, ultimately it's the choices I make that determine the quality of my existence...or at least that's what my own experience has taught me.  And I'm not just talking about momentous, life-changing decisions but also the myriad small choices I make during the course of a day.  As a matter of fact, if done with the oversight of one's better nature without any intention of hurting others or violating ethical standards, the composite effect of many things done a little differently can have an enormous effect on how I enjoy my life.  And regarding those little things, I'm thinking...myself at least...of three strategies: exploring, experimenting, and "microchanging"...

When your daily life is as regular and governed by routine as mine, exploring can be as simple as going down a different street or hallway...or taking a brief moment to look around at the surroundings in greater depth.  Experimenting is doing things a little differently to see the effects, pro and con...say, taking my meals at different times and spacing them differently, for example.  Microchanging, a term that I coined myself, involves taking each day (or cyclic period) and doing a new specific, constructive activity on a small scale ...and then continue onward with that change.  When the next day (or specified time period) arrives I continue to incorporate all the earlier "micro" changes while beginning a new one...creating in the end a mountain of positive change.  I'm doing this starting now...should be a lot of fun, and probably awfully challenging as well...

Quote of the Week...from Thurgood Marshall

Each of you, as an individual, must pick your own goals.  Listen to others, but do not become a blind follower.                                                         ---Thurgood Marshall

I don't know where the above quote came from, but it sounds like a school's commencement speech, doesn't it?  Thurgood Marshall, a champion for civil rights in the twentieth century, is best known for his tenure as a U.S. Supreme Court justice from 1967 to 1991 as well as the attorney successfully arguing for the plaintiff in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case that the same court ruled to outlaw segregation and overturn the earlier 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson "separate but equal" ruling.  But before that 1954 case Marshall repeatedly risked life and limb in the segregated Jim Crow south defending blacks against unjust charges, having to contend with lynchings, white-instigated race riots, police mistreatment of prisoners, and a general atmosphere of hostility toward his presence there as a black northern lawyer...of course he had to abide by the discriminatory segregation rules as he went about his business there as well.  I'm learning all this as I am currently reading Gilbert King's excellent historical account of a 1949 central Florida case he was involved in, titled The Devil in the Grove...very, very disturbing.  As for Marshall's quote, I picked it because it is so universal in application.  I'm afraid that more and more people these days are wasting their God-given ability to think for themselves and instead place all their beliefs in the hands of media gurus, celebrities, and politicians who seem to have a queer hold on them.  Also, in deciding how to behave during this pandemic I'm afraid that too many of us are like animals in a herd, knowing the right, publicly responsible thing to do but holding off on doing it for fear of rejection by the rest of the "herd" we interact with...in particular the alpha dog leaders who often espouse questionable tenets.  For me, no longer concerned about herds or alpha dogs, Marshall's quote had a deeper meaning to me.  I will be turning 64 in less than two months, and when it comes around to forming goals...especially those requiring a substantial investment of my time...this more advanced age may imply to some that my doors are closed in some areas.  But I'm not a blind follower of other peoples' dictates or views and instead hold to the notion that no matter where I am in this journey called life, I have the present moment to make my choices in...what the future holds for anyone is always going to be a mystery...

My April 2019 Running Report

April continued with more of the kinds of positive running experiences I experienced in  March: I ran a total of 126 miles for the month, my longest single run being for 10 miles...and I missed one day of running.  Last Saturday morning I ran in a new race for me, the Run the Good Race 5K/10K held in town at the North Florida Regional office park...I ran the 10K event.  I believe I have the energy and fitness level to begin to regularly tackle longer distance training runs...I'd like to get back up to daily 6-mile+ runs with occasional peak runs of around 10-13 miles, running through my own designed courses I used to extensively train on in years gone by.  No, I don't plan to run a 26.2-mile marathon, but I do think that I am suited for about half that distance...I've run 11 half-marathon races since 2010 and don't see any reason to stop.  But for the next few months, the only races I'll run will be the 5K variety.  For example, next Saturday evening on May 4th at the town of Tioga west of Gainesville on Newberry Road they'll hold their annual May Day Glow Run 5K, which I've run before...I plan to enter it again.  And each Saturday morning at 7:30 there is the free Depot Parkrun 5K, held at that city park off Main Street and Depot Road.  I would like to get my 5K time back down to a more respectable level, and this race gives me the chance to do something more sociable with my running through the hot summer months.  But first let's see what May has in store for me...

My February 2017 Running Report

In February this year my running mileage increased substantially from the previous month, greatly helped out by the unintended 14.2-mile run I managed to swing during this past Sunday morning's Five Points of Life Half-Marathon...read that day's article for details. By the way, my official finishing time in that race was better than I had anticipated, at 2:24:39...you can see the complete race results (I ran in the men's age 60-64 category) through the following link: [link]...

So after two years, I finally got around to finishing another half-marathon, although it was fraught with numerous obstacles.  But the main thing is that I ran it and completed it...whew, glad that's over!  Now I can get back to a reasonable running regimen.  But wait, there's that local Run for Haven 10K race coming up in a couple of weeks that I've run the last couple of years in Tioga, a few miles west of Gainesville.  Who knows, maybe I'll do better in it this time around: I think this race is starting to become an annual habit for me, in spite of it being held late in the afternoon when temperatures are the hottest...

Anyway, as I was saying, my total running mileage for this past month increased substantially over January's total, reaching 123 miles, with the upsurge credited to that recent half-marathon plus my gradual recovery from the upper-respiratory viral infection I suffered last month...with an annoying, lingering sensitive throat prone to coughing.  I somehow unwittingly managed to run on every day of February, and of course my longest run was for that strange 14.2-mile jaunt on race day...

I'm feeling a bit on the optimistic side about my future running prospects, but I need to train intelligently and have some ambitious but realistic goals set in front of me to pursue.  The weather, already very warm for this winter season, is only going to heat up in the next few weeks and I need to take that into account when I go out to run distance on a regular basis.  Then again, there's always a treadmill waiting 24/7 for me at the gym...and mixing up the routine with walking and bicycling (plus a little swimming) may be the way to go for the future... 

The Elusive Memories of One's Life

The other day my sister Anita...who lives in what might be the last remaining rational part of Texas...was on the phone with me.  Anita is someone that I can never get tired of talking with...she always has interesting things to say and very enthusiastically wants to know about what I'm thinking and doing.  We were going over the topic of each of our personal recollections about our childhoods and wondered why it seemed to be that the old, old memories were easier to conjure up than things that happened in more recent times.  I volunteered my own opinion of why this might be so: when you are young, your responsibilities in the world are relatively few and, when you are in different settings, you have more freedom to look around and observe without the need to focus your attention on just those things that you would need to act upon.  As you grow older, you learn to filter out those things in your experiences that don't bear on your priorities.  And that includes not just ignoring the decorations in a grocery store, the cloud formations above, or the furnishings in an office, but also memories of whole periods of time that don't seem to have any relevance to your current life. But I believe that all of the memories are there in our minds, even if it has been decades since we have thought of them.  The trick is how to tease them out...

For my own purposes, I classify memories into one of two groups: trends and special events. These seem...although I'm no expert in neurology...to come from different types of thinking.  With trends, you can sometimes patch together a sense of what regular life was like in different periods, noting where you lived, who you were with, where you worked or went to school or elsewhere or stayed at home, how you dressed, what TV shows you watched, what songs you liked, how you ate, dressed, and so on.  But special events are a different type of memory...maybe it would be better to call them "punctuated events" because sometimes these memories are not of anything particularly special but have for some reason endured through the years nevertheless.  Like me looking, outside in my front yard in the year 1962, at a Detroit Tigers player's baseball card and marveling at how they wrote the capital letter "D".  Or standing out on the front porch, when I was about two years old, and being told that we weren't allowed to play on the swing set far over (to the left)...the one nearby sadly had no swings.  Or my father, around that time, giving demonstrations to the neighborhood of his ability to stand on his head, performing the feat to an informal crowd outside on the lawn.  "First time" memories can be of this group: I become an avid reader of Mad Magazine in the mid-1960s (a "trend" memory), so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I can recall where I first saw this publication, a couple of years before in a news/magazine shop next to a 7/11 store off Taft Street in West Hollywood (a "special event" memory).  And of course, whenever a major news event happens, like the assassination of John Kennedy or 9/11, most everyone remembers in great detail what they were doing at the time...

There are different ways to draw out memories, listening to music being one that works well for me.  Starting in late 1963 just before the Beatles exploded in popularity here and continuing more or less to the present day, I have unconsciously associated different songs I've heard with concurrent events going on my life.  With Gale Garnett's 1964 Sing in the Sunshine, I'm sitting on the back porch with my mother and Anita.  Whenever I hear Ticket to Ride, a 1965 hit from the Beatles, I think of my father taping it on his giant primitive tape recorder and endlessly playing it back.  Somebody had a radio once during one of my high school track team's practices in April 1973 and Stealer's Wheel's Stuck in the Middle With You just happened to be on.  Steve Windwood's Higher Love (a hit at the time) and the Carpenters' We've Only Just Begun (played at the ceremony) remind me of my September, 1986 wedding with Melissa. At Valdosta, Georgia's Wild Adventures theme park in early 2002 I heard, from a loudspeaker, Madonna's song Music while my son and daughter began their slow climb at the start of the Cheetah wooden roller coaster ride...it would be the last time I was too "chicken" to ride it.  And on and on it goes, with hundreds of songs eliciting different memories...

I already probably have too many personal projects going on right now, so starting a new one may not make much sense.  Still, I think devoting a little time regularly to remember my own past would be fruitful in the long run.  Call it a "personal memory project"...
 

Explosive Growth of Internet Information and Educational Resources

It seems that I am constantly in a state of "catch-up" when it comes to the Internet and the explosion of innovations in this exciting digital age of ours.  Being someone who likes history, languages, and reading, the amount of material now available over the World Wide Web is astounding, to say the least.  If you want to know what land Florida's counties covered in 1845, 1855, 1902, or later...all you have to do is perform a search and presto, there they are...I was surprised to see a sizeable town called Newnansville, where Gainesville would have been, on the 1845 map that also showed Alachua County extending to cover much of the Gulf of Mexico coastline.  You can now learn just about anything on YouTube...all that is needed is your time and attention. Just pick any college course and somebody's probably teaching it somewhere on this site.  There is so much language learning material available now on the Internet that it is mind-boggling.  And then you can translate anything you see on your screen into just about any language you want.  Amazing!  And what about the Wiki network that provides so much information and direction on just about any subject conceivable?  Today I accidentally stumbled upon one such site: Wikisources...

Wikisources offers a staggering amount of public domain literature, free of charge.  I like the fiction, but there are also works about science, history, law, religion, philosophy...just check out their categories for yourself!  And what's even cooler is that they has a mobile app called "Wikisurf" that enables me to read any of this material on my cell phone!

Maybe you're chuckling to yourself as I reveal all of these revelations that you might well have known about for some time...I wouldn't be at all surprised, being a bit behind the times in this area.  With this revolution of instant availability of information and educational resources, I'm going to have to sit back and consider revising my personal goals as I take into account the ever-expanding possibilities for growth in so many different areas...

A List of My Running Races, 2008-16

Back in 1972-75 I considered myself a runner and made a decision to focus on running long-distance.  Compared to others, I wasn't as fast and quickly made peace with myself about that reality.  Instead, I took the sport on its own terms and made it personal, with me training to tackle the distances required with the perseverance and effort to reach them.  I was in my late teens at the time...by the time I had turned 20 I had lost interest in running.  Other than running up the nine flights of stairs to my dorm room at the University of Florida in 1977-78 and a three-month attempt at running in early 1998, I had essentially abandoned it for a span of more than 30 years...until I resumed it in 2007 after I had turned 50.  By the fall of 2008 I had rebuilt my endurance to the point where I felt I could run in a local 5K race.  Since that first event, all the way to my last a few days ago, I have treated the races I've run, 29 in all, mainly as training runs...albeit in a public, social context.  As for my running as a whole, it has always been primarily a solitary activity...and I plan to keep it that way.  Anyway, as much for my own purposes as for you, the reader, I decided to go back and list these 29 races, in chronological order.  For each race I ran, I have listed the date, distance, finishing time, event name, and location (site is listed if held in Gainesville). I have included the abbreviations HM for half-marathon, M for marathon, and m for miles...and of course K stands for kilometers...

Well, here goes...

10-04-08    5K       25:10      Red Cross 5K              University of Florida
10-18-08    5K       24:07      Hope Heels 5K            Westside Park
11-01-08    5K       24:28      Dog Days 5K               Westside Park
2-14-10     HM    2:17:10     Five Points of Life       Gainesville
3-27-10     15K    1:23:55    Climb for Cancer         Haile Plantation
4-24-10      5K        23:05     Run Amuck                  NFR Office Park
5-22-10      5K        25:00     Somer's Sunshine Run  Orange Park
6-05-10      5K        23:23     Cpt. Chad Reed Mem.   Cross City
7-04-10      3m        23:04     Melon Run                    Westside Park
11-16-10    HM    2:01:41    Tom Walker Memorial  Hawthorne Trail
1-23-11      M       6:04:35    Ocala Marathon             South of Paddock Mall
11-12-11    HM    1:59:38    Tom Walker Memorial  Hawthorne Trail
1-01-12      HM    1:56:07    De Leon Springs HM     De Leon Springs
7-04-12      3m        25:45     Melon Run                     Westside Park
11-22-12   10K       53:10     Turkey Trot                    Tacachale
1-20-13      HM    1:55:20    Ocala Half-Marathon     South of Paddock Mall
3-03-13      HM    1:50:53    Orange Blossom             Tavares
11-09-13    2m     untimed    Gator Gallop                   University Ave, SW 2nd Ave
2-01-14      5K        25:53     Education for Life          Westside Park
2-16-14      HM    2:07:36    Five Points of Life          Gainesville
11-27-14   10K        56:56    Turkey Trot                    Tacachale
12-12-14    HM    2:03:30    Starlight Half-Marathon  Palm Coast
1-31-15     15K    1:18:21    Newnan's Lake 15K        West of Newnan's Lake
2-15-15     HM     1:58:48    Five Points of Life          Gainesville
3-14-15     10K        56:24    Run for Haven                Tioga
12-05-15   6.5m   1:03:52    Lumber Around the Levee   Micanopy
1-30-16     15K    1:31:20    Newnan's Lake 15K        West of Newnan's Lake
3-12-16     10K       59:00    Run for Haven 10K         Tioga
5-14-16       5K       28:36    May Day Glow Run        Tioga

Sports and Studying Foreign Languages

It doesn't seem entirely appropriate somehow, lumping these two topics together in an article.  For me, I happen to like both.  With sports, I like to run, sometimes competitively, but with anything else I'm content with being a spectator (mainly of the couch-potato-in-front-of-the-TV type), with my preferred sports being soccer, baseball, basketball, and football.  As for studying foreign languages, I am no gifted polyglot but instead am very interested in them, having studied several to varying degrees over the course of my adult lifetime, up to the present.  As for how society regards these pursuits of mine, I find it interesting how differently they are treated...

With sports, one can be interested in many of them without actually participating in any of them.  I can go anywhere and strike up conversations about what's going on in the current sport of interest, and being able to remember statistics and other facts only contributes to the discussions in a positive way.  In fact, sports analysis can get to be quite abstract, if you check out the "standings" tables in your local newspaper and see the arrays of columns of numbers next to each team or athlete.  That's quite a departure from actually being out on the field, court, rink, or track and actually participating in the sport yourself.  With the study of foreign languages, on the other hand, my experience has revealed a different attitude on the part of others...

I don't have to be considered as an athlete myself in order to enjoy some kind of social acceptance in the context of being knowledgeable or interesting about sports.  Yet with foreign languages, if the topic comes up with others, no matter what aspects of a particular language I'm talking about, the person I'm trying to communicate with almost inevitably personalizes the conversation by trying to elicit my fluency level and what am I going to do with my study of said language.  Once, when discussing an aspect of Polish grammar with a fellow student in a Polish class, he refused to listen to me because that wasn't how HE learned languages (so why was he in that class, I should have asked).  That was a negative interaction, but almost the entire rest of the time, people express disinterest in the more passive, impersonal analysis, acceptable with sports, whenever foreign languages come up for discussion.  Instead, it gets real, real personal...and I don't like it.  When I'm sitting there studying Vietnamese like I was once in a nearby Starbucks (where I also happen to be writing this article right now) and an acquaintance entering the store notices what I'm doing, I don't want the cop-out question "What are you going to do with it?", which is what I got at that time.  Instead, why not ask, "Gee, what's Vietnamese like?".  Now that would be a "sports"-like question inviting me to share my not-inconsiderable (but still very incomplete) knowledge about that language. And along the way in that "better" conversation, I would most likely slip in some personal information, such as that I used to work in a local Chinese restaurant that had several freshly-arrived Vietnamese immigrants whom I befriended and with whom we practiced speaking each other's native language...and I didn't want what I learned back then to slip away. I admit that most folks don't want to discuss languages on a more analytic level for the same reason they wouldn't want to talk about mathematical topics: they don't want to be shown to be ignorant in the area (and people, especially in this university town, are so, so excessively prideful about their levels of educational attainment).  With sports talk, that doesn't seem to be a problem, though...

So if you see me studying a foreign language somewhere, you're welcome to interrupt my train of thought and ask the boneheaded, implicitly accusatory question, "So what are you going to do with it?", if that soothes your pride somehow.  But instead, why not put me "off" the spot and ask me to describe the language I'm studying?  Who knows, you'll probably end up finding out what I'm going to "do with it" anyhow, plus you might then actually learn something...as well as maybe, just maybe, find a new area in your life that piques your interest...