Hagrid and the Harry Potter Books and Movies

 Robbie Coltrane, who passed away in October, 2022 from multiple organ failure, was the actor playing the role of Hagrid the Groundskeeper at Hogwarts Academy, where series protagonist Harry Potter atttended throughout its seven-year imaginary run.  Hagrid was known to own a three-headed sleepy guard dog he called Fluffy, which by nature was benevolent but terrified Harry and his pals by his ferociousness when aroused from sleep. In the first book titled Sorcerer's Stone, Hagrid would let on to Harry that he was on 'secret business but would carelessly keep giving away his secrets to young Potter-eventually the kids would figure everything out without the groundskeeper's accidental assistance.  That book bothered me, especially with its so-called "explanatory" ending that only confused me...The Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book, likewise made little sense regarding its premise.  I mean, what really was at stake with this white globe of a prophecy that pronounced death on either Potter or Voldemort?  Anyway, I appreciated J.K, Rowling's great writing in all seven volumes.  I read the first four books in this series by regularly stopping off at Books-s Million before work, purchasing a large flavored coffee, and sitting there reading several pages at a time.  Book Three, The Prisoner of Azkaban,, and the next one, The Goblet of Fire, were loaded with interesting material that the movie versions skipped over.  When i look at the daily listed television schedule, i look for Harry Potter movies.  In spite of what all they left out, to me they were well-acted and directed cinematic masterpieces.My favorite characters?  Draco Malfoy, Professor Lupin and Horace Slughorn. And Emma Watson did a wondrous job portraying Hermione Granger on the screen. But it was that time travel sequence near the close of Prisoner that won over the movie series for me. they're showing it again on Pluto channel this afternoon starting at four...

Comparing Jim Rohn's Legacy to Tony Robbins This Early Morning

 Back in the late1990s, while working at the Gainesville, Florida USPS mail processing plant on SW 34th Street, I discovered that I could listen to Anthony Robbins' personal development tapes.  His big attraction at the time was how to achieve personal power.  Although I never fell for his live seminar gimmicks like the stunts where everyone walked over the hot coals, I did appreciate some of Robbins' pointers that resembled stoicism when it came to approaching some of life's sticking points, like "I always act until I succeed" or "the meaning of a communication is the response I get".  I memorized and adopted them because they made good sense to me.  Even in future projects Tony Robbins seemed to project a strong, positive aura about himself that I found very appealing.  He's still around, voice a bit scratchy and rough but with the same "can-do"personality.  A few days ago I discovered on YouTube the late personal development coach JIm Rohn's collection of podcasts.  Most of them are pretty direct and sometimes confrontational, demanding a response from the listener and indicating a "it's my way or the highway perspective from Rohn". Rohn, born in 1930, passed away from pulmonary fibrosis in 2009.  His business and professional life much resembled that of Am-Way's Bubba Pratt in that they escaped the common day-to-day workplace existence I followed at the post office to make their fortunes largely from sales and seminars.  Not that I'm complaining, since I'm grateful for the benefits and wages I received from there...including the opportunity for excellent health care and retirement accounts.  today I awoke a little before four, resisting the temptation to return to bed to continue A.C.-comforted sleep (something I'm considering returning to a little later this morning). 24 hours from now I'll be in a position to get ready to go with Melissa to Depot Park to participate in a new Parkrun 5K...it would be the second complete event I've done in 2026.  Today marks my late sister-in-law Krista's birthday...she would be turning 63 today.  Even in the middle of her medical ordeals, she was very positive and encouraging.  Well, Mr. Rohn has inspired me to keep tuned to his messages, which I think have a good amount of value to them.  I like stoic wisdom, and sometimes just getting out there and refusing to succumb to comfort is a healthful undertaking.  Now let's see if I can't make some more real progress today getting through that horrid Khan book. I did do some eight minutes of running in place already...

Up Early, Am-Way Presentation, Medical Visit, Later Plans

 Jane came to be one of my sweetheart wife Melissa's good friends in the 1990s.  She always had a sweet and gentle disposition.  One morning Jane invited me to attend a "recruitment" meeting regarding a multi-level marketing project called Am-Way, to which I complied and was shocked by its aggressive nature.  Turns out  that, starting out, I would be on the bottom, under other Am-Way members.  Over time my sales and recruitment efforts would pay off in my gradual elevation and enrichment, and my wealth and reknown had the potential of becoming possibly legendary, like that of "the" Bubba Pratt, the company's star multi-millionaire.  The not-so-subtle dig at those who choose not to engage with Am-Way is that they are hum-drum losers who are missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime...why, I could be off somewhere ice-fishing with my big-shot mentor instead of working shifts on the clock!  Ron, one of my former USPS co-workers who was eventually fired for insubordination, used to even insult me and colleague Rick about our so-called dead-end jobs.  I always believed that being a postal service clerk was an honorable undertaking, and over the years appreciated the respect and esteeem directed my way for consistently showing up and properly performing my duties.   Melissa and I both demurred on Jane's offer, but God blessed our humble little lives just the same...we still enjoyed that trip to Dahlonega, Georgia.  I never was very materialistic about wanting "stuff", and for me spending money was something I felt some caution about avoiding building up too much financial debt. Now it's nearly 3:30 on Wednesday morning, and I have an 11:00 appointment to see my prostate cancer oncologist at UF Health Davis Cancer Pavilion. After brewing some coffee I ran in place for 8 minutes and see myself extending that "run" a while longer.  Well, I still have that horrid Joshua Khan Shadow Magic book and want to read a little bit further into it before I lay it down in disgust.  Protagonist boy Thorn is always fighting and offending people, and the narrative never seems to have any "down" moments for folks to just get together and talk things out.  Let's see, I think I'll post today's article, shut down the computer, and head on back.  Good morning, all...   

Heated Up Back Yard Offers Walking Training Opportunity

 Now I'm in the middle of mid-afternoon.  Had I still been working for USPS, I'd be returning from my first break to receive registered mail from the first trucks.  But I am retired since November 2024, so none of that figures into my life now.  I just put some flavored decaf coffee to brew, and will soon venture into the backyard...with our rowdy, excitable muttbutt Daisy...to try a couple of slow, timed walking laps.  Speed does not matter here...I'm just dealing with the uncomfortable resistance factors involved in the workout.  Eventually I should be making some fitness progress, but for now it's all a matter of discipline, doing the little things that place me squarely in the discomfort zone as I navigate the weeds and uneven yard surfaces.  My goal for the next few minutes...they're forecasting record high temperatures for this date in Gainesville...is  to complete the two inner-perimeter laps and record the time spent doing them. Well, here goes, wish me luck!  Report: Daisy, in the back of the house with Melissa, didn't show up when I went outside and I did the entire 4 laps in 4:15, unpleasant but it worked for me.  A nice, continuing training session for today!  Now for a bathroom break and rest with some decaf. The local news is set to start soon...usually they start out with the negative stories of people behaving badly.  This is a different kind of blog article in that I often feel a bit spent by this time in the grinding day.  Who knows, I might even read some more of that obnoxious novel that seems to be going nowhere, with no redeeming characters and constant conflict...  

New Day Beckons New Direction

 Here we are again, at the start of a new calendar day. It is nearly five, and back in 2/71 I would again be waking and rising before sunrise to get a head start on things.  I just brewed a pot of nice-flavored coffee, sitting here to write this.  I have some ipf running to do.  Anita and family are to begin their long drive here from Austin, planned arrival some time late Friday...looking forward to seeing her.  I'm holding back on my invective against certain media figures...maybe I'll give them a chance to be more reasonable.  Were this 1998 att the post office, we'd right now be finishing up our incoming Gainesville scheme mail.  Since I'm not planning on going anywhere today, let's just see what the day brings without fanfare...

Keep Quiet, and They Come After You

My lament: 

In the first Godfather movie, Don Vito Corleone refuses to enter the narcotics trade, staying quiet and put.  This only invites his enemy Virgil Solozzo to attempt assassination and start a gangland war.  In the same way I wonder whether calmly going about my postal duties on the job (back in 1998) wouldn't have welcomed harassment and bullying from the folks finding themselves with some floor supervisory authority over me at the time.  I refer here to Henry Lang., Art Green's Lorraine, Menal, Jose and the two Lisas. If I were Tom Petty or Bob Dylan I might add a few pointed lyrics for their great Jammin' Me song. Glad to be finally done with the lot of these bullies: completely useless people on every level  Oh, and near the end there was also Willy, a young, ignorant hyper-macho boo-butt bent on crushing people with his alpha-male persona and cutting, combative tongue.  Bye-bye, creepos.  Nothing wrong with me being reasonable and a good worker, but sometimes a little bluntness and confrontation can work well. Later today I have scheduled an infusion chemotherapy treatment at the Cancer Pavilion...I've reacted well so far to chemo in the past.  No ninth grade nonsense and discouragement today, and I've already done about 3 minutes of home exercise. Looks like the bigshots in state and nat'l government are at it again, trying to roll back my already-confirmed citizenship and voting status.  Leave me the eff alone, fascist jerks...

Now that that's off my chest, I'd like to shift a little into gratitude mode.  Those folks were probably, in their own minds, just doing their best and maybe to them I wasn't quite measuring up to their expectations.  Today I had a chemotherapy infusion session at the UF Health Davis Pavilion.  The techs seemed at first unable to find a stick in my arm or hand to draw the needed lab blood, but later all went well.  I'm tired after a long day and would like to rest under pleasant temperatures at home in this warmer than seasonable weather.  Tomorrow's hump day Wednesday.  I've concluded already that the Smiths' How Soon is Now is my Song of the month for February and for the year 2026 as well.  It's a profound anthem on asserting myself in the face of my shyness and deep feeling of social alienation: the ultimate Goth/melancholy song!  Go Morrissey, you hit it out of the park.  As for Bad Bunny, sorry but he just comes across to me more like a gangland hoodlum street pimp than a true musical artist with that phony woke demeanor of his.  Maybe someday one of these folks will produce something musically memorable...but maybe not.  As for Super Bowl halftime shows, though, that does it for me.  A close runner-up to How Soon is Now is Zebra's chilling Who's Behind the Door, with Tom Petty's 1987 Jammin' Me Right Behind in third with its relevant, funny and pointed lyrics.  What a rocker... Running-in-place (IPF) updated counter after today: 22 minutes...

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...

Retirement Fine, Encountering and Meeting Challenges

A friend today asked me what I thought about retirement so far, and my answer was quick and unequivocal: I've yet to wish I hadn't retired. Not one instant.  Now suppose circumstances had dictated me having continued on with my postal job, the specific assignment of which focused on receiving, processing and dispatching registered mail that came in from area offices in the afternoon and early evening.  I performed that assignment from January 2019 through November 2024...nearly six years.  In the middle of it all COVID happened, as well as my open heart surgery.  Melissa and I both came down with COVID in July 2023...it wiped out my summer vacation but we both recovered well from it. My son Will tragically passed away in July 2024, and Melissa experienced the trauma associated with breast cancer while receiving excellent medical care. The month following my retirement, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and events were set into motion leading to my March prostatectomy this year.  I have yet to physically feel the direct effects of illness, although my medical treatment...the surgeries in particular...hampered my activity and forced me through some brief seasons of pain.  I'm still getting cancer treatment, so it's a matter of me showing up for each day in a positive, constructive way to engage in exercise and keep my mind active.  Since my country collectively decided last November at the polls to go full-bore fascist and idolize a 34-count convicted felon, I had found myself exposed to the abuse associated with abusive national leadership...and that abuse is continuing.  I have decided, though, to avoid acknowledging its significance in my life and have been cleaning up my social media accounts from sites and posts that only aggravate the situation, instead stressing areas that are more conducive to my mental and physical well-being. I have already vowed to myself not to allow drama and manipulation to govern my daily existence, instead creating my own structure of personal discipline that keeps me strong with a positive outlook. I'm hoping that you're faring well in your own life, and that you don't see yourself as just a passive victim of circumstances but rather have a great deal of responsible control over how your own day goes.  And I mean each and every day...         

62nd and 23rd

I'm sitting here in that same old Dunkin' store facing the same scene I showed in a recent article.  There's a street sign right there ahead on the corner: NW 23rd ST on top facing in one direction and NW 62nd AVE on the bottom facing the other. Cars come and go, but I don't see pedestrians making any use of the provided sidewalks here.  That's a lot different from the Manhattan, NYC streets I see on my YouTube live feeds at night...click HERE to see an earlier video.  On them the cameraman, with seemingly endless endurance, walks a brisk pace for miles upon miles, up and down Midtown Manhattan streets and avenues...it makes me tired leaning back on my couch watching all the fast-walking people, and they, too, seen to possess boundless energy.  But were I there among them, I probably wouldn't be tiring either, no matter how much real estate I covered.  I've been wearing a FitBit watch for a few years, and when I was working (at the post office) the last couple of years I would almost always be in continuous motion, often deliberately walking when I probably could have just stood or sat still.  I would regularly amass more than 20,000 steps in a workday, and then when I got home as often as not I would do some running-in-place before going off to bed. Now that I am retired, am I unconsciously scaling down my physical activity when I don't have to? And if so, is that a good thing?  On today's neighborhood 3.3-mile walk/run, I originally set out to speed-walk the whole loop, but at the 5-minute mark I switched the project to 5 minutes of walking alternating with 5 of easy running...and it worked! Beforehand I had thought that running would be a little too rough, but I discovered that I could get into a nice groove for five minutes knowing that I'd be back walking some.  No problem...this is actually a step up from my earlier plan to institute a 6 minutes walking/4 minutes running routine.  So maybe this 5/5 system can get me through long distance races...the first half-marathon is coming in November.  Then in early December it's a 15K, followed in January by a choice I have between a marathon and half-marathon.  Let's see how far I can take this, in the old "postal worker/ big-city walker" spirit...

Happy Income Tax Deadline Day

April 15, Tax Day, has come and is about to end for 2025.  Having worked for the post office here in Gainesville for 37 years before last year's retirement, I am well acquainted with the extraordinary measures they would take on this day, with SW 34th Street traffic backed up from the main processing plant's entrance as folks would wait to the last minute to file their taxes, and then dump off their returns at night to get them postmarked "in time" before midnight.  Nowadays, of course, we have software to do most of the tedious work and calculations while payments can come electronically out of our bank accounts or refunds likewise deposited into them.  Melissa and I, because of the tragic circumstances in 2024 with our family, had more difficulty than usual with our filing, but we somehow managed to get it all finished with several days to spare.  I remember back in Trump's first term when he was pushing his own vision of tax "reform" through Congress and Ted Cruz opined that filing one's income tax should be simple enough to do on the back of a postcard.  To which I would offer one of my rare "thumbs up" to the junior senator from Texas.  In any event, it's over for another year...

Looking Back after Four Months of Retirement

It's now been four full months since I left my job at the United States Postal Service and began retirement.  Unlike a few of my predecessors, I have never had the slightest urge since then to take up any part-time paid work.  I do not miss in the slightest having to brave the often horrendous daily city traffic as I used to, arrive at my workplace, and then spend hours surrounded by cameras and spy windows trained on the workroom floor (and me) while enduring alpha male supervisors with pecking order complexes.  That said, my main (MDO) supervisor was thoroughly wonderful and I do strongly miss working with her, as well as with the overwhelming majority of rank and file people who have blessed this organization over the years.  As for the actual work I did, I treated it seriously enough to allow myself to get somewhat upset whenever something went wrong on the part of others...which was often enough.  For the most part, I was allowed some autonomy in my work, which I appreciate.  No job I imagine is completely stress-free, and mine was no exception.  Still, I liked the structure of discipline it imposed on my time, although since leaving there I have been replacing it with my own personally fulfilling projects.  Soon after my retirement, a reunion celebration was held at a local Mexican restaurant near my home, but I didn't attend.  I'm glad I didn't, after seeing the posted photos showing who all was there.  Sure, there were many good people, but also a couple of not-so-good as well. Since I retired I have had absolutely no desire to visit the place or know how things are going there.  Absolutely none.  During COVID, I felt that the people running this facility took a dangerously lax approach to the pandemic, and the decision to export our processing to distant Jacksonville only hurt customer service while limiting employee options.  I was also tired of a few clerks over the years obviously being hired on a special fast track into management, given special cushy assignments and the run of the building with little accountability, in contrast to the rest of us who had to wait our turn on a register and often have to wait for years to get a preferred assignment.  But here I am now, on the other side of all that...   

Weekly Short Stories: 1999 Science Fiction, Part 3

This past week I only managed to read one short story in editor Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventeenth Annual Collection, and which features his picks published in the year 1999.  Back then I was working at the Gainesville postal processing facility, sorting out mail on their flat-sorting machine while doing the graveyard shift.  That meant I was awake all night and could listen to late-night talk radio, most notably Art Bell's kooky, quirky Coast-to-Coast AM show that explored the paranormal, UFOs and conspiracy theories, to name a few topic categories.  But back to the Dozois anthology... 

GALACTIC NORTH by Alastair Reynolds

This is a tale of three people, very much in the future when humanity has not only spread out and settled the cosmos but has also mastered biology and medical science to the point that heads can be severed...and preserved, to be later reattached to the body.  Yes, it's pretty scary and gross, but the real horror to this true horror/science fiction story is the unintended consequence of the development of terraforming technology that is unleashed into the wild reaches of space, to develop on its own beyond anyone's control.  A woman is committed to protecting the thousands of "sleepers" on board her ship, but must land it on an asteroid as a ferocious, sadistic pirate seeks her cargo and forces her partner to betray her.  The rest of the story relates her very-long quest for revenge against both of them, and against the backdrop of a nameless doom destroying all known life in the galaxy.  Pretty heady stuff...normally I'd say that stories like this leave me cold, but somehow this time it all clicked together...

Next week: more from 1999...

Quote of the Week...from Fred "Mister" Rogers

Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else.       

---Fred Rogers

Fred Rogers (1928-2003) was perhaps better known as the Mister Rogers of the classic, beloved children's TV series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.  Although the series spanned 31 seasons, I was a little too old to be in its target audience of little children when I began watching it in the early 1970's...yet I was drawn to the sweet spirit and attitude permeating the show, clearly transmitted and demonstrated by its host Fred Rogers.  I was digging around for a quote like the one above because today is my final one at work...I've been at the United States Postal Service for 37 years, all of them at the Gainesville processing plant.  And tomorrow I will be a retiree.  I'm happy to leave, but I'm also happy to have worked there: what a blessing!  And Mister Rogers' above quote speaks volumes with just a few words: it's definitely the beginning of something else in my life with the closing of this other chapter...looking forward to the new adventures!

Quote of the Week...from Pema Chödrön

Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to let another person or event control your emotions.

---Pema Chödrön

Pema Chödrön is an American-born and raised Tibetan Buddhist nun who has written a number of books promoting her beliefs.  Whereas I'm not all that keen on immersing myself in another religion's underlying mythos and dogma, on a more practical level they often can provide some useful insights into living and how to approach it. The notion of "inner peace" isn't just an element of Buddhism, though, and doesn't have to necessarily be tied to organized religion.  The above quote of Pema testifies to this, although if you're stuck...say on the job...in a subordinate position to a bullying and disrespectful supervisor...it may prove to be challenging to implement. Yet I've discovered that I can deflect it all, by refusing to let myself become entangled in conflict, and once free, I am definitely at peace.   Pema's quote is true, but as I mentioned before, implementing it is sometimes difficult...

Decision Made to Retire

I've reached a decision that was inevitable in coming: I am going to retire from the USPS, where in September I had worked continuously for 37 years.  With my advancing age (turned 68 earlier this month) and the stark difference, in these times of family medical issues and tragedy, between staying at home and going off to work, I decided that it just isn't any good anymore going out there day after day for long stretches. I am fortunate and blessed to have had a job I generally enjoyed and allowed me to be myself and keep myself intellectually and physically fit, and I know I'll miss my coworkers once I'm gone.  But the time has come, and I'll be going through the process in the weeks ahead.  I have already sent in my paperwork and notified Human Resources as to my last day at work, which is scheduled to be at the end of November...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 2

Here is my second weekly installment of brief reviews from the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection, featuring the editor's picks of short sci-fi from the year 1997.  During that time I was in my tenth year working for the USPS, and this year happened to be a "kindler and gentler" period in which I was a manual letter clerk, throwing scheme and SCF mail on Tour I...don't worry if you don't know what I'm talking about, most of it is "insider" talk.  Anyway, how about those next stories...

STEAMSHIP SOLDIER ON THE INFORMATION FRONT by Nancy Kress

In this story of how a pervasively digital communications culture takes over a society that thinks itself as "normal", a man whose entire livelihood and relationships are entrenched in being "connected", is concerned about his teenage son, who doesn't seem to have the same inclinations and would rather just sit back and contemplate things.  What young Charlie does know is that his father's information age is about to be transformed into a new one with different priorities. Very applicable to our current times...with our next era hopefully as Charlie has envisioned...

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL by Greg Egan

This is a great example of hard science fiction, where the story itself introduces the reader into a deeper look at real science, with a consequential deeper understanding of how reality works.  A boy has a brain tumor that causes an unchecked release in his brain of a chemical causing happiness...he is constantly ecstatic even with his state of dire peril.  After the successful operation to remove the tumor, that chemical's production is completely suppressed, leaving him in a chronic state of despair.  After years of this, as a young adult he musters up the courage to undergo a new treatment that could restore his happiness. He now must decide what, in his future, he will choose to be happy about...an intriguing question.  If you could so choose, what would you do? 

MOON SIX by Stephen Baxter

An astronaut on the Moon's surface keeps seeing heat shimmers that transport him to alternate realities with alternate Moons...and alternate human histories.  Two threads wind throughout the story. One is the nature of quantum mechanics and its relationship to alternate worlds...and the author's suggestion that a technology using it could backfire in that regard.  And the second is the massive area on the Moon's surface called Mare Imbrium, and the timing of the asteroid/meteor collision that caused it. I've read a lot of alternate reality stories...this one resonated with me, partially because it alluded to the needless suppression of manned space exploration in recent years as well as how space exploration technology has transformed our world...

Next week: more stories discussed from '97...

Quote of the Week...from Sijin BT

Responsibility without authority is slavery.                                       ---Sijin BT

I actually was musing on the above topic and came up with the same result, only with "servitude" replacing slavery.  The opposite is also revealing: authority without responsibility is tyranny...are you prepared to vote such a person into office this November?  But when I consider the first statement, I find that it is the worst element of manipulation for someone...regardless of whether I am at work, doing some volunteering, or in other situations...to assign me a task without allowing any flexibility in executing it while often insisting in exquisite detail all of the specific things they insist on.  When I encounter this kind of micromanagement attitude, I wonder why the other party doesn't do it instead...but of course, it's all about them having dominance and control, isn't it?  Sijin BT is an Indian business trainer, focusing on sports.  That's all I know about him, but he certainly got it right with the above quote...

Not Too Keen on Retiree Reunions

The other day a colleague of mine informed me of a retiree reunion he attended at a local restaurant...it seems that upwards to forty former coworkers were there, and of the names he mentioned most of them I knew to varying degrees, many having been retired from my facility/organization for a number of years.  At first impulse I thought it might have been interesting to see them all and touch base on how they were doing, but then I thought that after those first few moments I'd most likely be itching to get out of there and on my way.  You see, even when I worked with these folks all those years back then...and I mean nothing derogatory or disrespectful about any of them...my inclination was to simply go to work, do my job, and then go home.  Now I wasn't some unfeeling, unthinking robot about my job, and I would practice learning, reading audiobooks and listening to music and talk shows while performing my assignments there...I still do all that when circumstances permit.  I got along with most of my fellow workers and, hopefully, they generally maintain positive thoughts about me as well.  But I am not into people per se, and being in crowds of them just won't do.  So when I eventually retiree, save the invitations: I'm not going, no matter how good the food is...

Weekly Short Stories: 1996 Science Fiction, Part 5

Below are my reactions to two more stories appearing in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fourteenth Annual Collection, in which the editor picked his favorites from the year 1996.  For me, I started out that year at the Gainesville Post Office on the Tour 3 shift (late afternoon to early morning) on the LSM sorting outgoing letters and ended it as a manual clerk on the letter aisle on Tour 1 (the graveyard shift)...much more peaceful as they were getting rid of the Letter Sorting Machine anyway.  I definitely preferred that latter assignment.   But back to those stories...

THE COST TO BE WISE by Maureen F. McHugh

This is a searing indictment of how anthropologists...and academia and government in general...convicted of the past in which explorers and settlers often chauvinistically (and sometimes accidentally) wiped out the cultures of peoples they encountered, adopt a severely hands-off attitude toward their study targets.  Change the setting to other planets in the galaxy and we have a brutal, more primitive culture on one, visited and studied by a more advanced one from Earth.  Yet the "teachers" refuse to intervene when gross social injustice is going on, much to the consternation of the story's chief protagonist, a native young woman in desperate plight.  The brutality of the closing paragraphs demonstrates that any policy taken to extremes without regard for needed flexibility in cases that scream for mercy is in itself brutal and harmful.  This story's very last paragraph made a strong impact on me...

BICYCLE REPAIRMAN by Bruce Sterling

In the Chattanooga area many decades from now, the economy and sociopolitical order have undergone massive changes along with the rest of the world and America.  A young man, disenchanted with the system and the expectations from others (including his mother), has built his own bicycle repair business...with the protection of a tough gang he's befriended...in the remains of a large, abandoned building complex now populated largely by squatters.  One day he receives the delivery of a primitive cable TV box from his old roommate.  This sets in motion his encounter with the Deep State, as the agent makes one blunder after another to recover the box.  Times will change, but human nature doesn't.  This tale was very prescient in its prediction of the exponential and over-encompassing rise and manipulation of Artificial Intelligence.  Only 28 years after the story was first published, I see signs around me of what then was only in the author's imagination...

Next week I review more stories from 1996...

Yesterday's Neighborhood Run/Walk

Yesterday, Wednesday, I went on my second weekly "hump-day" running/walking outing in my neighborhood, again taking place in the late morning before I went to work in the early afternoon.  My initial goal was to step up the distance covered from last week's 3.3 miles to 4.1 by adding an extra block to the run/walk, which I did to about a 2:1 ratio in time spent with each. However, as I progressed...the weather was perfect at 72 degrees and only 50% humidity...I decided to add another block to make it a 5 mile session...felt good, worked well and finished at 50:03.  Along the way I met up with Jim, an old buddy from work who had retired a number of years earlier: he's doing fine, happy to say.  Later on Wednesday after work I went to my local gym and walked on their treadmill at 5.0 mph for two miles...I think I'm handling that speed pretty well now.  I'm looking forward to what this weekend brings, whether it's another Depot Parkrun 5K on Saturday morning or a lengthier neighbor run/walk...or both...