George W. Bush's Reappearance

Lately, former president George W. Bush has been making the media rounds while promoting his newly-released memoirs. I have heard a lot of positive reaction to him as he made his case for the often controversial decisions he made during his two-term tenure from 2001 to 2009. I know of several people who could find a multitude of items to complain about him, but I will spotlight two: his insistence on tax cuts favoring the rich throughout his presidency and the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

When Bill Clinton left office in 2001, he had a right to claim some credit for not only balancing the federal budget during the last few years of his presidency, but also for generating a surplus that cut into the national debt, reducing the interest that taxpayers would pay on said debt. When Bush came onto the scene in 2001, there was a buzz going around in some conservative circles to the effect that the surplus was somehow bad in that by having "extra" money (a falsehood, since as mentioned the cumulative national debt was still staggering), the federal government would begin to invest in private business and thus begin to insidiously control them. Apparently, young Bush subscribed to this theory as he made it clear that having a yearly surplus was a sign that the government was holding onto the people's money (in spite of the overall debt). And that this money should be given back. Hence the continual deficit-spiraling tax breaks for the duration of his presidency and the first two years of Obama's. Congress gave Bush his wish regarding tax policy, but apparently Obama isn't going to be accorded the same respect (even though he wants to keep much of the tax break intact). Not that I completely agree with Obama: We are in an economic downturn and ending this long-term albeit "temporary" tax break now would, in my opinion, just stifle business investment in growth and jobs at a moment when it needed all the encouragement it could get. But although Bush's tax breaks could have initially been justified for the same reason, they should have ended once the economy had rebounded by the end of his first term. Instead, coupled with the unwarranted invasion and occupation of Iraq, our national debt was allowed to skyrocket while Democrats or anyone else criticizing the president's decisions were labeled as unpatriotic and/or anti-business by his supporters, fiscal responsibility be damned. But the moment Obama stepped into office in 2009, those very same people got "religion" and began to preach fiscal responsibility!

Besides draining the country of its money, the unprovoked invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 and beyond exacted a tragic human toll across the nation due to the deaths and injuries deriving from it (not to mention the much more severe toll inflicted on the Iraqi people). The unprecedented level of international support for America shown after 9/11 vanished, with the U.S. looking more like the bully on the block.

So yes, George W. Bush looked like his typical likable, "regular guy" self during the interviews I have witnessed lately. And I, unlike some others, don't hold him responsible for the 9/11 attacks. But even considering that, he left his two terms with this country in worse shape than when he started. And his many apologists, who equated support for his decisions with national loyalty, suddenly threw that notion out of the window when a Democratic president succeeded him. Obama never was accorded a "honeymoon": Bush was and he squandered it.

Personal Time Management Needs Improvement

Thought for today: If there is anything that I need to change more than the way I manage time, then I don't know what it is. But how do I run my life in a more efficient, timely manner? I first need to distinguish between two general time situations in my life: committed time and free time.

Committed time is that during which I am, as the title implies, committed to certain activities. The most obvious is work-time, but also sleep-time goes under this category. Work and sleep are pretty predictable, inherently cyclic, and can easily be planned for. But spending time with my wife and children also goes under "committed" time and isn't so predictable. This is a "floating" area that I need to be consciously attentive to and flexible enough by rescheduling other planned events to accommodate family opportunities as they arise.

Free time is time that I am more or less free to schedule my own activities as I see fit. Not only do I want to avoid wasting this precious time through sloth, but also I need to distinguish among the more appropriate use of different times as they relate to specific endeavors I want to accomplish.

So at the start of each day, as well as the end of the previous one, I list areas in which I need to engage myself. Then I set up a rough hourly schedule in which I jot out my plans to fulfill those goals I have written.

Even after the main goals I want to accomplish have been fulfilled, I often find myself with more free time and want to avoid simply vegetating in front of the TV set. So there is another tactic I use whereby I set my pocket timer to 20 minutes and devote myself to a particular activity in a frenzied manner until the timer signals the end of that span. Since there are plenty of activities for me to do that don't necessarily carry with them specific objectives, I'll never run out of ways to occupy myself with the "timer" method. The psychological advantage to this is that, if it's something that I don't particularly want to do (like cleaning the garage or doing yard work), I can see an end to it (the 20 minute mark), beyond which I can switch to a more pleasant activity (even if I'm leaving some work undone in that area).

But ideas for better time management are just that: ideas. It is actually implementing them and developing good time management habits that will change this aspect of my personal life for the better.

My Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon Run

Earlier today I ran the Florida Track Club's Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon. It was the first public running race I participated in since my unpleasant three-mile Melon Run (also put on by the Florida Track Club) on July 4. I had decided to run only in longer events and not place any store on the race administrators' ability to accurately record and post my finishing time and placing relative to the other runners. This local half-marathon event seemed tailor-made to prepare me for the upcoming marathon races I plan to enter.

This morning at sunrise, just before the race's start, the weather was so cold at 39 degrees (remember: I'm a Floridian) that I seriously considered just turning around and getting back in my car and driving home. But I stuck it out and shivered for the ten-to-fifteen minutes before the race's start. I wasn't going to make the same mistake I made earlier this year at the Five Points Half-Marathon and overdress; I wore shorts and a "technical" running T-shirt. Anything more would have created stifling conditions for me as the run wore on. Oh, and to avoid the pointless crowding and jockeying for position among runners at the race's start, I simply resolved that issue by making sure I was initially behind EVERYONE. Then I began my own personal timing of my run as I crossed the starting line a few seconds into the race.

The Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon has a distinctive course. On one hand, the entire race takes place away from streets, going completely down a pleasant nature trail on the southeast side of Gainesville. On the other hand, and unlike with other races of this type, the trail in question, the Hawthorne Trail, is paved, wide, and smooth (with no motorized traffic permitted). It was a joy to run down it. Now that I know of its existence, I'll have to take others in my family down it sometimes for bicycling.

Initially, I had planned to follow Jeff Galloway's walk/run principles during this race, but the discomfort of the cold made me want to keep running (to stay warm). Instead, I decided to listen to my body and walk whenever I felt the need. I never did. What began as an intended easy-paced workout ended in a lengthy near-sprint at the end. I finished with a time (by my watch) of 2:01:41. The official time will probably show me going a little over 2:02. That doesn't place me anywhere near the elite runners, even among those within my own age grouping (50-54). But I feel quite satisfied with my performance. And although I didn't employ "walk/run" during the race, this strategy, which I used in my training throughout the long, hot summer, had built up my endurance drastically to the point where I didn't need to use it, at least for this 13.1 mile race. A full 26.2 mile marathon is a different matter entirely, though.

The next race I am considering running in is the marathon taking place in Jacksonville on Sunday, December 19. Alas, there seem to be a few glitches with this plan regarding the logistics of getting there in shape for the race: I have to work at least until 11 PM on the Saturday before and may possibly have to stay even later due to the heavy Christmas parcel season. And the race, I think, starts at 7 the next morning. So I'll have to think about this a little before I commit to paying the entry fee (which now stands at $65).

Mid-Term Elections Reaction

Last night the mid-term elections yielded the generally-expected result with Republicans taking back control of the U.S. House, the Democrats managing to hold on to the majority in the Senate, and state gubernatorial races tending to fall into the GOP's win column. Many voters in Nevada who disliked sitting senator Harry Reid nevertheless couldn't bear to vote for his teabagger opponent Sharon Angle and so the Senate Majority Leader was reelected, much to the surprise of many. As I said, there were many Republican victors, so to whom did ABC's Good Morning America decide to give a spotlight interview? Christine O'Donnell, who as expected badly lost her own Tea Party/Republican bid for the Senate against Christopher Coons. I wonder whether ABC even sought out Coons, who actually is the individual who matters and who will be representing Delaware during the next six years.

In Florida, Marco Rubio, a very conservative Republican embraced by the Tea Party movement, coasted to an easy victory over sitting governor Charlie Crist and Democratic congressman Kendrick Meek. Although he is on the opposite end of the political spectrum, I see Rubio's rise as being very similar to Barack Obama's, who successfully ran for president only four years after winning his Senate race to represent Illinois. Rubio strikes me as being just as ambitious as Obama. In the Florida governor's race, Republican Rick Scott appears to have won a real squeaker against Democrat Alex Sink.

We'll see whether or not the Republicans in the new Congress will at least partially abandon their obstructionist tactics against the Obama administration. I would think that they HAVE TO in the House since they are going to be the party in power with the gavel and will control the legislative agenda there. One thing that always happens when the opposition party takes one or both houses during a president's term will probably happen here: they'll begin to have investigations and hearings on alleged or implied improper behavior within that administration. Don't believe me? It happened with Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and George W. Bush during their tenures in office.

As a post-script to this article, my friend Barry, unable at the time to submit a comment on Blogger, e-mailed me a comment regarding yesterday's article. He considered my analogy in it between the election campaign and competitive sports to be inapt and also questioned that I would wave at those people on street corners supporting candidates or issues that I disagreed with. To the first difference I would say that no analogy is perfect; you can always find some point where it breaks down. But being a "good sport" is a life-lesson that children are supposed to be taught at home and at school. And exhibiting gracious behavior toward one's opponent in the face of fierce competition is a crucial element of that good sportsmanship that later in life becomes a crucial social skill useful in many areas, not just in sports. Areas like, for example, adult personal relationships, the workplace, driving through traffic, conducting business either as consumer or provider, legal matters, and yes...politics (among many others).

As for the "waving"...to each his own, I suppose. I don't think, though, that me waving at someone who supports another candidate as he or she is waving at me is anything more than simple social courtesy. But each of us has our own hands to control as we see fit.

Elections, Voting, Sportsmanship, Duality

As Melissa and I went over our sample ballots to determine (or review) how each of us were going to vote today, I recalled the torrent of dire programming on television I have witnessed in recent weeks, particularly on the politically diametrically-opposed news channels MSNBC and Fox News. I also have a pretty good memory of previous elections when one side seemed to be of the mindset that by taking back control of one or more houses of Congress they would be taking the country back from that awful, nasty other side (who were supposedly screwing everything up).

The Republicans are certain to take over the U.S. House of Representatives in January because of today's elections and the Democrats are probably going to maintain narrow control over the Senate. This will change the dynamics of national government, especially now that the prevailing administration has to contend with the opposition party being in power in one of the legislative branches. I will accept the election results and go on with my life, but unfortunately, many others are in perpetual campaign mode. The day after the 2010 election to them just signals the start of the 2012 election campaign season.

When I drive past supporters of various candidates and referenda, they wave at me and I wave back, regardless whether I plan to vote their way. They are fellow Americans who believe in what they are doing and are participating in the process. I respect them for that. I don't regard the candidates I vote against as the "enemy", but apparently many others do. I don't regard people I know who support the "other side" as being stupid or misled, but I know others with this attitude. I feel that they need to get a sense of perspective on things.

It's fine to get passionate about voting and caring for your candidate and party. But it's also important to exercise some restraint and show compassion and respect for those you disagree with. It's similar in sports: A team or athlete prepares hard for an event. During the actual contest, each side tries as much as possible to defeat the other. But after it is over, both sides come together on the field or court and greet and congratulate each other in a good-natured spirit of sportsmanship. This sportsmanship has all but disappeared in the area of politics, and it doesn't bode well for our future.

If everyone is in perpetual campaign mode, then there will never be any time for the compromises and deal-making necessary to get anything done in elected legislative bodies. We elect people to represent us but then won't stand back afterward and let them do what we elected them to do.

Let's bring back the duality of passionately supporting our candidates and positions while respecting and working with the "other side". We can all be Americans who believe strongly in the correctness of our views and at the same time try to understand in a sympathetic way the views of those who disagree with us. How about starting now?

My 20.54 Mile Training Run

Today I reached a distance running milestone by passing the 20-mile mark. I ran 20.54 miles with a time of 3:21:32. At the beginning, the temperature was 61 (O.K.) and the humidity was 92% (ugh). By the end, the temperature had risen to 77 (ugh) and the humidity had dropped to 51% (O.K.). Overall, the weather conditions, although no longer at excruciating summer levels of heat and humidity, were still unseasonal for early November and not very conducive to distance running. As was the case with my recent 18.39 mile run, I didn't enjoy it very much. I did seem to have more energy at my disposal, which may be partially due to my switch to Gatorade from Powerade Zero. But my legs ached badly toward the end. The recovery didn't go too well either, and I was more fatigued than usual.

I plan to take it easy for a couple of days and then resume running at a more moderate distance. I plan to run in a half-marathon race scheduled this coming Saturday in Gainesville, although I will not try to beat other runners. I'm just going for the experience.

Last-Minute Election Nonsense

I have long ago decided which candidates I will be voting for on November 2, as well as how I will be voting on various referenda and amendments that are on the ballot. Apparently though, there are many people out there who are "swayable", even at this late date. How do I know this? By the incredible flood of political advertisements stuffing my mailbox, most of them virulently negative and even hateful toward the opposing candidate.

I've gotten to the point where, just by seeing an ad from a distance, I can guess who is putting it out. If it features a candidate either in black and white or "fuzzed" up, then the opposing candidate is putting it out. If the picture shows a candidate in relief with large-print words next to it, then the same holds, with that candidate being vilified for having said something (probably taken completely out of context) at some point during his or her lifetime. But if the picture is in color, especially if it pictures the candidate together with family (the more children the better), then you can bet your bottom dollar that this one is that candidate's "positive" ad.

Speaking of that last comment, I have to this day yet to figure out why some candidates for public office have the notion that they will be better public servants than their opponents because they have demonstrated what compulsive breeders they are! But then again, this may all be a part of trying to gain whatever edge they can to sway those nincompoop "still-undecided" voters!

Speaking of nincompoop voters, we've had early voting in Alachua County since October 18. Yesterday I went to my local public library branch, which also is serving as an early voting location, to replace a lost library card. The parking lot was overflowing, packed with people apparently desperate to get their votes in early (the last available day for "early" voting, that is). I lucked out when, having given up on finding a parking spot and making my way toward the exit, a car suddenly pulled out and left me its space. Having seen this spectacle on Saturday, I predict once again a virtually empty polling precinct on Tuesday morning when my wife and I go to cast OUR votes! Imagine that, actually voting on Election Day!

14.03 Mile Training Run Friday

Yesterday, as expected, the temperature and humidity went down a bit, making a more reasonable training distance possible for me. Although I had slept in and had to be at work early in the afternoon, I still managed to squeeze in a "middle distance" 14.03 mile run. The conditions were so good that I knew that, had I more time at my disposal, I would have been able to cross the 20-mile threshold. I have switched to full-sugar Gatorade (or "G" as they now call it), and I think that this also aided me in maintaining my energy level throughout the workout. The humidity, averaging about 40%, coupled with the temperature (61-75), resulted in me hardly having broken out a sweat during my run. But alas, the temperatures are once again beginning to climb!

Oh, to live in the Pacific Northwest!

Anti-Tirade Tirade

In the 1986 movie Mosquito Coast, Harrison Ford's character Allie Fox is an inventive genius with all sorts of ideas he wants to inflict on the world. He is also a very verbally overbearing personality, constantly going off into loud and often angry tirades about any of the pet topics that draw his interest. The others in his family and anyone else within earshot are reduced to passive stick-figures having to absorb his wrath and venom without being accorded a respectful hearing of their own feelings. If you've seen this movie, maybe you have some idea about what I mean by "tirade".

Tirade should also be a verb ("to tirade") and "tirader" a noun that describes one who performs this abusive form of speech. If you're a language purist, you just might want to skip the rest of this article, because I plan to use these two forms, correctness be damned.

Tiraders, the way I see it, have a couple of problems that cause them to talk as they do. One, they don't have enough self-restraint regarding the expression of anger or aggression when these feeling arise within them. Two, they are basically contemptuous of the dignity of others (particularly the listeners who have to suffer through their tirades) and feel that their own personal narratives and opinions are the ONLY narratives and opinions that count.

When I am around someone who goes off into a tirade about something else (not about me) in their life or that they heard from radio or television, the harsh, aggressive tone of their speech has the same emotional effect on me as if I were the object of their anger anyway. And I then automatically begin in turn to become angry at them, regardless of the truth value of what they are expressing.

There is what I believe to be a mistaken notion in our society that it is important for people to vent out their feelings to others, especially if the feelings have a negative character to them. It feeds into the idea of "release": just let it out of your system by sharing it with another. But to me, all this really does is to spread the poison. Besides, many of the tirades I have suffered through in my life have little to do with the negative experiences of the speaker and more to do with his or her mental fabrications.

Our society also seems to collectively regard tiraders as somehow being stronger and more important than others, deserving special attention and respect. So now we're stuck with abusive professional radio tiraders like Michael Savage, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh. While watching C-Span I've seen representatives and senators from both sides of the political aisle get to the podium and loudly pitch angry fits on behalf of their opinions, expecting this to somehow bolster their arguments. And who can forget the flood of vitriolic tirades at the town hall meetings while the health care reform bill was being debated?

There are people in my life who, in varying degrees, have given themselves over to tirading. And it hurts me when they do that. They are showing by talking like this AT me that they feel that I am insignificant, essentially a nonentity incapable of thinking for myself and arriving at my own conclusions. Plus, a tirader implicitly inserts a nasty ultimatum into the tirade: if the listener rejects the tirader's point, either in whole or in part, and expresses this disagreement, no matter how respectfully or softly, then the tirader takes it as a personal attack. The listener than becomes either an "idiot" (one of Mark Levin's favorite terms) or an enemy.

Yeah, like I really want to hang around people who treat me like that!

Partisan "Non-Partisan" School Board Races

A few days ago I was reading an advertisement put out by the Democratic Party. Pictured on it were the state-wide and local-area candidates for public office who were Democrats, and whom the ad was obviously endorsing by dint of their party affiliation. They included Democrats running for the US Senate, Florida Governor, Florida Cabinet posts, Florida State Senate and House, Alachua County Commission, and Alachua County School Board candidates. Uh...only one problem with the three pictured Democratic school board candidates...

The Alachua County School Board positions are elected officially on a non-partisan basis, with the candidates' parties deliberately left off the ballot. In the newspaper analyses of their positions on issues as well as their appearances on radio or TV, the question of whether they were Democrats, Republicans, something else, or "none of the above" was avoided. But the ad makes those races de facto partisan. Hey, for all I know, the Republicans might have put out their own ads identifying their school board candidate as being in the GOP, who knows? But this does present a potential problem for someone in my position.

As a federal worker, I have certain limitations placed upon my political activity by the federal Hatch Act. I am free to express my opinions as I wish (and I do on this blog), but I am restricted as to the degree that I can involve myself within PARTISAN campaigns. I am accorded more latitude under this law when the races are non-partisan in nature, so maybe you can see what the problem is.

Suppose I had been very active in pushing one of the "non-partisan" candidates, only for the race to later turn into a partisan contest, for all practical purposes. Then where would I stand?

Political parties need to take care when placing ads in local contests, as some of these are non-partisan in nature. Different rules apply, not only to the candidates, but also to other elements of the population, depending on how an election is officially characterized.

2010 World Series Begins Today

Well, the 2010 World Series starts today and it's a lock to be a groundbreaking one as well. The Texas Rangers, originally introduced into the American League as the expansion Washington Senators (replacing the original Senators who had moved to Minnesota), have never been to the World Series before, much less won it. And their National League opponent, the San Francisco Giants, haven't won a Series since 1954 when they were still in New York and a young Willy Mays made his spectacular running outfield catch against the favored Cleveland Indians. So a new city will be partying at the end of this year's World Series.

It looks to me as if there are two main questions that will determine the eventual winner. The Rangers have as their ace pitcher the incredible Cliff Lee, who has been almost completely unhittable during their previous two series against the Tampa Bay Rays and the New York Yankees. It looks as if Lee will get at least two starts against the Giants, as well as a possible third if the series goes the limit to a seventh game. How the Giants bat against Lee in those games should go a long way toward swaying the series to one side or the other. The other factor I see is how well the Rangers continue to bat while facing San Francisco's vaunted pitching lineup. We'll see, it should be interesting. I still haven't figured out who I'm going to root for.

A sidenote: When I was in Times Square in NYC this past April and sitting in Junior's restaurant there, the TV was tuned in to the Yankees' season opener against Boston. I wonder, since the "pin-stripers" didn't make it to the World Series this year, whether they'll show it in Junior's. Hey all you readers up there, do me a favor and run down to Junior's and check it out for me...

...Just kidding!

Alas, More Unseasonably Hot Weather

While writing about the weather may seem to be a cop-out choice for a blog article, this week's abnormally high, even stifling temperatures in Gainesville are nothing less than a big news story to me. Until Friday, temperatures are expected to rise into the nineties with little relief with the humidity. For someone like me who has been training to run a 26.2 mile marathon in December, this has been a real thorn in my side. I have had to run more moderate distances while waiting for temperatures to eventually drop again.

Of course, this unseasonably hot weather doesn't just affect my locality. In Valdosta, Georgia on Sunday, temperatures had soared as well into the nineties, making our visit to the theme park there less pleasant than it could have been. And we are getting no help at all either from a lack of rain throughout this period.

Friday morning is supposed to see the end of this meteorological anomaly, with highs returning to around eighty and lows in the fifties. I fully intend to get then go back to exploring the frontiers of my running endurance by piling on the mileage!

Wild Adventures (Valdosta) Visit

Today I took my family with me on an excursion to Wild Adventures theme park on the outskirts of Valdosta, Georgia. I've been there many times (going back to 2002), but not recently. I read somewhere that Wild Adventures had fallen on lean financial times and that closing it down had been considered. But they seemed to still be hanging in there, although they had redesigned the place somewhat with several of the old rides gone and a few new replacements. I miss the now-gone Power Surge and Inverter, two of my all-time favorite theme park rides. Also missing were the Gauntlet, Sindwinder, Gold Rush, and Tiger Terror rides. The latter two I had a rather fond attachment to as they were "baby" rollercoasters that helped me to gradually overcome my fears until I was ready for the "big guys". Also, Double Shot was shut down but not removed (yet). Hopefully, they'll keep this fun ride for the future. Wild Adventures did add some new rides, although the only one I really cared for was the thoroughly awesome Rattler.

We bought season passes for Wild Adventures that will last through the year 2011. This park, which is a manageable 90 minute drive north from Gainesville on I-75, also contains a nice water park within its borders that runs from mid-spring to early fall. And they have concerts as well (the Doobie Brothers are one of the featured coming attractions). All of this is covered by the discounted passes we bought. Hopefully, the company will stay in business long enough to cover their duration!

Gainesville's Crazy Bye Weekend

This weekend marks the one time in the fall season here in Gainesville when the University of Florida football team has a "bye". And every sort of event has consequently been planned for this time: the Pride Parade, the Butterfly Festival, the Macintosh Fall Festival, the Asian Culture Festival, the Friends of the Library book sale (a.k.a. the Friends of Compulsive Hoarders book sale), and my own church's version with the "friends of compulsive hoarders" garage sale. No doubt each of the organizers for these ambitious events looked at the football bye weekend and scheduled their events without any regard to anyone else who may have had similar designs. It reminds me of a scene in one my all-time favorite movies, Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind.

In A Beautiful Mind, protagonist John Nash (played by Russell Crowe) is a stressed-out Princeton mathematics graduate student searching for a topic about which to produce a truly original paper. Finally, as he is about to give up, he is sitting with his classmates at the school's diner/social hall. A stunningly beautiful blonde walks into the place with some of her friends (also attractive). As Nash listens to his buddies pining over the new object of their affections, he comes up with the idea that will form the thesis for his paper: if all of the men go after the blonde, they will crowd each other out and nobody will win. And her friends will then in turn reject them because nobody wants to be "second best". But suppose the men instead agree among themselves to avoid the blonde and each concentrate on a different friend of hers. No conflict ensues, and everyone gets what he wants (except for the blonde, that is). Nash would apply this idea in his ensuing paper to economics.

I believe the folks planning this weekend's events in the Gainesville area could have benefited from John Nash's reasoning. Picture this "bye" weekend as the beautiful blonde that everyone wants. Not all Gator football games are at home; some Saturdays they are playing at another school, and these weekends could be seen as representing the blonde's (albeit less attractive) friends. Why not everyone just ignore the bye week and work with each other to schedule their events on different weekends when UF has road games? Then people wouldn't be torn as to which events they would have to attend and which to pass by. Each event would also enjoy the full attention of the local media without competing events concurrently scheduled. And the parking would not be so overwhelmingly difficult to come by.

Oh well, it was just an idea. Instead, I expect more of this nonsense by event planners in future years.

Celebrity Chic Leaves Me Cold

Earlier this week, I received an e-mail from the Florida Track Club, an organization of which I am a nominal member. The announcement was that Jeff Galloway, a long-time, famous marathon runner whose philosophy on the sport has greatly influenced me, would be visiting Gainesville. He was even planning to go out with any interested FTC members for a group run in the late afternoon. It turned out that I had to work that day and couldn't meet Mr. Galloway in person. But truth be told, had I been off, I doubt that I would have anyway.

I respect Jeff Galloway and have adopted much of his advice about running. I even bought one of his books on the subject. But the fact that he is a celebrity does not impel me to divert my activities in order to meet up with him. Nothing against him personally, but I feel this way about ALL celebrities.

A couple of years ago, I took my daughter out with her middle-school level flag football team to the University of Florida to watch the Gators football team do a spring practice session. All of the big stars were there, including Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, future NFL star receiver Percy Harvin, John Brantley, and even Cameron Newton (now a Heisman candidate playing for Auburn). After the practice, fans approached different players for autographs, and they responded to the requests with patience and friendliness. But around Tebow there was a kind of irrational, even creepy fan frenzy, with children and adults alike crowding around the big star to get his autograph. The whole scene disgusted me, especially when I saw a woman crowding out children to get to Tebow, and I fervently wished at the time to be somewhere else. No, this celebrity chic leaves me cold.

I could make a list of many famous people whose accomplishments I greatly admire, and it would be a pretty long list. But I can't think of a single soul among them whom I would want to seek out as a fan would seek out a celebrity. I can think of quite a few with whom I would want to "sit a spell" at Starbucks over coffee and chat (my version of Obama's beer diplomacy). But that would entail a dialogue between two complex human beings with each having something to contribute and something to learn, not some kind of role-playing game involving someone fawning over the image of another. That's just me, though, and I really don't want to get into judging those who are more in sync with this society's bizarre (to me) celebrity mania.

Dean Koontz's Novel Intensity

I recently finished reading my third Dean Koontz novel, titled Intensity. It was quite a departure from Midnight, which was the previous novel of his that I read. Midnight, which was about a mysterious coastal California town whose population was undergoing a profoundly sinister change. Intensity, on the other hand, was a life and death struggle between protagonist Chyna Shepherd and her adversary, Edgler Vess, a sadistic killer. This initially disappointed me as I was looking for another "Midnight" and wasn't getting it with this story. But I then began to pick up some things with Intensity that made it stand out as novel with its own worth.

Both main characters had strong personalities and deeply entrenched personal narratives that they used to justify their present behavior. Chyna came from a very unstable family background, continually surrounded by abusive (and criminal) adults. She developed during these early times the crucial survival skill of "invisibility", which came in handy in the story as she tired to elude Vess. Vess , for his own part, created a personal philosophy that life should be lived to its fullest intensity at each moment and that there was really no good or evil. This he did to justify the murderous, sadistic acts he compulsively committed against others since childhood.

It was the examination of these two characters' worldviews that finally salvaged this otherwise overly violent and gory tale for me. I hope that the next Dean Koontz novel I read will have a different type of theme. Still, I got a couple of things out of Intensity.

Chyna's "invisibility" reminded me of my own personal ability, at times, to behave in such a way as to deflect the attention of others, almost to the point where it is as if I am not there. I don't think this is a very healthy way of presenting oneself before others, do you? Also, Vess's "philosophy" of "intensity" made me think of all the people around me and across the world who disguise their own prejudices and hates by donning the clothing of religion and political "principles".

Things Going Swimmingly

My swimming progress is coming along slowly, but it is definitely progress nevertheless. If you have been reading this blog lately, you would already know that I am basically relearning how to swim, according to long-time swimming athlete Terry Laughlin. Laughlin emphasizes balance in the water and streamlining the swimmer's body in order to make swimming efficient. He also teaches that it is the body's core, not the arms or legs, that provide the energy needed to propel the body forward in water. So I have been going to my (very close) YMCA pool on almost a daily basis, practicing my form each visit for about 15-20 minutes before leaving. I have a long way to go, and it is very clear to me that I have a lot of "unlearning" to do. But "slow and steady" are the watchwords here, and I am working on my form to the exclusion of getting the strenuous physical exercise that I see others doing in the "lanes". My aim is lifelong swimming. So far so good. But it will be interesting as the seasonal temperatures continue to drop and I continue to go to the increasingly chilly pool area! In a way, it will be an ironic reversal of my almost-insane running training I did in very hot summertime conditions. But the YMCA at least heats their outdoor pool up. They plan to keep it open throughout the winter, only keeping it closed on very cold mornings until the temperature climbs to a few degrees over freezing (like around 35). I'll just freeze my ass off getting in and out of the warm water!

Shopping Cart Design Unsafe

When I began working at the post office many years ago, I thought they had it all backwards with their rolling equipment. Designed to transport mail from one location to another within the mail processing plants as well as into (and out of) trucks, they come in different sizes and shapes: the U-Cart, the Hamper, the GPC (general-purpose-cart), the Cage, and the BMC (bulk-mail-cart). Except for some old types of hampers, all of the rolling equipment features turnable wheels (can change direction) on one end and locked wheels (can only go forwards or backwards) on the other, similar in design to the typical shopping cart I would use in stores. The only problem was that I (and most everyone else) was accustomed to the store carts with the turning, steering wheels at the cart's narrow front. But except for the small u-cart, the other postal equipment is designed strictly for pushing from the end where the turnable wheels are. They also consider it to be an important safety issue to push from this prescribed end, with notices to this effect placed on the equipment itself. At first I felt awkward pushing around carts like this, but then quickly realized that by doing so I had much more steering leverage with the steering wheels close to me.

The only postal rolling equipment that has the steerable wheels away from the operator is the small u-cart, and its front end is tapered and relatively narrow, much like the old-fashioned shopping carts. I know that this tapering was no design accident, as it mitigates the lost steering leverage with the "moving" wheels being in front by preventing too much weight from being put into the front of the cart. But nowadays, stores have come out with rectangular-shaped shopping carts with as much storage room in front as in the back. And this can create a greater hazard for injury and accident. The shopper, often someone who is frail or even handicapped in some way, has enough of a burden just steering around one of these carts when it is empty; it can get to be overwhelming when loaded down with groceries! This wouldn't have presented a problem if the cart designers had switched the cart handles around when they changed its shape.

When I go shopping for groceries at my local Publix (which is one of those places with the rectangular carts), I often push the cart around (very adroitly, I must say) from the so-called "wrong" end, often eliciting worried glances from my fellow shoppers. But they are the ones who are working against the laws of physics affecting the strain on their bodies and their difficulty in steering and stopping. Not only do these shopping carts present a hazard for those pushing them, but also for anyone unfortunate enough to be in the path of a "pusher" who has lost control of such a cart.

My 18.39 Mile Run Today

In another "step" toward my goal of covering the marathon distance of 26.2 miles, I set out at 9:30 AM to see how far I could run. The temperature was 52 and the humidity 82%. I felt kind of crappy at the beginning, but thought that this feeling would shake off once I got into my running groove. Unfortunately, that groove never came, and the entire run was a struggle for me against fatigue and soreness. I had beforehand allotted myself enough time to cover the marathon today, but as it turned out I just couldn't go on past my 18.39 miles. My time was 2:59:04. The temperature at the end of the three hours had risen 27 degrees to 79 and the humidity plummeted to 32%.

18.39 miles still surpasses my previous mark of 17.71, set just a few days ago. I'm wondering if my use of the no-calorie drink Powerade Zero hampered me in today's workout. I think I'll switch to Gatorade for my next long run, which will take place at least a week from now. I may just be needing an energy infusion while I'm running. By the way, this is how I classify my running distances:

Long: 15 miles or greater
Medium: 10-14.99 miles
Short: 5-9.99 miles
Tiny: 3-4.99 miles
Why Even Bother: Less than 3 miles

Quite a change from a year ago!

Balance

I have recently been re-teaching myself how to swim, according to the sensible precepts of veteran swimmer Terry Laughlin. In his Total Immersion program, designed for the four basic swimming strokes (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly), Laughlin emphasizes the preeminent need for balance in the water. And this aquatic balance is very different from our land-based sense of balance.

As land-based creatures, humans depend on centering their feet directly below their bodies' center-of-gravity in order to stand, walk, or perform any variation thereof. We have fluids in the semicircular canals of the inner ear to aid us in this. In water, though, this instinct hampers the kind of fish-like balance that we need to move efficiently there. A balanced position for swimming has the head, arms, and upper torso on one side, with the hips and legs on the other: a horizontal, not vertical position. Swimming education has traditionally ignored this need for water-balance, an omission contributing to an almost universal difficulty among the population with swimming. What I'm doing is unlearning bad swimming habits and beginning anew from scratch, working to establish within myself a new "instinct" for water balance.

The concept of balance can be allegorically extended to life in general, although with this it is necessary to establish some parameters. And since each of us, with our own individual natures, emphasizes different parameters according to our own values and priorities, there is no truly objective guide for "balance" in life. So I can only speak for myself and let others speak for themselves.

For me, balance is composed of integrating the good things in my life together to the point where nothing worthwhile suffers at the hands of excess attention to something else. And like with swimming, it can be quite a struggle to unlearn bad habits that create imbalance. Also, over time the parameters that I am trying to balance may themselves change, often causing a "life-direction" shift.

Stuck on Studying in Coffee Shops

I think I have been spending a little too much time in coffee shops studying. Maybe, with the turn in the season and its lower temperatures and drier air, this would be a good time to reconnect with the great outdoors and do my studying, writing, and reading in some of the many public parks here in Gainesville.

You might ask, why not just stay at home and do this? Well, I have always seemed to have the need to get out in order to focus my attention properly. But sitting outside in my yard or on my porch should also serve my purposes.

I am not a "home-studier". I need to get away to another place in order to focus my concentration on what I want to do. This has always been the case with me. Had I known that I studied better in coffee shops and diners when I was younger (high school), I might have been able to turn up my grades a notch or two.

Oh, and where am I sitting writing this? No place other than my nearby Dunkin' Donuts, pausing occasionally to swill some of my large coconut-flavored coffee with cream! But I look out the window and it does look pretty. Maybe I should just stuff my study materials into my backpack and ride my bicycle around until I find a suitable spot to establish my temporary outdoors "office".

Stop Demonizing Government and Corporations

It's always interesting to me, when hearing either the political left or the political right discussing what they believes ails this country, to notice how each side seem blinded to a major part of the argument. With the left, they have no problems railing against the excesses of powerful big businesses, especially those multinational corporations that they accuse of exporting our jobs oversees, wrecking the environment, fighting the labor movement, and corrupting anything they want to control with their money. But these critics seem to be lacking in awareness as to the dangers posed by an ever-increasing government and the dangers it poses to people's freedoms.

The right-wingers, for their part, have no problem making anything and everything about government into a scapegoat for society's problems (well, except for the military that is). Government makes laws that hurt business and the economy. It uses its ability to spend money in order to make large segments of the population dependent on it. It tries to impose its own version of morality with "activist" judges who decide what will be good or bad for everyone. But those on the right seem blind to the abuses that powerful corporation are susceptible to, just as the left seems blind to problems arising from the State.

There is a terrible irony I see from either demonizing government or corporations. These two institutions are not "disjoint sets", set apart from the "people". Government rather is the reflection of the people's wishes, democratically expressed through the ballot box and tied to the Constitution, which protects their rights and liberties. Corporations, for their part, produce many goods and services that are indispensable for our still-high standard of living, as well as serving to continually research into newer, better ways to provide those goods and services. But more than that, it is the "people" who actually own them. True, the richer hold more sway in corporations than do shareholders with more modest means. But corporations are deeply entrenched within our society, not some almost alien threat as some on the left like to portray them.

So let's chill out a bit, recognize the good and bad in both government and corporations, and work to form a coalition of the reasonable: working to strengthen these crucial institutions and enable them to serve our interests, realizing that we are a part of them.

Running MP3 Shuffle Reshuffle

This entire past summer, throughout my training runs, I have listened to my mp3 player, with it on "shuffle" mode and programmed for one artist: Regina Spektor. I have heard every one of her songs she did on her five albums so many times that I probably don't really need my mp3 any more to hear them: they play themselves quite well in my head. Well, I do love her music but perhaps I need to mix things up a bit.

So I decided to create a larger group of my favorite musical acts to shuffle during my future runs. And which acts will those be, you're probably asking. Well, I won't keep you in suspense any longer. They are Regina Spektor, Sufjan Stevens, Radiohead, Metric, Beck, The New Pornographers, and Neko Case. Neko Case, by the way, is my current favorite country artist and is also a prominent singer in the New Pornographers, a Vancouver-based independent/alternative band.

I finally decided to do this after one day changing things up and shuffling through my Radiohead collection during a nine-mile run. What mysterious, eerie, and beautiful music! But Regina, your music is still Number One for me!

Win a Few, Lose a Few

Two weeks ago, the Florida Gators played Alabama with high hopes of regaining their prestigious high national rankings, possibly even returning to Number One. After their humbling defeat to the Crimson Tide, UF regrouped and prepared for last week's game against LSU. Which they lost in a very close, exciting game. Does this mean that their season is now ruined? Some probably think so, but I don't.

It's tough living in a town where the population expects their college football team to contend for the national championship each and every year. In this sort of climate, a loss is treated as a tragedy. What nonsense! I root for the University of Florida football team like most everyone else around here. And no, I don't like it when they lose. But do you really want to expect your team to so dominate the sport that anything short of a blowout is a disappointment?

I would rather my team be good from year to year, with a few spectacular seasons occasionally sprinkled in. I want the excitement that comes from going into a game as an underdog every now and then. Or playing a team where the outcome is far from certain.

In any event, this year's edition of Gators football promises to continue to be entertaining and exciting. They're obviously not the best in the country, or even in the conference for that matter. But they ARE good and show a lot of competitive spirit. I am looking forward to following them for the rest of their schedule. And, by the way, even though they have lost two games in a row, they can still make it to the conference championship game if they win the remaining league games. But even if they don't, I'm happy.

Rock 104 Going Country

The University of Florida has announced that its powerful FM commercial station on 103.7, WRUF-FM, will change its format from hard rock to country, starting next week. And this week will mark the end of it carrying the grossly offensive morning talk show Lex and Terry.

Getting Lex and Terry out of there was no doubt the result of the intense public opposition to it, although probably a lot of the public were devoted listeners. Since I was one of those opposed to the negative demographic stereotypes promoted in it, I was glad to see this show at least leave Gainesville radio. Not that another station won't pick it up for their morning lineup. But at least UF won't be responsible for it anymore.

As for the switch to country music, the idea was to raise WRUF's sagging ratings. And Gainesville and its surrounding communities have a large audience for country music. So I'm cool with the format change, although I think changing to more college-oriented alternative/independent rock music would have been more appropriate.

This doesn't mean that now another commercial station won't fill in the rock & roll vacuum created by Rock 104's departure and change its own format. But that remains to be seen. In any event, none of this affects me very much as I get my music from the Internet anyway.

Oh, by the way, Rock-104 will still be broadcast on the Internet, if anyone is actually interested. I'm not.

15.56 Mile "Hot" Run

Today the temperatures shot back up to near-record summertime levels as I attempted yet another long training run. I managed to cover 15.56 miles, which is my third longest distance ever. My time was 2:30:13. Considering that the temperature had climbed up to 85 degrees by the run's end (with about 45% humidity), I was pretty satisfied with that distance. I had wanted to see if I could get to 20 miles, but maybe that will have to wait until cooler weather returns. It will, won't it?

As I have extended the length of my runs, I have also added new parts to the course. The latest addition has me running downed a paved path through a pleasantly-wooded park near Devil's Millhopper. Called Felasco Park, it is a nice respite from the city traffic surrounding it. I'm looking around for anything similar to it to add to my course as well, but all I can come up with are more residential subdivisions. I guess that'll have to do. Unless, of course, I set up a completely different course elsewhere that runs through multiple parks. But I've grown accustomed to the convenience of starting and finishing my runs from my front driveway!

Indoctrinated from Youth for the Yankees

I was brainwashed to be a New York Yankees fan. Early. It started with my father's hobby of collecting baseball cards from the backs of Post cereal boxes in the early 1960s (I may need to remind my loyal readers that I'm 54). I remember that glorious Roger Maris card I got as I mimicked my dad (probably with his encouragement). He had that Lipton's Tea box that he stored his vast collection in, and I had my trickle assortment of cards that I treasured. My dad also bought me a New York Yankees cap that I treasured for decades (of course, it only fit me when I was little). One day back then, my father suddenly announced that he and I were going to a New York Yankees spring training game in their exhibition base city of Fort Lauderdale (they also had a Class AA Florida State League team representing Ft. Laud.). I don't personally remember the experience very much ( I didn't understand the rules of baseball hardly at all back then), but for years afterward he complained that all I had wanted to do was to look at my cards, which I (according to his account) had forgotten to bring. I don't remember his account, the veracity of which I suspect to this day.

That having been said, I have always regarded the New York Yankees' sudden drop from baseball prominence in the mid-sixties as one of the great calamities of the twentieth century. By the time of their resurrection in the seventies under owner George Streinbrenner, occasional manager Billy Martin, and a new cast of players, I had lost touch with them and tended to support other teams. But during the late nineties, when good ol' Joe Torre was their manager, I returned to the fold and have tended to root for them ever since.

So when I actually visited the Big Apple for the first time ever this past April and spent my first restaurant experience there watching them open their season against the Red Sox, it didn't represent the first time I rooted for them. Nor did it last night when they swept the Minnesota Twins with a convincing 6-1 home victory. I had already been indoctrinated!

Moss Back Where He Belongs With Vikes

Randy Moss, one of my favorite receivers in professional football, has finally left the Miami Dolphins' arch-rival New England Patriots and come back to one of "my" teams, the Minnesota Vikings. He had attained his stardom (and notoriety) over several seasons in Minnesota, with their chief divisional rival being Brett Favre's Green Bay Packers. Once, during a playoff game against Green Bay, Moss performed a mock mooning of the hostile crowd after scoring a touchdown. He was heavily criticized for this, but I thought it was pretty cool and have been a fan of his ever since. It was almost tragic to see him playing for the Pats the previous three seasons. Now, ironically, he will be catching Favre's passes for Minnesota. And the first opponent, on this Monday night, will be a team he has already faced in this early season while with New England: the New York Jets, also ironically the last team that Favre played for! This is starting to get a little confusing!

Hungarian Sludge Disaster & US Media's Americentricity

Smack in the center of densely populated Europe, an environmental disaster occurred Monday and threatens to spread. According to Dan Bilefsky and Judy Dempsey of the New York Times, in an article appearing in today's Gainesville Sun, a flood of about 185 million gallons of caustic, toxic red sludge covered several towns around an alumina production company in Ajka, Hungary Monday when a reservoir containing the substance broke. The article reports 4 dead and 5 missing, along with hundreds of homes destroyed and thousands affected. And this toxic sludge could spread into the Danube River and contaminate other parts of Europe.

I'm glad that my local newspaper saw fit to print this important story that rivals the BP Gulf Oil Spill for its impact on the environment and the people. I'm glad because, although I do tend to watch the cable news channels a lot over the course of a day, I have yet to come across any televised reporting of this calamity. Instead, all I'm getting is tedious spinning on the various political candidates and nitpicking about this gaffe or the other. Not to mention endless reactions to each dinky public opinion poll that comes out. Hey you "journalists" out there, there is more to the world than just America! But it seems to me that unless our news media can make a direct link between our country and events happening elsewhere in the world, no matter how significant they may be, they tend to be ignored. Maybe there WAS some coverage, but if so it was so sparse that it slipped past me.

As Sister Sarah might put it, go ahead and try to refudiate me!

Listened to Some Conservative Talk Radio

The situation in my workplace is such that I can listen to the radio for much of the afternoon/evening. Most of the time I listen to my own music collection on my mp3 player, emphasizing music by Regina Spektor, Sufjan Stevens, Neko Case, Radiohead, and Nirvana. But occasionally I venture out into the hazardous (for my sensibilities) world of broadcast radio.

Usually I confine my radio listening to the NPR station in Gainesville, 89.1/WUFT. I have come to completely avoid the vast wasteland of music stations, leaving only either sports talk or conservative talk radio to choose from. Tonight I felt like hearing what the "righties" had to say, but I decided to do this differently: I set out beforehand to adopt their mindset and be one of their cheering, loyal listeners. Y'know, Obama bad muslim foreign socialist hates America. Liberals communists. Democrats liers. Tea party equals freedom equals American spirit.

So having done this preparation, I took a deep breath and tuned in to some programs, namely Neil Boortz, Mark Levin, and Michael Savage. The listening went surprisingly smoothly for me, with it being very easy for me to switch into "Democrats=Bad Guys, Republicans=Good Guys" mode. Only one problem, though.

Although Boortz was his usual emotionally balanced self, Levin and Savage had a manic, even hateful aspect to their presentations. I found myself getting into a filthy, nasty, sour mood and finally caught myself and understood. These people are conveyors of anxiety and negativity. They mess with your emotions and depend on that effect to manipulate you into eventually following them uncritically.

I shook myself loose from my self-imposed trance and went back to being in my normal emotionally "neutral" state. But I wonder how anyone can listen to talk show hosts like Levin and Savage night after night without it completely skewing in a profoundly negative way their outlook on life. Never mind which political side they happen to be on.

17.71 Mile Training Run Today

I ran a personal record distance of 17.71 miles today. It was a foregone conclusion that I would get to this point, but I got there a little sooner than I thought. What made it possible was cooler weather. At the run's start, it was 61 degrees and rose only to 75 when my run ended 2:55:23 later.

As my run today represents two thirds of a marathon, I feel encouraged. My recovery from the workout was swift, with no lingering leg or foot aches or cramps. I'm looking forward for the temperatures staying this way, or at least I'm HOPING so.

Baseball and Football Notes

This weekend marked the end of the Major League Baseball regular season and some interesting football matchups, both college and pro. The Florida Gators were looking forward to playing the National Champion Alabama Crimson Tide in a payback revenge game (Bama won 32-13 in last year's SEC championship game), but their performance on the field in Tuscaloosa on Saturday night gave the impression that they were still out of the champs' league. UF made numerous crucial mistakes with turnovers, possibly making Alabama wonder why it needed to prepare that much for them. The final embarrassing score was Alabama 31, Florida 6. The Gators have a lot of work ahead of them if they really see themselves as the SEC East Division champions at the season's end.

In the NFL, the Jacksonville Jaguars took an improbable victory over the visiting Indianapolis Colts with an outstanding 59-yard field goal as time ran out to win 31-28. Tonight, the Chicago Bears have an potentially exciting game against the New York Giants. Potentially exciting because one never knows what to expect from Jay Cutler and Eli Manning, their two sometimes-brilliant and sometimes-not quarterbacks. And my Miami Dolphins are playing their old nemesis New England tomorrow night. A Miami victory could set a very positive tone for them for the rest of the season.

In baseball, the playoff picture wasn't finally settled until the games ended today, with Atlanta and San Francisco secured the final spots to accompany Cincinnati and Philadelphia into the post-season in the National League. In the American League, Tampa Bay won and the New York Yankees lost on Sunday, giving the Rays the East Division title as well as home field advantage throughout the league playoff. The Yanks will be the wild-card team. Minnesota and Texas had already secured their respective divisional titles.

For NL's the opening round of the playoffs, Atlanta starts off against San Francisco and Cincinnati against Philadelphia. I'm pulling for the Braves and Phillies to win their respective series. In the AL, Tampa Bay will first face off against Texas while New York plays the Twins. I'd like see the Rays and the Yankees win their opening series and play for the league championship.

Running Race Rant

This coming Monday marks exactly three months since I ran my last public running race. I had planned on running in at least one race per month, but my experience in the last three races (most notably the Melon Run in Gainesville on July 4) has soured me on them. Instead I decided to continue with my solitary training runs throughout the summer and then plan on entering in some longer-distance races in the fall. There will be a half-marathon in Gainesville in November and I will be running in it. And I've already mentioned the Jacksonville marathon event on December 19.

Many...actually almost all of the races... are charity-based. The cause being promoted often overshadows the actual race to the point where it is trivialized, which tends to annoy me greatly. The way I see it, I paid my entry fee and now I expect a reasonable race to be conducted, on time, with each runner's final time and placing recorded accurately and posted publicly. I don't want to have to jump through hoops regarding whatever cause is being promoted. If there is an awards ceremony following the race, then it shouldn't be delayed too long and certain winners kowtowed to over others because they either use the honorific "Dr." in front of their names or are personal friends of the race organizers. Also, I am sick and tired at the beginning of every race I've run having to put up with runners who aggressively crowd me out to the point where I have to fall back in the pack in order to avoid colliding with them. And to be perfectly frank, I really don't like the people running in these races anyway. They tend to be clannish, vain, and hypersensitive and tight-lipped about running competition and their training.

So you may ask why I would even bother running in the longer races if I get such a negative reaction from races in general. Well, I'm not sure, but maybe it's because I am hoping for some experience that changes my feelings about human nature and enables me to feel more a part of a community comprised of people with whom I share a common passion. Also, not only am I more oriented to running longer distances, but if (correction: I mean when) I get crowded out by others at the start of a marathon or half-marathon, then it matters little as the race's length diminishes the significance of its start.

I also have an ulterior motive for the marathons I plan to enter in other cities: this gives me the opportunity to be a "running tourist", gawking at the sights and snapping pix with my camera while the roads are closed to motorized traffic and I can freely "zip" through the city. The Jacksonville event will be the first opportunity I have to try this out. Unless, of course, I manage to sneak in a (long-distance) race in another city sometime before then!

The Saga of the Big Bad TV

Last Sunday, I drove my son back to his college in Jacksonville. He told me that his dormitory roommate had just purchased a wide, flat screen television set and was trying to unload his old model. Will was only too happy to take it, and he asked me to transport it back with me to Gainesville and put it in his room. The only problem was that this television was one of those old enormous, massive models, very heavy and very space-consuming. It took both Will and his roommate all of their efforts to lug what they affectionately (and derisively) dubbed the "Big Bad TV" down to my relatively small Pontiac Grand Am. We then kept turning the TV around to try and figure out how we were going to fit it into the small car. Finally, we were able to get it into the back seat and I wondered how in the world I was ever going to get it out of the car, much less into my house and into Will's room.

Monday went by, and then Tuesday, with the unwelcome antiquated occupant still in the back seat. I didn't want Melissa or Rebecca to strain themselves trying to help me get it out. And although I could have asked a neighbor to lend a hand, I instead began to see extricating the TV from my car as a type of mental challenge for me to solve. I thought up various scenarios involving slipping things under the TV set to lift it within the car to the level where it would be easy to pull it out. I thought of parking the car right alongside the front door so that I could take it out, already practically inside the house. I thought of using my dolly and then discarded that idea, seeing how voluminous the TV was. Or maybe I could get some blankets and drag the TV once it was somehow out of the car.

Wednesday morning came and the Big Bad TV was still in the car. I drove up into my driveway after giving some more thought to how I would remove this monstrosity. As I got out of the car, though, I suddenly and impulsively whipped around, opened the back door, and pulled out the TV set with one easy motion. I then got a good, balanced grip on it and carried it across the yard to the front porch. Then I opened the front door and carried it all of the way back to my son's room.

So what was the problem? After seeing others struggling so much with the television set, I internalized their difficulties and created a problem which really didn't exist. But it did seem heavy on Sunday and was hard to fit through the car door. On Wednesday, I stopped thinking about it and just did what I had to do.

Which is, I suppose, the lesson here: sometimes you just have to stop thinking and DO IT!

Next saga: the big bad misplaced library book!

First Senior's Discount

I am rapidly approaching my 54th birthday. I like to joke with my family (actually, it is only a half-joke) that with this birthday the countdown begins to the real milestone: #55, when I can begin to take advantage of the discounted "senior's menu" at various restaurants. But I recently got a head start, which didn't set too well with my vanity.

I was driving home from Jacksonville last Sunday evening and I thought it would be a nice treat to stop off at the Arby's in Starke and have a couple of their cheap Arby Melt sandwiches, along with some sweet tea. Only after I ordered the Melts, I discovered that their prices had gone up a lot. so I told the young man at the cash register to please change my order to something else I found on the menu that was cheaper. Oh, and just cancel the tea, please. But, sir, he pleaded, the "senior's tea" is really inexpensive. And so, still at 53, I unwittingly received my first senior's discount at a restaurant, feeling like a complete old fogey in the process. Still, I enjoyed it, the down-sized meal, and my rediscovered capacity to be extraordinarily cheap!

Actually, though, I believe that had I been a little less than honest with my age, I might have been able to partake of a senior's discount a couple of years ago. My daughter had just finished playing in a school basketball game down in Ocala and the whole family attended. Afterward, we went to the Golden Corral Steak House there for dinner (they have a very complete buffet with all sorts of mouth-watering selections). When initially placing our orders with the cashier, she looked at me and asked whether I wanted to see the senior's menu. That was the opening shot at my age-vanity.

Well, I might as well get used to people thinking I'm older than I am, especially when I can tweak the system to my advantage. And eventually, they will all be right anyway: I will someday be an old dude!

14.65 Mile Training Run

Yesterday I went out to run on my personally designed course through my neighborhood and the adjoining NW 53 Avenue/Mile Run area, initially intending to cover about 7 miles. The temperatures had fallen to the upper 70s and the humidity was bearable, so I gave myself the option of going a little further if I felt up to it. I did.

I ended up covering my entire 14.65 mile course, the third longest distance I have ever covered, in the time of 2:23:29. This time, which encompassed periodic short walking breaks interspersed throughout the run, was still at a faster pace than the LifeSouth half-marathon (13.1 miles) I ran back in February, then under much more runner-friendly climatic conditions. I intend to maintain this pace (along with the walking breaks) all the way into the marathons I plan to run, starting with the December 19 marathon in Jacksonville.

My recovery period after the 14.65 run was outstanding. No cramping or aches occurred during the run or thereafter, and I went on to work a very physically-active nine-hour shift with no problem. There was a little soreness in my legs toward the workday's end. Today even that soreness has gone, although I will still take a break from running until tomorrow.

I'm ready to extend my course further...say, to about 17 miles. Maybe I'll try it out next week. Eventually, I intend to cover the full marathon distance (26.2 miles) on at least one of these training runs before I run in the December Jax event. Accompanying, substantially lower temperatures will be greatly appreciated!

Mr. Andrea Mitchell Gets It

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, first appointed to the post by conservative president Ronald Reagan and supported over the years by both Republican and Democratic administrations, has come out with what I consider to be reasonable criticisms of how both main political parties are mishandling the national economy, particularly the national debt. Greenspan believes that too much federal deficit spending at the current relatively low interest rates can eventually create an unsustainable situation in the not-so-distant future where inevitably-higher interest rates would combine with the incurred national debt to compound it and possibly even shut down the economy. His reasoning seems sound to me.

The Republicans keep insisting on making across-the-board tax cuts permanent and are primarily responsible for the enormous deficit spending for most of the previous decade through the Iraq invasion and occupation, while the Democrats are holding on tightly to the old Keynesian concept of deficit spending to stimulate the economy as well as preventing various institutions from going under. To me, seeing these parties criticize each other for skyrocketing the national debt while each one is substantially responsible for it may be one reason why some otherwise reasonable, tolerant, and skeptical people are embracing the Tea Party movement.

Not that either Greenspan are I are teabaggers, by any stretch of the imagination. But both of us (notice how I'm associating myself with Greenspan as if we're equals in economic expertise, hah) are worried that no one in Washington seems to grasp that fiscal responsibility is a combination of maintaining a sustainable, regular influx of revenue to match up with a cautious and appropriate dispersal of funds. I don't think it takes an economic whiz like Alan Greenspan, an honest and thoughtful man who has been candid about his own mistakes while Federal Reserve chairman, to see this. Is there anyone else besides me and Mr. Andrea Mitchell who gets this?

No More Rooting Against My Teams' Rivals

I'm sitting here in my living room in Gainesville, Florida, watching the New York Yankees play the Boston Red Sox on ESPN. It has come around full circle for me with the baseball season: we're nearing the end of the regular season, but I remember watching the Yankees play the Red Sox in the season opener. From a TV screen inside Junior's on 45th and Broadway near Times Square in Manhattan while I was chomping down on a half-pound hot dog loaded with sauerkraut (with cheesecake for dessert). Back then I rooted for New York, and I am rooting for them now. This I do in spite of the fact that I want Tampa Bay to beat out the Yankees for the American League East title.

In the past, as the season would wind down in whatever team sport I was following, I would begin to follow my team's main rivals in the standings or polls and automatically root for their opponents, so that my team would benefit from their losses. There are two problems with this tactic. One, I have at times pulled for teams that I really didn't care for and against teams that I really liked. Two, while concerning myself with how everyone else was doing, my own team often floundered and ended up eliminating itself from post-season glory, without the aid of anyone else. So now I don't care how opponents of the Tampa Bay Rays or the Atlanta Braves are doing in baseball, nor am I concerned how divisional and conference rivals of the Miami Dolphins and Florida Gators are shaping up in football. The way I see it, if these teams can't cut the mustard on their own, then I don't care whether or not they back into the playoffs or championship contention through their rivals' misfortunes. So that's why I'm pulling for the Yankees, my traditional favorite when they're playing the Red Sox.

Will UF Finally Change Rock-104's Programming?

Once again, talk is brewing about the University of Florida changing the format of one of its radio stations. WRUF-AM (850) has already switched to all-sports programming while WUFT-AM (89.1) ditched its classical music become all-talk/news last year, with much dissent from music aficionados. Now the "big guy on the block", mainstream/boring WRUF-FM (103.7), may be seeing the next change.

The driving controversy at WRUF-FM is its morning Lex and Terry show, which features two obnoxious and offensive men ridiculing other demographic groups of people for laughs. Ha-ha-ha. Apparently, there are enough hateful, cruel listeners out there to have sustained their show for many years. But for me, it is the #1 reason I reject listening to that station. Now, though, Lex and Terry appear to be the main focus of programming change for this station.

I also have a very, very big problem with "Rock 104", as they like to call themselves, regarding their lousy playlists of songs. It isn't that I object to screaming hard rock, you see; I like a lot of such music, listening with pleasure to groups like Linkin Park, System of a Down, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tool, and Korn. I would just like to see some other genres mixed in, as well as "deep" album tracks mixed in from the aforementioned groups. There are many great artists in alternative/independent rock to draw upon, including Regina Spektor, Sufjan Stevens, Metric, Neko Case, Fanfarlo, Silversun Pickups, Gomez, Andrew Byrd, Kings of Leon, Kasabian, the Strokes, Broken Social Scene, Vampire Weekend, MGMT, Iron and Wine, and many, many more.

It would be a mistake, in my opinion, for UF to drastically change WRUF-FM's format to something like jazz or classical music. Better to make it more of a station befitting its college environment and play ground-breaking popular music that is currently being virtually ignored on the broadcast radio band but which is being avidly followed on the Internet and the concert circuits.

Hockey Season Catches Me Off-Guard

Every year, still early in the football season, it surprises me to open my newspaper sports section and begin to see that, at least on the exhibition game level, the National Hockey League has begun another season. This year I got a "heads-up" of sorts when I looked at the cover of this week's ESPN magazine: a complete preview for the upcoming NHL season.

I don't live that far from Tampa, home of the 2004 NHL champions Lightning (another of those stupid conceptual team nicknames like "Heat", "Storm", and "Magic"). Having recently forced myself to sit through some World Cup soccer games on TV, I think I now have a greater tolerance for sports that have low scoring, albeit with continuous and fast-paced action. So maybe now is the time to see if I wouldn't enjoy watching some ice hockey.

The Versus channel has been carrying NHL games on TV, but I was wondering how cheap the ticket prices go for individual Lightning games. After all, I could take my family down there on a day off and combine a hockey experience with a Busch Gardens visit, reacquainting myself with all of my old roller coaster friends there (especially Montu, Kumba, and Gwazi)!

The Tampa Bay Lightning surprised everyone when they won that championship a few years ago. I like to joke that the league was so traumatized by it that they cancelled the following season (actually they did, but because of irreconcilable management-labor issues). But since then the Lightning have settled back into their old mediocre pattern of play. Which for me doesn't really matter: I just want to see the puck zipping back and forth, the players crashing into each other and swishing around on the ice, and the general feel of the event. We'll see; the hockey season is long and there should be opportunities to go down there to see a game.

O'Donnell Witchcraft Nonsense

I really don't like having to be the one to say this, but this nonsense being drummed up by some on the left about Christine O'Donnell, the absurd Republican nominee for the Delaware U.S. Senate seat up for grabs this November, and her supposedly past "involvement" with witchcraft, sums up to me the abject level to which our national political discourse has fallen. If she wants to go along with the other teabaggers and dismantle social security and medicare while kowtowing to corporate interests, well then full speed ahead, as far as this year's "angry" hordes of brainless lemmings (I mean "voters") are concerned. But if she is instead rejected because she had some kind of completely irrelevant short-term experience with Wicca or something related to it many years ago, then that pretty much settles it for me. Maybe those 1st Century, C.E., Essenes in Judea had the right idea after all, completely isolating themselves in remote caves far from the rest of the idiots! Maybe, though, all I have to do is just keep my television, radio, and computer off. And avoid reading the paper. After all, it is still about six weeks until the election. It can only get worse! But it's bad enough when I'm beginning to feel sympathy for a nutcase like O'Donnell...especially when she, along with several other teabaggers, could well be voting on my future (or lack thereof) during the ensuing six years.

One side note to this supposedly "grassroots" Tea Party movement. Have you noticed recently how, near the end of the Republican Senate campaigns in Alaska and Delaware, OUTSIDE endorsements and money mysteriously suddenly flooded in supporting the teabaggers against the more established Republican candidates? How is that "grassroots" politics?!

Summer to Fall: Yippee!

Just a short post celebrating the beginning of autumn today, after an excessively hot summer. Yes, I know that the temperatures will continue to spike into the nineties for a while, but the official change of season is still a pleasant fact that I can wrap my hopes around!

Dean Koontz's Novel Midnight

I recently finished reading Dean Koontz's novel Midnight. Quite a ride, if I do say so. If you've been reading this blog regularly, then you may already know how much of a fan I am of Stephen King's works. Midnight would stand up well to most of them, in my opinion.

Midnight is about how an FBI investigator comes across a mysterious, heretofore relatively sleepy coastal California town whose death rate has suddenly spiked over the previous few weeks. Upon arriving there, he also discovers that large segments of its population are behaving in unusual ways (this is difficult for me to describe, as I don't want to give away the story). He also comes to believe that this town's leaders, as well as its police, are "in" on what's going on. And so he finds himself isolated and eventually trapped while trying to uncover the increasingly sinister mystery there.

There is the usual mix of compelling, character-flawed, and evil characters in Midnight that is present is most other novels of this genre. When reading novels, I like to discover the "wild-card": a character whose allegiances are uncertain and unpredictable, and who ultimately determines the story's outcome. I wasn't disappointed with Midnight's wild-card character.

I have read one other Dean Koontz novel: Shattered. Midnight and Shattered are really two different kinds of stories, although both are suspenseful, life-and-death struggles with heroes and villains. I moderately like Shattered, although not enough for me to pursue Koontz's other novels. But Midnight has me interested in his now-vast library of stories. And my handy-dandy public library has a treasure trove of them for me to check out.

Move over, King, here comes Koontz!

Senate Primary Losers Go Independent

I recall, and apparently so do many others, how in 2006, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, having just lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont, decided to leave the party and run for reelection as an independent. Lieberman was wildly successful in the general election, mainly because the Republicans in Connecticut abandoned en masse their own weak candidate to vote for the incumbent, considered more conservative than the left-leaning Lamont. This year, we're seeing more of the same.

First, in Florida, centrist Governor Charlie Crist lost his bid for the Republican nomination for the Senate to right-wing teabagger Marco Rubio, a former state representative. Crist then left the GOP and started up his own independent run. And just recently in Alaska, incumbent Republican Senator Fran Murkowski has launched an independent write-in campaign for her reelection after losing to unknown teabagger Joe Miller in the primary election after quitter ex-governor Sarah Palin bestowed her endorsement on the latter.

I welcome both Crist and Murkowski's decisions to go independent and stay in their races, although I think each is facing difficulties that Lieberman didn't have to contend with. Crist's Democratic opponent, Kendrick Meek, although trailing in the polls, is still a viable candidate many of whose supporters Crist is going to be unlikely to win over (even if this results in Rubio's election). And Murkowski is going to have difficulties with the mechanics of voters having to take the extra step of writing in her name, much less educating them that they can actually do this.

I applaud Crist and Murkowski for their actions because I see our country slipping into two very ideologically polarized camps, with the moderate/centrist politicians being pushed out by each party. And it is the political center that best represents our country's (and my) sentiments! So I see these independent runs in the general election as a logical reaction to a flaw in the electoral process, a flaw that promotes ideologues and extremists over reasonable and pragmatic candidates.

I was earlier very dismayed to see such a distinguished public servant as Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter pushed out this way, first from the right by the Republicans after so many years of service and then from the left by the Democrats after he had joined their party and helped with their legislative agenda. Unfortunately, even if Specter, a great centrist senator, had wanted to launch his own independent run, I think his long-time struggle against cancer would have prevented it. It says something about the sad direction our country has turned when both parties abandon such an experienced, knowledgeable, and reasonable individual!

Pimsleur and Hungarian Study

In reference to my article from Friday, I have been studying the Hungarian language. I did this primarily after browsing through my local public library's on-line catalog under the topic of "Pimsleur" and, seeing a Basic Pimsleur being offered in Hungarian, decided to put it on hold and check it out. Why Pimsleur and why Hungarian?

It is very easy for me to find textbooks, phrasebooks, grammars, and dictionaries for foreign languages, both in bookstores and on the Internet (although strangely they are scarce in my library). I also have easy access to fluently spoken languages on the Net via its international radio and television programs. But what I am lacking is a gradual, step-by-step type of program that introduces me to the sounds and structure of an unfamiliar foreign language so that the part of my brain that processes audio can learn it. Pimsleur is completely audio-based (and inexpensive, compared with Rosetta Stone), so it seemed to be a good place to start. The lessons were presented in a programmed-teaching format, reinforcing concepts by continual review within the lessons as they progressed. As for Hungarian, this is a language of which I am pretty completely ignorant; it also bears little or no resemblance with any others (except for Finnish, Estonian, and a couple of minor languages in Asiatic Russia).

I followed the Pimsleur program and went through each lesson, one per day, until I had completed the final, tenth lesson, on this level (they provide higher levels,too). It worked for me as an introduction to Hungarian, enabling me to now be able to read unfamiliar Hungarian words and know how they are supposed to sound. I also learned some basic vocabulary and a smidgeon of grammar. But I'm not foolish enough to believe that I am have now mastered Hungarian with my ten lessons any more than humankind has mastered the moon just because they landed on it a few times.

I could spend some dough and go through the more advanced levels of Hungarian that Pimsleur offers (but which my library doesn't). But I think I know enough now that I recognize that the next steps to mastering Hungarian involve extensive reading, voracious vocabulary build-up, and practice in picking out familiar words and phrases from fluent speakers glinted from those radio and TV Internet stations.

I recommend Pimsleur as a good introduction to the sounds of another language and to get one's ears attuned to its flow. It's relatively cheap, and even cheaper if it is available at the public library! But I wouldn't harbor any delusions of attaining any degree of fluency just because I completed its program (or a part thereof).

Now I've been introduced to Hungarian. I bought the paperback textbook Teach Yourself Hungarian, which promises to greatly enrich my vocabulary for this pretty cool language. I have already watched television from Hungary on my computer and, yes, those casually fluent native Hungarian speakers all seem like superhuman geniuses to me. The experiment continues!

My Second Half-Marathon in Four Days

Today I didn't set out to run another 13+ miles as I had done last Wednesday. The idea was for me to extend my course another .95 mile and then listen to my body as it reacted to the running and the surrounding conditions (most notably the weather). The temperature was high, in the upper 80s, but the humidity was relatively low around 50%. My workout was faster-paced than the 13.78 miles I ran earlier, but I felt more energized throughout it without feeling the need to slow down. Originally planning to run 8-9 miles, I kept pushing it a little further until, presto, I was running back into my driveway having covered 13.75 miles, at a time of 2:12::16 (in the previous 13.78 mile run, I deviated a little from my established course).

As a sidelight to the run, I have to mention something regarding that .95 mile extension. I had driven my car down it a couple of days earlier, only to discover a big, potentially dangerous dog sitting happily in one of the front yards I would be passing by, unfenced, completely unrestrained, and unsupervised by any humans. The thought fleetingly occurred to me that I should reroute my planned run to avoid this dog, but then I decided to "chance" running by the next chance I got. Today there was no dog out there, so I'm glad I didn't limit myself due to fear of being attacked. I know there's got to be a lesson or moral to this, but if I get a big chunk bitten out of my leg the next time I run by there it probably doesn't amount to much!

Will I keep up this pace of increasing my running distances? Probably not until the temperatures begin to substantially drop as autumn finally establishes itself in northern Florida, usually much later than next week's offical beginning. Autumn IS going to come, isn't it? Pretty please?

Blog Writing Momentum

For the past few weeks, my writing on this blog has been more sketchy and sporadic. That doesn't mean that, from time to time, something won't come up that piques my interest and drives me to write something substantial. But those occurrences have diminished in frequency lately.

And I think I know why. In the past (especially in 2007-2008), I had given priority in my life to setting aside a time and place exclusively devoted to writing my blog articles. The fact that I had done this and made a daily habit of it spread to my life throughout each day, as I would be always coming up with new ideas for articles and jotting them down in my pocket notebook for later exploration. In other words, I was, in a sense, always writing.

I also need to follow J.K. Rowling's creed and write for myself. Ultimately, I am my own blog's most avid reader, anyway. It would be interesting, though, to let some others in on this blog to see their reactions.

I don't think that I have to make writing articles for my blog such a priority that it overshadows everything else going on in my life. All that really needs to be done right now is to establish a set time and place for me to focus on writing. That means when I go to Starbucks I put away the Hungarian textbook and the Dean Koontz or Sue Grafton novel and take out my trusty AlphaSmart ever-portable word processor. And pound away at the keys! Oh, and keep my notebook handy as well.

In any event, I'm ready, I believe, to reestablish some momentum with writing this blog. As usual, comments are always welcome and encouraged.

The Recent American-Muslim Controversies

Toward the end of this ridiculous double controversy surrounding the Muslim center in Lower Manhattan and the Exalted and Most Disturbed Individual's threat to burn Qur'ans here in good ol' Gainesville on September 11, the idea was floating around the media (stirred up in part by the EMDI himself) that there could be a trade-off that could resolve the problems.

It sounded simple: in exchange for the Muslim center not to be built in its proposed location a couple of (substantial) blocks from the World Trade Center construction site, the EMDI wouldn't burn Qur'ans as promised. Sounds equitable, doesn't it? Uh...only one problem with that...

In both cases (Manhattan and Gainesville), it was Muslims who were under attack from others. The "deal" would have been for them to yield to one attack (in Manhattan) "in exchange" for the other attack (in Gainesville) to be called off. So how is that equitable?

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush went to great pains to repeatedly emphasize that Islam was not to blame for those tragic events. Now, nine years later, much of our attention-span-challenged nation seems to have forgotten this (assuming they were ever paying attention in the first place). But that really shouldn't surprise me: they're about to vote a whole slate of loony-bird Tea Party politicos into power without giving the current administration the needed time for his policies to work for the nation. The book Dude, Where's My Country? was Michael Moore's attempt to try and make some sense out of the irrational public mood of America during the Bush Administration. We seem to be collectively slipping back down into another of those "dude, where's my country" periods, I'm sorry to say.

Of course, the bigots (oops, I mean "concerned citizens") protesting against the Muslim center in New York think they are just being "reasonable" about their objections to anything Islamic being located in the vicinity of the "sacred" Ground Zero. But as it has been pointed out, there is a strip club and a betting parlor right next to the supposedly "hallowed ground". I walked through this area back in April and was dismayed to find only heavy construction work going on (for the new buildings on the site), with a memorial several blocks away. Ground Zero wasn't at all like the way it is being currently portrayed on television. This entire controversy is nothing more than a whipped-up media event on the part of political/media interests to emotionally stir up enough irrational people to rush to the polls and vote "their" guys into power this November. You know, the same kinds of folks mobilized to vote on all of those anti-gay-rights referendums conveniently placed on state ballots (including Ohio's) during the 2004 presidential election.

As I said, "Dude,..."

My Summertime Half-Marathon in Florida

This morning I ran my first half-marathon in months. Actually, I went beyond that distance, reaching 13.78 miles in 2 hours 14 minutes 28 seconds. This was a lower time than my Gainesville LifeSouth half-marathon race in February, in spite of the facts (1) that the distance covered was .67 mile longer than a half-marathon, (2) the average temperature was forty degrees hotter today than for that February race, and (3) I walked for a minute every seven minutes throughout my run.

This wasn't a race, but rather my own personal training run. I have recently extended my course to cover some relatively hilly (for Florida) terrain. When I began at 9:15 am, the temperature was 69 and the humidity was 82%. At the end, at about 11:30, the temperature had climbed to 83 with the humidity dropping to 55%. Still, in spite of the heat, this was much more temperate than the excruciating summer conditions I had been experiencing.

My plan is to flow with the eventual cooling trend with the weather and gradually increase my training distance as I continue to redesign my course. In Jacksonville, there is a marathon in December that I am aiming for. Just three months ahead!

List Madness: A Few Personal Top Ten Lists

Soundgarden Songs
1-My Wave
2-Face Pollution
3-Mailman
4-Fresh Tendrils
5-Mind Riot
6-Boot Camp
7-Black Hole Sun
8-Room a Thousand Years Wide
9-Hands All Over
10-Searching With My Good Eye Closed

Rolling Stones Songs
1-Street Fighting Man
2-Jumping Jack Flash
3-It's All Over Now
4-Time is On My Side
5-Mother's Little Helper
6-Shattered
7-You Got Me Rockin'
8-Undercover of the Night
9-Prodigal Son
10-Ruby Tuesday

The Who Songs
1-The Good's Gone
2-Doctor Jimmy
3-I Can't Reach You
4-I Can't Explain
5-Magic Bus
6-Baba O'Riley
7-You Better You Bet
8-Tommy Can You Hear Me
9-My Wife
10-Bell Boy

Moody Blues Songs
1-For My Lady
2-Legend of a Mind
3-Floating
4-One Step Into the Light
5-Peak Hour
6-Are You Sitting Comfortably
7-The Day We Meet Again
8-Nights in White Satin
9-Lazy Day
10-Your Wildest Dreams

Yes Songs
1-Close to the Edge
2-The Gates of Delirium
3-Leave It
4-South Side of the Sky
5-Yours is No Disgrace
6-The Remembering
7-I've Seen All Good People
8-And You and I
9-Roundabout
10-No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed

Stephen King Stories (written, not the film versions)
1-The Mist
2-It
3-Crouch End
4-Insomnia
5-Lisey's Story
6-N.
7-Pet Sematary
8-Thinner
9-Hearts in Atlantis
10-Bag of Bones

Sixties Television Series
1-Star Trek (the original series)
2-Man from U.N.C.L.E.
3-The Prisoner
4-Twilight Zone
5-The Avengers
6-Beverly Hillbillies
7-Ed Sullivan
8-Outer Limits
9-Andy Griffith
10-Get Smart

McDonald's Menu
1-McGriddle c/Bacon (by far my favorite item)
2-Double Cheeseburger
3-Strawberry Shake
4-McRib
5-Egg McMuffin
6-Large Fries
7-Fish Sandwich
8-Big Mac
9-Quarter Pounder c/Cheese
10-Sweet Tea

About to Pursue Endurance Swimming

During the past few weeks, I have departed considerably from my "rule" of taking a day off between training runs. It's a wise rule, since this gives my body the time needed to recover, repair itself, and grow. The idea I had been pursuing was to take those "off" days and devote them to upper body workouts instead, such as weight training. But I had become disappointed in my progress, mainly because I wasn't able to enjoy the same overall effect that I was able to easily attain after running for long distances. So I have been running considerable distances on strings of consecutive days, something that is probably not in my best interests. I need to find an activity that mirrors the positive effects from running but which works out my upper body while giving my legs and feet a break of sorts. And I decided that endurance swimming may be the answer.

I didn't learn how to swim until I was in the seventh grade, and since then have received zero instruction to improve my form. But I want to eventually become an endurance swimmer just as I have become an endurance runner. My lack of expertise with swimming may be ending, though, as I may have discovered the answer while browsing through one of my local bookstores. I was in their (very small) section of books devoted to swimming and came across something by a guy named Terry Laughlin.

Terry Laughlin is a long-time swimming athlete who is has made it a commitment to study and teach swimming form. He calls his own technique "Total Immersion". It is a step-by-step program that I intend to pursue during the next few weeks at my local YMCA pool. If successful, I should ultimately be able to swim as comfortably as I run.

More on my progress as I learn more and practice Laughlin's techniques...

Voice-To-Text: Best Way?

This one I'm throwing out to my millions of adoring fans, eager no doubt to help me in my lifelong quest for more effective communication ability (it may take more than one lifetime, the way I'm going). I sometimes think that, on occasion, it would be tantalizing, if not outright provocative, if I were to simply put out an article based on me simply talking to myself about things in general (or specifically). To do that, though, I would need software/hardware that could pick up my spoken word and translate it into text for publishing. And now my question: What is the best way out there to accomplish this, optimizing the factors of quality and economy?

In other words, I want voice-to-text capability.