Some Football Observations

--The University of Florida team has impressed me so far as one with much promise this season. Their offense may well be like that unstoppable Alabama attack a couple of years ago: there are too many explosive, talented runners and receivers for the defense to key on. Admittedly, Florida's first two opponents this year have been smaller schools. But I saw a versatility to the offense that simply wasn't there last year. Whether the offensive line will fair well against more serious opposition will be the key to their success this season. But right now at least, the Gator running attack is back! They play their Southeastern Conference season opener at home against Tennessee next Saturday. I may well be the only Florida fan in the world who roots for Tennessee when they're not playing us...

--I thought it was highly inappropriate for a major television broadcast network, NBC, to make an exclusive deal with one college, namely Notre Dame, to broadcast their games this year. So I automatically began to root against them, naturally. In the first game last week against South Florida, the Fighting Irish fumbled the ball repeatedly, choking in a 23-20 loss. Then, a couple of days ago they repeated their choke act, giving up a 24-7 lead against Michigan in the fourth quarter to lose 35-31. And once again they fumbled the ball away several times, coughing it up 9 times in their first two games, often as they were about to score points on their opponents...

--I am having more than the usual difficulty generating any enthusiasm for the NFL pro football season this time around. I think it may be in large part due to that long-term shutdown and threatened cancellation of this season due to management/labor contractual squabbles. I'm sure I'll get on board with the season eventually. Maybe I should just stick with following the Dolphins and ignore the rest of the league...

--Speaking of Miami, I was impressed by the way quarterback Chad Henne played in the game they just finished earlier this evening against New England. Unfortunately, now that the Dolphin offense seems to be clicking well (they had serious issues last year), their defense apparently decided to take the night off. For although Henne racked up more than 400 yards in passing, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady picked apart Miami's defense for more than 500 yards as they beat "my" team 38-24...

The Unwelcome National Holiday

Because we live in a society that is obsessed with the decimal system, today carries with it great numerological significance in that not only is it the anniversary of the 9/11/2001 terror attacks, but it is also the TENTH anniversary. So just about anyone and everyone in media and government seems to have planned out something special to devote to the events, much more than in previous 9/11 anniversaries, and have made it something akin to a national holiday, albeit a very unwelcome one. Perhaps, though, attempting to refresh the general population's memories every ten years or so is a wise course, seeing how completely memory-challenged people in general are nowadays, at least regarding recent history. Of course, if I were in the professional news media I wouldn't even wait more than a year to review the facts surrounding 9/11: just two years after the attacks, a large percentage of the American population was convinced that we invaded Iraq because it was part of the 9/11 conspiracy...

But then again, hopefully with that epidemic challenged memory among the masses may come a blessing for those who are currently drowning in the 9/11 coverage. For it probably won't be more than a week from now before everyone conveniently forgets about it and goes back to their precious, transitory little lives all focused on the present moment. I say "hopefully" because of the alert going around to possible plans for 9/11-day attacks in New York or Washington. Supposing that they don't find the suspects in any such plans and 9/11 passes without incident, are we all then just supposed to breathe a collective sigh of relief and resume our happy little lives without concern? After all, not everyone is a slave to anniversaries, the decimal system, and revisiting crime scenes! Especially those nasty people out there who commit their foul deeds based on available opportunities...

Gorillaz Worth a Listen

Late in 2002, the local (then) alternative rock station I used to listen to, 100.5/WHHZ, had on their playlist rotation a peculiar song that was a mixture of hip-hop and languid singing. It was an infectious piece that intrigued me, but it took a long time before I discovered the title and artist. No wonder I had trouble discerning the title: it was Clint Eastwood and the artist was a group called "Gorillaz". Later I found out that Gorillaz is a collaborative multimedia project between English artists Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. Albarn is the primary musical side of Gorillaz while Hewlett has created a memorable animated band with individual personalities and stories that live though cartoon adventures on Gorillaz's videos and pretend to be the singers and performers. For the music, Albarn uses extensive collaboration with others on his albums and then assembles some good live performers to go on the "band"'s concert tours. But in essence, when you hear a Gorillaz album, you're really hearing the brain child of Damon Albarn, complete with his chosen cast of collaborators.

Gorillaz songs cannot be pigeonholed into any one specific category. Sometimes they are orchestral. Sometimes they are ambient. Sometimes they are alternative rock. Sometimes they are hip-hop. Sometimes they are techno. Sometimes they are punk. Sometimes they are artistic exercises in quirkiness. And much of the time, they are interesting mixtures of the above styles!

Damon Albarn reminds me a bit of Sufjan Stevens, albeit with a British accent and whose voice, at least to me, bears a slight resemblance to Randy Newman. Much of the instrumental background to the Gorillaz tracks is similar to how Stevens arranges the music for his albums, although Albarn seems to be more attentive to genres like punk and hip-hop.

Currently, Gorillaz is the primary act that I listen to on my mp3 player. They have come out with four lp albums so far: Gorillaz (2001), Demon Days (2005), Plastic Beach (2010), and The Fall (2011). As I listen to them, I am continually discovering and reveling over interesting tracks on them. One song on Plastic Beach, Stylo, has captured my interest so much that I tend to listen to it repeatedly, often for hours at a time. Yet I never seem to get tired of hearing it one more time.

Here is my personal "Top Twenty" list of Gorillaz songs, certain to change as I become more accustomed to their material. Each song's album is listed in abbreviated form: Gorillaz: g, Demon Days: dd, Plastic Beach: pb, and The Fall: f.

1 Stylo [pb]
2 Last Living Souls [dd]
3 The Binge [pb]
4 Revolving Doors [f]
5 Clint Eastwood [g]
6 Dare [dd]
7 M1A1 [g]
8 Faust [G Sides "extras" album]
9 Rehash [g]
10 Hillbilly Man [f]
11 Orchestral Intro [pb]
12 Glitter Freeze [pb]
13 Left Hand Suzuki Method [g]
14 Feel Good, Inc. [dd]
15 Empire Ants [pb]
16 Amarillo [f]
17 The Joplin Spider [f]
18 Aspen Forest [f]
19 Double Bass [g]
20 Detroit [f]

My Running "Slow" Lately

My running and overall fitness activities have slowed down considerably over the past month as I have had to deal with personal medical/health issues. The running has been sporadic, with low distances (shown in miles):

8-17: 5.00
8-25: 0.67
8-26: 0.67
8-28: 1.34
8-30: 1.08
9-01: 2.87
9-07: 4.10
9-08: 2.87

Over the next few weeks, I'll be working at increasing both the frequency and distance of my runs. I still have hopes of running in this November's Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon and other ensuing half-marathon events. But I'll first need to build up my endurance again, something that depends in large part on the weather and a larger part on my overall health. Speaking of the weather, this summer may have been one of the most severely hot and humid that I have ever experienced. But as far as the heat is concerned, even though I'm complaining about the conditions here in northern Florida, I know how much worse it was in other parts of the country, especially in areas unaccustomed to extreme heat. Fortunately, the last couple of days here have seen more moderate temperatures, something that I have been taking advantage of with my outdoor workouts.

The swimming part of my fitness workouts has virtually disappeared, and it is difficult for me to get back into the pool. I got frustrated over the summer at how crowded the YMCA pool was, with school out and swimming classes going on there. The number of available lanes was often reduced to only three, and frankly I never felt confident of being able to find a place in the pool to swim once I got there. At least now, school's back in session and in the morning on weekdays I should be able to find a place there to swim...at least when the water aerobics "bouncers" aren't clogging up the pool!

USPS Changing Due to Financial Crisis

The United States Postal Service is in the midst of tumult nationwide and here in Gainesville. Slated to run out of money sometime this month, drastic measures are currently being taken to dramatically consolidate processing, reduce the amount of employees by more than 200,000, and save money by closing hundreds of offices nationwide and severely reducing delivery standards. Those proposed standards reductions include ending the overnight delivery standard for first class mail within a specified area and changing from a six-day-a-week delivery system to only five days...or maybe even four...for mail delivery. The entire outgoing mail processing in the Gainesville plant will be transferred to Jacksonville at the end of this year, and the remainder of the processing here may close in about a year and a half (or sooner) due to consolidation plans. So someone mailing a letter in Gainesville to another location in Gainesville may soon see their letter taking several days to reach its destination! Might as well just drive across town and hand it in person...

We'll see what kind of staffing reductions will take place in Gainesville. With the loss of outgoing mail operations several employees will be excessed to other facilities at the close of the year (or sooner). Others will see their schedules and assignments changed. It looks like a very bumpy road ahead during the next couple of years for postal employees here in Gainesville and nationwide. And, I might say, for postal customers as well!

One of the causes for the financial trouble is self-evident: with the Internet's convenient online billing and payment, e-mail, and social networking sites, the volume of first class letters has plummeted. And with that drop in volume has come a drop in revenue. Also, Congress passed into law a few years ago a special provision, applying only to the Postal Service, that compels it to pre-fund its retirees' health care accounts each year, giving it automatic massive multi-billion-dollar deficits to overcome. To top this off, about $50 billion in past overpayments by the USPS to the federal government for its pension funds have yet to be compensated for. Leaving the USPS currently in a crisis of liquidity...

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart

Happy anniversary to my beautiful sweetheart Melissa. We're celebrating our first quarter century together, with hopes of more "quarters" to come.

Baby, you're the greatest!

Reading Short Fiction Again

I have recently resumed my old habit of reading short stories, as opposed to novels (I'm still plugging away at Robert Ludlum's Bourne Trilogy, though). In doing so, I have been abruptly reminded of the entirely different nature of short fiction.

Short fiction, it needs to be noted, has very few rules that need to be obeyed, unlike novellas and novels. A longer work needs to create a viable setting with characters and a reasonably logical progression of the plot that leads to a climax and resolution. While a short story may indeed feature all of these, often one or more of the above elements of longer literature is deemphasized or even largely ignored.

One can be lazy while reading a novel, but with a short story the words have a much greater intensity and purpose. If your mind drifts for a couple of paragraphs, you're liable to get lost and have to backtrack! I have had this experience on more than one occasion with my recent reading.

Often a short story is presented as a puzzle: an enigmatic setting or mysterious characters dominate the tale and the reader tries to solve the mystery. Sometimes the answer is revealed at the end; sometimes it isn't, but subtle clues left throughout the story lead to the solution (which is one big reason why you have to read carefully). Then, sometimes you're left at the end of a story wondering why you just wasted your good time reading it, with the only consolation being that it was short!

The current anthology I'm reading is Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy, Volume II, edited by Al Sarrantonio. As the title implies, fantasy is the general theme. I have Volume I as well, but this was the book that I happened to pull out of my "book box". I have noticed in all of the disparate, vastly different stories I have read from it so far one trend that unites them: their endings all left me feeling unsettled and hanging out there in the breeze. I wonder if this phenomenon has more to do with the editor's personal tastes in literature than the nature of the genre itself. Or is the modern short story a slave to this pattern...

Berea, Kentucky Visitors and Artisan Center

Usually, when I cross over a state line on the Interstate and encounter the new state's welcome center, I just keep driving on unless someone in my party needs to use the restroom. For that's usually about all they're good for. Recently, though, I had a different experience with Kentucky's visitors center.

For one, the Kentucky visitors center was 77 miles into the state from Tennessee, off I-75 just outside the community of Berea. Smack dab in the middle of the state! For another, there was much more to it than the obligatory counter with brochures, maps, and restrooms (although they were there, too). This place featured a huge artisan center and cafeteria, both of which featured items "Made in Kentucky".

While browsing through the artisan store, I joked to my son that I was going to find something made in China. I never did: everything was truly "homemade". Likewise, the food was more Southern-oriented as well (like the tasty catfish and derby pie we ate). And...wonder of all wonders, they brewed hazelnut-flavored coffee (and sold bourbon-flavored coffee by the bag).

I enjoyed our little stop at Berea on the way to Lexington so much that I had us stop there again on our way back. The Spring Valley Farms (from Holland, KY) old-fashioned pecan pumpkin butter we bought on our first stop tasted so good that we bought some more on our return. It's a pretty cool place to get off the road, stretch your legs, get a good meal, and look at some area-based arts and crafts. I decided to stay away from their bourbon-flavored coffee, though!

This place seems to be such a big hit with travellers that I wonder why this hasn't been repeated wherever there is a busy highway passing though just about any region in the country. For each area, not just Kentucky, has its own character, crafts, music, cuisine, and history. Let's promote local-based culture as a counterbalance to the homogenizing effect that mass media and megacorporations exert on us to make us the "same" everywhere...

The Missing Sith Mystery

Spike TV has been showing a Star Wars movie marathon this Labor Day weekend. Featured have been the three movies detailing the story of Anakin Skywalker, who embraced the Dark Side to become Darth Vader. But this article eventually wants to discuss another character: the Sith lord Darth Sidious, who is actually an extremely important character in the six-part series. And how he was completely ignored in the very first movie, 1977's Star Wars (now called Star Wars IV: A New Hope).

But first, I can't write an article about Star Wars without lambasting its confusing system of titles. This happened because the last three movies made in the series are actually prequels to the earlier three films. So when I refer to the first Star Wars movie, that means Star Wars IV, but when I talk about Stars Wars I, well, that's movie #4! Jeez, couldn't they have done a better job of dealing with this nomenclature mess??!!

As I mentioned before, when the first Star Wars movie came out in 1977, the Emperor was rarely even mentioned, and without any indication of him being a Sith lord, or for that matter there being such a thing as the Sith to begin with. The Sith character was introduced in the second movie (although not identified as such), and with each subsequent release, became a stronger and more integral and indispensable character in the developing story. Finally, he became so crucial that the final movie made in the series was named after him: Revenge of the Sith. But if you watch the series in the story-order (not in the order that the movies were made), one movie (III) has Darth Sidious being one of the central, crucial characters and the next (IV) has him completely absent! Worse than that, the character of Darth Vader, only second-in-command to the Sith lord at the end of Episode III, is shown taking orders from some stooge officer in Episode IV.

There was a lot of flack from a tiny revision to the third movie (Star Wars VI: The Return of the Jedi) about the "latter" Anakin being (very) briefly substituted for the "earlier" actor portraying him in one of that movie's closing scenes. But I bet those who made these movies would have also wanted to insert at least a couple of scenes with the Sith Lord in that "original" Part IV film. Or at least a passing reference to his existence...

Hey, it would have been cool with me: I kind of liked that no-account son-of-a-gun!

Goofball Candidates Become Mainstream With Exposure

Poor Michele Bachmann: she was just making an impromptu, offhand joke to her supporters at a political rally about how, maybe, the great power upstairs is sending a message to Washington by providing an earthquake and hurricane in rapid succession. Next thing I know, political pundits are ridiculing her comment by taking it literally...c'mon! There is enough about Michelle Bachmann for her political opponents to criticize without distorting the context of her words.

The way that presidential campaigns are currently set up, with the need for almost constant media exposure and a continuing source of funding, candidates tend to be forced into a position where they not only have to be continually on the stump making speeches, but also those speeches have to contain new material from time to time. And it's a certainty that, from time to time, a candidate will commit a gaffe and say something that their critics will jump on and lampoon. Like Bachmann's statement the other day commemorating Elvis Presley's birthday when it was actually the day he died. O.K., so she goofed; can't even her opponents get the fact that she was trying to honor the late great rock and roll star with her words?

Ironically, while goofy, inconsequential statements often get a lot of press, the process of constant coverage of some of the candidates who have really bad, controversial ideas for the country tends to make them more familiar and somehow less dangerous. So people like Bachmann and goofball Texas governor Rick Perry, who would like nothing better than to dismantle your Social Security and Medicare and leave you twisting in the wind in your old age while giving rich people bigger tax breaks, are becoming mainstream just by dint of their exposure on television. And that bothers me.

By the time that November 2012 rolls around, will the country be so jaded by the extremist agenda of those on the teabagger political right that it will simply give their candidate, presumably Perry, a free pass on their destructive policies and elect him anyway? Once the attention-span-challenged American public becomes accustomed to the goofiness of these candidates, they will begin to look for other things in them. And truth be told, take away their crappy ideology and I myself like Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry! Well, maybe Michele...

But I'll never vote for either of them...

Ahead of My Time With Seniors Look

I had a disconcerting experience recently at my local Hungry Howie's pizza restaurant. In case you didn't know it, Hungry Howie's features an all-you-can-eat pizza, pasta, and salad buffet. They used to have a Monday lunch special, with the buffet costing only $3.99. I availed myself of this many times in the past, but a few months ago they ended this special and went back to charging five bucks per buffet. I responded, expressing my displeasure by simply not going there for a while. But during the past couple of weeks, I went back. I figured that five dollars still was a pretty good deal for what I got there. But...

When I walked up to the counter to give my order, the cashier rang me up at $4.23 (the old price plus tax). I thought that maybe they had reinstituted the old special without advertising it, so that pleased me. Then, more recently, I paid another visit there. Once again, it cost me $4.23, with the order rung up by a different worker. Then I looked at the small print on a sign by the cash register: seniors and children pay only $3.99. In other words, two completely different people took a look at me and immediately sized me up a a "senior" without even bothering to ask...

So apparently I have been fooling myself thinking that I would have to wait until my 55th birthday this fall to take advantage myself of senior's discounts at different restaurants. Then again, who knows what the age cutoff for being a "senior" is for Hungry Howie's: for all I know it is 65 and I look even more ancient than I thought...

Speaking of cutoff ages for being considered as a "senior", don't you think it's weird that, as consumers, the age keeps getting lowered, while as workers approaching retirement, the age keeps getting raised??!!

9/11 TV Specials Abound Soon

Now that we've entered September, the "entertainment" section of my local paper The Gainesville Sun is running an article about the enormous quantity and variety of television programming that will discuss the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks against the United States. I will probably watch of some of these, as I am acutely interested in the topic. After all, who would disagree that 9/11, as tragic and dastardly as it was, has so far been the single most defining event of this still relatively new century?

One of the topics that will be presented in the coming days are the reconstruction efforts around Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, where the World Trade Center towers were destroyed on that terrible day. I won't need to wait for any analysis on any TV show, though, to make this one observation: have you noticed how, politically speaking, we in this country have collectively spared no expense at aggressively lashing out to destroy our perceived enemies in response to the attacks while in the same time period letting ourselves become bogged down and divided over the comparatively smaller expense involved in projects designed to actually repair the damage, construct new buildings, and give some compensation to victims and their families?

I commiserate with others over the horrible loss of life from 9/11 and deeply admire the heroic efforts on that day, ranging from the rescuers who sacrificed themselves in the collapsing twin towers to those "let's roll" passengers on Flight 93 who prevented another attack on the nation's capital. And I'm sure that there will be plenty of accounts of that day and its aftermath by participants, eyewitnesses, and friends and relatives of the perished. But let's face it...

There is what I might term a little ugly side to all of this televised commemorating, too. The 9/11 attacks, especially on the Trade Center towers in NYC, were incredibly striking in their video images, much more intense than the mind-numbing computer generated special effects that too many moviemakers nowadays seem to have substituted for good stories and characters in their films. Just as the post JFK-assassination public couldn't get enough of the footage of our late president's fateful motorcade ride down that stretch of road in Dallas on 11/22, the more recent tragedy carries its own almost perverse vicarious attraction...

Gators Football Opener on Saturday

This Saturday evening will see the new edition of the University of Florida football team unveiled against Florida Atlantic University in the 2011 season opener, to be held here in Gainesville. FAU is coached by old Gator nemesis Howard Schnellenberger, who carried on an intense, bitter rivalry as University of Miami head coach during the early 1980's against Charlie Pell's UF teams. Florida has a brand-new head coach in Will Muschamp. From his history on the sidelines working for other schools, I expect Muschamp to be quite an animated, funny, and overall entertaining spectacle. Good...I miss ol' Steve Spurrier and his visor! And we'll see how much Charlie Weis, the new almost-legendary offensive coordinator, has succeeded in transforming the Gators' lame offense from last year into something more explosive and exciting. All hinges on how quarterback John Brantley does...and if his center can figure out how to hike the ball this time around...

Coach Muschamp is in his first role as a major college football head coach. All of his other jobs on this level have been as defensive coach or coordinator. So it will also be interesting how Florida's defense will perform this Saturday...

I like seasons like this one, when expectations are relatively low and there is a great feeling of uncertainty about how successful the home team will be. It got to be a little tedious during the Spurrier and Meyer tenures at UF when they were expected to compete for the national championship every year, and the Southeastern Conference championship came to be regarded lightly as something of a stepping stone to that national title. No way is that happening this year, though! Or will it?

Just a little reminder: a couple of years ago, Alabama wasn't picked to storm their way to a strong undefeated season and the national championship. As a matter of fact, it was Florida who carried the designation of "favorite" for most of the season. And, like the Gators this year, Alabama wasn't even picked by most to even win their division. But once the season begins, the ball is finally in play, and people see what the teams are actually made of, perspectives can change in a hurry...

College Sports Rules, Enforcement Fall Short

I don't particularly agree with the way that college athletics sets and enforces its rules for schools, student athletes, and their supporters in the community. Not only are the rules unfair in and of themselves, but they are also enforced in an almost arbitrary and retroactive manner.

Considering the enormous amount of revenue that major college sports like football and basketball generate for their school, community businesses, and the local and national media, combined with the hefty salaries given to coaches and athletic directors, it is unbelievably outrageous to me, in this day and age, for the athletes who are actually playing the sports to be prohibited from receiving any money or material compensation for their efforts. No, they aren't being forced into playing, the way that ancient slaves were conscripted into being gladiators. And yes, most of them receive academic scholarships, something that carries with it some financial value and at least the hope of a better future after leaving college. But that simply isn't good enough, considering the enormous amount of economic value that these players generate. They should all be paid, above and beyond any scholarships. After all, very few of them are going to be paid professional players after leaving college, so this is their chance in life to use their enormous athletic talents to set up a future for themselves.

I also have problems with the way that some colleges are allowed to violate the standing rules willy-nilly until, after several years of this, a big scandal erupts and penalties are retroactively imposed, including title and game forfeitures. A couple of years ago this happened with Southern Cal, and now the University of Miami is being rocked with a scandal for improperly paying as many as 70 of its players from 2002-2010. In 2003, Florida played UM, no doubt against some of these players. Having built up a 33-10 lead, though, Florida fell to a furious Miami comeback and lost 38-33. This loss in a nationally televised game also did enormous damage to Ron Zook's reputation as an effective coach for Florida. Now if some of Miami's players had been played in violation of the same rules that Florida had to abide by, shouldn't that game be forfeited? I think so, but only if Florida also gets credited with a win. And Zook should also get credit for a career head coaching victory. Unfortunately, when these retroactive forfeitures are imposed, they are only against the offending school and don't help those schools they victimized by their violations. This to me is wrong of the rule enforcers.

Of course, it also gets a bit problematic to go too far into retroactively altering the outcomes of games and seasons, anyway. The argument could be made that, as is the case in pro football, all game and season outcomes should be final and any needed penalties would affect the future, not rewrite the past. After all, fans want to believe that the game that they just invested time and possible expense to watch, either at the stadium or through TV, is significant, not some cloudy thing that can be tweaked around sometime in the future. On the other hand, maybe this is just what these people need: a wake-up call to reality, to just get up and do something productive instead of wallowing in vicarious passivity!

Finished Reading The Magician King

Well, I just completed reading Lev Grossman's novel The Magician King (while sleepily sitting and waiting for my hot water heater to be replaced). Good story, good characters, good ending. If you read The Magicians and liked it, then you will definitely enjoy this sequel. And future offerings in this series, which as far as I am concerned is welcome to go on indefinitely...

While reading these books, one needs to get over the fact that Grossman's fantasy structures are lifted rather deliberately and openly from other famous works. The main source is C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. In both Narnia and Fillory, the magical fantasy land of Grossman, there are:

--Talking animals
--Humans from Earth ruling as 2 kings and 2 queens
--A white stag to be hunted
--A middle land between worlds
--An island-hopping voyage on the eastern sea
--Severe time-discrepancies between Earth and the fantasy land for visitors
--Human visitors summoned in different ways to the fantasy land for special quests

Besides C.S. Lewis, Stephen King is apparently a source for Grossman's series as well, with his Dark Tower and Talisman (in collaboration with Peter Straub) stories employing special doors and windows from one world to another. Philip Pullman, another fantasy writer that Lev Grossman reminds me of, also employs this device in the His Dark Materials series.

So if you're just looking to read some new original material just for the sake of the fantasy, you might be disappointed with The Magician King and its predecessor. But it was the intensive character development and the author's ability to flood the reader with countless cultural associations that won me over. And make me look forward impatiently to the next installment, even though the book I have just read hasn't even been out for a month!

I did something after finishing The Magician King that I should have been doing after reading other stories: I wrote down a very general outline of the characters and plot and filed it away, so that when I eventually pick up the next book in the series I'll be able to refresh my memory without having to reread anything...

Garage Cleaning Day

This is a post that I would expect to encounter on somebody's Facebook page. I have spent most of today clearing and cleaning out my garage, where my ancient hot water heater sprang a leak and flooded the floor. Tomorrow morning it will be replaced, but before that happens I had to clear the area of all the stacked up junk that has been accumulating. It hasn't been much fun, but hopefully the end result will be an uncluttered garage that I will do a better job maintaining in the future.

Unfortunately, this room has traditionally been the "room of requirement" (if you ever read or watched Harry Potter) where people in my family have habitually put stuff that they didn't want to throw away but also didn't want to keep in the main part of the house. In other words, we tend to hoard. So keeping this area from deteriorating again will require a concerted team effort from all, with me probably having to be hawkish with the others about piling things up there...

My new slogan: THROWING AWAY IS O.K.!

Books I'm Reading Now

I am currently in the process of reading four books: The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum, The First World War by John Keegan, and The Magicians (a reread) and The Magician King, both by Lev Grossman with the latter being the sequel to the former. My focus is on Grossman's novels and may be just as well, for I am having an awful time forming any kind of sympathetic bond with Ludlum's protagonist Jason Bourne so far. Then again, I'm not too crazy about Quentin Coldwater, the "hero" in the Magicians series. On many levels I have difficulty forming any feelings of empathy with this character. As for World War I, the book I'm reading about it is also a reread for me: it is a very good account of this terrible conflict, especially regarding the forces that led up to it.

I have been surprised by author Grossman's shift in emphasis in The Magician King, which actually was just released earlier this month. Although Quentin is still the main character, another character, Julia, who was given very little attention in the initial story, has now become a very integral part of the series. Quentin and Julia are both endowed with the talent of being able to draw upon magical forces, but they differ as to how the magical establishment treated them. Quentin was allowed to attend a special school of magic and given special benefits from it while Julia was rejected by the same institution and left bewildered and troubled on her own, trying to cope with her magical abilities in a world that denied their existence. Julia, it turns out, is a totally cool person in my estimation and has some life experiences that I can relate to strongly (although magic ain't one of 'em, bro'). An example:

Once Julia was exploring the Internet to find kindred spirits, i.e. people who could relate to her thinking. This seemed like an impossible task for she felt that no one on Earth seemed to understand her or even remotely think like her. But she managed to stumble upon an intricate, difficult test that eventually led her to be accepted into a small and anonymous private circle on the Net with other people who shared enough of her perspective to give her some sense of social stability, a very welcome break from her longstanding feeling of complete alienation. Now that's something that I would like...and have yet to find for myself!

When I first read The Magicians, I had no idea it was just the first in a series. With The Magician King, I now wonder how many volumes Lev Grossman is planning to take this story! I admire his writing style, which in a good way reminds me of how Stephen King also has an uncanny ability to get into the minds of his characters and express how they feel...

Self-Service Grocery Scanning

I noticed something unsettling during my visit to Lexington, Kentucky a couple of weeks ago. There was a Meijers superstore conveniently located right across the street from our hotel, so we decided to go there and stock up on our groceries for the stay. When we finished loading up our cart and walked up to the check-out lines, we noticed that most of them were self-service, with no cashier. The customers in these lines simply did pretty much what the paid cashiers do, which was to scan their own items and pass them down the conveyor belt for bagging (which more often than not the customer also had to do). There was a menu on the screen for items without scanning codes such as produce or bakery items, instructing the customers to key in special codes or click on designated places on the screen. Once I learned the system, it was much easier and faster for me to "self-scan". The few lines remaining with human cashiers were always hopelessly long and I learned to avoid them, which was probably the intent of the corporate bigwigs who also probably want to eventually eliminate the remaining cashier jobs as well.

I discussed this phenomenon with others and found out that this do-it-yourself scanning is pervasive in Lexington stores. I know that it is going on in Gainesville as well, but on a much smaller scale in places like Home Depot, which offers a self-service checkout option. But so far Publix, the predominant grocer in north Florida, has yet to institute it, preferring instead the friendly interaction of cashiers and baggers with the paying customers. But I suppose it is only a matter of time before "self-scanning" takes over Gainesville retail stores too, much in the same way that self-service gasoline pumping replaced the (sometimes) friendly service station attendant in the early 1970's.

Although I liked the speed at which I could go through the check-out line while scanning my purchases myself, I also noticed on a couple of trips to Meijers that I completed the entire process through the store without talking to anyone. That's just a little too creepy to somebody like me who is used to being doted upon by the fine employees at Publix.

I am sure that Meijers could have chosen to employ more cashiers and open up more lines, which would have made them more attractive for me to go through. But they might argue that this would force them to raise their prices. Besides, they were apparently just following the general practice of pushing self-service checkout that seems to rule this part of the country. But I decry this trend that seems to involve saving expense by eliminating jobs that REAL PEOPLE had made a living from. This sort of thing, though, is going on everywhere and has been for a long, long time actually. I remember my mother talking to me about her job back in the 1940's as an operator for the phone company, a very common job back then. Find me an operator now, but also tell me how bringing them back would improve the telephone industry or my service. And the US Postal Service has gone through stages over the years with its mail processing, going from manual sorting to mechanized sorting to barcode and optical character reading by scanning. This has drastically reduced the number of people needed to sort the nation's mail.

I read or heard somewhere that good jobs in America are plentiful but aren't being filled because the people themselves are either unqualified or incapable of filling them. Personally, I think that there is a bigger underlying problem involving the relative lack of employment these days: the glaring need to reinstitute the concept of apprenticing in all of the fields and businesses employing skilled labor and adapt it to the modern world. Because unskilled labor seems to be going, going, gone and, frankly, colleges don't seem to be adequately filling the need for training skilled labor to meet the marketplace's demands...

News and Comments

Some news commentary...

--Perhaps my comments yesterday about Hurricane Irene being "forgettable" are a little premature: maybe for the state of Florida it will be, but those northeastern states that will undergo flooding, wind damage, and widespread and possibly lengthy power outages will probably remember it. Then again, people these days don't seem to put much stock in holding on to memories. Still, the storm will be more severe because of a cold front stalling out over the northeast, drawing Irene toward it in a merger of two completely nasty weather systems reminiscent of Agnes in 1972. So the forecast track of Irene, which had been gradually moving eastward, is now moving westward, projecting its center to pass over the most densely populated part of the northeast, including New York City...

--Five months and reportedly more than 700 NATO bombing sorties over Libya later, It looks as if the rebels are finally going to wrest control of the northern African giant oil-producer from terrorist-sponsoring dictator Gadhafi (or is it Kaddafy, or Qaddafi, every news network seems to have a different spelling). Two reactions from me: (1) I agree with John McCain's assessment: it's good that the jerk is finally being deposed, but it could have been done back in March with prompt action on the part of Obama instead of him dawdling around for weeks while the rebels were put so far on the defensive that they were in danger of being completely overrun. And (2): Notice that Syria, not known for its oil exports, has a despot who is cruelly massacring his own rebelling population wholesale, and no one is lifting a hand to stop him. Except to impose that meaningless face-saving ploy of "sanctions"...

--The Gainesville City Commission backed down from their plan to eliminate free parking downtown after widespread criticism over the proposal. It still doesn't change anything for me since I have little reason to go there anyway (no attractive businesses). Except, that is, for the possibility of jury duty, in which case my parking is paid for anyway...

--Cofounder and CEO of Apple, Inc Steve Jobs is resigning his post at the top of the trailblazing computer company due to health concerns. He is staying on in a less taxing position in more of an advisory role. I don't see this affecting Apple's products, at least for the near future...

--Open since 1976, the Gainesville Albertsons grocery store on NW 13th Street is closing after 35 years of business. Earlier a popular 24-hour place for college students to go shopping late at night, "Skaggs" (as it was called way back when the name used to be Skaggs-Albertsons) had been situated in the middle of a popular all-night zone that had in the past included another grocer, two all-night restaurants, a doughnut shop, and a 24-hour pharmacy. All of these businesses are gone now, and the general area will be further depleted of stores when the adjacent Wal-Mart closes soon. Sad, maybe they should pay customers to park there in that entrepreneurial black hole; I rarely go there for anything anymore...

--After the final scrimmage before the season begins September 3, University of Florida football coach Will Muschamp expressed great disappointment at his team's performance and stated that no starting job is secured by any player. Of course, the first two "real" games are the real scrimmages as UF traditionally faces pushover smaller schools in its first couple of games before the season "really" begins against Tennessee in mid-September...

Another Scary, Forgettable Hurricane

Not that I'm complaining, but once again, like a repelling magnet, another enormous, powerful hurricane is being deflected away from the Florida coast. This one is called "Irene" and, after successive trajectories over the past few days keep placing it slightly more east, now they have it barely touching upon the U.S. mainland at places like Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and coastal New England. The storm's maximum sustained winds around its eye keep increasing, at this writing being 115 mph. It is still only in the middle of the Bahamas and is moving pretty slowly right now. A meteorologist on The Weather Channel pointed out that even without a direct hit, Irene could be one of the most devastating storms to hit the northeastern U.S. in decades due to its large size. But if it keeps tracking eastward, weakens and shrinks as hurricanes inevitably do when they reach colder waters up north, and speeds up on its course (another likely occurrence), this dire prediction may also come to naught. Hopefully. Right now I'm a little more concerned for the folks in far eastern North Carolina than I am for points further up north. Still, states all up the eastern coast from North Carolina to Maine (and Canada beyond) need to take necessary hurricane preparations to help avert any disaster scenario.

When I was a kid in south Florida, I was always fervently hoping for hurricanes to hit us and consequently give me some time off from school, which I generally hated. Alas, after Betsy hit in 1965 no large storm hit the area throughout my primary and secondary "career". After I "retired", David scared a lot of people in 1979 and Andrew devastated the area in 1992. But by that time in my life I was hoping for those storms to miss...

It will be interesting, after all of the modifications in Irene's projected path, to see where it actually goes and how hard its fury affects the closest states as it passes by. Of course, those living right on the coast will have to evacuate to avoid storm surge. Still,I predict and hope that there will just be some minor-to-moderate wind damage, little flooding, and heavy rains for a few hours and then those conditions will subside. But then again, I'm not a meteorologist; the damned hurricane could fool everyone and start tracking more to the west, anyway...

Finished Reading Twilight Saga

I just finished reading Breaking Dawn, the final book in Stephenie Meyer's four-volume vampire romance The Twilight Saga. I'm glad I persevered to the end, for I left the oft rocky reading experience with an overall positive impression. What initially bothered me about Twilight, especially the same-titled first book, was the attitude of its protagonist Bella Swan. And if you can't relate in some way to the main character, it can sometimes be a chore to keep reading. So there have been times when I would just put a book down and not get back to it for weeks. But with Breaking Dawn, everything came together well and I found myself much more in sync with the characters, even Bella.

It's very hard for me to describe how this series develops without giving away the story, and I don't want to do that. But I think it is already common knowledge that the drama centers around teenager Bella Swan's love for fellow student, vampire Edward Cullen, and how this completely disrupts the lives of those around her in the setting, a northwestern peninsular Washington state community called Forks (which really exists). Meyer, like J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series, created an entire special world within the supernatural realm, with its own special rules. And like Rowling, Meyer succeeded in creating durable, compelling, and unforgettable characters. Bella, Edward, Jacob, Alice, Carlisle... these are names that will stick with me for a long time just as Harry, Hermione, Ron, Draco, and Severus have. Or Frodo, Bilbo, Gandalf, Gimli, etc, for that matter...

I have yet to watch a Twilight movie, and I understand that the final installment of Breaking Dawn is in the works for release in two parts: November this year and then a year later. Maybe now that I've read the books, I'll enjoy these movies. Maybe not, but I suppose I won't know until I try, right?

Rick Perry, You're No Ronald Reagan

I always liked Ronald Reagan, even when I voted against him in 1984 (I supported his initial election in 1980 although I didn't make it to the polls that year). Agree or disagree with his viewpoints or political philosophy, I greatly respected his oratory skill and his capacity to not only convey a sense that he wanted to unify the country behind him, with the greater national welfare being his aim, but also to bear that out in his public service. In other words, Ronald Reagan was no phony. And quite unlike the latest pretender to his legacy, Texas governor and presidential wannabe Rick Perry, Reagan was civil and respectful to his political opponents. Perry, by contrast, delights in accusing those whose policies he disagrees with of "treason" or of not loving America.

Do you want to know how bad Rick Perry is? Even respected conservative Texans like President George W. Bush and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison can't stand him. But because he knows how to play the cameras onstage, there seems to be a groundswell of momentum within the once-honorable Republican Party to hoist him onward to nomination in 2012. Damn. I've always said that whoever serves as president deserves a modicum of respect, if only for the sake of the important office they hold. A Perry presidency might well put a strain on that notion for me.

I have voted for Republicans in past elections (Dole in 1996 and Bush in 2000 when he presented himself as more of a centrist who could work with the Democrats). So I am one of those voters out there whom the Republican Party should be courting for support. I wanted more than anything to arrive at the 2012 presidential election in November with a difficult time deciding between President Obama and a worthy GOP challenger, someone like Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman (whom Dubya is currently supporting). Instead, though, it looks like we're in for a complete bozo like Perry. I use "bozo" to avoid using the long list of unprintable designations that would more accurately convey my impressions of this malevolent clown.

Then again, what am I thinking? It's still only August 2011, and I think at least Mitt Romney can get in there and get that nomination. The funny thing is that conservative talk show hosts like Laura Ingraham were extolling him in 2008 while blasting the eventual nominee John McCain. Now the same dude that the right wing preferred three years ago is apparently too "liberal" now. No, Romney hasn't changed: the Republican Party itself has shifted way over to the extreme right.

Say it ain't so, party of Lincoln!

Pro-Life Billboards

You can't drive for very long down the open Interstate Highway System without coming across one of the myriad billboards urging pregnant women not to get abortions. The message is usually targeted at those who have just discovered their condition and are uncertain as to what to do, usually in the very first few weeks of pregnancy. The strategy of many who put out these billboard ads is to convince the women that what they are carrying is a fully-developed human being, often by pointing out that the heart is already beating. As I drive past sign after tedious sign, it starts to bother me a bit: I dislike them as much as I dislike all those billboards proclaiming some strip joint or adult triple-X store down the road. However...

In spite of the fact that I dislike these anti-abortion signs cluttering up my drive, I actually support the fact that they are a legitimate expression of an important debate about the rights of the unborn vs. the rights of women to make their own reproductive decisions about their own bodies. The debate takes place in the context of abortions being legal nationwide due to the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court ruling. If they weren't, there wouldn't be the need for those signs: it wouldn't be a matter of persuasion but rather a matter of reporting lawbreakers to the authorities. Unfortunately, I think that those behind these billboards would like nothing more than to end the debate by simply criminalizing any reproductive choice that they disagree with.

The pro-choice/pro-life debate will still continue in our country regardless of the law. But I would rather the debate be one of persuasion out in the fresh, open air of free speech rather than with the hard edge of coercion and the need to take the conversation "underground". Unfortunately, the political trends in the U.S. seem to be moving in the latter direction.

In a perfect world, there would be no unwelcome pregnancies and therefore no abortions done on an elective basis. Going to term with a pregnancy completely transforms the biochemistry within a woman and exposes her to numerous risks, including the possibility of death. I know: this almost happened within my own family! To make an edict FORCING a woman to undergo this from the very early stages of pregnancy seems barbaric and should have no place within a civilized society. And it becomes worse than barbaric when those behind this deny any collective social responsibility to help care for that woman and her child after birth.

Oppressive Humidity Lingers

Last Sunday morning I had a horrible run and recovery in Hollywood, Florida. The humidity and temperature were both in the low-to-mid 80's, a very unfriendly environment to try to run any appreciable distance. Just standing outside under these conditions can be oppressive. A half hour ago I checked the temperature and humidity: the same hot, heavy blanket of air outside, back here in Gainesville. And it still hasn't changed much by now, either. I don't know why conditions are so humid when last year at this time of the day the sun had dried the air considerably (while heating up). I am used to very humid early mornings, but always by 10 it had dipped to under 70%. I can't wait for the afternoon to run as I have a job to report to. Oh well, I guess it's going to be the treadmill for a while...

Haven't Forgotten About Blog

Unfortunately, I have been a little remiss lately in the blog entry department. Hopefully, though, things will pick up again and I'll be showering the blogosphere with all sorts of articles, some of which may actually be interesting or pertinent. I suppose that everyone's life takes turns every now and then that temporarily lead them away from the things they enjoy doing. With me, writing is a fun activity that I'd like to do more than just putting out blog articles. Unfortunately, I haven't allowed myself to give it a higher priority in my daily walk through life. Maybe it's about time I did, though...

In any event, I haven't forgotten about this blog and still want to get back to daily entries. I just need to give the activity a time and place to accomplish this consistently.

'Bucks and 'Boks

A funny thing happened throughout my ten-day vacation. Although I had anticipated going to various Starbucks stores while traveling around the southeastern U.S., it turned out that I went to none of them, inadvertently avoiding this brand. Not that I avoided coffee: I probably drank as much of it as I usually do, but at hotels, restaurants, and relatives' homes instead. The Starbucks stores always seemed to either be in another part of town, an inconvenient location, or absent altogether. It wasn't until yesterday afternoon just before work, when I went to Gainesville's Oaks Mall to buy a new pair of Reebok running shoes, that I finally resumed the Starbucks habit.

Yes, it is a pleasant experience to sit down in a cool, air-conditioned Starbucks with its background music and customer chatter, alternately typing away on my keyboard and sipping a strong coffee of theirs. Yesterday doing this helped to put my mind back into "routine" mode, preparing me better for the week ahead. And although I think that it's probably healthy to take occasional vacations and break that routine, I tend to feel more comfortable and empowered when I have a more structured schedule. And familiar coffee shops to frequent!

Speaking of the running shoes, I purchased a pair that seems nearly identical to the ones that served me so well for more than a year. I'm looking forward to breaking them in, starting with just wearing them to work for a couple of weeks. I think I'll save my old pair of Reeboks for running in the rain or on the beach...

Hike to Natural Bridge, Kentucky

Last Monday I hiked up to the top of Natural Bridge, a large sandstone formation in eastern Kentucky on the edge of the Appalachian Mountains. Accompanying me were my children Rebecca and Will. The hike was between 2-3 miles long, but was pretty steep climbing at times. But not, I understand, as steep as the original trail to the summit, which was only .75 miles long! There were other, longer trails crisscrossing the park; the map that the park provided of the different trails was unreadable, looking more like a little kid's scribbling than a usable trail map.

Along the climb we would stop every few minutes or so for rest and some water. It was hot, but we had helpful tree cover shading us from the sun. Upon reaching the top, though, we were exposed to the hot summer sun which beat down on us mercilessly as we stood there looking down from the Natural Bridge at the landscape below. Melissa, who had taken the sky lift ride up ahead of us (with some Kentucky relatives), rode back down on it again, this time with all of us together.

We were planning to go to the neighboring Red River Gorge and try out "zip-lining", but an approaching huge severe thunderstorm stretching all the way back to Lexington canceled that plan. Still, the Natural Bridge hike and sky lift ride back down were fun experiences.

I enjoy hiking like this and could have gone much further. But when you're with a group, you have to stick together and look out for anyone who may be reacting to the hike unfavorably. And sometimes that means that you have to curtail a hike or slow it down. But that's the way it should be...

Foolish Hollywood Run in Humidity

Yesterday I was down in Hollywood, Florida visiting my father. I decided to go on a run around my childhood neighborhood, something that I had never felt comfortable doing before. The running course was easy enough to devise: I planned it looking at my cellphone map of the area while at a turnpike rest stop on the way. Still, without using my MapMyRun application, I wouldn't know the exact distance I covered until I got back to Gainesville.

I made an enormous, stupid mistake by choosing the morning hours to do my run. The temperature ranged from 80 to 83 degrees, an acceptable range. But I allowed myself to run with the humidity an unbearable 82-85%. Very foolish. I finished my 4.14 mile run in 38:08, but my recovery was difficult. The humidity caused excessive sweating and cramping, and I couldn't hold down the G2 drink I had consumed during the run to rehydrate myself. Eventually I improved, but I was still more tired than usual throughout the day. I had better not try running under hot, excessively humid conditions anymore!

Still, having said that, I also am happy to report that I enjoyed the actual run through my old neighborhood...well, maybe not so happy: the humidity was starting to get to me badly there at the end. And although I have run much further recently in Gainesville, Sunday morning's run was the longest distance I had covered in south Florida since 1976. I think that my future trips to Hollywood will feature the same general running course, but under vastly different weather conditions. I doubt that I would have had any problem yesterday had I done what I do in Gainesville: wait for the humidity to inevitably drop over the course of the morning...

Japanese, Lexington, Television

One of the surprises I experienced while visiting Lexington, Kentucky last week was the presence there of a substantial Japanese minority. For whatever reason, perhaps a nearby Japanese auto plant...whatever...I saw (and heard) quite a few Japanese people around in public (and I have a degree of familiarity with the language). At my hotel, one channel was exclusively devoted to Japanese-language programming. A weekly Japanese-language business newspaper was available as well in the lobby. Strangely to me (from Florida), there was no attempt to cater to Spanish-speaking visitors as there were no Spanish TV channels or Spanish newspapers (at least in my hotel). This in spite of the fact that I heard Spanish spoken around me in public.

My son, who had visited Japan during the summer of 2010, kept the TV pretty much on that Japanese channel in the hotel. Mornings were devoted to children's programming, once again making it seem that all those little children on the shows were such geniuses to be able to speak such a difficult language as Japanese so effortlessly. Later in the morning, the programming shifted to a more adult focus: a panel discussion of people sitting around reading and analyzing haiku poetry! It remotely reminded me of the oft-interesting Book TV shows presented on C-Span during the weekend, but that is just about the only thing on my sorry television channel lineup that can claim to have literature-friendly content. Later in the day, the Japanese station presented cartoons, business discussion, news, and entertainment shows.

A few years ago there was a TV channel called "AZN" that presented shows in various East Asian languages, including Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese. I used to watch it a lot, especially the morning news shows in Chinese and Vietnamese. Alas, though, they went out of business, leaving me to have to resort to Univision to get some linguistic diversity out of my hometown television.

I wish that cable television companies would try to supply major population centers with at least one channel devoted to programming in each of the major world languages. Especially in places with large universities that enroll many international students. In Gainesville, we have very sizeable Chinese and Indian communities. Let's at least get Chinese and Hindi channels!

Travel, Constraints

I'm sitting here in a Forsyth, Georgia hotel on this Friday morning. My family and I are on our way back home from visiting relatives in Lexington, Kentucky. Yesterday was a pretty intensive driving day, and part of today will involve a considerable amount as well. But I don't mind the driving, and Melissa has shared the chores.

No, I have to admit it, I just don't care that much for travel. I know some are crazy about it, but I would much rather just stick to my daily routine. I think one major reason for my lack of enthusiasm for going places is that my travel itinerary almost always has a particular agenda, and the people I travel with have their own priorities for the trip that require a degree of negotiation in the limited time (and expense) available.

Take this Lexington trip, for example. I love Melissa's relatives there and enjoyed visiting them. But I also wanted to go see Frankfort, the state capital, just a few miles down the road. I wanted to walk around the University of Kentucky campus. There was a park down the road featuring a cave. These are just a few of the places I wanted to visit but couldn't due to the constraints that my family role imposed on me.

I did go visit the Natural Bridge east of Lexington and hiked the 2+ miles to the top with my "kids" Will and Rebecca, and that was a lot of fun. There was some shopping and eating out. We did manage to drive through downtown Lexington and past the nearby UK campus just before leaving. At the hotel, I did get some swimming and running in to keep my fitness "continuity" going. And yes, spending time in the company of others was pretty cool, too.

I'm looking forward to getting back home to Gainesville later today. Then tomorrow I plan to embark on a trip to Hollywood in south Florida to visit my father for a couple of days. Another trip with possibilities that won't be realized because of the constraints...

Entropy-Challenged Me

I admit it: I am an entropy-challenged person. Fighting increasing disorder and uncleanliness around my home seems to be an insurmountable task. My yard is a travesty of weeds, ants, molehills, and overgrown trees, vines, bushes, and grass. It seems that everywhere I look around me, something is in a state of disrepair. It is a struggle to keep the cars in good working order. Even my clothes not only seem to be becoming more and more tattered, but also from time to time some of them mysteriously disappear, I suspect into the midst of the disorder around me. Yes, losing things is another symptom of being entropy-challenged.

When I visit a friend's house, I usually get taken aback at the extraordinary level of cleanliness and tidiness of the place. I can't imagine the owners doing much of anything with their lives besides being in a constant state of cleaning and repairing. Yet I know that these people are also active in other areas of their lives. They are just more effective in fighting the entropy around them.

I suppose the most dangerous form of entropy is the breakdown of one's own body through disease. At my age (54), I need to at least put my efforts into caring for my health, be it through better eating, better hygiene, or seeking necessary medical procedures and regular examinations.

I think that, as long as I can keep my health going strong, I can put up with a "reasonable" level of disorder around me. But I'd like to get better at keeping things clean, in a state of good repair, and enjoy a relatively uncluttered home environment.

Easier "written" than done, though...

Super-Aging Presidents

I don't understand why anyone would want to be president of the United States. The act of serving seems to have an accelerating affect on the aging process. Sometimes with past presidents like Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, or George H.W. Bush, the effect wasn't as noticeable because they (fortunately for themselves) lost their re-election campaigns (or with Ford, his "first" election campaign). But for those (un)lucky dogs who, like Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, made it past one term, all appeared much older and more haggard after completing their tenures than at their start. And now we come to our current president Barack Obama.

I was recently looking at the CNN website, which featured Obama's changing, aging appearance after only two and a half years in office. He really does look as if the job is getting to him. That's sad, because I genuinely like the guy and believe that he is trying to the best of his ability to serve the American people responsibly. Instead of showing the respect that the president's office demands, though, his political opponents have resorted to personal vilification campaigns against him while holding the American people hostage to their narrow, extremist ideological agenda. It seems that no matter what our president does nowadays, somebody from one side or another (or as is usually the case, both) is severely critical of him.

I have my own criticisms of some of President Obama's decisions, which I have clearly expressed in earlier articles here. But as was the case with President Bush in his own time before him (and whom I came to politically oppose), I recognize the fact that at this time in history in the year 2011, Barack Obama is my president and I support my president's efforts on behalf of our country, regardless of which political philosophy he subscribes to. Now come election time, I'll naturally vote for the candidate whose views and plans appeal more to me. But I think one thing that wears on this president more than others is the fact that his opponents seem to personally loathe him, and that they have treated him as an enemy ever since he took the presidential oath. I find that to be distinctly unamerican and unpatriotic. Respect the office of president by showing respect to its current occupant; you can still vote him out in 2012 if you want! Frankly, that may just be the best thing for Mr. Obama that could happen (but not necessarily for the rest of the country)...

Unbearable Heat and Humidity

When I walked out of my workplace late last night (just a couple of hours ago) it felt as if I were on another planet, with the extreme heat and humidity present. The instant I stepped outside, my glasses fogged up. These conditions are worse than I usually find midday in the hot August summer. But then I remembered that the temperature approached 100 earlier today.

Others can worry about the economy; my concern is this killer mass heat wave affecting half the country. And no relief is in sight. In fact, meteorologists are now predicting even hotter conditions in the next few days as Tropical Storm Emily passes eastern Florida in the Atlantic and draws some of that overheated air in over us from the west.

I vividly remember (and actually own) that great old Twilight Zone episode titled Midnight Sun. In it, the Earth had altered its orbit to cause it to approach the Sun. Temperatures soared, and the global population tried to make it to the poles where conditions were still tolerable. Still, everyone knew that it was just a matter of time before the heat would overcome the entire planet. Incredibly, my wife Melissa, who has recently taken up knitting (and is quite good at it) has been making winter scarfs for everybody. Ha, as if it will ever get cold again!

I think that we seem to be in a social climate when it is somehow politically incorrect to attribute record hot conditions and extremely aberrant weather to global warming. But I'm going to say it anyway: it's global warming!

But this year's unpleasant summer is distinguishable from last year's also unpleasant summer in another respect. Yes, the temperatures are higher. But what is really getting to me is the excessively high humidity as well. If the temperature gets into the nineties, than the humidity needs to drop below fifty for conditions to be bearable. But it ain't happenin', folks...and the nighttime, with steambath conditions of 80-plus degrees and 80-plus percent humidity, is harder to withstand than the day!

I remember once watching an interview on C-Span featuring a scientist who denied global warming. He said that instead of trying to bring the (supposedly) rising temperatures under control through sound environmental policy, we should instead step up production of air conditioners and distribute them globally. And yes, he said this with a straight face. Well, dude, I'm placing my order now for a half-dozen!

Coming Vacation, Anticipated Blog Gaps

I'll be going on vacation soon, and for this blog that means a bit of uncertainty for the next couple of weeks. If I have access to a computer I may submit some short articles here and there, but for the most part I anticipate some gaps for a few days. I'm looking forward both to the vacation and resuming this blog afterward.

Debt Ceiling Raised; The Adapting Society

The national debt ceiling was raised yesterday, with the politicians now preparing themselves for more important things: namely, their own vacations! And I will be embarking in a few days on mine as well. But unlike many of my compatriots, I have not been spending the last few days agonizing over whether we will fall into economic calamity or how terrible the terms of any deal would be to appease the extremists in the Republican Party (who seem to think, apparently with some justification now, that they hold the reins of power in our country). Truth be told, we all have to deal with the parameters, boundaries, and rules of things as they exist in the present. Sometimes economic conditions are expansive and broadening in nature, and sometimes, like now (unless you are rich), they shrink and narrow. And as a species, you can't beat the ability of humans to adapt. Sometimes this is good during periods of adversity. Sometimes, though, with prosperity the reverse is true.

I have noticed, as our society has become so much more fast-paced with the Internet and cellphone technology and the accompanying social networking and texting, people have become less and less patient. They expect, it seems, instant gratification on just about every level. And with this impatience has come an incredible shortening of the average attention span. Along with, it seems, a loss of historical memory. Which maybe goes to explain why a state like Florida can vote for a liberal Democrat as president and two years later vote in extreme conservative teabaggers for senator and governor. Or how nobody seems to remember that it was a Democratic president who last (repeatedly) balanced the federal budget while his Republican successor, with the repeated blessings of the GOP in Congress, sent the deficit spiraling out of control.

So maybe as the government scales back on its programs and spending, there will be a lot of initial shock and pain. But as I said, people tend to adapt to whatever is out there, and this may be an instance of that. The downside is that when you are always adapting to new things going on around you, for better or for worse, that means that you are in a state of passive reaction instead of actively engaging in the process of creating better foundational conditions. But I think that those in the latter category are relatively few in number compared to our predominant "adapting society", with its concomitant lack of attention span and memory.

Cryptograms and Discouragement

From time to time, I like to engage in the game of solving cryptograms. In case you might not know what I'm talking about, a cryptogram is a puzzle usually containing a sentence or long phrase in which each alphabetical letter is arbitrarily replaced by another in a one-to-one, unique fashion. Hence "A" may be signified, for example, by "Q" in every word displayed (and by no other letter). Knowing how words tend to be structured with suffixes and conjugations, knowing the short words, knowing consonant clusters and vowel combinations, and using relative frequency of letters to your advantage are all paramount in being able to solve a particular puzzle. But even after considering everything, sometimes a little old-fashioned guesswork is needed as well.

In almost every cryptogram I've successfully completed, I have come to a point in the solution process when, although I know some of the letters, it looks as if there is no way that they could fit and form actual words. This is what I call "the crisis" and often immediately precedes a breakthrough that quickly develops and cascades to the final, solved message.

I think it works that way, too, with a lot of things, not just cryptograms. You work hard at something, maybe improving some. But your progress just isn't satisfactory and it looks as if you have reached a plateau beyond which the only apparent direction is either stagnation or decline. This is also a "crisis", which I call the "crisis of confidence". And sometimes it happens just before a major breakthrough, which is often triggered by something that at the time seems insignificant.

I guess what I'm trying to convey in all of this is that, if you're going to embark on an endeavor of any sort, try to enjoy the process itself and don't be discouraged by those inevitable times when all of your travail seems to be for nought. Victory may instead be just around the corner!

And here, for your amusement, discouragement, and eventual victory, is my own cryptogram...

R ZRPB VK AGOJA MCZPQJQCD GEECDCU J UJRAK ODKQLGNDJV RMPLCJU GE LBJL HGDRMN ZGDU PCJDB QTSSAC GE LBCRDP.

Third Reich Documentary on The History Channel

Yesterday afternoon, while unsuccessfully trying to digest my exercise in culinary overindulgence (heartburn after eating deep-fried food at a restaurant), I sat back in my comfy recliner and began to surf channels on my TV. Nothing, nothing, ... wait, what was that? Yes, unbelievably the History Channel was showing a program out of line with their usual line-up: an actual show about history. They were showing a four-hour-long video record of the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, presented mainly in the form of home movies made chiefly by Germans living through the time. It wasn't directed at the political and military events, leaders, and decisions, but rather at how the people living through this strange and brutal period of history reacted and adapted to it. I had seen this presentation in fragments before on TV, but was mesmerized by how quickly people will change their sense of values, ideology and humanity based on fear of retribution, the desire to conform, and the feeling that prosperity is the great justifier of everything. And just how easy it is to quickly make a scapegoat out of a demographic group with all of the above factors in play...

Third Reich: the Rise and Third Reich: the Fall reminded me of the film adaptation of Günter Grass's novel The Tin Drum, which depicted the same era (and the attitudes of ordinary people) through the eyes of a boy who reacted to the duplicity and phoniness of the adults around him by willing himself not to grow.

One thing about Third Reich: the Fall that WAS somewhat new to me was at the very end, when it was mentioned that millions of Germans died of starvation and disease AFTER the war had ended. I hadn't been aware of this and need to investigate this disturbing allegation further...

If you can hack your way through The History Channel's sordid schedule, past either non-historical or non-reality-based shows like Ancient Aliens, Pawn Stars, Ice Road Truckers, and Swamp People, you might just luck out and come up with a gem like the important documentary Third Reich. Please watch it if you have the chance. It carries some somber lessons and warnings for today in America, I'm afraid. Especially how suddenly a society can transform itself from something benign to something very, very hideous...

Recent Running, Future Swimming, and Deep-Fried Onions

My plan to train daily by doing runs and elliptical cross-trainer workouts on alternate days has now reached the two-week mark without any signs that my body is suffering from overstrain. My knees seem fine (which was my main concern about overrunning). Yes, my muscles feel a little sore, but that's actually something I expected as a sign of working hard. My main problem continues to be the stifling heat and humidity here in northern Florida. The mornings are so humid that I have to wait until around noon to run, and by then the temperature has soared. Sometimes I have no other option than to go to the YMCA and run on their treadmill, which I did today in the middle of a welcome strong rainstorm.

Next week I plan to practice my swimming form while staying at a hotel in Lexington, Kentucky. The two targeted strokes are freestyle and breaststroke. I think I "jumped the gun" a little earlier this year by trying to do too much with relatively poor form, especially since I have a lot of work to do with my breathing. After all of the kiddies start back with their school classes in a couple of weeks, the YMCA pool should be more available for practice as well.

Right now, though, my main physical problem is this heartburn I've incurred eating batter-fried onions during my lunch earlier today at Chili's restaurant with Melissa and Will. There are some foods that I'm just going to have to completely stay away from, and deep-fried foods are at the top of the list. When am I ever going to learn: I already knew they were bad for me and I ate them anyway...

Unwinding After Work at Archer Road Starbucks

I am currently sitting in the Archer Road Starbucks near SW 34th Street in Gainesville, right after getting off a little early from work in the evening. Open until midnight seven days a week, it is a very noisy place right now, with many international students from the University of Florida hanging out here. The police will be by as well a little later. Not that there will be any anticipated trouble: they come for the free coffee Starbucks offers them. So there's quite a mix in this place, and I am probably the only one here with a full-time regular job outside law enforcement. Besides the Starbucks employees, that is. As for the noise, I can only say that I'm grateful for these earplugs I'm wearing!

Usually at this time of day I am not all that sharp with my thinking. When I do come here for some late-night coffee and study, I usually end up doing something rote and easy, like working on my Chinese character notebook. But I haven't written a blog article yet today, so...

It's interesting how much this area has changed over the years. The building that houses this Starbucks also has Moe's, Panera, and Coldstone Creamery. It was built on the site originally (at least when I first came here in 1977) occupied by a Sambo's restaurant, one of those great old 24-hour chains. We still have a couple of these relics in Perkins and the Clock Restaurant. IHOP used to be 24 hours but now their hours are unpredictable. Steak n' Shake has a couple of all-night establishments in town. And there's still Waffle House, although the one I used to frequent on SW 13th Street (US 441) has been shut down for years.

Behind Sambo's used to be a rather large strip mall with a Winn Dixie in its center. Now that's been completely torn down and replaced with a Kohl's department store. The large field across Archer Road from where I'm sitting and from where I once observed Halley's Comet through my binoculars in late 1985, has been completely filled in for decades, with Wal-Mart, Lowes, a larger movie theater, and many shops and restaurants. I suppose, though, that as long as I no longer live in this now-congested zone, that's O.K.: there are a lot of choices of places to go around here, especially if I'm hungry!

Well, I'm nearing the end of my drink and this article as well. Hopefully, I'll have something more substantial to offer tomorrow! Then again, maybe I won't. Time to go home anyhow...

Pigskin Pontifications

To show that I'm a good sport about pro football (and the sport in general) after the way that the public was manipulated up to the last minute in collective bargaining negotiations, here are some (sometimes) disconnected comments...

--In my old high school during the early 1970's, going out for the football team was almost regarded by a lot of the boys as a rite of passage into manhood. Now if you were a little kid, it was generally understood, though, if you didn't try out. But when one these small-framers went out for football conditioning in the 9th grade, he became an instant celebrity/hero for several weeks. Funny though, he kind of "faded" away from the sports scene quickly after that experience...

--In the 10th grade, my history teacher stunned our class when he went off on a long rant against football one day. He correctly noted the very high injury rate in the sport and how it isn't rare for some injuries to plague people for the remainder of their lives. And some injuries paralyze, even kill...

--Toward the end of my track team season in the 11th grade (early spring 1973), we were outside at our track doing our track "stuff". At the same time, the next year's varsity football team was undergoing conditioning training. The coach was a complete hard-ass (and a few other things that are unprintable) who insisted on very tough discipline and even tougher, aggressive, heavy-hitting workouts. I would be in the locker room after practice when some of these players would come in and be so worked up after conditioning that they would go around trying to pick fights with anyone they saw. Later that fall, this "tough" team went 0-9-1 with a large percentage of the starters out due to season-ending injuries. That genius coach didn't return the following year...

--I still have issues with Tim Tebow on the sideline at the end of Florida's SEC championship game against Alabama, crying his head off because they were losing (badly) to the eventual national champions for that season. To me this was and is poor sportsmanship. When you lose, you man up and congratulate the winner with your head held high...

--I was reading today's sports section in my local paper where an article rated and analyzed some of the college quarterbacks in the state of Florida this season. Among them was the University of Florida's John Brantley, who as the article pointed out, needed to stop locking his gaze on the receiver he planned to throw to. When a passer does this, he is telling the opposing defense whom to cover and also frees players covering other receivers to go after the quarterback. I see quarterbacks doing this in pro ball as well, and I can't for the life of me figure out why they never made the effort to overcome this glaring handicap in their game. Let's see if John has what it takes...

--The Miami Dolphins acquired running back Reggie Bush from New Orleans to try to revamp their hurting running game. Now they need to find a good quarterback to add to that mix, someone like Denver's Kyle Orton, for example...

--Speaking of Orton, he is currently being mentioned as a trading possibility. That the Broncos refer to him as the "incumbent starter" sounds like a very weak endorsement of his status. But he is a very smart passer and would be a tremendous asset to the Dolphins or any team he ends up with. I personally can't believe that Denver would trade him away when their backup quarterbacks Tim Tebow and Brady Quinn have yet to show their versatility in the position that the game demands over a season at this level of competition. Tebow does have that short-yardage running angle to his game, but his playing experience as a starter last year happened when the season was for all practical purposes over, with the Broncos deep in last place and the pressure off Tebow. When the pressure's on, what will happen? Pro football can be a pretty unforgiving business, and past successes are quickly forgotten. It's "what have you done lately", taken to extremes...

Future Manned Asteroid Mission Iffy

So the next major task for NASA in the development of manned space exploration is to successfully send astronauts to an asteroid (and, I presume, safely back to Earth). By 2025. By presidential order. Some like this idea in that it would be more of an intermediate step to a future longer trip to Mars and would give NASA, scientists, and engineers the opportunity to develop the kind of long-term life-sustaining technology for deep space travel. Detractors of the plan say that the low-gravity moon would have been a much better location to establish a base and an optimal platform to launch later deep space flights. That idea, generated by our previous president George W. Bush, was cancelled by our current president Barack Obama, who stated that we didn't need to go to the moon because we've "already been there". And hence HIS presidential order to go to an asteroid (pick an asteroid, any asteroid) by 2025.

But what makes Barack Obama so much higher, mightier, and more authoritative in his orders and decisions regarding space exploration than George W. Bush? And what's keeping his successor to the presidency, possibly Mitt Romney, from canceling HIS agenda and laying out a new one (or nothing at all)?

Obama erred badly, in my opinion, by scrapping Bush's plan to return to the moon. For one, it has created a completely avoidable brain drain of talented scientists and engineers who see our space priorities unsupported by the government. Why hang around if you're not wanted, and why embark on a long-term, intricate, and very demanding project when some politician down the line can just arbitrarily cancel it with some flippant language? I wouldn't blame anyone for not sticking around...

But supposing, against my suspicions, that Obama's successors stick with his space exploration agenda and actually support an asteroid mission to its completion, I'm all aboard with it. But the problem is, how will anyone know for sure that succeeding presidents WILL support the mission? After all, THIS president completely rejected the previous one's proposed mission! For some reason, Obama decided to maintain close continuity with Bush's war efforts but rip apart his predecessor's worthy goals for space exploration.

Like I said, I think Obama messed up on this one...

Orlando International Airport Visit

On a recent trip to Orlando International Airport, I found myself sitting, waiting in the food court area in the "unsecured" zone of the terminal. On "my" side was a McDonalds; I later found out that the preferred Burger King was the reward on the "other side" for those who had to submit to the indignity and hassle of security searches.

But still, I was looking forward, just before 7 AM, to getting one of my favorites: a McGriddle breakfast sandwich. And although the service left a lot to be desired, I was happy with the eventual result. My son, who accompanied me on the trip (with my wife and daughter, who were on the "Burger King" side), celebrated our breakfast with me by walking across the court and enjoying a couple of Krispy Kreme doughnuts as well. As we sat there facing a huge cylindrical fish tank in our comfortable chairs, I noticed someone apparently sleeping nearby. I told Will I was going to shut my own eyes for a few minutes, too. And then I thought that finally, here is a public place where they don't mind people just loitering around and even sleeping. Then reality hit me: I'm paying a buck every half hour for parking, up to a $17 maximum bill per day I'm here. So just sitting here I'm paying the airport for "loitering" and "sleeping". Heck, for that price they should give me a small room as well!

Will and I later walked around the shops surrounding the food court. Aside from the bookstores and newsstands (reading material always somehow seems more interesting in airports), we visited their Universal Studios and Disney stores. Apparently, they are there for folks who had just attended these parks and needed mementos before boarding their return flights home (there was a Sea World store as well). I felt pleasant vibes just walking around in them. Part of this was the merchandise, part was the professional, friendly employees working there. Universal's store was the more interesting of the two: half of it was completely devoted to Harry Potter merchandise, almost complete with even Tri-Wizard Cups and Monster Books. I say "almost complete" because I sadly saw no Sorting Hats. But then I thought, the airlines probably don't want anyone bringing onto a plane a hat that they can draw a sword from!

Eventually, my daughter left on her flight to her destination (where we plan to join her in a couple of weeks via the highway) and Melissa came back to our "Mac" side. And off we went, homeward bound.

Waking up at three in the morning to catch an early flight from an airport more than a hundred miles away completely threw off my sleep patterns and sense of time. Fortunately, I had the rest of the day off and slept until late in the afternoon. Let's see, I think I've gotten myself back in sync now. Well, kind of...

Impasse Resolved, Impasses Continued

So it looks as if we are actually going to have NFL football this year after all, with a new ten-year deal between the owners and players just having been sealed. Whoopee! Now those football gamblers can lose even more money while fantasy players and spectator sports addicts don't have to get a life, after all...for at least ten more years, that is. Well...at least for the fall and early winter, until they wake up and realize that they won't have any pro basketball. And once again, I get to squirm as my pathetic Miami Dolphins get their ever-suffering fans' hopes up about a playoff run and then fall flat on their faces...

The National Basketball Association may still cancel their upcoming season, anyway. The fact that many of their star players have already signed up with overseas teams in other leagues points to this possibility. Oh well...

It's hard to see the recently resolved impasse in the NFL without comparing it to the debt ceiling impasse in our federal government. The main difference between the two processes, as I see it, is that in football, both sides were eager for a resolution but serious about their own priorities being incorporated into the deal. With the debt ceiling, though, a huge swath of our Republican representatives DON'T WANT the debt ceiling raised and see ANY compromise deal that allows it as a betrayal. I can sit back and blame those politicians, I suppose. But, in the final analysis, it was the foolish American people who put them into office in the first place, either by swallowing the tea party bull in the last congressional election or by staying away from the polls when they could have voted for others with more reasonable agendas.

You WILL Do Business Downtown!

There is a controversy of sorts lately in Gainesville about the plan to eliminate all free public parking in the downtown area. The city government wants visitors to the area to shell out money to use the public parking garages specially built for them. This plan is in addition to decisions made in the past to limit road lanes of the main thoroughfares of University Avenue and Main Street to one going each way, in order to somehow make the area more attractive to potential paying customers of its businesses.

None of these decisions has any impact on what I do, as I have long forgone any hope of successfully going downtown to do business there. For one, there isn't any place I would want to go other than the library's main branch and a couple of coffee shops. And I can get whatever I want from that library by placing a hold online and having it delivered to my nearby, albeit smaller Millhopper branch. As for the coffee, well, one place (Maude's) is easy to get in and out of with a private parking lot, but their fare is overpriced and I resent the snooty unfriendliness I have repeatedly encountered behind the counter. The Starbucks across the street from it is O.K., I suppose, assuming I can find a parking spot (which I hardly ever can). But why bother anyway, with all of the Starbucks stores available elsewhere in town. The other businesses downtown tend to gravitate toward highbrow, expensive restaurants and night clubs, neither of which I care much about.

I, personally, am nobody special regarding my business preferences, which is actually the whole point: I think others are like me in that they see very little downtown that would draw them there to spend their money. In other words, regarding the local government's failed efforts to stimulate business by restricting access to traffic and parking: it's the businesses, stupid!

Of course, they could pass a law similar to the new national health care law: an individual mandate decreeing that anyone living in Gainesville spend X amount of dollars annually on its cruddy downtown businesses or face a fine! But, y'know, although I wrote the above suggestion tongue-in-cheek, I wonder whether some of my local politicos might not think it would actually be a good idea. Scary, but it would fit with the mindset behind the restricted traffic lanes and the elimination of free parking...