Just Finished Reading James Patterson's Along Came a Spider

Perhaps you have seen the movie Along Came a Spider, starring Morgan Freeman as police detective/psychologist Alex Cross.  I haven't, which made reading the book an easy choice for me.  The author of Along Came a Spider, published in 1993, is James Patterson.  It is the first book of his long ongoing series featuring Alex Cross, with some movie adaptations along the way.  Cross and his police partner John Sampson are based in Washington, D.C. and have to deal with the discrepancy between how crime on poor minorities and that which victimizes those in wealthier and more powerful circles is viewed and treated.  Case in point: two prostitutes and a little boy, all black, are found brutally murdered in a southeast D.C. apartment.  Cross angrily fumes at the injustice as he is taken off this case and put on the investigation of a kidnapping of two white children with famous parents from their private school.  But as he comes to discover that a sadistic serial killer may be involved in both cases while increasingly becoming more emotionally involved over the plight of the children, Cross commits himself to finding them as well as capturing their abductor.  In the process, he befriends a Secret Service agent named Jezzie Flannagan, the two forming an intimate relationship.  And no, I am not going to tell you everything that happens in the story, which I guess you'll just have to read for yourself (or maybe just watch the movie)...

One thing I will mention, though, is that Patterson, through Alex Cross, makes use of some interesting ideas in psychology that have come to be controversial.  One is the notion of multiple personality and the other is regressive hypnosis.  By the early 1990s, multiple personality had been used more than once in criminal trials where the claim was made that the defendant was innocent of the crime charged because he or she was a different "person" when it happened.  At about the same time, regressive hypnosis got a bad reputation when it was abused to implant false childhood memories in several people of past Satanic cult abuse, helping to foment a mass hysteria about the subject.  As for me, I'm a bit dubious about the validity of either multiple personality or regressive hypnosis...but they've clearly been convenient devices for fictional works such as Along Came a Spider and the movie Spellbound...

My verdict on Along Came a Spider is "thumbs up", although I have to admit to liking Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone character more in her detective mystery series.  Alex Cross, although likable, nevertheless tends to be a bit too self-righteous at times to me.  But he is interesting, and he has his own mystery about his recently murdered wife to solve...something I expect to come up in the future with this series as I read through each successive book...

Plan to Run Newnan's Lake 15K Race This Saturday

Last year I ran eastern Gainesville's Newnan's Lake 15K (9.3 miles) race on a chilly morning.  It looks as if it will be chilly again this year at race time, with temperatures predicted to dip into the thirties.  And, again, I'm looking forward to running in it.  I had been planning to run in the Ocala Half-Marathon a couple of weeks ago, but the winter storm swept through the area that morning with its rain and especially high winds...I'll leave that one to run next year.  So now my last chance to run a race in January comes this weekend...and this local event seems to be the logical choice.  For one, it's very cheap to enter ($20 without a tee-shirt) and for another, I'm already familiar with the course, more or less.  I plan to take it slowly this time around and am aiming to simply complete it as a "social" training run.  Although the start of the race (and before) will be bothersome with the cold conditions, once I've run a little distance the chill in the air should begin to work heavily in my favor.  Not that I won't be left behind again in a cloud of dust at the starting line by all of the fanatical Gainesville runners!  Should be fun...

Denver Broncos Earn My Support By Beating Patriots Twice

I have to admit to some disillusionment about the National Football League Denver Broncos when they were so quick to dump their starting quarterback Tim Tebow after he led the team in 2011 to their first playoff appearance in several years...and then won the first playoff game for them (well, the rest of the team had something to do with that, too).  But Tebow has had his opportunities with other teams since then and, in my opinion, has limited his professional football options by refusing to play in a lower league or letting himself, as Ohio State star Braxton Miller did, be used in other positions.  Besides, Tim seems to be doing quite well in broadcasting.  But back to Denver...

The Broncos already earned a degree of support from me this 2015 season when they ended New England's run for an undefeated season.  The Patriots were already 10-0 when they played Denver...the last thing that I, a Miami Dolphins fan, wanted was for my hated divisional rivals, defending Super Bowl champions that they already were, to run the table and win all of their games.   But Denver stood up and defeated New England in a close game.  And yesterday they knocked the Patriots out of the playoffs by winning 20-18, in the process earning them both the American Conference championship and my gratitude and support...

Not that anyone in Denver would recognize this, but I would also like to point out that my Miami Dolphins, as bad of a season that they had this past year, still beat New England in their final regular season game.  That result insured that the Broncos won the home field advantage over the Patriots for the playoffs, a very crucial factor helping them in their close victory Sunday...
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So in the upcoming Super Bowl between Denver and the Carolina Panthers, I'm rooting for the Broncos.  However, this is a matchup between two teams that I am neither passionately for nor against.  H-m-m, maybe there will be an interesting soccer match on another channel during the game...

Just Finished Reading James Patterson's The Thomas Berryman Number

Since I like to delve into mystery stories from time to time, and have reached the current limit of my favorite author of that genre...Sue Grafton...I decided to try another writer.  I picked James Patterson because of his popularity...I've read that he is the best-selling author today.  That in itself is no guarantee of quality, though, but at least his novels are at least worth looking into.  Several years ago, I do remember reading one of his Women's Murder Club mysteries (you know, the ones with numbers in their titles) but my memory of it is vague.  Patterson has well over 100 titles to his name, although many if not most of them are collaborations with other authors.  He is probably best known for his Alex Cross and that Women's Murder Club series, but I decided to start my Patterson readings with his very first published novel, The Thomas Berryman Number, from 1976...

The "number" in The Thomas Berryman Number is jargon for a hit job on the mentioned person, and Thomas Berryman is a hit man.  Which doesn't quite make sense, since it implies that the hit man is the target of a hit...which is an important twist in the story.  The main character, a middle-aged Tennessee journalist named Ochs Jones, is investigating the recent assassination of Jimmie Lee Horn, the first elected black mayor of Nashville.  Circumstances seem to indicate that one man was the shooter, but with tips he has received, Ochs starts to suspect someone else: a young man named Thomas Berryman.  It is his search for Berryman and the people he meets and experiences he collects along the way that make up the bulk of the story, along with flashbacks told from other characters' points of view, particularly Berryman's...

I liked The Thomas Berryman Number.  The plot was a little convoluted and the characters seemed a little stereotypical, but all in all it was a well told story with a sympathetic protagonist that held my attention and kept me in suspense until the end.  So now I'm on to the Alex Cross series, which Patterson began writing in the early 1990s with the first book, titled Along Came a Spider.  That one was made into a movie, so I might watch it after I finish reading the book, which I'm about 60% of the way through so far...

Snow Flurries Here in Gainesville This Morning

This morning I slept in, as usually is the case on Saturday mornings.  Melissa had some interesting news for me when I finally did drag myself out of bed: there were snow flurries outside!  I knew from yesterday's forecast that today it would be very cold (for northern Florida, that is) all day long, and that flurries were possible as far south as I-10...about 50 miles north of my Gainesville.  When I stood outside on the back porch to see the snowfall, I had to train my eyes a little...but there it was: little white specks fluttering down in different directions, blown about by the strong winds.  I've been told that we also had snow flurries about five years ago...but I don't remember seeing any then.  As a matter of fact, speaking just of Florida, the last time I experienced snow was here in Gainesville one morning just before Christmas in 1989. The quite substantial amount of snowfall, not just flurries, came on the heels of a long, stormy night with sleet freezing the roads and coating windshields thickly with ice.  When I got off from work on my graveyard shift that morning, it took a while to clear my windshield...and then I had to very carefully drive home on the icy roads.  After finally reaching my house, the snowfall began.  We also had icicles hanging from our bushes everywhere.  Even now, 26 years later, nothing this "wintery" has again occurred in north-central Florida...

It's interesting to see snow in Gainesville, even it it's just flurries.  Still, I am grateful to live in a place that is usually dry when the temperatures get below freezing.  My heart goes out to all those in the eastern U.S. who are struggling with the blizzards, frozen roads, and cancelled flights during the historic winter storm currently going on...

Just Finished Reading Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman

Last year there was a great amount of controversy in the book publishing world when it was announced that Harper Lee, the author of the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, had, 55 years later, come out with a sequel to it, titled Go Set a Watchman.  This was quite a surprise to many, considering that Lee had not published anything since that first book and was now in her late eighties with several disabilities, including poor eyesight.  It turned out, though, that her new attorney had seized upon the manuscripts of Go Set a Watchman from a safe and got the author's permission for publishing...HarperCollins jumped on it, heavily promoting it as a Mockingbird sequel, and watched the sales soar.  But the popular reaction of many readers was very negative: To Kill a Mockingbird's hero lawyer/father Atticus Finch is portrayed, two decades after the original story takes place, as racially prejudiced.  Well, I just had to see things for myself...and just finished reading Go Set a Watchman...

First of all, when discussing all of this, we need to realize that we are dealing with two different time frames: one is the real world's and the other is that of Harper Lee's stories.  In the real world, she had written Go Set a Watchman as the first draft for her (first) novel and submitted it to her editor...who had several reservations with it, making numerous suggestions.  Over the next three years, she rewrote her story while continually consulting with her editor.  The final product, To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960.  Also note that, in the "real world", the famous U.S. Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education ruling on desegregation was issued in 1954, sparking a great deal of white backlash in the South.  Now to the time within Lee's stories...

To Kill a Mockingbird is set in 1935 in the town of Maycomb, Alabama.  Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, the fictional narrator and main character of that story when she was a little girl, in Go Set a Watchman returns to her childhood community twenty years later after pursuing a career in New York.  Her father, Atticus Finch, is a lawyer in Maycomb known for his sense of fairness and compassion for the blacks there.  In 1935, he takes on a case defending a black man accused of raping a white woman: this becomes the central story woven into To Kill a Mockingbird.  Yet in Go Set a Watchman, when this important case and trial comes up for discussion, its outcome and specifics contradict those of the "earlier" story.  Go Set a Watchman, set closely following that aforementioned Supreme Court ruling, has Atticus expressing views on race that he never even remotely gave a hint of believing throughout Mockingbird.  Jean Louise, who had idolized her father for his open-mindedness and being "color-blind" regarding others, is shocked upon discovering his bigotry...their struggles over this issue constitute the core of Go Set a Watchman...

I read Go Set a Watchman in the author's fictional time frame...hence, I read it as a sequel.  But it was written BEFORE To Kill a Mockingbird and is, in essence, a very different story.  Not only is Atticus Finch distinctly different between the two stories, but so is Jean Louise.  To Kill a Mockingbird mixes several interesting story lines together and creates an atmosphere of suspense for the reader...Go Set a Watchman is a rather boring treatise on how someone can idolize and hero-worship their parent in childhood but eventually must reconcile that internalized "fantasy" picture with the reality of that parent, flaws and all.  But I didn't need to read through the whole tedious book to get that lesson...I imagine that Harper Lee's original editor back in 1957 saw the same thing when he asked her to rewrite her story.  There's a good reason why Go Set a Watchman, written in 1957, wasn't published during all these intervening years...and I suppose that, with the ensuing financial windfall for the interested parties, there's also a good reason why it was eventually published last year.  Go ahead and read it if you want, but realize that it was never written to be a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird...

2016 Florida Primary Date and Voter Registration Deadline

Being someone who has repeatedly criticized the voting populace for its apathy and lack of consistency in showing up to the polls on election day and voting (the last two local elections had 12% turnout), I thought I might make a point of reminding folks that the Florida Presidential Preference Primary for 2016 will be held on March 15, with early voting allowed on March 5-12.  If you haven't yet registered to vote in Florida or want to change your party affiliation, the deadline to do that is February 16...

I know it's tempting to rationalize to yourself that your one vote won't tip the scales and decide anything.  But remember, when your elected leaders do something that you don't like, that they got to where they can make those bad decisions because of the people who took the few minutes necessary to vote.  And also, that perhaps they got there in part because of people who would have voted for someone else but didn't think it was worth the bother... 

If you need to register or update your information, here is the link to the Florida Division of Elections.

The Republican Presidential Candidates, Part 4: Cruz, Carson, Rubio, and Kasich

I had planned to write about the rest of the major 2016 Republican presidential candidates on an individual basis, but quite frankly, they aren't as interesting to me as the aforementioned Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, or Rand Paul.  Right now, it looks as if only Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Ben Carson (and maybe, just maybe John Kasich) are the only ones left to challenge opinion polls leader Donald Trump for the nomination. Of course, no one's actually VOTED yet, but Trump is so far ahead nationally that he will have to seriously stumble for anyone else to catch up with him.  Although maverick Texas senator Ted Cruz is solidly in second place, he has a tendency to antagonize the very party establishment he needs to court for their support...this tendency to make bellicose speeches on the Senate floor against his own leaders, ironically, has given me a much higher opinion of him than before.  Dr. Ben Carson, a renown pediatric neurosurgeon (retired now), seems at a loss in the political world...a phenomenon I've seen all too much in my lifetime where an individual shows great genius and accomplishment in one particular area but seems completely clueless in others.  Yet Carson...sadly like so many I know...seems to think that every word he says is profound wisdom.  It's really the same paradigm with Trump: Carson's a successful neurosurgeon, so believe him about everything because of that...Trump's a rich and successful businessman, so believe him about everything because of that.  Well, I don't on either account...

Which brings me to Floridian Marco Rubio, who rode to election in 2010 to the US Senate by allying himself to the Tea Party movement but now wants to be seen as a mainstream Republican leader.  The problem I see with Rubio, who is a very impressive speaker and has a youthful appearance and appeal, is his flip-flopping on issues...something that ended up hurting 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry in that year's general election.  Rubio actually co-wrote a Senate bill on immigration reform and then voted against his own bill when he drew flack from the right wing media's talking heads.  Still, Rubio would be a formidable opponent should he eventually get the nomination.  His being potentially the "first" Latino president would help to counter Hillary Clinton's appeal as the "first" woman president and possibly cut into the Democrats' large lead among that Hispanic demographic.  And the state of Florida, always a swing state in recent decades, would be more winnable with Rubio as the nominee...this is the same advantage that Ohio governor John Kasich would bring into the general election, as his state also is usually crucial to victory in November. Kasich, who comes across to me as constantly angry and disgusted at the stupid people around him, however, is low in the national polls despite doing well in New Hampshire...

At this point, it looks as if the Republican nomination is Donald Trump's to lose and he strikes me as being electable in the general election against (most likely) Hillary Clinton.  The only other candidate I see winning the presidency this time around is Rubio...Cruz is too ideological and Carson seems too...well, too confused...

Just Finished Reading Herman Melville's Moby Dick

Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, is widely considered as one of the classics of American literature, but I never had gotten around to reading it.  Until just recently, that is.  The main reason I think I waited for so long is that I felt that, due to the many references to this story that I've heard over the course of my life, I already had it figured out.  After all, isn't it pretty much common knowledge to most of us that Moby Dick is the name of the whale that mad, vengeful Captain Ahab seeks to confront and destroy, consequences be damned?  Well, I figured that there were a few details to fill in for this tale, and I set out to read it...

Herman Melville was obviously well acquainted with sailing on the high seas, especially with regard to the thriving whaling industry of the early-to-mid 19th century (Moby Dick was first published in 1851).  He devotes large sections of his narrative, told in the first person by a sailor named Ishmael, to describing whales in their biology and variety, whaleboats, and all of the tools and strategies of those involved in the killing of whales and the processing of their products (especially oil).  These passages were sometimes interesting and enlightening, but much of them left me lost as I knew little about sailing ships of the past and their parts and functions.  These "educational" sections were interspersed with the actual story of the Pequot, a whaling ship that Ishmael signs up with at Nantucket harbor on its doomed encounter with the giant whale.  The plot is largely driven from the viewpoint of various characters, most notably Ahab, his first mate Starbuck, the second mate Stubb, the Polynesian harpooneer Queequeg, and others...Ishmael himself is only involved in the pre-launch beginning of the story...and at its very end.  It was the dialogues and monologues of the characters, with their own peculiar regionalisms and slang, that I liked the most about Moby Dick. There is also a lot of introspection about people's motivations as well as an exploration into how people from completely different backgrounds relate to one another. 

As the whaling ship Pequot goes on its quest for Moby Dick...first through the North and then South Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope to the Indian Ocean, through Dutch Indonesia to the Pacific, and eventually to the final encounter...there is a series of encounters with other whaling vessels, with Ahab and his crew touching base and exchanging information (called a "Gam") with the other boat's captain and crew.  These "Gams" take up another large part of the book.

The final dramatic battle between Captain Ahab and Moby Dick takes up a rather small section at the very end of the story...a surprise to me, since I had always pictured to myself that last struggle as THE BOOK. You may already know what ultimately happens, even if you never read it.  Still, I was a bit taken aback at what "went down" at the end...

Moby Dick is generally thought to be based on a true battle between a giant sperm whale and a whaler in the South Pacific around 1820.  Ron Howard, with undoubtedly his own creative embellishments, produced and directed a movie about this called In the Heart of the Sea, which is in theaters now.  I'm thinking about going to see it, if only to give me a better visual picture to all of the often very arcane technical information that Melville gave in Moby Dick...   

Rain Clouds Darken My Plans to Run Sunday's Ocala Half-Marathon

I was looking forward to participating in this Sunday's Ocala Half-Marathon race, but for the past several days weather forecasts have had the entire area under rain for that morning.  Seeing that I don't even go out and run on my own neighborhood streets where it's wet outside, I sure don't see myself running 13.1 miles on unfamiliar, slick, and sloping roads while constantly feeling like I just climbed out of a swimming pool.  I guess, in that sense, that might seem in some people's minds like I'm not as committed to the sport as I should be...well let them think what they want.  I have to make my own decisions for myself, and part of that is setting up boundaries that I deem are in my own best interests...

Today was supposed to be another day full of rain, according to the meteorological prognosticators, but after some early morning showers the sun came out and it is now expected to be rain-free the rest of the way.  So I ask myself, why should I automatically presume that Sunday morning will be rainy when they couldn't even get today...which is considerably closer in time...right? 

I plan to get up early Sunday morning and check to see what the weather is like then.  If it appears promising, then I'm going to Ocala.  If not, I'll stay home and plan to run two weeks from now in a Gainesville 15K (9.3 mile) race.  Fortunately, I didn't preregister for the Ocala race and therefore won't be out any amount of money if I do decide to skip it...

Just Finished Reading Stephen King's The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Every few years, my favorite author Stephen King will come out with a collection of his short stories.  Most of them were previously published in magazines or in e-books/Internet releases.  His November, 2015 release, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams with its eighteen short stories and two poems, is no exception.  Still, the only one of these I had previously read was Blockade Billy, a baseball story that had been published a few years ago in its own very small book (I once read it off the shelf at my local Books-a-Million store).  If there is one theme that tends to permeate these tales, it is mortality and how we deal with it under different circumstances.  The psychology of stress and how people handle it is another common theme as well.  As a matter of fact, the most compelling thing about this book is how well King gets into the minds of his very believable characters, who are thrust into often unbelievable situations, and reveals their motivations and rationalizations for their actions...

I didn't like all of the stories in The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, but most were interesting.  My favorites were the opening piece Mile 81 (yet another King yarn about a monster car), Batman and Robin Have an Altercation, Ur, The Little Green God of Agony, That Bus Is Another World, Obits, and Drunken Fireworks.  And I suppose that of these, the very disturbing (and rather short) That Bus Is Another World is the best...with the hilarious Drunken Fireworks following it closely and Obits a distant third...

Not only did I generally enjoy Stephen King's The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, but I keenly appreciated his comments prefacing each entry.  It's true that good writers will put some of their own lives into their stories, and King acknowledges doing this as well.  But he is wise enough to let his characters take on their own "lives", fictional as they may ultimately be.  Now, when is this dude going to come out with another blockbuster novel like 11/22/63?

Nick Saban Reconsidered

Nick Saban is the head football coach at the University of Alabama and has been since 2007.  I am keenly aware of this fact since, in December of 2006 at the close of the Miami Dolphins regular season, a team he said he was committed to coaching to success, he was coaxed into walking away from them and taking the offered Alabama job.  Along with masses of other Dolphins fans, I felt betrayed by Saban.  As it turned out, he had insisted on so much control over Miami that, when he left there was a great void that needed to be filled.  The next year, they went a dismal 1-15, almost going winless until a late season victory over Baltimore.  This hurt was compounded by Saban taking a job with a school that was a conference rival to my hometown Florida Gators.  And then, at the close of the 2009 season, his Crimson Tide beat my Gators in the SEC championship game on the way to the first of his four national championships with Alabama.  Ouch!

Forgiveness is divine, but I'm only human and I've held this grudge against Nick Saban for too long.  Look, any ambitious football coach will have certain dream jobs in his sights, and the opportunities have to be taken when they arise...which are usually rare.  Coaching at Alabama, a venerable football school with Bear Bryant's tradition of winning championships, was clearly an offer that Saban felt he couldn't refuse.  And he didn't actually renege on his contract with Miami to join them: the Dolphins owner acquiesced with Saban's departure and wished him the best.  Now he has been with Alabama for nine years and has settled well into the position that he had been striving for during his professional life.  As for the Dolphins, in 2008 they actually did make the playoffs, making one of the greatest one-season turnarounds in NFL history.  But for the past seven years they've neither made the playoffs nor had a winning season...I can hardly hang that dismal performance over time on Nick Saban.

Nick Saban is quite a control freak, and coaching college recruits in Tuscaloosa gives him more power over individual lives than he had coaching grown-up professionals in Miami.  He coached two years for the Dolphins in 2005 and 2006 and suffered through both seasons with untimely key injuries and poor decisions about who he wanted playing for his team.  College football suits Saban's temperament, and he was wise to recognize this and act on it.  Since leaving Miami he has won four NCAA national championships.  Does anyone seriously propose that he could have accomplished anything similar in the same time span with the Dolphins?  And had he stayed with the pros...well, I only need to look at happened to former New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin...

Tom Coughlin, a certainty to be ushered into the NFL Hall of Fame, during the same 2007-15 period that Nick Saban has been coaching Alabama, coached his Giants to two Super Bowl victories, a feat that almost any other league team would envy...I know my Dolphins would, not having won a league title going on 42 years running.  But because, lately, his team has had two or three off-seasons, the Giants owner decided to ditch him...only he had him "resign" to make himself look better.  But that's the way it is in the NFL with coaches: they come and go more quickly and the job security is often hard to come by...it often has more to do with whether the owner personally likes you or not than how well your team performs.  So I'm finally reconciling myself to Saban leaving Miami to coach Alabama.  I just wish they hadn't put up that very creepy statue of him outside their stadium...

British Rock Legend David Bowie Dies

British rock musician David Bowie has passed away of cancer at age 69.  He was known in his early fame for his flamboyant onstage performance of Ziggy Stardust, his alter ego...at least until his 1980 song and video Ashes to Ashes finally laid that character to rest.  In the late 1960s he changed his last name to Bowie when he realized that David "Davy" Jones of the Monkees and he shared the same name.  The first time I heard anything of his was on South Miami's 790/WFUN radio station around 1970 or 1971, when they played Space Oddity...it blew me away.  That song, which initially was generally ignored by stations at its first release in 1969, was reissued in 1973 and finally enjoyed its deserved popularity...it is one of the two great songs of Bowie that I love.  The other great David Bowie song...here I'm just speaking of my own opinion...is Changes, released in 1971 and then again in 1975.  This song is one of the all-time greats, with very compelling lyrics speaking of youth, introspection...and inevitable aging.  Brilliant...I remember singing it to myself when I would go running long distances back in early '75 around the old three-mile perimeter block that my old high school and the adjacent community college was situated on.  Bowie would later produce a string of popular singles and best-selling albums, but although I generally liked them (with the notable exception of his inexplicably popular song Fame), they didn't resonate with me very much just the same.  Oh, there's one other song I liked a lot with which he was involved: the late 70s collaboration he did with the group Queen, titled Under Pressure...

I understand that David Bowie, even in his death, has a new album out...I'm sure that the songs on it are good as I have heard some positive reactions to it already in the media.  But I have to admit that he had already summed up everything quite well with that early song Changes.  So long, David...

Cincinnati Bengals Self-Destruct in Another First-Round Playoff Loss

In the National Football League, teams are expected to win...else, the management, especially the head coach, gets fired and replaced.  At least that's how it usually works.  Take "my" Miami Dolphins over the past seven years.  In that span, they haven't enjoyed even one winning season, much less reached the playoffs.  And coaches have come and gone, as they should have.  It's been disappointing to me, especially considering their long history of success in the previous century.  Yet in spite of my problems with the Fins, the letdown I feel about them must pale compared to what Cincinnati Bengals fans must be going through right now...

Cincinnati has made the playoffs in the last seven years...certainly they've done a lot better than Miami in that regard.  And so they've retained their head coach Marvin Lewis throughout the period.  But the Bengals haven't won a single playoff game, going out in the first round for seven straight years.  But just a couple of hours ago, it looked as if they were going to end their playoff woes, having coming from 15 points down to Pittsburgh in the fourth quarter and taking a 16-15 lead with less than two minutes to go.  And then victory seemed sealed when the Bengals intercepted the ball, now with the chance to run out the clock deep in Steeler territory.  But on their first offensive play, they fumbled the ball right back to Pittsburgh.  The Steelers drove downfield but were still about 15 yards from field goal range.  Then, on an incomplete pass, a Bengal defender ran his helmet into that of the Pittsburgh receiver, putting the Steelers into marginal field goal range.  And then, during the ensuing arguments, another defender earned another personal foul penalty, giving Pittsburgh, who had run out of time-outs with only 18 seconds left, an easy field goal...and they won 18-16.  Throughout the last few seconds, Coach Lewis might as well not have been there, just standing there watching his players self-destruct in front of him.  I know that Cincinnati has enjoyed more success than Miami has, but some of Cincinnati's players seem completely out of control...and the head coach has to bear a great degree of responsibility for their behavior.  I'm just glad that I'm not a big Cincinnati fan...I tend to root for Baltimore when it comes down to their AFC North Division.  I doubt Lewis will remain their head coach after this debacle...

Just Finished Reading Sue Grafton's "X" Mystery Novel

As I've repeatedly mentioned on this blog, I am in the process of reading through mystery writer Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone series, with the titles progressively featuring a letter of the alphabet...starting with "A" is for Alibi, "B" is for Burglar, and so on.  I just finished reading her latest, simply titled "X".  It may have been hard for Grafton to come up with a word to accompany this letter, but she managed to make it relevant anyway...a couple of new characters in the novel have the Greek surname Xanakis...

"X" weaves three subplots together...one concerning Kinsey's troublesome new neighbors, one involving a violent, malevolent psychopathic stalker, and one about that aforementioned couple...formerly married but now estranged...with a valuable painting in the ex-husband's possession, surreptitiously sought after by the ex-wife.  Kinsey gets dragged into all the stories, although as a professional private investigator she stands to gain little or nothing with these three "cases"...and may well lose everything.  Although I won't give away the ending, I will hint that one of these stories, not having as yet been satisfactorily resolved by book's end, may well continue into one of the final two volumes in the series...

And I am looking forward to the last two books in this wonderful "alphabet" series by Sue Grafton...only now I'll have to just sit and wait until they come out.  Let me guess: the next one will feature the letter "Y"...

Griffey, Jr. and Piazza Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame

Two players on different sides of the performance-enhancing drugs saga of the turn-of-the-century in  Major League Baseball, Ken Griffey, Jr. and Mike Piazza, have been elected to this year's Baseball Hall of Fame by the designated sports writers.  Griffey, who had hit 630 home runs over the course of his illustrious career, avoided the steroids, human growth hormone, and other supplements that others used to enhance their statistics and prolong their careers.  Piazza, while not engaging in anything illegal or prohibited, did nevertheless reveal later in his autobiography that he used a then-legal muscle-building substance during his playing days.  But to me and many others, he was not cheating but rather using the resources that were then available to him.  He was one of the best hitting catchers of all time, hitting 427 career home runs...

Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, two players with amazing careers but both with serious allegations of having used performance-enhancing drugs levelled against them (neither officially convicted of the infractions), were also on the ballot but neither could muster enough votes for election.  They both will have the opportunity to try again...for another six years...before their names get removed from consideration.

I wish the whole steroid/HGH scandal never happened in Major League Baseball...it certainly cast a shadow over the vaunted season and career home run records, now dominated by suspected abusers.  I will say one thing at least about career records, though: baseball is a peculiar business...in the early 1920s they introduced a livelier ball to enhance run production...which happened to coincide with the start of Babe Ruth's amassing of his 714 home runs.  Then, following the 1968 season, heavily dominated by pitching, the pitching mound was lowered in order to give batters more opportunities for hits.  In both of these times, career statistics were naturally affected.  In the early 1960s the regular season was expanded from 154 to 162 games.  And with expansion over the years, the number of teams grew from 16 to 30...giving a lot more opportunities for statistics to be padded while playing against mediocre competition. But the greatest factor I see that makes me want to place a caveat on career statistics in baseball is the racial segregation that ruled the sport until Jackie Robinson's entry in 1947.  Babe Ruth may not have used steroids, but he also didn't play against the best competition in accomplishing his feat, either.  And those blacks who were excluded from the majors all those decades will never achieve the deserved recognition of their skill and accomplishments due to this injustice.  If we're going to talk about Barry Bonds hitting 73 home runs in a season or having 762 career round-trippers and whether those records are legitimate, I say let's first have a discussion about all of the records made during the vast segregation era...

The Republican Presidential Candidates, Part 3: Rand Paul

Of all the Republican candidates for president this time around, I admire and respect Kentucky Senator Rand Paul the most...although I often differ with him on the issues.  Paul is more or less following in the ideological footsteps of his father Ron Paul, who has run for president on a number of occasions with a strict libertarian message.  As far as the libertarian movement is concerned, I agree that we should have freedom of speech, religion, and association...but that big government is not the only danger facing us.  Businesses can also get big enough to where they are considered "too big to fail" and as such should be regulated...especially if their failures end up subsidized by us taxpayers as was the case in 2008.  Also, as Americans we need our "big" government to protect us from outside threats, be they major powers or terrorist movements.  And whether the Pauls like it or not, we do have embedded within our collective expectations a viable system of safety-net programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid...with that problematic "big government" administering them.  Also, I strongly believe that it is in our national interests (as well as my own personal) to have collective bargaining and labor unions as important elements of our society and economy.  Libertarians tend to hate unions...which explains why they tend to identify with the Republican Party...

That all having been said, Rand Paul is a very smart, reasonable guy who is a very eloquent and forceful speaker.  I saw him defend his views on many occasions on the Senate floor (watching on C-Span2) and he is not the kind of politician (as sadly are too many of his GOP rivals) who will just take a position on an issue to gain a political advantage.  So I think he has the integrity to stick to his principles...and he, unlike the previous Republican president, won't get us stupidly bogged down in an unwinnable foreign military adventure.  But alas, Rand Paul doesn't stand a chance, this election year...or any, for that matter.  If I were a Republican (and I was once, for about seven or eight years), he would now easily be my first choice far above the others.  But I'm not, and he isn't.  Still, I wish him the best in this campaign, his political career, and life...

Transferring My Study of Foreign Languages to Computer

A few days ago, I wrote that I had added Cyrillic (Russian) script to my computer.  Now I've added a few more languages to it, including Chinese (I use the traditional characters).  What I'm trying to do here is continue my foreign language study, but take it from books, paper and pencil to screen and keyboard.  My resources are almost boundless on the Internet, and with the scripts now available I can begin to realistically compose my own sentences (and eventually articles) in the languages I am learning...

I am continuing with my Duolingo study of Russian (mostly a review) and have begun studying Turkish, just to get a feel about how this application teaches new concepts.  It reminds me a little of the programmed method of instruction that I experienced back in high school when I studied trigonometry.  I like learning that way...

Melissa will soon be starting her course in Biblical Greek, and I'm going to study it with her.  I will definitely be putting that script on my computer, too.  Also, besides Duolingo, Quizlet provides a great way to study lists of items and test myself on them.  And the Google (or Bing) translator option is going to be a big help, too...

用計算機學別的語言很有意思！

NFL 2015 Regular Season Ends Today, My Playoff Preferences

Today the National Football League 2015 regular season ends...at this writing, only the Sunday night game between Green Bay and Minnesota is left to be finished.  Regardless of that game's result, the twelve teams making the playoffs this year are set...it's just in the National Conference that the upcoming games are still in a state of uncertainty...

In the division that concerns me the most, the American Conference East, today's games satisfied me to no end.  First of all, my Miami Dolphins, already doomed to the cellar this year, stunned perennial division champion New England on the last day, 20-10.  That result, combined with Denver's hard-fought win (featuring the return of Peyton Manning) over San Diego, means that New England, although enjoying a first-round bye in the playoffs, may have to play the conference championship game (if they get that far) on the road if it's against the Broncos.  That's a victory of sorts!  The other "victory" was seeing Buffalo knock off the New York Jets 22-17 and out of the playoffs, combined with a Pittsburgh win over Cleveland.  Not that I particularly care for the Steelers, either...but if you're the fan of a team in the AFC East, you just automatically tend to despise the other three teams and wish them no success...

So in the AFC, Denver and New England are seeded #1 and #2 respectively and get first-round byes.  The first round games will have Cincinnati hosting Pittsburgh and Kansas City visiting Houston.  In the NFC, Carolina and Arizona are seeded #1 and #2 respectively and will each also get a pass on the first week of the playoffs.  The other four teams...Seattle, Green Bay, Minnesota, and Washington...will play next week, but the outcome of tonight's Packers/Vikings game will determine who plays whom and where.  As for my preferences...well, why don't I just rank all twelve teams according to my liking, and then when two of them are playing each other you can easily determine which one I'm rooting for:

1 Seattle
2 Kansas City
3 Green Bay
4 Carolina
5 Cincinnati
6 Arizona
7 Minnesota
8 Washington
9 Denver
10 Houston
11 Pittsburgh
12 New England

Note from the above that I am generally heavily biased in favor of NFC teams...I don't exactly know why this is the case, other than that the Dolphins' biggest rivals are in the AFC...

Ushering in the New Year at Daytona Beach

For the past couple of nights, Melissa and I were at Daytona Beach, staying at one of the oceanfront hotels we like.  Thursday evening we took a stroll out on the beach...and then ended up hiking down the shoreline to their famous "Oceanwalk", which included a performance at the bandshell by some country & western band, lots and lots of tired-looking and sweaty thronging visitors (it was warm and humid that night), some rides (slingshot, rollercoaster, tilt-a-whirl), and some free-lance fireworks displays.  The two of us just walked through it all and, upon reaching the pier, took a small break and headed back. Later on, leaning out of our seventh-floor hotel balcony around midnight, we saw some more fireworks...this seemed to be the "official" show...set off from a boat just offshore near the pier. The next day we enjoyed outdoors by the pool and on the beach, with the sky still overcast but temperatures milder...I ran 7.3 miles up and down the coast.  Friday night, the cold front we had been waiting for passed through and it became much cooler and very windy...the next morning, as we prepared to leave, conditions were still dreary but pleasant.  We saw very little "blue" in the sky throughout our visit...the above photos I took this morning.  After we checked out, Melissa and I ate lunch at the Black Sheep Pub and Eating House on A1A in Ormond Beach...it has a deliberately British/Irish atmosphere, definitely worth a return visit...

Added Russian Script to My Computer: Замечательно!

The other day Melissa told me about a free language-learning application, Duolingo, that she was using on her computer to study Spanish.  She set up the application for me on mine, and I began with their Russian lessons.  Only one problem: Russian uses a different script, the Cyrillic, from our Latin writing system and I had to type in the English-to-Russian translation answers using Latin transliteration.  I solved this glitch by adding Russian as a second language on my computer...and can now toggle back and forth between the Latin and Cyrillic scripts. I learned the Russian system of writing back in 1976, even to the point where I can easily write "in English" using а Latin-to-Cyrillic transliteration I devised for myself.  So the following passage "И ам студыинг руссиан анд уоулд лике то ачиеве флуенсы ин ит" is actually in English...see if you can "decode" it!

In any event, it's fun having Cyrillic on my computer...I may find myself slipping in a Russian word here or there on my blog every now and then...

My December 2015 Running Report

In December, I ran for a cumulative total of 178 miles and on 26 of the 31 days.  Most of the days had me spacing my running out on several different shorter runs...my longest single run of the month was for 6.5 miles when, on December 5th, I ran the Lumber Around the Levee race, held at Barr Hammock Preserve between Micanopy and Paynes Prairie.  I've tried different strategies of training in December without any one seeming to give me much progress.  It's also been difficult here in north-central Florida with its unseasonably record hot temperatures and chronically high humidity...not conducive at all to road running.  The other day it got up to 86 degrees...in the winter!  I keep hearing talk about it eventually cooling around here...it sure would make my running more enjoyable...

Next month, on the 17th, will be the Ocala Half-Marathon...a race that I am already familiar with, having run this course in 2011 and 2013.  Whether or not I'll be ready for it this time around remains to be seen...but I'm inclined to go ahead and enter it anyway and just cover the distance even if I have to walk for stretches at a time...

My Favorite Songs of 2015

As we're closing in on the end of 2015, it's time once again for me to review my favorite songs of the year.  Since I tend to focus my music listening to independent/alternative rock, it should be no surprise that my list consists completely of that genre.  2015 was a good year, musically speaking, with many songs out that I liked to listen to.  My sources for listening were either new albums of favorite musical acts that I acquired or my local alt-rock radio station, 100.5/WHHZ "The Buzz".  Among the albums I enjoyed in 2015 were Kasabian's 48:13 (the title based on how long the album is), Sufjan Stevens's Carrie and Lowell (largely about his late parents), and Spoon's latest, They Want My Soul.  The best of the lot, in my opinion, is the emotionally gut-wrenching Carrie and Lowell, which, as I have said before, merits a Grammy.  Kasabian is a British band that recalls the brashness and musical talent of older groups like The Who and the Rolling Stones. Spoon is a great Texas-based alternative rock band...you may be familiar with their first hit from many years ago: I Turn My Camera On.  That song Dreams by Beck...I like it a lot (it's a single released in advance of his upcoming new album), but it sounds an awful lot like MGMT's 2008 song Electric Feel in some places. And Awolnation and the Cold War Kids are two bands I'm going to be keeping my eye on next year.   Well, without further ado, here's the list of my favorite songs of 2015, with the artist mentioned after each title...

1 TREAT...Kasabian
2 Hollow Moon...Awolnation
3 First...Cold War Kids
4 I Should Have Known Better...Sufjan Stevens
5 Death With Dignity...Sufjan Stevens
6 Rainy Taxi...Spoon
7 Dreams...Beck
8 Fourth of July...Sufjan Stevens
9 Blue Bucket of Gold...Sufjan Stevens
10 Agora...Bear Hands
11 Renegades...X Ambassadors
12 Cigarette Daydreams...Cage the Elephant
13 Mess is Mine...Vance Joy
14 Forgot My Broken Heart...Chris Cornell
15 Ex's and Oh's...Elle King
16 My Type...Saint Motel

1972 Miami Dolphins Can Finally Break Out the Champagne

It took a while longer than most years, but with today's 20-13 loss to Atlanta, the Carolina Panthers finally lost a game for this 2015 season, depriving the National Football League once again of a team with a perfect record.  The 1972 Miami Dolphins have been the only ones to accomplish this feat, but I was beginning to worry with Carolina's run this year. Just a couple of weeks ago against the same team, the Panthers destroyed the Falcons 38-0...so I didn't harbor any real hopes of an upset with their rematch earlier this afternoon.  This just goes to show the unpredictability of this game.  Now I can start to root for Carolina...and the old '72 Dolphins who are still around can break out the champagne and celebrate!

These old Miami alumni perform this ritual annually when the last remaining undefeated NFL team finally loses.  I don't happen to have any of the bubbly drink around, but I am raising my imaginary glass with my imaginary drink in a toast to those Dolphin greats of the past and their unduplicated accomplishment...may only a future Miami team repeat it.  But with the Dolphins' troubles in recent years, I'm not holding my breath in anticipation...

Just Finished Reading The Last Theorem by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederick Pohl

Arthur C. Clarke, and Frederick Pohl to a lesser extent, are considered two of the twentieth century's most renown and respected science fiction writers.  Both made it to this century as well before succumbing to ailments well into their eighties.  The Last Theorem, published in 2008, is Clarke's final work, and his physical and mental conditions forced him to hand over its completion to Pohl.  The novel's release coincided with the death of Clarke, known mostly to the general public for his 2001: A Space Odyssey...

The Space Odyssey series bears a similarity to The Last Theorem in that both involve advanced alien civilizations discovering humanity's emergence into space and use of nuclear weapons and judging the fate of our species based on the level of threat they believe we present.  But the setting of The Last Theorem, which I just finished reading, is entirely different: Sri Lanka, an island nation just off the southern peninsula of India (and where Clarke lived), a few years (but not many) into the future.  The chief protagonist, Ranjit Subramanian, is a young mathematician from there who is struggling to write an elegant proof for Fermat's Last Theorem...a problem that had baffled mathematicians for centuries until, in the 1990s, a very cumbersome computer-aided solution was provided.  Ranjit's compelling personal story eventually intertwines with the book's other main subplot, namely the invasion of Earth and planned annihilation of humanity.  Along the way, the authors take predictably political potshots at nationalism, militarism, and war...focusing chiefly against the policies of the United States and often referring to their invasion and occupation of Iraq.  I get it...but I felt that, at times, I was being preached to instead of being told a story.  Also, toward the end of the book the characters became less and less believable...especially the "Space Olympics" role of Ranjit's daughter...

But all things considered, this is but a story and they all break down on one level or another.  After all, weren't Scott in Ivanhoe, Hugo in Les Miserables, and Tolstoy in War and Peace all deeply engaged in barely disguised political commentary?  And to make a character memorable, he or she can't be completely ordinary and has to stand out from the crowd in some way.  So yes, I enjoyed The Last Theorem for its story of Ranjit, as well as the many speculations about the possibilities and opportunities for us humans on Earth in the future...that is, if we can ever stop trying to destroy each other...

The Republican Presidential Candidates, Part 2: Jeb Bush

And so I continue on with my own personal take on the Republican presidential candidates for 2016.  Today I consider Jeb Bush...

At the start of this presidential campaign season, I expected Jeb Bush to coast to his party's nomination, much in the same way that Hillary Clinton is currently reasonably ahead in her Democratic race over chief opponent Bernie Sanders.  I reasoned that, as in 2000 when Jeb's brother George W. faced off a single potentially formidable challenger in John McCain (while Democrat Al Gore was contending with Bill Bradley), Jeb would have some kind of offbeat populist GOP opponent like Ted Cruz or Rand Paul and then take over from there.  While this type of scenario seems to have happened with Clinton and Sanders, Jeb Bush has found himself sliding further and further back in the polls...to the point where now he has only 3-5 % support nationwide among Republican voters.  What happened?

Jeb Bush was already in trouble, even before his nemesis Donald Trump entered the race later than most of the other opponents. Bush was ostracized by the Tea Party faction of the party as being too "establishment", plus he had to contend with fellow Floridian polician, Senator Marco Rubio, upstaging him even in his home state.  But the way I look at it, Jeb Bush didn't do himself any favors with his own words...

I have expressed in this blog that I thought that Jeb Bush was a pretty decent governor and that he seemed to be the only candidate in the Republican field that I felt I might support for president in 2016...not that I liked everything he did while he was leading my home state...not by a long shot.  Unfortunately, throughout this campaign I have heard very little from this individual that expresses the more inclusionary vision he had as governor for eight years, his lucid and compelling speech and arguments from that era, or his sense of confidence he once had in abundance.  Instead, he's been saying a lot of weird stuff and seems to have a delusional opinion of the candidacy of the current GOP leader, Donald Trump.  One of the first weird things I heard from him in this campaign was that he was proud of being called "Jeb"...and that he had earned this privilege. Well, he's obviously a better man than me, for no one's ever called ME "Jeb"!  As for Trump, in an interview right after a nationwide poll gave the real estate tycoon 36% Republican support...in contrast to Bush's meager 3%...Jeb flatly stated that there was no need to worry about whether he would support Trump if he were nominated.  The reason, according to Jeb Bush, is that, in his opinion, Donald Trump is only an entertainer and not a serious candidate...

These types of comments reveal to me that Jeb Bush has sunk deeply into delusion and, as such, no longer merits my former high opinion of him as a politician with a good sense of discernment.  He probably just needs quietly make his exit from the scene, something that fellow Republican Lindsey Graham has shown the good sense and wisdom to do.  He'd probably do quite well for himself in the future as a high-paid lobbyist for some foreign country...

Just Finished Reading Sue Grafton's "W" is for Wasted

Mystery novelist Sue Grafton is winding down her current Kinsey Millhone series with the titles based on letters from the alphabet and just the "Y" and "Z" books left to be published.  As for myself, I've almost caught up with her writing, having just finished reading "W" is for Wasted.  It may well be the longest book in this series so far...still, it is relatively short compared to some of the other books I've been plowing through of late...

It's still 1988 and Kinsey Millhone, a single (twice divorced) late-thirties private detective based in the mythical California coastal city of Santa Teresa (about where Santa Barbara would be) finds out about the recent deaths of two men: one is a shady private eye whose path she has crossed in earlier cases and the other is a completely unknown homeless man who left on his person a piece of paper with her name and office address and number on it.  After being notified of this connection, she then is shocked to find that she had been appointed by him to be the executor of his estate...consisting of more than half a million dollars...to be distributed among those named in his will: Kinsey and Kinsey alone! This is enough to draw her into an increasingly complex mystery, one that somehow involves trial runs of medications, designed to treat alcoholism, given to homeless human guinea pigs. Grafton highlights the lives and plight of the homeless in this book, as well as making the point that there is as much diversity among them regarding their motivations, histories, and mental states as among the general population...

Kinsey also discovers a distant family relationship between herself and the deceased homeless man, which introduces her to her father's side of the family, something that had been hidden from her since she was left orphaned when both of her parents died in a car accident while she was still a young girl.  Also, a new character, Ed the Cat, gets his introduction late in the series (better late than never)...and eventually plays an important role in the story's outcome.  I thought "W" is for Wasted was one of Sue Grafton's better books, although once again I felt that she should have presented the narrative completely from Kinsey's perspective instead of jumping around to other characters as she has been doing for the last few books... 

Weather Finally Looking Like December

As I sit here, the temperatures are plummeting after unseasonably hot and muggy weather...it's about time!  The high today should only reach the mid-60s (after ridiculously climbing up into the 80s recently) while tonight it will be dipping into the 30s...this should go on for the next three days or so.  It will be pleasant while it lasts...but I expect things to warm up within the week again here in north central Florida.  Not only has it been much warmer than usual, but it has rained considerably as well.  I'm starting to wonder whether we'll ever have a cold, dry winter again.  It's been a few years since I can remember going through one...

The Most Painful Soccer Match I've Ever Watched

Last Sunday night, Mexico's Liga MX, its premier professional soccer league, held the final match in its 2015 Apertura championship playoffs.  The two teams left vying for the title were university-based pro teams UNAM of Mexico City and UANL of Monterrey, usually respectively known simply by their feline nicknames Pumas and Tigres.  The final round, as did the earlier ones, consisted of two games, with the contestants taking turns hosting them.  The first leg of this series had been held last week at Monterrey, with Tigres...the team I have been supporting...winning convincingly, 3-0.  Now the championship is based on the two-game aggregate goal total, so with Sunday's match in Mexico City my Tigres had quite a substantial lead.  Very few thought that Pumas could stage a comeback from that much behind.  So I sat down in front of my TV set at 9:30, comfortably and complacently expecting Tigres to easily just coast on to the championship.  I should have known better...

For almost all of the first half (45 minutes) of the Pumas-Tigres finale, Tigres put up a strong defense...as they are know for...and shut out their opponent while maintaining control of the ball most of the time.  As action was winding down, I thought that keeping that 3-0 advantage with only one half to go was a great success on the part of Tigres.  But then, suddenly, with only seconds to go in the half, Pumas somehow managed to slip in a goal.  Now the sum total was 3-1 Tigres.  Not to worry, though...my team still had the big advantage.  That advantage diminished further early in the second half when Pumas came up with another score, making the lead now only 3-2.  For the next 30-35 minutes, it was all about Pumas attacking the goal over and over again, just missing scoring on a number of occassions.  It was painful enough for me to watch this, especially after I originally had though I would have an easy game.  But it did look as if Tigres would hold off Pumas...that is, until once again as THIS half was closing and Pumas scored again, tying it all up 3-3...

Now regulation time had ended and the two teams would have to play two 15-minute overtime periods to determine the winner.  The TV announcers (on UniMas Channel), who all seemed to be on the side of Pumas, were so giddy with excitement that I had to turn down the sound to be able to withstand it all.  Amazingly, Tigres were able to score a goal near the end of the first overtime period, giving them a 4-3 lead.  And they held it well, all the way up to the end of the second overtime period...when they, for a third time, gave up a late goal to Pumas.  That made it 4-4 and the contest was headed to a penalty kick shootout...

By this time I was so frustrated at the way this game had gone that I was convinced that Pumas would eventually win.  But the first Pumas penalty kicker failed while the Tigres players were excellent in the shootout...Tigres prevailed on penalty kicks 4-2 and somehow managed to hold on and win the championship.  But it sure wasn't very fun to watch...

Starting to Root for My Old Nemesis, the New England Patriots

Yesterday I found myself awkwardly rooting for my old National Football League nemesis, New England, as they faced the Houston Texans.  Normally the Patriots are my least favorite of all the teams...mainly due to the fact that they have been consistently successful winning the same division in which "my" Miami Dolphins reside.  But now that they have finally lost at least once this season (an undefeated Pat season had started to become a scary possibility) and have already clinched their AFC East Division (in which the Dolphins are still struggling just to get out of the cellar), I found myself in a situation where I was pulling for them to win a game.  For the Texans, at 6-6, were barely leading their AFC South Division over 6-7 Indianapolis and 5-8 Jacksonville (after the Jags ran up the score on the Colts in an earlier afternoon game, 51-16).  Since Jax now has a shot at winning this weak division, I wanted Houston to also go to 6-7 to close the gap between them to just one game.  So yes, yesterday I was cheering on ol' Tom Brady, the Gronk, and that pesky Patriot secondary. Happily, they won and the Jaguars are still thick in the playoff hunt.  This might not be the last time I root for New England in a game this season, though...

The Carolina Panthers, a team I generally like...in no small part because of their quarterback Cam Newton...are currently 13-0 and on track to enter the playoffs with an unblemished record.  Should they reach the Super Bowl, the most likely team they'll be facing is...those same New England Patriots.  And here is where another factor comes into play for me: the 1972 Miami Dolphins are the only team in NFL history to run the table and go undefeated in both the regular season and the playoffs.  In subsequent years, there have been some teams, like the 1985 Chicago Bears and the 2007 Patriots, who have come perilously close to duplicating this feat that I...as well as those from that '72 Dolphins team...want to remain exclusively the property of Miami.  So as unlikely as it might have seemed just three weeks ago, I might just find myself holding my nose and rooting in the upcoming Super Bowl for the one team that I really, really dislike...

The Republican Presidential Candidates, Part 1: Donald Trump

As a Democrat certain that I will support that party's eventual nominee, it might not seem very fair of me to describe, compare, and contrast the still high number of aspirants to the Republican presidential nomination in 2016...but you might be interested in how someone on the "other side" sees them.  So here goes, with today's focus on Donald Trump...

The GOP front-runner employs a lot of blustery, overgeneralized speech in concert with a tendency to react in a most personal manner to any criticism he picks up from other candidates, celebrities, or journalists.  In this way he has emulated the childish reality show figures now so popular on TV (like on Jersey Shore, Housewives of Wherever, Kardashians, etc.). This, along with the fact that he discusses the issues with the same finesse as some blue-collar worker informally sitting around on his lunch break talking politics with some of his pals (no disparagement intended here...I'm blue collar, too) gives Trump resonance with a large segment of the population and sets up a clear distinction between himself and the other candidates...in spite of the fact that as a multi-billionaire he is by far the most economically elite of the bunch.  Also, apparently, a lot of folks out there want a strongman ruler whom they can blindly entrust to fix all the problems and make the bad people disappear, a ruler like the Godfather...or the Donald (just leave it all to me, I take care of everything, I make them an offer they can't refuse...and they'll like it).  I don't however, go along with the extreme criticism that he is getting from others who call him a "hater", "racist", or "fascist".  I don't think most of the Republican candidates running against Trump are that much different than he is on the immigration issue, whether discussing that of Mexicans or Syrian/Iraqi refugees.  But the others have learned to carefully couch their words in more ideologically and politically correct ways while Trump is more like a bull in a china shop...

More than anything, Donald Trump is a salesman.  Now, besides marketing real estate or his own television show, he is marketing his candidacy for the U.S. Presidency.  That's just the way he is and does not, as floundering opponent Jeb Bush maintains, in any way mean that he is only an entertainer and not a serious candidate...

More to come on the various GOP candidates, right here on this blog off and on during the next few weeks.  I'll probably also eventually get to the Democrats as well...

Just Finished Reading Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

In my mind, I had already put fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson on something like a pedestal after reading his Mistborn series, not to mention the incredible way he managed to finish the late Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series.  So when I heard that he had begun a new, long fantasy series I jumped right on into it, in spite of being a little burned out on the genre from having read so much of it recently.  Sanderson's current project is The Stormlight Archive, and he has only written two books in it so far.  A while back I read Book # 1, titled The Way of Kings.  And now I've just finished the second one, a monstrously long book (1088 pages) called Words of Radiance...

Like many other writers in the fantasy and science fiction genres, Brandon Sanderson has created his own special universe in which special rules and sciences apply.  In Mistborn, the characters who were "allomancers" could burn within themselves various metals that they had ingested, giving them special powers in the process.  In the universe of Words of Radiance, gemstones, light emanating from conscious superstorms (hence "stormlight" in the series title), and cognitive entities called "spren" impart to the heroes (and their foes) enhanced abilities.  Aside from the "science", Sanderson also depicts the societies with their own norms, taboos, and prejudices...very allegorical to what we have in our own real world.  For example, people with light-colored eyes are treated as a "higher" order than those with dark eyes, clearly an analog to how folks have been judged by their skin color here.  And with women, one of their hands is designated as the "safe hand", which must always be concealed in the presence of others...what rules of modesty do we practice in our world that might seem irrational to another brought up in a different culture?  Also, in Sanderson's world, reading, writing, and scholarship are reserved almost exclusively for women...men are continually having to look for women to read to them since they are mostly illiterate...

The three main protagonists through which the narrative is usually told are still Kaladin, Shallan, and Dalinar...as they were in the first book.  The narrative builds up throughout Words of Radiance to a showdown in the Broken Plains between the forces of humanity, led by Dalinar, and the Parshendi, humanoids who possess the ability to transform themselves into different forms...with the latest manifestation being of a very sinister nature.  Some of the human characters are also finding themselves transforming into something new...yet old as well: the Knights Radiant, who in millenia past had defended the world against the Void-Bringers, agents of darkness which the Parshendi increasingly seem to be...

This series contains a lot of prophecy and history, often cryptically written or spoken, as is usually the case in this genre.  Dreams and their interpretations figure into the story, another standard feature.  In spite of all of the innovative features of his new series, above everything I like the way Brandon Sanderson deeply developed his characters to show their personalities, histories, and ongoing struggles.  I'm looking forward to the next book, set to come out next year...

Running Woes More Mental Than Physical

I have noticed recently that if I run while listening to my favorite music...usually from my MP3 player... then the time passes more pleasantly and I am not as aware of the psychological toll that the stress of covering long distances takes.  The same can be said for running while listening to audio books...also from my MP3 player.  The fact that my evaluation of how difficult or easy a particular run was depends so much on a distraction like music or a story tells me that most of my impediments in running right now are mental and not physical in nature.  That's a hopeful conclusion, and I also believe that with the generally cooler temperatures this time of year, along with the realization that I need to re-accustom myself to road running, my future looks promising.  I don't think I'll be venturing into marathon races anytime soon, but next month's Ocala Half-Marathon is looking more and more like a certainty and less and less like just a remote possibility...

I've also come to the conclusion that, concerning running, less can be better...especially regarding my old habit of running on consecutive days.  I'm giving that a change, now running on alternate days and giving my body a chance to recover, heal, and grow.  Also, I will be resuming an old strategy, picked up from marathon great Jeff Galloway, by inserting regular walking breaks within my long training runs...

Watching Some Sports Difficult if Not Impossible

I am a soccer fan, something you doubtless already know if you have been reading this blog for any amount of time.  I can watch the English Premier League Saturdays and Sundays on TV by tuning in to NBC Sports (Gainesville's Cox Channel 33), NBC (Channel 9), or USA (Channel 29).  When I want to watch the Mexican Liga MX matches, I depend on Univision (Channel 40).  For games in Germany's Bundesliga, three Fox Sports channels (62,70, and 267) carry them.  And the MLS season, just completed, had games shown on ESPN and Fox Sports.  I've gotten into the habit of checking my television schedule guide to search for games shown on these different channels.  Much to my dismay, though, I have often been "shut out" of soccer action while sports such as auto racing, boxing, UFC (a combination of boxing, kick-fighting, and wrestling), and poker (called a sport...REALLY?) are featured.  And then I considered that, on the whole, I have little to complain about as I usually get to watch a lot of soccer, anyway.  But then it occurred to me: where is the tennis coverage?

I can follow a sport like tennis, where the ball is visible and the action is at a pace I can follow...unlike ice hockey, which I've tried on numerous occasions to watch while never quite knowing where the puck actually is at any given moment (an affliction with which the camera operator also seems to chronically suffer).  Not only is the flow in hockey too fast and the puck so small that it is usually concealed among the players, but a whole section of the playing rink is blocked from view by the near wall.  This sport, along with auto racing, fighting in its various manifestations, and poker are either too painful, boring, or impossible for me to follow, but they dominate the programming on many sports channels...

Every time I see a network like ESPN showing hours of poker programming, I wonder about all of the legitimate sports that they could have been showing instead.  Sports like tennis, rugby, Australian rules football, and cricket, to name a few of the more entertaining to watch.  And even if some of these seem too exotic to show on ESPN, they can do better than poker.  I know, I know, the networks will say that they just show what people like to watch.  But if they showed more women's sports, like pro basketball and pro soccer, I think viewers would flock to this as well.  And maybe women's deserved pay for excelling in their professional leagues would finally begin to climb to a respectable level instead of the pittance that it is right now...

Ran the 6.5 Mile "Lumber Around the Levee" Race in Micanopy Today

Alachua County recently acquired some wetland areas lying between the town of Micanopy and Paynes Prairie.  At Barr Hammock Preserve, just off Wacahoota Road on the west side of I-75, Off-the-Grid Racing just held a 6.5-mile trail run on a looping levee...hence its name "Lumber Around the Levee".  The raised, mostly grassy trail cuts through low-lying marshlands and prairies, and we were warned about possibly encountering alligators and snakes during this morning's race.  There were only about thirty runners, making this easily the lowest-attended race I've ever run.  I say "race" tongue-in-cheek, though, because my goal here was just to cover the distance without trying to set any personal records or beat anyone.  That's good, because I did just that...I finished in 1:03:12, just a little faster than a 10 minutes per mile pace...and the great majority of the runners were much faster.  Even with that, though, at about the 5-mile mark and on to the end, I had some difficulty with the high 85% humidity...although the temperature was a pleasant 61.  It was overcast the entire time, which eliminated any glare.  I didn't see any 'gators, but there was one big, nasty-looking snake on the trail about a half-mile past the starting line...

My one mishap during the race came at about 2.2 miles, where I tripped over a tree root and went sprawling forward onto the ground.  My falling instincts must be pretty good for I came out of it none the worse except for some scrapes around my left knee...it was more embarrassing then anything else. I'm glad I got to run this event after missing two other local races last month.  Toward the end, though, my throat dried up and I went into some wretching coughing spells, forcing me to walk part of the race's remainder. Still, I'm going to need to do better if I want to be successful in either of the local area's two half-marathons coming up in January and February...

Here is the website for the race at Off-the-Grid Racing.  One of the attendants at the end of the race told me that they would be posting the race results on it as soon as they could...

Terrorists Want Suspicion Cast Upon All Muslims

With Wednesday's attack by a couple against a special needs care center in San Bernardino, California that resulted, at present count, in 14 deaths and 21 injuries, I feel that I am beginning to understand something fundamental about the aims of radical Islam, rooted in the Wahhabi sect of the Arabian peninsula (started in the 1700s, more than 1,000 years after the start of Islam, ostensibly to return to the "fundamental" roots of the religion), as expressed in terrorist acts concocted by ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and their followers...

The man in the attack was a five-year employee of the company who angrily left a Christmas party they were holding for the staff, of which he was a part.  That this may have just been an act was shown by evidence that he and his wife, whom he had met while visiting Saudi Arabia two years earlier, had already been planning something for some time.  They were suited up for combat and had 2 automatic rifles, 2 handguns, and at their apartment were 12 bombs and 1600+ rounds of ammunition, factors that express premeditation and extensive preparation for their murderous acts. The initial scenario of a worker disgruntled with his colleagues turned out to just be a smoke-screen for the terrorists' true intentions: the man (whose name does not deserve mention) "attended" the party only to scout it out and determine the strategy that he and his accomplice would employ.  Leaving angrily only covered up his true intentions...

ISIS, which Islamic leaders have been disavowing as not being a part of their faith, pejoratively calling it "DAESH", wants their brand of ideology to be seen by the world as being synonymous with Islam. They want to co-opt the entire religion for their own peculiar ideology, and having Muslims everywhere viewed with suspicion of possibly sharing their violent and murderous take on society is an integral part of this strategy...as demonstrated by the nature of these many "isolated" attacks that have recently been perpetrated in disparate locations, with those performing them regularly and openly identifying with Islam and acknowledging ISIS as their authority.  My recommendation is to combat this by engaging the Muslim community, not isolating it, and exchange information with each other regarding our positions and perspectives.  Sure, be secure...but also engage...

Freedom: Two Different Interpretations

When I was a kid in elementary school in the 1960s, I caught on quickly to the stark difference, repeatedly ground into us, between living in communist countries like China or the Soviet Union (almost always then simply called "Russia").  We were free and they weren't, period.  So, to us in our immaturity, freedom meant being able to do or say whatever we wanted without suffering any negative consequences therefrom.  After all, it's a free country, isn't it?  Later on, some of us learned (while some didn't) that the "freedom" we enjoyed here in America was that the GOVERNMENT could not restrict our speech, movements, and associations and that, apart from the state not coming down on us (as long as we didn't break any laws, that is), our behavior did carry the potential for negative consequences.  That's called "growing up" and becoming a mature member of adult society.  Nevertheless, as a kid I never considered my "freedom" as a right in the way that many in the current "Millenial" and "Generation X" generations see it, for the term has two disparate meanings...

Freedom can mean the ability to make one's own choices in life...that's the way I've understood it and lived it out in my life, for better or for worse.  But freedom can also be interpreted as freedom "from" things that people don't like...like hate speech and writing, or even anything that violates whatever the current political correctness codes happen to be. Comedian Chris Rock has stated that he won't perform his often politically incorrect act, full of biting satire as it is, on college campuses anymore because of the self-righteous mindset of the students, so many of whom regarding anything that pokes fun at a segment of the population as bigoted, racist, or even hateful.  After some isolated incidents of racism at the University of Missouri recently, one of the students, who happened to African-American, was interviewed on TV.  She expressed that she felt she was being discriminated against...the culmination of the interview revealed that this feeling was because some bigoted white moron had written something racist publicly somewhere and that the University's president hadn't reacted vehemently enough against this provocation.  I'm sorry, but this country has had enough racism in its history (and, sadly, in the real news of today: look at the police killings of unarmed blacks, over and over again...even when they are already in custody) for people to act as if they have some kind of inalienable right to be "free" of others offending them.  If you are offended, then say so...but it is not yet a crime to be offensive.  If and when offensive speech does become illegal, we will become like those totalitarian nations of my youth that we used to be so dead-set against...

My Preferences for the 2015 College Football Playoffs

Up until last Saturday night's debacle against cross-state rivals Florida State, I was closely following the late-season college football games affecting top-ranked teams.  My goal in this was to "will" the schools that were ranked higher than the University of Florida in the polls to lose, giving the Gators a better chance at making the four-team championship playoffs.  This all, of course, hinged on Florida somehow winning both against FSU and in next Saturday's Southeastern Conference championship game.  But recently my Gators have essentially been "half-gators", with only the defensive half of the team playing at championship level.  That was sadly also the case in the contest with the Seminoles, with the Tallahassee team winning 27-2.  But now that any hope of Florida contending for the national championship, with their 10-2 record (and #18 ranking), has ended, I have now been freed to root for the rest of the top teams based on my preferences instead of calculating which ones threatened the Gators' chances the most.  So now...

So now I'm looking at the rankings and I see some teams I like...and some I traditionally loathe.  Right now, in ranking order, it's Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Iowa going to the playoffs were the season to end right now.  But since we have one more weekend, loaded with conference championship playoffs (including severe underdog Florida against Alabama in the SEC), that picture is likely to change.  North Carolina could upset Clemson in the ACC and Iowa will probably (at least I hope) lose to Michigan State in the Big Ten.  Oklahoma won the Big 12 title in a conference without a playoff...chances are they already have a playoff spot reserved for themselves...unfortunately...since they're one of the teams I usually vehemently root against.  And further on the outside in the rankings are Ohio State, and Stanford.  Ohio State won't play next weekend either, since they were eliminated in the regular season for the Big Ten title by Michigan State.  But all this aside, what are my preferences among the possible teams still in the playoff hunt? Here are MY rankings by preference:

1 Michigan State
2 Clemson
3 North Carolina (assuming beating Clemson gives them a spot...a stretch)
4 Iowa
5 Stanford (very unlikely to make the playoffs)
6 Ohio State
7 Oklahoma
8 (easily my least favorite) Alabama

My November 2015 Running Report

In November I found myself getting sick a couple of times...nothing serious...but they both happened when I thought I might participate in local running races.  So my running this month was strictly on my own, a solitary venture as the nature of this activity inevitably is, anyway.  Still, I do have a desire to get out in public among other runners and test my endurance in a more social setting.  December should present several opportunities for me to do this...

My November totals: Total mileage was 228.  My longest accumulated distance during a day was 14 miles, spread over the day with several shorter runs.  My longest single run during the month was 4.6 miles.  In spite of feeling under the weather for a few days in November (not to mention my right knee hurting for a time in the middle of the month), I managed to run on every day...even if it was for a negligible amount for some of them...

The weather is turning cooler, albeit very grudgingly.  I'd still like to be able to run the Ocala and Gainesville (Five Points) half-marathon events next January and February, respectively.  I'm in pretty good shape to accomplish this, but I'd like to get through a December race...a shorter one...to give me some more confidence in getting back on the road...

Gator Football Fans Jolted Back to Reality with Tough Loss

The 2015 University of Florida football team under first-year head coach Jim McElwain had modest expectations, with much of the team left over from the previous coach's mediocre efforts.  They were known to have a strong returning defense, but the offense...mainly due to a historically weak offensive line...had been erratic at best and embarrassing at worst.  With redshirt freshman quarterback Will Grier set to start this season, prospects were hopeful.  Still, one early season poll had them ranked #40 and no one picked them to win the Southeastern Conference's Eastern Division.  But instead...and I believe this had a lot to do with Coach McElwain putting discipline and teamwork as high priorities...they overachieved and won that divisional title, the first one for the Gators since 2009 during the Urban Meyer era.  Some of their wins were exciting, some ugly...and some, like the ones over Mississippi, Missouri, and Georgia, impressive.  But after that Mississippi victory, Grier tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and was immediately suspended for a year...bringing in second-stringer Treon Harris to step up as starter.  Harris, who has a proven big-play capability, nevertheless tends to panic when pursued out of the pocket and sometimes has difficulty making needed quick decisions when standing in the pocket on passing plays.  Grier had more of a quick release, which was needed with a deficient line that could not hold back a normal defensive rush, much less safety blitzes.  What little UF had on their offensive line got worse when they suffered multiple injuries to their starters. Still, until last night's game against Florida State, Florida was 10-1 and could have made the national championship playoffs had they won that game and the following one, the SEC championship game.  But after stumbling through three tough games against markedly inferior opponents, the Gators could not get by a better Seminole team and lost 27-2.

I feel a little sorry for Coach McElwain in that he originally saw this season as one of rebuilding and putting his imprint on the team.  When Florida kept winning and winning, this put them into a championship run and correspondingly may have unfairly raised their fans' expectations of them.  So, with this loss, as deflating as it may have been, McElwain can now just focus on preparing his team to play their best against heavily-favored Alabama in the SEC title game without the unrealistic pressure to win.  I am happy with his performance this season and what he did with what was available.  Ultimately, of course, Jim McElwain will be judged not only by how well he did this first year, but also how well (or poorly) he and his staff do in the next couple of years as they compete against other colleges for top recruits (especially with regard to rebuilding that tattered offensive line)...and of course how well he develops the talent of the players once they are on the team. Oh, and a halfway-decent placekicker would do nicely, too, thank you...

This Blog's Search Engine and Labels

One of the interesting features about writing a blog using Google's Blogger is that you or I can search past articles for any references I have used in any of them by entering the information into the search engine box on the upper left corner of the blog.  With this search, only the contents of my blog will be combed over, giving me a way to go back to any time in my seven and a half years-worth of 2,700+ articles and find a topic or reference that I know I had written about before but can't pinpoint the exact time I did it...

Another way of gathering together similarly-themed blog articles is to look at the bottom of any article where you can find labels identifying areas that pertain to the particular article.  For example, at the end of yesterday's article, which I titled "Soccer and Football Contrasted", I inserted the labels SOCIETY, SPORTS, and TELEVISION...sports as a label was obvious, but in the context of watching them on TV...and I made a social commentary at the end. If I click on any of these labels, I will then get a series of blog articles also featuring that word as a label.  This article I'm writing today naturally uses BLOG as a label.  So labels can also function as way to create a more coherent picture of my blog topics...which on a day-to-day basis can be quite disparate...although in a more general way than if I were to use its search engine...

Keep in mind, though, that the search engine and labels are only available on the web version of Blogger...if you use the mobile app, then you would need to change to the appropriate format by clicking on "web version" at the bottom of the article to use these helpful searching and organizing devices...

Soccer and Football Contrasted

Yesterday I was going back and forth on my TV between soccer and football games.  The action in soccer was continuous, with only small pauses in the case of injury or a foul.  No official replays, no commercial breaks other than at halftime.  With the football contest, on the other hand, the great majority of the time was spent between plays, with many of those plays painfully scrutinized for prolonged periods of time by officials.  Time-outs abounded, and with each change of possession came an added opportunity to squeeze in another commercial or two...at times it seemed that I was watching more commercials than football.  But even without all the timeouts, official replays, and commercial breaks, for most of the time in the football game nothing was happening.  This gave me plenty of time to go to the kitchen and get more food or to take bathroom breaks at my convenience.  That was not possible during the soccer match, for just a few seconds away from the television carried the risk of missing a crucial play...even a goal (this has happened to me a number of times).  Soccer requires riveted, sustained attention, while (American) football can be on the boob tube and ignored half the time without missing anything substantial.  I wonder if this difference reveals anything significant about the way we tend to think in our culture, with our ever-shorter attention spans and ever-increasing distractions.  You can watch a sport like football and dally in other activities at the same time...

Happy Thanksgiving, At Home With Family

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!  The family's all together here and we're about to feast on a wonderful meal that Melissa created.  I'm off from work today...which turns out well in more than one way: I'm recovering from a cold that was pretty severe late last night.  I had been planning to run this morning in a 10K race here in Gainesville, called the Turkey Trot...I ran it last year and in 2012...but I decided a lot of sleep would be a better strategy.  And I do feel much better right now, although I recognize that I'm still going to need some more rest later on...

There are a lot of soccer matches being shown on TV today, with Europa League games on the Fox Sports channels and Mexican Liga MX playoff games on one or more of the Spanish-language stations.  Not that I plan to just sit there the whole time watching soccer...but the one on FS1 (Channel 62 in Gainesville on Cox Cable) between Qarabag of Azerbaijan and England's Tottenham is turning out to be a really good contest...

Mexican Premier Liga MX Soccer Regular Season Ends, Playoffs to Start

The Mexican premier league in professional soccer, called Liga MX, has completed its Fall 2015 regular season, which they call "Apertura".  Now it's time for the playoffs, which involve the top eight finishers out of the eighteen teams.  This past 2015 Spring, or "Clausura",  champions Santos Laguna narrowly avoided finishing in last place with a win in their final regular season game and won't be participating.  The top finisher was UNAM, a university-based team based in Mexico City and more commonly known as "Pumas".  The other Mexico City team and by far the more popular...like the Yankees over here in baseball...is Club America and, as usual, once again made the playoffs.  As did UANL Tigres of Monterrey, my favorite in this league.  Toluca had an unusually good season, and Puebla, Leon, Chiapas "Jaguares", and Vera Cruz round out the playoff picture.  Puebla's achievement is noteworthy in that, at the close of the 2015 Clausura regular season, they barely avoided relegation (aka demotion) to the next lower league (called Ascenso)...

Here is the schedule for the opening matches in the first round.  Each round consists of two games between the contending teams, with the team winning the aggregate total of goals advancing to the next round...

Wednesday, November 25
Leon @ Club America
Chiapas @ Tigres

Thursday, November 26
Toluca @ Puebla
Pumas @ Vera Cruz

I'm not sure if any English-language TV channels will be showing any of the games...probably not.  And I'll have to wait until later to see how the Spanish-language channels cover them...I'm hoping that I'll get to watch at least some of them...