2016 NBA Playoffs Begin Today

The sixteen teams that made the National Basketball Association championship playoffs this 2015-16 season begin their first rounds of play this weekend, with four games today and four tomorrow.  I've already seen the Eastern Conference's 7th-seed Indiana handle 2nd-seed Toronto on the road, on the strength of a strong second half performance from their star Paul George.  The other Eastern Conference game remaining today will start soon, and it should be fun to watch: 4th-seed Atlanta against 5th-seed Boston.  I just finished watching the opening game in the Western Conference series between top-seeded Golden State and 8th-seed Houston, with the Warriors winning easily.  But their MVP guard Steph Curry hurt his foot late in the second quarter...will he fully recover for the next game?  And later tonight will be the 3rd-seed Oklahoma City Thunder, coached by former Florida Gator legend Billy Donovan, against 6th-seed Dallas.  Tomorrow will feature, in the East, #1-seed Cleveland against 8th-seed Detroit and 3rd-seed Miami against 6th-seed Charlotte...while in the West, it'll be 2nd-seed San Antonio against 7th-seed Memphis and 4th-seed Los Angeles Clippers vs. 5th-seed Portland...

I pick Cleveland to eventually face Golden State in a rematch for the league championship, but that's not where my preferences lie.  In numerical order of those preferences, here are how much I like (or dislike) the teams in this year's playoffs:

1-San Antonio
2-Miami
3-Atlanta
4-Dallas
5-Memphis
6-Indiana
7-Boston
8-Oklahoma City
9-Clippers
10-Golden State
11-Toronto
12-Charlotte
13-Portland
14-Detroit
15-Houston
16-Cleveland

Of the above, I highly prefer the Spurs and Heat over everybody else...wouldn't it be great if they shocked the "experts" and won their respective conference titles instead of the Cavaliers and Warriors? Well, at this stage in the playoffs I can hope with reckless abandon...

Alachua County Friends of the Library Sale Begins Tomorrow

Every six months, in April and October, I (and, lately, my son) have been going to the Alachua County Friends of the Library book and media sale here in Gainesville, on the 400 block (west side) of North Main Street.  Tomorrow at 9 am, the doors will once again open and the book hoarders will rush in with their empty boxes, furnishing quite a sight inside this warehouse of used books, records, DVDs, CDs, and puzzles.  Being something of a jigsaw puzzle enthusiast from early childhood, I'm planning to pick up at least a couple of inexpensive puzzles...with the understanding that, being already used by someone else, there's a reasonable chance of there being some missing pieces in them.  As for browsing the enormous collection of books, it is nearly impossible to make one's way through the thick crowd of jostling customers in order to systematically search the tables...the books are separated by genre, but beyond that are displayed in no particular order.  Still, I usually come out of the distasteful experience (I think I'm allergic to crowds) with at least two or three cheap books...although I have yet to read some of the ones I've bought from past sales...

I'll have to ask Will if he wants to go to the sale again.  I dislike getting there when it opens at 9 because there is an extremely long line of prospective customers that goes down Main Street and hooks around the next avenue.  No, if I go tomorrow (and the sale lasts through Wednesday) I'll wait at least until 10 before performing this semiannual ritual...

Sports Story of the Year: Leicester City

How can I say that Leicester City is the sports story of the year, especially when tonight the National Basketball Association's Golden State Warriors can become the single-season winningest regular-season team, achieving a 73-9 record if they can defeat Memphis at home?  Well, first I might explain to you insulated Americans exactly what IS Leicester City and what has transpired in the last three years...

The Leicester City Foxes (Leicester is pronounced "lester") are a soccer team in England's Premier League, widely considered as one of the top three or four leagues in the world.  Each year the 20 teams in this league play each other twice to complete a 38-match regular season, starting in the late summer and concluding the following spring, at which point the team with the best record wins the championship outright, with no playoffs.  Also, the three worst-finishing teams each year are relegated (or demoted) to the next lower league, called the Football League Championship, for the following season while that league's top three finishers are then promoted to the Premier League.  Got all that?

In the 2013-14 season, Leicester City was in that lower-tier Championship league and ran away with the title, looking forward to playing in the Premier League the following year.  But in 2014-15 they got off to a horrendous start and were mired deeply in last (20th) place in April 2015, with just a few games left and little or no hope of escaping relegation back to their previous, lower league.  Then suddenly, out of the blue they caught fire at the end of the season, winning seven games and moving up enough in the standings to be able to stay in the Premier League.  Before this year, many thought that they would continue to improve to the point where they might be good enough to finish in the middle of the standings.  However...

From the start of the 2015-16 Premier League season Leicester City, listed by oddsmakers as a 5000-1 longshot to win the title, shot to the top of the league.  Initially they had a high-powered offense led by the prolific scoring of their striker, forward Jamie Vardy.  But as the season wore on and the offense would sputter from time to time, this team's defense rose to the occasion and have, of late, been impossible to score on...they've won 5 straight matches, all of them shutouts.  Leicester City is currently 7 points ahead of second-place Tottenham (also a surprisingly overachieving team), with only 5 matches left.  Now a team will accrue 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw, and 0 for a loss.  So Tottenham still has a chance to catch up and take the title from the Foxes, which would be a major story in itself.  But should Leicester City hold on to the league's number one spot all the way to the end, it would dwarf in scope what the Mets in baseball did in 1969 when they won the World Series or the Jets winning football's Super Bowl earlier that year...

The Starbucks Encounter Between Governor Scott and the Protester

Last week our Florida governor, Republican Rick Scott, paid a visit with his entourage to the downtown Gainesville Starbucks.  While he was at the counter to place his order, a young woman who was seated facing the counter began to yell at him, complaining that a policy of his had cut needed funding in some area with which she was concerned.  After seeing that this person would not give the governor any peace in this situation, he and his group quietly turned around and left the store.  As it turned out, someone made a video of the incident with their smartphone and it became viral on the Internet.  Facebook even featured it.  Then, a few days later, the governor's office released its own video on YouTube, belittling the protester's position while depicting her as someone with a problem (with negative connotations) and boasting that almost anyone who wanted a job in Gainesville was successful and everybody should be happy...

Well, when I first heard the story on the radio last week, I wondered which Starbucks it was...was it the one at Magnolia Parke I frequent the most?  No, alas, it was the one where it's so doggone difficult to find a parking place...unless you're the governor, of course.  I personally don't care for Rick Scott and dislike his ideologically-based method of governing.  That having been said, he is our (twice) duly-elected governor and, as such, deserves to be treated with respect if for nothing more than for the office he holds.  Were I there at that Starbucks, I would have probably greeted him and been polite...or just minded my own business.  Look, folks, I know many of you despise Scott...but how many of you actually went to the polls to vote for his worthy opponents, Alex Sink and Charlie Crist,  in 2010 and 2014 respectively?  I ask that because of the discrepancy in Florida voter turnout between presidential and off-year elections (Florida elects its governors between presidential elections).  In 2008, when Obama won Florida, the voter turnout was 64%.  Two years later,when Scott won over Sink for his first term, it had diminished to 48% and he won by only 1%.  Then, in 2012 Obama once again won Florida with 64% turnout.  Guess what happened two years later...Scott beat Crist for his second term again by only 1%...and the voter turnout had gone down to 42%...

I have a big problem with the folks in this year's presidential campaign who feel they have to follow a "hero" in order to feel motivated to get off their butts and vote in an election. I'm especially thinking about candidates like Trump and Sanders who have their own fanatical followers.  Obama was like this to an extent as well.  But many of these voters, if their guy isn't on the ballot, won't go and vote in elections that are nearly as important to them as the one which features their idol.  And that's just plain stupid... 

As for Scott's retaliatory video criticizing the protester and playing up his own accomplishments, I would find it difficult to understand the motive for making it with the governor almost midway through his second and final term in office...unless, of course, he was campaigning to be put on Donald Trump's ticket as running mate in the general presidential election.   And putting down women is obviously something that he feels will ingratiate himself with the Donald...

Went Boating With Friends Yesterday

Yesterday our friends Richard and Kelly invited Melissa and me to join them on their boat, going up the St. John's River (which is actually southward).  Their marina, the launch and return point of our excursion, is on the river's east bank in Satsuma, a small community in eastern Putnam County.  We went a few miles up river, with thick forests on its west side and numerous homes, apartments, and docks on the east.  Along the way we encountered several osprey nests, rising high above water in the center of the river, built at the top of man-made markers.  The parent ospreys were very protective of their nests, which at this time of year were full of their young offspring...our passing by didn't exactly please them as they hovered about and threatened to buzz us.  Eventually we made our way to where the Ocklawaha River empties into the St. John's and veered to the right.  At this point we encountered numerous manatees, who seemed naturally curious about our boat and its occupants.  One of them got very close to Melissa as she was leaning over the edge, and it gave her a friendly snort with its muzzle sticking out of the water as it looked at her.  Richard piloted the boat very carefully and skillfully around these gentle and noble beasts...unfortunately, we saw several other crafts that whizzed by without any apparent regard for the wildlife around them.  After hanging around the mouth of the Ocklawaha for a while among the manatees, we made our way up that river, whose flow has been greatly stemmed since the construction of the Rodman Dam in 1971 that created a reservoir behind it.  Going up the Ocklawaha River for a few miles was marked by many sharp meanderings, and we were surrounded by wilderness...much different from our St. John's River experience and probably a lot different from the Ocklawaha on the other side of that dam...

After we made our way back to the marina, we all went to a seafood restaurant, called "Shrimp R Us and More", which is in the small town of Welaka...incidentally, also situated on the St. John's River just opposite of where the Oklawaha empties into it (and where we encountered the manatees).  The food and service there was top-notch, with generous portions of shrimp for the price...and I was happy to be able to order cheesy grits, one of my favorites, as a side dish...

As you can see from the photos, the weather couldn't have been better for our trip...I only regret that during our close encounter with that manatee I got lost in the moment and forgot to take a picture, although in another I've posted you can see a couple of them breaking the water's surface in the distance.  Richard and Kelly were wonderful and thoughtful, and we deeply appreciate having been able to spend some very enjoyable hours with them yesterday...

My Blog Nine Years Old Today

Two thousand eight hundred eighteen posts later, this blog of mine today celebrates nine years of existence.  In it over the years I've discussed items of interest to me, with the topics differing from day to day.  Music, politics, philosophy, language, society, news, sports, weather, running, holidays/anniversaries, history, astronomy, idle speculation, education, health, memories, books I've read, television, movies...these are the general areas I've explored.  But mostly, this blog has served me as a kind of personal discipline to write consistently and make it available for public inspection.  For the first few years of my blog, personal blogs were very popular on the Internet...but then Facebook entered the scene and I noticed that folks were using that application more or less to replace blogging.  In 2013, although I had already been on Facebook without actually participating in it, I finally decided to put links to my blog articles on my Facebook page.  This brought about an increase in my readership, but something was lacking: the random reader, whoever he or she may be and wherever in the world they may happen to live, who might come across an article I wrote by means of a topic-based web search.  That happened often in the early years of this blog, but only rarely after Facebook essentially took over social media...

Twitter is another popular outlet for writing in social media, but it seems to be more useful for me as a tool for following the news and the news-makers than for others to access me and my blog as followers.  Maybe I should conjure up some strategies for getting more Twitter followers...

Musing on Anger After Watching Baseball Game

During Sunday's season-opening game between baseball's Tampa Bay and Toronto, Rays first baseman Logan Morrison was up at bat against Blue Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman.  Morrison hit himself out, and was running back to his team's dugout when he heard Stroman yelling some not very kind words.  Thinking that the Toronto pitcher was aiming his epithets at him, Morrison became very angry and began to yell back.  Then Stroman, realizing what had happened, walked off the mound in Morrison's direction with his arms held wide in an expression of innocence.  You see, Marcus Stroman, who by all accounts is a pretty decent guy...including being a good friend of Tampa Bay ace pitcher Chris Archer (against whom he was pitching Sunday), nevertheless has this habit of angrily and loudly talking to himself when on the pitcher's mound.  Evidently he was unhappy with the pitch he had delivered to Morrison, even though it eventually resulted in a putout.  That having been said...

It is human, very human, to get angry...and with that anger often comes an unpleasant public expression thereof.  The problem with this is twofold: one, as in the case with Stroman and Morrison, the focus of that anger can be misinterpreted, leading to unintended consequences.  Two, experiencing another's anger, even when one intellectually knows that it isn't directed at them, can cause unconscious internal turmoil and reactions.  I experienced this recently during a meeting where the speaker went on and on angrily railing and cursing at a group of people.  Although I was not one of the "targets" of his wrath, I came away from that meeting feeling resentful at that speaker anyway, as if he had been speaking directly to me...

I'm not immune from displaying anger at times...maybe you're better at holding it in than me.  But I also believe that occasional anger can be a symptom of a greater virtue: caring, and such anger is a natural reaction to the times when the people (including myself) or things about which I care disappoint me.  The trick is in anger's expression: it should either remain unheard and unseen by others or appropriately worded and intoned toward the intended party.  Easier said than done, though...

Rereading Lev Grossman's Magician Trilogy

When I discovered a few weeks ago that the television adaptation of Lev Grossman's Magician trilogy would be airing on the Syfy Channel (Cox Gainesville channel 51), I was very interested in seeing, not only how the book's characters and imagery would appear on the screen, but also how faithful the story was to Grossman's writing.  After watching the first three episodes, I couldn't bear it any longer and abandoned the TV series: it diverged so much from the books that I eventually couldn't recognize my all-time favorite written fantasy series.  Along with my rejection of the television version of Magicians, I decided to read, for the third time, this excellent series.  And after just getting through the first book, simply titled The Magicians, my suspicions about the Syfy Channel production were completely confirmed.  If you're watching it and liking it, then that's great...but don't walk away from your boob tube experience thinking that it is the same as the original books...it isn't...

Just Finished Reading The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham

The British fiction writer W. Somerset Maugham, reportedly very popular in his time of the early twentieth century, is probably best known for his novels Of Human Bondage and The Razor's Edge.  He wrote many other stories, and I just finished reading one of them: The Magician, from 1908...

The Magician is the tale of an engaged couple, Arthur Burdon and Margaret Dauncey, who meet a sinister character by the name of Oliver Haddo.  Haddo is reputedly a magician by profession, but our interpretation of that designation most likely diverges greatly from his.  Haddo would more appropriately be called a combination occultist and mad scientist.  He antagonizes both Arthur and Margaret, and after the former punches him out for cruelly kicking their friend's pet dog, the villain plots his revenge, working through the world of the occult to take over Margaret's mind and steal her away from her fiancé.  Haddo,  however, has a much more evil intent with his actions...I did mention, didn't I, that he is also a mad scientist...

The Magician, while starting off harmlessly enough, evolves into a gothic horror story, reminiscent of those later written by H.P. Lovecraft...and one of the scenes reads eerily like one in Stephen King's recent novel Revival.  It isn't terribly long, so even if you don't like it you haven't wasted much of your time.  I didn't especially like any of the characters in this story, and that can be a big problem...at least for me as a reader of fiction.  It wasn't one of my favorite books, but I'm not going to condemn the author...instead I think I'll look into some of his other, more popular works...

Major League Baseball Regular Season Starts Today

The 2016 edition of Major League Baseball begins in earnest today with three opening-day games: St. Louis @ Pittsburgh, Toronto @ Tampa Bay, and New York Mets @ Kansas City (a World Series rematch). The three games are all in the afternoon and will be broadcast on either ESPN or ESPN2.  Interestingly enough, the regular season "day one" overlaps the conclusion of spring training, as the Chicago Cubs will be playing the Los Angeles Angels in an exhibition game today...

It always amazes me how different my two favorite televised sports, soccer and baseball, are from each other.  With soccer, the action is more or less continuous: even with the occasional interruption in play, the game clock continues to run.  If I walk away from the game for even just a few seconds, I carry the risk of missing a crucial play, as I have learned a few times already.  With baseball, on the other hand, it seems that, oh, about 99% of the time, nothing at all is happening...its just the pitcher standing there fidgeting around on the mound while glaring at the hitter and catcher. Ultimately, when the pitch is finally thrown... for maybe a couple of seconds...there is actually some action.  And if the batter then manages to make contact with the ball, we're treated with a few seconds more of play before the inactivity settles back into dominance.  And I'm not even talking about the breaks between innings or the interminable managerial walks to the mound that extend the non-playing time even further.  Yes, with baseball it's very easy for one to go about one's own business without missing very much.  Maybe that's one reason why I like having it on...

As for the teams I follow in Major League Baseball, I predictably support the Florida teams: Miami in the National League and Tampa Bay in the American.  Secondarily, I've also traditionally rooted for the New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, and San Francisco Giants.  Other than that, though, I'm quite content simply sitting back and watching a game, even if I don't particularly care about the outcome...

I am at a loss to predict which teams will do well this year and which ones will tank.  I do believe that both Florida teams, especially those Marlins down south, have the potential to possibly make the postseason playoffs if they can manage to avoid debilitating injuries to key players.   But win or lose, it's going to be fun following baseball this season...

My March 2016 Running Report

This past month I ran a total of 133 miles, with my longest single run being for the 6.2 miles I ran on March 12 in the Run for Haven 10K held in Tioga, a short distance west of Gainesville.  I felt good in that race, although I deliberately kept the pace slow.  Unfortunately, my right foot has been giving me trouble this month and I had to lay off the running for the following five days.  Since then I've gradually built my running back up...I ended up running on a total of 25 days in March.  As for that Run for Haven event, I had an issue with the timers there and had sent an e-mail to them...getting a prompt acknowledgement of my request and a return request for my patience with its processing.  Since then I've heard nothing from them...I sometimes wonder, with these not-for-profit events that emphasize the altruistic motivations behind them, whether the organizers truly feel accountable toward those, like me, who paid the entry fee and expect a certain standard of quality from them.  I am not at all satisfied with the attitude I'm getting here.  Needless to say, as of this writing I have no intention of ever participating in any future Run for Haven race...

In April there will be numerous opportunities for me to run in local races should I decide to do so.  April 2 has a 5K run in a wooded park off Waldo Road.  On April 9 there is a 5K/10K event that is supposed to help Syrian refugees.  And on the 16th and 24th there will be half-marathons held in the general area.  Whether or not I run in any or all of them depends largely on how well I feel I've recovered from my foot pain...

My New Rule for Hired Political Spin Doctors on TV

General Electric, or G.E., as it is commonly known, has recently been showing a series of interesting and compelling TV commercials.  In them a young man, recently graduated from college, gets himself hired by the company and tries to explain what he'll be doing there to family and friends...with hilarious results.  You see, everyone has an old-fashioned view of G.E. as a twentieth-century manufacturer, but nowadays it is heavily into software and the digital age.  Our new recruit has a fulfilling job with his computer skills, and the latest commercial has him and his colleagues confronted, in their office, with two people rushing in promoting others wanting to work there.  These hired "spin doctors", while reciting their poetic-sounding lines, are costumed and made-up, one as an ogre and the other as an elf or leprechaun.  The message is clear: working at G.E. is now so attractive that people are resorting to all kinds of tactics to get in...including employing others to put on an entertaining show. Which gave me pause...

I don't know about you, but I am tired of watching these cable news channels with their endless political discussions during this 2016 presidential campaign season.  Tired because, whether you're talking CNN, Fox, or MSNBC, the tendency is to get professional spin doctors supporting the various candidates to appear on the air...and then you get the same old packaged nonsense with people talking past each other and continually interrupting.  My proposal is for a "new rule": go ahead and air all of those "spinners" like usual, but with a new provision: they all have to be elaborately dressed up like fantasy characters!  Because, like that G.E. commercial, these people don't provide anything "real" or substantial to the discussion...let their appearance underscore that obvious fact...

Final Four Set in NCAA Men's Basketball

This weekend the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament finally whittled the field down from the initial 68 teams to the Final Four.  The four games from Saturday and Sunday varied widely in their results, with #1 seed North Carolina pulling away from their fellow ACC opponent (at least in basketball) Notre Dame and #10 seed Syracuse coming back late in their game from way behind to defeat Virginia, also seeded #1 in their respective region.  Some in the sports media had criticized the NCAA tournament selection committee for snubbing other schools in favor of including Syracuse, but it turns out that the Orangemen were a good pick in spite of their relatively mediocre regular season.  In the other regional finals, it was #2 beating #1 in both games: Oklahoma over Oregon and Villanova over Kansas.  So the setup for the Final Four, the semifinals for which will be on Saturday, April 2 and broadcast on TBS,  pairs Oklahoma against Villanova (6 pm start) and North Carolina against Syracuse (40 minutes after the conclusion of the first game).  Game site for the Final Four, which will conclude the following Monday with the championship game, is Houston, Texas...

As for the teams I'm rooting for (or against), here is the order of my preference:

1 North Carolina
2 Villanova
3 Syracuse
4 Oklahoma

I traditionally support the Tarheels, so it's been a treat to see them advance this far...and by all accounts, with Kansas and Virginia eliminated, they should be the strong favorite to win it all...

Now, Subjectively Speaking

In 1976, rock star Steve Miller came out with a song, one of my favorites, called Fly Like an Eagle.  Throughout it he repeats the words "Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping...into the future". From the first time I heard it, it occurred to me that "time" could either be thought of as slipping into the future, the past...or neither...

If you think of the "now" as a point in time...in which all of the living reside...it does seem, in a way, that what we regard as future times are being approached by the "now". So in ol' Steve's hit record, if you replaced "time" with "the now", then his words would ring true...kind of.  Let's say it's 10:00 and I'm looking ahead to 10:05.  It does look like the present is aimed at the future and is approaching it, with the temporal distance decreasing in minutes from 5 to 4,3,2,1...and then passing through the "now" into the past.  In THIS way of looking at it, then, time seems to be moving backward, from the future into the past.  I remember many times in my life, mostly when I was young, looking ahead to future events and wondering what I and the world would be like then.  But those times would come and go, and now they are in the past. And looking at it all yet another way, since we all live in the present "now", this by definition can be neither the past nor the future...the notion of time slipping in any direction is an illusion.  Or is it?

I believe that the common confusion that arises when people think about time, especially the concepts of "past", "now", and "future", is largely due to the two often incongruent realities we live in.  Yes, we live in two realities: subjective reality and objective reality...

Subjective reality is the universe from our own personal, individual viewpoints and objective realty is the composite universe in all of its detail, without any special regard to our own individual place in it. To give a very simple example, one might subjectively look down a long, straight path and see its edges approach until they meet at the horizon while, while objectively speaking it would have been learned that, the path continues to that distance without any narrowing of those essentially parallel edges.  Infants and little children see things overwhelmingly subjectively: brain development, education and upbringing teach them to see things in a more objective light...but it can cause conflicts...

The concept of "now" has no place within objective reality, nor apparently does the "flow" of time.  Physicists have discovered that the so-called "direction" of time makes no difference in any of their formulations about the nature of reality, i.e. "objective" reality...well, that's at least what they told me on the Science Channel!  "Now" is only relevant in terms of subjective reality, which is the world as experienced from one's vantage point. "Past" and "future" likewise are subjective concepts since they are based on events happening either before or after "now", respectively. Furthermore, "now"...since it is subjective and not objective in nature...is a personal concept and isn't the same from one individual to another.  This resonates with established physics as well, as it has been demonstrated that the concept of simultaneity has no absolute meaning, at least scientifically. To think that there is a universal, same "now" would imply that everywhere at that instant a set pattern of event happens throughout the universe...but it all depends on one's perspective in determining simultaneous events...

I fear I might have completely confused you with this metaphysical rant, but these types of ideas...the nature of time and the two types of reality...thoroughly interest me.  And since the whole point of this blog is for me to write about interesting things (from my own subjective viewpoint, of course), it is what it is...  

Just Finished Reading John Hart's The Last Child

I just happened to be browsing through the book section of a local CVS the other day when I came upon an interesting-looking paperback: The Last Child by John Hart.  I picked it up and examined it: good, not part of any series...just a simple, self-contained novel.  And so I went about reading it for the last few days...it was a good investment of my time...

The Last Child, published in 2009, is set in a fictional county in today's north-central North Carolina.  A thirteen-year old boy named Johnny Merrimon is on a personal crusade to find his twin sister Alyssa, abducted the year before.  In the course of his single-minded quest, his personality has become wilder and many around town see him as disturbed, if not actually crazy.  His own family had broken up over the tragedy of his sister and he is now living with his mother, the father having disappeared from the scene.  A rather evil, wealthy man who owns much of the town has her under his control, and he is brutal toward Johnny.  Also looking for lost Alyssa is a local police detective named Clyde Hunt...he is nearly as obsessed about the unsolved case as Johnny.  Throw in Johnny's only remaining friend, Jack Cross...along with Jack's family...and Levi Freemantle, the mysterious giant prison escapee who plays a hidden role in it all as a sort of wild-card character, and the story is set to turn in many different directions until it is all resolved at the end...

The mystery of The Last Child is manifold: one, who is responsible for Alyssa's disappearance a year before?  I thought I figured that one out early in the story...but I was in the end only partially right with my guess.  Two, what happened to Johnny's father?  He had been searching for Alyssa, but suddenly left and never came back.  And of course, the biggest question: where is Alyssa? 

John Hart did a magnificent job balancing all of the numerous plot twists with the character development.  I was left at the end understanding why he included many characters who I didn't think were relevant to the story...but it all eventually comes together.  Moreover, the author...like Stephen King with his focus on small-town Maine...introduced me to his own home of rural North Carolina...

So, you can probably see from all this that I liked The Last Child, and you would be correct.  It's not too long of a book, and the story, a good mystery, is well-told with strong, memorable characters...

Heavy Rain Predicted for This Saturday's 10K Trail Race

In years gone by it seemed to be a recurring problem when, on the morning of a running race I had signed up for, the temperatures would severely spike downward.  Take my first half-marathon in February 2010, for example: for that Sunday morning alone, it got down to about 25 degrees when the race began at 7...very uncomfortable for an almost lifelong Floridian like me.  Over and over this kept happening...until recently.  Now there is a new weather phenomenon affecting races I plan to enter: rain, rain, and more rain (and sometimes lightning and high winds)...

I stayed out of the Ocala Half-Marathon this year because of an unusually strong storm system that just happened to pass through the area on the morning of the race.   Earlier this month I ran a local 10K race with rain threatening at any moment...the downpour luckily held off until I was in my car right afterward, driving home.  And now I am looking to this weekend's race, the 10K Trail of Payne run in Paynes Prairie State Park a few miles south of Gainesville.  The terrain is almost all trail, and the website promises some stretches where it is a bit muddy.  Well, with the weekend's forecast for heavy rains...starting on Friday, the day before the race...not only will I have to run through a lot a precipitation, but the course itself might become so compromised with extremely muddy trails and slippery grass surfaces that just getting through it and finishing, whatever the means and however slowly, would be a great victory.  Part of me wants to just scratch it all...after all, I haven't yet signed up and paid the entry fee.  But part of me wonders whether this might just be a fun adventure to experience.  And yet another part of me is concerned about my healing right foot and whether I'll be ready to run Saturday morning's race.  That's two parts against and one part for...I'll just have to wait and see what I decide to do on Saturday morning, I suppose...

Florida Men's Basketball in NIT Quarterfinals

The University of Florida men's basketball team, which earlier had been considered a viable NCAA Championship Tournament contender before a late regular season slump knocked them out of consideration, has picked up its game and is currently on something of a hot streak.  In the second-tier National Invitation Tournament, the Gators won their first two games 97-68 over North Florida and 74-66 over Ohio State.  The remarkable thing about these wins is that Florida has had to play all of its NIT games on the road in hostile arenas despite being higher-seeded...all because their own home site, the O'Connell Center, is already booked for other events.  Tomorrow they will once again be on the road against a lower-seeded team in the quarterfinal round, this time against George Washington University in Washington, D.C..  Should Florida again prevail, they will make the celebrated NIT "Final Four" and get to play in the semi-final round in Madison Square Garden in New York City...

Game time for Florida vs. George Washington is Wednesday, March 23 at 7 pm.  It will be shown on ESPN2...but I'll be at work.  Still, I should be able to pick it up on the radio.  I'll have to remember to wear my Gator cap...

Just Finished Reading The History of Now by Daniel Klein

Daniel Klein, a writer who has written a few fictional novels as well as a series of humorous books on philosophy, in 2009 came out with a novel that has a philosophical bent to it: The History of Now.  With such an ambitious-sounding title, this book was bound to disappoint...and it did, to some extent.  Not that the story wasn't interesting...it certainly was, and the characters were compelling as well.  It's just that Klein wrote this rather ordinary tale of the passage of generations in a small New England town in such a pretentious manner that it demanded at least a little rejection from me.  It also had a distasteful ring of political correctness about it, something I'll get into a little later...

The (fictional) town of Grandville, Massachusetts goes back centuries, but the story begins at the renovation of a downtown street in the late nineteenth century after an arsonist burned down the old buildings.  Four influential families plan the restoration which includes a beautiful theater for the showing of plays.  The deVries family is behind the theater project, and eventually the tale settles down into the telling of the life of one of their descendants, Wendel, as he finds himself happily living out his life as the projector operator for this theater, now devoted to showing movies.  His daughter Franny and granddaughter Lila also have their own lives, and throwing in Hector, a young man displaced by war and organized crime in his native Colombia, we have the core of the story, primarily presented from the viewpoints of Wendel, Franny, Lila, and Hector...but with the author's pretentiousness hovering over everything...

Trying as hard as I could to get the drift of what Klein was trying to express with this tale of rather ordinary people, I concluded that he was saying that history need not be only about the tumultuous events of rulers, wars, politics, and major trends and innovations, but it is also concerned with the lives and origins of "regular" folks.  If that was what he was after, then I didn't need to read this book: I already know that, as do most of us.  I also got the feeling that he was promoting the life-philosophy of Wendel, who relishes the present moment and seeks to find a sense of connection with others and the world around him.  That I could dig...I sort of liked Wendel and identified with him.  What bugged me a lot about The History of Now was how Klein used it as a political rant against George W. Bush and his Iraq War, not that I approved of that very costly military adventure, either.  That kind of convenient political correctness bothered me a lot.  But his more incidentally politically correct inclusion of African-Americans and Latinos into the story was a brilliant stroke, as it revealed the interconnectedness of humanity, our interdependence, and often entangled origins, in spite of the imaginary walls we sometimes like to employ to artificially divide ourselves from one another...

If you want an interesting story about the lives of people like you or me, than The History of Now is a good book to pick up and read.  But I would be careful and try to avoid reading it as some kind of philosophical treatise: it isn't...

Wanted: A Three-Dimensional Star Map

Tonight, after hearing that the skies will finally be clearing up after days of being overcast, I plan to step outside and do a little late-winter evening star-gazing.  I already know what to expect: the same constellations with their same configurations and the same stars, the brightest of which I know the names.  Yes, there will be Orion, with its famous "Belt" of three stars in the middle and the bright stars of Betelgeuse, Rigel, and Bellatrix.  North and a little to the west a lies the house-shaped (if you "connect" the stars like the old connect-the-dot puzzles) Auriga, with Capella being the standout star.  West of Orion and south of Auriga is Taurus of the Zodiac, Aldebaran its bright star and the famous Pleiades cluster further west.  The Zodiac extends eastward with Gemini (containing the "twin" stars Castor and Pollux), the faint Cancer, then Leo with its bright star Regulus...and then on to Virgo toward the eastern horizon.  The planet Jupiter will be shining bright, just about between Leo and Virgo.  The "dog stars" of Sirius (in Canis Major and the brightest star of the night sky) and Procyon (in Canis Major) will dominate the southern sky...they lie east of Orion.  And the Big Dipper, an asterism that is part of the constellation Ursa Major, will be to the right of the North Star (Polaris), with its handle on the bottom and the dipper on top.  Yes, I know the arrangement of stars in the night sky quite well...I learned it back in 1964 when I was seven years old.  Well, I think it's about time to expand my map into the third dimension...

Stars that appear close together in the sky are in all probability vastly distant from each other...one may be relatively close to us, like Sirius at 8.6 light-years, while "nearby" stars like Betelgeuse and Rigel are each around 1,400 light-years away.  What I want is a three-dimensional map of space that I can step into and see the sky from the point at which I am standing.  So, for example, I might just want to see how different the stars look from the vantage point of Sirius, so I walk to where it is on my 3-D map...and look around me.  Doubtless some stars, like Betelgeuse and Rigel, would be just as bright, but other stars might dim or get brighter.  And some may disappear while others become prominent.  And the constellations themselves might change a bit in their shapes.  Also, I would of course see our own Sun, which would be located at the diametrically opposite part of the sky that we see Sirius in...

A real three-dimensional space map is probably too unwieldy to construct, but with our virtual reality technology on the advance, it should be quite feasible to duplicate it in virtual space.  I wonder whether such maps exist yet...if and when they do, I definitely want to be in on it...

Just Finished Reading James Patterson's 1st to Die

I've known for many years that James Patterson, whose books I've recently begun to read in earnest, has been coming out every couple of years with a new "number" in his Women's Murder Club series.  I actually read one of these a few years ago...but it apparently wasn't the "one" I just read...must have been a "higher" number.  Naturally this time around I decided to start at the beginning of the series and read book number one, appropriately titled 1st to Die...

In 1st to Die San Francisco homicide investigator Lindsay Boxer is confronted with a string of serial killings targeting newlyweds...the crimes are brutal and seemingly random, other than the victims' recent weddings.  In this endeavor she is teamed up with Chris Raleigh, a partner about whom she initially feels distrust and contempt for his relative inexperience and inter-office political role but who demonstrates his integrity and courage over the course of the story.  While working with Chris, Lindsay assembles an informal group of women friends around her: Claire, who works in the coroner's office, Cindy, a newspaper reporter, and Jill, a prosecuting attorney...hence the name Women's Murder Club.  But it isn't just this puzzling multiple-murder case that she shares with them: Lindsay has been recently diagnosed with a rare, but often fatal blood disease...and the prognosis for her survival isn't very good...

Eventually Lindsay and her associates uncover the mystery of the newlywed murders as she crosses paths with a famous fiction writer whose personal life is deplorable with his abuse of women.  Just what is this awful person's role in the murders, if any?  Well, I suppose you're gonna hafta read it to find out...unless, of course, you plan to watch the TV movie version, made in 2003 two years after the novel was released...

I liked 1st to Die...actually, it's been my favorite James Patterson novel so far of the five I've recently read.  Next in this series is 2nd Chance: definitely worth looking into...

Florida Gators Play Today in NCAA Women's Tournament

Last year the University of Florida basketball teams, both men's and women's, faltered from their usual winning ways...the women's team finished 13-17.  This year, however, they staged a complete turnaround, now with a 22-8 record and a berth in this year's NCAA Tournament.  The Gators are seeded #5 in their region and are playing #12 seed Albany (of New York).  Unfortunately for head coach Amanda Butler's team, they are playing in Syracuse...just a few miles from Albany...so their lower-seeded opponent definitely has a home-court advantage here.  And should they manage to win this opening round game today, their Sunday opponent in all likelihood will be 4th-seeded Syracuse.  So the women's hoops team will be playing their first two tournament games on a hostile court...assuming they get past Albany in the first game.  Oh well, at least they made the tournament! And besides, they don't have to play in the same region as Connecticut or Notre Dame, the two schools that have overwhelmingly dominated the sport in recent years...

It is the lack of parity at the top level of play that bothers me about NCAA women's basketball, and it has always been like that.  For many years, it was considered a "slam-dunk" that Tennessee would glide onward each season to an easy championship.  Over time, this sense of predestined fate has transferred to Connecticut, which has won the last three championships and more than half of the titles in this century.  But it isn't just that Connecticut has won many championships: most of the tournament games they play are boring blowouts: do you really want to watch a game (like in last year's tournament) where Connecticut wins, against good teams, 89-33, 91-55, and 105-54? Okay, they finally played it closer in the next two games, winning 91-70 and 81-58...well, not that close, either.  The finale, which was against the one team capable of competing on the same court with them, Notre Dame, was only a 10-point margin.  These ridiculously lopsided games have been the rule and not the exception with the top-teams in women's NCAA basketball...quite a contrast with the men's tournament, which has much more parity...

They are showing the Belmont-Michigan State game on ESPN right now, but I think I'm going to have to listen to the radio (on 95.3 here in Gainesville) to follow the Florida-Albany game, which at this writing (a few minutes past noon) has just begun.  Go Gators!

Wait a minute, they ARE showing the Florida-Albany game on ESPN...either that or they are hopping around from one game to another...

Time for Annual Pollen Outbreak Here in Gainesville

A few weeks ago, I dismally observed a thin coating of green vegetation on my car one morning.  Oh no, I thought...here comes the pollen again to ruin my life as it has recently with the coming of each spring...only it was still winter (and still is, for that matter).   But that portentous green stuff apparently wasn't the worst of it, no, just the start...other plants, more harmful in their effects, have now swung into attack emitting their noxious products into the air, by now a soup of massive annoyance.  I am prone to respiratory allergies, you see, and usually end up taking Zyrtec or Claritin to fight off the symptoms, which involve congested sinuses, headaches, sore throat, and sneezing fits. These pollen waves will go on for the next few weeks until they finally abate...by that time we'll be back into the hot, sweltering dog days of summer...even it is still springtime...

We barely had a winter here in north central Florida...usually, the grass and bushes take at least a couple of months off from growing during this season, but this year they've continued right on through as if we lived down in the tropics.  As a matter of fact, cold weather has been markedly absent most of the time in recent winters.  There is definitely something going on with the warming climate, whether you want to deny it or not...

Voted in Today's Florida Primary and Gainesville Mayoral Race

A couple of hours ago I drove the very short distance...which I could have walked...to my local precinct and voted in today's Florida Presidential Primary and Gainesville mayoral race.  The parking lot at the Senior Recreational Center where I vote was packed...uh-oh, I thought, I'm going to have to stand in a long line and wait a while.  But no, there just happened to be a lot of seniors enjoying the facilities...I entered the building, walked down the hallway, and stepped right up to the table where the volunteer gave me my ballot without any line whatsoever.  I voted, received my "I Voted" sticker, and walked back out into the parking lot.  The entire process, from leaving my house to returning, couldn't have taken more than 20 minutes to accomplish...

Voting sites are designed and located to make it as convenient as possible for residents to be able to vote.  That certainly is the case where I live.  I'm posting this article while there are still six hours left to vote today.  If you read this and haven't voted yet (assuming you live in Florida, of course), why not set aside a few minutes and fulfill your important civic responsibility as a citizen of this great country? 

Just Finished Reading Stephen King's Novella The Sun Dog

I've possessed a hardbound copy of Stephen King's 1990 book Four Past Midnight for several years, but had only gotten around to reading one of its four novellas: The Library Policeman.  Two of the book's stories were adapted into movies: The Langoliers (which I saw) and Secret Window, Secret Garden (of which I only caught a couple of scenes).  I didn't see the point of reading the former after seeing the movie...which is why I've never read King's Misery or Firestarter, either.  As for Secret Window, Secret Garden, there's no reason for me to avoid reading it since I don't know how the story ends.  That leaves the remaining novella: The Sun Dog, which I just finished reading...

Keep in mind, with The Sun Dog, that we are dealing with a story set in the author's time frame of 1990.  Back then Polaroid was a very popular brand of camera with its pictures developing a few seconds after their jettisoning, something that in our time must seem a bit obsolete.  But for protagonist Kevin Delevan, there are few things he wanted more for his fifteenth birthday than the Polaroid Sun 660 he receives.  Immediately he lines up his family for a photo op, but the resulting picture reveals only an ugly, stray-looking dog with its back to the camera, facing a fence in the background.  And no matter how many photos Kevin takes, he gets that dog with the fence.  Although he is inclined to return the obviously defective product, a strange feeling inside him compels him to keep it and investigate the cause of the puzzling photos.  It is then his sister who points out to him that the photos are not all the same...they change very gradually.  Kevin takes the advice of someone to take the camera to "Pop" Merrill, an elderly, miserly loan shark who has a shop full of gadgets and who has built up a reputation for his ability to take apart clocks and other items...including presumably cameras.  Well, that was a bad decision on Kevin's part, because Merrill's greed takes over as he plots to wrest away possession of the camera...

Since I don't give away story endings, this is another one you'll have to read for yourself.  But I will say this: Stephen King likes to take ostensibly innocent looking objects...like cars, for example...and impart something supernatural and sinister to them.  And by choosing a camera, he also explores the idea of a two-dimensional universe interacting with ours of three dimensions.  If that sounds a lot like Edwin Abbott's Flatland, well, King openly acknowledges it in this intriguing story.  Of all the characters in The Sun Dog, I found that of "Pop" Merrill to be by far the most interesting and thought-provoking.  But that's not surprising since I've long thought that Stephen King's greatest attribute as a writer of fiction has been his genius at character development...

I recommend The Sun Dog...now to read Secret Window, Secret Garden...

Florida Men's Basketball Team Misses NCAA Tourney, Accepts NIT Bid

After their three-game skid toward the end of the Southeastern Conference regular season and then only garnering one conference tournament win to finish a 19-14 record (at least so far), the 2015-16 University of Florida men's basketball team was not invited to the NCAA Championship Tournament...a disappointment that I had clearly expected.  You can argue whether or not teams like Syracuse or Tulsa deserved to go to the "Big Dance", but Florida simply wasn't good enough.  That's not saying that they're not a good team...first year Gator coach Mike White, by all accounts, has done a great job with these players and all of them should be proud after the second-tier National Invitation Tournament extended to them a bid to play there.  UF, a number 2 seed in their assigned "quadrant", will play the North Florida Ospreys Tuesday evening at 9 in the first round.  Since the Gators' home site of the O'Connell Center is unavailable, they will have to go on the road for this tournament, unfortunately.  Still, they have a good chance to up their win total past 20.  Should Florida do as expected and beat UNF, they'll face the winner of the Ohio State-Akron game...most likely the Buckeyes.

Florida men's basketball has made a marked improvement from last year, when they finished under .500 and missed both the NCAA and NIT.  But if they want to advance far into this year's NIT, they'll need to figure out how they can shoot three-pointers so well while being abysmal at the foul line.  You simply cannot put together a string of victories without being able to protect a small lead at the end of a game when the other team is fouling your poor-shooting players and expecting them to miss at the line. Coach White will have a simple goal for next year's team: make the NCAA tournament...he can start with improving his players' foul shooting.  But, who knows, maybe UF will surprise everyone and blow all their opponents away in this tournament...and not ever have to worry about protecting a small lead.  Well, at least I can hope...

Congratulations, Gators!

Ran 2016 Run for Haven 10K in Tioga Today

In spite of not feeling in tip-top running form, along with an unwelcome plantar fasciitis flare-up in my right foot, I decided to go ahead anyway and tackle the challenging Tioga course of the Run for Haven 10K for the second straight year.  Unlike almost every other running race, held around 7 to 9 in the morning, this race has the audacity to start at 4:30 p.m., right at the hottest point of the day.  Last year it was hot and humid, and I had some difficulty getting through it all...I saw many runners have to stop and walk for long stretches.  Today was much of the same, with the temperature in the low 80s and the humidity a tolerable but still unpleasant 60%.  But I had learned my lesson from 2015 and changed my tactics...

First of all, I drank plenty of fluids in the two hours before this year's race, preparing for water and salt loss in advance.  I also ran a slower, more reasonable pace: after about 1.5 miles, no one passed me...but I passed many, a large portion of who were once again compelled to walk, apparently unprepared victims of the heat and humidity.  My final time as I clocked it myself was 59:00, a little less than 3 minutes slower than last year's time.  However, due to the crowd of runners in front of me, it took me several seconds to even get to the starting line after the race's beginning...it will be interesting to find out my official finishing time when it is posted (for which I'll provide a link as soon as possible)...

The folks putting on this event combined it with a St. Patrick's Day celebration, which accounts for all of the green you see in the accompanying pictures (I wore green, too).  They had a live band and provided "free" food and drink for the race participants, although I passed up on my allotment due to the impossibly long lines of "customers".  No problem, I wasn't all that thrilled with last year's meal, anyway...

I like this race because it mixes up, in even proportions, road and trail running.  I'm beginning to develop a more realistic default distance running pace that is a bit slower than that I ran with, say, back in 2010-13.  But I'm not getting any younger, with my 60th birthday coming this October, and I need to make reasonable adjustments.  At my newly adopted pace, I feel confident that I can once again run in  longer distance races like half-marathons.  Then again, I still need to overcome this nagging, recurring plantar fasciitis problem...

Nancy Reagan and George Martin, R.I.P.

The past few weeks, in a way, have been especially depressing for me...there seems to be too many people dying, both among those in my personal life and those who are famous.  The personal losses are naturally more severe, but the more public deaths have hit hard as well.  However, it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise that two celebrities who were in their nineties finally passed on: former First Lady Nancy Reagan and renown record producer George Martin...

I have always felt a great degree of respect and admiration for Nancy Reagan, actually much more than for her famous husband "Ronny"...this makes me a bit different from most people who thought more highly of him.  She brought a sense of class to the White House that it needed as the center for the role that the President serves as Head of State.  Her "Just Say No" slogan against drug abuse and the accompanying campaign while she was First Lady and afterwards is a lasting, positive legacy.  I also admire Nancy for rebuking renegade former Reagan staffer Oliver North when he tried to associate himself with her husband during his 1994 Virginia Senate campaign against incumbent Chuck Robb.  And her devotion throughout her marriage to Ronald...especially during the final years after he had become afflicted with Alzheimer's, was beautiful to behold.  Finally, Nancy was a strong, assertive woman who graciously handled what I perceived to be sexist criticism against her character.  When a man displays these traits he is hailed as a great leader, but a woman?  Let's just hope that these gender-based double standards can finally be a thing of the past, although I see much of the same nonsense now being directed at Hillary Clinton...

George Martin was doubtless a musical genius...especially in the recording studio...who is best known for recognizing the potential of the Beatles in their early years and bringing them to a high standard of performance on their records, producing many of the greatest albums ever made.  Although the band wrote most of their songs (although their early covers of other artists were great), they depended on Martin to make things work in the studio.  Two examples: when Penny Lane was being recorded, Paul McCartney, after hearing a French horn play, decided that this orchestral instrument would be a pretty addition to the song...and asked Martin to arrange and include it on the track.  No problem for the "Fifth Beatle".  And when John Lennon, upon hearing two differently paced tracks of the song Strawberry Fields Forever, decided that he wanted BOTH of them for the final recording, he simply gave them to Martin and told him to fix the problem with the differing tempos...which the producer did by adjusting their speeds.  In these and many other instances, George Martin was content to stay in the background and let the Beatles themselves take the "creative genius" credit.  I think that was what makes him special to me: not only his talent and hard work, but also his humility and good will toward those who were so fortunate to be associated with him...

NCAA Post-Season Basketball Tournaments in Full Swing

When it comes down to watching basketball, I prefer college...especially at the end of the season when the big scramble is on as to which teams make the NCAA Championship Tournament and which have to settle for the "second-tier" National Invitation Tournament.  Last year for the University of Florida, at the end of coach Billy Donovan's tenure with the school (before he went on to coach the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder), the Gators slipped badly and finished, after the Southeastern Conference Tournament, a game under .500, not even getting invited to the NIT.  So with their new coach Mike White, UF stands to at least make the NIT field...although the NCAA tourney at this point is a longshot for this very talented but inconsistent team.  They begin their SEC Tournament tomorrow against Arkansas...a toss-up in my opinion.  Should Florida win that one, they'll go up against ranked Texas A&M...a win in each of these games would give them a 20-13 record which according to some media sports analysts might be good enough to be invited to the "big show".  But going on a hot streak has not been the pattern for the Gators this season: still, it would be a marked improvement from the previous year to play in the NIT should it come down to that...

Although I root for the Gators, my favorite college basketball conference is the Atlantic Coast Conference, home of perennial contenders (and multiple national champions) Duke and North Carolina.  However, in each of the last four seasons, it has been a different team that got hot at the right time and won the ACC Tournament...last year it was Notre Dame, which for some unknown reason gets to play basketball as an ACC "member".  The Fighting Irish sport a good team again this season and would face Duke tomorrow should the Blue Devils get by North Carolina State in today's game.  Yesterday, in the first round, Florida State and NC State won their games against Boston College and Wake Forest, respectively.  I'm about to watch the second-round contest between Pittsburgh and Syracuse on ESPN...

By Sunday evening the different brackets for the NCAA Championship Tournament will have been announced.  Florida will know then if it made the "cut"...and should quickly receive an NIT invitation if it didn't.  Still, Gators or no Gators, I'm going to enjoy this year's March Madness, as they call this great time of the year for college basketball...

Just Finished Reading James Patterson's Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment

After looking through prolific fiction writer James Patterson's bibliography, I happened upon a series of books that are targeted at the young adult/teen market, called Maximum Ride.  And since I like to dabble in this genre of literature from time to time (I've read the Divergent, Twilight, and Hunger Games series), I thought would investigate to see how well Patterson does in this area. Although I later discovered that there was a 1998 Patterson precursor novel to Maximum Ride, titled When the Wind Blows, I began with the 2005 first "official" book: The Angel Experiment...

Without wanting to give away too much, the basic premise of The Angel Experiment is that six children, ranging in age from six to fourteen, have escaped from a sinister place called The School and are trying to maintain their freedom while looking for answers about their origins.  Oh, I forgot to mention that all have been genetically modified with bird DNA and can fly, wings and all...while each child possesses his or her own special skills.  Angel is the youngest, while Max (or Maximum Ride) is the oldest and the group's leader.  Max, who tells the book's story from her own perspective, has a special bond with Angel; when the latter is recaptured by the brutal, wolf-like Erasers, the hunt is on to rescue her.  Mysteries abound in this story...what is the true role and intentions of Jeb, an adult employed by the School but who has helped the children's escape and seems to have an benevolent view of them?  And what about the mission placed upon Max...one that is vague but at the same time of cosmic importance...

Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment brings back to me memories of the 1996-2000 TV series The Pretender.  In that show children with special abilities were brought up, isolated and controlled in a place called "The Centre".  One of them, Jarod, in adulthood finally managed to escape and he, too, found himself relentlessly pursued while he struggled to find the important answers to it all.  Personally, I would rate Divergent or Hunger Games higher if you're interested in this genre, but I also think that James Patterson did a good job with this series...at least as far as the first book is concerned, that is.  I'm going to continue reading it through each successive book, but first I think I'll go back and read When the Wind Blows...

The Three Classes of the United States Senate

The United States Senate isn't a school per se, nor is it a rigid society with different levels of prestige.  Nevertheless, it does have classes...although they pertain neither to education nor social stratification.  There are three of them to be exact, and in a radical departure from typical government gobbledygook, they are simply designated as "1", "2", and "3".  But I haven't yet explained what these classes are, have I?  Well, continue on then, intrepid reader...

Every two years for our national Congress, we have elections for both the House of Representatives and the Senate.  Because all of the seats in the House are for only two years, then every one of them is up for election every two years (although a lot of them aren't contested, sad to say).  U.S. Senate terms, on the other hand, are for six years, and since there are a total of 100 senators...with 2 per state, their elections have been divided up into threes, with approximately a third of the seats up for election every two years.  So, depending on which of the three "classes" a senator belongs to, he or she will either bypass the congressional elections in a particular year or have to contend with a reelection campaign (if they still want to remain in the Senate, that is).  So, how do the classes specifically work?

In recent history, Class 1 senators (33 in all) have been elected in 2000, 2006, and 2012...and will be due for the next election in 2018.  Class 2 senators (33 in all) were elected in 2002, 2008, and 2014...and will be due for their next election in 2020.  And Class 3 senators (34 in all) were elected in 2004 and 2010...and will be up for election this year, 2016.  My home state of Florida has Classes 1 and 3...Marco Rubio's seat (he isn't running for reelection) is the Class 3 one that Floridians will decide on this November  (Democrat Bill Nelson is in Class 1).  Now class is important in Senate turnover and party control, because each class contains a certain number of Republican vs. Democratic senators.  According to Wikipedia, Class 1 contains 25 senators aligning with the Democrats and only 8 going for the Republican Party.  Class 2 is reversed, with 22 Republicans and 11 Democrats in it.  And the upcoming election in a few months is all about Class 3, with 24 Republican seats and only 10 Democratic that are up for a vote.  That means that, if you only look at the numbers, the Republicans have quite a task ahead of them this year if they want to retain the 54-46 majority they currently enjoy in the Senate.  And looking closer, some of the contested seats currently held by Republicans appear to be rather tenuous, especially in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and New Hampshire...

Stories 5-8 in Kuttner/Moore's Book Two-Handed Engine

As I've mentioned before in other posts, I am currently in the process of reading the book Two-Handed Engine, a collection of some of the better short fiction by the late husband-wife writing team of Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore.  Much of their material is of a speculative nature in the realm of science fiction, fantasy, or horror (or a mixture of the three)...reminiscent of the original Twilight Zone television series in some ways.  The tales in this book span the years 1933-55, and the four I have just read were published in 1942-43...

In Compliments of the Author, attributed to the pseudonym Lewis Padgett (a collaboration of Kuttner and Moore), a shady blackmail artist picks the wrong target: a wealthy California man who happens to be a legitimate magician with a vengeful "familiar" in the form of a cat.  A strange book finds its way into the hands of the blackmailer...and its solutions for each crisis he faces work uncannily...all the way to the surprise ending.  Shock, also by Lewis Padgett, and a Twilight Zone-like speculative sci-fi story, involves a strange visitor from the distant future who makes a hole from his time into a physicist's (1953) apartment.  His speech almost impossible to understand, the time-traveling visitor goes out into the world of the "present" to find his other "self", while the hole into that future time remains.  Our physicist hero can't restrain his curiosity and goes through the wall...and I'll just leave the ending for you to discover for yourself (if you can ever find this story to read, that it). Reader, I Hate You, which was a solo work by Kuttner, is a story with a comic, absurd twist to it. Kuttner writes himself into the story, telling it in the first person as a writer compelled by a strange "superman" to chase down a reader of Kuttner's in order to retrieve his wife, who is in the form of a crystal (remember, I said this story is absurd).  Kuttner must have had a lot of fun writing this one...

And now we're down to the last of the four I've just read: the unforgettable Mimsy Were the Borogoves (also credited to Padgett), widely considered as one of the greatest science fiction short stories ever written...and my all-time favorite of the genre. It is an excellent exercise in speculation on how different in nature children are from adults...especially very young children...and how early education can steer their thinking...and even their humanity...in directions the ramifications of which can be disastrous. Two boxes full of toys from another dimension in the distant future have carelessly been sent back in time by an amateur tinkerer experimenting with his time machine...one ends up in the late nineteenth century, inspiring Lewis Carroll through his conversations with the little girl who finds the box and its contents (hence the tale's quizzical title). The other box, which is the focus of the story, lands in 1942 and is found by a seven-year old boy playing hooky from school by a riverbank.  He and his two-year old sister play with the toys he found...but to the parents they make no sense at all, appearing to be arbitrary and random in their operation.  The toys themselves are designed to teach and train children for something that no one anticipates.  Oops, did I say too much?  I don't think so...but I had better leave the rest of it for you to read.  And this one should be easy to find, as it is often in "best of science fiction" anthologies.  Warning: the 2007 movie The Last Mimzy, which claims to be based on Mimsy Were the Borogoves, bears little resemblance to the original story except to incorporate some of the themes (children, box of strange toys going through time, etc.) while missing the entire point of it all.  Kuttner and Moore had been long-deceased by the time this film came out, and I can only imagine that they are spinning in their graves over this distortion of their signature masterpiece...

You usually don't hear about Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore whenever the greatest science fiction writers of the twentieth century are discussed...usually it's folks like Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein who get the most attention.  But there were many other great science fiction writers in this period as well, and I intend to cover some of their works in future articles...

Taken Aback at Vicious Presidential Campaign

My focus in this article is the campaign within the Republican Party for the presidential nomination in 2016.  I am a Democrat and, frankly, can't see myself voting for any of the GOP candidates.  That's not to say that I am happy with the Democratic choices given me, either.  I can think of several experienced and capable people who would be better than dynastic Hillary or socialist Bernie...but I have to play with the cards I've been dealt...the best simply chose not to run this year.  And seeing what's been going on in the "other" party, I don't blame any of them for staying out...

Donald Trump, with his almost constant insults and childish behavior, has set the vicious tone for the Republican presidential campaign when poll after poll showed that a plurality of this party's voting base identified with Trump's nastiness.  The meaner he spoke, the more popular he got.  Finally, other candidates, realizing what it took to appeal to this rabble, began to return the Donald's insults as well as starting off against each other.  But Trump continued to lead the field of candidates into the primary season and clearly has a large plurality of the delegates so far.  Yesterday Mitt Romney, someone for whom I feel absolutely no warmth or sympathy, decided to give a speech denouncing Trump, point by point.  Romney wants the voters in the different remaining states with primaries or caucuses to pick whichever candidate has the strongest chance to beat Trump in each state, the ultimate goal being to go to the national convention with no one having a majority of delegates that would seal their nomination.  Then, the "insiders" (including presumably Romney himself) could broker the convention to select a more controllable establishment nominee (including presumably Romney himself). What a joke this all is: if Trump does end up getting the Republican nomination, all the Democrats will need to do is just keeping replaying Romney's speech in their ads...

Donald Trump is who he is, a known quantity for many years, and I can't blame him for his tactics...especially when he seems to get a boost in the polls whenever he speaks in insulting and/or vulgar terms against other candidates, the media, demographic groups, or anyone who criticizes him (which in Trump's narcissistic worldview equates to treating him unfairly).  I agree with Romney, though, that Trump is too emotionally unstable to be trusted with our nuclear arsenal and at least for that reason alone should be rejected for president.  The fact that he also wants to squelch opposition by making it easier to sue anyone who criticizes him, though, is insane...especially considering that Trump should be the defendant in any such lawsuits, not the reverse...

I don't like Trump for his instability and demeanor.  But I also don't like teabaggers like Ted Cruz for their rigid ideology and refusal to work with others for the greater good.  And I really, really dislike the Republican establishment that has done everything it could to stonewall everything President Obama has tried to do... for example, more than 500 Senate filibusters in the past seven years, many against legislation and nominations of which the Republicans approved but decided to oppose, for no other reason than to go against my duly-elected President.  I have my own concerns with the Democrats as well (especially on the far left), but I feel that they are currently the party of reason and pragmatism, while the Republicans can do nothing but obstruct and insult...

This all having been said, I recognize that each of us has to reason out this political process for ourselves and that it is O.K. to arrive at differing conclusions.  Which candidate will make the best president? I say vote for whichever party or candidate that you think will do the best job...I don't claim to have a lock on the "correct" answer to that question, I just have my own opinions on the subject...

Books I'm Currently Reading

Right now I'm in the midst of reading a number of books.  One of them, which I have already mentioned, is Two-Handed Engine, a collection of primarily science-fiction short stories written by the late husband-wife team of Henry Kuttner and C.L.Moore.  I've already discussed the first four stories and intend to write about the next four, which I've just read.  I've also been continuing reading some of James Patterson's works...right now I'm about two thirds of the way done with his book The Angel Experiment, the first installment in his young adult science-fiction Maximum Ride series.  So far, I like his writing here, which is a marked departure from the style he employed in the other books...more crime/mystery oriented...that I've recently read.  I also just checked out the first book in his Women's Murder Club series, appropriately titled 1st to Die.  I believe I read that book several years ago: it will interesting to see how much of it, if any, I remember.  Finally, in anticipation of the March 8th release of fantasy writer Daniel Abraham's fifth and reportedly final volume in his The  Dagger and the Coin series, I am quickly perusing the first four books I've already read in this most interesting and underrated saga.  Now that's something I'd like to see adapted to an HBO television series...you can have your Game of Thrones, which incidentally has so strayed from creator and author George R.R. Martin's books that it hardly bears watching, in my opinion.  Besides, Martin seems to be taking forever with writing his next volume of the supposedly seven-book series (officially titled A Song of Ice and Fire), while Abraham will have cranked out his entire series in a five-year span...

Just Finished Reading Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

I just finished reading Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes...at least the English translation of this famous Spanish novel that was originally published in two volumes in 1605 and 1615.  Altogether it is a rather lengthy book to plow through and, despite the fact that it contains many smaller stories imbedded within the larger work, I have to admit that I had some difficulty sustaining my interest in reading through to the end.  After all, the basic premise of Don Quixote is laid out at its beginning, with its characters experiencing little change or growth throughout.  The two central characters are Alonso Quixado, an elderly minor Spanish noble, and a simple farmer named Sancho Panza.  Quixado, who has taken up with books about chivalry to the point where he believes that he is himself a knight errant, hires Sancho as his squire as he sets off on his adventures under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha.  He imagines Dulcinea, who is a working class woman in his home town with whom he has had no contact, as a princess who claims his loyalty and affections and for whom he performs all of his gallant deeds of knighthood. Quixote and Panza set off on their adventures in this book...not once or twice, but three different times, and this is probably the best way to divide up the story.  In his adventures, Quixote continually interprets normal, everyday experiences such as seeing windmills or a flock of sheep as being encounters with giants or enemy armies, made by enchanters to look like what Sancho plainly sees for what they really are.  And the "squire" regularly makes his opinions known to his master, often very much to the latter's consternation...it is Sancho's contribution to the tale that rescues it, in my opinion, with his inexhaustible supply of proverbs (some very silly) that he sprinkles liberally throughout all of his conversations.  As for Don Quixote, most of the people who encounter him don't take very long before they conclude that he is suffering from some kind of madness, but yet...

Outside of Don Quixote's own delusions pertaining to chivalry and his own role in it, he comes across as agreeable, knowledgeable, and wise...if a bit loquacious.  Those he encounters, once they become aware of his affliction, tend to show sympathy toward him and Sancho...although some, like the Duke and Duchess of the "second" book, concoct elaborate jokes to play on the two. Still, I was left reading about the ostensibly singular character Don Quixote with the feeling that his insanity/rationality duality is more common than one might suspect...

After reflecting on it a little, I can conjure up a list of people I know, both from my personal life (which I'll discreetly keep to myself) as well as some I only know from the media, who display genius and expertise in one or more fields but act totally clueless in others.  What makes them ultimately Quixotic, though, is that they themselves don't recognize their own foolishness when assessing their own shortcomings in some areas and insist that those around them "play along" with their self-delusions. I won't give out names, but I can think of politicians (including two current presidential candidates...I wonder if you know who I'm talking about), athletes, musicians, actors, and news media folks who fit these criteria.  But what's really disturbing is when people in large numbers appear to actually buy into their madness...         

My February 2016 Running Report

Although I was experiencing some physical maladies this past month of February, 2016, I managed to run at least a token amount each day and accumulated 171 total miles...usually accomplished with multiple, smaller runs spread throughout the day.  My longest single run was for 4.8 miles.  I had planned to participate in my hometown of Gainesville's Five Points Half-Marathon on the 21st, but felt too bad that weekend and decided that it would be prudent to pass this time around...

Next month I'd like to step up the mileage a bit, especially with regard to the distances I cover in single runs.  I also would like to run in two different 10K races: the Run for Haven event on the 12th in Tioga (which I ran last year) and the Trail of Payne 10K at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, just south of Gainesville, on the 26th.  The latter is a trail run, so the course may be a challenge...especially if it is run under rainy conditions (or if it had rained a lot in the days before the race).  As for the Tioga race, I loved the big outdoor party they held, with live music and "free" food for the paying runners...but the 4:30 pm race time did make it a little difficult to withstand with the hot temperatures that fell on us that March afternoon in 2015.  Maybe this year we'll catch a break and it'll be cooler...

Upcoming Election, Gainesville City Commission and Alachua County Commission

I received my sample ballot in the mail today for the March 15 Florida presidential preference primary and Gainesville local elections from my supervisor of elections.  There's not very much on the ballot: besides the Republican or Democratic presidential primaries, Gainesville only offers its mayoral race and District 4 in its city commission...and since I'm not in District 4, I can't vote in that race (although one of the contestants, Jim Konish, is a former classmate of mine from Nova High School).  It's O.K. that I can't vote for someone else's district...that's the way it should be in representative government.  I think Gainesville has worked out its city commission structure quite well: there is the mayor (who also gets to participate as a voting commissioner), two at-large seats (the whole city gets to vote on them), and four districted seats.  I reside in District 2, currently represented by Todd Chase.  Since the various districts have their own particular demographics, issues, and political leanings, it seems more likely as a result to have a city commission that better represents the diverse interests of its population.  One big problem: unless there is a bigger race on the ballot, such as the presidential campaign or statewide offices like U.S. Senate or governor, the voter participation in my local elections is abysmally low.  Take the last two elections here, for a commission seat and the runoff election: 12% turnout in both! 

There is also an Alachua County Commission, which is comprised of five seats each officially representing a drawn-out district for the entire county, of which Gainesville dominates with its much larger population than the outlying communities.  Unlike the case with the Gainesville City Commission, though, each county commissioner is elected at-large from the entire county, not just from the district he or she is supposed to represent.  Which doesn't make very much sense to me.  I live in Alachua County District 5, which is supposedly the district of Charles Chesnut IV.  But this commissioner was elected county-wide...doesn't that defeat the concept of representation by districts?  It would be as if the entire United States got to vote on who would be Florida's governor...wait a minute, that might not such a bad idea, considering the individual we've been stuck with for the past few years...

Starting to be Able to Follow Ice Hockey Games

The other night I was watching the National Hockey League game between the New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings, taking place at Madison Square Garden and broadcast on NBC Sports (local Cox Channel 33).  I've written before about how difficult a time I've had trying to to follow the flow of the game, seeing how the small puck is so elusive and often hidden.  In spite of that, though, I was surprised to be able to better keep track of its movement...and actually enjoyed the game.  I wasn't pulling for one team over the other, although since I've been to New York once, and the hotel I stayed at is a short walking distance from the Garden, I tend to think of the Big Apple as almost a secondary home town.  The Rangers did pull out an overtime victory, 1-0, and I thought that the reduced three-on-three setup in overtime served to make the action more exciting...and should be extended to the entire game...

One other reason that I have had for not getting into watching ice hockey is that I've never played the sport...not even in its alternative form of field hockey.  Also, I've never ice-skated before, and therefore cannot easily imagine myself in the skates of those athletes in these games...unlike, for example, soccer, where I can sense the limitations of the players based partially on my own personal experience in this sport.  Also, I'm still a little lost at some of the rules of hockey...especially concerning off-side calls.  Still, I'm looking forward to watching more...I'm sure I'll pick up on what's going on eventually...

My home state of Florida has two NHL teams: the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers.  Both are having good seasons this year, and the Lightning made it to the Stanley Cup finals last year.  However, although I'll probably end up rooting for them when I'm watching their games, I just don't have that level of fan loyalty built up yet...

Watched the Movie Bridge of Spies

Last year I saw preview after preview on TV of the new Tom Hanks film, Bridge of Spies.  Already acquainted with the infamous U-2 incident of 1960, I felt inclined to watch it eventually...but never got around to the theater.  Well, I did make it out there once, but there was that new Star Wars movie...

No problem...last week Melissa, Rebecca, Will and I sat down one evening and watched Bridge of Spies, which we had rented from Redbox.  Not exactly the theater, but then again it was convenient to be able to pause it from time to time.  Already knowing where the story was heading, I had expected to see a re-creation of an early-sixties East Europe, but I was stunned at the visual effects nonetheless.  After all, under Soviet domination, East Germany was treated in a much more punitive manner following World War II and many of its buildings, fifteen years after war's end, still looked bombed-out.  Amazing...

Bridge of Spies is a true story, spanning the years 1957-62, focusing on the efforts of American lawyer James Donovan, played by Hanks, as he first defended accused Soviet spy Rudolf Abel on espionage charges and then was asked by the CIA to handle negotiations with the Soviet Union for the release of downed and captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers.  The U-2 flights over the U.S.S.R. were done at high-altitude to photograph our Cold War adversary's military activities...Powers's plane was shot down by a missile.  Donovan's task was to get the Soviets to agree to an exchange between convicted Soviet spy Abel and Powers.  The "bridge" in the movie's title refers to a famous bridge connecting East and West Berlin, where the transfer was to take place.  All of this is already known history, but just in case you don't know what happened at the end, I'll leave it for you to discover for yourself.  Just keep in mind that I was impressed by this movie, its direction, acting (especially that of Tom Hanks), and its faithfully true portrayal of the events and settings.  By the way, since much of the movie is set in East Berlin, it was fascinating to watch the building of the Berlin Wall as an event concurrent with the story's plot...

So go watch Bridge of Spies...especially if you have any kind of positive feelings about the old Soviet Union and how its policies affected the people under its control, whether as citizens of that country or of one of the satellite nations it dominated.  Those folks had it really tough back then and I wouldn't wish their ordeals on anyone...