'23 Kentucky Derby Exciting, Pre-Race TV Hype Not

Yesterday I watched on TV the Kentucky Derby horse race for three-year-old thoroughbreds, as usual picking my "favorites" from the list having the most interesting names.  Also as usual, there were nearly twenty in the field...actually down in number due to some scratches, including early favorite Forte.  The TV announcers went around and around doing pieces on the different horses, jockeys, owners and trainers involved...yawn.  Finally, the race began and I was taken by how today's video technology has greatly enhanced the viewing of these events, clearly showing the field racing in the backstretch and turns as the jockeys maneuvered their horses around and through their competition.  In the end it was a horse with middling odds, Mage, that edged out another non-favorite, Two Phil's. in what turned out to be a pretty exciting finish.  I'm not sure, though, that I want to sit again through all that pre-race hype.  And I'd be very surprised if this year's Derby winner will go on to win either of the other two races in the Triple Crown, assuming Mage will even be entered in them...

Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

Parkruns have sprung up all over the country, having originated I believe in England.  Like their name implies, they occur in area parks...Gainesville has one that takes place at pretty Depot Park a few blocks south of downtown every Saturday morning at 7:30. You sign up in advance on their website and get barcodes that you can (like me) print out...some folks somehow get them put on their smartphones.  Then at the end of each event the finishers get a token that gets scanned along with their barcodes, the results to be presented later in the day online.  It's a pretty neat system and it's free...but since it is also totally supported by volunteers, volunteering is always in demand: won't be long, I think, before I throw my hat into that and see where it lands.  This morning I got up and out there to run my unprecedented third straight Depot Parkrun.  With the temperature at 67 degrees and humidity at 84%, I had originally planned on going at a much slower pace but discovered a hidden source of energy within me and picked it up with each lap (four of them equal 5K).  My finishing time was 33:08...you can see the overall results by clicking HERE. Now the question is: will I go for a fourth straight Parkrun next Saturday?  Guess I'll have to see how I feel then...

Quote of the Week...from Scut Farkus

What, you're gonna cry now?  Come on, crybaby! Cry for me, come on! CRY!     ---Scut Farkus

Scut Farkus was the big bad bully character in Jean Shepherd's immortal 1983 movie A Christmas Story, for which he compiled a number of already published short stories and wrapped them together within a holiday theme.  It's become a TV staple, with a couple of channels running nonstop marathons at Christmas.  I already knew Jean Shepherd in the mid-1970s for his late-night humorous monologue shows on my local talk radio station in Miami Beach, WKAT/1360, shows that originated from the mighty WOR/710, (50,000-watt clear channel) in New York City.  I also had read the short story he wrote to which the above quote pertains.  Little Ralphie, around eight I guess, is all excited as Christmas approaches...he desperately wants a Red Rider toy air rifle, but his mother says no, "You'll shoot your eye out".  And now his own teacher has just written the same thing on a homework assignment he wrote about it...and Ralphie is trudging home in the snow, tears falling from his eyes.  Suddenly Scut Farkus, the school bully...accompanied by his little, stocky toady Grover Dill...jumps in Ralphie's way, confronting him and ridiculing his crying.  And then our hero does something unexpected: he charges his adversary, pushing him to the ground, proceeding to beat him up.  The scene didn't look realistic to me and, besides, I knew from Shepherd's earlier short story that it was the more manageable Dill that Ralphie fought, not impossible Farkus.  I also had a problem with the bully in this story being a social outcast among the kids...where I grew up in South Florida during the sixties and seventies, it was the bully who was the popular kid on the block or at the bus stop.  I could take the above quote of an imaginary figure in different directions, but since I always remember this jeering taunt of Scut's, I decided to turn it on its head and make something sweet about it.  You see, we have a year-old mixed breed puppy dog named Daisy, and when Melissa ("Mommy" as far as Daisy is concerned) ever goes into another room in the house with the door closed, Daisy sidles up to the door and begins to whimper just like she did when she was very young and temporarily separated from her litter.  And every now and then when she does this, I go straight into my Scut Farkus routine, repeating almost verbatim the above quote...but with some good-natured affection thrown in...                                                                            

If I Were to Compile a Puzzle Magazine

If I were to publish one of those variety puzzle books you often see on supermarket magazine shelves, it would leave out much of the stuff already in them.  Right off the top, I would eliminate word searches...too easy.  And forget the "easy" to "medium level sudoku puzzles, and just about any kind of crosswords...except "codewords", which is kind of fun and which I would definitely include in my magazine.  Although I'm horrible at word logic puzzles, I'm still optimistic enough that maybe if I get to be 100, good Lord willing, I'll finally have figured out how to solve them.  Other logic puzzles based on numbers like kakuro (aka cross-sums), ken-ken and "hard" sudoku are among my favorites.  And I would definitely load up my publication with cryptograms...just can't ever get enough of them.  Oh, and I'd definitely have a few of the puzzles containing two pictures, with a specified number of differences I'm to discover...that's always fun! Mazes are also an entertaining carry-over from my younger years.  Although smartphones seem to dominate people's entertainment these days when they can't get around to plopping down in front of a TV screen to zone out or play video games, I'm still of that old school with my torn-out sheets of paper stuffed into my shirt pocket, containing the above kinds of cool puzzles and instantly ready for me to work on at a convenient moment... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1990 Science Fiction, Part 7

Below are my final reviews from 1990 science fiction short stories and novellas appearing in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Eight Annual Collection.  Can you guess which book I'm starting next week?  How'd you know...The Year's Best Science Fiction, Ninth Annual Collection!  But first I have to finish up with 1990...

WHITE CITY by Lewis Shiner

This is a speculative, fanciful tale about the electrical technology pioneer Nikola Tesla...and a demonstration he publicly performs aimed to dazzle everyone.  And dazzle it does, just as Tesla planned.  What is unplanned are the people's reactions...

LOVE AND SEX AMONG THE INVERTEBRATES by Pat Murphy

In a dying world poisoned by nuclear holocaust radiation, a woman has designed a special robot that will "survive" the impending extinction of organic life on Earth, including her own.  But can it reproduce?  With a twisted sense of humor, she "solves" the problem.  Funny and very sad at the same time...

THE HEMINGWAY HOAX by Joe Haldeman

A critically acclaimed, muddled mess of a novella this is, touching upon the often-tortuous topics of time travel, alternate worlds and questions of identity, mixing them all up until at the end you don't know which way is up. John Baird, an English professor with a penchant for writing, is approached by a con artist to forge Ernest Hemingway's early lost works.  This leads to a Hemingway look-alike...or is it Hemingway's ghost...materializing and killing Baird in various horrible ways while the con man is elsewhere sleeping with Baird's wife.  The rationale for the killings is that Baird's hoax will somehow lead to the end of the world...but to the ghost's astonishment, the writer keeps surviving them all until...until I don't know what the hell happens at the end.  If you're going to write about these topics, you'd better establish some ground rules about them beforehand to prevent everything from descending into chaos.  I did learn a bit about Ernest Hemingway, though...

Next week: that next book as Gardner's sci-fi anthology series moves to the year 1991...

Podcaster Big on Stepping Out of the Box

Podcaster Rob Dial, on a recent episode, promoted the idea of continual learning in fields extraneous to one's business or expertise in order to pick up useful information and principles that can cross over with their applications.  He cited examples of the person who transferred the then-innovation of banks offering drive-through options for their customers to the fast-food industry and the founder of Priceline, who observed that grocers would sell overripe bananas at a discount...so why not use this for unsold airline tickets as well?  Dial calls all this "thinking outside the box", an already well-worn cliche, I admit.  But he does have a good point: every field of endeavor and specialty contains within it elements that are transferrable to others.  The podcast host suggested that we take an hour each weekday...or five a week...to learn something absolutely new about an area that we're unfamiliar with. I'm "kind of" on board with this, with two caveats.  One, if you're rooted in your own specialty and only skimming the surface of the target subject matter just to pick up some ideas for your own use, then I'm afraid you're going to miss out on a lot of understanding pertinent to that area. And two, when starting to learn in a new field, the beginning is often deceptively easy, with the more profound lessons to be learned requiring more extensive study, an extra investment of time Dial perhaps wasn't considering: hopping around from one area to another is going to stymie many possible benefits.  And the elite in any field will tell you that while they like to see that field popularized, sometimes those who are accomplishing this aren't exactly on the money with their presentation, leaving out important stuff.  Still, I think...especially with Internet sites like search engines, Wikipedia and YouTube as good points of departure...that delving into unaccustomed areas can not only be lucrative, but also just plain fun...

Rural vs. City Long Distance Races

I was training in my living room, running to a YouTube complete video of the Mississauga Half-Marathon, from a runner's perspective.  The individual involved also recorded the Toronto and Oakville half-marathons this way...Mississauga and Oakville are nearby communities to Toronto (in Ontario, Canada in case you didn't know).   I was taken by the rural emphasis for the running courses in Oakville and Mississauga while Toronto had the runners go straight down the main drag into the city's urban center.  I guess if you live around there, you appreciate the diversity of the courses...the scenery in the more rural half-marathons was pretty and interesting.  But to me at least, running in the heart of a city is something that one doesn't experience every day, and I enjoyed looking at all the different kinds of businesses...especially restaurants and coffee places...that Toronto offers.  Let me go one step further: if I were out of town, even far away, I would definitely pick Toronto's race over those of the other two sites to hop on a plane to fly to.  Yet I'm guessing it probably costs more to run in it...and the organizers' expenses must be considerably higher.  That's why I don't hold it against our local blood bank charity here in Gainesville, LifeSouth, for ending their 2006-22 run of holding such an event here in my hometown.  Ten years ago, I could run their half-marathon, which went right through the heart of the city (and through the University of Florida, even its football stadium) and then opt for the more rural setting of the Ocala Half-Marathon, set along roads south of town where there are many horse farms.  Now, though, there are neither any Ocala nor LifeSouth events (if you discount the latter's much toned-down 5K race) and if you want to run a marathon or half-marathon anymore around here, you have to go to the Hawthorne Trail, which I like but is far away from anything other than a lot of boring trees...that wouldn't do for a YouTube video, especially since the last half-marathon I ran there repeated the same pathway four times...with the marathon event demanding runners go down the same monotonous stretch back and forth eight times.  C'mon, we can do better than that without necessarily having to pass by Tim Tebow's statue...

My April 2023 Running and Walking Report

With the temperatures predictably warming up this time of the year as we head toward summer in typically hot and humid northern Florida where I live, I find myself doing a lot of my running training indoors, plodding along to the images of marathons others have run on YouTube, shown on my wide screen TV via Roku.  Yesterday I "ran" the very recent (and very rainy) London Marathon with my virtual Chinese friend, who also made a video of his (very fast) New York City Marathon a few years ago...加油!  The day before, I was in Paris running their city-wide distance event...virtual rocks!  But I also miss getting out on the open road, and to this effect I think next month I'll be doing what I call "reverse-Galloway" training.  Jeff Galloway, a successful marathon runner in his own right, came up with a plan for people to train up to that distance by running a few minutes and then intermittently taking short walking breaks...this helps with the repetitive motion as well as conserving energy and allowing the body to better cool itself.  I used his method back in 2010 to build up my endurance and know it works.  This time around, as the temperatures keep increasing outside, I'd like to go out on long walks...with short intermittent running breaks.  I already know my courses...they're the same ones I traveled down in the past.  Mixing this activity up with the virtual TV running, while paying regular visits to my local gym to use their treadmill and cross-trainer, is my training plan for the next few months.  Oh, and run an occasional Depot Parkrun 5K.  Speaking of that wonderful free weekly, Saturday morning event held here in Gainesville, in April I ran it twice, on the 22nd and 29th.  I did goof up, missing the Hawthorne-based half-marathon that took place on the 8th...but that's all right: better luck next time! I hope you're doing well with your health and fitness.  Running isn't in the cards for everyone, but there are plenty of other kinds of physical activities that you may find to your liking...I think walking is pretty awesome, too, and also enjoy just kicking around a couple of soccer balls with my dog in the backyard...

Ran Gainesville Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

Amid forecasts of really stormy weather later on in the day, I awoke this morning anticipating some early rain...but no, it was like last week: partly cloudy, 69 degrees with 97 % humidity...warm and muggy.  I headed down to Gainesville's Depot Park, some eight blocks south of University Avenue just east of Main Street.  It's a pretty place to stroll, jog, walk your dogs or bring your little kids to play.  On Saturday mornings they hold a free 5K run/walk, managed through volunteers with finishing times accomplished through barcodes (signup is online) and posted each week on their website.  Today's race was my fourteenth there since my first Parkrun in 2019...my goal this time around was to establish as comfortable a pace as possible considering the stifling humidity.  To that extent it worked, as I got into a groove and ran negative splits (faster at the end than the beginning), finishing at 33:34, good enough for me today. Unfortunately, at the finishing line there was major confusion about the scan-tokens they were handing out and this translated to the posted results.  You can see today's Parkrun results by clicking HERE...looks like their tokens and scanning screwup wrecked their results page (including my own finishing time which I'm glad I recorded on my watch).  [Later note: they did eventually get around to recording and posting most entrants' times although the process was a bit slipshod, in my opinion] Now that I've racked up a number of runs here, it's probably time I began to sign up for some of the many volunteer opportunities they offer...especially with that confusion at the finishing line this morning with their barcode tokens, an area in which I think I'd be an asset.  It was good to see more people out there participating in the race, with several first-timers. In any event, mission accomplished: I dragged my sorry old ass out of bed early today and ran the race...now let's see what happens with those storms blowing in from the Gulf of Mexico...

Quote of the Week: From Ralph Waldo Emerson

The article below is a reprint from what I wrote on December 21, 2018. It features American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson's view on what constitutes a truly great accomplishment.  This goes out to all the people out there...primarily men in my experience...who are obsessed with their positions on imaginary social pecking orders, constantly trying to show how accomplished they are with their degrees and positions and wealth and businesses, and who get enraged because it's obvious that I don't give a damn about their delusions.  On the other hand, Mr. Self-Important Dude, if feeling superior to me is what makes you feel adequate enough to go on living, I'm not here to change your mind: believe whatever you want to believe...

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.                                        ---Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a famous nineteenth century American philosopher and poet who championed the ideal of individualism.  For someone as myself who generally conforms to society's standards for conduct without complaint, I nevertheless also find myself continually put under pressure by others to speak and make decisions that conform with their agendas for me and not how I would act according to my own values and purposes.  I recognize that with each of us there is necessarily a tug of war going on between how we want to individually live our lives and how others want us to live out our sole chance at life on Earth...unless of course they happen to believe in reincarnation.  My philosophy has always been to respect the personal decisions of people around me concerning their own lives as long as they do not trample on the rights of others or mine.  But there are some people in this world, sad to say, who are incapable of leaving well enough alone and who seem to regard me as some kind of project...or worse an object...that they are entitled to hound and pressure into conforming to what they deem to be "good enough".  They are incapable of processing my expressed respect of them as being anything other than a sign of my own weakness, which they are only to eager to exploit.  But that's the world for you...only problem is that some folks, especially the real religious ones, who claim to be not conforming to this world, are actually some of the most worldly in this regard.  To associate with them entails never quite being accepted for oneself...there's always something else I have to do to gain their "approval".  Only one problem: I couldn't care less...and never did...whether they approve of me or not, and I never will, seeing them for what they are...

Alaskan Cruise in the Works for Us

Melissa and I are planning on doing something this summer we've wanted to do for many years: go on an Alaskan cruise.  We're sticking with the company we used on our initial cruise in 2020 just before all hell broke lose with the COVID outbreak...that one went to the Caribbean with stops in Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands (St. Thomas).  This excursion will begin and end at Seattle with stops in Victoria, Canada, and Alaska's Sitka, Skagway and Juneau.  Besides the obviously much cooler weather we'll be experiencing this time of year, I'm looking forward to seeing a completely different type of topography in the Pacific Northwest.  Back in 2019 I read James Michener's excellent book Alaska, which further whetted my desire to visit this region: click HERE to read my review from 12/10/19.  I've also wanted to see Seattle for a number of reasons...there's something special about that city that draws me to it...even as a kid I was a big Seattle Supersonics NBA fan and bravely pulled for the expansion Seattle Pilots baseball team in 1969 that moved to Milwaukee the following year.  I like its association with the aerospace industry, coffee, and the grunge movement in rock music...and of course there's a lot more.  This should all be a fun adventure for the both of us...

Weekly Short Stories: 1990 Science Fiction, Part 6

Here are my reviews of four more stories from the year 1990 as they appeared in Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Eighth Annual Collection. In last week's article I mentioned my two favorite songs from that year, but late that summer Led Zeppelin's first box set came out and one of Gainesville's radio stations, WRUF/Rock 104 (now airing country and western) played it in its entirety, introducing me to a lot of extraordinary music I hadn't yet heard from this great rock bank, defunct since 1980.  The next two years for me would be dominated musically by Plant, Page, Jones and Bonham's catalog of songs.  But for now, back to those four stories...

CIBOLA by Connie Willis

A Colorado-based newspaper reporter gets a touchy assignment: interviewing a local woman claiming to know where Coronado's fabled Seven Cities of Cibola are.  Apparently in the past, the myth of Cibola had led explorers to the American southwest, but this woman claims it to be right smack in the middle of Colorado...although it's only visible at certain times.  A very funny tale this is, with a surprising...well, not all THAT surprising, ending...

WALKING THE MOONS by Jonathan Lethem

Another funny story, this one about a grown disabled man who is engrossed in planet-hopping, at least vicariously through the use of his virtual reality apparatus, as his mother attends to his physical/medical needs.  Yet again, here comes a journalist to get his scoop.  This story is prescient...written in 1990 but here I am 33 years later "virtually" running marathons while watching recordings of real ones on my widescreen TV...

RAINMAKER COMETH by Ian McDonald

In a part of the American west marked by seven years of drought, a man comes into town carrying an assortment of peculiar gadgets, claiming to be able to bring the "rainmakers".  Exactly who the rainmakers are is beyond anyone's ability to believe...a thoroughly brilliant, creative concept you'll want to read this story to discover for yourself...

HOT SKY by Robert Silverberg

In another prescient story...this time much more ominous...about global warming gone wild written years before Al Gore popularized the subject, a ship is out to capture a giant rogue iceberg in the open Pacific Ocean to haul back to water-starved San Francisco.  But at the berg's site they receive a distress signal from a boat already there.  A great story about the conflicting ethics a captain can face in an emergency, with people's real lives in the balance no matter what his decision is...

Next week I conclude my look at short science fiction from the year 1990...

Podcaster Expands Notion of Personal Development

Rob Dial, a podcaster with his Mindset Mentor show, talks a lot about personal development.  Some of his episodes resonate with me and some are just a little off...every now and then he gets some profound wisdom in, like what he said last week.  Dial promotes a lot of personal growth ideas like being proactive, stressing action over feelings, journaling, meditation and the like.  But on a recent podcast he pointed out that a lot of folks misunderstand what personal development is.  You don't just set aside special times for it, but rather it encompasses your entire waking day, and it's often the troublesome, stressful and unexpected events and conflicts that arise that can provide the greatest opportunities for growth...if you can learn how to react to them and then proceed onward.  That's encouraging, because sometimes it seems that the moment I step outside my door and into the big, bad world, the crap begins to fly...to put it a little crudely.  For a lot of us, our jobs consist largely of what I call "chaos management", which is meeting the various challenges that hit us from different directions while somehow still adhering to our core assignments...and while keeping ourselves from succumbing to anxiety and frustration.  Yes, this is often where the growth is, although I also see the advantages to stepping around trouble when I see it coming my way, and to think ahead enough to avoid it completely. But sometimes it comes anyway...

On Runaway Train in Politics

I haven't written much on this blog about politics...I'm not sure what good it would do other than just having something out there on the record.  Sometimes with these elections I feel like someone stuck on a runaway train with no control over my destiny while the rabble swinging these contests in different states and districts are dupes for whatever campaign tactics the candidates and media perpetrate.  It does me no good to see through everything, with my one measly vote per contest. And now, it appears, that one of the major parties sees no wrong with attempting to undo the results of any close election they lose...fascism, pure and simple, and one of their leaders who refused to certified the electoral vote count on January 6th, 2021 is now the Speaker of the House, while the then-sitting president who instigated all of the election denial widely leads in that party's polls to regain its nomination in 2024. Runaway train...and me riding it into the cloudy future...  

Constellation of the Month: Vela (the Sails)

 

Vela is a southern constellation, one that I, as a stargazer, have never seen in the night sky in its entirety due to its low latitude as it peaks during the early April evening hours, often obscured by trees, buildings and city lights.  Originally, with Puppis (the Deck) and Carina (the Keel) the three constituted the mega-constellation Argos, representing the ship from Greek mythology carrying Jason in his pursuit of the Golden Fleece.  The star designations are still the same although the constellation was split up...hence no Alphas or Betas with Vela, the brightest star being second-magnitude Gamma on its west end.  The rest of "Argo" is on Vela's west and south sides (right and down on the above star map).  If you look at the bottom of the map I drew, you'll see a figure of a cross with broken lines...that's the famous "False Cross" that observers sometimes mistake for the Southern Cross (aka the constellation Crux) which lies further eastward...those two most southerly stars in the False Cross are actually a part of Carina.  Some time I'd like to get myself south of the equator in a place unobstructed by city lights and relatively clear much of the year and just stand there taking in all the southern constellations I cannot see from my latitude here at 30 degrees North...the ancient constellation Argo, with its components Vela, Puppis and Carina, would be one of my top priorities...

Next month: another constellation...

Ran the Depot Parkrun 5K Here in Gainesville This Morning

Having goofed up and missed the main race I was going to run in April (Hawthorne's "Run Your Buns Off" half marathon on the 8th), I decided today, a couple of weeks later, to mosey on down to my hometown of Gainesville's Depot Park, just a few blocks south of downtown and the site of a free 5K race held every Saturday morning...this was my 13th run since I began in 2019.  I usually drive down Main Street to get there, living on the northern fringe of the city.  This morning marked the opening day for the semiannual Friends of the Library book sale, which is located on the 400 block of North Main and starts at 9 am.  But at 7, when I drove by on the way to the park, there was already a long line of people standing outside the warehouse where the sale was to take place...guess they had nothing better to do: I'd still be in bed sleeping if I didn't have this race to run.  Ditto for the folks in their long line at a bagel shop further down the road...but at least that place was already open!  Seems like there were a few more people at today's race than usual.  The temperature was a pleasant enough 63 degrees, but the humidity was a punishing, extremely muggy 98%: ouch!  I wore my relatively new Nike Air Monarch shoes with wide width and toe space, heavier than your typical running shoes but kinder on the feet...I'm not looking to set any records anyway.  The shoes served me well, but that awful humidity didn't, and I wondered early on in the race whether I'd finish running it or have to walk part of the way. And then the proverbial "second wind" kicked in when my body synced with my environment, and I found my groove...a wonderful thing to experience.  My final time...nothing to brag about...was 32:47. But I kept my continuity going and look forward to the next race, which if anything will probably be just as muggy, only hotter.  Click on HERE to view today's race results. By the way, at the top of that results page, if you click "Home" then you'll get some information about the Parkrun and how you can sign up to be a part of it, which involves getting a barcode printed out that you take to the race to be scanned: no racing bibs here...

Quote of the Week: On the Back of a Marathon Runner's Shirt

SHUT UP, I'M NOT ALMOST THERE.      ---on a New York City Marathon runner's shirt.

I was doing some virtual running at home while watching a YouTube video of the 2022 New York City Marathon, held early in October of that year.  The particular video I saw is from the viewpoint of a participating runner, so in addition to the path ahead and the area's scenery to each side, you're pretty much looking at the backs of the other runners as you either pace behind them, pass them or get passed by them...the last two happening here a lot more than when I'm running most of my own races.  I also noticed a relative absence of the Jeff Galloway alternating walk/run method which apparently is much more popular in Gainesville than in other places.  One of the runners I saw in the video was a woman with the above interesting message boldly displayed on the back of her shirt, certain to draw lots of laughs from others...including myself.  The last long distance race I ran with any appreciable number of roadside spectators was the final Life South Five Points of Life Half Marathon, held here in Gainesville in February, 2022.  I was just completing the final "badass" hill on NW 16th Avenue at about the ten-mile mark of the race when one of those spectators began shouting that I was "almost there".  Only one problem: I still had more than three miles to go!  As I kept plodding along toward that hoped-for finish line, more onlookers kept crying out the same nonsense...it got to be quite annoying although I knew that they were trying to show encouragement.  The ultimate irony was that when I actually got to that final stretch of road ending with the finish line, no one was around to yell it out when it was actually true...ha, ha, ha.  I've run at home watching a number of different city-based races...Hartford, Toronto, Oakville (near Toronto), Cardiff (in Wales), Boston...and, of course, New York City...and it's that last one that, by far, shows a lot of fan spirit cheering on the runners as they pass by, and not just at some confined sections of the course, either: NYC rocks!  Yes, I pick up a lot of positive vibes "running" down the streets of the five boroughs of Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx...and then Manhattan again in that order.  Yet the other day, when I noticed that YouTube also carries a 24/7 live video of someone walking the streets of New York City (I'm assuming they do this in shifts), the surrounding people were silent, looked away from the walker and conveyed a strong sense of "mind your own business" and suspicion.  If they only held marathons there 24/7...

Podcaster Gives Some Pointers on Getting Out of a Rut

For those of us who every now and then...or more often for that matter...find ourselves just moping around directionless and never getting around to getting anything done during our day, Rob Dial on his Mindset Mentor podcast a few days ago laid out seven strategies to overcome the lethargic and often negative inertia.  They are (1) get up and get the body moving, (2) just take a few small steps doing something, (3) celebrate small wins even if only by congratulating yourself, (4) turn off the phone and electronics in general, (5) focus on the next 60 seconds instead of what's down the line, (6) ride the momentum when you feel it and (7) try to get around other people who can help you to move.  Of course, as with everything else I pick up from Dial and others, I need to filter it all first through my own sense of discernment.  Generally, I agree with his suggestions but also recognize that sometimes I just need some more sleep...and that doesn't constitute being in a rut.  Yet this morning my body felt a bit achy, and I did what he suggested and started moving it...now I'm much better...pat myself on the back!  As for the electronics, I don't check my phone anywhere as much as I see others stuck on theirs, and a lot of the time when I'm working out at home I have the TV on channels that help me, such as music or marathon videos.  Momentum can be a good thing, but sometimes my schedule will mandate that I cut off my activity to get ready for the next one.  And although being around others can sometimes be a drain on me instead of an energizer, I also recognize that sitting in a public place like a coffee shop can help me to rivet my thoughts in a more organized way that enhances my writing, reading and studying.  So, kudos to Rob Dial on this particular podcast...I'm not always in tune with his message but this one...with some thoughtful caveats...was pretty helpful...

Weekly Short Stories: 1990 Science Fiction, Part 5

Here are my reviews of three more short stories from 1990 appearing in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Eighth Annual Collection.  Let's see...music-wise, in that year I was into mainstream/alternative rock, with Midnight Oil's Blue Sky Mine and Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence my top two favorite songs...the latter, with singer David Gahan dressed like a king and roaming the countryside, also has one of the greatest videos ever made, in my humble opinion.  Anyway, let's get back to those stories...

THE FIRST SINCE ANCIENT PERSIA by John Brunner

A young, single woman is traveling around in near-future rural Argentina and the tradition-wed folk living in the spooky, stagnant little town she visits think there's something wrong with her since she isn't married and at least pregnant.  Meanwhile, a secretive community of scientists exists a few miles out of town...and they have a secret project that bodes well for humanity...or does it?  And what have they to do with the villagers, who think the outsiders are evil? Another tale in which science can cut both ways, depending on who's holding the strings...yes, I'm mixing metaphors...

INERTIA by Nancy Kress

Gram ("grandma") lives in a quarantined community with her affliction and family.  The affliction is a permanently skin-disfiguring eruption that is otherwise harmless...yet it renders the victim very ugly to see.  The community, while just getting by, has learned to live peacefully among themselves, which is the opposite of the "normal" outside world that is descending into chaotic, self-destructive violence.  A scientist from the outside pays them a visit, and besides arousing suspicion from them, promises a solution to both their problem and the world's. This story's ending reminded me of an old movie I saw, Pascali's Island...

LEARNING TO BE ME by Connie Willis

For me the most intriguing of today's three stories, it is sometime in the future as people's skulls are implanted with an artificial "jewel"-centered parallel nervous system that senses, feels and thinks everything the original, organic brain and nervous system are experiencing...eventually the jewel, which is immortal, will take control and replace the brain after a medical procedure...this is a socially promoted rite of passage. Besides being scary as hell, this story brings up the question as to what really constitutes the identity "I" that we feel about ourselves.  This one's worth returning to...

And that's it for this week.  Next week: more from 1990 and Dozois' excellent book...

Televised Pro Sports Just Doesn't Cut It with Me Anymore

I'm having a great deal of difficulty generating any degree of enthusiasm for professional sports right now, be it the National Basketball Association or National Hockey League playoffs, or the start to the Major League Baseball season...and my recent interest in professional golf and soccer has considerably waned as well.  Next month is the Kentucky Derby in horse racing...let's see, last year's winner was disqualified over banned substance issues, so I won't even know who won it after the race: what fun is that?  Maybe it's just as well this way...I watched a couple of NBA playoff games and realized that I didn't care who won...same with last weekend's PGA tournament at Hilton Head in which the two leaders played what should have been exciting three rounds of sudden death playoff: ho-hum.  It could be that I just have other things on my plate, but that's always been true.  And now they're showing two competing off-season pro football leagues, the XFL and USFL...are you kidding me?  On the other hand, I do enjoy watching videos of people running marathons and half-marathons in various locales...but almost always as a home workout tool, not vicarious entertainment.  No, when I do sit back to watch TV, I'd much prefer to put on a YouTube coffee shop video and enjoy the ambiance...

Working on Reorganizing Personal Information System

This book I just read (and wrote about), Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte, has made a big impact on my thinking, and it's occupying a good deal of my "free" time right now as I construct a personal data and retrieval system that complements what I already have "in my head".  It's fun and at the same time a bit tedious...but once I have everything in place this all should make my life flow a lot more smoothly.  But it does take time and I may have to scrap whole ways of doing things in order to make it work better for me.  I recommend the book, and who knows: you might just pick up better on Forte's often arcane language than I did.  But I did clearly get his core message, having lived through a muddle of excessively tangled, disorganized information for years...

Just Finished Reading Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte

Tiago Forte is a computer/IT expert with an interesting premise: that we all could use a "second", external brain, in which the incredible amount of detailed information we accumulate over the years is processed, prioritized, organized and arranged for easy access.  Forte believes that use of digitalized notetaking apps can greatly enhance the function of this all, although traditionally people have relied on notepads and other paper-based media...count me as one of them.  He expresses this in his 2022 book Building a Second Brain, which I just finished reading.  I agree with that premise of his, although his language is such that I felt as if Mr. Spock on Star Trek were feeding me a lot of incomprehensible gobbledygook without actual laying out specifics on how to maneuver around the often very arcane field of knowledge management, especially as it applies to using computer technology.  Forte also has a tendency to go heavy on acronyms...not a good way to endear me to his message. Still, I recognize that over the years I have been bombarded with information and memories, much of which is lost, deeply buried in my mental recesses without an effective means to retrieve it.  Fortunately, with some things...like my running record and list of books and short stories read...I have this very blog as an external memory device...and therefore an element of Forte's suggested "second brain": I just need to streamline the data and make the articles with all the info easy to access.  That's why I used yesterday's article to update my running race history: I plan to place links on each race entry to be able to quickly access the pertinent articles.  I plan to do the same with my reading list...that project is going to be much longer, though.  And there are some areas more personal and financial in nature, for which using a public blog is inappropriate, yet still demanding a better external organization of prioritized and retrievable information.  So, although the author's writing style, in my opinion, left a lot to be desired, his core message strongly resonates with me as I already see a strong need to better organize my personal information.  Thank you, Tiago Forte...

Latest Updated Cumulative Running Race List

Below is a revised listing of the public running races I've entered and completed, up to today's date (4/15/23).  The first five lines are from my distant past, growing up in south Florida. Following the date on each line is the race's length (m=miles, K=kilometers, HM =half marathon, M=marathon).  Then it's the race's name and, finally, its location...a specific place usually means that it was held within the city of Gainesville.  I added a couple of new features from the last updated list: next to the names of races I've run more than once, I indicate the "nth" time I ran it.  And I've put links on each race (since 2008) so that you can conveniently read my report on that race but clicking on the name.  This article may be interesting (or not) for you, but I put it here primarily as an external memory for me to refer back to.  Oh, one other thing...if you read some of the individual articles about specific races you'll often notice that I put in them links to race results.  Unfortunately, many of these old sites are now defunct...I'm looking for those results on different sites and will change those links accordingly.  And by the way, even though this listing was originally done on April 15, 2023, you may notice that with the passage of time that later races have been added: this is a "live", changing entry with the times, a feature I plan to apply to other areas as well in the future...

3-23-73        2m       11:56      Nova HS at Piper track meet         Piper High School, Ft. Lauderdale

4-10-73         2m       11:35      Broward Country South Division Meet    S. Broward HS, Dania

11-27-74      ~2m      ??            Turkey Trot  (BCC) (1)                  Davie, FL

11-?-75      ~2m      ??            Turkey Trot (BCC) (2)                     Davie, FL

7-?-76      ~5m      ??            -unknown-                                         Hollywood, FL   

10-04-08    5K       25:10      Red Cross                                         University of Florida

10-18-08    5K       24:07      Hope Heels                                       Westside Park

11-01-08    5K       24:28      Dog Days                                            Westside Park
2-14-10     HM    2:17:10     Five Points of Life (1)                      Gainesville
3-27-10     15K    1:23:55    Climb for Cancer                                Haile Plantation
4-24-10      5K        23:05     Run Amuck                                        NFR Office Park
5-22-10      5K        25:00     Somer's Sunshine Run                   Orange Park
6-05-10      5K        23:23     Cpt. Chad Reed Memorial                     Cross City
7-04-10      3m        23:04     Melon Run  (1)                                Westside Park
11-6-10    HM    2:01:41    Tom Walker Memorial (1)              Hawthorne Trail
1-23-11      M       6:04:35    Ocala Marathon                                South of Paddock Mall
11-12-11    HM    1:59:38    Tom Walker Memorial (2)              Hawthorne Trail
1-01-12      HM    1:56:07    De Leon Springs                              De Leon Springs
7-04-12      3m        25:45     Melon Run (2)                                Westside Park
11-22-12   10K       53:10     Turkey Trot (1)                                 Tacachale
1-20-13      HM    1:55:20    Ocala Half-Marathon                    South of Paddock Mall
3-03-13      HM    1:50:53    Orange Blossom                             Tavares
11-09-13    2m     untimed    Gator Gallop                                   University Ave, SW 2nd Ave
2-01-14      5K        25:53     Education for Life                           Westside Park
2-16-14      HM    2:07:36    Five Points of Life (2)                    Gainesville
11-27-14   10K        56:56    Turkey Trot (2)                                Tacachale
12-20-14    HM    2:03:30    Starlight Half-Marathon               Palm Coast
1-31-15     15K    1:18:21       Newnan's Lake (1)                          West of Newnan's Lake
2-15-15     HM     1:58:48    Five Points of Life (3)                    Gainesville
3-14-15     10K        56:24    Run for Haven (1)                           Tioga
12-05-15   6.5m   1:03:52    Lumber Around the Levee           Micanopy
1-30-16     15K    1:31:20    Newnan's Lake (2)                           West of Newnan's Lake
3-12-16     10K       59:00    Run for Haven (2)                           Tioga
5-14-16       5K       28:36    May Day Glow Run (1)                    Tioga

7-4-16         3m      28:22    Melon Run (3)                                  Westside Park

11-24-16    10K    1:01:13    Turkey Trot (3)                                Tacachale

2-26-17     HM    2:24:29    Five Points of Life (4)                    Gainesville

3-11-17      10K        58:45   Run for Haven (3)                           Tioga

5-21-17        5K        33:00   May Day Glow Run (2)                 Tioga

1-27-18       15K    1:38:41    Newnan's Lake (3)                        West of Newnan's Lake

2-18-18    HM      2:19:37    Five Points of Life (5)                   Gainesville

3-17-18        5K        29:17    Chris Lacinak Scholarship           Gainesville

12-8-18      15K     1:37:33    Season of Hope (1)                       Hawthorne Trail

1-5-19          5K        30:00    Depot Parkrun (1)                        Gainesville

2-9-19         5K        30:36    Depot Parkrun (2)                        Gainesville

3-16-19       5K        31:16     Miles for Meridian                        Tioga

4-27-19      10K    1:01:52    Run the Good Race (1)                 NFR Office Park

5-5-19         5K        30:38    May Day Glow Run (3)                Jonesville

11-10-19    HM    2:35:20   Tom Walker Memorial (3)          Hawthorne Trail

11-28-19    10K    1:02:16    Turkey Trot (4)                             Tacachale

12-7-19      15K    1:35:48    Season of Hope (2)                       Hawthorne Trail

4-3-21         5K        32:40    Headwaters (1)                             Gainesville

5-29-21      5K        30:50    Depot Parkrun (3)                        Gainesville

6-12-21       5K        33:06    Depot Parkrun (4)                       Gainesville

12-4-21       5K        33:03    Depot Parkrun (5)                        Gainesville

2-12-22       5K        31:28    Depot Parkrun (6)                        Gainesville

2-20-22     HM   2:33:51     Five Points of Life (6)                  Gainesville

3-19-22      10m  1:48:24    Micanopy Ten-Mile                      Micanopy

3-26-22       5K      30:45     Depot Parkrun (7)                        Gainesville

4-9-22         5K       29:28     Headwaters (2)                            Gainesville

10-15-22     10K   1:04:55    Tom Walker Preview                   Hawthorne Trail

10-22-22    10K   1:03:20    Run the Good Race (2)                Gainesville

11-06-22     HM  3:05:29   Tom Walker Memorial (4)           Hawthorne Trail

11-12-22       5K       31:38   Depot Parkrun (8)                         Gainesville

12-10-22      5K       31:46    Depot Parkrun (9)                        Gainesville

1-1-23           5K       32:59   Depot Parkrun (10)                      Gainesville

1-15-23       HM   2:34:42   FTC Mary Andrews                      Hawthorne Trail (east end)

3-11-23        5K         34:02  Depot Parkrun (11)                      Gainesville

3-25-23       5K         33:19   Depot Parkrun (12)                     Gainesville

4-22-23       5K         32:47  Depot Parkrun (13)                      Gainesville

4-29-23       5K        33:34   Depot Parkrun (14)                      Gainesville 

Quote of the Week...from Baker Mayfield

It doesn't matter what cards you're dealt.  It's what you do with those cards.  Never complain. Just keep pushing forward.  Find a positive in anything and just fight for it.                      Baker Mayfield

If you're not a football fan (or even if you are one), you might know Baker Mayfield primarily as the dude living in the Cleveland Browns' home stadium in a series of funny Progressive Insurance commercials a few years back.  He's a Heisman Trophy winning quarterback from Oklahoma.  After being shipped around in 2022 to the Carolina Panthers and Los Angeles Rams with uneven results, he finds himself now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers now that their star QB Tom Brady has retired...at least Tom hasn't changed his mind yet like the last time he left the game.  The Bucs already have Florida Gator standout Kyle Trask on the roster and soon plan to draft high for another signal caller.  But I think that Mayfield has what it takes to do well as a starter with this team and has shown flashes of brilliance in the past if he can avoid injury...always a danger in this very rough sport.  Nobody's expecting much from Tampa Bay in 2023...last year, even with Brady at the helm, they went 8-9, barely made the playoffs and made a quick exit.  I'd like to see Baker Mayfield confound the critics...and if he wants to make a few more insurance commercials that's all right by me, too.  I like his above quote, since you can apply it to just about anything in your life, regardless of whether you're a star athlete or not.  Do I always follow Baker's words of wisdom? Hell no...

Working Out at Home Watching YouTube NYC Half-Marathon

My morning workout today consisted of me running around through the house...trying in the process to avoid tripping over our puppy dog Daisy...while watching a YouTube video of a New York City half-marathon, recorded by the same Chinese-speaking dude who recorded the full NYC Marathon back in 2019.  I went to the computer to see the race's course map, and quickly noted that it didn't conform at all to what I was watching.  The map had it starting in Manhattan and going to Brooklyn while "my" race had a reverse course...they're now toward the end, running right down Broadway past Times Square where Melissa, Rebecca and I visited (and stayed at the Marriott Marquis) back in 2010.  And then I discovered that within New York City and the nearby area there are several marathons/half-marathons each year.  Awesome, if you're a resident you can sign up for the ones you like and the subway system and shuttles can circumvent any transportation issues.  But, of course, if you're like me and live more than a thousand miles away, then it gets quite a bit trickier.  I wonder how many of those running in "today's" race flew or drove in from more distant locales and how many were already planted in the immediate region.  Sometime in the future I'd like to have a go at a New York City race...but the external issues of getting there and getting a place to stay while fitting it all on my calendar seem to be, at least at this stage of time, pretty daunting.  And I already know that, for some of the races, they're booked up many months in advance.  Until I figure it all out, though, I'll keep watching videos like this one, thanks to the thoughtful people who make them...