Weekly Short Stories: 1996 Science Fiction, Part 4

It's Wednesday and time for another review of tales out of editor Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fourteenth Annual Collection, and featuring his picks from 1996.  This was the year that the Florida Gators football team under head coach Steve Spurrier, along with Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Danny Wuerfful, won the national championship, securing a rematch against rival Florida State after first losing to them and then incredibly seeing other schools lose upsets in their respective conference playoffs.  And now to those stories...  

THE LAST HOMOSEXUAL by Paul Park

This story takes a broad swipe at the junk science sweeping our society by suggesting a near future in which religious-based "science" carries the weight of law.  Very sarcastic, and it's really not about homosexuals, as one of the characters makes bluntly clear...

RECORDING ANGEL by Ian McDonald

An unforgettable, vivid tale about a gradual but inexorable invasion of a different kind of reality on the Earth, most prevalent in Africa.  The line of division between "our" world and that which lies beyond the creeping line is clearly marked as a reporter does a piece about the impending end of Nairobi while decadents there "party like it's 1999". It's thought the transforming Earth is a kind of alien terraforming for their own life forms, but someone has a different explanation.  Pretty damned profound, it all is...  

DEATH DO US PART by Robert Silverberg

The idea of being physically immortal, not susceptible to disease or aging, is examined as humanity in the not-so-distant future has achieved this prized objective...if the individuals undergoing the necessary treatment take to it, that is.  For the few that don't, what used to be an ordinary, long life span turns into an ordeal of exclusion and unwanted pity. And people's values certainly drastically change with their expanded lifespan, as the author clearly shows...

THE SPADE OF REASON by Jim Cowan

An inmate at a mental hospital, formerly a brilliant physicist, is about to be released as he explains to his friend, the facility's night janitor, what brought him to be institutionalized.  If you want your eyes opened to quantum mechanics, chaos theory and the limits to reason, then this one's for you.  Very instructive, made me think (but not too much, I hope)...

Next week: more from 1996...

My April 2024 Running and Walking Report

In April I ran every day and racked up the mileage, both in running and walking.  I had planned on running the Run Your Buns Off Marathon on the 7th but let it pass by chiefly because of an acute case of insomnia for the two nights before...and I had issues with that race's format which I discussed earlier on this blog.  Instead, on the 13th and 27th I ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K, last Saturday actually getting a "personal best" at that weekly event.  On the 20th I speed-walked it, accomplishing one of my walking goals by breaking 40 minutes in a 5K.  In mid-month I began an incremental process of building up my covered run/walk distance by taking Wednesdays and Sundays and covering my own created courses going through my neighborhood and the surrounding ones here in northern Gainesville.  I'm hopeful that this will strengthen me through the rest of the spring and summer while giving my body the needed recovery time. The outings, at least right now, consist of running for two minutes, then walking two minutes, then running two minutes, etc.  As for upcoming races, the only thing I see right now ahead of me for the next few months is that Depot Parkrun.  I omitted swimming from this article because, frankly, I didn't swim any during April...my local gym, which touts its pools to lure prospective subscribers, hasn't exactly been forthcoming recently in providing adequate pool opportunities for me: let's see if they can do something about that.  And if not, I'm ready to explore other options... 

About the Recent LIV Golf Tournament in Australia

This past weekend I watched some of the action on the LIV professional golf league tour, this particular tournament taking place in Adelaide, Australia.  The 54 golfers on the 54-hole tourney...they're all 54 holes instead of the standard PGA 72-holes, hence the Roman numeral "LIV"...were largely recruited and paid millions just to jump over to the new league, funded by Saudi interests. I'm no golf purist and, even if I "should", don't care about the ongoing controversies between the old and new leagues: let 'em duke it out.  No, I just wanted to watch an LIV event, which it turns out was easy enough.  The first round was streamed live on YouTube and the second and third rounds broadcast on CW, which I loaded for free on Roku...the Gainesville CW version didn't carry the LIV.  On one hand, I liked the fact that the coverage included most of the field of players while typical PGA coverage on the Golf Channel or major networks like CBS and NBC tend to only follow the leaders.  That's fine, but I was still taken aback at how fast they switched from one golfer to the next...almost like a mass assembly line of brief takes...and most of them were just putting the ball.  I saw very little of the Adelaide course and realized that showing the different courses in detail is one of the things that the PGA tour coverage is getting right.  The announcers were very gung-ho promoting the LIV and their prized golfers...it got to be a bit overwhelming, as a matter of fact.  And what's with the loud music on the putting greens, unless it's just the new league's way of saying that they're cooler than the PGA?  I'm still going to follow LIV golf...next weekend they're playing in Singapore.  But overall, in spite of my criticism that general PGA televised coverage is too narrow regarding most of the participants, I think I prefer their approach to the hack cheerleaders broadcasting on behalf of LIV and their cast of over-hyped stars...

Neighborhood 7.2 Mile Run/Walk Successful But Sometimes Annoying

Since the Wednesday before last I have changed my training routine a bit, inserting outdoors road running (alternated with walking) for Wednesdays and Sundays.  The mid-week outing by necessity takes place in the morning before I go to work in the early afternoon, while on Sunday it looks to be more in the early sunset period...like today was.  I had already run this 7.2 mile course, which is an extension of the 3.3 and 5.0 milers I ran the last two Wednesdays.  It was 81 degrees with 36% humidity when I started out around 6:40 PM...not bad at all.  But what was vastly different from my mid-week runs were all the people out in the neighborhood...especially the children with their street games, remote control car toys and bike riding, although toward the end they tended to thin out as the evening shadows increased.  And I wasn't too happy to have to contend with the weekend traffic around me, either.  All in all, though, I felt good with my venture, alternating the running and walking at two minute intervals...my finishing time was 1 hour 21 minutes 3 seconds.  To help me along the way I asked Alexa on my Amazon Music to play a mix of Kasabian songs...that's a British alternative group I've followed for the past couple of decades.  My plan is to keep increasing the distance covered...at least on Sundays when I have more time at hand...while sticking with my 1:1 run/walk ratio.  Hopefully the brats wonderful kids will stay out of my way... 

Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

With the weather forecast hinting of morning rain, I woke up this morning to clear skies, and they lasted pretty much through Gainesville's weekly free, volunteer-run 5K (3.1 miles) walk/run event, held at Depot Park a few blocks south of downtown and appropriately called the Depot Parkrun.  It's part of a worldwide network of Parkruns, having originated in England and spreading across the globe: Florida now has five of them.  Today was my 40th Depot Parkrun finish, and unexpectedly was my fastest there, finishing at 27:10...it's also the fastest 5K I've run overall in more than ten years: click HERE to view the results.  I had decided just before the race to forego the usual Galloway Method of alternating running with brief, regular walking breaks and sought to gut it out in the old-style way we used to run in high school eons ago.  It worked: my endurance training paid off in the last two laps of the four-lap race as, although uncomfortable, I had plenty of energy to finish it strongly.  The temperature at 7:30 race time was 62 with 98%...I doubt that conditions will be any better during the ensuing months of spring and summer... 

Quote of the Week...from Zeno of Citium

Well-being is realized by small steps, but it is no small thing.            ---Zeno of Citium

Zeno of Citium, also know as Zeno the Stoic, was the ancient Greek founder of that school of philosophy.  I picked up on the above quote while watching a YouTube video explaining stoicism.  Zeno here speaks of what in our times is often referred to as "atomic habits"...thanks to the popular same-titled book by James Clear, a work that has strong stoic undertones.  People who are fed up with their lives and want to reinvent themselves, in the process throwing away everything they have built up over the years, might be well-advised to heed Zeno's dictum, especially when considering that another element of stoicism is the elevation of a sense and expression of gratitude for the things one has been blessed with in life.  No, better to start small and fit the little changes into daily routines...after some time the effects can be revolutionary.  But don't expect or even desire perfection: it's all a process, a grand, exciting adventure...

Yesterday's Neighborhood Run/Walk

Yesterday, Wednesday, I went on my second weekly "hump-day" running/walking outing in my neighborhood, again taking place in the late morning before I went to work in the early afternoon.  My initial goal was to step up the distance covered from last week's 3.3 miles to 4.1 by adding an extra block to the run/walk, which I did to about a 2:1 ratio in time spent with each. However, as I progressed...the weather was perfect at 72 degrees and only 50% humidity...I decided to add another block to make it a 5 mile session...felt good, worked well and finished at 50:03.  Along the way I met up with Jim, an old buddy from work who had retired a number of years earlier: he's doing fine, happy to say.  Later on Wednesday after work I went to my local gym and walked on their treadmill at 5.0 mph for two miles...I think I'm handling that speed pretty well now.  I'm looking forward to what this weekend brings, whether it's another Depot Parkrun 5K on Saturday morning or a lengthier neighbor run/walk...or both...

Weekly Short Stories: 1996 Science Fiction, Part 3

It's Wednesday, so time again for another retrospective look at science fiction short stories.  We're currently examining material from 1996, selected by editor (and sci-fi writer) Gardner Dozois for his anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fourteenth Annual Collection.  In 1996 Bill Clinton ran for his reelection as U.S. President against Republican Bob Dole, then the Senate Majority Leader, and independent candidate H. Ross Perot. A surging American economy pretty much helped glide Clinton to easy victory...although truth be told, I kind of liked Dole, along with his VP running mate Jack Kemp, and voted for them instead.  I still think Dole would have been a good president.  But back to those stories...

THIRTEEN PHANTASMS by James P. Blaylock

The closing scene in the great old Disney movie Pinocchio, in which Jiminy Cricket goes on vacation by jumping into a matchbox and mailing himself off to an exotic locale, somehow comes to mind with this wistful tale of a man who finds a strange, but tenuous link to the past, some fifty years earlier but with some very interesting people.  A thoroughly enjoyable read...

PRIMROSE AND THORN by Bud Sparhawk

Having read Herman Melville's classic whaling novel Moby Dick, I've already experienced detail overload about sailing with stuff I had no idea of what the author was talking about.  Ditto for this story about sailing competitors on a long race, except that their ships have been modified for the fluid-but-greatly-different conditions on the planet Jupiter's surface.  In spite of feeling over my head about the technical details, the author spun a very exciting tale about peril and rescue on the high "seas"...

THE MIRACLE OF IVAR AVENUE by John Kessel

After a Hollywood producer's corpse is fished out of the water, the investigator is surprised to discover that, even with the body convincingly identified, the producer himself is still alive and thriving.  Two identical bodies, the same person, what a mystery!  Well, it's solved of course, and as with today's other two stories, this one reminded me of something else: that comeback 2009 Star Trek movie starring Chris Pine...and the two Spocks...

Next week I will continue looking back at the year 1996 in short science fiction...

The End of the World as We Know It

Ever since COVID-19 made its grand entrance into our collective lives in early 2020, I have had the uneasy feeling of society's decline, both in terms of economic vitality and of people's will to succeed.  I know that's got to be difficult to measure or wrap your mind around, but it's a composite of a number of things.  For one, it seems that every business that used to operate later into the night now closes up measurably earlier, for some painfully early.  Housing and transportation costs have skyrocketed...young people nowadays must have a terrible ordeal with the narrowing choices they have for getting themselves independently established on a shoestring budget.  The availability of prompt medical and dental care...outside of emergency rooms and clinics...has deteriorated, with the professionals breaking appointments with patients and throwing their needed care sometimes months further into the future, and of course the costs of said care are soaring.  Speaking of decline, is it just my own subjective perception but are people more and more prone to voluntarily letting themselves get brainwashed politically by the mass and social media that they have now on their fingertips?  Furthermore, have people now redefined their view of reality itself to encompass virtual, digital realms instead of what is actually physically out there?  There's more I'm seeing as well, and it ain't getting any better, folks...but at least I'm still getting by (so far).  As Michael Stipe of R.E.M. prophetically wrote in a 1988 song, "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine"...

Sports Coverage Biased Toward Faders over Finishers

As has been my general habit on weekends when a special event or traveling wasn't happening, I was watching the ongoing PGA tournament, this one being the RBC Heritage Classic taking place at pretty Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.  Already a little peeved with overdone coverage last week of Tiger Woods at the Masters in Augusta when his performance was predictably lagging behind most of the other golfers there, I noticed something else that bothered me...but this time I can't really blame the network coverage.  It's like this in a lot of sports, I imagine.  For most of the event, the coverage is on the small group of leaders of the field, to the general exclusion of those behind...even the ones just outside the top few.  Then inevitably some of the leaders toward the event's tail end fall back and someone surges at the end, virtually ignored throughout the event but there they are at the end right near the top.  I think this is unfair to the participants who have the bigger view in mind with a strong finish and high placing since they don't get all the ongoing coverage that the faster starters get.  Just one example: in this past weekend's golf event, Scottie Scheffler ended up running away with the title, but along with the deserved coverage of him there was a lot of attention to Tom Hoge challenging much of the time, only to collapse the last day and end up 11 strokes back and tied for 18th.  Meanwhile, Sahith Theegala and Wyndham Clark, practically ignored the entire tournament on TV although they were always playing competitively, surged on Sunday and ended up finishing in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively.  But it was Hoge who got the lion's share of publicity and was able to build up his brand and recognition...and to me that's not fair.  It's like that in racing as well, whether it's horses, autos, running, you name it.  For the contestant who comes strong at the end, if they don't manage to win the event outright, they tend to be completely forgotten while the ones who stick with the top pack for a while but then fade get remembered more.  Oh well, what can you do...

Using Own Blog Writing to Study Other Languages

I'm using my own writing, here on this very blog, to practice reading and building up (very gradually) comprehensible vocabulary in other languages, specifically Spanish, Russian and Chinese.  I'm using Google's easy translation device, available in the taskbar on the right upper corner of my screen. I copied and pasted each translation of today's article to present a kind of Rosetta Stone of the four different languages, giving me the opportunity to filter out the words and phrases I still need to acquire...

Estoy usando mi propia escritura, aquí en este mismo blog, para practicar la lectura y desarrollarla (muy gradualmente)...vocabulario comprensible en otros idiomas, concretamente español, ruso y chino. Estoy usando el dispositivo de traducción fácil de Google, disponible en la barra de tareas en la esquina superior derecha de mi pantalla. Copié y pegué cada traducción del artículo de hoy para presentar una especie de Piedra Rosetta de los cuatro idiomas diferentes, dándome la oportunidad de filtrar las palabras y frases que aún necesito adquirir...

Я использую свои собственные тексты здесь, в этом самом блоге, чтобы практиковаться в чтении и построении (очень постепенно)...понятный словарный запас на других языках, особенно на испанском, русском и китайском. Я использую простое устройство перевода Google, доступное на панели задач в правом верхнем углу экрана. Я скопировал и вставил каждый перевод сегодняшней статьи, чтобы представить своего рода Розеттский камень четырех разных языков, давая мне возможность отфильтровать слова и фразы, которые мне еще нужно усвоить...

我正在用我自己的寫作，在這個部落格上，來練習閱讀和累積（非常逐漸地）

其他語言的可理解詞彙，特別是西班牙語、俄語和漢語。 我正在使用 Google 的簡易翻譯設備，該設備位於螢幕右上角的任務欄中。 我複製並貼上了今天文章的每個翻譯，以呈現四種不同語言的羅塞塔石碑，讓我有機會過濾掉我仍然需要掌握的單字和短語...

Wǒ zhèngzài yòng wǒ zìjǐ de xiězuò, zài zhège bùluò gé shàng, lái liànxí yuèdú hé lěijī (fēicháng zhújiàn de) qítā yǔyán de kě lǐjiě cíhuì, tèbié shì xībānyá yǔ, èyǔ hé hànyǔ. Wǒ zhèngzài shǐyòng Google de jiǎnyì fānyì shèbèi, gāi shèbèi wèiyú yíngmù yòushàng jiǎo de rènwù lán zhōng. Wǒ fùzhì bìng tiē shàngle jīntiān wénzhāng de měi gè fānyì, yǐ chéngxiàn sì zhǒng bùtóng yǔyán de luó sāi tǎ shíbēi, ràng wǒ yǒu jīhuì guòlǜ diào wǒ réngrán xūyào zhǎngwò de dānzì hé duǎn yǔ...

For Chinese I used the Traditional script although the more commonly used Simplified is also available.  I liked the feature for Chinese translation that Google provides for the pinyin transliteration...very helpful.  This is still a work in progress because the aforementioned taskbar didn't quite work as I had planned and I had to copy and paste my English article to another Google Translate site, which worked quite well.  It's true that you can easily use instant translation programs to translate whole pages from one language to another, but I find it more more useful to see them at the same time side-by-side, and I like that pinyin for the Chinese...

Walked Today's Gainesville Depot Parkrun 5K

It's been a while since I speed-walked the Depot Parkrun 5K here in Gainesville, although for nearly a year I had intended to do it on a monthly basis.  Instead, today was only my third go at it, with the previous effort happening last December.  That doesn't mean I haven't been working on my walking during this period, and I recently decided to try again to get in at least one speed-walk per month.  So this morning I intentionally walked the four-lap, 3.1 mile course to see how fast I could do it.  The temperature at 7:30, when the race began, was 64 with a 99% humidity and a lifting fog.  I chugged along and ended up shredding my previous walking finish with a time of 39:43.  I wasn't in the least bit tired or winded and hardly broke a sweat, yet I did sense a limit that my body has yet to surpass in my walking progress to achieve a higher speed on solid ground, instead of a treadmill.  I think that an investment in longer distance walking on neighborhood personally-designed courses is the prescription for me to take it to a substantially higher level.  Click HERE to see today's results...

Quote of the Week...from The Weather Company

 Most of the evidence is lined up to suggest a very active and very impactful hurricane season in 2024.      

                                                            ---The Weather Company

The Weather Company is the organization behind The Weather Channel, probably my favorite channel on television when it isn't running those annoying weekend series instead of giving me the current weather like it's supposed to.  Yesterday morning they mentioned that it was only 44 days until the Atlantic hurricane season begins in 2024, and the prediction is: 24 named tropical storms, 11 full-blown hurricanes, and 6 major hurricanes.  That's a very high set of figures, indeed, and will...if it happens...spill over into the second round of designated names (no more Alphas or Betas).  The given reason is twofold: the La Nina effect has returned with cool waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean...supposedly an indicator of a strong Atlantic storm season.  And the measured Atlantic waters this year have been much warmer than usual, creating a dangerous environment generally favorable for strong and multiple storm development.  None of this, naturally, is anything I want to be hearing.  We barely dodged a direct hit from Idalia last year, and I'm not looking forward to more of this trouble...

Making Wednesday a "Neighborhood Run" Day

Keeping in line with my desire to expand and structure my running and walking to encompass set courses around my neighborhood, independent of "official" races, I did a mid-week walk-run in my northern Gainesville home subdivision of Northwood Pines, along with the adjacent Northwood Oaks.  I've done this course, which amounts to a 3.3-mile loop, a number of times.  It's the closest thing in my mind to the old Davie, Florida 2.9-mile looped course that encompassed my old elementary school (Nova Blanche Forman), junior and senior high school (Nova) and junior college (Broward Community College).  My plan is to either run this course each Wednesday or speed-walk it, as I gradually increase the distance.  Since I work through the weekdays and report in during the early afternoon, my Wednesday outings are late in the morning.  Yesterday the average temperature during my run-walk was 75 degrees with a 65% humidity.  I split my run:walk ratio at 2:1 and finished with a time of 33:40. I also am thinking of going out, when circumstances allow, on Sunday afternoons for longer run/walks.  Should be interesting...

Weekly Short Stories: 1996 Science Fiction, Part 2

Now that I've gotten past the first...probably of several...full-blown novellas in Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fourteenth Annual Collection, featuring his selections of others' works from 1996, I can review a few genuinely short stories.  To me 1996 was the year that we had a little baby, Rebecca, and our dear son Will, then 5-6 years old.  Now they are young adults and very precious to Melissa and me: we are very proud of them!  But enough of that mushy stuff about my family, back to those sci-fi tales, which tend to steer in the opposite direction, as the titles of all three would suggest...

THE DEAD by Michael Stanwick

This story is, I believe, a play on the notion that automation and machines are taking the livelihoods away from people and thus ruining their lives...those promoting their use instead point to greater work efficiency and the elimination of boring jobs.  Instead, here is a future when the dead themselves are resurrected as programmable zombies to perform menial functions.  On the other hand, I wonder, if they were human-appearing robots would they be any more acceptable?  A truly gross tale, both about the corpses everywhere and of corporate greed and intrigues...

THE FLOWERS OF AULIT PRISON by Nancy Kress

Our Earth's  medical science gets transplanted to a different world and abused to fit their own social power structures and culture, leading a young woman to think she isn't real because she killed her sister and must atone by going to prison to be an informer.  But did she really kill her sister? A complicated story that I still don't completely understand...

A DRY, QUIET WAR by Tony Daniel

A soldier returns after twenty years of fighting billions of years into the future at the end of the universe, only to find his own world...split among the beer brewers and liquor distillers...invaded by other soldiers coming from that same future.  A very creepy...and multidimensional and "multitemporal" tale, it reminded me a bit of that Douglas Adams restaurant at the end of the universe with its logic (or lack thereof),,,

Next week: more science fiction discussed from 1996...

From Own Experience, Work Settings Can Affect Social Attitudes

Over the course of my own work experience, I had been in different social situations, by that meaning that my assignments have been structured at times to where co-workers (and myself) work in regular, close proximity to one another to the point where regular conversation is not only available, but seems almost mandatory...if you don't want to appear antisocial to the others, that is.  In other scenarios, employees sometimes work side-by-side but mostly are on their own to perform their assignments, with space between them tending to be the rule rather than the exception.  It is this latter format that I have been enjoying for more than ten years at my workplace, and I have to say that it has been a blessing to me.  I also have noticed over the course of my now-37+ years working there that when people work "too" physically closely together for regular, long stretches that in those areas I pick up on a lot of negativity, dissension, gossiping and generally nasty attitudes coming from a lot of them.  There are some positions that, on the surface, may seem to be attractive were it not for this bunching together of workers, making for pressure to conform to others' negative and manipulative behavior patterns.  Better to be a freer spirit with one's own clear-cut objectives to get through the working day, that is, if you're able to choose that kind of assignment...

Podcaster Discusses Self-Disclpline

I've probably written here before about self-discipline and some steps that podcaster Rob Dial recommends to instill it.  His steps are pretty straightforward: one, finish what you started, not letting stuff linger afterwards to accumulate.  Two, plan ahead...making the actual execution of the task as easy and convenient as possible.  Three, design your environment...also making the required activity as effective, without obstacles and unnecessary distractions or interruptions, Four, focus on progress and not perfection...you're not trying to be the champ, but even a champion like Masters golf tournament winner Scottie Scheffler had his share of bogeys over the course of the 72 holes this past weekend.  And five, reward yourself for sticking with the program...taking strategic breaks is a positive step.  I've heard all this before but Dial reviewed it this morning and, at least for my own sake, thought it worthy of repeating.  With discipline, Rob Dial isn't talking for high achievers alone, but also for anyone who wants to raise the level of their living and invest in a better personal future...

Enjoyed Watching The Masters Tournament This Weekend

Congratulations to Scottie Scheffler for winning his second Masters golf title.  The course in Augusta, Georgia seems nearly impossible to fathom, but Scheffler somehow managed to secure a four-stroke victory over young Ludvig Åberg from Sweden with an eleven-under-par final score.  I had a great time watching Scheffler, Åberg, Collin Morikawa, Max Homa and other challengers shuffle around in the standings...and around the often confounding course.  Although most of the contestants were in the mainstream PGA tour, there were some from the breakaway LIV tour as well...Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith doing the best among them.  I'd like to watch some LIV events in the future...possibly I'll get to see them on the CW channel.  In any event, I've come to enjoy watching golf on TV, although as I've stated before I never played the game beyond miniature golf and I don't think I'd ever want to count myself as one of the on-site spectators crowding around to catch some of the action... 

Ran Gainesville's Depot Park 5K This Morning

In Gainesville, Florida...as well as five other locations in Florida, every week we have a free 5K run/walk in which the finishers are timed with the results posted online.  Here it takes place in Depot Park, a few blocks south of downtown, and is appropriately called the Depot Parkrun.  The Parkrun concept originated in England where it is much more strongly entrenched while it is growing in the USA.  Volunteer-run, participation is free: you sign up online and they give you a barcode that you print and take to the race with you for scanning.  This morning was my 38th finish since 2019 when I started doing Parkruns.  The weather was pleasant at around 52 degrees with a tolerable 70% humidity.  I had already decided to run the 5K (3.1 mile) course when weather conditions were hospitable and walk it more as temperatures and humidity climb along with the approach of late spring and summer.  So while Melissa accompanied me today, she walked the entire course while I ran it, taking customary brief walking breaks at two different stages in the race.  My finishing time was 28:47...not my fastest, but quite acceptable to me: click HERE to see the complete posted results.  I'd like to get a Parkrun speed-walk in this month, so maybe I'll see if I can't get back here next Saturday to do just that...

Quote of the Week...from Soren Kirkegaard

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.                               Soren Kirkegaard.

Soren Kirkegaard was a 19th century theologian and philosopher from Denmark.  Rob Dial, a personal development coach, used his above quote on a recent podcast while discussing the roles, both helpful and harmful, that anxiety plays in people's lives. According to Dial, it is our response to anxiety and the degree to which we make our own life choices, taking responsibility for them, that will eventually quiet our anxiety.  But I also just read the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown, which included being responsible for one's choices as a necessity for reducing our lives to the highest standards.  Both viewpoints involve stepping up to the plate and embracing choice and freedom instead of letting others choose for us and consequently run our lives instead of ourselves.  So while anxiety doesn't necessarily feel good, it also can be symptomatic of an effective and courageous life...just as long as it doesn't get out of control...  

Masters Golf Tournament Ongoing

I'm looking forward the next three days to watching the prestigious and over-hyped Masters golf tournament, taking place in Augusta, Georgia.  Thursday was opening day with action delayed a couple of hours due to bad weather (it afflicted us as well in Florida)...hopefully all will be straightened out tomorrow and we'll be able to tell who the real leaders are.  Not that I'm going to sit back in my living room and crash on golf, mind you, but it will be fun to keep up with my favorite players and see how they tackle the various challenging holes... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1996 Science Fiction, Part 1

This week I began another year of short science fiction as I move on to another book in the Gardner Dozois anthology series The Year's Best Science Fiction, this one titled Fourteenth Annual Collection and covering 1996.  His first selection for this volume, as is his apparent preference, is yet another long novella...

IMMERSION by Gregory Bensford

In the not-so-distant future, a scientist has published an academic paper putting him at odds with a European crime organization...he now seems to be a hit target of theirs.  Going with his girlfriend to Africa for relief and escape, they find themselves caught up in "immersion", in which their essences are temporarily installed in the bodies of certain selected and modified chimpanzees.  Enjoying the sometimes disturbing experiences, they repeat the immersions until one day they find themselves stuck in the chimps, unable to return.  This story may sound too familiar when considering the Matrix movie that came out only three years later.  But consciousness transfer to other places has long been a recurring feature in science fiction...it figured prominently in Clifford Simak's City novel nearly fifty years earlier.  This story by Bensford was written clearly and easy to follow, building up the kind of suspense that I expect from good sci-fi tales...

Next week I'll see if I can't come up with more, hopefully shorter, stories from 1996...

About Monday's Solar Eclipse

Yesterday a solar eclipse occurred, this time affecting a large section of the United States.  The path of the total eclipse was restricted to a curving belt going northeast from Texas, while here in northern Florida we were able to view a partial eclipse, all taking place in early-to-mid-afternoon. In Gainesville where it happened while I was at work, the skies were partially overcast, which didn't help.  A solar eclipse happens when the moon gets between the sun and Earth, covering up the former to the extent that blockage is more complete from our perspective.  So when you're observing a solar eclipse...hopefully through filter glasses or one of those pinhole box devices...you're not just seeing the sun, but also the "dark side" of the moon.  So is it a coincidence that Eclipse is the final track to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album?  I hardly think so.  Usually I'm the one going around talking up an eclipse to those around me, but this time I shrugged and said to myself (and others), I'll just wait for the pictures and look at them. Now I wonder what they're going to do with all those cheap filter paper-and-plastic glasses that piled up?  You know, all you people who think you want see another solar eclipse in your lifetime, it's probably a better idea to just read up on them and how folks through history reacted...usually pretty unfavorably! But if events like these spur some young people to take a more active interest in astronomy, then I'm all for it...

A Fork in the Road with my Running

I mentioned earlier on this blog that regardless of the outcome, yesterday's marathon in Hawthorne would be a fork in the road regarding my future running...and walking, for that matter.  After skipping it in the end for a number of reasons, severe insomnia being the chief one, it still holds true. Number one, I will not enter a future race that requires an extensive amount of preparation, including tapering my training for days beforehand and ingesting excessive carbs to build up glycogen stores.  I will avoid marathon races like Sunday's where organizers discourage walkers and place unreasonable caps on finishing times. This is because I've decided (after this fork in the road) that if I do any future marathons, walking will take up a substantial portion of my efforts.  Another outcome of this weekend is that I intend to be more selective about the races I sign up for and that I need to do more weekend outdoor training...equally mixed running and walking...in my surrounding neighborhoods, with a run/walk lasting possibly several hours.  The ratio of running to walking will depend in part on the weather conditions...I intend to be flexible in that regard. It's a shame that in north Central Florida, where we once had a tradition of two great marathon races...the Ocala Marathon and Gainesville's Five Points of Life Marathon...we're left with three races in Hawthorne, each covering the same remote trail eight times on a 3.27-mile-long there-and-back course with the organizers capping finishing times or discouraging walking...pathetic.  Well, I have my own priorities, and they exclude that sort of nonsense...  

Body Tells Me to Skip Today's Marathon Race

Today was going to be my return attempt at a marathon race, but during the last two days I suffered from a great amount of insomnia...and sleep deprivation is not an advisable preparation for running 26.2 miles.  So instead of arising at 5 this morning...with hardly any sleep...I decided to chill out and skip the event, precipitating a good, healthy night's sleep.  I'm disappointed that, although I seemed to be preparing for the race the way others advise, my own body ended up casting the crucial dissenting vote for participating in it.  I do like running, but at this stage in my life I think that half-marathons are probably going to be the maximum distance I'll be doing...

Volunteered at Gainesville's Depot Parkrun This Morning

Since I had already signed up to run another race tomorrow morning, I decided to forego my customary Saturday morning Depot Parkrun 5K and volunteer there, in the singular role of standing at the scanning table sorting the plastic little finishing tokens as they came in.  I've done it before and it doesn't require me downloading anything on my phone like some of the other roles do, so that's what I picked to do.  It all seemed to go well, but I did notice...in accordance with some of the ideas in Greg McKeown's book Essentialism that I just read...that there is a psychology, or perhaps better stated, an ideology here in the volunteer sector that places unreasonable demands on people who are already volunteering to keep saying "yes" to even more demands.  Something like this happened to me this morning, but I stood my ground and asserted my boundaries.  I don't think the attitudes of some of the people here necessarily stand out as bad, and I see this sort of thing in other areas in other groups: once you're pegged as a contributor, then instead of just saying thank you and being done with it they keep going on guilt-riding you into taking on and giving more and more...I was glad to get out of there when my "service" had ended.  Still, I get that fact that volunteers are who make events like the Parkrun possible and will most likely do more of this as the year goes on...

Quote of the Week...from Mark Twain

Golf is a good walk spoiled.                ---Mark Twain

I've quoted Mark Twain on this blog several times before...I don't think I've used the above one yet.  I have never played golf, not in the pure sense: I don't count miniature golf, which I think I'm reasonably good at (at least against others in my family). But I'd like to learn to play the big game...seems like it would be fun, as long as the players following me on the course have a lot of patience with me taking a lot of shots and time.  But I get what Twain wrote about golf...and walking, for that matter.  When I watch these major PGA golf tournaments on TV, most of the golfers seem way too intense and exhibit the utmost suffering when they miss a shot.  I'm getting to where I'm supporting the ones (like Scottie Scheffler) who just smile and shake their heads when their shots miss the hole or go flying into the water...it's just a game, dudes! As for walking, I can do that just fine...it's WHERE and WHEN I can go on a nice, long walk that I'm a little hung up on.  I still get a lot of cumulative steps in over the course of a day, but that's because my job and general lifestyle tend to be more active and ambulatory.  But just briskly walking somewhere...I'll never tire of that...

Looking Forward to Watching 2024 Paris Summer Olympics

Are you looking forward to watching the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics later this year? I am...because of COVID-19, the 2020 Tokyo games were delayed until July 2021, exactly the time I was in the hospital recovering from my open-heart surgery (aortic aneurysm repair and heart valve replacement).  I'm looking forward to seeing how NBC covers it all...they disappointed me, to put it most diplomatically, with the recent NFL playoffs when they put "my" Miami Dolphins game against Kansas City with their paid-subscriber channel Peacock.  I'm suspecting they will be up to the same high jinks, only on a much grander scale.  No problem, I'll watch the "free" stuff and leave Peacock to the suckers...hope it fails.  The Paris Olympics begin on July 26, when Melissa and I are finishing up our next cruise, and last until August 11. Should be fun to follow, Peacock notwithstanding...

Weekly Short Stories: 1995 Science Fiction, Part 10

Today I conclude this protracted look at sci-fi short stories from the year 1995 by looking at the final tale...it's a novella...in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection, containing his picks from that year.  As far as my own life is concerned, that year had its ups (my family, especially the birth of our wonderful daughter) and downs (some really screwed-up characters at work) while in all, I have to give it all a pretty high score.  But enough of '95, I'm ready to move on to the next year...first, though, that last story...

MORTIMER GRAY"S HISTORY OF DEATH by Brian Stableford

As previously mentioned, this is one of those long stories that Dozois seemed to have a special penchant for, but to his credit was one that I didn't think was overblown.  It's set around the year 3000 as "emortal" Mortimer Gray, like the rest of humanity by that time on an Earth steeped in its returning tumultuous ice age and reaching out and settling the cosmos, has been genetically modified to stop aging, rejuvenate and become immune to sickness.  Accidents, homicides and suicides still happen, though, and people are becoming more and more intrigued by death itself as their lives drag on from century to century...Gray is over 200 years old.  Being a historian, he sets out to write a history of death as it was regarded by humanity, eventually stretching out to ten volumes...with very mixed reviews from others.  The novella alternates between Gray's personal ongoing life and a third-person account of him and his progress with the book.  But it's the ending of this intriguing tale that made it all work, similar to a theme I've read from Isaac Asimov.  We may think we have it all figured out, smug in our scientific achievements within T'HIS galaxy.  But it's only one of billions and there's something else heading our way...

And, whew, finally I'll be starting my look at 1996's short science fiction next week...

Just Finished Reading Essentialism by Greg McKeown

The 2014 book Essentialism by Greg Mckeown, college business major and head of his own leadership development company, promised yet another angle in the collage of self-improvement works I've read of late.  In it, he emphasizes that life and time spent in it is too precious, as is the space we live in...to clutter both with unwelcome commitments and stuff, which diminish our enjoyment and fulfillment.  Instead, we should learn how to say "no" to others when they try to commit us to activities and roles which are not high priorities in our lives.  Likewise, items that we may like but don't hold in exceptionally high regard should be disposed of...McKeown suggests that we ask ourselves if the stored item in question is something that we would spend money today to obtain.  I think the author hit upon a sensitive point with me as I have both a lot of junk I need to get rid of...and saying no to others can be rankling and, as he stated, be partly based on a fear that it would damage the relationship if I refused the request: after all, that movie producer in The Godfather didn't come out too well from his refusal.  So the standards for keeping things as well as agreeing to future commitments need to be very high, with "no" being the default option...that's a hard pill to swallow. Yet in order to avoid future resentment and repercussions, it just might be a necessary one.  So in spite of Greg McKeown emphasizing the need for both play and adequate, high-quality sleep as very essential in our lives, I found his points on possessions and time commitments to be quite a challenge for me, meaning that this book is a "keeper" (actually, that means I'll just check it out from the library often)...

Muted TV Enhances Sports Experience

Since I haven't yet retired and have Saturdays and Sundays off, I've grown into the habit of watching armchair sports, enjoying golf, tennis, baseball, basketball, soccer...and even football from time to time.  Yesterday I got so frustrated watching a baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals that I simply muted the sound: suddenly the game itself came more alive and interesting to me, and the lack of accompanying noise did nothing to detract from the suspenseful ending of an enjoyable, close game when Dodger third baseman Max Muncy slammed a two-run home in the bottom of the eighth to pull out an improbable come-from-behind win against the Redbirds.  Improbable, I'm sure: I suppose that due to the heavy emphasis on sports betting nowadays, just above the screen's score they had posted the current odds that one team or the other would win.  Just before Muncy's homer the Card's were favored with a 65% chance...immediately afterwards it drastically switched to Dodgers with 87%.  Let's face it: they're simply bombarding us with too much stuff on the screen...it's as if the powers-that-be in the network have concluded that we're all attention-deficit challenged...

My March 2024 Running, Walking and Swimming Report

In March I picked up my running mileage considerably, in spite of spending a week of it on a western Caribbean cruise with Melissa. As for speed walking and swimming, I didn't focus on them as much, though.  I ran two 5K races in the month, both at Gainesville's Depot Park on Saturday mornings and with good (for me) finishing times.  A couple of weeks ago I signed up to run a full marathon on April 7th...it will be my second attempt ever at that distance, the other race having taken place in Ocala in January, 2011.  This race, dubbed "Run Your Buns Off" and located in Hawthorne at the eastern end of the Hawthorne Trail, has the exact-same course as the Mary Andrews marathon which the Florida Track Club offered back in January.  I know I can cover this distance if I run a strategically-smart race, the weather is decent, and my health holds up.  After it's over, I plan to spend some time recovering and then embark on a spring-through-summer, more balanced regimen blending running, walking and swimming.  As for swimming, although I did get some practice during the cruise in their salt-water pool (much preferable to freshwater), I still need a lot of pool time to improve my form...that's going to be a major project.  As for actual races, after this upcoming marathon I don't have anything else planned for the next few months except for regular weekly forays to Deport Park, where I would like to mix up running the 3.1 mile course with some more stints at speed-walking...along with walks with Melissa and some volunteering.  I'm still trying to figure out how to get the best use from the local gym of which I'm a paying member...it always seems to be excessively crowded and uncomfortable, and there's no telling when I get there whether the pool for swimming laps has any open lanes.  Of course, that's not the only pool (or gym) in town, and maybe it's getting time for me to explore possibly better options...

Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun This Morning

Just at sunrise, when the weekly Gainesville Depot Parkrun began today's 5K (3.1 miles) event, it was 46 degrees with 97% humidity under clear skies.  I was there at Depot Park, a few blocks south of downtown, but Melissa had to be at work.  My intent for this race was to just run/walk it as I have been doing for the last few months and see how I felt at the end.  And in the end I felt fine, finishing with another sub-30 minute time at 28:18...then I promptly drove back home.  As I was sitting there in my car before the run, looking at all the assembled humanity around the starting line, I thought that it would be much better for me were there a system where individual runners could go somewhere, run a specific distance, and be "officially" timed and recorded as having publicly accomplished it instead of having to go through all this mingling and crowding in a race setting. I must be out of my mind to actually be considering running in a future big-city distance event when this much more subdued one irritates me so, but there were a lot more people than usual out there this morning.  In any event, click HERE for today's results...

Quote of the Week...from Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) in The Godfather

He never asks a second favor when he's been refused the first, understood?   

                                                                   Tom Hagen (played by Robert Duvall) from The Godfather

Tom Hagen is the adopted son and attorney of Don Vito Corleone...aka the Godfather in the famed movie series.  After being sent out to Hollywood to secure a sensitive favor from a belligerent movie producer, Hagen finds himself a guest at the dinner table as "Mr. Woltz" refuses the Godfather's request while indicating that he'd be only too happy to comply with any others.  Both parties know that the requested favor is only a superficial nicety to cover up what is essentially an extortion demand...do this or else.  That Vito Corleone thrived in a criminal environment of circumventing the law never kept him from enunciating and practicing his own "principles"...the above "one-and-done" refused favor being one of these.  Crime, extortion, violence...not at all for me, thank you.  Yet I can see the Don's point of view from my own life experiences of dealing with obnoxious people whose paper authority in certain settings goes to their heads as they try to remind me of our relative positions on their cherished, pathetic pecking orders.  I will ask such an individual for something once and if they make a grand show of resistance to my proposal based on their "superior" status, then that's the absolutely final time they will ever hear from me about any request...and they'd just better forget about me ever covering for their eventual mistakes as well.  The Godfather...I'm speaking about the original movie...is a masterpiece of psychological and social relationships, exposing the corruption beneath practically...if not all...institutions (including business, law, government and religion).  Corruption, I might add, enforced by its own extra-legal system of justice devoid of due process.  We like to pretend we live in a free society, but I strongly disagree for the above reason...

About Our Recent Cruise

After writing recently about Melissa and me scheduling another cruise this year, it occurred to me that I hadn't much discussed the one we were just on. It was a March 2-8 Royal Caribbean Western Caribbean cruise, and our stops had us in Mexico (Costa Maya/Mahahual, Cozumel) and Honduras (Roatan). Our ship was called "Enchantment of the Seas"...it is reportedly an older model and smaller than the "Allure of the Seas" we took in February, 2020 on the eve of the COVID era. I wasn't thrilled about the foreign excursions we took this time, but I guess they do bear discussing in some future article. I liked more the time we spent on board the ship, with our outer balcony overlooking the water, as well as the food, pools, and generally relaxed ambiance. My favorite destination was the 9th Deck Solarium, restricted to adults...although truth be told I liked having the kids on board this cruise. Since the Royal Caribbean ships have similar structures, I'm interested in comparing the one were just on to our next one to Alaska...necessarily so since it will be moving through a much colder climate...

Weekly Short Stories: 1995 Science Fiction, Part 9

Here is my ninth week of slogging through the short stories and novellas appearing in Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection, featuring his picks from other writers' works in that genre for the year 1995.  Below are my reactions to three of them...

THERE ARE NO DEAD by Terry Bisson

Dozois prefaced this story by stating it reminded him of the whimsical, nostalgic tone of many of Ray Bradbury's child-themed tales...I agree.  I kept waiting for the science fiction angle to it, though...until the ending, which made it seem more like a Twilight Zone episode.  Three boys grow up into adulthood and continue to hold reunions in which they revert to playing as if they were still little children, but life still catches up with them...or does it?

RECORDING ANGEL by Paul J. McAuley

On a societal-stagnated world in the far distant future, there are very tightly defined roles for everyone, including the protagonist, who is the official archivist.  A spaceship lands and a runaway woman escapes to show the seeds of discontent and rebellion wherever she goes.  This story tends to support the argument that only through violent revolution can society fundamentally change: I beg to disagree...

ELVIS BEARCLAW'S LUCK by William Sanders

In a future Earth where an infectious disease wipes out human life except the immune Native American Indians...a reversal of what happened to them with the smallpox catastrophe a few centuries ago...a celebratory fair of games is being planned and staged.  The story's title figure, Elvis Bearpaw, is looking to enhance his luck in them.  But in the end, was he lucky...or exactly the opposite? A funny but ultimately gruesome tale... 

One more week to go with this anthology, which ends with yet another novella...

Just Finished Reading The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

It was bad enough that I had confused Alfred Adler, the inspiration for this book on psychology The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, with American philosopher Mortimer Adler.  As I began reading it, I was peeved to see it written in the form of a manufactured dialectic debate between an elder Adlerian adherent and a disaffected young person.  The youth was angry at the world and himself, blaming his past for turning himself into a somewhat cynical adult.  The elder was content and patient, welcoming challenging arguments to his philosophy by "refuting" them with invalidating proclamations. I thought that was a bit phony, as was the imaginary setup between the two, culminating with the youth "coming around" to the other's arguments as the book conveniently reached its conclusion...reminded me of the pattern in the old Perry Mason murder mystery TV dramas when at with about five minutes to go the real murderer inexplicably breaks down on the witness stand and confesses to everything. Adler maintained that personal trauma of the kind his contemporary, Sigmund Freud, emphasized, wasn't real, that is, in the sense that the person who holds on to it has a reason that serves them somehow.  Also, it's important to take ownership of one's own tasks, setting up boundaries for them, and respecting the tasks others face without interference or or imposing one's own standards on them.  Adler/The Elder hold that all problems stem from personal relationships, yet true happiness arises only from one's feeling of contribution to the betterment of others...wrap your head around that one.  To the extent that this book, whose co-authors reportedly adhere to their own particular Japanese philosophy related to to Adler's, extol the virtues of people taking responsibility for their own lives while respecting the necessary boundaries of others and living in the present as opposed to past regrets or future worries, I couldn't agree more.  On the other hand, I am more than a little wary (and weary) of gurus handing out rules and principles to follow.  Read it and get back to me (if that's your "task", that is),,,

Stepping Back from Manipulative News

In case you might be wondering why on this blog I'm not deeply analyzing and reacting to all the different developing stories in this election season with the corruption charges, wars, terrorism and dictators, it's not because I'm covering up my eyes and ears to the media onslaught.  Rather I have come to a point in my life where I know that I have some degree of control over some things, beyond which I can do little about them.  It's 2024 and the press is a hotbed of manipulation, not just on FoxNews.  One of my Florida senators, Marco Rubio, whom I've never supported, was interviewed a few days ago on ABC's Good Morning America and got the hostile treatment when he simply expressed his own opinions on various topics, opinions several of which I might add I disagreed with.  But it's all in the presentation and how different "news" sources frame the real messages they are trying to get across to their audience.  I've associated in the past with people who are addicted to this kind of thing and have learned to reduce or even cut ties with them because of their obsessions...especially when they get outraged because I dared to express a thought they disagreed with.  To them I say, some are addicted to gambling, others to substances, still others to materialism, and so on: have fun letting yourselves be continually manipulated, in the end it's YOUR choice to play that game...

Alaskan Cruise Planned for July

Melissa and I have decided to have another go at a summer Alaskan cruise after last year's came to naught when both of us fell ill just before leaving.  The itinerary is similar, with Seattle, Washington figuring heavily into the travel as well as is stepping onto Canadian soil, in British Columbia.  It's the same line as our last two cruises, and we're looking forward to hashing out the final details of on-shore excursions and hotel reservations.  We really enjoyed our western Caribbean cruise at the start of this month...that ship was much smaller, though, and with half the passengers of the one we're taking in July.  Having never been to the American west coast, that should be an experience as well...and I've always wanted to visit Seattle...

Just Finished Reading Something Borrowed, Someone Dead by M.C. Beaton

On our cruise earlier this month, on the ship's sixth deck, near their Starbucks store, was an informal "library" area where passengers could donate books they'd already read and select another from the shelf.  I found there a 2013 detective novel by the late Scottish writer Marion Chesney, probably better known under her pseudonym M.C. Beaton, titled Something Borrowed, Someone Dead.  It's one of more than thirty novels she wrote in her Agatha Raisin detective series, and was a fun departure from my recent slew of non-fiction books.  The English sleuth Agatha Raisin, with her collection of supportive characters, delves into a mysterious poisoning of an obnoxious recently-moved-in woman who has alienated pretty much her entire little town with her flirting with married man there and her tendency to either borrow others' property without returning it or simply stealing it outright...pretty soon practically no one wants to associate with her.  Her last mistake is to steal a bottle of wine from a neighbor's cellar...she is found dead, poisoned.  Who did it? Plenty of suspects, but Agatha soon finds that everyone in the town wants to squash her investigation and cover up the dastardly deed.  There are plenty of ongoing subplots with the series' regular characters, and I can see how readers could be drawn to Beaton's witty writing.  As a matter of fact, I might just read the whole series...but let's see if I can't read them in chronological order: the one I just read was #24...

Quote of the Week...from Pablo Picasso

Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.            Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso, of course, was the great twentieth century artist probably best known for his development of the cubist genre.  While he didn't exactly eschew publicity during his long life, his above quote struck me for its wisdom...I'm only 67 but know from personal experience that Picasso is right on target here.  The problem is that seeking solitude seems to count in our relationship-obsessed culture for a kind of mental disorder that needs to be nipped for the sake of "community"...a buzz word that, for me at least, seems to signal that whoever uses it is about to manipulate me.  I'm not against relationships per se, it's just that the only meaningful, constructive and loving ones are concentrated and deliberately few in number.  But even with these, it is no insult to any of them that I often want to be by myself, think, and work things out.  I don't, however, feel that solitude in itself has to take place physically isolated...I'm writing this at a table in my nearby Starbucks, with many customers and workers all around me.  But I am not engaging with them, nor they with me: there is no interruption of my thoughts and efforts here. On the other hand, at my job there are times when I need to focus on my core assignment, which demands that I meticulously concentrate my attention on important, pertinent matters without distraction. Unfortunately, though, my seriousness to my work in this regard I'm afraid is sometimes framed as antisocial...nothing could be further from the truth. I've also noticed that many of those who act as if they want to socialize along with their work are continuously "forgetting" things they need to do, things that interfere with the ability of others (and sometimes myself) to effectively perform their jobs.  Nothing wrong with having a chat from time to time, but please don't screw me over in the process...

Signed Up to Run Marathon Race Next Month

I recently signed up to run the 26.2-mile marathon in an upcoming race, held in Hawthorne...or, more precisely, the outskirts thereof...a few miles southeast of Gainesville.  With the theme of cinnamon buns in mind (to be provided on race day by Panera Bread), it's called "Run Your Buns Off" and offers 5K, 10K, half-marathon and marathon choices...all to take place on the exact stretch of the woodsy-but-paved  Hawthorne Trail on which I ran the Florida Track Club's Mary Andrews half-marathon back in January.  If you read my article from back then, you'd note that I was originally going to sign up for their marathon instead, but they were stuck on capping finishing times for it at five hours...very elitist of them in my view.  So I'm going nearly three months later for essentially the same thing, although I'm not too enthusiastic as to the probably warmer and possibly wetter weather conditions come April 7th, when the race is scheduled to happen.  The course is about as basic as you could make it...unless you do what ultra-marathoner Dean Karnazes once did in his youth and run a marathon by going 105 laps around his high school track.  It's a four-cycle out and back, taking place on the same 3.27 mile stretch of trail...yawn.  Yet I do have an imagination, and my idea is to take whatever stage of the race I'm in and pretend that it's that same place in the New York City Marathon, which I've watched (and trained) to on YouTube many times to the point that I think I know the layout of some streets better than a lot of the natives there.  In any event, I see this race for me as an experiment as well as a fork in the road about what direction I will subsequently go with my running, as well as walking.  Should things work out as foreseen, this would be my second official marathon run, the other occurring back in 2011 and "highlighted" by me having to slowly walk its final seven miles while suffering from a very painful leg strain... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1995 Science Fiction, Part 8

Actually, the title of today's article is misleading, since what I'm discussing today isn't a short story but rather a novel, and it was published in 2000...let me explain. Poul Anderson, one of the great science fiction writers of the late twentieth century, sadly passed away in 2001.  The year before, though, he expanded his 1995 novella Genesis into a full-length book.  Genesis first appeared in that '95 novella form in Gardener Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection.  Discovering that it was later turned into a novel and that it was available for checkout from my Libby app, I did just that and read it.  I was intrigued by the story's premise, in which the development of artificial intelligence has culminated in the entire human race uploading itself into AI, which reminded me in a different vein of what happened to everyone in Clifford Simak's earlier, wonderful novel City (read it to find out).  Anyway, the way Anderson implies, our identities become immortal...in  a sense...and space travel and exploration and "settlement" of the cosmos becomes very feasible, especially since lifespans and time itself cease to be a limiting factor.  So it shouldn't surprise readers that "man" is still around hundreds of millions of years in the future, in the virtual forms of former-real humans who have been sent by the major AIs to try to circumvent the sun from destroying the Earth...its resident AI, called Gaia, is inexplicably resisting their efforts.  I'd like to say I came away from the reading with great praise, but I found it extremely difficult to follow as the author would hop from one plot sequence to another without explanation.  And the "humans" were also hard to empathize with, seeing that in essence they were only constructions of a greater intelligence and not real flesh and blood.  Genesis was picked, as I said, for the Dozois anthology,  It probably would have been best had Poul Anderson just left it back there as a novella and not tried to make it something bigger.  I'll see if I can't come up with a few more hopefully-shorter stories to review from the Dozois book next week...

Voted in Florida Primary, Among Few Others

This morning around eleven I went down the Senior Recreation Center near my home...not to recreate seniors, mind you, but to vote in the 2024 Florida Primary: it's my precinct's polling site. Well, if you read my article from a few days ago, you'd know by now that I'm a registered Republican, since the only measure on the ballot was the party presidential primary and Biden's running opposed in the Democratic Party, at least in Florida. Melissa went with me and we went through the empty polling area...other than the workers...and bubbled out and inserted our ballots into the machine.  It registered that we were the 23rd and 24th voters in the four hours since the polls opened that morning here...no surprise since the "election" was essentially meaningless with the party's cult idol already assured of nomination without any remaining organized opposition.  Still, the names of some former candidates who dropped out of the race were still on the ballot, and I cast my vote as I had indicated before.  After voting, we went on to the more practical part of the visit, which was to check out the Senior Recreation center.  I could see that many elderly would derive a lot of benefit from it, with the game rooms, exercise classes, limited workout room (monitored by a registered physical therapist), pickle ball courts, and a weekly schedule of programs and activities.  Yet I didn't see anything there that called out to me...yet.  As for the vote, it was obviously just symbolic for me, but it was nice to get out there and vote in person after the COVID pandemic and subsequent mail-in voting...    

The Players Championship Golf Tournament Was a Classic This Year

The Players Championship golf tournament, played in nearby Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida (just south of Jacksonville is one of those PGA events that attract attention beyond the sport's regular adherents.  This past weekend we saw Scotty Scheffler, perhaps the greatest golfer of this current era, struggling to defend from behind his previous year's title in the event.  Starting the final round yesterday, Scheffler was tied for sixth place, five strokes behind leader Xander Schauffele.  It seemed that only an incredible final round, combined with more restrained performances by Schauffele, Wyndham Clark and Brian Harmon, the last two only one and two strokes behind, respectively, would enable Scheffler to repeat as champ.  But events unraveled exactly as Scotty would have preferred and he won dramatically by a single stroke at the end as opponent after opponent missed their achingly close birdie attempts on the 18th hole...it was a classic to be remembered.  I've never played "regular" golf before, only mini-golf, but I've enjoyed following the professional golf tournaments in recent years.  Before yesterday's action, I tuned in to the Golf Channel to hear their commentary and was dismayed to discover that they only seemed interested in setting up betting odds on the probable winners.  The only time I ever bet on spectator sports was in high school when I went in on an NFL pool for one weekend.  I came close to winning it with my predictions but, fortunately, narrowly lost to another kid...who ended up having to hassle many of the others in the pool to pay up.  I say fortunately because it helped to further steer me from gambling money, something I was already on guard against because my father, although a responsible provider who saved money and kept us all financially floating, had a weakness for betting the dogs at many of South Florida's tracks and seemed often preoccupied on a mind-numbing level with his various betting systems which he often changed around.  So no, whatever vices I have, gambling away money isn't one of them.  On our recent cruise there was a casino and Melissa and I passed through it on the way to somewhere else...the folks there were so intensely involved with their little machines and games that it frankly kind of freaked me out.  A couple of days later we were seated for breakfast at a table where the other two couples couldn't stop talking about their casino adventures and systems.  Well, I suppose if you're helping to financially prop up the cruise industry with your gambling so that I have better options with it, then go for it!  Besides, the more in the casino, the fewer clogging up the pool and deck...

Congrats and Condolences for UF Men's Basketball Team

In a bittersweet roller-coaster day for the Florida Gators men's basketball team, they culminated their long run in the Southeastern Conference postseason tournament with the championship game against heavily-favored Auburn.  Already pretty much guaranteed a spot in the NCAA championship "March Madness" tournament, they still had the Tigers as an immediate hurdle.  Bowing to Auburn 86-67, the Gators' greatest disappointment by far, though, was the loss of their starting center, Micah Handlogten, to a broken leg as he was coming down for a rebound only two minutes into the game.  We all wish him a full and speedy recovery, and as he was a sophomore, a good return for next year.  Florida was awarded in the South Region as the 7th seed...they are scheduled to begin their tournament action next Friday in Indianapolis against the winner of the Boise State/Colorado contest on Wednesday, currently sporting a 24-11 overall W/L record. Todd Golden, the Gator coach, seems like a fine young man who just might be the next Billy Donovan that fans have been looking for.  I wish him, the Florida team...and, of course, Micah, the best in the next few days and weeks.  Should they advance past Friday, they will play the winner of Marquette/Western Kentucky game on Sunday in their question to make the "Sweet Sixteen" of remaining teams...click HERE to see the interactive tournament bracket...

Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

When I got up this morning at 6 it was still dark, due to the "jump ahead" to Daylight Savings Time last weekend.  It was also cloudy, unseasonably warm (69 degrees, still in winter) and a stifling 92% humidity.  I decided right then that I was going to today's Depot Parkrun 5K, held weekly at that park just south of downtown Gainesville, not to set any records but rather to see how I could do under these conditions.  I continued to use Jeff Galloway's run/walk method, my strategy this time to alternate 5 minute running with 40-45 seconds of fast walking throughout the race.  The fact that it was "earlier" at the 7:30 start meant that the sun was lower in the sky...and it being cloudy, I never had to directly contend with the glare.  I started the run feeling energized and ended it that way, not a personal best for this, my 36th Depot Parkrun, but still a pretty good time at 28:19...click HERE to view today's results.  For next week I had been considering a muddy 10K trail race in Paynes Prairie that I had been avoiding for years...probably will continue that streak in '24.  After all, there's the Depot Parkrun 5K, a free, volunteer-driven weekly run on Saturday mornings (I've volunteered 4 times, probably need to up it a bit).  Melissa had to be at work this morning and couldn't make it out there...we'll just take things a week at a time and see what opportunities lie for us...

Quote of the Week...from Will Self

Always carry a notebook.  And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea forever.              ---Will Self

Will Self is an English journalist and writer...no, I've yet to read any of his output (other than the above quote).  I already follow his advice to carry a notebook...well, in my case a memo pad as well as a slew of folded-up pieces of paper that tend to get misplaced.  I think I have a reasonably good memory, but it frustrates me when I am searching my recent past for details of experiences or thoughts that seem to have slipped away from me...can I ever retrieve them?  For example, the cruise that Melissa and I went on earlier this month started in the early afternoon of the 2nd, on Saturday, and ended a week later in the morning on the 9th.  Let's see...today's the 15th so my experiences should still be fresh in my memory.  But, of course, some memories tend to quickly fade while some others tend to undergo some distortion.  Today I'd like to see how much I can remember about what I ate during this Royal Caribbean cruise from Tampa to the western Caribbean and back.  Turns out there was a lot to remember...

Bagel/Cream Cheese

2 Glazed Donuts

2 Chocolate Frosted Donuts

3 Bananas

Orange

Pancakes

French Toast

Scrambled Eggs

Grits

Several Pepperoni Pizza Slices

Several Caesar Salads

Greek Salad

2 Baked Onion Soups

Several Ice Cream Cones

Several Chocolate Bar Cake Slices

Tiramisu

Several Beef Tacos

Nacho Cheese Platter

Lots of Bacon

Lots of Breakfast Sausage

Several Rolls with Butter

Crab Cakes

Seafood Bakes

Minestrone Soup

Lasagna

Lemon-Baked Cod

Cheesecake

Vegan Tofu Cheesecake

Apple Crumble Dessert

Braised Lamb Rogan Josh

Mutton Entreé

Enchilada

Macaroni and Cheese

Spaghetti Bolognese

Sounds like a lot, but I know there's a lot more food that I stuffed into my mouth during this outing but simply cannot remember.  But I wonder if, had I not stopped at this juncture today to recall as much as I could, would most of these memories also have slipped by the wayside.  I don't know if I'd like Will Self's writing...maybe I'll venture to find out before long.  But since I wrote about him on this blog it is tantamount to using a notebook, isn't it, and that makes the reference to him much less likely to be forgotten.  On the other hand, I can't just go around constantly writing down everything I experience, either. By the way, my favorite dinner on the cruise was on "Italian Night", when they served minestrone soup for the appetizer, lasagna as the main entreé, and tiramisu for dessert.  Nothing I hadn't had before, but the ship's kitchen produced the very best of each of these I had ever eaten...

Just Finished Reading The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

The Art of Racing in the Rain is a 2008 book written by Garth Stein, adapted eleven years later to film with what I've read were mixed reviews.  The premise of the story, narrated by a dog, is his affection and bonding to his owner Denny, a budding race car driver whose in-laws connive to legally extract custody of his young daughter following his wife Eve's death due to a brain tumor.  It's very sentimental and cute, and Enzo, named after a famous race driver Denny admired, knows everything, including all about auto racing. But being a dog, he is unable to express himself.  After reading the book through, am I motivated to go see the movie? No chance of that, but I always respect an author like Stein who skillfully and coherently put together this story. Would I recommend it to you?  Well, the only reason I read it in the first place was because it was one of the "Playaway" MP3-based audio books available at the time at my local public library, it caught my eye, and I checked it out.  I wasn't all that interested, frankly, in the domestic goings-on between a dog, his master and the master's family...no matter how compelling Enzo made it all seem.  Maybe it will work for you...I've read much worse, and this book wasn't bad...

Weekly Short Stories: 1995 Science Fiction, Part 7

Today I continue my look at 1995 short sci-fi tales as they appeared in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection and edited by the late Gardner Dozois, himself a recognized writer within the genre.  In doing this I'm temporarily skipping by a full-blown Poul Anderson novella featured in the book...I plan to review it next week.  So here goes...

COMING OF AGE IN KARHIDE by Ursula K. Le Guin

Le Guin was one of those writers who has, like Isaac Asimov or Stephen King, created their own fictional universe from which to derive creative inspiration and a ready-made setting for stories...hers is the Hainish universe of settled worlds scattered across the galaxy eons into the future and which provide a laboratory of observation as to how human societies can all be the same on some levels...and very different on others.  In this story people on one world, normally sexually neuter and inactive and being essentially hermaphrodites (possessing both male and female sexual organs), go periodically through a sexually-intense state called "kemmer". Here a young person goes through it, and the accompanying fears, for her/his very first time.  Le Guin was a bold groundbreaker in the examination of sexuality using the genre of science fiction...

FEIGENBAUM NUMBER by Nancy Kress

A mathematician is plagued by a special problem, which he thinks is unique to him: everyone he encounters presents two images of themselves, their real selves and, behind them, who they could have been ideally.  He believes that it all somehow comes down to a special number (hence the story's title) and how it relates to cause, effect, and chaos, as he joins his colleague in developing a special equation that he hopes will solve this enigma that is oppressing his life.  And then, what do you know, he finds another sharing his gift/curse. I have to admit to having some difficulty understanding the mathematics of this story, but then again maybe the author was winging it, too...

HOME by Geoff Ryman

In a dystopian future where just going out one's own door (and even staying at home, for that matter) can bring physical violence from the hands of roving young criminals running rampant, an elderly man has a view of "Home" that might eerily remind some of what is evolving in our society these days with the advancement of video games and virtual reality...if plugging into the real world is unbearable, then why not one more suitable, humane, meaningful and safer?  The shortest story of the three today, it is also the most chilling for its immediate relevance to what is developing around us...

Next week: my reaction to that '95 Poul Anderson novella...

Discrepancies Between Workout Settings

I've been writing on this blog off and on about my struggles with developing efficient swimming form and endurance...it's going unevenly, to say the least.  My main stroke is the freestyle American crawl, while I'm working on the fundamentals both of it and the breaststroke.  The pool at my local gym, Gainesville Health and Fitness, can seem daunting at 75 feet of length as well.  On our recent cruise we had access to a smaller pool that had an unexpectedly positive feature: salt water, which provided much more buoyancy and aided with my brief swimming practice there.  That would have been a good pool to be able to swim 75 feet in! In one setting I feel like Mark Spitz while, in the other, just little old me thrashing around awkwardly.  It's not only swimming in which the setting can make a difference.  Naturally, treadmills tend to give the user better mileage and speed scores than if they were running on the ground or road, and they tend to be gentler on the legs and feet.  But there are differences between them as well. At GHF I can get to a sustained walking pace (no inclination) on their treadmills at 5.0 mph, but the treadmill at home we recently purchased can go up to 5.4 and it seems easier than the slower gym treadmill pace.  I've come to believe that whether I'm swimming, walking or running, it's a good idea to vary the setting a bit while not getting hung up on how fast or far I'm able to go...consistency is the watchword here.  Of course, with swimming my variables are pool availability, pool size and water salinity, factors I have much less control over now that I'm off the cruise ship.  Melissa suggested that maybe it's time to get a pool in our backyard, one that is conducive to swimming laps.  Interesting, but I'm also thinking of that salt water: maybe the beach is a good idea, too...or another cruise...

Dutch is My Improbable Third Language, In a Manner of Speaking

As we were finishing our cruise from last week, Melissa and I explored other cruise destinations available from our line, Royal Caribbean.  One course takes the ship to the southern Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Venezuela with visits to the "ABC" islands, formerly colonies of the Netherlands: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao.  Together with Sint Maarten and two other islands in the eastern Caribbean, they comprise the Netherlands Antilles, which was dissolved in 2010.  Now in 2024, Curaçao and Sint Maarten are autonomous territories of the Netherlands, Bonaire is under that country's direct administration...and Aruba is an independent nation...correct me if I got that wrong. Anyway, back in 1967 when I was eleven and listening to the radio at night, I picked up on AM-800 kHz the powerful station PJB2, which broadcast out of Bonaire with 500,000 watts, a staggering amount of power (U.S. clear channel AM stations are limited to only 50,000 watts).  About mid-evening the station, which called itself Trans World Radio, featured English-language evangelistic Christian programming, Back to the Bible, Unshackled and the TWR-produced Music and You being the shows I regularly listened to. Earlier in the evening the station served as a relay for Radio Nederland's evening programming from Hilversum, Holland, which included the English-language Happy Station Program as well as news in Dutch.  With English being my first language and Spanish lessons starting in my fourth grade (1965), in retrospect it was this funny-sounding national language of the Netherlands that was my third language, although I didn't understand any of it and hardly ever studied it in the ensuing decades of my life.  Yet Dutch is supposedly the closest distinct language to English if you discount the Frisian tongue that very few speak.  I wonder how many in the former Netherlands Antilles speak it...the prominent language spoken on the ABC islands is Papiamento, a creole based on Portuguese. I'd like to visit Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire...most probably on a cruise...

Meaningless Florida Primary Ongoing with Early Voting

This has to be by far the deadest presidential primary season I've ever experienced since following them in 1968...both major political parties have pretty much folded up and closed shop with their anointed candidates, fascist Donald Trump as the clear consensus choice for Republicans and incumbent Joe "Not Trump" Biden for the Democrats.  And now early voting is underway in the Florida Primary...at least on the Republican side as Biden has no listed opposition.  But all of the major GOP candidates running against Trump have ended their campaigns without ever gaining any traction among the adoring masses enthralled with their orange personality cult idol.  I am currently a registered Republican and still plan to vote in the primary on "election day" March 19, for what it's worth.  Since former New Jersey governor Chris Christie spoke out the most vehemently against Trump during his brief campaign, I'm planning to vote for him...holding my breath in the process, not exactly being a Christie fan either.  And then it'll be on to the conventions where the parties will crown their dubious choices, with anti-vaccine conspiracy nut Robert F. "Neither-Trump-Nor-Biden" Kennedy, Jr. waiting in the wings as an independent option for voters looking for an even worse candidate.  So this is liberty and democracy...are you telling me that these three are the best my country could come up with?  Biden's my reluctant choice in November, but I won't waste my writing time trying to convince anyone to go out there and join me, much less dissuade those inclined to push one of the other major candidates into office.  Be my guest and do as you will, for all I care... 

Back in Gainesville from Cruise

For the past week, Melissa and I have been on an ocean cruise on our vacation break.  We took the Royal Caribbean ship Enchantment of the Seas out of the Port of Tampa on a Gulf of Mexico/Western Caribbean cruise with stops in Mexico and Honduras before coming back.  It was the first time in my life that I actually set foot on land outside the United States, although the two excursions in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and the island of Roatan in Honduras were largely under "cruise control"...still, they count and I'm now up to three countries...whoopee!  I took a break from a lot of things during this outing, including this blog and my cell phone...and especially social media.  I'm guessing that from time to time in the days to come, I'll be discussing some of my reactions to this thing or that from the cruise.  By and large, I have a positive take from it and some pretty interesting memories.  But for the time being, I'll just let it go at that...good to be back!

Super-Constellation of the Month: the Good Ship Argo

 

I'm planning on viewing the ancient Greek super-constellation Argo on my cruise trip down to the western Caribbean, at a latitude where hopefully I can capture the full scope of these interesting star patterns of which I knew from childhood but never had the opportunity to just go out and observe.  Because Argo was so big, it was later divided into the "official", smaller constellations of Puppis (the Deck), Carina (the Keel) and Vela (the Sails). My only real connection with Argo has been with Canopus, my favorite star of the night sky and the second brightest after Sirius.  There are also four stars on the above map, two in Vela and two in Carina, that if you looked at them a certain way you could make out a cross...it's the "False Cross" that for centuries has fooled observers looking for the Southern Cross, which is far east of Argo and constitutes the constellation Crux.  My success in observing Argo will depend, of course, on the cooperation of the weather: fog and overcast skies, or annoying shipboard lights for that matter, could present issues...but I'm remaining optimistic...

Rereading James Clear's Book Atomic Habits

I have been listening to James Clear's book Atomic Habits while driving...I checked out the CD-set from my local public library although we own the book.  I've read it before...click HERE for my earlier review.  He has a lot of information to share, and it can be a bit daunting to ingest.  The main point I've taken from it is that habits are best tackled first in a modest way, making them small enough to handle within a short span of time.  Good habits should be made attractive and immediately rewarding in some way, which sometimes requires creativity since by-and-large they involve delayed gratification.  As for things that give an immediate pleasurable feeling, the author warns that they can lead to bad habits...oh, swell, just what I wanted to hear!  So far the one big thing I've taken from this rereading is his idea of starting on a new habit by making it ridiculously small...he uses the "two-minute rule"...and then gradually increasing the time and/or intensity. I do some variations of this already, whereby I'll just set aside a small block of time, say 15 to 30 minutes, and see how much I can get done with a specific task.  Sometimes my daily schedule carves out a time niche with borders, within which I'll devote myself to a worthwhile activity I want to make into a constructive habit.  I think that keeping up with the mundane things in my life on a habitual level is probably the most immediate desire I have with regard to replacing bad habits with good ones.  As with many things in life, transforming it all into a kind of fun game works for me...

Quote of the Week...from Kelly Clarkson

The thing I love most about going on vacation is that I get to leave behind any kind of schedule. My entire life is scheduled from morning to night, and when I'm on vacation, there is no schedule.

                          Kelly Clarkson

Musical artist Kelly Clarkson has it right about what she loves about going on vacation...at least for herself, that is. Melissa and I are embarking on our own starting tomorrow and, since we're traveling, there are destinations to tour and, frankly, it's necessary to follow a time schedule at least some of the time.  Meals are offered on our boat at different times of the day, and even from day to day the theme changes for the passengers...I'm not too keen on that aspect (I'm sure Kelly would agree).  Fortunately, we should also have plenty of unstructured time to ourselves and I am definitely looking forward to that.  As for this blog and new articles during our trip, I'll just have to play it out, in an unscheduled sort of way, naturally...