Walked Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

Today, on another Saturday morning in Gainesville and the third week in a row for a UF Gator home football game...with the accompanying crowded streets and coffee shops...I did my periodic speed-walk during the Depot Parkrun 5K, held at that park a few blocks south of downtown.  It was a steamy and foggy 74 degrees with 100% humidity, but that never bothered me with my walking.  Before the race they were celebrating the 250th Parkrun here in Gainesville...that's pretty cool.  A lot of people were out there, and even another speed-walker, a middle-age woman whom I had never seen before.  She passed me early on and I managed to keep pace with her until, after three of the four required laps, she finished...either tired or mistaken.  In any event, I wish more participants tried walking the course at a fast pace, but, alas, there I was pushing hard through the final lap alone.  I finished with a time of 39:15, not my best for walking but I had slackened off of my training this past week because of a doctor visit and anticipated testing...you can view this week's race results by clicking HERE...

Quote of the Week...from Rob Dial

Let action and routine drive your life, not your emotions.         ---Rob Dial

Rob Dial is the creator and host of the podcast Mindset Mentor, which addresses issues in personal development.  He began one recent episode with the above quote, which he attributed to no one else...hence I'm giving Dial credit for it until further notice.  It's a simple concept, but one that few of us...at least me...consistently adopt for our lives.  I think there's another one that goes with this, dealing with how the quality of our lives depends on the brief pause between our triggers and cues and the actions we take in response to them...let's see, here it is, by Viktor Frankl: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response is our growth and freedom."  The first quote deals with a proactive approach, the latter with how we react to circumstances.  With both of them, I think I could do much better with how I handle daily living...

About the Tedious Presidential Debates

Everybody in social and mass media is abuzz about the recent debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris...at least that's how they'd like us to think.  I'm guessing that you're not all that much into that kind of nonsense...and I'm certainly not.  I can go back to 2016 when Trump debated Hillary Clinton...and in my estimation, she clearly won and her poll numbers soared.  Then FBI Director James Comey infamously decided to interfere in the campaign at the most crucial moment and, with great fanfare, announced he was reopening an investigation into, of all things, Clinton's emails.  This was happening among the opposition's cries of "Lock her up!", so Comey knew that what he was doing was interference and did it anyway.  Yet in 2024 it's apparently okay for their champion to be a 34-count convicted felon!  So no, I don't care about debates and discount their usefulness, although to be fair the previous one did get Biden to bow out.  I recently listened to someone recount their experiences listening to Tuesday evening's debate after I myself had studiously avoided it...and was affirmed in that avoidance.  If by this time you haven't figured out what you're going to do in this year's presidential election, I don't know what to say to you.  But then again, these elections always seem to hinge on how the stupid, emotion-driven pain-in-the-ass last-minute undecided voters sway, don't they...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 10

This week I managed to read a couple more stories from the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection, and containing material first published in the year 1997.  Without any further ado, here are my reactions...

LETHE by Walter Jon Williams

In a future humanity where people can have multiple copies made of themselves and be broken down and built back up...molecule by molecule...by advanced nanotechnology, a man grieves for the loss of his female mate who died in a deep space accident.  He seeks solace through his "sibs", that is, his other living copies, but they and their mates...the same copies as his lost partner...turn out to be individuals in their own right and quite different in outlook from him.  I look at this fictional scenario and hope it never happens.  Life extension, yes, but the copies aspect, a big NO.  I never could latch on to the notion that my subjective identity can be artificially copied and transferred to the new, manufactured physical version of myself, like those Star Trek "Beam me up, Scotty" transporters...

WINTER FIRE by Geoffrey A. Landis 

It is a future time in Salzburg, Austria, and that long-peaceful city is besieged in a war of attrition between advanced pan-Slavic forces and the more western-oriented defenders.  Written in the middle of the brutal wars of the 1990s involving the former Yugoslavia states of Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, it is a commentary on how these horrible situations are contained while just a few miles away life goes on as usual.  In "our" world, Salzburg, although near the turmoil, is happily insulated from it.  I think that's what the author was driving at here: the choices the outside world makes that keep such horrible, genocidal conflicts going...and separated from themselves.  Also, how most of the victims of war within the general population have no notion as to why there is a war in the first place, as it takes on a mindless, all-consuming momentum of its own...

Next week: more from '97...

About the Recent US Open and Tennis in General

This past weekend the US Open professional tennis tournament, taking place in the Flushing Meadows complex in Queens, New York, concluded with the women and men finals.  Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner, two of the favorites, took the titles in each category and I'm happy with that.  Actually, I'm happy with whoever wins, quite the opposite of the typical fanatically partisan fan...and I don't give a hoot about which country they are from.  These players all work hard to perfect their craft, and this is the big opportunity for them to display their efforts to the world...good for them.  I will say that the sport of tennis is extremely competitive, more so than, say, running, swimming or golf.  In those sports, one can gauge their progress and success by their finishing times or by how many strokes they take to complete the course.  With tennis, though, the pertinent statistics are almost completely dependent on the direct competition...if your opponent is playing extraordinarily well, then you're going to look worse regardless of how well you're playing.  I'd like to follow tennis more...maybe I'll check out the Tennis Channel from time to time to see what's going on.  As for my own level of playing, let's just say that I did complete a beginner's class in the sport while at college (in 1975) and have played very little since...

"PTC-6" to Become Francine Soon Today

This cyclone at the western end of a protracted stationary summer weather front spanning the western Gulf of Mexico through northern Florida...arcing through Louisiana...is predicted to be named Tropical Storm Francine sometime today.  Its maximum sustained winds are already at 50 mph...tropical storm strength...and it is forecast to develop into a substantial hurricane before eventually making landfall along the western US Gulf Coast.  At this writing, they're just calling it "PTC-6", or "Potential Tropical Cyclone Six".  Doesn't matter, I'm just wondering which Weather Channel meteorologists will be stationed at the target locations like Corpus Christi and Houston...Paul Goodloe has already been out there in New Orleans "braving" the heavy rains there.  This 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, prediction to be a strong one with many named storms, has been pretty much on hold for the past few weeks with dust from the Sahara stymieing tropical storm development in the eastern Atlantic.  But maybe things are about to change...

Our Weekend Beach Visit

Melissa and I enjoyed our outing to Daytona Beach this weekend...we just got back into Gainesville.  There didn't seem to be very many people out there, and that suited us just fine.  The beach was fine for walking, and the swimming pool at our hotel was usually empty and we used it during our brief stay.  I'd like to say it's nice to be back, but frankly I'd rather be extending my stay over there...

Happy Anniversary, My Sweet Melissa

I'd like to wish my wonderful, dear and beautiful wife Melissa a very happy anniversary.  We've been married for 38 fantastic years today! I love you so much, Sweetheart!

Ran Florida Track Club's "Is It Fall?" Four-Mile Race This Morning

This morning I decided to skip the usual Depot Parkrun 5K event and instead switch over into Florida Track Club mode, running their "Is It Fall?" four-mile race.  It starts and finishes at Squirrel Ridge Park on Williston Road close to US 441 on the south side of Gainesville.  For almost the entire race, the course has us running the backroads of SW 17th Terrace and SW 56th Avenue...it's an "out and back" race.  I ran it last year...my goal today was simply to improve my finishing time.  And I did, considerably, despite the dew point being at 75 degrees, with 100 % humidity: a really muggy morning.  I was slower the first half than in the last half, a common trait of my racing.  My final chip time was 36:46...click HERE to view the results, provided by Second Wind Timing.  They gave out awards for the top finishers, age-graded: the formula they used qualified me for a plastic water bottle with the FTC logo on it.  The club president told me before the race that they'd be doing something different over in Felasco Park this time next year: a combined 5K and 10K trail run there...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 9

I admit it: reading...and even writing as well...hasn't been very fun for me lately, with the recently transpired events in my life.  Yet I still plod along, reading and writing less but still coming out with blog articles, albeit not daily (at least for this season).  I'm continuing with the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection, and have the next two stories in it, from the year 1997, to discuss...

YEYUKA by Greg Egan

This is a biting commentary on the disparity between the elite level in medical technology for some and the scarcity of anything effective in the Third World.  A physician wears a ring that diagnoses and treats just about anything medical that could go wrong in his body, but his technology isn't available to those living in Uganda, the site of a major outbreak of the fatal disease Yeyuka.  Yet some there are feverishly working hard to come up with bootleg versions based on spare parts they can muster. up  Out protagonist doctor discovers this on a volunteer mission to treat the epidemic and has a major ethical decision to make...

FROST PAINTING by Carolyn Ives Gilman

A professional critic searches the Montana wilderness to find her artist live-in lover, who left her to join a weird commune that supposedly is in deep communication to an alien race residing there.  Is art for its own sake worth basing one's life on, or is tailoring one's talents to others' preferences a sellout.? This, along with a pretty disparaging view of heterosexual men by the lesbian protagonist, dominate this brief tale...

More next week from the Dozois anthology...  

Enjoying Watching This Year's US Open Tennis Tourney

I enjoyed watching the US Open this weekend, with the round of 16 taking place on both the women and men's sides of this major tennis tournament, held in Queens, New York in Flushing Meadows.  I got to see some really good matches, although it seemed to me that for the men they were too drawn out with their best-of-five sets per match, as opposed to the women's more reasonable best-of-three.  My favorites so far have advanced...Iga Swiatek and Daniil Medvedev...and I like some of the upcoming matchups as they head into the quarterfinals.  Tennis is one of those special sports that are a combination of exceptional coordination, strength, mobility, endurance, and a chess-like sense of strategy...too bad I didn't get past the beginner stage.  Still, it's fun to watch although I found it a little sad to see people like Nick Kyrgios, whom I followed in years past, relegated to the broadcast analysis role on the sidelines after injuries to his knee.  Although I don't dig hyped-up nationalism in international sports...the recent Olympics is a case in point...it still disappointed me that the Russian and Belarus players are there without any noted national reference, as if we're going to make a difference in those governments' ongoing military actions by simply pretending they don't exist.  The world is full of nasty little despotic, belligerent regimes and their athletes are still welcome on the world stage with open arms, along with their countries' banners.  Sure, express your displeasure with the war over there but let's cut it with the double standards, okay?

Gator Football Saturday Performance Not to Many's Liking

Well, after the University of Florida football team convincingly bowed down to Miami in their Gainesville game yesterday afternoon by a whopping 41-17 score, it's not surprising that clamors are circulating for third-year head coach Billy Napier...who has yet to produce even a winning season, much less contend for any title...to be replaced, and soon.  I predicted this, as well as the same for a substantial number of colleges across the country after their teams lost their opening games.  But for the Gators, people have come to expect elite teams each year, and what they saw on Saturday was anything but that.  I think it's reasonable to have moderately successful seasons, going say 8-4 or 9-3 and getting a nice bowl bid at the end.  But that doesn't line up with the viciously competitive and professional turn the sport of collegiate football has reached.  For too many, if you don't win it all then you're a failure: lighten up, folks.  Still, I don't think Napier has a grasp on his own team, which played very sloppily...

Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun This Morning

This morning I went back to my more "normal" race location: Depot Park, just south of downtown Gainesville, where (almost) every Saturday morning at 7:30 they hold a five-kilometer (3.1 miles) race, free for anyone who wants to participate.  You can sign up online and they'll give you a barcode you can copy and take to the race so that your finishing time can be posted on their website.  Today was my 52nd Depot Parkrun finish...I wore my recently-acquired red tee-shirt displaying "50" for that recently-attained milestone.  The temperature at race time was 72 with a 97% humidity...not good but it could have been worse.  I decided beforehand to run the entire race without walking breaks...I wanted to test out my brand-new Brooks Glycerin running shoes.  Not feeling all that well physically (digestive issues), I managed to pace myself throughout the race and finish with a time of 27:25...click HERE to view the race results.  Looks like a lot of folks showed up for today's event, and many of them wisely walked it...maybe I'll do likewise next time around, we'll see.  Afterwards I tried going to the Starbucks near the University of Florida campus, which wasn't such a good idea.  It being opening day in the football season with the Gators at home in an afternoon game against Miami, the place was packed: I headed back north instead to the Dunkin' Donuts near my home...

Quote of the Week...from Stephen King

We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics...trying to play a serious part in the world...to a culture that's really entertainment-based.               Stephen King

Stephen King is my all-time favorite writer...I've read more of his books by far than those by any other.  I'm not convinced, though, that this in itself means I would want to hang on his every opinion any more than I would anyone else...writing per se does not automatically impart supreme wisdom on the craftsman.  But that having been said, I am more or less in alignment with King's views on politics and society in general.  As far as the above quote of his is concerned, it's definitely an over-generalization of the state of our country, but since I grew up as his contemporary, immersed in it all, I totally get what he is driving at.  And I think the change from seriousness to entertainment began some time in the late 1960s when the drug/sex revolution, coinciding with the counterculture anti-war movement, went viral long before that term became common currency.  The seventies heralded the "me" generation that focused on self-examination and alternative lifestyles.  Then came the digital revolution and all kinds of entertainment became easy to access and portable...and here we are, all in our "safe spaces".  I remember the generation that came before me and it definitely had a different outlook on life.  I think that's one of the reasons that my all-time favorite novel of Stephen King is 11/22/63, a brilliant time-travel story that deeply examines those earlier attitudes and emphasis in our culture.  Try reading it some time if you haven't...not many books have literally made me cry, but this one did...

US Open Tennis Tournament Underway, How Much Can I Watch?

I was surprised to notice the other day that the US Open tennis tournament, held annually in New York and part of the sport's vaunted Grand Slam, had already begun with first round play.  Unfortunately, the regular channels on my lineup weren't carrying it...I'm assuming that some network wants more paying customers for one of their "premium" channels and was showing it there.  In any event, last night it was the second round and ESPN was finally showing it...sadly, by the time I got home from work they were done and back in football discussion mode.  Tennis, like horse racing, is a sport that I typically do not follow unless there is a special event going on.  With tennis it's the US Open, not the Australian, French or Wimbledon events.  I think that's in large part because three years ago I was home recovering from open heart surgery and had a lot of time on my hands to watch TV, and there it was, the US Open. I'm looking forward to seeing how the stars fare in their early play as well as take notice of this year's upstart underdogs...and there are always a few of those. For the longest time I refused to watch any tennis because the players in bygone years used to argue bitterly with line judges as to whether the ball fell in or out of bounds...in recent years computer technology has "virtually" eliminated that snag. Let's see how far good ol' Novak Djokovic gets this time around...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 8

Once again it's time for a look at the short fiction I've been reading, although it's been creeping along recently at a terribly slow pace.  I'm going through a retrospective of the year 1997, using tales appearing in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection and edited by the late Gardner Dozois.  Here are my reactions to two more stories as they appear in the book...

THE PIPES OF PAN by Brian Stableford

What if, in our distant future, humanity has advanced to where people are essentially immortal, with the aging process eliminated?  How would it deal with the twin facets of overpopulation and having children?  The author suggests a possible solution, which involves the protagonist Wendy, a thirteen-year-old girl trying to hide from her parents her "coming of age".  There's a lot of Peter Pan story references in this piece about a utopian future turned dystopian...

CROSSING CHAO MENG FU by G. David Nordley

As a prequel to an earlier story by Nordley titled Into the Miranda Rift (click on the title for my review), a young poet during the (future) pioneering ventures across our Solar System teams up with a group of professional explorers, engineers and scientists to travel to Mercury and climb down into a deep crevice, with all the accompanying perils, in the old hardy tradition of exploration.  The story, full of technical information over my head...especially about mountain climbing...reminded me, with its positive spirit, of Robert Heinlein's old optimistic stories about space exploration.  I wish there were more stories like this around.  But then again, maybe they are and they're just not getting picked for these kinds of anthologies...

That's all with the short stories until next week...

Last Saturday's College Football Opener

This past Saturday I discovered that, for some schools, the 2024 college football season was underway...a week before my hometown of Gainesville witnesses the University of Florida's opening game against cross-state rival Miami.  Florida State faced Georgia Tech in an Atlantic Coast Conference contest, but neither side was "at home".  No, for some unfathomable reason, the game was staged across the Atlantic in a beautiful stadium in, of all places, Dublin, Ireland.  For the life of me I cannot understand why both the college and professional American football establishment here in the United States keep holding games in Europe, essentially depriving hometown fans here from being able to attend them.  To the big shots who keep pushing this agenda, I say: get real, nobody actually plays our version of football in Europe.  They either go for soccer or, in some countries, add rugby.  Those are the sports kids over there grow up playing, not our version of "football" that has players all padded up and helmeted.  Well, anyway I decided to follow the FSU-Tech contest and they were continually reminding me that the Seminoles were such a great team...so why was Georgia Tech playing them to a draw?  It was then that I was reminded of the fact that it's much more enjoyable to watch televised sports with the sound muted.  As it was, Tech beat the 'Noles on a last-second field goal...I wonder how many of those attending Dubliners even knew what the hell was going on...

Ran the US Road Running 10K at Gainesville's Westside Park This Morning

US Road Running is a nationwide network of running races that are typically staged within various parks.  They usually involve limited course lengths with numerous laps and "there-and-back" instructions to complete the course.  I noticed them a few years ago when they called themselves "Medal Madness" and had races at Ocala's Baseline Trailhead Park that ranged up to half marathon in length.  I had often considered driving down there...some forty miles away...just to see what they were like, but alas, never got around to it.  They started one of their monthly races in Gainesville just a month ago, and the location is the very convenient Albert Massey "Westside" Park just a short drive from my home.  The Gainesville version is held on the fourth Saturday each month, and races for distances of one mile, 5K, 10K and 15K all begin at the same time, 8 AM.  I signed up for a yearly subscription, knowing that I'd quickly recoup my investment with the 50% discounts for each race.  Missing July's race, I resolved to try it this month, and this morning I completed their 10K (6.2-mile) event.  The temperature at race time was 73 with 100% humidity and mostly clear skies...unpleasant to put it lightly.  Along with some 20+ other runners/walkers (most of whom did the 5K), we took off pretty much on time.  There were only two people I saw working the race, which was very low-tech.  On the back side of the course I got a little lost a couple of times and had to backtrack, but ultimately figured it all out.  The 5K has you going down this winding path through and around the park for some .78 miles and then you turn around and head back to the starting line.  Repeat it for a second time and you're done...my 10K had me doing it for four laps.  I finished with a time of 1:00:45, which I believe was my fastest 10K performance since 2017...turns out only two other people signed up for that distance.  I liked the low-key aspect to US Road Running, and they tend to go with special themes throughout the year: Pirate, Viking, Ninja and (today) Luau.  I got a Luau participation medal for my efforts, and left feeling that maybe when the weather gets a little better I'd like to try their 15K distance (6 laps on the course).  Click HERE to view today's results from their website...

Quote of the Week...from Jack McTavish

Nonsense, go out harder and finish harder.             Jack McTavish, Dean Karnazes' high school track coach

Dean Karnazes is a famous long-distance runner who wrote the popular book a few years ago titled Ultramarathon Man...I've read it a number of times and it was a big inspiration to me when I returned to the sport in my early fifties.  In an early chapter he described his first high school track coach, Jack McTavish, who made a big impression on Karnazes.  McTavish's advice on running races was simple: always run hard...forget about pacing yourself.  The above quote was his response to Karnazes telling him that he needed some left-over energy for the race's final kick.  Although I'm not totally in the Coach's corner about this one issue, I do think something can be said for me going out harder at the start of the races I've been running.  One thing I've noticed in a race's early stage is that the simple presence of the other runners surrounding me produces an inhibitory hindrance to my speed...I have to intentionally run harder just to get through the crowd.  I've also had numerous experiences over the years with negative racing splits, that is, running the second half faster than the first...an indicator that I was erring on the side of caution earlier on.  I think having someone like McTavish at a formative time in a kid's life can have a great influence on them.  Unfortunately, I can't recall this happening for me.  But you know, that doesn't mean I can't derive some inspiration from someone else's experience.  Thanks, Dean...and Coach McTavish...

Pretty Much Ignored the Political Conventions in 2024

Have you been following the political conventions this year? The Democratic version is just finishing up and, as with the Republicans a few weeks before, I thoroughly ignored it other than happenstance momentarily hitting up on a station covering it while surfing the radio or TV.  When I did run across the convention, inevitably someone would be up there giving an insanely giddy and emotional speech, doubtless (accurately) assessing the susceptibility of the general population to manipulation.  Cynics like the late comedian George Carlin have expressed the futility of even voting, period.  I'm not at that point...I still vote...but beyond giving upcoming elections a brief-but-reasonable piece of my attention, I just let it go and let the fools freak out on Facebook, Fox and the other propaganda outlets.  And, as I am more and more getting accustomed to say, believe whatever you want to believe...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 7

Once again here we are, another Wednesday and time to reflect on some sci-fi from 1997, as presented in the Gardner Dozois-edited anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection.  Truth be told, in recent trying weeks I've not exactly been in a reading mood...not too keen on writing, either.  So this is indeed for me an exercise in personal self-discipline.  And it would help if I liked all the stories I encountered...but I guess that would be unrealistic...

HEART OF WHITENESSE by Howard Waldrop

It's an excessively stylized tale of alternative history set in around the turn of the sixteenth century in an England run by crime bosses.  A professional assassin from Cambridge sets out on his assignment, to silence (permanently) an outspoken free-thinker (and free-speaker) from Oxford.  I detect a lot of intended humor in this tale, but here a clear case can be made for clear writing... 

THE WISDOM OF OLD EARTH by Michael Swanwick

This one's set in the far distant future when humanity's evolution has made it more diverse.  Countless generations of space dwellers have developed to adapt to those conditions while Earth natives themselves have become differentiated...with the spacer dwellers regarded as "higher": in some ways humanity hasn't changed, especially with their pecking orders.  A space-dweller has come to Earth and a native guide is there to take him to old Philadelphia to look for a fabled ancient bell (obviously the Liberty Bell).  The guide, a Canadian, takes a dim view of her crew from south of the border.  Her client for his part is, due to his life in reduced gravity, feeble and breaks his leg, causing a crisis of sorts with two of the guide's Canadian colleagues.  But it's the story's ending that seals it: human nature can be pretty uncaring and expedient...

Next week...more from 1997...

Went to Vote in Primary Election This Morning

This morning Melissa and I went down to our local precinct's polling place...at the Senior Recreation Center across the street from Wal-Mart in far northern Gainesville..and cast our August 20 Primary ballot.  There were five races on the sheet for us: US Senate, US House (District 3), two school board seats and a city commission spot.  The Senate and House contests were to nominate the party's candidate for the November general election and the others were straight elections to office.  No need to tell how I voted or which (if any) party the two of us belong to...we just did our civic duty and left.  But not before being subjected to what I think is overkill with regard to security.  Our votes after more than 4 hours of the polling station having been open only amounted to votes #53 and #54, but the hoops we had to jump through just to get our meager little ballots to fill out were far and beyond anything I had ever experienced with an election.  And to boot, the little room was packed with election workers eyeballing everything: yes, I think overkill pretty much describes it.  

A Podcaster's Take on the Reticular Activating System

A few days ago Mindset Mentor podcaster Rob Dial discussed something that drew my attention.  Although by no means a trained scientist, he has made no secret of his interest in neurology, especially with regard to how cognition affects our behavior.  In that episode, he brought up the concept of Reticular Activating System, or RAS.  According to Dial, RAS is the means our brains use to filter out the enormous amount of information our senses pick up (he cited 11 million bits/second), down to what we can consciously take it (only about 55-120-bits/second).  I don't know the science behind his claim, but I see his point and agree with it.  People can make their own deliberate decisions as to what they see as significant and also choose to diminish awareness of things they perceive as irrelevant or trivial.  The problem is when people allow others to filter out things for them...there is a word for this: brainwashing.  In case you're not getting what I'm driving at, Dial gave a simple example.  Let's say you're driving down the road a few miles.  Someone later asks you about the red cars you saw and it's likely you didn't even notice them.  But if on the same trip you had decided that red cars carried some significance, you would have been taking notice all around you.  Political propagandists, be it on social or mass media, do something similar, especially when pointing out flaws or mannerisms of their imagined opponents.  What all this results in are separate threads of shared cognition among population groups, depending on their members' chosen sources of information.  Which in a sense is a voluntary form of brainwashing.  What Rob Dial suggests is that each of us can sit down with pen and paper and work out the things that we want to emphasize and take in on our respective daily walks of life...that is, self-brainwashing, but not as a dog on someone else's leash!  So for me I'm finished with all the political BS and bias...you can believe whatever you want and worship whichever personality cult idol you want.  I am not triggered by the kinds of things others use to arouse mass fear and outrage...be a sheep and follow that crap if you want!  Life is too short and precious for me not to stop and assess the things that I as an individual deem to be important.  This doesn't mean that I don't deeply value those close to me, and I still see myself as being in the larger community of society around me.  But enough is enough: if Dial is right, brainwashing is going to happen whether someone does it to me or I do it to myself: I'm choosing the latter... 

A Return Visit with Melissa to Local Planetarium to See Mesmerica

From my own records it had been several years since I'd paid a visit to the Kika Silva Plan Planetarium at Santa Fe College here in Gainesville, but Melissa bought a couple of tickets to their ongoing Saturday afternoon/evening presentation titled Mesmerica, created by and featuring percussionist James Hood.  The show we attended yesterday began at 6:15 but we got there about a half hour earlier to get good seating for this show, which was a series of computer-enhanced light and color patterns as well as a foray into exotic settings.  The idea of it all was to place the viewer into a state of relaxation and suggestion...sounds a little like auto-hypnosis, doesn't it?  We both enjoyed Mesmerica, but truth be told I've seen this sort of thing before and wasn't all that impressed.  There were three scenes there I especially liked in the 45-minute program, but I felt that it could have flowed a little more smoothly than it did.  So this wasn't a typical planetarium show explaining what was going on in the nighttime sky.  Yet director James Albury...who was there for the times that I (sometimes along with Melissa or Will) visited back in 2013, 2014 and 2018...is still in charge and it was a nice feeling to hear his enthusiasm and pick up on his friendly demeanor.  He did slip in that Mars and Jupiter are visible in the far east just before sunrise.  Being actually "of age", my senior discounts there nowadays are merited...unlike previous times years ago when they automatically assumed from appearance that I was an old geezer...

Ran Gainesville's Weekly Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

Folks were positively giddy this morning at Gainesville's Depot Park, just a few blocks south of downtown.  Each Saturday morning at 7:30 they hold a free event, the Depot Parkrun 5K...you just sign up online and they issue a barcode to take to the race for your finishing time to be posted.  As I was saying, people were happy because the temperature had actually dipped below 70 degrees...69 at race time to be specific, with a humidity of (ugh) 98%.  Still, I took advantage of the largely imaginary improvement in the weather to go on an all-out speed-run to see if I could beat 27 minutes...and I did, finishing at 26:51.  My strategy was simple: go out hard at the start and run hard the rest of the way!  In spite of my Parkrun personal record (my previous was 27:01), I finished in 33rd place...there were a lot of fast people there today.  Once again I was a little surprised (and dismayed) to not hear the usual cacophony of bird songs at the park...I've been accustomed to the many red-winged blackbirds, grackles, mourning doves and others: what's going on there? You can see today's results by clicking HERE... 

Quote of the Week...from Simone Biles

If you ever have a mistake, you try to just kind of forget about it because if you carry that with you for the rest of the routine, then the rest of your routine might not go as planned.  So you just kind of shake it off, and you continue your routine like you didn't fall.                              ---Simone Biles

Yesterday I wrote about the Paris Olympics and that I tended to avoid sports like gymnastics in which judges subjectively awarded scores to the competitors.  One exception: when American Simone Biles competed for the all-around women's gold medal.  During the whole time the NBC commentators would point out this mistake or that one, as if they themselves could even perform on the same floor as this group of the world's best.  Biles for her part made some "mistakes" but as the above quote of hers points out, you just have to shake it off and keep performing as if nothing happened.  That, along with other quotes of hers pointing to how simply having fun doing something challenging can massively enhance your life as well as performance, impressed me about her wisdom, far beyond her age.  Yes, I got a little tired of all the Google Gemini and pharmaceutical commercials, but that doesn't detract from my appreciation of Simone Biles...

About the Recent Paris Summer Olympics

Well, the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics have come and gone, and they pretty much went the way I expected.  Fortunately, extraneous political and terrorist activity didn't cloud the games although the argument can be legitimately made that with the exclusion of Russia (and Belarus) for their invasion of Ukraine, there was a huge gap in them with so many missing premier athletes.  For this alone, I thought that NBC, the network covering it all, was a bit silly with their overemphasis on national medal tallies and the "competition" between the USA and China for most gold medals.  Don't get me wrong: I tend to root for the "home team" but I don't get carried away with nationalism, either.  I think the shining moment, though, for me was in the men's track 1,500 meter final when, after all the preliminary drama about the two favorites (from Norway and Britain) having a bitter rivalry between them, the American slipped in there at the very end and won it...ha-ha-ha!  As I wrote before the Olympics, I tended to follow objectively measurable individual sports, enjoying the track and field, biking and swimming competitions the most and generally avoiding diving, gymnastics and team sports.  I dug the golf, although for some reason I veered away from the tennis and table tennis...well, the latter was obvious since I had trouble following the lightning-fast motion of the ball across the table.  I'm glad it's over...especially all those commercials featuring star American athletes.  I'm more in tune with participatory athletics over the elite elements of various sports, but often I can learn a lot about proper form from watching the best in the business...and for better or worse it's definitely a business these days....

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 6

We've reached yet another Wednesday as I continue plodding through the Gardner Dozois-edited anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection and featuring his picks from 1997.  I remember around that time being a fan of alternative rock, with my favorite station, now defunct, on 97.7.  Rock/104 also played music to my liking: Naked Eye by Luscious Jackson and Everlong by the Foo Fighters were my favorite songs from that year. Also, 1997 produced two more popular songs I've grown to cherish: Building a Mystery by Sarah McLachlan and Sunny Came Home by Shawn Colvin.  But what am I doing...this is about sci-fi short stories! Onward...

MARROW by Robert Reed

Marrow was Reed's breakthrough novella for a much-longer same-titled novel and a subsequent series of books based on his particular science fiction universe: another reviewer compared it in that regard to Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, which also began as a shorter work.  But Marrow is much more complicated and harder to grasp than Asimov's fiction was.  It is many, many millennia into the future and humanity has undergone a vast genetic transformation into virtually immortal beings that automatically repair themselves as they go on and on for thousands of years.  They discover a vast Jupiter-sized "ship", built by an unknown race eons earlier, that was wiped out in an attack by another group.  The protagonist is a 
"captain" in the command hierarchy here and she is assigned to investigate a hidden, violent world just discovered at the ship's core: will it solve the mystery of who the Builders were?  Lots of plot twists and double-crossings here: humanity may have physically changed but their power-grabbing, petty and jealous natures haven't.  Personally, I greatly preferred Asimov's Foundation for its plain writing style...

Next week: more from the 1997 anthology of science fiction stories...

Ernesto Latest Atlantic Tropical Storm, Not a Threat to US Mainland

 

In keeping up with the Atlantic hurricane season in '24, we now have the fifth named storm, Ernesto, currently (at this writing noon today) at tropical storm strength with sustained winds of 50 mph.  Although Ernesto is about to pass through the US and British Virgin Islands and enter the open Atlantic just north of Puerto Rico, unlike its predecessor Debby, it is destined to be a hurricane of the open Atlantic...only Bermuda is remotely threatened.  Of course, whenever there is a hurricane churning through the western Atlantic, coastal warnings will abound along the US east coast about high waves and rip current.  Ernesto is a sign that the 2024 hurricane season may be about to get into high gear...not a pleasant thought...

Five Years Ago in Chicago

Five years ago at this time Melissa, Will and I were having a great time visiting Chicago...the above picture was taken at the Navy Pier there by Lake Michigan.  It's still hard for me to fathom the loss of my dear, wonderful son.  Melissa is also deeply in grief, not to mention enduring difficult postoperative chemotherapy for her breast cancer.  It's been a very sad and tough summer for us, and the months ahead promise to pose their own challenges as well.  But for us still here with our lives to live...and I include my beloved daughter Rebecca...while it is important to recognize our own universal physical mortality, feeling and expressing gratitude for what we do have in this limited time allotted for us is also necessary, deriving joy from one another and appreciating the simple pleasures of existence while living in the present moment.  May you likewise enjoy and cherish your own life as well...

Walked the Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

Before going off to bed Friday nights, when I plan on doing the Depot Parkrun 5K the next morning I first check the local forecast for Gainesville...this time I knew it would be especially hot and humid.  And I was right: 79 degrees, 95% humidity...ugh!  So once again I easily decided to speed-walk the 3.1 miles instead of running it.  And like two weeks ago, I think I did well enough, with an identical finishing time of 38:19...click HERE to view the race results.  Yet I still feel that I can make some meaningful improvement in my walking form while pushing myself a bit harder.  My goal is to speed-walk a 5K at a better-than 12 mph pace: this would represent a 37:12 finishing time, so I don't have that much further to go.  This was my 50th finish at a Parkrun event, so I'm now qualified to get a "50" tee-shirt.  That's good, because I seem to have misplaced the "25" shirt I had been wearing.  The Depot Parkrun is a part of a wide network of Parkruns, having originated in England just a few years ago, spreading to several countries across the world.  Participation is free, although since it's completely volunteer-driven, they do encourage you to step forward in that regard.  To have your finishing time recorded and posted on their website, you first register online and then bring the barcode they give you to the race to scan along with the finishing token they hand you at the finishing line.  After scanning, the results are usually posted around 9-9:30.  On this particular morning, unlike the way it usually is at this pretty, partially nature park just south of downtown, I didn't hear any bird songs...maybe the muggy conditions had something to do with it... 

Quote of the Week...from Sting of the Police

"When the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around"...by Sting of the Police 

The Police, a highly talented British reggae/punk-rock/jazz trio from the late seventies and early eighties, is one of my all-time favorite musical acts...I was not at all happy when they broke up after only five (incredibly good) albums.  The above quote, penned by their chief songwriter and front man Sting (Gordon Sumner), is actually the rather long title of a track on their 1981 third LP, Zenyatta Mondatta.  It is also a heavily-repeated chorus that rams home the deep...but oft-neglected wisdom...of making do with what you have.  It speaks to the tendency of folks to let themselves become mired in discontent and grief over their situations instead of working in a more constructive manner with the circumstances they face.  This spring and summer has been especially difficult for myself and Melissa, and our "world" has definitely fit the parameters of this song.  Not that the rest of our little planet isn't undergoing some trying times as well, and I could easily slide into a state of hopelessness by focusing on one thing after another that is "running down".  Yet in the middle of this there is hope and much to be grateful for.  That doesn't mean denying the tragedy and troubles, but rather to place them in a broader perspective and to realize that life by its very nature is a struggle...and embracing that struggle is indeed the way to "make the best of what's still around"...

Had Fun Putting Together Jigsaw Puzzle

I recently bought a new jigsaw puzzle titled October Skies, a 300-piece painting by Alan Giana in the Memory Lane series.  It was pleasant to take an hour or so and put it together...I'll probably be back soon at Joann Fabrics off Archer Road to get another one, maybe with more pieces.  They have quite a collection there. This one is put out by Master Pieces, the perfect name for a jigsaw puzzle business...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 5

Today I resume my weekly look at short stories I've been reading, slogging through the years in the genre of science fiction. I've reached 1997 and am in the middle of reading the late Gardner Dozois' series The Year's Best Science Fiction, this volume being the Fifteenth Annual Collection and containing stories from that year.  So without further ado, let's see my reactions to the next three tales appearing in that book...

ECHOES by Alan Brennert

A young woman, genetically engineered for high intelligence and artistic talent, begins to see images, or "echoes" of herself in her everyday life.  The disturbing phenomenon convinces her of the myriad lost possibilities as to what she could have become.  But is this simply in her mind, or is there a literal meaning to this all...

GETTING TO KNOW YOU by David Marusek

Sitting here reading this story in 2024 amid all the accelerating AI culture around us makes this tale more immediately relevant than many others.  A young jet-setting corporate investigator relies on her portable AI robot for information and direction, but Bug is getting just a bit TOO intrusive and testy...time for an updated model.  But after her "partner" acquits itself well in difficult circumstances, maybe that replacement model might not be the way to go. Being of mixed opinions about AI, I also had mixed feelings about this story...

BALINESE DANCER by Gwyneth Jones

A dystopian tale about a bickering couple, along with their young son, driving in a declining France looking for a camping site on vacation. The wife, a biological research scientist, has been summarily fired for simply reporting a find that her boss finds politically incorrect, and the husband is a moderately successful writer of children's books.  Their experiences on the road...and at camp where a cat they name "Balinese Dancer" befriends them...are a word picture of troubled times and an extension, in my opinion, of where we're sadly heading. It's also an indictment of how some people will twist objective scientific research to suit their own subjective agendas...

Next week: more from 1997...

About the Upcoming August Primary Election

Before the general election in November, my state of Florida is holding a primary election on August 20th.  I opted out of the vote-by-mail system and plan to cast my ballot in person that Tuesday morning.  In partisan nominating contests, the US Senate seat currently held by Republican Rick Scott is being contested, although I doubt his GOP challengers will garner many votes.  On the Democratic side four candidates are vying to replace Scott next January when the new term begins. US representative, state representative and Alachua County sheriff constitute the other partisan contests on the August ballot.  Then we go on to the county school board, with two incumbents being challenged.  And there is one county commission race and one city commission race there as well.  I'm not sure what good my one vote will do with each of the available races, it being just a drop in the bucket, as the cliche goes. But as with other elements of my life, I've grown to consider consistent, reasoned voting whenever the opportunity arises to be a worthwhile personal discipline that ties me in...no matter how tenuously...with the society around me.  May the best candidates win, and may all the eventual winners perform their duties conscientiously and ethically while I wish them success regardless of whether I voted for them...

On Developing a Second Brain in Foreign Language Learning

As Steve Kaufmann, a Canadian polyglot who fell in love with language learning early on during his ongoing 77-year existence on this planet, has reiterated that achieving a meaningful level of understanding in a foreign language requires a dedicated amount of listening and...hopefully...reading time whereby one's neural pathways are redrawn to develop what is essentially a "second brain" in that language. I am probably studying too many languages at the same time with Chinese, Russian and Spanish currently on my plate, but that's a lot fewer than the number I had been pursuing. Progress is difficult to measure or report since it isn't easily quantified: sure, I can count the words I've learned, but actually comprehending the spoken language in real time is a completely different matter. I would be better served in this regard were I to habituate myself to deeper, concentrated listening and reading with available translation...Kaufmann's LingQ website can be a help with this, and until recent difficult events arose demanding my attention, had been using ChatGPT to generate practice sentences in my target languages on different levels of proficiency.  Yet I'm a little too tentative with computer apps and maneuvering through the digital quagmire that others seem to effortlessly glide through. But if I can intentionally learn to better use productive apps and functions, then this can be a great help.  In any event, I do enjoy studying these three languages, and I guess that's the most important thing... 

Tropical Storm Debby to Soon Become Hurricane, Hit Florida's Big Bend Region

Before all this recent travail and tragedy entered my hitherto happy-go-lucky existence, I had remarked on this blog that I might just follow this 2024 Atlantic hurricane season more closely than in past years.  I'm still sticking to that idea, and we have the fourth named storm, Debby, churning and intensifying in the eastern Gulf of Mexico as it makes its way to an early Monday morning landfall at my home state of Florida's swampy "Big Bend" region.  Sometime this evening Debby will gain hurricane status and may intensify further before landfall.  It's dropping a horrendous amount of rain and Gainesville is currently expected to get around possibly 8 inches of water, creating localized flooding threats.  Once Debby passes through Florida tomorrow, it is expected to veer eastward and, as it slows down, cause much flooding in southeastern Georgia before inflicting itself on South and North Carolina.   As for Gainesville, tonight and all day tomorrow will be the window for concern.  Right now at this posting around 5:17 PM, Debby has maximum sustained winds of 65 mph with the barometric pressure at 992 mb, traveling northward at 12 mph...

On Present Personal Storms

I seem to be passing through a period in my life reminding me of the travails of Job in that Old Testament book of the Scriptures.  With my wife's illness and son's passing, for me it has been a time of "life, interrupted", with a grave challenge for me to either grow through it all or begin a withdrawal into inaction and hopelessness: I choose the first path.  I will never forget my dear boy Will and will cherish his memory...and the hurt will always be there, I am sure.  And I am determined to see Melissa through this medical storm in her precious life, and to come out of it stronger and looking forward to each new day as we enthusiastically face them together...

Walked Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

2024 has developed into a very trying, tragic year for me and my family.  Melissa was diagnosed in May with an aggressive variant of breast cancer.  Although she was blessed with a speedy early diagnosis and the surgery performed on the 30th that month removed the cancerous tumor (and presumably the cancer from her body), she is now on a succession of difficult chemotherapy cycles that will last into the fall...followed by radiation treatments.  In the midst of all this my dear son, Will, died on July 18th...nine days ago.  So with our bereavement for Will and my care for Melissa, my normal, routine existence to which I had grown accustomed has been drastically altered.  But some things can still be done and it's a healthy thing, I think, to continue with the Depot Parkrun I had been doing regularly before all this hit us.  This morning it was 73 degrees with 100% humidity...but clear skies...and I had already planned on speed-walking the 3.1-mile course through pretty Depot Park, some four blocks south of downtown Gainesville.  The goal was simply to walk as fast as I could and to keep some semblance of proper race-walking form.  The spirit among the volunteers and runners/walkers seemed very positive, and that was a help to me.  I sweated a bit from the walk after it ended, but wasn't even remotely tired...my finishing time was 38:19, some 30 seconds faster than my previous best 5K speed-walk.  You can read the results by clicking HERE.  Next month...although not next week...I'd like to continue this helpful habit with another summertime speed-walk at the park...

For My Dear Son Will

My dear son Will passed away at his home this past Thursday.  I miss him so much. He was the kindest, most generous person I've ever known...and he was my son.  What a blessing, and what a terrible loss, as if someone came along and cut out a huge part of my life.  This wound I know will be with me throughout my life, or at least its scars on my soul.  I will always treasure the memory of Will, from his birth in 1990, childhood, and as a wonderful and deeply caring, responsible adult.  God bless you, my dear, sweet Will, and may you enjoy His peace...

Family Tragedy, Blog Interruption

A tragedy occurred in my family today, the loss of a dear life close to me.  I am beside myself in grief and don't feel it appropriate to elaborate any further in this matter.  At the same time, I don't see how continuing to put out daily blog articles about various topics for public reading is appropriate, either.  Yet I want to maintain my daily writing habit throughout this sad and distressing season.  So I am making this blog...hopefully temporarily...only available to read by myself, the author.  I know of some dear regular readers and I regret this action for both their and my sake, especially the one who is so kind with her comments.  So, for a season of time you will not be able to read this blog.  Hopefully, though, when and if I think it's time to resume its public availability, I intend to return, along with a backlog of dated material to read...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 4

It's time for another weekly look at science fiction short fiction that appears in the series The Year's Best Science Fiction, edited by the late Gardner Dozois.  The year in focus is 1997 and the specific volume is titled Fifteenth Annual Collection.  My local public library doesn't have this series for checkout and to buy them hard-copy would be way too cumbersome since there are a lot of them in the series and each one is pretty thick.  So the advance of Kindle has really helped me in this ongoing project: I have all fifteen of the first books in the series with easy digital access, and I can read stories conveniently at different opportune moments during my day.  But let's now delve into the next three stories...

ITSY BITSY SPIDER by James Patrick Kelly

The setting is the year 2038...only 14 years from now but 41 from when this story was published.  A woman visits the father who abandoned her in her childhood many years before, full of bitterness at him but feeling responsible to her recently deceased mother, who inexplicably maintained some affection toward him and bequeathed him some money.  At his home she encounters a robot girl who looks and sounds uncannily like she did as a little girl.  As she talks with her long-lost deadbeat dad, who has declined cognitively, she realizes why his robot assistant/caretaker is the way she is...and why her mother wanted her to see him.  I wonder how close we'll be to this scenario with AI when 2038 gets here...

A SPY IN EUROPA by Alastair Reynolds

Off in the reasonably distant future when the solar system has been settled and humans genetically transformed to adapt to different environments, the balance of power has shifted from Earth to the outer planets...mainly Jupiter...as two competing factions based on moons Europa and Ganymede play a life-and-death struggle to dominate the other.  A spy from the latter is sent to pick up special information from an agent they planted in Europa...lots of crazy plot twists and double-crossings here, enough to make my head spin.  And a bit of hard sci-fi, especially with regard to biology, is thrown in for good measure...

THE UNDISCOVERED by William Sanders

An alternative history story has William Shakespeare one night fleeing pursuers in London while drunk.  He finds a ship and climbs aboard to sleep it off and then discovers the next day he's on the high seas, headed for what would become America.  This story is told from the vantage point of a Cherokee leader who befriends Shakespeare...now a slave won from another tribe in a skirmish.  The language barriers are immense, but the two reach a basic level of communication and Spear-Shaker, as he is called, even stages a play with the community actively participating.  A funny story, but ultimately I failed to see where the author, a Cherokee himself, was getting at other than maybe showing how crazy they thought white people were...no argument from me...

Next week: more sci-fi adventures originally published in 1997...

Just Finished Reading You Like It Darker by Stephen King (Part 2)

Below are my reactions to the final six tales appearing in the recently published short story and novella collection by Stephen King titled You Like It Darker.  Overall, I was very impressed by this effort of his...

RED SCREEN (short story)

A New York City detective is investigating a man's murder of his wife, who he claims was no longer in her body and had been taken over by an alien.  The suspect further elaborates that he knew of this extraterrestrial conspiracy by going on the Dark Web, and that a spouse's nit-picking, nagging behavior is a sign of being possessed.  The detective returns home to his own wife, who recently has been stepping up her own nagging of him: guess where this goes...

THE TURBULENCE EXPERT (short story)

A man seems to be in a special "black ops" organization, going on special assignments that seem to carry some extremely unpleasant and scary elements with them while he enjoys special privileges and amenities from the "organization".  With great trepidation he boards a passenger jet flight, and as it goes into extreme turbulence he knows he is about to die...and reveals the reason for his job in the first place.  I thought the story's premise was extremely cool and it was one of my favorites in the collection...

LAURIE (short story)

After an elderly Floridian man's wife dies of brain cancer, his rather pushy-but-well-meaning sister gets him a dog to care for, against his wishes. Gradually he warms up to Laurie's presence although the pooch seems to have some difficulties with her "toilet training".  One day he and Laurie are out on a walk and encounter a big, mean old gator in the worst way.  A "man's best friend" story where Lassie descends into the Twilight Zone...

RATTLESNAKES (novella)

Related in setting to King's Duma Key novel and plot and characters to his Cujo work, this novella provides closure to the trials undergone in that latter book by characters Donna and Victor Trent...and their son Tad.  In Rattlesnakes, it is several decades gone by and Victor, alone now, is staying on a southwest Florida key at his friend's for a while.  He encounters a woman who is always pushing a stroller with the empty clothes of her long-diseased twin boys, who died from rattlesnake bites some forty years before.  Victor soon discovers that the "boys" aren't exactly gone, and they've decided they just might like to hang out with him...

THE DREAMERS (novella)

A celebration of sorts of the writing style of H.P. Lovecraft, a reclusive amateur scientist hires as his assistant and stenographer an embittered Vietnam veteran to investigate different experimental subjects for their dreams after placed under hypnosis.  Need I say that the experiment goes horribly awry?  The experiment goes horribly awry...

THE ANSWER MAN (novella)

This is the story of a man's life, a New Englander who is just on the verge in pre-World War II America of making crucial decisions about his upcoming marriage and where they will live.  While driving he encounters a roadside man who dubs himself "The Answer Man"...with the answers he gets, our protagonist then plunges into the war and beyond, only to encounter the Answer Man decades later...and with a different set of answers.  I loved the tail ending of this story, which I think was probably the best one of the twelve in the collection...

Just Finished Reading You Like It Darker by Stephen King (Part 1)

You Like It Darker, published just a couple of months ago, is Stephen King's latest collection of novellas (5) and short stories (7).  I just finished reading it, and I'm happy to report that he hasn't lost a bit of his touch when it comes to spinning a good yarn.  His writing, to me, is so far and above that of the science fiction authors featured in Gardner Dozois' annual "best of"  collections.  Below is a list of the first six stories as they appear in the book, followed by brief commentary from me...

TWO TALENTED BASTIDS (novella)

Two rural Maine friends, one a mediocre writer and the other an equally average artist, suddenly find themselves catapulted into fame for their skills and outstanding works...what was the pivotal event changing their lives? As the story progresses, the answer leads to a fateful outing in the woods they experienced.  Ultimately this is a tale about artistic talent...and doing things for their own sake (as I am currently doing)...

THE FIFTH STEP (short story)

A retired widow lives a life of routine in upper Manhattan, regularly taking his morning walk to northern Central Park.  One day he is sitting on a bench there and is annoyed by a young man who sits next to him, and who then begins to explain he is working on his drinking problem with A.A....and could he get help fulfilling Step #5 of the Twelve Step program they have?  Not for the faint at heart, but we are talking about a Stephen King story, right?

WILLY THE WEIRDO (short story)

Willy is a cruel little boy who tortures bugs and likes to look at dead things...he is drawn to his paternal adoptive grandfather, who spins many impossible tales of his experiences in the distant past going back to the US Civil War at Gettysburg and even to Cleopatra's time.  The ending makes you wonder about the people among us...well, not really... 

DANNY COUGHLIN'S BAD DREAM (novella)

The longest story in the book, Danny Coughlin is a custodian at a Kansas high school who has a recurring, horrible dream of a remote, abandoned gas station and a corpse's arm sticking out of the ground, with a feral dog going after it.  His pursuit of the mystery leads him to become the chief suspect of a grisly murder, and the chief inspector, patterned after Victor Hugo's Javert in Les Miserables, just won't let up on his persecution.  A story more about fickle human nature than a murder mystery...didn't change my mind about how people generally are...

FINN (short story)

A boy seems destined to live a life of bad luck...one improbable disaster after another.  Then, as his fortunes are apparently beginning to change, he has his own doubts that things are really going to improve. I thought the story was a bit incomplete and could have closed a little more clearly, but that's just my take...

ON SLIDE INN ROAD (short story) 

A great character study on the people in a family, three generations of them, as they visit the grandfather's sister who is dying from cancer.  The father is embarrassed by his irreverent father, but his son respects him and is interested in his baseball talk.  The car lands in a ditch, where a gruesome sight is witnessed by the little boy...and then they run into some very unsavory dudes and true character and courage is revealed among the family members...

Tomorrow I'll continue with my discussion of Stephen King's new book, covering the six remaining stories...

About the Summer Olympics and How I See the Various Sports

The Summer Olympics will be beginning in Paris, France on July 26, lasting into the first couple of weeks in August.  I've watched some of the American qualifying trials in various sports, and have found that they can be divided in three different ways.  First of all, there are the sports that are objectively scored...races of all sorts like swimming, running and walking get specific finishing times that rank the contestants.  Others like jumping and throwing get minutely-measured distances to their credit.  Then there are the events that, like America's Got Talent, require a panel of judges to deliver the scores subjectively...gymnastics, diving, and synchronized swimming belong to this group.  Since many of the first type have special limiting rules requiring judges at them (walking and special swim-stroke races), we see a mixture of the two types there.  The second way they are divided is into individual and team events.  Sports like soccer, water polo, field hockey, basketball and baseball all are heavily dependent on that subjective judging element yet ultimately come down to which side has the most goals or runs.  The third way the Olympic events are divided is a bit more subtle, but in my opinion just as important.  Some events have a widespread following and participation aspect to them: soccer, basketball, running, and jumping are in this group.  Others, like gymnastics, swimming, race-walking, water polo, and golf...to mention just a few...are either not very popular among the masses, are relatively exclusive to more privileged elements of society, or require fashioned settings not available in many places.  To get that gold medal can have different meanings based on whether the winner was raised in a "privileged" sport without much competition, or maybe the sport is so unknown and unpracticed that this limited the degree of competition as well.  But my big problem in all this is that first division, between subjectively and objectively-scored sports.  In the trials I tended to avoid sports like diving and gymnastics for this very reason.  I'll probably follow whatever happens to be on TV at the time when the Games begin, but my clear preference will be for the sports that (1) are objectively scored, (2) are individual in nature, and (3) have been popular with widespread availability.  And oh, by the way, I'm no flag-waver...I'm eschewing nationalism although if the US wins, that's cool, too..

Some Running, Walking...and Weather...Talk

I skipped the Depot Parkrun 5K again this morning...just wasn't feeling all that well, and to tell the truth, getting off from work at 10 pm the night before doesn't exactly predispose me to getting up early the next morning!  But since I don't run in order to race...it's the other way around...the rest of today is open for me to do just that.  On a related note, I've been noticing the excruciatingly hot temperatures elsewhere in the United States over the past week, and I just have to chuckle to myself at the notion I had once entertained of bypassing Florida's summer heat by signing up for a July or August long distance race somewhere up north...I remember one held in scenic western Wyoming.  Well, that place...among others...is currently deep into a severe heat wave that would make us down south feel like we're in air conditioning by contrast.  Weather does what it wants to do, and where and when it wants to do it.  Of course, human-caused climate change isn't helping any.  But returning to running, I was planning to walk that race earlier today, and would like to get in some practice with that as well.  I'm starting a new daily regimen...weather be damned...of walking the .7 mile loop around the block my house is on and recording the time.  I speed-walked (for me) the first one yesterday at a time of 8 minutes 47 seconds, and plan to try it again today, rain, snow, sleet, hurricane, heat wave, torrential flood notwithstanding.  The idea behind this is to continue to gradually improve my walking form to make the motions more efficiently and to accustom myself to the kind of exertion I experience while running...

Quote of the Week...from Ron Desantis

I think the country's on the wrong track.                  Ron Desantis

And I think that regardless of which major political party you're looking at, the most popular figures within are bound to be tagged with the label "divisive" by their opponents, and our Florida governor Ron Desantis certainly fits the bill there.  When he successfully ran for that office in 2018 and reelection in 2022, I voted against him both times.  The last was primarily as a reaction to what I considered his failure to adequately protect the population of this state, which has a heavy demographic tilt toward susceptible elderly people, from the COVID pandemic that ravaged the state.  Yet I haven't always agreed with the opinions and actions of the politicians I've supported over the years, and I believe that Desantis is a decent, intelligent man who has a kind of integrity and character to his personality that would better suit him as his party's presidential standard bearer than the jerk currently running the show over there.  Also, he is very good at getting his points across lucidly...in contrast to our also decent...but declining...president.  This isn't a campaign ad for Ron Desantis, and if Donald Trump inexplicably picks him as his vice-president running mate for 2024 I'll be voting against him for the third time.  But if Desantis were the one residing in the Oval Office, I'd feel the country would be on a better track than it would be with the Orange dude in there....

Podcaster's Time Management Strategy

I've written in the past about Rob Dial's Mindset Mentor podcast, and the various topics he's presented regarding personal development.  Sometimes he's on point and sometimes not...and I'm finding more and more that he's repeating the same things that I've heard in the past.  That last thing is something I would have expected and embrace...at least in the areas that resonate with me.  And time management is one of these.  The other day he broke down his strategy of managing a day in his own life with four key points: mastering one's to-do list, mastering one's schedule, employing the Pomodoro Technique of 25 minutes focused work on ONE thing with 5 minutes rest, and then reviewing the day at the end.  I tried it the other day and pleasantly discovered that I was actually getting ahead of my plans, finishing tasks earlier than expected.  Yesterday I didn't do it and...it didn't work out so well.  Everyone's different and I doubt that Rob Dial would even recognize my own interpretation of his suggestions...I always take what he says with a grain of salt: I think he'd like that...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 3

It's once again that time of week when I discuss what I've been reading in the world of short fiction. I'm currently going through the year 1997 and the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection, highlighting the genre from that year. As has been the case in this series, Dozier as editor shows a predilection for longer "short stories" and novellas. Here are my reactions to the next two appearing in the book...

WE WILL DRINK A FISH TOGETHER by Bill Johnson

This is a quirky alien contact story set in, of all places, Indian country in South Dakota. The high-level human security officer, originally from that culture, is assigned to protect the alien ambassador to Earth.  He has a conflict of interest...his brother has died and he decides to quit rather than miss his funeral and burial. It's all about keeping true to one's "line", and the story gets further complicated when the wolverine-looking ambassador shows up at his local bar. A fun read...

ESCAPE ROUTE by Peter F. Hamilton

Full of impressive "hard" science fiction technical talk, this novella is set far in the future when humanity, still prone to war, oppression, capitalism and rebellion, has reached out and settled (and exploited) other star systems.  An enterprising private starship captain takes on a special collaboration with some shady characters to harvest precious metals ..and discovers an ancient alien outpost. Full of intrigues and plot twists, this story...in my humble opinion...tried to do a little too much...

Next week I plan to continue with sci-fi from '97..

Listened to a Couple of This Year's Albums...by The Smile and Green Day

After writing on yesterday's article about how I wanted to check out some of this year's music, I started out by listening to The Smile's Wall of Eyes album.  The Smile is for all practical purposes a kind of Radiohead band, with that group's Jonny Greenwood and vocalist Thom Yorke teaming up with drummer Tom Skinner to produce what is essentially Radiohead music.  Greenwood wanted to produce more material and his original band was going too slow...hence The Smile.  Two songs I liked a lot from Wall of Eyes: I Quit and Read the Room.  The other album I began listening to was from another, more established trio: the punk rock Green Day's Savior, and its opening track is a piece I've already heard: The American Dream is Killing Me.  It's refreshing to hear good old fashioned rock with the heavy guitar riffs and Billy Joe Armstrong's trademark working class voice, but the opening lyrics for that song were especially gripping and true: "The American dream is killing me, the American dream is killing me, when it's all double talk and conspiracy".  The song continues along this line, spelling out a grim assessment of where people in our country have come down to...my instincts tell me, though, that this is a worldwide phenomenon: the insanity has spread!  I didn't care too much, though, for the rest of this album: onward to the next of several from 2024...

Time to Check Out Some Good Music from 2024

After Melissa showed me how I can use our Amazon Prime to get Alexa to play commercially-uninterrupted music on my phone, I've been using most of 2024 so far focusing on my favorite acts, like Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Who, Regina Spektor, Seals and Crofts, Electric Light Orchestra, Yes, Rush, and Metric...just to name a few.  Should I decide to focus on one artist or group, I can now pretty much listen to their entire discography this way...very convenient.  But one consequence of this great opportunity has been that I haven't exactly been keeping up with music of 2024, that is, songs that will mark this year for me in my memory.  So, it's still July with a lot of time left in '24, and I think I'll check out the new albums released so far by artists I like...should be interesting.  It's worked well for me in the past this way...in 2023 I discovered my favorite songs for that year this way, including my "Song of the Year" for 2023: Oil by Gorillaz.  Time to look for some more musical magic!

Beryl Poised to Hit Texas Coast

At this writing early Sunday evening, Beryl is still a strong tropical storm, predicted to reach minimal hurricane status just before it makes landfall on the Texas coast between Corpus Christi and Galveston early tomorrow morning.  I had written in a previous article that I intended to follow Atlantic tropical storms more this year after it was predicted to be an unusually strong season. Beryl earlier had been a Class 5 Hurricane, attaining at one point sustained 165 mph winds at its center, as it churned westward through the Caribbean.  In its wake Beryl has been blamed for 11 deaths so far, and it caused widespread damage in the West Indies, especially in the Grenadines and Jamaica, before hitting Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and passing through it greatly weakened.  There are predictions of strong storm surge as the storm intensifies and eventually goes ashore.  And then there will be a lot of flooding as Beryl's remnant makes its way inland.  I had the TV on The Weather Channel all day and have enjoyed watching their meteorologists like Paul Goodloe and Molly McCollum...among others...presenting their live reports along various places on the Texas coast, Paul at Rockport and Molly in Corpus Christi...

Difficult, Hilly Course on Recent Melon Run

Not to belabor the point, but that Melon Run at Westside Park on Thursday the Fourth did take a lot out of me, and I was wondering why.  After all, I have been more or less doing 5K runs at Depot Park each week under similar weather conditions.  And then it hit me: of course, the terrain for the Melon Run course is almost constantly sloping, if not outright hilly!  With the finishing time I had under those circumstances, there is no doubt that I doubly exerted myself, much more than with those Depot Park runs.  I'm doing fine now and, although I'm still planning to emphasize more walking in the near future with my races, I know myself well enough to know that I'll probably throw in some runs as well.  But the Dog Days of Summer are definitely here, and I'm definitely grateful for the air conditioning we've been blessed with...

Quote of the Week...from Friedrich Nietzsche

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.                    Friedrich Nietzsche

Once in college I wrote a paper about the great nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.  Before I turned it in, a fellow student who expressed his liking for Nietzsche asked me if he could read it.  Afterwards, he disdainfully handed it back, giving me an unpleasant expression and walking away...I don't think he ever spoke to me again.  I guess I should have been walking when I wrote that paper...but I did at least get a "B" on it, and my teacher stayed on good terms with me.  As for walking, I have gradually come to believe that not only is it good for thinking, but as the ancient Greek health guru Hippocrates once wrote, it is the greatest medicine as well.  I say this as the summer here in northern Florida continues to set new records for combined heat and humidity, and after I ran a blistering three mile race at Gainesville's Westside Park. I probably should have walked it instead, for although I felt fine immediately thereafter, a few hours later my legs were both cramping up awfully and my general recovery was slow.  I think that walking is great, and during the next two months plan to do my outdoor races as a walker, leaving my running during this period confined to the nicely air-conditioned indoors.  Besides walking for sport and exercise, I am also a habitual pacer, going up and down the floor thinking...it's always a good idea to have paper and pen handy when doing this...

Ran the Jack Gamble 3-Mile Melon Run This Morning

As in previous non-pandemic years, the Florida Track Club held its annual Fourth of July Melon Run, recently named in honor of Jack Gamble.  I've run the event three times before, the last one being quite a ways back, in 2016.  It is held at Albert Massey (Westside) Park)...at least that's where the race starts and ends with the course running around the block enclosing the park and then looping eastward down NW 8th Avenue past the uniquely picturesque outdoor planetarium, the walkway through Loblolly Woods Park, west down NW 16th Avenue, and finally returning down NW 31st Drive to the finishing line near the entrance to the park's pool.  Every year at this time the combination of summer temperature and humidity is stifling, and 2024 was no exception: 77 degrees, 94% humidity and 76 degrees dew point...ugh!  I didn't feel all that well this morning and was a little apprehensive about finding a parking space...no need for concern on both accounts: I quickly adjusted to the race and there were plenty of spaces, since I got there in plenty of time.  I started the course, hillier than my normal weekly Depot Parkrun 5K, holding a little back. But after a mile or so I cranked it up and finished strongly with a time of 26:55, better than anticipated.  There were a whopping 307 finishers in this race and the competition was fierce, with some of Gainesville's fastest runners...and walkers...participating.  I'm glad I went...click HERE to see the results...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 2

Here is my second weekly installment of brief reviews from the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection, featuring the editor's picks of short sci-fi from the year 1997.  During that time I was in my tenth year working for the USPS, and this year happened to be a "kindler and gentler" period in which I was a manual letter clerk, throwing scheme and SCF mail on Tour I...don't worry if you don't know what I'm talking about, most of it is "insider" talk.  Anyway, how about those next stories...

STEAMSHIP SOLDIER ON THE INFORMATION FRONT by Nancy Kress

In this story of how a pervasively digital communications culture takes over a society that thinks itself as "normal", a man whose entire livelihood and relationships are entrenched in being "connected", is concerned about his teenage son, who doesn't seem to have the same inclinations and would rather just sit back and contemplate things.  What young Charlie does know is that his father's information age is about to be transformed into a new one with different priorities. Very applicable to our current times...with our next era hopefully as Charlie has envisioned...

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL by Greg Egan

This is a great example of hard science fiction, where the story itself introduces the reader into a deeper look at real science, with a consequential deeper understanding of how reality works.  A boy has a brain tumor that causes an unchecked release in his brain of a chemical causing happiness...he is constantly ecstatic even with his state of dire peril.  After the successful operation to remove the tumor, that chemical's production is completely suppressed, leaving him in a chronic state of despair.  After years of this, as a young adult he musters up the courage to undergo a new treatment that could restore his happiness. He now must decide what, in his future, he will choose to be happy about...an intriguing question.  If you could so choose, what would you do? 

MOON SIX by Stephen Baxter

An astronaut on the Moon's surface keeps seeing heat shimmers that transport him to alternate realities with alternate Moons...and alternate human histories.  Two threads wind throughout the story. One is the nature of quantum mechanics and its relationship to alternate worlds...and the author's suggestion that a technology using it could backfire in that regard.  And the second is the massive area on the Moon's surface called Mare Imbrium, and the timing of the asteroid/meteor collision that caused it. I've read a lot of alternate reality stories...this one resonated with me, partially because it alluded to the needless suppression of manned space exploration in recent years as well as how space exploration technology has transformed our world...

Next week: more stories discussed from '97...

Popular Vote Winners in Last Eight Presidential Elections

Here are the popular vote winners in the American presidential elections since 1992.  Since we're supposedly a republic governed by the people's voice in democratic elections and a fair, unbiased system of laws, you might think that our policies and government would reflect the below trend...but you'd be wrong...

1992    DEMOCRAT

1996    DEMOCRAT

2000    DEMOCRAT

2004    REPUBLICAN

2008    DEMOCRAT

2012    DEMOCRAT

2016    DEMOCRAT

2020    DEMOCRAT

Now in 2024, do you think anyone really cares about what is going on in this campaign except within a small number of swing states like Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania?  Because of our electoral college system, if you live in California, Texas, Florida or New York...our country's most populous states...no one cares about your opinion.  A losing president can call the chief elections officer of a state he closely lost and ask him to manufacture nonexistent votes to turn the results around, or the losing party can maneuver in states they lost...but legislatively control...to have those legislatures overturn those results.  Who cares what the rest of the country thinks, as long as they get their power.  Of course, as an individual my degree of influence is strictly limited, which is why I haven't been ranting and raving on this blog like others do on their social media outlets.  After all, we now have a Supreme Court that treats one side as its client interest: even if the doddering and incoherent incumbent nobody had a voice in choosing this year as the nominee wins those swing states, will they turn around and negate the results? Democracy is an illusion, both in Russia and now, sadly, here in America.  I have my own life, with the choices I can make that actually have effects on myself and my loved ones...electoral politics provide no hope in that regard...

Strong Hurricane Beryl Crosses West Indies

After seeing the early forecasts for an extremely active, dangerous 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, I decided to be more intentional on the blog with noting them.  Already in June we've had three named storms...Alberto hit Texas earlier with tropical-storm-force winds while causing some flooding in southeastern Texas.  Then Beryl, a trans-Atlantic storm, only a few days ago rapidly intensified into a strong hurricane...at this writing it's passing through the West Indian Grenadines...with Grenada on the south and St. Lucia and St. Vincent to the north...with a tightly wound center harboring maximum sustained winds of 150: a Category 4 storm unseen at this time of year...and its rapid intensification is unprecedented since records have been kept, both for the time of year and for its eastern Atlantic location.  Beryl's projected path currently has it crossing the Caribbean Sea and eventually hitting Mexico in the eastern Yucatan area, our cruise destination back in early March.  Meanwhile, while all the attention was on Beryl, Tropical Storm Chris was named just off the eastern Mexican coast around where Alberto had been, and then promptly moved inland and dissipated.  There's another disturbance, called Invest 96L, in Beryl's former path between it and Africa...it'll probably strengthen as well.  Since the waters down south in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico are all very warm, wind shear and land itself may be the only factors that can weaken these potentially monster storms.  More later...