Just Finished Reading Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

If Emily Brontë's 1847 novel Wuthering Heights shows the dark side of the lives of rural landed English families in the late 18th century, then Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, which I just read, represents the light. Austen also injects a great deal of humor into this story, especially coming from its chief protagonist Elizabeth "Lizzy" Bennet.  Lizzy is the second oldest of five sisters in a family having no male heirs...a problem in that the archaic laws of that time "entail" an estate in such a case to the ownership of a more distant male relative upon the father's death (the mother has no inheritance rights, apparently).  Mrs. Bennet, the mother, is continually trying, with a marked lack of subtlety (to the constant consternation and embarrassment of Lizzy), to marry them off to suitably wealthy young men.  However, one young man, Mr. Darcy, who is the friend of a Mr. Bingley (who likes the eldest sister Jane) quickly incurs the wrath of both Mrs. Bennet and Lizzy through his prideful, arrogant behavior before them.  Because of this and other "information" about him that Lizzy picks up from others, she forms what turns out to be a prejudicial judgment against his character.  The story, in general, concerns how the two...Darcy with his pride and Elizabeth with her prejudice (hence the novel's title), are able to eventually remove the obstructing filters from themselves and finally see each other for what they really are.  Without trying to give away the ending, I suppose from this you might easily surmise the outcome.  After all, I've already said that this is no "dark" story!

The developing relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy dominates Pride and Prejudice, but what happens with the rest of the sisters figures into the story as well.  Still, it all comes back to the two main characters.

Having been made into movie and serial TV shows, I was tempted to first "watch" Pride and Prejudice before reading it.  But now that I have read it, I'm looking forward to seeing how it is depicted on the screen.  For one thing, I like to notice the discrepancies between book and film.  For another, I like to see how much (or little) my imagination painted a picture of the settings and characters in my own mind just from reading the book.  Still another thing I like to see is how the tone of the screen presentation resembles the book's...or is it vastly different...

Gators' New Coach Jim McElwain Looks Like a Good Fit

It looks as if the University of Florida, through their athletic director Jeremy Foley, has made a good decision in the selection and hiring of their next head football coach: Jim McElwain.  McElwain was offensive coordinator in Alabama under Nick Saban during their earlier two national championship seasons in 2009 and 2011 (including when he broke Tim Tebow's heart by beating the then-undefeated, #1 ranked Gators in 2009's SEC championship game).  Having played in college himself as quarterback, he reminds me a little of a former UF coaching great: Steve Spurrier (although the latter achieved much more renown for his passing abilities).  And McElwain, unlike his relatively unsuccessful predecessors Ron Zook and Will Muschamp...and like his resoundingly successful predecessors Spurrier and Urban Meyer, has amassed experience as the head coach of a college team, in his case at Colorado State.  He also was very successful in his short tenure there, turning around a habitually losing team into a winner.

I've heard it said that with Zook and Muschamp, they were considered "players'" coaches who were beloved by the team.  In fact, I believe at least a couple of the Florida underclassmen players under Muschamp have expressed their decision to leave the team were Muschamp fired...even before they knew of his replacement.  As a fan, I would rather have the Gators with a coach who emphasizes discipline and holds accountable the kind of sloppy play, with the fumbles, missed blocks and tackles, dropped passes, and very untimely, foolish penalties that epitomized Florida during the Zook and Muschamp eras.  I doubt that this school will have any trouble attracting top talent during the recruiting season, but they will need someone who is able and willing to mold them together into a winning unit.  And McElwain, I believe, seems like a good fit...

Good Eleven Mile Run Today

Today I had a solid run of eleven miles, which I ended at that distance not because I was too tired to go on, but rather because I had other things to do.  Still, this represents my longest single run since my Orange Blossom Half-Marathon in Tavares back in March, 2013...just before plantar fasciitis in my right foot "kicked" in.  Well, my feet now seem to be "hanging" in there O.K. so far, so I suppose I'll continue to press the mileage back up to a level that I feel reflects better on my identity as a runner.

In spite of my increasing mileage, I have not returned to my old pattern of running around designated courses on my neighborhood streets (and in nearby locations on longer runs).  Instead, I have marked off a running path in my rather sizable backyard and spend my longer runs there.  It's certainly not as interesting as road running, but at the same time I have quick access to the conveniences of home and can still listen to my MP3 player while running.  If there's rain in the forecast or it's already begun to drizzle, I can still go running until the rainfall gets too strong...and then step back into the house.  Also, in my backyard I feel much safer about running in the nighttime, something that I never felt at ease doing on the streets...for a couple of reasons: drivers tend not to see runners (or pedestrians in general, for that matter) and differences in the terrain may be harder to spot at night.  Still, I think that it would be a good idea to go back out on my old neighborhood courses every now and then...in the daytime in good weather, of course...

Just Finished Reading George Orwell's 1984

Nineteen Eighty-Four. which I just finished reading, was probably English writer George Orwell's most well-known novel, with many of its concepts and sayings in common use today ("Big brother is watching you", "Thought police", "War is peace", etc.).  It was first published in 1948, just a couple of years before its author's death.  Orwell was strongly aware of his era's rise of totalitarian governments and studied the tactics of political control used over the people in Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union.   And much of the material in the book, about the future totalitarian society of the mega-nation Oceania, appears to come straight out of these regimes' policies...as expressed through the words and actions of the "Party" that dominate every aspect of life.  But Nineteen Eighty-Four goes much further to display a society that has refined its totalitarianism to the point that even facial expressions are captured and analyzed through pervasive surveillance, even in people's homes.  People who diverge from the Party line in any way are subject to arrest, disappearance, and then any vestige of them ever having existed erased from the records. And those who personally knew anyone so eliminated must also speak and act as well as if they had never existed, lest they themselves be subject to "discipline".

Nineteen Eighty-Four's protagonist is Winston Smith, a low-level Party functionary employed in the Ministry of Truth, which like many other departments performs work in direct contradiction to its title.  His job is to take whatever the Party position currently is on any matter, be it war, economics...or the "disappeared", and revise all historical records and books to reflect that change...retroactively.  So Oceania, which had recently been allied with mega-nation Eurasia, is suddenly at war against it and Winston has to work feverishly with his colleagues to revise all records to show that Oceania has ALWAYS been at war with Eurasia.  For to reveal any change in policy would mean that the Party was fallible, and that wouldn't do.

Nineteen Eighty-Four introduces several concepts pertaining to the Party's all-oppressive control of society, including Newspeak, doublethink, and thoughtcrime.  The language is continually being revised in order to reduce the number of words needed for expression...along with any usage that could express criminalized concepts like "liberty", "equality", or "democracy".   Winston's journey through this story is based on his doubts about the society he lives in and his desire to find others sharing his skepticism who are willing to oppose it.  To this end he meets and forms a romantic relationship with a young woman named Julia and comes under the leadership of a higher Party member named O'Brien.  It is the interplay between these three characters that drives the book's story to its rather sobering end...

There are many elements to Nineteen Eighty-Four that I could discuss: a couple of them, the rewriting of history to suit the Party's current position and the selective framing of narratives, accepting only the information that supports their policies and eliminating any that runs against them, demonstrate the Party line that truth is not objective, based on facts, but rather subjective, originating in the mind...and that the only valid truth is in the Party's mind.  Today we don't live here in a totalitarian society, but it struck me as I was reading Nineteen Eighty-Four that in the past few decades, many people have freely come to embrace this subjective outlook on reality...especially when you see the different social, political and religious camps out there, each with their own "facts" and histories. Unlike with Nineteen Eighty-Four, you're free to join up with whichever group you choose, but once you're in you're expected to embrace their "reality"...

Miami Dolphins Thick in Playoff Hunt

Well, there are only four games left in the National Football League sixteen-game regular season and, incredibly, the Miami Dolphins are thick in the playoff hunt with a 7-5 record.  Were the season to end today, they would actually be in the playoffs, winning the tiebreakers with the several other 7-5 teams in the American Conference.  This is a team that, if anything, should have a better record...with them losing three close games late in the fourth quarter this year against playoff-caliber teams (Green Bay, Detroit, and Denver).  And they've already beaten New England in their first contest! However, the return match with the Patriots will be a road game.  Still, there is a scenario here that, should New England lose this week's road game against the very capable San Diego Chargers and Miami win their final four games, the Dolphins would be AFC East Division champions, with even a shot at a first round bye in the playoffs.  Well, I can dream, can't I?

Miami's remaining games are against Baltimore, New England, Minnesota, and New York (Jets).  All are important, but this coming weekend's game against the Ravens is crucial, seeing that both teams have identical 7-5 records.  Fortunately, the Dolphins will be playing them at home, where they will also be when they face the Vikings and Jets...

My November 2014 Running Report

November marked a continuation from October with my dramatic rise in running mileage.  I amassed a total of 313 miles run, as I would often run several times over the course of a day.  My longest single run of the month was 10.3 miles, on Saturday the 15th.  This was also the date of my greatest ever total of miles run over the course of a single day: 31 miles.  Also, I ran on every day of the month...although taking a break every now and then is probably advisable.

As for public running races, I  skipped the St. Augustine Half-Marathon on the 16th I had been considering entering and instead ran the 10K Gainesville Turkey Trot race on Thanksgiving morning, the 27th.  I finished 5th out of 13 in my age group with a time of 56:56, a slower time by more than three minutes than my effort in the same race a couple of years earlier but understandable due largely to the marshy and muddy grounds at the race site (there was very heavy rainfall the previous day).

Next month I wish to continue my running as I have done in November, and try out at least one half-marathon race.  The most likely candidate for this is an early Saturday evening race being held in Palm Coast, Florida on the 20th...

Soccer: Mexico's Liga MX "Liguilla" Playoffs Underway

As I mentioned on this blog the other day, North American sports leagues seem to have this predilection for post-season playoffs to determine their champions, as opposed to other places which just let the regular season champions reign supreme.  Mexican soccer is no exception, and even goes one step further...their premier league, Liga MX, divides the year up into two split seasons: the Apertura in the fall and the Clausura in winter/spring.  The regular season for the Apertura is over...so here come the playoffs!

The eight highest finishing teams in the regular season standings (out of a total of 18 league teams) make the playoffs.  Each round has the paired off teams playing each other twice (at each other's home field) with the one amassing the highest two-game cumulative goal total advancing to the next round.  The quarterfinals began a couple of days ago, with their second games starting today.  So far, the first four games have all been very close, with two decided by one goal and two ending up in draws.  The big surprise so far has been with "superlider" regular season champion América losing 1-0 to its Mexico City cross-town rival UNAM "Pumas", seeded 8th.  But with the concluding games of this round, it's all up in the air as to which teams will advance...the regular season champ is clearly still in the running.  I've been following the talk on the Spanish-language television sports channel Univision Deportes and there's a lot of excitement in the air.  América, as I said before, is playing Pumas.  Also, it's Toluca vs. Chiapas "Jaguares", UANL "Tigres" vs. Pachuca, and Atlas vs. Monterrey.  I'm rooting for Pachuca in the championship series, but fear that they won't get past Tigres in this weekend's game (they drew 1-1 in the first game)...my gut feeling also tells me that Tigres, based in Nuevo Leon, will eventually win the Apertura championship this year...

Just Finished Reading Tad Williams' Shadowmarch

I was already familiar with the writing of Tad Williams, as a few years ago I read his four-part science fiction series Otherland (here is a link to my 2007 review of Otherland).  Having thoroughly enjoyed it, as I now consider it an important look into our our future, I decided to try out one of his fantasy series.  As Shadowmarch, the first of the also four-part Shadowmarch series, was available, I dove into it.  Not as fun to read as Otherland (I think this shows I'm more of a sci-fi enthusiast), it was nevertheless worth the effort as Williams is a master at character development, something on which I judge books heavily.  He actually has several characters whose stories he is concurrently telling from their viewpoints (much like George R.R. Martin has been doing in his ongoing A Song of Ice and Fire series).  The chief protagonists are offspring of abducted King Olin Eddon: teenage twins Princess Briony and Prince Barrick.  Of the two, Briony is the focus of Williams' attention, which reminds me of how another fantasy writer, Brandon Sanderson, used another teenage girl, Vin, for his protagonist in the Mistborn series.  There are typical fantasy genre elements in this series: a completely different world with its own continents and difficult-to-follow map, an aboriginal, mystical people (the Qar) who were overrun centuries before by humans but still present a challenge from the north, a strange emerging religion with evil connotations invading from the south, an established history with all sorts of arcane "facts" that I (as I usually do) have difficulty filtering out the relevant from the irrelevant, rival noble families competing for territory through marriage and war similar to Martin's Game of Thrones, and much revealed through usually very disturbing dreams.  Oh, and there is the wise "wizard" type in the physician Chaven, the soldier/guard hero type Ferras Vansen (besotted with Briony), an innocent and brave commoner (the diminutive Chert), and what I call the "wild-card" character of the boy "Flint", whose ultimate effect on the story, be it positive or negative, is a mystery...

As saturated as I am with fantasy literature, I have to admit that Tad Williams' Shadowmarch series is a winner so far, and knowing that it won't drag on for 11 or 14 volumes as did Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth and Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, respectively, gives me added impetus to read on to the end...

Finished Running Gainesville's 10K Turkey Trot Race at Tacachale

This morning the annual Thanksgiving Turkey Trot 10K (6.2 miles) running race was held here in Gainesville on the woody grounds of Tacachale, a residential institution for the developmentally disabled.  Having just recently performed, without any extra exertion, a 10.3 mile training run, I felt that this would be a good "short-distance" race to prepare me for running in a public setting as I consider which half-marathons to enter in the near future.  A very rainy, stormy cold front had just swept through northern Florida the day before and the grounds were saturated.  Plus, the temperature overnight had plummeted down to around 40 as I left the house to drive the short distance to the race.  Although I knew I would be uncomfortable in the few minutes standing outside before the beginning of the race, I decided to stick to my time-tested formula of wearing a short-sleeved tee-shirt with shorts...and a very old, expendable pair of running shoes.  As I gathered with the many (it seemed like several hundred) other runners behind the starting line, I couldn't help chuckling to myself as I saw many wearing jackets and long pants: they'd be dying in those clothes before they got past the first mile!  Anyway, by the race's start the temperature had climbed up into the upper forties...it would be in the mid-fifties by race's end.  As for my shoes, I wisely foresaw the possibility of encountering some marshy areas on the race course, and sure enough, we were all warned about their existence before the race began.  But even with that, I was unprepared for the poor footing and many, many areas of standing water that we would need to slosh through...or look for a detour around.  This, I'm sure, ended up slowing down my final time, as well as the fact that I began the race toward the back of the pack and spent the first mile or two repeatedly being boxed in by slow runners and having to squeeze around them.  That all having been said, I enjoyed the race...although I was disappointed at the finish line when there was no clock showing the time as the runners passed though it.  Not having timed myself on my watch like I usually do, I'll just have to wait for the results to be posted online.  When they ARE finally posted, I'll put a link to them here.  There was an awards ceremony scheduled, but I decided to go on back home...from past experience and results, I don't think I had finished anywhere near the top three in my age group (55-59)...

Later...the final results have been posted. I finished 5th in my age group out of 13 runners with a time of 56:56.  It was a bit slower than my 2012 Turkey Trot time of 53:18, but as I wrote earlier, I had expected it.  Here is the link to the race results.

Watching Some European Soccer Analysis on ESPN Yesterday

Yesterday I was watching a soccer show (analysis, not actual games) on ESPN.  The topic was the UEFA Champions League, where top European league teams cross their respective league boundaries and play each other, setting up intriguing speculation as to which leagues are the most competitive.  So far, teams like Bundesliga's Bayern Munich, (Barclay's) English Premier League's Chelsea, La Liga's Real Madrid and Barcelona, La Ligue's PSG (Paris-St.Germain), and other teams like Italy's Roma and Portugal's Porto are doing well (although Roma is in a very competitive group and struggling for advancement into the next "knockout" round).  Although I prefer to watch full games as they are being played, I did enjoy the highlights that this show presented...expecially the games between Manchester City and Bayern Munich, and between Barcelona and APOEL (of Cyprus).  The former, between two major league champions from last year, featured an upset comeback win for "City", while Barcelona, with its superstar lineup of Messi, Neymar, and Suarez, won easily (with Messi performing another hat trick while making it all look like a walk in the park).  It made me once again wish that I had regular access to the Bundesliga and La Liga games besides the MLS, Liga MX (Mexico), and English Premier League games that I do get.

Speaking of MLS and Liga MX, the two major soccer organizations for North America, they have features to their seasons that bother me: post-season playoffs.  It reminds me of the other sports over here like football, baseball, basketball, and hockey, where teams can clearly demonstrate their superiority (or inferiority) in the long regular season over a span of many games and then essentially have to start all over in the league championship playoffs.  I like the fact that the winner of the regular season across the Atlantic in the Premier League or Bundesliga IS the league champion...as it should be...

Gators Left With Big Chance to Upset 'Noles

The University of Florida and Florida State University football games have had very different football seasons this year.  The Gators, having suffered through a miserable 4-8 season last year, were looking forward to a reasonably successful year this time around, even with many expecting them to win their SEC East Division.  Instead, they stumbled and fumbled around to the point where they are now left with a 6-4 mark and out of the running in their division, but already qualified for a minor post-season bowl game in late December or early January.  They have only one game left before then: next Saturday in Tallahassee against FSU. The Seminoles, on the other hand, are coming off a perfect, undefeated national championship season in 2013 and are still unbeaten so far this year.  They are thick in the running for the national championship playoffs, but because their strength of schedule in the Atlantic Coast Conference is relatively low, they probably need to win both of their next two games to stay in the hunt.  The first of these is the aforementioned matchup against Florida and the second is the ACC Championship game.  Florida has nothing to lose against FSU; even Will Muschamp, their head coach, is leaving after the game regardless of the outcome.  But Florida State has everything to lose in this game..and they already have come excruciatingly close to losing earlier games against Clemson, Louisville, and Miami. They are very clearly, despite having won all of their games so far in 2014, not anywhere near as impressive as last year's team.  Florida has what it takes to beat their cross-state rival, which may be looking ahead to their conference championship game the following week.  I give the Gators a good chance to pull out all the stops and pull off the upset...

Just Finished Reading Lev Grossman's The Magician's Land

The Magician's Land is the final book in Lev Grossman's Magicians series.  Having thoroughly enjoyed the first two books of this very irreverent and adult foray into the fantasy genre, I was eager enough to start into the final book as soon as I was aware of its publication (I don't keep up too well with when new books come out).  But first I felt the need to go back through the first two books to refresh my memory (I wonder how many other readers of series do this).  Now, I've finished The Magician's Land and have to admit to a sense of satisfaction about it all.  The only problem is, there is no way I can adequately describe the plot to the story in this book without not only giving it away, but also giving away what happened in the first book (The Magicians) and the second (The Magician King).  But I can still provide some general reactions I got from it...

The chief protagonist in the Magicians series is a young man named Quentin Coldwater.  Early in the first book, while thinking that he was going to a Manhattan-based interview for admission into an Ivy League college, Quentin suddenly finds himself whisked off to a mysterious campus in upstate New York, where he is tested for admission into Brakebills, an academy designed for training magicians.  And by magicians, I don't mean the showmen who ply their tricks before an audience, but rather people who possess magical abilities, like the wizards in the Harry Potter series.  For a while, it looked as if Grossman was going to provide a more adult counterpart of Rowling's Hogwarts Academy, but as the story progresses a different target of imitation is revealed: C.S. Lewis and his fantasy world of Narnia.  Only in Quentin's world, the stories he grew up loving were about an imaginary land called Fillory.  And now I'm at the point where I feel a little reticent about describing what happens next.  But you might well imagine that Quentin has his friends, enemies, mentors, love interests, and many, many mysteries to solve.  Through his losses, as well as his victories, he grows up and discovers himself and what's important in life (and what isn't).  So in an important respect, this series is about someone growing up from an immature adolescent mindset into a caring, mature adult.  Only with Quentin, what he does has an enormous impact on his friends, foes, and surroundings...after all, he turns out to be no mediocre magician.

I think you'd enjoy Lev Grossman's Magicians series if you liked reading through the Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia series (and I mean READING, not just watching the movies)...in an important sense, these three series are not as much about the "magic" as much as they are about how people's characters, especially as they pertain to aspects of personality like jealousy, loyalty, regret, courage, sacrificial love, idealism, cynicism, timidity, and boldness, affect each other and the world...and how they can change within individuals over time, especially after they endure personal storms, some of them devastating in nature...

I will make one comment about the ending to The Magician's Land: I don't know whether Lev Grossman intended it to be this way, but it did bring a satisfying sense of closure to the series for me...although it did leave the door open wide enough to start a new one based on where things left off, should the author wish it.  After all, it wouldn't be the first time a writer came back to tack on additional books to an already-concluded series (Terry Goodkind and Brandon Sanderson are doing this as I write)...

College Football Full of Disappointments

Please forgive me for a little cynicism here...but college football, as in all other sports, produces an unpleasant side effect among its fans.  After all, since it's no fun watching a game without caring who wins, it stands to reason that people eventually start rooting for their favorite teams.  The biggest prize of all at the end of the season is the national championship, so disappointment #1 occurs usually very early on when one's team has already suffered a couple of losses and that lofty goal seems to have passed by.  For them, the next goal is for their team to win their conference's division...which they probably won't, resulting in  disappointment #2.  Then their hopes fall back on at least mustering up a non-losing record, which will give them a post-season bowl bid.  And then maybe they don't get that far, either: disappointment #3.  But for the teams that at least get a bowl bid, half of them will lose that game, ending their season on a disappointing (#4) note.  For the teams that are fortunate and skillful enough to win a conference division title, half of them will spend the off-season ruminating about losing the championship game (disappointment #5).  Then, for the fans of the conference champions, those who are excluded from the four-team national championship playoff will be disappointed (#6).  Of the four remaining teams, three will lose (#7,8, and 9) leaving only one team each year that the fans can fully celebrate without disappointment.  But no, although they may temporarily feel great, even these are now burdened with unrealistically high expectations for their team in the future...anything short of a national championship will now feel something like a failed season, a disappointment for years to come...

Just Finished Reading Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë wrote one famous book before her sad, premature death at age 30: it was the 1847 novel Wuthering Heights, set in rural England in the late 18th century and the start of the 19th.  It is a curiously presented story, told in the first person by an outside character named Lockwood who happens to be residing for a short period on the estate that the story centers around.  However, most of the tale comes out, once again in the first person, as housekeeper Nelly Dean lays out the history of the families involved.  Lockwood, a new tenant on the property, is entranced by her story, as his first impression of his host, a Mister Heathcliff, is traumatic from his poor treatment after a visit to the latter's home on Wuthering Heights...being attacked by his dogs and treated disrespectfully, both by Heathcliff and his employees and relations.  Among these are Healthcliff's sullen daughter-in-law Cathy, an uncouth young man named Hareton Earnshaw, and a cranky old man named Joseph. Nelly herself works at the house Lockwood is staying at, but her personal history is all about Wuthering Heights, having grown up there with Heathcliff and his family...if you can honestly call it "his" family.  Oh, and there also seems to be a ghost lurking around the place named "Catherine"...and Heathcliff knows all about it after Lockwood loudly screams out in his sleep, thinking he dreamed about seeing her. Yes, there is a rather complicated background to the present circumstances...and why exactly is Heathcliff such a vindictive and viciously rude man?  Nelly lays it all out in her tale to Lockwood...

Wuthering Heights is a story about two neighboring families, the Earnshaws and Lintons.  They both have a sense of nobility about themselves, which contributes to the developing problem as the elder Earnshaw one day brings home from Liverpool a homeless "gypsy-like" little boy (Heathcliff) that he adopts as his own son and showers favoritism upon, to the disadvantage and envy of his biological son.  The resentment between the two boys grows into full-blown mutual hatred, and the two spend the remainder of their lives deliberately undermining the dreams and hopes of the other, purely out of spite.  Then Heathcliff has to deal with his affections for Catherine, his "sister", who has gone over to the Linton's and married into that family.  More resentment, hatred, jealousy, regret, revenge...a vicious cycle that consumes Heathcliff and condemns him to being seen as something of a monster to those around him ...and ultimately destroys him.

There's something rather easy about looking about how other people dwell upon the past in their lives in an unhealthy manner, but it's often hard to see the same thing in one's own life.  But this book definitely made me wonder if maybe I had better take a hard look at my own life and see if I might be holding on to some negative, harmful (to me) grudges...

B-r-r-r, Cold Nights Ahead in Northern Florida

Winter is descending on us early this year, with a severe cold front sweeping through yesterday, featuring a strong squall line putting everyone on alert at about 1:10 in the afternoon.  Since then, the forecast lows for the upcoming days and nights have gradually tilted toward colder conditions.  This morning it got down into the low 40's, which wasn't so bad...I wish that's as low as it would go, though.  Tonight here in Gainesville we're going to have a hard freeze, with a predicted low of 24-25 (for my millions of European readers, that's Fahrenheit, not Celsius).  Another hard freeze is due again the following night, and possibly the next as well.  All of this coldness will be dry, though, as it usually is this far south.

I like cold weather, but not past the freezing point.  I imagine that the folks living up north are due for their annual laugh at the expense of us southerners who complain about conditions that they would regard as mild, especially considering the complete absence of snow or ice here.  And a little further up north, where there is precipitation? No doubt, once again the news shows will soon be highlighting the numerous traffic accidents around Atlanta that take place this time of year when drivers unprepared for wet wintertime conditions encounter icy, frozen roads and begin to slip and slide...

Just Finished Reading Ray Bradbury's Farewell Summer

First of all, let me warn the reader that, although I usually try to leave the ending of books I read out of my reviews in order to avoid "giving it away", this time around I made an exception.  So if you haven't yet read Ray Bradbury's novel Farewell Summer and are thinking of doing so, you might want to put off reading this article until afterward...

Back when I was in high school, I read Ray Bradbury's short novel Dandelion Wine.  For some reason, the paperback book cover depicted it as some kind of scary science fiction/horror story.  Nothing could be further from the truth: it was a nostalgic journey by Bradbury back to his childhood days, about a boy like himself growing up in a small Illinois town back in the late 1920's.  To this day I regard it as one of my favorites.  Dandelion Wine was published in 1957, and a sequel, titled Farewell Summer, came out in 2006.  In it, the protagonist, Douglas Spaulding, has aged a few years and is now 14.  His younger brother, Tom, is 12.  The two, along with their buddies, are waging "war" against the old people, who they suspect of never having never been young and of conspiring against the children.  So, in this "war" of theirs, they do foolish things like steal the chess pieces which Douglas says the elderly are using to control them, as well as break the town clock in order to keep time from making them older.  The elderly folk in town are largely unaware of the kids' concerns...except for Quartermain, who thinks that Douglas murdered his elderly hypochondriac friend by shooting a cap gun at him (causing a heart attack) and was trying to kill him by running over him with his bicycle.  Quartermain, after open hostility and suspicion toward Douglas and his friends, eventually decides to try a different tactic and be nice to them.  As the book draws to an end, he realizes that, never having married or had children of his own, he has missed out and forgotten what it is like to be young like the boys.  Finally, in an enigmatic twist at the book's end, Bradbury implies that there is a mysterious "spirit" of sexuality that the outgoing generation transfers to the emerging one.  I found this part at the end to be somewhat weird...and ultimately hilarious.  I think a lot of that was in the wording Bradbury used.  Another, rather serious flaw I saw in the book was how he made children in the 12-14 age range think and speak more like 6-8 year olds...

If you have read Dandelion Wine, which to me is a complete story in itself, and think that you're going to get the same quality story in Farewell Summer, be forewarned: it isn't.  Instead, it is a more philosophical discussion on aging, generation gaps, and the passing on of the "torch of life", so to speak, from one generation to another.  Not a bad topic for discussion, but in my opinion Bradbury went about it in the most annoying way possible.  Then again, you may think differently if you read it...

Gators' "Swamp" a Nemesis for Home Team

It used to be that playing football games at the University of Florida's home Ben Hill Griffin stadium, nicknamed "The Swamp", was an almost insurmountable obstacle for the visiting team.  Now it seems that the home team is having issues with it.  In the Gators' last four games, one was on the road (Florida win, 34-10), one was at a neutral site (Florida win, 38-20), and two were at home (both Florida losses, 42-13 and today's overtime loss to South Carolina, 23-20).  And it's not a matter of opposing teams coming in here and playing over their heads: their play, if anything, has been unimpressive.  Instead, it's been Florida that has stumbled and faltered with turnovers, penalties, and disastrous lapses in special teams play.  To me, that's a sign of slipshod coaching...

I wrote a couple of days ago that Florida still had a shot at the SEC title...now they're left just trying to finish with a winning season and a bowl invitation.  To accomplish this, they only need to win over their second small-college "pushover" opponent, which is their next scheduled game.  But a couple of points here: (1) two years ago the Gators very nearly lost their late season "easy" game and last year they did lose it...and (2) the upcoming game next Saturday against Eastern Kentucky is being played in "The Swamp".  Maybe they can reschedule it to take place somewhere else...

Sleep, Saturday Starbucks, Running

Last night, after sleeping for much of the day after I finally arrived home around eight in the morning, following a full work week, I had planned to devote much of that evening to assorted projects...including some running.  Instead, I passed out and slept on into Saturday morning, having spent most of Friday after work in an unconscious state.  I have more than once heard it said that you can't make up for sleep deficits by sleeping for long stretches, but those who maintain that viewpoint obviously never met me.  I feel much, much better now and know that sometimes my body knows better and will wisely pull that "off" switch as soon as it realizes that I am safe and sound, off the road and in my home.

Now I'm enjoying my weekly late Saturday morning visit to my local Magnolia Parke Starbucks.  This is apparently the "happening" place in town, as the line of customers is going outside the shop, and every seat is taken up...except the shaded outdoor ones on this cold November morning.  It reminds me of our Midtown Manhattan visit back in '10 when everything was wall-to-wall people, with the only thing missing being the curb-to-curb yellow taxicabs (and, oh yeah, those monstrous skyscrapers blotting out the sky)...

As I had written on this blog a few days ago, I had been seriously considering entering the St. Augustine Half-Marathon, which is scheduled for tomorrow morning.  But there were factors that ultimately made me decide to delay my reentry into "half-marathoning": I would have had to get up around three in the morning and drive out there, run the race, stand around for an hour or two for the awards ceremony (if the posted results showed me eligible for one), and then drive back to Gainesville, all tired and sore.  Add to that the steep entry fees charged for these races ($85 if registered online or $100 on race day) and I decided that this would have to wait until another day.  Instead, yesterday, during my brief interlude of consciousness between long sleeps, I went out to my Lloyd Clarke Sports store on 13th Street (US 441) and signed up for the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot 10K (6.2 miles) Race that will be held here in town on the grounds of Tacachale, an institution for the developmentally disabled.  The price tag for entering? Just $25, and only $15 had I not wanted a tee-shirt.  Now, that's much, much better...

Recently Read Spencer Johnson's Book, Titled Who Moved My Cheese?

There's a little book out there, first published in 1998, that big corporations like Exxon, General Motors, Goodyear, Kodak, and the like are embracing and distributing among its employees to read: Who Moved My Cheese?, by Spencer Johnson. Johnson also co-wrote, along with Kenneth Blanchard, the famous book The One Minute Manager.  Although the inside jacket of the hardcover copy of Who Moved My Cheese? states the price at a hefty $19.95, the book itself is only 94 pages long...with large print.

Melissa had read it and liked the message, so one evening recently she handed her copy to me to see what I thought of it.  I put it to the side (immediately engrossed at the time with a Mexican soccer match on TV), thinking of coming back to it on some future date. But later on, around midnight, I reached over, picked it up, and breezed through it.  The message contained in it focuses on a childish, childlike story of two mice and two mice-sized people in a maze looking for cheese and how the attitudes of each one affect its chances of success as change comes along and challenges them each to adapt in order to keeping getting their cheese.  Each of the mice reacts instinctively when one (named Sniff) discovers the supply they had initially found by running through the maze to be dwindling (through consumption) and the other (Scurry) immediately sets back off in the maze to look for more.  The two people both linger about the old cheese as it gradually disappears and ponder what to do about it.  One is stubborn and opposed to change and stays put, refusing to go anywhere because this is his territory, by gosh, and it's his cheese that's he's entitled to...and more should be brought here for him.  The other person initially goes along with Hem's resistance to change, but eventually reasons out what the mice knew instinctively: more cheese probably isn't going to come soon, and survival dictates action in the form of following the mice down the maze in pursuit of more cheese.  As Haw, the wise human, leaves behind Hem, the stubborn one, in his stagnation, he discovers some wise principles during his quest...which the book presents every few pages (e.g. "If you do not move, you can become extinct", "Noticing small changes early helps you adapt to the bigger changes that are to come.") Eventually, Haw finds a wealth of cheese (as do the mice) and returns to tell Hem about it...but his erstwhile companion still refuses to budge.

Who Moved My Cheese? is so beloved by big corporations for an obvious reasons: they want to institute a large paradigm shift in their work force away from tradition and community and toward the flexibility pertaining to future job assignments and locations that the company demands.  Of course, the work force can go one step further and say that, if a particular company they are working for is not giving them the treatment they had been enjoying (i.e. "the cheese is dwindling"), they can go look for better work ("get back in the maze").  Still, the lesson here is a bit unsettling: the times we live in, as Alvin Toffler expressed in his decades-old book Future Shock, are accelerating us into ever-increasing demands for change while depriving us of the security of a stable job and home community.

Another aspect I noticed in this book is that all four characters are in agreement about what they all want the most, which is "cheese".  I'm assuming from this is that "cheese" is simply a simplified allegory of the basics for survival, like food, shelter, clothing, and medical care.  The implication that we are all going to have to struggle and scurry around continually for the remainder of our pathetic little lives just to "survive", though, is not a message that I feel marks an enlightened, civilized society...but it is the essence instead of an unregulated, wild-west-type free market capitalism that rejects any notion of safety nets provided by society in the form of government programs.  No wonder the big corporations love this book.  That having been said, though, I have to look at things from my own perspective as an individual person, just as other readers need to do as well.  And the question is not necessarily how things should be, but rather how things really are (for better or for worse)...and from this realization, what's the best course of action for me to take...

Football: Florida Gators Still in SEC Title Hunt

I'd better get this written before Saturday, because on that day this article's message may be a moot point.  But the fact remains...at this late point in the season approaching mid-November...that the University of Florida football team, incredibly, is still in the running to win the prestigious Southeastern Conference championship, despite having three losses.  But their win over Georgia three weeks ago gives them the tiebreaker if the two end up with same conference win-loss records.  And in a three-way tie with the Bulldogs and Missouri, Florida would prevail as long as the Tigers lose their upcoming game at Tennessee...a distinct possibility.  So right now, in terms of conference records, Missouri is 4-1, Georgia is 5-2, and Florida is 4-3.  This Saturday, if higher-ranked Auburn wins against Georgia and Florida beats South Carolina, the two East Division contenders will finish their conference schedule with 5-3 records.  That would leave Missouri, who plays Texas A&M on the road Saturday, Tennessee in Knoxville the following week, and then closes at home against Arkansas.  They could well lose all three games, although as far as Florida's title hopes are concerned they need only lose to Tennessee and to either Texas A&M or Arkansas.

If all this happens...and it very well could...Florida would be going to Atlanta to play the West Division winner, which at this point looks like either Mississippi State or Alabama (the two play each other this Saturday).  Naturally, if the Gators went on to a big upset victory in this speculative title game, they still wouldn't be in contention for the national championship playoffs.  But for head coach Will Muschamp, just getting to the title game would be a great turnaround from the desperate position he was in just a few weeks ago after losing a close game to LSU and being humiliated by Missouri in Florida's homecoming game...