Heavy Rainfall of Late Where I Live

I suppose I should be grateful that we're getting plenty of rainfall...after all, the folks out in California are suffering through a painfully harsh drought.  And for a while this summer, it seemed, we had settled here in northern Florida into a pattern of sunny mornings and early afternoons, with late afternoon and evening thunderstorms and showers.  I liked that since the humidity would go down during the day just as the temperature climbed up into the 90s...and then it would all get cooler with the rain.  But now it seems that the humidity is staying high around the clock, and the storms are starting to hit us in the morning, too...

All of this rain is turning my lawn into a swamp, and the grass seems to be growing twice as fast as usual.  Our poor ten-year-old dog Freckles, who was already traumatized by the booming and crackling Fourth of July fireworks various neighbors of mine were setting off from several days before the holiday (and a few afterward),  now has to suffer through the often continual thunder bellowing around us.  As for me, I don't mind the thunder, but the humidity, along with the hopelessly wet surface conditions,  has made running outdoors unfeasible.  Also, no one I know, including myself, likes to get out on the road driving under these conditions...

New Horizons Space Probe Flies By Pluto

I have to admit to being taken a little off guard the other day when my son Will told me about the close-up pictures of Pluto that were being released and shown on television.  Had one of our scientific space exploration missions actually reached that remote spot?  Apparently, yes...

New Horizons is an American space probe, aimed at exploring Pluto, its moons, and the Kuiper Belt of which it is a part.  It was designed and constructed through a collaboration between Southwest Research Institute and the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University.  NASA managed the mission itself, which began with a January, 2006 launch, a mid-course fly-by with Jupiter, and...finally, this year, its arrival at Pluto just a couple of days ago.  The photo of Pluto pictured above is from July 14.  New Horizons made its closest approach to what I still tend to call our "ninth planet" (although officially it's been demoted to the status of "dwarf planet") yesterday, taking surprisingly detailed pictures of its surface...which indicates that Pluto is geologically active and possibly could have an interior of water.  You can get access to more New Horizons Pluto pictures through this link: NASA Pluto Mission Website.  The probe also took an incredible picture of Pluto's largest of its known five moons, named Charon, which you can also view on NASA's website...

The Kuiper Belt, which rings our Solar System beyond Neptune's orbit with myriad objects including comets and dwarf planets, may well contain life.  Pluto has turned out to be far from the dormant ball of ice it has been portrayed as over the years, although I've heard that, should it leave its orbit and head toward the sun, it would most likely form a tail like that of a comet.  I heard this watching Public Television's Nova program about the New Horizons Pluto mission, which was shown last night...

When I was a kid, my dad bought me a comic book that contained, along with other tidbits, the stories of the vision and construction of the Mount Palomar Observatory in Southern California and the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 (at Lowell Observatory in Arizona).  There was a lot of national pride because "we" discovered the ninth planet, although the subsequent discovery decades later of the Kuiper Belt, in which Pluto resides,  may prove to be much more significant...

The New Horizons probe will now continue beyond Pluto and further into the Kuiper Belt.  I'm not sure exactly how useful it will be beyond this point, but I wouldn't dare to underestimate the ingenuity and imagination of the scientists and engineers who have been behind this project...

Just Finished Reading Lyn Hamilton's The Celtic Riddle

Back in April, as reported on this blog, I went to the Alachua Friends of the Library book sale here in Gainesville.  They had a lot of used books selling for pennies on the dollar...one such book I bought was a paperback mystery novel by Lyn Hamilton titled The Celtic Riddle, for which I dished out 50 cents.  Hamilton, who sadly died of cancer in 2009, has authored an intriguing series of eleven "archaeological" mysteries, to which the book I purchased belongs.  Lara McClintoch, a Toronto-based antiques store owner, is the protagonist and tells the story in the first person.  Each book goes to a different location on the planet and examines its culture and relics in the context of a suspenseful mystery.  With The Celtic Riddle, the place of interest is Ireland.  Lara accompanies her friend Alex to the Dingle in far southwestern Ireland for the reading of a will following the death of a wealthy Irish businessmen...and discovers that aside from the assignment of that wealth to different family members, employees, and friends, there is a special hidden treasure that he has given clues to the divided family and others to find.  His intention was for everyone to get back to working together, but Lara finds that there is too much animosity and distrust between these often very disagreeable people.  And the fact that some of them are being murdered, one-by-one, doesn't exactly help with the trust issue...

As far as mysteries are concerned, I enjoyed The Celtic Riddle...although the villain committing the murders was someone I had come to suspect rather early in the story.  But I think my success in sleuthing this out was primarily due to the fact that I'm just getting good at figuring out mysteries...especially after reading so many Sue Grafton novels.  I also enjoyed Lara McClintoch's agreeable but realistic character...this is someone that I would enjoy following in subsequent books of the series.  There is only one issue I had with this story...

The clues to the treasure, based somehow on an old Irish poem, don't make any sense to me...although Lara doesn't seem to have any trouble "connecting the dots".  The initial clues point to further clues found across the country in buildings, boats, and monuments.  The treasure hunters never seem to have much trouble finding them, which I think would be much more difficult in real life.  But having said that, I did enjoy the old Irish legends that the author introduced into the story.  As to the implausibility of it being so easy to pick up the clues in the treasure hunt...well, that isn't the ultimate mystery of The Celtic Riddle, anyway...

I checked my public library system's catalog for books by Lyn Hamilton.  I was amazed to discover that they had no books of hers, yet were quite happy to rid themselves of this quality novel so cheaply at their book sale! I think I'll fill out a purchase suggestion to them for Hamilton's books...

Some 1965-66 Nova Elementary School Memories, Part 5

Yes, it's time again for another installment of my personal recollections of my fourth grade experiences at Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School, in Davie, Florida (near where the Miami Dolphins currently have their training camp) in the mid sixties.  Once again, I'll list them in no particular order of importance or chronology...

--For social studies, our "suite" of five classrooms that comprised fourth and fifth graders had areas that the students could elect to study according to their interests...Mrs. Hernandez had the Seminole Indians, Mrs. Jenkins had jobs, Mr. Drew had government, Mr. Johnston had climatology (social studies ???), and Miss Kidder...I can't for the life of me remember what her class was about.  By far the most popular of the groups was the Seminole Indians...I picked jobs under Jenkins, a decision I soon regretted.  In retrospect, government or weather would have been a better fit for me.  I spent most of my time with this class in Room 9 either daydreaming or intensely studying the large, detailed map of Broward County posted on the wall to the left of the blackboard...I got to know just about every community in the county and exactly where they were located...

--Later in the school year, I was in a class devoted to the study of the state of Florida, including its history and geography.  We were issued a textbook on the topic and told to work the questions at the end of each chapter in our notebooks...at our own pace on our own...Jenkins, who had a nasty, short temper, was again my so-called "teacher".  I took advantage of this class to often just get up, walk out, and wander around the school, with the great library they had being my favorite haunt...

--There was a series of interesting science movies out in schools, made by the Bell Telephone Company in the late 1950s as a Cold War response to the Soviet bloc's science achievements (like Sputnik), .  They were hosted by a genial, paternal bald man with glasses by the name of Dr. Frank Baxter.  The movies, which according to the available technology of the time, we watched using rolling film projectors (which often jammed up) and screens, ranged in subjects covering the weather (Unchained Goddess), the sun (Our Mr. Sun), astrophysics (The Strange Case of the Cosmic Ray), language (The Alphabet Conspiracy), genetics (The Thread of Life), the circulatory system (Hemo the Magnificent), the five senses (Gateways to the Mind), and time (About Time).  I loved them all, with the one about cosmic rays being my favorite (I still have a soft spot in my heart for mu and pi mesons). I watched every movie, some several times, over the course of my three years at Nova Elementary.  I enjoyed them so much, as a matter of fact, that I would sneak out of my class and hide in the back of another if I found out they were showing a Bell Science film.  In the fourth grade, I saw the films about the sun and the weather. A few years ago I was able to check out a couple of the Bell Science movies from my public library and watch them again.  Needless to say, they weren't exactly cutting-edge science anymore...

--Late during the school year, we read a book that had a chapter on secret codes.  Suddenly, there sprung up a war of espionage among groups of classmates (including myself) that involved us devising intricate codes and trying to crack those of the "enemy"...

--Also late in the school year, the faculty created a "table of honor" during lunchtime for the well-behaved model students.  Starting at one table, the "table of honor" gradually increased in number to where it comprised more than two-thirds of the cafeteria (or "multi-purpose room" as they called it).  I had been selected for it, but got kicked off one day when a teacher/monitor saw me clowning around at the table with a friend.  As I sat there shame-faced in the section that lacked honor, a whole group of my friends suddenly came over, also just unceremoniously evicted from their exalted table.  Apparently, good-natured, harmless fun is a dishonorable activity...

Well, I think I've filled up enough on this page about my 1965-66 Nova Elementary School memories.  More to come...

Major League Baseball at the All-Star Break

The Major League Baseball All-Star Game takes place tomorrow evening, and although I'll be off from work and able to watch it, I think I'll just pass.  I like to follow actual teams, with their games counting either in the standings or playoffs.  And I don't like the idea of important players exposing themselves to injuries when they are the crucial elements of their respective teams.  I remember back in the 1970s watching one all-star game, which was tied at the end.  Pete Rose was on base and Ray Fosse was catching.  There was a play giving Rose the chance to try to score.  The throw came in time to Fosse, but Rose came at him full force at the plate, bowling him over and scoring, giving his National League the win that year.  But Fosse suffered a season-ending injury on the play and never was the same player again.  Ever since then, I've been cool to this game...just get me back to the regular season that actually matters...

My Florida teams of Tampa Bay and Miami have been competitive during the first part of the 2015 season, but that doesn't seem to be reflected in the standings.  Both have had to struggle around injuries...but I suppose most other teams have had to do the same.  But the Marlins, struggling with a 38-51 record in fourth place in their division, have been decimated.  Their ace pitcher Jose Fernandez just came back from an injury he suffered last year, and slugger Giancarlo Stanton, who had been well out in front of the home run race, is out for a few weeks.  And now Dee Gordon, one of the best hitters and fielders in the league, is injured.  I can only say, "OUCH!".  As for the Rays, until they recently went into a slump, Tampa Bay had been maintaining a small lead in their division.  After their stumble, they managed to regroup and currently have a 46-45 record at the break...still within striking distance of the division-leading Yankees...

Right now, as I see it, no team has a lock on their division, although Kansas City is comfortably ahead in theirs and St. Louis and Pittsburgh, although reasonably close in the standings, both are in an excellent position to make the playoffs.  But some teams, like the Athletics, Phillies, Marlins, and Brewers, are too far behind...which at this time of the season means that they may soon be trading away some of their talented players to contending teams.  I don't see the Rays, still contenders themselves, dealing away their best (which is what they did last year when they traded their pitching ace David Price to the Tigers), although they may try to acquire a star or two from one of those aforementioned clubs...

Finished With Reading Sue Grafton's L, M, and N Novels

The very first of mystery writer Sue Grafton's "alphabet" series that I ever read was "L" is for Lawless, several years ago.  I had completely forgotten what happened in it, though, and welcomed a reread.  In it, California-based private detective Kinsey Millhone finds herself sucked into a no-win scenario after her benevolent landlord, octogenarian Henry Pitts, asks her to look after a  small matter concerning a recently deceased neighbor.  Originally a simple investigation to get his burial and grave site taken care of by the Veteran's Administration for his service in World War II, Kinsey eventually finds herself an unwitting party to a father and daughter's attempts to recover long-hidden loot from a decades-old bank heist while avoiding pursuit by a murderous man bent on reaching the prize first...and killing them all in the process.  This story was interesting in that it shows how people can gradually find themselves over their heads in matters not of their concern if they're not careful...

As for "M" is for Malice, I read that one a couple of years ago and wrote about it on this blog, so I skipped it this go-around on my alphabetical journey through Grafton's series.  Here is a link to that article... 

The last Sue Grafton book I've read, "N" is for Noose, was a fresh story for me.  In it, Kinsey is, for the most part, in Carson City, Nevada, taking care of her friend, fellow private eye Robert Dietz, as he recovers from leg surgery.  As in "L" is for Lawless, she finds herself in an unwinnable situation after Dietz asks her to look into the concerns of Selma, a widow of Tom, a police officer there who had died of a heart attack after weeks of appearing disturbed about something.  Kinsey's task is to find out what that "something" was...once again things get out of control as she discovers the connection between two murders-by-hanging out in the nearby desert, spaced five years apart, and Tom's scribbling of a noose with a numerical code written within it.  What do the numbers mean?  Of course, Kinsey is going to discover the answer...although in retrospect she isn't sure that it might have just been better had she simply walked away from the case...

I haven't yet read a single Sue Grafton novel that I didn't enjoy.  One reason for this is the first-person narrative by a truly sympathetic character, Kinsey Millhone.  Kinsey has her weak moments, to be sure, but she also possesses a degree of self-confidence and assertiveness...along with a tight grip on reality...that I admire.  Let's see...Grafton just got through the letter "X" with her writing, so at this stage I have ten more of these books to read before I "catch up" to her...

Soccer's CONCACAF Gold Cup in Group Stage, US-Haiti Match Tonight

CONCACAF, which is an incredibly long acronym standing for Confederation of North, Central America, and Caribbean Association Football, is the group comprising both national and league soccer teams in the northern part of the western hemisphere.  They've already held their league tournament and are now playing their odd-year national teams tournament, called the CONCACAF Gold Cup, and which is now in the group stage.  There are twelve teams in three groups...after each team in a group finishes playing the other three, the top two in each group advance along with the two third-place finishers with the best records.  In other words, the group stage only reduces the number down to eight, which then begin the "knockout" rounds.  The final will be held on July 26.  The United States, which has tended to dominate this tournament in recent years, will once again be the primary host nation, with Canada also providing sites for some matches...

The games in the Gold Cup are being shown on TV, on Fox Sports 1 (Gainesville's Cox Channel 62) and Fox Sports 2 (Channel 267).  Tonight, the U.S. will play Haiti starting at 8:30.  This match will be shown on Fox Sports 1, but I'll miss it since I'm working at that time...

I expect the United States to encounter the most opposition from Mexico and Costa Rica, each of which is currently in a different group.  Personally, I'd rather watch league play...at this time of year it's pretty much Major League Soccer, based in the U.S. and Canada.  Still, if a Gold Cup game happens to be going on and I'm at home, I might just watch it, regardless whether the American team is involved...

Wimbledon Women's Semifinals This Morning

In the 1970s, tennis took off as a major sport as stars like Billy Jean King, Chris Evert, and Jimmy Connors rose to the forefront.  It's attracted a large following ever since, although I believe the mass popularity of the sport has diminished somewhat...along with disco dancing, I remember that playing tennis was a big fad in college.  I never was very good at the sport...then again, I just enjoyed volleying the ball back and forth across the net with someone of similar inability, with the two of us seeing how long we could sustain the volleys...not exactly tennis as it is ferociously played in the professional setting.  My parents both were avid TV tennis fans...they both kept up with the different ongoing tournaments and the star players.  After my mother died in 2002, my father continued following it...our phone conversations were often a little awkward when he would go off rambling about this tournament or that star, while I was totally ignorant of it all.  He, too, passed away two years ago...now whenever a major tournament is going on or one of those players he liked to discuss is on TV, I remember him and his enthusiasm for tennis.  Which brings me to the Wimbledon tournament, which is going on right now and is into the singles semifinals...

The women's stages at Wimbledon are a day or two ahead of the men's.  Their first semifinal match featured two overachievers: 20th-seed Garbine Muguruza won a close match against #13 Agnieszka Radwanska to reach the finals.  She will play the winner of the match going on at this moment (shown on ESPN) between Serena Williams, the #1 seed, and 4th seed Maria Sharapova.  Williams, who had lost the Wimbledon final to Sharapova in 2004, has now won 16 straight matches between the two.  Whoever wins this match, most likely Serena, will be the overwhelming favorite in the final, to be played Saturday.

The men's singles semifinals, which will be shown tomorrow morning, features three "regulars" and one underdog.  Roger Federer (#2) will face Britain's favorite son Andy Murray (3) while upstart Richard Gasquet (#21) plays top-seeded Novak Djokovic.  The men's final match will take place Sunday.  The reason we see the tennis in the morning is the time zone difference between England and the U.S....their matches are played in the afternoon, local time...

I don't have any preferences in the tournament, although nationalist readers would probably urge me to root for Serena, the one American left among the "elite eight".  Maybe I'll end up doing just that, but not because of her nationality.  My main focus in watching Wimbledon right now is to get a better sense of what the game is about, the players' strategies, and the game's flow.  Maybe it's still not to late to develop an interest in this sport...after all, who knew I'd ever enjoy watching soccer!

Just Finished Reading George Orwell's Animal Farm

George Orwell's short novel Animal Farm is one of those stories that I've heard so much about over the years that I never felt any pressing need to read it...yet, I did just that the other day. Set on a farm in England, the animals in it decide to rebel against the cruel rule of Farmer Jones and set up a self-governing farm...renamed Animal Farm from its original title of Manor Farm...using the principles of "animalism".  The pigs have set themselves up as the intellectual force behind the movement and, led by Snowball and Napoleon, have come up with a list of seven rules for the animals that they have put up on the barn wall.  As the story goes on, there is a power struggle between the two porcine leaders and one, using a forged alliance with the dogs, emerges as an autocratic ruler over the animals.  One by one, the rules are amended as the pigs gradually assume the very roles of the humans they had displaced.  Finally, at the end, the other animals find themselves even worse off under the pigs, who have even thrown away the rules, along with the name Animal Farm.

Animal Farm is obviously an allegory to communism and the rule of Josef Stalin over the Soviet Union.  Originally promoted as a worker's revolution to give them the rights they deserved, the clique running the communists made themselves "more equal" than the masses they were supposedly there to serve...eventually the people were even more severely subjugated than they were under autocratic czar rule.

Although intended to frame Stalinism in satirical terms, Animal Farm can apply to any social/political/religious movement with benign stated intentions but whose leaders and organizers set themselves apart from those for whose causes they claim to be fighting...while in reality manipulating and taking advantage of them.  Since I seem to have an innate suspicion of people setting themselves up as authorities with the power of command, this story deeply resonates with me...

Iranian Nuclear Negotiations Looking Like an Exercise in Futility

The ongoing negotiations between Iran and Western countries, including the United States, to come to an agreement whereby Iran limits its nuclear development and allows independent inspections of its facilities, are due to end on July 10, with, at this point of time, little to indicate that the talks, reportedly at a standoff, will succeed before that date.  To me, I'm not quite sure what good any negotiated "deal" will accomplish...Iran's de facto dictator, Ayatollah Khamenei, has been the supreme authority of that country with the power to arbitrarily interpret, validate or reject any laws while being at the same time the commander-in-chief of its armed forces.  And Khamenei, who has ruled that country since 1989, has already flatly stated that he would never allow international inspectors at Iran's military facilities.  So U.S. Secretary of State Kerry, his fellow Western negotiators, and the polite and amiable Iranian negotiators can agree on whatever they want...it doesn't matter...because in the end, only what Ayatollah Khamenei says about it is what Iran's policy will be...

I was around in 1980 during the Iranian hostage crisis, when President Carter sought out authoritative Iranian representatives to negotiate the release of the 50+ American hostages being held there...and the then-Ayatollah Khomeini would repeatedly frustrate and contradict any progress that the Iranian-American negotiations were making.  I see nothing different...their current "supreme" leader feels no sense of honor or duty to live by international agreements...instead, he insists on his own exalted authority to change or interpret them as he sees fit.  So the way I see it, these negotiations are an exercise in futility...

Getting "Good" at Math vs. Kindling a Passion For It

I was just listening on my car radio to a PBS show featuring an interview with a young man who, as the result of a street mugging that left him with a concussion, suddenly began to discover that he was inclined to view his reality in mathematical terms, focused on geometry.  I don't know how his story ended, because at the time a squall line was about to strike, with me racing into my Magnolia Parke Starbucks parking lot to get inside before all hell broke loose...so I left the program unfinished and rushed indoors to escape the deluge.  Now that I'm inside having taken the last available table...with that hell now breaking loose outside...I'm reflecting a bit on what it takes to be "good" in mathematics...

I'm not being arrogant or prideful when I state that I have always registered extremely high in mathematical ability on aptitude tests (e.g. my SAT math score was the maximum 800).  However, that aptitude never translated well to the classroom, where I consistently underachieved.  Why?  I have always felt turned off by the combined hyper-competitive and moralistic tone of most math classes.  By this I mean that the focus was rarely on the fascinating field of mathematics itself, but rather on the performance of the math students.  We were supposedly in some kind of de facto competition with each other to see who was "best", and failure to answer questions correctly always seemed to have a moral sense of condemnation.  The irony is that whenever I undertake the study of something for its own sake, free of competitive pressures, then I naturally tend to float to a higher level than others.  The young  mathematics scholar on the radio program had independently developed his own high level of competence in the field, relatively free of the aforementioned distractions and obstacles imposed in formal math instruction.  He envisioned mathematics ultimately in its geometric form, according to how his brain's functioning had changed following the assault...

I don't believe I need a bop on my head in order to get good at mathematics, but then again, that young man wasn't necessarily trying to "get good" at it, either.  No, he was able to kindle a passion for mathematics based on the mental equipment he was furnished according to his circumstances.  I see no reason why I couldn't follow the same principle, albeit with the particular gifts toward the field that I have been provided...

Some 1965-66 Nova Elementary School Memories, Part 4

Here are some more memories, in no particular order, that I've somehow kept of my fourth grade experiences at Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School in 1965-66, the first year of its existence...

--Individualized study was the norm at Nova, at least in the five-classroom section called "Suite C".  They had SRA (Science Research Associates) study lab kits that we were all supposed to be engaged with...there were Reading Lab, Spelling Lab, and Math Lab, if memory serves me correctly.  I tended to avoid SRA, though, which although a required activity, never got me into trouble with my teachers...convincing me that the faculty was detached from the students they were entrusted with teaching.  But later in the school year, I undertook to do another, more advanced SRA program, called Study Skills, which, unlike the other SRA kits, required library visits to do and which involved reading essays and stories...and then answering comprehension questions following them.  I did all of Study Skills, which had quite a few lessons and was a feat that very few students accomplished, and then turned in my folder to my teacher showing my completion.  I never got acknowledgement for my efforts and found my folder a few weeks later lying on a counter without any teacher's notes on it...as if no one had even bothered to look at it...

--We did have field trips that year.  One was a combination trip to Port Everglades and the Broward County Courthouse.  I think the teachers conducting it had in mind all of us boarding a ship as part of the excursion, but weren't able to swing it.  My highlight with the courthouse visit was standing on the high roof overlooking downtown Fort Lauderdale and seeing how close to the edge I would dare myself to stand. I think we also may have, at another time, visited the Seminole Indian Village on US 441 in Dania, but if we did my memory eludes me...

--In preparation for our school-wide Christmas assembly, each suite came up with a show.  Suites, A, B, and D each had skits they performed.  Our suite, though did something I thought was pretty cool: a Mexican dance, completely choreographed with partners, kicking and swirling, on an enormous scale.  I was paired with Eleanor, another student who would complete the Nova program all the way through senior graduation.  That dance, which the whole suite had practiced and practiced to a numbing degree, easily stole the show...

--Speaking of Christmas, many students at Nova Elementary were Jewish and celebrated Hanukkah in December.  Students were encouraged to bring in items pertaining to how they celebrated  the holidays, and I heard Jewish holiday songs and became acquainted with the dreidel, a top with the sides inscribed with Hebrew letters.   Another totally cool experience...

--I have some memory of Spanish being taught in the context of the story Goldilocks.  I also remember Marjorie getting the role of Goldilocks in the subsequent performance because of her ability to ham it up...

--Speaking of acting, later in that year we assembled in the cafeteria (officially called the "Multi-Purpose Room") to watch some other skits, one of which featured Paige, a classmate whose stage presence even at that early age indicated a promising future in entertainment, as confirmed by her role many years later as the voice of Belle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast...

More memories to come...

Just Finished Reading The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Robert Jordan, author of the extensive and expansive The Wheel of Time fantasy series, was working on his very lengthy concluding book when, in 2007, he passed away.  Fellow fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson was enlisted to finish the series, with the aid of Jordan's outlines and notes.  He decided to break that last super-long book that Jordan had envisioned into three volumes...I just finished reading the first of these, titled The Gathering Storm...the 12th book in the series.  I was very pleased with the result...

Brandon Sanderson had a monumental task before him, which was to stay true to Robert Jordan's vision and intentions for the series ending while reconciling the many subplots and characters that the original author had introduced and then just left hanging.  While staying true to the main characters with their distinct personalities (a strength of Jordan's writing), Sanderson managed the seemingly impossible task of significantly advancing the story (a  weakness of Jordan). In this book, the focus is on two main characters, Rand al'Thor and Egwene al'Vere.  Rand, generally known to most others living in his fantasy world as "The Dragon Reborn", struggles with his emotions, his mounting distrust of others, his belief that he is imprisoned by prophecy and fated to die, and the feeling that he is going insane.  Egwene has her own struggle to unite the White Tower of the Aes Sedai under her leadership.  First, she has to endure beatings and imprisonment while her access to channeling has been blocked...all under the direction of the false leader Elaida.  Egwene also knows of an impending attack on the White Tower by an imposing enemy called the Seanchan, but her warnings to Elaida fall on deaf ears.  With both Rand and Egwene, the suspense builds throughout the book until each undergoes a climactic ordeal, and the book concludes with a sense of resolution for both...

I expect the action to dramatically pick up in the next book of this series.  The characters Mat (my favorite in the series), Perrin, and Elayne also have very important parts to play, and I expect more coverage of their own stories to get greater focus.  I'm sad that Robert Jordan died, and that he didn't have the opportunity to finish The Wheel of Time as he would have liked.  But Brandon Sanderson has stepped in to provide some hope for us readers who have already put in so much time going through these books...

Venus-Jupiter Conjunction Tonight...Look Westward After Sunset

Yesterday evening at 9:30 while at work, I went out on my "lunch" break to my car.  As I looked in the sky toward the west-northwest, a little above the horizon, I saw two bright star-like objects very close to each other.  These "stars" are nothing less than the two planets Venus and Jupiter, with Venus being the brighter of the two.  This closeness of our celestial neighbors from the perspective of Earth, in astronomical terms called a "conjunction", will be visible tonight as well, weather cooperating.  If I'm not mistaken, they are positioned in the faint constellation Cancer.  And should you want to add another planet, Saturn, to your sky-gazing experience, look southward toward the constellation Scorpius (representing a scorpion).  Just west of the "claw" lies the ringed planet...or, should I say, one of the ringed planets, now that astronomers have discovered them around Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune as well.  By the way, the brightest star in that constellation, Antares, is a red giant that would engulf the Earth were it in our Sun's position...

My June 2015 Running Record

In June, following May's left leg strain, I built back up my total running mileage, finishing the month at 303.  I spread out my runs over the course of each day, so I didn't have a "long" run per se.  My longest single run was for 4.2 miles.  I ran on each day of the month...

The weather where I'm at is horribly hot and muggy...and when the humidity does drop, the temperature goes into the upper 90's...not very conducive to long-distance running.  So indoor running has become the norm for me, although I like to get outside on the road for a short run from time to time.

As for races in July, this upcoming weekend features two on July 4th, both starting at 8 AM.  In Gainesville, there's the three-mile Melon Run at Westside Park, which I've raced in before.  In Branford, a few miles west of Fort White and Ichetucknee Springs on US Highway 27, they are holding the Firecracker 5K/10K.  I'm wondering which, if any, of these events I want to run in.  If I do decide to participate, I plan to just treat the race as a training run, with my focus on just covering the distance.  And this time I'm carrying a bottle of Gatorade with me...in my last 10K race, the organizers didn't provide us with anything but water in that very humid afternoon event...

USA Plays Germany in Women's World Cup Semifinals Tomorrow

Tomorrow (Tuesday) will see what I call the "World War II" semifinals in the FIFA Women's World Cup of soccer.  Why? Simply because of the pairings: England plays Japan and Germany plays the United States.  So, depending on the outcomes of these two matches we'll either have an Axis final (Germany-Japan), an Allies final (England-USA)...or a continuation of the war...

The so-called experts in soccer have Germany ranked #1 and the United States at #2, so it's a little disappointing that there won't be a chance of them facing each other in the final.  Still, should defending World Cup Champion Japan win against England, the final should be very entertaining regardless who wins between Germany and the US.  The Japanese impressed me greatly during their last game against Australia with their aggressive play, team coordination, and skill with the ball...

Two important scorers on the American team missed the previous contest against China due to yellow card (foul) accumulation in the previous round against Colombia, but they'll be back to face Germany.  Germany may well win tomorrow's game, but I believe their "favorites" status is largely due to them running up the score to 10-0 in their group stage match against relatively weak Ivory Coast.  I think the Americans will prevail in the end, but then again I'm not going to be out there on the field determining the result...

One striking difference between women's and men's national soccer teams is that the players on the women's teams tend to be amateurs and the men professionals.  This is because the professional league system for men has been around much longer and women's pro soccer leagues are simply not yet bringing in the fan and media attention that would sustain a level of income appropriate to a professional career for the players.  I bet most of my readers...even many soccer fans...don't know that the U.S. has its own women's league: the National Women's Soccer League, with nine teams and which plays its regular season concurrently with the men's Major League Soccer.  I understand that many of the games, although not on regular television, can be viewed on YouTube...

Largely because girl's soccer in America is often promoted in high school athletics as a counterpart to boy's football, on an international level women's soccer in the United States, with its large pool of developing talent, has grown to a higher level of respect than has the men's sport.  It would be a shame if the most talented of these athletes were continued to be denied the opportunity to make a decent living from their sport when male soccer players of much lesser stature in their own respective leagues can support themselves with their higher pay...

Tomorrow's games will be shown on FoxSports1 Channel, which in Gainesville is on Cox Cable Channel 62.  Unfortunately, I'll be at work during the games and won't be able to watch them...

Some 1965-66 Nova Elementary School Memories, Part 3

As I continue on with memories of my fourth grade experiences at Nova Elementary (in Davie, Florida) in 1965-66, I'll present the rest of them anecdotally, in no particular order of chronology or importance...

--My first physical education class at Nova was unforgettable...most likely because it was one of my first classes there with a teacher actually teaching something.  My teacher/coach was Mr. Tilton, an amiable jock type who, for some reason known only to himself, decided to take advantage of this groundbreaking event to give the class a clinic on how to punt a football.  I took his lesson to heart and am still a pretty damned good punter.  Only a couple of things, though...(1) He didn't bother to actually explain the rules of football, which in 1965 I didn't know, and (2) To this day, I have NEVER punted a football in any game on any level...

--One of our first science projects was to take seeds of a plant and grow them under different conditions and observe and record the results.  My assigned plant was given the adequate water and soil...only it was kept in darkness, in one of the lab's cabinets...and grew wildly with a sickly pale color...

--In that same lab, led by Mrs. Bethune, I went though the fifth grade textbook and performed experiments.  For much of the time I worked with Jill (who, like me, went all the way through the Nova system) as a lab partner.  We had lab report sheets we had to fill out for each experiment, with spaces for PURPOSE, MATERIALS, PROCEDURE, OBSERVATIONS, and CONCLUSIONS.  At the time, I felt that filling these sheets was tedious, to say the least, but now I realize their value, and not just for science.  When you undertake anything, you need to determine why you're doing it, what you need in order to do it, how to do it, what happened when you did it, and what are you going to do with what happened...

--At the beginning of the school day, we would meet in our respective home "bases" where students could order supplies they needed (there was a designated student who would then go down to the "bookstore" down the hallway to get them).  One item always in great demand was a box of "gummed reinforcements", those doughnut-shaped stickers we'd lick and then place on papers so that they wouldn't rip out of notebooks.  Back then they were necessary because we'd have to poke papers without holes punched into them  into binders, and the gummed reinforcements would keep them from ripping apart. But ever since the Nova Elementary School experience, I have never used a gummed reinforcement...

--The five classrooms in our Suite C were connected to each other by movable partitions, a new innovation in schools that would quickly spread throughout the school system and become a standard feature.  This way, the teachers could at times hold assemblies just by pulling back the walls.  I never could get the knack of closing them...

--Since Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School in 1965-66 was the debut of elementary education into the experimental Nova system (there was already Nova Junior and Senior High School, which my sister Anita attended), from time to time during certain school days we could look out of our classroom windows into the hallway (our school was completely enclosed in one building) and see well-dressed visitors looking in on us, apparently being on tours as part of whatever educational, business, or political groups they were associated with.  These visitors always made me feel a bit uneasy, as if I were some kind of zoo animal on exhibit...

--There was musical instruction given this year in Suite C, first for those wanting to learn how to play the recorder, and then, with the acquisition of an electric organ (with headphones) for those wishing to play that instrument.  I never did take to either of these, although I loved music and have always had a high degree of manual dexterity...

--In Nova, they were very proud of the innovation they introduced as the "LAP", an acronym for "learning activity package"...in common parlance, you and I would call it a "lesson" or "unit"...always in the form of some papers stapled together and handed out to the students by the teacher.  We would get these LAPs, which always seemed to be overly pretentious as to what exactly they were trying to say, and then be expected to just automatically take off on our own initiative in doing them.  Although LAPs were a common feature of Nova, I cannot, to this day, remember any of them, in any subject.  In my judgment, looking back more objectively on it all, they were designed to replace the teacher as the driving force in our education...in fact, it was uncommon to have classes then where teachers actually stood up in front of the class and taught lessons.  In all of my years at Nova, I cannot remember one single time when any teacher ever took it upon his or herself to sit down with me and discuss a LAP.  The burden of communication was always on the student, as if we kids automatically knew how to educate ourselves.  What folly...

Stay tuned, there are plenty more random memories of this period in my student life to come...

Just Finished Reading Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere

The novel Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman, is a fantasy exercise into an alternate reality secretly coexisting with the conventional real world.  In this it bears a slight resemblance to the world of Harry Potter in that those on the "other side"...in Gaiman's case those dwellers of "London Below"...are aware of the conventional inhabitants (or "muggles", with Potter), but the reverse isn't necessarily true.  The protagonist, a young man named Richard Mayhew, painfully discovers  this.  He has moved to London and has a budding, successful career underway as a financial trader.  He is also newly engaged to Jessica, who besides being beautiful is a bit on the controlling side.  One day, they are walking down the street and they come across a teenage girl lying and bleeding.  Richard stops to care for her and Jessica leaves in an angry huff, hardly thinking about the girl and her plight.  This insensitivity on her part is later explained by the fact that those living "above" are incapable of holding on to thoughts or memories about those  dwelling "below"...and the injured girl, named Door (appropriately named, for she has a special knack for opening them), is one of the latter.  But Richard, by taking her in and caring for her, has himself inadvertently slipped through into London Below and cannot return to his former life...no one remembers or recognizes him anymore.  Returning to London Below, he becomes further drawn into the drama as Door flees from two sadistic hired murderers, Croup and Vandemar, and helps her try to discover who hired them to kill her family.  He meets up with what I call a "wild card" character in the Marquis de Carabas, a scoundrel who nevertheless seems to be fighting on the side of Door.  But is he really?

Neverwhere, besides creating an enchanting imaginary world of a complete, hidden society underneath London proper, examines the ideas of loyalty and betrayal...and how, on the one hand it is so easy to rationalize one's betrayal of another...and on the other hand, betrayal sometimes seems to be impossible to avoid, even with the best of intentions.  The character of Richard Mayhew reminded me a bit of another fantasy fiction hero, Bilbo Baggins of The Hobbit.  Like Bilbo, Richard is rather ordinary and believable, with his compassion for those who are suffering being a strong trait of his...

As is usually the case when I write about books I've read, I'll leave what happens to Richard, Door, the Marquis, and those two awfully bad dudes to you, the reader, should you decide on take on this book.  This story is a maze of plot twists and turns...just when you think that things are improving, you discover that they're getting worse instead (and vice versa)...it can almost get to be a little dizzying. But that's a positive feature of Neverwhere, as I see it...which, among its other qualities, is why I recommend Neil Gaiman's book, which I recently discovered was also adapted as a BBC-TV series in the late 1990s...  

Soccer: Women's FIFA World Cup Quarterfinals Start Today

The 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in soccer is continuing today and tomorrow, with eight national teams playing in the quarterfinal stage.  The pairings are remarkable, when you look at them: superpower rivals USA and China play this evening while the afternoon game is between traditional European rivals France and tournament favorite Germany.  Tomorrow has Pacific foes Japan, the defending champion from 2011, playing Australia while the two other British Commonwealth national teams have their own private game: England vs. host nation Canada.  I wonder whether these games were deliberately set up this way, or did they just randomly fall into place...no matter, we're in for some great games!  Unfortunately, I'll miss today's contests since I have to go to work...but tomorrow I should be able to see the other two.

There was another World Cup soccer tournament going on, too, this one being the U-20 (under 20) Men's World Cup.  FoxSports had been showing games in the earlier group stages and tournament rounds, but I didn't see any final match shown...maybe they did show the championship game and I was at work when it happened...but all the same I'm disappointed that I didn't get to see Brazil play Serbia for the title, which the latter won 2-1...

There's also a concurrent national teams tournament focusing on the Western Hemisphere, but I haven't been able to follow it as well as I might have liked...let's face it, I like league play more and the only league around right now is North America's Major League Soccer.  As for all the tournaments involving national teams, as I've said before, I tend to be a bit turned off by the overly nationalistic attitudes taken by the fans, media, and even the players...

U.S. Supreme Court Rules for Obamacare 6-3

The United States Supreme Court has just upheld an important provision of the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare") by a 6-3 vote, with conservative judges John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy siding against the Republican-backed plaintiff and in favor of the Obama administration.  The provision involved whether federal subsidies of health insurance exchanges are constitutional in states where no state exchanges were authorized.  Supposedly, had the Court ruled the other way, the ACA would have been severerly hurt.  In any event, I have felt that those who fought to pass it into law back in 2009-10 had the generally correct idea, but they left out a crucially important principal involving health care, insurance, and expense...

To my admittedly possibly simplistic way of viewing things, health care can either be regarded as an economic good, which then would obey the laws of scarcity and demand, or as a type of human right to which all in society are entitled.  If you believe in the first option, then you most likely would be against Obamacare as it aims to insure those previously unable to afford health insurance and diminish that concept of economic "scarcity".  But if you are like me and want everyone to have access to health care, then the entire concept of "insurance" becomes redundant, since therefore there would be no need to demographically separate people based on their medical history or ability to pay.  Besides, having the health insurance industry positioned between the people and their desired professional health care just adds a great burden of expense to the whole process.  If you are employed in the health insurance business or are dependent on someone who is, I'm sorry about all this...but the fact that you're making a living off of it tends to prove my point.  In any case, the Affordable Care Act, in my opinion, just kicks the can down the road regarding the burden that health insurance places on people.  Also, who says that businesses should be saddled with the burden of providing health benefits to its employees?  In my opinion, if we as a society believe in universal health care, then we should fund it through taxes and congressional budgeting in just the same way that we fund our national defense or road systems.  But the word "tax" has, for many years, been relegated to taboo status, politically speaking...so we're left with this halfway measure called the Affordable Care Act that does a lot of mandating of insurance but does little to guarantee that it will be affordable or that it will lead to quality health care. Although countries like Canada that have nationalized health care are often termed as practicing "socialized medicine", in truth they have freed their own (capitalist) businesses from the cost of providing health insurance and thus have given them a competitive advantage over our own companies.  And the prospect of people not being economically devastated by illness or injury means that they can participate more actively in their economy as consumers, further stimulating the economy, or put the money to use with investments...

In spite of my own view on the subject, I'm realistic enough to recognize that it is politically unfeasible to reform health care on a national level that would restore the patient-doctor relationship without middleman interference or prevent catastrophic health issues from financially destroying families.  Neither the current law nor the system preceding it adequately address these issues, sad to say...