Gloveless Glover Wins FedEx St. Jude Golf Championship Sunday

Yesterday I enjoyed watching the FedEx/St. Jude PGA golf tournament, held in Memphis, Tennesse. In it Lucas Glover, a 43-year-old veteran of the circuit for decades without many victories to show for it, overcame the putting difficulties of his previous years and won his second straight tournament.  I was rooting for him to succeed, although it did get a bit "old" for me to repeatedly hear announcers bring up his age...I'm 23 years older!  But I get it, this is sports, and when you start getting into your late thirties, folks begin to diminish your future prospects for success.  The course at Memphis is loaded with water traps that tend to destroy golfers' rounds...yet even the best of them can't seem to be able to realize this when they're driving the ball.  Glover ended the regulation 72 holes yesterday evening tied with Patrick Cantlay for the lead.  On the very first sudden death hole, Cantlay drove his shot straight into the water, pretty much handing the tourney to his more methodical and cautious opponent.  I was impressed more than anything at Lucas Glover's consistency from hole to hole...it reminded me of how Brian Palmer managed to run away with the (British) Open a few weeks ago while his more known competitors floundered on the course with their mistakes.  I'm looking forward to next weekend, for I am not only a fan of the men's PGA regular circuit but also of the second-tier Korn Ferry tournaments, the seniors' "Champions" tour, and the LPGA. Go golf! By the way, the temperatures in Memphis yesterday mirrored that here in Gainesville.  Glover, who in spite of his name doesn't wear gloves while golfing, had to repeatedly dunk his hands in ice as he struggled to withstand the hot conditions...

Walked a "Hot" Neighborbood 5K This Evening

It's been an incredibly hot summer, and the heat doesn't seem to be letting up.  I haven't run much outdoors during the past few months...yesterday I even skipped the weekly free local 5K race because it was 80 degrees and 93% humidity at just past 6:00 AM.  Today I decided to go on a fast walk at sunset around my neighborhood, for just a little more than a 5K distance.  Only problem was that, at 7:40 PM with shadows draping everything outdoors, the temperature was a staggering 98 (heat index of 106), with at least a reasonably dry humidity of 41%.  I walked a fast (for me) pace for the duration...my Runkeeper phone app recorded my record of 3.23 miles covered in 51 minutes, 2 seconds...a 15:49 minutes/mile pace, much slower than the treadmill walks I have been doing at my gym.  But treadmills usually give you faster times, and the indoor, cooled temperature there is usually around 70.  So, I'm happy with this effort and plan to try inserting more neighborhood fast walks into my schedule, and for longer distances when the time permits.  In any event, I don't think I'm as susceptible to the heat as some others are, although I wasn't about to run my neighborhood course under these conditions.  As it was, I felt good for this entire walk although the heat was clearly evident...

Skipped Today's Depot Parkrun Because of Mugginess and Heat

This morning I got up at six and took the dog out in the backyard to do her stuff, checking to see my cellphone confirm what I was already experiencing with the weather: it was 80 degrees with 93% humidity...ugh! I had intended to drive down to Depot Park just south of downtown Gainesville to participate in yet another of their free weekly 5K "parkruns", but experience has taught me that distance running over such a temperature/humidity combination is a formula for disaster. So, after I brought Daisy back into the house, I went back to bed...incidentally sleeping for another four hours. In retrospect, though, I probably should have gone anyway and just walked the course.  And walking is something I'd like to do more and more of, whether I'm just going around the neighborhood or doing a race.  Since it doesn't seem like it's going to get cooler around here anytime soon, I think that's a prudent move on my part...although I can still run within my nice, air-conditioned house or at my local gym until things get more tolerable outdoors.  Well, as far as the Depot Parkrun is concerned, there's always next week.  Yes, I really should get out there on Saturday mornings and make a habit of covering the distance, be it by running, walking...or crawling...

Quote of the Week...from Jimmy Conway in the movie Goodfellas

You learned the two greatest things in life: never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.             ---Jimmy Conway (played by Robert Deniro) in the movie Goodfellas

Goodfellas is one of my favorite gangster movies, right up there just behind The Godfather.  In it, young Henry Hill, the narrator character, says that ever since he could remember he always wanted to be a gangster.  Working for a local mafia group, one day he gets arrested, jailed, and appears before a judge...with his boss's lawyer standing at his side.  Released, Henry expects to be rebuked for having been arrested, but instead everyone...including the Head Honcho (played by Paul Sorvino), celebrates and congratulates him: why?  Well, Hill's mentor in organized crime, Conway, explains it in the above line: the young lad didn't rat, and he kept his mouth shut.  Later in the film a grown-up Ray Liotta plays the narrator character...a sterling performance, along with those of Deniro and Joe Pesci.  For me, you don't necessarily have to be in a criminal gang for the above "code" to apply...to partially steal Hill's line, ever since I can remember there have been at least two "societies" with their respective rules: the official one where official authority figures like schoolteachers and police enforce the official rules and laws, and the other societies under the surface that others dominate to circumvent the official society.  To get "in" one needs a connection and an invitation...and once you're in, then you'd better follow their code because they have their own means of enforcement, and it usually doesn't involve due process.  I've never been one to follow either the straight or crooked paths, so with me regarding underground or underworld groups, ignorance is bliss although it's intuitively evident that there's something else underlying the aboveground social order.  I see an analogy in the science fiction Matrix movie series: the Matrix is everywhere: it's where you work, shop, go to church, go to school...even when you pay your taxes.  I believe there are a lot of people who crave that kind of connection and, when they are in a new social setting, quickly set out to find the "cool" people in order to get "in".  But not me: I think I'll just remain an individual and flow with the passing scene...and keep my mouth shut...

Back to Gym

After months untold of not availing myself of my local gym, back in May I resolved to make a determined point of getting out there following work (I get off at 10 PM) and spending a few minutes on the treadmill and occasionally the elliptical cross-trainer.  And I was pretty good about going there, too, resisting the temptation to just continue homeward and crash in front of the television. My main focus was building up my walking speed, as I am advancing in years (I will be 67 in October) and although I like to run long distances, I'm thinking that perhaps it would be better on my joints to mix in more low-impact walking with my running.  I was successful at that, getting a sustainable walking pace of 5 mph (12-minute mile) before two different health issues sidelined me from vigorous physical activity.  But now I am back in business again, Tuesday night using my Gainesville Health and Fitness gym after work and easily walking 1.6 miles on the treadmill at a more relaxed 4.4 mph pace. I plan to devote Tuesdays and Thursdays to gym visits, along with a resumption of my Saturday morning 5K racing at the Parkrun in Depot Park just south of downtown.  One observation that hit me hard while at the gym last night: everyone there was very, VERY young and I was the only one around my age.  I know that women have the option with GHF of using another location specifically designed for them: I don't suppose they could set aside some space somewhere for old folks like me...

Weekly Short Stories: 1992 Science Fiction, Part 4

Below are four more reviews of mine as I read through the 1992 sci-fi short story anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Tenth Annual Collection, edited by the late Gardner Dozois. In 1992 I was working at the post office in the "graveyard shift" processing flats (magazines and 8½ x 11 envelopes) on the flat sorter machine, both to specific Gainesville routes according to the addresses or to other offices in the area.  I liked this work, because it gave me the change to spend long stretches of time learning and reviewing different subjects of interest, and I also dug listening a bit to music, with Rock 104 being my favorite station that time.  I'm still working in the same building, but have things changed! But anyway, back to those stories...

 

THE GLOWING CLOUD by Steven Utley

This is a brilliant time travel story set during the days of the 1902 eruption of the volcano Mount Pelée on the West Indies island of Martinique.  The time traveler there from the future is on a mission to find and bring back a fellow time traveler, a fallen renegade.  During his ordeals on Martinique, he not only has to deal with his target, but also his missing companion on the assignment.  And of course, there is the volcano, spewing ash and rocks all over the area, ruining everything they touch, killing off the birds and livestock in the process.  The exact date and time of the most fatal part of the eruption is, of course, history to our hero...unfortunately the island's inhabitants, especially the local politicians in charge, are completely clueless regarding their grim fate.  A suspenseful, historically enlightening novella...

GRAVITY'S ANGEL by Tom Maddox

Set in a contemporary time in the American southwest, a supercollider has a full docket of projects for it.  But a woman physicist from a competing organization sneaks in a special one of her own design, regarding the creation of a singularity, and that's when the mayhem truly begins.  A good commentary on the economics of scientific research as well as the glass ceiling for women who make key discoveries but are denied proper recognition...

PROTECTION by Maureen F. McHugh

This story paints a dismal picture of a leftist totalitarian state taking over America, with criminals and political dissidents sent to "re-education" concentration camps much in the old Soviet and Chinese style of the previous century.  A woman inmate, uneducated and sent there for assault and petty thievery, befriends a man incarcerated for his political work.  It becomes clear that the authorities need information from him, which he refuses to divulge.  For me, it's always been assumed that this kind of future scenario would come from the political left, but I sadly see a large growth of authoritarian fascism from the right in recent years...regardless whichever direction you're looking, it's all ultimately a human failure...

Next week: more about science fiction short stories from 1992...

Podcaster Steve Kaufmann's Compelling Views on Language Learning

Podcaster Steve Kaufmann, a 77-year old polyglot who has learned 20 languages, often has some good advice about learning foreign languages.  He stresses the need to build up a vast passive vocabulary of known words in whatever the target language happens to be...that Babbel commercial showing the woman proudly given directions to the Parisien taxi driver just won't cut it in real conversation.  Although some 80% of the words in a spoken language tend to arise from just 20% of its words, both Steven and I can guarantee you that you won't get very far in a regular conversation with a native speaker if you just know that 20%.  When I worked many decades ago at a local Chinese restaurant, much of its kitchen was staffed by Vietnamese people, several of whom I befriended. I decided to try to learn a little Vietnamese then and could engage in some conversation with them as we worked.  Of course, the big pressing need here was for them to learn...and quickly...how to speak English, and our talking was overwhelmingly in MY native language, for their sakes.  Kaufmann reiterates this important point of engaging with a native speaker of another language, especially if it takes place in their country.  According to his experiences, he must already be at a reasonably proficient level in that foreign language, else the native speaker may well revert to English if it is the best means for communication.  And many people across the world want to practice their English on travelers!  Kaufmann often exhorts people not to be so concerned about being perfect in their speaking efforts with others...communication is the goal, and you will make many mistakes, there's no getting around that.  But the flip side is that whoever you're trying to speak with in the foreign language may decide that the mistakes are too many.  For me, "speaking" a foreign language has never been my primary goal, but rather being able to fully understand it when I hear it, along with reading fluency.  What I like about Steve Kaufmann is that his expert observations over the years affirm my own: build up that large passive vocabulary first.  And if conversation opportunities arise, then fine: take advantage of them but don't let your speaking ability at any given time define your progress for you...

Podcaster Has Good Advice on Developing Good Habits and Skills

Last week in one of his Mindset Mentor podcasts, personal development coach Rob Dial touched upon a topic that he's covered in the past, and one that I've come to strongly believe in.  The importance of consistency in small things...establishing little by little the habits I want to develop in order to improve my life cannot be understated.  Dial suggests something he calls the "30-30" rule: take the next thirty days and focus on one specific habit to instill, devoting a pre-set thirty-minute block of time to it.  And then thirty days later, pick another desired habit to work on the next thirty days.  He doesn't recommend me loading my schedule up with multiple thirty-minute blocks...no...one habit at a time.  Dial says to select ONE specific skill or habit to work on and determine the resources I need to obtain in order to successfully pursue it.  I get his focus to avoid overloading the mind, but I already have a pretty elaborate routine of short daily activities in a multitude of areas...this doesn't mean that I will abandon working on them to just do one thing.  But yes, identifying one NEW area to work on improving and picking up good habits with it...the "new thing of the month" so to speak, makes a lot of sense.  Rob Dial also emphasizes keeping daily records of my level of progress, helping both to direct my focus better and to hold me more accountable to myself: I already do this.  He adds to this the importance of not being perfect all the time in what I do, but rather to "show up" whether I'm having a good or bad day.  Yeah, this particular podcast resonated with me.  As for podcasts in general, I consistently keep up with two programs, Dial's and Steve Kaufmann's.  Kaufmann is the polyglot who has a lot of sound, practical advice about language learning, and whose learning site LingQ I've subscribed to and faithfully study on a daily basis.  What podcasts do you like to regularly follow?

Enjoying Watching Golf on TV

During the last four days one of my "activities" has been to watch television coverage of different golf tournaments taking place at the time.  There were three: the Women's Scottish Open, usually presented live in the morning (my time), the Wyndham Championship Men's tourney from Greensboro, North Carolina, and finally the Utah Championship in the Korn Ferry tournament (professional golf's version of a minor league).  In all three I enjoyed how the different golfers tackled the holes with their strategies and felt a kind of peace watching the game that I don't experience watching team sports or even individual contests like tennis.  Like I've written before, I have never played actual golf...only the miniature variety.  One thing about golf: the best players seem to need a lot of careful instruction and nurturing from childhood, and this doesn't come cheap.  I'd like to try my hand at the game, but I don't think that at my age (66) with a recent history of back muscle spasms, I'd get very far: better to stick with the miniature circuit!  But this doesn't prevent me from enjoying watching others play golf.  Not only do I like seeing the same players from week to week, but I dig the different locales and the surrounding scenery.  During the recent (British) Open held just south of Liverpool that Georgian Brian Palmer won going away, the course design couldn't have looked more different than what the golfers went through this weekend in North Carolina.  Next week the PGA will hold its annual FedEx Cup Championship, this year at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee.  The bigger names in the men's sport have been noticeably absent from today's action, but I'm sure they'll all be there for the "big" one...

Blog is Back, Vacation Good But Not as Planned

As my two-week vacation winds down...initially planned as an ambitious out-of-state (and country) excursion...Melissa and I find ourselves content with staying here in Gainesville.  We both experienced very untimely illness at its onset and had to cancel those plans, which we intend to follow through with at some future date.  Yet recovery has been good for both of us, and I am looking forward to resuming my active lifestyle at its previous level.  And yes, the blog is back after a two-week break from it...

Vacation, Illness, Blog

Melissa and I were to start a two-week vacation today...we still have still the time off, but our more ambitious plans were scuttled until a later date when we both fell ill this week...we're still smack dab in the middle of recovery, making progress with it.  When we're better, we can see about some alternate plans for the remainder of this period...for now it's rest, rest, rest. I'd mentioned in an earlier article that this blog would probably get a bit of a break during this time.  I still plan to take a brief vacation from it, but who knows: if I feel the urge to write and post something, don't be surprised.  But if not, I should be back by the end of the first week of August...

Quote of the Week...from Ernest Hemingway

I like to listen.  I have learned a great deal from listening carefully.  Most people never listen.

                                                                         ---Ernest Hemingway

In spite of my high school English class experiences practically ruining it all for me, I later came to read most of Ernest Hemingway's classic novels, among them For Whom the Bell Tolls being my favorite.  I especially appreciated his stated plain writing style, avoiding fancy and cryptic techniques employed by some of his contemporaries that often garnered them undeserved critical acclaim but made their works largely unreadable by the general public.  Today being his birthday, I thought I'd throw in one of Hemingway's quotes in celebration, and this one rang true to me...well, mostly true.  I think most folks, when engaged with others in conversation, are only half-listening, at the same time preparing the next thing they will say themselves.  On top of that, people tend to hold on to personal narratives concerning just about any person, place, thing, or issue.  They will be happy to "listen" for a while if the speaker is affirming that narrative and be equally happy to zone out or cut them off if they diverge from the script...and if the message is a mixed one, with some welcome information said along with some unwelcome facts, then it's a simple cognitive sleight of hand to accept the affirming stuff while ignoring the rest.  I can extend this all to reading, too, as well as whatever media channels one tends to prefer plugging their respective brains into.  If the message affirms a dearly held narrative belief system, regardless of reality, then they'll be a loyal audience...this is the world we live in today, where the population insulates themselves within comfortable belief bubbles where feedback loops reenforce distortions and lies as long as they fit the pattern.  Yet Hemingway died in 1962, so this sort of thing's long preceded the Internet and mass media manipulation tactics of today...

Podcaster Lays Out Ways to "Hit Goals"

Personal development coach Rob Dial, on his Mindset Mentor podcast, often recycles the same messages, and the best presentations often appear on this blog. I know I'm repeating some stuff here, but the way I see it, if it ain't worth repeating, it's probably not worth stating in the first place!  This podcast had him listing and describing "Seven Steps to Hit Any Goal", as it is titled.  Now I'm usually not into setting goals as be-alls and end-alls, but rather as incremental steps, or milestones if you will, in my transforming into the person I want to become.  That having been said, let's check out these goals...

1-Fixate on exactly what it is that you want.

2-Determine exactly what you will give up to achieve the goal (Rob's favorite point).

3-Figure out a date (deadline) you're going to hit the goal by.

4-Create a plan to hit the goal and start immediately.

5-Write a clear and concise statement...condensing the first four points into a mission statement.

6-Take the statement from #5 and read it out loud to yourself at least twice a day.

7-Determine how you can make it easier on yourself.

Does a lot of this sound obvious to you? It did to me...duh, these are all good suggestions toward achieving a felt goal.  Yet the host left out the most important step: once you've figured out and done these seven steps, you still have to work diligently and patiently to attain your goal's fulfillment. Of course, that one is also obvious to most of us, I believe.  Rob Dial gives credit to self-help book author Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich for most of his pointers. The fact that Hill was something of a con artist in his day doesn't mean he didn't have some good things to say...you just have to filter it out from all the other crap...  

Weekly Short Stories: 1992 Science Fiction, Part 3

Here are some more of my reactions from science fiction short stories appearing in Gardner Dozois' anthology series The Year's, Best Science Fiction, Tenth Annual Collection.  1992 was the year of the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles and the subsequent riots that rocked that city.  It was also a year of economic turndown that doomed the Bush administration in his reelection bid that November...he had enjoyed extremely high approval ratings just the year before immediately after the Persian Gulf War that drove Saddam Hussein's Iraq out of Kuwait.  But let's get back to those stories...

A LONG NIGHT'S VIGIL AT THE TEMPLE by Robert Silverberg

In a far-off future, humanity worships the memory of three alien beings who visited many thousands of years earlier and who promised a glorious return.  The Warder Diriente, chief officer of the main temple that worships them, is bound to ritual...as well as a growing belief he has kept secret, that his faith's theology doesn't quite ring true.  But the temple's caretaker Mericalus has no such qualms about speaking his mind, and disturbs the Warder, one day suddenly appearing for him to follow...and shows something that turns it all upside down.  But it's the Warder's reaction to this that was the story's profound message: isn't that what all religions do when confronted with contrary facts...

THE HAMMER OF GOD by Arthur C. Clarke

In a future distant enough for humanity to have ventured out into far deep space, a ship "out there" is given a grave task: deflect a sizeable asteroid determined to have a 99.9% chance of hitting Earth and destroying all life there.  But what happens when they hit a snag in their mission? Hope all seems lost, unless... Clarke gives a grim science physics lesson on the effects of drag force at the end...

GROWNUPS by Ian R. MacLeod

This story reads like a fanciful Ray Bradbury coming of age story in what seems like good old apple pie Middle America...until the presence of "uncles" is revealed as an apparently third gender.  As young Bobby goes through adolescence and approaches the time when he, like his friends, will "grow up", he is apprehensive about the pain he will endure during those few days.  His friend Kay is skeptical about everything and doesn't want to leave childhood, and she is very suspicious of the bitter-tasting milk that all the children have to take.  And what about the uncles, they seem to be manipulating the whole situation...the ending is an eye-opener.  Good, suspenseful tale that makes one think about their roles gender-wise...

GRAVES by Joe Haldeman

In the Vietnam War, there is one detail duty no one wants...that is, unless they want to remain alive...and it's Graves Registration, where they find the killed soldiers' bodies and effects, bag them and ship them off for processing: pretty gruesome if that's all you see of the war.  One day two soldiers on that assignment come across a very peculiar corpse, looking like no soldier but rather more like an elderly man deceased of natural causes.  Suddenly gunfire erupts and their commanding officer is brutally killed while in mid-sentence. What happens at the end when the two finally are able to escape the battle scene and later come back is hair-raising...a speculation into possibilities of the biological strategy of mimicry...

The next two Wednesdays I will be on vacation and plan on a brief break from this blog during that time. I should be back reviewing sci-fi short stories from 1992 next month...

Constellation of the Month: Draco (the Dragon)

For most people, I'm guessing, if the name "Draco" evokes any image, it's that of Harry Potter's Hogwarts classmate and adversary Draco Malfoy (excellently portrayed by Tom Feld in the movie series adaptation), both a bully and snob but somebody I nevertheless felt a deal of sympathy toward.  But since much earlier Draco has been a prominent constellation in the far northern sky, best seen during clear July evenings.  Representing a dragon, imagine the connected stars as its sinuous body winding around the polar Ursa Minor (the Little Bear or Little Dipper) to its north, with Ursa Major (Big Bear/Dipper) to its south near the dragon's tail, finally ending with its easily discernible head near Lyra and its wonderfully brilliant star Vega.  Thuban (Alpha Draconis) many thousands of years ago used to be the North Star, due to the Earth's precession (akin to a top's wobbling while spinning). Draco, although clearly visible to observers in northern latitudes, possesses no first magnitude stars and only three at third magnitude or brighter.  One of the things I'd like to do if I ever get around to traveling south of the Equator is to observe the celestial South Pole on a clear night, along with the various constellations close by that are too south for me to see from Florida. Conversely, people living "down under" may experience difficulty seeing Draco if their own latitude is too far south. Going back to J.K. Rowling's memorable series, Draco Malfoy is (finally) one-up on Harry Potter in that he is named for a constellation...that's cool: I guess he thought so, too, since he later named his son Scorpius... 

Work or Vacation, It's All Good

Sometimes it's a good idea to just sit here and write some free-flowing stuff.  Right now, it's midmorning on a Monday, my workweek ahead of me before I begin a two-week vacation.  But I have found that, within my daily normal routines...and that includes going off to work...I can find a sense of purpose, balance, relaxation and refreshment in my life that many tend to believe can only happen with an absence of structure and accountability.  For me, a vacation is a break in my routines, time to experience something new and different, and possibly go on an adventure.  Whether I'm traveling or not during this period, I am content with the time off, as well as when I return to the "old grind" when it ends.  Structure's good...but so is adventure.  Things like this blog, foreign language study and an assortment of other daily routines I'm engaged in may take a brief break during that time, but there is also fun living in that present moment and experiencing whatever gets thrown my way.  It's all good...

Just Finished Reading Hot Six by Janet Evanovich

Picking back up Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum mystery book series after several years, it took me a little bit of time to recall all the main recurring characters and circumstances...but after reading High Five last week, I felt that the next book would be a quick work of reading...it was.  In Hot Six, almost comically incompetent bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, who works for a Trenton, New Jersey bail bonds company to bring in people missing their appointment court appearances, still plies her trade...with the typically mixed results.  The story's main theme is the disappearance of her mentor Ranger, a mysterious man who seems to be always on the edge of the law and more of a James Bond type.  Ranger is being implicated in the murder of one of the sons of an aging local gangland boss.  One of Stephanie's competitors gets her company's assignment to capture and bring in Ranger...Stephanie herself cannot belief that Ranger could be a murderer and sets out to find him and investigate the killing on her own.  Weaving through the plot, as usual, is her family...including feisty Grandma Mazur who lives with her a spell, her friend Lula who works at the bail bonds office, and her cop/lover Joe Morelli, who seems secretly involved in the investigation as well.  Plus, Bob the golden retriever may have made his series debut here after Stephanie ends up virtually adopting him. And as usual, others are hounding her, including a creepy pair of men tailing her everywhere and often threatening her: they're after Ranger as well.  As good mystery books go, the plot undergoes a couple of interesting twists before it all gets turned upside down at the end.  I was okay with Hot Six, enough to go on to the next installment of Evanovich's series.  I enjoy the earthy first-person narration of protagonist Stephanie Plum, and the humor here is top-notch.  It does, however, portray violence as a more common, everyday occurrence than I'd like to imagine....

Enjoying My Day Off with Family and Learning

I've been enjoying my day off, first of two, with Melissa and my grown children...as well as exploring the learning opportunities provided by three Internet applications, one of them only instituted late last year.  As I've already written on this blog, YouTube is loaded with interesting educational content, and you can find out just about anything...as long as it isn't invasively personal...by searching their site.  While browsing them a few weeks ago, I came across polyglot Steve Kaufmann's endeavor of LingQ, a language-learning site designed to teach languages the right way (at least the way I see it), by gradually building a large passive vocabulary in the target language through reading and listening, with graded lessons and opportunities to insert my own material from the Internet.  They also provide tutors and teachers online, and the range of available languages for study is wide.  I may use this blog to write regularly about my progress here, much as I have done with my past running.  It's all very interesting and has become even more so through the very recent innovation, an AI chatbox called ChatGPT that searches the Web for textual material to formulate answers to an incredibly wide variety of questions.  It was on Kaufmann's YouTube channel that I first heard about ChatGPT...I asked it to write a couple of stories that I plan to translate into the languages I'm studying and then transfer them over to LingQ for study...pretty impressive stuff. I am also going back to the very beginning of this blog, back in April of 2007, and translating those articles I wrote to my target languages and studying them on the LingQ site: since this blog has more than 5000 articles, there is an endless supply of stuff from it I can use.  I also use the Kendra Listening Practice YouTube channel to improve my listening skills, as well as listening daily to brief segments of radio broadcasts in the languages I'm studying.  I can tell I'm making progress, but it's a long journey to proficiency and confidence in them...that's okay with Steve, whose observations and philosophy on language learning pretty much resonate with mine: his main emphasis is making it all interesting and fun...

Quote of the Week...from Ringo Starr

Well, actually here are two quotes from the great drummer for the Beatles, one short and one comparatively long:

The second side of Abbey Road is my favorite.

I've never been able to sit round on my own and play drums, practice in the back room, never been able to. I've always played with other musicians.  It's how I play, there's no joy for me in playing on my own, bashing away.  I need a bass, a piano, guitar, whatever, and then I can play.

A week ago, I was faced with a quandary: both Ringo Starr and science fiction writer Robert Heinlein had birthdays on July 7th, I picked the latter...but why not just feature the star of A Hard Day's Night today?  I totally get his take on Abbey Road, the last album recorded by the Fab Four before their acrimonious breakup that resulted in Paul McCartney suing the other members as well as their manager, Allen Klein.  When Abbey Road came out in 1969, I didn't hear it other than the singles release of Something and Come Together...I didn't care for either song.  But over the next couple of years, I began to hear other tracks, and was blown away by the Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End medley toward its end...featuring mainly Paul.  I say mainly because the start of The End is nothing other than a Ringo Starr drum solo...in fact, the only drum solo he ever recorded for them.  And from what I've read about that recording session, he was very nervous and uncomfortable about it.  Of course he was, that's obvious if you read the second quote above.  Ringo was always an accompanier, fitting in seamlessly with the rest of the band and what they were doing, never demanding the spotlight himself.  And yet, when he was in that first movie of theirs, he was brilliant.  I'm very happy that he's still around today and doing so well...all the best to you and yours, Ringo!

Some Wimbledon Comments as End Nears

Although my eyes aren't glued to the television, I've been generally keeping up with this year's edition of the Wimbledon tennis tournament taking place in England.  It's easy to do, since their afternoons are our mornings and, wouldn't you know it, my mornings happen to be free! It's reached the finals for the women's singles and the semis for the men's.  After the big stink made after the Azarenka-Svitolina match when both of them avoided the customary good-spirited interaction at the net, I bet a lot of folks were banking on a repeat of this scenario if Elina Svitolina, from Ukraine, faced up against Aryna Sabalenka, who is from Belarus, one of the aggressor countries against Svitolina's homeland.  As it turned out, both Svitolina and Sabalenka lost out in their respective semifinal matches against Marketa Vondrousova and Ons Jabeur, who will play for the title on Saturday.  The men's semifinals tomorrow pit Novak Djokovic against Jannik Sinner, and Daniil Medvedev against Carlos Alcaraz.  I had written a few days ago that I wasn't faulting Svitolina for saying in advance she wouldn't be speaking to anyone from Belarus or Russia, but while I sympathize with her, I believe that if each of us is an ambassador of our own countries, then we have a choice to make.  Either we can say it's war and march in lock step with our national leadership or we can choose, at least on a personal level, to promote peace and mutual respect.  In times of war, though, peacemakers are often severely criticized as sabotaging their country's resolve...even sometimes branded as traitors.  As for Sabalenka's loss earlier today, I'm a bit sad although I do like Jabeur, too...she's got to be the favorite in the next match.  I feel similarly about Daniil Medvedev...he's from Russia but, along with Sabalenka, never seemed to garner much fan support even before dictator Putin decided to invade and devastate a peaceful nation for territorial gain.  I think it's because they're both introverts, very intense with their game but not exactly the most outgoing of folks and pretty expressive when they get frustrated...I can relate to that!  Well, I can't root for Sabalenka anymore, but Medvedev is still alive and kicking.  It's gonna be fun watching it all unfold tomorrow morning on ESPN...