Quote of the Week...from Katrina Mayer

 Books were my friends when no friends were around.                ---Katrina Mayer

On my Facebook page often appear certain sites that were provided for my viewing without me directly requesting them...I always assumed that the AI running the show over at FB thought I'd like them.  One of these is "Goodwill Librarian", which is spot-on in nailing my affection for books and reading.  Wednesday morning, they posted the above quote by Katrina Mayer, an author who conducts "positivity" workshops.  Checking out her website, she immediately won me over by this other quote: "I'm an avid fan of solitude, peaceful surroundings and simplicity." I am a big fan of books and reading, almost always in the middle of two or three at a time, both in fiction and nonfiction as well as novels and short story collections.  During some of the most negative periods of my youth, reading provided a solace and a sense of rational foundation that no doubt saved me from treading down more pernicious and self-destructive paths. I was blessed to have parents and an older sister who were avid readers, and I often secretly raided their storehouse of books.  My dad was particularly keen on science fiction, and through him I was introduced to old-time science fiction greats like Frederic Brown and Clifford Simak.  I was also partial to the inexpensive books I could buy after saving up my meager allowance, especially the Herbert S. Zim Golden Guides to science and nature...the one about stars has to be my all-time favorite.  The ironic thing about my reading is that, with a small number of notable exceptions, most of my reading assignments in high school were negative experiences...I'm convinced that my teachers and the educational system they worked under...at least back then...were clueless and that they saw me an annoyance they had to get past to get through their days, not as a valuable individual with future potential.  But back to the books: when I could choose them, I loved them...and still do.  Now, though, I'm putting more and more of them on my Kindle as well as reading a ton of audiobooks...but they're still books and they are friends...

Dentist, Storms, Feistiness

At this writing I just left the dentist after a surprisingly pleasant visit...and headed over to my nearby doughnut shop to get my customary iced coffee...my current favorite flavoring is mocha.  I do have to be careful about coffee spilling out of my mouth, since my left side is thoroughly numb...ha, ha.  It's been an unusually stormy morning here in Gainesville. It began last night and is expected to last the day, spreading all over the northern part of Florida and reportedly spawning tornadoes.  The Weather Channel called it "feisty", while they depicted an Iowan storm system as "boisterous"...sounds like an undergraduate English major was writing their script.  Speaking of those two terms, they naturally have usually been applied to people, not inanimate processes.  Yet in today's so-called "enlightened" society where perceived anger is regarded as a threat, typically feisty individuals can be demonized for simply being themselves. If you're in an office as a client and complain about their billing process, as I did recently, there's a possibility that the party you're addressing may deflect your complaint against you, claiming that you are in a state of anger...as if that by itself constituted some form of illegitimate, antisocial behavior.  I think that's a form of manipulation...people by their very natures are cranky at times and will react in like fashion if somebody pushes their wrong buttons.  It's okay to express frustration when you perceive you're being taken advantage of or ripped off, and that isn't your fault...

Weekly Short Stories: 1993 Science Fiction, Part 5

Below are my reactions to three more short stories as they appeared in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Eleventh Annual Collection, covering material published in 1993. That year...going back to me first starting to work at the Gainesville post office and afterward through most of 1995...I often rode my ramshackle bicycle the nearly eight miles from my home to my graveyard shift at work and back, usually on the way there stopping off for a book & coffee break at the Books-a-Million (now 2nd and Charles) on NW 13th Street and then cutting across the University of Florida campus before hitting Archer Road...good times, good times. I'm also having a good time reading this book edited by Dozois...

GEORGIA ON MY MIND by Charles Sheffield

Sheffield was a theoretical physicist who worked with the U.S. space program...he injects much of his science and engineering knowledge into his stories.  Here he presents a primer on the early history of computers as an anomalous discover has been made in a remote New Zealand country house that puts into question not only what we believed about our past, but also the notion that humans are the only indigenous life forms on Earth at our level of intelligence and technology.  Very intriguing...

CUSH by Neal Barrett, Jr.

A poor rural black woman's niece has a little boy, Cush, who seems to supernaturally bless everyone he encounters while drawing illness, injury and deformity upon his own body.  When word of his gift leaks out, Andrea must encounter and confront the outsiders invading their personal lives at their suddenly prospering Alabama farm.  Taking on the world's pain and suffering to make it undeservingly better is a common theme in religion, especially Christianity.  This tale seems to be a kind of analogy...

ON THE COLLECTION OF HUMANS by Mark Rich

Sometimes a story can be so short, like this one, that it lacks an integral structure.  This is more or less a manual for advanced alien scientists on how to abduct humans for research purposes.  Obviously meant to be funny, I gave it a couple of chuckles and then moved on, in doing so casting a suspicious look at the sky behind me...

Next week I will continue my look at 1993 as I go through some more of Garder Dozois' selections from that year in science fiction...

Back from Extended Weekend Off

Well, after being off from work for four days, it's back to the grind...although truth be told, I don't have any problem with that.  Acknowledging the many blessings in my life has become a worthwhile personal habit, and my gratitude furthers enhances my daily walk. It's a terrible shame that people, being what they are, just can't seem to get along in the world...or in many areas within my own country, for that matter.  By most standards, you could call me a misanthrope, and yet I don't attach negative emotions to that label, only recognizing fallen human nature for what it is and refusing to adopt a Pollyannish worldview that would only continually crash down on me from letdown and betrayal.  I love my family and close friends, but beyond that I'm a little like those European immigrants to this great land featured in the Godfather movies who, while engaging and interacting with others, at the same time entertained a healthy skepticism about their character and motives.  Be nice to folks, sure, and don't always go around complaining about things, either.  But at the same time, I'm hip to the ways of the world and it ain't always rosy, just in case you haven't been watching the news lately...

Some Comments on TV, News and Facebook

This morning I used my TV the way I usually do: in Roku mode. I listened to a couple of podcasts (while exercise-running up and down the hall and rooms) and several foreign language newscasts...followed by some YouTube videos alternating two different foreign languages: my preferred ones are Mandarin Chinese/Vietnamese, French/Spanish, and Russian/German. If I do go to the mainline channels, I tend to go to The Weather Channel and avoid both the cable news and opinion channels and the cozy "good morning" magazine-type shows.  That's because I'm focused on my own agenda and want to avoid the distraction, manipulation and, frankly, the fear and outrage those other shows tend to provoke, whether deliberately or not.  I also tend to steer from Facebook when I can, only checking the notifications section to see if someone has something on it pertaining to me.  I am only active on it because, with a break for a few months in 2021, I have since 2013 been putting links to this blog's usually daily entries on my Facebook page for others to more easily access.  But I am not fan of Facebook per se: it seems more of a popularity site for head-nodders than something that resonates with me on a higher level.  It's also an outlet for propaganda, conspiracy theories, and serves as a magnet for aggressive people who have nothing better to do with their lives than to troll others for simply having differing opinions on provocative subjects.  In 2021 after the Trump-worshipping fascists tried to overthrow the United States government following a free and fair election that turned him out of power, I pretty much left the news...and Facebook as well, only resuming the latter after a small number of my blog readers commented that me linking articles to that site made reading it a lot more convenient for them.  But I like Facebook even less than ever, and it's making posting these articles to it more and more arduous: were it not for this blog, I would rarely go there.  As for the news and the events transpiring now with the wars and presidential election campaigns heating up, I don't need constant, draining exposure to it all in order to know where I stand regarding issues and candidates and make my own responsible civic duty choices when election time comes.  Maybe you're different...well, if that's so, then you should be a happy camper with all this crap out there to fill up your mind and waking moments with...

Just Started Reading Rob Dial's New Book Titled Level Up

As you may already know if you've been reading this blog regularly, I've been a regular listener to personal development coach Rob Dial's podcast The Mindset Mentor for some time.  He's just come out with his first book, titled Level Up, and which I am grateful to have received as a birthday gift...I just started reading it.  It's not the kind of book I would normally read through and then immediately review here on this blog as I do others.  No, each chapter has its own special theme with the last page listing cues for journaling, an activity that Dial strongly recommends.  The subtitle to this book is How to Get Focused, Stop Procrastinating, and Upgrade Your Life.  It contains much of what I have already heard from him on his show, and I am serious about implementing some of his suggestions...always, though, with a discerning filter that doesn't automatically swallow everything I read.  He has a very plain and simple, readable writing style that, well, frankly reminds me a little of my own: make it simple and sweet, I always say!  Although I don't plan on a book review for this one, I'm pretty sure that from time to time I'll discuss a topic I come across from it that interests me.  He also has been doing the same lately on his podcast, picking out different chapters to discuss...

Enjoying Beach Outing This Weekend

This weekend Melissa and I have been at the beach, Ormond to be specific.  It's been fun and a good change of scenery and pace.  We're returning home tomorrow...hope all is well with you!  I really enjoyed getting out in a decent pool and getting to swim a bit...maybe I'll finally get around to trying laps at my local gym's indoor pool after getting off from work at night.  In any event, it's a blessing to thoroughly enjoy outings like this while, at the same time, looking forward to getting back...

New Running Strategy is a Return to My Old Running Strategy

As the temperatures grudgingly begin to fall while the fall season progresses, I am considering my running and walking strategy for the weeks and months ahead.  I've decided to go back to a method touted by running guru and marathoner Jeff Galloway that alternates running with walking, and which I used to great success in my training for years.  My plan now is to simply, whatever the distance, run at an appropriately brisk pace for five minutes, followed by a fast one-minute walk, and then going back to the steady run for five more...and then back to walking, alternating between the two for however long my distance is for that day.  This will be for training as well as for races, although when I'm just jogging around inside the house, I don't see the need for it.  Melissa and I will be going to the beach this weekend...I definitely will be doing the run/walk plan then on any runs from our hotel to the Daytona Beach Pier and back.  I distinctly remember back in 2010 feeling that with this way of training, if I wanted, I could run indefinitely for whatever distance I chose without stopping...

Weekly Short Stories: 1993 Science Fiction, Part 4

Here are my reactions to three more sci-fi short stories as they appeared in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Eleventh Annual Collection, edited by the late Gardner Dozois, a respected writer of this genre in his own right.  In 1993, although there was plenty of good new music out there...at least with alternative and hard rock (R.E.M's Automatic for the People and Coverdale/Page's self-titled album stand out)...I was more focused on albums and acts from years earlier, especially the progressive rock group Yes and their six album-side-length tracks from the 1970s.  One of these, Close to the Edge, became my "song of the year" for 1993 although it was twenty years old at the time.  But now it's time to get back to those stories... 

GUEST OF HONOR by Robert Reed

In his introduction, Gardner makes reference to "the decadent world of ultrarich immortals" that he tongue-and-cheek recommended you avoid if you encounter it...I'm already freaked out by the cruelty and corruption rampant in the real decadent world of mortals!  He's right: this is a haunting, unforgettable story that in a sense reminded me of the old 70's sci-fi flick Logan's Run as to how they try to snow people into thinking that being killed is only a transformation to the next level...

LOVE TOYS OF THE GODS by Pat Cadigan

Obviously meant to be funny, this not-quite-so-funny short tale pokes fun both at the then (and now) ongoing narrative of alien abductions and at rural American culture, making everybody out to be ignorant dumb-ass rubes...guess there are some folks out there you can trash and ridicule without being canceled...

CHAFF by Greg Egan

Of the three stories I read this week, this one has the greatest chance of becoming true, and frankly that scares the hell out of me.  An artificially biologically engineered area in the northern South America jungle is growing...and producing mind-altering drugs of a sort never before humanly experienced.  A "black ops" operative is sent down there in a clandestine mission...like in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness or the movie Apocalypse Now...to find and capture (or terminate) a leading scientist believed to be largely responsible for the crisis. What this ruthless agent discovers at the end of his quest to me is entirely feasible...and bone-chilling...

Next week: more sci-fi from 1993...

My Current Approaches to Foreign Language Study

Although I do like Steve Kaufmann's LingQ language learning website, which enables the subscriber to keep track of their new words learned in various foreign languages, I have found myself using other venues more recently.  YouTube has an unbelievable amount of educational material on it, and the Kendra and Eko series each are very useful as they match up two languages, phrase by phrase...it enables me to build up vocabulary and familiarity without always having to use my native English as a translation reference.  The Tunein Radio app enables me to listen to radio and podcasts in different languages as they are normally spoken, trying to pick up meaning when I can and letting the rest "wash over me", as Kaufmann likes to put it.  And Wikipedia is fantastic with its different topics and languages...as with the Tunein audio material, I find myself reading different articles and just trying to pick up meaning as I go without trying to get everything right.  So, while I'm not always using Steve Kaufmann's LingQ in my language study, I have adopted his approach to learning, which seems to make it all more fun as well as effective...

Mixed Feelings about High School and College Football

I was watching some of the college football games on TV this past Saturday and understand why so many of us are mesmerized by the sport.  It's all a kind of adventure story with action, interspersed with breaks to analyze what's going on and what will (or should) happen next, depending on which team you're rooting for.  Unfortunately, football is also very violent, taking a punishing toll on the body.  I remember in the eleventh grade in high school as one of my social studies teachers one day went on an anti-football rant, decrying its violence and effects on young people's bodies, often limiting and hobbling them later in life as well as posing a significant danger of brain damage.  The kids in the class, most of them ardent football fans if not players themselves, took this lecture all in stride seeing that this dude was widely regarded as one of the "cool" teachers.  At the time I was on the track team and the football team was doing spring "conditioning" for the next fall in the track's interior...I put that word in quotes because all they seemed to be doing was hitting each other as hard as they could, further weakening their bodies for future injury.  And that indeed happened, with many key players later sidelined for the season as the varsity football team in my senior year went 0-9-1.  That fall, while "my" team was losing game after game, I went to Hollywood Memorial Hospital for a scheduled hernia repair operation...which would turn out to be the only general anesthesia surgery I would undergo until 2021 when I had open heart surgery to replace a defective heart valve and repair an aortic aneurism.  I shared my recovery room with two other teenage boys, both suffering leg injuries from playing football, each kid a couple of years younger than me.  Their buddies would traipse in and out of the room treating them like war heroes.  Saturday night's South Carolina at Tennessee game reminded me of that time as the crazy-ass fans in the stands would wildly cheer whenever their team put an extremely hard hit on the other while they would be respectfully silent when someone went down and couldn't get back up, having to be carted off the field.  I think the Suzanne Collins Hunger Games series may have at least unconsciously derived from this duplicity from fans of wanting violence in a controlled setting and then acting like it's a shame when someone gets hurt (or, in the Hunger Games, killed).  So yes, I like a good story, and football can provide some good ones.  Still, I like to think I'm not quite as bloodthirsty about it as some of my fellow fans are...

The Misanthropic Volunteer?

Today's piece is more or less a continuation of yesterday's entry about my running and walking...with a marked misanthropic slant, if you can handle that.  I mentioned that yesterday I volunteered at my local Gainesville Depot Parkrun event, sorting the plastic finishing tokens that are scanned along with the runners' own printed barcodes...I don't expect you to know what I'm talking about.  But being where I was, I could observe the proceedings from a different perspective and, quite frankly, came to the conclusion that the vast majority of people around me were miserably unhappy.  There was one lady there...there always seems to be someone like this in most public social situations I find myself in... who made a point of having me walk across the park to ask a park employee whether a sheltered pavilion there was available to us in case it started raining.  She could have gone and done that herself, but I sensed a need in her to assert hierarchy and power, no matter how petty.  I was fine with the task but filed away her behavior...that alone would convince me to never volunteer here again.  But with the others, in spite of all the stuff I hear about how people want to be sociable and make friends, none of them seemed the least bit interested in doing so, with me or anyone else, for that matter.  Everyone, frankly, seemed terribly reserved and formal...yeah, like I want to hang out with them!  Not that I am necessarily passing judgment on anyone...I'm sure they could come up with some zingers to say about me as well.  But I do think that it is a fraud, a big lie, to claim to be extraverted...or that there is something wrong with me that I am introverted...when the vast majority of folks out there are either put out, uncomfortable...or even frightened when in social settings, especially among strangers.  Does any of this prove that I hate people?  I don't think so, otherwise I wouldn't have been willing to pay attention in such a discerning way to those around me.  Instead, I believe that people in general are much, much more misanthropic than they like to let others believe. And if it's not a sweeping dislike of humanity with them, at the very least they are tribal, with all of their efforts at sociability confined to their insulated little bubble of family and close friends.  Oh heck, I'll probably volunteer here again, I'm such a glutton for punishment...

My September 2023 Running and Walking Report

This morning I took a break from actively participating in the weekly Depot Parkrun 5K held Saturdays here in Gainesville.  Instead, I volunteered there, standing at the table sorting out finishing tokens according to their barcode system for recording the times of the runners (or walkers).  It was interesting watching the race from the perspective of someone on the sidelines...I don't think I had done that since I was on my high school track team in 1973!  Next week I'm planning to be at the beach with Melissa and on October 14th I'm already signed up to run the Florida Track Club's 10K race to be held on the Hawthorne Trail, starting and ending at Boulware Springs Park in the southeastern corner of town.  As for this past month, I've been active and injury/illness-free: whoopee!  The temperatures have begun to turn cooler and the humidity drier after a bear of a sweltering, swampy summer here in northern Florida...it's about time! My ultimate goal for the fall and winter is to run a number of races at 10K (6.2) miles distance and higher, even considering a possible stab at the marathon event to be held next January in Hawthorne.  But first things first, and more than the races themselves, I value simply being able to run and walk daily.  As for that walking, my speed at which I've been working on, I'd like to mix it into my races more and more as the years go by...I'll be turning 67 this week... 

Quote of the Week...from Benjamin Franklin

Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.        ...Benjamin Franklin

Of course, ol' Ben didn't live in today's bustling culture of digitalization, where technology that was supposed to liberate us is actually shackling us into more and more commitments to fit within a shrinking available time period.  Tack onto that the fact that, while in Franklin's time the concept of a "day" was closely tied into the cycles of the sun with the daytime's lightness and the nighttime's darkness, the day, at least in the cyberworld, is "on" for 24 hours, nonstop...including streaming entertainment and video games.  I wonder whether this is a contributing factor to the tendency for formerly late-night businesses operating in the real world to shut down much earlier...of course, Covid got the ball rolling in that direction with a subsequent shortage of available staffing that hasn't since completely abated.  It can be a struggle to try and keep one's calendar clear amid the many calls for commitment to different things, while at the same time that this digital bombardment is happening never before have people felt so disconnected, unrecognized and irrelevant.  Maybe you're an exception to this trend...good for you. But I don't see this going in a good direction as the concepts of "news" and "reality" have become so digitally twisted that our democracy and freedoms may be in dire peril during the next few years while autocratic demagogues run rampant and unchecked.  But back to Benjamin Franklin: it's coming down to having to be a bit of a jerk around others to assert myself and live my life in today's allotted span that I have set out for myself.  Otherwise, today will turn into tomorrow and then the next day and then the next week, month, year, decade...until I am no longer around to look back with regret on the wasted past... 

Constellation of the Month: Vulpecula (the Fox)

 

Last Friday's "quote" article on this blog featured one by philosopher Alan Watts, who claimed that we don't have a problem with how constellations are arranged...I had to object.  Above is a prime example of what I mean. Most of the 88 officially recognized constellations...star patterns representing different regions on the celestial map...are insignificant and faint, chiefly devised by two astronomers: Hevelius and Lacaille.  Hevelius is responsible for the above abomination, one barely-fourth magnitude star and a background of faint stars with one Messier deep-sky object, a planetary nebula called M27.  The other dots on the above map are just background stars too dim for the naked eye to make out. Alpha Vulpeculae, commonly known as Anser (goose in German), has an appropriate name: Hevelius dubbed it that to represent the goose that the fox allegedly was holding in its mouth...question is, where is the fox?  I have never discerned Vulpecula in the night sky...it is situated just south of prominent Cygnus in the Milky Way and just north of Delphinus and Sagitta.  The latter two are also a bit small in my opinion to be proper constellations...what they should have done was to combine Vulpecula, Sagitta, Delphinus, and nearby Equuleus to form a separate constellation, connect the dots and come up with something more recognizable.  But I'm left with what is already out there...Anser, by the way, is a red giant nearly 300 light years from us.  Next month I'll try to dig up a more significant constellation to discuss for October...

Weekly Short Stories: 1993 Science Fiction, Part 3

Here are some more reviews of 1993 short stories (with a novella thrown in) from Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Eleventh Annual Collection.  That year I was working at the post office, keying and sorting mail on their flat-sorting machine during the graveyard shift, "Tour One" in their lingo.  Actually, I kept those working hours from 1987 to 1995, 1998-2003 and 2013-2016...don't know how I did it.  But enough about me, how about those stories...

FRIENDSHIP BRIDGE by Brian W. Aldiss

In a not-so-distant future, there is a criminal trade in people's memories, snatched from them surreptitiously under false premises.  An architectural history scholar believes a key element of his own was taken from him.  He is traveling to Turkmenistan to reclaim it from that nation's president.  The story's title refers to an abandoned bridge project meant to connect that country, recently liberated following the Soviet Union's breakup in 1991, to Iran.  I remember reading about the theme of snatched memories from an earlier story, but I can't remember which one: hmmm...

INTO THE MIRANDA RIFT by G. David Nordley

In this novella loaded with hard science details about physics, chemistry and biology in the setting of Miranda, one of Uranus' moons, a party of four is investigating the chasms under its surface.  They were caused by, first, the moon's destruction following a catastrophic collision millions of years earlier and then, the matter recoalescing, imperfectly, over a vast span of time afterward.  The four get trapped underground, and the race against time is on to get back to the surface.  In the process they discover each other and much about themselves.  The science part of the story was hard to muddle through, but it did fit the narrative well and made it more than just a flight of fantasy...

MWALIMU IN THE SQUARED CIRCLE by Mike Resnick

I remember back in 1978-79 how Tanzania's president Julius Nyerere had finally had enough of neighboring Uganda's bloodthirsty dictator Idi Amin and invaded, toppling him from power (with most of the world rejoicing). Apparently, at the time Amin had challenged Nyere to a winner-take-all boxing match to decide the war and was obviously refused, the massive tyrant's history of being a boxer contrasting sharply with Nyerere's diminutive, unathletic physique. This story pretends that Nyere accepted Amin's challenge.  The two are in the ring, with none other than Muhammad Ali as referee...

Next week: more SF from '93...

Season Changes, Still Could Use Some More Cooling

The season has officially changed from summer to fall, but not fast enough of me as the temperatures, while slightly better in the last few days, are still too hot.  And this hurricane season won't go away as there always seems to be something brewing either in the Gulf of Mexico/Western Caribbean, Atlantic, or both.  I'm looking forward to the time when, as the sun sets, I'll feel comfortable putting on a light sweater...looking forward to that first full cold front of the autumn season!  Until then, I'll be continuing my indulgence in (and appreciation for) air conditioning...

Just Finished Reading The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

I just finished reading the first of five books by Trenton Lee Stewart, series title The Mysterious Benedict Society...which is Book One's title as well. They started coming out in 2007, with the last volume in 2019. Disney put out a television series that I never watched...just like all the other streaming television series during the past several years that I never watched.  The premise of Stewart's series is familiar enough: outcast children have special skills that an eccentric old man has sought out for a special, dangerous project...but first they must past his test.  Since this book series, like Harry Potter, is primarily directed at children, a lot of the developments...including the "Test"...I could easily discern well in advance. Let me just say that I am sick and tired of bigshots who think they're experts on psychology and deliberately deceive job interviewees by inserting quirky, hidden character tests within the interview process.  An Apple CEO would go with the applicant to get some coffee and then judge their qualification for employment by what they did with the cup afterward...did they try to return or clean it, or did they just leave it on the desk?  In The Mysterious Benedict Society, old man Benedict treats the children similarly...groan. The danger that he has recruited the four child protagonists to combat is interesting enough...mind control though ultrasonic messages, although I think propagandists are, in our current "real" world, doing quite well just laying out all their crap directly out in the open on the Web and mass media for gullible suckers to gobble up.  I liked the kids' respective personalities and stories, enough to give the series a thumbs-up onward to the second book, after reading the first installment.  But I'm thinking of taking a little break before I do that...

Ran Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

I knew I'd run a faster 5K than lately when I woke up this morning and the temperature outside here in Gainesville was 64 with a pleasant 56% humidity.  And such was the case for an extraordinarily crowded Depot Parkrun, my 23rd in this particular event that has been going on Saturday mornings since late 2018...with a substantial break during the Covid-19 outbreak.  They will soon celebrate their 200th race in Gainesville...the Parkrun concept originated in England and has spread to several countries.  Although my fastest 5K time, predating my participation in this event beginning in 2019, was a little over 23 minutes back in 2010, as far as the Parkrun is concerned my "personal record" has been 30:00.  I thought there was a chance that I might beat that mark this morning, but I missed it, finishing on my watch at 30:23.  But when I clicked on the Parkrun's website to view the race results, they had put me at 30:50...a gross error...and given my actual time to the next higher up runner.  Maybe I'll contact them about it, maybe I won't.  Sometimes the volunteers working there are new and get things mixed up...that's what it seemed like today.  And there were many more participants then usual: it's the first time since I ran this event that I had to park in the overflow parking lot around the corner.  As for volunteering, I think it's getting about time for me to once again throw my hat into the ring...maybe I won't screw it up like I did the last time I volunteered here...

Later, I did contact them and they corrected the results..

Quote of the Week...from Alan Watts

Things are as they are.  Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.      ---Alan Watts

I've quoted twentieth century English philosopher Alan Watts a number of times on this blog...delving into his thoughts I could almost pick any one out at random to discuss.  This one brought out the common theme of people feeling the need to somehow place "good" or "bad" labels on the things (and people) they encounter in life. I think a lot of it has to do with insecurity and stems from childhood...there seemed to be a lot of this when I was a kid and conversations often got kind of brutal about branding people as good or bad...with much more insulting epithets applied to those in disfavor.  And when I hear grownups shooting off like that, I instantly think that they're being childish and should just cool it with their calumny.  But what grabbed my attention about this quote of Watts, who studied Eastern philosophy and liked to use Zen principles, is its ending, where he said we don't make comparisons between well and badly arranged constellations.  Speak for yourself, dude! One of my chief gripes as a confirmed stargazer from age seven is the often-crappy way that the stars are arranged in constellations...especially in the southern sky.  That's because originally there were much fewer constellations, the ancient, traditional ones based on myths, like Orion, Taurus, Gemini and Hercules for example.  These ones have distinct shapes to them when you connect the stars and can be easily picked out of the sky from the surrounding stars.  Unfortunately, too many of the 88 "official" constellations nowadays are patchwork creations of later astronomers, chiefly Hevelius and Lacaille in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, respectively.  Their contributions tend to be much smaller and dimmer, concentrated on either the empty spaces between the more prominent older constellations or in the southern sky, especially that part too far south to be seen from Europe or the Middle East. I have a monthly feature of this blog called "Constellation of the Month"...I tell you the truth, I'm running out of interesting constellations to discuss and most likely will be picking a thoroughly obscure one to discuss for this month of September.  But then again, I always regarded this blog project of mine as primarily an exercise in disciplined writing...time to get the heavy discipline going...