Ran Gainesville's Depot Park 5K This Morning

In Gainesville, Florida...as well as five other locations in Florida, every week we have a free 5K run/walk in which the finishers are timed with the results posted online.  Here it takes place in Depot Park, a few blocks south of downtown, and is appropriately called the Depot Parkrun.  The Parkrun concept originated in England where it is much more strongly entrenched while it is growing in the USA.  Volunteer-run, participation is free: you sign up online and they give you a barcode that you print and take to the race with you for scanning.  This morning was my 38th finish since 2019 when I started doing Parkruns.  The weather was pleasant at around 52 degrees with a tolerable 70% humidity.  I had already decided to run the 5K (3.1 mile) course when weather conditions were hospitable and walk it more as temperatures and humidity climb along with the approach of late spring and summer.  So while Melissa accompanied me today, she walked the entire course while I ran it, taking customary brief walking breaks at two different stages in the race.  My finishing time was 28:47...not my fastest, but quite acceptable to me: click HERE to see the complete posted results.  I'd like to get a Parkrun speed-walk in this month, so maybe I'll see if I can't get back here next Saturday to do just that...

Quote of the Week...from Soren Kirkegaard

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.                               Soren Kirkegaard.

Soren Kirkegaard was a 19th century theologian and philosopher from Denmark.  Rob Dial, a personal development coach, used his above quote on a recent podcast while discussing the roles, both helpful and harmful, that anxiety plays in people's lives. According to Dial, it is our response to anxiety and the degree to which we make our own life choices, taking responsibility for them, that will eventually quiet our anxiety.  But I also just read the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown, which included being responsible for one's choices as a necessity for reducing our lives to the highest standards.  Both viewpoints involve stepping up to the plate and embracing choice and freedom instead of letting others choose for us and consequently run our lives instead of ourselves.  So while anxiety doesn't necessarily feel good, it also can be symptomatic of an effective and courageous life...just as long as it doesn't get out of control...  

Masters Golf Tournament Ongoing

I'm looking forward the next three days to watching the prestigious and over-hyped Masters golf tournament, taking place in Augusta, Georgia.  Thursday was opening day with action delayed a couple of hours due to bad weather (it afflicted us as well in Florida)...hopefully all will be straightened out tomorrow and we'll be able to tell who the real leaders are.  Not that I'm going to sit back in my living room and crash on golf, mind you, but it will be fun to keep up with my favorite players and see how they tackle the various challenging holes... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1996 Science Fiction, Part 1

This week I began another year of short science fiction as I move on to another book in the Gardner Dozois anthology series The Year's Best Science Fiction, this one titled Fourteenth Annual Collection and covering 1996.  His first selection for this volume, as is his apparent preference, is yet another long novella...

IMMERSION by Gregory Bensford

In the not-so-distant future, a scientist has published an academic paper putting him at odds with a European crime organization...he now seems to be a hit target of theirs.  Going with his girlfriend to Africa for relief and escape, they find themselves caught up in "immersion", in which their essences are temporarily installed in the bodies of certain selected and modified chimpanzees.  Enjoying the sometimes disturbing experiences, they repeat the immersions until one day they find themselves stuck in the chimps, unable to return.  This story may sound too familiar when considering the Matrix movie that came out only three years later.  But consciousness transfer to other places has long been a recurring feature in science fiction...it figured prominently in Clifford Simak's City novel nearly fifty years earlier.  This story by Bensford was written clearly and easy to follow, building up the kind of suspense that I expect from good sci-fi tales...

Next week I'll see if I can't come up with more, hopefully shorter, stories from 1996...

About Monday's Solar Eclipse

Yesterday a solar eclipse occurred, this time affecting a large section of the United States.  The path of the total eclipse was restricted to a curving belt going northeast from Texas, while here in northern Florida we were able to view a partial eclipse, all taking place in early-to-mid-afternoon. In Gainesville where it happened while I was at work, the skies were partially overcast, which didn't help.  A solar eclipse happens when the moon gets between the sun and Earth, covering up the former to the extent that blockage is more complete from our perspective.  So when you're observing a solar eclipse...hopefully through filter glasses or one of those pinhole box devices...you're not just seeing the sun, but also the "dark side" of the moon.  So is it a coincidence that Eclipse is the final track to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album?  I hardly think so.  Usually I'm the one going around talking up an eclipse to those around me, but this time I shrugged and said to myself (and others), I'll just wait for the pictures and look at them. Now I wonder what they're going to do with all those cheap filter paper-and-plastic glasses that piled up?  You know, all you people who think you want see another solar eclipse in your lifetime, it's probably a better idea to just read up on them and how folks through history reacted...usually pretty unfavorably! But if events like these spur some young people to take a more active interest in astronomy, then I'm all for it...

A Fork in the Road with my Running

I mentioned earlier on this blog that regardless of the outcome, yesterday's marathon in Hawthorne would be a fork in the road regarding my future running...and walking, for that matter.  After skipping it in the end for a number of reasons, severe insomnia being the chief one, it still holds true. Number one, I will not enter a future race that requires an extensive amount of preparation, including tapering my training for days beforehand and ingesting excessive carbs to build up glycogen stores.  I will avoid marathon races like Sunday's where organizers discourage walkers and place unreasonable caps on finishing times. This is because I've decided (after this fork in the road) that if I do any future marathons, walking will take up a substantial portion of my efforts.  Another outcome of this weekend is that I intend to be more selective about the races I sign up for and that I need to do more weekend outdoor training...equally mixed running and walking...in my surrounding neighborhoods, with a run/walk lasting possibly several hours.  The ratio of running to walking will depend in part on the weather conditions...I intend to be flexible in that regard. It's a shame that in north Central Florida, where we once had a tradition of two great marathon races...the Ocala Marathon and Gainesville's Five Points of Life Marathon...we're left with three races in Hawthorne, each covering the same remote trail eight times on a 3.27-mile-long there-and-back course with the organizers capping finishing times or discouraging walking...pathetic.  Well, I have my own priorities, and they exclude that sort of nonsense...  

Body Tells Me to Skip Today's Marathon Race

Today was going to be my return attempt at a marathon race, but during the last two days I suffered from a great amount of insomnia...and sleep deprivation is not an advisable preparation for running 26.2 miles.  So instead of arising at 5 this morning...with hardly any sleep...I decided to chill out and skip the event, precipitating a good, healthy night's sleep.  I'm disappointed that, although I seemed to be preparing for the race the way others advise, my own body ended up casting the crucial dissenting vote for participating in it.  I do like running, but at this stage in my life I think that half-marathons are probably going to be the maximum distance I'll be doing...

Volunteered at Gainesville's Depot Parkrun This Morning

Since I had already signed up to run another race tomorrow morning, I decided to forego my customary Saturday morning Depot Parkrun 5K and volunteer there, in the singular role of standing at the scanning table sorting the plastic little finishing tokens as they came in.  I've done it before and it doesn't require me downloading anything on my phone like some of the other roles do, so that's what I picked to do.  It all seemed to go well, but I did notice...in accordance with some of the ideas in Greg McKeown's book Essentialism that I just read...that there is a psychology, or perhaps better stated, an ideology here in the volunteer sector that places unreasonable demands on people who are already volunteering to keep saying "yes" to even more demands.  Something like this happened to me this morning, but I stood my ground and asserted my boundaries.  I don't think the attitudes of some of the people here necessarily stand out as bad, and I see this sort of thing in other areas in other groups: once you're pegged as a contributor, then instead of just saying thank you and being done with it they keep going on guilt-riding you into taking on and giving more and more...I was glad to get out of there when my "service" had ended.  Still, I get that fact that volunteers are who make events like the Parkrun possible and will most likely do more of this as the year goes on...

Quote of the Week...from Mark Twain

Golf is a good walk spoiled.                ---Mark Twain

I've quoted Mark Twain on this blog several times before...I don't think I've used the above one yet.  I have never played golf, not in the pure sense: I don't count miniature golf, which I think I'm reasonably good at (at least against others in my family). But I'd like to learn to play the big game...seems like it would be fun, as long as the players following me on the course have a lot of patience with me taking a lot of shots and time.  But I get what Twain wrote about golf...and walking, for that matter.  When I watch these major PGA golf tournaments on TV, most of the golfers seem way too intense and exhibit the utmost suffering when they miss a shot.  I'm getting to where I'm supporting the ones (like Scottie Scheffler) who just smile and shake their heads when their shots miss the hole or go flying into the water...it's just a game, dudes! As for walking, I can do that just fine...it's WHERE and WHEN I can go on a nice, long walk that I'm a little hung up on.  I still get a lot of cumulative steps in over the course of a day, but that's because my job and general lifestyle tend to be more active and ambulatory.  But just briskly walking somewhere...I'll never tire of that...

Looking Forward to Watching 2024 Paris Summer Olympics

Are you looking forward to watching the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics later this year? I am...because of COVID-19, the 2020 Tokyo games were delayed until July 2021, exactly the time I was in the hospital recovering from my open-heart surgery (aortic aneurysm repair and heart valve replacement).  I'm looking forward to seeing how NBC covers it all...they disappointed me, to put it most diplomatically, with the recent NFL playoffs when they put "my" Miami Dolphins game against Kansas City with their paid-subscriber channel Peacock.  I'm suspecting they will be up to the same high jinks, only on a much grander scale.  No problem, I'll watch the "free" stuff and leave Peacock to the suckers...hope it fails.  The Paris Olympics begin on July 26, when Melissa and I are finishing up our next cruise, and last until August 11. Should be fun to follow, Peacock notwithstanding...

Weekly Short Stories: 1995 Science Fiction, Part 10

Today I conclude this protracted look at sci-fi short stories from the year 1995 by looking at the final tale...it's a novella...in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection, containing his picks from that year.  As far as my own life is concerned, that year had its ups (my family, especially the birth of our wonderful daughter) and downs (some really screwed-up characters at work) while in all, I have to give it all a pretty high score.  But enough of '95, I'm ready to move on to the next year...first, though, that last story...

MORTIMER GRAY"S HISTORY OF DEATH by Brian Stableford

As previously mentioned, this is one of those long stories that Dozois seemed to have a special penchant for, but to his credit was one that I didn't think was overblown.  It's set around the year 3000 as "emortal" Mortimer Gray, like the rest of humanity by that time on an Earth steeped in its returning tumultuous ice age and reaching out and settling the cosmos, has been genetically modified to stop aging, rejuvenate and become immune to sickness.  Accidents, homicides and suicides still happen, though, and people are becoming more and more intrigued by death itself as their lives drag on from century to century...Gray is over 200 years old.  Being a historian, he sets out to write a history of death as it was regarded by humanity, eventually stretching out to ten volumes...with very mixed reviews from others.  The novella alternates between Gray's personal ongoing life and a third-person account of him and his progress with the book.  But it's the ending of this intriguing tale that made it all work, similar to a theme I've read from Isaac Asimov.  We may think we have it all figured out, smug in our scientific achievements within T'HIS galaxy.  But it's only one of billions and there's something else heading our way...

And, whew, finally I'll be starting my look at 1996's short science fiction next week...

Just Finished Reading Essentialism by Greg McKeown

The 2014 book Essentialism by Greg Mckeown, college business major and head of his own leadership development company, promised yet another angle in the collage of self-improvement works I've read of late.  In it, he emphasizes that life and time spent in it is too precious, as is the space we live in...to clutter both with unwelcome commitments and stuff, which diminish our enjoyment and fulfillment.  Instead, we should learn how to say "no" to others when they try to commit us to activities and roles which are not high priorities in our lives.  Likewise, items that we may like but don't hold in exceptionally high regard should be disposed of...McKeown suggests that we ask ourselves if the stored item in question is something that we would spend money today to obtain.  I think the author hit upon a sensitive point with me as I have both a lot of junk I need to get rid of...and saying no to others can be rankling and, as he stated, be partly based on a fear that it would damage the relationship if I refused the request: after all, that movie producer in The Godfather didn't come out too well from his refusal.  So the standards for keeping things as well as agreeing to future commitments need to be very high, with "no" being the default option...that's a hard pill to swallow. Yet in order to avoid future resentment and repercussions, it just might be a necessary one.  So in spite of Greg McKeown emphasizing the need for both play and adequate, high-quality sleep as very essential in our lives, I found his points on possessions and time commitments to be quite a challenge for me, meaning that this book is a "keeper" (actually, that means I'll just check it out from the library often)...

Muted TV Enhances Sports Experience

Since I haven't yet retired and have Saturdays and Sundays off, I've grown into the habit of watching armchair sports, enjoying golf, tennis, baseball, basketball, soccer...and even football from time to time.  Yesterday I got so frustrated watching a baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals that I simply muted the sound: suddenly the game itself came more alive and interesting to me, and the lack of accompanying noise did nothing to detract from the suspenseful ending of an enjoyable, close game when Dodger third baseman Max Muncy slammed a two-run home in the bottom of the eighth to pull out an improbable come-from-behind win against the Redbirds.  Improbable, I'm sure: I suppose that due to the heavy emphasis on sports betting nowadays, just above the screen's score they had posted the current odds that one team or the other would win.  Just before Muncy's homer the Card's were favored with a 65% chance...immediately afterwards it drastically switched to Dodgers with 87%.  Let's face it: they're simply bombarding us with too much stuff on the screen...it's as if the powers-that-be in the network have concluded that we're all attention-deficit challenged...

My March 2024 Running, Walking and Swimming Report

In March I picked up my running mileage considerably, in spite of spending a week of it on a western Caribbean cruise with Melissa. As for speed walking and swimming, I didn't focus on them as much, though.  I ran two 5K races in the month, both at Gainesville's Depot Park on Saturday mornings and with good (for me) finishing times.  A couple of weeks ago I signed up to run a full marathon on April 7th...it will be my second attempt ever at that distance, the other race having taken place in Ocala in January, 2011.  This race, dubbed "Run Your Buns Off" and located in Hawthorne at the eastern end of the Hawthorne Trail, has the exact-same course as the Mary Andrews marathon which the Florida Track Club offered back in January.  I know I can cover this distance if I run a strategically-smart race, the weather is decent, and my health holds up.  After it's over, I plan to spend some time recovering and then embark on a spring-through-summer, more balanced regimen blending running, walking and swimming.  As for swimming, although I did get some practice during the cruise in their salt-water pool (much preferable to freshwater), I still need a lot of pool time to improve my form...that's going to be a major project.  As for actual races, after this upcoming marathon I don't have anything else planned for the next few months except for regular weekly forays to Deport Park, where I would like to mix up running the 3.1 mile course with some more stints at speed-walking...along with walks with Melissa and some volunteering.  I'm still trying to figure out how to get the best use from the local gym of which I'm a paying member...it always seems to be excessively crowded and uncomfortable, and there's no telling when I get there whether the pool for swimming laps has any open lanes.  Of course, that's not the only pool (or gym) in town, and maybe it's getting time for me to explore possibly better options...

Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun This Morning

Just at sunrise, when the weekly Gainesville Depot Parkrun began today's 5K (3.1 miles) event, it was 46 degrees with 97% humidity under clear skies.  I was there at Depot Park, a few blocks south of downtown, but Melissa had to be at work.  My intent for this race was to just run/walk it as I have been doing for the last few months and see how I felt at the end.  And in the end I felt fine, finishing with another sub-30 minute time at 28:18...then I promptly drove back home.  As I was sitting there in my car before the run, looking at all the assembled humanity around the starting line, I thought that it would be much better for me were there a system where individual runners could go somewhere, run a specific distance, and be "officially" timed and recorded as having publicly accomplished it instead of having to go through all this mingling and crowding in a race setting. I must be out of my mind to actually be considering running in a future big-city distance event when this much more subdued one irritates me so, but there were a lot more people than usual out there this morning.  In any event, click HERE for today's results...

Quote of the Week...from Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) in The Godfather

He never asks a second favor when he's been refused the first, understood?   

                                                                   Tom Hagen (played by Robert Duvall) from The Godfather

Tom Hagen is the adopted son and attorney of Don Vito Corleone...aka the Godfather in the famed movie series.  After being sent out to Hollywood to secure a sensitive favor from a belligerent movie producer, Hagen finds himself a guest at the dinner table as "Mr. Woltz" refuses the Godfather's request while indicating that he'd be only too happy to comply with any others.  Both parties know that the requested favor is only a superficial nicety to cover up what is essentially an extortion demand...do this or else.  That Vito Corleone thrived in a criminal environment of circumventing the law never kept him from enunciating and practicing his own "principles"...the above "one-and-done" refused favor being one of these.  Crime, extortion, violence...not at all for me, thank you.  Yet I can see the Don's point of view from my own life experiences of dealing with obnoxious people whose paper authority in certain settings goes to their heads as they try to remind me of our relative positions on their cherished, pathetic pecking orders.  I will ask such an individual for something once and if they make a grand show of resistance to my proposal based on their "superior" status, then that's the absolutely final time they will ever hear from me about any request...and they'd just better forget about me ever covering for their eventual mistakes as well.  The Godfather...I'm speaking about the original movie...is a masterpiece of psychological and social relationships, exposing the corruption beneath practically...if not all...institutions (including business, law, government and religion).  Corruption, I might add, enforced by its own extra-legal system of justice devoid of due process.  We like to pretend we live in a free society, but I strongly disagree for the above reason...

About Our Recent Cruise

After writing recently about Melissa and me scheduling another cruise this year, it occurred to me that I hadn't much discussed the one we were just on. It was a March 2-8 Royal Caribbean Western Caribbean cruise, and our stops had us in Mexico (Costa Maya/Mahahual, Cozumel) and Honduras (Roatan). Our ship was called "Enchantment of the Seas"...it is reportedly an older model and smaller than the "Allure of the Seas" we took in February, 2020 on the eve of the COVID era. I wasn't thrilled about the foreign excursions we took this time, but I guess they do bear discussing in some future article. I liked more the time we spent on board the ship, with our outer balcony overlooking the water, as well as the food, pools, and generally relaxed ambiance. My favorite destination was the 9th Deck Solarium, restricted to adults...although truth be told I liked having the kids on board this cruise. Since the Royal Caribbean ships have similar structures, I'm interested in comparing the one were just on to our next one to Alaska...necessarily so since it will be moving through a much colder climate...

Weekly Short Stories: 1995 Science Fiction, Part 9

Here is my ninth week of slogging through the short stories and novellas appearing in Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection, featuring his picks from other writers' works in that genre for the year 1995.  Below are my reactions to three of them...

THERE ARE NO DEAD by Terry Bisson

Dozois prefaced this story by stating it reminded him of the whimsical, nostalgic tone of many of Ray Bradbury's child-themed tales...I agree.  I kept waiting for the science fiction angle to it, though...until the ending, which made it seem more like a Twilight Zone episode.  Three boys grow up into adulthood and continue to hold reunions in which they revert to playing as if they were still little children, but life still catches up with them...or does it?

RECORDING ANGEL by Paul J. McAuley

On a societal-stagnated world in the far distant future, there are very tightly defined roles for everyone, including the protagonist, who is the official archivist.  A spaceship lands and a runaway woman escapes to show the seeds of discontent and rebellion wherever she goes.  This story tends to support the argument that only through violent revolution can society fundamentally change: I beg to disagree...

ELVIS BEARCLAW'S LUCK by William Sanders

In a future Earth where an infectious disease wipes out human life except the immune Native American Indians...a reversal of what happened to them with the smallpox catastrophe a few centuries ago...a celebratory fair of games is being planned and staged.  The story's title figure, Elvis Bearpaw, is looking to enhance his luck in them.  But in the end, was he lucky...or exactly the opposite? A funny but ultimately gruesome tale... 

One more week to go with this anthology, which ends with yet another novella...

Just Finished Reading The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

It was bad enough that I had confused Alfred Adler, the inspiration for this book on psychology The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, with American philosopher Mortimer Adler.  As I began reading it, I was peeved to see it written in the form of a manufactured dialectic debate between an elder Adlerian adherent and a disaffected young person.  The youth was angry at the world and himself, blaming his past for turning himself into a somewhat cynical adult.  The elder was content and patient, welcoming challenging arguments to his philosophy by "refuting" them with invalidating proclamations. I thought that was a bit phony, as was the imaginary setup between the two, culminating with the youth "coming around" to the other's arguments as the book conveniently reached its conclusion...reminded me of the pattern in the old Perry Mason murder mystery TV dramas when at with about five minutes to go the real murderer inexplicably breaks down on the witness stand and confesses to everything. Adler maintained that personal trauma of the kind his contemporary, Sigmund Freud, emphasized, wasn't real, that is, in the sense that the person who holds on to it has a reason that serves them somehow.  Also, it's important to take ownership of one's own tasks, setting up boundaries for them, and respecting the tasks others face without interference or or imposing one's own standards on them.  Adler/The Elder hold that all problems stem from personal relationships, yet true happiness arises only from one's feeling of contribution to the betterment of others...wrap your head around that one.  To the extent that this book, whose co-authors reportedly adhere to their own particular Japanese philosophy related to to Adler's, extol the virtues of people taking responsibility for their own lives while respecting the necessary boundaries of others and living in the present as opposed to past regrets or future worries, I couldn't agree more.  On the other hand, I am more than a little wary (and weary) of gurus handing out rules and principles to follow.  Read it and get back to me (if that's your "task", that is),,,

Stepping Back from Manipulative News

In case you might be wondering why on this blog I'm not deeply analyzing and reacting to all the different developing stories in this election season with the corruption charges, wars, terrorism and dictators, it's not because I'm covering up my eyes and ears to the media onslaught.  Rather I have come to a point in my life where I know that I have some degree of control over some things, beyond which I can do little about them.  It's 2024 and the press is a hotbed of manipulation, not just on FoxNews.  One of my Florida senators, Marco Rubio, whom I've never supported, was interviewed a few days ago on ABC's Good Morning America and got the hostile treatment when he simply expressed his own opinions on various topics, opinions several of which I might add I disagreed with.  But it's all in the presentation and how different "news" sources frame the real messages they are trying to get across to their audience.  I've associated in the past with people who are addicted to this kind of thing and have learned to reduce or even cut ties with them because of their obsessions...especially when they get outraged because I dared to express a thought they disagreed with.  To them I say, some are addicted to gambling, others to substances, still others to materialism, and so on: have fun letting yourselves be continually manipulated, in the end it's YOUR choice to play that game...