The Decline in North-Central Florida of Marathons and Half-Marathons

It dismays me that, at least in north-central Florida where I live (the Gainesville-Ocala area), a thriving distance-running race scene that enjoyed large public support has dwindled into much-smaller-scale events held completely within parks and on converted bike trails.  When I rediscovered distance running around 2007, Gainesville had just begun its annual LifeSouth Five Points of Life marathon and half-marathon, held each February.  The course wound up and down city streets, and included downtown Gainesville and the University of Florida campus, at one point passing through their football stadium.  At the same time, Ocala had in January its own marathon/half marathon race.  Its course went south of town (start and finish near the Paddock Mall) through hilly horse country, where large estates and fields featured many thoroughbred racing horses.  I ran Gainesville's Five Points races...all half-marathon distance...six times with 2022 being their final year.  As for Ocala I finished its marathon in 2011 and half-marathon in 2013...I'm not sure when they stopped holding their races.  During this time I also drove to more distant locales for their own half-marathons (DeLeon Springs, Palm Coast and Tavares).  None of these are held anymore, either.  The only distance races in my area are organized by either the Florida Track Club, US Road Running, or Lloyd Clarke Sports, and they...as I mentioned before...tend to confine themselves to out-of-the-way places.  I like the buzz of big-city distance races, and I like to jog in my living room watching You-Tube virtual runs of some of these races (NYC Marathon is easily my favorite).  I have yet to run a race outside the state of Florida, but I'm retired now so it shouldn't be too hard to hop on a plane and make a weekend go at it visiting my targeted city.  But it doesn't look as if, at least where I live, public marathons and half-marathons are going to make a comeback anytime soon.  I've tried to get myself into an annual tradition as different organizations like Haven Hospice, Taccachale, the Sarantos and Meridian would start an annual race, only to cancel its continuation two or three years down the line.  That, of course, is their privilege and choice...too bad, though, because I would have liked to continue participating in those runs. Last November I finished my second-ever marathon race with a group that has since ceased holding their events twice a year on the eastern Hawthorne Trail.  They're gone now, but at least I got my marathon in!  Now the only marathon left in north-central Florida is a January event run by the Florida Track Club, but they are elitist about runners who take more than five hours to complete it.  That doesn't work for me, seeing that at age 68 I completed last November's marathon in 5 hours 7 minutes...

Enjoyed Watching Golf's US Open This Past Weekend

I enjoyed watching the US Open in Golf this past weekend, taking place at the Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  It's a very difficult, more traditional course that rewards straight tee shots into the fairway and punishes those who, for the sake of driving distance, shank the ball off toward the left or right into the five-plus inch tall grasses of the rough.  I've seen tournament after tournament in which a golfer sends a tee shot off to the side and has little trouble getting back in line on the course...not with Oakmont! There you have to take each shot on its own individual merits and focus on it...no such thing here as entering a groove state.  J.J. Spaun, who a few weeks ago very nearly won the Players Championship (played at nearby-to-me Ponte Vedra Beach), had what it took to shrug off whatever happened in the previous hole and just focus on what immediately lay ahead of him.  Other tourney leaders like Sam Burns and Adam Scott, on the other hand, lost their composure during the tournament's final holes...especially Burns, who never did recover from his anger at being denied "relief" by the golf officials after his tee shot landed in wet grass on the edge of the fairway on a late hole. Never having played a round of golf in my life...beyond so-called "miniature golf"...I noticed that this sport really does test and showcase the players' mental state according to their level of focus as well as their emotional reactions when shots don't go as they wished.  Spaun was, as they say "cool as a cucumber", all the way to his final, long birdie shot on the last hole when he finally let loose in joy.  Good for him, and good for me...good weekend entertainment...

About Saturday's Anti-Trump Rally

When I earlier discovered that a nationwide network of anti-Trump protests, dubbed "No Kings" and scheduled on the same day the president was staging a large Washington, DC military parade to ostensibly honor the US Army's 250th anniversary, I noted that in Gainesville it was being held at Roberson Park near where I do my weekly Depot Parkrun 5K walk/runs.  I thought maybe it would be good for me to attend this first protest rally of my life, and allowed myself the option...once there on the morning of the 14th...to choose whether or not to go.  After the Parkrun, which I ended up running a little harder than planned...coming out of it hot and sweaty...I changed clothes and headed out, not to the protest but rather to the nearby (to my home) donut shop for some coffee and reflection.  While there I got on my smartphone's YouTube and watched a little bit of one of the No Kings rallies on live-stream.  A woman was on stage with the mike and was yelling repeatedly, "THIS IS THE MEANING OF DEMOCRACY!", with the shouting audience parroting her in unison. That convinced me I had made the right decision in avoiding my home town's version, in spite of the fact that I strongly oppose this convicted criminal felon of a president. No, I absolutely do not trust Donald Trump, but I have even less faith in my fellow Americans for what they did to my country last November when they voted him back into office.  What constitutes democracy in its higher sense is the quiet, informed dignity of a country's citizens as they perform the regular ritual of making the effort to vote for the leaders they deem responsible, ethical and most able to lead their country into a better future, one that optimizes liberty, prosperity, enlightenment and security.  I don't know whether the United States will continue on its current track into fascism, but even if there is a backlash against MAGA in the 2026 off-year elections I don't trust the electorate's collective reasoning.  Go ahead and wave around a sign or an insulting effigy of the Orange Man...it seems folks have to get just as crazy and irrational as his own adoring personality cult idolaters to get them motivated to actually do anything.  And protest demonstrations won't elect anybody, nor will they, by themselves, toss out the worthless rascals from power.  But go ahead and demonstrate if that makes you feel better.  According to what I heard from my local news after our event, there wasn't any significant level of pro-Trump counter-protesters at the rally, just people standing around with signs and agreeing with the speakers.  Come next election day, guess how many votes that adds up to?  

Slogged Through Another Warm and Humid Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

I woke up this morning with a stubborn purpose: continue my weekly attendance at Saturday morning's Depot Parkrun 5K, which is a few blocks south of downtown Gainesville.  The race, or run/walk as the organizers like to call it to make it seem less competitive, starts at 7:30.  Only problem is that today, less than a mile away, is an anti-Trump protest rally scheduled at nearby Roberson Park from 9 to noon.  Determined to avoid parking hassles from people trying to get there early, I managed to get out of the house in time to drive down and snag a decent slot at the park.  Typical for this time of year, it was warm and muggy with race time temperature at 75 with 70% humidity.  I had decided to run this one, again without the intent to set any personal best but to just "SWOJ", or "summer work-out jog".  My sometimes-bonkers phone weather app had the rain probability at 79% for this morning but the skies were crystal clear. When the race began...and during most of it for that matter...I found myself running in the company of pretty much the same people: that's less common than you might think.  I was naturally very uncomfortable with the heat/humidity combination for the whole run, but compared with others I fared very well, maintaining the same steady pace (or, as I call it, "groove") throughout.  I finished with a time of 28:09...click HERE to view the posted results.  Afterward I took a change of clothes into the park restroom and headed down to the Dunkin' Donuts near my home in north Gainesville, avoiding the protest...more on that in another article.  I have to decide whether to renew my US Road Running membership before I decide whether to sign up for the June 28 race they're holding here in Gainesville.  If I don't, then I still have Depot Parkrun and, starting July 12, another Parkrun at West End Park off Newberry Road in Tioga...

News, Media Manipulation and Protests

It's all-too easy in recent days to get overly wrought about the news hitting the airwaves...the political extremism that's sadly becoming mainstream, and the intensifying international division that includes several areas of armed conflict across the world.  I wrote last Sunday about the nationwide protests being organized against Trump for his perceived overreach with executive orders and his lavish self-indulgence at taxpayers' expense, exemplified by his heavily-hyped birthday/military parade to take place tomorrow.  In Gainesville, as in many locations spread across the land, there will be a protest meeting called "No Kings" tomorrow morning from 9 to noon, taking place at Roberson Park on 600 SW 6th Street.  I've expressed interest in attending it, but we'll just have to see how I feel about it all after my Depot Parkrun 5K race that's just a few blocks down the road.  Melissa thoughtfully reminded me to not get so caught up in the news, and she's right: there's only just so much I can do about what's going down around me.  So I'm keeping my peace and serenity in the face of the confusion, chaos, anger and fear, some of which I suspect is deliberately being pushed in the media to manipulate us...

Enjoying Watching 2025's US Open in Golf...at Oakmont, Pennsylvania

I've been watching some of the US Open, which began today and will run through Sunday.  It's one of professional golf's four Grand Slam events, and the course changes location from year to year.  In 2025 it is being held at the Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pennsylvania...near Pittsburgh.  The course has a reputation as being very difficult...and the over-par scores in the first round are reflecting this.  There's no telling who will pull out ahead at the end, but for now J.J. Spaun, the runner-up at this year's Players Championship, has played consistently well enough to pull out to an early lead.  Established stars like Scottie Scheffler, Roy McIlroy and Bryson Dechambeau, on the other hand, are having early trouble driving, wedging and putting their ways  through a course that has been intentionally crafted to frustrate the best efforts of the world's most skillful golfers.  Not that I'm planning to stay glued to the TV for the next few days, but this tournament promises to be very entertaining...

Happy Birthday, Mama

My mother, Hilda, would be turning 95 today had she remained alive.  She sadly passed away from complications involving lung cancer in November, 2002.  Back in Mama's teenage culture during the 1940's, smoking was simply something that everyone did, and as soon as you were old enough to light up, inhale and puff without getting sick on the spot, then you were "good to go".  Only we've known for many decades now that this isn't so, and smoking is responsible for many deaths and sickness.  Mama, it turned out, had been suffering from birth with lungs that weren't fully developed, so smoking had a sharper effect on her than with many others.  She gave it up more than twenty years before the tumor was detected, and I am grateful for the time that she took this brave step against an addictive habit that was harming her health and shortening her life.  My mother was one of those warm, real, people who would fully engage folks in conversation and had a natural way of presenting herself...and a strong propensity to see humor in things (and the sweetest laugh).  When I look at myself and occasionally see some good points, chances are Mama had something significant to do with it...  

Discovering Some Limitations to My Speed-Walking

As far as speed-walking is concerned for someone in my age group (I'm 68), I'm a pretty fast walker although nowhere near the level of athletically competitive race walkers.  Those folks will get on a track and out-walk even normally fast runners, leaving people wondering how they can do something like that.  The rules for race-walking are simple but rigid: one, you have to keep the forward leg straight without bending the knee, until that foot passes underneath the body.  And two, one foot has to always be contact with the ground.  I've seen "footage" of actual race-walking and it seems that, at least at regular speed of viewing the contestants are maintaining contact.  But slow the video down and apparently during these high-intensity races there are micro-moments when both feet are (very slightly) in the air.  The operative word with this is "detectable", for judges patrol standard race-walking events and carefully observe the walkers to assure...at least as far as they are able to...that everyone is following the rules.  For me, I'm not even sure that I am keeping my forward leg straight enough to comply with race-walking standards...probably need someone to observe me and advise on this.  I do speed-walk a bit during races, often doing so at Gainesville's weekly Saturday morning Depot Parkrun 5K...I also speed-walked the entire Tom Walker Half-Marathon last November.  I seem to have run into a finishing-time wall with my efforts, and this is frustrating me.  So, I'm going back to You-Tube to see if I can't pick up on something I'm missing with my form.  Summertime...and especially the extended season that pours out into spring and fall in Florida...is a great time for me to explore how far (and fast) I can go with speed-walking (or race-walking for that matter)... 

Hanging Out in the Old Donut Shop

Sadly, one of my extended family members has recently undergone some extensive health issues, and she has been in the hospital.  I've been driving Melissa to and from for her visits, and this place is in the southern part of Gainesville, with me passing by the University of Florida. This afternoon I seriously considered, on the way back after dropping her off, stopping at the nearby Krispy Kreme donut shop about three blocks north of campus...but changed my mind considering that rush hour was soon on the way and I didn't want to get caught in heavy city traffic. So instead I'm sitting here in my nearby Dunkin Donuts writing this, remembering that Krispy Kreme from my past.  Back in the early 1980s I was single with a very modest income and a pretty frugal existence.  Still, I enjoyed going to coffee shops and studying...being out in public tended to rivet my attention on what I was trying to focus on.  That Krispy Kreme store was open 24/7, and they never gave me any trouble if I chose to sit there for a while.  I think doing this helped me to come to some level of inner peace about interacting in public settings while enabling me to adopt a lifelong discipline of learning.  Back then, I lived in the southwest area of town and would ride my bicycle back and forth, largely down Archer Road and across the UF campus, between Krispy Kreme and my apartment. The early eighties was a time in my life of "no running", but I was still pretty fit with my extensive bike riding.  Nowadays, though, I'm frankly a little afraid of getting on a bicycle and riding through the motor traffic around me...there's too much going on in cars now to distract drivers from my presence on the road.  One of the subjects I remember studying back then was a romanized Japanese language grammar book, which I have sadly misplaced somewhere in the deep recesses of my home.  But my son Will, who tragically passed away last July, was himself a student of Japanese, and one of the books he left to us was an impressive Japanese grammar.  So although it remains to be seen, I just might be inserting some Japanese studying again into my daily routine. Hey, I'm retired and this should be fun.  And although I'm no longer a regular customer of Krispy Kreme, I'm glad it's still standing there in the midst of the excessive construction and congestion that's recently taken place in that part of Gainesville...

Nationwide Protests Against Trump This Saturday During His Military Show

So it looks as if the duly-elected president is determined to hold his grand, hyper-expensive (at taxpayers' expense) military celebration on Saturday, June 14...which "coincidentally" exactly coincides with his birthday.  In response to this kind of egomaniacal display that one would normally expect from North Korea's puffy dictator, a nationwide counter-protest is being scheduled for the same day. In Gainesville there's a protest called "No Kings", endorsed by the Democratic Party, that's taking place Saturday morning from 9 to noon at Cora P. Roberson Park, 600 SW 6th Street.  I pass by it most Saturday mornings on my way to the Depot Parkrun.  Looks as if my little weekly race is in for some serious competition with parking this weekend, sad to say.  But then again, I have shown up to vote against Trump every chance I could...four times...one of them after I deliberately changed my voter affiliation to Republican just to vote against him in 2024's Florida Primary.  So I might just drop by Roberson Park to check out the scene...but I'm certainly NOT going to fill out and submit any sign-up forms that the websites promoting it provide: what's that all about unless they're planning to hit on me later?  I expect die-hard, delusional Trump MAGA demonstrators to show up as well, and possibly some opportunistic left-wing agitators who might try to put on a media show in front of the cameras.  I've never been at a demonstration meeting or protest, and I still remember (with contempt) Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren once calling these things "Democracy in action".  No, Senator, democracy in action is getting off your ass on Election Day and voting!  Nevertheless, attending a protest demonstration may be in the cards for me.  I do know that the Internet and social media are full of lies and misdirection about both Trump and his former flunky Elon Musk.  Apparently, the Republican's "Big, Beautiful" bill doesn't specifically grant the president election-canceling powers as I had earlier read, and Musk isn't...as was also erroneously reported...about to buy off ABC/Disney.  Should be an interesting Saturday, this June 14th.  Bottom line on all this protesting: Trump was indeed duly elected, and if it's anybody I should be demonstrating against it's the fools who put him back into office.  Still, I'd like to observe what goes down this coming Saturday morning (after my run, of course)...

Ran This Morning's Warm and Muggy Depot Parkrun 5K

This Saturday morning, anticipating an extraordinarily hot and humid Gainesville, I woke up with the intention of running the weekly Depot Parkrun 5K, but as a "summer work-out jog" or SWOJ.  True enough the temperature at 7:30 race time was 75 with a blistering-muggy 73% humidity.  Still, in spite of these discouraging conditions there were many park-runners in attendance.  The way I saw it, I knew I wasn't going to be setting any personal Parkrun bests today, but if I could maintain a reasonable pace I'd be happy walking away with a faster-than-thirty minutes finishing time.  And although my stomach had given me fits before the race...and I'm being euphemistic...I was ready at starting time, settling quickly into what I felt was a "groove" that I could stick with for the race's duration.  No, it wasn't pleasant and I was sweating profusely since early on.  But my endurance kicked in nicely and I finished with a time of 28:37, much better than my pre-race expectations.  You can click HERE to view today's results.  For the remainder of June, my plan is...unless I decide on a Saturday morning to sleep in and skip the Depot Parkrun (and that's always an option)...I will divide the three upcoming Satudays between one run, one speed-walk, and on the 28th tackle another US Road Running race at Westside Park...that one's likely to be another 10K...

Just Finished Reading Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

My reading of this 2017 collaboration between Stephen King and Richard Chizmar is the result of my local public library not automatically renewing the two books I had previously checked-out (and was too lazy to return) and instead presenting me via e-mail with a bill for them as lost books.  I presently hastened to my nearest library and showed them the books, and then everything was hunky-dory again.  So I ventured back among the shelves and came up with two more books, unwittingly one of them being the THIRD book in a King-Chizmar trilogy.  I'll get to that one eventually, but first I got onto my Libby app and checked out the audio version for the series' first volume, a very short novel titled Gwendy's Button Box. Gwendy is a girl transitioning from elementary to middle school in her home town of, naturally, Castle Rock, Maine.  She is overweight and doesn't want to continue being the target of cruel nicknames...and kids that age are typically cruel. So she practices running up the steps leading to a local monument.  One day she encounters an elderly man who presents her with a mysterious mahogany box, complete with an assortment of colored buttons, a slot and levers.  He explains for her what each colored button means, and that the black one is the end of everything...pretty ominous, right?  She reluctantly accepts it and comes to regret the box, although it strangely seems to have set her on an inexplicable path to social popularity and academic excellence.  But as I have noted, kids that age tend to be cruel and Gwendy has repeated run-ins with one of the cruelest, which ultimately leads to the story's climax.  I read it in three days, and found at the very end of the audiobook that a Stephen King short story titled The Music Room was attached at the very end.  As for Gwendy's Button Box, King had come up with the idea and most of the book, but didn't know how to end it...he consulted his friend and asked him to see if he couldn't manage the task...and so a collaboration was born.  There are two more volumes, Gwendy's Magic Feather...completely written by Richard Chizmar...and Gwendy's Final Task, a return to the collaboration and a full-length novel.  It should be interesting for me to compare Chizmar's writing style as I read Book #2...

Trump and Musk: the High Drama Continues

I can't exactly avoid the news that seeps into my life, as much as I would often like to.  Ever since Trump slithered back into office four and a half months ago, he had as his bromance-dude super-wealthy Elon Musk accompanying him everywhere, it seemed.  Trump would threaten fellow Republican lawmakers with supplying Musk-funded primary opponents for their next elections should they ever stray from completely following his line, and ol' Elon would just stand there grinning like it was a big joke and shouldn't we all laugh with the two superheroes.  Well, Musk is actually someone who had a life apart from combining hedonism with the pursuit of raw political power...he started a number of innovative businesses and captured my imagination several years ago with his expressed desire to send people to Mars for exploration...and even settlement.  But somewhere along the line he decided to kiss Trump's ring and endorse his campaign in 2024.  That I didn't like, but his chainsaw-wielding antics with DOGE, or the "Department of Government Efficiency", publicized him squarely as an enemy of ordinary people, and the campaign to run down his business enterprises and wealth...mainly through Tesla...erupted across the country with on-site protests and calls for boycott.  He's backed off his public adulation for the repulsive occupant of the White House, even to the point that the two are now engaging in an online war of words against each other after Musk correctly expressed his opposition to the so-called "Big Beautiful" bill that the House passed by one vote.  Musk didn't like that it would greatly increase the national debt, while I, not liking that either, am much more concerned that it grants the president the ability to ignore judges that rule against him and to cancel election results he disagrees with...making our leader a virtual dictator.  Not that I have any say in the matter: my one vote nowadays means very little as opposed to the millions upon millions of voluntarily-brainwashed Americans that worship Trump like a cult personality idol...funny how so many self-identified Christians don't see this idolatry as sinful...

Checking Out Locally-Owned Gainesville Coffee Shop

I'm sitting here in a locally-owned Gainesville coffee shop called "Cym", situated roughly at the corner of NW 55th Street and Newberry Road.  Lots of students here with their laptops...I had to look around to find a place to sit.  But it's a fun view outside here, and I have a hanging roof to shield me from rain or excess wind. I got an iced coffee with hazelnut flavor, and it's good.  I thought that now, with me newly retired and all, it would be a good idea to try out the different places...and by that I mean coffee shops. This one shows some promise although it isn't exactly close to home, and at this early afternoon time (~2:00) it seems to be pretty full, with few seating choices.  But the folks working here seem friendly enough... 

Happy Pride Month

I wish all a happy Pride Month, which is June.  I've long supported gay rights and a thriving LGBT community, which has come, to me, to indicate a locality's tolerance (and anti-bigotry) level...Gainesville is one of those places, thankfully.  Since this designation of Pride Month is nationwide, folks wanting to celebrate it can check online how their own communities may choose its observance...

Start of 2025 Hurricane Season

Yesterday the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season officially began, and the two main weather channels (The Weather Channel and FoxWeather) devoted much of their time to discussing this year's prospects regarding tropical storm systems and the damage that storms like Helene and Milton caused in 2024.  I remember as a kid in the 1960s getting a free hurricane plotting map that many stores...including Publix...offered.  Then I would eagerly wait for each day's newspaper (we got the Miami News)  to examine its (usually front-page) article about the status of ongoing tropical systems, usually with the accompanying maximum sustained winds and that all-important figure, its coordinates.  I'd duly plot out the new location and connect it to my previous plotting, making a gradual pathway that it was taking...I did this for years.  Nowadays, though, since you can pretty much check up on the different tropical storms online or on TV on a 24/7 basis, this painstaking plotting out of a hurricane's progress just isn't practiced anymore.  The last season I did this intentionally was in 1985 after Elena caused a scare in my Gainesville area after it abruptly shifted its path overnight to hover just off the coast at Cedar Key.  Now, of course, I can go back on Wikipedia and get a synopsis of each past season, along with a map showing the different named storms' trajectories.  For 2025, there will be no plotting in my house, but I'll keep in touch with the weather... 

My May 2025 Running, Walking and Swimming Report

For May, as my recovery from surgery enabled me to return to the pool for swimming, I found myself (and Melissa) often going to our YMCA Pool where we did laps, either through swimming or walking.  We went swimming on seven different days in the month, including once at Daytona Beach.  I think my swimming endurance is improving, and my use of a snorkel should come in great use when tackling the longer lap lanes they provide.  I kept up both my running and speed-walking, both at home and in races.  I participated in our local weekly (and free) Depot Parkrun 5K four out of the month's five Saturdays, two as runs, one a speed-walk...and one as a volunteer.  The other Saturday morning (the 24th) was spent at Westside Park...now known officially as Albert Ray Massey Park.  On the fourth Saturday each month a group calling itself US Road Running holds a multi-distance race on that site.  It was the second time I ran it, again at the 10K distance.  I've also spent a number of late mornings and early afternoons traversing a course I created for myself within my own neighborhood and the adjacent one...that's helped a lot.  And...I am gradually increasing some adjunct routines like pushups, jumping jacks, skipping (good for developing sprinting capability), and some physical therapy exercises.  May was a good month for me, and since June will doubtless get hotter here in north Florida I'm confident that I'll be doing even more walking and swimming in it...

Walked the Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

Today is the last day of May, my last chance this month to get in a speed-walk at Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K.  It had been raining off and on all night, and when I got up this morning around 6 there was still a drizzle outside. But when I left to go to Depot Park a little before 7, the rain had completely abated...at race time, 7:30, it was 71 degrees with 74% humidity: pretty uncomfortable but at least the clouds shielded us from the sun.  Since I was walking the event, the adverse conditions that reminded me of my 10K race last week didn't much affect me.  My goal was to finish faster than 40 minutes, returning to a string of speed-walking 5K final times below that mark I did before March's surgery.   I pushed it hard for the race and finished with a time of 39:42...you can view the results by clicking HERE.  Gainesville...or more technically the greater Gainesville area...is being doubly blessed, starting July 12th, with a second weekly Parkrun.  This one, called West End Community Parkrun, is taking place in a new park converted from a golf course.  It's on Newberry Road west of town, on the north side of the street about six blocks west of NW 122nd Street...in the incorporated town of Tioga.  I'm not sure whether I'll go there on the first day, but it should be fun to visit from time to time.  As far as my speed-walking is concerned, before the succession of family tragedy and health crises this past year, I was gradually working up my walking speed to 5 mph, which in a 5K would be reflected by a 37:20 finishing time.  Well, I'm back on track working toward that goal, which I've managed to accomplish on a treadmill but not on a hard surface...

Recovery from Prostate Surgery Continues to Be Encouraging

The specter of cancer descended upon my family last year when Melissa and I were diagnosed, respectively, with breast cancer in May and prostate in December.  We both had the malignancies surgically removed, mine involving a robotic laparoscopic prostatectomy, or removal of my prostate.  Although the verdict so far on both of our accounts as been that the cancers were successfully removed from our bodies, we still have to undergo periodic tests to make sure that there hasn't been any resurgence.  Melissa's follow-up is next month while I just underwent my PSA blood test a couple of weeks ago.  The result, as I had mentioned in an earlier article, was excellent, and my physician concurred with that take earlier today during our consultation.  Next test is in August, and either it will be "a-okay" or I'll get some radiation treatment...either way I'm good with it.  As for my recovery from surgery and my adjustment to being without one of my organs, that's been going well, too...full-speed ahead with life!  

The Seedy Underside of Rock Stars and Their Adoring Fans

I was having lunch today with Melissa at a local restaurant when they played the Dire Straits 1985 hit single Money for Nothing.  Written as a satire on the rock music scene and what motivates rockers in general, one of the main lines in it is "You get your money for nothing and your chicks for free."  No surprise there, as I have long understood that a substantial number of rock celebrities...and perhaps celebrities of other types as well...tend to enjoy the adulation of their fan base, sometimes crossing the line into promiscuity and groupie behavior.  I remember a radio show I heard about Def Leppard that revealed that during the band's concert tours they would spend the mid-concert intermission in their dressing room making out with the young women they earlier picked out of the audience during the opening half.  I thought at the time that this band was pretty awfully arrogant to do such a thing, and then to openly brag about it like that.  I think times may have changed since then, though, and that can't be a bad thing, right?  After Arcade Fire released their album We in early 2022, allegations were published about frontman Win Butler that he had been aggressive about sexually pursuing some of his female fans on social media...a scandal about it erupted just as the band was about to go on an album-promoting concert tour while Butler maintained that everything had been consensual. Scheduled opening act Feist withdrew herself from the tour and there was a question about the future prospects of Arcade Fire.  Now they've just released their next album and we'll see how that goes.  I am dead set against any form of sexual harassment, but in the entertainment industry it seems that any standards...if there really are any...are applied in a sloppy, haphazard manner with some alleged offenders being severely demonized..."cancelled" if you will...while others, apparently given a free pass for being "cool",  are almost lifted up as folk heroes for their antics.  To me it's a terrible distraction from the music, which is the only reason I ever paid attention to any of them in the first place.  And to me Def Leppard has always sucked while Arcade Fire has been a quality act...