My March 2018 Running Report

This month I ran a total of 67 miles, a relatively low figure for me, with my longest single run also low, at 3.2 miles.  Toward the end of March I had to take a few days off from the activity, suffering from an unknown inflammatory/allergic response to something...these things happen to me from time to time and I just have to function through it all until things get better.  Still, I did manage to run a race, the Chris Lacinak Scholarship Fun Shamrock 5K in northeastern Gainesville.  And I only missed running for 5 days...

I think it might be a good idea to change where I run, just to make things more interesting.  I do have a GPS mileage counter app on my phone, so I can improvise and do something different each day and still be able to tally my mileage.  As for races in April, I think there are a couple of 5K events around town, one on the 21st and the other a week later...guess I'll just have to wait and see how I feel then.  I've been getting a lot of overtime work on my job lately, and the coming month promises more of the same, if not even more hours...this cuts into my running, albeit for a good cause.  If it isn't too late when I get off from work, I go to my local 24/7 gym...I like to use the elliptical cross-trainer there.  I don't plan to be running very long distances in the foreseeable future...just keeping a regular routine of shorter daily runs may be the best strategy for me...

Quote of the Week...from Dean Karnazes

I think I have some of my clearest thoughts when I'm out running.          ---Dean Karnazes.

A little more than a year ago I quoted Dean Karnazes, a long distance runner whose book Ultra-Marathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner remains as one of my favorites...here's a link to that quote.  The above comment is something I can also relate to...well, not lately...

For a few years at the start of this decade I was like Karnazes (although my running mileage was much lower than his) in that I would go out on daily long training runs in the late morning/early afternoon before I would go to my job.  During those runs there really wasn't anything to distract me...unless you consider the mp3 music I was listening to as a distraction...so I did a lot of thinking, too.  My thoughts during those runs were mostly of an uplifting, constructive nature...not the self-defeating thoughts that too many of us get into a rut repeating to ourselves.  And the successful conclusion of these long runs also gave me a push into a more positive frame of spirit that carried over to the rest of the day...

Nowadays I run either indoors, at the gym, or outdoors in my back yard...not the same thing as getting out on the road and touring the neighborhoods.  And consequently I've found it easier to let myself get out of the "zone" while running and sidetracked by distractions.  Road running, on the other hand, is something of a commitment of my time and it's easy to go off into a good state of cognitive reverie when I'm out there.  I need to do more of it if for no other reason...but there is also another good reason to get back out on the road: it gives me a sense of belonging and engagement with the world around me and reduces the sporadic feelings of alienation that I am prone to experience...

Maybe running isn't for you, but there is probably another kind of activity that can produce the same positive results that Dean Karnazes suggested.  In any event, all of us need to be able to find a time and place to "break the limiting pattern" of our routine daily existence and provide a different setting that gives us a chance to see things from a more objective...and hopeful...perspective...
                                                 

3/25 Sermon: Jesus in His Own Words, Part 1

Last Sunday...which was also Palm Sunday, celebrating Jesus' entry into Jerusalem...senior pastor Philip Griffin of Gainesville's Family Church began a new series titled Jesus in His Own Words.  This message focused on his words "I am he", using the passage John 18:1-11, which you can click on and read via Bible Gateway.  In it, Jesus is about to be betrayed by Judas and arrested, and his statement not only identifies himself from the crowd, but also reveals his divine nature, as Philip makes clear.  Bible translations often quote him as saying "I am he", but in essence Jesus is saying "I AM"...staking the claim that he is the great I AM God of the Old Testament.  In this, Pastor Philip stated that one cannot sit on the fence: as C.S. Lewis once wrote, Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic...or Lord.  When Jesus speaks this "I am" in the presence of the arresting soldiers, they all fall down...no one can stand in the presence of God's glory.  But when Peter dashes forward, in his own mind trying to defend Jesus, and lops off a priest's servant's ear, Jesus restores the ear and rebukes him, revealing that his mission is to give his life so that those who believe, confess, and repent may have a living relationship with God through him and eternal life.  So as our pastor outlined, Jesus demonstrated in his words his claim to be one with God, his power that greatly dwarfs that of man-made armies, and his mission of personal sacrifice for us.  That's pretty remarkable, isn't it?

You can watch this message through the church's YouTube video website...click on the following link: TFC Video.  The Family Church, at 2022 SW 122nd Street, regularly meets for its Sunday morning services at 9 and 10:30 with the sermon, praise and worship music, prayer, and opportunities for fellowship, learning, and discipleship.  This coming Sunday is Easter, and there will be an extra service held at 7:15 AM.

Weekly Short Story: Ur by Stephen King

Continuing with discussions about short stories from Stephen King's 2015 collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, today it's about Ur, a novella-length piece that touches upon alternate realities.  Wesley, a digitally-challenged college English instructor...after breaking up with his girlfriend who would ridicule his insistence on using only paper books...decides to buy a Kindle online.  It arrives...strangely colored pink...but he soon discovers that this is the least of its anomalies.  Turns out that he can use it to access and purchase works of different authors that are not in their bibliographies...many written after their supposed deaths!  In time he sees that he can hit upon different alternate scenarios of reality...and then he explores the device's news archive feature.  One selection has the world ending in a nuclear holocaust...no future there.  And speaking of the future, a local news app on the Kindle displays future newspaper headlines...leading to the story's climactic crisis...

Ur combines good characters and a Twilight Zone-like speculative mood to form a great story of suspense and possibilities.  It also forms a part of Stephen King's "universe" of related stories that tie together on different levels.  It's definitely a worthwhile investment of your reading time...as are most of the tales in The Bazaar of Bad Dreams... 

Tuesday's List: My Favorite TV Channels

What I watch on television depends on what happens to be on at any given time, and what my own schedule is.  I'm usually watching during mid-to-late mornings on workdays and after 10:30 at night when I usually get home...if I didn't get overtime or stop off at the gym.  On days off I watch more in the afternoon and early evening, depending on what I'm doing then and whether there is anything good to watch.  None of the channels are always watchable...I have to pick and choose what different ones are showing and going to show by checking the cable service's schedule.  Still, there are some channels I watch more than others, and this list ranks them...along with the reasons why.  By the way, I don't get most of the premium channels like HBO and Epix...and I don't plan to sign up anytime soon...

Each entry is followed by the Cox Communications (Gainesville's cable provider) channel number...and then the brief, brief commentary...

1 C-SPAN 2 (81)......ever since 2001 I have been following live US Senate proceedings here
2 UNIVISION (40).....I like to watch Mexican league soccer and practice my Spanish
3 CNN (37).....still my "go-to" channel to check out the news...but they tend to get sidetracked
4 NEWSY (276).....covers a broader range of news issues than the other cable news channels
5 MUSIC CHOICE CLASSICAL MUSIC MASTERPIECES (949)....full pieces of classical music
6 THE WEATHER CHANNEL (31)....not as dependable as before with their "features" preempting ongoing weather coverage
7 CARTOON NETWORK (43).....only reason I watch it: Family Guy
8 COMEDY CENTRAL (44)....only reason I watch it: South Park (newer, inferior episodes excepted)
9 ESPN/ESPN2 (26, 27).....I like the live sporting events, you can have the talk shows
10 WCJB-ABC (7)....this is my local news source
11 MTV LIVE (1098)....formerly called Palladia, live rock and pop performances
12 C-SPAN (80) .....live US House proceedings, book and commentary programs
13 TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES (46)......uninterrupted classic movies, sometimes a good one is on
14 MUSIC CHOICE ROCK CLASSICS (918)....usually there's something good being played here
15 MUSIC CHOICE THE '70S (929).....listening to this channel brings back a lot of memories
16 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC (83)....a good source for programming about science and geography
17 METV (117).......great old shows like Honeymooners, Twilight Zone
18 WNBW4 (115).....more old series, including Johnny Carson
19 SY FY (51)....I avoid original series, focus on movies
20 AMERICAN MOVIE CLASSICS (52)....ditto with #19
21 TNT (45)......I enjoy their NBA live broadcasts, occasionally their movies
22 MSNBC (63)......I used to watch it more, but got tired of all the smug head-nodding
23 FOX NEWS (38)....I sometimes watch it to analyze how propaganda is purveyed
24 MUSIC CHOICE ALTERNATIVE ROCK (915).....the best "popular" music of today as I see it
25 NBC SPORTS (33)....English Premier League soccer, hockey, other interesting sports

Just Finished Reading Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen is a south Floridian journalist and novelist, having written several stories set in that area in which I grew up. Although I'd heard his name before, I never did get around to reading anything of his until, once again, I was randomly scanning the shelves of my local public library where I found a copy of one of his recent works, the 2013 crime novel Bad Monkey...

Andrew Yancy is a former Miami area police detective who has been suspended for assaulting the husband of a woman he was having an affair with...not exactly the model of a virtuous hero.  While suspended, he has been assigned as a health inspector in the Florida Keys where he resides, performing routine inspections of the local eateries.  Meanwhile, a tourist out fishing hooks a severed arm, and, before his suspension, Yancy is entrusted with taking it to Miami forensics to attempt an identification.  Ultimately, it turns out that the arm belongs to a Nicholas Stripling, a man who was under investigation for defrauding medicare.  The plot develops and before you know it, the setting shifts to the Bahamas...specifically Andros Island, where new characters, including that "bad monkey", are introduced...

Bad Monkey, with all of its serious issues and violence, was nevertheless a pretty funny novel. Hiaasen, like my favorite author Stephen King, apparently has quite a sense of humor and he infected this work (and I presume his others as well) with it.  Yancy lives on Big Pine Key and is horrified that his next door neighbor is building a high-rise structure that blocks his view of the sunset...so throughout the story he schemes to sabotage the project, with very humorous results.  No, I did not at all like Andrew Yancy, but he filled his role perfectly...Bad Monkey is good escapist literature, and I recommend it with that in mind...
 

Stepping Out Back, Stargazing Last Night

Last night I went outside in my back yard and looked up at the sky, something that I had fallen out of the habit of doing recently.  You see, since I was seven I have enjoyed star-gazing, checking out where "my" constellations and their stars are against the celestial background while noting the moon and planets (if they're visible) as well as the weather...and how the neighborhood seems to be doing.  It was easy to see the moon, high up in the west in its first quarter phase and emitting a faint halo through the thin clouds surrounding it...it was in Gemini, one of the bright constellations marking the brilliant winter evening sky.  There was Orion, Auriga, and Canis Major as well in that sector...always a visual draw with their brilliance...but my eyes turned more eastward as I observed the ascending springtime stars.  Leo was nearly overhead and Corvus was low in the southeast, just above the treeline of tall pines.  On the eastern horizon were the stars Arcturus and Spica...and looking north there was the inverted Big Dipper from the constellation Ursa Major.  My home seems to be directly under a jet route, because in the few minutes I was out there I saw a number of them passing overhead...we're also not very far from the Gainesville airport...

Lately the humidity has been higher than usual, and I prefer dryer air when I'm outside.  Last night conditions were cool and very pleasant.  Since I have a chain link fence surrounding my back yard, the rest of the neighborhood is pretty transparent to me...someone was out walking their dog with a flashlight and a car in the opposite cul-de-sac briefly flashed its headlights at me as it rounded it.  I can see how having a sense of neighborhood community is a good thing...but frankly, I'm getting tired of feeling like I'm in a fishbowl every time I step outside my back door.  Yes, I think a nice privacy fence will coming soon to my home...

Just Finished Reading City by Clifford Simak

City is a 1952 science fiction novel by Clifford Simak, one of the greatest writers in this genre from the twentieth century.  Actually, it is more or less a coherent stringing together of several short stories that Simak had published from 1944 to 1951...two of them, Huddling Place and Desertion, rank among my all-time favorites.  I was overjoyed to see it on my local public library's bookshelves and readily checked it out...what an intriguing story!

In City, Simak envisions a future for humanity that I doubt anyone else could have concocted in their wildest dreams...as well as what lies in store for animal life on Earth, particularly dogs.  This having been noted, I must stress that the author inserted a very, very unlikely scenario in our near future when humanity has developed the technology to (1) develop a body based on a completely different biology and chemistry than our own, intricately adapted to life on a crushing, extremely poisonous planet like Jupiter, and (2) to be able to transfer a person's consciousness, or soul, into that synthetic body.  Not very likely, I'd posit...any more than we would train dogs to speak and think on the same level as people...another feature of this book.  However, alongside these far-flung speculations was a soberly realistic one: the development of artificial intelligence...as personalized by the robot Jenkins... to such a degree that it would assume the role of determining the future of life on Earth, as well as that on other worlds.  Now that prediction, made way back in the late 1940s, I'm afraid, is a very likely possibility as even today we find ourselves being swept away and confounded by the Internet and "smart" machines as we push buttons and delegate to them more and more of the things we used to do ourselves...

One reason I like to read old science fiction is that it often places our own time as the future that it describes...invariably there is a wide discrepancy between the author's vision and our own present reality.  Often there has been nuclear war and apocalypse, and often space travel has progressed much faster and to much farther places than it actually has.  I guess that having neither of these in our recent past is better than having both, but why couldn't we just have passed up on the war stuff and gone straight into settling other worlds?  But what if, in the process of exploring other worlds to populate, we discover paradise and virtual immortality?  Would Earth's population empty out as people by the billions are enticed to that other world and life?  Maybe that notion, put forth by Clifford Simak in this thought-provoking book that is both funny and a little scary, isn't quite as far-fetched as it may sound...

Quote of the Week...from Madeleine L'Engle

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.
                                                              ---Madeleine L'Engle

Madeleine L'Engle  was a renowned author of children's books, most famous for her Time series that opened with the 1962 book A Wrinkle in Time...now adapted to a new movie currently out in theaters and starring Storm Reid (great acting), Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, and Chris Pine, among others.  I just saw it with Melissa this past Saturday and was duly impressed...I wish all film adaptations of books I read were as faithful to the spirit, characters, and flow of the story.   Go see it...but first I recommend you read the book.  I read it back in June, 2015...here's my review: [link]...

There's a corollary to the above quote, and it's also from Madeleine L'Engle: You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children. I like her take on aging and writing, as exemplified by these two quotes. She should know, having lived a full life (passing away in 2007 at age 88) with a gift at writing for the younger reading audience...

As sentient beings, we humans...regardless of our current age...have this duality in our lives that we each have to deal with, some of us more successful at it than the rest.  On one hand our past experiences, accumulated over the course of a lifetime, determine to a great extent who we are in the present.  So in a significant way, we are who we were...as the first quote of l"Engle would indicate.  This tends to come out in the difference between how people see themselves and how others see them...let me explain...

When folks know each other well over a span of time and have built up memories of each other, they tend to regard each other based more on those memories and less on how each one really is in the present...this causes a resistance to accepting change in others with whom one is familiar.  On the other hand, when people are strangers they tend to judge one another strictly on their behavior and appearance in the present...understandable since they have nothing else to go on, but still unrealistic in that we all have our own respective pasts that help to define our presents.  But L'Engle takes a more positive approach to being able to draw upon our pasts while we live in the present...we are each of us, after all, individual, unique tapestries spanning the years...

3/18 Sermon on Philippians, Part 10

Last Sunday at The Family Church here in Gainesville, senior pastor Philip Griffin delivered his tenth and final sermon on the Bible's New Testament book of Philippians, a series themed on how to achieve joy.  This installment, Joyful Contentment, focuses on the final verses of Paul's letter from a Roman prison to the church in Philippi: click on Philippians 4:10-23 to read it via Bible Gateway...

In opening his message, Pastor Philip stressed that satisfaction is found in a soul-level contentment in Jesus Christ...this doesn't come automatically, but rather is something that has to be learned and worked on.  To achieve true contentment is indeed a process, and it involves recognizing what will lead...and not lead...to it.  Philip brought out five pointers to this end: stop comparing, stop tying contentment to circumstances, depend on Christ's strength, become a giver, and learn to distinguish between needs and wants.  Instead of being on the endless, pointless treadmill of comparing ourselves to others, why not pursue God's virtues of righteousness, faith, love, and endurance?  Contentment doesn't come from circumstances...either having what others have, having more and more, or falling for the myth that God's will is for us to be happy (leading to doing whatever we please to do).  Regarding giving, Philip pointed out that studies have shown the poor, percentage-wise, are greater givers than the rich...supporting the sad truth that the more we have, the more we trust in what we have.  And as for needs vs. wants, I feel that too many of us can't distinguish between them...one big reason is the lack of appreciation for the concept of "enough".  In sum, our joy and contentment do not come from our circumstances or "stuff", but from God...we need to change our focus and attitude...

You can view this message on YouTube through the Family Church's video website...just click on the following link: [TFC Videos].  Located at 2022 SW 122nd Street (Parker Road), The Family Church holds its Sunday morning services at 9 and 10:30...this coming Easter Sunday will also feature an earlier one at 7:15.  There will be, along with the message, praise and worship music, prayer, and discipleship and fellowship opportunities.  There is a hospitality room where refreshments are provided and folks can mingle before and between services.  Looking forward to this Sunday...

Weekly Short Story: Mile 81 by Stephen King

In 2015 Stephen King came out with yet another of his short story collections, titling this one The Bazaar of Bad Dreams.  The first story was another of his "monster car" tales...remember Christine and From a Buick 8? This one, Mile 81, is set at a closed and abandoned Maine rest stop off I-95 between Portland and Augusta.  Little Pete Simmons is out with his big brother George and George's twelve-to-thirteen year-old friends as they ride their bicycles around and look for fun.  When they decide to go on a trail they designed for daredevil stunts, George...who feels responsible for taking care of Pete...tells him to stay back and "hang around" while he and his buddies do their daring bike jumps.  Instead Pete, looking for an interesting experience to tell the others, sets out to find the old abandoned I-95 rest stop, where he knows the older teenagers like to go to drink and make out.  Getting there, he finds a bottle of vodka and drinks himself to sleep.  In the meantime...

A mud-covered nondescript station wagon pulls off the road in front of the rest stop.  One good Samaritan after another pull off the road to provide assistance.  But when they touch the car...well, I did say that this was one of King's "monster car" tales, didn't I?  So what does little Pete have to do with this contraption from the gates of hell and the resolution of the story?  Guess you'll have to read it to find out!

What I liked about Mile 81 was how the author took two apparently different narratives and brought them together at the end to make it all seem sensible and satisfactory...a hung-over little kid is hardly the kind of hero anyone would expect, but little Pete has brought with him the solution to this crisis.  And yes, Stephen King did get around to explaining what that awful car was all about...which is more than he ever did in From a Buick 8...

Tuesday's List: My Favorite Songs from the Band Yes

Last Sunday night I was driving home from work with the car radio on the local classic rock station on 92.5.  They were broadcasting the nationally-syndicated program The Acoustic Storm and a familiar song was being played, albeit in unusual acoustic fashion: Yours is No Disgrace by Yes, with vocalist Jon Anderson making his characteristically high-pitched presence known.  It renewed my interest in this talented progressive rock band and I decided to make a list of my all-time favorite Yes songs.  I first learned of Yes late in 1971 when the radio began to play I've Seen All Good People.  Then Roundabout came out early the next year and their popularity took off.  The band subsequently began to record album-side-length pieces that endeared them to their fans but impeded further radio exposure, causing their mass popularity to decline.  After a two-year hiatus in the early 1980s, Yes reformed and reinvented itself...with the aid of MTV and music videos.  Since then and over the course of its existence the personnel in Yes have undergone a lot of changes.  It's still a band, but Anderson is no longer the lead singer.  I haven't heard the albums they have done over the past twenty years...maybe there's some good stuff on them, who knows.  But I do know that their earlier works contain some masterpieces!  By the way, on the list below, entries 1, 5, 8, 9, 12, and 16 are all album-side-length pieces... 

So here's the list of my favorite Yes songs over the years...each song title is followed by its album.  Check out Yes if you haven't yet...

1 CLOSE TO THE EDGE..........Close to the Edge (1972)
2 I'VE SEEN ALL GOOD PEOPLE.....The Yes Album (1971)
3 AND YOU AND I..................Close to the Edge
4 LEAVE IT...............................90125 (1983)
5 THE GATES OF DELIRIUM.....Relayer (1974)
6 ROUNDABOUT.......................Fragile (1971)
7 YOURS IS NO DISGRACE.....The Yes Album
8 THE ANCIENT........................Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973)
9 THE REMEMBERING............Tales from Topographic Oceans
10 SOUTH SIDE OF THE SKY.....Fragile
11 NO OPPORTUNITY NECESSARY, NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED....Time and a Word (1970)
12 THE RITUAL..........................Tales from Topographic Oceans
13 HEART OF THE SUNRISE....Fragile
14 ARRIVING UFO.....................Tormato (1978)
15 WE HAVE HEAVEN..............Fragile
16 THE REVEALING SCIENCE OF GOD....Tales from Topographic Oceans
17 ONWARD................................Tormato
18 CHANGES...............................90125
19 SWEET DREAMS...................Time and a Word
20 SIBERIAN KHATRU..............Close to the Edge
21 WONDROUS STORIES..........Going for the One (1977)
22 WALLS....................................Talk (1994)
23 FUTURE TIMES/REJOICE....Tormato
24 TIME AND A WORD.............Time and a Word
25 IT CAN HAPPEN....................90125
26 LOVE WILL FIND A WAY....Big Generator (1987)
27 LONG DISTANCE RUNAROUND.....Fragile
28 OWNER OF A LONELY HEART........90125
29 THE FISH.................................Fragile
30 EVERY LITTLE THING.........Yes (1969)

Tomorrow's Gainesville City Commission Election

Tomorrow the city of Gainesville, Florida will be holding an election for two city commission seats.  In both, the incumbents are running for reelection, with challengers.  The at-large seat, for which I will be voting, encompasses the entire city while the District 1 seat is only for the delineated section comprising mainly southeastern Gainesville.  Usually these March elections are generally ignored by the voting population with turnout hovering around an appalling 12%.  Folks, if you've been upset and have complained of late about the sorry state of politics in this country and you're not bothering to get up and vote when the opportunities arise to select your representatives and leaders, then you're part of the problem!  Start being part of the solution, check up on these races and the candidates if you live here, and begin the civically responsible habit of regularly voting as a caring, informed citizen...don't just vote when you happen to "feel the Bern"... 

At-Large:
GAIL JOHNSON
HARVEY BUDD (incumbent)

District 1:
TYRA "TY LOUDD" EDWARDS
CHARLES EDWARD GOSTON (incumbent)
GIGI SIMMONS

Just Finished Reading Books by Frank Herbert and Stephanie Garber

I just finished reading a couple more books: Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert, the second in his Dune science fiction series, and Caraval by Stephanie Garber, a fantasy/romance novel targeted at a young adult reading audience...

Dune Messiah, which came out in 1969, four years after the introductory Dune, continues with the saga of Paul Atreides as he struggles...with his prescient vision...to achieve the best possible future for both the universe and himself.  This series has a curious mixture of fantasy and science fiction...not that much removed from the formula used in the apparently never-ending Star Wars movie series.  Dune combines a highly technologically-advanced society with a stagnant, medieval-like social structure featuring rule by nobles, shamanistic priesthoods, and legalism run rampant...it can get pretty tedious plowing through all this stuff. I got the feeling that Herbert used the game of chess, with the powerful pieces as well as the pawns...along with the various strategies to achieve victory...as a model on which to base the flow of his story.   Each character seemed very intent on self-examination as well as minutely analyzing every nuance and implication of whatever those around them were saying...frankly, I think the author grossly overdid it in this area.  Still, I'm planning to continue with the series, at least with those Dune books that Frank Hebert wrote on his own...

Caraval is set on Earth, apparently several centuries ago when Venice ruled much of the Mediterranean and fought maritime wars there.  Stephanie Garber's tale places her heroine protagonist Scarlett in a tough family situation with a widower father who brutally tyrannizes over her and her little sister Tella.  There is a traveling magical show/carnival called Caravel, led by an enigmatic man named Legend. For years Scarlett had written him, asking him to perform in her restricted home city of Trieste, but to no avail.  Finally, after an arranged marriage engagement she writes him again and he finally replies, sending her tickets for the show to be held on a not-too-distant island.  How Scarlett gets away to attend Carnaval, along with the circumstances concerning Tella and a mysterious, problematic sailor named Julian, sets the tone for the rest of the story...which turned out in the end to be a pretty fun book to go through, with a thoroughly twisted ending.  I got the feeling, however, that the author intended its primary readership to be young teenage girls...especially with regard to the "romance" passages.  I selected Caraval at random from my local public library, but first I checked to see if this novel, published just last year, was part of a series...turns out it may well be the first book in a new one, which works for me...

Ran the Chris Lacinak Scholarship Fund Shamrock 5K This Morning

For the previous three years on the Saturday of St. Patrick's Day weekend I ran in the Run for Haven 10K race in Tioga, just on the western outskirts of Gainesville.  After they decided to move their race to the fall, I switched over to the "other" St. Patrick's weekend race: the Chris Lacinak Scholarship Fund Shamrock 5K.  Held in northeastern Gainesville, the race is put on annually to honor Chris Lacinak, a St. Patrick's Interparish Catholic School alumnus who passed away in 2012 at the age of 19 and to contribute to the fund bearing his name.  It begins across NE 16th Avenue from the church in Northeast Park, with the course taking runners south through the Duck Pond area, winding up and down various roads until it returns to the park for the finish.  The racetime (9 am) weather was 55 degrees with a heavy 97 % humidity.  I enjoyed the positive spirit of all participating in this worthy event...but that humidity was awful.  Fortunately, the cooler temperature and the shorter length of this race made it much more bearable than my difficult half-marathon experience last month among similarly muggy conditions.  Plus, I think that my daily gym sessions after work with the elliptical cross-trainer put me in better shape...

Planning to avoid pushing myself too hard, I regarded the race as a training run, determined to stick with a reasonable, but not too fast, pace...and to avoid tripping and falling over obstacles in the road.  I finished with a time of 29:17 at a mile pace of 9:27...you can get all the results through the following link to Start 2 Finish Race Management.

Quote of the Week...from Stephen Hawking

People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.
                                                                                               ---Stephen Hawking.

Stephen Hawking, the British astrophysicist most known for surviving...even thriving through his horrific decades-long physically debilitating ALS affliction while popularizing science and producing advances in studies on black holes, passed away last week.  He is noted for saying many things...his final quote stirred a lot of interest, as he urged humanity to leave Earth and settle on other worlds in the face of the looming danger caused by increasingly powerful (and survival-savvy) artificial intelligence.  I've read tributes about him from others relating to his chosen scientific field, but I selected the above quote because, one, it is very different from his others and, two, I happen to disagree with it...

It has been my experience in life that it is precisely those who regularly display anger, complaints, and are verbally aggressive toward others who end up being the more popular ones while those who are restrained, gracious, and show a more dispassionate, thoughtful manner of looking at things and others tend to be more ignored and isolated.  Yes, I know this runs counter to just about every self-help philosophy out there, but I can't ignore the blunt reality of my actual memories. Just look at the dude currently occupying the White House: have you ever seen anyone so full of venom and who seems to be in a constant state of agitation, publicly calling out others by name to tactlessly criticize in the most scathing personal terms? Yet folks see him for this as an interesting person and are attracted to him...even his enemies who decry his behavior have plenty of time for him, even if it is in a negative sense.  Which brings me to a sobering conclusion: most people are passion addicts...

Being civil and positive in your speech may keep you out of trouble for the most part, but it won't win you many devoted friends, either.  Somewhere along the line the notion has arisen and permeated our society that "bad" speech and behavior is associated with being a passionate person while good manners and goodwill and grace toward others and one's own situation gets the rap for being traits of an uninteresting, "low-energy" personality.  The elevation of rational reasoning and civil discourse over appealing to emotions and the mob mentality never seemed to be a virtue that attracted others: people want to see passion in others, and will judge a more reserved and considerate person as lacking that passion...and consequently avoid him or her.  I believe that we should be assertive as to standing up for our own due self-interests...especially when they are being denied.  But that's not the same as those who are constantly lording themselves and forcefully pushing their own agendas over others...behavior that in our society is consistently (and sadly) rewarding. Sorry, folks...and the late Stephen Hawking...that's just the way I see it...

In Max Ehrmann's prose poem Desiderata there is the line "Avoid loud and aggressive people, they are vexatious to the spirit".   Well, the opposite effect seems true in today's world as people seem to desperately want their own spirits vexed as they flock to just these sorts...

3/11 Sermon on Philippians, Part 9

Last Sunday at The Family Church here in Gainesville we had a guest speaker, Darryl McCune, who continued in the series about the New Testament book of Philippians, which was a letter that Paul wrote for the Christian community there.  Darryl's chosen title for this message was Joyful Peace, and he focused on the nature of conflict and how to effectively deal with it. The scripture for this day, which you can read via Bible Gateway by clicking on it , was Philippians 4:1-9...

In his message Darryl related a memory when he was volunteering at a summer camp and coached one of the football teams.  When his superior made a decision to change one of the rules for the championship game, Darryl was taken aback and repeatedly tried to implore his friend to change his mind...but in the end realized that the dispute was in great part of his own doing and that he needed to change his own way of thinking and behavior.  As he examined the Biblical passage and an ongoing quarrel between two believers in the Philippian church there, Darryl presented his core theme: conflict with others comes from conflict within and only through the God of peace can we have reconciliation...

To Darryl McCune's incisive words I'd like to add a few of my own, based solely on my own personal experiences over a lifespan.  I can't recall ever deliberately seeking to be involved in conflicts...they often seem to arise out of nowhere and then take on a life of their own, sometimes escalating to ridiculous, even dangerous, levels.  To engage is to feed them...what Darryl did with his example is to step back and see his own role in perpetuating his conflict.  Looking at things as the other party sees them is also an important step.  Many times I have been in these situations and, when I withdrew from the "arena", I was better able to see the path of reconciliation...a path that seemed to be God's intention all along...

You can watch this week's sermon through the church's YouTube video website...click on the following link for it [link].  The Family Church, at 2022 SW 122nd Street in far western Gainesville, meets each Sunday morning at 9 and 10:30 for its services, which include the message, praise and worship music, prayer and discipleship opportunities, and a lot of wonderful people.  And if you like, there's coffee and other refreshments available in the hospitality room before and in between services.  I'm looking forward to next Sunday...

Weekly Short Story: Armageddon by Frederic Brown

Frederic Brown, who dabbled in both mystery and science fiction and is better known for his short, short stories that carry a big knockout punch line, has been one of my favorite authors from childhood...his Armageddon appeared in the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 3 (1941).  Only five pages long, it was a fast read, and had a superficially religious angle to it.  Herbie, a little boy who is a budding amateur magician in his own right, is attending a magic show in Cincinnati with his parents.  The magician onstage keeps performing tricks that the boy understands from his own experience, but there is one he doesn't that requires the presence of a volunteer from the audience...so he has planned to rush up to the stage at the expected moment of the call...this proves successful.  So there they are, the magician, the boy...and a box.  And then a prayer wheel in Tibet gets loose from its owner in a flood and stops spinning...causing an unlikely transformation across the world: the magician turns into the devil, complete with his fiery powers of destruction.  How the boy unwittingly saves the world from Armageddon...well, I'll leave that part for you to read...

We've not literally had the devil to directly deal with to avoid worldwide catastrophe, but like in Armageddon, there have been moments when disaster almost came about in happenstance fashion...and was squelched by a combination of what would appear to be heroism and pure luck.  One example: in September 1983 the Soviets received an erroneous early warning of nuclear missiles being launched against them from Europe.  Only one single Soviet officer was there to make the crucial decision to override the otherwise automatic chain of events that would have left the world in a nuclear holocaust.  For this he received no award or recognition...he had turned into an embarrassment to his superiors. Likewise, in Armageddon, little Herbie gets no respect for his act of heroism...in fact, both he and the Soviet officer end up being punished...

How many times have we dodged the bullet on this planet and avoided the worst kinds of disasters imaginable, with the truth hidden either to cover up for those who may have been negligent or to keep the public from panicking?  The 1983 Soviet incident was only uncovered after that country's dissolution in 1991 and secret files on the subject were revealed...that's not likely to happen very often.  Although Frederic Brown's premise in Armageddon was unrealistic...even silly...there are many real, seriously dangerous scenarios around us today that could bring it all down were events to combine in the "perfect storm" of calamity: will we have a Herbie to step up onstage and save us from it all?

Tuesday's List: Current Standings in English and Mexican Premier League Soccer

The two leagues I follow the most in professional league soccer are the English Premier League and Mexico's Liga MX.  The main reasons are that they are regularly available on television, with the English play broadcast Saturday and Sunday mornings and early afternoons on NBCSports and the Mexican matches on Univision and Galavision Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons.  We're getting close to the final stretch in both leagues' regular seasons: in England they've finished 30 out of their 38-game schedule, while in Mexico...which uses a split-season system, this winter/spring season called "Clausura", they have gone through 11 out of their scheduled 17.  There are no playoffs in the English Premier League: the regular season winner is the outright champion and Manchester City is running away with it. In the Liga MX the top eight finishers participate in the Liguilla championship playoffs, which according to its rules reward teams for higher regular season finishes.  As for relegation...these are the teams at the bottom of the standings that are demoted to the next lower league...England has three spots reserved for this and Mexico one...in Mexico performance over a three-year period is evaluated, so it's a bit more complicated: Veracruz is currently the team in that league's "hot seat".  On one hand, if the teams are financially strong and viable, relegation is a good system that keeps interest across the league high throughout the season...unlike here where teams are often accused of "tanking" in order to be awarded with a higher draft status for finishing lower.  In leagues with relegation, nobody tanks because finishing at the bottom means you're booted out of the league!  However, especially in Mexico, being relegated has caused on a number of occasions the relegated team to fail financially, as was the case with Chiapas last year and sometimes the teams promoted up from the lower league are financially incapable of assuming a more competitive role in the higher league...so relegation has its pros and cons...

Here are the standings...or "tables", with each team (or "side") followed by its accumulated points (three for wins, one for draws, zero for losses)...


*****English Premier League*****
1 MANCHESTER CITY                        81
2 MANCHESTER UNITED                   65
3 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR                  61
4 LIVERPOOL                                        60
5 CHELSEA                                            56
6 ARSENAL                                            45
7 BURNLEY                                           43
8 LEICESTER CITY                               40
9 EVERTON                                            37
10 WATFORD                                         36
11 BRIGHTON & HOVE ALBION        34
12 BOURNEMOUTH                              33
13 NEWCASTLE UNITED                     32
14 SWANSEA CITY                               31
15 HUDDERSFIELD TOWN                  31
16 WEST HAM UNITED                        30
17 SOUTHAMPTON                               28
18 CRYSTAL PALACE                          27
19 STOKE CITY                                      27
20 WEST BROMWICH ALBION           20

*****Mexican Premier League (Liga MX)*****
1 SANTOS LAGUNA                             23
2 AMERICA                                            21
3 TOLUCA                                              21
4 UANL TIGRES                                    21
5 MORELIA                                            19
6 PUEBLA                                               17
7 TIJUANA                                              16
8 MONTEREY                                         15
9 UNAM PUMAS                                    15
10 NECAXA                                            14
11 PACHUCA                                          14
12 LEON                                                  14
13 QUERETARO                                     13
14 CRUZ AZUL                                       11
15 GUADALAJARA                               11
16 VERACRUZ                                         9
17 BUAP                                                    8
18 ATLAS                                                  7

About the Upcoming NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament

The NCAA released its selections for the 68-team men's national championship basketball tournament early yesterday evening.   I was happy to see that Florida, Miami, and Florida State all made it...maybe one of them will catch fire and get to the elite rounds.  Unfortunately, many of the schools currently under a cloud of suspicion for violating the rules and paying its players...often with money laundering...are also in the tournament, including Arizona, Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Seton Hall, NC State, Alabama, Texas, Michigan State, Creighton, Clemson, Wichita State, and Xavier...I probably left out one or two.  The NCAA has an investigation all lined up, headed by Condoleezza Rice, to start AFTER the tournament is over, so we will have a big cloud hanging over this March Madness the entire way.  I predict the NCAA will come down hard on a small number of colleges, even taking away their tournament victories and their championship should one of them win it.  As for me, besides pulling for my Florida teams (especially the Gators, of course), I'm just going to watch the games with the view of enjoying college basketball played on a high level without getting caught up in who's advancing and who isn't.  After all, this tournament is bound to be rewritten in some fashion a few weeks later by outside bureaucrats regardless what happened on the court...