I met a couple people here who run Boston, one who's run it 6 times (also was part of 214 mile relay, ouch) and another who is one of those people who kind of have a permanent scowl on their face. One lecture the professor stopped and asked her if she understood the concept she was explaining, extolling, living vicariously through, lobbying for, loving, living, and pushing on those whose direction and ease of passion is directed elsewhere. She replied with a deadpan "No, that's just my face." Very very good. Quick turnaround, to boot.

What is funny? What defines humor? Humor in a nutshell: go. Humor in 10 words or less. That which makes you laugh? Unsatisfyingly broad. Any takers?

Also, is grammar important? Is it something we should pay attention to? Be mindful of? (prepositions at ends of sentences)

I intend to follow up on these questions.

The plastic bag was a bad invention. Here we are some 50 years later or whatever, and we find ourselves eschewing the need for the plastic bag due to environmental concerns. Now we say, "no thanks I don't need a bag", I'll carry it without. Why didn't we do that from the beginning? Stupid. We ran in a circle on that one. Think about it. We spend all this time putting groceries into bags, then we get home and have to take them out. Why not just pick up your shit and put it into a cart and unload it into your car and save yourself steps. Plastic bags don't get you anywhere, especially if the consensus is that they are wasteful as well.

How long would you walk if you were rewarded $100 each hour and you had to keep some minimum speed? You could have anything you wanted during that time as long as you kept your velocity quota: hamburgers, gatorade, TV mounted on following truck, etc. Would you walk till you dropped? How many days could you walk given unlimited resources? I'd walk until my debt was gone but I prolly wouldn't make it, physically. Another analagous question I had was how long could you survive on a diet of water, beer, chips, and salsa?? Email me if you want to try.

I'm hungover right now and it sucks. I hate hangovers mostly because they depress your brain and force you to endure a day full of wishing that day was a different day. And yet, if we didn't have hangovers many of us would die a lot younger. So they are in a sense a sort of built-in preserving buffer. A harassing one. (Or is it an harassing one?)

I'm pro-inflation so the current economic depression is a good thing for me. Helps my debt. Also helps my argument that the penny should be done away with. 1 cent is simply useless. I throw all of my pennies away as if they were the trash that they actually are. Which helps inflation because it forces the government to print more, which only makes the penny even more useless, driving the senseless closer to their senses, and sooner to the discontinuation of this laughable metal mixture. We should align taxes and sales to nickel increments, facilitating the assumption of the penny to its rightful place in the annals of history.

Intellectualization is a Freudian defense mechanism, rated "neurotic" and Level III by George Vaillant (Level IV is optimal or mature), that many people use to rationalize or justify emotionally distressing events in their lives. I actually think I can cite a specific example of the use of intellectualization in almost every single person I know. How then can it be labelled neurotic? Certainly we are all "neurotic" to a certain extent and in certain circumstances, but if most people rationalize then why not label it "normal"?

Y.E. Yang won the PGA championship today, the first man to defeat Tiger Woods in 15 tries when Tiger has led going into Sunday and, more importantly, the first Asian-born man to win a major golf championship. After China's successful bid to host the Olympics last year and the resounding success of the games themselves (minus the pollution biz), China's burgeoning world economy, Japan's monopoly on visual entertainment of many kinds (seriously, especially with younger people), are we seeing the milestones and harbingers of the Eastern rise and consequently the Western fall? Should we prepare for an invasion of Calilfornia in the 2060s? Should I learn Chinese?

Various people, fields in general, and employed strategies share a method of categorizing and classifying in life. Psychiatrists diagnose, taxonomists create detailed trees, and astrologists demarcate a fixed number of types of people. Why do we do this when we know that life is too complicated to fix into a particular shape? Surely to craft meanings but should we embrace a methodology we know is somewhat futile?

Central to the question is the value of derived generalizations. Should we impose generalized lessons backed by empirical evidence knowing very will the limitations of both generalizations themselves and study parameters? Or should we rely on ourselves individually, taking more of a figure life out for yourself approach? As yet I don't have a position on this question, I just know that social scientists prefer the former and Emerson and Thoreau the latter.

Another drought in the blog, this time because of a road trip out West.

At Bryce and Zion foreign tourists swamped the place like Americans swamp Europe. In fact, it felt more like a European destination than any place in America. Most of the people at the major centers were not speaking English (mostly French, out to see the wild wild west). It makes me think that, contrary to what some people say, Americanization is not synonymous with globalization. This is an example in microcosm of what you actually find in the world.

I've been fucking busy and vice versa!

Yesterday eve Cass and I went to Specs after months of waiting and bought an assortment of specialty beers. After spending an hour perusing the beer aisles accomplishing nothing save increased levels of bewildered excitement, an employee approached with information and recommendations. After a few minutes with him, he went into the back (of a specialty store, remember) and produced the sole possessed bottle of the Great Divide's Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti Stout, which I'm understandably excited about.

Speaking about excitement, Hobgoblins! It's all in the name - Hobgoblin Dark English Ale. Evocations of fantasy, wildness, magic, mischief, you know, all the good things in life. Wychwood has cool graphics on their labels too. So I'm christening or coining (interesting terms etymologically) new slang: a hobgoblin - something you get excited about.

NPR (National Public Radio) is great. Usually the music is good, the discussions on "All Things Considered" are always well articulated on interesting topics, and the humor is on. I'm leaving it on full time in the car from hence forward. Is this post merely an endorsement of NPR, is this what you get for waiting all week? Yes. So long from Lake Wobegon, where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and the children are above average.

Polyphasic sleep! Remember this awesome craze? I do...and it was awesome. IT IS AWESOME! Many phases of sleep, like a baby, sleeping in intervals ad nauseum. Cult blogger Steve Pavlina popularized the idea of adults returning to this sleep schedule as it would allegedly provide more total waking hours with the same amount of restfulness - all resting on the explanation of increased sleeping efficiency. The general idea is to have six 30 minute naps every four hours for a total of 3 sleeping hours, or, alternatively, 21 waking hours each day. Pavlina tantalized readers with the new lifestyle's perks: picking up new hobbies, engaging in activities that time constraints had hitherto precluded, having more social time during the day, working left for late night hours, having increased funds resulting from more total hours worked (self-employed), etc. Ultimately Pavlina returned to a normal monophasic sleep schedule as the detrimental social and family effects began to outweigh the benefits. Putting aside the paucity of long term effects research and the ability of a person to successfully transition to the schedule itself (supposedly a real bear), are there not some people who could benefit from polyphasic sleep?

John and nicotine R.I.P. July 15, 2009. I've quit for good. Well, for a long time. I won't say I'll never smoke another cigarette cuz that would kind of suck. But I've smoked around a cigarette a day for the past year and that is something I am stopping. Nicotine is addictive for sure and I understand what the addiction feels like, where exactly it gets you. But we're done now. Force of will always prevails IF the desire to execute the will actually matches. I'm confident enough that I will a hang potential public ignominious reputation in the balance (so many readers of this blog!). Or maybe by declaring my will to the public thousands I embolden said will? No, seriously, it's the former.

The problem with psychology is lack of specificity. The discipline really could be split and absorbed into both philosophy and biology, but the intersection is important and certainly interesting, thus the field. Nevertheless it suffers from this wishy washiness, either ending in abstract conclusions that could be reached philosophically or in concrete conclusions that could be reached biologically (history actually also suffers from this problem, that it could be subsumed into other disciplines, history of politics in politics, history of theology in theology). Of course, life is wishy washy itself and to a certain extent, results direct and consistent may or may not provide salient insights into the question at hand, and surely psychological inquiries often fit this mold - indeed results that encapsulate the flux and inconsistency of life may be psychology's greatest value.

Lack of specificity in psychology often emerges in the form of experimental data. You can find experimental results that both refute and support a psychological hypothesis and the solution of narrowing the hypothesis has the lackluster effect of producing hypotheses of less and less interest or import. The bane of psychology may simply be that its field hovers over the mind which is the least understood, least quantifiable, and possibly most abstract thing to attempt to subject to science. We should by no means abandon psychology, rather we should further encourage the pursuit of psychological questions and the field itself, but psychology does suffer from this lack of specificity, and as such, must further become a highly interdisciplinary, interdependent field.

Blue Planet is so exciting and good.

I've neglected posting for a while because I've been busy travelling. On the 4th Cass and I went up to the Eagle's Nest, a secluded alcove of a spot high high high up in the Bavarian Alps. Martin Bormann conceived of the idea as a 50th birthday gift for Hitler. The mountain that it's built on had no previous structures; it's a gorgeous area, untraversable during winter, prone to sudden fog and showers, with fleeting sunlight, all which gives the whole place an ephemeral atmosphere. Hitler used it for official occasions, entertaining/impressing ambassadors and diplomats, etc., a grand total of 14 times, with perhaps as many private visits. The inflation adjusted cost of the project - $150 million, which means his visits cost somewhere around $5-6 million each. I wonder if Bormann thought about this five years later when Hitler was encouraging Berliners to cut basic supplies to support the then failing war effort. When Bormann told him about the project initially Hitler said, "Oh well, I probably won't use it much," which was true.

Punting.

Tonight I observed for the second time in a new variety a simple way to scam people of their money. You use a 50 point bill to attract people in hopes of winning it by gambiling. You scramble three covers of some sort over a single ball and you do it quickly. The rig comes with having the player step on one of the covers before they choose which they think the ball is under. Somehow this eliminates the ball under that cover and produces a different ball under the other (it must happen this way, or some version of that). The allure comes with possibly winning the 50 point bill with your bet of a 5, 10, or 20. Sometimes you pick the cover with the ball under and take the 50 point bill. But the guy doesn't care who wins and who loses, as long as more people lose their smaller point bills (which he pockets) during more games in which those losses add greater than 50 than a winner takes one of the 50 point bills. He can even produce new 50 point bills when somebody wins as long as he rigs the game enough times to make up for it, with successive losses for the betters losing smaller point bills. Saw it first with soccer balls in Paris and second here in Barcelona with marbles.

My mom and James came to Oxford last week and we all went on a road trip cept Tim cuz he had finals through northern Wales, Scotland, and much of England. We went to London as well and saw a bunch of shit. I don't want to report the whole itinerary so I'll just say it was really fun and York is a cooler city than New York cuz it's surrounded by a wall. One of Tim's friends told me during poker that in Barcelona (where I am now) I should find this place that sells Cava y hamburguesas for 5 euro. So that's what we're gonna do.

Leaving Ireland today for Oxford. True to stereotype, this island is green and beautiful. Highlights for me were the cliffs of Moher, see below, running on the Carton House grounds in the morning, the Guinness brewery tour (with a 9,000 year lease and once the largest brewery in the world (now Anheuser Busch in St. Louis)) and Cass' birthday night in Dublin at the Temple Bar with live music. Yay!

(Continued from June 9)

Therefore, if a developed nervous system appears to form in and around the two month period, abortions quickly become morally questionable around that point. It is an early point - many women, especially in the Third World, are not even aware that they are pregnant at this time. A woman's body is the woman's body, however, whether or not a growing fetus constitutes part of that body. An adult woman's body and a growing fetus are not comparable; they do not simply each count as a universal one, which quite frankly is a stultified view. Accordingly, we should afford the woman's choice in such a paramount decision high precedence. It follows that Third World abortions are less immoral when performed later, though still not preferable.

About the equality of a grown woman and a fetus - many essentially argue that incipient life and the potential for full life are equal to full life, which is, in my opinion, incorrect. Potential life is just that - potential. It is not actualized. Moreover, in this case, the human in question, when the procedure is performed early, is most certainly not conscious and suffering is either completely absent or minimal, which only makes the argument of equality more dubious. Thankfully the current president is making efforts to expand women's rights in this regard, although certainly, improved birth control methods should represent a top priority in scientific endeavor.

Lastly, if consciousness and suffering due to developed nervous systems are scales on which we will measure the question of morality there is a great deal of morally reprehensible actions committed against non-human and fully grown organisms on this planet that call for human reform.

One of the current controversial hot topics is abortion and I feel the need for another exposition. People say they are either pro-life or pro-choice and strictly speaking I am pro-choice. But viewing the problem from two concrete lenses is a great oversimplification. The preferable view is that abortion becomes more morally reprehensible the further time has elapsed since conception. That statement is a better description of my stance. The further from conception the more I am pro-life. So where is the line drawn?

An amazing amount of development actually occurs during the first trimester. During week eight, or two months, neurons are increasing by 250,000 every minute. The fetus already looks like a human. Second trimester abortions seem barbaric with those considerations. The real issue, however, isn't a debate over when the embryo or fetus becomes a human being. It is a human being at conception, the point at which it will grow into an adult, and before which the potential for growth into adulthood is physically impossible. All abortion is killing human beings. The real issue is whether such a human is conscious and/or capable of suffering. Determining that is unclear, but it's obvious that both consciousness and suffering are dependent on developed nervous systems.

We have a bird problem. Morning doves routinely shit on the boat (the Buick) from the Bradford pear trees that overhang the front driveway. So Grandpa decided he would order some mechanical owls. They play a recorded hooting whenever they sense movement. They hooted incessantly once they emerged from the box, predictably sensing our normal movements. Grandma insisted we hang them up immediately so the house would at least block some of the cacophony. Grandpa: What hooting? They don't hoot. You're hearing things. Grandma: They hoot over and over and over! Can't you hear it? Grandpa was playing a joke. He makes fun of senescence. If you care to know, the mechanical owls do not intimidate the morning doves. But it is funny to imagine the possibility of a morning dove formation swooping in on cue at night, unexpecting, to find their loitering tree taken by owls. Holy shit! Fly away, fly away, fucking owls man! Fly away fly away. Quick, about face. Shit! Owls!

Also if you care to know, the color of an owl's eyes indicate the time at which it hunts - black and brown for nocturnal owls, orangish for dusk, and yellow owls diurnal. The Elf Owl is 5 inches long, the Eagle Owl has a wingspan of over six feet and has been known to hunt young deer. Though usually solitary birds of prey, a group of owls is called a parliament.

Older younger bear lounges his way through the first morning class, ISS.  With conference period next, he decides to return home briefly to assist wrinkly old bears with the upcoming den sale.  Knowing he is not needed to proctor female bears play basketball, he reluctantly meanders back to Vista.  Quickly perusing the premises older younger bear decides his services will not be missed on this particular day, and proceeds back to the den.  Enter text from younger younger bear:  Are you driving right now?  Reply: Yea! Younger younger bear:  Down brushy creek?  Reply: Yea!  Younger younger bear:  I just saw your beautiful face!  Reply: I'm skipping school!  Younger younger bear:  Should I skip work?  Reply: Yea!

After a quick rinse older younger bear proceeds to younger younger bear's den.  Younger bears lose no time in procuring and imbibing the nectar of the gods, brewed in and distributed from the Rockies. Younger bears play the pong ball, plastic cup, and aforementioned blessings from Colorado game (curious for bears? I know!!).  Younger younger bear victorious, younger bears proceed to Big Common Den where bears play pawball game and we meet lady bear and older brother bear.  Younger younger bear is drunk, but brother bears play well, and G and S bears emerge victorious with a comeback that will surely make all ursines proud for hibernations to come.  

G and S bears proceed to G and S den to oversmoke and overdrink. Back at older brother bear den bears decide to go for a dip.  Bears self-equipped with smoke and drink go for a dip.  Older brother bear has liquor that won't last the next hibernation and so older younger bear proceeds to pour libations.  Poseidon, the palm-tree god, Athena, Zues the cloud-gatherer, the Keystone god, the cigarette god, various sea nymphs, and Ozborne Cox are not missed.  After the dip older younger bear begins to eat assorted things about the den. Older brother bear begins to get upset.  Older younger bear insists that a cigarette be smoked inside the den.  Older brother bear relents with stipulation.  Older younger bear insists that all bears sleep in one corner of the den.  Older brother bear is getting upset.  Older younger bear moves blow up mattress into corner of den. Older brother bear insists upon hibernation. Older younger bear begins to bring assorted things about the den into the corner....like Pepto Bismol.  Older brother bear is genuinely upset.  Younger younger bear and lady bear are laughing.  Older younger bear is drinking hot sauce and Keystone while lying now prone now supine with no intention of hibernation.  It is about this time that older younger bear thinks that he is not a bear at all, but a wounded lion. This is when the sleep gods prevail.  In the morning older brother bear kicks younger bears out of his den and moves to a new one.

Note: This allegorical narrative relates the events that took place on the amazing day that was May 26, 2009.

So much drinking.  See above.

A couple days ago on the way to Vista in the morning I was listening to the Bobby Bones show as usual. Often they talk about recent events and they were discussing the case of a thirteen year old boy with cancer. What makes the case controversial and discussion worthy is that the parents refuse to take the boy to a doctor, defending religious cockamania and a health creed woefully summed as "no toxins in the body" i.e. no chemotherapy. Poor poor poor child. No person should suffer the misfortune of insane, delusional parents.

A particular problem I take issue with, however, is the call-in responses of the lay people. Essentially everyone expressed this opinion: "Of course, me, personally, I would take my son to the doctor. But if it is part of their religion that they don't take people to doctors, and practice faith healing, then I don't think it is right to tell them what to believe [and therefore what to do]." Herein lies the precise apologetic, unwarranted respectful attitude accorded to religious belief that the four horsemen abhor and urge us to abhor as well. If all the call ins say that they, personally, would take their child to the doctor the message is that we live in a country where citizens agree to take sick children to the doctor and clearly the parents of the sick boy are extremely marginalized individuals.

To protect such action by deference to religious belief is inexcusable. Where does one draw the line? Should my religion of wanton axe murdering be accorded such deference? No? Because people die ghastly deaths against their will and we are by social contract an anti-murder society? Will the death of this thirteen year old boy (mom now fleeing with boy against court order and law) be anything but ghastly and against his will? Why then the deference? The results are the same. Someone will charge that one is an act of commission and the other an act of omission; acts of commission are held more morally reprehensible than acts of omission, and with good explanation and reason. In this case, however, the crazy, faith-rooted mother blatantly denied the providence of a simple, readily available, life-saving solution. This strikes me as commissional. Just as a parent cannot axe a child to death, a parent should not effortfully strive to deny life-saving treatment to a child, in the name of anything, much less religious insanity. The boy undoubtedly has a limited and distorted perspective on his options and the implication of his mother's beliefs. Therein lies true destruction and for people to accord such lofty deference in the name of belief, with these terrible results, is despair.

Of course, if the boy was not a boy and a man of around twenty years or older then I would support his decision to act as stupidly as his desire will lead him. Adults should have the freedom to harm themselves if they so choose. But because his incompetent parents are making the decision for him and because of his position as an ignorant child I would consent to the prevailing authority of the medical field and the government.

Yesterday in San Marcos Cass and I attended a Texas Swing Festival that included honorary inductions into the Texas Swing Hall of Fame (Texas shaped plaques).  The average age of the musicians, as well as those in attendance, was somewhere around 75.  Many of the musicians were in their 80s.  They pulled a 95 year old drummer out of a nursing home to play.  95!  He flipped one of his sticks into the air and caught it mid-song!  95!  We left before the event ended cuz we were tired and couldn't keep up with the dinosaurs.  Ninety Five!  The drums!

I made several trips to the bathroom (when your girlfriend's ex-aunt in-law's boyfriend is keeping the rounds coming, well, then yea) where I usually encountered four cowboy hatted/gray haired/cowboy booted/button up shirted 80 year old guys occupying the stalls and one open stall for my long brown haired T-shirted self.  You never can predict the amusing situations you will find yourself in when you wake up in the morning.

I'm feeling the lack.

One of the long standing questions of philosophy is "Why is there something rather than nothing?" and its metaphysical corollary "How did something come from nothing?"  Most contemporary physicists, those whose area of inquiry now furnishes most of the accepted answers to philosophical cosmology, maintain that the very question itself is flawed.  Why should nothing be default?  What if there was always something?  Then the question would be moot.  Time itself is now considered to have had a beginning.  Time is not infinite.

Indeed Stenger and Weinberg postulate a perspective to which I am coming around.  We may have a misperception that nothing equates with simplicity; nothing is not necessarily less complicated.  Nothing is the absence of something.  But obviously something does exist.  If it is allowed that something has always existed, then for nothing to exist would require a cause rather than represent the default position. Something is simpler.  Nothing is a mental construct based on and related to the concept of something.  Nothing loses substance. Nothing is more miraculous. 

My favorite dish at present - Spicy Thai Coconut Noodle Soup.  Oh my nigs.

Sliced chicken breasts, coconut milk, noodles, lemongrass stalks, garlic, red onions, green bells, serranos, poblanos, habaneros, jalapenos, chilis, thai chilis, cilantro, lemon or lime, salt, Oriental hot sauce.  You will cry.  From the heat.  And when it's gone.

My top dishes - Kung Pao Chicken (chili pepper-peanut combination is the Secret of the gods), Chicken Caesar Salad, Steak and Mashed Potatoes, Bacon and Eggs (picante sauce), The #1 Combo at any Tex-Mex restaurant in Austin, and Seafood Pasta (not just shrimp but the inveterate invertebrates - oysters, clams, muscles, squid, octopi, the ones that slip out of your mouth and land in the wine glass of the woman in front of you).

Salt/Spicy > Sugar/Sweet.  Tortilla chips, guacamole, and beer is hard to beat.

And now Dave Eggers:

What about dignity?

You will die, and when you die, you will know a profound lack of it. It's never dignified, always brutal.  What's dignified about dying? It's never dignified.  And in obscurity?  Offensive.  Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning French or collecting scarves.  And it's fleeting and incredibly mercurial.  And subjective. So fuck it.

On Saturday I cycled the long road through hell and ended up in Shiner. Hell lies in southern Texas, lost in small towns SE of Austin. I had summarily dismissed the potential difficulty of a 100 mile bike ride - a sin that apparently purgatory won't even purify. Forsaken souls harass hell travelers in perpetuity, taking the form of unrelenting wind and ceaseless hills. The heat rose as the crossing (of hell, remember) wore on and the last 25 miles were comparable to the first 75, and took nearly as long. I fell out of the inferno at 2:30 p.m. (7:00 a.m. start), finally redeemed by Cass and Spoetzl Brewery hefeweizen.

Today one of my disgruntled fourth graders informed me that "Sonny licked my face" and then proceeded to gesticulate how said action took place. I unsuccessfully stifled laughter and told him to tell Sonny that I said not to do that anymore.

Another worried child, at recess, expressed his concern that he would suffer the ignominy of forced completion of hitherto uncompleted work during recess hour. I assured him such a trial would not come to pass and he resumed the more glamorized role of moderately paced fence kicking.

As one who seeks to cite an evolutionary explanation where one seems appropriate, I come to the use of drugs.  Why would we find widespread drug use when the resultant perils are prevalent, serious, and somewhat likely?  I think humans use drugs recreationally to feel, first and foremost, even if there is high probability that negative feelings will be included.  Early humans were crafted in an environment where boredom and/or non-feeling surely were paucities.  Our environment is one where the thrill of a successful hunt, despair of imminent starvation, scramble for scarce resources, and the sheer fatigue of daily existence is essentially absent.  But our bodies haven't changed proportionately, thus, the need for an adequate emotion-inducer to satisfy that void.  Perhaps even the up and down nature of drug use mirrors deeper emotional fluctuations present in early times that were dependent on those now absent factors.

Drugs aren't the only way humans attempt to self-inject emotional experiences.  Horror movies satisfy the need for immediate fear (one would hope we could get over this one), music adds a flavor to mundane events (I think music woudn't have been as enjoyable to early humans), and athletics in all shapes and forms emulate the competition and exertion inherent in natural life while also stimulating the corresponding emotions.

Crawfish are sooooo good.  Swarming mosquitos, not so much. Poker? Excellent.  Swamp? Excellent.  10 oz. beer cans? Interesting, cute. Sale of liquor until 2 a.m.? Interesting, cute.  857 miles to El Paso? Noteworthy.  Louisiana with Cass, her brothers, and the rest of her family - thumbs up.  Uncle Jim? Inconclusive.

In a related incident involving an oversized bandanna, the above hath sayeth, "This is for whacking sticks and seeing nothing."

Jogged 20 min and stretched this morning. Need to stay limber if I'm goin to make it through the Shiner Gasp in 10 days. The toes on my right foot are still numb...

Ran Boston for the second time on Monday, a little faster than last year. I paced better and ran the hills better, but still died, albeit at the end of the hills this time instead of at the beginning. I went through the hills around 6:35 pace and felt strong through them, but at the top of Heartbreak at mile 21 I tried to resume pace and realized my legs were cashed. Still, better than last year, and there was a nasty headwind for most of the race this time.

I'm gonna have to change my training if I want to get a level faster. I think my dad may be right - running may be harder past 20 miles cuz few people run longer than that in training. So fewer, but longer, long runs may work better. That and perhaps acclimating the body to 6 minute miles in general.

Last year I dropped back to corral 2 to run with my former teammate but this year I stayed in corral 1. I'm glad I did, cuz the elite field funnelled right by just before the start and I got to high five Ryan Hall and Brian Sell and get a close up of the Africans.

The women's race was a three way sprint to the finish - completely absurd by marathon standards. Dire Tune collapsed at the finish and was hauled off in a medical van.

Of the unorganized cavalcade of thoughts that stream through my head during runs and idle hours I notice with some frequency thoughts of the prospect of my one day becoming a father.  It is an exciting, daunting, and weighing prospect.  My molecular biology professor at Davidson told our class that mastering the basics of biology was like building a toolbelt and furnishing the tools necessary to tackle the advanced problems of biology.  I think this analogy is better applied to parenting.

Where parents fail they fail in three ways.  Either they (1) neglect to provide a toolbelt, (2) provide a toolbelt with a limiting selection of tools, or (3) perhaps the most common, intend to provide a toolbelt but never get around to it.  So everywhere kids are walking around with shabby toolbelts, no toolbelts, toolbelts overloaded with the shittiest of tools, etc.

Parents should strive to provide the best possible toolbelt they can for each of their children and then advise them to select their own tools.  The toolbelt should be strong, sturdy, accessible, reliable, warm, a good shape, it should be something they enjoy wearing.  If you provide a great toolbelt, one you can be proud of and know will last, you don't have to worry about which tools you'll find your children lugging around - a choice of theirs anyway.

There is a high end specialty beer from Belgium called Delirium Tremens. I tried one of their special editions, Delirium Nocturnum. It was all right. But it's the name that shocks me. Delirium Tremens? As in the most severe alcoholic syndrome? Delirium Tremens occurs in alcoholics who have been heavily dependent on alcohol for a very long time and then stop abruptly. DTs are characterized by disorientation, panic attacks, seizures, tremors, and fever. In the most severe cases the afflicted experiences intense visual hallucinations (often pink elephants and tiny animalistic creatures (which adorn the beer label)) and formication (a sensation of crawling under the skin, often accompanied by visual hallucinations of attacking insects, rats, and giant spiders that come out of the wallpaper). In untreated cases the mortality rate is as high as 35%, in treated cases somewhere around 10%.

Does the name of this beer not then strike you as inappropriate? The name of the product is the worst case scenario resulting from use of the product. This is analagous to naming a pack of cigarettes Hole in the Throat Lung Cancer, a car Cranium Splatterer, a hamburger Artery Cementer, a hair dryer Shower Electrocuter. The beer is successful in Europe; in all likelihood a person has succumbed to Delirium Tremens drinking Delirium Tremens. I decry the name of this product.

The benefits of exercise:

Improves health (will limit the innumerables to this one phrase)
Alleviates lethargy
Releases endorphins
Reduces stress
Reduces depression and anxiety
Improves mood
Provides additional regular task
Balances mundane tasks
Provides sense of accomplishment
Engages additional settings
Improves physical appearance
Prevents weight gain
Heightens mental perception
Provides post-exercise relaxation
Improves quality of sleep
Increases metabolism
Improves quality of food and water
Provides additional perspective
Increases molecular turnover rate
Satisfies primal propensity
Increases concentration and focus
Increases non-exercise related efficiency
Improves psychological well-being
Improves quality of sex
Satisfies sense of purpose
Provides entertainment
Increases standard energy level
Increases self-confidence and self-esteem
Provides positive context to clear and arrange thoughts
Decreases desire for caffeine, nicotine, and other drugs

In college I debated with my friends whether objects could be appropriately classified as masculine or feminine. Our centerpiece object was the umbrella and I argued that this was a feminine object. My opponents argued that objects are gender neutral - utter silliness. An umbrella is a feminine object because more women use umbrellas than men, it is more closely associated with women in art, and it more accurately depicts a woman in shape and function. Simple. Please, wear your unjustified discontent and dispute.

A lance is a masculine object. A vase is a feminine object. Chain mail is masculine wear. A gown is feminine wear. Trucks are masculine vehicles. VW Bugs are feminine vehicles. Overcoats may be gender neutral. Robes are kind of gay. Long, flowing hair and makeup are NOT feminine:

Letters and words are also largely masculine or feminine. Sharp, twinkle, sprightly, lily - feminine words. Hard, smash, chiseled, force- masculine. P, l, i, y, t - feminine letters. D, c, h, o - masculine.

98% of Babies Manic-Depressive

A new study published in The Journal of Pediatric Medicine found that a shocking 98% of all infants suffer from bipolar disorder. "The majority of our subjects, regardless of size, sex, or race, exhibited extreme mood swings, often crying one minute and then giggling playfully the next," the study's author Dr. Steven Gregory told reporters. "Additionally we found that most babies had trouble concentrating during the day, often struggled to sleep at night, and could not be counted on to take care of themselves - all classic symptoms of manic depression." Gregory added that nearly 100% of infants appear to suffer from the poor motor skills and impaired speech associated with Parkinson's disease.

Yesterday it hailed cats and dogs. On the way back from getting the mail I plucked a piece of hail out of the front yard that was larger than a golf ball.

One day I'm going to write a book. Prolly not anytime soon. I've come to really enjoy writing in a very similar way to running. One way to put it is I would do either if there were no readers, no spectators - I just enjoy the act itself, for myself. I don't know what kind of book I'm going to write, just that one day I will. I'll most likely try to get it published but expect that it prolly won't, but that doesn't matter. I'd write it even if I knew there was zero chance of publication. It's a personal goal, like running a marathon.

Twice in college I was supposed to read Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, a little book pinpointing the art of good writing. I failed to read it both times but I read it a couple months ago and I think I appreciate it more now than I would have four years ago. Essentially, good writing is precise diction, omission of needless words, use of active voice, and concision.

This post is the 127th of this blog.

Golfers and I have become antagonists. The problem is the golf course setting. It's simply ideal for running, as well as that silly Scottish concoction spawned from an exorbitant amount of free time. See, when the golf course implanting committee met and decided to place a golf course near the school where I've run for many years I was not present. I would have voted no, assuming only golf would be allowed. I don't care that this piece of land has been sanctioned for golfers alone - I've always run there.

It's a little like the problem of government. How to enforce legislation enacted by representatives but not approved by all of those represented? There are always dissenters, and I am such a dissenter in this case. In my opinion, I'm not causing any kind of decrease that is greater in magnitude than the increase in my own happiness resulting from golf course use. And I have no moral qualms with such use, though "not allowed." You should always follow your own government first and foremost. So the next time some Polo-wearing, Khaki-clad asshole yells at me for running on the golf course I'll just speed up as I have always done, and ignore him. Golf carts really aren't that fast.

Reportedly Obama had the White House fountains dyed green today.

A couple weeks ago Rick and Jake were over for dinner.  Grandpa had just returned home from the hospital.  Joe asked if one of them wanted to say the prayer.  Rick volunteered:  "God....thanks for this food.  Thanks for....everything.  Thank you for Grandpa....especially that he is still alive and not dead yet.  Thanks....Amen."

Life is good right now.  I'm excited about events upcoming both spring and summer.

This from A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman, begins with my favorite word:

The Romans were devotees of what the Germans call Schadenfreude, taking exquisite pleasure in the misfortune of someone else.  They loved to surround themselves with midgets, and handicapped and deformed people, who were made to perform sexually or caberet-style at the parties.  Caligula used to have gladiators get right up on the dinner table to fight, splashing the diners with blood and gore. Not all Romans were sadists, but numbers of the wealthy class and many of the emperors were, and they could own, torture, maltreat, or murder their slaves as much as they wished.  At least one high-society Roman is recorded to have fattened his eels on the flesh of his slaves.  Small wonder Christianity arose as a slave-class movement, emphasizing self-denial, restraint, the poor inheriting the earth, a rich and free life after death, and the ultimate punishment of the luxury-loving rich in the eternal tortures of hell.

Some of you have heard of my two categories for people, but I feel like writing an exposition. There are two types of people out there, the ones that can hang with me, and the ones that are scared...oh wait that's Britney Spears. There are two types of people out there: Formula people and the Pursuit of Happiness people.

Formula people live their lives in a way that they think they should, whether they feel like it or not, whether it makes them happy or not. Behavior is based on the formula, which could be a religion, culture, appeasement of a parent, spouse, career, or it could be the result of not questioning why you are executing the daily actions that you are, not questioning why you are a sheep.

Pursuit of Happiness people do whatever they feel like, whatever they think will make them happy. This could be day to day happiness, or behavior could be based on a long-term happiness goal. As Richard Dawkins says, the founders were very wise to include pursuit. Everyone has the right to the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself.

Formula people are flawed because there is no formula for life. The simple fact is that we do not know why we are here and we never will know. So all-inclusive formulas, dependent formulas, required formulas, imposed formulas...they're all wrong. The only formula is the pursuit of happiness, and this you will find within yourself.

"Only once you truly know that you will die is when you will start living the life you want" - Emerson

Today I read the essay Napoleon; or, Man of the World written in 1850 by the transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson in his collection Essays and Poems.  Besides having the merit of one of the greatest essays I've ever read (many of his are boring), he within demonstrates a principle I years ago christened the "Alexander the Great syndrome."

The excerpt:  Before he fought a battle, Bonaparte thought little about what he should do in case of success, but a great deal about what he should do in case of a reverse of fortune.  The same prudence and good sense mark all his behavior.  His instructions to his secretary at the Tuileries are worth remembering.  "During the night, enter my chamber as seldom as possible.  Do not awake me when you have any good news to communicate; with that there is no hurry.  But when you bring bad news, rouse me instantly, for then there is not a moment to be lost."  It was whimsical economy of the same kind which dictated his practice, when general in Italy, in regard to his burdensome correspondence.  He directed Bourrienne to leave all letters unopened for three weeks, and then observed with satisfaction how large a part of the correspondence had thus disposed of itself and no longer required an answer.  His achievement of business was immense, and enlarges the known powers of man.  There have been many working kings, from Ulysses to William of Orange, but none who accomplished a tithe of this man's performance.

Legend has it that Alexander the Great (me speaking now) broke down and wept when he discovered he had no worlds left to conquer. I think that an inability to settle, appreciate success, and decelerate ambition is the characteristic of many greatly accomplished men and women. Rather than saying "I am fully sated" after a hearty and delicious meal, the person "struggling with greatness," as Steinbeck says, is mentally preoccupied with the details of the next meal. 

If you care to read the essay:  http://www.emersoncentral.com/napoleon.htm

I always had the quickest out-of-shower into-clothes turnover rate in the locker room at Davidson after practice.  This I achieved by wearing sandals often, never tying my shoes, never accessorizing, and, most importantly, effecting the slight towel dry-off (all things I have done most of my life and still do, I don't even tie my running shoes (fat feet)).  I'm not saying a quick turnover rate is better or even preferable - that depends on the person.  The constant result, however, led me to the following recommendation:  At least try the slight towel dry-off.

Most people towel and dry the living fuck out of themselves after showering.  Why?  Jesus, let evaporation do some of the work.  1) Lightly dry hair 2) ONE towel stroke down each leg 3) ONE towel stroke up back (accomplished by whipping towel around shoulders like a cape) 4) ONE towel stroke down each arm.  That's all.  Do your other areas how you will I guess; I'll just say I don't do much.  If you have done it right, you'll still be a little wet and even get a little water on your clothes.  A pleasant treat! Over the next ten or fifteen minutes you'll enjoy the transience of light liquid evaporation on your skin.

Beer > Wine > Liquor has happened.  Additionally, hangover considerations continue to hold more sway in my beer preferences. Together with general aging, I am attempting to reconcile these developments while still retaining an acceptable sense of self.

For those bored/interested/read everything I write, an exercise in futility - a more advanced ranking:

bock lagers > dry red wines > whiskeys > brown ales > non-bock lagers > tequilas > vodkas > non-dry red wines > non-brown, non-pale ales > pale ales > gins > rums > Welch's grape juice (some call this white wine, in fact, I prefer non-alcoholic Welch's grape juice to any white wine I've ever had)

Subject to change.   A future brands ranking?

Note - an endorsement of a general category presumes select representatives.  Thus when I imply that whiskeys are better than tequilas, I'm talking about Jack, Jameson, Maker's, etc....and similarly the best tequila has to offer.  Comparisons including all representatives quickly lose meaning, as anyone who has tasted McCormick's knows.  This rule of thumb is widely applicable.  For example, when people say "Kenyans are fast long-distance runners," they are talking about select representatives.  The common Kenyan spends nearly all of his or her energy procuring nourishment and staving off starvation, not running several miles at a time, let alone fast.

Feb. 15, 4:45 a.m:  Wake up.

5:00 a.m:  Banana, cake, powder gatorade.

5:15 a.m:  Spandex, bandanna, bib.

5:30 a.m:  Prelude, open 183, downtown Austin.

6:00 a.m:  Meander through city streets towards Congress Ave.  After waiting in bathroom queue, and then doing my best, I liberally apply Vaseline to my legs.

6:50 a.m:  Dispense with clothes, jog to start line.

7:10 a.m:  I'm a few meters from the start line, dawn is rising, and the same Santa Clausian guy who's called all the local races since I can remember (the Salamandar mile, age 15) is blaring himself through the megaphone.

7:15 a.m:  Gun, I'm running, slowly.

7:36 a.m:  I'm through the 5k below 7s.  Good, easy, especially with hills.  I fall into stride with a guy my height and age.  "Hey."  "What are you aiming for?" he queries.  "Two fifty something."  "Same," he responds, "I'm John."  "John, I'm John."  "Did you run for the Naval Academy?" I ask in reference to his jersey.  "Yea."  "I ran for Davidson."  "Ah, yes, I've been there." 

Good - game time, fuck face.

7:56 a.m:  10k, easy.  We're doin 6:30s.  My people (Cass, James, Mom) are there; I flex.  An erratically paced half-marathon racer comments on how good our pacing is.

8:11 a.m:  I press the pedal down slightly as I slip away from Navy guy and some others.

8:34 a.m:  I've been increasing pressure as the course has begun to turn.  I'm steadily pulling in rolling hills and scattered runners. Through 12 miles.

8:40 a.m:  I hit the half and pass the eventual women's champion.  Her form is good.  I'm starting to put the hammer down.

8:52 a.m:  A couple race coordinators on bicycles fall in with me, tell me I'm running strong, as I continue to pick people off.

9:04 a.m:  I'm somewhere around 17.  I'm moving fast but the going is tough.  A multi-mile straightaway into the wind.  Strong desire to turn.

9:15 a.m:  Cutting through suburbia at well below 6.  Nobody in sight.  I am divine.

9:18 a.m:  I am most unequivocally mortal.  Nature is rearing its ugly head.  Despair.

9:19 a.m:  Between those plants? No.

9:20 a.m:  Fuck!

9:21 a.m:  How about just right here in the open?  I have little shame, but more than that.

9:22 a.m:  Providence shines its face on me in the form of a Port-a-Jon at the 20th mile stand. No, not water, the bathroom, I indicate as I half stop half slam into the thing.  Wrong side, over, open.

9:22:45 a.m:  The door flies open; I lurch out.  Laughter, applause.  I search the course.  No racers in sight.  Nobody has caught me.  Elation.  I'm flying again.

9:35 a.m:  There are 4 miles left.  I'm slowing down.  Despair.  If there is anyone my age or younger ahead, I won't catch them (there wasn't).  But nobody is going to catch me either, resolved as I look back.

9:48 a.m:  Somebody mismeasured the distances between these last couple miles.

9:52 a.m:  Somebody mistakenly put a monstrosity of incline on a marathon course.

9:58 a.m:  Capitol!

10:01 a.m:  I'm finishing.  I'm divine again.  Cheers.  I hear my name shouted.

10:02 a.m:  I feel great.  That wasn't so hard.  I ran fast (2:46:25, 6:20/mile).  Elation. Somebody hangs a medal around my neck.  A woman hands me a card for free Strands technical training shirt on far table, for "top finishers to sport our brand."  Ego reeling.

10:05 a.m:  I feel terrible.  Oh Fuck my body hurts!  I walk around in a daze.

Eventually I met up with my people.  Tony ran the half and Johnce also ran the marathon.  We all went to Doc's and indulged on greasy burgers and cheap pitchers of beer.  I felt good.  6:09 avg. for the last half marathon.

Today is the bicentennial birthdate of those two colossals, as they were born on the same day, Feb. 12, 1809. The author of that article above, which I read last summer, argues that Lincoln matters more essentially because evolution by natural selection would have been discovered sooner or later; Lincoln was needed precisely when Lincoln executed. Indeed Alfred Russel Wallace proposed an independent theory of NS before Origin was even published.

Today, 200 years later, it is no controversy that Lincoln was a great leader and president. But evolution by natural selection has to prove itself seemingly every single day, an affront to its explanatory genius and an embarrassment to human beings everywhere. Charles Darwin distilled twenty years of observation and brilliant insight into a single, powerful book. Who's to say another conquistador wouldn't have prematurely botched the final product, as history reveals conquistadors are apt to do, leaving even more ignorance in the world than we find today? Lincoln held a country together; Darwin elevated the consciousness of a species and elucidated the very essence of change itself.

I've been seeing some good live music lately. Turnstyle (awesome, Dustin's lyrics are ridic.) Danny Schmidt, and Matt the Electrician at the Cactus Cafe on the UT campus. Really good lyricists. Music has always been about the audio for me - much less the lyrics. But lately lyricism has begun to weigh a little more, though lyrics can't make a song. The lyrics can be great but if there is no catch or melody or rhythm then the song will not get my attention and will inexorably land in the suck category.

The best concerts I've ever been to: Incubus at the Frank Irwin Center, high school. Blink 182/Green Day/Jimmy Eat World, also high school. Arrived just as Jimmy was exiting stage because an unnamed person fucking HAD to stop at McDonalds even though we were pressed for time. Hootie and the Blowfish/Gin Blossoms, Charleston, SC. Sundresses, flower hats, and general overall Southerness required for entry. Pat Green, Chapel Hill, NC. Small venue, 200 people. Shiner sold out before he took the stage. The Juliana Theory/Something Corporate at Emo's. Don't remember when that was. Scott Miller, Charlotte, NC. Post power hour.

Over break Tony and Dar-Dar pitched Tim and I an idea...an idea man's idea.  They wanted to sell cigarettes on a bike that would patrol the bar stretch on 6th St.  Cigarettes cannot be sold legally in the bars, Austin statute.  But 6th St. goers do smoke, and will; it seemed like a no-brainer, needing only initiative.  The bike pilot would dress as the grim reaper, and the cooler containing the cigarettes would be labelled "Merchant of Death."  An idea man's idea.  The reaper could infuse all sorts of character personality during sale; the idea and product would sell themselves.  The initial pecuniary investment would be minimal, consisting mainly of a bike purchase.  

Like many golden things, too good to be true.  ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, a federal agency) prohibits the sale of tobacco within 100 feet of any storefront selling alcohol, tobacco, or firearms, unless is itself another storefront.  Death knell! pun intended.  Oh well, an idea man can appreciate a good idea.

A common theme I have come across in novels that I have been reading lately is a protagonist's, and hence author's, identification of and struggle with personal vanity.  I too struggle with personal vanity (Is it vain to group myself with successful authors?...yes), although most of the time it does not strike me as struggle, for I largely keep it to myself....at least I think (vain).  I speculate that the more one thinks and ponders (I think and ponder often) the more one is prey to vanity attacks. I say this because the more a person meditates within himself the more secluded he becomes in his own consciousness, thus the more pervasive the "I" factor in his sensory apparatus. Dissociation from the "I" factor is supposedly possible, with concentrated meditative effort, and with benefit. Perhaps the I factor simply warms to me, however, and I would do wise to it retain (vain).

John's personal deadly sin - Vanity.

There are seven:  Sloth, Lust, Gluttony, Vanity, Avarice, Wrath, and Envy.  What's yours?

It's Shiner Bock's Centennial!  Commemerator Beer!  6.7%!  Redesigned labels!  Sweet-ass bottle caps!  Delicious Shiner!

I'm going to quote a couple pages in full from Sam Harris because it displays his genius, humor, salient point, and what can amount from the application of some cleverness:

    I was once walking the streets of Prague late at night and came upon a man and a young woman in the midst of a struggle.  As I drew nearer, it became obvious that the man, who appeared to be both drunk and enraged, was attempting to pull the woman into a car against her will.  She was making a forceful show of resistance, but he had seized her arm with one hand and was threatening to strike her in the face with the other - which he had done at least once, it seemed, before I arrived on the scene.  The rear door of the car was open, and an accomplice had taken a seat behind the wheel.  Several other men were milling about, and from the looks of them, they appeared to approve of the abduction in progress.

    Without knowing how I would proceed, I at once found myself interceding on the woman's behalf.  As my adrenaline rose, and her assailant's attention turned my way, it occurred to me that his English might be terrible or nonexistent.  The mere effort to understand me could be made so costly that it might prove a near-total diversion. The inability to make my intentions clear would also serve to forestall actual conflict.  Had we shared a common language our encounter would have almost certainly come to blows within moments, as I would have thought nothing more clever than to demand that he let the woman go, and he, to save face, would have demanded that I make him.  Since he had at least two friends that I could see (and several fans), my evening would probably have ended very badly. Thus, my goal, as I saw it, was to remain unintelligible, without antagonizing any of the assembled hooligans, long enough for the young woman to get away.

    "Excuse me," I said.  "I seem to have lost my hotel, my lodging, my place of residence, where I lie supine, not prone.  Can you help me? Where is it? Where is it?"

    "Sex?" The man asked with obvious outrage, as though I had declared myself a rival for his prisoner's affections.  It now occurred to me that the woman might be a prostitute, and he an unruly customer.

    "No! Not sex.  I am looking for a specific building.  It has no aluminum sliding or stained glass.  It could be filled with marzipan.  Do you know where it is?  This is an emergency."

    In an instant, the man's face underwent a remarkable transformation, changing from a mask of rage, to a vision of perplexity itself.  While he attempted to decipher my request, I threw a conspiratorial glance at the woman - who, it must be said, seemed rather slow to appreciate that the moment of her emancipation was at hand.

    The man began to discuss my case in fluent Czech with one of his friends.  I continued to rave.  The woman, for her part, glared at me as though I were an idiot.  Then, realizing her opportunity for the first time, like a bird that had long sat within an open cage, she suddenly broke free and fled down the street.  Her erstwhile attacker was too engrossed by his reflections even to notice that she had left.

    Mission accomplished, I at once thanked the group and moved on.

    While my conduct in the above incident seems to meet with the approval of almost everyone, I relate it here because I consider it an example of a moral failure.  First, I was lying, and lying out of fear.  I was not lost, and I needed no assistance of any kind.  I resorted to this tactic because, quite frankly, I was afraid to openly challenge an indeterminate number of drunks to a brawl.  Some may call this wisdom, but it seemed to me to be nothing more than cowardice at the time.  I made no effort to communicate with these men, to appeal to their ethical scruples, however inchoate, or to make any impression upon them whatsoever.  I perceived them not as ends in themselves, as sentient creatures capable of dialogue, appeasement, or instruction, but as a threat in its purest form.  My ethical failure, as I see it, is that I never actually opposed their actions - hence they never received any correction from the world.  They were merely diverted for a time, and to only a single woman's advantage.  The next woman who became the object of their predations will have little cause to thank me.  Even if a frank intercession on the woman's behalf would have guaranteed my own injury, a clear message would have been sent:  not all strangers will stand idly by as you beat and abduct a woman in the street.  The action I took sent no such message. Indeed, I suspect that even the woman herself never knew that I had come to her aid."

Friday night I went to the premiere of The Supernatural Valley of the Sphinx at the Shed Show! Nothing short of stellar.  The folk band consists of lead singer Josh (Cass's older brother), far travelin' lives out of a van extraordinaire mandolin player Casey, the brilliant bluesy Dustin Estes, quick string-pickin' Ryan (whose musical genius is so acute he can play what a tree sounds like, or a cat, or the person sitting next to him, or whatever you throw at him), Matt Simon from Voxtrot, accordian and washtub basin player Laura, and Marie on the harp.  

Dustin played some of his very best afterwards, including "Heroin" and "Atheist, Anti-Social Socialist."  He also wrote the Cheatin' Heart Trilogy, a trio of songs about murder, alcohol, and getting stoned. His music is dark.

Some one hundred people showed up to watch a few bands play out of a twenty by twenty foot shed that sits in the backyard of Cass's parent's property off 38 and 1/2 St., including the Whites themselves! Needless to say, most people were outside.  I met some guys who went to Cedar Park that knew me but I didn't know them.  The mutual relationship was Justin Carey.  Handles of Old Crow circulated throughout the crowd and facilitated inebriation.  Towards the end of the show everyone was dancing in the shed.  Just before the last set was over the APD (Austin Police Dept.) showed up.  They came into the shed, informed Josh that they were "sorry" but the show could only continue accoustically.  They were sorry because upon arrival they had listened to the music from afar for some time before coming into the shed - and they thought it was really good. One officer asked Josh if they'd be playing later in the night, cuz his shift was over in 30 minutes. Ryan, who is twenty years old, offered one of the cops a beer.

A regular occurrence on my runs are people who roar past me in their vehicles with excessive speed.  Only a handful of times have I caught back up to them - results always bad.  The motorcycle incidents were the worst.  Yesterday a couple of rice burners burned by me.  About fifteen minutes later I come up on these same vehicles parked on the side of the road.  Great, I think.  The people alongside look at me approach with that guilty, embarrassed, pitiful look on their face that has been the exact same look in every such incident. There were three of these rice burners.  Where is the other one?  I slow down to a slight trot.  Ah, there it is, ten feet into the woods lodged amongst those trees.  Great.

"What road is this?" I am asked by a woman on a phone.

"Lime Creek," I respond.

An Asian guy alongside the treeborne car looks at me and says, "Something ran out in the road.  Is there a lot of wildlife out here?"

"Yes there is a lot of wildlife out here," I say.  But my tone conveys a message more like, "Right, this wreck has everything to do with the wildlife out here and nothing at all to do with the fact that you were roaring 65 miles an hour around that 35 mile an hour downhill curve."

I walk closer to the car and then stop.  I'm about to ask if there is someone inside.  But I already know the answer to that question. Then I'm about to ask if there is anything I can do to help.  I look at them, their concern, their numbers, their cellphones.  No, there is nothing that I can do here to help.  And I don't want to know the state of this guy.  The state of the car is enough information.  So I turn and without saying anything more I start up again, left only with a feeling of anger at people and the irritability that comes from having to stop during a long run.

Ever since my close friend was killed in a car wreck I've harbored a loathing for automobiles.  I've paid more attention to them.  It is surely one of the most dangerous things we do, drive automobiles. Yes, putting human beings, who for this purpose most definitively ALL have Attention Deficit Disorder, in the operation of hurling tons of metal is one of the most dangerous things we face.  But that's not what bothers me; of course we won't stop driving cars.  What bothers me is that few people acknowledge the danger.  Everybody takes it for granted until someone you know gets hurt.  What bothers me is that few people respect the danger of driving cars.  What bothers me is not that it IS Russian roulette, but that few people act like or even know they are playing.

Perhaps the only thing to be taken away from this is that there is no substitute for personal experience.

An intensely amusing game is the dartboard game Killer.  What fascinates me so about this game is the direct analogy to struggle and strategy found in power politics.  The game is simple enough: players are assigned an initial number and must hit that number six times, one time for each letter in Killer.  Each player has three shots per round.  Once a player has spelled Killer they become a Killer and are thus able to shoot at other players' numbers.  A hit on another player's number results in a loss of one of their letters.  Once a player is hit without any letters, he/she must regain a letter back on the next round of shooting or he/she is out.

Tim, Tony, Dar Dar, and I played a game last week at a pub in Austin. First we all employed the balance of power strategy, that is, going after the player who appeared to be in the lead.  Reasonably, one must take pains to assure that the powerful does not become more powerful, lest you should inevitably be crushed.  However, this balance stalemated, and it became apparent that as soon as one became the top Killer everyone would go after him and he would soon lose power, in an endless cycle.  Finally, the Machiavellian strategy was pursued.  One player decided to kick another player while he was down.  He was soon out.  After that the rest fell rather quickly.  I do believe that Machiavelli would have been proud.

Today at Parkside Elementary a 9 yr old student came up to me during class with a confident, bright, animated, toothy grin on his smallish face.  He said:

"You look like the guy from Dukes of Hazzard."

"Oh yea?" said I.

"Yea."

"Have you seen Dukes of Hazzard?" he queried.

"I've seen the movie, not the TV show...are you talking about the TV show?"

".....Yea, the TV show."

"What's your name?"

"Adam."

"All right Adam, let's work on the spelling assignment."

"I like you."

"All right, Adam....sweet."

At recess we continued our conversation because Adam did not want to play tag, he "wanted to talk to me instead."

"Do you like the Dukes of Hazzard?"

"Yea."

"Have you seen Batman?"

"I have seen Batman."

"Do you like Batman?"

"I like Batman a lot."

"I like Batman, too," he says.

"What was that stuff he drank?"

"I do not know."

"Do you like Ironman?"

"I like Ironman."

"Me, too."

"Have you been to Port Aransas?"

"A long time ago."

"At Port Aransas I went with my family into a store and there was a Dukes of Hazzard T-shirt in the store....it had the General Lee on it."

"That's awesome."

"I want that car," he says.

"That would be cool....if you really want it maybe one day you'll get it."

"Seven years until I can drive."

This remark makes me laugh.  At the end of the day Adam draws my attention to the backside of his binder where he proudly displays the orange General Lee.

I did a fartlek (Swedish for speedplay) today.  It was hot and difficult, but I was fairly strong.  I do need to stop smoking cigarettes or my running will surely suffer eventually.  When I do fartleks I do four minutes slow, four hard, three slow, three hard.  That fourteen minute segment is one set. My short fartlek is four sets, my longer five. Today was the first five set fartlek; I'll prolly do four more before the Austin, weekly.  I think I prolly ran around 5:15-5:30 for the hards, but I don't know for sure.  I just run as hard as I think I'll be able to hold out.  I prolly got around ten-eleven miles.  It's difficult.

The weather here in Austin in January is difficult and erratic.  A few days ago it was 38 on my run. Today it was 78.  Allergies are bad, and it's very very very dry.

On a road out to the lake (Lime Creek) that I often run I pass an intimidating Mastiff enclosed in a fenced off area, just before the initial downward slope towards the water.  He (gotta be a he) always barks ferociously at me.  I always give him the "you're in there I'm out here" look as I run by. Today I passed him as usual but some fifteen seconds later I heard him quickly coming up on me from behind. Somehow he had gotten out, this was a first. The aggressive approach of a dog is more audibly daunting because there are twice as many feet.  I've always been scared of dogs.  Not exactly sure why.  When I was five visiting family on the Missouri farm my dad let out of a cage a small puppy in the backyard.  He bolted straight for me and I bolted as well.  Puppy chased me clear across the farm.  I was terrified.  My dad was bowled over with laughter.  I think dogs can sense when you are afraid of them.  Anyway, the mastiff approached, quickly and barking ferociously.  First I was surprised, but then I just looked at him plainly in the eyes.  He slowed down and turned around.  I was victorious.

Five straight bowl victories!! Downed Michigan, USC, Iowa, Arizona State, Ohio State.  Storied.

Obama is a Longhorn fan.  See above.

When you throw up, are you expelling part of yourself?  Or are you merely eschewing impersonal contents held in your personal and selfful stomach receptacle?  That is the question that went through my mind around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, as I dizzily stared at my own contents in question in Tim's parental's foyer bathroom toilet.  Was that a part of myself floating around in there?Where/when does something become a part of you?

Interestingly, a person's self is only a convenient idea.  There is no essence or concrete substance that makes a person that person. Every carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, etc. atom that made up your body a year ago has been replaced by different ones, albeit identical copies. The same with your cells, organs, etc., your whole body.  Thus your year ago body has been dispersed into the universe, with some of it in Thailand, some in space, some in today's Arnold Schwarzeneggar, some of it bottled in new Jack Daniels to be consumed by excessively indulgent drinkers and deposited again into toilets.