Ollie Follies

This is just a short personal note to assure you that, if you are having a day where lots of little, minor things go wrong, you aren’t alone.

I started to get ready (in plenty of time, so I thought) for my 6 am yoga class. But I couldn’t find my friggin car keys!

I looked everywhere (including in the front door). Finally, I looked in Barbara’s purse…there they were. Somehow, my set of keys ended up in her purse. I thought about the Illinois “no fault” divorce laws as I scrambled out to my truck….which of course had a layer of snow on the windshield.

I got to the gym on time, barely, so I thought. But of course the cold air caused me to need yet another “empty the bladder pitstop” and then there was my having to peel off the layers and layers of clothes I needed to go out into this icebox and not freeze to death; hence I was 1 minute late to class…..grrrrr…

Class went ok and so did my run (indoor). So I went to get my coat and stuff…and it was on the ground! Why? Well the weight of all of the crap I wear to go outdoors (sweatpants, two shirts, vest, sweat shirt and heavy coat) had caused the plastic hangar to fail due to an excessive load!

Did I tell you that I hate winter around here?

PS: yes, I wear excessive clothing; I always do on the first few days of cold weather.

Still it is a sunny day and I hope to get a quick “get out in the sunshine” walk in my boots this afternoon as a “study break”.

Workout notes Yoga class; due to my being late I had to line up close to the teacher. But I had a better view of her posterior so it wasn’t all bad, and I got a good stretch.

Then I got in some indoor running: 6 miles plus (a bit over 10K; 6.4 miles) (48 laps of lane 3; it is about 7.5 laps to the mile) in 57:29 then 25 minutes of a watered down XC course on the treadmill (2.4 miles; varied the incline all over the place) for 8 miles total. 9:43, 9:18, 9:34, 9:35, 9:30, 9:47 were my track “mile plus” splits.

What was interesting is that I ran long enough on the track to see many people come on and off of it; most just walk a few minutes, a few jog a bit longer.

My favorite are these three “fitness instructors” who walks walk after teaching (leading?) their classes, always three abreast, and always at a 20 minute per mile crawl.

Oh well, they are having fun, but I wish that they wouldn’t walk 3 abreast.

I was planning to sleep in

I was planning on sleeping in until 4:45 but was up at 4.

So, I’ll blog a bit prior to yoga class and running indoors. This is another frozen “scrape the ice off of the windshield day”. Did I tell you that I don’t like winter?

There are those who don’t mind it though and even nut jobs who are planning long FATASS type events in it. Ok, I’ll probably be there, for maybe 1 or 2 ten mile loops. I just don’t have it in me for 3, yet.

Football Like most college football fans, I am looking forward to the next week of games; of course I will watch Army-Navy and then the Alabama-Florida game. Why is Florida a 9 point favorite? I know that the Gators can score, but the Crimson Tide has a good defense.

Politics Gay marriage; a blogger puts forth a graphic (pie chart) which points out what will happen if gays are allowed to marry.

Sexual Predators in Schools Yes, those who prey on underage students for sex are almost always males, right? Well, not always; follow the link. Hat tip to O’Brien’s Briar Patch. And sorry O’Brien: I agree that one shouldn’t drive in bad weather conditions if one lacks the skills (sense) to stay reasonably safe, but it is my Flying Spaghetti Monster given right to whine about the weather.

Religion and society I understand what Friendly Atheist is getting at here; some people really do think that they can supernaturally alter what happens in the universe by praying for their deity to change things. Here is one such example.

But in fact, prayer can be used in a secular way; one can use it to center and steady themselves; to make themselves of greater service to others and more efficient (e. g., “help me have a good attitude about the weather! Help me be more patient with the less talented students”, etc.) No magic needs to be involved.

Think about what many top athletes do prior to competition; of course all of this centering and visualization won’t help if the athlete isn’t able or isn’t properly prepared (e. g., pre race “prayer” or “meditation” or “centering” might help one run their best marathon, but it won’t help a 4 hour runner run a 2:20, nor will it help an untrained couch potato get to the finish line)

I see prayer in the same way that I see yoga: I don’t believe in all of the chanting/spiritual aspects, but I know that I have far fewer aches and pains when I do yoga asana regularly.

Politics: Does torture keep us safe? Not according to a U. S. military interrogator:

I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I’m still alarmed about that today.

I’m not some ivory-tower type; I served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force, began my career as a Special Operations pilot flying helicopters, saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, became an Air Force counterintelligence agent, then volunteered to go to Iraq to work as a senior interrogator. What I saw in Iraq still rattles me — both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn’t work.
[...]

I know the counter-argument well — that we need the rough stuff for the truly hard cases, such as battle-hardened core leaders of al-Qaeda, not just run-of-the-mill Iraqi insurgents. But that’s not always true: We turned several hard cases, including some foreign fighters, by using our new techniques. A few of them never abandoned the jihadist cause but still gave up critical information. One actually told me, “I thought you would torture me, and when you didn’t, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That’s why I decided to cooperate.”

Torture and abuse are against my moral fabric. The cliche still bears repeating: Such outrages are inconsistent with American principles. And then there’s the pragmatic side: Torture and abuse cost American lives.

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me — unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans. [...]

(hat tip: 3 quarks daily)

Economy: Robert Reich speaks out about the economy and what we must do:

Why is the Great Crash of 2008 happening? First, because investors are beginning to understand the enormity of the bubble economy that began to form in the late 1990s when all contraints were lifted on borrowing in order to buy everything that was assumed to be increasing in value — starting with houses and including securities and shares of stock themselves. So-called “margin requirements,” first instituted in the wake of the Great Crash of 1929, were all but abandoned, as big banks and hedge funds found ways around them.

Even more important, investors are starting to fathom the emptiness of American consumers’ wallets. Retail sales last Friday and Saturday — the first days of the Christmas buying season — were disappointing. Had retailers not discounted to the point of taking losses, sales would have been abysmal. In other words, consumers have gone on strike. [...]

The speculative bubble still has some air in it; asset values will continue to drop before they hit bottom. That will take at least a year, possibly two. But don’t expect asset values to bounce substantially back, even then. The only way to revive Wall Street is to revive Main Street, and the only way to accomplish this is to get America back on the course of rising median incomes.

In short, people will spend more when they have money to spend (duh).

Science This sounds like science fiction. But here is what is going on: someone has speculated that one way to find an ultra advanced civilization is to look for so-called Dyson Spheres: this would be a HUGE, HUGE spherical bubble of matter put out around part of a “solar system” to keep the energy from the host star from being lost outside of the solar system; think of a gigantic atmospheric bubble. Read what professional cosmologists have to say.

A Minor Thing to be Grateful for

The FOLEPI race was held the day before the icy, snowy conditions started.

I am the guy with the white beard. Yes, the lady in the black spandex tights finished ahead of me; we were about 200 meters from the finish when this was taken and when I saw the clock, I eased up a bit. But the gentleman in the very back and the other lady in spandex started to gain on me and so I picked it up and ended up finishing with the aforementioned lady.

This is Lupe; he caught me at mile 3.25 or so (1200 meters to go); in the background you can see the lady in the photo with me. Lupe has been about this size since at least 1996; he used to be 300 pounds.

This is Pat; he and I usually arrive at the Riverplex at 5 am. He ran in the 21 minute range; he is a bit faster than I am.

Once, early in 2008, I saw him running on the Riverplex track so I playfully ran with him for all of one 200 meter lap; I was exhausted!