No Where to Go But Up (Down?)

I'm trying to improve my mile time, and I just ran my baseline timed mile (and I'm so sweaty that I'm barely able to type-- it's humid) and while my Runkeeper said I kept a 7:58 pace, I'm pretty sure it took me 8:04 to run the four laps around the track . . . so now I've got to do six weeks or so of long runs and speedwork, and see if I can knock my time down; I think I'll be able to do it, because I'm tipping the scales at a post-double-vacation 195 pounds, so if I lose a few pounds-- which I inevitably will-- I will naturally cut some time from my mile time (perhaps 2.5 seconds per pound).

Go East Young Man

Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads: A New History of the World resets the default narrative of world history, with Western Europe as the main character, and instead places the Mediterranean Sea at the center of the story; he argues that the most significant dynamic force in the last two thousand years has been the trade routes that connect the East and the West; this web of interconnected cities, ports, and trading hubs allowed for the flow of goods, services, ideas, religions, conflict, disease, technology, and tactics . . . his book combats what Edward Said termed "orientalism," the presumption that the Middle East and beyond is inscrutable and exotic, a place that lies outside of time, space, progress, and Western logic; the book is comprehensive, starting with the spread of Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism along the Silk Roads (before 600 A.D.) and ending with the West's modern political misadventures in Iran Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the economic rise of China, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan . . . over here in the West, we've got to strap ourselves in for a new world order, with the East becoming more significant than ever-- both economically and politically-- the British Ministry of Defense sums it up tidily: the period of time until 2040 "will be a time of transition" with challenges such as "the reality of a changing climate, rapid population growth, resource scarcity, resurgence in ideology, and shifts in power from West to East."

Go East Young Man

Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads: A New History of the World resets the default narrative of world history, with Western Europe as the main character, and instead places the Mediterranean Sea at the center of the story; he argues that the most significant dynamic force in the last two thousand years has been the trade routes that connect the East and the West; this web of interconnected cities, ports, and trading hubs allowed for the flow of goods, services, ideas, religions, conflict, disease, technology, and tactics . . . his book combats what Edward Said termed "orientalism," the presumption that the Middle East and beyond is inscrutable and exotic, a place that lies outside of time, space, progress, and Western logic; the book is comprehensive, starting with the spread of Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism along the Silk Roads (before 600 A.D.) and ending with the West's modern political misadventures in Iran Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the economic rise of China, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan . . . over here in the West, we've got to strap ourselves in for a new world order, with the East becoming more significant than ever-- both economically and politically-- the British Ministry of Defense sums it up tidily: the period of time until 2040 "will be a time of transition" with challenges such as "the reality of a changing climate, rapid population growth, resource scarcity, resurgence in ideology, and shifts in power from West to East."

The Mountains of Kentucky?

Last night was my first night sleeping at home in a while . . . we were on two vacations, back-to-back, and while they were both epic and excellent, it was good to wake up early to a quiet house; I did have a weird dream last night, and while I normally never talk about dreams, the significance of this one is so obvious that I have to summarize it-- but I won't go into all the surreal and stupid details: the dream began mirroring reality, we arrived home from our two vacations but then it veered into the absurd . . . I totally forgot we had planned another trip, we were heading to the mountain of Kentucky-- are there mountains in Kentucky?-- and it was going to be a ten hour drive and then there was a lot more driving during the vacation, and we had to pack lots of winter clothes, and there was snow . . . and I was really upset that I had planned another vacation after two straight vacations, and this vacation was pretty much all driving, in the mountains . . . and I'll readily admit that this is a real first-world-problem dream, where the monster under the bed is a vacation.

The Mountains of Kentucky?

Last night was my first night sleeping at home in a while . . . we were on two vacations, back-to-back, and while they were both epic and excellent, it was good to wake up early to a quiet house; I did have a weird dream last night, and while I normally never talk about dreams, the significance of this one is so obvious that I have to summarize it-- but I won't go into all the surreal and stupid details: the dream began mirroring reality, we arrived home from our two vacations but then it veered into the absurd . . . I totally forgot we had planned another trip, we were heading to the mountain of Kentucky-- are there mountains in Kentucky?-- and it was going to be a ten hour drive and then there was a lot more driving during the vacation, and we had to pack lots of winter clothes, and there was snow . . . and I was really upset that I had planned another vacation after two straight vacations, and this vacation was pretty much all driving, in the mountains . . . and I'll readily admit that this is a real first-world-problem dream, where the monster under the bed is a vacation.

Trust My Kids: Head into the Spider-Verse

My kids have been telling me to watch this animated movie where a bunch of oddball spider-folks from different dimensions fight a behemoth-sized villain named Kingpin-- they said it's even better than The Incredibles-- and they were right . . . it's just come on Netflix so we watched it together at the beach (they did offer some helpful commentary, as they've both seen it multiple times) and, despite the clunky title, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse is top-notch, it's artistically beautiful and dynamic, at times it's quite deep and emotional, it's very funny, and the voice acting is awesome.

Trust My Kids: Head into the Spider-Verse

My kids have been telling me to watch this animated movie where a bunch of oddball spider-folks from different dimensions fight a behemoth-sized villain named Kingpin-- they said it's even better than The Incredibles-- and they were right . . . it's just come on Netflix so we watched it together at the beach (they did offer some helpful commentary, as they've both seen it multiple times) and, despite the clunky title, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse is top-notch, it's artistically beautiful and dynamic, at times it's quite deep and emotional, it's very funny, and the voice acting is awesome.

Running: Yuck

I do a great deal of exercise: basketball, soccer, tennis, rollerblading, biking, lifting, calisthenics, dog-walking, beach-cart pulling, stone-stealing, rock-pilfering, etcetera . . . but I have not done a great deal of straight ahead running of late and so-- in order to empathize with my children, who are both playing high school soccer and will be doing a lot of running this summer (the goal for varsity players is to run a 6:15 mile) I am trying to improve my mile time; I have yet to run a timed mile, but I'm guessing it will be around 8 minutes, but I've done a couple of runs at the beach and it's been brutal; I got a little Runkeeper app on my phone, ran for 33 minutes a few days ago, and today I did some dreaded intervals (6 x 200) and when I get home I'm going to go to the track and get a baseline number and then see if I can improve it by the end of the summer-- to do this, apparently you need to run long and slow at least once a week and you need to do intervals once a week-- the rest of the time you can exercise how you wish; I don't know if anyone else has had this experience, but I'm a really active person, despite this, running just kicks my ass, it's totally different than any other exercise-- I played basketball for two hours a couple days ago with my brother and the cousins and that wasn't as hard as running for 30 minutes, time becomes distorted and torturous when you're running . . . I once ran a marathon, so I'm assuming it will come back to me, get easier, but if it doesn't, then I guess I'll take up golf.

Running: Yuck

I do a great deal of exercise: basketball, soccer, tennis, rollerblading, biking, lifting, calisthenics, dog-walking, beach-cart pulling, stone-stealing, rock-pilfering, etcetera . . . but I have not done a great deal of straight ahead running of late and so-- in order to empathize with my children, who are both playing high school soccer and will be doing a lot of running this summer (the goal for varsity players is to run a 6:15 mile) I am trying to improve my mile time; I have yet to run a timed mile, but I'm guessing it will be around 8 minutes, but I've done a couple of runs at the beach and it's been brutal; I got a little Runkeeper app on my phone, ran for 33 minutes a few days ago, and today I did some dreaded intervals (6 x 200) and when I get home I'm going to go to the track and get a baseline number and then see if I can improve it by the end of the summer-- to do this, apparently you need to run long and slow at least once a week and you need to do intervals once a week-- the rest of the time you can exercise how you wish; I don't know if anyone else has had this experience, but I'm a really active person, despite this, running just kicks my ass, it's totally different than any other exercise-- I played basketball for two hours a couple days ago with my brother and the cousins and that wasn't as hard as running for 30 minutes, time becomes distorted and torturous when you're running . . . I once ran a marathon, so I'm assuming it will come back to me, get easier, but if it doesn't, then I guess I'll take up golf.

Cat-egorical Imperatives

Two rules I should learn sometime:

1) never do my wife's laundry;

2) never give my wife advice on how to toss a corn-hole beanbag.

Cat-egorical Imperatives

Two rules I should learn sometime:

1) never do my wife's laundry;

2) never give my wife advice on how to toss a corn-hole beanbag.

Bonus Features!

I just noticed today that my backpack has a secret waterproof string bag-- attached to the inside of the pack with a string!-- and then my brother's girlfriend pointed out that our new beach cart has a secret side pouch and velcro tie that srves as an umbrella holster; I will utilize both these bonus features tomorrow.

Bonus Features!

I just noticed today that my backpack has a secret waterproof string bag-- attached to the inside of the pack with a string!-- and then my brother's girlfriend pointed out that our new beach cart has a secret side pouch and velcro tie that srves as an umbrella holster; I will utilize both these bonus features tomorrow.

The Wrong Ratio

Aristotle would have been critical of our usage of time today: this morning we played tennis for an hour and then we watched tennis on TV for five hours, the Federer/Djokovich Wimbledon final was both awesome and interminable but we certainly didn't need to rush home to watch it.

The Wrong Ratio

Aristotle would have been critical of our usage of time today: this morning we played tennis for an hour and then we watched tennis on TV for five hours, the Federer/Djokovich Wimbledon final was both awesome and interminable but we certainly didn't need to rush home to watch it.

From the Pacific to the Atlantic (which seems pretty pacific)

My family heroically conquered the ultimate first world problem yesterday-- we got back from an epic adventure in Central America and then managed-- on a one day turnaround-- to repack and head to the Jersey shore; while both trips have saltwater in common, this vacation couldn't be more different than our previous one: our trip to Costa Rica was all about nuclear family togetherness, fifteen action-packed days of it, but now that we've moved from the warm waters of the tropical Pacific to the brisk sea breezes coming off the Atlantic, I no longer have to keep track of my wife and children-- they might be at the beach, they might be at the arcade, they might be eating hot dogs and ice cream, they might be at the surf shop . . . I don't know nor do I care; this trip is about extended family interaction . . . or lack thereof; I ran the beach this morning, alone, and then went rollerblading-- wearing my new visor-- and I was alone, of course, no one in their right mind would come anywhere near me, then I went swimming all by my lonesome; we had some family time with my brother and all the kids while we watched Wimbledon, and now I'm on my own again-- alone in this big beach house, napping, reading a book about the spread of trade and religion on the silk road, and getting a little anxious because I've been left to my own devices and that has happened in weeks.

From the Pacific to the Atlantic (which seems pretty pacific)

My family heroically conquered the ultimate first world problem yesterday-- we got back from an epic adventure in Central America and then managed-- on a one day turnaround-- to repack and head to the Jersey shore; while both trips have saltwater in common, this vacation couldn't be more different than our previous one: our trip to Costa Rica was all about nuclear family togetherness, fifteen action-packed days of it, but now that we've moved from the warm waters of the tropical Pacific to the brisk sea breezes coming off the Atlantic, I no longer have to keep track of my wife and children-- they might be at the beach, they might be at the arcade, they might be eating hot dogs and ice cream, they might be at the surf shop . . . I don't know nor do I care; this trip is about extended family interaction . . . or lack thereof; I ran the beach this morning, alone, and then went rollerblading-- wearing my new visor-- and I was alone, of course, no one in their right mind would come anywhere near me, then I went swimming all by my lonesome; we had some family time with my brother and all the kids while we watched Wimbledon, and now I'm on my own again-- alone in this big beach house, napping, reading a book about the spread of trade and religion on the silk road, and getting a little anxious because I've been left to my own devices and that has happened in weeks.

Read Educated and Get Educated

While it's hard to think much more than "The horror! The horror!" while you're reading Tara Westbrook's memoir Educated-- the tale of a girl (barely) raised and (barely) homeschooled by a fanatically religious, preparing-for-the-apocalypse, fighting Big Medicine, scrapmetal-baron nutjob of a dad; while she is mercilessly manipulated and bullied by her older brother, and mainly left to fend for herself by a brainwashed, homeopathic midwife mom . . . the twists and turns of Westover's life and-- more importantly-- her mind, as she confronts the reality beyond the mountains of Idaho are wild, awkward, painful, and nearly beyond belief, but despite her lack of formal education, she makes her way to BYU, then on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where-- after a pit stop at Harvard-- she finally earns her doctorate in historiography; I'm not sure which tales of violence, fanaticism, and familial neglect to take with a grain of salt, and in the end, neither does Westover-- and that is the real theme of the book: Westover gets her degree is historiography, as she is interested in who gets to tell the story-- history is written by the winners, the losers, the monks, the fanatics, the believers, the scientists, the laity, and the skeptics . . . and this is what the book is, an investigation into the murky recesses of memory, whether it be the mundane details of a dysfunctional family, a family where memory is controlled by one ranting biased zealot . . . or whether it is the influence of various cultures and religions on the evolution of the family unit in America, the subject of Westover's doctoral thesis: “The Family, Morality, and Social Science in Anglo-American Cooperative Thought, 1813-1890,” in which she synthesizes Mormonism-- which is often ignored-- into the bigger narrative; in the end, while this book is a scandalous, tell-all page-turner, it becomes more than that because Westover is so smart, and so weird, and so obsessive, and so candid and sincere . . . a must read for all of us East Coast agnostics.

Read Educated and Get Educated

While it's hard to think much more than "The horror! The horror!" while you're reading Tara Westbrook's memoir Educated-- the tale of a girl (barely) raised and (barely) homeschooled by a fanatically religious, preparing-for-the-apocalypse, fighting Big Medicine, scrapmetal-baron nutjob of a dad; while she is mercilessly manipulated and bullied by her older brother, and mainly left to fend for herself by a brainwashed, homeopathic midwife mom . . . the twists and turns of Westover's life and-- more importantly-- her mind, as she confronts the reality beyond the mountains of Idaho are wild, awkward, painful, and nearly beyond belief, but despite her lack of formal education, she makes her way to BYU, then on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where-- after a pit stop at Harvard-- she finally earns her doctorate in historiography; I'm not sure which tales of violence, fanaticism, and familial neglect to take with a grain of salt, and in the end, neither does Westover-- and that is the real theme of the book: Westover gets her degree is historiography, as she is interested in who gets to tell the story-- history is written by the winners, the losers, the monks, the fanatics, the believers, the scientists, the laity, and the skeptics . . . and this is what the book is, an investigation into the murky recesses of memory, whether it be the mundane details of a dysfunctional family, a family where memory is controlled by one ranting biased zealot . . . or whether it is the influence of various cultures and religions on the evolution of the family unit in America, the subject of Westover's doctoral thesis: “The Family, Morality, and Social Science in Anglo-American Cooperative Thought, 1813-1890,” in which she synthesizes Mormonism-- which is often ignored-- into the bigger narrative; in the end, while this book is a scandalous, tell-all page-turner, it becomes more than that because Westover is so smart, and so weird, and so obsessive, and so candid and sincere . . . a must read for all of us East Coast agnostics.

We Are Home (and the Natives are Back to Their Usual Antics)

I'm going to do an informative post with pictures about our trip to Costa Rica, in case anyone is heading to places we went-- but the trip was incredible and went very smoothly, despite our (generally) impulsive, impractical and incompetent children; today we are preparing for another vacation-- a trip to the Jersey shore with my extended family-- and so I was running some errands and on my way home-- just as I turned onto the far end of my road-- I saw two children sprinting awkwardly down the street, sprinting awkwardly because they were wearing pool slides, and then I noticed that they were my children and I asked what they were doing: why are you sprinting? why are you wearing pool slides? and they said that they got so wrapped up in their chores that they forgot about their barbershop appointments and now they were rushing there-- they both had 12:30 appointments and it was 12:36, but the barbershop is a good mile from our house so I grabbed them and gave them a ride and advised them next time to take their bikes, not rush out of the house in pool slides, or even better, keep tabs on the time, and then when I got home, I took in the situation and surmised that they weren't wrapped up with doing chores, they were wrapped up selling old toys on eBay . . . and so while I am proud of my children for not doing anything rash and stupid while navigating the jungles, hot springs and rugged coastline of Costa Rica, I have to recognize the fact that we are back in Jersey and they are returning to their native ways ( and so am I, as I totally forgot the overarching laundry rule, which is: do NOT do my wife's laundry . . . I threw it in, with good intentions, and shrunk some stuff and tie-dyed some other stuff . . . then the kids and I miscommunicated about a ride and they ran to the wrong person's house in the rain before figuring out the situation . . . we are definitely back home).