brainsplotch

I've been ridiculously negligent towards this blog this year. I'd make a New Year's resolution to rectify that, but I doubt I'd stick with it.   Anyway, I wish anyone who reads this a happy 2015.   2014 was, overall, a decent year for me. My running continued and, knock on wood, I feel in good health. I hope this continues, and I certainly wish the same for all my family and friends. Once one gets to my age (46 going on 47) good health is no longer something to take for granted.   I don't know what else to write at this point. I will try and get to this blog more often in 2015, but won't guarantee anything.  I did receive a tablet for Christmas, which I am determined my kids won't touch, so that may encourage me to blog more.   So anyway, have a great new year, and I hope you all celebrate New Year's Eve responsibly. I doubt anyone reading this blog is a party animal. I, for one, plan on simply having a few drinks at home and going to be...

Ebola is in the news these days. We have two cases of Ebola in the United States, and the national media is on DefCon 1. Meanwhile, the real crisis is in West Africa. This is where the world's focus needs to be. Instead, our national media is in full sensationalistic mode, the point where the only place I want to get my news--and a more rational approach--is NPR. Look, I know that a disease, in which one's survival is no better than a flip of the coin, is understandably frightening. And the way the missteps by the CDC and Texas Presbyterian Hospital (woefully unprepared for an Ebola patient) don't make things any less scary. But it does seem that both are making amends and doing their best to make up for their mistakes. Panic, conspiracy theories, and the "blame game" don't get us very far, though. And there has been plenty of that to go around recently. Americans seem especially skilled at concocting conspiracy theories or blaming someone else [cough, O...

Hey, everyone. Just a quick note to let you know that I'm still alive and well.   We went up the Upper Peninsula late last month for a end of summer vacation. It was great to get up there again after our prematurely aborted 2012 camping trip, in which black flies bit us mercilessly and certain members of the family (I won't mention names) complained about lack of WiFi in the remote area west of Grand Marais.   This year we stayed in motels with WiFi and swimming pools, so certain younger factions of our clan were kept satisfied. And though we were in Sault Ste. Marie in possibly the slowest day of the shipping season (thus, no boats, ships, or freighters passing through the locks), we did stop by my grandfather's old neighborhood on Amanda Street, and visited my great grandparents' graves in Pine Grove Cemetery. We actually made two trips to the Soo: our first stop on the trip and one last side trip to the cemetery on the way back towards the Mackinac Bridge an...

I'll cut to the chase: my Ele's Race 5K gun time was 27:45, which is a considerable improvement over last year's 31:19 (though in fairness I did run whilst suffering from a sore leg). Still, bum leg or no bum leg, today's run beat the hell out of my very first official 5K, run almost exactly one year ago. I won't lie and say it was easy. From about the 1.5 mile mark to about the 3 mile mark, my brain (or the Blerch , as the comic strip artist--and big-time runner--"Oatmeal" refers to that evil voice inside a runner's head) kept telling my body, "Why are you putting yourself through this? You're tired?! The legs hurt! The feet hurt! It's hot out here! It's humid! STOP! WALK!" But the body ignored the brain, or maybe I should say motivation and desire ignored the quitter. I kept running, kept gutting it out, and ended up with what I'm certain will be another personal best (once the bib times are finally posted). I estimate tha...

"The Fox announcing crew slathered every hosanna invented on retiring Yankee Derek Jeter. It was a glob of maudlin prolixity." --Mike Pesca, on the Slate.com podcast The Gist (July 18, 2014) I found this to be one of the funniest statements I heard all week, from one of my current favorite podcasts. (By the way, I happen to like Derek Jeter and think he's a first ballot Hall of Famer). I knew Mike Pesca from his articulate and erudite sports commentary on NPR, but recently a friend of mine turned me on to his Slate podcast The Gist, and I've been enjoying it for the last few weeks. Pesca is an intellectually curious guy, and his podcast allows him to explore many topics besides sports. My job gives me an opportunity to listen to podcasts while I'm working, and I have a few other favorites. WTF with Marc Maron is at the top of my list. You may be familiar with Maron's story: struggling stand-up kicks drugs and self-destructive behavior and finds his niche...

Thanks to the wonderful "Portland, Michigan: Hometown History" Facebook page for posting this photograph of Walter Pratt on a Portland baseball team. Walter Pratt is the older brother of Don "Pedro" Pratt, a Portland, Michigan baseball legend whom I profiled in this blog a few years ago. So, both Walter and Don Pratt played baseball--a fact that I did not know until just today. The plot thickens in the mystery of Pedro Pratt and the Pratt family. (See "Pedro Pratt" in the labels list if you're interested in the mystery of Pedro Pratt, "The Colored Wonder" of Portland). Walter Pratt (sitting on the right in front of the player standing with his arms folded)

Last week, I ran in my first 5K of the season, the Capitol Memorial Run along the River Trail in downtown Lansing. My goal headed in was to run it in under 30 minutes, a relatively modest goal. I was pretty certain I could do it because I'd run several training runs in under 30 minutes, with the fastest one somewhere around 28:45. Still, there's always that lingering, "Can I really do it?" I'm happy to say that I DID do it, and my time was 27:41, which is the fastest 5K time I've ever run. Now, I'm not satisfied with this. I figure that if I've made it this far in one year, who's to say that I can't get the time under 25 minutes in the future. After all, there were five runners in my 45-49 age group and I was STILL only fourth of the five. The fastest of us knocked it out in 21 minutes and change. Second place was somewhere in the 23 minute range, with third place at 24 minutes. Then there was me at 27:41. It's important as a runner to ...

I listened to Pixies' Doolittle last week and am convinced it was the greatest album of the 1980s. The band was an acknowledged influence on Nirvana (and plenty of other bands) and this album holds up better than just about any other record I can think of from that decade. It just has the perfect combination of pop hooks ("Here Comes Your Man," "La La Love You," "Monkey Gone to Heaven") and bashing punkish attitude ("Debaser," "Gouge Away," "Tame") or both in the same song ("Wave of Mutilation"). At the same time, producer Gil Norton managed to avoid the glossy sheen that marred so many albums from this era--even allegedly "alternative" albums. I don't know exactly what my point is with this post, just go and listen to this album NOW! I'm sure you can at least find that someone has uploaded it on YouTube. Upon further reflection, maybe my point is this: I liked this album when it came out,...

It's the last day of April and I need to get at least ONE post in during this month.   I must admit that I'm addicted to my phone. I'm on almost all the time to the detriment of doing other things that I should be doing, like yard work, reading books, listening to music, and writing in this blog.   There was a time not too long ago when I didn't have a computer, I certainly didn't have a small flat pocket-sized electronic rectangle with a screen that contains much of the world's information in one convenient place. I lived a perfectly fine existence.   As much as I enjoy my Droid Razr, I feel addicted to it to almost an unhealthy degree. And the more I use it, the emptier I feel in some ways. I don't find it to be too fulfilling, yet I am almost endlessly compelled to "see what's happening on Facebook" or surf the net on my little black electronic rectangle. It's not far removed from a drug addiction. It's an "instant ...

The infamous "butcher cover" In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' 1964 American invasion, and--let's face it--a good excuse to make a few more bucks, EMI/Apple have re-issued the Fab Four's Capitol Records 1964-1966 output. With the exception of the poorly conceived and executed box sets The Capitol Albums (vol. I & II), this is the first time these albums have ever appeared on compact disc. I'm exactly the sucker that EMI/Apple is aiming for when they re-issue these Beatles albums. When I first heard that these albums were about to be re-issued, my immediate response was, "I already have most of these on vinyl, why do I need to get them again?" But then I heard that EMI/Apple had attached a few bells and whistles to these re-issues: with the exception of the 1970 hodge-podge Hey Jude album, all of the releases include both stereo and mono tracks. Anyway, I'll spare you any blow-by-blow background of these releases bec...

It's cold here. Bitter cold, single-digit cold. don't-want-to-leave-the-house cold. This is the craziest, snowiest, iciest, coldest winter I can remember. But then again, winters tend to blend together into one big winter and none of them ever really stand out after awhile. If you were to ask me what the winter of, say, 2006 was like, I couldn't tell you. I have no recollection of it. Anyway, this winter has put a serious crimp on my running regimen. I haven't run since Sunday afternoon and I feel as if I'm already turning into a slug. I don't normally go more than two days without running and now it's been four days. It's just too damned cold to go outside and do anything, and the only time I can run during the weekdays is when the sun is down--and there's no may I'm running when it's dark and the temperature is in the single digits. I may have to wait until Friday afternoon to run again, as I'll have some time during sunlight hour...

(The first in my series of Tragically Hip album overviews, in which I investigate the discography of this criminally undervalued Canadian band). A long time ago, I mentioned that I wanted, at some point, to write in detail about one of my favorite--or favourite --bands, The Tragically Hip (hereafter referred to merely as "The Hip"). The Hip, as I've already mentioned here, are practically a national institution in their native Canada, but have only achieved cult status in the States (if that's an accurate description for how the band is viewed here--I really don't know). I should mention that I've only been a Hip fan since 2006, and am not as intimately familiar with the band's history as their more hardcore fans north of the border (or even some here in the States, for that matter). Also, since many of the Hip's lyrics relate to specific aspects of Canadian history and culture, I'll only engage in lyrical analysis if I feel comfortable in ...