Head-dibs

Passing through the Library to see what goodies they were giving away this week I noted three sets of books waiting to be adopted. I get excited when I see sets. Especially free ones. Well, one set particularly grabbed my attention: "The History of Civilization" by Will and Ariel Durant (Simon and Schuster, 1954). I've touched these books before and have always appreciated the comprehensiveness of these works. Ahhhhh, life before Google. Ok, it's dated material. So what? Such a set has it's own kind of value to me. I'd love to have these books . . . How many volumes make up the entire set? I picked up one volume, and found the list of titles by the author. Eleven Volumes in the set. So I counted: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 . . . 8? Missing three. Where could three volumes of a withdrawn set of books be? Approaching the student working at the desk I inquired if said person knew the whereabouts of the missing volumes. The worker did not know, but (I was told)...

Every morning the route to work takes me winding through back-roads (mostly), rolling through the dense South Carolina landscape. Inescapable changes to the woods and farmlands are becoming evident as groups of somebodies with very deep pockets decided we’ve had enough of the trees and meadows and are chewing up the landscape with grinding machines, making way for hundreds and hundreds of new homes. People with nice cars will be moving into nice houses where once the cows ruminated. Years ago there once sat a house near what became to be a bustling intersection and as we waited for the light to change, noticed the old man sitting on the front porch of his peeling house, watching the cars go by. Businesses and restaurants popped up around him but were not encroaching. He lived his life quietly, I assume. Then one day, his house was gone. And the man went with the house. To this day the lot remains empty while folks argue over where to eat, impatiently waiting for the light to chan...

When I was in High School, three books on my father’s bookshelf vied for attention each time I passed. These three books had been around for as long as I remember, but these demanded a teenager's attention. Don’t you think that that three volumes bearing the strange words, “The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn” would make one curious? I was curious, so I read them. And Solzhenitsyn got into me. Over the years as I moved on, those three books kept coming to mind. "Remember? Remember?" So at one point (forgive me, I don’t recall when), I found all three copies for myself. I’ve thumbed through them and intend to read them again some day, but Solzhenitsyn’s writing was captivating enough to drive me to other Russian writers, over the years many of whom (other than the great Sholem Aleichem, or Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy or Turgenev) I don’t recall. Solzhenitsyn stayed with me and I picked up a tidbit here and there in short stories and poems. Then I started ...

Made a day-trip to Atlanta to pick up our niece. While waiting for her to arrive, I hung out with this guy for a while. He's nobody special. Just a PLANE guy. The rest of our visit was purely spontaneous. You might say we were just WINGING it.

Don't let these little guys fool ya. They are either very playful or very territorial.  So far we've been able to identify three distinct hummingbirds. Two are male (one Ruby Throat Hummingbird and one White Throat) and one female--can't tell which variety. There may be four: one juvenile. One is always guarding the feeder, chasing off another while a third swoops in for a drink. Fun to watch, especially when they buzz your head and chirp as they whiz by. They remind of tiny T.I.E Fighters from Star Wars. Playtime increases when it rains. These little guys (and gals) love the rain! Here's one standing guard, making certain nobody's partaking of the precious nectar. Here's some of the T.I.E. Fighter action: 

What follows are a set of photos taken of one cloud changing over the course of just a few short minutes, catching the light of the setting sun. Fascinating procession tonight. We just stand out and "ooh" and "ahhh" at the parade of changing colors. Makes me think of those lines in "Stairway to Heaven": "In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees, And the voices of those who stand looking. It makes me wonder." 

" . . . Brave, gotta call it brave To chase that dream across the sea Names, and they signed their names For something they believed Red, how the blood ran red And we laid our dead in sacred ground Just think, wonder what they think If they could see us now It’s been a long hard ride Got a ways to go . . ."

I've been using (though not consistently) the Endomondo Sports tracker since 2014. Here's an interesting report I found for all the training completed to date. To be clear, I've missed a number of entries so it's not a complete report but still, the results are amazing. Like the fact that I've burned 611 burgers as demonstrated in the graphic below. One feature of this app that I like is how it not only maps my runs when I'm out, but also shows my pace, altitude and other useful information. Rarely it glitches (like the time it showed a 45 mph sprint--like I'm the 6 Million Dollar Man or something) but it's a great app. It tracks more than runs of course, but does not display the same kind of information as shown from a run.  Enjoy the nice early mornings! Get out and have fun! And if you're doing the Burpee Challenge (see side bar), make sure you get those in!