White Roses’ Neighborhood

Today I went for a jog.

I know, there are gongs sounding and everyone is cowering in awe.  Ra, ra, me!  I went for a jog! 

But despite the fact that it seems like an inconsequential thing, it means a lot to me.  I actually put on my shoes, and I ran somewhere.  I did this deliberately.  I am taking care of myself.  I've been noticing lately that my overall stamina is shot, and once I pushed myself with a fast pace for the jog I realized that my lung capacity is just shot.  Two blocks, and my diaphragm was aching.  My lungs and throat burned.  I could feel those weird "I'm exhausted" tears in the corner of my eye.

So I played a game with myself.  I told myself that if my legs (not lungs) were tired when I passed the next tree, or next house, or next road, I'd slow down.  Fortunately for me my legs are far stronger than the rest of me.  So I told myself to not be a wimp.  I was stronger than a little burning.  I was stronger than a weak lung capacity.  So I kept going, and I kept going, until right before that point where you know that there is absolutely no way you can keep moving.

And then I didn't stop.  I just slowed down.

And despite the fact that right now I still have that wobbly feeling in my gut, I feel good.

Because I'm marginally stronger than I was this morning.  As my body goes through the process of healing and being pushed, healing and being pushed, healing and being pushed, I will continue to grow stronger.  I will become more flexible.

And while it sucks compared to maybe staying at home and catching up on Reaper, it's good.  My forty year old self will thank my twenty five year old self for not being a wimp.

Ra, ra, me.  I went for a jog.

I also made rhubarb crumble.  And now I will eat some.

Tonight is awesome.  Boring, but awesome.

In the news from Wales:

A 72-year-old man who was cleared of killing his long-term partner two months ago has died....

Former lorry driver Mr Henton claimed he found Mrs Sutton dead after discovering the back door window of the property had been smashed. He then called the police.

Mr Henton was charged after officers secretly recorded largely solitary conversations with cats Twinkie and Pudsey in January 2007.

Twinkie, Pudsey, who could you?:

From the BBC - who clearly have the best news.
(See also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7390109.stm)

I wonder a lot about things, and I analyze things and pick them to pieces in my head, but sometimes I can't but wonder. We have this one prisoner over here in Thousandlakez who I've wondered a lot about, Juha Valjakkala, or, Nikita Joakim Fouganthine, which would be the name he goes by these days. He's a triple murderer and has been serving a life sentence since the late 1980s. Over here, a life sentence is usually about 12-14 year, after which the president grants pardon and the inmate is released. Juha Valjakkala has been doing a lot of time, by finnish standards.

He's also been doing a lot of running away.

We have this newly implemented system where inmates get the possibility to first spend some time in a work-camp prior to their release. Then they change to what is called "open prison". Since we are Nokialand, open prison means the inmate carries a cell-phone with him all the time. He is requiered to either work, study or spend time in rehabilitation to be able to sustain his status in the open prison. He needs to keep the cell-phone with him at all times and he is tracked down through it. Surprise calls, wisits and drug/alcohol tests are part of the program. If all this goes well then the inmate can proceed to the last part: freedom. Breaking any of the rules at the work-camp or in open prison makes the inmate lose his status and he is back in the slammer.

BUT.

His release-date is not pushed back.

So here's the catch we've been working up to. Juha Valjakkala tried to appeal to the president to get out of prison countless times and was denied every time. He ran away from prison 5-7 times and was always caught and brought back to prison. And during the last few years he finally got to live and work at a camp.

And he ran away.

From a facility where the prisoner has his own room and carries the keys to this room. Where family is allowed to meet and greet him and there are no fences. Sounds pretty good, huh?

But no. He made a run for the fence border. And was once again caught. What's the point of escaping an open facility?

Anyhoo.

Finally, working his way up the hierarchy once more, he landed a spot in open prison prior to his release date, which is due this summer if I remember correctly.

And 2 days ago the douchebag ran away again. This time "running away" means left his cellphone in his apartment (which was nowhere near a prison) and left.

And since he's the king of bad escapes, all of Thousandlakez knows what he looks like by heart. His mugshot has been on tv a lot of times during all of his sucky escapes.

So. A day later, yesterday, he is once again caught. By the border. How Stupid does one have to be to run away from a cellphone?! Dude, you're about as free as you can be, what the hell are you running from now?!

People are odd.

I realize that it is part of one of the many traditions I was raised in (in my early teens my dad pastored a Non-Denominational Evangelical church) but I'm not that way now.

I'm talking about it in more detail on WordPress today.  Go thou and comment.

What's the best thing about your mom?

That she's ours and nobody else's. That's the best thing about all parents.

a sport men play during baseball season

Well, when it's a paid ad?
Or a puff piece? but that's the kind of thing you expect to see, maybe on the back of a book.
But what about Amazon reader reviews, I hear you ask, aren't they just written by people like me?
(Okay, I have my naive moments.)

If you have ever thought to vet a book before ordering it by scanning the on-line Amazon reviews, here's an interesting controversy to study.
It's all over all the publishing blogs, but there's a good summary here:

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2008/04/18/summary-post-of-rebas-amazon-fight/

Another entry of interest:

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2008/04/10/author-deborahanne-macgillivray-harasses-amazon-reader/

And, importantly:

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2008/04/13/amazons-review-system-needs-to-be-changed/

Or if you want to see more, or different perspectives on all this, you can google Deborah Anne MacGillivray + Amazon, and get all the poop on this anyone could desire.

The quick and nasty is that a reader on Amazon, a fan yet, innocently wrote a three-star review of this person's book.
And all hell broke loose.
Apparently if you are sufficiently organized in your fan-base, negative, or even luke-warm, reviews are a thing of the past.
You put out the word on your web-rings, and your buddies all mark a review "abusive' (it wasn't), and Amazon deletes it.
Poof! No more three-star reviews - nothing but fives for this baby.
And apparently all MacGillivray's less-than stellar reviews had been swallowed up in this way for some time.
But this reviewer, Reba, did not go gently into deleted-land, and the shit has been flying since.

While the particular paranoia of this one author is, of course, endlessly fascinating -- I especially recommend her tracking down and posting to her base the reviewer's name, address, children's names, etc., for those with a taste for crazy -- the whole big business aspect of the customer's reviews on Amazon was an eye-opener for me.

You've got publishers, you've got paid reviewers, you've got sock puppets, and everyone's egos are running wild.
And  the current up-shot of it all is that Reba, the reviewer, has been banned from Amazon.
Yeah.

My own response?

Well, some virtual stompage would be good.

I will just point out that she writes badly.
And she appears to be either pretentious or simply a complete loony.
(She claims to have family papers from the 1200s as the basis of her historical bodice-ripper? -- I mean, you'd be talking Henry II, Edward I here, folks.
Any kind of personal memorabilia is incredibly thin on the ground, even for major historical figures.
There just aren't love letters from random folk lying about.
(But, hey, evidently her grandfather was a "British Historian" and she did his work with him, so who am I with my silly pointless years of graduate study in medieval literature to quibble about this?)

Anyway, I found the petition and signed it  - http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/amazon_change - and
I will avoid Amazon until, or unless, some serious realignment of their reviewing system happens.

Of course, probably Hell will be getting snow days by then.

I know it's hard to believe, but apparently I don't pay enough attention to Elvis, especially when the TV is on.  Otherwise why else would he be rooting around in plastic pillow packaging?

(I have since cleaned up all the crap on my LR floor which was mostly 8 tons of junk mail and charities wanting more money from me)

that was Thursday night's 30 Rock in the background.