And I ran. I ran not far away. Really a jog, just a little ways …
Enjoy those seagulls in your head. They chased me for 2.5 miles today. And then I was finished running. It was, as they say, one of those bad days. I would have previously thought you’d need a series of good days with which to surround a bad run, but this is apparently not the case.
The Yankee said later to think of it this way: You ran 2.5 miles and you think that was bad, which you wouldn’t have thought at the beginning of the year. Which is true, but also missing the point. It was not a good run.
But it was fine. The sun and shade were delightful mixtures. The pavement was suitably hard. The body parts weren’t in a terrible amount of discomfort. The breathing was no more labored than normal. I was just finished. My body seemed tired and my mind didn’t bother to try to convince me otherwise. So I stopped running.
Need to make sure that doesn’t happen again anytime soon.
Physical therapy today, where we moved up to the two-pound weights and added some new muscle movements, which together really wiped me out. I hope that is the saddest sentence I write today.
You stick a towel under your arm, pinch your shoulder back and move your arm in and out or up and down, depending on the routine. My amazing physical therapist had me do something today with both hands, which was new. Interestingly enough my bad shoulder felt better about that exercise than my good shoulder did.
Told you she was amazing.
There are the famous Thera-Band exercises. (We look like a physical therapy office at home, by the way, with my many Thera-Bands.) There are row exercises and bicep curls and lateral movements and so on. Then I get to repurpose a chair and use it for something approaching a push up. I dislike this exercise because it hurts my hands and wrist.
After all of that there’s the torture table where I go from resting on my stomach to arching out in such a way as to make a close-parenthesis mark that has fallen over. There is pulling on nylon and rubber straps that are attached to springs which lock into pulleys and eye-hooks. I try not to think of all the things on this table that could accidentally hurt me by pretending I’m doing a snow skiing long jump. Sometimes this distraction actually works.
We closed the session with an exercise I get nothing out of, which more than likely means I’m doing it wrong. You take a ball and roll it around in little circles on the wall while I pondering the now timeless dictate: wax on, wax off.
Picked up my tux this evening. This is the fifth visit to the rental store, each a more silly waste of time than the last visit. The first drop in was punctuated by a helpful gentleman who left you cold with the feeling he may or may not know what he’s doing and it may or may not be realized on your transaction. The second was the opposite, a man who knew his stuff, but with an air that suggests you might be leery of letting him park your car. The third visit was the first man, and this time came the measurements and he knew about this stuff. The fourth visit was Monday, because in true guy fashion, as soon as you get the thing arranged there will be a change in the parameters, necessitating a further visit, and a third and fourth person plugging aimlessly through software that was a bad idea for Windows 3.2.
So today was the fitting, double-checking the size and making sure no last minute alterations were needed. Which, if that were the case, would of course require a sixth visit. Happily that was not the case. A fifth person was there to make sure everything fell just as it should. She struggled in vain through this tedious software which would see semaphore as an upgrade to find me in the cobweb filled corners of the computer system.
What I’m saying is Jos. A Bank could do a better job of this if they wanted too. The staff have been helpful and polite, how they maintain that attitude in dealing with their software is a mystery.
So the tux is in hand. Looks nice. Fits well. Tomorrow it gets to travel.
Things to read which may be of interest …
Patriot Act author preps Freedom Act to rein in NSA:
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the original author of the USA Patriot Act, said Wednesday that he plans to introduce legislation in the “next few days” to restrict the National Security Agency’s surveillance power.
[…]
In a speech at the Cato Institute, Sensenbrenner argued that the Patriot Act’s “relevance” requirement was meant to prevent the kind of bulk collection the NSA is now conducting.
“This is something that Congress would have never authorized,” he said. “And since the administration has assumed this authority, Congress should not hesitate to stop it and stop it quickly.”
Long overdue. Here are more details, from The Guardian, which has seemingly beaten all of the traditional American media to the story. Curious.
And now a series of journalism pieces:
The rise of the reader: journalism in the age of the open web
Student newspapers in Northampton, South Hadley follow news industry trend with online editions
And today’s Dumb Thing Which Is Dumb, which is threatening to become a regular feature here, Student stopped from handing out Constitutions on Constitution Day sues:
On Sept. 17, Robert Van Tuinen was passing out copies of the Constitution in honor of Constitution Day at Modesto Junior College in California when he was asked to stop. Officials told Van Tuinen that if he wanted to pass out literature, he could only do so in a designated “free speech zone” on campus and under college policies would be required to get permission in advance.
[…]
After the incident, Modesto Junior College President Jill Stearns issued a statement saying the school apologized to Van Tuinen and was working to clarify with campus officials that policies allow students to distribute printed material “as long as it does not disrupt the orderly operation of the college.” Stearns also said the school was reviewing its policies.
Is there video? Yes, there’s video:
First of all, the guy should be cited for holding his phone incorrectly, but that’s secondary.
I understand the concept. I appreciate what the universities, and Robert Van Tuinen’s Modesto Junior College is far from alone here, are trying to do. The application of “free speech zones,” however, leaves something to be desired.
One of those appeared on campus when I was in undergrad. It was a small square on a campus of 1,841 acres. They were, I’m sure, trying to balance the school’s real need to fulfill educational and research goals while limiting distraction. (The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education may disagree.) Regardless, the solution is poor. One must also be aware of the supposedly largest free speech zone in the world, the 3.794 million square miles that is the United States.
Oh look, the local chapter of Young Americans for Liberty just had a demonstration at Auburn. It reads like a success. And, it turns out, the president of the YAL chapter at Samford is one of our photographers. Good for him.
Anyway, every campus being different — the layout, the culture, the traffic patterns and so on — there is no blanket solution. Some moderate to high traffic areas, some respectful distance away from classroom doors and windows and no amplification technology seem like a good place to start. Bring in too many opinions on the question and you run the risk of getting “That green space behind the alumni building” as a working policy.
Finally, someone distributing the U.S. Constitution should always be acceptable. We have enough problems with civics in this country as it is. We shouldn’t hamper it further.
